Heroes Wear Capes
Chapter 23: Open-ended endings are the best

“Madness is the emergency exit. You can just step outside and close the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away . . . forever.”

~ The Joker

“In a miraculous turn of events this afternoon, it seems that Wild Fire has indeed taken Kingdom City’s newest hero, Momentum, in under his wing. There was a fight between the two and Artic Frost, Wild Fire’s most infamous enemy, downtown near the Super Museum. It has been reported that there were no casualties because of the fight and no civilians were needed to be admitted to the hospital for injuries.

“The supers were fighting for possession of a necklace Artic Frost had originally stolen from the Schow family, who run the Schow Corporation. It is currently unknown why Artic Frost tried to lure the two superheroes out with the priceless artifact, but the Super Task Force has confirmed that the necklace retrieved by Wild Fire did turn out to be a fake. They speculate that the real necklace was broken down to its original gems and sold off to stores throughout the state, untraceable. Critics of Wild Fire are firing at him for not realizing the necklace was a fake earlier.

“During the fight, Artic Frost got ahold of a little girl and seemed to threaten to hurt her before Momentum took her place. The villain knocked out our new hero and dragged him away from the scene. He surfaced hours later and the Super Task Force has confirmed through their contact with Wild Fire that Momentum was able to escape the villain’s capture. It is currently unknown why the villainess wanted him.

“Super fans on the internet have speculated that Momentum is Wild Fire’s sidekick, as made popular by such duos like White Lightening and his sidekick, Kratos, and Golden Eagle and The Marvel, who both later moved on to become heroes in their own right. However, a source close to the heroes has stated that they are simply acquaintances, and not a team.

“In lighter news, it seemed that overnight White Knight stopped a disastrous villain known as Pig Man from poisoning the water supply. There hasn’t been a recent sighting of Black Knight since his fight with the hero earlier in the week. The absence of April Watson, White Knight’s famous damsel in distress, did seem to cause a disturbance during their fight last week, but White Knight had prevailed, as he always has done.

“We have also just received news of a new deal between Rossi Corp and the Schow Corporation for Rossi Corp to have access to a subsidiary of the Schow Corporation, Paramount Pharmaceuticals. Rossi Corp sources have defended the deal saying that they hope to revive the company that went bankrupt years ago under the weight of the many lawsuits against it for giving teenagers side effects such as super powers when they took the medicine. Opponents to the deal have voiced their concern of Rossi Corp having control of a company once connected to supers with their past of being antagonistic towards certain heroes.

“Whatever the case, this has been Meredith Temple with the Super News Network. I’ll see you again tomorrow at eight.”

Xander stuffed another mouthful of popcorn and smiled.

The bag of popcorn was rudely ripped away from him by his mom, who stared at him sternly.

“What? Is eating popcorn a crime now?”

Her stern look got to comedic levels. “Xander Ivan Mendez, you know very well there is no popcorn for breakfast. Not to mention you’re going to be late to school at this rate. You aren’t Momentum or one of those other heroes you love so much, you can’t just run to school in ten seconds. You need to get going.”

(Oh, she had no idea.)

Xander sighed. “But, mom, I’m watching the news. The news is a good thing to watch.”

He swore in that moment his mother might actually cave in to her threats and actually take off her chancla to throw at him.

(Don’t laugh until you’ve been under the gaze of a mad Latina women. She may have been tiny, but she was fierce.)

“Yeah, but not when you have your education to receive.”

“Oakland doesn’t exactly serve education.”

He immediately regretted it. They both knew they couldn’t afford better education. It was something his mother wished she could change about her past. She thought that maybe if she had been able to finish school she could’ve provided a better life, maybe even in Kingdom Hills, but it wasn’t her fault that her mother needed her to work and help the family.

“But, I’ll go for you.”

She cracked a smile.

“Besides, Momma didn’t raise no quitter.”

She rolled her eyes at her son and shooed him away. “Go on now before you arrive late. I don’t want a tardy on your record because of me.”

Oh, Xander was never going to be late again.

When he went outside, he always hid his bike in the bushes by the entrance to his apartment complex so his mom wouldn’t get suspicious and then he would run to school, making sure to arrive around the back corner so no one would see him use his powers.

Xander would walk in the school and meet John by their lockers, pretending to be winded from a long bike ride. Xander talked about the latest super news like he wasn’t now a part of it, and John ranted about societal injustice and the latest football scores. They avoided the trash in the halls and ducked away from the few fights that broke out.

The day was the same as it had been since he discovered his powers, though this time he was a bit more confident. He’d just faced a real life super villain and got out alive. Xander felt invincible, even though he was really far from it.

He was feeling like doing something absolutely insane.

(Whenever Xander had bad ideas, usually John was there to stop him, but since John didn’t know about this idea, Xander was on his own to do something that would either get him publically ridiculed or the happiest man on earth.)

(There would be no in between.)

He found Mera in history class and approached her first this time.

“Hey.”

She looked at him confused. Xander was pretty sure the table she was sitting at didn’t have a clue about who he was. They were the kind of people he always saw Mera associated with, but after knowing she helped Wild Fire in her spare time, he kind of saw her as separate from the group of cheerleaders. She was smarter than them and she personally knew a superhero in a nonromantic way.

