The Buckland Retirement Home was more than what it seemed. Most of the occupants were elderly people without much time left for this world like a typical retirement home. Most of them required constant care, while others could move about freely, but required oxygen tanks at their sides at all times. It was a generally depressing place to be that reeked of death, neglect, and tapioca pudding.
But there was also a different kind of occupant in the building. When The Dreadnaught Virus took hold, the government built a place that would be a safe haven for Heroes in their old age while top scientists from around the world worked non-stop to put an end to the virus. At one point, Buckland was filled with Heroes hoping to find a cure so they're children's children could take up their mantle once more and defend the innocent. Slowly they passed away without seeing any progress. Milo's great-grandfather, Captain Amazing, was the only Hero inhabitant left at Buckland.
Milo and Bill pulled up to the bike rack outside of Buckland, and chained up their bikes. The building stood gloomily in front of them like a sad puppy eager for someone to play with it, but too depressed to chase the ball that was thrown. It was a soulless two-story brick building with a few windows here and there. In the last window on the left of the top floor, an old woman gazed out blankly just as she always had. Milo guessed she was either waiting for one of her family members to come and visit or just plain crazy. Milo referred to her as Whistler's Mother as she sat motionless without blinking in a black dress for hours on end.
They walked through the double glass front doors and the reek of tapioca and Ben-Gay wafted under their nostrils. The walls were a sickening shade of taupe. The floors were covered with a layer of the thinnest, cheapest carpet imaginable, the next worst thing to walking on solid concrete. A small reception desk sat just inside the door, with a miserable looking middle-aged woman, Agatha, sitting behind it. She was reading a copy of Cat Aficionado.
"Hey, Milo," she said to Milo as he and Bill walked through the door, taking her eyes off of the magazine only briefly to see exactly who had just entered.
"Hello, Agatha," Milo replied half-heartedly and walked swiftly past her.
Just behind the reception desk and a small barrier wall was the common room. There was a big screen television against the far wall playing an old episode of Murder, She Wrote. A few feet in front of the television was a worn down purple couch with two elderly people sitting on it. One of them was watching the show intently, as if taking her eyes off Angela Lansbury would mean the end of the world as we know it. The other was staring absently into space babbling about cat steaks. Against the wall to the left of the couch was a small circular table where the occupants could play checkers or chess to their fancy. On the opposite wall stood a magazine and newspaper stand holding several out of date magazines and the latest edition of the day's paper.
Milo and Bill took a left down the nearby hall. At the end of the hall, they took a right and took a quick jog up a set of stairs. The third door on the left, Room 219, was where Milo's great-grandfather lived. It was a miserably small room covered in pictures of Captain Amazing and his old Hero buddies, or of him busting up a bank robbery or capturing a Villain. On the wall above his bed was his old uniform, framed and hermetically sealed even thought it could have been left in a landfill for a century and still come out looking exactly the same.
The Captain was sitting in a small chair looking out the window with a bored look on his face. His skin was sagging and wrinkled. His once great civilization of chestnut hair had thinned considerably and faded to a silvery hue. For being well over a century old, the old hero really didn't look a day over eighty. He was wearing a fading blue bathrobe and a pair of maroon pajamas. Milo knew he found less and less of a reason to put on normal clothes as the months went by.
"Are you too busy for some visitors?" Milo asked, knocking on the open door.
"Well I'm supposed to meet the President at four," Captain Amazing joked in his old faltering voice, "but I think I can squeeze you two knuckle heads in."
He stood up with more vigor than was to be expected from a man of his age, and Milo gave him a hug. Bill shook his hand and they all sat down, Bill and Milo on the bed and The Captain back in his chair. He took a quick minute to spin the chair back toward them.
"How's life boys?" he said with a smile.
"Can't complain, I guess," Milo replied with a shrug.
"Yeah right," Bill laughed, "Milo got such a good shot in on Devon today."
"Devon Macledowny," The Captain said with derision, "I hate that little bastard." Captain Amazing had never met, or even seen, Devon before, but Milo had discussed him on many occasions, and he thought ill of anyone that has it out for his great-grandson. "What'd you get him with?"
Milo recounted the story of his dad's tape recorder in history class, to which he laughed hysterically.
"It's too bad I wasn't there to see the look on that little shit's face," he said and his laugh turned to a cough. "Better keep your head of a swivel, boys. He'll be out for blood after that piece of genius."
"Yeah, that's what Cali said," Bill said dejectedly.
"Ah, Calliope. Where is she nowadays?" the Captain asked finally realizing the absence of the third friend. "She is the brains of this operation after all, is she not?"
"She had soccer practice or something, I think," Milo answered not completely believably.
The truth was, Cali didn't like coming to Buckland. She never exactly said why. Milo guessed that after her great-grandmother died, the place brought back a lot of hard memories for her. She'd never tell him the truth, Milo didn't think, but every once in a while he brought it up, and she'd get cold and distant, so he'd drop it. She'd loved her great-grandmother dearly, and the loss had hit her much harder than she'd ever admit to anyone.
"Enough about the ladies," Bill said, changing the subject. "We want to hear a story about the old days."
"Is that right?" Captain Amazing said thinking, "Which one is it going to be today, boys? The time I broke into Czar Destructo's moon base and crushed his Death Ray? Or what about the time Unstoppable Man and I led the troops onto the beaches of Normandy?"
"We were kind of hoping you'd tell us about The Army of Justice and The Dreadnaught," Milo answered.
"Ugh," the Captain said with a shudder, "Not my favorite story, but part of your family's history nonetheless, I suppose."
