DISCLAIMER: See previous entries

You ever heard of a tough-man contest? If you haven't, you're probably much better off in life than me. Be thankful. It's an unsanctioned, unlicensed, unorganized and barely legal form of entertainment for people with a taste for combat sports and not much wallet padding. So, low-class people paying five dollars to crowd on some bleachers to watch two guys beat each other up in a rented warehouse after a questionable meat shipment moves out. Why would I have anything to do with this place? When I said I was a MMA fighter and kick-boxer…eh…I meant this. We know each other well enough by now that you know when I'm lying, right?

Yeah, I was a 'professional' street fighter in the Tough-Man circuit until I made it in the pizza business. Since my boss gave me my first raise, I haven't had to go near it. I can't say it was thrilling. Step into spray-painted square, and pound ego-impaired college kids or washed-out boxers into submission for a cash prize. I'd put all this behind me, except today the pizzeria is closed because my boss has a family reunion back in Italy. What do I do on my rare day off? I scrape some coins out of my tip from the day before and make an evening of it. I hate fighting. But I also get a laugh watching rich kids try to be poor for a day.

So, there I was, clad in my usual uniform/only set of clothes on the edge of the old bleachers watching from behind a watered-down soda as a clean-cut high school boy in an expensive mesh shirt was pummeled into greasy concrete by your average street punk with a shaved head and extensive tattoos around his neck. I shook my equally street-worn head at the scene, mumbling to anyone but the drunken crowd around me.

"…just another freak show…"

I drained my watery soda, tossing the cup under the bleachers as I ducked to the side and creeping through the crowded stands with my gawking legs, hopping off the end and walking out the open doors of the meat-house with my hat pulled low and my hands deep in my pockets. I found myself walking the concrete-shore of the city's loading docks. It was getting late, the sun was gone but the glow was still lighting the horizon as I passed the long-closed or abandoned warehouses and docks stemming the shore. Jump City used to be a major shipping outlet. Right up until an earthquake in the 60s turned the ocean-bound river into a saltwater lake, now it's a tourist trap and a skyscraper petting zoo.

I listened to the seagulls flapping overhead to their man-made roosts until a sound snapped the silence like a chalk stick. I snapped my capped head up and scanned the warehouse fronts for whatever made the noise. I let my guard recede as I saw the pale glow of a soda-vending machine propped against the wall of a converted warehouse. I couldn't make out which brand it was selling, because the logo was obscured by a thrashing shadow as some one banged both fists on the plastic front while screaming his or her lungs out.

Hey, it looked more intellectual than a street-brawl contest.

I stood on the concrete ledge hanging over the lake for a moment before getting curious and walking over to the wall where the vending machine was being handed its own rear. As I came closer with my hands in my pockets, I noticed the screams were definitely female. Well, that makes things more interesting. As I came close enough, about twenty feet away, to see things clearly it was very obvious what had happened.

The girl was dressed in a nice skirt and blouse, similar to what a high-class group of girls in the bleachers had been wearing while that pretty boy got a oil-stain facial. She'd probably walked out like I had, and tried to get a soda from a busted machine. As I silently stepped up behind her, she was cursing at the thing in a colorful but hardly urban sounding accent I later decided was mock-British.

I cleared my throat when I was a few feet behind her, causing her to jump a foot into the air and spin around holding a car key like a switchblade. She raised it toward my eyes while I just pushed past her with one arm and banged the front of the machine with the other, a few inches from where the right tubing support would be. Right as she screamed that she had a cell phone and had friends nearby, the soda she'd ordered dropped into the basket and her change clinked down into the return slot. I collected both, dropped her coins onto the top of the can and extended it out towards where she stood petrified at my sudden appearance and my appearance in general.

"These machines have a trick to them,"

Slowly, she slipped her key/shank back into her purse but kept in a defensive crouch. She had bleached-blonde hair and a darker-tone face, I wouldn't be surprised if she had the name of her salon tattooed on her back. She stared for a few more seconds, checking to see if I had my hand near my belt or anything before timidly grabbing the can and coins from my hand and mumbling something similar to a thank you. I reached up and tipped my hat bill before turning back to the pier and continuing my walk. I can't say I ever finished it.

