Bed of Roses

Introduction Time Bitch

     The sun sets in a town, not big enough to garner the attention of celebrities, but certainly big enough to gain the notice of criminals. Every night, from dawn til dusk, petty thieves find drunkards, children, and the homeless, and take what little they have. Surely the police would have somebody out there in the nighttime hours right? Well you’d be wrong. If it isn’t a murder, it doesn’t really matter.

  That’s where I come in, Vigilante Blackthorn, and the Hero Comissions number one enemy. The heroes focus more on dramatic fights with bigger villains. They use moves that were obviously choreographed, practiced, and performed, much like a ballerina does. Except they’re less graceful, I should know, I used to take ballet with my friend.
  Needless to say, their fighting isn’t, or at the least, doesn’t seem real. They almost never use their “techniques’’ or superpowers. My technique is…well I don’t know what it’s called, but I call it Light Bending. Yes I took inspiration from Avatar: Last Airbender. None of the bigger heroes, with better, albeit less developed techniques come down here to Nameless. They literally didn’t care enough to name our city, so it’s left as Nameless City on all maps, government documents, and so on. I like to imagine that it gives an air of mystery and vagueness like it would in my favourite podcasts, but even so I can’t deny the truth.
   Places like Nameless are often rampant with crime during the dead of night. As you can imagine, my job as a vigilante includes helping the victims of those crimes, and to put criminals into, well jail preferrably. If not, well I’m not above putting them into a coma. I’ve never wanted to be a hero, so more “villainous” ways of dealing with criminals are more of a “Plan B” than a last resort.
      Although, I myself am a bit of a criminal. Vigilantes are illegal, due to the fact that the commission wants to control you. So people like me, who aren’t official heroes or have a license to do hero work are considered criminals by a good majority of people. All because we want the freedom we’re promised in our pledge, anthem, and constitution. Kind of stupid, innit? That being said, I have to be careful when patrolling, which is why my technique comes in handy. Although most of the time I sit on the rooftop of my apartment and wait to get instructions from the tech guy.

     Protea, my best friend since I escaped from the hellhole I that “raised” me. He might not be the best at writing, or reading for that matter, but he’s hella good at tech and science-y stuff. He directs me to different hidden corners and the backs of alleyways where the helpless are often preyed upon. Earlier on in our career he made some really tiny bugs that are actually cameras, so we can get the job done quicker, and so it takes less time to get to the scene. He’s the definition of “work smarter, not harder.’’ Despite the fact he literally stayed up for a solid three days to build the damn things. Even so, we still have some close calls where I need to get out quick, and by quick, I mean within the next five to ten minutes.
  In those times, we call on our other friend, Rainflower. We’re not sure if his abiity to teleport is because he’s an enderman hybrid, or if it’s part of his technique. Either way, it’s greatly appreciated. He’s also the friend that I did ballet with when I was younger. Although he went on to do ribbon and expressive dance, whereas I dropped out and began doing parkour. All in all, I think I won in the long run.
You probably don’t care about all this though, do you? You wanna see me fight? You’ll see me fight, considering that there’s this like six foot guy tryna rob a twelve-ish year old. Do I jump in immediately and start punching a bitch? No, I blind the fucker, yay light powers! That’s when I jump down and help the kid find a safe place to take shelter in.  It’s later in the night when I’m in my civilian clothes, and buying some groceries when the real fun happens. Mans points a gun at me because I wasn’t on my knees. First of all, I am neither complacent with orders that include kneeling and/or bowing. Second of all, I’m not into that kind of thing. Unfortunately for him, I can hold my own.
As the resident vigilante, in a place where a cop could see me, I could not, under any circumstances use my powers, otherwise, I would have. Some woman calls for the heroes, and he turns to yell at her. Big mistake, buddy. I take the opportunity to karate chop his neck a hard as I can, aiming right at his pressure point. Just as soon as I do so however, number five hero Elderflower decided to show up…with her “backup” person, hero Dahlia.
     No one can tell you what number hero he is, due to Speedwell, Scarlet Lily, and him all switching between first, second and third places every other week. Ah fuck, they’ve seen me standing over an unconscious body…I’m about to be arrested aren’t I?