“And a hell of a lot of fun!” Charles added.
They flew further west and decided to land on top of a tall building.
“Okay, guys,” Clark said. “That was so easy that I think we should maybe split up and cover more ground tonight. Me and Sarah, Donny and Chloe, and Charles and John. Or whatever all our superhero names are!”
“Okay,” John said. “Sounds good.”
“We’ll meet back up in one hour at the warehouse,” Clark told them.
“It’s called Mecha!” Charles corrected him.
“Okay, Shadow Fly,” Clark laughed. “We’ll meet back up at Mecha. One hour.”
They flew off in teams and went wherever the police radios called in assistance. Clark and Sarah flew downtown and stopped several muggings. During the first, a man held a gun up to an elderly woman and demanded her purse. From the sky, Clark commanded the man’s gun from his hand. He then swooped down and charged at the man. Clark threw the burglar into the wall as Sarah returned the purse to the old woman.
“Thank you,” the old woman said. “Are you two superheroes?”
“Yes, ma’am. We are,” Clark said. “And we’ll always be looking out for the law-abiding citizens of Cincinnati.”
“Oh thank you!” the woman said before scurrying off.
Clark went back to the burglar lying on the ground and punched him in the face, knocking him unconscious.
“Don’t worry,” he told Sarah whose eyes lit up. “I’d never kill anyone. These losers just need to be taught a lesson. You don’t point a gun to an old lady’s head. Hell has a special spot for these scumbags.”
Next, Clark and Sarah stopped a large drug deal. Three armed drug dealers had their weapons drawn as Clark and Sarah descended onto the street. The drug dealers began shooting at them and Clark placed one of his hands out. The thugs shot round after round until their guns were out of ammo. Each of the bullets stopped in midair and dropped to the ground before ever reaching Clark or Sarah.
“Who the hell are you!?” said the first drug dealer.
“How did they do that?” yelled the second thug.
The third thug said nothing, he merely ran away. Clark gestured to Sarah. She levitated in the air and flew after the running thug. Oozing the confidence of his powers, Clark walked slowly toward the two thugs who remained. When they lifted their guns again, Clark used his powers to rip the weapons away from them. The guns began to twist like a pretzel before dropping to the ground.
The two drug dealers attempted to run but were unable to. Neither of their feet would lift up from the ground. Clark was using his powers to hold their feet down. Clark walked up to the first drug dealer and kicked him. The thug flew back and fell to the ground. He groaned in pain.
“What the hell are you!?” the other drug dealer said.
“You see,” Clark said in a cocky tone, “It’s not a matter of who I am. It’s a matter of what I possess.”
The man continued his attempt to move his feet and was unable to.
“So go ahead,” Clark said. “Ask me not who I am, but what I possess.”
“What do you possess?” the thug asked reluctantly.
Clark looked him directly in the eyes and whispered. “I own the night.”
Clark raised his hand to the man’s head. He flicked the drug dealer in the face with one finger and it caused the thug to fly back and crash into a building.
Sarah flew back to Clark with the third thug dangling below her. She held him in the air with one hand. Then Sarah dropped him several feet onto the ground in front of Clark. The thug was hurting as he got to his feet and began pleading.
“Please, don’t hurt me!”
“Why?” Clark asked. “Weren’t you going to hurt me with your cowardly weapon? I brandish no gun at all.”
“I’m sorry,” the thug begged.
“Are you going to continue selling drugs to kids?” Clark asked.
“No, never again!” the thug cried.
“Sarah,” Clark said. “You do the honors.”
“Gladly,” Sarah said. She went up to the thug and kneed him between the legs. The drug dealer lost his breath as he fell to the ground.
“Great job,” Clark told Sarah as he high-fived her.
“I think it’s time to go back to Mecha,” Sarah suggested.
“Wow, has it been one hour already?” Clark asked. “I guess it’s true. Time really does fly when you’re having fun.
They again blasted off as they heard the sound of police sirens.
“We’re going to put all the cops out of work!” Sarah joked as they flew through the sky.
They landed back at the warehouse and noticed John and Charles entering right before them. Clark and Sarah entered the warehouse through the rear door and saw that Donny and Chloe were also back. Charles went into the refrigerator and pulled out several cans of soda. He passed one to each of them and they toasted.
“So how did it go?” Charles asked.
“Amazing!” Sarah said. “We stopped three muggings and a set of armed drug dealers. One tried to run and I flew after him. Clark handled the other two.”
“It was great,” Clark laughed. “They were begging for mercy, almost pissed their pants. But only after they tried to kill us with automatic guns.”
“John and I saved a bus that had been hijacked,” Charles said. “It was crazy. These maniacs had machine guns. We ripped the guns of out their hands and y’know, without their guns they’re coward little slime balls.”
“They’re cockroaches,” John said.
“And then we stopped the bus because they were about to plow into a building full of people,” Charles bragged. “And after we saved the day, we got a standing ovation. We were like superhero rock stars.”
“How about you guys?” Clark asked Donny and Chloe.
“We stopped a standoff that was going down in an apartment on the east side,” Donny told him.
