Challenge: Tropes I want IRL

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Sort of.)

Prompt: A book trope I wish happened IRL more often

Well, let me just put this out there: the one I want isn't a "book trope" so much as it a "comic book trope". Specifically, it's the trope of "something weird happens and suddenly somebody has superhero powers/somebody comes of age and discovers their mutant powers". Yeah, that would have incredibly messy effects on the current political and social order, but I hold to the hope that shaking up the entrenched interests with a bunch of super-powered plebes would be worth it. 

I got bitten on the face -- just to the left of my nose, in fact -- by a brown recluse spider a few months back. If this trope happened in real life, I could have gotten superpowers from that. I could 100% lean into The Brown Recluse as my superhero name: the fifty-something guy who mostly goes about his business until, I don't know, somebody robs the bank while I'm trying to use the ATM. Next thing you know, there are webs everywhere and some very confused bad guys who are missing their guns and their wallets.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I mean, at this point in my life I've got a pretty good idea. Most of it is tired and not even all that surprising. ("Original sin? What's so original about it?") I'd be fine using psychic powers to fight corruption at the highest levels of industry, state, and church. 

So, yeah, that's my answer: the world needs more superhero origin stories.

Blogging Challenge: Could be about me

For the last two years, I've been taking part in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. (The first link will take you to the list of topics; the second one goes to the homepage, where you can find a post with everyone's responses each week. Feel free to join in!)

 This week's prompt is "TV show/movie/book that could be about me". 

And y'all... I going to have to go with Captain America: The First Avenger on this. 

I mean, if you met me you'd immediately understand the comparison. He's athletic; I'm athletic. (For a certain understanding of "athletic".) He's handsome; I'm handsome. (Never doubt it.) He fights off bad guys and saves the day; I make people's computers work for them. (Those are equivalent levels of heroism, trust me.) But most importantly...

I could easily sleep for a good fifty years right now.  

Challenge: Things I Wish I Were Better At

This is part of the weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. If you'd like to participate, you can find the prompts here. They also put up a post every Wednesday where you go and link your response -- and see everyone else's. Check out their homepage to find it.

The challenge for this week is "things I wish I were better at."

And of course, the first answer that leaps to mind is, "EVERYTHING." I mean, who wouldn't want to be some sort of genius polymath capable of building their own Iron Man suits in the garage while composing songs that would touch hearts for centuries to come in dozens of languages?

But right now, if I had to pick one thing? It would be going to bed at a sensible time. It makes everything else (including me) work so much better, and I am soooooo bad at it.

I think it's mainly because the only time I really get to myself is after about 9:30, when the boys are usually in bed and the house is relatively quiet. That used to be the time when I got things done. Nowadays, I use that time to recharge, or I try to anyway. (Last night I got on Twitter, and boy howdy was that a mistake in terms of having a stress-free evening. But I did get some writing done later, so I guess it wasn't a total loss. Except now I'm still tired, which is the thing I was trying to avoid in the first place, and also the reason why it took me so long to gear up and do writing.)

It seems a little silly, doesn't it? But I do everything so much better when I'm rested.

Batman vs. the Penguin

Somebody showed me this recently, so I thought I'd share:

Superhero Bar Stories: Most Surprising Power

Made it rain frogs? The guy actually made it rain frogs? Okay, right, that's surprising. And honestly, I don't know if I can beat it. But the most surprising power I've ever run into personally, well...

Picture the scene: Midtown Bank, down on Fifth and Ocean - you know it? Good. Okay, so, this is about two years back. Made the news and everything; you can look it up in the morning.

It was a bank robbery, is what it was. About eight guys, most with pistols or shotguns, plus one idiot with a grenade launcher. Yes, to rob a bank. Classic M79 - no idea where he got it. Anyway, they stroll in wearing their ski masks, wave their guns around and start yelling for everybody to get down on the floor. Which is basically what happens, except that one of the tellers manages to kick the silent alarm. So by the time they've got the money and are starting for the door, the first police units are pulling up outside.

