The Morrowmen

Tradition

"Could I please see a manager?" said the old woman in a harsh tone.
Dan sighed as he picked up the phone to call up the manager so they could tell this lady the same terms and agreements she signed up for as he did. His job working at the Manhattan Bank was usually very boring, so when someone like this came around, he usually appreciated it more than he was annoyed by it. Even by now, though, it had gotten stale. He just wished something interesting would happen on this peaceful day.
Well, there really were no peaceful days in New York. Just a few blocks from the bank someone was being mugged, and just a few blocks from there some idiot was about to be shot to death because he thought he could use threats to get out of paying at a drug deal. Usually, it's not the typical city scum you have to worry about, it's more the "enhanced deplorable". Or, well, as any socially acceptable person would say, supervillains. They've been around almost as long as the superheroes have. And for whatever reason, they seem to flock to New York. It's the reason why Dan's mother was so worried when he got a job at the bank. He wasn't worried at the time, though, as he was sure that nothing bad would happen to him.
He called up the manager, explaining to them about the situation with the lady when a part of the ceiling gave away right in the center of the front office of the bank. The woman who was once complaining screamed and backed herself into the table, where Dan looked in horror on the other side. Standing in the rubble was a figure a quarter taller than the average man. He was shirtless, wearing only torn up sweatpants that looked far too small for him. He was bald and had a look in his eyes that gave off a feeling of sheer hatred as if they craved only to see the complete annihilation of everything around him. However, the most terrifying thing about him was easily his mouth, which was only a mouth by the loosest of definitions. Over the entire lower section of his face was a big metal contraption that looked almost like a medieval torture device. In the middle of the plate was a built-in jaw with rows of sharp metal teeth hanging inside. Its purpose was clear, and it made him all the more terrifying. He was standing still, taking in the sight of the "fresh meat" laying before him, all terrified like cattle aware of the incoming slaughter before a high, shrill voice was heard above him.
"Very good, Sharkjaw!" said a humanoid figure, flying through the hole and landing next to who they could now assume to be Sharkjaw. He was a strange, eerie combination of a man and a bat, with purple skin and giant wings replacing former human arms.
"Greetings, kind citizens!" he said. "Well, at least I hope you'll all be kind. Rude people really piss me off, you know? Why last time someone was rude to me, I slit their throat with my wing!" there was a gasp from several people in the bank, but the supervillain seemed to take pride in that. "But that doesn't need to happen here, oh no no no, doesn't need to happen at all. You see, all me and my good friend need is all the money in this bank, if you cooperate, then we'll leave, and you all get to go home and live your happy little lives- BUT if even a single dollar is kept from us, well, I'm sure you can connect the dots."
Everyone stood there as the bat thing looked around, seemingly annoyed by the lack of an answer to his amazing speech.
"Well, what will it be?" he yelled. "Surely somebody here can open up those vaults, or will poor Sharkjaw have to do it all by himself?"
"How about I propose a third option?" a deep voice from above said. "It's one that involves you going back to jail."
The two villains looked up in utter shock as three brightly colored figures came down from the ceiling. Everyone once again gasped, seeing the three superheroes. They weren't just any superheroes, though. They were the three arguably greatest superheroes of all time. In the front was the Blue Might, dressed in a blue costume with hints of white and red in it. He was big, muscular, and while aged, he was still handsome, with striking blue eyes and flowing grey hair that had once been blond. Standing behind him were the two other heroes that were always associated with him; on the left was the Blazer, a black man in a dark grey and red costume, his arms and head amazingly set on fire; something he didn't even seem to mind at all. Next to him was Golden Beam, a beautiful woman in a white and gold costume who also wore a cape. She always had a bright smile on her face, unlike Blazer, whose face seemed to be stuck in a perpetual scowl.
These three were the most popular out of all the superheroes, they were the ones that called the shots. It was amazing that out of all the superheroes that could have landed in that bank, it was them.
"What, how is this possible?!" shrieked the bat villain, as Sharkjaw looked at the heroes with an expression of undeniable fury, as if their very existence was an insult to his being.
"Quite possible, actually," said Golden Beam. "You smashed through the ceiling, there's no way that would go unnoticed."
"Seriously," said Blazer. "How far did you really expect to go?"
