The Hero Without A Cool Name

by Stan Hendriks

  “Roy, Roy?! Please answer me, are you alright?!”

  “Henry, yes… I’m… I’m somewhat okay. Toogaan is still chasing after me and I don’t know where Mr. Herrick is. He stayed to stall Toogaan but I… he might be dead!”

  “Oh no! Oh no! I… I don’t know what to say.”

  “Me neither, what… what am I going to do right now?! I can’t face Toogaan, he’s too strong! Man, I should have just listened to Mr. Herrick! Why do I have to be so stupidly stubborn!”

  “I know, I know, but you can do this, okay? I don’t know how, but you have special powers and he hasn’t, alright? You can change everything into anything you want, and he can’t, use that to your advantage. Actually, you must use your powers to your advantage since it’s the only possible way you can defeat him. And… sorry, my whole body is shaking but, I know that you’re afraid, I am too, but if there is anyone on this planet that can defeat Toogaan, it is you, okay? I believe in you, Roy, I really do!”

  “I know, but I can’t defeat him by myself, at least, I don’t think I can.”

  “So maybe—”

  But then Henry is cut off by a static noise and as Roy tries to stay in contact with Henry, he all of a sudden hears Toogaan entering the rooms asking for Roy! Roy then closes his eyes and mumbles how much this sucks but at the same time, he’s trying to encourage himself while Toogaan gets closer and closer until he eventually walks up to the janitor’s closet! He stands in front of the door and inhales deeply through his nose. “Ah, the smell of your fear, parasite, it’s so euphoric.” Toogaan then knocks on the door and continues, “Surrender now and I will spare you the torture and grant you with a quick and painless death.” But Roy doesn’t reply which makes an angry expression appear on Toogaan’s face! Toogaan then lets out a sigh and kicks in the door! But what he didn’t expect is that Roy changed a mop stick into an air cannon and as Toogaan’s eyes widen, Roy pulls the trigger and blasts Toogaan, through the door, into the room behind him! Toogaan makes a hard landing and as Roy drops the air cannon, he runs into the room as well! The people in the room immediately run out and as Toogaan slowly gets up and dusts off his suit, he says, “Well done, you caught me by surprise. But then again, your mistake was not killing me when you had the chance!”

  But before Toogaan can do anything, Roy changes his daggers into two potatoes! “I hope you like potatoes, douchebag!”

  As Toogaan drops the potatoes, a slight smirk appears on his face. “Have you not learned anything? Your stupidity is out of this world, it truly is.” Toogaan then rushes towards Roy but right before he can touch Roy, Roy changes the air conditioner on the wall into a strong magnet and Toogaan flies against it at a considerably high speed! “What was that about stupidity? You know, the last thing I saw was that your suit was deflecting bullets so I figured it must have been out of steel or at least a material similar to it.”

  As Toogaan is hanging against the magnet, he says, “Well, I might have underestimated you. But you seem to forget that after years and years of fighting against your kind, I have seen it all. Every trick in the book has been used against me and yet, I always am victorious. Do you know why that is? Well, that is because I am prepared for everything you parasite!” Right at that moment, Toogaan’s suit opens up piece by piece and Toogaan, who is now in his underwear, jumps out of it! With a fearful, concerned, and shocked expression on his face, Roy tries to run away but Toogaan grabs Roy by his neck and sweeps away his legs with his foot! Roy makes a hard landing but before he can even comprehend what’s going on, Toogaan starts beating him up brutally and after that, he grabs him by his throat and lifts him up with one arm! As he takes Roy’s ski mask off, squishes his throat, and while Roy is struggling to breathe, Toogaan says, “My dear ancestors, watch as I fulfill my destiny. Watch as I finally become successful as I remove his kind from existence once and for all. I am going to complete that what I have been created for, in your honor. I hope I have made you proud and I hope that you await me in paradise with open arms.” Then, Toogaan puts his fingers in his mouth, pulls one of his teeth out, crumbles it with his hand, and a small green and yellowish oval capsule comes out of it. “Inside of this capsule is a venom which is extracted from the root of a Capriooala plant. Taken in by a human, it slowly eats away your muscle tissue, organs, and every single bone in your body. Imagine yourself being burned alive, imagine the flames slowly melting away your skin, well, this feels a thousand times more painful. But it is the kind of pain a parasite like yourself deserves! Now, open up!” Toogaan then tries to put the capsule inside of Roy’s mouth, but then Henry comes running into the room with the air cannon that Roy dropped and says, “Not on my watch! Melodramatic Soul has arrived to save the day!”

  With a confused expression on his face, Toogaan drops Roy on the floor and turns around, but before he can do or say something, Henry pulls the trigger and blasts Toogaan away towards the window! But right before Toogaan flies through the window, Roy uses all the power he has left and changes the window into a hundred small razor blades! As Toogaan flies through the razor blades, he screams it out from pain as he falls all the way down and makes an awfully hard landing on the asphalt! Henry immediately drops the air cannon and as he squats down next to Roy, who has passed out, he says, “Please be alive, please be alive!”

  Right at that moment, Julian, without wearing the blue ski mask, comes limping in as well and asks, “Oh no, what happened?! Please don’t tell me that Toogaan killed him!”

