Chapter 14: Taking the Hero out of Superhero

Mike took out his chestplate from his backpack. The dark pink equipment, that looked almost purple stood out, as he unstrapped it and placed it over his torso.

It lowered down and fit as if it was made to be perfect for Mike. With the chestplate on, Mike took out his boots and thigh piece. With a single motion, they directly folded around his pants and were set into his chestplate.

The arm piece were directly slid onto each arm. His arms slid in, as if he had done this exact same motions thousands of times before. With the arms, torso and legs completely covered, there was only 1 piece left.

A man dressed in the highest quality armour, equipment the durability of which would put any other to shame, stood on a rooftop, with a backpack on his back and a helmet under his right shoulder.

He lifted it up and put it on, completely concealing every single inch of his body. Mike was gone and all that was left was a man dressed in Pink cataphract armour. (image)

*I don't need the belt, so I'll keep it in my backpack. Don't want to reveal all of my high stuff. Now, what can I use for this operation?*

Mike used Phase Slash to get from place to place on the rooftops. Seeing him, when he runs normally is a chore in itself, much less when he uses Phase Slash. No cameras or recording software had enough frame rate to catch even Mike's shadow, not like light itself could catch him to make a shadow.

He quickly robbed a hidden stash of illegal arms and 'special' weaponry, such as C4, grenades and even fire canisters.

*Do I have enough neural heat to break enough people for this job? Or should I use word of trust? Maybe inspiration? Difficult dilemma. I don't want to get caught, but I want my first appearance to be worth something big! Words of school is out then. Berserk with explosives strapped to them should be enough. Maybe a concealed gun as well? My neural limit will be tanked today. I will have to meditate more.*

With a plan of action decided, Mike quickly wired together a batch of explosives and jumped into his backpack with them. He looked at the 5 men standing there and said "Listen up, you bunch of overgrown cumstains, I don't want to deal with you, but I need you to do something for me."

He put the bombs down on the ground and said "One of you wears that and blows up in a terrorist attack on a pretty major building full of rescuable 9-5 bunch of ineffective rejects. The rest go free. Give me the guy, who dies and the rest of you can fuck off!"

Three of the five nodded and almost universally looked at the two people in their group, who were from the middle east. Without a single millisecond of hesitation, Mike activated his burning fury and body slammed the fattest of the 3 men directly onto the backpack's 'wall'. The man turned into a mush of organs and blood, as Mike kept punching it into nothing but paste.

The demon skin directly absorbed every bit of blood and the rest of the organs, which were now completely squeezed dry of blood were turned into a small pill, no bigger than a tablet.

Mike turned his helmet towards the two american men and urine could be seen lining their pants. Without a care in the world, he did the same to them and now had 3 pills and a very blood soaked backpack.

Mike's spirit fire spiked suddenly and the three pills in his hands turned into carbon dioxide and some ash, which he threw away to the wind outside of his backpack.

Even after such a bloody massacre, no stench or even sign of it were left in the backpack space or even on Mike's armour, as burning Fury had burned it all away.

Mike now paid attention to the only two, that were left alive and said "Demon skin, quite an absorbent material, wouldn't you say?"

The two quickly nodded their heads and a more deep version of Mike's voice sounded out "You two listen good. One of you dies here, turned into a pill the other will swallow, the other swallows corpse starch and becomes a terrorist. Play Rock Paper Scissors and I'll choose your roles based on the outcome. None of you know weather the winner gets dinner or the loser. Best out of three."

Even though there was a winner in that backpack, it was neither of the two men. Their names and identities were completely forgotten, as one was turned into corpse starch and fed to the other, the name of which was not ever asked of by anyone, who could remember it.

With that, mike strapped a more powerful mixture of explosives onto the man and what happened next was nothing anyone could have expected.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

{Breaking news, a major tragedy of unseen scale. A man of Islamic decent attacked the branch office building of Munder Difflin Paper Clip company right here, in downtown New York. We now go live to Gabby on the field for a special report.}

The display changed and what could be seen shocked all those watching from home.

