Chapter 1

            Jonathan bolted down the dimly lit alley in King’s Row, the hooting, laughing and catcalls of the Skulls bouncing off the brick walls around him. Panting, terrified and out of options, he bashed his way past a thin wooden door and raced through the grimy hallways of a terribly neglected tenement, scrambling in a mad dash for safety.

            He almost found it too.

            Turning a corner that led to the front door, Jonathan checked over his shoulder and ran straight into a wall for his trouble. At least, it felt like a wall. Until it spoke.

            “Run, run, little rabbit,” a velvety smooth voice crooned. Jonathan looked up and caught eyes with the new arrival, his shock as evident as he lost his footing and fell hard on his rump. The man standing over him advanced just a step, and Jonathan quickly scrabbled backwards until his shoulders found resistance in a wall. The sad, bare flickering fluorescent lights in this hallway played off the newcomers features to make the already menacing figure even more intimidating.

            “No, please, I didn’t mean to… Oh God!” Jonathan blurted.

            “God’s got nothing to do with this,” said the stranger, as he began pulling on a pair of black leather gloves he pulled from his exquisite oilskin trench coat. “Now, I don’t know, nor care, about what you did, all I know is that when I get called, it means serious business, and someone is about to die. Do you want to die?”

            “Please, NO! No, I got a wife and kid at home, don’t do this, please!”

            The stranger’s face seemed to soften for just a second, and he spoke, “What’s your name?”

            “J- Jonathan. Jonathan Witwer, listen, I…”

            “Good to meet you Jonathan. My name is Jack,” the man reached into his coat and continued, “I tell you this, so that you can tell the devil who sent you,” Jack produced a gleaming chrome pistol from his coat, and leveled it at Jonathan’s head, sights lined up with the center of his eyes, “Goodbye, Mr. Witwer.”

            “No, Jack, please, I no, Jack! Jack!...”

            “JACK!!!”

            The shout shook Jack Candless out of his daydream, and deposited him violently back into the land of the living. The warehouse supervisor loomed over him as he sit propped against a crate, berating him, his mother and assorted other members if his extended family. Jack saw him yelling, but seriously didn’t hear the words. He’d been dealing with it for his whole life. Tall, scrawny, pockmarked with acne, forced into braces at age 23, and saddled with coke-bottle glasses, he’d been the subject of derision since grammar school, and it continued to this day. Everyone at the warehouse looked down on him. Sad bunch of inbred hicks. Even the knuckle-dragger with the unibrow thought he was better than Jack. Still, Jack was the only one with the know-how to fix the machines and operate the computers, so they kept him around.

            “… AND IF YOU DON’T GET OFF YER ASS AND DO SOMETHIN’ IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS, I’M TAKIN’ THIS OUT OF YER PAY!!” The supervisor literally spat at him.

            Jack rose to his feet muttering, “Nothin’ from nothin’ equals nothin’.”

            “WHAT WAS THAT?!”

            “Nothin’,” came the reply.

            Seemingly satisfied, the supervisor moved on to morally debase yet another co-worker, and Jack pulled a cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. He looked up, to ensure no one could see him, then hit the six button for a speed-dial. He then dropped his cell phone in the trash as he walked off, picking up his sad little cotton trench coat as he slipped out a side door. He began walking along the docks, thinking to himself, as the sounds of sirens approached from the opposite direction. He allowed himself a secret smile.

            “Goodbye, Mr. Witwer.”

            The tiny rocket screamed towards the heavens, and burst in a crackling shower of sparks. Below, in the tiny urban backyard, Jack Candless watched the fireworks with a detached interest. Realistically, his mind was elsewhere, even as he lit another bottle rocket and sent it skyward. Was turning in his employers at the warehouse really the right thing to do? Granted, they were shipping Superadine through that warehouse, and that chemical trash was killing people in droves every day. Turning snitch was probably the most heroic thing he’d ever done in his sad little life.

