August 12th Part 3

"In my 3 years of vigilantism, I never had someone interrupt my train time."

"And how did that make you feel," Dr. Thomas responded with an endearing tone.

Stanley snickered, "I didn't think you guys actually said that. It made me feel quite," Stanley nodded his head, the words escaping him, his demeanor contorting into an ogrish anger, "mad I guess," he continued smiling. "Honestly, I knew from that moment, my day was going to be shit. But it wasn't until I got to Pablo's Le Maschou, if you haven't gone there, it's a wonderful little French Restaurant that serves some of the best coffee I've ever had in this city."

"Duly noted, I'll be sure to go there whenever I'm feeling parched. It's the one near the train station correct," Dr. Thomas scribbled down something on her notepad, before stopping and looking up at Stanley.

"Yes, that's right," Stanley answered, prompting Dr. Thomas to continue writing. "It got ruined for me though."

She stopped writing again, "why is that?"

At around 6:50 AM, Mr. Morale arrived at Pablo's La Maschou, a French inspired restaurant. Typically on a day like today, a Wednesday in the middle of August, no one would be at the restaurant except for the employees and occasionally Pablo himself. However today, when Stanley arrived he saw familiar blond hair that made his already bad mood, transform into that of a devil. The blond hair man sat at the closest outside table to the front entrance of the restaurant, and worse of all he sat in Stanley's favorite seat.

The blond hair man spoke in an American accent as he tugged at the waitress, "Madame, pouvez-vous s'il vous plait donner un cafe a ce monsieur la-bas."

"I don't speak French," the waitress blushed.

"Oh, but it's a French restaurant? Okay, can you get that cowboy over there some coffee, I'll pay for it."

She looked over at Stanley, "You mean Mr. Morale," she looked back at Derrick then nodded, "And what would you like Mr. Damien?"

He waved his hand, "Don't call me Mr. Damien, I'm not my father, call me Derrick. Puis-je avoir un croissant, s'il vous plait? Oh, I'm sorry, I just came back from an overseas trip, so I wanted to show off a bit," his face crunched up and aged like wine as he gave out a haughty laugh.

"Only word I understood was croissant," the waitress smiled, "I'll bring them to you right away."

"Merci beaucoup." The waitress walked away from the table, then past Stanley who stood near the table, then went into the front entrance of the restaurant that was behind Stanley. Derrick Damien had a white 3 piece suit on with a purple tie. He wore a golden monocle that seemed to compliment his blue eyes. "Well have a seat Gracefield. My bad, you go by Mr. Morale now don't you?"

"Why are you here?"

"I live in this district, I don't think you do though, so the better question is why are you here?"

"I'm being a hero."

"Vigilante is the technical term, a wannabe is the actual term for what you're doing."

"Fuck you."

"Resorting to mental violence," Derrick faked a shiver, then leaned back in his chair, "Oou that hurts me Mr. Morale. Speaking of which that whole cowboy look, don't be too sexy now, might scare away the people you're saving along with the villains."

"And this whole Mr. Peanut and Colonel Sanders look isn't much of a hero-ing outfit."

Derrick jumped out of his seat, slammed his hand on the table, and pointed his finger at Stanley. "Don't talk to me like that Oddball!"

"Aren't we both oddballs," Mr. Morale said as he brought his palm over his other palm.

Derrick began raising the table using his oddity, "You're right, we'll have to compensate Pablo after this-" They both stopped, then turned to their left to see the waitress, wide-eyed, holding a plate with coffee and a croissant on top of a comic book titled, "The Damiens".

Derrick lowered the table, then used his oddity to lift the coffee and croissant off the plate, he settled it onto the table as the waitress watched with awe. "Can you sign my brother's issue number 38 of the Damien comics. He loved Kid Perfect."

Derrick took a seat and took a sip out of Stanley's coffee before taking a bite out of his own croissant. He then used his oddity to lift up the comic and sit it on his lap. He took out a pen, "What's his name?"

"Alex!"

Derrick smiled as he wrote, "To Alex From Kid Perfect," he then drew a picture of a sun and a star next to it. The waitress squealed as Derrick placed the comic and money back onto her plate. She scurried away while exclaiming, "I can't wait to show all my friends."

"You know, don't you think it's kind of predatory how these women have known me since I was a child and squeal over just a signature."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You wouldn't understand I guess. You're too busy saving the day by helping an old lady cross the street."

"I do not do that!" Stanley in fact did do that. "And even if I did, that's more than you've ever saved!"

"Woah Stanley," Derrick threw his hands up, "competing is such a villain thing to do. We heroes don't compare each other based off of how many people we saved."

"So what about hero rankings?"

Derrick smacked his lips, pointed at Stanley, cackled, then clapped, "You got me there Gracefield. Why don't you take a seat, you've gatta be tired standing."

"I'll take a seat once I know why you're here. What do you want from me?"

"It's about two things, the first is that I want you to actually apply for the, DHA, Damien Hero Academy. My mother asked me to ask you since she's been picking up on all your little vigilante activities and she actually thinks you'll make a great fit in the program. Personally I think she's just using you for advertisements for her new charity, villain reformation thing." Stanley took a seat, brought his mask down and begun sipping his coffee. "I'll think about it," he said smiling, before wiping it off his face to take another sip.

