Captain Moral’s eyes widened through his emerald green mask when he recognized the woman standing next to him in the throng of protesters. “What are you doing here?”
Professor Pyro smirked, her eyes bright behind her own leather mask. “While I may be this city’s resident supervillain,” she said, hefting her sign so the handle rested on her other shoulder, “that doesn’t mean I’m… evil.”
His forehead wrinkled in confusion, and he was jostled closer by the crowd. “But all those battles. All the money you’ve stolen, people you’ve ruined…”
She shrugged. “I like to think of myself as a Robin Hood type. Steal from the rich, and laugh while they cry. Plus, who do you think paid for that new food bank downtown?”
“But-”
“Just because I want to watch the system burn doesn’t mean I want people to suffer,” she snapped. “This is just the kind of thing I wrote about in my manifesto. Not that you read it.”
“Your-”
“It did make it to your secret fortress, right? I’m pretty sure I had the right address.”
“But how-”
She shook her head. “It was obvious, once I had a chance to sit and think about it. Anyway,” she continued, ignoring his stammers, “these are exactly the issues I talked about. Police brutality, fascist political leaders, greedy capitalist scum. They all need to be taken down, and someone needs to stop them.”
“But you do that through theft, blackmail, intimidation, and leaked information,” Captain Moral gulped. “That’s wrong.”
She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? How did you get this far in life? That’s the only language those people speak. The only way to get them to change. Sure, it’s outside ‘the law,’” she said, raising her free hand to make air quotes, “but it gets us somewhere.”
Professor Pyro tilted her head suddenly, listening intently. “I think something’s going on at the medical tent. I’m gonna go check it out.” She glanced at him. “Want to come?”
He stared at her for a moment, before finally sighing. “Sure.”
They both pushed off from the ground, flying high above the crowd. He, with the booster pack strapped to his back; she, with the power of her mind.
“We’re going to have to work on the supervillain thing, though,” he shouted above the roar of the wind, the shouts from the protesters, and the wail of sirens.
“I always thought of myself as more of an anti-hero, anyway,” she called back, laughing, before turning her attention back to the crowd below.
It had been a nice moment of levity, of camaraderie, but state-sanctioned violence and inequity poisoned their city, and someone needed to stop it.
Inspired by a prompt from Corvid Knowledge Hoard.
© The Lightning Tower, 2020