Invincible (13 page)

Every second I expand my mind, I began to hear more and more, and soon enough, I was able hear everything. It wasn’t as distracting as I’d thought it would be. It was just as blissful and relaxing as hearing the sounds of the ocean, the sounds marrying perfectly together in a sweet, soft harmony.

I was able to depict one of the sounds: a faint, screeching noise, with an urgent voice shouting behind it. After a few seconds of listening in, I realize that it was a police officer, yelling into one of the radios, giving away directions as they pursue a stolen armored truck.

Well, then, looks like I’l
l be having some fun after all.

I descend like a shot cannonball, heading towards the source of the sound, which was only going to take a few minutes. It was only until I fly above the city buildings that I see the police cars, and realize that they were far behind the armored truck, as if they weren’t putting much effort into the chase. As if they wanted them to escape.

I realized Ryan was telling the truth. These guys weren’t trying to catch the criminals; they were trying to help them get away. Without no apparent reason that could be viewed as one of justice. My mind ponders on the people wearing those badges. Were they accomplices, gaining something from this action? Were they threatened by the criminals themselves, believing that letting them slide would protect themselves, or the loved ones around them? Or were they just hopeless, thinking that so many other criminals have slipped away and taken over, so what’s one more?

All of these things lead to one thing in my mind: stupidity. And that was one thing I wasn’t going to allow.

I fly down a couple of blocks, and when I reach the truck, I swoop down to the streets, immediately speeding to the front of it. I had no idea of what to do, so I figured I’d just do what I do best: improvise.

As I pass the truck, I look into the window, and find the driver and the passenger’s face staring at me in disbelief.

“What is that?” the driver says.

“Who cares?” says the othe
r guy. “Run it over!”

I lower my feet against the pavement, standing a fair distance from the truck in the middle of the street. I notice the driver smiling through the windshield as he steps on the gas, speeding towards me. He laughs, but I see no reason for it. When I’m done with him,
I’ll
be the one laughing.

Before it is even an inch away from me, I ball up my hand, and immediately punch the front of the truck. The guys scream as the impact shudders the truck into a complete stop, slightly balancing on its two front tires before it lands safely—or s
afely enough—onto the pavement.

I remove my fist from the truck, leaving behind a deep dent in its radiator, which spews thick clouds of exhaust into the air. And then I start to hear voices. Not from the two guys, but from the back of the truck. Rapid heartbeats, uncontrollable breathing, and in between that, a couple of murmurs. Every one of them distinct, all made by a group of six.

“What the hell is going on?” one says as they exit the truck.

I ignore the guys in the front seat, their deafening silence assuring me that there was nothing to suspect, and immediately walk over to the back of the vehicle, facing the six opponents.

“Seems like you got a handful of money there,” I say, noticing the pile of bags placed inside. “Hit the jackpot or something?”

“I’ll hand
le this,” says one of the guys.

He grabs his machine gun and walks toward me, and before he even has a chance to aim it, I use my super-speed to grab the gun from his hand, and slap him wit
h the butt of it.

As he falls down unconscious, the other five guys charge towards me. I shove the gun into one of their stomachs, and slam it upward across his jaw. Another runs towards me, and I drop the gun. I grasp my hand around his throat, lifting him from the ground, and without even looking, I throw him behind me. More than half a second later, from a far distance, the sound of broken glass and a r
aging car alarm fills my ears.

“What is he?” asks one of the remaining three, his voice quivering in fear.

None of them answer. They just keep attacking me, fighting me off as if I were some living nightmare. One tries to punch me, but I grab hold of his fist, raising his arm into the air. I don’t break it; instead I swipe my foot under his, causing him to slip, and just before he hits the pavement, my hand presses onto his chest and I force him down, making the impact towards the ground more painful.

As I hear the crackle of the man’s skull, another runs after me, pointing
a gun to my head. In one quick jab, I punch his lights out, causing him to fall sluggishly to the ground.

The last one, who is smaller and weaker than the others, possibly around my age, doesn’t do anything; he just looks at me with a scared look on his face. I walk over to him, amused at the fact that I was actually able to put fear into this boy’s mind.

“Please,” he begs, his heart pounding an aggressive rhythm. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

I gently rest my hand against his shoulder. He tenses up, but after a few seconds, when he realizes I’ve done nothing to him, he calms down.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” I say, my voice soft and comforting. And as I see him smile with relief, I smash my forehead into his. “Much.”

He slips to the ground and cries in agony. As I observe the damage I’ve created, my expression brightens. I actually stopped those guys from taking that money, and then I took all six of them out in the process. I didn’t even think I had it in me.

The sound of police sirens pierce my ears, the noise growing louder and louder. In a matter of seconds, four cars appear, two in front of the truck, and two behind it. They come to a screeching stop, and as the men get of the cars in front of me, their guns pointed towards me, I notice a familiar face. Ryan.

I froze, unsure of what to do. What if he recognized me? What if he realized that the boy standing in front of him was not a stranger, but the quiet and confused boy he only had d
inner with just a few days ago?

“Freeze!” he orders.

I guess that answers my question.

“No,” I yell to him. “You’ve got the wrong person!” I then point to the unconscious bodies on the ground. “These are the ones you’re looking for.”

