"He's not staying here." I said for the fifth time.
"Why not?" Kyler asked.
"Because he'll be a burden and a liability." I stressed.
"Why's that?" Super Kid asked.
"He may be a living flame thrower, but he has no real training, and I don't wanna look over my shoulder every three minutes to make sure he's still alive and well." I said, putting the wrench down and picking up another piece of my dismantled motorcycle engine.
"He's not a child, even if he can't fight, he can be taught." Snow added in.
"I'm not teaching him how to fight, Super Kid, you hardly can fight without your powers, and Snow, same goes for you. Kyler is to busy so he's not staying." I said.
"He needs help." Snow said. "He helped you fight against Michael and he did well from what you and Kyler said. Give him time, and he'll do better. Not to mention, we've been calling ourselves by our real names since you three got back, and he'll remember your names. You really want to let him go with the information he knows now?"
I froze. If Dad was here, I would be in so much trouble. I stood up, grabbing my phone, "Just let me call Mrs. Martian, she can erase whatever he knows now."
Kyler took the phone form me, "Justin, why can't he stay. There has to be more to why you don't want him to than that."
I glared at her, she was right though, there was. It was his eyes, those stupid green eyes, they creeped me out and… almost scared me. Just thinking about them made me want to shiver. Yeah, the night mare scared me that much. And the fact that he stood up to me and talked back to me. It infuriated me to no end. Made me wanna slice his arms up with my Kris knife. No one questioned me, no one disobeyed. Super Kid may not like me, but she didn't disobey orders or talk back when I gave her one.
Raphael did. It took twenty minutes to get him to let us talk in private. Twenty minutes. It was a simple order that took less than twenty seconds to accomplish.
"Maybe I don't want my motorcycle stolen." I offered pathetically.
Kyler hit me upside the head, "Honestly Justin, grow a conscience! He needs help, and God Almighty, we're gonna give it to him!"
I turned to her glaring, "No we aren't, he's going right back out on the-"
"And on top of that, you're going to be his tutor!" She declared, crossing her arms at me.
"No way in-"
"He'll be your protégé and accompany you on every mission that's within his league, you'll teach him how to fight, and all that other stuff." She ordered.
"Kyler you're not the boss of-"
"Then, when you think he's ready, he's going to become your partner for a year, he'll accompany you on every mission you go on. Finally, after a year, he'll be officially an equal member of the team." She said with finality. "And I don't wanna hear another word about it, or so help me I'll call your Mother and tell her every word you've said in this meeting."
I froze at that. If Mom heard half of the words I had said… ugh. She was never one to judge some one on their back ground, and if she heard that I had offered his background as a car thief as a reason not to recruit him... I was dead.
I glared at her as hard as I could, "Fine." I growled out. "But the minute he proves to be a liability, a burden I have to deal with, you're taking over as his tutor."
She nodded, "When it's clear to all of us that he's a burden to you Todd, then I'll take over."
"Good." I stressed, turning back to the bike. I give him two weeks, and then he'll be out of my hair. I always thought my first side kick would be Kenya. I've been thinking about that a lot lately actually. I might have to talk to Dad about it soon.
The others all left, Kyler to go take care of her little siblings, Conan to get meet up with her dad, and Snow to go try and resurrect a dead cat. Her room creeped me out thoroughly. Yeah, I admitted it, her room creeps me out. It has dead animal skeletons all over the place! It would creep you out too! That's why Kenya isn't allowed to go in there, never ever.
I put all my stuff away, and sighed, thinking about Raphael. He was arrogant, reckless, and he had a bad attitude. The first thing he had said to Conan was criticizing her super hero name. He then criticized Kyler for not choosing an original name. Conan and Snow hated him, so why did they want him to stay? Conan probably because she was a super, and naturally had a golden heart. I have to go throw up now, excuse me. She might also want him to stay simply to infuriate me. Snow probably wanted him to stay because Conan was her friend., and she always sided with her. Stupid alien and necromancer.
I sighed, walking out of the garage and into the main hall, where our very few trophy's of past battles were. There was a test tube of venom we got after we fought Baine once, a poison dart from an assassin sent by Talia I had made short work of, and the trophy I won at the picnic. Surprisingly, I found Raphael staring at one of my cases. I walked up behind him silently as he stared at it. I peaked over his shoulder at it, and frowned. I hated this one. "Looking for something?" I asked.
