1.1

He didn't really think he was much of a hero.

The cracks and pops of bones breaking and reforming in what should be an unbearable amount of pain felt faraway, distant really. He was unnerved at the thought that the feeling of his body quite literally reshaping itself no longer phased him.

He was sort of like a fan that got to live out the story he liked and then flailed about once he actually got there. It was almost like a fish who always wished to see the world above the water suddenly gaining lungs and legs, frightening and even more so terrifying. Being thrust into a big scary world that could literally kill you if you were unlucky wasn't something that anyone really wanted, but guiltily there was a part of him that was excited when he had arrived. Regardless of how horrifying the world was, superheroes and superpowers were enough to make the heart pump and the brain fill with the possibilities that such things offered. It was something that any mostly introverted young adult who perhaps did not have the most social of hobbies dreamed about at least once. And wouldn't you know it, he was lucky enough to get powers. It only made the dread he felt worse.

Where he had once stood modestly, he now towered over most. The extra large white shirt and green khakis he'd been wearing now clung tightly against his form, the muscles of his current form now prominent giving him a body closer to what looked like a bodybuilder who'd eaten another bodybuilder and formed into a super Adonis. Short, slicked back blond hair sat on top of his head coming down to rest on the back of his neck except for two large tuffs of hair that spiked out and upwards in the front like some sort of sign for victory. His eyes seemed covered in shadows, and a confident grin stretched across his face.

Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the phone that he had built, well more like he'd "cosplayed" as someone who could build a smartphone-lite even if they were restricted a bit, and looked at the time.

August 10th, 2008
8:54

He grimaced a bit, as he walked away from the alley-way on the street, his grin becoming less full blown and more at ease. With a practiced ease that felt much more natural than it had a couple of months ago, he waved at the few people who were out about walking, biking, and stopping their driving to wave at him. He felt a bit annoyed, and a bit guilty, why couldn't they leave him alone? He was truthfully just a fraud, someone whose was lucky enough to get a power that cheated for him to some extent. He truly wasn't hero material.

His power was good, strong enough to make a real difference he thought. He had, miraculously he thought, gotten the power to cosplay as other heroes. So long as he could recreate the outfits that they'd worn and have a picture of them in said outfit in mind he could essentially become any hero he could think of. There were some limits to it, some he knew, others he was still trying to figure out. The most immediate one being that he was sure that he didn't get the full extent of the person's power. He could tell because he could feel it after he transformed, his body always felt weaker than it should, more sluggish. If his guess was right, he was about 10-20% weaker than what he should be, for any form he turned into to. Next, the person had to be a hero was another one that he had found out within the last week, which had meant that until he'd essentially wasted time and effort on making a costume that he couldn't use. The last restriction he knew about was that the more damaged the costume was, the less strong his cosplay would be, meaning if he ever fought someone who could easily shred his outfit he'd need to be extra careful. Lose too much and that would mean, that particular hero could be out of commission for however long it took him to remake the outfit. It was why he took extra care in his costumes, not cheaping out on materials and always using the most durable and flexible stuff he could get his hands on. Regardless of those things, his power could copy any hero, and he meant any. Man, Woman, Boy, Girl, and possibly more. Regardless of his own discomfort about it.

It sounded great, and it was, if he wasn't so stubborn on not trying to commit to a group. Because of his reluctance, his funds for new costumes wasn't the greatest, far from it really, he was kind of off and on the status of broke.

Jumping with all the controlled force of a ballerina he found himself on top of building with little fanfare, his head going back and forth as he looked at the street before him looking for the reason he had come out today.

He knew he was being petty, selfish even. If he had enough funds to make a great costume of someone like Superman for example, he could change pretty much everything, even if his power decided to restrict him even more heavily like he somehow knew it would. Even at 50%, hell even at 20% really, Superman was truly a game-changer. But... he just couldn't bring himself to do so, whenever the topic came up, whether it be through a civilian, a member of the PRT or Protectorate, an inquisitive PHO-goer, or even himself, something would stop him. A pit of anxiety or just a too large part of his brain telling him that he'd only gotten his powers a few months ago, or that he didn't have a responsibility to be a hero, or any sort of excuse he could think of at the moment. He truly wasn't someone worthy of praise.

