The Men In The Superhero Costumes

Chapter 1

Night was a frightening time on Hermit Island. The second the sun set, the monsters came out to wreak havoc. Zombies broke down doors, creepers exploded causing large craters, and skeletons shot arrows that were surprisingly difficult to remove from walls. Because of this, the inhabitants of the island, the self-proclaimed "hermits", agreed to never leave their houses at night.

Well, except for Grian.

It was well known around the island that Grian was a risk taker, from setting up elaborate, but non-lethal TNT traps, to constructing ridiculous builds that no one could ever dream of, but none of the other hermits knew about his nightly ritual of monster hunting. Every night, Grian would secretly leave the safely lit confines of the island to travel hundreds of blocks away. How he got there? Well, that was his own little secret.

Usually these fighting sessions were a piece of cake, but this night seemed a bit tougher as Grian ran through the forest. He'd made the mistake of picking a roofed forests as his hunting spot of choice, meaning that there were tons of dark, shadowy places, perfect for monster spawns. Of course, this meant that there would be more monsters he had to chase down; the only problem was that the monsters were now chasing him.

Grian sprinted between the trees, twigs pulling at his sweater. He didn't slow down as he ran through a patch of mud, which splashed onto his previously-white leather pants. The cold night wind beat against his face, tangling his strawberry blond hair and chapping his lips. He clutched the pouch attached to his belt tightly as he ran, making sure all of his precious loot from the night was still there.

The boy kept glancing behind him at the hoard of creepers chasing him. How many were there? He'd lost track after six, and he didn't even bother to count the zombies. Every few seconds he would hear the dreaded hiss of a creeper and would have to pick up speed. Eventually he could even feel his lungs burning and his legs turning to slime.

Up ahead the trees began to break up, and he could finally see the sky once again. Grian grinned; a plains biome! He'd finally be able to shake of the ever-growing hoard of monsters! Grian continued his sprint, bursting into the open field, or at least what he thought was an open field. It didn't take him too long to notice that it wasn't actually a plains biome, but the edge of a cliff that led straight to the bottom of a large ravine. While this would be devastating to any other hermit, it wasn't for Grian.

After noticing that the ravine now looked much larger than it did just a few seconds ago, he promptly began to slow down, leaving behind large skid marks from his bright orange boots. The monsters were now about thirty blocks behind, yet still rapidly approaching. While he could just easily make his escape right now, Grian decided to wait, turning around to face the mobs and placing his hands on his hips. He lived for moments like these, moments that made his heart race and pumped adrenaline into his veins.

Grian smiled from ear to ear as the monsters approached. Twenty-five, twenty, fifteen, ten, five blocks. Grian stepped back until his heels were dangling off the edge. He clapped his hands together and took a deep breath.

"Later lads!" He saluted before leaning back and plummeting off the edge of the cliff.

Grian closed his eyes, waiting for his instincts to kick in. Seemingly like magic little white feathers began to pop out of his skin on the top of his cheeks and around his neck, the first sign of what was to come. Shortly after large wings sprouted from his back, resembling those of a chicken, but with a color palette of pure white that faded to a rich red at the bottom. His wings spread out, slowing the fall as Grian prepared to take off. He rolled over so that he was facing the ground, which was surprisingly close even for him, and gave his wings one large flap.

Grian then soared into the air, feeling the wind hit his face and ruffle his feathers. He did a few twirls in the air before turning back to look at the monsters he'd left behind.

"Bet ya haven't seen these before!" He scoffed, reaching to the holster on his chest and picking out what appeared to be an egg. He peeled off a little piece of the shell and threw it down at the monsters. The egg landed straight into the face of a skeleton, exploding on impact and leaving a decently sized hole in the ground. Grian let out a small "Score!" before reaching back into the holster and chucking a few more eggs at the monsters, causing more destruction to both the mobs and terrain.

When the smoke eventually cleared there were only a few measly zombies left. Rather than waste any more egg-bombs at them. He swooped down and landed right in front of the zombies. Grian held out his hand to reveal a set of fairly large talons, those that you would find on a bird, before swinging his arm and attacking the zombies, slashing them until they'd disappear into a puff of dust, leaving behind nothing but a small pile of rotten flesh.

Not even a minute had passed when the last zombie fell to the ground. Grian smiled to himself before wandering around the area to clean up the mess. He reached into his bag to take out a few spare dirt blocks to cover up the hole left from the egg grenades, picking up all the loot he'd found along the way. It wasn't the best haul, with way too much rotten flesh, a few bones, one sword (who enchants a stone sword?), and a few pieces of gunpowder. Grian shrugged, at least he could use the gunpowder to make rockets to help him travel. Besides that it doesn't matter if the loot wasn't great, he didn't really need it anyways with the mob farms back home, at this point he was really only doing this for the fun of it.

After picking up all the mobs drops and fixing the ground to make it look like he was never there Grian wiped his hands on his sweater, glancing up at the sky. The moon was still in the sky, but there was only about half an hour left until sunrise. He took one last look around the area before running across the field. He held out his wings and with one flap he was already off the ground and soaring back into the sky towards his base.