X first started noticing superheroes in the news when he was five years old. There were stories in the tv news, in the Straits Times and at web sites on line. He would stare in fascination at all of them but especially for any sight of Batman. He was X's favorite. His mother tried to tamp down her son's fixation with these almost supernatural beings. "It doesn't help to idolize these people you'll never meet, Xavier," she would tell him.
But his father didn't really try to discourage him. X eventually realized it was because Batman was Pop's favorite, too. X built up a collection of news stories and photos from The Straits Times, the biggest newspaper in Singapore. "Dark Knight Saves Gotham Again!" "Dark Knight Foils Joker, Saves 10 Lives". "Batman Exposes Corrupt Gotham Cops!". X could not get enough of Batman. His mother complained that X was using up the memory on the computer in the kitchen with Batman pictures.
When their families decided to let X, Hao and Yong go trick or treating on Halloween, there was no doubt. Yong went as a doctor. Hao went as a ninja. X was Batman. He got his father to spring the $20 extra for the really good Batman costume with the dark colors, the good cape, the right cowl and even the texture of the suit looking authentic. X was beside himself with joy wearing the costume that night. He spent the better part of an hour looking at himself in the mirror and imagining adventures.
When Hao and Yong showed up at his apartment to meet before going out for candy, X leaped out of a dark corner near the stairway startling Yong so that his stethoscope went flying. Just like Batman would do it!
Getting a bunch of free candy was cool but getting to dress up as Batman was the point of the night for little X. There was something about wearing a mask that was a little magical. You could be someone else if your real face wasn't seen. X was never a bully toward Hao and Yong but dressed up as Batman he was a little bossy toward them, even toward a ninja like Hao. What chance would a mere ninja have against Batman?!
It didn't seem to hurt X's performance in school at all and he still did all his chores and his training with Grandpa Li so his parents put up with it. But each year around Halloween, X's Batman fervor would go off the charts with the imminent opportunity for him to dress up as Batman again.
"Batman's the best, right Pop?" he asked one Halloween after he had just put on his costume and strode into the kitchen in his best imitation of being fearsome. Pop nodded.
"But why?" asked X confident in the fact but curious about its origin.
"Cause Batman doesn't take any shit from anybody," answered Pop.
"Language!" snapped his mother.
Pop shared a mischievous glance with him. "But the other ones are good, too, aren't they, Pop? Superman and Wonder Woman and Flash and Green Lantern and all."
Pop sniffed. "Superman. He's a big stiff just waiting around for a flag to salute."
X grinned but covered his cowl. Pop made fun of Superman! Was that even allowed?
"Flash is okay," he continued. "They say he talks to the bad guys like a real person. But bad guys get the drop on him and make him super fat and stuff and someone that fast should never have anybody get the drop on him. Nobody ever sneaks up on Batman, do they?"
X gave an emphatic shake of the head. Nope! Never! Pop went on to say how he liked Wonder Woman and Aquaman but that Green Lantern was kind of lame for his power being a piece of jewelry. Again, X covered his grin.
X even shook off the occasional critical article about Batman. It seemed like some of the time the Gotham City press was ungrateful despite all that Batman did. X showed Pop an article from one of the Gotham City papers that said that the authorities in Gotham City didn't really trust Batman. He read it to Pop after dinner one evening, wondering what Pop would think of that. Wasn't that a strike against Batman? But Pop only smiled.
"In a corrupt city like that, if officials say they don't trust you then maybe you're doing exactly the right thing," Pop grinned. X smiled along with him. Nothing could dislodge Batman as X's favorite.
After Pop went missing when X was eight, X spent a long time despondent over it. One of the things that helped snap him out of it was writing a letter to Batman. X spent hour upon hour crafting a 10 page, single space letter to Batman outlining everything he knew about the case and asking him to look into all the evil doings of the Rothschild banking empire. X sent the letter to Batman care of the Gotham City Police Department and fully expected to get a call a week or so letter with the other voice on the line being a deep, gravelly one asking him questions about his father's disappearance and those evil Rothschilds.
