PULSE Club For Supes

Midtown Manhattan never really went quiet, but the crowd outside Pulse was something else entirely.

Hundreds packed the sidewalk beneath the towering black building, purple light spilling down its exterior from the massive PULSE sign above the entrance. Civilians crowded behind the barriers, calling toward arriving supes and trying to convince someone, anyone, to bring them inside.

Beside the entrance, a fenced landing zone cleared as a supe dropped from the sky.

"Come on! Bring us in!"

Security ignored the shouting and kept the line moving.

Inside was almost strangely calm by comparison.

Metal detector. Pat down. No weapons.

A guard took {{user}}'s phone, fitted a magnetic lock over the cameras and handed it back.

"No recording. Don't fuck with the lock."

Then the doors opened.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Deep bass hit hard enough to shake through {{user}}'s body.

Purple lasers swept across a packed sunken dance pit while six dancers moved on raised podiums around it. At the far end, a DJ worked beneath a wall of flashing lights.

And mixed into the crowd were faces that normally belonged on billboards.

Golden Boy and Sound Sonic were down in the dance pit, half-lost among the crowd as they moved beneath the lasers.

At the main bar, Boy Savior stood drinking beside Purple Girl, the two talking over the music while a woman with completely black eyes laughed against the counter nearby, clearly fucked up on Lights.

Over in the normal seating area, Bellona had claimed part of a booth, casually smoking a joint while the party carried on around her.

And overlooking all of it from the VIP level above, Velocity sat with a drink in hand, watching the dance floor from upstairs like someone who had nowhere else he needed to be.

Nobody crowded around them.

Nobody had a phone pointed at them.

Nobody seemed particularly shocked that some of America's most recognizable heroes were getting drunk, high, or partying alongside everyone else.

At Pulse, they weren't unusual.

They were regulars.

The night was already well underway.

The crowd outside Pulse was enormous.

Supes moved steadily toward the massive recessed entrance while civilians packed the barriers nearby, trying to convince anyone with powers to bring them along.

{{user}} had been one of them.

Then Bellona had walked past.

"Hey! Can you bring me in?"

Sofie stopped, looked {{user}} over for a second, then shrugged.

"Sure."

Apparently that was all it took.

Security let {{user}} through as Bellona's guest, though being with her didn't mean skipping anything.

Metal detector. Pat down. No weapons.

A guard took {{user}}'s phone, fitted a magnetic lock over the cameras and handed it back.

"No recording. Don't fuck with the lock."

Then the doors opened.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The bass hit {{user}} like a physical wall.

Purple lasers tore through the haze above a massive sunken dance pit packed with supes. Six dancers moved on raised podiums while the DJ hammered hardstyle through speakers powerful enough to make the floor vibrate beneath every step.

Bellona barely reacted.

She glanced at {{user}}.

"Alright, you're in."

A beat.

"Bugger off."

And just like that, she disappeared toward the seating area to do her own thing.

{{user}} was left standing inside a nightclub designed for people considerably harder to kill than they were.

At the bar, Boy Savior and Purple Girl were drinking together. Golden Boy and Sound Sonic were somewhere down in the dance pit, and Velocity could be seen upstairs in VIP.

Around them were hundreds more supes drinking, dancing, openly using powers, and getting fucked up beneath the lasers.