Since the weekend had started, Nick had been watching his little sister. Mind you, she was twelve so it wasn't entirely difficult, but nonetheless the plan and the ideas that had been going through Nick's head since his parents' robbery couldn't really be put into effect until after she left. Nonetheless, here he was sitting at the desk in his bedroom trying to sew pieces of fabric together to make one single full body suit. He didn't have the money to buy one--poor job, high apartment bills, and some graduate classes to pay for--but he was going to try and make the idea that was in his head real and in front of him.
However his sister kept interrupting him.
"Nick... Nick... Nicky..." The soft call was coming from the doorway, where the tiny brunette was sticking her head in and looking at him. She kept calling his name until he turned and looked at her, not saying anything. "What's for dinner?"
"Probably pizza in the oven, turn it on if you want it now." Nick said, almost dismissively. He loved his sister, more than anything in the world, but when he was deep in thought he almost regret saying he'd take her for the weekend.
"But can't we go get something? We've had oven meals all weekend, and besides I had pizza with Mom and Daddy on Thursday. Can't we have something else?" He stopped fiddling with the needle and the fabric to look at her.
"If you find something that delivers, we can get it." Still not entirely satisfied, Lily made a face and left the doorway and Nick went back to trying to make his bodysuit.
Once Lily was asleep, which consisted of a long night of cheesy movies on the television and even two radio shows before, Nick put the suit on. It felt odd, awkward, but he put that up to the fact that he had only sewn a few things in his life and the stitching was more than just a bit dreadful. He slid the ski mask over his face and propped open his bedroom window and dropped down to the fire escape stairway below.
He didn’t know where he was going, nor entirely what he expected to accomplish with this. However the thought was making him feel better, it was the thought that mattered. Ever since the robbery he hadn’t stopped thinking about what could have happened. It haunted his dreams. Imagining his parents and sister dead in an alleyway haunted his dreams. He couldn’t imagine how it would be if it had happened. What would he be then? Who would he be? What would there be to live for?
These were all questions that he wanted to answer, but at the same time he didn’t even want to think about. All he wanted to think about was his mission, which he wasn’t even sure what it was. He shook his head and the mask slipped slightly over his eyes, he scowled and fixed it before descending down the ladders to the ground floor. He tried to stay in the shadows, which wasn’t difficult, with the moonlight being behind the apartment building, he was standing in nothing but shadows.
He kept his ears open, for anything that sounded like it may be suspicious. Crime was active after the sun went down and it was after midnight. Nothing but trouble was going to happen if you were on the streets after midnight.
He stayed in the shadows walking down the road, staying behind the street lights and never stepping into the light purposely. He noted some of the security cameras that were mounted throughout the city; some seemed to follow him as he walked. He avoided looking at them, waiting for any kind of sign that trouble was going on.
Then there was a scream. A cry out for help. He stopped in his tracks and took off in the direction that it seemed to be coming from.
She looked like she was barely in her teens, with a short dark hair. She was being pinned up against the wall by a man who had to be at least six foot and a half, his hands pressed against her shoulders into the bricks. She was crying, her voice cracking when she spoke. “Plea-- please don’t hurt me. Leave me alone, I’ll give you anything.”
“Anything huh?” The man’s hand left her shoulder and went to her face, lifting her chin up and making her look at him as tears went down her cheeks. He leaned in, laughing as he pressed her harder into the bricks, before he grabbed her and he threw her to the ground. She cried out in pain, holding her stomach as he moved closer. “You’ll give me what I want then.” He grabbed her hair and pulled her up off the ground, before letting her drop again to the ground.
“You said anything, didn’t you?”
That’s when he appeared. She could only see him in the corner of her eye at first, and he was so dark that she didn’t know what he was. She just hoped for anything besides one of her captor’s friends.
“Leave her alone.” He spoke with a gruff, deep tone one that was obviously not natural. She could tell he was faking it. Her captor looked towards him, she saw him fumble with something in his pockets and she was being pulled up by her hair again, metal pressed against her throat.
