Rand, Asher, and the hero that they'd picked up arrived at the Graveport Municipal Airport around 30 minutes later, where the detective pulled into a far-off parking space. The 3 occupants exited the vehicle and wordlessly walked towards the terminal, where Rand approached a kiosk as they entered and printed out several boarding passes to hand to each of his companions.
"Aright. An officer will be there in Iowa to see you off the plane," Rand said to them, before turning to Gold Boxer. "As a registered hero, you'll be acting as this young man's official escort in place of a cop. I didn't want just anyone to take him, so I appreciate you doing this for me, Brad."
"No sweat, always happy to help," the bald man smiled with a nod.
"I can't thank you enough for doing this for me," Asher said as he shook the detective's hand. "So that's it then? I'll just be in hiding for a month or so?"
"Yup. To warrant the use of state resources, I pretty much lied and said that you were a witness to that huge human trafficking bust on the Nepalese Mafia that happened last month," Rand explained. "They're led by a Category 3 villain, so they're dangerous enough to stick someone in the witness protection program over. Don't worry, though, because by the time you get called to testify anything, the mafia will probably be taken down."
"Oh really? That's convenient," Asher nodded. "I won't need a fake name or anything, will I?"
"No, no you're not going to need a new life or anything, this should only be for a few weeks," the detective continued explaining. "You just need to disappear. Speaking of which, hand me your phone now, as well as anything that you might have been bringing with you that can connect to the internet."
"Oh ah, okay," the young man said as he took out his phone and handed it to Rand. "That's it though, I figured I'd have to pack only the essentials anyway."
"You'll get it back when you come home. I'll contact Priya using a burner later on," Rand added. "Let me worry about the situation here. You just focus on being non-existent. Alright, I'm off. Take care, you two."
"Tell Priya I love her and miss her!" Asher called after the detective as he walked off, before Gold Boxer ushered them on their way.
"Okay I'm super curious. Who the hell are you hiding from if Clive had to fabricate a whole cover story just to get you in witness protection?" the hero chuckled. "Come on, you can tell me. Like the man said, I'm a registered hero."
"You're also ranked #4 on Hero Magazine's 'most likely to gossip' list," Asher replied with smirk. "But seriously, you don't want to know. It's better off that way."
"You'll tell me eventually, we're going to become buddies on this trip," Gold Boxer proclaimed as he gave the shorter man a hard pat on the back. "Now come on, let's get some snacks before we get on the plane."
Stopping at the terminal's magazine shop, Asher watched as the hero loaded up on a copious amount of beef jerky. Compared to his public image of being a roid-raging body builder, he seemed a lot more dorky and down to earth than Asher expected. Gold Boxer, a superhero with the power to turn the molecular makeup of his body into solid gold, was somewhat past his prime, but the young man recalled seeing him sponsor a brand of sports drinks in recent years. It was cool having an actual hero assigned to personally protect him, only for it to occur to him that he was being stalked and harassed by the world's most famous and powerful supers. It was the whole reason that he was going into hiding.
After waiting at the gate for a little while, where Gold Boxer downed 2 bags of jalapeno jerky, the pair boarded the small jet airliner destined for Eastern Iowa Airport. The plane, a small commuter jet, proved cramped, where Asher found himself pressed into the tall, muscular man seated next to him. Gold Boxer made it easy for him to be comfortable, however, as he ended up being quite an easy fellow to talk to. Particularly about other superheroes.
"So Mystic Man wears a toupee? And here I thought all that luscious hair was real," Asher chuckled.
"Speaking of fake, did you know that Andromeda Lady has gotten 4 separate Brazilian butt lifts?" Gold Boxer continued. "When she flies, that donk casts as big of a shadow as the moon."
"I mean I can believe it, she looks like she has two beach balls back there," Asher agreed, before getting an idea. "But what about…Passion Princess? Do you know any secrets about her?"
"Passion Princess? Earth's darling herself?" the bald man asked as he rubbed his chin. "Hmmm not that I can think of. I mean she's actually a very private person, she doesn't associate well with other heroes. Definitely a tough nut to crack. Of course, I'm more of a b-lister myself when it comes to superheroes in general, so we don't normally meet with the top dogs anyway. I said maybe one or two words to her that one time I saw her at the Range."
"Huh, well has she ever had a secret lover or boyfriend or anything?" Asher continued to pry.
"Heck no, I mean until that footage of her fight with Evergreen got leaked a few days back, everybody was starting to assume that Passion Princess might be asexual," Gold Boxer continued. "Never mind now. She apparently has a boyfriend that she's ready to kill for."
"Right, that's ah—that's definitely a shocker," the young paramedic chuckled nervously as the plane's engines began to rev up for takeoff.
As the airliner took to the skies, Asher looked out the window to see Graveport fall away beneath them. While still on edge, he couldn't help but feel a flood of relief wash over him, and this feeling only seemed to increase the further he got away from his home city. It was as if he was leaving all the bad memories of the last month behind him.
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"Ahhh it's so beautiful up here at the top of the world," Passion Princess sighed as she looked out upon the towering mountains of the Himalayas from the north face of Mount Everest, her hands on her hips as her cape and hair blew in the strong wind. "Huh? Awe what's wrong, Ringleader? You don't look so good."
Trembling as he sat huddled up against a large boulder, was man with long, black hair and dressed in an elaborate cheetah fur vest. His skin turning a blue-grey in the severe cold, he looked up at the heroine with pleading eyes.
"P-p-p-please, I-I-'m going to d-die!" he begged.
"Yeah, probably. At this altitude, either the cold or hypoxia will take you out soon," Passion Princess agreed. "Don't worry, I'll fly you back to Graveport if you tell me what I want to know."
"L-l-like I s-said, I don't know a-a-any Asher Avril!" the man cried.
"Please. You're Ringleader, the nastiest, most vile illegal fur trader in continental United States," the heroine scoffed. "You have a whole network of thugs protecting your organization, thugs who are hired to kill those that investigate your illicit operations. What happened? Did my Asher somehow learn something about your dirty deeds? Because a threat on his life is putting him into the state's witness protection program!"
"I'm telling you, I-I have n-n-no idea what you're talking about!" the villain continued to cry. "I-I can't f-f-feel my legs! P-please let me go!"
"Ugghhh, fine, but if I find out you're lying, then I'm taking you back from whatever prison that you're sentenced to and leaving you up here," Passion Princess growled as she stepped over to the near-frozen man and opened her arms up around him. "Now grab onto me, and I swear if I feel you touching my ass, I'm dropping you over the ocean,"
"Y-yes ma'am. Thank you, ma'am," he stammered in response.
As she lifted off from the mountain range with the criminal that she'd been interrogating, the desperate heroine lamented on how her mission was going. Determined to find the criminal organization that might have forced Asher into hiding, Passion Princess yearned to topple the villains responsible, hoping that it would please the man that she was pining for. So far, questioning the random crime bosses that she was "visiting" had turned up no leads, but this didn't dampen her resolve.
Of course, the wayward hero was unaware that it was her that poor Asher was hiding from.