So the robbers change plans. They close the doors and decide that everybody who was in there is now a hostage. A couple of them go around to cover the sides and the back, make sure nobody's getting out or coming in. If I'd gotten there just two minutes earlier I could have walked right in unnoticed, but by the time I arrived the place was closed up tight. And it's a bank, so it's not like anybody's going to leave a window open on the second floor or anything.

Well, the police settle in for a hostage drama, and I settle in with them. Captain Amazing shows up too, but he doesn't want to bust through the wall or even the windows. Too much chance of hostages getting killed. So we wait, while the negotiators do their thing.

And we wait.

And we wait.

And finally the bank robbers start getting impatient, and grab one of the tellers, march her right up to the front door, and threaten to shoot her if the police won't meet their demands.

That's when he moved.

You know The Viper? Yeah, well... apparently he banks at Midtown, when he's not on the streets. He'd come in just before close of business, just before all this went down, and he'd been waiting with the rest of the hostages. But I'm looking in the windows from a nearby rooftop, and while everybody's attention is on the robber and the hostage at the door, I see this one guy at the back just kind of... shift... into the biggest freaking snake I have ever seen in my life. And he slips around the robber next to him and starts squeezing. And he's fast enough to do it before the guy can say anything, and after that it's too late: the guys being squeezed too tight to breathe, much less yell.

Maybe half a minute later he slides away. I can sort of see the other hostages reacting, but... well... giant freakin' anaconda. Most of them just freeze, or maybe scoot quietly away. Maybe some of them were wimpering, but it wasn't loud enough to give him away. So he comes up behind the next robber, and it's the same thing again: a lightning-fast strike, and then he's coiled around the guy. And that's it for that guy.

He's almost to the next one when the guy happens to look around. Maybe he heard something; I don't know. But he looks back, and the snake rears up and strikes. I don't think it even bit him, just slammed its head into him and punched him straight back into the wall.

At this point, there's only two of them left in the main room. The other three are watching the back and sides. Well, these two open fire, and...

Nothing. The giant snake is either bulletproof, or close enough to it. And it's fast. It flows across the floor like a river of evil scales, slaps one guy down with its tail, and coils around the other guy. The hostage? The teller they were threatening to kill? She finally starts screaming. Fortunately, she starts screaming and runs out the door. Which means the rest of us can get in. Which means the robbery is effectively over, because the remaining three perps are all in different areas, and all well away from the hostages.

I talked to the guy afterwards, once he was a guy again. Nice kid, just... sometimes he's a giant, super-powered snake. And that was the most surprising superpower I ever ran into.

A retired supervillain walks into a bank...

An attempted bank robbery on Ceti Prime went awry this afternoon when the would-be robbers encountered the retired supervillain formerly known as Technocrat. Security sensors recorded the following dialogue...
"Ah, yes. That's a good-looking weapon, young man. Very threatening. Death ray, is it? Oh, a heat ray. Yes, that *is* impressive. Your own design? Excellent. I have high hopes for you, young man. High hopes. There's just one tiny little problem with it, but overall it's really a very good design. One doesn't usually see such devotion to craftsmanship these day. Problem? Did I say it had a problem? Oh, well, I suppose I did. When one gets to my age, one *does* tend to natter on. Oh, the problem! Quite right, quite right. Well, you see, it's a lovely little heat ray, and I'm quite sure it's capable of cutting me in half or slicing straight into the vault, but... well... I'm sorry to say that the quantum subconductor is empty. What? The battery, young man. Your weapon has a dead battery. And so, as a matter of fact, do all your friends' weapons. Shocking coincidence, I'm sure, no idea what could have caused it. Still, under the circumstances, I *do* think you should maybe run away now, before the Authority arrives, and let the rest of us be on about our business. Terribly good to have met you..."
Despite a planet-wide manhunt, neither the supervillain nor the would-be robbers have yet been found.

