Heroes Wear Capes

“Lightning gave me abs?”

~ Barry Allen (The Flash)

“So, did you hear about how White Knight saved April Watson from Black Knight again?” Xander asked, sitting across from his best friend in the coffee shop booth.

John nodded slightly, sipping his straight black coffee. “Yep, and I can’t believe you’re so excited about it.”

Xander sighed in exasperation, “John, it’s so cool! Like, she’s only a couple of years older than us and she personally knows a superhero!”

“Yeah, but she went to Kingdom Hills,” John argued. Any kid who went to Oakland automatically had a bias against the kids who went to Kingdom Hills. They were rich kids with tutors and pompous attitudes. Why wouldn’t they hate them for having what they couldn’t?

“That doesn’t mean she’s a horrible person. If she was horrible like most of those jerks, why would White Knight save her all the time?”

John chuckled. “There is not one person enrolled in that school who isn’t a self-entitled asshole. White Knight probably went there too. I mean, haven’t you noticed that he only saves people in that area? If White Knight ventured one step into Oakland he would get shanked, superpowers or not.”

John did have a point.

“But he still saves people. Without our heroes, Kingdom City wouldn’t have the lowest crime rate in the world.” Xander countered.

“Which is due only to the fact that we have three heroes. If we only had one hero like a lot of cities do, we’d be on the bottom of the list, especially if we were stuck with one of the two hotshots who are too busy fighting a nemesis to fight real crime.”

Xander smiled slyly. “So, this is really about the fact that you think Silver Streak is a better hero than White Knight or Wild Fire?”

John blushed, though it was hard to tell on his dark skin. “Shut up. I’m not wrong. She is better than them, you have to admit it.”

Xander shrugged and took a sip of his cappuccino. “Yeah, but even if you think April Watson is as bad as all of those other Kingdom Hills High kids, you have to be happy she was saved.”

“When has she ever not been saved?” John asked, narrowing his eyes. “It seems to me like she’s never really in danger in the first place. There’s no way Black Knight would ever actually kill her. If he was going to do it, he would’ve done it by now.”

“For once I agree with your friend, Xander.”

Trevor Rossi, the one person John probably hated the most in the world.

“See,” John commented, “Even String Bean over here takes my side.”

Xander gave Trevor an offended look. “I feel personally attacked right now that you would take his side on this issue.”

Trevor sighed, “Yeah, keep up with the antics, it’ll only help your case more, trust me.”

Xander sighed and took a sip of his cappuccino with an exaggerated expression. He found it was the best way to deal with the tension in the room. Laughter always solved every problem, didn’t it?

“So, what is Richie Rich doing here at this fine establishment anyways?” John asked Xander, never glancing once at the son of a billionaire.

Trevor sighed and turned to Xander like he couldn’t possibly believe why John would hate him so much. “I just came in for a coffee and saw a friend, is that a crime?”

John shrugged, “Depends what your motives are.”

Trevor let out a frustrated sigh and focused his gaze on Xander, “Well, all I wanted was to say hi. I didn’t know that it was such a crime.” He turned to leave, but then had another thought and turned back to Xander. “Oh, also, I have to cancel our plans for tonight, Xander. Something came up with my dad’s work.”

Xander frowned. He knew that the notorious Paul Rossi never let his son be as involved as he would like to be in his company, so it was strange that the company’s dealings affected his daily plans. Xander was curious. He knew Rossi Corp had some less than desirable business ventures, but those weren’t Trevor’s ideas, only his father’s. If anything the situation intrigued Xander.

“Anything important?”

Trevor shrugged. “My father seems to think so.”

“And that makes it even better!” John exclaimed with fake enthusiasm.

Trevor was peeved, obviously, by John’s reactions. “I guess that’s my cue to leave.”

When Trevor left the coffee shop, Xander immediately turned on his friend.

“John, he was literally doing nothing to you.”

John took a sip of his coffee, looking like he did nothing wrong. And, to him, he did do nothing wrong.

“I think it’s is obnoxious nature that made me speak out,” John reasoned. “I mean, when someone carries an aura of ignorance and overzealousness, it’s hard not to be affected in a negative way.”

Xander sighed. “Fine, you can hate the guy, but why do you have to be such as ass about it?”