He whirled around, surprised I had got up behind him without him hearing me, and then sighed, looking back at it. "Just saw it and got curious." He said, staring at the crowbar. "Why would you hang this up?"
I frowned, "It was the weapon that almost killed me."
He stiffened, "The Joker kidnapped me and beat me with it until I was a bloody smear on the warehouse floor."
"How'd you live?" He asked.
"I didn't, I died." I said, "For a few minutes, I was dead."
He was silent for a moment, "How'd you come back?"
"Well, unlike family tradition, it wasn't because I got dumped in a glorified swimming pool." I said.
"What?"
"Nothing. I was lucky. I got a second chance at life I suppose you could say. Decided to use it to my full extent." I said.
"So… what was dying like?" He asked hesitantly.
I shrugged, "Painful, damaging, a bit horrifying. But after a few seconds, it was kind of nice. Peaceful almost."
"Ever think about staying?" He asked.
"No, that would be giving up the fight that we call living. Not how I was raised, or how I prefer to do things." I said.
"Sounds hardcore." He said slowly.
I looked at him for a few minutes, then sighed. "Listen kid, you really shouldn't do this. You should put the mask down and just walk away from it all. I can get you a nice home with a good family. You could have a normal life. I could even get you help with your powers if you wanted. This is the last job I would recommend to anybody."
"I wanna do it." He said firmly.
I glared at him, "Raphael Tyler Strook, by popular agreement, your now my protégé. The minute we start training, we'll never stop. I'm going to work you, wear you down, and break you over and over again until your either stronger than me, which will never happen, or dead. About to die does not count. I will push you until you hate me with every fiber of your being and until you don't even know what the word 'limit' means. I completely mean it when I say, you'd be better of just walking away right now. Even after your done and your part of the team, you'll be in constant life threatening danger on missions. The chance of dying a horrible and painful death that would bring even Batman to his knees is far greater than a possibility. By all means, it will be the way you go out. It'll be the way that most of us go out. People like us don't get happily ever after's, we're all going to Hell in the end. Not only that, but no matter how many good deeds you do, the minute a nasty rumor breaks out, the whole world will turn against you and it will take forever for you to get it all sorted out. At the end of the day, your always on your own, no matter how many friends you have, you're the only thing keeping yourself alive. No matter how many times you save the world, it'll always end up falling back into jeopardy. Its an endless, tedious cycle and you can never really retire. The training and life scaring occurrences will always haunt you, no matter how much therapy you get. Every thug, hired gun, assassin, crime lord, and hit man will be after your head the minute you first stop a robbery. All in all, it's the worst choice you could make."
He took it all in, glaring at the crowbar. "Why did he try to kill you?"
"Because he could." I said. "He considers every one a toy, and his favorite thing to do with his toys is break them, in the worst way possible. He scared me for life, and if he or any other lunatic or sane villain or crime lord gets a hold of you, they'll do the same. Even if you think they won't, they'll break you in the end. They always will."
He took a deep breath, realizing hero life isn't all they make it out to be. "Is it worth it?"
"Yeah, I guess in some twisted way it is." I said, shrugging. "But only if you're strong enough."
He was silent for a long time. "Ok, I'm in; but there are some conditions."
"Whatever." I said, leading him away to the computer room.
"First off, no more calling me kid. You can call me Raphael, Tyler, or whatever my code name turns out to be. Second, you gave me the OK. So you recognize my skills, and don't diss them." he ordered. I didn't take kindly to that.
I typed in a code on the computer, and several screens popped up, "Sure sure, but from now on Hot Shot, you're in the big leagues, and all of your skills…"
He stared at all of the screens, each one portraying a picture of him caught from a street camera, school pictures, status reports on his DNA and powers, clips of him wandering around DR, even a few pictures of his parents, one ever bore a headline of their deaths. All in all, he was seeing every moment of his past life play out before him. Even videos from school security camera's showed him a few years ago, eating lunch and sitting in class.
"Mean nothing." I finished.