To be a Hero

Jaina (The Elemental) - Asking for action

We crouch on the edge of a rooftop looking below at our city.

'Ready?'

A jumble of yes's and yeah's come from my four friends.

We jump.

For a moment we are flying through the air above our city landscape, the moon shining above us. We begin to drop and I soften my landing with a blast of air from my palms and land in a crouch as I taught myself to many years ago. I straighten myself up and summon a flame to my hand, looking over to my teammates who are ready for action. I have Lady Prophet and Missionary standing ready on my left and Empress and Miss Mystery with her cat, Midnight, to the right.

I nod and we run.

It is such an exhilarating experience. Running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop, the wind blowing in my face pushing my long hair behind me. My bow and quiver are rhythmically bouncing off my back to the beat of my steps pounding on the rooftop. I can barely feel the cold, even though it is below 10 degrees out. I smile in spite of myself, thinking of my team and how far we've come in the few months we've been doing this together. It is so much better in a team, I remember trying the solo hero business for a while which ended in way too many injuries and not enough excuses. But I now have a team, and they are awesome.

My experience as a 'lone hero' was fun for a while, taking down criminals, petty thieves, muggers and just protecting the place I live. But after a while it got harder and harder, criminals started getting stronger, and I ended up losing and getting injured most of the time. Plus with the situation at my home, I came to school every day with a new bruise or bandage. My friends ended up getting suspicious and, through thorough investigation, finding out about it (the superhero thing, that is). They only found out about it a few months ago, and I still feel like they haven't forgiven me for hiding my powers.

My train of thought is broken by the sound of a motorbike zooming past in the streets below. I stop for a moment and crouch. My team follows my actions and we silently watch the streets below for a moment.

Lady Prophet breaks the silence, 'Where are we going exactly?'

'I did explain it.' I say, not turning my head, 'Twice. And I'm no-'

'We are going on patrol,' Missionary interrupts. 'Again! Even though nothing ever happens. Yet, 'Little Miss Experience' here makes us go out every night to scout for goodness knows wha-'

A blast, followed by an alarm blares in the distance, stopping us in our tracks and leaving a smug look on my face. I put out my fire and look over to Missionary.

'You were saying?'

I smirk as I receive a death stare from Missionary.

'That's the Bank,'  Missionary exclaimed, ignoring my remark. she projected a holographic 3D map from her watch and started pointing at different areas on the building. 'They entered here, and they'll probably exit out of the side exit or the front. There are no sewage pipes with access to the building so we don't have to worry about them leaving through them.'

'Ok,' I say to my team, who are eagerly waiting for the action, 'here's the plan.'

I split the team up into three and we approach the alarm-blaring building. From three angles. I hide in an alley just in front of the entrance and ignite a small fire between my fingertips. My eyes dart to the roof where I see Miss Mystery and Empress crouching by the edge and talking through telepathy (I've grown to recognise when this is happening as they do it so often). A light flickers to the left of the building and I see Missionary and Lady Prophet talking in hushed voices while looking on a small holographic screen projecting from Missionary's wrist watch. They both look in my direction and nod. I look up to the roof to see Miss Mystery and Empress looking down at me, I nod and Miss Mystery answers for both of them and sticks a thumb up.

I sneak up to the front entrance, trying to ignore the alarm blasting in my ears and I am about to signal the others when the door blows open. I'm knocked backwards by the force and get thrown into a wall. Shit, that's going to leave a bruise. I try to stand but feel a painful tingling sensation in my right shoulder, which isn't good. Black dots start to form at the sides of my vision but I shake my head and stand up anyway. I give a signal to my team mates to say I'm okay (I may be lying but that's not important) as I'm leaning against the wall, they look unsure but run forward anyway.

I make my way off the wall and run to join my friends, my back aches and my shoulder is burning so I'm a bit slower than usual. We are outnumbered 2 to 1 so I prepare myself for one heck of a battle.