“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” -Albert Camus

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I pull out my phone as I wait for the city bus. I never really thought of myself being that heavily affected by my ADHD as I got older, but once it was pointed out to me I was forced to admit that I could hardly stand to go even a few minutes without some kind of stimulus. In this case, I am opening a news stream, one a little less whitewashed than mainstream television. The earbuds go in as the bus pulls up. I palm my High School ID and wait in line, it is a good thing that students can ride free.

“-admit that the estimated rate of mutation and power emergence in the state reported by Senator Hammon was incorrect. The leaked documents show the rates are at least twice as high and may be only half of those who have the potential to either develop powers or mutate. According to the study, roughly one in five thousand people will undergo mutation and one in ten thousand can develop powers.”

I find a seat, feeling a tinge of satisfaction as I see the school buses still loading in the school’s parking lot. It takes almost an hour to get home if I take the school bus, but if I jump on the city line it is only about half an hour. It is a bit more of a walk, but with spring starting it was not cold enough to really put me off. Hell, even in winter I would just as soon be home sooner even if I have to trudge through snow. All I had to do was make sure I was prepared for winter, and I would have done that anyway.

“Speaking for the Fellowship, Silverscreen expressed his disappointment in the Senator and stressed that neither mutation nor powers are things to be feared or hidden. “The first step towards the end of organised villainy is an atmosphere of inclusion and acceptance,” she told reporters, but sources suggest that the upper ranks of the Fellowship might have been aware-”

The stream was interrupted by a text notification from my friend, “ur not going with ur fam Max? Why the hell not?” It might not have been the best idea to let Jason know I wasn’t going on vacation with my family like we always do when spring break rolls around; I certainly was not going to tell him the truth. Actually, I decided I would not even respond right now. My skill with procrastination is great.

“-other news, Police and Fellowship forces stormed a Bloc hideout in New York City, apprehending the Supervillian Phantasm after a brief battle. Collateral damage was significant, but quickly repaired by Heroes on scene. Despite many touting today’s raid as a success, critics insist that the government and the Fellowship should do more to prevent the increasing rise in crime and villainy.”

My stop came soon. I hefted my bag, nodded to the driver in thanks, and stepped out onto the sidewalk of Rochester, Minnesota, my thoughts equally divided between musing about the news and considering how to reply to my friend. It is oddly amusing for me to consider that those two topics are related, and far more so than I ever would have imagined. Approaching a deep puddle of melted snow on the sidewalk, a small gesture from my hand and a shimmering barrier appears over it, allowing me to walk over it without getting my shoes wet.

I never really imagined that my life would be so mundane after I developed powers either; I guess that says more about my expectations and my imagination than it does anything else. Power fantasies about being a Hero are pretty poor preparation for reality, although I can’t say that I am much fussed about having a boring origin story.

Sometimes called Triggers, other times called Events or Morphs, most mutants and heroes go through some traumatic event and gain their respective mutation or power as a result. Like someone getting hit by a car and growing plates of chitin to protect them, or a person falling off a building and suddenly gaining the power to fly, these things happen in times of high stress to some people. A rare few, myself included, don’t have any real stressor as a cause of our powers, and are referred to as Naturals. We are the lucky ones.

Not the most lucky though, that status belongs to the people who get mutations and powers. Mutants might face a lot of discrimination and hate, but those who also have powers are simply too strong to disparage. The most powerful hero in the United States, Titan, is just such a lucky bastard, but he isn’t a Natural. Supposedly, he gained his mutation and power when a building collapsed on him, although the details are scant to protect his civilian identity.

Myself? Physics homework. I’ve thought up about a dozen jokes about that, but it isn’t like I have anyone to share them with.

“The case is going to the Supreme Court, where the ruling on whether time served on a criminal sentence is measured from the criminal’s perspective or from the perspective of law enforcement officers when time manipulating effects are used, stands to determine the fate of several criminals and villains hoping for an early release. Lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that their clients have in fact served the time of their sentence and even that heroes like Eternity should be barred from using their powers for the purpose of imprisonment. Experts say-”

I thought if I would get a power, I would become a hero. I imagined living a life of fame and wealth, with beautiful women hanging off my arms, smiting villains left and right. I had a fantasy about changing the world. Instead, I have mostly used my power to keep my shoes dry. In a lot of ways, my power isn’t exactly impressive. I mean, sure, my powers appear to violate the laws of physics, but that isn’t exactly a rarity for powers.

