#anthonycarlucci

Nate enjoyed the rare delicacy of spending time alone. He would normally watch television, read a book, maybe paint or write, and, of course, sleep. He might take a stroll through his rural neighborhood, or maybe walk down to the park. He might attempt to cook something for himself, fail miserably, and the order take out. The possibilities were endless, and that was just how he liked them; alone, he was free. He was able to keep work and his personal time separate, at least to an extent. On the battlefield, he was Menace, super hero extraordinaire, at home, he was simply Nate Coplin. That was just who he was.

The letter that the Gentleman had left for him in the cube distressed him, both as the super hero and as the person. The simple message had sent a jarring reminder to him that the Gentleman was constantly looking for ways to attack him; a truth he could ignore in his day-to-day life before know. The threat to the White Witch was something he could not ignore. As he climbed down from the cube that evening, he could not help but recall the Gentleman’s threat to him more than a month ago: When the world is falling, when the heroes fail, when your loved ones are in danger who are you then? He had sent Courtney home — to her house — in hopes that she might be safer there than at the cube, something that she was certainly not thankful for. After ensuring that she had arrived home safely, he returned to the cube, resting underneath the tree, in the darkness of the natural treehouse.

He looked out over the forest, then down at his gloved hands, squeezing them as hard as he could. What do I do now? He asked himself. Do I go after the Gentleman? He questioned, placing his head against the bark of the tree. Should I kill him? This was a question that Nate had never asked himself, a question that he never thought he’d have to ask himself. The answer was a repeated, unequivocal, emphatic “no” every time he’d asked him self in the past. Now he was not so sure. Should I kill myself? Nate then asked. His psyche had managed to catch him off guard with that question. If he did, he figured, the Gentleman would have no reason to go after the White Witch. The peace of the forest failed to soothe his jittering nerves, and he found himself standing abruptly at the sound of a shaking in the bushes. It failed to persist, and so Nate figured it must have been a rodent of sorts, yet he remained standing. What can I do? He wished he had some advice from a beloved mentor, parent, or friend to reflect on at that moment. He pulled out his phone to text the Mutation that something had come up, remembering that Anthony had sent him a few texts earlier about getting attacked. His fingers danced over the screen after the text had been sent. Do I ask for help? He decided against it, slipping his phone into his pocket.

Nate then noticed that the garlic he had been tending for the past couple months had grown in full. He carefully pulled the bulbs from the ground, remembering that the online guide he red stated that they were still immature. They would need to be left in a shady area to “cure,” which Nate assumed meant live. He figured that outside the Count’s mansion was as good a place as any to “cure,” and so he journeyed to the burlesque house to carefully hide them around the premises. The building looked to be almost alive, with a dull light exuding from the windows, with bright, changing colors shooting from the castle-like turrets on either side. He wondered if the Count remained inside tonight, in his nightly beast form, or if he was out inflict terror on the masses. The worst kind of evil, Nate mused to himself, is the acceptance of the inevitability that there will be evil. Nate, walking away from the premises of the building, couldn’t help but remember the last time he had walked the same walkway. Bloody, broken, hardly fighting off the vampiric beast. He wondered — if the same scenario happened again — if he could fight off the beast.

Nate began to walk the road towards town center. It was a rather dull walk until he came to pass the cemetery. He had, almost religiously, avoided coming to the cemetery since Ultraman’s death. Not that he had much motivation to come in his day-to-day life, he would justify. The black gates of the enclosure were covered in ivy plants that had grown to entrench the metal. From where he was standing, Nate could barely make-out the outline of the statue of Ultraman. Nate remembered likening the statue to the poem “Ozymandias” when he first saw it. He walked a few steps further, to the open gate, and walked into the cemetery. It was past midnight, Nate was sure, as he approached the statue of the fallen hero. “Hail, king of kings.” Nate said to the immobile statue of the once great man, taking a seat in front of the hulking figure. “You once told me that nothing good comes from sunshine.” Nate started, trying to overcome the inherent silliness of talking to a deceased man’s statue. “But the sunshine is nice. It’s warm, it’s pleasant. I enjoy it. I understand that you meant that progress strives through adversity, but why is it always a necessity to fight resistance? You know what I mean? I mean, the easiest thing for me to do would be to stop being a hero. It was never really my dream in the first place, you know? I wanted it because Marie wanted it, I think. I know that that doesn’t sound very heroic, but it’s the truth. You never told me why you wanted to be a hero. I guess that’s because we didm’t really know each other for very long.

