Heroes Wear Capes
Chapter 4: Being a villain is too hard

“It’s so much more fun to be bad.”

~ Caitlin Snow (Killer Frost)

Supers really shouldn’t have to walk to school.

Like – aren’t they all supposed to have the power to fly, or at least own a high-tech Batmobile or something? Isn’t that the lesson all of those old comic books taught the public?

Okay, Celeste knew that was probably not the lesson you were supposed to learn from comic books, but it was close enough.

Not all supers got gifted with the power of transportation; you know them well: flight, teleportation, super speed, controlling the winds, portal manipulation, etc. And it happened even less of the time that a super happened to be both intelligent and rich. Because, even if you are intelligent, the chances are that you don’t have the resources to actually build a super suit or a Batmobile. And, even if you are rich, you wouldn’t want to hire someone to make technology that they could steal or expose you with.

So, it has now reached the conclusion that all the poor, not intelligently inclined supers with sucky powers are essentially fucked.

That brings the conversation back to Celeste.

Her full name was Celeste Moctezuma, better known as Artic Frost by the residents of Kingdom City. Based off of her name, you could pretty much tell what her superpowers were. Her domain was basically anything and everything dealing with the cold. Celeste could control ice and snow by lowering the temperature around her and guiding its energy. All in all, it was actually a pretty cool power most of the time.

But, of course, she was not without an arch nemesis: Wild Fire. They were complete opposites. He got his name because of his ability to control fire and the fact that he’s basically completely unpredictable. The public still loved him for it, though. There were other heroes in Kingdom City, but they weren’t as ‘real’ as Wild Fire was. White Knight was always too busy being full of it, and Silver Streak was too mysterious to be a real symbol. He was their favorite hero by default.

Oh, did she forget to mention?

Artic Frost wasn’t exactly a hero.

Just because she was a villain didn’t mean that she was a horrible person. Technically Celeste would consider herself a vigilante fighting for justice, not a super villain, but the public didn’t take too kindly to that consideration.

(Celeste also considered superheroes to be hypocritical asses, but that was just her opinion.)

The fights between her and Wild Fire were things of legends in Kingdom City. They were literally fire and ice. They were practically destined to be enemies.

Though, of course, they weren’t the only supers who fought all over town. White Knight and Black Knight fought all the time, but it was the same scene repeated over and over again. Black Knight would threaten to destroy the city or threaten to kill April Watson, and then White Knight would play the game for longer than necessary, putting on a show, before Black Knight escaped in some extravagant way. Silver Streak’s fights were normally more inconspicuous against street cons, so they weren’t really newsworthy. White Knight and Wild Fire both fought other so-called villains, but they weren’t headline news. Celeste easily made the paper.

In these supposedly epic fights, Celeste and Wild Fire would damage quite a few thousands’ of dollars’ worth of property. She was always the one to blame for the damage, even if there were blatantly obvious burn marks in the walls. This damage would normally be coming out of the taxpayers’ pockets, but the revenue was made up by the sale of Wild Fire themed articles and rallies. These only increased the ever-growing size of Wild Fire’s head.

(It’s a surprise his mask still fits at this rate.)

For all the public knew, Wild Fire or White Knight could just be fifty year-old pedophiles, but they still worshipped them. For some reason, Kingdom City seemed unaffected by the recent popularity of anti-super groups. They still loved their ‘glorious’ saviors through thick and thin.

Maybe it was because Celeste went to Kingdom Hills High, where the students and their parents would never be in danger of any super villains in their gated neighborhoods. It wasn’t a secret that White Knight and Wild Fire favored to patrol the richer neighborhoods, meaning that all the crime moved to places like Oakland, where Celeste lived.

Yes, that meant she was a transfer to Kingdom Hills, but there was more on that later.

As long as a super saved the rich and powerful, like White Knight and Wild Fire did, they were considered a hero.

This city didn’t care if your motives were well earned, if you didn’t fit their definition of a hero, you were as malicious as they came.

Don’t get her wrong, Celeste was still a cold-hearted (literally) villain. What kind of ice-powered villain would she be if she wasn’t? But Celeste had morals. She didn’t purposely hurt the innocent, no matter what the tabloids might’ve thought about her. She didn’t rob the poor or defenseless, no matter what the police force might’ve told the public. And she didn’t destroy the lives of the ones who didn’t deserve it, no matter what Wild Fire might’ve believed.

Celeste would like to think her and Silver Streak were on the same terms. Silver Streak attacked real villains, people who raped little girls and hurt families for fun. And, Celeste was only robbing those who deserved it by hogging their money from the hungry families on their payroll.

They were both heroes in that sense.

But, back to the personal narrative.

Being an all-powerful super and having to walk to school could really piss a girl off. Celeste could bring a blizzard in on the entire goddamned city, but yet she still had to walk to school.

(Now she sounds just like the baby boomer generation. “When I was your age, I had to walk to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways.”)

The worst part was the rain. Celeste was personally fine with the rain, the cold never bothered her for obvious reasons. The problem was her clothes. They were, in all honesty, very cheap. In case you weren’t enlightened, cheap clothes didn’t fare well in the rain. Considering the fact that she didn’t even have an umbrella, the rain became an even bigger problem. Her shoes were mushy, jeans soaked, and her old cotton jacket felt like a wet towel weighing down on her shoulders.

And, of course, since Celeste seemed to have the worst luck in the world, a car drove through a deep puddle on the road right next to the sidewalk she was on, completely soaking her in even more water than before.

Celeste let out a frustrated scream. It was official. The world hated her guts.