However, when I got my power, I ended up having to do some serious research about what it would mean to step on to that stage. Especially considering that my power has no offensive potential whatsoever. The reality is that most heroes are relatively unknown and make good money, but not piles of it. As for the women, well, sure there are girls that crush on heroes, but any serious relationship is dangerous and a liability. Sure, there are some unwritten rules in the fights between heroes and villains, but a lot of villains would not even think twice about abducting a woman with a connection to a hero.

So with my not very flashy power, I would hardly be rich or famous, and I would have to be worried any girl hanging off my arm would end up in a body bag.

When I enter my house, I toss my backpack to the floor; there isn't anyone here to complain about me making a mess, after all. I notice a stack of soup cans sitting on the kitchen counter, along with a note from my mother listing all the food she prepared for me to eat while she, my father, and my little sister were gone. And thank fuck she did, because I certainly can’t cook worth a damn. I guess I don’t really appreciate my mother’s good cooking until I am staring a week of canned soup and cereal in the face. I’ll just add, “being an ungrateful brat,” to my list of personal failures and move on.

“-mobs assaulted the pair, and the encounter was captured by witnesses and recorded. Activist and advocate groups decry the arrest of the mutant husband and wife who were defending themselves from attack. Police forces claim that the arrest was for excessive force in self defense, but with the release of those who attacked the pair the State Governor has ordered an investigation into-”

So if I wouldn’t really have wealth, fame, or relationships, could I still change the world as a hero? Could I help slow the rise of crime and villainy? The news stream was a nonstop flood of reminders that since powers and mutations began to appear after the end of World War Two, the seventy years after that have been a slow descent into chaos. The law had to adapt to the emergence of all sorts of special circumstances, and in many ways that adaptation had tied heroes hands. Prisons were revolving doors; either because of the villains lawyers or because law was unable to sentence many villains to the length of time they deserve.

I walked through the house and stepped out into the backyard; my family’s house was one of the strange anomalous properties in Rochester that had an abundance of property even though we are in the city. Roughly one and a half acres in total, and it was a pain in the ass to have to mow it all in the summer. That was a thought that popped into my head as I made my way to the shed out back.

Apparently, it was supposed to have been its own house at some point in the past, so it had power, heating, and plumbing. Something must have gone wrong though, because it had been folded into our property and sold with it to our family. We used it half as storage and half as a gaming or sports area. The only thing it really lacked was a path leading to it; I had to walk through the slush the whole way. At least the sunlight felt warm.

I sighed and turned my thoughts back to my original question as I continued my trudge. Could I change the world? Or even help to do so? I would probably have a better chance to do so as a politician or attorney. Heroes only enforce the law, but it is politicians and lawyers that make and interpret the law; heroes cannot truly change anything if the justice system cannot keep up.

And they most certainly can’t. The legal definitions of criminals, heroes, villains, superheroes, and supervillains are still in flux. The laws change state by state and country by country, and how they are treated varies just as much. The legal definition aside, the way the words are used in common parlance are pretty easy to understand.

Have a power or mutation and are on the side of the law? You are a hero. If you are a hero and you have a power that makes you like a demigod among mortals? Then you are a superhero, and the classifications for villains are just a mirror of the one for heroes.

There are more superheroes than there are supervillains, but there are more villains than heroes. The reasons for this are debatable; gang initiations forcing mutations and powers to emerge, or discrimination against mutants forcing them into poverty and crime are the two biggest theories. You almost never see mutants among heroes, and companies are loathe to hire them, so a lot of them don’t have much of a choice in where they end up.

“-bombing in Paris has caused the G20 summit to be canceled. The Supervillain Anarchy has claimed responsibility. In a statement released to news agencies, she railed against the rising legal restrictions on powered humans and mutants. Emergency responders were delayed in reaching the scene of the blast as local villains took advantage of the chaos. Rumors that the city is considering declaring a state of emergency have been dismissed as sensationalism, but military units have been observed moving outside the city. Caution when travelling to or through the city of Paris has been advised by the State Department when questions were asked to them, but no official warning has been issued.”

I walk into our shed, although as I think about it that probably isn’t the best word for it. Aside from the storage room, the building is finished and carpeted. The room I have entered into is set up as a lounge and sports room. Sports in the sense of sports watching anyway; it is the kind of place that you would imagine a Superbowl party being held. Honestly, I have no idea what my mother was thinking when my father convinced her this was a good idea, it isn’t like we use the space all that much. Maybe she was just thinking that she should pick her battles; dad was always a bit eccentric and when he got an idea in his head he would pursue it to extremes.