The moment I was a good distance away again I heard a tearing sound and quickly looked back in her direction. My eyebrow crept up as I watched her tear the side of her skirt, ruffle the buttons of her shirt and finally reach up and pinch her face a bit to redden her dark complexion slightly. I went to walk back and ask what she was doing when I saw her turn towards the side of the warehouse I couldn't see and call out.

"Officer! Officer!"

I heard rapid footsteps as some one ran up to her. She yelled, pointing to where I stood with my arms slumped down into my pockets and my hat pulled low.

"That greaser just attacked me!"

By the time the cop had walked around the bend, I was clinging to the back of a passing pick-up truck that had sped by a second after she stated her case.

Twenty Minutes Later

"Son…we're not going to hurt you…just don't…"

I made my ankle twitch towards the ledge. The details are a bit blurry. One moment the preppy girl was lying to the cop so he'd arrest me and she could have a cheap laugh. The next moment I was on the edge of the skyline. Literally, I was standing on the roof of a ten-story apartment building close to the pizzeria. I was backed up right against the sheer drop, crouched down and panting while the half-circle of police officers tried to catch their breaths and convince me not to jump at the same time. Don't ask how I got from the dock to the middle of the city while being chased by a small squad of cruisers, I honestly forget how.

I was faking feral to keep them back. Like I was ready to just step right off the ledge, purposely twitching eyes burning and swinging around under my hat at my captors. While I looked like I was on the firing range, they were just dumb-stuck and sweat soaked. The leader reached toward me with one arm as he stepped forward, very slowly. I'm guessing the leader, his little SWAT gear ensemble had red stripes instead of black. Our tax money keeps our cops on their asses and in high-end exo-armor. Aren't they fabulous?

"Kid…you don't have to run like this…we just have to get you filed and get all this straightened out…"

I growled, backing closer to the edge and glancing down at the neon-filled road underneath me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something flick by in front of as billboard. I managed not to show my sudden inspiration as I looked back and spat.

"…I didn't even talk to that girl…"

I looked back at the officer as he closed the ten-foot gap between his men and myself. They were on guard. They'd just seen some somebody outrun all of them in a city they knew like the back of their stupid gl;are-visors. And now I was threatening to jump if they didn't get the story straight. The helmet-clad leader sighed, looking down at his boots.

"…what, do you have drug charges? Tell you what, don't jump, and we'll just book you for harassment. The judge will hear you out, you're a free man in a week."

…this is why superheroes hang out here. The cops learn this crap from a little booklet that came with their fancy laser-gun.

I tilted my head, letting him see my eyes under my hat as I calmly said, losing my feral growl of a voice in favor of my usual tone. I watched his grayed eyebrows raise behind his face-shield as he saw my eye color, and the fact my face was unmarked by drugs or alcohol. Like I'd taken off a mask.

"…Sir. It's been an honor making your boys look like kids playing tag, but the real criminal here just walked away laughing. And now, I'm doing the same."

With that I stood upright, tipped my hat at the confused ring of men before turning around and calmly hopping off the roof like a kid off a porch step. I heard them shout a few curses as I felt the air rush up at me me. As I fell past the eight floor I adjusted my hat while free falling, wondering how they'd tell this down at the pub tonight. I saw the sidewalk rush up at me at an impossible rate and braced myself, when my plan flew into action and saved the day.

…and it nearly cracked my back like a bull-whip. I went from calm and relaxed despite my location, to gritting my teeth in pain as my fall was suddenly stopped by something catching on my pant leg and letting the rest of me swing around under it like a key-chain. After the pain of whiplash subsided, I realized I was up-side down judging by the way my hat was creeping up. I pulled it back on with one hand and looked around at the night-lit scenery before looking down to see what had stopped me from splattering on the concrete. I let out a sigh instantly at two glowing green eyes slanted down at where my head dangled from my third arm of a neck.

