Synopsis: This is the story of Red, a normal college student with superpowers, though her friends call her Jay... and none of them know about the whole superpower thing. Sarcastic, chronically sleep-deprived, and always hungry she's the happy in-between of Deadpool and Spiderman that you never knew you needed!
Prologue: Oliver
I can say with confidence that one of the best and worst things to happen to me happened all in the same night. It's funny how something horrible can lead you to something… amazing.
It was the night I had met her. Our city’s own local superhero. Well, I guess superhero was kind of a stretch. No one really knew much about her and the media couldn’t figure out what to call her. She had a variety of names most of which seemed to pick out the color she always wore: Red. She was called a vigilante by some, a menace by others, it really depended on who you asked. The media often chose to report on her fashion choices rather than the actual criminals she helped put away. Her costume did, however, lack a certain flare you might find in a comic book or movie. She most often wore something you’d go to the gym in, though the colors were always consistent. There was only one resource of decent coverage on the superhero/vigilante, a blog called ‘The Red Underground’. It was the only real resource I had to go off of for what went on in the city. It exposed a lot of real stuff going on that the news hardly ever talked about including the Bone Crew, a nasty gang that the cops and media would rather pretend didn’t exist.
It was all of this that had led me to her.
I had been looking at colleges. It wasn’t so much that I even needed to go to college. My father already had a job lined up for me and I was more than capable of doing whatever I damn well pleased without taking the extra four years. But college to me had always been more about independence. A way to get out from my father’s overbearing thumb. I mean the guy meant well but there comes a time when a kid needs to get his own life and mine had been seriously lacking in the last 18 years. So I snuck out to visit a local college on the other side of town. I had even called and set up a damn tour for myself.
The school itself wasn’t exceptionally impressive but the location was nice, close enough to home that my dad wouldn’t completely freak and far enough that I would need to get my own place. It was practically a dream come true.
The sun had gone down by the time I finally headed back home. In an effort to enjoy my newfound freedom I decided to walk home. I had hardly made it off campus when I noticed two men following me which wouldn’t have been alarming except for the fact that both men had skulls tattooed to their face. One man was completely bald the details of the skull printed across the shiny skin. The other had a notable crew cut with a strong fade- probably to show off the markings on the side of his skull. I could feel my heartbeat pick up and my palms begin to sweat. Not that I was particularly afraid of them but clearly their proximity wasn’t a good thing. I picked up my pace and noticed the immediate increase in their own. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind that they were following me. In an attempt to lose them I began taking quick turns onto streets I didn’t know very well- not my best move… I ended up making a poorly chosen turn into a dark alleyway. Turning quickly on my heel I ran straight into the two thugs blocking the entrance. I backed up slowly body tensing as it recalculated my fight or flight instinct. The two men smiled wickedly at me sharing a knowing look before pouncing into action. Their moves felt choreographed, the two moving in perfect sync both grabbing a shoulder and shoving me into the concrete wall. I grunted as my back slammed hard against the surface of the building.
“Now pretty boy why don’t you tell us where you keep your wallet?” The bald one hissed as he gripped the front of my shirt tighter. I felt the situation was a no brainer- give them the cash, what did an empty bank account matter when a cut throat was on the line?
“Right back pocket,” I answered dutifully. The bald man smiled as he reached his hand back to slide the leather wallet from my pocket. The man flipped it open greedily with the one hand.
“You got your cash, mind if I have some fun with this one?” Crew cut asked his partner all the while keeping his eyes steadily trained on me a dark glint in them making me swallow hard.
“Do what you want with him, not my type anyways,” Bald boy snickered. My eyes widened at his words, suddenly I didn’t think my cash was all they wanted… Crew cut pressed close to me a sinister grin playing on his lips. He slid something from his pocket and with a flip of his hand a blade was pressed to my throat.
“Try to fight me and I’ll slit your throat,” He cooed moving close to my ear. I could feel his other hand moving down my body. I was in a word: petrified. It’s never talked about, either because it doesn’t happen as often or because the victims are too afraid to admit what happened to them, I idly wondered if I would fall into this same category. After all it was either suffer the traumatic event and its lasting effects or lose my life. There was only one way to find out and I was quickly barreling towards one of the two options. I squeezed my eyes shut as if that could block out the horrors of what was to come.