An impromptu essay on the appeal of the superhero mythology...

Composed on Twitter. There are probably ways to compile it and post it here (and feel free to suggest them), but for the moment I'm just going to create a link. It's here, and it begins like this:

New theory: superhero stories (esp. origins) appeal b/c so many of feel the only way we could really get by is to suddenly develop powers.

— Michael Mock (@MockRamblings) June 5, 2017

Note to the Hero from a Villain's Minion

Hey there. Look, yeah, I know you were right there when the boss handed me your baby and told me to take care of her. But you've just killed the boss, his crazy-ass martial artist sister, both lieutenants, and forty-seven of my co-workers. And that was just while you were rescuing your wife. I'm not even counting the two hundred and sixty-three enforcers that you killed, maimed, or jailed in the process of taking down our regional operation.

So, with all that in mind, I think I'm just going to hand you back the baby and back away slowly. Ready? Here you go. Baby. And this is me, backing away slowly. You guys just, um, get reacquainted, and I'll be somewhere waaaaay over here, checking the classifieds by the light of this burning warehouse and pretending that I never even met any of these guys. Yeah, just a stray passer-by, that's me. Happy to help with the baby.

You just do your thing, and I'll sneak away and do my thing, and... oh, one last thing. Could you do me a huge favor, and never mention this part to anyone? Ever? I'm probably going to have to change my name anyway, but that'd be a big help.

Short Film: Code 8

Superhero Powers

Secondborn has been playing a lot of Lego Marvel Super Heroes this week, because it's his Spring Break and that's what is nearest and dearest to his heart just now. As a result, I've been watching a lot of Lego Marvel Superheroes. I have to say, it's a great video game. It has about a bajillion characters, and you can even customize your own using elements of existing heroes. Plus, the storyline is entertaining, and the scenes and dialogue are... cute, and frequently hilarious as well. (Tony Stark to Wolverine: "Shouldn't you be off in Canada trying to uncover your past or something?")

As a result, I've been thinking a lot about superpowers. (More than I usually do, I mean.) And I've decided that out of everything in the game, the one thing I'm really, really jealous of is that these heroes have the ability to run around New York for an hour or two and just sort of acquire two or three hundred thousand dollars. (Or gold disks. Whatever.) Ye gods, I wish I could do that.

How the mighty have fallen, you know? I used to want Vast Supernatural Powers of my own. Now... now I just want to be able to pay the bills. (Edited to add: Apparently Geds has been thinking along similar lines over at Accidental Historian. He posted This American Dream I am Disbelieving this morning, and it's well worth reading.)

Although... having powers would still be pretty cool...

Superhero Bar Stories: The Most Disgusting Power

Okay, I have to admit, that's pretty good. So not only could she summon and control slugs, but her outfit was just a bodysuit covered in them? Ew. What? No, of course I'm not conceding. Dressed In Slugs is gross, but I think I've got it beat. You see, I once knew a guy...

All right. You know what an elementalist is, don't you? One of those people who can move or reshape one particular kind of substance? Yes, like the kid who can shape fire. Or Earthlord -- remember him? He could move rocks around just by thinking about it, bring statues to life, all that sort of thing. He wasn't that hard to capture, but the office had the devil's own time finding somewhere to keep him locked up. Yeah.

Well, this guy... He was one of those. And he wanted to be a hero. He wanted to be a hero real bad. And he had the disposition for it, too -- the right mix of caution and decisiveness, enough empathy not to be a dick about his power, enough idealism to want to do things right but enough cynicism to make him hard to fool. If he'd had a slightly different power, he could have been a Big Name.

But he was an elementalist. And his element was... shit. Manure. Feces. Excrement. Dung.

He wasn't a summoner. A lot of elementalists are, but he wasn't. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse, though.

