he clasped his hands together.
Soon Cody and his dad were sitting around a wobbly card table with all three super heroes in full costume. Cody noticed his father looked a bit uncomfortable.
"We like to think of this as our round table, as in the Knights of the Round Table," Captain Flak pointed out to break the awkwardly long silence.
"Looks more square," Brad observed dryly.
"Yes, but the corners are rounded," Mezmo defended.
"Point taken." Brad wasn't going to push it. "So, what do you fellows do?"
Cody leaned up to whisper in his dad's ear. "Ask them about their super powers." There was no reaction from his dad.
"First, let me welcome you," Captain Flak began. "We don't get many visitors here, but we are always looking for new members, and are always open to the public. I'll let Mezmo answer your question – he's better at that sort of thing than me. Mezmo?"
"We are a subculture of heroes, based in reality, that don elaborate costumes to reflect our strong, inner resolutions to become part of a comprehensive solution in solving the extreme problems we continuously face in our urban communities in this space-time continuum."
Dead silence – you could have heard a smiley button drop. Brad looked at Captain Flak, then at RetroBution. He avoided further eye contact with Mezmo.
"What he means is that we patrol the streets as a group, and that our visibility in the community helps to keep crime down," explained RetroBution, who had been forced out of silence by Brad's stare. "We also participate in food drives, and other charitable things throughout the year."
"Oh, OK, that sounds good." Brad was relieved by the second answer – he put off his excuse for getting out of there in a hurry. "So, you guys are basically providing a community service; whatever might be needed at the time."
"Yep, that's it in a nutshell," said Captain Flak.
"What are your super powers?" Cody blurted out to Captain Flak. He couldn't stand not knowing any longer.
"Kid, we don't have any real super powers. We're super heroes, not super humans – there's a difference. Super, for us, just means that we're very good at what we do, and we like to think of ourselves as heroes to our local community; thus the term 'super hero'."
"Oh." This was worse than when he found out Santa Claus was a fake. He wasn't going to cry though. Super heroes, even fake ones, never do.
"Sorry, kid. Anyway, thanks for dropping by, but we need to hit the streets, and start our patrol. It's getting dark and it's Saturday night – a perfect storm for crime."
"Sure," Brad said, as he got up. "Thanks for your time. Come on, Cody."
Cody stood up, but was now staring down at the yellowing (once white) tiled floor, and with a frown that no amount of chocolate ice cream could ever reverse.
"Say goodbye, Cody."
"Bye," he said meekly in defeat, and trailed behind his dad to the front door.
No sooner were all five of them out the door than the sound of shattered glass was heard. All looked in the direction to see Brad's car being broken into by a gang. There were five young men in their late teens or early twenties. Individually, they would have passed for any typical looking youth from the rougher part of town, but together, with their body language, and of course the group's interest in the contents of Brad's car, it was immediately obvious that this wasn't going to be good.
"Get away from that car!" Captain Flak yelled, as he walked toward the group, followed by his costumed companions as backup.
The gang stopped what they were doing, but stood their ground, and waited for the three to approach. At first, all were speechless; stunned really, like raccoons in headlights. Then one started to laugh, then another and another.
"You're joking, right?" one said.
"Look, it's Captain Ameri-can't," said another.
"Who are your friends?" a third added.
"That one looks like Zorro, or is that Zerro, but your mask should be over your eyes, not your mouth," said the first one, who could barely force out the words between his bouts of laughter.
"Should be over his whole face," another added. With this, the group broke down into hysterical laughter.
"You, yellow dude. I think, your horse, is five miles that way," the first one could barely talk, but managed to point in the general direction of the racetrack.
Captain Flak wasn't amused. "Are you guys finished?"
"No, I'm Danish." The first one was on a roll, unfortunately, the rest of the gang didn't get the joke.
"Yeah, he's a tasty pastry," said a fourth, which further killed the moment.