{That's right everyone. Approximately at 5Pm today, an unknown man from middle east has appeared near the entrance of this collapsed building, acting all fidgety and paranoid, as stated by witnesses. Once he reached the 2nd floor of this company building, he suddenly took out a gun and shortly after was blown up without any prior notice.

He was wearing a completely black hoodie, which, as witnesses say, he lifted up off of himself and revealed explosives. They asked him for any demands and begged for mercy, but none of the employees managed to do anything before the deranged man began gunning them down and soon blew himself up. Eye witnesses say, "Half of the second floor blew out and the skyscraper tilting did the rest."}

The camera turned to display what the reporter was talking about. a massive skyscraper had fallen directly over. It was truly as the eyewitnesses described. The tower had collapsed in on itself, as the support of the southern corner was gone. The other ends were visibly 'uprooted' due to heavy load being placed on them, but the southern part was obviously blown up.

It seemed like two semicircles were trying to combine into an oval, by forcefully reconnecting with eachother. Said office building wasn't the only tragedy though.

As the camera kept panning around, they saw another skyscraper, which the other one had smashed into and partially destroyed.

{This was destined to be one of the darkest days in recent American history. It most definitely was so... If not for this brave man!}

Sounds of clapping were heard by the viewers, as the camera panned towards the reporter now shoulder to shoulder with a 5'7" tall man, who was dressed in pink battle gear, armour straight out of a sci-fi fan's dream.

The over 500 people in the crowd all stood there, clapping and cheering for him. Some were screaming "XLR8" and pumping their fist into the air, but the common theme was universal love.

{This superhero of ours single handedly saved every single one of these men and women.

Young man, you just saved a mother from losing their child, a child from losing their parent and all of these people from certain death. How did you manage that?}

There was a short pause, as the mike was handed over to the man dressed in battle gear. He took the mike in his left hand and used his right hand to click the right side of the helmet and quickly remove it.

{Good evening to you all. My name is XLR8 and I am a speedster, like our resident A-train. Today was a tragic day for all of us. I was on my daily patrol when I heard an explosion and I instantly knew what I needed to do.

I rushed over here and used my abilities as a speedster to get as many people out of harms way as possible. It pains me, that I couldn't save those who were killed in the initial explosion. The best I could do was save those who could be.}

The reporter took back the mike and commentated once again {That's right everyone! Even thought something as catastrophic as THIS happened, there have only been TWO confirmed deaths. All thanks to this young man! Could you please tell us how it all happened?}

Mike nodded his head and sighed a bit. He soon recounted the events {I was going out on my evening patrol to make sure everyone was safe, when I heard an explosion in the downtown area and the sound of steel beams breaking and ran as fast as I could.

I arrived here a couple seconds after the explosion and my first thought was "move the civilians on the road away", but then I realized the building falling would injure the people inside, so I switched targets. One by one I went up the stairs and carried every single one in the building out of there, starting from the first floor. There were about 80 or 90 victims in that building.

A few of them had different degrees of injuries and one man had a punctured lung and one unlucky woman, god bless her soul, had a metal shard pierce her heart. I did the best I could and rushed ones with such injuries to the nearby hospital and then fully evacuated the streets. Then I had to get people out of the opposite building, which the first skyscraper crashed into.

I am sorry I couldn't save everyone, but those who had a heartbeat, I saved, those who had a weak one, I took them to the hospital and those who had a still one, you have my condolences.}

The young man shed tears, which mixed in with the bit of sweat on his forehead. The young asian looked away and said {I apologize for this, but I must get going. I do not want something similar to happen somewhere, where I am not present to help.}

The man quickly disappeared, without even the usual rushing wind sound speedster's cause. The reporter said {There you have it folks. That was our resident superhero, accelerate, the man, who didn't spare any effort and single handedly saved over 500 lives today, as the big man himself said "because it was the right thing to do!". Back to you}

Annie stared at the TV in her house, with a dumbstruck expression *He went big with his first appearance. Why pink though?*

A.N.

Jesus Christ. 69+ power stones in a single day. Hope your donation was worth it.