Spark

12

"This is it!" Teddy said, gesturing to a whole parking lot filled with food trucks. Billy smiled at the place, his nose finding scents of almost every food under the sun. They all blended together to make Billy feel warm and happy inside. Or maybe that was just because he was on a date with his crush.

"Well, good timing, because I am hungry," Billy smiled, walking through the different trucks with Teddy not far behind. Billy found himself a burger joint, ordering a cheeseburger with pickles and french fries. Billy looked around to find Teddy already devouring a huge meatball sub, sauce spilling all over his Flash hoodie.

"You look like a slob!" Billy laughed, throwing a napkin at him. Teddy caught it with flair, spinning around with his sandwich in one hand and the napkin fabric in the other. Billy continued laughing, and eventually ended up walking with Teddy as they finished their food.

"Favorite colors?" Teddy asked, wiping his face off with the napkin while throwing away the wrapper his sandwich was held in. They were just rounding the bend of a taco and burrito truck. Billy looked at the trucks that past the truck. A path had formed off the main one. At the end of it, Billy saw a meadow area with picnic tables.

"Red and blue," Billy said, still eating his french fries. Billy remembered when he was younger, how much he loved heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, and eventually Spider-man when he debuted. Parts of their color scheme came to his head, making Billy choose those as he favorite color.

"Mine is purple and green," Teddy said with a smile. He liked red and blue, but it wasn't his all time favorite. Red and blue were his real mother's favorite colors, or at least, that's what his adopted mother had told him. Teddy never knew his birth parents, but he loved his adopted mother with his entire heart. She was a distant person, but she cared about Teddy. It never seemed like a genuine mother-son relationship, but Teddy didn't mind how it felt.

"I like those. Really, I don't hate any color. Though, I've never met someone who did," Billy said. To be fair, Billy didn't really have friends, and the kids at his orphanage barely looked at him let alone tell him what their hated colors were. Billy was always been a bit of a loner, but it was never by choice. Billy didn't know what about him made people turn away, but he hoped that Teddy didn't notice whatever quality that was.

"Man, the kids at my old school could tell you what they hated. Every day was a new argument that almost everyone participated in. Remember that hero Civil War a few years back? It was similar. Friends choosing sides instead of working things out," Teddy said, referring to the dark times of the hero world. Crime rates rose steadily everywhere in the world, except New York thanks to the efforts of Spider-Man, with the occasional assistance of Stature in the later years.

"The accords were a bit stupid, but I can see why they needed to be put in place. I just wish it would have given heroes a little more freedom to go out of their ways to save people," Billy shared his own opinion. The orphanage had been teeming with stress during the wartime. Billy felt like it was a real war. "Limiting the good deeds of a hero shouldn't be okay, but I can understand where they were coming from."

"Either way, going to war about it only served to mess up millions of peoples lives," Teddy said. His adopted mom had refused to let him watch the news during those times, afraid that he would see something horrible that no child should see. Teddy watched snippets of it, but that was enough to instill the fear that evil would rise in the absence of heroes. Teddy knew it was a Catch 22, however. Evil would arise without heroes to stop it, but the fact that heroes existed invited opposition. Heroes needed to find that thin line in between stopping the horrible deeds of humanity and having their existence cause that pain.

"You are right, Mr. Altman. Humans are fragile creatures that need that proper guidance from super powered fragile humans," Someone said, startling both boys. They looked up at one of the food trucks to see a man with black spiky hair and sinister red eyes that bubbled like lava. The man wore dark clothing, his hands holding a pair of silver daggers. "It's unfortunate how the human race turned out. I'm sure you can agree, Mr. Altman."

Teddy stepped back, wondering why this man was separating him from the human race. Wasn't he human, as well? Before Teddy could ask what he meant, the man acted. He pushed off the edge of the truck, jumping towards Teddy with his knives raised to attack. The man suddenly froze in midair, a blue cloud dancing across the edges of his body. The man was thrown aside. He fell to his side, pushing his body back up by using his hand and the extra energy from the throw.

"That was close," Billy said, flicking his hands around to get rid of the blue energy. Billy grabbed Teddy's hand, pulling the boy away from the scene, trying to find normal people again. Instead, the entire park was emptied of people with only their trucks remaining. The trucks were packed up as if the people knew they were about to leave, but Billy felt it was odd that they all left.

Well, it wasn't odd. Billy felt it in the air. A thick fog of dread had settled over the air. At moments, all the food smelled rotten even though it looked fine. Billy gagged as they passed a sushi truck. To add to the discomfort, Billy could see flies starting to swarm around. Decomposers were venturing into the area despite no one being dead. When Billy was looking at the man, he saw the same static that had surrounded Lisa. The man's form seemed to flicker. His eyes would grow more inhuman as Billy stared.

"Don't think you can escape," The man said, running across the trucks, jumping from one to the other. Billy raised his hand, sending a burst of blue mist from it. Unfortunately, his aim was off to the man just ducked, and the energy went right over him without grazing him at all. Billy thought when he looked at the man that his knives were glowing.

"We need to get out of here," Teddy said, using his own power that Billy didn't know about. From a young age, Teddy had the power to shape shift forms, and his most common form was a green skinned, small version of Hulk with large wings similar to a demons or bats. Teddy's mother told him never to abuse the power. Unfortunately, Teddy didn't always heed her advice.

"That's new," Billy said as Teddy picked him off the ground, using his long wings to fight against gravity. Billy squirmed for a few seconds, but he found himself enjoying the view with cynical eyes. Billy didn't want to be splattered onto that view, but it was pretty to look at from high up none the less.

Billy paid more attention to the ground because he didn't want to look up. Some part of Billy hoped that his powers would disappear and he could have a normal life, preferably one with Teddy. Those hopes were shattered when he realized that Teddy had powers of his own, and based on how much control he had over said powers, Teddy had them for awhile. That means that Teddy's powers weren't going away any time soon, and Billy knew that his weren't either.

A dagger flew towards Billy when he wasn't paying attention, and it landed right in Teddy's huge hand. The green skinned male flinched, losing his grip on Billy. The smaller boy started free falling, getting dangerously close to being a stain in the grass. Billy reached his hands towards the ground, blue energy pulsing out to shoot him higher. Gaining a sense of balance, Billy used his powers to slow his decent. Instead of going splat, Billy hit the ground with a roll, rising to his feet just as red eyed man ran away. Billy watched him going, wondering what about that man reminded him of Lisa. Was it really just the strange flickering?