Mera Deauxma didn’t fit with this group of people now that he knew who she really was.

The girls around her snickered at him. Mera smiled though, ignoring her friends. “Hey, what do you want?”

Her smile never failed to make Xander feel special, like it was something she did just for him. She had that effect on people.

“Um, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something real quick.” Xander said, though he phrased it more like a question.

She nodded, “Yeah, sure,” but she didn’t get up. She expected Xander to speak his mind in front of her friends.

Xander rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Alone?”

The snickers were louder now. Mera looked around her table with a stern look, shutting them up immediately.

“Sure.”

They went out into the hallway. Of course, the substitute teacher didn’t notice seeing as they had earphones in and a book propped in front of them.

“What do you want, Xander?”

Her voice was so sweet.

“I was actually wondering . . . um . . . this is harder than I thought.”

She smiled softly and tilted her head, her hair flipping to her shoulder. “What is?”

Xander took a deep breath. “Iwaswonderingifyouwantedtogooutsometime.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

He took another deep breath and talked a bit slower this time, but still fast by normal standards, hands shaking. “Do you want to, you know, hang out sometime? Like go get coffee or something tomorrow or today or like, whenever? It doesn’t have to be coffee if you don’t like coffee. We can always get dinner, or maybe not dinner because that’s too formal, unless you like formal. I can do formal if that’s what you want. We could also just see a movie, though I don’t know what kind of movies you like, or if you even like movies. Do you like ice cream? We could do that because I know a good place that isn’t too pricy, but you deserve the best, so maybe you’d rather go to that expensive cake place in Kingdom Hills? Do you even like dessert food? Maybe we should just get food in general-”

Mera stopped Xander’s rant with a chuckle and Xander’s heart fell. Of course she was laughing at him. It had been a hopeless endeavor in the first place. They both knew he was no match for someone of her caliber.

“You know, you’re cute when you babble.”

That had not been the answer he was expecting.

“I am?”

His tone ended up more pitifully hopeful than he had in mind.

She nodded, “Yeah, it’s adorable.” She looked up at him through her dark chocolate eyes, darker even than her brown skin. He never noticed how extremely beautiful they were, like a dream he thought he’d never see in real life. “I’ll take you up on your offer on one condition.”

Xander nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yeah, definitely,” but then, realizing how eager he sounded, changed his approach, “I mean, sure, it doesn’t matter. I’m cool with whatever.”

Mera seemed to be holding back a huge grin at his antics.

“I pick the place.”

That seemed reasonable enough.

Down in the most dreadful prison on earth, the most disastrous villain to ever live sat in his cell, smiling.

Though, he wouldn’t like that introduction very much.

Alcatraz was the top notch facility of top notch facilities. Sure, the secret government organization, MASKED, had a facility similar to Alcatraz somewhere in Washington DC, but they only moved the risky villains there, the really crazy ones like Midnight and Nemesis. He would’ve been moved there if he hadn’t had a connection within the agency. Actually, he was pretty sure he had connections in every major place he needed to have connections in.

He was probably the most powerful person on the planet and he didn’t even need to have superpowers to do it. Not to mention he was currently operating from a jail cell in the highest security prison in history.

There was only one chink in his most recent plan though. An aberration that wasn’t meant to happen. If his goons had just listened to his orders, things wouldn’t be so complicated. They were supposed to put the last batch of PF-08-02 in storage in case they needed more later, not try and sell it off for a side profit to Rossi Corp. There should’ve been quicker and better ways to kill Paul Rossi without destroying their last batch of PF-08-02 and creating a speedster with it. Speedsters would only mess up his plan, the only ones who could resist.

(He was thankful the only other notable speedster, Sonic, would be no threat. By the time anyone realized what a help a speed powered super would be, it’d be too late.)

He’d been getting news throughout the week of the failed assassination attempt and then the creation of Momentum because of it. The only good that came out of it was that Paul’s fool of a son thought his father’s killer was Momentum and not a minion of X. Trevor probably didn’t even know what his father was aiming to do with the serum.

Hopefully Trevor could get rid of Momentum before X finally got out of Alcatraz. If not, he knew someone he could call to keep Momentum preoccupied in his own mind. A prisoner in his own fears.

But, that was in the future. Way off in the future. For now, X had to concentrate on his plan for getting out of this hellhole in the first place. He had everything in place months ago, but he had to make sure it was the right time. He also needed someone very powerful on his side.

“X, time for your date.”

He looked up at the guard. The guard looked away. Most were terrified of him. Terrified of what he could do to someone with one look. He was the only non-super in Alcatraz who scared the guards so much. He may not have been able to burn them to a husk or freeze them into a block of ice, but he could make them lose their minds.

“A date? Who could it be?”

The guard narrowed his eyes. “Who else? It’s not like you have a line of ladies waiting for the chance to be with you on a daily basis.”

X grinned slyly. “April Watson is the only girl I’ll be needing today. She’s my ticket out of here.”

The guard laughed. He actually chuckled!

“Yeah, sure. You’re never getting out of here. X.”

But there were just some things you could absolutely be sure about. Like the fact that Super Burger was overrated, the latest romantic comedy probably sucked, and in a couple of months X would be a free man in Kingdom City.

Just you wait.

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