New Haven, Summer

Even over the coursing wind, the silver engine on the red Chevelle ahead ripped out a chainsaw-like roar that reverberated off the brownstone houses. Fiasco winced, and his head sunk into his shoulders from the noise. Streams of ashen smoke plumed from the rust-stained twin exhausts and rushed over his blue force shield in a blinding haze. Iron tasting spittle filled his mouth, and the odor of the monoxide-filled gas burned Fiasco's nostrils—a noxious fume that twisted his stomach further into knots.

"You will fail," the voice whispered, and Fiasco nodded.

Warm summer winds whistled over his exposed jaw and ears, clearing out the murk. The crown of his head down to the tip of his nose were concealed behind a deep sea blue leather mask. The straps used to tie the mask together behind his head snapped like small whips as they caught the current. Flying parallel to the street, the concrete below him became a solid, gray mass, licked with yellow lines, rhythmically beating into his mind as they came at him in faster intervals with every breath.

"Don't look down again," he thought.

Behind a pair of white goggles that he had rescued from a second-hand store, Fiasco shut his eyes from the sight. Regardless, the yellow dashed street lines flashed like strobes in a night club, drumming the beat behind his eyelids. Those yellow strips on the road were why Fiasco usually kept to the skies and avoided the streets. Whenever he tried to do so in the past, the cadence of the street lanes would churn the bile in his weak stomach.

He swallowed hard—attempting to ignore the nausea—and peaked through thin eyelids.

"Get yourself together, loser," he muttered into the current, breathing out to push down the retch.

On either side of the street Fiasco sped down, tall, black, metal lampposts blinked on like orange fireflies as dusk descended on New Haven. Cars, northern red oak trees, and shocked faces on his peripheral vision blended with the pale light, turning into colorful streams curving back behind him. But even with the prismatic show, all Fiasco could think of was the yellow street lines that were inches from his face. Again, nausea gripped his stomach like a fist.

On his hands were glimmering gauntlets made of blue, intricately patterned lights that curved to a point-like scythe halfway up his forearms. He brought his left glove to his mouth as he held back the sickness.

"Failure is all you know," the voice said, and Fiasco concurred with a slight nod as he sailed through trails of exhaust.

The whistling wind turned to a scream when Fiasco corrected his course to get back behind the Chevelle he pursued and struggled to keep pace with. The engine thundered with each shift of a gear. The streetlights glinted like orange shooting stars off the muscle car's chrome bumper. Small dips in the road tested the fleeing car's suspensions that squeaked and groaned from the stress.

Each beat of light that rolled over the rear window illuminated the shadows moving within. Fiasco counted four silhouettes in total. Two sat in the back, their faces vibrating to a blur from the power of the muscle car. Their teeth were tinted orange from the streetlights as they pointed back at him, fogging up the rear window with their laughter.

"Keep laughing, thieves," Fiasco whispered into his glove. His voice was lost in the wind swirling over his aura shield that glowed about his body.

Beyond the two in the backseat, the black shadow on the passenger side leaned in towards the driver. The shadow's arms and hands swept about furiously as it spoke, fanning the light from the front window. Fiasco had to swallow back more bile. As they spoke, the Chevelle jumped over a speed bump that propelled it further ahead rather than slowing it down, engine growling as the automobile soared. Faint sparks glinted from the undercarriage as the car landed and kissed the pavement. Inside, the driver's shadow overlapped with the passenger's. Streams of orange light bled between them when the two shadows separated and bumped darkened fists.

The Chevelle downshifted again, let out another roar, and became a red streaking bullet before Fiasco's eyes as the distance between him and his quarry tripled in six seconds.

"Damn muscle cars," Fiasco thought as he passed through the gaseous cloud the Chevelle left in its wake.

"You know you will fail," the voice reminded him again.

"Yeah, I know, I know," Fiasco said, bathing in the negative emotion the voices words created. The negativity sparked his emotions, which in turn fueled his power. He let the energy from the ridicule wash over him, pouring from within.

In the middle of his chest was a white circle trimmed in gray with a blue letter F that Fiasco had hand-stitched in the center. The symbol stood out against his dark cyan colored suit and pulsed, sparking blue spouts of light. A wave of warm energy rippled outward from it, rolling like water, flowing down to his feet, propelling him forward. Wind rushed over his body. The brilliant streams of color on either side of the road faded to black as Fiasco's speed increased, and his view narrowed in concentration.

"Tune out the world. Don't think about the road and those yellow lines. Focus on the car," Fiasco repeated. The red blur of a car widened and grew as he closed the gap, and the long chrome bumper was all that he could see.