But like a lot of elementalists, he could do things with his particular element that would put a standard telekinetic to shame. He could move people's crap around inside their bowels. If he had time to do it carefully, he could give people diarrhea or constipation. Or course, if he wasn't careful, well... we're talking ruptured intestines, internal bleeding, and good odds of colostomy bags for the survivors.

It was effective as all hell, but nobody took him seriously. Well, I mean... hell, a few of us did. The ones that knew him took him seriously. Several of us went out of our way to have his back. He was that kind of guy. He was really good. But his power just wasn't the kind of thing that Metahuman Monthly writes fawning articles about. It wasn't the kind that people admire, and it didn't seem to matter how many sacrifices he made for the greater good.

That wasn't what finally stopped him, though. That wasn't what made him give it up. Like I said, he had just the right mix of idealism and cynicism.

No, what got him out of the business was this one incident. It was a home invasion, he happened to be in the area, and burglar turned around at just the wrong moment and got the drop on him with a pistol. And the first shot missed -- pure luck -- but the second one wasn't going to. So my friend, he... made the guy explode. He took everything he could get a hold on, every bit of stool in the guy's digestive tract, and pulled it out through his belly. There was no second gunshot; the perp died instantly. But apparently it was the goriest, most disgusting scene that anybody had seen in years.

So he quit. Went off, got a completely different kind of license, and started working as a bartender. Runs a nice, discreet little hole-in-the-wall bar, and a lot of his clientele are heroes or former heroes -- and those of us that knew him, well, we make a special point of coming around on a regular basis. He should have been great -- he was great -- but he came up with the wrong kind of power.

Yes, that's him behind the bar. Don't stare. And don't laugh, or I'll break your face and throw you out of this place myself. You want to know why I drink here? Him. You want to know why everybody behaves themselves here? Because of him. This is his place, and don't you ever doubt that he earned it.

But that's the most disgusting power I've ever encountered. And if I'm not mistaken, that means you get to buy the next round. And when Joey's taking your order, you show him some respect.

Superhero Bar Stories: Truly Villainous Villains

The worst villain I've ever run across? Hard to say. I mean, you know, there's Aldakes -- he does some pretty horrible stuff, but he's careful to keep it all legal. Yeah, in some ways that makes it worse. And you hear about some horrible ones -- that guy in Arizona who was using his mind-control powers to convince people he was doing miracles, remember him? But the worst one I ran across myself...

...Okay. I've got one for you. Maybe not the worst, maybe not the most evil, but this was the guy that made me come closest to violating my rules about unnecessary violence. He was a bank robber, and he called himself Laughingstock.

His M.O. was always the same. He'd pick a place to rob, dress up in a clown costume: makeup, wig, big red nose, huge floppy shoes, the works. Then he'd walk in carrying a big, ugly plastic flower -- the kind that shoots water if you squeeze it. He'd get everyone laughing until they could barely stand, and then he'd clean out all the drawers and walk out. He'd always leave the flower behind, I think so everyone would know it was him.

Well, the first time I went after him, I was alone. So I popped up beside him, told him he was under arrest, and reached for my handcuffs. He said I looked like a SWAT team refugee and my mirror shades were twice the size of my face. Doesn't sound funny, does it? But when he said it, it was hilarious. Hell, it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard. And before I knew it, I was doubled over, laughing so hard I could barely breathe. I was furious, but I still couldn't stop laughing... and I couldn't do anything else well enough to stop him from walking away.

And that was it. Laughingstock left me lying there in the street in and got away clean.

So the second time -- you knew that was coming right? Of course there was a second time -- I stayed unnoticed and came up behind him. The plan was to stun him, and then get him restrained. I was maybe two steps back, with the stunner ready, when Blurstreak came zooming up. You know Blurstreak? I don't know what he's like out of uniform, but he can run at several hundred miles per hour, and he's sort of mostly intangible when he does. He comes at us in this blurred line of super-fast movement, and of course Laughingstock opens his mouth and says something about Casper the Windy Ghost, and follows it up with a couple of other line.