Still, it is nice to be able to kick off my shoes and throw my jacket into a chair. The builders never got around to the second floor before the properties were merged, but they did put in a basement. I headed down the stairs and flipped on the lights and what I saw really depends on a person’s point of view. The United States, and states like Minnesota in particular, has a long history of gun ownership for hunting and protection. To some people, this might look like an armory. To others, it would look like a nice collection of hunting equipment.

To me, as I look at the locked gun cabinets, wardrobes containing camo, duck calls, and camping equipment, I see a waste of money. Both my mother and father are doctors, not an uncommon profession in Rochester given the presence of the Mayo Clinic, so the family does not lack for money. However, what they do lack is time. Sure, dad has taken me hunting, but we have broken out this equipment maybe once every three or four years. In fact, he has never even entered the maintenance workshop that was connected to this room. Not that he can anymore, I have the only keys. I fish for them in my pocket for a second before I unlock the door and enter the room, flipping on the lights as I do so.

It is a smaller room, it was probably supposed to be a bedroom in the original plan, and much of the space is occupied by tables strewn with various tools and parts. I took over this room initially because I liked to mess around with electronics and mechanics, and I still do. Now though, there is a good reason that I locked the door when I am not here. In the corner, with more than a few pieces of junk leaning against it to make it seem unused, was another gun cabinet. One that also had extra room for other equipment. It took me a bit of time to move the junk, I picked things heavy enough that my sister or mother would not be able to move it themselves if they somehow came in here.

I took out a different key and opened this cabinet to reveal my secret. Perhaps the most eye catching is the AR-15, which I found incredibly and somewhat unsettlingly easy to purchase. In Minnesota, if it is sold by a private person outside of a municipality, you only need to be fourteen years old to purchase an AR-15 without a parent or guardian’s permission. Not exactly the most powerful gun someone can legally own, but certainly one of the most convenient.

“-raises questions about the 2022 Olympics to be held in Beijing in two years. Critics argue that including events for mutated and powered individuals is impossible because they can not be made fair. In particular, while mutated individuals are still restricted by the laws of physics as currently understood, powered individuals may or may not be. “Imagine if someone like Eternity was to compete,” Dr. Allan Yvanovich told our reporters. “Sure, he can do a hundred meter sprint in record time, as an observer sees it, but from his point of view it could take him minutes to do it. How do you decide victory in a timed event where one of the participants controls time? What about teleporters?” Others still argue that the point is moot, because Beijing is unlikely to loosen their restrictions on mutants and powered individuals even under international pressure.”

The second item in the cabinet is not nearly as eye catching, at least at first. My super costume turned out more eye catching than I had intended actually, I am kind of disappointed in it. On the other hand, it is an eminently practical outfit. No tights and bright colors for me, and definitely no cape; those always look tacky on any super who doesn’t fly anyway. The outer layer is a kevlar trench coat. It took a bit for me to get my hands on one without having it traceable to me, although that was not nearly as difficult as doing the same for the inner layer. A full set of commercially available bulletproof armor, rated according to the NIJ standards as Type IV, which is capable of enduring even armor piercing rounds. Well, the lower end of the range of armor piercing weapons anyway.

My mask however, was my pride. I took it to my workbench, pausing for a second to turn off my news stream; I was finishing my mask today, after all, and as distractible as I can be I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted in this. It had started out as a simple full face respirator mask that I purchased at my local hardware store, presumably to be used while painting or other construction. But I had done my research, and this particular mask was compatible with a wide range of filters, and I had gotten my hands on AXBE-P3 rated ones, so they protect against a wide range of gases and particulates in the air. The filters also happened to be much smaller than most, with the downside being that they were only expected to last around eight hours as opposed to the twenty-four hours the full sized filters guarantee. Still, I was happy to have filters that weren’t the size of two hockey pucks duct taped together and stuck on my face.

I sat down, flicking on the brighter lights over the table and heating up the soldering iron. I was an amateur at this, but thankfully most of the work had been done for me. Putting together my own circuits and programs was beyond me, but stitching the work of other people together like some kind of horrid Frankenstein’s monster was well within my capability. Kind of. I did have to farm out a bit of the programming to a friend of mine who lived on the east coast. We had met online playing strategy games back a few years ago and had kept it up since. He was going into programming and was frankly brilliant at it. I would have asked him to handle that entire part of the work instead of just bits of it if I wasn’t trying to keep my identity secret.

