Riverside City: Capes and Cowls
By Paul C VanDerHeyden
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Paul C. VanDerHeyden
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected].
First paperback edition December 2020
Book design by SamanthaGMB on Fiverr (@magicalbookcovers on Instagram)
Map by Shay Bond, @fortytoast on Twitter
This book is dedicated to my dad,
I never would have had the courage to do something like this if I hadn’t had him to look at as an example. Seeing him fight through pain day after day showed me that I can do anything as long as I stick with it, though it kills me to this day seeing him like that. Love you Dad, I hope you enjoy the ride.
Table of Contents:
Welcome to Riverside City
Chapter 1: Riverside City Academy
Chapter 2: Saturday Assembly?
Chapter 3: Dante
Chapter 4: The Letter
Chapter 5: Awakening
Chapter 6: The Headmistress
Chapter 7: Home Sweet RAINBOW
Chapter 8: Mom
Chapter 9: Earth Temple
Chapter 10: Richter
Chapter 11: Draconic Physique
Chapter 12: Highrise and Jinlong
Chapter 13: Power Rush
Chapter 14: Brigid
Chapter 15: FSA HQ
Chapter 16: Jolly
Chapter 17: Jolly’s Awakening
Chapter 18: Long Awaited Forgiveness
Chapter 19: Maria’s
Chapter 20: Professor Tenzi
Chapter 21: Slapshot, Spitfire, and Inferno
Chapter 22: Hellion
Chapter 23: Something in the Air
Chapter 24: Aftermath
Chapter 25: Arianna
Chapter 26: The Rivalry
Chapter 27: The Three Amigos VS The Queen of the Academy
Chapter 28: Spanish is Hard
Chapter 29: STEM FTW
Chapter 30: Alchemistress and Lunch
Chapter 31: Independent Study, RSCA Style
Chapter 32: Ebony
Chapter 33: Firebird
Chapter 34: Not Cool Bro
Chapter 35: Joan and Jared
Chapter 36: Cinder
Chapter 37: The Deal
Chapter 38: Home Away from Home
Chapter 39: Afterglow
Chapter 40: Mommy Dearest
Chapter 41: Draconic Soul
Chapter 42: Regret
Chapter 43: Meg
Chapter 44: Lizzy
Chapter 45: Hearts, Minds, and Fangs
Interlude
Chapter 46: Game Nights with Cinder
Chapter 47: Time Passes, but Memories Never Fade
Chapter 48: Back to Normal(ish)
Chapter 49: Group Training
Chapter 50: Who Are You?
Chapter 51: Date Night
Chapter 52: No Pain, No Gain
Chapter 53: Recovering in Style
Chapter 54: Mr. Reliable
Chapter 55: RAINBOW is in the Forecast
Chapter 56: Soul Searching
Chapter 57: Off to See Granny
Chapter 58: Maligknight, AKA Broom Guy
Chapter 59: Mister, Missus, and Lady
Chapter 60: Artillerist, Controller, Haka, and Inferno
Chapter 61: Arcanatrix
Afterword:
Welcome to Riverside City
Hey everybody, I’m Theodore Long, Theo for short. The world you’re about to read about is not unlike your own, with a few major exceptions. My world and yours share most of our history, but in my world WW2 ended when a Cape named Thunder revealed his super powers while under fire on D-Day. Thunder was a member of the 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” paratroopers, though he was no ordinary American soldier.
While landing he saw the devastation his fellow soldiers were experiencing. With a roar, he ripped his parachute off of his back almost 200 feet off of the ground. A moment later he was struck with a superbolt, a lightning bolt 1000 times stronger than normal, but was completely unharmed. He flew down and wiped out the Axis troops on that beach single-handedly with what he would later call Chain Lightning, all the while shrugging off the combined fire of the opposing troops on Normandy’s beaches.