The story is as follows:
During the Revolutionary War, a team of Heroes banded together to form The Army of Justice to help America win its freedom from England. In fact, America's victory was widely attributed the work of The Army of Justice. After the War, the members of The Army started to marry. The Gray Ghost married Cat's Claw. Weather Wizard married Melinda the Magician. The Ray of Light married Empress Liana. Thunder Bolt married The Marvelous Maiden. Each couple giving birth to a new line of Heroes, of which Captain Amazing and Milo are a part of, that played major roles in the shaping of American history.
At one point in the Revolutionary War, a new Villain reared his ugly head. He called himself The Dreadnaught. At the time, he was small time, barely evil enough to make even the slightest blip on any one of the Heroes of the Army of Justice's radars. During one low-scale battle, The Dreadnaught found himself up against Weather Wizard but was defeated without much effort. Eventually, he just disappeared. No one paid much attention to his disappearance or really cared too much to look into it.
There was a lot of speculation and theories as to where The Dreadnaught went. Some say he left Earth and spent years in the Universe in search of powers greater than any Hero had ever seen. Some say he found a portal to another dimension and harnessed its power for his own gain. Others will swear he burrowed his way deep into the Earth's core and let the Earth itself power him beyond measure. One thing was for sure though; when The Dreadnaught finally chose to reappear, it was to the dismay of the entire human population.
During the height of the American Industrial Revolution, The Dreadnaught destroyed a textile factory with a simple wave of his hand. Two hundred were killed. Several hundred more were wounded. Reports of his powers spread across the country like a virus. No one had ever heard of Hero or Villain possessing such a destructive force. Eventually, news of The Dreadnaught's reign of terror reached the ears of The Army of Justice.
Before they could rally their forces against him, The Army of Justice found The Dreadnaught outside their secret command center in New York City. Rain poured down in torrents that not even Weather Wizard could stop. A great battle took place on the streets of New York that night. The Gray Ghost was crushed by a toppling building. Melinda the Magician was struck down by one of her own spells that ricocheted off The Dreadnaught like he was made of rubber. Hero after Hero was destroyed while the city burned with a flame that even the torrential downpour couldn't quench. At last, The Ray of Light, the only remaining Hero of The Army of Justice, expelled all of his remaining power in a great explosion. The city of New York was almost wiped entirely off the map. The blast knocked The Dreadnaught into a nearby building, bringing it down on top of him, and knocking him unconscious, while The Ray of Light was next to dead with the effort.
"The Dreadnaught was brought before The Council, and sentenced to spend eternity in a dimensional void," the Captain said after almost an hour of storytelling.
"I sure am glad he isn't still around today," Bill said with a whistle. "Well in this dimension at least."
"What's stopping him from getting out of the void?" Milo asked. He'd heard the story so many times, and always wondered about that one thing. He wasn't just a Villain. He was the Villain. His powers were unmatched.
"Well now this is the part of the story I've never told you guys," the Captain said lowering his voice. "In fact, the only people that are still alive to remember it are me and The Council. The Ray of Light didn't die in that battle with The Dreadnaught like so many people think he did. He volunteered himself to go into the void with The Dreadnaught to stop him from ever coming out again. Your great-great-great-grandfather, on your great-grandmother's side that is, is the reason The Dreadnaught will never show his face again."
Milo swelled with pride. He knew his family tree had produced some of the greatest Heroes that had ever lived. He did not know, however, that one of them was still alive and acting as prison warden to the worst Villain in the history of the world, maybe the universe.
Bill and Milo left Buckland an hour later. The entire way home they discussed the news they'd been given. Neither of their parents or grandparents knew about The Ray of Light's sacrifice. They had just been confided with a monumental secret, and sworn to secrecy. Naturally, they resolved to tell Calliope and then keep it between the three of them. Bill wondered what it really mattered if they told anyone considering how Heroes and Villains weren't around anymore and no one was crazy enough to try and free The Dreadnaught from his trans-dimensional prison. Milo had emphasized the importance of keeping the secret, arguing that secrets such as that were kept well guarded for a reason and that their knowing was potentially a breach in government security. Bill wasn't eager to spill the beans after that.
The two friends parted ways at Poplar Street, and Milo rode home the next three blocks in thought. He loved hearing old stories about the heroism of his ancestors. It made him feel proud of those that came before him. It also made him jealous that he would never be part of any stories like that himself. He was powerless, and would stay like that forever thanks to someone, Villain or otherwise, who had released The Dreadnaught Virus on the world. Milo smiled humorlessly to himself. All the times he'd heard about The Dreadnaught and the virus, he'd never made the connection. It was fitting, he supposed.
When Milo got home, his mom was sitting at the table reading the newspaper.
"Hey, Milo," she said without looking up, "how's the Captain?"
"Good," Milo replied. His mom loved the Captain. She came from a normal family tree without one single Hero in its branches. She loved hearing stories of what she married into, even if it would never be that way again. Milo's dad was a dentist and so was his dad. Milo might someday be as well, but he'd try his best to avoid that cruel fate.
"Dinner's in the oven," she said.
"Cool," he answered and sat down across the table from her. "What is it? It smells good."
"Meatloaf," she replied and shut the paper. "Your father called a few minutes ago."
"Okay," he said with disinterest all the disinterest of a teenager.
"He got you a job."
"What? I don't want a job," Milo said incredulously.
"Oh calm down," Brooke said soothingly, "It's just a paper route. Besides, it'll help you chip in when you turn sixteen and we buy you a car."
"I'm not waking up early for some paper route," Milo shot back, "I value my sleep too much. Be reasonable, mom."
"Your father already promised you to do it," she said. It was the end of the conversation. Milo was beat.
"This meatloaf better be good," he said as if the taste of dinner will make up for everything.
She winked at him. Brooke Radcliff's meatloaf wasalways good.