Burgboy stretched as he stepped out of the apartment, waiting for Mapleman to tag along. He was taking way too long to get ready for his taste. Brushing your teeth again after eating breakfast? Really? It was such a waste of time in Burgboy's eyes. Finally, Mapleman peeked out of the apartment, searching the sky for something. He sighed then went back inside, to Burgboy's annoyance.
"Hey, what the heck?! What are you doing?!" Burgboy yelled, rushing back in only to be pushed out by Mapleman.
"I was getting my jacket. It looks chilly," Mapleman scurried down the stairs of the apartment and stared at the sky, "Um… it's nice weather I guess."
Our first hero flew off the railing and landed on a car in the parking lot, placing his hands on his hips heroically. Mapleman stared at him and asked him if that was his car. He shook his head and told him that it was his crappy neighbor's car. "Okay," Mapleman blinked and stood closer to the car, though he disliked how he was being looked down upon, "so what are we going to do? Fight evil and save a whole bunch of people and stuff?"
Burgboy laughed a horrendously long, eye-shattering laugh and hopped off of the car. "Oh Mapleman, you're so not ready to be a hero." Our former villain seemed a little offended, but didn't comment back. "I'm going to teach you everything about being a hero all in one day!"
Mapleman shrugged, "Alright, lay it on me. What's the first step to um…herohood?" Burgboy belted out his horrid laugh again, which caused Mapleman to cover his ears.
"Oh Mapleman, I didn't even start talking yet! Unhand your ears," Mapleman obeyed Burgboy, seeing that the laughing was over. "Mapleman, you can't simply walk into herohood, it's a matter of being ready or not! And your readiness is judged by awesome heroes…like me!"
"Just a question, scholar: who judged your readiness? I'm not aware of any other heroes around here," Mapleman pointed out.
Burgboy frowned at his new companion's statement. What kind of question was that? Stupid. "An expected question from an ignorant former villain," he huffed as he crossed his arms. Mapleman stuck his tongue out at the hero and urged him to explain how he was judged. "If you read into a little of the beautiful city of Mondetown's history, you'd see that there were a whole bunch of heroes here like a million years ago! Now there's not a lot, and that's because of some super not cool villains that kind of killed them off, but there are still some heroes here who aren't dead! And who aren't me!"
Mapleman nodded, "Color me surprised by your knowledge, which I'm going to look up this stuff when I get home by the way. I'm not going to just believe you. Anyway, list some, dead or alive."
Burgboy uncrossed his arms and started to name some of the heroes long past on his fingers. "Ringerwoman, Surpresso, which by the way, the street Surpressa was named after him. Um, Galactilass, Montgomery Teal and his awesome sidekick, Tealevision. Who else? The Breezey. The Jermens, Archenglish-"
"Never even heard of any of those people, I doubt Surpressa is named after this so-called Surpresso, and The Jermens were a band," Mapleman corrected him, or so he thought.
To Mapleman, Burgboy shook his head in disgust. "No, the Jermens were a band as a cover-up. They actually had powers—musical powers! Did you not see how panicked the other band members looked when Roderich fired a beam out of his keyboard guitar thing? Their powers were supposed to be secrets!"
"I was pretty sure that the whole thing was altered digitally. I saw the video on the internet and it looked pretty fake to me," the former villain explained.
"Shut the hell up Mapleman! Your logic is flawed, therefore you are invalid!"
"Wow so mature. Just admit that I'm right!" Mapleman yelled out.
Burgboy growled but stopped talking for a second, he nodded and smirked at his partner, "How about this; one of the Jermens are still in the city, and alive so why don't I just take you on over to his house, so you can see his powers for yourself?"
Mapleman scoffed, "You do not know the last Jermen."
"Second to last."
"Alfred, and yes I'm calling you Alfred, all the Jermens died in a car explosion except the one that quit the band. There is no second to last Jermen," Mapleman explained, not quite believing Burgboy at all.
Our hero looked at Mapleman as if he said something surprisingly random. He searched the area to see if anyone was around, and then huddled closer to him. "Mapleman, you're familiar with The K.J. Musical Devil, right?"
Mapleman smiled menacingly, "Only one of the most awesome villains that used to roam the city." He wasn't the reason that he began down the path of evil, but he was still a pretty cool guy, playing his deadly tambourine and stuff.
"Wow, you know villains here but not heroes? Anyway, that guy, used to be behind the curtain playing the tambourine when The Jermens performed. He quit since he wasn't getting recognized for his playing. So um…the car explosion…"
"No! No way!" Mapleman seemed excited to hear such information.
"He made their car explode with his tambourine, just like how he made people's heads explode with it. He was a Jermen, and the rest of them had similar powers, and they used them to fight crime. The reason why K.J.M.D. targeted them was because he was unhappy with them, and they had been after, Disktructo, who he made his new partner after quitting."
Mapleman gasped wide-eyed at him and smiled wildly, "That's crazy freaking awesome! So that's why he suddenly joined forces with him, and why the random tambourine suddenly stopped being heard in their songs!" He pressed a hand to his forehead, laughing breathlessly, "I always thought that they were lovers or something! That explains why the Jermens always said that they were betrayed!" Burgboy watched as Mapleman pulled at his hair and chuckled that everything suddenly made sense to him.
"But you have to look it up to see if it's true, don't you?" Burgboy pursed his lips and threw his hands up in the air in false defeat. Mapleman paused and watched our hero pace around the parking lot, and look into one of his lower neighbor's window. He believed him, it all added up after all, but something was bothering him. All the information that the hero seemed to have about these people, everything he had said, all of it were…things he had never heard before.
Our yesterday's villain stepped closer to Burgboy, his question slipping off of his tongue, "How do you know all of this?"
Burgboy froze and stared at Mapleman, not in shock, not in fear, but in realization. He had beaten around the bush the whole time he was raving on about heroes. He smiled and scratched his head, "You asked who judged my readiness…it was Ludwig."
A silence fell over the two, but questions were left unanswered to Mapleman, "So you're saying…Ludwig, the Jermen that quit, told you all of this…?" A nod. "Why did he quit? Did he tell you?"
"He knew that after K.J.M.D. quit, he was no longer safe. His family was no longer safe either. So he quit the band, which meant quitting the force, and K.J.M.D. promised that he'd leave him alone," Burgboy elaborated, "he told me that when K.J.M.D. was caught, he went to visit him. They were brothers after all. All of the Jermens were related somehow."
Mapleman raised a brow and cocked his head, "Really?"
Another nod from our hero, "Anyway, during his visit, K.J.M.D. told him a lot of things, a lot of reasons, and so Ludwig passed that all down to me… He thinks he was a coward, but a coward isn't someone who protects his family, you know?" Silence floated over them again, and Mapleman could see that the day was getting really emotional at a fast pace. Naturally, as a former villain, he still didn't care much for mushy things. Well sort of. In all honesty, he had been a small time villain anyway.
He placed his hands on Burgboy's shoulders and smiled in a way that felt heartwarming to him but looked cold and menacing to others. "Well then, you answered my questions and now I'm pumped! Shut up and teach me how to be a hero already, you silly do-gooder!"
Burgboy lit up and started to fly upward as Mapleman continued to grip onto his shoulders for dear life, "Yeah! Alright Mapleman, let's go through the basics!"
The basics? What the heck are the basics?! Find out in the next chapter of The Adventures of Burgboy: Another Superhero!
Author's Note: I'm sorry about this chapter. So pointless, and the back story is hardly anything to cheer about. Like…who cares? But at least you kind of see how villains and heroes are looked upon.