The mask had been attached to a small and thin casing that would rest over my right ear and run back a few inches along my head. It was into this casing that I had jammed all of the technology that I had thought would be so awesome and had turned out to be a complete and utter nightmare.Last night I had finally finished installing the smart glasses, although even at my most optimistic calling it "installed" is disingenuous. More like ripped apart and cobbled together inside the mask. I originally had dreams of having a heads up display like a video game, and I had quickly learned that the goal was far above my level of skill.

So what was I able to do? Well, I managed to connect an old smartphone I disassembled to it. A little bit of risk to pay for and use the service, I suppose, but I was able to use the maps function and search the internet. Scrolling down was a pain the ass, and I did have to worry about getting tracked, but it was a prepaid service and I bought the cards with cash. They couldn’t pull my identity from that alone, and I could easily turn off the device when it isn’t in use. Either way, the main feature I wanted worked. Barely.

The smartphone’s camera had been placed on the center of the mask, and I could use my voice to take a picture. And with that, I could search by image and get information on any villain or hero of note. It worked in my tests, and if it worked out in the field I would never end up surprised by an unexpected villain and not know their powers.

That was pretty much all I had managed to do, and it was a far cry from my initial imagining. I wanted to have a bullet count, minimap, remote drone control and more. But then I didn’t have a techie or tinker power, so it isn’t like this comes naturally to me. Hell, I wish I had one of those powers. I’d have taken that old phone and made a plasma rifle or something. But no, I got forcefields.

Even now, as I am soldering the connections for the microphone that will allow me to control my mask with my voice, I really can’t help but lament how standard my power was. I could produce a forcefield anywhere within ten feet of distance from my body. It was invisible to everyone else but me, and even to me the field was nothing but a slight shimmer. But I didn’t need to see it, I could feel where it was at all times. While I could only produce the field within ten feet, I could maintain it afterwards for up to thirty, and I could make it quite large; large enough to put my entire six foot frame behind it or block off a hallway.

Although, according to the Fellowship’s definitions, it wasn’t actually a forcefield. Partly because, and I have no idea how to describe the feeling, but I can feel that I do not actually make my fields, I just make them interact with the world. I, all humans and all matter, are already within this field but it does not seem to interact with it. My power encourages parts of this all encompassing field to materialize.

I waved my hand to disperse the bit of smoke that had appeared as I soldered, and set aside the iron to pick up a magnifying glass to examine the connection. Not exactly professional equipment, but I make do for now. If tonight goes well, I won’t have anything to worry about in the future. I was incredibly nervous about my plan, but I was armed and armored as well as anyone could legally be.

And on top of that security my forcefields- as I continued to call them for convenience sake- were bullet and blast proof. I had tested it myself as I had gotten more and more comfortable with its durability and it's more unique properties. If you shoot a bullet at it, the bullet does not ricochet off or get caught in the field; no, the bullet stops dead and then falls to the ground. Shrapnel from a pipe bomb does the same thing, I wondered where all that kinetic energy went and with some experimentation I found that my fields stopped matter, but not energy.

If I put up a forcefield, put a soccer ball on one side and then kicked my foot against the other side of it, my foot would stop dead, but the ball would move. How the physics of that works escape me, but it did help me to identify what the field was. Some time ago, light had yet to be revealed to be both a wave and a particle, and scientists thought it was just a wave. Yet light could travel through a vacuum, seemingly without a medium to propogate in, something no wave can do. So they proposed the existence of something called the aether, an omnipresent field that light could travel through to explain how it could travel through the seeming void of space.

The theory was wrong, at least when it come to light, but if my power was any indication, the aether did exist to some extent. Including the proposed property that the aether could transfer energy without loss.

My phone buzzed; a text from my mother, my family was at the airport. She wanted to know if I had noticed the soup, and I replied that I had I was going to sleep early tonight. It is easier to wish them well now and give that excuse than it would be to explain afterwords why I didn’t answer my phone tonight.

Sitting back for a second, I reflected on my thoughts. Earlier I had been asking myself if becoming a hero would get me want I want and the answer was no. Being a villain could, but I was not about to risk that, even if I could stomach the ethical issues and I was not necessarily sure I could do that. So I picked option three, I would become a vigilante and rob the robbers.

Well, my target tonight was a dealer, but that doesn’t nearly have as nice of a ring to it. They had been pathetically easy to locate, although admittedly I had a bit of an in. I had made it a personal policy to make friends with some of the rougher kids at school, because why the hell wouldn’t I make friends with the people who were connected to villains? If a villain attacks an area with their gangs or minions, having someone on that side who can vouch for me will pay for itself in spades. And, to be honest, some of them are pretty cool people anyway.

