Heroes Wear Capes
Chapter 16: Heroes don't have to get along

“Never give away your secret identity, unless you’re an idiot.”

~ Connor Collins (The Marvel)

Xander was nervous as he stood at the top of a building in downtown. Silver Streak had told him to meet her up there the next day. She said he couldn’t go last night when he first me her because it was too late, but now it was just the beginning of the dark. Xander could meet her ‘friends’ and then she’d still have time to go save some defenseless citizens.

Xander was humbled in the presence of a hero as driven as Silver Streak was, not to mention her beauty. Just because most of her features and hair were hidden, it wasn’t hard to tell that she was striking without her disguise.

He wondered if she was his age.

And then he shook the thought immediately from his mind. Even if Silver Streak was a high schooler like him, there was no way she’d want to be with a noob like him. Besides, that would be like breaking the brotherly bond of trust since John had had a crush on the vigilante since forever. And Xander had kind of an undying unrelenting love for Mera Deauxma, the most beautiful girl to ever walk the earth. Even a badass vigilante with silver hair couldn’t change that.

“Looks like the marvelous Momentum came.”

Xander pretty much jumped sky high. How did she enter without him hearing? He wanted to learn how to do that too.

Maybe it was a part of the superhero initiation training.

“So, you heard?” Xander asked, feeling smug. He was so excited that the public had named him as a superhero, and even just after one appearance! It felt so cool to have a new superhero to talk about at school, especially one that was actually him. He would never stop smiling.

She scoffed. “Of course I heard. The news craves super powers like they crave celebrity gossip. Believe me, I bet Hermes Enterprises is already trying to make you a super suit.”

Xander couldn’t help but to grin wider at that. A real super suit? He almost couldn’t believe it!

“That so cool!”

Silver Streak looked like she was having none of it.

“Look, Mr. Optimism, my friends don’t want to meet you because they think you’re awesome. In fact, they’re only interested in you because someone thinks you did something bad. You might want to tone down the overexcited attitude before you get burned.”

Xander’s smile faded.

“Something bad?”

He started to pale as he thought of the way he got his powers, at the expense of putting Paul Rossi in the hospital, where he died. If it hadn’t been for the way he got his powers, Paul Rossi would still be alive.

But how would she know about that?

“Don’t worry too much about it, Speedy.” She offered. “Besides, the people you’re about to meet would burn me as fast as they would burn you.”

Xander was really starting to wonder if these ‘friends’ of hers were really just bitter enemies of hers. They didn’t sound like they got along.

She smiled despite Xander’s confusion. “In fact, they’re working right below us. I should really encourage them to buy some security cameras to watch out for intruders like us, but it makes good for unannounced entrances like this.”

Okay, these people were definitely not friends of the Silver Streak, and wouldn’t that make them villains?

Silver Streak opened the door to the staircase that led inside the abandoned warehouse they were on top of. Well, if she was going down, he might as well too. He was fast enough if he needed to get out due to any endangerment of his life. Besides, the legendary Silver Streak wasn’t going to bring him somewhere where he’d get hurt, right?

Xander heard the two people inside before he saw them as they walked down the stairs.

“I swear, I actually talked to her today.”

“No,” the voice was familiar, “you have to be lying.”

A laugh. “I’m being serious. I think we even scheduled a study date for later this week.”

“But not a real date.”

“Soon it will become a real date, you watch out.”

“Wow, a superhero’s first date. That sounds like a plot of a B-List Super movie.”

When they got inside, Xander paused. The room was aweing. There were computer panels lining the walls, showing stats from around the city and possible crimes in progress. There was a training area to one side with stunt dummies, one with a relatively large burning hole in its stomach. Near the monitors there was a girl sitting in a swivel chair, her back to him. Standing next to her was an unmasked superhero.

“Awe, Ross is still crushing on that creepy loner girl?”

Silver Streak had announced her entrance. Wild Fire was in shock, almost flabbergasted at how she’d gotten in to his secret lair without him noticing. The girl in the chair swiveled around and Xander gasped loudly.

No way.

“What are you doing here?”

The disdain in Mera Deauxma’s voice was evident.

Silver Streak shrugged, obviously happy she had interrupted Wild Fire and his companion. “I thought you two would like to meet Momentum, Kingdom City’s newest superhero wannabe.”

Wild Fire turned to him immediately, his expression unreadable. Xander was still too busy staring at his crush.