He had a dream that he was on the ledge of a building just beyond a warehouse with a sign saying "The Evil Rothschilds". Next to him on the ledge was Batman. And then Batman signaled him and they both jumped onto the roof then went into the warehouse through a skylight and punched out the heads of the Rothschild banking empire who were wearing tuxedos just like in the pictures of them that he'd seen. And then after the fight, Batman got away to avoid the dumb cops and when the Singapore Police showed up it was Lieutenant Ling. And X gave him a boot in the ass toward the warehouse door telling him, "Go do your job you coward!"
But after two weeks, the letter was returned unopened. It had a Gotham City Post Office stamp in red saying "UNDELIVERABLE". X was hurt but he didn't blame this on Batman. It was the fault of the Gotham City Police Department for not doing everything they could to work with Batman. He still held Batman in the highest regard.
That was part of why he was so hurt when there were suddenly reports and then pictures and video footage of Batman with a sidekick, X reacted with disgust. Who was this tiny little jerk that he should hang around with Batman?! X felt more than a little jealousy. And where Batman's uniform was so cool and so perfect for working in the shadows, the little jerk, this "Robin" wore the worst uniform ever. A yellow cape?! Bare legs and a green speedo?! Seriously? And what were those, elf shoes?!
When it was reported on line that another of the new sidekicks, no one could ever seem to pin down whether it was Speedy or Kid Flash or Aqualad or Wonder Girl, had referred to this little jerk Robin as "an elf shoed fascist", X laughed out loud in agreement.
And then, all of a sudden, there were stories, first just a few but then more and more till the tales were everywhere of a whole crop of new, young heroes. At first there was just Robin fighting beside Batman. But then there was Speedy beside Green Arrow and Wonder Girl, Bat Girl, Kid Flash, Aqualad and more. A whole new generation of heroes was suddenly on the scene.
To X's exasperation, the kids at school were completely taken with them. The girls pined for this Aqualad and Captain Marvel Junior most of all but some for little Robin and for Speedy and Kid Flash, too. Day after day it was *the* topic at school. Did you see Robin do this? Did you Aqualad do that? Didja? Didja? Didja?
He wanted to explode. There was a whole level of evil above anything these guys ever fought! They're fakes! If the cops only arrested people in the drug trade who stood out on a street corner handing cocaine to someone through an open car window but never went after the guys in the building behind them or the people supplying them, nobody would think very much of them, would they?
The first time X saw a super hero in person he was 13. Actually, he saw two.
It happened when he, Hao and Yong were walking home from school. It had been just another day at the drone factory. X found the drudgery of school almost unbearable these days. He would clear his lungs of school air with a deep sigh of relief upon stepping outside after each school day. This one had been particularly tiresome. He felt like the irritation of it had just left him and his mood was improving when, suddenly, with no build up to it, there were two blurs, a bigger red one and a smaller red and yellow one whooshing through all the streets around them. The blurs would only last a fraction of a second and you could sort of see which direction they were going. Maybe the blur faded from behind you a tiny fraction of a second before the blur faded in front of you. Also, you'd hear a sound, fffffft! Ffffffft! You could hear the sound coming from one direction and then going in the other. So, whatever it was that was red or red and yellow was going that way.
This lasted for nearly a minute with every person on the street looking around incredulously, partly trying to figure out what was happening, partly looking at others for confirmation. Fffffft! Fffffft! Ffffffft! Ffffffft! Do you see that? Do you see it, too?
Then the blurs showed up and disappeared in seemingly random patterns, none for a few seconds then the two blurs almost overlapping or crossing each other's path. The red blur and the red and yellow blur didn't seem to be coordinated with each other.
Finally, two amazing things happened. First, a few blocks ahead of X, Hao and Yong, a man in a weird orange and green outfit walked out of the plate glass front of a darkened storefront. He literally walked out of the glass. The glass didn't break. He just . . . walked right out of it.
Onlookers gasped, not only at this impossibility being true but the man had a fearsome scowl on his face, a look that no good could possible come from. "It's Mirror Master!" someone shouted. One of the worst villains Flash fought.
Then, just a second after that, the two blurs went right by X and his pals and materialized as Flash and Kid Flash in front of the man in the orange and green suit. As everyone watched, Flash and Kid Flash had a brief fight with the man. Well, to call it a fight was over selling it. First, Flash knocked some device out of his hand and then he and Kid Flash beat the tar out of the man, punching him faster than the eye could follow.
