Friendly Neighborhood Criminal

Scott really sucked at sewing, which didn't surprise him one bit. For the last week he's spent hours at the local library watching sewing tutorials online. It wasn't great, but after hours of research and failed attempts he managed to stitch the lens of sunglasses onto a ski mask, and he was pretty proud of himself for it.

As the sun went down, Scott suited up. His outfit consisted of sneakers, joggers, a zip up jacket, gloves and the mask - all black of course. He climbed up onto the roof and watched over his terrain with a Birds Eye view. There was a corner store he liked, mostly because it looked easy for him to leap out of there before the cops arrived.

As he stepped into the corner store a bell by the door made a light chime sound. It was quiet here, which was good for him. Without hesitation Scott ran over to the clerk and pointed a BB gun at him, it was modified to look less like a toy and more like a real weapon.

"Open the register and put the money in the bag!" Scott yelled.

"Okay okay! Don't shoot!" The clerk responded back.

The clerk opened the register and placed all of the contents into Scott's backpack. Scott swung the bag over his shoulder and ran out the store, grabbing a candy bar on the way out. As he got to the parking lot the alarm started blaring from inside the store, there wasn't much time to waste.

Scott ran and leapt onto a dumpster, then jumped onto a fence and bounced off it to land about halfway up the wall of a four story building. By the time the police arrived he was hiding down the block. Scott sat on the roof and took a moment to catch his breath. "That was amazing."

——

Darren wasn't home when Scott called him, instead he was out at a house party with old friends from his days in high school. He almost didn't notice his flip phone ringing from how loud the music was blasting from the speakers. Next to him was his friend Raymond, a stoner with long black hair and a patchy beard. The two of them were trying their luck with pulling some girls at the party.

"So you're a Libra and I'm a Pisces?" Raymond asked one of the girls.

"Yeah." She responded.

"That's crazyyy. Because they're super compatible."

Darren looked at his phone and saw the name SCOTTY on it. He considered just ignoring it but knew he couldn't. "Hey guys I gotta take this."

"Yeah okay." Raymond brushed him off.

Darren stepped outside to the backyard deck, as it was a little quieter out here. He flipped open the phone and answered, "Yeah Scott?"

"Hey guy. I just got back from a haul."

"Yeah?" Darren responded as he put a cigarette in his mouth and started to light it.

"Yeah. Guess how much."

"How much?"

"Three hundred and fifty."

"Hey, you finally found the briefcase full of money."

"Nah, I just went to some corner stores."

Darren's jaw dropped and his cigarette fell out of his mouth. "Wait what?"

"Yeah, it's more profitable." Scott remarked.

"Scott, you realize how much heat you're putting on yourself?"

"That's why I got a mask."

"So what? That don't mean you can't be put in handcuffs!" Darren shouted into the phone.

"Woah chill dude, it's fine. You should be happy, with me helpin out more we can afford more stuff."

"Yeah, you're right. I just feel like you could be doing way more than just stealing shit." Darren said before hanging up the phone.

In his room Scott is sitting on the bed, the call ends with a BEEP and his face turns to frustration. His muscle tenses and he chucks the phone at his wall. The phone shatters into pieces and the force of the blow puts a dent in the wall. "Dammit. You know what, he's just mad cause I got lucky and have these powers. That's why he keeps shutting me down."

Scott grabs the black backpack from under his bed and unzips it, inside is a pile of loose dollars. He's right though, I could be doing more. With these powers I could really change things.

He suited up and jumped out the bedroom window to start another scheme, this time a bigger one than the last few.

——

This wasn't Scott's neighborhood, it was a nicer part of town that he guessed would have more money in its corner store registers. Scott perched himself on the ledge of a building across the street for some time, waiting until the store was quiet before approaching.

The automatic doors slid open like before, Scott felt the cool air of refrigerators hit him as he stepped inside. Like before, he quickly moved through the aisles and towards the counter where the cashier stood behind. He grabbed the BB gun and aimed it at the cashier; a young Indian kid in his late teens. The boy whose name tag said "Kiran", clearly didn't know the difference between a modified toy and genuine weapon, his face went pale with fear.

"Open the register!" Scott shouted.

"Okay." Kiran muttered shakily.

Kiran did as Scott asked, opening the register and grabbing all the twenties and hundreds from it. Before he could place the money in the bag a voice called out from behind them.