“Mera?”

Her eyes got wide and then she accusingly looked toward Silver Streak. “Taylor, did you seriously spill our secret identities to a guy you don’t know?”

Silver Streak/Taylor held her hands up. “Hey, don’t look at me Miss Beauty Queen. I didn’t break your precious vows of secrecy no matter how much I ever wanted to. This guys pulled your name up all on his own.”

“Taylor Hale?”

Now it was her turn to narrow her eyes at Xander. “Alright, buddy. How the hell do you know my last name?”

Xander was in awe. So much so that he started laughing uncontrollably. It was insane. Silver Streak was Taylor Hale, Oakland High’s ostracized loner and ex-BFF of Xander’s longtime crush, who was sitting right in front of him. As it turned out, he was crushing on the tech girl to one of the biggest heroes of the century. He must’ve been having a dream. Yeah, a very realistic dream.

All of a sudden Silver Streak pinned him to the wall behind him, her eyes cold and unforgiving. “You have ten seconds to defend yourself, so start talking, Buddy.”

Xander started to vibrate his skin so fast that the friction heated up her hands. She jumped back, yelling out in pain, rubbing the skin that had contact to him. Xander still stood defensively, in case she tried to come at him again.

“To do that I’d have to kind of reveal my secret identity. Isn’t that like the #1 superhero rule? Never reveal your identity?”

“Not if it involves your safety. I don’t think Wild Fire quite enjoys you knowing his sidekick’s identity, and if I can’t get you, he definitely can.”

Wild Fire shrugged and Mera looked offended. “I am not his sidekick.”

Taylor Hale lifted her brows, but didn’t say anything. There was definitely some sort of tension between the two ex-BFFs. He suddenly wondered if there had ever been anything more between them. Maybe the cold attitude was just the deep hatred you felt after a bad breakup.

It was a possibility.

“Well, I kind of go to school with you two.” Xander took off his mask and pulled down his hood, deciding that it probably would be best if he showed that he wasn’t trying to be aggressive towards the heroes. “My name is Xander Mendez.”

He had to admit that he was at least a little bit sad that the recognition didn’t pass over their faces as readily as he had hoped it would.

Wild Fire (or Ross as he had heard Silver Streak call him) let out a breath. “Wow, small world, isn’t it? Now, why would Trevor Rossi hire Artic Frost to kill you? Did you have something to do with his father’s passing?”

Mera gave Ross a hard look. “Hey, you don’t have to hammer down on him so soon. Xander just got here and found out that two people he knows of from school have double lives. It’s a lot to deal with at once without us throwing accusations at him.”

“Wait, what?” Xander asked, confused. “Trevor wants me dead?”

Trevor was his friend, and he had never done anything to hurt him. Why on earth would he want to kill one of his only friends? And why would Trevor ever think he was involved with his father’s death. There shouldn’t have been a way that he’d know about him being at the warehouse that day.

“You say his name like you know him.” Taylor accused.

Xander nodded, “Well, yeah. We’ve been friends since we were in diapers.”

Ross furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you some rich trust fund kid like him then? I haven’t heard of you before.”

The insult Xander felt went pretty deep. “Can’t a guy from Oakland be friends with a guy like Trevor Rossi without being as rich as him? Now, why do you think he hired Artic Frost, an infamous villain, to kill me?”

“I saw them meeting one day, the day that Paul Rossi was murdered in a hospital. It was a pretty sound conclusion to make.”

Xander took a step back, now more confused than ever. “Hold up. I thought his medication was just mixed around. That’s ruled as accidental homicide, not murder.”

Mera shrugged. “The police say otherwise. There was no way the mix up was on accident. The hospital wasn’t even carrying the type of poison that went into his body. Though, they’re trying to keep this information from the public eye.”

“How would you know then?”

“My dad’s on the force. Not to mention my aunt has some pretty high connections when it comes to interesting cases with superheroes. Perks of being a government agent’s niece.”

So Mera Deauxma was not only beautiful and smart and somehow working with a hero like Wild Fire, but she even had cool family that was involved in the superhero business. What else didn’t he know about Mera?

“Wait, why am I even a suspect? Why would Trevor think his friend killed his father?” Xander asked.

“Not his friend,” Taylor assured, “a speedster.”

Xander paled. Trevor must’ve seen a blur run by him, and since it was right after his father’s death, the conclusion was not hard to draw.

