1.5 Rapids Part 6

“Nah,” I reply, “Not my thing. I’m not interested in making money. I’m going to fight the good fight because I feel it is the right thing to do. Not to mention I am not interested in working for the authorities even if I do want to cooperate with them as I don’t mind breaking the law if that is what it takes to get justice.”

“So you’re going to be Batman with power armour instead of a tragic backstory,” says Charlie, “You got your thirst for justice and the willingness to work in shadows and break the law to get it. You even got your secret lair for your Batcave and the mysterious Sentinel as your Alfred. By the way, you still haven’t introduced me to them yet.”

“Sentinel is complicated and is more a Robin that does Alfred’s job,” I disagree, “And I’ll get around to it soon. I just need to find the best way to do it. I’ll talk you tomorrow.”

“Later,” says Charlie and I end the call.

Charlie has a point. I do kinda fit the Batman archetype and the world currently lacks one. Atlas can be Superman and the Heroes Union can be the Justice League. I’ll be Batman and the team that Guardian and I are putting together can be our Batfamily. We need to come up with a name for our group. I can talk to Legacy about that tomorrow.

It is a good plan.

Better than just aimless building up your powerbase for some vague, unknown purpose.

Yeah, it is good to have an actually goal in sight. Now I just need to put together a team, make it good and prepare for any possible or impossible scenario. I don’t aim low it seems.

Don’t underestimate yourself. You already got your base and a pretty good team consisting of you, Jaylyn, Legacy and Sentinel. All you got to do it expand what you got and entrench yourself.

***

When I return to my base the next day, I carefully tidy up all of my documents and notes.

I got to avoid being distracted. I need to focus on building an arsenal and the second base to build, but I can probably delegate the latter to Jaylyn. She can focus on it 24-7 and she has access to all the equipment and designs that I used when creating this base.

“Jaylyn,” I call out.

“Yes Father?” replies the AI.

“I’m going to start working on another project,” I tell her, “Since I’ll be focusing on that, I have decided to put you in charge of building the second base for Legacy and I to share. I know I can trust you to get it done.”

“Don’t worry Father, you can count on me,” Jaylyn reassures him, “May I ask what your new project is?”

“I decided that with my power, I should prepare for as many different situations as I can think of,” I answer, “A mixture of coming up with plans and designs in addition to actually creating the devices and equipment.”

“Do you have name for your project Father?” inquires Jaylyn.

“I’m going to go with ‘Anything Can Happen’,” I say.

“Sounds cool,” agrees Jaylyn.

Now to get started. Any ideas on what to do?

I would recommend a clean slate for this project. Build yourself a new computer for this project would be useful.

Good idea. Get a nice quantum computer for the sole purpose of documenting my plans and ideas. Thanks Iron.

You’re welcome.

I have to get to work on building a quantum computer. Actually, laptop would be a good idea as I don’t want to have this project confined to a single location.

I ought to tell Legacy about this. We are partners now.

She could also be quite helpful with this as she might spot things that we have missed or be able to come up with things that we wouldn’t.

Good points. Tell you what, I’ll call her now.

Legacy, better known to the public as Chicagoan vigilante Guardian, has been my partner for about a couple of weeks now.

That girl is weird, plain and simple. I’ll admit that I don’t really have grounds to call someone weird anymore, but nothing about her is normal. And Legacy just takes it all in her stride and treats it as if it is normal.

Perhaps for her it is.

I wouldn’t disagree with that that.

Someday we will just have to figure her out. Even for all that has happened since the start of the year, Legacy is exceptionally odd.

Legacy does have more than her fair share of mystery to her. She seems to have just suddenly appeared out of nowhere with nothing and the majority of her memories missing. Neither Jaylyn nor I can find any trace of her old life.

Talking about her old life, that couldn’t have been normal as Legacy certain expectations and quirks that no normal person would have. Not to mention all those assumptions that she makes or what she instinctively considers normal or strange.

But I put those thoughts to one side as Legacy answers my call. After all, I have no grounds to call anyone else weird.

1.5 Rapids Part 5

All three of the doctors and Brooke look up at me.

I know all three of the doctors, two of them quite well, from my regular visits to Joan. The two men and the woman all look like your average doctor with none of them particularly standing out to me.