            That last thought made him chuckle. Heroes. What good were they? They claimed to be protecting the people, but Jack had never once seen a “hero” in person. Even in a place like Paragon City, a place just lousy with capes. The hero that visited his school when he was a kid turned out to be the janitor in a bad fitting costume. He’d watch the heroes soar past as high-school bullies beat the living hell out of him, seemingly oblivious to the suffering going on right underneath them. Once, when driving with his roommate in college, a super battle erupted near the gridlocked highway, and a stray blast from a hero obliterated the car they were in. The Ambulance never even had a chance to reach them before his roommate died of his wounds. The hero responsible? Claimed the blast came from the villain he brought down, and he received an award. Just the thought made Jack sick.

            But his mind wandered back to his supervisor and the others at the warehouse. They weren’t necessarily members of the Skulls, but still they deserved it. Screw ‘em! He didn’t owe them a damn thing. But, because of the possibility of retribution, he couldn’t return to his apartment, and was forced to stay with his mother. 24 years old and staying with his mom. God, he thought, I am a loser.

            He lay down on the half-dead grass, and grabbed a handful of the fireworks from cardboard box at his side. Explosives always seemed to make things better. A small explosion was just so… pure. No ulterior motives. No backstabbing. No pretenses. Just pure destructive force. Granted, he couldn’t get his hands on anything more powerful than M-80’s, but it was still therapeutic.

            “Jackie!” his mother called from the kitchen window.

            Jack sighed and sat up, “Yeah ma?”

            “Do you want something to drink honey?”

            “Sure Mom.”

            “Alright, I’ll be right out, oh, by the way, your friends just got here, I’ll show them back there,” she called.

            Jack cocked an eyebrow. What friends? He stood up and brushed off his clothes as his mother appeared at the back door.

            “Ma, what friends are you- Oh god!” Jack stuttered as he saw the three men behind his mother pull on white Skull masks, and one of them raised a fire axe, then buried it in the middle of her back. Jack’s mother issued a small shout of alarm, then fell, four glasses of lemonade spilling and scattering in front of her.

            The world just seemed to go into slow motion as he watched his mother fall. His feet wouldn’t respond to his brain’s frantic pleading to just get away. All he could do was watch as two of the Skulls stepped over his mother and approached him as the third pulled his axe out of her back, and prepared to finish what he had started.

            The lead skull, bedecked in grays and whites and wielding a knife that realistically was more of a sword stalked purposely toward Jack. His lieutenant held a double barreled shotgun aimed squarely at him. The lead skull grinned fiercely at Jack, listening for the sounds of Jack’s mother’s brutal last moments on earth.

            “You done bad Jack, you know that, right?”

            Jack tried to respond, to run away, to do much of  anything really, but all he could manage was to stare at his mother and the spreading pool of blood around her as tears welled up and blurred his vision.

            “I’m talking to you!” the Skull bellowed, then grabbed Jack by the throat to face him, “Aw, what’s that, tears? Pathetic.” He then shoved Jack to the ground as his lieutenants laughed menacingly.

           Jack, his mind reeling, tried to figure out how they had found him here, why he had done what he did in the first place, anything. Right then, he decided, he would lead by example. He would show those “heroes” what true noble sacrifice was. He stood, and wiped the tears from his eyes. Without responding to the Skulls taunts he rushed at the lead Skull, hoping to catch him off guard. Almost without effort the Skull intercepted Jack’s fist, and in one fluid motion, snapped both bones in his forearm, and sunk his knife deep into Jack’s side. Jack, more in shock than any real pain, gasped, and staggered back a few steps, gripping at his side with his good arm, then the Skull kicked him squarely in the chest and dropped him to the ground.

            “That one’s got spunk, huh Boss?” said one of the thugs.

            “That he does. That he does indeed. I think we should teach him some humility, don’t you?”

            “I like that idea Boss.”

            “Hey, look what I found,” called the third, hefting the box of fireworks behind him, “These could be kinda fun.”

