Hero

“Do you think I could be a superhero?” Nicolas asked me.

I was sitting on a desk inside a classroom, writing mathematical equations, trying to make sense of Nicolas’ powers. “Do whatever you want, as long as you work for me 8 hours a day, you still have 112 hours a week to do whatever you want.” I responded. “I am not your father, you don't need permission.”

“That’s amazing! Ooh, I need a costume, or like a way to hide my personality.” He was getting very excited, it was like a kid getting excited to dress up for Halloween. But then, that smile disappeared. “Wait, I don’t have any money.”

“Speaking of money…” I the opened the drawer next to me. “Here’s your paycheck for the week.” I handed him a beige envelope.

He grabbed it with two hands, bowing down. “Thank you very much!” He was pleased. He then opened the envelope to see the cash inside. His eyes widened as he looked at the contents of the envelope. “T-T-This… This is 800.000 yen?!”

“Well, I did have to pay for your hospital bill, I almost hurt you very badly, so I need to pay a price for that. You also need a place to stay, you can’t keep sleeping in this lab. Then there’s food, clothes, a-”

I got interrupted by Nicolas hugging me. He squeezed me tightly. “Thank you very much!”

I smiled and petted his head. “As long as you work properly for me, you’ll keep getting this much money. By the way, with some calculations, if we win the Nobel prize, we’ll get around 1,8E7 yen.”

“Huh, what does that mean?”

“1,8 times 10000000.”

“Ooh…” Silence… “That much!?” He’s shocked.

“It is the Nobel prize after all. Just to give you a little more motivation.”

“I’ll keep doing my best!” He said bowing down. “I’ll get going now. Thanks for the paycheck!” He then left the lab.

I sighed and leaned back on my chair. “Be a hero? I hope he doesn’t get badly injured.” I whispered to myself.

“Aki, do you have a moment?” Mizuki then approached me, entering the classroom.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked, sitting back straight up.

“This is about Nicolas.” She said grabbing a chair and sitting next to me. “You said that you stabbed Nicolas’s hand with a knife, right?”

“You’ve noticed it too?” I was surprised that she actually noticed this. She isn't really the observant type of person unless she really had to. “His water controlling abilities doubles as a healing ability. His hand is already completely healed.” I explained my observation.

“This will make your research harder now.” Mizuki said.

“Hah? Weren’t you helping me with this Nicolas anomaly?” I then asked.

“I’m still busy with my black hole research.” Mizuki said. “You know that I am not giving up.”

“Yeah, but black holes are too far out of reach. We barely have proof that they exist. We only have a couple of blurry pictures and the theory of general relativity.” 

“Say whatever you want, I will achieve my goal.” If you look into Mizuki's eyes, you will see emptiness. A black void deeper than black holes. But if you look deeper into them, you will see determination purer than gold.

☐☐☐☐☐

What is an awesome superhero costume I can get? Since I can control water, it should really fit with the vibe of water. Perhaps it could be a white kimono with a tint of blue on the edges. It really gives off the water vibe. Or stitched waves that represent water. I could go with that. But moving in a kimono to fight bad guys isn’t really ideal. 

I think it would be hard. I've never wore a kimono in my life.

Fighting criminals that are doing bad deeds has always been a dream for me. I was homeless for half my life, but I clearly remember reading a light novel about superheroes with all kinds of superpowers. It made me really want to be one, despite knowing that it is impossible. But now that I have money and an actual superpower, I can actually be a hero!

I also need a hero name. Perhaps a logo, some kind of sign that tells people that I am here to save the day. There is still so much I need to think of. Aki’s experiments have taught me a lot. I can control my powers better now that I understand the molecular structure of how things work.

But he also lied about something while doing the charge experiment. When water heats up to turn into steam, the bonds of the molecule break up making the H and O atoms fly around freely. But I could still create the negative O side and create thunder. Maybe he didn’t want to overload myself with too much information.

But I’m not an idiot, you know?

As I continued walking, I noticed a hexagon shaped figure in front of me. It was floating in the air and it looked like glass. I paused to inspect it. I stretched my arm to get a feel of the object before someone touch my shoulder. A shiver went through my spine by the sudden touch.

“Hey there.” A guy said, appearing behind my back. “It’s cool right. This is pure diamond.”

“D-Diamond?” I asked. “This big, it must cost a lot.” He looked scary. He had completely dark clothes. A black trouser and a black hoodie that is ripped a little.

