Metro Knight

Origins

By cgaussie & threequarterfox

"Okay, so here's my week so far. Went to Jail, lost the girl of my dreams, and got my butt kicked pretty good. Still, things could be a lot worse. I could be falling to my death right now..." Muttering to himself, Wayne finally fell below the level of the buildings, and with this scant cover, stopped falling, throwing a line over to a nearby window ledge and pretending to swing in to the wall, landing neatly and pausing. "How did it all come to this?" he grumbled to himself, walking up the wall and retrieving the hooked end of his rope. "My story starts at the beginning." He eyed the building opposite, swung his rope, and neatly flicked it to latch onto an ornate gargoyle. "The very beginning..." he sighed, swinging out over the City.

Witnessing the death of a star wasn't something any body ever wanted to witness in their lifetimes, yet for the planets that orbited the Yusan Sun in the Glauxpant quadrant had no opinion over whether or not they wanted to see it take place or not. The sun had collapsed in on itself, and like any dying sun it was making it all but impossible for anything to escape its gravitational pull.

Two of the many planets that made up the small galaxy were populated with intelligent life, but that didn't make their reaction to the death of their sun any more different then that of human beings. There was panic in the streets as the ground trembled and buildings collapsed, the air was filled with sirens blaring and screams of panic-stricken individuals. Amongst the chaos however, there was one couple who was oddly calm as they ran towards a waiting gold and white rocket that sat patiently for them. A woman with thick brown hair lifted her gaze briefly to stare up at the sky that, up to only a few minutes ago, had been a clear blue had turned an ugly, horrible black.

"Come on. Hurry." the man who had ran along with her urged her to follow him, gesturing to the toddler she held in her arms.

"Born on a planet that was fated to die. That's how my story began, but against all odds my parents managed to get me into a ship... and only me... to ensure my survival."

"Yes, yes... Sorry..." she stammered as she followed after him and they stopped in front of the small ship that was built large enough to carry only one occupant, and judging by how small it was it wasn't for either of them. As the man fiddled with something inside the small ship the woman stroked the hair of the brown haired, blue eyed baby boy in her arms. "We love you, we love you so much."

The baby reached up and touched his mothers cheek and whined before he was suddenly being deposited in the ship. Safety belts set into place he stared up at his parents, who watched him from outside. Finding the confinement not to his liking he frowned and reached out to the two of them, causing his mother to turn her head away as her shoulders shook.

"You will travel far, but we will never leave you." his father said, his voice unwavering despite the destruction and death that hung in the air like a thick fog. "You will carry us inside you all the days of your life, you will make our strength your own." the man reached for a button on the side of the ship and looked down at his son for one last time and smiled at him, because this wasn't truly goodbye. Not really.

"You will be strong, my son, in the face of all you face for we will be with you. Always."

"These are the first memories I have, and the only ones of my true parents. My fathers final words to me continue to be an aspiration to me, even now."

Then the small rocket slowly closed with a gentle hiss, and the toddler watched as his parents, and the world he called home, suddenly vanished in seconds. The gravity of the sun and his planet caused the little rocket to shake with the power and strength in its rockets and engine, and for a moment it seemed as though it wouldn't be capable of breaking free of the gravitational pull. With one last burst of strength, however, it shot forward out into space, away from the dying planets that were slowly being pulled to their doom.

The view of the planetary pool game was always visible to the toddler, until his ship was thrown off course by an unexpected strangely shaped missile appearing to attempt to latch onto the underside of the streamlined white spacecraft. The rocket did a barrel roll in response before straightening up again, giving the toddler a clear view of just what had bumped into him.

"It seemed as though my parents weren't the only ones to think up a plan to get their child off of their dying planet. On my planets neighbouring planet, a couple appeared to have the very same idea because this was the day I met her for the first time."

It was another pod but vastly different to the white, comfortable one he was being carried in. This one was round, looked as if it had been put together in the last minute, and the occupant's skin was a dramatically different color to his own. Said occupant was blue, and stared at him with a stunned look as it pressed its cheek against the glass of its door.

His rocket was intact, but his pride was hurt. The toddler blew a raspberry in the direction of his primary-coloured attacker, then did his best to pretend not to notice the bully. The sleek white rocket noted his discomfort, and presented him with comforting milk. His ship burned forward.