The villain started stammering, but quickly rose into the air and on top of Sharkjaw's shoulders. "As far as it will take me to defeat all of you!" he said "if you haven't noticed, I've gotten a new little friend since last time we tangl-"
"Don't recall." interrupted Blazer.
The villain stopped, and looked at Blazer with an expression that almost looked like disappointment "You... you don't remember me?"
The three heroes shook their heads and murmured a "No."
"Seriously? It's me! Leatherwing!"
The heroes still looked confused.
"I'm the one that used the memory ray to make everyone forget how to use doorknobs, don't you remember? People were stuck in the same room for days!"
"Oh, I remember that." Said Blue Might with a laugh. "That was you?"
Leatherwing looked like he was in utter disbelief "Wha- I- of course it was! How could you not remember? I thought I was your greatest enemy!"
"Eh, You're in the top 30." said Blazer.
"You keep a list?" laughed Golden Beam, turning to him.
"You don't?"
"Enough!" screamed Leatherwing. "Sharkjaw, tear them to pieces!"
Sharkjaw let out a roar and charged right at Blue Might, causing Leatherwing to lose balance from his shoulders and fall to the ground.
Blue Might, almost lazily, dodged Sharkjaw's attack. He went right through the front wall of the bank, to the outside highway.
Everyone outside ran away at the sight of the beast. One family even abandoned their car, which Sharkjaw took advantage of. He picked it up and hurled it right into the inside of the bank with another mighty roar. Blazer was ready. He aimed his hands at the flying car and shot a scorching beam of fire so powerful that it almost completely disintegrated the car, not even sparing what its nearby surroundings. What little remained of the car fell on to the floor, and Blazer got his hands ready again to fire at Sharkjaw. Blue Might placed his hand on Blazers shoulder, stopping him before he could advance. "I got this guy." he said with a confident smirk.
Blazer turned around and scowled at Blue Might, who then raised his hands in the air in indifference. Blue Might nodded his head a little and flew straight towards the raging Sharkjaw at a great speed. Sharkjaw jumped at Blue Might, but Blue grabbed Sharkjaw by his shoulders and flew him straight into the building in front of them. Rubble fell as the building crumbled. Blue was hit with several pieces of falling debris, yet he shrugged them off as if they were nothing more than crumpled pieces of paper. The same couldn't be said for Sharkjaw, though. He laid on the floor and groaned as he tried to get up again, but Blue lifted a giant piece of debris and hurled it at Sharkjaw. It smashed into several smaller pieces upon impact. Sharkjaw didn't try to get up again.
Blue Might, chuckling with a sense of satisfaction and pride with how easily he had defeated the huge villain, turned around to deal with Leatherwing.
Just then he heard a noise. No, not a noise, but a voice. A voice that was calling for help. Blue jerked his head around to try and find the source when he found a giant piece of the building with what appeared to be blood on the bottom of it. He flew to the other side of the debris, and he saw him. Someone was lying on the ground, a skinny, blonde haired male that appeared to be in his early twenties, hell, might even still be a teenager. His legs had been crushed by the debris and he was calling out for help in a pained voice as he weakly tried to push the piece of wall off. Blue Might looked around, and then half heartedly kicked the debris off of the man. He was still crying, murmuring words Blue couldn't understand. Blue didn't necessarily know what to do now, his legs were completely mangled. Blue was surprised the man was still alive. Blue turned towards the street outside and yelled "There's someone here! He's hurt! Somebody come and get him!" and with that, he flew off.
Outside of the bank both Golden Beam and Leatherwing were fighting in the air. Blazer had his arm raised at the two, trying to get a clean shot at Leatherwing, but the way the two were fighting, that proved to be impossible. Blue Might flew towards the two as soon as he saw what was happening. He grabbed on to the bats giant wing and threw him away from Golden Beam. She stopped and looked at him like he'd just done something rude, but she had no time to say anything. Leatherwing let out a bloodcurdling scream, and then struggled to get back into control, afterwards bursting into the air, trying to escape.
Blazer directed his arms towards the ground and shot himself upwards with his flames, taking flight after Leatherwing.
"I'll deal with him! You guys just get help for the injured!" he yelled at the two other heroes. Golden Beam nodded her head and Blue Might simply shot a glance towards the building he crashed Sharkjaw into.