The link in the chain of jokes had been broken, and the laughter soon died down. The group now focused their attention back to the business at hand.
"So, besides making us laugh to death, what are you going to do?" said the first one – the leader and spokesman of the gang.
"This!" Captain Flak yelled, as he pulled out a baseball from one of his many utility pockets.
The leader responded by pulling out a knife, and advanced on the overly padded crusader.
Like a pitcher, Captain Flak used a standard fastball grip, and threw the ball with all his might at the thug. Sadly (for the leader), the Captain's aim wasn't very good, and the hard ball missed the targeted knife-hand, but did hit his groin dead centre. This brought down the leader quickly; he wasn't laughing now, but Cody did learn a couple of new swear words. His gang wasn't laughing either, and they too were now swearing, as they advanced on the three heroes. Two pulled out knives, but a third pulled out a small, black handgun.
But before they could take a second step, all four froze in their tracks, as if incased in blocks of ice. None of them could move a muscle, or even speak, but they all saw the little, red-haired boy who came out from behind the three costumed heroes.
"You are bad guys!" Cody shouted. "I don't think I like you at all." He gave them an odd stare while raising his small hands over his head.
The four men were lifted up off the black pavement, and floated in place a couple of feet from the ground; their paralyzed muscles were useless. Only fear and disbelief could be seen in their eyes, as they stared (unable to even blink) at the angry nine-year-old looking up at them.
"Cody, stop that now, please," said his father firmly, and walk forward to stand beside his son.
"But, dad, these are bad guys."
"I'll take over from here."
"You never let me have any fun." He pouted, put his hands on his hips, and started kicking at something invisible on the pavement with the toe of his orange sneaker.
Brad held out his right hand; curled his fingers slight downward, and like puppets on strings, the four men were lowered back down to the pavement. Then, with a flick of his hand, he released them from the hold. The four just stood there shaking with fear; not one of them had anything clever to say.
"Now, get out of here and take your friend with you."
One reached down to help up their leader, but the other three just ran away as fast as they could.
Brad approached the three heroes who stood motionless with disbelief. "Forget," Brad said as he gestured like a magician with a wave of his right hand. All three closed their eyes for a second; when they opened them, they had a look of total confusion.
"What's going on?" asked Captain Flak.
"Some kid was breaking into my car, but you fellows scared him away. Don't you remember? Anyway, thanks again for everything."
"Yeah, sure, of course," the Captain replied, as he racked his synapses to remember.
The three just stood there with blank looks on their faces, as Brad and Cody got into the car, and drove off. On the way home, Brad decided to have a talk with his son about what had just happened. "Cody?"
"Yeah, dad?"
"You did the right thing. I'm very proud of you."
"Thanks, dad. But why can't I do it all the time? I'm a real super hero; not like those fakes."
"You were a hero today, Cody, but there's no such thing as a super hero.
It's all fantasy; it's only in films and books."
"But what about our powers?"
"I'd rather you call them 'abilities'. Remember, on the planet where you were born, everyone has these abilities. And if everyone is the same, no one is really super. Also, we can't be called 'super human' either for an obvious reason – wrong planet."
"Right, dad." He sighed.
Brad wasn't completely lying to his son, but he knew it was only a matter of time before this shaky level of logic would no longer work. Under different conditions, his son could be Earth's real life super hero, but he knew the realities of this planet. His son wasn't going to be turned into some government lab experiment, or fought over by greedy men lusting for power, if he could help it. Super heroes were a reality – the fantasy was that this world would actually leave them alone. He didn't come to this conclusion arbitrarily. He had read their histories. He knew how badly they had treated their own people with special abilities in the past. Just look what they had done to the son of their own God. What chance does the son of an alien have?
"So, how are you doing at school?"
"Pretty good, I guess."
End.
This story was not intended to put down the fine community service that real life costumed heroes do. Yes, they are real. I am all for super community service, just don't take the law into your own hands. Help others if you can, but do call the police a.s.a.p. if needed.
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