“Yeah,” Chloe chimed in. “This guy was about to kill a mother so we swooped into the building.”
“Then,” said Donny, “he laughed at us when he saw our costumes. But he wasn’t laughing when his gun flew into the air and his ass got kicked!”
“The cops saw us and were pretty awestruck,” Chloe said as she held Donny’s hand and told him, “You were so amazing.”
“I guess I could really get into this superhero thing,” John said.
“Clark was right,” said Sarah as she hugged him. “This is what we’re meant to do.”
“A toast to the most badass kids who ever lived,” Charles said as he raised his can of soda. They spent several more minutes talking about their accomplishments until Clark asked Sarah to step outside with him. She followed him as he left through the back door.
“Yeah?” she asked Clark.
“Come up here with me,” Clark said as he flew on top of the warehouse. Sarah followed after him.
“It’s really beautiful up here,” Clark said. “And I just wanted to have a moment where it’s just me and you.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. “I guess it really is nice up here.”
“You really just blew me away out there, Sarah,” Clark said. “I mean Summer Saturn.”
“We really have the most incredible lives right now, don’t we?” she said. “Now I’ve just got to think about how to get into my room without waking my parents.”
“Easy,” Clark said. “Just fly up to your window, open it slowly, and quietly get into bed.”
“Look,” Sarah said. The moon glowed right above them.
“You know, this would be the perfect time to kiss. Dressed as superheroes, on top of a building, with the moon lighting the way.”
“Only because you asked,” Sarah said as they wrapped their arms around one another and kissed- silhouetted by the moon.
Minutes later they returned to the warehouse where the others were still talking. Finally they realized how late it was so they all took off their superhero outfits and placed their normal clothing back on. Ch
arles shut the lights off in the warehouse and they parted ways in order to fly back to their homes.
Their normal lives resumed the next morning when they returned to school. When all of them met up before class they spoke energetically about their prior night of scaring criminals and preventing innocent people from getting hurt. It was, of course, the topic they all had on their minds. In order to fight crime without their parents noticing they were gone, they decided only to meet up and don their alter egos on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. That gave them the rest of the week to be normal teenagers and allowed them to view crime fighting as an occasional pastime.
Before they parted for class that morning, Charles and John decided to inform Clark, Sarah, Donny, and Chloe of their findings at Bio-Tech Industries. They told them how the crystal originated from a meteor, how it expanded after absorbing water, how it both cured and killed others, and how it then went missing from the lab after being labeled classified.
“And that thing is still in the basement of the warehouse?” Clark asked.
“Yeah, it’s still there,” Charles confirmed.
“Well what else is it capable of?” Donny asked.
“We don’t know,” John said, “But we’re going to find out.”
“What?” Clark asked, “You can’t touch it again.”
“I don’t know,” John said. “Maybe it could kill us or maybe we’ve developed a tolerance to it. But I have a feeling it’s capable of a lot more things than what we read.”
“The files referred to it as the fractal crystal,” Charles told them.
“Whatever it’s called,” said Chloe, “I don’t want to be around it.”
“Me neither,” Sarah agreed.
“Don’t worry, girls,” Charles told them. “My basement at the warehouse is security locked and surrounded by titanium. You’ll never have to make contact with it if you don’t want to. Although John actually thinks it could summon aliens.”
“That was just a suggestion!” John huffed.
Even though they all agreed flying was the best way to get around the city, Charles was determined to get some sort of cool armored vehicle that they could ride around in to further strike fear into criminals.
They trotted off to their first period classes and Clark took his usual seat in history class next to John. Clark looked at the board and his vision was perfect. But he went into his backpack anyway and pulled out a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He placed them on and adjusted them up to his nose. He almost looked like a different person.
“Dude, why are you wearing those big glasses?” John asked.
“My secret identity,” Clark whispered.
“You’re taking this really serious,” John laughed. “You look kinda weird.”
“Exactly!” Clark smiled. “No one would suspect mild-mannered Clark O’Sullivan of being Night Wolf. The glasses really are the perfect disguise. If it works for Superman, it can work for me.”
John continued laughing, “Okay, man. Whatever you say.”
Clark brushed his hand across his desk and intentionally knocked his books and papers to the floor. “Oops, clumsy ol’ Clark,” he said of himself and laughed. He stood up from his desk and began picking up his papers and books as John helped him.
“Yeah,” John said, “Now you’re just being silly.”
“Should I be more clumsy?” Clark asked as he sat back at his desk. His glasses had moved to the tip of his nose.
“No,” John laughed. “I don’t feel like picking up your books.”
“Okay then,” Clark snorted as he pushed his glasses up to the brim of his nose.
With the glasses still on, Clark sat next to Donny and Chloe during his second class. They both unsurprisingly laughed when Clark told them he was wearing the glasses as a disguise.
“So guys,” Clark whispered as they were each typing at their computers. “We have our individual names but we need a group name.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Chloe said.
“But does it really matter?” Donny asked. “If we’re not really spreading our names publically?”
“Yeah, but it’s just for us, y’know,” Clark said. “And I was thinking. Maybe our group name should be known to the public. Like an urban legend.”
