TNO: Childhood Dream

"Goddamn it. Why the hell am I doing this?" Paul muttered to no-one in particular because he was on his own and no-one else was nearby.

He was stood in the shadows leaning against a wall at the entrance to an alley way, looking out along an empty street. He'd been there a few minutes, taking a moment to catch his breath and to "survey his surroundings" or whatever they called it. Glancing down at his watch, Paul noted that it was almost 11:30 at night. He'd give it another half an hour and then "retire back to base" and into his comfortable bed.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. It's what they did in all the comic books. With great power came great responsibility, and all that trash.

So here he was.

On night time patrol.

On foot.

What a fucking stupid idea.

Of course, if he was Spider-man or Batman, he could swing around the city, from block to block, keeping an eye out for villainous activity as he zipped along. Or, like Superman, he could have flown around using his supervision to spy on criminals from afar - if he'd had such powers. He didn't even have a working car to drive around in looking for trouble to stop.

Instead, the only option left open to him was to jog around the city, stopping now and then to look out for anything suspicious. Because, now that he had superpowers, he had a responsibility to use them to protect people. Unfortunately, although he went to the gym every now and again, he was nowhere as fit as he'd like to be. And the bloody ski-mask didn't help!

He'd decided to take the ski mask with him to hide his identity. That was something he'd learned since tackling that armed man in the store just a couple of days ago. The security camera had captured him on screen but, luckily, the image quality had been poor. But he didn't want to test his luck again so, hence, the mask. He'd also uncovered an old leather jacket he hadn't worn in years and, together with a plain black t-shirt and a pair of standard-issue blue jeans, he reckoned no-one would be able to identify him.

Paul scratched at the mask. It still wasn't very comfortable though, he thought.

And after two hours of prancing around, he hadn't found anything worth tackling. They'd been a couple of drunken bums making a lot of noise and a cat that had nearly been run over but that was about as exciting as it got. Did all superheroes have this problem?

Paul punched himself. What the fuck was he thinking? Of course they didn’t have this problem – they were fictional characters in goddamn comic books, for Christ sakes! They didn’t exist.

Whereas he did. And he was running around at night, wearing a itchy ski mask and hoping to catch some criminal up to mischief.

Paul sighed and shook his head.

Turning, feeling a little stupid, he began to walk down the alley and back towards home when he heard a shout. It was coming from the street he’d just been surveying. He turned and looked around the corner.

A young Hispanic-looking woman was being accosted by two men, who had just stepped out of a similar alley to the one Paul was in. One of the men, the smaller, slimmer of the two wearing a short goatee, was in front of her running his hand up and down the side of her face whilst saying something that Paul couldn’t hear. Meanwhile the other taller, bulkier bald man was manoeuvring himself behind her. The woman was trying to push the shorter man away but not succeeding. Suddenly the big man grabbed the shouting woman around the throat and started to pull her into the alley.

Paul didn’t think. He just did what he instinctively knew he should do. He began to run towards them.

It took him several seconds to reach them by which time they’d dragged the woman completely into the alley. Rounding the corner, Paul saw that they were dragging her towards a dumpster. But as he entered the alley the two men looked up and saw him approaching. The smaller man pulled out a pistol from his back pocket.

“Get the hell away!” the bearded man snarled, pointing the gun at Paul.

Paul stopped, fury boiling inside him. Sure, he could absorb energy but bullets…? Did his power absorb their kinetic energy? He didn’t know and he didn’t want to risk it. He looked from the barrel of the gun, to the struggling woman and back to the eyes of the small man. His hands balled into tight fists. Fucking idiots.

“I said go fuck yourself, motherfucker” the small man continued, letting his larger accomplice deal with the woman.

Paul shook his head and clenched his teeth.

“Leave the goddamned woman alone,” he hissed and took a step forward. "Or else". He seemed to be asking the same thing from a lot of folk with guns recently. And I bet this one doesn’t fucking listen either, Paul thought as a white glow began to materialize around his fists.

“Fuck off” said the man as he raised the gun towards Paul’s head. But before he could pull the trigger, Paul raised his hands and released the pent-up anger within him. A blast of charged white light leapt out and struck the man, knocking him backwards and slamming him into the wall of the alleyway.

"I warned you", Paul muttered.

The big bald man stood there, his mouth open wide whilst blinking his eyes to clear the spots from the sudden flash of energy. In moments though, he’d recovered and was ready to advance on Paul.

But not before the woman he’d been holding had brought her foot round and swiftly kicked him in the groin.

The big man let out a painful gasp but did not collapse. Instead, he turned to face the woman and raised his fist. Before his blow could land, another beam of bright plasma struck him in the side, causing the man to lose his balance and crash into the nearby dumpster.

The woman, recovering herself, stepped over to the big guy and rewarded him a couple more solid kicks to his prone body. When she was done, she turned and looked around towards the smaller thug. But by this time, Paul saw that the man had risen and was quickly retreating across the street, casting occasional dark glances behind him.

Finding her second target gone, the woman instead approached her so-called rescuer, stumbling slightly whilst straightening her clothes.

“Thanks…” she muttered, her eyes looking him up and down at his outfit. “…I think”.

“All in a day’s work”, Paul replied, smiling to himself within the mask, as a calmness passed over him. “Name’s Feedback, by the way”.

The woman’s eyes narrowed and she looked like she was about to serve a heap of questions mixed with a little soupcon of southern abuse for good measure. Deciding that discretion was the better course of action, Paul turned and sprinted away from the alley. He knew now why he was doing this, why he had decided earlier that day to dress up in a mask and jog around New Orleans at night. He had abilities beyond normal men and he was going to use them to help others – even if it meant looking like an idiot and risking uncomfortable queries from others, not least of which his wife. It all made sense now.

He was a hero.