by Lucas Flint
“Yes, but he needs your help,” said Valerie. “There’s a bank robbery in progress in downtown Showdown at the Showdown City National Bank. Brains is already there dealing with the robbery, but he says he needs your help because there are too many robbers for him to handle. Says it’s the Iron Ring Gang trying to rob the bank.”
I nodded. “Okay. Send him a message telling him that I’m on my way.”
Without even waiting for Valerie to answer, I flew up into the sky above the city and shot toward the general direction of the bank. I probably could have teleported there with my Teleportation Buckle if I wanted, but this particular bank wasn’t very far from the Braindome and I knew where it was, so it was actually easier just to fly there. Plus, flying was a lot more fun than teleporting, even if it was a little slower.
It wasn’t long before I saw the Showdown City National Bank nestled between several other buildings, including an apartment complex and a grocery store. Even from above, I could see the doors to the bank had clearly been torn open by someone. It looked like someone had actually blown the doors open because they barely hung on their hinges and were scorched black.
But most of the action seemed to be on the front steps of the bank. Brains was fighting several Iron Ring Gang robbers at once. Though Brains was hardly a bodybuilder, he still dove in and out of their attacks with ease, no doubt using his telepathy to predict their attacks and dodge them. He also made sure to sneak in a few attacks of his own, kicking or punching them in strategic places that made them go down for the count.
And there was definitely no doubt which gang these guys belong to because even from a distance I could see the distinctive iron rings that all members of the Iron Ring Gang wore through their noses. The Iron Ring Gang was a small but annoying criminal gang based in Showdown, who primarily focused on pulling off petty thefts and drug dealing. Although they were a small gang, they still gave us a lot of grief, especially after Earth King’s death opened a power vacuum in the Showdown criminal underworld. It was a little surprising to see them robbing a bank, but I suppose they were getting ambitious now that Earth King was dead.
“Hey, Brains!” I shouted as I flew down closer to him. “Need any help?”
Brains dodged a punch from an Iron Ganger and lashed out with a kick, striking him in the groin and sending him falling down to the steps with a yell. Another Iron Ganger pulled out a gun, but Brains shot him a warning look and a glassy look appeared in the Iron Ganger’s eyes before he dropped the gun and dropped into a heap on the steps unconscious.
Looking up at me, Brains shouted, “No, but the other Gangers trying to make a getaway. If you could get them for me, that would be—”
Brains was interrupted by the screeching of tires on pavement. A second later, a sleek black getaway car shot down the street past the steps of the bank. It went almost too fast for my eyes to follow, but I caught a glimpse of a couple of Iron Gangers driving the thing, one at the driver’s seat and the other in the passenger’s seat before they zoomed past us like a race car.
“Those are the guys I was talking about!” said Brains, pointing at the back of the speeding car. “They’ve got over a million dollars in cash in that car and if they get away, we’ll never see any of it ever again!”
I nodded. “Don’t worry, Brains! I’m on it.”
I flew toward the getaway car, increasing my speed more and more as I attempted to catch up with the vehicle. It didn’t take me very long before I was upon it, but then one of the Iron Gangers leaned out of the passenger’s side and began firing at me with his gun, forcing me to zigzag crazily through the air to avoid getting shot. That forced me to slow down slightly, which allowed the getaway car to get even farther ahead of me. But if these guys thought they were going to get away that easily, they had another thing coming for them.
I suddenly banked hard to the right, going around a tall parking garage that briefly blocked my view of the getaway car. I heard the Iron Ringer’s gunshots cease, but in the next instant I passed the parking garage and found myself ahead of the getaway car, which was still driving at full speed down the street. I saw a woman carrying groceries jump to the side as she tried to avoid the speeding vehicle, while a homeless man took cover behind a fire hydrant, narrowly avoiding getting hit by the getaway vehicle.