“Or we could just spray paint the name,” Donny said. “Perhaps on public buildings… but that would be defacing property.”
“Not a bad idea,” Clark said. “But I had something else in mind.”
“So what about the group name?” Chloe asked.
“I was thinking…,” Clark said. “We call ourselves ‘The Colony of Crime Fighters.’”
“It’s a little clunky,” Donny said, “But hey…”
“It doesn’t really matter so sure,” Chloe shrugged.
“Great,” Clark said. “Then I’ll propose it with everyone else.”
“You’re sort of the leader, Clark,” Donny told him. “So if you choose a name we’ll go with it.”
During lunch Clark had to again explain his new eyeglasses, this time to Sarah. Just as the others had, Sarah laughed but she told Clark she thought he looked cute “in a dorky kind of way.”
“So we’re not going out tonight, but we’re going out tomorrow night, right?” Sarah clarified.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Clark told her.
“Then I’m going to sleep for ten hours tonight!” Sarah laughed. “Finally a day without any duties.”
“Damn,” Clark said. “I almost forgot. I have football practice this afternoon after school.”
Clark then ran the team name by Sarah and she shrugged her shoulders as if it didn’t matter. Clark next told the name to Charles and John when they were changing outfits for gym class. When the class started, they went outside to play soccer. Charles and John laughed over and over when they watched as Clark intentionally fell on the field. It was his every intention to miss the ball several times when he attempted to kick it. The other kids laughed as Clark picked himself up and adjusted his glasses.
“I think this superhero stuff is driving Clark nuts,” Charles laughed.
“Yeah, I told him he didn’t need to act like Clark Kent but he says he needs a secret identity,” John said.
“Hell, I already got mine,” Charles said. “My secret identity is that of a filthy rich playboy philanthropist. I’m practically Batman. No one would expect me to be a superhero.”
“CLARK!” Coach Smith angrily yelled as he watched Clark fumble and fall while playing soccer. “Get your head in the game! What the heck is going on, son? You’re better than this!”
“Sorry, Coach!” Clark yelled back. “I promise I’ll do better.”
When school was over, Clark hurried to football practice and stayed true to his word. He made the coach proud when he punted the football higher and further than anyone else and stayed far ahead of his other teammates when they raced one another.
“That’s what I’m talking about, Clark!” Coach Smith clapped. “That’s the Clark O’Sullivan I like to see. Just take those darn glasses off! You look like a goof.”
“No sir!” Clark told him. “I need my glasses.”
“Hell, son. I never seen you wear ‘em before.”
“That’s because… I’m out of contacts.”
“Well make sure you get those contacts back soon. Otherwise you look like an oddball even if you play like a pro.”
The teammates split in two teams and played a practice game. Clark served as guard to the quarterback until the coach suggested that Clark himself serve as the quarterback. Clark did as instructed and when the ball was tossed to him, he outran all of the other played and scored a tremendous touchdown.
“Brilliant!” Coach Smith said as he blew his whistle. “Practice over! With Clark on our team we’re destined to win. Now all of you get outta here.”
The teammates were all sweating and tired when they went to the boy’s locker-room. They each undressed and hit the showers. Clark kept his glasses on and th
e steam from the showers fogged up his lenses. He could barely see as he stood under a shower nozzle. He could, however, hear the other boys talking about him quite clearly.
“Last year he couldn’t make the team at all,” a teammate named Jed said, “Now he’s the freakin’ MVP.”
“You work hard, you get better,” said another teammate.
Clark turned around, his glasses still foggy, and spoke up. “I don’t know what you’re trying to accuse me of but I’m on this team because I’m a damn good player.”
“I’m just saying,” said Jed, “That performance enhancing drugs can go a long way. A lot of people will do a lot of things to get on this team. I’m just saying─ I don’t trust you.”
“Gee, why don’t we discuss this while we’re actually dressed?” Clark said as he wiped his glasses.
“And what’s with those stupid glasses?” Jed asked.
“You’re beneath me, Jed. You’re really not worth my time.”
Clark ignored him and returned to his station in the shower room. The other boys watched as Jed walked up to Clark and shoved him into the wall. He shoved Clark so hard that his glasses cracked against the wall.
“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Clark said as he removed his broken glasses from his face and dropped them to the floor. At that moment he wanted to punch Jed and send him flying through the wall. But he refused to risk exposing his powers. That was the entire purpose of the glasses and fumbling about on the field. So he did nothing to Jed in order to appear less threatening. Clark knew he could have hurt his teammate in any manner that he desired. Instead, he simply exited the showers, got dressed, and went home.
After flying home, Clark called Sarah and was excited to tell her that he maintained his composure in a heated situation. As he knew she would, Sarah told him she was proud.
“It doesn’t take a fight to prove you’re a man,” Sarah said warmly. “Especially when you already know what you’re capable of. And Clark, I have a surprise for you tomorrow night.”
After having dinner and speaking to his parents, Clark carried on a normal night which proved to be far more boring to him than he expected. Everything on television was a bore fest. Returning to the streets to fight crime on the night that followed was all he could think of until the moment he fell asleep.
Ascension (The Ascension Series) Page 17