"Robbing a bodega? Seriously dude?" The unseen man mocked Scott from behind.

Scott spun around and pointed the fake gun at the man, but he didn't look phased by the empty threat. The man looked like a lifeguard, with a muscular physique, tan skin and perfect hair. His face was hard to read since there was a bright yellow mask over his eyes, but he had brown skin, a sharp jawline and curly hair. Worst of all he wore a skin tight teal and yellow jumpsuit with the arms exposed - yup this was a superhero.

"Surprised to see me?" The hero asked.

"Uh. Who are you?" Scott asked.

The hero's eyes widened with shock. "You don't know who I am?" He motioned to the symbol on his chest; a silver wave inside a silver ring. "I'm Hydro-Man."

The name didn't ring a bell.

"Well I'm out of here." Scott said as he yanked the cash from the kid's hand and ran for the front door. Before he could reach it, Hydro-Man showed him why he had that name. His skin transformed into the shape and texture of water, grew in size and slapped Scott with the force of a wave.

Scott went through the glass sliding door and rolled on the concrete before stopping at the bumper of a car parked outside. At this point the store's alarm and the car alarm were in a competition of blaring the loudest.

"That was harder than I meant to hit you. I just wanted you to smack against the door… not go through it." Hydro-Man admitted.

Scott groaned as he forced himself onto his hands and knees, his chest feeling like they were on fire as he pulled himself up. All of the dollar bills from the register were scattered over the parking lot, but the cash didn't matter to him anymore.

"You shouldn't do that." Hydro-Man advised as he walked towards Scott. "You might've broken something. Sorry about that, I'm still new at the superhero thing."

Hydro-Man reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a pair of handcuffs, but as he reached down to cuff him Scott sucker punched Hydro-Man. The strength of the punch was enough to send the hero flying back into the store, where he slammed into the shelves and knocked over several racks of candy. Hydro-Man held his gut and looked at the black suit wearing criminal in the parking lot.

"You…" Was all he could say, still processing that this thief had superpowers too.

Scott wasted no time and jumped to his feet, making a mad dash towards the alleyway.

"Oh no you don't!" Hydro-Man spoke to himself through gritted teeth.

The adrenaline made Scott incredibly fast, even injured he was able to reach the roof in mere seconds. Hydro-Man followed and instead of climbing simply used water pressure to launch himself into the air like he had a jetpack.

"Oh, f**k me!" Scott cursed out loud.

The chase continued, Scott sprinted at full speed as his heart pounded like a drum solo at a rock concert. Unfortunately for him, his superhuman speed wasn't enough to escape Hydro-Man who flew behind him with ease.

Hydro-Man turned his hand into a ball of water and held pressure against it, when he let go of the pressure it launched the ball of water like a baseball towards Scott. Before impact of the water ball, the strange feeling from the cop car incident happened again. Scott's body acted on instinct, jumping out of the way of the attack, but instead of landing on his feet he tumbled to the floor of the roof.

"You know, I was starting to think that you were like… my villain, my arch nemesis. Red Skull to Captain America, you know what I mean?" Hydro-Man gave a speech as he descended from the sky to take down his foe. "But no, haha, you're definitely not."

Exhaustion was taking Scott, and he knew he didn't have the energy or power to evade Hydro-Man, if he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in a jail cell his only choice was to fight back. Using all of his strength, Scott stood to his feet and clenched his fists.

"You think I want some wannabe Beach Boy as my nemesis either?"

Before he could lunge at Hydro-Man, a green blur flew past him from behind, kicking up a gust of wind and slammed into the hero. Hydro-Man flew back and slid off the roof, he tumbled hard, knocking into metal and concrete on the way down.

Scott was in shock, still processing what the hell just happened, as the green blur was actually a person. The man wore a brown aviator jacket, a pilot's mask and a green armored wingsuit, he approached Scott and folded his arms.

"Seems I was right on time." He said.

"Could've come earlier." Scott remarked, while still catching his breath. "Who are you?"

"I'm just a guy who notices talent. Talents like the ones you got kid. We don't have to exchange names right away, you can just call me The Vulture."

"Why did you help me?"

"Isn't it obvious? Let's get out of here before the pool boy gets back up. I'll explain everything."