Not the brightest people though. A little bit of flattery, a little bit of incredulity, a tiny bit of respect, and I know where the local dealers go to get their product. If I called the police and they showed up there, I might be suspected, but if a rogue super armed to the teeth kicks in the door? I doubt they would ever even consider that the “cool nerd,” had shot the place up and robbed it blind.

There might be a mutant there, but the chances of running into a super are essentially nil. What would be there for sure were a few drug dealers and a few thousand dollars in cash. All armed, but not all with guns, and probably only 9mm handguns at that. Between my trench coat and body armor, I might as well be Titan compared to the weapons they have. Depending on the mutation, if there is a mutant there they might give me trouble, but my rifle is no joke like a mere 9mm pistol. An armored or regenerative mutant that can handle being shot by an AR-15 wouldn’t be hanging in a small time shithole like I was hitting.

My breath caught as I felt anxiety rise in my chest, but I quickly took control of my breathing and shoved the panic down. My best case scenario for tonight would have me shooting people. Not necessarily shooting to kill, but certainly not avoiding that either. I couldn’t think about that now; I refused to think about it until afterwards. As far as I was concerned, I was morally in the clear. I wasn’t shooting innocent schoolgirls here, but criminals in service to a local supervillain. But thinking that and actually doing that are two different things, and the closer I get to the latter, the more nervous I am. I’ll just have to grit my teeth and bare it. By morning I will know for sure whether I can or can’t do this again.

I glance at the clock; it isn’t quite six pm yet, and my plan doesn’t have me heading out until eight. A few months ago it would already have been dark outside, but with spring comes longer days and that means a bit of a longer wait. I probably should relax, but I doubt it would be possible for me to do that. Instead, I pull out my notebook with my research on the local hero and villain scene.

Looking just at Rochester’s population, getting close to two hundred thousand now, you’d expect there to be around twenty supers and forty mutants. Holding to the stats, twelve of the supers would be heroes and eight would be villains. The mutants, on the other hand, would almost entirely be villains. Thirty out of the forty would be villains, and the other ten would be civilians; hero mutants were very rare.

The problem is that supers and mutants don’t always stay where they emerge. In fact, small towns almost never have one of either because they all leave for larger population centers. For that matter, not every city is equally attractive. Rochester, with its medical facilities and growing economy, driven by wealthy doctors and investors, was a prime target. Villains came after that money like flies to honey, and heroes followed the villains just the same.

The result? There were maybe one hundred supers in the city, with forty-two confirmed villains. As for mutants, estimates put them at nearly two thousand. The extra mutants were brought in by one villain or another as minions and when added to the unpowered henchmen, the criminal population in Rochester had ballooned.

The wave of violence people predicted… Didn’t happen. Instead of minions storming the street and capes throwing buildings at each other, there were low key conflicts between heroes and villains on a daily basis with no escalation. Rather, the situation was more of a tense standoff, with neither side willing to strike a match and start the fire. The villains, and most of their activities, were contained to the rougher parts of the city. And even there, the average citizen wasn’t directly threatened by the gangs and minions. The only serious fights happened between the villains themselves; the gangs did not share territory and turf wars could get bloody. But the heroes would come down on them like a hammer if they were too obvious and even the villains who weren’t actively participating wouldn’t hesitate to jump if one group or another became weakened.

It was a delicate balance that could fall apart if the number of villains rose, but I planned to rectify that in the future.

I opened my notebook and flipped to the section I had about my target tonight: The Devil’s Boys. A small time gang, even for Rochester, with a mere three powered villains and a handful of mutants. The only reason they hadn’t been subsumed by another gang was their affiliation with a much larger gang located in the Twin Cities to the North, The Devils. Mostly focused on drug dealing, even though they made sales they were notable for the fact that they would purchase prescription drugs from the Clinic’s patients. Some were resold in the city, but it was openly suspected that most went north to the Twin Cities.

But a lot of that was just background information; facts important only because they pointed to a target without much capacity to defend themselves or to figure out who hit them so that they could take revenge. But that was all details I had thought about when I had chosen my target. The actual bulk of the information I had compiled was on the villains.

At the top of the gang was its leader, Gaslight and honestly he was not very threatening. Well, compared to other villains anyway. He had a wiki page, but it was just a stub. It listed his criminal record, and described his power, but there really wasn’t much to either and the man was not particularly interesting. Again, all of this is compared to other villains. To civilians he is somewhat terrifying.