  “I… I don’t think so; he still has a heartbeat! Oh, thank God!”

  As Julian takes a deep relieving breath, he asks, “But where is Toogaan?”

  “I blasted him out of the window, but right before he flew through it, Roy changed the window into razor blades.” Julian immediately runs up to the window and looks outside. “After being cut up by all those blades and falling all the way down from the third floor, I don’t think he survived, I mean, he couldn’t, right?”

  “Sadly, he did survive,” Julian sighs, as he looks down but sees no sign of Toogaan. “But at least it will take some time for him to heal, time we could definitely use to our advantage. Anyway, the police have already arrived, we should get Roy out of here immediately.”

  “Agreed, but the police are surely going to ask us what happened since Roy is knocked out and since you have a wound in your leg. Damn, that looks nasty, by the way, are you sure you’re alright?”

  “I am, and if the police do confront us then we tell them that we were collateral damage and most importantly, you will let me do all the talking, understood?”

  “Sure, Mr. Herrick.”

  “Good, alright, let’s get him up,” Julian says, as he tries to pick Roy up.

  “No, no, no, you’re injured. I got this, don’t worry. I may be a melodramatic soul, but I did go to the gym… once. But it doesn’t matter, let me carry him.”

  Julian nods and then he and Henry, with Roy on his shoulders, walk out.

  Chapter Seven This Is Not What A Hero Does

  Once again with a face full of bruises and cuts, Roy’s eyes slowly open. Lying in his bed in his apartment, he slowly sits up and slightly dazed, he rubs in his eyes and looks around. It’s dark and rainy outside and as he lets out a deep sigh, he all of a sudden realizes what happened! Immediately he jumps out of the bed and runs into the living room where to his surprise, are Henry and Julian seated, watching the news. Julian, with a bandage around his leg, says, “Roy, that took longer than expected but I couldn’t be gladder that you’re fine. Well, apart from your face.”

  “How are you feeling?” Henry asks.

  “Fine but… what happened with Toogaan? And my sister! Oh no, she must have woken up by now!”

  As Julian carefully gets up and walks closer to Roy, he lies his hand on Roy’s shoulder and says, “Your sister is doing well, very well to be exact. She woke up about two hours after we left the hospital and she is making a speedy recovery, just as Tom. Not only is the hospital still being prot
ected by the police as they are investigated what happened, but your sister and Tom are now both lying in the same room. But she did ask where you were, at least, that’s what the doctor told us when he called. But I told that you must have eaten some rotten food since you were puking all over the place and as soon as you would feel better that you would come immediately. But don’t worry, they are fine. And before you ask, you have been asleep for quite some time, as you can probably already tell by looking outside.”

  Roy takes a deep relieving breath but then asks, “But what about Toogaan? Did I kill him?”

  “Nope, somehow that bastard got away,” Henry replies.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “Thank God? What is that supposed to mean? Are you telling me that you are glad that, that monster is still alive?” Julian asks.

  “I… no… well, kind of, yes. What I mean is that I’m happy that I didn’t kill him.”

  “Dude, he tried to kill both of you. How can you possibly be happy, man?” Henry asks.

  “I must admit that you make me feel rather confused as well.”

  “Listen I… a hero doesn’t kill, nor does he intentionally hurt people. Even if those people are pure evil. And what I did to Toogaan yesterday was far from okay. Not only did I try to kill him with a gun, but I also made him go through a whole bunch of razor blades to cut him up before he would hit the asphalt. I mean… that’s just… far from what a hero does. In fact, this not what a hero does at all, and I don’t know what to feel or think right now, all I know is that I’m ashamed of myself and of my actions.”

  “Roy, listen to me. Yes, yesterday you may have made impulsive decisions based on your emotions, but you cannot forget the fact that he not only tried to behead me, he also tried to kill you in the most painful way possible as well. You did what you had to do in order to protect your own life and that of others. You did the right thing. Toogaan is a monster whose heart is filled with nothing pure evil and he is an enormous danger to this world. Toogaan deserves to die and believe me, I normally don’t wish death upon anyone. So, that should say it all. And regarding the morals that a hero has, or should have, if necessary, any hero out there would kill and that is a fact,” Julian says.

  “The only time a hero would kill someone if there is absolutely no other possibility to either change the bad guy’s mind or imprison him. And let’s face it, yesterday there were a lot of other options to imprison Toogaan or whatever, but I chose to try and kill him, which was wrong.”

  “It wasn’t wrong, Roy, as I said, you simply did what you had to do.”

  “No, I could have chosen to try something different, as I did with changing the mop stick into an air cannon instead of an actual gun. I let my anger and fear take over and because of that I nearly killed someone. And you say that I just did what I had to do, but what does that make me? When I try to murder a murderer? It makes me just as bad if not worse. I want to use my powers to do good in this world, not to sink down to the level of bad guys like Toogaan and kill them. A hero fights crime without taking people’s lives in the process, not even from those who are pure evil. That is the kind of hero I want to be.”

  “My apologies, but you and I have a very different view on who a hero is and what he should be.”