“I have to admit, he does have a nice face but I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to excuse rape,” A girl’s voice sounded boisterously from above. I opened my eyes to find a small girl sitting on the lowest rung of the fire escape across from us. Her dainty feet dangled over the side as she surveyed the scene. Both men stood frozen staring angry daggers her way. My mouth hung open. This is the vigilante?! The girl was so much smaller than I had imagined. She looked to be about half my size maybe less. Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail and her clothes were tattered and stained with blood. Bruises speckled her skin even dotting her pretty round face. She grinned down at the men as she awaited their answer.
“Get out of here little girl before someone gets hurt, and believe me you don’t want that someone to be you,” Bald boy quipped.
“Let me just tell you how this is going to go, I’m going to kick your ass first because well that knife just has to go, and then I’m going to kick your ass while your rapey friend over here watches. And if you two are really lucky you’ll stay conscious through the whole ass kicking ordeal. Hell, I’ll even throw in a pretty black eye while I’m at it!” The girl taunted as she wistfully kicked her feet back and forth. She approached the entire situation more like it was a nice evening stroll with friends than a gang’s mugging and violation of humanity. The two men looked at each other with bewildered looks on their face before turning to the questionable hero with a snarl.
“I think what you need to do is shut-” Crew cut had turned his knife towards the girl but before he could finish his reply the girl had swung off the handle bars flying feet first through the small space. Her feet collided with the mans face knocking him into the concrete next to me with a sickening crack. The knife clattered to the ground. Her feet pushed off his skull and she flipped gracefully backward onto the ground in front of me. She gave me a wink before swiveling towards her next opponent already poised for his attack. He charged her, arms extended as if he were going to take her out by the legs. At the last second, she side stepped his move her hand bolting out to take Bald boy by his neck. Using his momentum against him she sent him headfirst into the concrete wall following his friend’s path on the collapse down. She dusted her hands off placing them on her hips and clicking her tongue.
“I so wish the two of you had stayed conscious long enough to see how pathetic you look,” She sighed before pulling a handful of zip ties from her pocket. I watched as she dragged the two bodies to a storm drain and promptly tied their hands, multiple times, to the railing. Finally turning back to me she smiled apologetically. She strolled over to me and picked my wallet up off the ground.
“I believe this is yours.” She offered me the worn leather wallet. I nodded and hesitantly took it from her. Her hands went back to rest on her hips as she regarded my state. Her eyes were striking, a bright gray I had never seen someone wear before, thickly rimmed with dark lashes.
“Any chance you know where the nearest phone booth is? I gotta call this in.” I blinked in surprise at her words- she was going to take care of everything for me- no statement from me whatsoever, and no chance my dad found out about this or anyone else for that matter (so maybe it really was that men were afraid to talk about being the victim). My previous assumption of her size had been correct, the girl stood nearly a foot shorter than me, and though fit verged on the thin side but that didn’t stop her from single-handedly kicking two guy’s asses as if it were nothing.
“I- I don’t,” I stammered out. The girl frowned a beautiful pair of full lips. Before I could stop myself I found my eyes surveying her. A colorful patch of purple marks about the size of a fist decorated her stomach, a few fading scrapes appeared along her chin and arms. She smirked as she observed where my gaze had gone.
“The rumors aren’t true,” She told me.
“Huh?” My face suddenly felt hot as I met her piercing gaze once more.
“I don’t starve myself, I just have a killer workout routine,” She chuckled and to my surprise I found myself releasing a nervous laugh alongside her. She nodded towards the alley’s opening.
“Try not to run into any more trouble on your way home,” She ordered me. I nodded following her instructions to the mouth of the alley. Before I could completely leave though I turned back around to face her.
“Hey-” I called voice uneven. Her head looked up from the crooks she had saved me from. “Thank you- for saving me,” I finished awkwardly. The girl grinned as she looked at me.
“It’s just what I do,” She said with a shrug but the smile didn’t leave her face. I found myself smiling as well.
It was then that I decided I would do anything I could to help her.
She was a hero.
Chapter 1: Red
Some might say I’m a superhero. Me? I prefer local badass but superhero is good too. And I guess I kind of was a superhero. I wore a mask and stopped crime. Hell, I could do things that shouldn’t be possible.
Yeah screw it I’m totally a superhero.
“Earth to Red, are you in there?” My tech whiz of a sidekick shouted in my ear.
“Yeah yeah I hear you,” I grumbled. He normally only communicated to me through an earpiece. He handled the details of crime-fighting so I wouldn’t have to. Don’t get me wrong the guy could kick some serious ass if he wanted to but it was a rare occasion for him to ever need to.
“Kind of a slow night,” Napster noted.