With a smile on my face, I shot down toward the street and landed in the road hard enough to make a small crater. I landed directly in front of the speeding car, but at the last second it swerved and went into the parking garage to my left, smashing through the barricade as the Iron Ringers tried to escape me.
But I wasn’t about to let them get away that easily. I activated my super speed and shot after them into the parking garage. Turning a corner, I saw the Iron Ringers’ car had stopped and the Iron Ringers themselves were desperately trying to empty the car of several sacks full of money. Big sacks, too, by the looks of them, which seemed too heavy for all of them to carry on their own. This was going to be easy.
Without warning, a wall of concrete shot up between me and the Iron Ringers. Skidding to a stop, I just barely avoided crashing into the wall, throwing out my hands to catch myself before I collided into it. Surprised, I took a step back and looked at the concrete wall in confusion.
“Where did this come from?” I said, staring up at the wall, puzzled. “Ah, well. It will be easy to break.”
I pulled back my fist, but before I could smash the wall apart, I heard movement to my left and looked in that direction just in time to see a huge fist made of concrete flying toward me. The concrete fist slammed into me hard enough to send me flying backward. I hit the floor of the parking garage, bounced once, and then crashed into the bed of a pickup struck hard enough to break the back window. The impact left me stunned, but I quickly shook my head and got to my feet, rubbing the back of my head as I tried to regain my bearings.
“Okay, who did that?” I said, looking around. “Show yourself, unless you’re too scared to show your face.”
“Amusing words, coming from a man who wears a mask,” said a guttural voice that seemingly came from the concrete floor of the parking garage.
Before my startled eyes, a humanoid figure rose from the concrete floor, like a person rising from water. Concrete fell off of him like water until he soon stood at his full height, allowing me to see him for the first time.
He was a huge, bulky man, with shoulders twice as wide as mine. His arms and legs were thick and blocky and his skin looked like concrete. He wore no clothing that I could see, but the way his body was meant he didn’t really need it. His face appeared to be covered by a thick concrete helmet, from which two harsh blue eyes peered out at me.
“Never seen you before,” I said. “New around here?”
The concrete man grunted. “Call me Mixer. Don’t bother introducing yourself, because I know who you are already. My fellow Iron Ringers told me.”
“Mixer, huh?” I said. “Let me guess, you control concrete?”
Mixer nodded. “Yes. I already know what your powers are, so you don’t need to explain them to me.”
I nodded myself. “Sure. I didn’t know the Iron Ring Gang had a superhuman. Thought they were just a bunch of normal humans.”
“I am a relatively new recruit,” said Mixer. “I used to work for Earth King until his death, so I went to work for the Iron Ring Gang instead. Rumor has it that you were involved with Earth King’s death.”
“Wasn’t me,” I said, shaking my head. “Someone else killed him, though you can blame me if that makes you feel better.”
Mixer took a step forward. “I won’t feel good until you’re dead and unable to stop my allies from getting away with the money.”
Without warning, a giant concrete hand burst out of the floor and grabbed me. Its fingers tightened around my body all of a sudden, squeezing the air out of my lungs and making me gasp.
“And luckily for me, that will be very soon indeed,” said Mixer with a dark chuckle.
CHAPT
ER FIVE
Mixer’s attack took me by surprise, but I was already recovering from the shock. With a grunt, I shrugged my shoulders and broke the concrete fist into pieces. Even before the pieces of the fist fell to the ground, I rushed toward Mixer and aimed a punch directly for his chest.
But Mixer suddenly formed a hole in his body, which my fist harmlessly flew through. Then, before I could pull my arm back out, the hole closed, trapping my arm in Mixer’s body. I immediately started tugging on it, but Mixer’s concrete was surprisingly thick and I didn’t have enough leverage to pull myself out.
“Keep trying, kid,” said Mixer as I struggled to free myself. “Perhaps if you work really hard, you will eventually succeed.”