As he breathes, he exhales a highly flammable gas which he can direct with his mind. He can also produce fire, though it is only essentially a spark, which he uses to ignite the gas. Dangerous to an unarmed person, or to anyone who has to attack him in a place he has been for a while, but otherwise no danger to anyone with a gun. Disturbingly, his costume looked somewhat like mine, if you can call it a costume at all. Does a dark hoodie and an old school world war era gas mask count as a costume? Perhaps I shouldn’t ask, my costume is basically the same.

Some of the rumors I have heard say that even though his powers are not that great, he is a smart leader, so I probably should not give him too much information just to be safe. Although admittedly I had never intended to give any more information about myself than I had to. In fact, there is a part of me that thinks I should just kill everyone in the dealer’s hideout to avoid leaving witnesses, but I don’t think I could be that ruthless. Not to low level thugs.

The Devil’s Boys even had a member I was reluctant to shoot at all. One of the lieutenants, Catspaw, had served time and her civilian identity was known, her name was Charlotte Smithson. I’m not sure what it says about me that even though I know she is a ruthless criminal wanted for murder, I simply don’t feel comfortable shooting a person who I know is a rather cute redhead just a couple years older than myself. Worse, she is one of those supers who wear tights and if the pictures of her are any indication, she looks pretty good in them. She also wears a cat mask and cat ears; it would almost be silly if she didn’t have the power to control animals and was best known for ordering a murder of crows to murder a person.

Her power seems pretty good, so long as their are animals around anyway, but she has limitations. She doesn’t constantly control the animals, rather she is able to give them a command that they will attempt to follow to completion or death. More complex actions require her to layer commands, and it takes her time and effort to do this. She is a threat when she is performing a surprise attack, but otherwise not terribly dangerous. Still, I’d rather not confront her at all.

The last lieutenant didn’t even have very interesting powers like Gaslight and Catspaw did. Going by the name Goblin, he had a pretty bog standard super strength and durability power set, and while his powers were fairly common he also was the biggest threat to me personally. The man is mostly bulletproof and I don’t have a method to hurt him except for bullets. Still, the wiki noted that Goblin actually is hurt by bullets, he just isn’t hurt very much.

Whereas the strategy for handling Gaslight and Catspaw boiled down to, “shoot them before they can use their powers to their full extent,” Goblin required a bit more thought. I could hold him back with my force field, but I won’t be able to escape from him on foot and it will take a lot of shots to put him down. But my preparations for tonight were complete, and I had a solution to this possible problem. If the left over pipe bomb I had from when I was testing my powers didn’t put him down, then I didn’t imagine it would take many shots to finish the job after it hit. Given my power, as long as I know where the explosion will come from, I will probably be safe from the blast.

Goblin wore green shirts and pants, and his mask was Halloween goblin affair. Again, not much of a costume, but they are bottom of the barrel villains. They were chosen because they lacked quality and resources, so the lack of them is heartening.

I read and reread my info, too anxious to just sit down and wait and desperately trying to not talk myself out of it. The two hours passed excruciatingly slow; I thought about eating, but knew I would not be able to and trying to take a nap was not even worth considering. But even though the time seemed to pass so slowly, when the time did come it felt like it had come too soon; as if it had snuck up on me.

I took deep breaths as I put on my costume. The coat and armor were heavy, although not as much as I had originally thought they would be before I started doing my research to purchase them; regardless, the weight was comforting. Aside from Goblin, this armor rendered me immune to anything drug dealers, even the powered ones, can throw at me.

I gave my gun a check over; everything was proper and working. I was able to conceal the rifle under my coat, albeit it was slightly awkward to do so, and I placed extra clips in extra pockets. I didn’t put my mask on yet, but I took it with me as I locked up the shed behind me and went back to the main house. I grabbed my keys and headed to the garage. I had a car, but I told my family I would rather take the bus than buy a parking pass from the school. That was a bit of a lie, the truth was I had spent all my savings on this project. A fifty dollar parking pass was literally more than I could afford right now; tomorrow would be different.

Rochester did not have a high density of security cameras if you were away from the downtown. All I had to do was avoid traffic lights and certain few buildings and I would be able to get to a park close to my target in roughly fifteen minutes. In some ways, it is scary to know just how close I was to these kind of people. The drive went fine, but my anxiety turned to small city park into a nightmare of shadows that could be hiding villains in any one of them.

“Its time to nut up or shut up, Max,” I whispered to myself, tightening my hands on the steering wheel. “One more deep breath, and take the plunge. You know you want this, its just a short walk and scaring the shit out of some assholes and you will be home richer and happier.”