“Move and she gets her throat sliced open.”
Nick was frozen. He wasn’t skilled enough to move fast enough to grab him before he hurt the girl. He knew that. He held his hands up at his chest height, palms open and almost in a surrendering state. “There’s no need for that.”
“No need? You interrupted my business with the lady.” Frown creased on Nick’s lips, watching as blood trickled down the girl’s neck. He couldn’t let this happen. It would be against everything he had planned, not that there was much planned—everything that he had wanted to accomplish. He couldn’t let an innocent girl die on his first night.
She cried harder as the blood trickled further and further down her neck and the blade seemed to go deeper into her skin. “S-Stop, please… make him stop.” Nick closed his eyes for a brief moment, gathering all of his thoughts before he moved. He moved as fast as he could towards the thug, punching the man and making him fall backwards. His grip on the girl loosened however he was not disarmed.
The thug moved closer to him, twirling the knife in his fingers, laughing as he looked towards the girl who was attempting to crawl away from him. He kicked her in the ribs and she cried out loudly, but still crawled towards the wall. “Who do you think you are some kind of hero?” He laughed, trying to stab Nick twice and both times missing as Nick moved. “Heroes never have happy endings in this city, don’t you know that?”
The man moved again and Nick grabbed his other arm and twisted it all the way around to the back of his body, holding him securely. What he failed to do was disarm the man, and he realized that quickly when he felt a rush of pain in his shoulder blade. He nearly cried out, but bit his tongue instead fighting through the pain and simply punching the man in the jaw.
When he tried to get up, Nick punched him again, and again until he wasn’t trying to get back up. There was blood running down from the thug’s nose and his mouth, but Nick was more considered with his own injury. He could feel the material of the suit clinging to the blood that was oozing out of the wound, where the knife was still piercing the skin. He slowly pulled the knife out and tossed it aside once he looked at the thug again to make sure that he was fully unconscious.
He then turned his attention to the girl.
"Are you okay?" His disguised voice faltered for a moment, cringing through the pain. The young girl stared up at him with wide tear-filled eyes. She sniffled and pushed herself up off of the ground.
"I think I'm okay. Thank you," her voice was weak, and she wiped the blood from her neck. She slowly stood, holding her ribs. "Are you alright? He stabbed you," She slowly walked towards him and touched the hole in the fabric. Her touch was soft. "You're bleeding."
"It doesn't hurt much," Nick muttered, removing her hand. "What are you doing out so late? It's dangerous after dark, don't you know that?"
"I do now," she tried to laugh but her face scrunched up in a fit of pain. "I'm new to Aro. We haven't even officially moved yet, we're just visiting. I have friends that live here, and we were out and I walked home."
"It was a late party, and my Mom's asleep." She shrugged, brushing her hair out of her face. She looked over to the thug on the ground. "Could you walk me home? Who are you exactly? I'm eternally grateful. You saved my life." Her words filled him with hope, peace, and overall good feelings. This was what he wanted to accomplish, saving someone that might not have otherwise been saved. He had no idea what would have happened to the girl had he not been here. He didn't want to think about it.
"I..." This was the moment, everything that he said after this would define his 'hero' reputation from this point on. If he got a hero reputation. "I'm Kreu." The girl stared at him for a long moment, but nodded with comprehension.
"Kreu," she repeated, sounding partially stunned. "You're amazing. Thank you again."
The walk to her home was short and uneventful. By the time she was in her house, he thought that he might blackout from the pain. He didn't know how much blood he had lost, but the throbbing was driving him crazy. He climbed back up the fire escape and into his window. He stripped down out of the one piece suit and walked around his apartment in his boxers until he could find something to dress his injury with. He bandaged his shoulder up, cringing every time he had to wrap it tighter.
He walked back into his bedroom, kicking the suit aside, and climbing into bed groaning from the pain. He tried to sleep, but that proved difficult. It took nearly an hour of tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable before he fell asleep. In the morning, everything would change.