For the remainder of the trip through space the other pod continued to trail his, trying to keep up. The journey was, for the most part, uneventful except for when they flew through an asteroid field and the others ship ended up bouncing from asteroid to asteroid like some kind of pinball. This brought him some amusement and he giggled as he watched it rebound off another rock, and clapped his hands.

It almost distracted him from the planet which had suddenly, apparently, appeared out of nowhere. The blue planet was approaching quickly and it wasn't long until his rocket was flying down through the atmosphere, once again causing it to bump and shake, this time from re-entry. Just how the other pod managed to stay in one piece, and get ahead of his own ship was a mystery.

The ships careered downward, now that down was more than just a concept, and were soon racing over a large sprawling city. They appeared attracted to one another like two charged magnets, bounced from each other one last time, and seperated, the sleek white one bouncing up the steps of an ancient building, the other clattering into the distance, rolling over and over.

"And this is where fate, and my parents rocket, delivered me. Scott Manor. A life filled with luxury, and all kinds of fancy, rich things. This is where I met my new parents, on Christmas Day."

A pair of double doors were pushed open when the little golden rocket slammed up against them, and it slid majestically down a long hallway before coming to a stop neatly beneath a green tree that was decorated with expensive looking lights and trinkets. With a gentle hiss the door on the rocket opened up and standing over him was a woman with short brown hair, and an amazed look on her face.

"A baby!" she declared, reaching down to lift him into her arms. "How thoughtful!"

"Hm? Yes I saw it and thought of you." said a man from behind a newspaper, who sat comfortably in a chair while the woman tickled the toddler's stomach.

"I just wish I had had the opportunity to know them for longer."

He was renamed Wayne Scott, for his father, and life was pretty much what you would expect for the only son of the wealthiest couple in the city. That city being Metro City, a futuristic, beautiful city that was a shining beacon for the country to turn to for inspiration. The Scotts helped with many fund raisers, which helped finance all manner of things ranging from medicine to entertainment. Little Wayne got everything his heart desired, and grew under the watchful eyes of his parents.

"It was under their tutelage I learned the difference between right and wrong, about what sacrifice was all about, as well as what was expected of me being their only son. It was all pretty heavy for a little boy to take in at the time, but I guess I was always preparing myself for something big in my life. If only it hadn't happened so soon..."

The first big thing in my life was school. My parents, always opinionated, had opinions about school as well. Instead of sending me to a school full of the children of their peers, rich and replete, they organised a very different education for me...

The students were key, in this school. I wasn't the only adoption they made, although the other students, orphans all, were not children of my rich house, but from all over the City. My parents offered them free education, meals and housing, in an effort to improve their lot in life And, even as a child, I was sent to school with them, to learn how to associate with people from all walks of life.

Needless to say, in such an environment, a little boy will soon start putting on airs.

I was still coming to terms with the fact that other little boys couldn't do what I could do, and I soon had the entire school wrapped around my little finger...

I was juggling the teachers table, complete with teacher, when she walked in the door. Her blue skin contrasted remarkably with the orange uniform she wore, her eyes, big as dishplates, blinked at me in surprise. Confounded, I put the teacher down.

Held tightly in her hands was a glass ball and suspended inside, in water, was a small glowing fish who was glaring at me with a look I'd never seen on someone's face before. The girl, being unchained from her restraints since she had been brought into the school in handcuffs, continued to stare at me while the officers spoke in muffled tones to our teacher.

Finally her expression turned from nervous awe to a glare to match that of the fish and she pushed her shoulders back and held her blue, large, head up in a superior manner.

She was the most remarkable person I had ever met.

We soon were finding out each others interests. I hated art, where half the colours were no different to the other colours, while she excelled at it, being a finer artist than any of the other students there. I adored music, playing a ukelele, and soon a small-sized guitar, a beloved Christmas present from my parents. She refused to sing, sitting in a corner muttering to the fish which was her constant companion. She rarely spoke to anyone else.

To be honest, she rarely did anything with anyone else. The little girl was often left sitting to herself to a whole table, but it seemed as though that's the way she liked it as far as I could tell. Throughout recess she would find somewhere on the green grass to sit, with that glowing purple and blue fish, and just kept to herself. I must admit though that I did witness some of the other children making fun of her due to her skin tone, or her bald head, either behind her back or sometimes straight to her face.