And, of course, Blurstreak falls over, helpless with laughter. So do a couple of innocent bystanders. So do I. So we're all just laying there laughing, and I'm just a little too far away to use the stunner. It doesn't matter: I dropped it, which is even funnier than being caught like this. And I'm trying to reach for something else, but I'm laughing so hard my ribs ache, and you know what? That's funny, too. Dammit.

Laughingstock turns around and sees me behind him. "Another ghost?" he says. "They gotta quit serving spirits 'round here."

And that's what finally does it. At this point everything is so funny I'm about to asphyxiate, so there's only one way to respond. I manage to pull out the splat-gun and fire off a snap-shot, right at Laughingstock's face. It explodes around his head like the biggest booger in the world, and for about three seconds this is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Like, I'm actually about to give myself a stroke it's so funny.

And then all of a sudden it isn't funny at all. Any of it. Laughingstock's rolling around on the pavement, flailing at his face, trying to pry off the goop before he suffocates, and getting his hands stuck in it too. It looks like something out of one of those old cartoons, except nobody's laughing -- no, not even me.

So I step forward, slap the cuffs around his wrists, and spray the goop on his face with a big dose of catalyst so we can pull it off. By the time he's starting to recover, we have a proper gag in place -- one the lets him breathe, but not speak.

After that it was just a matter of getting him into a patrol car and sending him off to jail.

So there you go. Not the most evil villain ever, but that power of his was probably the most annoying thing I've ever come up against.

Cobalt Carnage

I've got absolutely nothing for today. My brain is pretty much mush, and creatively I'm completely tapped out. But this... this amused me. So here you go:

On a related note, Cobalt Carnage would be an awesome name for one of those berserker-type superheroes.

Superhero Bar Stories: Road Trip!

What? Yeah, I'm still here. No, no family visit for me. It's not like crime takes a holiday - if anything, it's the other way around. Lots of packages being delivered, lots of people in a spirit of giving, and plenty of criminals ready to take advantage of both. Plus the people who are solid citizens for the other three hundred and fifty-eight days of the year, but just go completely batshit for this one week. So, no: I'll still be here, still be running my patrols. Ready to lend a hand, that's me.

Not that I'd mind visiting the family. It's just... we get together off-season, y'know? There's still some bad blood over our parents' grand ideas for past holidays.

Yeah, all right, I guess I should explain that. And I guess that means trying to explain my family.

...So give me a minute.

Okay, here's how it looks: my parents both had powers, but neither of them were big names. My father could locate anything, as long as he knew it existed. Technically, he worked for the office; but he was almost always out on loan to some police department. A few days here, a few days there; half his career was spent in transit. You'd think that would make him happy to come home, but no: he loved to travel. My mother was a low-level telepath: she could read people's minds, but only if they were fairly close and she knew they were there. She was in law enforcement, too. That was how they met. Only she stayed with one department, working as an investigator. So when she had some free time, she liked to travel.

What that meant for the three of us - I have two sisters - was that every time a vacation rolled around, we had "family time". "Family time" inevitably meant some sort of road trip. And our road trips inevitably turned into disasters.

My older sister had a tendency to burst into flames when she was upset. Or when she needed to use the bathroom. When she was twelve, she burned through the window on a station wagon that was supposed to be fireproof. My younger sister was a Viewer. She'd leave the television on at home, and watch it from... well, wherever we happened to be. Even on the road. So family time with her meant being completely ignored, and knowing that she was probably having a lot more fun than I was.

