Realistic or Modern Under the Mask

[smolfluffball]

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[smolfluffball]

It should have been raining.

Rain always helped with situations like this.

The sun was high in the sky, just slightly off from being directly overhead. Probably around one or two in the afternoon. It was a chilly day for California, though it was March so the cooler temperature made some sense. There were sparse white clouds idling in the sky above the pale blond haired hero, ignorant and completely oblivious to the scene underneath them.

His roots were showing. He had realized this morning and had meant to touch them up before he went out. His natural dark brown color would never reveal enough to his fans and the media, but he didn’t think he’d ever be able to wear his natural color confidently. There were different strands of various colors hidden among the brown locks, making his natural hair quite pretty, but also far too obvious.

This situation was also far too obvious, he knew.

He tapped his cheek with the index finger on his cleaner hand and breathed out slowly. Slowly. Carefully. Evenly. Three seconds in, two seconds out. Repeat only five times, because any longer and it would lose its effect. One of the things his parents taught him to do, in order to silence his nerves and clear his head. One of the things he did far too often the past three years.

Exactly three years. To the day. And the hour. And the minute.

How absolutely perfect.

This situation was miserable. It was so bloody. Unfortunate. Tragic. It would definitely make all the headlines when it was discovered. He wondered who they’d blame as the main suspect. A villain, possibly. Though the wound on the neck was too precise to belong to anyone except one person.

Well, more than one person, but he could never say anything about that. Or about this.

He’d be expected to, though. Because he knew the body at his feet. Personally. Intimately. They had been close. Closer than he should have let himself get to anyone in this business. He had been careless, and he kept being careless, even though he had always done his best not to be. All that he said and done and pretended at was so carefully planned and constructed so that nothing like this could throw him off. It had all been so well thought out, but this had to happen and ruin everything.

He tried to ignore the ugly dark dangerous feeling in his chest. Stifled it. Snuffed it out. Becoming emotional now would not resolve anything. Emotions only got in the way. Separating oneself from them was the trick to surviving in the world he had been raised in.

He knew that. He did. It had been drilled into his head all of his life.

He had once been so good at doing it, too. Better than the others. Better than he should have been, for his age and disposition.

All he had to do now was become good at it again.

The stark white lines on the hero’s dark arms bore into his eyes. He stared at them. There was blood on the hero’s arms, dyeing the white paint a deep red color that would never come out. There were small droplets and smears from where he had grabbed the hero’s arms. He brought his gaze up further, slowly. The fingers of the hero were covered in blood, from grasping at the killing cut in a useless attempt to stop the bleeding. The casual outfit, but not a hero suit, was completely coated in the red liquid, fully saturated and entirely ruined. The shirt and jeans would never be worn again, so it didn’t matter.

The killing cut was clean. Precise. Almost surgical. It had been too easily accomplished. The hero’s neck was only red now, from the large slice that tore across his throat and cut his jugular in half. His dead face must have looked a certain way, but the hero standing over him could not bring himself to even glance at it.

Not anymore. Not after what happened. Not after what had just happened. Not after what he saw. Not after what he did. Not after what he did not do.

There was nothing he could do, now. Not anymore. Not if he wanted to.

That was too close to emotional.

Adlai Marlowe, otherwise known as Median, took a deep breath and held it for three seconds, then breathed out for two. The body in front of him was just a body. The person it had been was no longer there. It was an empty shell. It’s inhabitant had been sent off to some other place.

It was just a body. An empty shell. It didn’t matter that it looked like his friend, the person he had thought of so fondly, so fondly he had called him one of the closest friends he had ever made in all his twenty-two years of life. The person who he involved in so many stupid plans and schemes and media stunts. The person who had been there for him through everything, and who had promised him he’d be there for him once everything was finally over.

But here it was. The end. Everything was finally over, after three years. After so much drama and blood and tears and all the confessions and love from fans and admiration from other heroes and friendships and all his hopes and dreams. After all his plans.

The body was here, but Darren Mensah, otherwise known as Outcast, was not.

The ugly dark dangerous feeling knocked against his heart, asking to be let out, to let him feel what he could not allow himself to feel. He took another deep breath.

He was no good at separating himself from his feelings anymore.

He had to be.

He needed to think of this logically. Outcast had been his mentor and friend, and the public knew that. The fans had created that stupid ship name for them and both of them had encouraged it. He and Outcast were seen together frequently, and they worked together several times, and their interactions were well documented. It was obvious they knew each other outside of their uniforms. Ren had shown him his scars, and Adlai had done the same, and they helped heal each other, and they shared too much with each other, and they got too close, and Adlai knew better than to do that, and he almost told him—

Another breath. Another breath. Another breath.

Outcast had been his mentor. The mentorship had been at the start of everything, and people would not forget that Outcast had mentored young hotshot mysterious wind hero Median. Mentors and their pupils usually always had good, lasting relations with each other, just like Outcast and Median had.