In instances like that Lucy would give them such a hate filled look it was a wonder they didn't burn to ash under such a gaze. I heard people remarking on her unusual eye colour, but her eyes were oversized, but just brownish. Similar to many other eyes I saw. Her skin colour was remarkable, but like so many other colours which people pointed out, her eyes were not unusual.

At the end of every school day I would watch as Lucy would wait by the front door, fingers tapping against the glass of the round glass ball. Soon an armoured, black, bus would pull up outside of the school. Out of it would walk two police men who would put handcuffs on her small, skinny wrists, and lead her off to the bus. This fast became something the other children liked watching, and they would make playful taunts and jeers at the fact she was going to jail. She quietly ignored them.

Someone else must have noticed, the teacher perhaps, because the bus started coming later and later in the afternoon, so that most students had gone home. Soon the teacher and I were the only ones to watch the escort out the door, and the prison bus.

My own pick up from the school happened very late, the last one always, a huge dark car pulling up at the gate and chauffering me away to our huge white house on the hill. It never occurred to me at the time how similar these two modes of transport really were.

It was one such afternoon, not too long after the second term started, that I saw her faithfully waiting by the back door of the school. Normally she would wait inside the school, sitting at a desk, but today it looked as though she wanted to stay outdoors a little longer. She was kneeling in the grass, her fish situated right besides her, as she ran her hands back and forth over the grass. This was something I'd spotted her doing every now and then, but could never understand why she did it.

"Whatcha found?"

I had startled her. She looked up quickly and pulled her hands to her chest and that defiant look crossed her face, just as it always did when somebody talked to her.

"Nothing!" she said back. A second later she had suddenly pulled the fish into her lap protectively, as if she half expected me to make a grab for it.

I looked as hard as I could where she had been running her hands, and couldn't find what she was fascinated by. It was just a patch of grass.

"How does your fish breathe in there?" I asked. I'd been wanting to ask this for weeks, and never found the opportunity.

She stared at me for a moment before looking down at the little fish, who was watching me with a watchful eye. "He's a fish." she said finally as she looked back up at me. "He's breathing water."

"But there isn't much water. It's mostly... fish." The fish glared at me, and I backed up. "Hello, fish."

The little fish backed up in the ball, looking somewhat shy and uncertain of being addressed.

"I change the water a lot, that way he doesn't choke on the water he's already breathed..." Lucy replied as she drew a circle on the ball with her finger. "And his name is Minion."

"Uh. Hello... Minion?" My parents had taught me to shake hands with people when I first met them, but this time I was completely lost as to what to do next.

Minion wasn't giving up any ways in which to solve my problem, since he simply blinked his large eyes at me.

"It... must be tough being stuck in a ball all the time."

Lucy actually had a small, private smile on her face at that statement which was a surprise since she almost never smiled around people before. The fish known as Minion, however, seemed to... shrug? He lifted both of his fins in a particular manner that certainly gave off the idea of shrugging but just how he'd done it without shoulders I would never truly understand. "It's not too bad."

"Your fish can talk?" I was now sitting cross legged right opposite her. "Way cool!"

Lucy had gone quiet, and looked shocked. Minion had never spoken to me, or anyone before really, so maybe it had been something the two of them shared? It would certainly explain why she was always mumbling to the fish, now.

She bit her bottom lip for a moment. "Y-yeah." Lucy scratched her cheek nervously. "He does. And he is."

"Thank you!" Minion squeaked, looking pleased as punch.

"How come you never told anyone?" this toothy grin was the first happy expression I'd seen on the fish's face. It was contagious, I grinned back at him like a fool.

"It's a secret." Lucy, and Minion, said at the same time. The blue girl patted the ball carefully, before resting her palm on it.

"I won't tell." I reached my hand out, very slowly, and touched the sphere gently with one finger. It was quite cold.

Lucy had watched me, carefully, since if I recall nobody else had even been allowed near Minion to actually touch the glass ball before. She seemed to freeze, and maybe even hold her breath, as I touched it.

Minion, however, simply smiled up at me from beneath the glass. "We'll hold you to that!" he grinned. The glass vibrated with his voice under my fingertip.

