AN: Here it is! Sorry for the delay but school began and I have been busy with it. I don't have and update schedule but there is going to be at least one every thirty days at least to prevent the thread being locked.
I didn't actually go to sleep immediately. How could I? After all which happened I was just now coming down from the emotional roller coaster. We had fought three muggers, we could have died, they could have killed us. I was still coping with the number of times a knife came too close to hitting something important. I had been scared shitless but at the same time there was this adrenaline, this emotion or excitement attached to it, to being the winner. This wasn't the first time I felt like that, I mean the excitement not the fear, it was the same way I felt when I had played basketball. I already knew I would always score, but the rush was why I did it, all the complex equations to describe the movements of the player, to analyze them, to predict them; it was a challenge, a way to test my abilities and unlike theoretical math where if I just couldn't figure out a new theorem or how to finish the algorithm I could always keep trying here I didn't have such a luxury, my mind was pressed for answers and those answers had to come as fast as possible. It was a true challenge the same way the fight had been.
Still that wasn't enough of a reason to keep up with this hero thing. If what I wanted was a fight, martial arts and competitions were a thing and a lot safer to boot. Which made all of this come back to Casey. The only and one reason I ever had to do this. And she was doing this because in the end she thought herself special, capable of becoming an hero of the likes of those in the League. I mean only sixteen out of seven billion ever got to that level in the first place. Well actually the league was mostly American in its composition and not all members were humans, and I should also count sidekicks at that. So let's make it fifteen out of three hundred and nineteen million or so. That's around less than one in twenty million chance, give or take some. Actually that was just demographically I'm sure that there are more factors that decide things like that, but for now this will work as a reference.
So one in two million and Casey thought she could be that one. I mean it was stupid, I was sure that the meta-human demographics are more than that and you don't see every other idiot running around in spandex and playing hero or villain. All of them most likely found better uses of their abilities and left the heroing to heroes, like anyone sensible should do. Yet there was a little voice in the back of my mind asking one question that chilled me 'Could she make it?' and an even smaller voice even deeper that went ignored saying 'Can you?'. If I were to think about it the only hero she could realistically be like was Black Canary. Every other hero has powers, real ones, or some kind of artifact/technology like Green Lantern, Batman or Green Arrow. Even BC had her scream, but Casey had some points in her favor too since in comparison BC lacked her mental abilities or I least I didn't think she had any mental abilities, it would be impossible to know for sure. Actually couldn't Casey just study enough to make gizmos of her own? It wouldn't be a stretch taking into account her abili- You know what lets call them powers. A few quick mental calculations of Casey's learning rate and the time that it usually takes to get a degree and now I know for sure that she could get four on record time and if she chooses those for well they will allow her to make her own tech.
That's great! Now first thing I do once morning comes around, or I wake up whatever happens latter, is to make this suggestion to Casey throw around Green Arrow and Batman as examples of people she could become equal to, start calling our abilities powers for some more convincing and boom. The problem gets kicked down at least four years and five months down the lane, assuming my prediction stay true and that she doesn't skip high school's last two years, and by then she will have forgotten about this, or I would have drifted off in my own direction in life or at least it becomes Future James problem. Ahhhh the joys of procrastination. And with these happy thoughts on my mind I relax and go to sleep; on my back of course, not on my side not till the cut heals at least.
I woke up in pain, apparently going to sleep on your back didn't prevent you from rolling once you were asleep. Of course I tried to keep sleeping, but alas my brain didn't get the memo that my body was tired so I got up and went through my morning routine, or as close as I could with what I had on hand. Having at least brushed my teeth I went to the kitchen see if Casey had already made breakfast.
Indeed Breakfast had been made and there was a very inviting cup of coffee just opposite of Casey and I was pretty sure it had been prepared just to my liking. Well If she was going to bribe me with coffee who was I to say no?
I sat and took a sip of coffee, oh yes this was exactly what I needed I could feel my brain getting out of its morning stupor. I wasn't really awake until I had my morning coffee, I claimed one of the toasts in the table and waited for Casey to start talking as I munched on it.
"Well." She started. "Look I know what you are going to say about last night. Dangerous this, dangerous that, blah blah no powers blah blah, etcetera. But can't you see? We beat those three muggers on our own last night and all we have to show for it is cut. I don't need your powers to know that the benefit is more than the cost."
"First of all, we didn't get a cut I did and god it hurts." She had the decency to look embarrassed at that. "Second what the hell is your endgame here? Beating common thugs who get out back to the streets two hours after?"