This was the precursor to the end of the war when Thunder flew to Germany and destroyed the train that Hitler was riding in. The rest of the Axis powers surrendered in fear. The stipulation that Supers can never be required to give up their secret identities is in the Paris Peace Treaties, Thunder saw to that.
From the 40s until the late 50s, only a handful of Supers emerged; 1960 changed all of that. Over time, more Supers “emerged”, which is the current term for when a Super gets their powers, they’re now referred to as Capes, Cowls, and Hoods. Capes are your Superheroes and Cowls are Supervillains. Hoods are not common, they are those “Heroes” who do terrible things for “good reasons”. There are approximately 50,000 powered individuals in the world, only 10,000 who would be considered “Supers”, the rest have mostly utility powers. For example, there is one kid at RAINBOW, who can spray liquid from one hand that the other hand sucks up, useful sometimes, but not really “Super”.
I live in Riverside City, which was called St. Louis before it was leveled on March 15th, 1960 when a Cowl named Plasmos was battling Thunder in the heart of the city. Plasmos was charging up enough energy to destroy all of North America. It is suspected that he chose St. Louis because of its central location in the country. They both leveled their most powerful attack at each other, a Plasma Cannon from Plasmos and a Zap Cannon from Thunder. When they collided it leveled everything within 10 miles of the impact site. Neither of them survived, neither did anyone in that range except Professor Tenzi. No one is sure how she survived. This massive blast seems to have ignited the latent powers in human DNA across the globe. After this event, which is known as the Ides of March Tragedy, Supers became much more common, in the last 10 years especially, 65 years after the blast.
Riverside City is one of the largest centers for Supers in the world, drawing in many Capes, Cowls, and even a few Hoods. The Ides of March Tragedy led the city to be built to withstand almost anything, from energy blasts to miniature earthquakes. The Federal Super-powered Agency, better known by its acronym FSA, has one of its headquarters in the Allano Spire which is located on the shore of Millenium Lake, right in the center of Riverside City. The FSA is in charge of controlling Supers who go out of control: Cape, Cowl, and Hood alike. They do not, however, document identities of Supers unless offered willingly or a crime is committed using superpowers.
Allano Corp was founded on the ashes of St. Louis and they helped bring Riverside City into being. They specialize in “Green” products, electric vehicles, building materials, weapons, anything you can imagine being powered by electricity, and more. Riverside City decided to keep the same mentality, it is considered a “Green” city, non-electric vehicles are not allowed within the city limits. This has led to a growth of electric vehicle acceptance across the nation.
Spectrum, a Cape, spent a long time trying to figure out an acronym for her passion project,
RAINBOW, which stands for, Riverside Area Institute for Nurturing Brilliant Orphans Well. She came up with the acronym before the name, so most people either call it RAINBOW or The ‘BOW. The Gateway Arches at the North and South edges of the crater straddling the river are based on the plans for the Gateway arch that was going to be built before St. Louis was leveled.
Now, that’s enough background, let’s get you into the story now!
Chapter 1: Riverside City Academy
"Come on Kat, we're gonna be late!" Theo yells to his best friend Katrina while pedaling furiously on his bike, anxious to not be late.
"What are they going to do, give us detention on the first day of school? It’s just an assembly." Kat replies with a grin as she cruises along behind Theo on her longboard.
"I hope not, or Dante’s gonna be pissed!" laughs Theo. He lets off the pace of his pedaling, he isn't going to leave Kat behind.
The scene is an odd one, an overweight, red-headed, hazel-eyed, white, teenage boy in a black panda graphic tee leading a gorgeous teenage Latina in a skater dress. Her brown hair is back length and her eyes are the color of the open sky in the summer. Together they race down the wharf of Riverside City at 7:59 a.m., laughing without a care in the world.
Over their heads streak colored lights, some Capes on the way to save the day somewhere, a normal day in Riverside City. It looks to be Vulcan and Spectrum.
The multi-colored figure of Spectrum looks down and sees Theo and Kat. She just smiles, though someone who knew her better would see the sadness in her eyes.