That's when the honking of a familiar, and ominous, horn sounded behind us. Lucy lifted her gaze and watched as the prison bus pulled up outside of the school. She looked back at me with those big, brown eyes and actually looked reluctant to go. Biting her bottom lip she slowly got to her feet.

"Bye." she mumbled, and Minion waved with a fin as she walked to meet the two guards who were already climbing out of the bus to collect her. Just why it took two guards to hand cuff a seven year old girl, I will never truly understand.

In the following days I found her unnapproachable during school, when anyone was around. I desperately wanted to talk to the fish, but knew by some instinct that if I did, everyone would see me, and I'd either look stupid or get them into trouble.

But nothing could prepare any of us for what happened a week after that. It took place only days after I had decided to show my class another one of the powers I had; when I concentrated hard enough I could make lasers come out from my eyes and to show this I made some popcorn for the class. Not soon long after that, Lucy attempted to do the same thing only without the aid of eye lasers (since she didn't have any). To our surprise she had made Minion a suit to help him get around in, but what had started as a fairly impressive display of her designing abilities turned into panic when the corn she had attempted to pop caught fire.

Naturally this scared all of the children, and Lucy ended up in all sorts of trouble with not only our teacher, but parents as well as the guards who came to pick her up earlier that day than normal.

Minion wasn't allowed in the school again, after that. It seemed as though that was punishment for her 'outlandish' behaviour, agreed upon by the prison but possibly also our teacher. She never seemed to care for the 'ugly little fish'.

Lucy became more withdrawn after that.

I tried to talk to her after school, waiting for our respective vehicles to arrive, and she turned her back on me, sitting facing the wall.

She stopped paying attention during even her favourite subjects, subjects I was never good at, such as mathematics and art. Her most hated subjects she attempted to sit out of entirely, and stood by passively during music and sports.

One such day our teacher announced that the sport of choosing would be dodgeball. A harmless enough game in the right circumstances, but at our school, at this time it was a whole other ball game... Pardon the pun.

Lucy, as usual, had tried to avoid the game entirely. She had stood away from everyone, back to the wall, as if trying to blend into the wall and become invisible. But she was chosen by some of the other children, and prompted by the teacher to go play. I still remember her standing there in front of the bright wall, eyes, the colour of the wall, large as dinner plates, as she prepared herself for what was about to take place.

There was a cry of "Get her!" and the balls were thrown at her with such force her small frame was barely able to keep her footing for a few seconds. One ball to her head knocked her over onto her back, but that hardly seemed enough to deter the children. Despite it all Lucy remained eerily silent as she shielded her head from the onslaught, only waiting for it all to finish.

I stood by and watched, worriedly, unable to decide what to do.

One of the balls that had bounced off the wall rolled towards me, and came to a neat stop right in front of my feet.

"C'mon Wayne!" one of the others called out.

I picked up the ball, looked at the other students, looked at the crouched form of Lucy, looked down at the ball...

I guess my parents had assumed I'd rub off good behaviour onto my peers, but never considered what they would teach me.

After that, I was always more careful to be on Lucys team, when I could, so that I didn't have to throw the ball at her. She didn't sem to notice, hating me and the other students equally.

She invented strange machines continually, and these either blew up, went haywire, or seemed, quite on purpose, to attack whoever was around them. I earned the title of Classroom Protector, and felt proud that I was able to help.

By then, however, Lucy was pretty much mute to everyone around her. She would laugh, sure, but always at very inappropriate times (like when one of her devices caused trouble). Some days it seemed as though she would be sent to the corner and stood there for the whole entire day, back to us all, looking at the corner and never once turned to look at us.

Despite all this, she was still able to come to school to "interact with us".

Most of the kids told her she belonged in the jail, that she kept doing wrong things and didn't deserve to come here. At moments like this she would glare at them, her brown eyes filled with malice. Yet still she wouldn't talk.

One of the names the kids would call her was 'cat'. This had stemmed from her lurking demeanour, how she would glare for no real good reason, and I heard one girl say it was because of her pointed ears and eyes. That, and her solitary disposition.

The day in which everything blew up, literally, had started like any other. Lucy had been brought to school in chains and sat by herself at her desk while the rest of us mingled as always. It was arts and crafts time, if I remember, and one of the boys got up from his desk and gone over to hers. I think it was over needing some scissors or something, and since each desk had at least four in the centre of them, he would be able to get some there. Lucy had been drawing, as usual, all kinds of things.

