The First Mission

"Up, up and away- Oh s##t I can't fly-"

'Bam!'

Nick Ale, roommate of Jack Bravo, stood outside of his apartment his burned hand in a sling as his eye twitched. He could hear loud crashing coming from the inside of the building and his roommate yelling.

"Oh what the hell is he doing this time..." Nick sighed. He opened the door slowly pushing it open and his eyes went wide when he saw that the table was now broken down and Jack rested on it laying on his stomach face down on the floor. "Jack... What the fu- What the hell are you wearing? Wait... Is that the ring! Why is the table broken!"

Jack rested in the room still face down on the broken table. He was dressed... Oddly? He wore a black tracksuit, and black sweat pants, both of which had white stripes going down them. On his right hand placed in his ring finger was that same ruby red ring he had found. And on his head he wore a metal half wolf mask? Like it was a piece of metal wielded together and shaped into a wolf like mask that covered his nose upwards. Black cloth was looped through it which wrapped around his head and resting off of his neck was a scarf which he could easily wrap around his lower face to hide his face completely.

"Hi Nick."

"...Jack... What?"

Jack slowly stood up from the broken table dusting himself off. "Hey. Sorry I would have gotten you from the Hospital but I was too busy seeing if I could fly. Turns out I can't. Kind of bumped about that honestly. Really wanted to fly. Oh well."

"What?"

"By the way I'm a superhero."

"What!? Jack what the hell is going on?"

Jack gave a small shrug. "Well. So short story. I stole- Found. I found this magical demon alien ring and if you recall I could shot fire out of it. So after going to give it back like you told me too I changed my mind, decided to keep it, and was told by an old guy who is in the hospital to become a superhero. Also I found out its a really high paying job."

Nick sighed folding his arms. "I mean yeah. If you can get in."

"Get... In?"

"What? You didn't really think it was easy to become a superhero did you." Nick snorted. "Yeah you can have a costume and superpowers but that doesn't make you a superhero... See Heroes are... Kind of like free lance cops I guess. There are a lot of them and a lot of teams. They're funded by the Government who has their own Hero Branch. The Government taxes the people and uses that money to fund the superheroes and also tries too get brand deals. Movies, action figures, commercials. That stuff. They're paid a lot more then Cops since they can do a lot. So because of how expensive it is to maintain heroes not just anyone can become one."

"So I have to get hired by the Government?"

"Sort of..." Nick nodded. "See there are hundreds of heroes who simply don't get paid. In order too get in what you usually have to do is get a costume and go out and fight crime. Get noticed by the public. As you do more work and get noticed you'll eventually get the Hero Branches attention. If they notice you they'll send you a contract. You sign it and you work for them. They'll start paying you and in return you work for them and are basically a official superhero."

"Oh so I'll work for free at first but then start getting paid." Jack nodded. "That makes some sense. So what. Just do some work for a few months here and there... And then boom! Badass famous superhero getting paid billions of dollar!"

Nick snorted at that. "Sure. As long as you can get noticed. But it can take a while. Why... I hear there is this group of street level heroes called the Ace-Riders. Pretty cool bunch of guys if you ask me. Anyways they've been at it for a few years now and still haven't managed to get a contract. But don't feel too bad Jack. I'm sure these guys would be willing to add you to their ranks. They care more about saving people then money-"

"Nah. I'm more of a solo act right now." Jack said shaking his head as he moved towards the exit. "But what you said gave me a lot to think about. I'm gonna start right away! I'll become a hero in no time!" He announced jumping out of the door and slipping and falling down the stairs.

"Good luck!" Nick called out. "Don't be shocked if it takes a while for you to find a good mission!" Nick's arms were folded as he watched Jack slip and fall down the stairs. "...Maybe I should join him..." Nick wondered walking over to a chest and opening it slowly reviling a red hero costume inside. "Nah... Next time maybe."

***

The Next Day...

"Oh God I'm gonna vomit..." Jack said collapsing to his knees. "Must... Get... Car..." He gasped out nearly passing out from exhaustion. "Gotta... Push... Through... Pain! I... I... Want... That... Sexy... Ass... Superhero bod... Chicks... Dig it..."

It was the next day since he had decided to try and become a superhero. He had been running around for a full day looking for something to do.

It had been harder then he expected. Either a crime was so small it was handled by normal people like cops, or it was so big it required full teams of heroes that took all the glory. When he did find a crime that he could do some hero with superspeed got to it first.

Damn Speedsters...

"I'm gonna regret asking this but... What the hell are you doing Jack?"

