The New Boy

"Victim was a male, late twenties," Asher Avril commented as he looked beneath the two separate blood-stained white sheets laid out before him on the sand. "Completely torn in half. God damn. Any idea what it was?"

"Well he certainly didn't leave the house this way," the homicide detective replied sarcastically as she covered the two separate halves of a human body back up. "We're leaning towards it being a villain attack. I don't know why dispatch wasted their time calling you guys over too, but since you're here, what do you think?"

"I don't know, I mean it's not a clean cut," Asher replied with a shrug as he rubbed the back of his spiky, short black hair. "It's almost as if two people each got a hold of a half and just ripped until he came a part."

The 27-year-old paramedic had been called to a grisly crime scene early that morning, but upon being brought to the body, it was obvious that the corpse was destined for a morgue instead of his ambulance. The Graveport police were already on the scene, with several cops looking around for immediate clues as to what happened to the young man.

"I'll tell you what it was," another detective piped up as he walked up to Asher. "Someone with superpowers. Not a villain, a 'hero'. It was Passion Princess!"

"You'll have to excuse detective Rand here, he doesn't like heroes," the homicide cop chuckled as she rose to her feet. "He's the one who called this thing in. Claims that he saw our world's friggin savior rip this poor bastard in half."

"Passion Princess?" the paramedic asked with a grin. "No way, she's like the Mother Teresa of superheroes."

"I'm warning you, kid, you and everyone else need to stop trusting these super-powered freaks," detective Rand whispered to him. "Take it from me, I—

The ground shook as something abruptly landed in the sand a short distance away. Standing up as the resulting dust cloud subsided, all first responders present gasped upon spotting the tight blue costume, waving red cape, and long, stunning blonde hair of the world's greatest superheroine.

"I'm here! How can I help?" Passion Princess asked as her red boots gingerly stepped forward towards the white cloths. "Oh dear…am I too late?"

"M-Ma'am, it is an honor to be in your presence," the homicide detective stammered as she allowed the tall, stalwart hero to pass her. "Y-you might not want to look under those blankets, there has been a terrible murder here."

"How unfortunate, my super-hearing alerted me to a nearby commotion," the buxom blonde sighed as she glanced towards Detective Rand, who had since gone white as a ghost.

Asher, meanwhile, was busy digging into his side pocket of his paramedic vest for his sketchpad. An aspiring artist, the young man often doodled during slow periods on the job. Locating his pen, he stumbled forward towards the tall, caped woman before him.

"M-Miss Passion Princess, would you mind giving me an autograph?" he asked, only to clumsily trip over his own feet and fall forward.

As he fell towards the sand, Asher suddenly found himself in the arms of Passion Princess herself. Trembling, he blushed profusely upon being held with his head close to her chest while staring up into her deep blue eyes.

"Heheheh, that was a close one," the heroine giggled with a smile as she locked eyes with the young man, staring rather intensely back at him. "I'm always told that I have a knack for catching cute men."

"Y-you're too kind," Asher chuckled nervously as he awkwardly backed out of the arms of the incredibly good-looking women. "Sorry for bugging you."

"Why? You're not bugging me, silly," Passion Princess said with a smirk as she snatched the sketchpad from his hands and scribbled her signature down in it. Pausing, she started to flip through the pages. "Huh, do you draw? Some of these are actually pretty good."

"Y-yes ma'am, thank you," Asher replied, his face beet-red as the pad was handed back to him. He blushed even more upon seeing that the hero had drawn a big heart around her signature.

"You should draw me one day," she teased with a wink, before turning around to face the detectives. "Well, I'm sorry that I was too late to save this poor man. If the GPPD needs my help with anything, you know how to reach me."

"Of course," the homicide detective smiled. "And thank you for all that you do for our city. Again, it's always an honor to see you out here."

"And I'm honored to be able to work with real heroes like yourselves," Passion Princess replied as she grazed the paramedic's back with her hand. "I'm sorry, I forgot to ask who I should make that autograph out to."

"My name is Asher Avril, Miss Princess," the dark-haired young man grinned as he looked down at the ground bashfully. "I'm flattered to be acknowledged by someone who has helped save the world multiple times."

"Well, Mr. Avril, keep up the good work," the heroine said with a smile to all present. "That goes for all of you. This is far from a perfect world, but when we work together, we can achieve greatness."

With that, Passion Princess took off into the air like a human rocket, breaking the sound barrier as she rapidly flew out over the water.

"Well that was unexpected," the homicide detective chuckled in amusement. "Hey, Rand, why didn't you ask her about your theory?"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," the older detective gasped as he clutched his chest, seemingly breathing a huge sigh of relief. "She knew what she was doing. Do you think she heard me? Oh God. And come on, she didn't even look under those tarps, yet she knew that the victim was male?"

"Wow," Asher remarked to himself as he stared at his sketchpad, ignoring the two bickering detectives. "Priya is never going to believe this."

Unable to provide further support, the paramedic left the scene and went about his day, the encounter with the world' greatest hero floating in his mind throughout. When he returned to his apartment later that night, he was thrilled to explain his girlfriend, Priya that he'd had a very close encounter with Passion Princess.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure you just 'accidentally' fell right into her arms," she teased him as she unboxed the Chinese takeout that they'd ordered and sat it on the kitchen table. "I'm surprised that you didn't 'accidentally' kiss her big butt afterwards."

"Stop, it wasn't like that," Asher chuckled as the emerged from the bedroom in a black v-neck t-shirt, pausing to look at his girlfriend. "She was drop-dead gorgeous, don't get me wrong, but she doesn't have anything on you.

Petite, yet complimented with a curvaceous shape, Priya was a gorgeous 26-year-old Indian-American who worked in the HR department of a company there in Graveport. She and her boyfriend were huge superhero fans, routinely monitoring the antics of local heroes. As a paramedic, Asher would often meet supers of different calibers, but despite being a local, he'd never met Passion Princess in person until that day.

"Mhmm, why did she draw a heart here then?" Priya asked as she held up the drawing pad. "If Passion Princess wants my boyfriend, she's going to need to pay me a little something."

"What are you, my pimp?" Asher smirked as he sat down at the table. "I tripped, she caught me. That's what heroes do. We looked into each other's eyes for a moment and that was it. People look at each other."

"I know, I'm just messing with you," the young woman said as she bit into an eggroll, her long, dark hair slung over her shoulder in a loose pony tail. "Now tell me more about this crime scene. Dude who got torn in half? What is that?"

"Well I don't know, but this one detective that was over there said that weirdest thing…"

As the lovely young couple continued their dinner together, the both of them were oblivious to a shadowy figure that was hovering some distance away outside their 3-story apartment's window.

"Of course he has a girlfriend already," Passion Princess sighed to herself while crossing her arms, her cape blowing in the breeze. "Why are the cute ones always taken?"

Her arms trembling, fighting sporadic rage, the heroine snapped a few photos with her cellphone before taking to the skies and returning to her island.