“I still don’t quite understand you.” Nate admitted. “How you were such a fantastic hero all the fucking time. I still get tired, I still need breaks; more as the days go by, I’ve found. What would you do in my situation? I mean, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Or are unable. Probably the latter. You always wanted us rookies to solve our own problems anyway, if I remember correctly. Why don’t I just stop all this? If I stop being a hero, she stays safe, and I have less work. I think I’d most likely be safer in my daily life too. A friend of mine, a short while back, insisted that I looked just like you when I was in action. But I don’t think I want to be you. I’m not sure I even want to be me, whoever I am. I’m not the greatest hero anyway. The world would not lose much.” He sighed. “Sorry for venting.” He apologized. The statue did not respond. “Fuck it.” He said, standing slowly from his seated position.

He turned around to see a lanky man, standing a few feet from him. The man was facing him,  but looking over his head to the face of the statue. He had long, flowing, black hair that fell down below his shoulders, but his chin looked freshly shaved. He looked to be somewhere in his late twenties. His eyes had an intense look to them; a look, Nate had learned, that only comes to those who have taken a life. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, yet his feet were bare. He was smiling. Nate had the strangest feeling that he’d seen the man somewhere before. He couldn't remember if he was on the list of escaped villains from the Chambers four years ago. The look in his eyes unsettled Nate who, instinctively, went into the first stage of his powers.

“I don’t mean to fight you, young man. I just needed a breath of fresh air.” The lanky man told Nate, his voice calm and slightly more high-pitched than he had anticipated. “Honestly, where I live doesn’t have the best ventilation system.” He laughed as though he had made a hilarious joke, and moved to wipe a tear from his eye.

“What are you doing here?” Menace asked him.

“Same as you, I figure, paying respects. Although, I don’t mean to talk to him the way you have been.”

“I-I didn’t know you were there.” Nate stuttered, blush rushing to his cheeks.

“No? A novice hero, then?” The lanky man shrugged and moved to sit closer to the statue. He gestured for Nate to follow. “I knew Ultraman for a long time. Couldn’t make his funeral, it’s my greatest regret. I practically taught him everything he knew.”

“You did?” Nate asked, his ears perking up.

“Yes.” The man said plainly. “He was, in a sense, my greatest achievement.” “Would you…” Nate stopped himself from asking the question. Do I even want to be a hero anymore? He asked himself. Is it for the greater good?

“Speak up.”

“Would you teach me?” Menace asked, unable to resist any longer. The lanky man laughed again, as though Nate had told a hilarious joke.

“You sure you want that?” Nate nodded. “I don’t have a problem with it,” the man said, “but I have a few parameters. One, your phone has to go. Ruins the focus. Two, you will follow all instructions that I give. Three, you will not complain. Are we in agreement?”

“When do we start?”

“Now.” Nate sent a text to the Mutation telling him that he was leaving for a short while, then handed his phone to the lanky man.

Nate was in hell. He was not sure what caused him the most pain, the morning runs, the noontime spars, or the nightly hunts, but he was sure that he did not enjoy any of them. He had provided a rundown of his powers for the lanky man, who had told Nate his name was Clyde, and Clyde had provided for him the rundown of his necessary exercises. He was to run four miles each morning, one without augmentation, one in his first stage, and so on. All of these were to be timed so that Nate might learn the limits of his powers. Although Nate had explained to Clyde that his transition from level to level caused him exhaustion and, at times, agony, Clyde refused to acknowledge the set back. After the run, it was time for his education. Clyde, reasonably of course, had the mindset that preparation was the key to success; he began to instruct Nate on the construction of villain social structure that he had learned. Evidently, a hierarchy must be established between a group of more than two villains or, historically, chaos ensued. At noon, Nate had to spar with Clyde, which meant that Nate, too often, ended up whipped and on his ass. Even when Nate began to use his powers, he failed miserably. Clyde, from Nate’s perspective, was a wall that he was punching at. He may be able to land a hit, but, even if he did, it would amount to nothing. After the sparring, Nate would receive a lesson about tracking, hiding, and combat tactics. He would then receive a short break while the sun fell behind the clouds, then it was time for the hunt.

The nightly hunts were extraordinarily brutal. Nate and Clyde would enter the Wharton State Forest from separate locations and roughly half an hour apart. The hunt was divided into two categories: hunting and being hunted. For the beginning of the night, Clyde would search for Nate inside the forest. Once Nate was found, much like in a game of tag, he was it. Afterwards, Nate had to search for Clyde. If he could not find Clyde by morning, he did not get to sleep. Then he would go to run. Nate couldn’t remember the last time he had been so drenched in sweat for so long.