Jack nearly jumped when he heard the voice. He turned and his eyes went wide when he saw Anabella standing in a corner of an alleyway. "Anna! But you're supposed to be in Nightshade. Oh err... Also... Who's Jack?"

Anabella let out a snort. "What's with the weird outfit..."

"I'm. A Superhero!" He announced pointing up to the sky above him.

"What." Anabella asked making a face. She shook her head for a moment letting out a sigh as she stepped out of the alleyway. "Seriously. You decide to get back into the game but instead of picking the badass side you pick the goody little two shoes?"

"Well... I thought a change of life style would be better."

The woman let out another snort stepping past him as she folded her arms up. "Well. I came to give you a farewell. I managed to escape in the truck that was taking me to Nightshade and I'll be laying low for a while. I also wanted to give you a bit of a warning but I don't think I'll need to now."

"Huh?"

"You're in a costume huh. My warning was going to be to watch yourself. You left me behind. But... If you're getting back into the game I think I might be considering it as well. After all how long has it been since we did something fun. Oh. But I won't be on the same side as you. I think I'm going the personal route."

"Wait Anna-" Jack went to follow after her but as he turned around she was suddenly gone leaving him standing in the side walk alone. He stood there quietly thinking about what she had said. "Did... Did I just get an arch nemesis? And it's a former sex partner too. Nice. Now about that mission to get noticed-"

"What are you doing?"

"Ahh! How do people keep sneaking up on me?" Jack jumped when he heard the voice and whipped around finding Shelly was standing behind him now, a frown on her face as her arms were crossed. Next to her was a blonde little girl who was hiding behind her "Oh hey you're that cool with the rad shirt." Jack said with wide eyes as he stared at Shelly.

"And you're that asshole that stole from James's store."

"No."

"No?"

"I'm... A Superhero."

"...A Superhero..."

"Yeah."

"Okay... What's your name."

"What..."

"What's your hero name. And your backstory."

"Oh err... Umm... Well... I didn't... Uh..."

"You don't have one do you."

"N... No I do. Yeah... It's uh... Bad... Wolf."

"Bad Wolf."

"Yeah... Um. Bad Wolf is my name. My theme is a wolf obviously. And my lore is that I am from a far, far away, planet called Barkers, which had a race of wolf based people that can turn into werewolves made of metal, however the Planet was going to blow up, and also there was a bunch of these other aliens that attacked it, so my parents, my dad really, decided to send me back to Earth to work as a hero!"

"I feel like you're gonna get sued if we use that origin story..."

"And my catch phase is 'looks like you barked up the wrong tree' something I say when I beat an enemy."

"Now I just feel like you're f##king with me." Shelly shook her head her frown getting larger. "But okay. Let's say you're really a superhero. I guess you wouldn't mind helping out this little girl."

"Huh?" Jack looked down finding the little girl that was hiding behind Shelly. "Oh. Hello. Is this your sibling?"

"Nah. Only child." Shelly shrugged. "That I know of... This is Rebeca. Her cat is missing so I'm gonna help her find it. But if you're seriously a superhero then I'm sure you wouldn't mind helping out right?"

"I mean... I guess... But like I was sort of trying to find a cool superhero mission I could take up." Bad Wolf said trailing off as he stared at Rebeca. Bad Wolf let out a sigh. "Okay... So I'm looking for a kitten right?" He asked. "Yeah I can do that."

"T... Thank you Mister Doggy Man." Rebeca sniffled.

"Please never call me that again. So where do we start!"

"Well." Shelly said frowning slightly. "Honestly we've been looking around most of the city block. Sakura city is massive though so we really haven't made that much progress..." She hummed as she tapped her foot.

"I see..." Bad Wolf nodded as he folded his arms. "Okay so... We just need to look for this cat. Hmm..." He looked around for a moment. "I bet... Someone high up might have seen something! And if I know heroes, which I do, massive fan boy on them and watching them all the time, Heroes love to hang out on top of buildings! I wonder if one of them would have seen something?"

"Thats... Not really a bad idea..." Shelly hummed. "I guess we could find at least one of them who might have seen anything."

"But where will we find someone like that..." Bad Wolf groaned. "I give up. Too hard."