Ryan looks to the ground and faces me again. “You did this?” he asks, his face expressing disbelief.

I nod my head. “Yes.”

“Why?”

I was lost for words, trying to figure out the right things to say to Ryan. But before I could fully

sort them out, I open my mouth, not even caring how he might view them.

“I’ve heard good things about you,” I say. “That you’re one of the good guys. So am I.”

The other cops look to each other with confusion as Ryan’s eyes meet mine. We stay like that for a moment, and then as the others hesitantly pull their fingers to the trigger, eager to shoot, Ryan lowers his gun.

“Who are you?” he asks, ignoring the murmurs of his fellow colleagues.

“A friend,” I say.

And then I fly away, hearing the gasps and shouts of confusion from the cops below, their hearts beating out of control, while Ry
an’s was as silent as the wind.

My mind goes back to when he lowered his weapon, trusting me with open arms, believing every word I’d said, never doubting them for a moment. And as I respond to another cry for help, somewhere nearby, I realize why.

He knew I was trying to help, and seeing me doing what I just did, stopping those robbers, and saying those words to him, convinced him we were on the same side. And that alone meant something more to both of us.

He has someone to help
him. I have someone to help me.

We were now allies.

In a matter of hours, I was the talk of the entire nation.

Brad had awoken me, dragging me down to the living room in excitement. His fingers point to the TV, and since I’d just exited a deep two hour slumber, it was a little bit hard to pay attention. But then as the gears in my brain start to turn, and my eyesight becomes clearer, I stare at the tiny box, and there I
was, flying away into the sky.

I hadn’t noticed a camera crew following me, but I guess when you’re fighting robbers, evacuating people from fires, saving the elderly from getting mugged in a corner, stopping a gun shooting at a convenient store, and everything else in between that, you really don’t have time to notice anything.

Every channel I turned to, I was there, the news reporters raving about the mysterious Good Samaritan. Some of them even interviewing the people I helped—among those people was Ryan.

“Could you tell us your reaction, sir?” asks one of the reporters off-screen.

“Well,” Ryan says, his face a dumbfound expression, “he was at the scene when we got there. We realized that he stopped the robbers from escaping and…and…” He then hesitates, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he laughs.

“It’s okay,” the interviewer says. “Just one quick question, how do you feel about this new savior in town?”

“Um…” Ryan stammers for a moment, his cheeks turning pink, and then out of nowhere, he chuckles. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in my entire life. Just looking at him, you could tell that he’s

what this city needs. You can just see it. I believe that he is on his way to doing something big, and I believe…that this guy’s going to make a difference.”

“Can you believe this?” says Brad, his eyes glued to the TV, brightening as if he had awoken to a Christmas morning.

I couldn’t believe any of this. I really couldn’t. Not just Brad’s excitement, but the praise I was receiving from the world. And it overwhelmed me a little. All I wanted was to help others, and possibly ignite a spark within the city. But who could ever guess that such a spark would become a blazing wall of fire?

For the first time at school, nobody paid attention to me. In fact, no one was paying attention to anything, really. They were too busy talking to each other, and shoving newspapers into their faces. Newspapers with my face upon them.

“Did you hear about it, yet?” Jack asks as I arrived, waving around a paper.

He hands me the paper and I gaze at the front page.
LEATHER-CLAD WONDER SHOCKS WORLD
, it reads, with a blurry—but not blurry enough—picture of me, soaring through the streets.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” Jack says. “I mean, there’s actually a superhero…in our city!”

“I know,” I say, laughing awkwardly. “I-it’s pretty surprising to me, too.”

All morning, everyone was talking about me. There was not one place I could turn to where I didn’t hear the kids gossiping about the red flying boy. Even Rick, who was slowly rising to power, again, could be heard talking.

“It’s amazing, you know?” I hear him say during English. “I’ve never seen anything like him before.”

“
No one’s
seen anything like him before,” one of his friends says. The tables around them laugh along with him. “You don’t expect freaks to just walk around every day.”

“Hey, would you back up off the super guy’s back?” he snaps. “What he’s doing is cool. I don’t see you going out there cleaning up the city.”

Hearing those words sent shivers down my spine. Rick defended me. He thought
I
was cool. It was shocking, but the feelings ended there. I didn’t feel the same way, nor did it flatter me in the slightest. Even if he came up to me and asked for my autograph, I would never gain mutual feelings toward Rick Evans.

To my relief, the only one that didn’t seemed caught up in the hype was Taylor. But just because she didn’t openly contribute to the news, didn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to have an opinion.

“You’ll think it’s stupid,” she says during lunch, her cheeks blushing in embarrassment.

“Go ahead,” I say. “I-I won’t judge.”

“Okay,” she laughs. “I think it’s pretty noble what he’s doing.”

“Really? How so?”

“I honestly don’t know. I mean, I’ve obviously never met him, but just looking at him on the TV, in the papers, he has this sort of presence. Like he’s determined to do something, and will do anything to do it.”

For the fifth time today, I was in shock, confused at how people were able to read my face, and see the things I was only starting to represent, as if I were an open book. But after a few seconds, it didn’t