Being a teenager is the freaking best. You can scream at people, not do your homework, not come back home for a night, stay up in your room all day, and everyone will chalk it up to a typical teenage attitude and before you know it, any mistake you've made on the "this might ruin my life" scale are already over and forgotten. It's really nice to have being a teenager be an excuse for being a teenager itself.it's also a really convenient excuse if you're a costumed superhero trying to stop a guy in a helmet and a sport jacket called the Jacker get away with a stolen car in spectacular fashion on the multilayered Harrison Bridge. The Jacker also could somehow remotely drive any vehicle - cars, motorbikes, trucks - with the wiggle of his finger. Was it tech? It would be easier to dismantle and deal with overall. Was it superpowers? That would be a pain in the ass for Skylark.
Oh yeah. Being a teenager was also a good excuse for your superhero name be "Skylark", when in fact you had nothing in common with the bird, not even the colour scheme of your hooded costume. Maybe it was your tendency to be able to fly using the suit, or land on top of overspeeding vehicles with criminals inside them, such as now.
Skylark slammed his palm against the windshield of the speeding car repeatedly, failing to startle the helmeted driver inside.
From the driver's voice, one could merely assume he was amused. "I'll be honest. When my clients started telling me that they wouldn't be able to come back with their rented cars because a kid in red and black tights somehow stopped them, I just thought they wanted to go off with the car themselves. Didn't think you were real."
Skylark slumped down the hood of the car, clutching the sides as he slipped. "When an impossible number of overspeedings turned out to just be stolen cars and eveey driver accused a guy in a helmet calling himself the Jacker of renting them a stolen vehicle, I didn't believe them either. But look where we are now!" He pried the hood open, and slammed his hand into the wires, hoping to use his electricity-gloves to short-circuit the system. A buzzing from his mask distracted Skylark: a call from his mom? In the chaos of the situation, Skylark accidentally hit "accept".
"Where you wont be, in a few." muttered the helmeted Jacker, turning a switch on the dashboard. With a resounding whir, the engine parted to produce two sonic canons. Before Skylark could react, the force of fire sent him flying onto a truck driving ahead of them, on which he caught his feet, thanks to his handy flight-soled shoes. Skylark groaned, before quicky stiffling his voice as his mother spoke. "What was that noise? Where are you, Drew?"
Drew Brooks panicked, turning over on the dented steel. "At.. home." he said, looking around at the highway speeding past him. "It's just...the new neighbours are just.. really loud."
"Oh alright, sure. Listen, I wanted to tell you that I'll be coming home a little late tonight. Extra shift." said Doreen Brooks, twirling the cable of the phone set at her cubicle."For what?" Drew inquired, tossing a Larken at the Jacker's car, barely missing the wheel.
"Overtime pay. But listen. I need you to take the car to the mechanics because it keeps dying, alright? We do need it to get you to school tommorow!"
"Wait." he snapped his head towards Jacker, trying to slam the vehicle into the truck. Skylark moved, rolling off the side of the truck in an effort to dodge the direct blow of the car slamming into the grinding metal. "School reopens tommorow?"
"Well, yeah, do you not have a calender? You should know more about this than me-"
"Oh. Uh yeah, school does reopen tommorow. I'll get the car to the mechanics and back, don't worry. Oop- Carlos is calling, he must want help with his English homework, I gotta go, mom-"
YOU ARE READING
Masked
AdventureTired and jaded of his vigilante superhero life as Skylark of 3 months, socially distant teenager Drew Brooks tries to build a new life for himself by trying to engage with his academic life and with his new friends. But when new threats and ghosts...