My friends told me that my pep talks were shit, and now that I am giving myself one I think I have to agree. If anything, I feel worse. The fact that I opened the door and got out of my car was almost a fucking miracle. I walked into the shadows of the park and put on my mask, pulling up my hood over it. I even had attached velcro to the top of my mask and the underside of my hood, so that it would stay in place even if there was wind or if I was moving quickly.

Funnily enough, as nervous as I had been before about being seen, I realised that as long as you didn’t see the mask you would not think that a man in a trench coat was all that odd in this weather. If I had put a scarf on, I probably could have walked around in broad daylight without too much worry. I found this absolutely hilarious, and I have no idea why. Nerves, probably. Anything even mildly amusing would probably be funny to me right now.

It was hard to see in the dark, but I knew what this area would look like in the daylight. Dumpy is the word that comes to mind. Not so much that the houses were small or ugly, although that was certainly true in most of the cases in this neighborhood, but that they were poorly upkept. Paint was peeling, shingles were missing, and junk was peeking out from underneath the melting snow in the lawns. Some of the windows were broken and boarded up, which had to be absolutely hellish in Minnesota’s winters. Hellish might not even be a strong enough word, it could be flat out deadly.

The house I was heading to was not any different. It did not stand out from any others on this street and there was no real indication of what was inside. Perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, even supervillains kept their heads down and these people would not be in the same league. Light poured from the windows and the snow crunched lightly under my boots as I walked around to the back, avoiding the windows as I did.

The last tidbit I had been able to get out of the kids at my school was the sliding glass door in the back; my point of entry. The story of the “party” the kid had been to here had been shit, but it had been worth it to learn of the glass door. I had never really thought about it before I had started working on my plans, but getting into someone’s house is fucking hard. Unless I wanted to blow up a wall, I didn’t really have a whole lot of options.

I got around back, and that was where my plan went awry. A scraggly, thin looking fellow had just taken a look outside through the door, a beer held loosely in his hand. He saw me and his face went through a number of expressions, the beer dropped from his hand and I raised my rifle.

One thing you do not realise until you hear a gun is that they are incredibly loud. I am sure everyone knows that intellectually, but even with that the reality is surprising. I had gone hunting with my father, so I knew this and had my ear plugs, but I still had not had all that much experience with guns.

When the beer bottle hit the ground and shattered in a spray of alcohol and glass, I had already put a round through the sliding door. The man had been smart enough to dive behind a nearby kitchen counter and was shouting something, but I was not really aiming him with that shot. Neither was I with the second or third; three shots through the glass of the sliding door and my boot was all it took to shatter the rest and allow me to step through.

I stepped into a ratty kitchen, it was open to the living room on my left and two other men wearing Devil’s Boys colors were scrambling up from the couch. One of them was reaching for a handgun at his waist and I shot him in the stomach and he collapsed.

“All of you put your hands in the fucking air and don’t make any sudden moves!” I shouted, I probably had watched too many bad cop dramas but it got my point across.

Or not, because not a single one of them listened. Instead, the second man by the couch dived down towards his companion, hidden behind the couch from where I was standing. He was going for the gun, but before I could take a step to stop him, the man that was hiding behind the counter tried to make a run for it.

My first shot missed, but my second one caught him in the leg. Another one down, but the guy by the couch was already standing up with the handgun. Instinct took over and my left hand left the gun and I held it palm out towards him. The air shimmered, the man fired, and the bullet stopped.

He didn’t stop there though, he kept shooting until he emptied the clip. While I was watching this happen, the sound of my blood in my ears relaxed enough that I could hear him shout.

“Fuckers powered! He’s a fucking super!” The man warned his friends, but aside from him they were both down. Not that I could dismiss the possibility that there were more, but this might be the best time to talk them down.

“Exactly,” I tried to sound confident and commanding. “So toss the gun over and put your fucking hands up. You can’t fucking hurt me, and I don’t give a shit about shooting you.”

The thug hesitated for a second, but threw the gun over and raised his hands after a second.

“You’re fucked, you know that right?” He sneered at me, and despite the situation I had to note that his face had already been unfortunate and that when he sneered I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had told me that his face was Goblin’s mask. I’ll call him Thug C, I guess. Thug A would be beer guy and Thug B was the one with the gut shot. It is easier to think of them like that to think of them as people, even unlabeled by a name.

I just fucking shot two- no, I am not going to think about that.

“We’re Devil’s Boys,” Thug C continued, unaware of my internal turmoil. “Gaslight is going to burn your ass up.”

“Oh, I am so scared,” sarcasm is basically confidence right? “Whatever shall I do about the guy who can be rendered fucking useless by a windy day? Here is a better threat: I’m going to toss you a duffel bag and you are going to fill it with everything of value or I fucking shoot you.”