I’m going to miss having them around RAINBOW during the school year.
Riverside Academy, usually just referred to as RSCA, is a massive seven story stone-faced structure. It takes up an entire city block of Millennium Lake lakeside property and is covered in ivy. The headmistress is Femme-Fatale, a hero from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Entrance to this school is only available to those who prove to be exceptional; be it through familial connections, test scores, or other means. They serve as the Cape friendly school for Riverside City.
All students of RSCA in middle/high school are required to live on-site Monday-Friday, they can go home if they want to on weekends. The dormitories are appointed well, much nicer than most people can afford. They take up the west wing of RSCA, sixth grade on the ground floor up to seniors on the seventh floor.
There is also a public school system, RCPS—Riverside City Public School, that encompasses the rest of Riverside City’s school-aged children. They are distinctly anti-Cape at RCPS, if a student is discovered to be a Cape, Cowl, or Hood they are expelled unless they quit “the life”.
Chapter 2: Saturday Assembly?
Theo hops off his bike and folds it up into its Allano Corp padded charging sleeve, making sure the charge indicator is blinking. "I can't wait until we can drive."
Kat snorts a bit as she grabs her longboard. "Biking and PE are the two sources of exercise you get if you get rid of one you'll have to replace it with something else. I'm thinking Kung Fu, you can be like Kung Fu Panda!" She tosses a bag of baby carrots over to Theo.
Deftly catching the carrots, he says, "Haha, very funny. Now we better hurry up before we miss Dante's speech." Theo opens the bag of carrots and pops a couple into his mouth. "Thanks," he mumbles around the mouthful. “I can’t believe we have an assembly on the last Saturday before school starts, couldn’t they just let us have one more weekend to ourselves?”
Theo and Kat run up the wide stone stairs into Riverside City Academy, moving past the statues of Gentle-Man and Femme-Fatale in full hero regalia to the left and right of the entrance respectively. They step into the atrium and find themselves in a room glittering with sports trophies and photos of alumni, Capes, and otherwise. There’s one more thing to be found in that room, a more than mildly annoyed metal man. The metal man, Kiloton, looks like a normal person, except instead of flesh, he has some kind of dull silver metal. His RSCA blazer is perfectly pressed.
Kiloton looks at Kat and Theo and growls in a deep rumbling voice, "You're late and where are your uniforms?" He waves a large metal hand at the graphic tee of Theo and the skater dress of Kat.
Theo looks around nervously while Kat grins. "Casual first day back?" She darts in front of Theo.
Kiloton growls, “Get to the auditorium.”
Kat waves cheerfully, “Okay, see you in Civics class, Mr. Kiloton!”
Kiloton sighs, then smiles faintly. “I look forward to it. You get moving, too, Theodore.”
Theo grins sheepishly. “Will do; how was your Summer?” he asks as he walks by Kiloton toward the auditorium.
As Theo and Kat are leaving, Kiloton laughs. “We’ll talk about it in class, I had an interesting time.”
Theo and Kat work their way through the first floor of RSCA until they make it to the auditorium. The auditorium doors are closed.
Theo looks at Kat. “Think they’ll notice us sneaking in late?” he asks and pushes the door open as quietly as he can. The auditorium at RSCA is nicer than most opera houses and has seating for the 4,000 students and their parents, with room to spare.
A voice, strong and with purpose, leaks out the door as Theo opens it. “... and with that, I hope we can have a fantastic school year!” On the stage, at the podium was a tall, dark-skinned, teen with a flat top haircut. It was Dante, they missed his whole speech… Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
No such luck; Dante is glaring at them from the side of the stage, after leaving the podium to Femme-Fatale for her to give the parting remarks.
A notification comes across Theo and Kat’s phones, they exchange a glance before looking at the text they both got.
Dante: I can’t believe you guys missed my whole speech. I worked on that for weeks and you couldn’t even show up and listen. Unbelievable!