“You’re the one that can control water, right?” He then asked. “Please tell me that there is way to get rid of superpowers.” His voice was deep and hoarse. It sounded like he was in a lot of pain.

“Get rid of superpowers?” I repeated, questioning him.

“You see, I have the ability to control carbon atoms.” He started to explain his situation. “If carbon atoms are formed properly with its molecular structure, you will get the strongest form of matter that exist aka diamond.”

“T-That’s cool. You can get very rich with that. It’s like a gift by faith.” I chuckled, feeling stressed out.

“It’s a curse!” He suddenly got very angry. “I have no control over this power! I can even rip the carbon out of human cells! I have hospitalized my parents!”

“I-I’m sorry, but I don’t have a current solution.” I said, starting to back off. Was he threatening me? 

“Don’t you dare run away from me.” He said, noticing me trying to get away from him. “I’ll rip every single carbon atom from your puny human body leaving nothing but H and O’s.”

“Look, I don’t know myself what the cause of me being able to control the charges of atoms is.” I tried to defend myself. “I know a scientist that can try and figure out a solution. His name is Ak-”

“If you don’t have a solution, I will rearrange the world to make everyone able to live with me.” He interrupted me.

This guy is what you would call a villain. He won’t listen to you and use violence as the solution to everything. I can’t allow this, if I want to be a hero, I will have to stop him! I hold up my arms, ready to attack and defend.

Imagine the H2O molecules… see the place they are and push them up!

The guy then chokes, about to puke. He fell to his knees, and I started to run. What I did was imagine the water in his stomach, trying my best to ignore the acids because its structure is at the moment too complicated for me to comprehend.

I forced it up, making him feel sick. I don’t have enough science knowledge to protect myself against someone that can control carbon, I still value my life over others. But I promise that once I become a genius, I will take him down!

I kept running and running. I ran as if there was no tomorrow. As if, if I stopped for even a single second, I will lose my head. It's a weird fear lingering on my shoulders. After a while, I finally stopped, being completely out of breath. He shouldn't be able to find me here.

“Stop him!” I heard a sudden scream. “He stole my purse!” A criminal? Some masked person stole the purse of a woman and started to run. Nobody did anything, they just went out of the way, creating a perfect path for the criminal to run through. He was running in my direction.

“I am a hero.” I whispered to myself. “And I shall save this world from it’s evil deeds!” I held out my hands and formed a wall of water in front of me. I imagined the water molecules being close to each other, making a compact and hard wall. I then pushed the wall of water forward hitting the criminal hard. He fell to the ground and dropped the purse. I walked towards him, grabbed the purse and returned it to its owner. 

Afterwards, I pinned the person to the ground, making sure he can't do any other bad thing. I then waited the police to pick the criminal up. After all of that happened, everyone clapped for my act of kindness. I was happy, this was how being a hero felt like.

Everything was well, until I started to feel dizzy. “Did I use too much of my powers? Such thing is possible?” Everything started to get blurry.

“I’ve finally found you!” The guy that can control carbon then caught up to me. “I am going to kill you!”

He formed three hexagon shaped diamonds and threw it at me. It came fast, it's like throwing a knife. 

I managed to jump back, dodging the first one aimed for my chest. The second one coming was for my head. I ducked and the diamond flew behind me. But then the third one was right in front of me. I used my water abilities to try and block the the diamond, I managed to reduce its acceleration, but it wasn't enough to completely stop it. It hit my skin, digging into it, making me bleed. 

This couldn’t be the end, right? I used my water abilities to force the blood back into my body and then I picked up a piece of diamond and threw it back with a big force using my water abilities. 

The guy managed to stop the diamond. He broke it up and pushed forward. He ran at full speed. His hand reached out, ready to tear me apart. But then, he coughed up blood.

I grinned at the sight. “I expected something like this would happen.” I spoke up, still standing on my two feet. “After all, you can also control the carbon in your own body. Especially knowing that you can't control your powers. For someone that understands the chemical structure of molecules very well, you sure are an idiot.”

He then passes out and falls to the floor. With the little strength I have left, I slowly walked back towards the lab. It was a long and exhausting walk. I felt like I could pass out any moment. When I finally arrived and entered the building, I fell to the floor and passed out.

“Nicolas!” A worried scream was the last thing I heard before everything turned black. Heh… I sound like I’m dying.