            The lead Skull pulled the box closer, and found the two full cases of M-80’s at the bottom, then grinned even more fiercely, “Oh, I believe they certainly could.”

            Jack watched this all through increasingly blurred vision, and tried to crawl away, dragging himself with his one good arm. The one with the shotgun stepped in front of him and said, “Where do you think you’re going?” then promptly booted him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious.

            When he woke up, Jack found himself tied to the post that held up the clothesline. He felt cold, and the pain in his arm almost, but not quite, overwhelmed the pain his side. He could vaguely hear the voices of the skulls milling around him, occasionally he’d feel a blast of pain as one of them pressed against his arm, or deliberately jam their fingers into the open wound on his side.

            He began to drift back into that sweet blissful sleep, when another sudden pain brought him back to wakefulness. The lead skull had him by the throat again, then slapped him across the face.

            “Wake up,” another slap, followed by a more insistent pull at his throat.

            Jack finally opened his eyes, peering through a haze of pain and blood, and finally focused on his tormentors. A twisted cord came from his feet, and ran towards the Skulls, he looked down, and found several strings of M-80s wrapped around his legs and abdomen. He then realized what the twisted cord must be.

            “No, please, don’t,” he wheezed, he tried to find a reason for the Skulls to spare him. Nothing came. His mother was gone. His life no longer had meaning. He tried to find a reason, but nothing would come to him. He finally just gave up. He dropped his head to his chest in defeat, “Just make it quick, please.”

            The lead Skull hesitated for a second, unsure of what to make of this current situation. Usually, the mundanes fought more than that. He didn’t want to be seen as weak by his lieutenants, he gave the signal anyway, and the Skull with the axe lit the fuse as the lead Skull walked away in disgust.

            The spark slowly snaked its way up the fuse, and Jack could do naught but watch it. Each inch it burned through brought him closer to death, and he found that he just did not care. The last thing he saw was his mother, laying dead and pitiful in the grass. His last thoughts were, I’m sorry.

            Then Jack Candless’ world exploded in a blaze of pain, and then, nothing.

Chapter 2

            Jack. Jack, wake up. Wake up. Jack, a feminine voice called through the darkness. The voice carried with it hope, and it sounded like the call of life to Jack, who found himself strangely free of pain, floating aimlessly through a sea of what appeared to be a blue mist, Jack?

            “Am. Am I dead?”

            Yes.                                                     

            “Oh, well, since that’s cleared up…”
            Amazing, to suffer as you have and still be capable of brevity.

            “I’m just full of surprises. Shouldn’t there be some kind of angels singing or something?”

            Where did you get that kind of notion?

            “Yes, how silly of me, this must be hell…”

            Quiet Jack, be still. Your time here is not yet finished.

            “What?”

            This is what you call quiet? You are not completely dead. Your body is now lying in a hospital, your vital signs have indeed ceased, but you are not dead. You have much work yet to do in your world, and to have things end this way is not fair to your legacy.

            “Legacy? What are you talking about?”

            Shh. No more questions Jack. Prepare yourself, this is going to feel strange.

            “What are you… who are you? What’s going on?”

            You are returning to your world Jack. You’ve been given a second chance. Do not waste it.

            The mist surrounding Jack began to dissipate, and he found himself becoming less and less weightless, and more like he once was. He tried to focus on where he was, to try and stay in that place, but it began slipping, despite what his efforts to remain there.

            “Wait, I don’t understand, what’s going on, who are you?”

            You can call me Spiriti.

            “Spiriti, what’s happening to me? What’s my legacy?”

            To be a true hero.

            His world faded out around him, and he awoke to pain.

            “Hero.”

            The attending nurse looked up quietly, and seemed a bit put off.

            “Excuse me?” she said, to no one in particular. She was greeted to nothing but the beep of monitors and the hiss of a ventilator.

            Jack tried to open his eyes and get rid of the darkness that gripped him, but he found he couldn’t. Even with his eyes open he couldn’t see anything.

            Oh God, he thought, and tried to reach up to his face, only to find that he couldn’t.