It was almost a week into this training when Nate began to understand the brutality and rigidity of his training. He had not realized that his weakness after jumping from stage to stage was the glaring weakness that it was. Of course, recognizing that, the running portion of his training began to make sense, but the recoil was hardly lessening. The combat training was quite straightforward, Nate thought at the beginning of the training, he was just learning how to fight more acutely and with greater precision. After fighting with Clyde for the week, however, he realized that he was not supposed to win. The lesson Clyde was teaching him was how to survive a losing battle; Nate did not need to know how to win a battle against a weaker opponent, rather, he needed to know how to live and, perhaps, turn the tables against a stronger one. This realization still did nothing to tend his ego when he knew that Clyde was simply toying with him. The hunts, Nate knew, were not simply about finding Clyde or hiding from Clyde. They were about endurance and self-control. The extension of one’s senses to notice all their surroundings, and, additionally, a full control of bodily functions (such as quiet breaths and the like).

Nate began to understand Clyde better as well. His teacher didn’t care what Nate did or used; in the real world, Nate knew, he would work to prepare for his encounters. Thus, he began to borrow — or, more accurately, steal — the forge of creation from Liam. Nightly, in the hunts, he would use it as a net or javelin, attempting to pin his opponent to a tree. It never worked, but Nate credited himself for trying. The work became all he could think about, and all he would do in his day. Just before the two week mark, Clyde suddenly stopped him.

“Listen, Nate.” He began before they were to begin their noontime spar. “I can continue teaching you indefinitely. I can help you become the greatest hero that has ever lived; I can teach you the ways to win every fight, to consolidate every bond, to succeed in all endeavors. If we keep going, we must keep going until this point. However.” He paused.  “I can also leave you now with what you know. Two weeks is a long time to be away from friends, from family. Years may be too long for you to endure.”

Nate attempted to look up, through his sweat, in the fierce eyes of his teacher. “I won’t keep going, then. I’m doing this for them, not for me.” Clyde nodded his head and held out his hand for Nate to take. “I do wonder, though,” Nate started, “why waste your time training me?”

“Ah, you see, that’s an interesting story. Find me again someday and I may just tell you.” Clyde said, turning Nate around and watching him stumble on his way home. Silly child, the lanky man thought to himself, he looks as dopey as he did four years ago. His weak eyes haven’t changed. I thought he was going to get himself killed. Hell, he still probably is. His eyes squinted at the boy walking away, and Vanish began to laugh.

Mrs. Coplin would wake up every morning at five in the morning. She would shower, eat breakfast, and change into her jogging clothes so that she might take a run around the block each morning, to help stay in shape and keep a healthy heart. She was a fairly attractive woman, just under forty (although, anyone who saw her thought she was on the later cusp of her twenties), with short, brown hair and bright green eyes. Every morning for the past ten years she had done this — in the rain, the sun, the snow — and, without fail, she had never seen another person running on her morning trek. So, in the middle of the prior week, when she saw what looked to be a young man looking strikingly like her son, with dark hair and blue eyes, she was perplexed. She considered the possibility of it being a mirage or a dream that her tired brain was concocting, for the boy was moving unreasonably fast. In the end, she had made the decision that the occurrence was, at the very least, an anomaly. That is, until she saw the boy again the next day. On the third day of this occurrence, she called out to the boy, hoping he was real and that she was not a crazy lady about to be screaming through the streets at five in the morning. The boy did not respond. Well fuck, Mrs. Coplin thought, I guess that means I’m crazy then.

The Bloodhound woke up in her jail-cell. The top of her head was still sore from when that hero, whatever his name was, smashed her on the head with a quantity of cement. Her orange jumpsuit was too large for her body, and it hung loosely around her arms, legs, and waist. She went to wipe a tear from her cheek, but realized it had dried a short time ago. Marie could smell all of the disgusting people around her, around the cell. She could smell dried urine down the hall, some fecal matter that had, unfortunately, missed the toilet of her neighbors cell, and the rodents squirming throughout the building. She could smell her own, unadulterated sweat as it dripped inside her jumpsuit. Everything about the jail felt warm and pungent. Her own cell, while she attempted to keep it as tidy as she could, still smelled of the former resident; a large, bulking, sweaty man (as far as she could tell). The super-villain wing of the county jail was small. Only herself and two more residents occupied the cells, and, from what she’d gathered, they, too, were recent occupants. She wondered why she was not sent to the Chambers, the normal holding cell for super-villains, but realized, as she sighed in agony, that her powers hardly merited a holding of that magnitude. Marie cursed her own powerlessness as she sat in the cell, and thought, ironically, that the last time she felt so weak was when she was at the Chambers. She thought back to Nate Coplin, her best friend at the time. She hadn’t thought about him in years.

