What is “Human”?

12:13 a.m., time to go. I’m actually not too worried, though, it’s not like I ever worry about much anyway. I exited my apartment from the fire escape and headed north, to the heart of the city. I didn’t have my costume on yet because I didn’t want to risk any neighbors seeing me.

After around 15 minutes of walking, and then a couple minutes to find an area secluded enough to quickly throw my sweatshirt in my bag and put on my mask. Shit. I didn’t think about what to do with the bag. If I carry it around people could connect my civilian identity to my hero identity.

Interesting. I subconsciously used “hero” instead of Ingenium or villain. Although that could just be due to my goal tonight, but I’ll have to get used to calling myself an ingenium instead.

I’ll just leave the bag on and try to stick to the shadows. It’s not like a super unique bag or anything anyway.

So. My goal tonight. Stop any robberies or crimes that I can find in order to test my powers and flex my new “muscles” a bit. I climb up a fire escape and find a way onto the roof. I make my way to the edge of the building. Each building looks a hell of a lot further apart from up here than they do from on the street. If I were to run and jump, I could have probably grabbed on to the edge of the next building, but I wanted to try something more stylish. I ran, and the second I jumped, I used my power to replay a jump, and therefore jumped with twice as much strength as normal. However, I didn’t think every implication of that extra strength, and ended up jumping so hard that I cleared the gap, but then was laying flat in midair basically like superman flies, except that I, personally, cannot fly. I was barreling towards the roof sideways and just before impact, used my power to replay some punches onto the roof below me. Now two things happened, neither of which I wanted, nor expected.

Firstly, I didn’t exactly have enough time to gauge how many punches to replay, so a small area of the roof under me exploded into dust and debris almost instantly. Secondly, I didn’t realize that my body has to be touching a surface in order for me to actually get any momentum from the replay, which is how I just twice as hard. So, the roof under me blew up, and I didn’t lose any of the momentum that I was flying forward with.

Pain.

It didn’t actually hurt as much as I thought it should have, but it still hurt a hell of a lot. The lower half of my body fell through the hole I had made, while my upper half felt glued to the roof. Damn. I winded myself really bad. Catch my breath first… breathe… breathe…ok. I slowly dragged myself out of the hole, which seemed to lead to a janitor’s closet, thank god.

I’m sure the janitor will be real confused in the morning, but there are weirder things happening in the world right now. I took a few more seconds to get my breath back, and then ran and jumped to the next building, making sure not to push myself too far forward this time. I continued on like this for a minute or so until I saw a peculiar scene unfolding across the street.

Luna Bank was being robbed. Or at least, I’m pretty sure. It was very dark, and I was pretty tired already so don’t blame me if I’m wrong. I looked down at the street and considered making a superhero entrance by using multiple replays to soften my landing the instant my feet actually touch the ground, but then I saw a fire escape to my left.

As I clambered down, I considered a few things, for example, “if the bank IS being robbed, they must have guns, right?” And “What the HELL am I going to do if they have guns?” I don’t know if my power does anything against bullets, if I can stop them in midair or if I can soften their blow when they hit my body, but either way, I don’t know if I’m willing to find out.

Pain.

Mentally this time, as a part of the fire escape broke that was holding my foot in place. Of course. I slipped off the fire escape and fell towards the ground for about a story and a half. Upon hitting the ground, landing on my right shoulder, I replayed hundreds of punches right where every part of my body was touching the ground. And in case you forgot, I can feel everything around me within a few feet, so even though its dark, I was able to do that with perfect timing. So, lets do this again. A couple things happened at this point.

Firstly, the concrete below me was crushed into a fine paste, and secondly, the amount of noise I made by doing that alerted the thieves who were robbing the bank. I suppose my eyes didn’t deceive me, I really just happened to fall in on a bank robbery. There was only one guy outside to notice me, but he ran inside to alert his friends. I scrambled to my feet and had to make a split-second decision. Run, or fight. As I’m weighing my options, I’m rudely interrupted by the thieves, three of which stepped outside to take care of me. I suddenly realized that If I was going to fight, I should have run to the other side of the street a few seconds ago, because I only have close range abilities, and they, well, have guns. I also realized that if I were planning on running away, I should have done so multiple seconds ago, when I first stood up in fact. Oh, I suppose I also realized that these guys really weren’t messing around, as they open fired almost immediately. I shriveled back and screwed my eyes shut in fear while throwing as many replay punches as I could manage in the areas directly between me and them.

Holy hell. I could count them. I could count the number of punches I was throwing per second, which was around 8,000. But I could also count the bullets as they hit multiple replay fists and swiftly dropped to the ground. I opened my eyes and stood up straight, having to cover a bit of a wider area, but still, it was no problem. I started menacingly walking towards them. Although I’m sure they realized something was wrong when I didn’t drop after the first few bullets, they just kept firing. When I got halfway across the street, halfway to them, a figure dropped from the roof of the bank behind them, making an undeniably epic superhero entrance. They quickly performed some crazy ninja shit to take all three of the thieves down in a couple swift actions.

With the light form the open bank door behind them, I could make a pretty good guess that they were female, although she looked about the same height as me accounting for the extra height from the sidewalk, around 5’10. She brushed herself off, glanced at me, and then walked into the bank, though I could have sworn she smirked as she looked away from me. I knew exactly what I wanted to do before anything else, so I ran up to one of the rifles that had dropped to the ground, picked it up, and fired it once.

All the bullets that had been shot at me never actually made it past the very edge of my “barrier”, for lack of a better term, so I hadn’t been able to copy it to replay it. With that shot however, I felt a similar sensation as I unlocked what I knew would probably become one of my most powerful, and deadly, abilities. I couldn’t help but smirk knowing how strong this could potentially be. I looked towards the street behind me, and opened fire. Thousands of bullets beings sent out from all around me, directly towards one spot on the street. It was reduced to rubble almost instantly.

I looked towards the bank, and realized that the girl must have finished up, because she was standing at the entrance watching me.

It looked like she wanted to speak, but that’s not what I went out for. Not yet at least. Whether she was an Ingenium or just a super ninja, some questions are better left unanswered. At least until later down the line.

I turned towards the nearest alley, and ran, using replays to push off the ground faster, running easily 3 times as fast as a normal human.