The man in the orange and green suit slumped to the sidewalk, unconscious. Danger apparently over, there was clapping and cheering and everyone on the street rushed up to where the two heroes stood. They both looked amazing. Their uniforms looked incredibly tight but neither one seemed to have an ounce of fat on him. Flash looked like a slender, impossibly fit olympic track and field champion. Kid Flash was like a boy version of Flash, even skinnier and with bright red, actually orange, hair spilling out the top of his uniform. Even if you didn't know that they were both super fast you could see it at a glance.
There were pockets of girls from Eunos Primary School in the crowd and they could be heard cooing and shrieking about Kid Flash. X, Hao and Yong rolled their eyes.
Flash said a few words to the crowd and then, to X's exasperation, a Singapore Police Department car pulled up and who should get out but Lieutenant Ling. X shook his head in disgust as the fraud cop got his picture taken with Flash and Kid Flash before they took off taking the villain Mirror Master with them.
The whole thing only lasted a couple minutes but it made a huge impression on Hao and Yong. They kept after X. How do you fight someone who can punch you faster than the eye can follow? How do you fight someone with super powers? What if "The Acrobat" runs up against someone like Flash or Kid Flash? What the hell could he do?
X brushed off their concerns, partly out of the knowledge that Singapore was not going to see any of these superheroes very often and partly out of annoyance at the way the girls around them could still be heard gasping about Kid Flash and how cute he was.
"Maybe The Acrobat will get super powers of his own," X finally suggested to end the discussion.
Shortly after that, The Acrobat pulled another job. The Straits Time and the other Singapore papers all had it on the front pages. Another high rise heist by The Acrobat of the penthouse apartment of another bank president. To keep up relations with the gang and partly as a thanks for introducing him to the old man, who'd taught him to get around an alarm system like the one in the penthouse, X gave Tatts, the gang leader, some gold bars to fence for him, even though he could have done it himself.
A week or so after that, just after X had turned 14, came reciprocity. X, Hao and Yong didn't know exactly what was up. Tatts only told them that they had to go to a certain address down the end of Sims Avenue at 8 o'clock that coming Friday. When X, Hao and Yong showed up they found none of the gang members there. When they stepped inside they were greeted by a woman wearing what looked like a black silk night gown. She pointed at each of them in turn as they entered. "And you must be . . Hao . . and Yong . . and Xavier."
X nodded, perplexed for a moment before realizing what was up. He leaned in close to Hao and then Yong in turn whispering the word "prostitutes". Before the guys could react to that, three women younger than the one who'd greeted them came out from behind a silk screen and each took the hand of one of the boys, seeming to know in advance who went with whom, and led each of them to a room upstairs.
X waited till the door was closed and immediately told his girl, a very attractive, thin, Chinese girl, "Look, it doesn't matter if you've already been paid-"
"Of course I've already been paid, silly," she interrupted while lighting a candle on a small table beside a king size bed. "Would this make sense if you still had to pay?" she added before turning back toward him.
"I mean, I can't ask you to . . . do anything just for money. If you don't want to, that's fine. I'll just-"
She laughed, brushing his cheek with her fingers. "The prettiest boy I have ever seen doesn't want me to do anything I don't want to," she said and gave another laugh. "What do you want, cheri? Do you not find me attractive?" she asked spinning around in a circle. X caught his breath at the sight of the young woman barely covered by a baby blue teddy. You didn't think of girls this beautiful doing . . . this.
He nodded. She was very attractive.
"What do you want?"
After a couple of moments of very serious thought as she moved to stand leaning right against him, her eyes just inches from his, he told her. "I want to know how to please you."
She gave a smile and started helping him off with his clothes. "Oh, cheri," she cooed against his bare shoulder. "Just wanting that is the biggest step toward it."
Outside the building 20 minutes later, Yong glanced down at his watch and then at the door. "C'mon guys," he grumbled to himself. But Hao didn't emerge from the building entrance for another 20 minutes and X not for another hour after that. When X finally joined his pals at the sidewalk, Yong was shaking his head.
"What took you so long?"
"It wasn't taking, Yong," said X.