Unmasked Heroes (Book 1)

Prologue

The average reaction time is 0,25 seconds.

But I know Penelope Greene fairly well and she needs at least two seconds to react when I spring up on her. In my defence, I couldn't help sneaking up on people and catching them unawares. After all, I had teleportation, meaning it was rather difficult not to scare the crap out of people.

Not that I enjoyed frightening people.

Okay, maybe I did! Just a little bit.

"Hi, you must be Miss Greene!" I quip, mustering my friendliest voice, perky and lively, just the way superheroes are supposed to talk. All puppy dogs and sunshine.

I push myself off the dark alleyway wall, reveal myself from a swath of shadows unfolding in the dead of the night.

"Gah!" Penelope yelps, terrified, as she whips her head to face me. I sidestep to avoid a whiplash from her golden blonde hair. To think the Lighters assumed she'd be good help.

Perceiving, they said, yeah right.

"Hey there," I wave gently, talking as if I'm trying to coax a petrified puppy. "I'm -"

I don't get a chance to finish because Penelope screams again, and I wonder why on Earth she'd be in a dank alleyway on a Sunday night instead of a party. Her parents were multimillionaires for crying out loud! And she, the heir to Greene enterprises, the biggest company in the whole city, should be out with her supermodel mother.

Y'know what? I don't care. I have a job to do.

"Who? Who are you?" Penelope stutters, pointing a trembling, dainty finger at me.

I nearly roll my eyes. How many people did she know roamed the streets at night, cladded in black and purple? I've been a hero for nearly two weeks, the news has been flooding with questions about who I was behind my mask. All social media could talk about was whether I would reveal my identity or not.

Never mind, maybe not everyone knows who I am.

"You don't recognise me?" I ask, holding out my hand in front of my chest. On my forearm is a small, Hi-tech screen, and I slide my fingers across, swiping to activate a torch. At once, a luminescent light saturates the alleyway, illuminating it in a single, bright beam.

"Wait a minu -" Penelope begins, gasping in awe, her vivid emerald eyes widening. "You're the new superhero, Kidwolf!"

I smirk, my hands on my hips. "That I am, Miss"

Penelope glances left and right at the mouth of the alleyway, hesitance crossing her delicate facial features. "So um ... why are you here? I'm not in danger, am I?"

"No, it's nothing like that," I guarantee her quickly, shaking my head. "I need your help"

"My help?"

"Yes yours, if you agree to come with me"

"Um, okay?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!" She smiles fleetingly, convincing herself more than me, that she's willing to come.

I grin, holding out my purple gloved palm to her. She looks from me to my outstretched hand, swallowing down her trepidation. Penelope steels herself, taking a deep breath before clasping my hand and in a blink, I've teleported us to the Lighter's Towers. Penelope stumbles away, holding her head with both hands. I feel a twinge of sympathy, knowing the first-time leaping is always nauseating.

"All good," I ask her, pocketing my hands. Were in the one of the main lounges, that connects to the waiting room. I know one of Dex's employees will come to pick up Penelope soon - I need to leave. There's one more person I need to pick up.

Save the best for last, I guess.

Penelope nods slowly, gripping the back of a sleek white couch, her breaths steadying.

"Someone will be here in a moment," I assure her, quickly backtracking before she ends up puking on me, like Harry had almost done. "I'll be back in a flash"

Penelope looks at me with a frown, but I'm already leaping sooner than I can catch what she says. The scene changes from white walls and floor to ceiling windows into a completely different landscape of bright green grass and the fresh smell of the outdoors. A soccer field.

It looks kind of eerily at night.

The instance I land, before I can even take in my new surroundings, a fist flies at my face and I duck in the last second, narrowing missing a punch to the face.

"Oh shit! I'm so sorry Kidwolf!"

"What the -" I jerk back, coming face to face with a pair of apologetic golden eyes. I clear my throat and start speaking in a formal tone. "You must be Mr Stingworth?"

Skye Stingworth flashes me a millionaire dollar smile, his white teeth sparkling the same starkness surrounding the moon's halo.

"Yup, that's me," He scratches the back of his neck. "Sorry about that near hit"

"No stress, don't worry about it," I wave my hand absentmindedly. "I do need a favour from you though"

Skye drops the soccer ball he'd been twirling around his finger in surprise. The ball falls to the ground, rolling in the soft grass. Skye's eyebrows raise to the hairline of his tousled copper hair and blinks at me unsurely, those enrapturing amber eyes, luminous.

"You, Kidwolf, saviour of Skylight City, you need my help?" He says slowly.

"Yes, mostly"

"Okay," Sky shrugs, but his deep voice is earnest. He holds out his hand. "I'm in"

His confidence almost gets me smiling under my ski mask. Almost.

"Okay then," I grasp his hand, silently noting the muscles in his arms as we leap across the city instantaneously.

The same Lighter's setting greets me, the main lounge that is, except, like before, Penelope has been cleared out, leaving the room is empty.

"Someone should be here in a sec," I promise once Skye stops panting and regains his balance.

"What are you talking about?" His brows crease in uncertainty and I hesitate.

The sound of an elevator dings and I turn around a pair of sharp heels click against the expensively tiled floors. A woman approaches us, dressed formally in black and white, her suit press ironed and immaculate, her hair tied back in a freakishly deft bun.

"This is Miss Tydal," I say, gesturing towards the expressionless woman as she stops before us, her eyes regarding Skye's cool demeanour.

If Skye protests, I don't hear him because I leap away, whisking off into the night. Penelope is here and so is Skye. I fetched Harry Talonson first and he came in the most unsurprised and willing manner. I think he already knows he's got superpowers. I wouldn't put it passed someone with his level of intellect. Now all that's left to do is find Dex an let him explain what's happening.

I sigh, landing on the top of the tallest skyscraper I can find. Time for the hardest part.