The wound on the neck was so clean. Even if someone analyzed it closely, they would not find any jagged edge to the skin. It had been inflicted with no tool, but with something else sharp and vicious. The police would learn it had been made from some power, and it would not take them long to narrow down their list of suspects.

His own blood was on the ground, mixed in with the pool underneath the body. There were droplets splattered against the wall, some of them his own, most of them belonging to the body. Adlai could see from the corner of his eye that Ren, no, no, no, the body, had his mask on, but that wouldn’t mean anything if anyone saw the blood on his hands. It was so much, all over his own skin, and it didn’t even belong to him.

Looking down at them sent flashbacks to memories he did not want to remember replaying through his head like some horrific film reel.

He squeezed his eyes shut and ran his hands through his hair several times, ignoring the still wet blood on them, and took more than five deep breaths and breathed out slowly more than five times.

All of what he noticed, the police would notice. Which meant he might be screwed.

He removed his hands from his hair and realized he just got blood in it, but only spared that realization a single thought. There was a small note in the pocket of his jacket, and he pulled it out. Bloody fingerprints stained the edges of the folded paper as he flipped it open.

NEXT: SPITFIRE OR CAPRICORN​

Rereading it over and over again did not do anything. The words did not change. NEXT: SPITFIRE OR CAPRICORN. Four words. A colon. It was plain and simple.

Carefully he folded it in half again and slid the slip of paper back into his pocket. It was small enough to not stick out even slightly from his pocket. It had been small enough to leave in a crack in the wall. A message, for him. To let him know what was to come.

To tell him what to do.

His eyes went back to the white lines on Ren’s arms. He painted them on and put on his mask to come out from his house, but he was not wearing his suit. It was bizarre.

The answer was easy: He hadn’t expected to be killed.

If he had, he would have come prepared.

But he had not been, because why would he have been? No hero disliked him. He was becoming more popular, after his numerous confrontations with Geome and his pledge to take her down once and for all. (He would never get to do that now, Adlai told himself, then immediately felt his heart knock against his ribcage.) He would not have let a villain kill him. He was too smart and his power was too good at getting him out of trouble. The ability to change into anything that could bleed had always served him well. He could turn into a crow, his favorite animal, and fly away from any danger if he needed to. Or a mouse, to scurry away.

Maybe he had been distracted before he was killed. Maybe he had been tricked. Maybe he had been overwhelmed. Maybe there was a new villain out who had a vendetta against him. Maybe a hero did it. Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe a friend had lured him out and sliced his neck before he could even realize what was happening.

Maybe Adlai Marlowe knew exactly what had happened, or maybe he had absolutely no idea.

There were footsteps and a gasp behind him and he turned toward it, even though he did not know what he had looked like until that very moment. There was a boy there, with dark hair and glasses, looking down at the body. Adlai was simultaneously grateful he had put his mask on but also regretting putting his mask on, since it was so easily recognizable.

Maybe this boy would not know who he was. There was a slim chance, but any chance was worth hoping on. Even if he did not know who he was, though, the body was still at his feet and he still had bloodied hands and blood on his cheek and in his hair.

He was definitely screwed. He stayed quiet and stepped away from the body, making sure the note was still in his pockets and that his hands were still stuffed into them. They were, and the note was, as well.

The note that said NEXT: SPITFIRE OR CAPRICORN.

He should have never grabbed it.

And he really wished it was raining so that the water could wash all of this away.

 

[AreSneksSly]

Oh god.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh go—

The smell was the first thing Benjamin noticed. The tangy, potent stench that seemed hellbent on crawling into Benny’s nose and curling and curling and curling and curling and curling—

What happened next was unsurprising, really. A steady stream of vomit flowing out of Benjamin’s mouth and onto the filthy alleyway floor, amongst the rats and the pizza boxes and the aluminium cans.

‘I should clean that up later,’ Ben’s mind thought, like a cruel throwaway line the writers weren’t confident enough to put into the main script, and so left it at the end of the episode where no one would catch it.

God, he was going to be sick.

Ripley, the poor boy, felt his stomach churn as he gripped it tightly. His face was pulled into the tightest grimace, and his precious hero costume had long been forgotten, thrown to the wayside.

The smell truly was the worst part, how it tried to curl around every corner. Even his parents hadn’t smelt this bad. At least they had the decency of burning to death before they could rot. But not this corpse, no. This body was fresh. Or at least, fresh enough where the body wouldn’t have already bloated and the blood still stank of roadkill instead of mouldy spaghetti with metal scraps left in it.

In fact, Ben was so distracted by the smell he almost didn’t notice the figure standing right beside it. Shocking, considering he should’ve recognized the hated-celebrity-figure turned reluctant-somewhat-idol-after-Capricorn-turned-out-to-be-a-dick’s costume almost immediately.

Yeah, that head of blonde hair and striking yet stylish hero suit was unmistakable. It was Median, in the flesh, the man who evaded questions like it was his life on the line instead of his privacy, and the man who just three years ago managed to take down two of the biggest crime lords in California.

And yet.

It didn’t make sense.