"What's that?" he asked, looking down at the drawing she was working on. "Oh hey it's that fish!"

He could only have meant Minion.

"That stupid fish, is that why you're such a loner now? Does the kitty want her fish back?"

What happened then nobody could have anticipated. Lucy, mute, quiet, angry Lucy let out a sudden shriek that very well could be compared to that of a cat and leaped onto the boy. She easily knocked him over since he hadn't been anticipating it so he wasn't really prepared, and began scratching at his face as she continued to shriek at him. The other children were shocked, as was the teacher, who rushed to pull her off of him.

Then she bit our teacher.

There was a lot of rushing around after that, the rest of the class moving away from Lucy as fast as they could as our teacher regained her composure and finally pried Lucy away from the boy who was now crying on the floor. She was dragged to the corner and told to stay there until the guards came to collect her, which would be right away. Unfortunately our teacher hadn't seen she had set Lucy into the other corner... the one that led to the cabinet that was full of cleaning products and paints set aside for our art classes.

Her back had only been turned for no more than a few minutes before everything in the room suddenly turned blue.

Lucy had created, and set off, a paint bomb in the closet.

Needless to say the prison bus was there at the school not fifteen minutes later, as were all the parents who had been notified of the event. Everyone was splattered with blue paint, clothes were ruined, hair was stained, and the inside of the school house reflected the sudden explosion of color.

I, and everyone else, watched as the little girl was led off onto the bus by her guards. Never before had I seen such a wide and pleased smile on her face before. She sat at the back of the bus, as always, and watched us all from the safety of the vehicle looking as though she had just experienced her birthday and Christmas on the same day.

She wasn't allowed back into the school again.

This was directly before a far more important change in my life, however, so I have no idea whether she would eventually have been allowed to return.

We had been into the City late at night, far and beyond past my bedtime, and I was in high spirits. It was on the return home, however, that things went downhill. My father had insisted that we not use the car, but travel as those with far less than us would travel, on public transport, and our organised taxi home, a compromise made the request of my mother, never turned up. We stood on the side of the road, worriedly, both of my parents arguing with each other about what they were going to do.

I wanted to help. I knew that I could fly them home, could fetch the car, but both of my parents had so repeatedly insisted that I was to act like any other little boy, to act normal, and I wanted so badly to please them. I stood, my hand forgotten in my mothers hand, and watched the cars hiss past in the nighttime fog. It seemed about to rain.

A car suddenly stopped, and the back seat window rolled down. We all turned to look at it... and then things happened both very slowly, and extremely fast. Someone threw something out of the car window, which fell to the ground and rolled. It was about the size of a can of soda, and I watched it as it rolled right over and hit the toe of my shiny, brand new boot. My father yelled, pulling us away, and the car sped off. Then everything stopped being quiet and sleepy, and became bright lights and noise.

My parents didn't even scream, and I sat there in the rain, trying to wipe something out of my eyes. My shoes weren't shiny and new any more, and I couldn't hear anything.

Bernard picked me up from the hospital the next morning. He was eighteen years old, and one of the prodigal sons that my father had discovered in one of his many schools for orphans. While he could be cold and standoffish to people, he was always very close to both me and my parents so it wasn't at all a surprise when it was him who came to collect me. He was, back then, the older brother I never truly had.

I remember his arms wrapping around me in the hospital room where I had been staying. Bernard had always been a serious man, strong in his own ways. In that hospital room though, it was like he became somebody else for a little while as he cried with me. I've never seen him cry again.

He held my hand as he led me out of the hospital and through the sea of media who were blocking our paths, physically putting himself between me and the flashing lights (that brought on horrendous flashbacks) and the microphones being shoved in our faces. One man was even brazen enough to get in front of the car door Bernard was trying to open, shoving one microphone into his face and asking something I really don't remember.

"Wait in line like the other scavengers." Bernard had hissed at the man before shoving him aside, and he pushed me into the car first, then climbed in after me and shut the door. "Vultures the lot of them." he mumbled as the driver pulled away from the hospital, headed for home where no doubt there would be more media crews waiting.

