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[attr="class","mary5"]Press conferences. Those two words brought dread to Khae’s heart, the thought of rich toadies sucking up to whoever was most powerful, of boring interviews with some of the most rubbish questions, trying to drum up drama out of nothing. It was especially bad in America, where the reporters were either super safe or went in hard with the drama angle. Honestly, it almost made her miss London.

However, her employers at the modelling company had essentially forced her to go. Of course, they couldn’t make her do anything, but they had offered quite the hefty reward if she did go and introduced herself to the hero world. It was excellent publicity, with the new batch of heroes all getting a spotlight, a chance to show off their personalities and what they could bring to the table. Khae imagined many of the heroes would have PR teams that were telling them exactly what to say, how to act, what body language to use, and how fast to speak. She couldn’t imagine the pressure those people were under.

Khae, of course, had no one to tell her what to do. She hated little more than that. Someone harping in her ear? No, thank you.

Approaching the gathering spot with all the rookie heroes, the scene was… about what she expected. Some were quiet and stoic, either due to being loners or wanting to make themselves out to be tough. Others were friendly, a few still tried to bully the others. Although Khae tried to metaphorically poke them to see how they reacted, she found most of them to be rather boring. She imagined their PR teams told them to avoid being too open with the other heroes so as to avoid a scandal. Psh.

There were no surprises with the speeches so far either. Cookie-cutter things about how they would protect the city, or smash the bad guys, or how powerful they were. They very quickly melded together into one big blob of boredom as Khae’s mind went elsewhere, fiddling with her phone with an expression of complete disinterest.

Finally, it was Khae’s turn. With a small smirk, she strutted onto the stage, and she looked like a runway model in that moment. The grace with which she carried herself exuded confidence like she knew exactly how beautiful she was. And she did. Her hero outfit, a seamless mixture of feminine and demonic, spoke to both her charm and her naughtiness.

Stopping in front of the microphone, she would speak. Despite her Southeast Asian features, her accent was English and somewhat posh.

“I’m Khae Thawan.” She said, eyes going over the crowd, mostly composed of civilians mixed with members of the press in front. She ever so slightly leaned forward, smirk imperceptibly widening, “And I pledge to do what I want.”

And with that said, she was off. For the vast majority of spectators, it would be as if she had disappeared, murmurs in the crowd as they wondered what had happened. The cave in under her feet, however, indicated she had simply used her immense speed to get out of there.

…

Khae sat some ways away from the crowd, in a spot where no one would think to look. She was sure no civilian would be observant enough to spot her, but perhaps a hero might, especially from their position giving a speech. Who knows? Perhaps one of them would yet catch her eye…

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