"How much are you getting paid for this gig?" Derrick asked the man next to him.
"Two hunnid. Why?" Drake responded.
"Just trying to take my mind off this. It's my first time working for a supervillain, and I have no idea how this shit works."
"It's dangerous shit working for villains even with a piece." Drake pulled out his pistol. "Most of those super freaks don't even flinch at motherfucking bullets."
"Trust me, I've heard how often brothas die in this field, but I need the money."
"Don't we all." Drake nodded.
"What are we even defending?"
"Don't ask questions about this shit man. Just do what you're told. You'll live longer not knowing things."
"Alright..." Derrick stayed silent and kept his eyes and ears out for the slightest sounds.
The two hired men kept watch like they were paid to do. If anyone comes, shoot them. It didn't matter if they accidentally stumbled into the alleyway, needed to ask them a question, or were lost. The two realized whatever they were defending must be really important. Derrick was especially curious what the hell they were defending. If it was so important why the hell were they the only two defending the goods or building?
Then there was a strange noise that caught both of their attention. It wasn't the sound of a rat or any other animal. Not a person or the sound that a person could made. No, this was music? For some reason the sound came from all around them instead of in a specific direction.
"Who the hell is beatboxing?" Derrick looked up and spotted a strange figure standing on the rooftop. "Up there!" He shouted with his gun raised.
The two tried to shoot without hesitation as fear exploded within their hearts. There were only two kinds of people that stood on rooftops with menacing poses, heroes or villains. Regardless of which one that person was, the two of them had only one job. And that was to shoot at anything that came down the alleyway.
Derrick and Drake felt something impact their hands before they could pull the trigger. Their guns fell to the floor from the force of the hit along with their hands aching something terrible. The figure on the rooftop slowly descended down the wall somehow as the beatboxing slowly increased in tempo. As if some great event was about to fall among them.
The two got a clear look at the freak's appearance once he made it to the ground. It was some fucking chubby kid wearing a brown paper bag over his head with no eyeholes, a white t-shirt, and ripped jeans. Derrick and Drake sighed. They had to encounter a teenaged hero definitely on his first night out patrolling. An outfit like that screams new metahuman.
"Did it sound good?" He asked.
"Fuck outta here, kid! Some of us are trying to make a living here and don't need snot-nosed little fucking kids like you ruining that!" Derrick yelled.
"Just leave us be and everything will be good. Don't you know that new metas like you die every week in this city?" Drake tried to convince the meta to go away.
"Damn." He sounded disappointed. "Well, alright." He went back to beatboxing.
Derrick and Drake suddenly found themselves transported to hell. With each beat of the melody, they felt a part of their body being struck. Resisting wasn't even an option against the sound of the music. All their efforts to fight back was like fighting the wind. How could they touch what couldn't be felt?! Both hired men were beaten to the point where they couldn't move, and the paper bag kid walked right into the building they were protecting.
As they lay on the cold ground with aches and pains, they heard the screams of the guys inside. Guys that Derrick wasn't aware of were inside the building. Bullets from all sorts of guns blasted from inside but the screams only continued. After a few minutes, the kid came out without a scratch on him.
"Another drug site." The kid sounded let-down and then left without another word or even a passing glance at them.
The police soon came with ambulances in tow behind them. Most of the criminals without severe injuries were arrested, the drugs were collected, and the criminals with severe injuries were sent to the hospital with police officers alongside them. It only took until the next morning for the person behind this drug factory to figure out what happened to their products.
"Last night, local police officers at Bayton City successfully executed a drug bust on a local drug factory with the help of an unknown metahuman! Said metahuman declined further questioning by law enforcement and was said to have played a major part in making the drug bust a huge success. From the short interviews we were able to get from the criminals before they were locked up, the metahuman seems to have just started their hero career!" Newswoman Jennifer Thomas reported.
"What were they saying? Do we know their powers, appearance, ideology?"
