Invincible

Chapter Twelve

In a matter of hours, I was the talk of the entire nation.

Brad had awoken me, dragging me down to the living room in excitement. His fingers point to the TV, and since I'd just exited a deep two hour slumber, it was a little bit hard to pay attention. But then as the gears in my brain start to turn, and my eyesight becomes clearer, I stare at the tiny box, and there I was, flying away into the sky.

I hadn't noticed a camera crew following me, but I guess when you're fighting robbers, evacuating people from fires, saving the elderly from getting mugged in a corner, stopping a gun shooting at a convenient store, and everything else in between that, you really don't have time to notice anything.

Every channel I turn to, I am there, the news reporters raving about the mysterious Good Samaritan. Some of them even interviewing the people I helped—among those people was Ryan.

"Could you tell us your reaction, sir?" asks one of the reporters off-screen.

"Well," Ryan says, his face a dumbfound expression, "he was at the scene when we got there. We realized that he stopped the robbers from escaping and...and..." He then hesitates, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he laughs.

"It's okay," the interviewer says. "Just one quick question, how do you feel about this new savior in town?"

"Um..." Ryan stammers for a moment, his cheeks turning pink, and then out of nowhere, he chuckles. "I've never seen anything like it. Not in my entire life. Just looking at him, you could tell that he's what this city needs. You can just see it. I believe that he is on his way to doing something big, and I believe...that this guy's going to make a difference."

"Can you believe this?" says Brad, his eyes glued to the TV, brightening as if he had awoken to a Christmas morning.

I couldn't believe any of this. I really couldn't. Not just Brad's excitement, but the praise I was receiving from the world. And it overwhelmed me a little. All I wanted was to help others, and possibly ignite a spark within the city. But who could ever guess that such a spark would become a blazing wall of fire?

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For the first time at school, nobody paid attention to me. In fact, no one was paying attention to anything, really. They were too busy talking to each other, and shoving newspapers into their faces. Newspapers with my face upon them.

"Did you hear about it, yet?" Jack asks as I arrived, waving around a paper.

He hands me the paper and I gaze at the front page. LEATHER-CLAD WONDER SHOCKS WORLD, it reads, with a blurry—but not blurry enough—picture of me, soaring through the streets.

"It's awesome, isn't it?" Jack says. "I mean, there's actually a superhero...in our city!"

"I know," I say, laughing awkwardly. "I-it's pretty surprising to me, too."

All morning, everyone was talking about me. There was not one place I could turn to where I didn't hear the kids gossiping about the red flying boy. Even Rick, who was slowly rising to power, again, could be heard talking.

"It's amazing, you know?" I hear him say during English. "I've never seen anything like him before."

"No one's seen anything like him before," one of his friends says. The tables around them laugh along with him. "You don't expect freaks to just walk around every day."

"Hey, would you back up off the super guy's back?" he snaps. "What he's doing is cool. I don't see you going out there cleaning up the city."

Hearing those words sent shivers down my spine. Rick defended me. He thought I was cool. It was shocking, but the feelings ended there. I didn't feel the same way, nor did it flatter me in the slightest. Even if he came up to me and asked for my autograph, I would never gain mutual feelings toward Rick Evans.