Without warning, Mixer slammed his fist into my face. The blow came so fast that I didn’t even see it coming. Before I had time to process the pain, Mixer punched me again, this time with his other fist, and immediately started pummeling on me as hard and fast as he could. I raised my arm to protect my face, but that was the only form of defense I could put up against his nearly endless onslaught. I needed to get on the offense, but with my arm trapped in Mixer’s body, I couldn’t get far enough away from him to fight back efficiently.
So I channeled electricity through my trapped arm. But the electricity seemed to do little as it danced along Mixer’s body, earning me another chuckle from the man made of concrete.
“Electricity? Really?” said Mixer. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten what kind of power I have. I am made of concrete, not water. Try again.”
Another punch to the face shattered my concentration and I once again found myself being pummeled under his huge fists. This was no good. He could really kill me at this rate, and if he did that, then I wouldn’t be able to stop his fellow Iron Ringers from getting away with the money. I had to put an end to this quick.
Without thinking, I activated my super speed again, but not on my legs. Instead, I focused on channeling it through my right arm, the one stuck in his torso, hoping to vibrate it hard enough that it would shatter Mixer’s concrete. I had no idea if this would work, but it was my only hope of escape at this point, so I had to give it a shot.
At first, my arm didn’t feel any different, but after a few seconds of channeling super speed, it began to vibrate. After another few seconds, it was vibrating so much that cracks were starting to appear in Mixer’s chest. Mixer himself must have noticed this because he suddenly stopped punching me and looked down at my arm in confusion.
“What are you doing?” said Mixer, looking at me with a puzzled expression on his face. “Why is your arm vibrating?”
I smiled. “Because I’m about to kick your butt.”
With a heave, I pulled my arm straight out of his chest, leaving a gaping, broken hole where my arm had been just moments before. Mixer cried out in pain and shock, but I wasn’t done yet. I punch him in the stomach and then followed it up with a kick to the chin, the two blows sending him staggering backward in shock. He put a hand over the hole in his chest and glared at me with hateful eyes.
“Clever move, kid,” said Mixer, his voice slightly tinged with pain, “but it will take a lot more than that to kill me.”
“Kill you?” I said. “Nah. I just need to take you down.”
Without hesitation, I rushed toward Mixer at super speed. Mixer raised his hands and a concrete wall rose up before me, but I didn’t stop this time. I just smashed through the concrete wall like it was nothing and headed straight for Mixer. Surprise appeared in Mixer’s eyes, but before he could do anything else, I slammed my fist directly into his face.
The blow smashed through Mixer’s helmet and knocked him flat on his back. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he stopped moving, although I could tell he was more unconscious than dead.
But I didn’t have time to sit and check on him. I whipped my head in the direction of the getaway car and saw, to my dismay, that it was already empty and the other Iron Ringers were nowhere to be found. Although I had managed to defeat Mixer, I had still given the Iron Ringers more than enough time to escape, along with all of the bags of money.
But maybe not. I noticed a single hundred dollar bill sitting on the ground leading up to the upper floors of the parking garage, which must have been dropped by one of the robbers as they escaped. They probably didn’t go down to the first floor, seeing as Mixer and I had blocked off that path, so that meant they had probably gone up. Which meant that I might still be able to catch them if I’m lucky.
Without further ado, I activated my super speed and rushed up to the next floor, hoping against hope that I could catch up with the robbers before they got away. A part of me feared that they might have used the elevator up here to get away. If they did that, then I definitely wouldn’t be able to catch them and they would get away with all of the money, which was something I couldn’t allow.
When I finally got up to the second floor of the parking garage, however, I saw a sight that forced me to come to an abrupt stop.
All four of the Iron Ringer robbers I had been chasing were sitting in the middle of the parking garage floor, tied together with thick steel chains that were so tight they appeared to be cutting into the flesh of the robbers. Even weirder, all of the money bags they had been carrying on their backs were scattered all around the room. Hundreds and hundreds of one hundred dollar bills were scattered on cars, on the floor, and a few even on the robbers themselves. It looked kind of like someone had knocked open a big pinata full of money, although I didn’t see anyone here other than the Iron Ringers themselves who could have done it.