“Fuck you, you fucking cocksuc-” Thug A had been yelling in pain on the ground, and I wasn’t about to listen to him cuss me out now that he was saying coherent words. Instead, I just swung the rifle towards him and put a bullet in his other leg.

“Hurry the fuck up,” I said aiming towards Thug C again, “I haven’t got all fucking night.”

I tossed the duffel to the gangster, without anything in it the bag had fit just fine under my coat. And apparently shooting that asshole in his other leg had been enough of a threat that Thug C didn’t argue. Turns out the dealers had been counting their money on the living room table, it was almost funny to see stacks of bills sitting on such a shitty piece of furniture. All around the room was trash and refuse; empty bottles, syringes, take out boxes; the place was a fucking mess.

“There you go, that’s fucking everything.” Thug C had finished stuffing the bag, “Unless you want to search this shithole, but I guarantee there ain’t nothing here worth shit.”

“Honestly, I don’t give a shit either way,” I admitted. “You toss the bag over, and I am going to toss you some handcuffs. Handcuff yourself to that shitty radiator over there and I’ll be on my way.”

“Shits fucking hot!” The Thug complained, as if someone who had burst in shooting would give two shits.

“Do it, or join your friends on the fucking floor!” I shouted, and watched him carefully as he did what I told him. The only noises were the wind through the broken door and the crying of the two gangsters I had shot. All of that done, it was time for me to get the fuck out of here before anyone checked what the commotion was. I shouldered the bag and turned to leave, “a pleasure doing business with you asswipes. Don’t die, unless you do, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Wait,” Thug C called out. “Who the fuck are you?”

I laughed at that, “what kind of idiot would actually answer that? I’m not even going to give you my cape name, a bottom feeder like you doesn’t need it.”

I left at a brisk walk, I didn’t want anyone looking out the windows to see me running from the scene. Not that people in this neighborhood were the type to hear a gunshot and to go looking for what happened. Curious people ended up in body bags around here and so did people who saw things they shouldn’t have. Still, I was paranoid and took a circuitous path back to the park, checking to see if anyone was trailing me.

“Info, call the police,” I spoke to my mask. I decided to use the word “info” as the trigger for my mask’s voice commands. The phone was picked up quickly, and I talked right over the woman answering. “Send police and an ambulance to 305 Technology Drive. There are three Devil’s Boys gang members, two with gunshot wounds and a third handcuffed to a radiator inside.”

“They are on their way,” the woman replied after a second. “Who is-”

“Info, hang up. Info, shut down.” I said, cutting the call and shutting down the device to avoid being tracked. Mask comes off, bag tossed into the car, and I am driving. I take another long route, wary of being chased, but I seem to be in the clear. 10:13 PM, and I am home taking off my costume in the shed’s basement.

“Holy fuck,” the last piece off and put away, I collapse in my chair. “Holy fucking shit, I fucking did it.”

This feeling, I can only describe it as exhilaration. After all the anxiety and nervousness, the sudden release of all that worry is a wonderful rush. I just basked in that feeling for a moment, but it was not long before my greed and anticipation got the better of me. I took a look at the bag in the corner, and jumped to my feet.

I dumped it out over one of the cleaner workbenches; I had never seen so much cash in one place before. Some of it was in stacks, rubber banded together and other bills were loose, probably uncounted before I arrived. It wasn’t just cash though. Pill bottles and bags of other substances were also in the bag. I have no clue what I am going to do with them, I am not a drug dealer.

Fuck it, I will deal with that later, I have some counting to do first! And I could only smile when I considered that a few months ago, I would have told someone who told me I would be looking forward to just doing some counting was crazy.

“Four thousand three hundred twenty, four thousand three hundred forty, and four thousand three hundred sixty!” It took a decent amount of time, I will have to thank the fuckers later for putting them in stacks like that. I’d have been here all night if they had not essentially done most of the work for me.

The next second I was on my feet, cheering.

“Fuck yes!” I started to dance, I was so happy. “So fucking worth it!”

As long as I don’t think abou- nope, not doing that now.

Instead, I am going to turn off and lock up the shed and head back to the house. I throw my pajamas on and just barely remember to text my friend.

“Yeah, I got shit to do unfortunately. But I have time, want to do something tomorrow?”

The text back was almost instaneous, “Fuck yeah, the group is heading to Bink’s, up for it?”

I smiled at that, and texted back, “Up for it? Tell everyone it's on me.”

I went to sleep thinking how fucking awesome this day was.