Frost started to form on the tips of her fingers, crawling up her hands. She could feel it crystalizing, hardening. The ice was comforting, sharp. Celeste paused and took a deep breath, calming herself down. She looked back down at her fingers and let out a sigh of relief. The frost was gone. She looked normal.

Celeste quickly looked around her to see if anyone had noticed, but the business men and women around her on the sidewalk were too busy hunkering down under their umbrellas and squinting at their phones. For once, she was glad at the ignorance of the citizens of Kingdom City.

A super’s identity is their greatest kept secret. All of the smart supers wore masks to hide their identities. They were usually form fitted to your face and matched your spandex costume. Some supers wore Lone Ranger-type masks that covered the area around your eyes, like Wild Fire, Artic Frost, and Delinquent, some wore Captain America-style masks that covered everything from the nose up, even the hair, like White Lightning, The Marvel, and White Knight, then some supers wore Spiderman masks that covered the entire head, which weren’t as popular. The last option hid your identity the best, but it didn’t make you look as pretty on the front page of Super Weekly.

Then there were the idiots who wore no mask. Most were open with their real identity, or just really good with disguises and blending in. But, with modern day facial technology, supers without a mask were usually easy to identify. These supers either didn’t have loved ones to risk, or were too obsessed with the fame to hide behind a mask and not take the credit. This road wasn’t chosen by many supers for obvious reasons, and those who idiotically chose this path normally did not have a happy ending (Golden Eagle of Iris City ended up going crazy and being admitted into a mental institution, though it had little to do with the fact that he was open about his identity and more due to the fact that he was an asshole.)

If someone had noticed the aura of cold around Celeste today, they could’ve just attributed it to the freezing rain. But, if they saw the little bits of frost at her fingertips, they might assume, if they were intelligent, that she might be the infamous and notorious super villain, Artic Frost.

She didn’t lose control like that often. Losing control meant revealing your identity, something she couldn’t risk.

If someone knew your identity, they could practically control you. That’s what happened to Tornado of Empire City. A villain, Nemesis, blackmailed Tornado with the possibility of releasing his identity to the world of he didn’t do villainous things for him. Eventually he broke away and joined the US army, and then joined the superhero group, the League of Legends. He was in the media recently for the scandals with fellow supers, Sonic and The Marvel, also a part of the League. First, they all get their identities released to the world, then Sonic breaks up with The Marvel for Tornado, and finally Sonic gets back together with The Marvel.

(It was rumored that the celebrity couple was now engaged for reportedly the second time.)

Superheroes were such attention hogs.

Anyways, being controlled like that was not on Celeste’s list of things she wanted to be done to her. That was probably why she was fortunate enough to no have many people she loved. Her dad left her mom before she could walk, so she was the only one Celeste could really say she loved. If anything happened to her because of something Celeste did, she would never be able to forgive herself.

Celeste arrived at school with barely a minute to spare. It took another ten minutes to get through the metal detectors before making her way to the other side of the school to her first class of the day. The metal detectors at her school were a precaution against the many super attacks at the school. Kingdom Hills High School, on average, suffered from three super related incidents a year, approximately three more than every other school in the city, even with White Knight and Wild Fire protecting the area. This lead most to believe that the villains were attacking because one of the heroes either went there or worked there (Even though the notorious April Watson used to go there too), which was why Celeste begged her mom to let her transfer to Kingdom Hills High two years ago. What better way is there to keep an eye on the enemy than spending seven hours a day in the same building as them?

The supers had to be good at hiding their identities, otherwise any random self-claimed conspiracy theorist in their mother’s basement could figure it out.

For the above reason, and the above reason only, Celeste had yet to figure out Wild Fire’s identity. It had nothing to do with her inability. She’ll have you know that she’s narrowed his identity down to only about half of the male population at Kingdom Hills high school, which was much narrower then every thirteen to thirty year old white guy in Kingdom City.

When Celeste sat down, she wasn’t the only one who heard the squishy noise when her soaked jeans hit the chair, much to her embarrassment. But she never let that embarrassment show. She was a coldhearted villain, and coldhearted villains didn’t bow down to the opinions of stupid high schoolers.

(Of course, none of them would be snickering if they knew she was Artic Frost. They would be backing down in fear and begging for her forgiveness.)

(But, of course, they would never know that.)

She figured it would take at least until lunch for her clothes to dry enough to the point where she didn’t leave a puddle when she sat. It was a good thing Celeste decided to wear black today.

Celeste’s first period teacher was one of the younger, newer ones who still had faith in her kids. Because of this, she gave out extra credit like nobody’s business, meaning even the stupid kids like her could easily pass, even though it was an AP class. Also meaning she could skip out on homework to give her more time to be Artic Frost.

The reason why a reasonably non-intelligent kid like her was in an AP class was simple. AP classes could offer college credit, something an underprivileged kid like her needed. The less classes Celeste took in college, the less money she had to pay.

Technically, with her way of life, Celeste could survive without going to college and getting a real job, but she needed a way to blend in with the normal population. Celeste needed a way to feel normal.

School, though it was a serious torture, made her feel normal. She wasn’t a super villain out to destroy the world (or maybe just the tristate area), she was just another struggling student.

(Though, she currently happened to be a struggling student with soaked clothes sitting in a puddle of water on her seat, not a normal occurrence.)

But if it made her feel normal, it was worth it. Just because she was a super villain, didn’t mean she couldn’t be a regular teenage girl with regular teenage girl problems. Even if those problems leaned more towards the side of egotistical superheroes ruining your day.

Besides, she must’ve already experienced the worse the week had to offer with the rain. There couldn’t possibly be anything else that could happen, right?

Wrong.

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