Eloise was worried. She sat on her couch — which, she always noted, looked far more comfortable than it was — and sent Nate another text to say good morning. He hadn’t responded for almost two weeks now. She curled her hair with her finger as she set her phone down on the coffee table and fiddled with the remote to her television. She sipped at her coffee as the seven o’clock news began to play. Marie’s warning to her at the Spring Praestan had affected her more than she’d have liked to admit. She was waiting for something to happen to her. Every noise, every movement in the corner of her eye as she walked down the street, every awkward conversation with friends and customer service employees all shook her to the core. She knew the risks of leaving the coalition, and she knew they would come for her eventually. Now, however, she could feel the presence of the villains on top of her, like a hot, moist breath in her ear. She decided to text Nate again. A knock came swiftly across her door.

The Forge’s eyes opened slowly to see his clock read: 7:30 A.M. He was surprised at this, being unable to recall the last time he had woken before noon. His computer lay open to the other side of his bed, and he remembered that he’d fallen asleep earlier than usual last night, as the fan fiction he’d chosen to read was poor at best. His room was a cluttered mess. He glanced down to the foot of the bed, where he’d somehow thrown all of his sheets over the duration of the night. A pile of clothes was reaching four feet high to the right of the sheets, and he stripped off his shirt and threw it to the top of the pile. He yawned, then looked towards the left of his bed, where he normally placed the Forge of Creation before he slept. The fact that it was missing immediately forced his eyes open, and brought him to his feet. He hopped from his bed, and began to make his way through the house. “If somebody’s here…” He shouted cautiously as he walked down the stairs, “come out now and I won’t hurt you.” Little do they know, I’m lying, Liam thought to himself. At the base of the stairs, he looked towards his kitchen table, where he noticed the sizable, black, metal ball. On top of it rested a few words scribbled out on a Post-It Note: Sorry, had to borrow it again. I’ll do my best to tell you next time — Menace.

Pygmalion had been missing the toilet on purpose. His jail cell had begun to stink of shit after the first miss, so he decided that, since he’d already have to deal with the consequences anyway, he may as well finish the plan. He realized, shortly after coming, that no guards wanted to clean any of the villains cells, especially ones who were purposely missing the toilet, and so they began to punish him by refusing to clean the cell. He laughed internally as he knew that this meant his plan might function without a hitch. Pygmalion was gifted with the powers to turn any non-sentient humanoid into a sentient, functioning, human-like creature; he preferred to work with marble and clay, crafting giant, beautiful creatures like his lovely Galatea, which that wretched rabbit hero so rudely destroyed, but he was willing to work with more mundane materials, should he have to. He had lost all concept of time inside the jail cell, and so, he figured, as soon as his platoon was constructed, he might as well get on with the show. He began working quickly, and diligently as he laughed maniacally while working in his own feces.

The Mutation had not seen Nate in weeks. On the night of his battle at the Spring Praestan, Nate had sent him two texts: Sorry, something important came up, and, a few hours later, I need to disappear for a bit. Anthony had no idea what the second text meant, but figured it was just another example of Nate’s pretentious bullshit. When Nate stopped showing up for hero duty, Anthony began to worry. He contacted Eloise and the White Witch — the two people who he thought Nate would tell everything — but neither of them seemed to know where he was either. He then sought out his mother who, despite not having seen him, did not act particularly worried about his disappearance; although, as far as Anthony could tell, she was looking nervously aside as though she were hiding something. The Mutation decided he should take on Menace’s shift in addition to his own, and began working double, which, somehow, was bearably. All crime in New Monmouth City had come to a shaky halt in the past two weeks. Anomalies like this had happened before. Anthony knew, perhaps better than anyone, that this meant something big was something. He laughed awkwardly as he began his shift: it was going to be a long one.

Earshot was nervous about Menace’s disappearance. In her hero experience, heroes only went missing if they were captured by villains or about to become a villain. She had always liked Menace, even back when he was still going by the name “Goggles,” and she did not want either eventuality to befall him. Ever since they had worked together to take down Pygmalion, she was feeling less and less enticed by the prospect of working with Lionheart, the leader of her hero-team. He was nice enough, she settled, when off-duty, and he looked like he was trying very hard when on the job, but she couldn’t help but resent him for his incompetence. She was ready to fight, she wanted to fight, and he wouldn’t let her fight. He wouldn’t let the Forge fight either, so she did not take it so personally, but the anger still boiled inside her. Her team was assigned to cover the North end of town, specifically, the Spring Praestan for the next six hours: it was a known villain hideout and warehouse, and Lionheart believed (and petitioned passionately) that a group of heroes standing in front of the building would scare away all evil doers. She fixed her mask as she began driving towards the North side of the city, deciding that this would be the last day she worked on Lionheart’s team.