"T... There's a hero over there..." Rebeca said shyly. The group of three all turned finding a woman standing on a building doing a cool pose as she looked over the city. They weren't in a fancy part of town. they were downtown where there were no tall buildings. Just a bunch of houses all lined together so the girl stood out like a sore thumb. Just like him she was in a superhero outfit. Her outfit unlike his was an actual uniform though. The woman was quite pretty with long silver hair and bright ruby red eyes. She had pale fair skin and her eyes gazed down at everyone and everything below her. She wore a skin tight purple jump suit that hugged her body tightly. There was a black circle in the center of her uniform where a animal like claw could be seen.

"Whoa. She looks cool." Bad Wolf noted.

"Does she though?" Shelly asked raising an eyebrow.

"Well." Bad Wolf took a look at his superhero costume which was a track suit and wolf mask. "Better than me so..." He shook his head. "Still. I don't recognize her. She must be new."

"So uh... How do we get her attention-" Shelly began.

Bad Wolf pulled out a blow horn bringing it up to his mouth, nobody knew where exactly he got it from. "Excuse me Ms. Hero Lady!" He called out loudly. The hero didn't budge. "Hello. Hey. Hey! Hey I know you can hear me!" Bad Wolf picked up a large rock and used his insane sports bod to throw the rock like a baseball as hard as he could towards the woman.

The woman on the building let out a sigh as her hand slowly came out and she lazily caught the rock squeezing down and crushing it into a fine powder. She let go of it allowing the powder to spill down her fingers be blown away by the wind leaving Bad Wolf stunned on the ground.

"Whoa" The three of them all said.

"Hey robber guy we don't need you anymore." Shelly said flatly.

"S##t I being replaced!"

"Beat it kids." The hero grunted out an annoyed look on her face as her eyes trained down at the same spot she had been looking at. A sewer lid.

"Kids! Hey I'm almost 30!" Bad Wolf announced only making the woman let out a sigh.

"If you want an auto graph wait till hero-con... I'll be there and will be offering them then. Until then I'm to busy patrolling." The woman said not paying attention.

"Patrolling what?" Bad Wolf muttered. "She's just standing there and not doing anything... I can do that."

Shelly patted Rebeca on the back making the girl step forward. Rebeca took a small gulp and held up her shaking hands holding the poster of the missing cat up. "P... P... Please help me find Sir Mittens!" She cried out. "He's gone missing! Please Y... You're a Hero right! Like Doggy Man!"

The woman let out a low hum nodding her head. "Of course he's gone missing... I've been hearing reports that all animals in this area have gone missing..." She said in a low tone as a look came onto her face for a moment. "That's why I'm here... I'm waiting for something to happen... As soon as I see someone try and steal an animal I'll dive in and catch the culprit."

"So you're not going to move at all?" Shelly asked folding her arms. The girl didn't say anything as she simply stared down at the sewer gates waiting for something to happen not even blinking. It made them wonder how long she had been up there. "Fine." She threw her arms out when the hero didn't move. "We'll find it ourselves. Maybe I'll find Red Wrecker and get him to actually do his job. I don't know why my father bothers with giving you guys tech-"

"The Sewer."

"What?" Shelly asked turning to look back at the girl.

"It must be coming from the Sewers." The woman said bluntly. She stepped off of the house landing on the ground and making everyone back up. "It's the reason I haven't moved from my spot..." She grunted. She bent down slightly and pointed towards the road around the sewer gate. "There are light scratch marks as if someone has been opening this one again and again... Whoever it is that's taking the pets is coming from there. I'm Animilia. I have a feeling that the person who is doing all of this is a villain named Doctor Animole. He's sort of my nemesis. He's behind the kidnappings and I believe he's been using these sewers to get his animals."

"So why not search the sewers?" Shelly asked frowning.

"There are... Many twists and tunnels. Many turns and ways to go. It would take... Far to long to search them and there's a chance he'd have time to move shop if he discovered I was moving through them... I can't risk him having time to run away."

"What if you knew which tunnel to go down?" Bad Wolf asked getting everyone to turn to him. Bad Wolf gave a smirk and pointed his thumb at himself. "I have a Superpower that could let me sniff out Mittens. If he still has the cat I can take us to them."

Animilia stared at Bad Wolf with a dead expression not showing any emotions making Bad Wolf slouch down from the gaze that bore into his very soul. "Are you supposed to be a hero." She asked flatly.

"Yeah. Pretty cool right."

"No. Your costume sucks."

"You bitch." Bad Wolf let out a sigh. "Okay... So I'm looking for a kitten right?" He asked.

"Can you really search the tunnels?" Animilia asked frowning.

"As a matter of fact." Jack said closing his eye as he raised his left arm up. It almost seemed to grow and change as his power, not the power of his ring, activated...