"We got a few bits and pieces, Mike! For one, the new hero seems to be hurting on money because his only costume was a paper bag over his head!"
"A paper bag?! Like the kinds you get at those corner stores?!"
"That's right, Mike! But that's not all either. Apparently, his powers have something to do with beatboxing! Most of the criminals say that he defeated them just by beatboxing!"
"Beatboxing still means what it used to mean back in the day, right? Like the hip-hop thing?" Mike questioned.
"That's right, Mike! The young hero defeated groups of criminals equipped with pistols, shotguns, and machine guns all with beatboxing somehow! It looks like Bayton City has a new hero to look out for! Let's pray that the beatboxing hero can do some lasting good for this city!"
Miss Brutale shut off the television as she crushed the wine glass in her hand. The glass pieces tried their utmost to dig into her frail-looking hands but could only fall to the ground in failure. Miss Brutale took out her phone, carefully controlling her strength so that she didn't break this one like the last dozen.
"Has that kid messed with any of our other locations?"
"Yes... Our group wasn't the only one he hit either. That kid targeted us, The Zoo, and even Controller."
"So, it's just some suicidal kid. Someone else will take care of it for us if he's being this reckless. Get more men to defend our locations and inform me of any news of metahumans. The Brutalizers need more metas if we want to stand a chance against The Zoo and Controller." Miss Brutale relayed.
"Yes, Ma'am." The call disconnected.
______________________________________________
Andre trudged through the hallways of school like a zombie. Dead on his feet and barely awake, it was absolutely torturous trying to make it through today after a late night of heroing around. When heroes talked about trying to make it out on their own at first, they weren't kidding about how difficult it was. When thinking about all the good he did last night, Andre couldn't help but smile through the pain.
Not to mention, he got quite the windfall of dirty money. He planned to spend that money on some damn good stuff to help his future career. Both as a hero and as a musical artist. Thinking about how better his life was going to become thanks to this money gave him the energy and determination to keep going. No matter if his body begged and pleaded with him to rest, his mind stayed strong!
"Watch where you going, little nigga." Andre accidentally bumped into someone.
"Sorry. Didn't get much sleep last night." Andre apologized as he walked on.
"Ain't that the beatboxing guy at breakfast...?" Andre heard him mutter to himself.
The thing about having control over sound meant that sometimes Andre heard things even if he didn't want to. At the core of sound, it was just vibrations with different frequencies and wavelengths. That meant, there was a lot of cool stuff that Andre could do since he could control sound. He learned a lot and gained some good experience on his first night out yesterday.
"Mr. Thomas, head up from your desk." Andre shot up from almost dozing off in Mr. Randy's math class.
"Sorry sir." He rubbed his eyes and focused on the board.
When school was let out, Andre texted his mom that he'd be late coming home. As any concerned and loving mother would do when her normally home-bound child wanted to go outside, she asked him why was he coming home late. Now Andre thought about his response carefully. Lying to his mother directly was different from not telling her the entire truth. Although there was little difference in the end if it was found out, there was still a difference. He told her that he started the Music Club and that wasn't a lie.
Andre did ask for permission to start up a music club with the help of the music teacher, Mrs. White. She was in charge of the school band but said she had enough time in her schedule to help supervise the music club. It was Andre's job to look for members after convincing her how having a music club would be beneficial to the school. That was probably the most difficult part of today for Andre. Thinking of valid reasons that a school would want a music club on the spot while he was basically running on 1% charge because he was heroing around last night? It was even harder than taking down armed men who had no problem with shooting him dead.
But he persevered and successfully convinced her. As the most problematic school in Bayton City, it wasn't hard to think of something to say that it would benefit the school. A music club would help at pep rallies, they could perform in musical competitions, and go around the city performing music to help better the school's reputation. Not that Andre had any of that stuff in mind when thinking about the club. He just wanted to reach the absolute pinnacle of music now that he had control over sound.