"Of course not! I want to become and hero and fight actual villains. Maybe even join the Justice League, that would take some serious work but I'm sure I can get there."
I had to use all my self-control to not slam my hands on the table. "Cass if you say such an Idiocy again I'm walking out of that door. The Justice League? Less than one in twenty million people get there and you think you can? And even if you could the Justice League is a piece of crap! They don't do anything! They are as much a criminal as the foes they face! If they were two bits of the heroes they claim to be they would put the real villains in prisons that can't be escaped or failing that kill them! You really can't be telling me you want to be like them!" Okay I lost my cool, damn and I had such a good argument prepared too. Maybe I would be able to get back to it later.
"Again with that. James they are real heroes. They do what is right not what is easy that's why people put their hopes on them. Superman wouldn't be so liked if he started killing people, and not every prison is made of cardboard there is this new prison Belle Reve It was made for meta-humans and there hasn't been a single escape yet."
"Alright and for one Belle Reve we also have Black Gate and Arkham Asylum both of those may contain normal humans but The Joker for all his powerlessness isn't less undeserving of a hole in his head. Or if you want an example closer to home we also have The Pit."
She paused at that. Of course she would everyone in Star City knew about The Pit. It's existence was pretty recent but it had already generated tons of stories about the evils that crept within. The Pit was a perfect example of what happened when to many people with above human capabilities were trapped in only one prison. No need to break out, just make it theirs.
"Low blow. You know as well as I do that The Pit is more the exception than the rule. I actually researched it once. Do you have any Idea of how many factors had to coincide in order for the pit to exist?"
"It happened once it could happen again."
" No it won't, The Pit happened because Mother Goddess kicked out half of Gotham villain population out of the city and a good number came here while the city had a booming economy. All those villains flourished under it and once the economy receded the riots happened. Most villains were sent to The Pit, which at the time was owned by star labs and used the inmates as legal test subjects, the inmates rebelled and most of the having come from Gotham had good hand with science so they used the technology to take over the prison. See there is no chance of so many factors coinciding again, The Pit is the exception."
I will admit that I didn't know most of that, or at least some of the connections that the events had. Most of what I knew about The Pit was that it was populated by the worse villains in the city and that it was a recruiting ground for any gang that needed to grow in numbers, basically it was like a criminal neighborhood a mile outside the city filled with any kind of villain you could think about. In my imagination it was like one of those pirate cities that you see in novels and such, not much unlike Tortuga in the Pirates of the Caribbean. Of course I knew it wasn't actually like that but that was the image I had of it.
"Okay you are right sorry." This wasn't taking us anywhere I had to shift the conversation away from this subject." But this wasn't what we were talking about. Casey give a good reason to keep doing this hero thing. And I mean a good one that makes sense."
"Because James we may not be able to stop all the crime in the city, or even keep thugs in jail. But even if we keep them out of the streets for one night it makes a difference, you don't know because you live in one of the better parts of the City but just walking around this neighborhood is dangerous. You don't know what it feels like to have to look over your shoulder to make sure that no mugger is following you waiting for his chance, or what it's like to pay protection money to the gangs and mafias here. And yes I do have my own selfish reasons for doing this, and they may be stupid for you but all those people who can't defend themselves, who live in fear, they don't give a shit as to why I'm doing it so long as I do it. And that's why even if all I can do is be a deterrent for common thugs and gangers I will feel I'm doing something with my powers something worth doing, that I'm not useless like my mom said and while I'm at it I will also be someone people will be able to rely on, maybe I won't be an hero at the level of Black Canary or Green Arrow but even if it's just my neighborhood if there is some like that in every neighborhood then it would be enough."
Her words I had no way to describe them. Casey had always been a little rebel, an anarchist, I had never seen her speak with such eloquence. She spoke like those people on tv giving big speeches. But when those people spoke you could set the lies they were spewing when Casey spoke I felt her words as she did. I had never heard her speak like this, she really believed what she was saying, she was filled with conviction. I didn't see this coming, I thought this was another childish fantasy of hers but it wasn't, for her this was everything. She had already decided to live life this way and take it to tis last consequences whatever they may be, I don't know when this had happened but it had. And as her best friend, and probably the only one, I was the only person she had to support her, with that in mind there was only one answer I could give as much as it pained me.
"Alright we will be heroes then." And with that phrase I had already decided that I would give my all to this, for Casey.
I didn't know this then, but later If I had to choose one moment in my life when it all began, a moment which If I traced my life I could say "Here! Here is where it started." This moment would be it.
For better or worse.