John narrowed his eyes. “That’s just my normal setting.”

Gratefully that broke the tension between the two. They’d never been able to stay mad at each other for too long.

Xander smiled, “Now, about that recent Silver Streak sighting.”

Xander was in way over his head.

Okay, maybe not in that deep, but he was still doing something really reckless and stupid.

See, when Xander heard Trevor was too busy with whatever his father was doing to hang out, Xander took that as Trevor giving him the liberty to find out what exactly was the business venture Paul Rossi had.

Xander had always been curious as to what Rossi Corp was doing with their fortune, but that was mostly due to his best friend’s conspiracies about the place. John had reason to hate the company, so it gave him reason to think they were always up to no good. Xander was the kind of person to investigate something if it intrigued him, and John’s conspiracies never failed to intrigue Xander.

Oakland High was a horrible school, there was no question. It was the reason Xander had so much free time after school. Bad schools didn’t give homework to their kids, or at least hard homework.

Really, if you were looking for someone to blame for Xander’s bad decision making, you could reasonably blame the horrible school district that gave all its money to Kingdom Hills and none to Oakland. If Oakland had money to pay teachers that actually cared about their students, then Xander would have no free time to do dumb things such as try and spy on Rossi Corps’ business.

As far as Xander’s mom knew, he was in his room studying. She was working a double shift at the nearby Super Burger, where everything they sold was themed to the ever famous supers. She was too busy dealing with teenagers ordering food names after their favorite hero or villain to know if Xander was out of the house and doing something he probably shouldn’t.

Now, to successfully infiltrate the plans of a business empire, Xander did what any teenager with no resources would do. He got his bike and followed Trevor’s limousine when it left Rossi Corp.

Any rational person would know any driver or bodyguard of a rich kid would know how to spot someone following them, but usually they would be out in another car, not on a bike. It was exactly what no one would expect to look for.

The only problem was Xander forgot how exhausting it is to ride a bike at a speed fast enough to keep a limousine in his sights at all times.

By the time the car seemed to stop for good, Xander only just had it in his sight. It took him a full minute to catch up to where it was parked, and by then all the inhabitants of the vehicle were already inside of what looked like an old warehouse. Xander was surprised that they had stopped in the middle of Oakland, where the only businesses were homegrown and struggling to stay afloat. What kind of deal could Rossi Corp be making out in a dilapidated warehouse in the worst part of the city?

Xander propped his bike around the side of the warehouse and wiped some sweat from his face. He couldn’t believe that he was actually doing this. That he was actually following his friend around to see what he was doing. John would never believe it, especially after Xander defended Trevor that morning so fiercely.

But Xander was curious, and curiosity never fared him well.

So, he mustered up all of his courage and searched for an opening in the old wooden walls. He obviously wasn’t going to go through the front door like an idiot, so his next viable option was to search for an indiscrete way to enter the building. He didn’t want any of the people in there to know he was there. The last thing he needed was for one of Rossi Corp’s bodyguards to get a little trigger happy.

Finally he found it. There was a hole behind a dumpster by the back entrance that was big enough for him to squeeze through. His shirt caught on a splinted piece of wood, but he was able to pull the fabric off of the wood and enter the building without any trouble.

Xander had appeared behind a huge piece of machinery, dust and cobwebs covering it from top to bottom. It was big enough to block him from the people inside the warehouse, but it was also big enough to block him from seeing those people. That was no good.

Xander creeped around the side of the contraption and found some boxes that let him look out at the empty floor without being seen. He just had to crouch on top of one of the smaller boxes. He had gotten there just in time, because that was when the two groups who were meeting stepped out into the light.

On one side there was Rossi Corp. Paul Rossi was standing in the middle with his son to his side. They had around six bodyguards standing behind them, one holding a briefcase of what Xander could only assume was some amount of money. Whatever this business venture was, it had to do with buying something off of the other party – that Xander was sure of.

The other party was a group of men in dark suits with their own version of big burly guards standing behind them. They definitely seemed scarier than the Rossi Corp thugs, that Xander could tell you. But, they didn’t seem to have anything to exchange for the briefcase of money.

“I see you brought your son, Paul,” The suit in the center of his group taunted. “What? Was the babysitter busy?”