The Engine hated Eloise. He hated every fiber of her being, hated every strand of hair on her head, hated every colorful pigmentation she ever placed into anything she owned. Unfortunately, he was a hero, and, even when not officially on duty, he had to chase after the screaming lady. He was not sure what he had seen at first. He was walking towards The Royal Jester for lunch when what looked like a bridge constructed entirely of bright, glowing particles manifested in the sky. A man covered in a large, black hood ran across the light bridge, holding a beautiful, blonde girl as she screamed and kicked in opposition. When Jake recognized that the girl was Eloise, he took pause. He didn’t want to help her. Even looking at her sent pain coursing through his body and forced his fists to clench. He stood on the sidewalk of downtown New Monmouth City. Steam began to rise from his body, as though independent from his stream of consciousness. “Ah, fuck it.” He decided, and ran, faster than a speeding bullet, in the direction of the light bridge.

Magnet Man still refused to believe that he had been beaten by the Mutation brat and his little friend. Moreno then that, however, he lamented the system that provided that two heroes could mercilessly beat him in the center of a bank, and he would go to jail for it. It was unjust! Furthermore, the unnecessary cruelty of cuffing his hands behind his back was clearly against the constitution, he thought. He thought many things, actually. Confined in his jail cell without much of a view, and no access to his powers or any form of entertainment, he had much time to think. No amount of thinking, however, would prepare him for seeing a four foot tall monster composed entirely of shit walk down the hallway of the jail, pass his cell, and walk straight into the warden’s office.  Nor would he comprehend that same monster, walking back past his cell with the set of the warden’s keys. He could easily understand, however, when Pygmalion approached his cell with a handful of shit-covered keys, smiling like a maniac. He slid the key into the lock of the cell.

Lionheart stood in front of the Spring Praestan with a large smile across his face. He had his whole team with him, it was a beautiful day, and he was doing good for the community. The beautiful, old building that stood behind them was a national landmark (or, at least, he felt it should be), and the ability to guard it with all his might was something he was extensively proud of. He could not understand why Earshot and the Forge stood so glumly next to him, despite the pounding of the heat of the sun at noon. He was practically sweating through his campy mane, but he still bore a wide grin as he felt he was doing good. Little did he know, or could he know, that the Spring Praestan was no longer the base for the super villain coalition. About a week earlier, they had all quickly evacuated from the building and not scene there since. No hero would have understood the reason why; the heroes mentality always remained the same. “Villains will do bad until heroes stop them,” Lionheart stated aloud, trying to raise the morale of the group of heroes he was leading. This was the universal mentality that all heroes had bashed into their heads, even from a young age. However, the statement is not always true and is, in fact, a majority of the time false. Evil men don’t stop doing bad, even when opposed by heroes. This coalition of super villains certainly would not evacuate a good hideout simply because heroes discovered them. The only thing that could have forced the migration of such a powerful coalition of villains would be something far worse than themselves.

The White Witch could not stop thinking about Nate. He had forced her to return back to her home, for the time being, as he was immediately convinced that the cube was no longer a safe place for her to stay. “The Gentleman found us,” he had said, “we have to move now.” And so they had. She pouted in the confines of her room, as she heard her father screaming at his attorney in the living room below. She hated her room; the walls were painted light pink to match her bedsheets, and her desk was made of sparkly plastic. She had hated the room since she could remember. It had been over a week since she’d last seen Nate, and she not only missed him, but she was itching to get back out on hero duty. She wanted to be out there, stopping crime, or, at least, working towards something greater. Maybe, she thought to herself, I can find him through the other world. She climbed onto her bed and sat in a crosslegged position. Alright, if I can just focus I can enter the- Her thoughts were abruptly cut off by her father shouting racial slurs at the divorce lawyer. She sighed. She hadn’t been able to enter the astral world all week on account of the superficial distractions of daily life.  She was tired of not being able to use her powers. She had never felt so useless or so alone. And then the explosion happened.