Fiasco fought the turbulence as the chase reached what he estimated was over ninety miles per hour, and his mind geared toward the citizens. There was no love lost between him and the people of New Haven— who seemed to dislike each other with equal fervor—but he realized that the extreme speed of the chase was dangerous for the pedestrians still on the street. The New Haven Police department had done their best to clear the pursuit route, but their cruisers were lost in the hunt blocks ago when they were unable to navigate the precarious turns at high speeds that ended in a tangled pileup of police cruisers. None had arrived to take their place. It was up to the Mega-hero to capture the thieves and return the stolen property all on his own.

"You don't need them, Fiasco," he said to himself. "You can do this alone."

"Unlikely." The voice mocked. "Failure is certain."

Pushing through the headwinds, Fiasco reached out with his gloved right hand. Focusing on the image he had in his mind, the light fueled by his internal power twisted and morphed into a thin, blue line that snaked out from the palm.

"You know this will not work," the voice said. "You are a loser, and your ideas never work." Fiasco nodded in acceptance.

The symbol pulsed on his chest, gaining power from the surge of negative emotion, and the curling light from his hand thickened from the swell as it gained on the fleeing Chevelle.

"Just catch it," Fiasco thought, as if trying to coax the manifestation to obey him with his words. "Just hook the bumper."

The end of the light morphed from his thoughts, twisting and bulging, transforming into the only hooking device Fiasco could think of in the heat of the chase. The end curved at the head, and sharp azure teeth jutted outward. His view narrowed further when he concentrated on the small point where the manifested blue crowbar scraped against the bumper once with a spark, then twice near the narrow space where the trunk sat atop the fender.

"It will not work."

"Just a bit closer. Come on, you can do this," Fiasco encouraged himself as he nearly missed, nicking the bumper further away than the previous attempt.

"Just think about what you are trying to do," the voice said with derision. "It cannot work."

Warm sweat pooled beneath Fiasco's mask, leather sticking to his skin like wet swimwear.

Whispering beneath his breath, he said, "Shut up. I'm almost there."

Pushing out his hand as if it held a solid tool, the teeth of the crowbar scraped over the bumper, inching slowly towards the gap until the Chevelle's suspension rasped as it ran over a deep pothole. The bumper dipped down out of Fiasco's eyesight, pushing his hand and the shimmering crowbar upward in reaction. A curse nearly escaped his lips until the car hit the other side of the pothole a second later, sending the rear end careening skyward. Through blind luck that Fiasco convinced himself was skill, the teeth of his manifestation left deep trenches into the metal as it slid at an angle along the bumper. It skimmed along the surface until it managed to catch between the gap, hooking down onto the bumper with a grating crunch.

Secured, Fiasco arm jerked forward from the strength of the engine.

"I got it!" He shouted with more astonishment than he wanted to display for anyone who might have been listening. Luck had never been on his side. If it had been, then he would have taken a different codename—not that he truly had a choice in that matter.

Actually hooking his target sent a stunning burst of happiness down Fiasco's spine. In reaction to the injection of joy, the power emanating around the F symbol on his chest flickered, then dimmed to a somber, pallid luster, weakening the strength of his tether. Cursing himself for the lack of concentration, Fiasco drew upon the well of power reserve he kept inside for such moments and twisted the blue tendril in his hand like a rope, preparing to pull the line in.

Ahead, the engine of the Chevelle let out a low lawnmower-like growl, as if it were angry for having to tow an unwanted passenger. Yet, Fiasco's grip held true, blue sparking off his aura when he scraped intermittently against the course road. Reeling the line in, the distance closed further still until, appearing below him, twin streaks of black curved crescent moons on the asphalt. The string of light from Fiasco's gauntlet connected to the crowbar mimicked the arch as the Chevelle made a hard, right turn, tires howling in clouds of black smoke and burned rubber. Fiasco had only begun to react to the sudden turn when the sound of rending metal shrieked back to him, and the bumper ripped free from the muscle car with a sudden jerk.

The colors of New Haven returned into stark view, and the nausea seized Fiasco's body once more. The crowbar manifestation from his hand melted away as the bumper tumbled down the street toward him, bouncing at odds angles. It shrilled through the wind, missing his head by inches as it sailed over. The shattering of a windshield behind made Fiasco's shoulders flinch, knowing the damage would further burden his reputation. Glancing to his right, he saw the Chevelle squeal down third street, red brake light gleaming through a dark gray mist. The muscle car turned away from the New Haven hero who continued streaking forward, caught in his own momentum.

Lost in nausea and choking haze, bright stars and concrete switched like a kaleidoscope as Fiasco bounced and tumbled forward. Pebbles of pavement broke away and pummeled against his shield, resonating like hail against glass. Stone skipping off the street, a burst of blue aura attempted to correct the tumble, but instead only sent his flailing body airborne. Fiasco's stomach-turning journey ended when the left side of his head and shoulder crashed into the side of a three-story townhouse with a metallic drum-like thud. An audible grunt burst passed Fiasco's teeth, pouring out along with the air in his lungs as he fell backwards onto the sidewalk in a shroud of red concrete dust and debris.

"I told you it would fail."