Then there was me. I tried, but I didn't really didn't have control of my power until I was fourteen or fifteen. Since my power is not being noticed, well... you wouldn't believe the number of picnic areas, gas stations, and restaurants I got left behind at. My parents once reached Grandma's house on a Friday night, Christmas Eve, and didn't notice I was gone until some time after everyone had opened their presents on Christmas morning. My dad could find me, of course, but that didn't help if he didn't realize I was missing. By the time he drove back to get me, I'd missed almost the entire holiday, and he had to pay for the forty-five dollars and sixty-seven cents in snacks I'd eaten.

So... Yeah. Holidays have bad associations. Now that we're all adults, we get together on our own schedule... and we don't take trips together when we do it.

Parent or Superhero 3

This morning, Mock Ramblings returns with more statements that might come from a world with superheroes... or just parents and children.

• "Wait a minute, I thought we were invulnerable!"
• "Here are pieces of the car. Can you fix it?"
• "Get out of my secret lair!"

So, um, I'm not posting that here.

All right. A while back, I mentioned that I was working on pulling some of the short stories I'd put up here into an anthology and making it available for sale. (This, basically, in preference to setting up some sort of "tip jar" arrangement.)

So I collected some of my favorites, put them all together, and started editing to get the manuscript ready. I also figured that I'd put a little something in there that wasn't available here, as a sort of thank-you for anybody who actually buys the thing.

Well... the piece that I was going to put up this afternoon fits the bill nicely. So instead of putting it up here, I'm putting it in there. So I really don't have anything for this afternoon. Um... sorry 'bout that. Instead, have a question to play with:

What is the most socially disruptive superpower you can imagine?

Consider this an open thread.

Parent or Superhero? (Continued)

It's time for another episode of Parent or Superhero - the game in which you read a series of direct quotes, and try to guess whether they come from parents, or from superheroes.

1. "How do you lose an entire train?"

2. "Do not throw that car at me."

3. "Okay, that's it. You have to stop crushing people's heads."

4. "Annnd, he got away. He's too fast for me."

Thanks for playing, folks, and remember: No capes!

Ask the Readers: Elemental Powers

So, if you could have some sort of elemental powers, what element would you want? What would you want to be able to do with it?

It doesn't have to be one of the traditional four elements, either. Is there some other theme or grouping that particularly appeals to you?

Aldakes Gets A New Minion

You heard about that, did you? Yeah, Aldakes got himself a new minion - excuse me, "bodyguard". Not the first... won't be the last, either. And I can't feel too bad for this one; kid brought it on himself. Seriously, if it hadn't been this, it would have been something else. Hell, working for Aldakes might even keep him out of trouble.

...Because I saw it, of course. How do you think I found out about it?

Okay, fine. You buy the next round, and I'll tell you all about it.

It's nine a.m. on a Monday morning, two-three weeks ago. We're just past rush hour, but it's still pretty busy. I'm just hanging around, checking my lines and keeping an eye on things. What? Hey, if you can't fly and you want to move around on the rooftops, you need a system. And if your system relies on tech, you have to maintain it. I had just finished making sure that one of my backup routes was nice and tight when I looked over the side and saw Aldakes. You know what he looks like, right? Withered face, purple robes with gold embroidery - you can't miss him. And, of course, he's walking up the steps to Pyramid Bank, just like anyone else.

So, yeah, I saw him down there. Problem is, I wasn't the only one who saw him down there.

As I'm watching, no joke, this guy drops down in front of Aldakes and plucks him right off the sidewalk. I can't see much of the new guy, but what I see looks like a full-body black outfit under a long black cloak.

They get about three hundred feet up, just below the level of my rooftop, before Aldakes lets him have it. No idea what "it" was - magic's not my thing - but the two of them kind of lurch, and then they drop like a rock. They land back on the sidewalk, and for a moment all I can see is black cloak and purple robes, like a bruise on the pavement. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should get down there, so I warm up a few of my surprises.

