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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18rd, 2017
LAKE WALLENPAUPACK, PA
LOCH HIGHLANDS COTTAGE
7:09pm
LAKE WALLENPAUPACK, PA
LOCH HIGHLANDS COTTAGE
7:09pm
Tony Stark was a special guest that day, smiling his dumb smile and giving props to the men and women in blue.
But then they showed a clip of a girl with powers "one of those... people", they'd called her; she was only fifteen. The girl seemed to have lost control of her abilities -- it looked like she had some form of lycanthropy, which a few of the nine agreed would be pretty dope if well-managed -- and she was taken down. Shot. People cheered and sighed in relief when Watchdogs and Sentinel Services rolled into the video. Because of the graphic nature, CNN removed the video from the screen before anyone could see, but the audio still played. There was a great deal of pained howling among the thundering of fired bullets, and those howls became the whimpers of a hit dog, and those whimpers became the cries of a young girl begging for her life. Maybe if they turned the volume all the way up they could hear the sound of her drawing her last breath.
Tony Stark had nothing to say except a calm platitude about how he wished she would have gotten help and how dangerous it was to be in law enforcement these days. Two seconds later and they were discussing how the Registration Act would be great for everyone Then the television shorted out, struck by a flash of crackling green electricity that flew from Rosita's trembling fingers.
"So the man that murdered TWENTY-SEVEN PEOPLE gets taken alive? The cops risk and end lives waiting him out in a fuckin' Morse vs Soto shootout for two days just so they can slap a pair of cuffs on him, put him on trial -- as if there's some question to his guilt -- and he gets to spend the rest of his life, or at least the next fifteen to thirty years, chillin' in jail? He's in prison, but he's alive. He gets to live, but the girl who needed help had to die? They couldn't sedate her? They just... And now they're hauling her off to Trask to dissect her like she wasn't a person." Rosita had started crying and the cabin began to shake.
"Trask doesn't..."
Rosita glared, lifting the curtain of black hair, flashing a tattooed barcode with T R A S K practically carved into her neck.
"Trust me... There's a lot going on behind the scenes that they aren't saying or just don't know about. People who try to shed the light are the people you don't hear from anymore. But now." She bit her lip so hard she drew blood.
"They're barely hiding it now; tagging us like animals... But nobody wants to talk about how the RA says we're not people, that we're weapons. We're things -- government property."
"I thought the Avengers and Spider-Man and the X-Men were supposed to help, but either they're inhumane traitors that agree, or they're inhumane traitors and cowards with their heads in the sand."
"While they're doing that, who's lookin' out for us?"
"Honestly, who's looking out for anyone these days?"
"How do they get to be called heroes when the only time they really get off their ass is when aliens fall from the sky or when the murderbots they made occupy a small European country?"
"Spider-Man's okay, but his sorry ass could speak up a little; I mean..."
"People want people like us to be heroes, but only how they want us to be! They love it when mutants and Inhumans and freaks of radioactive explosions use their superpowers to rescue their dog from a storm drain or get their kids out of a burning apartment--"
"But they don't wanna stick by them -- us -- when it gets hard, when the powers and everything gets overwhelming. When the nightmares..." They trailed off.
A lengthy discussion that went well into the wee hours of the night followed. It was a helluva an emotional floodgate being opened as they touched on topics that the world's beloved heroes, politicians, and news anchors shied away from. Doors were kicked open as those with the past experience confirmed the horror stories people whispered about when they thought no one could hear. They all knew the world was an ugly and horrible place, but talking about it together seemed to make it more real. Even realer was the fact that it seemed like their heroes weren't really heroes after all. They came together when the world needed them most, but the world was in constant need, wasn't it? Sentinel Services weren't aliens -- not that they knew of, anyways, because they could be Skrulls -- but they needed to have a hammer taken to them. As did Trask. And Watchdogs. There were so many.
Tony Stark said he was just a whistleblower now, directing the correct authorities to where they needed to be -- like that worked out so fuckin' well with Vulture on the ferry -- but how did you blow the whistle on the government?
"Easy," one of them said. "You say fuck 'em."
From there, an idea was born. It was a joke at first, because who could imagine them dressed up in leather, spandex, and unstable molecules as they ran around saving the day? It was a laughable idea, the thought of them showing up in their jeans and t-shirts, but managing to at least scrounge together matching jackets so they at least semi-resembled a team. It was a riot. Until it wasn't. Until it was serious. Hadn't they already proven that the realm of heroics wasn't entirely out of their reach? They didn't stop an alien hoard, but they didn't need to.
People kept saying "you have powers, you should use them and be a hero", right? So they would use what they had, what made them special -- powers, special training, floatie glove thingies -- and they'd be heroes. Just not the heroes they world was expecting.[/fieldbox]
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