Super Heroes NOW! (standard:humor, 3364 words)
Author: Robert G Moons	Added: Jun 26 2012	Views/Reads: 2825/1937	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Three local costumed heroes will meet their biggest fan – an overly enthusiastic nine-year-old boy, who thinks they really have super powers.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

Not evil demons, you know, but the good ones. That could happen. 
RetroBution? Well, this guy was a mystery. He looked like he should be 
riding a horse, but if that were the case, wouldn't it be better to be 
dressed like a cowboy? AND, if he was a cowboy, then he could be 
lassoing bad guys. That would work, but he wasn't a cowboy. Cody 
decided that maybe the jockey look was just an accident. He probably 
wasn't one, but the costume and name gave him no clue as to his secret 
powers. Cody decided then and there he just had to meet these local 
super heroes. 

When he got home; at the supper table, he asked his dad the question.
"Dad?" "Yes, Cody." 

"Dad, could you take me to meet the super heroes?" 

"What super heroes?" 

"The ones that are patrolling our streets, and keeping us all safe at
night. There are three of them right here!" 

Brad looked up at Sarah directly across from him. "Do you know what your
son is talking about?" 

"No idea, and he's your son too by the way. Cody, what's all this
about?" 

Cody looked at his parents; he couldn't believe they didn't know.
"There, are, super heroes, here, in this city." He made sure to say it 
real slow. 

"That's nice," his father said a second before he stuck a piece of steak
in his mouth. The way he chewed reminded Cody of a cartoon cow he once 
saw on TV. 

"Oh, Cody, you have such an imagination." His mother smiled that loving,
knowing smile that could almost make you hurl. 

"I'm NOT making stuff up! They have a website and everything!" 

"OK, I'll check it out after dinner." His father just wanted to savour
his favourite meal. "Finish your broccoli." 

Cody frowned and stabbed at the horrible vegetable with his fork. "This
stuff looks like green brains, and tastes like..." 

"Eat," his parents said in unison. 

After dinner, Brad sat down with his son at the family computer. "Now,
what's the name of this website?" 

"Super heroes now dot com – all one word." Cody still couldn't believe
they had no idea. 

"Here we are.... Hey, Sarah, come and look at this." 

Sarah turned the TV off; walked over to stand behind them, and leaned
down to get a closer look. "So, there are real super heroes after all," 
she smiled and winked at her husband. 

"Yes, it would seem so," her husband confirmed, smiling back. 

"I want to meet them, pleeease!" 

"Brad, now you know how he gets when he's like this." His mother was
surrendering even before Cody started his incessant whining and 
begging. 

"Yeah," Brad breathed out the word in resignation. He clicked through a
few pages until he found what he was looking for. "Here's something.... 
They have weekly meetings, and there's one this Saturday night at 8:00 
p.m. It says all are welcome to come." 

"Can we, dad?" 

"Yeah, sure." Brad looked at Sarah, and shrugged his shoulders. She gave
him back a look that meant: "Just do it". 

"Coooool!" 

Saturday took forever to arrive; Cody had been ready two days ago. He
even printed out the local heroes' photos so he could get their 
autographs on them, even the guy that looked like a jockey. Come to 
think of it, he kinda looked like a yellow canary too – if he had been 
green, maybe a frog, especially with those big goggles. 

Brad drove his excited son into the downtown core. For the most part, it
was a relatively safe area. It was nowhere near as bad as some of the 
larger cities. Sure, there was the occasional drunken brawl, even the 
odd murder, and there were a couple of gangs around; their graffiti was 
noticeable here and there. But he was never concerned when he came 
downtown at this time of day by himself. It's just that, he was now 
here with his son, and he didn't want to put him in harms way, even if 
there was a remote chance of something happening. His son really wanted 
this bad, but he still felt a little guilty for bringing him to this 
seedier part of the city. Well, at least it wasn't dark, yet. 

He parked the car in a small parking lot just across the street from a
row of old storefronts. One of those shabby units was suppose to be the 
super heroes' hangout. Super heroes? Right. Brad shook his head. As 
they walked closer, he could make out a second-hand bookstore in one 
unit; another was being used for a local politician's campaign 
headquarters. Not so bad, Brad thought, at least there wasn't a porn 
shop among them. 

"Dad, look! Here it is!" Cody shouted, as he pointing to the sign on the
door; he read it out loud: "Super heroes are real and we are here now." 


Brad noticed that it was like one of those two-sided open/closed signs.
He imagined the other side should say: "Super heroes are all out to 
lunch." 

Brad tried the door, but it was locked. He looked inside, but the front
half of the run-down store was empty. There was another door toward the 
back of the store; a bright light glowed from the wide gap at its 
bottom. He pressed the buzzer; a few seconds later, the door opened and 
out walked... 

"Captain Flak!" shouted Cody gleefully, as 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. 

All my ebook (PDF) stories with cover art are free to download here:
https://sites.google.com/site/chroniclesofzvaxin 

Other reading formats are available at smashwords here:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/robertmoons 

This work of fiction is the sole property and copyright of Robert G.
Moons. Please do not print or use without permission of the author. ALL 
RIGHTS RESERVED.


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