Who does stand out is the sitting upright in the hospital bed, Brooke Rodgers. Despite her young age, the girl is really good looking. Long luscious brown hair with sparkling eyes that are electric blue combined with a darn pleasant body even in spite of the fact she is still going through puberty. Not even the hospital gown can hide that.

“Hello Miss Rodgers,” I greet her as I walk up to the hospital bed.

Calm confident will keep be in control of this situation while hesitation will make me lose my momentum.

“I’m Leo,” I tell Brooke as I hold my hand out, “Pleased to meet you.”

“Hello Leo, I’m Brooke,” mumbles Brooke as she looks over at me.

I’m getting some odd looks from the doctors, but none of them are telling me

“Well Brooke,” I say as I reach her bedside, “I heard that you were responsible for the electromagnetic pulse that just occurred.”

“I didn’t mean to do it,” whispers Brooke, “I have no idea how I did that.”

It just occurred to me that if she been in a coma since she got her powers, Brooke won’t know about people suddenly gaining powers.

That’s right. We should probably explain what has happened at the first opportunity.

“Don’t worry about that,” I reassure her, “It’s quite obvious that you didn’t intend to cause trouble. If you were, then we would have our hands full right now. Anybody with half a brain could figure that out.”

“You think?” asks Brooke in that soft voice of hers.

“Sure,” I tell her, “If you were going to supervillain or something you would be blasting or zapping or whatevering people. You’re clearly just confused. Which makes sense as you just woke up from a coma and none of your friends or family are here for you. Even without discovering that you have powers. By the way, you’re not the only person who has developed powers as a few other people have. They actually just formed an official, government superhero team in which they allow secret identities. It was literally formed yesterday.”

“That sounds cool,” mutters Brooke, “Are you a doctor?”

“No,” I reply, “Just a visitor. My girlfriend is a long-term patient.”

“Oh,” says Brooke as she looks away, “Are you staying?”

“Would you like me too?” I inquire.

“I would,” replies Brooke as she looks me in the eye, “If you or your girlfriend don’t mind that is.”

“Joan will understand,” I tell Brooke, “She has had the misfortune to know what it is like not to have any friends or family there for you. Besides, I get to see her plenty anyway.”

And that’s the unfortunate truth. I’m pretty certain I know Joan better than her entire family put together.

Not entirely true. Joan still has us, now and forever.

Aye.

Hear, hear.

We shall never abandon her.

“Okay,” replies Brooke and I take a seat by her bed.

The girl chats away with me as the doctors tend to her. When the police show up, they attempted to send me out, but Brooke protested and since the doctors didn’t object, I was allowed to stay.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. Spending my time helpful a complete stranger who I most likely won’t ever see again. And if I do, she probably won’t even realise it’s me.

Because you are nice guy.

And you help others because it is the right thing to do, not because you benefit from it.

***

It is quite dark when I’m on my way home. I called my parents earlier and so I don’t need to worry about them. As I said before, I have never been that afraid of the local nightlife and especially not since I got my powers.

I’m going to call Charlie and update him on today’s events.

You sure he’ll be up this late?

If he isn’t, I can just catch up with him tomorrow and call Legacy instead. She is always available due to not having a life of outside of being Guardian. I still can’t tell if that is a good thing or bad one.

It is what it is and let us leave it at that.

Yeah.

“Hey Leo,” says Charlie as he answers his phone.

“Hi Charlie,” I reply, “Just wanted to tell you about today.”

“Okay,” says Charlie, “It is about that Brooke girl? I know you’re visiting Joan at that time and since you’re you-know-who...well...”

“I was definitely on top of that,” I confirm, “I was one of the first on the scene and I basically kept her company until I left. Nice girl. I sincerely hope things go well for Brooke.”

“Don’t you already have girlfriend?” asks Charlie jokingly.

I snort before replying, “I’m allowed to be nice to other girls.”

“But talking about super stuff, what sort of route are you going to take?” asks Charlie, “Atlas is basically non-alien Superman with Alexandria as Supergirl. Mentalist is a non-crippled version of Professor Xavier with hair. Crimson Crusader and Hard Shell are both trying to be Iron Man. So what about you? You could go down the Iron Man route as well.”