They get to their feet at about the same time, but the guy in black moves first. It looks like a solid punch, right to the mid-section, and Aldakes goes flying. Smashes right through a light pole, bounces off a stone building, and smashes into some poor civilian's automobile. Should be dead, but he's been dead for a couple of thousand years, so I guess he's used to it, right? Anyway, he stands back up, and the guy in black comes flying at him again... only this time, something happens before he can connect. Smashes him right down into the street, and leaves a fist-shaped crater thirty feet across. Destroys another half-dozen cars, too. I can actually feel the building I'm standing on sway from the impact. There aren't that many people on the street, but the ones that are out there are running and screaming.

So I fire off a tranquilizer at the guy in black. He doesn't even notice; I don't think it even broke the skin. He comes out of that crater like the angel of death, faceless in a black mask, cloak like black wings behind him, just hanging in the air.

Aldakes is saying something. He has his hands out, palms down - I can't hear it, but it looks like he's telling the guy to be reasonable. I've got the sonic out, but that's enough to keep me from using it. I don't want to zap the guy if Aldakes can get him calmed down. Might set him off again.

Whatever Aldakes is saying, it doesn't work. The guy throws himself forward again.

This time, he gets struck by lightning. Repeatedly. For about a minute and a half.

At this point, the street is clear. A dozen or so car alarms are going off, and smoke is curling up from the street lights and the power lines, but there's not a civilian in sight. The ones that didn't run away fast enough are sort of stunned and staggering, and frankly if I hadn't been wearing my suit I'd have been blind and deaf as well. But everyone, everyone is giving this battle a good, wide berth.

The guy in black is lying on the pavement. He's twitching, but he's still sort of half-heartedly reaching for Aldakes. I figure this is the time to intervene, so I bathe him with the sonic - and sure enough, down he goes.

By the time I get down to the street, there are two fire trucks, an ambulance, and a half-dozen patrol cars. Some officers are setting up a barricade, one is questioning Aldakes, and Captain Amazing is questioning the guy in black. I let myself be seen, and approach slowly. No need to get everyone excited.

I get there just in time to hear the kid protesting: "But he's a supervillain! He was going into the bank! I just stopped him from..." He sounds young, real young.

I cut him off by asking Captain Amazing, "What do we have here?"

The Captain opens his mouth, closes it again. He looks at the kid, he looks at me. Finally he says, "Got a seventeen year old rookie who decided to make a name for himself. Shouldn't even be out in costume by himself - he's still working under a trial license. How much did you see?"

I shrugged. "All of it. Pretty much, anyway."

The officer in charge - Wieczorik, you know him? Well, he perks up at this, and says: "Aldakes is saying the young man tried to kidnap him, possibly to hold him for ransom. That fit what you saw?"

I take a deep breath. The kid's going to lose his license. Not that he shouldn't, for something like this, but he's not going to understand it, either. I can't help feeling a little sorry for him. But I say, "Yeah. And unless the lightning fried something critical, that's what the cameras'll show, too. Aldakes was on his way to work when this guy flew down and tried to carry him away. Aldakes defended himself, tried to talk the kid down, and then defended himself again."

At this point the kid yells, "But he's a supervillain! Look at-"

"Kid," I say, and amazingly he shuts up. "Aldakes is the President of Pyramid Bank. He's on the board of directors for at least three other banks here in the city, plus the art museum. That building he was walking into? He wasn't going to rob it. He owns it. He was on his way to work."

I can't see the kid's expression; he's still got his mask on. But I can't miss it when he lunges at me, or when Captain Amazing catches him by the arm and hauls him back.

"Easy, there," says Captain Amazing. "We'll get him. One of these days, he'll slip up, and we'll get him. But right now, everything he does - no matter how horrible - is completely legal. That isn't something you can solve by hitting people." The kid is still struggling, not that it does him any good. "Right now, you can still come back from this. You'll probably lose your license, but you can apply again in a couple of years - but only if you calm down. Everybody makes mistakes, even me. That's why you're supposed to be working with a more experienced hero. Even if she isn't as powerful as you are."