Theo and Kat each sigh after reading the message and then Theo hears a voice in his mind, ‘We’ll have to make it up to him you know.’
‘I know, he really sounds hurt,’ Theo sends back to Kat.
Theo and Kat have known each other for their entire lives, but that is not where the telepathy comes from, Kat is the Cape known as Nightmare, she has telepathic and psychokinetic powers.
‘We’ll think of something, we always do.’ Kat gives Theo a half-hearted grin.
‘I have an idea.’ Theo taps his temple.
‘I trust you.’ Kat furrows her brow, but decides to let Theo take the lead on this, he usually knows what to do in situations like this.
Chapter 3: Dante
Theo and Kat go through the usual orientation tour, luncheon, and school supply gathering, which takes them until 6 p.m. or so. After that, they head up to the sixth floor.
“Come on man, open up the door, we’re sorry we missed the speech.” Theo pounds on a door with a nameplate that says ‘Dante Anton - Student Council President’. A speaker turns on in the room playing heavy metal music.
“I can’t hear you, I'm in here with all my actual friends!” Theo hears from inside the room.
“You and I both know that your only friends are out here and I can see all of them. Kat and I are all you have man!” Theo yells over the loud music.
“Great job with him.” Kat chuckles. “If you were doing any worse, he would play dubstep just to spite us.”
“I’m getting to it,” Theo growls. “I guess I’ll have to take this cinnamon chocolate that I brought to share and split it with Kat,” Theo says in a distinctly sing-song voice.
The music inside abruptly stops. “Got ‘im,” Theo beams.
The door opens a crack and Dante’s eye and half his face become visible. “You messing with me?” To which Theo presents a brown paper bag, which Dante snatches. The door slams and Theo/Kat can hear the rustling of the bag on the other side of the door.
The lock clicks and the door opens. Inside, Dante is about to sit down in his recliner and has ripped the bag open revealing three bars of high-end Belgian chocolate with cinnamon in them. “Well, I’m not going to s
end an invitation. Come in and close the door.”
Theo and Kat enter the room with big toothy grins on their faces, closing the door after entering.
The dorm room is pretty nice, a small apartment is what most people would call it, it has been decorated with posters of musicians and Capes alike. It has a small kitchenette, living room, bedroom, and a personal full bath. All with polished concrete floors.
“Cinnamon is my one weakness, you dirty bastard. I should be mad, but you know these are my favorites,” Dante mumbles through a bite of chocolate.
Theo chuckles and takes in the view of the room. “Wow,” he breathes. “This is a step up from sharing rooms last year isn’t it?”
“I can’t wait to get a good night of sleep now that I don’t have to deal with your snoring anymore!” Dante joked while tossing the two other chocolate bars to Theo and Kat. Kat almost misses the chocolate bar when she doubles over laughing at Dante’s comment. Theo and Kat flop onto Dante’s couch.
“He’s got you there,” she wheezes after catching her breath. “I’m looking forward to a good night’s rest after dealing with your snoring all Summer.” Theo deflates after seeing that both of his friends think of him as a nuisance.
“I kept thinking I was hearing a chainsaw when he had that cold last year, I didn’t figure it out until he got better. So loud!” Dante laughs as he takes another bite of chocolate.
“Enjoy the chocolate, I’m going to check out my new room,” Theo says as he goes to leave the room. Kat and Dante exchange a glance, they always forget how sensitive Theo is about his weight, which is probably why he snores.
“Don’t leave,” both Kat and Dante say in unison. Theo looks over at them and sees the look of people who know they messed up pretty bad.
“I don’t want to fall asleep and bother you guys, I’ll just go, I was feeling pretty tired anyway,” Theo gets off the surprisingly comfy couch and heads toward the door. When he reaches it, it won’t open despite him leaning into it with his considerable bulk.
Riverside City Chronicles | Book 1 | Riverside City [Capes & Cowls] Page 1