The Photon was tired of the speedster running underneath his light bridge. The mission was rather simple, in essence. Retrieve the lost member of the coalition, return her to the base. The decision to make it a spectacle was not his own; it was to be a message to all heroes and villains alike that no one was safe. Except that it led to him getting tailed by a particularly annoying teenage runner. The kid, the Photon could tell, was losing steam. The Photon had slowly raised the elevation of the bridge so that, despite the Engine’s speed and leaping capabilities, he could not come close to landing on the bridge. The kid was beginning to slow down. The steam rising from his body was beginning to dissipate sooner and sooner, faster and faster. He was a sprinter, not a distance runner. It didn’t matter how fast the Photon moved, in any event, because the kid couldn’t catch him. The Photon threw Eloise on the floor of his bridge and began to raise the density of the light particles in his hand. “Here we go.” He muttered to himself as he shot the light particles towards the speedster. The Engine reacted a moment to late, and the dense light smacked him across the face, forcing him to the ground. The Photon picked Eloise up again, as she had remained crumpled on the ground in pain, and began walking towards his base. Eloise screamed as the bridge slowly melted into a staircase, leading down to an abandoned building in West New Monmouth City that was once called The Hero’s Ballroom.

Cosmos was a villain who enjoyed his privacy. More so than that, he enjoyed killing people who called themselves “super-heroes.” When he noticed a platoon of young super-heroes outside the front door of his perfect new hideout, the Spring Praestan, he came to the realization that he could kill two birds with one stone. Or, more accurately, three heroes with one explosion. He realized that, if he acted first, they would be mince-meat before they even knew what was happening. Thusly, he began to conjure in his hand, from nothing, the makings of a two inch, golden star that he then hurled into the center of the triad of heroes. “Three, two, one.” He counted down, as the miniature star expanded rapidly to a ten foot radius bursting the ground beneath it wide open and incinerating the left arm of the Forge as Earshot pulled both him and Lionheart out of the way. “God damn it!” Cosmos exclaimed as he cursed his luck. One of them must have some augmented senses, he thought as he constructed the next star. He hurled it towards the girl who looked like a rabbit, assuming she was the one. The star, before it was able to reach her, bounced back as though it were halted by an invisible wall, landed on the ground behind the triad of heroes, and exploded into another crevice. “What was that?” He asked himself. “Oh.” He continued, to himself. A small girl in a large white hooded sweatshirt floated above the triad of heroes. The winds seemed to bend around her as she slowly lowered herself to the ground. “More company.” Cosmos grunted to himself. “Just wonderful.” He started constructing another star.

Nate’s neck was sore. He moved his finger around the two tiny incisions made in his neck by the Count’s fangs, wincing each time he did. He was still reeling from the effects of the blood-loss; he felt weak. Officially, Menace was on bed-rest for the week, having been injured severely in a fight with a super-villain, who escaped the scene shortly thereafter, before reinforcements could arrive. Unofficially, Nate was in the middle of the Wharton State forest, planting a garden with the White Witch, while the Mutation kept a close watch on the mannerisms of Count Drake. Said Count woke up in the daytime with a severely broken jaw and no memory of the night. The moonlit persona of the Count seemed to be out of commission, at least for the time being.

“I don’t understand why I have to help.” Courtney puffed as she forced a wooden plank into the ground, establishing the makings of a fence for the garden. She was wearing her trademark white sweater, which dropped past her knees, and white ballet shoes. Dirt marked her clothes, something she was less than thrilled about, and the notion of physical labor seemed to be foreign to her. She didn’t understand why Nate wouldn’t simply let her use her magic to establish  a boundary line, or let her use her magic to do any of the other labor.

“You’ve basically been living here the past couple weeks,” Nate told her, “you’ve gotta earn your keep somehow.” Nate didn’t really care that the kid had been living in the cube for the past couple weeks, nor did he really need her help in planting the garden. In the time it had taken her to plant one picket, he had dug up the grass inside a six by six square for the garden; she wasn’t so much helping as she was constantly complaining. He had asked her to help to make sure she was okay: she had been sleeping at the cube for almost three weeks now, without having gone home in the daytime. Nate was waiting to see a missing person report in the paper, but none had come. He was worried about her, and he wondered if he was the first person to ever feel that way. “Besides, when you’re a hero, you’re gonna need to do much harder work than this. Maybe you should consider this training of sorts.”

“Cool your jets there, Mr. Miyagi.” Courtney said, deciding, finally, to expend the effort to put another stick another wooden plank in the ground. “I don’t need your help.” Nate stood across from her, slightly befuddled, waiting for an explanation. “I practice my magic for six hours,” she took a small breath then repeated with emphasis, “six hours a day, Nate. You know what you do with your time? You go on dates. You hang out with friends. You plant gardens. Why don’t you train sometime?” She went to pick up another stick, and shoved it down into the third corner of the garden.