“Yeah it's boring-” I froze, body tensing as I heard a scream. Finally something good! I ran towards the sound. They were easy to find only two buildings over from the rooftop I had been perched on. A woman fought for her bag from a kid with a green mohawk. I smiled, it was almost too easy. Silently I slid down the drainpipe on the side of the building. On the ground lay your usual alleyway muck and trash. I opted for a sturdy glass bottle. Giving it a light toss it hit its target. Upon impact with his head, the boy let go of the bag and the woman took off running. The boy turned to me growling.
“Sorry man but that purse just totally clashed with that outfit,” I said leaning casually against the brick wall of the building.
The boy glowered at me and without a word his entire left arm morphed into a crystalized blade nearly the length of his body.
“Well, that’s… new,” I said trying to keep my mouth from hanging open.
“Holy shit!!”Napster shouted. Not helpful.
Blade boy came at me fast.
“You know just because you can give yourself a haircut,” I said ducking under his arm as he swung at me, “doesn’t mean that you should!”
The boy bared his teeth and took another literal stab at me. I jumped over his attack plowing my feet into his face and kicking off him. The force knocked him on his back as I did a backflip onto my feet.
“Uh, Red we might have a problem,” I heard Napster in my ear. I groaned in response.
Blade boy snarled as he scrambled to his feet. I scooped up a bent lead pipe off the ground. Taking my own swing this time I went for the arm and his galdamn arm cut through the pipe! He grinned at me. I did not care for that.
“The girl with the purse was working with him, they robbed a jewelry store two blocks over, the purse was full of the loot,” Napster told me.
“WHAT?!” I practically screeched. Distracted I didn’t move fast enough when Sparkles swung at me. A shallow slice split across my stomach.
“Ah!! Fuck- it must be a bitch to wipe with that thing!” I shouted. He sneered.
“Classy,” Napster commented.
“I’m busy can you just handle this?” I asked annoyed. In response, I heard Napster’s bike rev into the earpiece. Blade boy gave me a confused look.
“Voices in my head, they just demand to be heard,” I quipped with a shrug. The boy scowled.
“Don’t you ever hear voices?” I asked as I came at him swinging. He dodged easily and I nearly lost my hand when he came up to block my next punch.
“Fine don’t talk, I like the strong silent type anyways!” I took a couple of steps back and came at him running. He went for the attack but my target was lower. I let my body fall sliding clear under his crystalized blade and through his legs to the other side. I jumped to my feet running up the side of the brick wall to the top of the dumpster. One foot touching down I quickly pushed off crotch slamming into the side of his face as I used my forward momentum to twist and flip him onto his back. Disoriented, I took a moment to punch him in the face… hard.
The blade receded back into a human-looking arm as he fell unconscious.
“Strong silent type huh?” Napster chuckled as he appeared in the alley-way dragging the struggling woman behind him by her handcuffs.
“Better than street-naive tech geek. What the hell are you doing?” I asked eyeing the still very aware girl next to him.
“Well it seemed a little extreme to knock her out,” Napster snorted. Without hesitation, I punched the girl straight in the nose and she went limp, Napster caught her giving me an incredulous look.
“What, don’t tell me you’re afraid to hit a girl in this line of business. Besides if she started screaming someone could be dumb enough to let her go,” I told him.
“How are you going to tie him up. Zip ties aren’t going to work with that arm,” Napster asked as he half dragged the girl over to a drainpipe to secure her to.
“Yeah his arm looked like crystal, could probably cut through anything…. So I have to make sure he won’t want to use it.” I smiled to myself.
Five minutes and 48 zip ties later and I had successfully zip tied the boy's hands into his pants.
“See this is what happens when you try to shish-kabob someone- karma’s a bitch,” I said to the unconscious boy as I finished off the last zip tie. “Alright, Napster you can call it in to the cops. Let ‘em know about the whole arm thing if you can,” I said admiring my handiwork.
“Well, he’s not cutting his way out now! This whole super-powered villain thing is getting out of hand. I don’t even know what the cops can do with this guy once they remove the zip ties,” I shook my head.
“Are you sure you can’t tell me more about how you got your powers? It could help me figure out where all these suped-up villains are coming from,” Napster said as I began pulling myself up onto the fire escape.
“You know everything you need to know about how I got my powers,” I said taking a look at him.
“That you have them?” Napster’s sarcastic tone was clear. His dark eyes sparkled with a hint of humor and curiosity as he looked at me. For a moment I wondered what he was like in the real world.
“Precisely!”
I climbed up the fire escape shaking my thoughts of Napster, it was about time for me to return to the real world as well and he had no place there for me.