Why would Median be here, of all places? Standing above a corpse, covered in blood and holding his fist in his pocket, as though he’d taken something from said corpse?

Most people would’ve gone in shock at the sight of a dead body, but Ben knew what a dead person looked like. He didn’t need to take a second glance. It was Median, the man who flirted like no other, who’d had some scandalous ships involving numerous people in the superhero industry, who mysteriously appeared on the scene after seemingly no prior pro-hero history, who—

Ben’s mind whirred, with justifications, with unvoiced screams, with rambling paragraphs of disdain and hatred and fury that Median would dare harm another human being—

But all that left his lips was a single, faint word, as he raised his finger at the man he once considered one of his idols...

“Median?”

 

[smolfluffball]

Median?

The stupid hero name he decided to go by. He chose it because he really did like math. He also hadn’t lied when he said he was a middle child. He thought, back then, that it had been very fitting. It didn’t reveal too much and he had to keep his secrets. It was perfectly ambiguous and he needed his anonymity.

Would his anonymity even matter now? When Outcast was dead? Did anything even matter?

Median. Median. Median. Median. Median. The famous hero. The heartthrob. The mysterious masked man. Most Secretive List of Heroes, second place. Most Powerful Heroes in Recent Years, fourth place. Number One Hottest Hero of Today. The Best Shining Star In The Business. Starlit Sky’s Newest Member? Quill’s Son? Quill’s Nephew? Bellwether’s Hero Son? Bellwether’s Hero Nephew? Avant-Garde’s Long Lost Brother? Not All Wind Supers Are Related! All Wind Supers Are Related! Greatest Hotshot Heroes Of The Past Ten Years. Brightest Heroes In The Business. Tenny And Aman’s Favorites. Theory’s Best Theories. Spitfire’s Best Rivalries. Bloom’s Best Friendships. Capricorn’s Lover? Bolt’s Secret Lover? Spitfire’s Obvious Lover? Outcast’s Pupil Turned Best Friend Turned Lover? MediCast: Truth or Fiction? MediCast Is REAL. MediCast Is FAKE. MediCast Is Happening! MediCast Is Not Happening! MediCast Is the Best Pairing! MediCast This and This and This and This and-

MediCast Is Dead.

Ren was dead. His mentor. His closest friend. The one who knew so many of his secrets. The one who promised him he'd be there for him no matter what. The one who saw him at one of his most vulnerable moments and stayed anyway.

Nothing mattered anymore. None of the lists. None of the articles. None of the theories. None of the fans. None of the media. None of the plans. None of the training. None of the time. None of the relationships he made.

Except the note said NEXT: SPITFIRE OR CAPRICORN.

And there was a boy pointing at him.

A boy that just said the name he came up with on a whim on the most awful day of his entire life.

He could not be reeling. He could not be faltering. He could not be failing. He had to be solid and stable. He had to be quick-witted and resourceful. He had to cut off his emotions and deal with this logically.

Logically. That was what he could do. He needed to. He must.

He could not let the dead body at his feet affect him anymore than it already had.

Outcast was dead, but that had to not matter, because he had a note and something else he needed to do.

Wiping his hands on the pants of his hero suit maybe made him look more guilty than he already did, but he did so anyway, after making sure to leave behind the note in his pocket. He wiped away the blood on his cheek and rubbed that against his suit, too. Once his hands and face were much cleaner he ran them through his hair again, ignoring the blood still in it, and studied the boy.

He seemed young. A teenager, perhaps. In the wrong place at the wrong time. This boy recognized him, unsurprisingly, so he could work with that. Create a narrative and turn this into something else. It would be very bad for his image to be a hero seen standing over a corpse but there was nothing he could do about that now.

His image also did not matter anymore, since everything was now broken, so ruining it would be fine.

But he did not want to stop being a hero just yet.

“I’m going to need you to stay back there, fanboy,” Adlai said, holding his hands up and moving around the body, closer to the boy. “There’s been an accident and I can’t let you get close. The perpetrator may still be somewhere close by. Maybe hiding. You don’t want to have to be saved by me, do you? Though, of course I will, if anyone dangerous tries to attack you.”

He was closer to the boy. He could see he did, indeed, look like a teenager, or perhaps a college student. There was some spit or something on his bottom lip and he had a mole on the side of his nose. He looked very innocent and very much like he should not be here, seeing Median standing over a dead Outcast.

Adlai reached into the hidden pocket of his pants, ignoring the blood soaking into them, and pulled out his phone. He waved it to the boy, smiling his signature Median smile. “I’m gonna ask for back-up, alright?”

He didn’t bother to wait for a response and quickly clicked to Kiara, otherwise known as Spitfire, then typed a message out to her. He exited the texting chain and scrolled up to Emil, otherwise known as Capricorn, and sent a quick message. Nothing important; “You okay?”. He returned his phone to his pocket and glanced down the alley, then back at the body, then he moved around the boy.

“If you want to see your favorite hero in action then you should stick with me, kid,” he said over his shoulder, grinning at the boy.