“You gotta take time to be a person, Court.” Nate responded, smiling just a little. “Otherwise what’s the point?” He grabbed the fourth plank of wood and forced it into the ground around the perfect square of prepared land. He pulled from his pocket a bag of garlic bulbs, and began to plant them in the ground; he hoped Bram Stoker wasn’t full of shit.

The Mutation was a hero worth the title. He, much like the white witch, spent much of his time training, working, thinking. He attempted to always be prepared, to always be ready. There was a special function of those who signed on to be heroes, and this function scared the living daylights out of most heroes. It was called the “catastrophic event function,” and its protocol was to call every hero in the state together to halt the end of the world. During the last CEF, Mutation remembered, Ultraman took charge. He assigned everyone tasks, and everyone obeyed him without question. The Mutation sighed and pulled off his jacket, a brown aviator jacket with the sleeves cut to the elbow, and a hooded man insignia on its shoulder. He was wearing, now, a hooded gray shirt with the sleeves similarly cut, but the insignia on his chest was that of a broken strand of DNA.

His name was Anthony Carlucci, and he had only joined the hero business six months before Ultraman died. He hadn’t been a hero long enough to be relaxed in his duties, and he was afraid of those who had. He kept training because, when the next catastrophic event occurred, he knew that someone had to be ready. He fingered the metal ring that shone over his right index finger, and then squeezed it into his palm. The palm of his hand began to take on a metal hue, the silver-gray tang of the metal climbing around his hand and then up his arm to the elbow. His shift had just begun.

He sat atop the roof of his house, a small town-house near the center of the city, and looked out over the town. If he looked North he could see the town-square, a small brick square surrounded by grass, with small benches on either side. The sun was just setting, and the air was cool against his skin. If he looked to the South, he could make out the tree tops of the Wharton State Forest, where he knew the Menace was attempting to grow garlic to hang around the Count’s Burlesque House. He sighed, wishing he had made it in time to apprehend the Count after taking Nate to the hospital, but the Count was gone when he had returned, and Count Drake seemed to have no recollection of the night when he had gone to speak with him. He then looked East to the location of the Count’s mansion, which he could not make out because it was shrouded in trees. To the West was the shopping district, and the main center of crime in the city. Anthony could not remember the last time a night had passed without some crime occurring in the shopping district. He sighed as he stood and climbed to the ground.

“Nate, I need you.” He spoke quietly into the phone as he hid inside the Ye Olde Music Shop, closing the blinds so that no one outside the shop could see in.

“What’s up, Mutt?” Nate responded.

“There’s a bank robbery about to happen, a truck has been parked outside the Capital One for about an hour now, no markings, no nothing. It looks like they’re waiting for the guards to switch shifts.”

“Why do you need my help?” Nate asked, yawning a little to show mild disinterest.

“I think it’s Magnet Man; the metal on my arm is acting weird, like it’s giving me resistance when I move it in certain directions. You’re better for fighting him than I am.”

“Fine, give me twenty minutes and I’ll be right there.”

“I need you to do it in ten.”

“No promises.” Nate hung up the phone.

The Mutation swayed his arm back and forth, feeling the odd tingling that came whenever his metal came near Magnet Man. He thought about the last time they had come into contact, and how thoroughly the man had trounced him. That was nearly four months ago, he reminded himself, I’m different now. He had no more time than that, however, as the bank alarm exploded into existence. God damn it, Menace, he thought, cursing the fact that Nate hadn’t arrived yet. He burst out of the music store, running across the street, through the bullet-proof glass door into the bank. He looked around, seeing a man and woman cowering, stuck together in the corner of the bank. The bank attendants all seemed pinned to the front desk by some invisible force. The black plastic rope that was used to keep  a line in order had been pushed to the ground.

In the back of the room, a man stood collecting money from the safe; Anthony wondered why, in a day of technological advancement such as this, bank still held safes. He was dressed very oddly, with his hair spiked up to a few inches above his head. He wore a bright purple mask to cover his eyes and another for his mouth, the suit he wore was a skin-tight, leather-looking suit that was entirely black save for four large purple half-moons, two on either side. Around his waist he wore thin needles that dangled loosely against the suit. “Freeze!” The Mutation yelled, and the man turned to look at him.

“Oh, hello there, Mutation, is it?” Magnet Man laughed. “Listen, kid, turn around and walk out now and I won’t hurt you.” Anthony didn’t move. The man stepped forward. “You do remember what happened last time, right?” Still, the Mutation remained standing to block the exit. “Alright, I suppose we have to do this the hard way.” The man dropped the cliched sack he’d brought to loot money, and stepped forward to stand straight across from the Mutation.