Mera nodded. “Yeah, and the security camera footage was erased from that hall. Not even the police have a copy of it. I only got a glimpse of it before it was erased off of the hospital mainframe. My guess is that Rossi Corp doesn’t want the public to know that they suspect you. If you were the real murderer, you may run if you knew they thought it was you.”

Xander was pretty sure he’d run from Rossi Corp even though he didn’t even do it. If they thought it was him, he wasn’t going to stay and try and convince them that they were wrong. He’d be dead in an hour if they knew who he was.

“But I didn’t kill him. Why would I kill Trevor’s dad?”

Ross shrugged. “Maybe you were paid.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Maybe a family member was hurt by Rossi Corp?”

“My mom quit, she wasn’t fired.”

Taylor crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes at Xander. “I’ve seen this kid around school, and even though someone with speed was seen right before the crime, I don’t think he could’ve done it. He doesn’t have a killer attitude.”

Xander frowned. She made it seem like being unable to kill was a bad trait.

Mera got up from her chair and walked forward, towards him. “What were you doing at the hospital in the first place?”

He flinched. He couldn’t lie to Mera Deauxma.

“I’m sort of the reason he got in there. I got curious as to what Trevor was doing with his father, so I followed him to a warehouse, where there was a business deal going down. I kind of destroyed all of the drug they were shipping in on accident. It was something called PF-08-02 if I can remember correctly. The man they were meeting with freaked out when the stuff got destroyed, thinking Paul had brought long a corporate spy, and shot Paul. I went to the hospital that day to find him and ask him what that stuff was exactly, because I woke up with super speed. When I got in his room we talked for a bit and then all of a sudden he started coughing and his heart stopped. The door to the room opened and I freaked. I sped out of there and back home before anyone realized I was even there.”

Taylor all of a sudden laughed out loud. “Wow, and you guys thought this guy was a master assassin. Turns out he’s just another dumbass kid who accidently got super powers.”

He looked at the others in the room. It looked like they came to the same conclusion.

“But Artic Frost is still after you,” Ross assured, “She doesn’t know that you’re . . . well, you. If she was hired to get you to Trevor Rossi, she will stop at nothing to do so. Artic Frost is as money hungry as they come. What we need to do is protect you from her.”

Taylor sighed out loud. “Come on! Why are you going to protect this dweeb? No offense to you, Xander, but you got yourself in this mess. I say he deals with it himself.”

Xander was appalled. How was he supposed to go up against Rossi Corp and an ice wielding super villain?

Ross gave her a patronizing look, “He’s innocent in all of this. All we need to do is find the real killer and present that information to Trevor Rossi so he’ll get Artic Frost off of his ass.”

“Why find the real killer?” Taylor asked. “I mean, isn’t the world better off with that monster dead? The killer is a hero in my book.”

Mera fired a deadly gaze at her own ex BFF. “But he was still a person who was murdered in cold blood. The right thing to do is to find his killer and bring them to justice. In the real world, people who commit heinous acts are punished through the law. No one deserves to die, not even power hungry tycoons. Besides, finding the real culprit makes Xander a free man. And wouldn’t you like to help out an innocent soul? Isn’t that why you suited up yourself? So you can risk your own life with no powers to protect you to try and do a job that is meant for supers?”

The pain in her voice was evident. Obviously their rift was caused by Taylor deciding to become a vigilante. Mera seemed to disapprove bigtime, while Taylor was too stubborn to see Mera’s point of view. Xander decided there was definitely something more between the two girls than just friends before they parted.

Taylor rolled her eyes and scoffed. “I knew there was a reason I stopped talking to you two. You both think that you’re so high and mighty because you grew up in a nice neighborhood protected by a White Knight. Well, I grew up in the slums of Oakland, where our only savior was our own will to live. While you and Ross think you’re doing good here, you are doing nothing to stop the everyday antics of criminals in the worse parts of town. While Wild Fire stops super villain after super villain with a crazy theme robbing upper class banks, I’ll be stopping rapists and gangsters who really hurt people. I don’t need to have super powers to be a hero, despite what you think. It’s not the powers that make the hero, it’s the heart.” She paused and secured her silver wig, staring daggers at Mera. “Let’s see how you two deal with Momentum. I, on the other hand, am going out to save my city. How about you?”

She walked back over to the stairs and never looked back. Dang, she had a thing for dramatic entrances and exits.

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