"Ever since the alien invasions, an official statement has been released by the Avengers--"
"It has been reported that the Ronin is not part of the Avengers Initiative--"
"Many are questioning the intents behind this masked vigilante and are asking if there are any--"
"Debates have been going on and off about whether or not the Ronin is now a new hero or a villain. Many are in uproar in approval for this new-to-the-scene hero--"
"I don't know what you're talking about Stacy. Ronin is a terrorist. Where has this hero been in the previous New York invasion? From the footage we see here, it's very clear and obvious that this man has brought aliens to the city--"
"The Ronin should be hailed as a hero because he saved people and wasn't part of the Avengers. Of course, he has to be a hero--"
"He kicked a fighter jet into the air! Dude, how badass could you get?"
"He saved my daughter when she was taken by the aliens! He's my daughter's hero!"
"Ronin, I love you! New York City loves you!"
"There have been reports of Ronin being spotted stopping petty thieves and muggings in the ensuing chaos and reconstruction efforts."
"See him out there? He's a hero! A true one!"
"I would like to remind everyone that Ronin is a vigilante, a person who is taking matters in their hands to subdue criminals. This is very much illegal. Despite whatever intentions this figure may have, the Ronin is a criminal."
"Hate him, love him. You gotta admit that the Ronin is making New York a safer place."
"Hey, the internet loves him! Say whatever you wanna say, but he's here to stay."
"Critics are calling this new internet trend the Ronin Controversy as there have been many online debates on the topic of whether or not the Ronin is a heroic figure."
"He's the cool, hip, and silent type of guy. I can respect that!"
"He saved me in an alleyway when a guy had a gun. If you're out there and are hearing this. Thank you, Ronin."
"Thanks, Ronin!"
"Thanks, dude!"
"Thank you, Ronin!"
"My family thanks you Ronin."
"New York City thanks you Ronin!"
"There has been a surge of interest in this new vigilante figure, but the question is still posed. Just who is the masked vigilante Ronin?"
***
Liam huffed as he wiped his thumb over his bottom lip. "Explain it to me again? I seriously don't get it."
"Right," Peter nodded as he grazed the butt-end of his pencil and circled the smooth texture of the textbook. "So to find the derivative of this number, you have to use chain rule which means that the derivative of y over x equals dy over du times du over dx."
"Huh," Liam lightly bit the tip of his tongue as he quickly went through the problem. "This right?"
Peter looked over his work and nodded exuberantly. It was a little astonishing how excited Peter got whenever Liam got a problem right. "Yeah! That's right!"
Liam sighed in relief, shoulders visibly relaxing from all of the academic duress he was put under. "Thank God, I finally got it right. I was gonna commit homicide if I didn't get this right."
"U-Uh," Peter stammered with a nervous laugh. "How about we don't go there?"
Liam grumbled unintelligibly under his breath before turning this page. His grumble turned into a loud, indignant, and pained groan as Liam slammed his forehead against the table. "L'Hopital's rule?! Ugh, fucking kill me!"
"Suffer," MJ added her two cents as she casually scrolled through her phone. "It's not my fault the two of you are already studying Pre-Calculus for high school. It's only March right now."
"I'd rather do it now than have some shit teacher that can't teach to save their own life," Liam grumbled as he peeled his face off the table. After all, he had shit-for-brains teachers in his previous life when it came to his math class. That was a point of extreme stress and ensuing depression for his previous high school career.
"Why even do AP Calculus?" MJ asked. "Aren't you planning to be an English major in college or something?"
"It's because I'd rather do it at the beginning of high school and not have to deal with some shitty math class at the end of high school," Liam replied. "And on the off-chance that I'm required to take some math class in college, which is unlikely, then I won't have to do it."
"I think it's smart!" Ned added his two cents.
"Thank you, Ned," Liam nodded sagely. "Your support is appreciated."
"No problem, dude!"
MJ rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue in barely-concealed amusement. Liam smirked while Peter snapped the textbook close with a dull thud! "How about we take a break here? I'm beat."
"Same," Liam repeated automatically. He slumped over the table, his arm folded and his cheek resting on the fold.
"Have you seen the new video of the Ronin?" Ned asked excitably, now that their study session had reached its close. "Look how cool he is?"
Peter and Liam angled their heads in a way that they could look at the screen. The footage was a bit grainy, but you could easily see how a figure clad in black got the drop on a bunch of cheap bank robbers. There was a loud gunshot followed by a high-pitched ping! that signaled a bullet being cut in half.
Ronin twisted in midair, his sword drew elegant lines in the space around him to form four flowing strikes that connected seamlessly to each other. It was like watching the delicate hand of a professional calligraphist handling an inkbrush. The four robbers stumbled backward as they found their guns cleaved in half. There was a bright sapphire gleam that blinded the camera before the four robbers were revealed to be slumped forward.