The screech of tires on asphalt made him move, quicker than most heroes would dream of as he quickly got in-between two vehicles that were on a collision course for each other. With a gentleness that he still thought really shouldn't be possible, he stopped the car that would have slammed into the side of the other with minimal damage as his arm pushed outwards and the car ran into his open palm. He winced a bit as he saw that even with his low effort, the front bumper was partially mangled from the sheer force of running into him and coming to a complete stop and he was sure there was probably some damage internally, but the driver looked okay if a bit shocked, good thing they were wearing their seat-belt and that the airbag had safely deployed. He flashed a peace-sign their way as he leaped away, they weren't his target, and neither was the skinhead in the other vehicle who was driving away in a hurry as he had ran a red light and almost been t-boned for his trouble. I'm sure he's very thankful that he had something more important to do today, and still took sometime to step in and help.

He couldn't even boast that he was a reasonably good person, someone that would do what he could if he couldn't do what he wanted to do. He was terrified of the possibility that one day Cauldron, or even worse the Simurgh, would just pop-up when he had no way to defend himself and do whatever they planned. He had specifically spent thousands of dirty money getting parts to make the device that was on his wrist, and it only theoretically worked because while the person who he cosplayed as to make it could do something like what he wanted, his power had decided to nerf him just enough that it could potentially screw him over. That had almost made him have a panic attack, if he hadn't had his meds on him at the time it was quite possible that could've been the end of things. Maybe not death, but he definitely would've done something irrational. The same way some intangible thing stopped him from signing up with the Protectorate, stopped him from simply giving up the knowledge he had to people who could more reasonably use it. To people who would be more willing to use it.

He was a horrible person, scum really. Strong enough to help, knowledgeable enough to make a difference, and then not doing those things.

However, he had resolved to himself that he would try.

One small step at a time.

He dropped down in front of a pair of youths draped in red and green armed with a knife and a pistol respectively as they advanced on a Caucasian girl. He stopped the words that wanted to come out of his mouth as the youths froze in his tracks, not the time for the ham really.

"Now, what is a pair of teenagers such as yourself doing terrorizing a girl? Hmm?" The words that he'd practiced to make them sound like his own, came unbidden as he stared the two down. "Why don't you two run along now, before you do something regret." His words were stern, like that of a parent chastising children that were caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

They froze for a moment with a deer caught in the headlights look, before the two turned to each other with a grimace and then turned away tutting as they walked off, mumbled curses on their breath.

He watched them for a moment, before turning back to the girl he had stepped in for.

She had a look of awe in her eyes, and he could imagine why. Having a "real hero" step in to save you wasn't the sort of thing that happened on the daily basis, nor even monthly or yearly really, it was, at least he thought, rare for a relatively well-known hero to personally step-in and save someone in a world like this. Too many rules and regulations meant that you would probably stop crimes like this in teams of two or three, and in a city like this the heroes likely to save you were the kids in the Wards for what was more a potential crime-in-progress, and well that probably didn't have the same weight. That was his take on it anyways, he was probably being cynical or just thinking about things too much.

"Are you okay ma'am? You're not hurt are you?" He asked politely, in a low tone, though low for him currently was more his normal outside voice.

She flushed in embarrassment after realizing she was staring and spoke. "Yeah, totally, I'm absolutely fine, those assholes had been giving me a hard time at school just because my Dad's Asian and were trying to get me into their stupid gang or whatever and I told them no a few times and maybe just maybe sprayed one of them with my mace and like cursed them out and kicked the other in the dick, I was just fed up that day and annoyed because other junk and didn't think they would go so far, ya know? I was just on my way home and noticed em following me so I maybe took a shortcut to try and shake them and then like realized "shit this is the wrong alley, this one's the dead end", honest mistake ya know? And then you jumped down like, Bang, and scared them off, which was pretty cool by the way, ya know?"