He unlatched a needle from his waistband and hurled it at the Mutation, who quickly moved his metal arm to deflect it. Magnet Man, taking advantage of the Mutation blocking his own line of vision to block his needle, ran forward while throwing another needle at his leg. Anthony dropped his arm to see the Magnet Man running towards him, and decided to square himself into a fighting position, just as the needle ran through his leg. He grunted in pain, and glanced down to see what had done the damage, as the villain grabbed his wrists, one in either hand.

Suddenly his wrists began pulling towards each other ferociously, held back only by Magnet Man’s hands. The Mutation pulled his good leg forward and kicked the villain in the center of his chest, forcing him to let go of his arms, and fall back, but not before he made a desperate grasp for the leg that kicked him, and brushed his foot with his  left hand as he fell. The Mutation knew what came now, he remembered it so well from last time. His two wrists flew towards each other, his metal one slamming into the one of his skin, and he could feel his wrist bone shatter. He yelped in pain as the polarity of his arms returned to normal, allowing him to separate his arms.

Magnet Man gasped for air as the kick had done a number on him. He, still gasping, put on a small smile as he moved his right hand around four needles that were still around his waist. Suddenly, all stood at attention, pointing themselves vehemently at the Mutation’s foot. He started unlatching them, one by one, and they flew towards his foot, dragged by the invisible, magnetic force. Anthony, letting his gut reaction dictate his movements, immediately pulled his foot upwards and backwards to avoid the needles, realizing as he did it how stupid of a move it was. The needles followed his foot, but at the new angle they had to travel, they slashed through his ankle. Anthony shouted some profanity then fell to his knees.

“Still want to fight, good man?” Magnet Man said, having recovered from the wind being knocked out of him. The villain laughed in triumph as he moved to get his moneybag from the back of the bank. The Mutation’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out. It was a message from Menace: Kiss the ground. Anthony fell down onto his stomach, and let his arms fall to his side with him. “I see you’ve finally given up.” Magnet Man said with glee, as Anthony felt a cool breeze wash directly over him. He noticed that the wind didn’t recede and resurge as wind normally does, but it kept coming, slowly at first, but then continued to build rapidly until the clothes began to pull up on his back. Magnet Man approached him, obviously unfettered by the wind, and looked down on him in condescension. “Looks like you aren’t quite ready to be a hero.” The man said, as the wind buildup reached his peak and Menace was launched through the door, flying on the gust of wind straight into the villain.

He hoisted the villain into the wind stream and flew with him until Magnet Man was slammed into the back wall of the bank. He screamed in pain as he and Nate slowly fell to the ground, Nate landing perfectly upright and dropping the human magnet to the ground. Nate turned and ran towards the Mutation, bending down to hoist him up.

“You alright?” He asked, looking down at the Mutation’s lacerated ankle, knee, and shattered wrist.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, just some bedrest.” He laughed. “Take me to the hospital.” Magnet Man was still howling in the background. “How did you do the wind thing?” Anthony asked, as they walked out the door, and he saw a young girl, dressed all in white, with dark hair flowing out from under the hood of a sweatshirt.

“This is the White Witch.” Menace introduced. “A friend of mine.”

“Nice to meetcha,” the young girl said, obviously thrilled to have been allowed to come along. Anthony noticed the cops streaming in to the bank to capture Magnet Man, and let out a sigh of relief, knowing that he could not escape.

“You know,” the Mutation began, “flying in there like that, you kind of looked like Ultraman.” Having said this, the Mutation relaxed his muscles, let the metal recede from his hand, and, as soon as Nate put him in the back of a cop car, fell asleep.

“That was really cool!” Courtney practically shouted as she and Nate walked from the crime scene. Nate had never allowed her to come along before, as, technically, it wasn’t legal without a permit. She would always hear his stories about grueling battles, high speed chases, or just working alongside Ultraman, and she wanted nothing more than to come along. “What’s next? Are we going to go stop another robbery? Fight the Gentleman? Battle some henchmen?” She might not have realized that, with each suggestion, she was tugging harder on Nate’s arm, but he just smiled.

“Well, I’m not on duty, so no, I’ve got nothing.” Nate admitted, and the girl’s smile faded abruptly. “Tomorrow, we can pick up a side-kick permit for you, if you like.” He said, almost immediately regretting the decision. She was a little girl and he’d just offered her a means to risk her life on a daily basis. “Only if you agree to only work with me, and only when I say it’s okay.” He defined. It seemed to satiate her, as her grin had returned to her face, and the skip in her step was back as well.  

“Do we have to go back to the cube now?” She asked.