The house was huge and cold and quiet. Bernard found me in my bedroom, curled up in my mothers duvet, which I had dragged in from my parents room.

He watched me for a moment before adjusting the round glasses on his face before walking over and sat besides me on the bed. "Are you hungry?" he asked as he tugged one of the edges of the duvet up in order to look in on me since I had well and truly wrapped it around myself.

"Not hungry." I glared out at him angrily.

"You need to eat something." Bernard replied. "You're no good to anyone if you waste away."

"I'm no good anyway." I whimpered into the duvet. It smelt of my mother. "Eating won't help."

"Yes it will." he said, having to tilt his head in order to find my face amongst the fabric. "And don't say that about yourself."

"It's true. I couldn't do ANYthing. I didn't do anything." I was crying in earnest now. "It was bad and dark and there was nothing I could do."

I felt Bernard's hand against my back through the duvet, and the man sighed softly. "That doesn't mean you're no good, Wayne. What happened... it was horrible, and a cowardly thing to do, but you can't think less of yourself because of what other people did."

"We shouldn't have been there." I whispered. "I should have flown them home. I should have gone and got the car. We shouldn't have been out on the street all alone. We should have waited inside for the taxi... I should have thrown the soda can away..."

"There's too many 'should haves' in the world as it is, if you ask me." Bernard replied quietly. "I know you have all these powers, but you're still very young. Too young to have witnessed this happen to your parents but it's happened. It was not your fault these people did this, and you shouldn't blame yourself. I know I blamed myself when my parents died, I hated myself for so long."

I knew Bernard had lost his parents, because that's why my father had discovered him in the school. He had lost his parents at a young age, even younger than me, when they died in a car accident. Bernard had been no older than four years old when the accident happened, and had been the only one to survive the wreck when their car had run into another and had spun out of control.

"I wasn't too young to save them."

Bernard sighed softly and I felt his hand slide away from my back. "No, but like you said. It was dark, it was late, and these bas-cowards chose the right time in which to strike. There were many factors, Wayne, not just you. The world can be a dark, and cruel, place. This is something people learn when they're a lot older but you've learned this early. Far too early if you ask me." he got up off of the bed, and tugged out the creases in his brown suit.

"I don't like the world being so dark." I mumbled into the fabric. "It's not fair."

"No, no. The world isn't fair. Anyone telling you otherwise is trying to sell you something..." Bernard said as he began to walk across the room towards the large windows that had the drapes pulled shut. "But you know what?" he asked as he looked over his shoulder.

"What?" I answered grumpily, sticking my head out of the bundle.

"When things are beginning to look too dark for my liking, I try to let some light in." Bernard said as he grabbed the red velvet drapes and pulled them open. Light poured into the room, chasing away the darkness, and caused my eyes to blink rapidly at the intruding light. "I find shedding some light on the situation helps."

"How can we shed light on this, then?" I asked, blinking in the light.

He tied the drapes back, pausing a moment to look out over the grounds of Scott Manor, before turning to look at me. "For one, you can get out of bed and get some food into yourself. One can't function on an empty stomach, even a little super boy like yourself. Secondly, you can live with the knowledge that your parents loved you with all their hearts and wouldn't want you staying inside forever. And lastly, you can show the world how strong you really are simply by doing these things without the use of flying, laser eyes, or anything else you have hidden up those sleeves of yours."

"Like dad wanted me to do."

"Exactly."

"It won't bring them back."

"No."

"Nothing will bring them back."

"I'm afraid not."

"But it hurts."

"Yes, for a long time it will."

"I don't want it to keep on hurting." I blinked at the bright window, feeling yet more crying coming on.

Bernard returned to the bed and sat down, and reached out to touch the back of my head with his hand. "I'm afraid it will, but over time it does get better. Remember they'll never really leave you, as long as you keep them in here." he then tapped a finger against my forehead. "And here." then he tapped my chest.

"How do I do that?"

"Remember them. Remember their love for you. As long as you do that, they'll never really leave you."

I don't know if Bernard ever picked up on just how much his words affected me that day. Then again... I think he does.

After that dark day, I started a very different life. I was now being sent to the most prestigious schools. I studied and trained hard, trying to do my parents proud. I worked hard and played harder, trying to be the best at everything I came across.

And I tried, every day, to bring light back into the world, and into Metro City.

To be continued