The vigilante nodded at the store clerk before warping away.
"Cool right?" Ned gushed. Liam's lips quirked upward in a small smile. It was easy to slip into the natural act of playing dumb. There was not an inkling of suspicion from the three others that Liam was the up-and-coming vigilante.
"Yeah!" Peter nodded enthusiastically. "It looks like he's been getting better with the sword?"
"And you can tell?" Liam raised an eyebrow.
"He watches all the available footage of the Ronin he can get," MJ revealed casually, not even looking up from her phone.
"MJ!!" Peter squeaked in embarrassment. His face bloomed a comical shade of red, and Peter looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up.
"Pfft," Liam laughed into his fist. He felt a sense of flattery but immediately stamped it out in favor of not getting a big ego. "You must look up to him."
"Yeah," Peter nodded enthusiastically, ignoring his earlier embarrassment to answer Liam. "He saved us by kicking a fighter jet."
"That sounds...scary," Liam blinked, feigning a sense of shock and horror. To his amusement, Ned piped up on Liam's alter ego's behalf.
"It was badass!" Ned interjected. "He just teleported in front of us and then bam! He kicked the jet like it was nothing. You should've been there! ...U-Uh, not that I mean you should've been there! I mean that you should've seen it."
Peter seemed to gain some second-hand embarrassment from Ned's rambling because he dragged his hand over his face and sighed long-sufferingly. "I think he gets it, Ned."
"Yeah, I do," Liam smiled. Sheepishly, Ned rubbed the nape of his neck.
"It was cool," MJ commented mildly when the three boys turned to her. "I have no other comment."
"What's your opinion on the Ronin?" Peter asked Liam. Liam blinked before he shrugged.
"Meh," Liam answered. "I don't have that much of an opinion on heroes. I appreciate what they do, but don't do anything else."
"Oh," Peter wilted a little. It seemed that he was a little disappointed that Liam wasn't going to share his penchant for nerdery and fanboying over heroes. Feeling a minute twinge of guilt over Peter's kicked-puppy look, Liam reached out and patted Peter on the head.
"I mean hey," Liam shrugged. "Heroes are great, they're just not my cup of tea."
The irony of that statement was not lost on him. Liam watched with great amusement as the two floundered over the newest vigilante. Liam caught MJ and the two of them fondly rolled their eyes in unison. Honestly, they would never get over how astounding and overwhelming Peter and Ned's geeking out was.
***
It was a horrible, ugly, and festering truth that a vast majority of humans sought to put themselves in better positions, whether it be social or financial prestige. If it came to the detriment of other people, they would rationalize that the strong prevailed over the weak or that their sufferings were the hinge in which their lives turned. It was the motivation that drove the rate of crime up the wall after the alien invasion.
Liam did not stop crime out of the goodness of his own heart, but also for his selfishness. He was no hero. He would like to think he wasn't a villain. He wasn't an anti-hero either.
He was merely Liam Spenser, moonlighting as the vigilante Ronin whose intentions were misinterpreted as something benign. Liam, going into this, had no particular desire or heroic call to arms to defend the people of New York and keep the peace. If anything, this was just a training exercise for him. It was a way for him to shore up experience and skills for the inevitable clash with the mad titan.
In summation, Liam wasn't a good person. He was chasing power and strength and was condemning suffering and desperate people to worse situations: arrest, prosecution, and prison. He knew the fact intimately and tried to stamp out the guilt.
The overwhelming approval and the idolization of Ronin didn't make things any better. They were praising him for actions that were not genuinely benign, and Liam couldn't stop the guilt from swelling deep within him. Yet, like everything in his life, Liam pushed away his feelings in favor of the task at hand.
Liam tugged at the helm of his fingerless gloves and performed a series of breathing exercises to ready himself for the night. He hopped, shifting his weight between two feet before breaking out into a sprint. Using the edge of the roof as a launchpad, Liam leaped into the air and a flaring ring of blue floated upward to meet him in the air.
For a moment, Liam allowed himself to forget his moral dilemmas. He allowed himself to be swept up in the adrenaline and relish in the exhilarating feeling of liberation. The act of flying in the air and jumping from portal to portal midair was simply addicting. Blood-pumping, heart-racing, anxiety-inducing, and adrenaline racing in his veins, Liam smothered the desire to whoop in excitement. Instead, he killed his spatial momentum by teleporting his own body instead of taking another warp gate.
The neighborhood, that Liam alighted into, was visibly run-down and ragged. Tilting his head, Liam heard the low but escalating volume, and frenzied rumble of an engine. A car swerved into the neighborhood, lights searing the night air as police sirens tailed after them. A police chase. It would be simple enough.
Silently formulating his plan, the Ronin adjusted his surgical mask before disappearing in a sapphire strobe. Quickly, the vigilante had to catch himself lest he was sent careening off the roof of the car. Willing his power to rise, and forming a mental rubber band that he stretched unrepentantly.