"Great, now for the second part of the first thing. If you are going to join the academy, you need to record a video of yourself doing heroic deeds. Your big publicity act, like uhm. Do you know the top 10 hero G-Lusion?"

"Yeah," Stanley set his coffee down and started snickering, as he and Derrick simultaneously said, "Dude with the lame ass oddity." They both laughed together, slapping the table and their knees.

"Yeah, his publicity act was that he got a cat out of a tree. How he made it to top 10 is beyond me, but they changed the rules for it." Derrick cleared his throat, "Do you remember the Mad Hatter?"

"The villain who wanted to expose hero society, so he somehow joined a hero academy and got a license despite being a known villain."

"Exactly!"

"How did that even happen?"

"I don't know, my mom never tells me these kinds of things. Anyway ever since then they've made it a lot harder to get a hero license, you need to have a bystander record your heroic deed instead of you submitting one of your own recording, the heroic deed must go viral," Derrick took a bite out of his croissant, "the people that you saved and the villains that you apprehended must go on record to say that you helped as well a police cosign of it. And that's just to get into the academy, not to mention you need to spend a year learning how to be a hero at the academy, spend 2 years with your class as a superhero team, then spend another 2 years as a sidekick. Then finally after one final evaluation you'll be given a hero license."

"So why choose me? You could have gotten any other vigilante that helps old ladies cross the street or that catch thieves during that noon thieving hour."

"I already told you, my mom made me."

"But I'm not the only villain born vigilante, does she need a prominent villain family to join the program or what. If so I'm not joining, you're just using my name to get some sick statistic!" Stanley rose up from his seat and began walking away.

"Where are you going," Derrick asked as he got up and used his oddity to stop Stanley in his tracks. "You villains are already doped up with those oddity suppression pills, I'm offering you a chance of a lifetime. Grace would have accepted the offer without me batting an eye."

Stanley twisted his body toward Derrick, as Derrick brought him closer to him, Stanley's face scrunched up, his eyebrows twitched, and he balled up his fists, "Why would you mention her?"

"Gracefield, what is your oddity? That's the second thing."

"I'll never tell you."

"Gracefield! During Grace's memorial service, about 4 years ago. I saw you talking to someone, when I got closer to look, you were with no one. No family, no friends, everyone around you ignored you! So who were you laughing with, who pushed you, who did you dance with, who were you talking to? It's been wrecking my mind for years!" Each word Derrick spewed out eroded Stanley's ears, the pain of it sent shocks to his head, each subsequent word became more and more muffled to him.

"Stanley, don't tell him," a familiar feminine voice whispered into Stanley's ears, healing them almost instantly. "My oddity is just super strength. If you saw me talking to someone that day," he smiled, "I was going through withdrawal." Derrick dropped Stanley, "Whatever, well, until you actually tell me the truth, you can have fun trying to be a vigilante in this area. My father has set up a new sidekick agency around here, he moved his Crimson Village one over here. So now your home needs a bit more help. Good luck over there, Mr. Morale." Derrick sat back down and called the waitress, "Serveuse, un autre croissant s'il vous plait!"

Stanley laid on the ground face first on the foreign carpet that comforted him inside Dr. Thomas' office. He raised his head and looked up her skirt by accident, then jumped up, "I was on the ground like that."

"Did you manage to save anyone that day," she asked as she checked the grandfather clock then wrote something down on her notepad.

"No. Derrick was right, his father set up a sidekick agency. All those sidekicks managed to be ahead of me in every sense of the word. I swear I even heard some of them laughed at me for running to every crime I heard about. Saying shit like," Stanley made his way back to his arm chair, "you're the slowest vigilante I've ever seen. You're so aggressive when you run. Heroes are supposed to be nice, yet here I am being ridiculed and smiling at them," Stanley used his hands to push the corners of his lips up to force his face to smile, "saying, good job guys I'll try and get the next one." He threw his hands to his side, "I never got the next one!"

He sniffled, "Then here I was at the end of the day, trying to celebrate Grace's life, by going to the very building she jumped off of. They added some more guard rails and they sealed up the main passageway to the roof, so I had to break through to get there. Only for an office lady to teleport her way up there! I couldn't talk her down, so when she tried to jump, I jumped with her to catch her. I caught her, then, next thing I knew she teleported back to the roof, and I was still falling. Only to be saved by Derrick fucking Damien. So no, even if I had thoughts of doing it, I never tried to kill myself there. So my mother signing me up for this therapy shit is unneeded! I'm wasting my morning here talking to you, when I could be out there saving people right now," he said getting up and clapping his hands.

"Stanley."

"What!"

"We're out of time for today. I'm sorry that we left off at such an angry note, but I want to tell you that you are a marvelous hero. On file, over the course of 3 years you have managed to save," she flipped through her notepad, paused, then read out loud, "4,231 people. That is about 4 people everyday. Although they might have been repeats and small things such as stopping a thief, helping old ladies cross the road, getting a cat out of a tree, stopping a store robbery, talking to people at the park who are often times lonely, and etcetera. You have saved a marvelous amount of people without a hero's license. You should try and get one."

"Thank you," Stanley chuckled and grabbed his cowboy hat from behind his arm chair.

"No, thank you for our time together. Remember, same time next week," Dr. Thomas smiled.

"Of course," Stanley smiled, "I just hope I can catch the train on time."