Blazer flew into the air, quickly catching up to Leatherwing. The bat looked below him and screeched at him to go away, but Blazer persisted. His pleas meant nothing. Soon he was only a few feet from Leatherwing. He was so close, the air was hitting his face so hard it was almost unbearable. Only sheer willpower kept him afloat. Blazer was about to point one arm up to shoot Leatherwing with his flame, when the villain suddenly took a dive at blazer, the sharp points of his wings outstretched. Blazer didn't have time to react, and was swarmed with scratches and piercings. Still, Blazer had read up on Leatherwing's files. His attacks weren't very strong, and it was easy to escape them if you had ground to walk on. But Blazer didn't have ground. All he could do was take it. His flames had gotten weaker. If Leatherwing let go, he would fall, then it would be no hope. Leatherwing would get away.
Suddenly, an idea struck Blazer. He let his flames die and then used his hands to grab onto Leatherwing's head, slamming it down onto his knee. Leatherwing yelled and cursed. Blazer let himself fall a little and then grabbed onto Leatherwing's ankle.
"Leatherwing!" he called out, the villain was still swearing furiously. "I am not very patient with your kind, and right now you're really pissing me off, so would you please do both of us a favor, save a lot of time, and settle down?!" Leatherwing's cursing came to a halt, as he realized the position Blazer had put himself in. He let out a loud cackle.
"Well you're not exactly one to be making requests, now are you, hero?" he flew over the ground below, the buildings seeming almost insignificant from the height. "Look at this! All I need to do is get your little pathetic little hand off my foot and splat!" he shrieked with laughter. "My, what a golden opportu-"
Leatherwing didn't get to finish his sentence. Blazer had taken advantage of Leatherwings gloating by pointing his hand up and shooting Leatherwing right in his face with a giant beam of fire. Leatherwing shrieked, and with no way to retain control, began to plummet to the ground along with Blazer.
Blazer waited until he got closer to the ground, just close enough and then he would fly. Yes, that would look good for the crowd.
50 feet.
45 feet.
He began to spark his hands up.
30 feet.
27 feet.
24 feet.
A warm fire began to go over his body.
15 feet.
10 feet.
6 feet.
It was enough. He shot a big, bright beam of fire at the ground and took flight again. The people around marveled at Blazer as he hovered over Blue Might and Golden Beam, who had caught Leatherwing. He was now covering his scorched face with his wings.
Blazers feet touched the ground once again, and the flames died. He walked over to the other two, feeling satisfied with himself.
"Good performance." said Blue Might in a dull voice. He then smiled and waved at the crowd, who were now cheering at the heroes once again for putting an end to the horrible plight of the villains.

The media crew had shown up just a little while later. The three heroes had to endure several different interviews before they could go. They said the usual given things such as "anyone can be a hero!" and "you can be whoever you want to be!". Motivational speeches had become second nature to all three of them throughout the years. They didn't even have to think about what they were saying. They knew that they could call the whole city useless, and the people would still cheer! They knew that their words would be worshipped no matter what, revered at an almost godlike status.
After the superheroes left the town and got back to the top of Savior Tower, Blue Might and Blazer sat on a seat near the edge to appreciate the view of the city.
"So," Blue said as he leaned back in the seat. "You know what's happening this week?"
"Hm?" Blazer muttered as he turned to Blue.
"Come on!" said Blue in an almost disappointed tone. "The new group of Morrowmen? For the school? You're supposed to be teaching there this year."
Blazer looked down. "Right, right, that." He muttered "yeah, I'm teaching there. Gives me something new to do, you know? I've seen some of the last Morrowmen anyway. Pretty disappointing."
Blue Might raised an eyebrow "Really?" He said "Guess I wouldn't know, I don't really look into them much, I have much better things to do."
He reached out his hand and put it on Blazers shoulder. "Besides, we still have those three, er, what were their names again? Eh, I just heard people liked them. And I'm sure the new group will be good too."
"Would you bet on that?" Said Blazer. "You haven't seen some of the kids in there, hearts are in the completely wrong place. That's why I'm going."
He sighed as Blue continued to look down at the city "Keep your hopes up. It's not like another Hangman's gonna come. Hell, we could even see the next big hero. Maybe they could save the world."
Blazer looked at Blue "When's the last time the world has needed saving? Come on, everything is so dull nowadays." he pointed his finger at Blue. "Trust me, because I can't stress this enough. The new heroes that come out in the next decade or so is gonna be one big nonevent."