Felix walked up to the empty karate dojo, not a single car passing him by as he strode through the streets. It wasn't just that it was past three in the morning, but that everyone was petrified of the supervillain just a few blocks away.
Frankly, if Felix were just a regular person, he would be exactly of the same opinion. Even now, he knew he was tempting fate. As soon as he put a foot through the threshold, he got whisked away by Harper. She gripped him by the arm, pulling him to the center of the dojo. Johnathan was already sitting there, stroking his beard. That meant that Johnathan was really, really deep into his thoughts.
Johnathan looked up at Felix, smiling grimly upon seeing him. "We've got to do something about this," he said, simply. Harper bobbed her head in instant agreement. Felix… did not.
"We know nothing about the guy. How are we going to stop a genuine supervillain?" Felix asked, settling down on the musty-smelling mat.
"You're wrong. Did you not see the latest news broadcast? Or any of the hostages livestreaming on their phones?" Harper replied, whipping out her phone from her jeans. She passed the bedazzled thing to Felix after a few quick taps. Felix's eyes widened. Blast's name was true to form; he blasted stuff.
Blast, in a black suit with an orange undershirt, making him look like someone who had just exited an extremely fancy prison. His buzzcut and the perpetual scowl on his face did absolutely nothing to help his case. It was absolutely silent in the room, despite there obviously being hundreds gathered in the conference room they were in. He stood on some kind of fashion show runway. It made a certain type of sense for Eastman Tower – its inhabitants were particularly wealthy, even for rich people. Felix dismissed that line of thinking, focusing back on the phone.
The shaky video – Felix didn't blame the person for their trembling hands in this case – revealed Blast spontaneously exploding a pocket of air above his hand as he paced the length of the runway. The bright orange hue of the micro-explosion flared up every now and again, the result of Blast's exceeding boredom, apparently.
"So, he can make things explode. Do we know anything about the range of his power? Or what it works on?" Felix asked, returning the phone back to Harper. The stream had answered a few questions, but those answers begot even more questions.
"Not at all. He's kept all of his explosions close to him, though," Johnathan shrugged his shoulders. "We suspect he can only really make the air explode, so he wouldn't be able to rip you apart from the inside."
"Can you guarantee that?"
"Of course not. But that's where you come in. If he does something like that to me or Harper, you can just rewind and tell us beforehand," Johnathan explained, his eyes alight with determination and focus.
"And if he kills me first?" Felix's voice was soft, barely a whisper compared to Johnathan's commanding tone. "What then?"
"Harper will go in first since she'll be affected least by explosions around her. Blast will want to deal with her before either of us, I promise," Johnathan swore.
"Won't the government send Thompson? He's easily more powerful than any of us by orders of magnitude. You saw him lift that container ship a while back, no? He can stop Blast. I can foil the occasional robbery or mugging, but this is too much, Johnathan!" Felix yelled. "You can't promise anything."
"Are you scared, Felix?" Harper asked. "Haven't you always wanted to be a hero? This is our first real chance to be superheroes and do some good. Who knows if Blast will stay true to his word? It'll take Thompson a few more hours to get here by plane, probably. And even then, is Thompson really better suited to handle this?"
"I've always wanted to be a hero, Harper. But more than that, I'm not ready to throw away my life just so I can be an early warning to the two of you!" Felix growled, taking offense at Harper's failed attempt to bait him into this whole stupid operation. Surprisingly, it wasn't Harper who spoke next, but Johnathan.
With a downcast gaze, he whispered, "I always wanted to look cool for my grandson." Then, looking at Felix, he continued with a bit more steel in his voice. "Looking cool for him means doing the right thing, no matter what. He's already talked about Lift, once. My heart melted with his sincere admiration; would I deserve it if I didn't help people that I might have been able to?"
Felix stood up, angering flooding his veins. His words, however, were as cool and calm as he could possibly make them. "You two might be able to do something. I, on the other hand, will stick to small-time crime." he called out as he left a stunned Johnathan and Harper behind. Before he left the building, though, he mumbled to himself, "where I belong."
The frosty night got him shivering almost immediately after he left the dojo. Before long, the stillness of the city got to him. He needed someone to talk to. The only person that could possibly understand his predicament was Kyle. It was fortunate Kyle was as much of a night owl as Felix was, despite – or perhaps because of – his medical profession.
"Come on, pick up," Felix murmured, anxiously walking back and forth. One ring. Two rings. A third. The phone kept ringing. No one picked up. That was wrong; Kyle never missed a phone call. Felix kept calling, getting through to no one but voicemail.
Turning himself around, Felix began to sprint down the street, through empty intersections, to Kyle's apartment complex. Beyond needing to talk, he needed to make sure that his friend was safe.
The concierge's eyes bugged out when Felix stormed into the lobby, heaving and sweating puddles. Between breaths, Felix managed to get "Kyle Jacobs, where?" out.
"He went out with his sister to a fashion show she was participating in, I believe. May I ask who you are, sir?" the concierge asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Felix sprinted back out the way he came with a sinking feeling in his gut. What would be the odds?