Seven Years Earlier

The clock was ticking so slowly, it could have been going backwards. Kevin tapped his foot, trying in vain to speed up time. The last ten minutes of class were the longest. He yearned for the joyous sound of the bell. By the look of the torpor that hung over the rest of his classmates, he was not alone.

“Mr. Rose?” Invaded Kevin’s ears, snapping him out of his headspace.

“Yes, Mrs. Blackwell?” Kevin answered, trying his best to sound attentive.

“Care to take a crack at the question?”

“Uh..sure…” Kevin wracked his brain for anything he could use. “Four?”

“I didn’t ask for a braincell count. We’re doing proofs.”

The few students still paying attention snickered. Kevin felt the heat of embarrassment flush his cheeks. There was nothing he feared more than being the center of attention. He felt like he was under a magnifying glass, while the entire world looked through and laughed at him.

“Sorry, Ma’am…”

“I swear, Rose, I have no idea how you’ve even gotten this far.”

Mrs. Blackwell never liked Kevin. Kevin never liked calculus. It all made an abundance of sense. Maybe Kevin was flunking because Mrs. Blackwell despised him. Maybe Mrs. Blackwell despised him because he was flunking. It was probably some mix of the two. The fact remained, she could have flunked Kevin without constantly picking on him. It was certainly not a coincidence that Kevin was most eager to leave the class in which his teacher delighted in tormenting him.

The benefit of Kevin’s humiliation was that it took his eye off the clock. Thoughts of shame and resentment were shattered by the triumphant ring of the class bell. Kevin was at the door before the most other students had their books back in their backpacks. School was over and Kevin’s real day was about to begin.

It used to be that Kevin would dread the last bell. A favorite target of bullies and having little by way of friends, Kevin was no lover of school. However, depending on his ever-changing living situation, it was much more preferable to what awaited him in his home life. At best, he’d return to indifferent foster families, whittling away time in rooms that never felt like his. At worst he’d be forced to endure group homes where bigger, tougher kids used him as a punching bag. Since he’d been eleven, it was group homes all the way.

Once Kevin went through puberty and came into his powers, everything changed. Like most kids, he’d grown up idolizing the heroes whose exploits were always on the news, and whose pictures were plastered on every surface that marketing firms could buy. Every notebook he’d ever owned was wrecked with etchings of insignias and doodles of famous battles. His most prized possession was a beat up old coin emblazoned with Zenith’s logo he’d fished out of a goody bag at one of the few birthday parties he’d ever been invited to. It wasn’t easy to hold onto things for someone who moved around a lot, especially not for one who lived with a rotating cast of strangers. Things got lost, people took things, things got left behind in places Kevin would never return to. It was a miracle that he still had the thing. The paint had long since rubbed off, but the coin still bore the shape of that iconic Z. When things were particularly bleak, Kevin would look up to the sky and imagine she was flying overhead.

Back then, Kevin didn’t dare even dream of actually becoming a hero. That kind of thing didn’t happen for kinds like him. He’d always had a sense that special people always knew deep down they were special. Kevin was never under the misperception that he was special. With all the shuffling he did through other people’s lives, he got the distinct impression that his mattered very little. Still, at times, a wisp of hope would slip through. When Kevin was in the middle of a beating that felt like it would never end, he’d ball up his fist and will some special power into it. Late at night, when he felt so alone that he could slip from existence, he’d fantasize about being in the League of Champions with the likes of Zenith and Glimmer. The camaraderie those heroes must have felt after saving the world time after time, was intoxicating to Kevin. That was at far as it ever went. He’d witnessed enough fanboy kids in the group homes wearing sheets as capes. Those kids were knocked around worse than anyone else.

A month or so after Kevin had turned twelve, he was walking around the neighborhood, just trying to stay out of the home. At some point, all the lights on the block went out. It wasn’t too shocking, as the power grid was shaky, and a lot of people were wired up illegally. Still, Kevin wanted to get out of the dark. Bigger kids were about, and he didn’t want to get hassled. When he turned down the next street, the same thing happened. When it happened a third time, Kevin had it. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he knew he wanted it to stop. Instantly, the lights went back on. It wasn’t the normal flicker of an electrical problem, but rather that the lights were extinguished by some unseen force, and then restored in kind.

As Kevin passed each light, they went out. With each step the phenomenon became less frightening, and more fascinating. Soon, with enough experimenting, Kevin realized that when he made a concerted effort, he could control which light went out and which ones didn’t. It was like flexing a muscle somewhere deep inside of him. In that moment, Blackout was born.

Kevin rushed to his locker before the hallway could fill up with students. It took two tries before he managed to fumble open the lock. In one motion, Kevin grabbed a black gym bag, shut his locker again, clicked the lock shut, and turned to leave. A large, strapping figure stopped him where he stood.

“What’s the hurry, Rosey?”

Jonah Ennis was sneering down at Kevin. The acne on his face was particularly red today. His arms were crossed, and he was flanked by his two remoras. Larry and Gil were sniveling, pathetic creatures. Their acute senses of self preservation led them to a life of servitude to the school’s resident dickhead. Adults had assured Kevin this kind of thing faded out by high school. Well, Kevin was now a Junior, and he still had to deal with assholes like Jonah every day.

“What’s in the bag, Rose the Nose?” Jonah flicked Kevin hard on the nose.

“Rose the nose!” Gil squealed with forced laughter.

“It’s just my gym clothes,” Kevin said quietly, trying to deescalate, while rubbing his aching nose.

“Bullshit, Nosey! You’re too poor to own two pairs of clothes.”

The chorus of sycophants snickered along.

“It’s just gym clothes, Jonah.”

Jonah grabbed the strap of Kevin’s bag and wrenched it from his hands. Kevin lunged for the bag, but Jonah was too quick, pulling the bag out of Kevin’s reach and throwing him off his balance. Jonah hooked a foot on Kevin’s ankle and tripped him. Kevin’s momentum sent him skidding across the cheap linoleum tiles.

“Why do you want to sniff my jockstrap so bad??” Kevin yelled from his seat on the ground.

“Because I’m in love with you, Rosey,” Jonah chided.

Jonah rotated the bag around, looking for the zipper. He seemed intent on gaining entry. That was simply not an acceptable outcome. Blackout’s super suit was in that bag. Kevin was not about to go through the headache of contacting the Hero’s Guild for a compromised secret identity because of a nosey school bully. Instead, Kevin went with the last resort. He used his powers.

Using his internal muscle, Kevin flicked the overhead light on and off like a strobe light. At this point, Kevin had grown out of the need to explicitly flex for results. All he had to do was know how he wanted to manipulate the light, and it would simply happen. The light was weak and sterile, but it was still disorienting enough to get the job done. All the students in that area of the hallway, Jonah and Lackeys included, struggled to acclimate to the flashing lights. Kevin took the opportunity to jump to his feet, and snatch his bag from Jonah. It would have been a victory if Kevin left right then. Instead, Kevin pounced on the opportunity to nut tap the stunned Jonah. In response, Jonah keeled over.

“You’re dead tomorrow, Rose,” Jonah fought through his agony to say.

“I thought you loved me!” Kevin yelled back.

Just like that, Kevin was off, down the hallway, through the doors, ready to hit the hero beat.