#menace24

Courtney leapt into Nate, forcing him to catch her as she wrapped her arms around him; as he handled the shock of her sudden appearance, she gave him a small kiss on the cheek and yelled, “Happy Birthday!” He laughed, letting her down onto the wooden floors of the treehouse. “I got you something.” She said. She reached into the large pocket of her baggy, white sweatshirt and pulled out a small envelope and handed it to him as he insisted that she did not need to get him anything. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it, I think. Well, I dunno.” Nate moved to open the letter, but she instead that he wait until he got home.

So the two began their shift, starting, as always, in the center of the town square. Courtney, with the same excited look in her eye and tail wagging, would ask Nate every few seconds if he still had the letter, which Nate continually assured her that he did, pulling it out of his pocket to show her. It was cold and dark in the square, and, as Nate knew incredibly well, nobody wanted to work in the cold, not even villains. He enjoyed the winter months, as crime came mostly to a halt, and he could just relax while on-duty, watching everyone hastily prepare for the holidays. Courtney would keep them warm by keeping a running current of hot air circulating around them, and so, all-in-all, Nate decided that working in the winter months was pretty good.

The street lamp at the corner of the square — where Main Street and Stacks Street intersect — would flicker on and off on colder days. It was not, objectively speaking, a problem, but it always made Nate feel uneasy. Like one day it would flicker on and a villain would have appeared from thin air. He knew it was somewhat irrational to feel that way, but the other part of him insisted on staying continuously guarded.

“Do you have any birthday plans?” Courtney asked him, as he watched the lamplight flicker.

“What’s that?” He responded. “Oh, I hadn’t really thought of anything,” Nate answered, “maybe I’ll get to bed early, maybe I’ll watch a movie, I don’t know. Maybe spend some time with my family,” he finally decided; Courtney’s eyes fell, the current became a bit less stable with some cold air leaking in. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” Nate waited, “I said nothing. It’s really nothing. I was just hoping… I mean I, kinda, wanted to celebrate with you. We could get off shift, we could party, we could go to the movies, we could even train to get Eloise back, I don’t care. We’ve never hung out on your birthday before, you always disappear of somewhere or other and tell me about it when you get back… I… yknow, it’s probably just me being dumb, I’m sorry.” She finished, her cheeks red as an apple.

“Kid,” Nate started, “I said I was spending time with my family: that’s you, bud. So don’t worry about it, we’ll figure something out.” She smiled and Nate could’ve sworn he saw a tear when a loud scream came crashing towards them from Stacks Street.

Courtney pulled herself into the air and began launching herself towards the scene as Nate entered into the first stage of his powers and started barreling down Stacks Street. As they ran, the screams began to get louder. “Stop! Stop! I’ll do anything!” Nate heard, followed by the mumbles of someone else speaking. “Just don’t hurt them! Please!” Nate was sprinting now, sweat racing down his neck. Courtney was a few feet a head of him. “Please, please…” Courtney suddenly stopped and Nate felt the cold winter winds stand still. He kept running to catch up with her, his footsteps echoing loudly against the ground until he turned the corner and was able to see what she saw.

It didn’t make any sense. There was no villain. Nate saw a man, bloodied and beaten, with his wife and two daughters crouched together on the wall behind him. In front of the man was Liam, with his metal arm shaped in a blunt club-like structure, in his full hero-outfit standing now in the windless night. Liam lifted his metal arm and swiftly brought it down on the man’s head, which forced Courtney to look away while Nate screamed. The Forge turned to face them. Nate stepped forward as Courtney dropped to the ground behind him.

“What’s going on?” Nate asked him. “Why did you do that?”

“The girls here, they tried to steal some money from me. They have powers, they attacked me. I fought back and their father tried to step in; it’s all honest hero-work, Nate. Promise.”

“Step away from the family,” Menace instructed him. “Courtney, call an ambulance.”

“I can fly him there faster,” she responded.

“Do it. I don’t want you to see this.”

With that, she hoisted the body into the air and pressed towards the New Monmouth Presbyterian. They were gone. The family was still cowering, and the Forge was still firmly between Nate and them. He entered into the second stage of his powers, his fists clenched firmly against his waistline. “Step away from the family, please.” Menace insisted. “Let them go.” “They’re criminals, Nate, they can’t just be locked away, they need to be punished!” He screamed, throwing his bludgeon into the mother’s neck, smashing her against the wall. The two girls screamed and ran in either direction as he lifted his arm from the mother. The ground was a dark shade of red. The woman was dead.

“Liam… Liam why?” Nate said, trying not to throw up at what he witnessed.

“These people — these criminals — walk around all day with no regret and no concern. Throw them in jail and they just break out, again and again, and fuck with us, the good guys, again and again. Again and again. They attack us, they maim us, they kill us sometimes, and why shouldn’t we respond in kind?”

“Because then we’re just as bad as them,” Menace responded as he heard footsteps slowly creeping up behind him.

“What’s going on here?” Nate turned to see Jenny, dressed in sweatpants and a large, ugly Christmas sweater. She was wearing her glasses, and her hair looked a mess. She still looked divine. “Courtney called me here. Nate, you can go home, you don’t need to deal with this.”

“I think I do,” he responded. “I really think I do. Let me. Please let me.”

“I won’t stop you, Goggles, I just want to let you know that you aren’t alone and you don’t have to do this if you can’t.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” He asked her, his face somewhere between a grin and a wince. “It’s not Goggles anymore,” he wiped some wetness from his eyes, then strapped the goggles on, “it’s Menace.”

Nate ran towards the Forge, who immediately turned his metallic arm into a blade, and made a lunge for Nate’s chest. Menace smacked the flat of the blade down and threw his fist into the stomach of the hero, who collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood. Nate kicked his side, hearing a decisive crack, and let him fall onto his stomach. He exited his powers, falling onto the fallen hero and began to throw his fists into his friend repeatedly. Liam let out moans of pain as Nate continued to pound him, letting blood cover his gloved hands.

“That’s enough, Nate.” Nate let another blow on the Forge’s face. Liam was losing consciousness, he could tell. “I said that’s enough.” Jenny’s voice was hardly reaching him.

“Why did you do it?” He screamed into Liam’s unaware face. “Why?” He threw another punch. “How?” He slammed his fists into the Forge’s chest, forcing blood out of the boy’s mouth. Jenny’s hands were around Nate’s wrists now, pulling him off the bloodied body. “How could you do this?” Nate screamed as he got wrenched away. “Why would you?” Jenny forced Nate to sit as he cried into his blood-encrusted gloves. His hands had started bleeding during the endeavor as well. Jenny crouched down next to him and held him as he cried. “What did I do?” He moaned into her shoulder. “What am I supposed to do?”

Menace got home later that night, checked his phone, saw fourteen texts from Courtney, and fell into bed. He scrolled through some of the messages which read: Where did you go? Are we still doing something? Is everything okay? I’m sorry I sent Jenny, if that’s the problem. I won’t go to sleep until you promise me things are okay. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small envelope she had given him that morning. On the front, in a messily written font, it read: To Nate, love Courtney. He pried open the envelope and slid out a post-card like picture of them together, from her first day on duty as a hero. He turned it over in his still-bloody hands; it read:

Dear Nate ,

I know that I’m not great at times — I get super excited, I complain, I’m too mean, or whatever — so thank you for always sticking with me. I really think that you’re the best hero out there. Thank you for teaching me everything. You’re like the big brother I never got to have. And I love you.

I will always be here whenever you need me, so need me a little more, okay?

Sincerely,

Courtney Rose Aethea