Trevor made a step forward, but his father stopped him. “No, I just thought he’d like to see this historic moment in history when Rossi Corp climbed back on top with the generous help of some former henchmen of X.”

Xander widened his eyes. X was a villain who’d taken control of Kingdom City when Captain Fantastic first retired. It was in that period of time between the reign of Captain Fantastic and the reign of White Knight. Wild Fire and Silver Streak came later in the equation, so at the time there was no real hero out there to stop X. He had blood red hair and a vendetta against all heroes. He was the self-proclaimed king of kingdom city until White Knight came along and defeated him. No one was exactly sure how the hero had done it, which sparked much speculation. He always avoided the question, and no sane person was going to try and ask X himself. He hadn’t answered an interview since he was imprisoned.

If these men used to work with a crazed man like X, then they were a force to be messed with.

The man laughed, “Well, we’ll see about how this really goes, won’t we?”

Paul gestured behind him and the guard with the briefcase came up to him. Paul grabbed the case and opened it, displaying green stacks of money lined up in tight rows. “I hope this will suffice.”

The man picket up a bundle and flipped through it. Satisfied, he put the money back and reached into his suit pocket. He pulled out a vial of something red and thick.

“Are you aware of what this is, Rossi?”

Paul Rossi narrowed his eyes and tensed up. This wasn’t a part of the plan. “No, would you mind enlightening me?”

“This,” the man wiggled the vial, “is the blood of Arabella Mackenzie Jones, a superhero we all know well. You don’t need to know how we got this, all you need to know is that it is the real deal. Now, Arabella got her powers from a serum called PF-08. It gave her powers, but not without some unwarranted side effects. Her mind blocked the powers and the memories associated with them because it was fighting with the change to her DNA. It wasn’t until a traumatic experience that the powers started emerging along with some repressed memories. We took this blood of hers and reverse engineered the serum, but this time without the side effects. PF-08-2 we call it.”

Paul stood straighter. “Yes, that’s what I ordered from you. I didn’t need the backstory along with it though.”

The man shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “I couldn’t help myself. Of course, I would like to know what you plan to do with such a powerful product.” The man gestured in Xander’s direction and he freaked out. It took him a moment before he realized the man was gesturing towards his product. The boxes must’ve been full with this PF-08-2.

“That is for me to know and for you to not ask.”

Xander leaned in closer to the side of the boxes to catch every word. The men were speaking much quieter now.

“Ah, Rossi. I see. You don’t trust me?”

“No, quite the contrary,” Paul responded, “I just don’t trust who you report to.”

And that was when the box below Xander broke. Each box was full of glass vials of the serum, and when the box broke, it crushed those vials too. The boxes above Xander toppled over and fell on top of him as well, glass and splinters cutting into his skin. The noise and destruction didn’t go unnoticed by the men in the room.

The man who was selling the vials immediately pulled out his gun and aimed at Paul Rossi. In seconds each side had their guns drawn. “Are you pulling some sort of game?”

Paul scoffed. “If anything it’s you who is playing the game.”

Neither knew what was going on, all they knew is that the product was being destroyed.

And then the shot rang out.

Xander freaked as more shots started going off around him. He ran away from the boxes and ducked out through the hole he had come through. He was on his bike within seconds of exiting the warehouse. He was glad the deal had gone down so close to his neighborhood, because he was home within minutes. It wasn’t until he got home did the adrenaline stop numbing his senses and he felt the pain of all the cuts and bruises all over his body. The smart decision would probably be to go to a doctor or something, but there weren’t any good ones in Oakland. Besides, he had no money for hospital bills. Painfully, Xander wrapped up all of the bigger injuries and put Band-Aids on the smaller cuts. He looked like a war victim, his mom was definitely going to notice what had happened.

But there was nothing Xander could do about his looks. Most of the frightened pacing of his came from the scene he had just witnessed, not the injuries. He lived in a bad place, so gunshots weren’t uncommon, but seeing and hearing the shots from that close was terrifying. He didn’t even know if Paul or Trevor was still alive after that venture.

All Xander knew was that if he hadn’t been there, no one would’ve got shot. For all he knew, he was the reason someone died tonight, and that knowledge was scarier than any comic book.