Superhero Vignettes

Episode One: The Emotional Ninja

It was dark in the city. Very dark. So dark that the stars seemed to have given up shining, and the only light came from the streetlights glimmering dully on the sidewalks.

On the corner of Third and Rowan Streets, Mr. Matthew McGowan turned his key in the door of his little restaurant, The Fried Egg. The name was deceptive. The Fried Egg served both breakfast and dinner courses, all day long, for reasonable prices. Maybe too reasonable. In twenty-five years, The Fried Egg had yet to turn a substantial profit.

Mr. McGowan sighed as he finished locking the door and turned towards his rusted blue Volkswagen Beetle, sitting quietly by the curb. He had saved up for ten years to buy that car. It was old, and clunky, and the radio only picked up two stations. But it was his car, and he had grown attached to it.

He reached for the door handle, and then it happened. Without warning, too scruffy teenage boys waving ugly-looking handguns rushed out of a nearby alleyway. Before Mr. McGowan could react, they snatched his keys, leaped into the Beetle, viciously gunned it to life, and roared maniacally down Rowan Street, leaving trails of exhaust in their wake.

Mr. McGowan had no cell phone. The old man was just about to rush for the ancient pay phone which still remained on the corner, when another figure appeared in the darkness. He was tall, cloaked in black, and carrying an odd sort of sword. Mr. McGowan had never been to Japan, or even out of his own state, but he knew enough from the late-night TV specials to recognize what he was looking at.

"You, you're a ninja!" he exclaimed.

Ignoring Mr. McGowan's outburst, the dark-clad figure looked past him, down the length of Rowan Street, his hooded eyes falling upon the rapidly vanishing tail-lights of the carjacked Beetle. At last, he spoke, in a voice cold and menacing. "That your car?"

"Y-yes, but-"

"I'll get it back."

The ninja slipped away into the alley. Then, quite suddenly, he returned and looked the trembling Mr. McGowan straight in the eye. "You seem troubled. Would you like to talk about it?"

Mr. McGowan blinked. "I, ah...."

"Don't be afraid to express your feelings," the ninja intoned. "Men need intimacy to thrive. It's part of the process of maturing. Remember that."

And as the ninja disappeared once more into the night, Mr. McGowan blinked once again. Then, he hurried towards the phone.

---

The police arrived at the corner of Fourth and Rowan Streets, in response to Mr. McGowan's belated phone call . They found a rusted blue Volkswagen Beetle, sitting quietly by the curb. On the sidewalk lay two scruffy teen-aged boys, completely unconscious, their handguns lying neatly beside them. There was no trace of the mysterious ninja. He had vanished, once again, into the darkness of the city.

Episode Two: The Two

Cheyenne Madison was late for her senior high school prom. This fact caused her no little distress. For she knew that the only way to defeat her social rival, the stunning Kimberly Lathmarker, in the ongoing battle for the affections of the school's football star was for her to make that prom. If she wasn't there, Kimberly would get him. And if that happened, Steve might be lost to her forever.

So far the gods seemed to have conspired against her that night. Cheyenne's car had broken down, her cell phone battery had gone off to whatever heaven is destined for cell phone batteries, and she had exactly 87 cents in her purse: thirteen short of the amount required for bus fare. The school was twelve miles away, and it had begun to rain. Cheyenne, utterly distraught, fell to her knees on the sidewalk and burst into tears.

As she wept, she didn't see the five young men in gang colors who began sidling towards her, wolfish looks in their eyes. One of them produced a baseball bat. Another, a crowbar. Yet another began clenching his fists, a twisted smile on his face. The group approached, eyes alight, closing in on their unwitting prey.

They made it within two feet of her when, all at once, two teenage girls dropped down in front of them. The two looked exactly identical, from dark hair to grey eyes to green shirt s and matching skirts and shoes. "Back off, jerks!" they shouted, in oddly perfect unison.

The gang members looked at each other, grinned, and advanced. The two girls lashed out with their fists, unleashing a rapid sequence of synchronized blows that knocked the five back on their heels. Angered now, the young men struck back, but all at once the two girls before them split into two more, and then those two split, and then those two, and then....

The boys reeled back in confusion. Now packs of fist-slinging, karate-kicking, yelling girls were everywhere: each perfectly identical to the other. One young man, bewildered and panicked, swung his crowbar at the nearest girl. Before the metal could even touch her forehead, she had split into four mirror duplicates of herself. The four (then eight, then sixteen, than thirty-two) grabbed the crowbar, wrenched it from his hand, and in a combined effort, heaved it into the street.

The mob of girl-clones advanced in step, kicking, punching, and kicking again in synchronization equal to the best Olympic swimmers. The gang members broke at last, running and screaming down the street: right into the arms of a sturdy policeman, who had the presence of mind to quickly produce his pistol and draw down on the boys. They, however, had no more will to fight. They had been entirely demoralized.

Cheyenne watched all this in utter amazement. She was even more amazed (if that was possible) when, after the gang had departed in fear and trembling, the crowd of identical girls quietly stopped dividing and began to merge together. In a moment, the street was empty of all save the original pair. Cheyenne approached her deliverers, but they were already darting away into the shadows. "Wait!" she called. "Who are you?"

But The Two were gone, as quickly as they had come.