"Hey! What the fuck is going on!"
"Yo! Everything around us is getting real fucking trippy!"
As per their words, space around the car began to stretch, their surroundings became a mesh of industrial colors that collided and swirled like a painter's watercolor cup. Then, Liam released the tension. Space warped around them sickeningly and the distance, between the runaway car and the police cars, was shrunken in an instant.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
Liam teleported inside the car and reached out for the two robbers inside the vehicle. Once he clasped a hand on the two of them, he teleported all three of them out of the car. The police vehicle swerved and skidded to a halt, while the stolen vehicle was sent tumbling dangerously. Before a violent car crash could ensue, an azure warp gate appeared before the two transportation crafts. The car crash was prevented, and Ronin unceremoniously dropped the two thieves onto the ground.
They stumbled away from Ronin with startled expressions on their faces. "Holy shit!"
"Hands up in the air!" a policeman burst from his car and pointed the barrel of his gun at the three. The two thieves put their hands up in the air, but Liam simply disappeared before reappearing on the rooftop of a nearby building. Liam sighed imperceptibly, but a pale silvery, blue glow caught his eye.
The neighborhood wasn't well-lit, which allowed him to catch the soft glow. Staring at him from the opposite building was a pale figure. A Korean gat rested itself on his head, and he was dressed in robes that seemed to be a hanbok but had the folds of a kimono. Emblazoned proudly on the center of those pale robes was a perfect white circle. Liam didn't know why, but the circle immediately brought the thought of the full moon to mind.
The man's face was emotionless, his black eyes bore into Liam's body as if he were peering straight into his soul.
Suspicion. Wariness. Caution.
"Who are you?" Liam asked. Immediately he called his weapon and pointed the tip of his blade at the unknown figure. The man didn't say anything but merely bowed his head. White light rippled behind him, and the man floated backward. His figure was slowly enveloped into the folds of the night, but Liam couldn't help but notice his lips moving to form a few words.
By the next full moon, shall your infinite dominion be ours.
The threat registered in Liam's mind, and he immediately slashed his blade. Space tore and fractured like millions of glass shrapnel before closing up. However, the figure had already disappeared before he could be swallowed up in the spatial rift.
With a thundering shudder, the rift closed its gaping maw and left Liam in the quiet ambiance of the night.
Worry. Suspicion. Caution. Wariness. Anticipation.
"Yeah, I know," Liam nodded. "They're definitely after us."
***
A low hum of power proliferated the air from the silence. A warp gate opened into the living room of the Spenser household, and Liam stepped through. Quickly, the bigger portal closed behind him and Liam peeled off his mask, crumbling it into a ball and tossing it into the trashcan. He shrugged off his jacket and dropped it into a newly-conjured portal that would send his jacket to his closet. The fingerless gloves followed a few seconds later.
"You're back from your patrols?"
"Yeah!" Liam nodded. He tugged his shirt off and reached for his pajamas. "I'm done for the night. Did you eat the dinner I made?"
"Yes," Emily stepped into the living room with a steaming mug in her hand. "You don't need to make dinner. You're already busy with all of your...extracurriculars ."
"I like cooking, mom," Liam replied with a smile. "How was work?"
"It was fine," Emily shrugged. "Tea?"
"Yes please."
The family of two found themselves at the table, quietly relaying events of the day that transpired. It was a little tradition that they had formed ever since they had their disagreements over Liam's moonlighting and putting himself in harm's way. They reached a mutual understanding, and Liam's efforts to come home unscathed went a long way in soothing Emily's worries. But still, it was a mother's nature to worry over her children. Liam knew that Emily would not worry over him, but he tried his best to soothe her worries and stress.
Thus came the debate on whether or not Liam should tell his mother about his new...encounter. Liam would love to omit that particular detail to his mother, but not coming clean to Emily left a sour taste in his mouth. Which was better? Don't stress Emily or tell her the truth?
Liam decided on the latter.
"There was someone on my patrols today."
"Really?" Emily asked.
"Yeah," Liam nodded. "They looked Asian, and I think they were seeking me out specifically."
"In a good way or a bad way?"
"A bad way."
Emily inhaled sharply, and Liam watched his mother nervously. "Mom, Urania has been watching my back and I'm not taking any other unnecessary risks. So please let me handle this."
"I don't like this."
"I know," Liam was quick to reassure. "I don't like this either, but they're after me, so I have to do a proper threat assessment. They might use you or other people if they find out that I'm Ronin."
There was a sense of deep conflict in his facial features, but she finally relented with a breath. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay," Emily nodded. "I trust you. Thank you for telling me."
"It's...no problem," Liam tried for a smile. "I'm gonna go sleep for tonight. Goodnight, mom."
"Goodnight, Liam."