The kid snapped his head around. Even without seeing his face, I knew there was a sullen glare under that mask. "She can't even..." He trailed off, maybe because of the way Captain Amazing was looking at him.

It sounded like good advice to me, but I guess the kid didn't take it. And I guess he didn't know what else to do, either. Because as of last week, he's working for Aldakes. Word at the precinct is that Aldakes refused to press charges, so maybe they made a deal. And if I'm hearing right, the kid's signing bonus is just enough to cover what he owes for property damage. So there you go; that's how it happened.

Superhero Bar Stories: Unluckiest Criminal

Unluckiest criminal? Okay, I've got one for you.

I'm down in the club district when I see them: It's two men and two women, dressed nice-but-casual, obviously not part of the neighborhood, probably on their way back from the clubs. They're cutting across this deserted parking lot at, I don't know, a little before three in the morning. Not the smartest idea in the world, but then they're pretty young - early twenties, I'd say.

There's another guy just a little bit behind them: older guy, maybe mid-forties, rough-looking, nondescript clothes. Sure enough, he starts moving up on them just as they're crossing the parking lot, and sure enough, he has a gun.

Now, if I'd been in costume, it would have played out very differently. I could have frozen the gun and restrained the perp from where I was. Unfortunately... for both of us... I wasn't, so all I had was a couple of short-range holdout weapons. So I start running towards the guy... Oh, right, you're new here, aren't you? I'm unnoticeable. That's my power. That's why I rely on all that equipment. If I was a flying tank like Captain Amazing, I'd be... well, I'd be Captain Amazing. Instead, I'm The Sniper.

Anyway, I start running towards the guy. None of them can see me, so I'm trying to get close enough to use one of the holdouts or just disarm the perp by hand.

At this point, the two couples and the perp are all out towards the middle of the parking lot. The perp gets close enough, and starts shouting instructions: "STOP THERE! TOSS YOUR WALLETS AND PURSES ON THE GROUND!" He's loud and aggressive, waving the gun around and trying to scare them into handing over their stuff before they have a chance to think.

He's also very, very unlucky. Because at that exact moment, a patrol officer - in uniform, yet - comes around the corner where he can see the whole thing. He's behind the perp and off to one side, so the guy hasn't seen him yet; he's still shouting at the couples.

I'm close enough now to see that they two guys are probably brothers. They're looking at each other, not at the guy with the gun; then one of them nods.

And that was when I found out just how unlucky the perp really was.

Not only did he have me running towards him and a cop staring at the back of his head, he... well...

Okay, one of the brothers lets out this roar and swells up into this massive, saber-toothed beast-man. Rips right out of his shirt in the process. I mean, this thing is the biggest, scariest monster I've ever seen. Scared the hell out of me, and I was still thirty feet away. The perp panics and fires off a couple of shots at him, which do exactly nothing. And then the other brother just vanishes.

I figured he was headed for the perp, but no: he's standing beside the officer and has one hand out to restrain the officer's gun arm.

Meanwhile, the monster steps in with this horizontal swipe. From where I'm standing, it looks like he's about to disembowel the perp. The perp thinks so too; he's screaming like a baby. Instead, the monster slaps the gun out of his hand, sets the guy on the ground, and sort of sits on him.

The officer steps back and turns, so his arm is free; he hasn't actually drawn his weapon. The teleporter, sensibly, takes a step back and holds his hands up; I can hear him apologizing to the officer.

So I figure at this point it's safe to let everybody see me, so I stop being unnoticeable and step forward as a witness.

The officer walks over with the teleporter. As he gets there, the other brother shrinks back down to human form, and holds out a handful of crumpled lead. It's the bullets, what's left of them. The perp's pretty much just lying there shivering, but the officer handcuffs him and reads him his rights. Then he takes everybody's information, bags the perp's pistol, and walks the perp back to his patrol car - wet pants and all.

And that's the story of the unluckiest criminal I ever saw.