Just Another Hero

Chapter 1

I really don't understand people sometimes.

Whenever you ask a kid what they want to be in the future they always say "I want to be a superhero." Like why would you want a job that involves you getting punched in the face everyday. Sometimes I wish there was a world where kids would choose to become something logical like an astronaut or a pilot or something, but there's no way a world like that exists.

Anyways, the people who do somehow end up getting superpowers decide to go and smash stuff for fun and thanks to that, we have actual superheroes. Being a superhero is basically the  job that everyone wants. The attention, praise, cash, that's all great.

Honestly though, that life has never appealed to me. Sitting here on my couch in my one bedroom apartment eating dinner out of a cup of instant ramen while watching television suits me a lot better. I took another sip of the piping hot water from the cup as I watched Phantom, the city's biggest hero, save some people from a burning building. As they showed clips of his daring rescue the news anchor talked about how this was his fifth big rescue in the past month. They went on to play clips from his previous battles with villains and talked about his accomplishments in the short amount of time that he had been a hero and how he might even begin to rival against Titan, the city's greatest hero before he retired. The news story then changed to the recent disappearance of heroes and speculations on where they have gone.

I was starting to get bored of the news story however, as everything in the past month or so has been about all the heroes going missing, and was about to switch off to another channel when the words "Breaking News" suddenly flashed onto the screen. My hand hovered above the remote as the screen suddenly switched to a live image of Versailles, the tallest building in all of Sanctum City.

"Breaking news. An explosion has gone off in the restaurant on top of Versailles. The villain has not yet been identified, but we suspect several people are being held hostage in the restaurant. So far no heroes have shown up at the scene..."

I sighed as I realized that the building wasn't too far away and that I would probably reach it faster than any other super could. I got up and tossed my empty cup into the trash as I passed by the kitchen before sauntering off into my room. After digging through my closet for a second, I pulled out my hero suit and hurried to put it on. After changing into my suit, putting on my metal mask that covers the bottom of my nose and mouth, and fastening on my goggles, I ran out to my balcony and began my trek over to the restaurant by jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

Honestly cars are nice and all, but I find traveling like this better. You don't have to deal with traffic and stupid drivers. You also get a nice little workout while you're at it. I reached the restaurant in a couple of minutes and quickly scaled the building by turning into a bird and flying up. I quietly flew up to the balcony and into the building, landing on one of the scaffolding beams up above before trying to work out the situation.

I saw a group of about ten people cowering in different parts of the room while a man dressed in a brown trench coat, a pair of rocket boots, a mask covering the top half of his face, and a pair of iron gauntlets on each hand, stood at the counter yelling at a receptionist that seemed rather unfazed by the fact that she was being threatened by a villain.

"Put the money in the bag!" The man demanded.

"Sorry sir, but it's against restaurant policy to hand over money to customers," The receptionist replied dully.

"You're not exactly in the position to be following policies right now," The man said raising his gauntlet up near his face. An explosion came out from the gauntlet, but she didn't even bat an eyelid.

"Again sir it's against the rules,"

"Alright I'm done with you," he said reaching over the counter to grab the cash register himself. As he reached over, I hopped off of the ledge that I was perched on and turned back into a human as I landed a few feet from him.