  “I understand, but this is my life and I refuse to become a so-called hero that uses his powers to kill. Villains kill, heroes do not.”

  “I agree with that, a hero gives people hope and shows them how to do the right thing instead of playing God by taking lives,” Henry says.

  Julian lets out a deep sigh and as he shakes his head, he replies, “You two may have watched way too many movies. Listen, this is the real world we’re talking about it and sadly, this world isn’t all rainbows and sunshine, it’s actually far from it. There are people out there, like Toogaan, who do not care one bit about a human life. They will take it without any remorse and if someone like you, who can stop those people form doing just that, isn’t prepared to do whatever it takes and to do whatever is necessary, then you will fail and end up dead. And I am not trying to be pessimistic, but I am being realistic. This world is harsh and in order for you to stop those hardened criminals and psychopaths, you need to be prepared to do what may be necessary.”

  “I understand what you’re trying to say, I really do, but I also know for a fact that with my powers, I don’t have to kill. If I just train more and develop my powers more than I could fight those criminals without having to kill them. I could imprison every single one of them, I mean, quite literally since I could make a cage out of anything. All I’m saying is that from now on, no matter how tough the situation might be and no matter how bad the bad guy might be, the last thing that will be on my mind is to kill. I will try everything I can and use all my powers to stop those who only want to do harm but killing will be an absolute last resort. I’m… I’m not trying to go against you for the heck of it, but this is the hero I want to become, and I hope you can understand that.”

  Right at that moment, right before Julian can speak, Henry’s phone goes off. Red-faced, he quickly grabs his phone out of his pocket and walks into the kitchen where he answers the call. “What I tried to say before melodramatic soul rudely interrupted me, is that I do understand where you’re coming from, I really do. But all I want is that you are prepared for in case there won’t be another way out. Your life and the life of others should come above those that only want to harm and I hope you can understand that. If there will ever come a situation in whether it’s either you or the bad guy, then I pray that you will do what is necessary to keep yourself alive.”

  “I will, I swear. Don’t worry about that.”

  “Good, I’m happy to hear that. But what are you going to do when Toogaan returns for us? Because it might take some time for him to heal, but I am quite certain that he will come back even stronger and even more determined to kill us.”

  “I will try everything I possibly can to stop him without killing him. I’m sure there must be some kind of way to accomplish that.”

  “I’m sure,” Julian nods. “We will figure it out. But why don’t we go to the hospital to visit your sister? And after that, we have to train.”

  “Yes, that would be great,” Roy replies, as he then looks into the kitchen at Henry who is still busy talking on the phone. “But I’ll guess we’ll have to wait.” Julian sighs and slightly shakes his head. “But did they talk about what happened on the news?”

  “Indeed, they have. They talked about that a psychopathic man who entered the hospital with two swords on his back and not long after he was thrown out of the window from the third floor. He not only had many deep cuts in his skin, but he also managed to outrun a police officer that chased him down. But what they talked mostly about was us of course. This time not only one, but two men with blue ski masks on that used magic to stop the psychopathic man were at the hospital. And after they carefully examined the security footage of the main entrance and heard people who had seen it all out, they concluded that one of the two was the same guy who was also at the warehouse and at the bank. Of course, after that, they once again spoke about who this man was and whatever but what stood out the most was that at least one of the news reporters said that you were a hero and that Detroit could use a hero like you. And frankly, some of the people they interviewed couldn’t agree more. But one police officer said that magicians have no business in solving crime and that they should let the professionals manage it. And he also said that you were basically nothing but a joke and a disgrace and that under no circumstances will they allow a vigilante to roam the streets of his precious city.”

  “Wow, that is… wow. They said I was a hero and that Detroit needs me?”

  “That is correct but do know that you will probably never have a decent business relationship with the police,” Julian replies with a smile. “But I do have to say that they were right, this city, well, the entire world could use a hero like you. Especially you because you can separate wrong from r
ight.”

  A bright smile appears on Roy’s face and he says, “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  Right at that moment, Henry comes walking back into the living room and says, “Sorry, guys, that took longer than expected.”

  “Let me take a guess, you were speaking to a woman you like?”

  “No—”

  “Just kidding, melodramatic soul, no woman in the right mind would want to date you, let alone speak to you,” Julian says, as he winks at Roy.

  Roy chuckles and Henry replies, “You know, I thought our relationship was going to get better after what happened. Especially after I risked my own life to save Roy.”

  “Thanks for that, by the way,” Roy says.

  “No problem, but thank you for at least showing some appreciation, unlike Mr. grumpy I hate Henry Herrick here.”

  Julian then pads Henry on his shoulder and replies, “I don’t hate you, melodramatic soul, it was a just a simple joke.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Henry replies with a fake angry expression on his face.

  “But, by the way, when you came in you said your name was Melodramatic Soul. Since when did you start to like that name?” Roy asks.

  “Well, since Mr. Herrick has been calling me Melodramatic Soul since the beginning already, and since I didn’t even have a name yet, I thought why not. Melodramatic Soul, sidekick of… yeah, uhm… of you, the hero with no cool name yet. We should actually come up with a name for you, it’s important you know.”