The Hero Business

Battle Fatigue

That's what they call it in the army. Nothing's really wrong with you. You aren't hurt or anything. You're just tired of fighting. Patton slapped a kid in the face for being tired of fighting. I saw it in a movie. I get slapped enough in my everyday so I don't think that's gonna work for me.

I didn't ask for this job. I didn't ask for the Comet to pass by with it's fucked up radiation shit. I didn't ask to be singled out. I didn't.

God, I sound like a whiny asshole. Poor me! It's funny, so many people would die to have what I have, to do what I can do. I know. I know. And it was great... at first. To be able to do these amazing things, it was awesome, even liberating. Now, though... I'd just like to be a normal jerk on the street.

What can I do? Oh. I guess I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. I'm a super hero. That's what we used to call them when I was a kid. I read a lot of comic books. I really liked Spider-Man. I kind of modeled myself after him. He was a good guy. He was funny and a bit of a smart ass. But he could back it up. When I woke up that morning after the comet and found that I was hanging from the ceiling, I was thinking I'd just call myself Spider-Man. There are copyright issues though. It sucks. I couldn't afford the legals so I came up with my own persona. I call myself The Axolotl. It's a weird-looking Mexican salamander thing that can regrow its limbs and even its nervous system if necessary.

Axolotl is a mouthful but it was the best I could come up with that suited my particular range of abilities. And the more perverse part of my mind likes it 'cause it's a bitch to spell. See, I can climb walls. My palms and the soles of my feet are sticky. That's one thing I have in common with the lizard of the same name. I also regenerate fast. I found that out by after cutting my finger off with a fucking kitchen knife. I cried like a little girl but then (WTF?!!!) it grew back, good as new. That's a handy thing to be able to do in my business.

The weirdest ability I have is to sense things without seeing them. I'm not blind or anything. I can see fine but I can... it's hard to describe... I can taste the air, feel vibrations. It's the coolest thing.

I'm also strong. Not Hulk strong but stronger than I should be for a human. Axolotl's aren't particularly strong for their size so I fudged that detail in my choice of alter egos.

Finally, I have a long, scaly tail.

Just shitting you. I'm a regular guy to look at me. A tail would be a pain in the ass if you'll pardon the pun. I mean, how would you hide it? Where would you get pants? Would you have to wear a robe? Like a fuckin' idiot wizard? How would you take a shit? Seriously, thank fuck that I have no tail. I've got enough problems. I do know a few people with tails. Not fun.

I'm getting distracted here. Sorry. I just never get to talk about this shit to people except to my therapist and, while she's nice, she's next to useless. I have to keep the hero identity stuff on the DL. I can't tell my friends. Even if I had friends, I wouldn't tell them. There's a lot of reasons, first among them that people tend to think we super types are all douche bags with good reason.

When the comet passed and we were changed, it was pretty confusing and weird. I was pretty freaked out. I stayed in my room for a week or so. My parents hardly noticed or cared. My dad was a drunk. My mom was at work twelve hours a day and then she's sleep. I just stayed in my room and tried to figure out what happened to me. I was just a freaked out kid.

Others were a little quicker on the uptake.

The crime spree in the wake of the comet's passing was biblical in proportion. I mean, if some guy can walk through walls, what's the first thing he does? Empties a bank vault. A guy can burn things by looking at them? Look out anybody who fucked him over in high school. Seriously, it was a total shit show. The national guard, the army and the fucking marines were battling these super assholes in the streets. And they were losing.

So, when the stick didn't work, the government stepped in with a carrot: The Bounty Act. The legislation is pretty complicated and lawyery but it boils down to this: if you save someone's property, you're entitled to a small portion of it, a couple per cent of the value. Not much, but it adds up over time. You register with the department of Homeland Security and they keep track of the total for you, placing a deposit in a bank for you (after removing the requisite taxes, of course, the assholes.) The more you do good, the more you get. A person can amass a small fortune.

In the case of saving lives, the government pays you a bounty based on the tax bracket of the person you haul out of the fire minus penalties for loss of limbs or major injuries. Now, I know what you're thinking. Wouldn't these newly minted good guys spend more effort trying to save billionaires than the knuckle-dragging working stiffs on the street? You'd think so but in practice it doesn't work out that way. Rich folks tend to hire their own super muscle for security to deter opportunists. All in all, the balance is maintained.

To make a long story short, the Bounty Act encouraged a lot of rampaging super assholes to shift to the good side and an uneasy calm was established. Being a crook with super powers can be lucrative for a while but ultimately, with the law and other powered opponents gunning for you, super villain is a tough career to pursue indefinitely. Lots of bad guys make one big haul and then hightail it for a country like Brazil that has no extradition treaty.

There are those bad guys, however, who like the business and settle into it with relish. They get their high from being on the wrong side of things. Just like the comic books, they pick a name for themselves and try to last as long as they can. And, like the comic books, they develop relationships with good guys who make them a personal project. Hence the classic hero/villain scenario.

I'm in one of those. Cliché, sure, but clichés are always based on truth. My bad boy calls himself Count Brazier. He has incendiary powers. In layman's terms, he can burn shit up. He's a walking flamethrower. For some reason, when I first moved to Toronto to take up the hero business., we tangled and it's been one fight after another for the last five years. He burns me, I heal myself and then kick his ass. Back and forth. Back and forth. It's monotonous and soul destroying which is why I go to a shrink...