“What the hell?” I said, staring at the tied up and seemingly unconscious Iron Ringers chained up together. “What’s going on here? This isn’t some kind of trick, is it?”
“It’s no trick, kid,” came a fake-sounding deep voice from between two cars. “While you wasted time dealing with that concrete idiot below, I took care of these robbers myself.”
From between a hummer and a minivan emerged a guy who looked like he was straight out of a really edgy comic book. He wore a dark leather costume with more pouches and spikes than I could count. A gigantic gun that looked too big for his hands to hold clung to his back, with scars running along the side of his face. He wore a patch over one eye, though most of his face and head was covered with a weird helmet that had a lot of spikes on it. Muscles bulged under his leather clothing, so big that I wondered how he even moved, although they didn’t look real to me.
“Okay, so who are you?” I said, looking at this newcomer skeptically. “Another super associated with the Iron Ringers?”
The guy made a disgusted sound. “Me associated with these losers? Don’t make me laugh. These morons are just a bunch of losers who couldn’t get a job. I took them down easily, powered only by my rage and despair against this meaningless world.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Your what?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” said the guy. He turned away from me, though it seemed to be more for drama than anything. “Superheroes like you think good and evil are real and that there’s a difference between heroes and villains. In truth, the world is dozens of shades of gray. Gritty, edgy gray. The same color as this concrete.”
“Uh, sure,” I said, not sure where he was going with this. “So are you with the NHA or the INJ or—?”
He whirled around suddenly and drew his huge gun from his back, which he aimed at me. “I’m not with any of your ‘superhero’ organizations, kid. I’m a lone wolf, dedicated to cleaning up the streets of Showdown all by myself. Criminal scum makes me puke, but self-righteous, ineffectual ‘superheroes’ like you give me literal cancer.”
“I—What?” I said. “I don’t even know your name and you’re already insulting me.”
“You want to know my name?” said the guy. He pointed at the floor. “I wrote it in the blood of my enemies right there.”
I squinted and saw faint, barely legible words scrawled on the pavement near the Iron Ringers. “Edga
r Vigilant?”
“No, you idiot,” the guy snarled. “Edge Vigilante. What, are you illiterate, too?”
“It’s not my fault you wrote your name in really faint red ink,” I said in annoyance as I gestured at the words on the ground.
“Blood of my enemies,” Edge corrected.
“No, that doesn’t look like blood to me,” I said, squinting at it again. “Yeah, that definitely isn’t blood. I don’t even see any cuts on the Iron Ringers.”
“Oh, what would you know about blood?” Edge snapped. He pouted like a kid. “You don’t know pain and suffering like I do. Blood may flow through your veins, but I’ve swum in oceans of it during my time on the streets. You wouldn’t know what blood looked like if I splashed a gallon of it in your face.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “Well, thanks for catching those guys anyway, but did you break the bags open? Because there’s money everywhere and that’s going to take a long time to clean up.”
“I did what I needed to in order to stop them,” said Edge with a sneer. “You would have wasted time worrying about money if you had gone after them, but I just went in straight for the kill. That’s why criminals on the streets fear me more than you because pain is the only language criminals understand.”
I looked at the Iron Ringers and noticed that one of them was waking up. “Hey, you there. Ever heard of Edge Vigilante?”
The Iron Ringer who had woken up—a fat, bald man with bad teeth—shook his head. “No, who’s that?”
“That’d be me,” said Edge, jerking a thumb at his chest. “Edge Vigilante. I witnessed my parents get murdered when I was five and spent my childhood fighting for survival on the dangerous streets of Showdown. Now I’m a vigilante who has taken the law into his own hands and isn’t afraid to do the things that other more ‘proper’ superheroes are too good to do.”
Both the Iron Ringer and I just stared at Edge with confusion.
“Um, what?” I said. “You saw your parents get murdered when you were five?”