Her words were like a flurry coming out one after in onslaught of word bullets, enough to mow down any lesser person. However young girl, he was trained in the art of communication! Your motor mouth couldn't hope to confuse him at such a low level!

"That's good, would you like for me to escort you home, miss?" He allowed a relaxed smile to sit on his face, something that would charm and distract as well as calm down someone who'd just about been in a rather bad situation.

"YES! I-I mean yes Mister Polymer, if you could do that I'd, like, really appreciate it." She tried to act nonchalant, but the excitement was visible.

A part of him hated it, he didn't deserve such praise really. He stuffed that part down as he walked out of the alley-way with a grin and spoke. "Come on then, lead the way, and I'll make sure you're returned home safely, Miss."

The next 15 minutes saw him walk the girl down a few blocks as she asked a few questions, and mostly gushed about how "cool" it was to be seen with a real hero, and how he was "like her favorite hero after Miss Militia". She'd also roped him, read as asked him nicely, into taking a selfie with her that she was more than likely going to post on PHO as well autographing her Brockton Bay Badgers cap. He tried to push down the guilt and annoyance he felt and let the happiness for helping someone flow through him and was mostly successful.

Jumping away he turned his search back to the street as he landed on-top of another building, being careful as he noted the tiles seemed a bit old and liable to break if he exerted too much force.

He wasn't really a hero, not really one at all. A large part of him felt he was undeserving of the praise he got for what felt like minor things, for things he felt weren't really him.

But...

"Shit!" His legs pumped at 50% as he used more strength than he had ever really needed before, wincing as the sound of cracked tiles reached his ears, but his eyes were focused on the form in the car that was heading directly on a collision course for another. The passenger having missed the fact that the light had turned red, due to the cellphone they were looking down at. He could see, as her eyes saw the car and grabbed a hold of the steering wheel in attempt to swerve out of the way only to turn right into the path of a pole. The fact that she wasn't wearing a seat belt probably meant that this would be an unfortunate end, the sort of thing you read in the paper or hear in the news when they talk about why driving whilst texting or on the phone was bad. Just an unfortunate person, who unfortunately became apart of the statistic.

Someone whose family would never be the same with her loss.

No...

"I won't allow that! There's no need to fear! Why? For I am here!" The words slipped out of his mouth naturally as he pushed harder and found himself in front of the car, his hands holding tightly onto the front as he dug his heels into the ground. He couldn't stop the car, not immediately unless he wanted to damage the driver, so slowing it down was the only option! Even as his thick boots dug into the asphalt, tearing up the soles at least mildly and guaranteeing that more than likely he would have to replace them after this he didn't let go. Feeling the rush of another car zoom by him, he watched as the other driver skid to a stop a few feet away as they pulled off the road, good it meant at least he wouldn't have the other driver end up damaged.

It seemed like it was the work of minutes as the car slowly, but surely slowed down until finally it came to a complete stop.

He felt a blooming feeling in his chest, he felt good. The slight pain in his arms from stopping the car without using too much of his strength too the point where he would've stopped the car in its tracks immediately was a good pain.

He smiled widely, as he stared at the passenger in the vehicle who held a shocked, yet relieved look.

She was a tall, willowy woman. Long, dark curly hair framed a pair of brown eyes that were behind a simple pair of glasses. Her wide, and expressive mouth, told the story of a woman who had just experienced a miracle.

Well maybe he was exaggerating a bit.

It was more a miracle that he found her really.

"Polymer!""Polymer!""Polymer!" Cheers raised in the air even as he watched the woman tenderly get out of her car.

"Are you all right, Miss?"

But just because he wasn't a hero now, didn't mean he couldn't try and be one every now and then, right?

Being a hero was about doing scary things that no normal person could rationally decide to do quickly, to do things that could possibly change things in such a way that was utterly terrifying just because it was the right thing to do. It didn't matter that internally was screaming about how this could fuck literally everything that he knew, or that another part of him was filled with an existential dread about the fact that this would more than likely mean that he would have to be involved with things he'd much rather leave to the actual heroes.

After all, saving Annette Hebert from losing her life couldn't be the wrong thing to do.

He thought it was pretty heroic, really.