"…you again…"

My savior replied, shaking one finger at me with her free hand. Yeah, she only needed one hand to hold me in mid-air.

"Foolish Citizen! Why did you allow yourself to step into the gravity surrounding this sky-scraping structure! Human skeletons are not designed for such activity."

I crossed my arms to keep the blood from rushing to my head. Holding me by one ankle over a probably fatal drop, was that orange chick. You know, the one girl? Green eyes, weird jewelry, purple outfit, her room-mate owes me like twelve tips by now? Well, she'd nearly killed me by stopping my fall that way. Why didn't my neck snap? I'm not sure. I casually pulled my hat back down as it went to fall the remaining four stories. I was surprised to see the cheerful alien suddenly start wagging that finger again as she…scolded…me with a cue-carded speech.

"Citizens are forbidden by law to end their own existence under purpose of themselves. If averted, it can be punished by…"

Her huge green eyes went from stern, to perfectly blank.

"And…uh…"

She suddenly reached into the wrist of the glove she held me with and pulled out a small white card, staring at it like a confused Labrador for a few seconds before squinting and dropping the traffic cop tone.

"…Robin requires practice in the area of his writing-hand…"

I nearly pushed my hat off with my eyebrows before bending at the waist towards her and with one hand taking the little stack of cards and flipping them over before placing them in her hand again. She'd been reading them upside-down. Sure, it was hilarious but I found it rather saddening. She thanked me and continued to lecture me on human laws in that accent/speech impediment of hers before reaching back into her glove and pulling out what I instantly recognized as a penny. I can place small change from fifty yards away, that's how I pay for waterproofing hat-spray.

"…imagine, if this currency symbol was your body…dramatically drop coin, take person to medical center."

…she read (these things)? I was about to tell her I wasn't trying to kill myself when she dropped the coin past my gently swinging form. I followed it with my eyes as it fell the remaining distance to the sidewalk under us. Actually, it rebounded off the canopy roof of a hotel entrance sitting right under where I hung. It flicked sideways over the traffic of the two-lane road, bouncing again as it descended off a pile of couch cushions sitting in a parked pickup truck on the other side of the road.

It then bounced lightly onto the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Its forward momentum caused it to roll on its side past the foot traffic, traveling a good six feet before it slipped through the open doorway of a restaurant whose windows were full of Christmas lights and posters featuring waitresses in orange hot-pants. I slowly looked back up at my feet, where the orange girl looked down at me with an official stance as if she'd just made a point. She misread the last line of the card before pocketing it again.

"Was that involved in your plan of action?"

I shrugged, sighing sadly.

"…actually, that would have made a good Plan B...You didn't save my life, you just wasted three minutes of it that I could have spent watching those waitresses…I mean the ball game."

She tilted her head like a confused cat before scratching her crimson-haired head and slowly floating down to the sidewalk.

"…your ironic joking manner is familiar…have our paths made a perpendicular angle previously?"

As we floated down onto the empty sidewalk, I replied.

"Yeah. I'm the pizza guy. I've been over to your 'hideout' every night for the last two weeks? I'm the guy with the kayak and the hat?"

I pointed to my hat and mimed rowing a kayak. I hoped it would make her understand a few minutes earlier than usual. She tilted her head the other way as her boots touched down on the sidewalk. She had to raise her arm up over her head so my head didn't touch the ground. She then forgot about my being upside down as she clapped her hands together in joy, in part dropping my ankle and causing me to fall in a tangled heap on the rough concrete.

"…The Bearer of Pizza! I had not recognized you without your portable pizza-container! If you weren't imitating a knotted pastry I would vibrate your hand!"

While she accidentally turned the concept of shaking hands into a horrible mental image, I was trying to free my shoulder from my bend of my left knee. As I struggled to unfold myself like a rice-paper pizza boy some Japanese grandfather made to show his grandchildren what happens when they don't finish high school, she kept blabbering on about how great 'pizza discs' were.

Thankfully, by the time I freed my head from the folds of my jacket she was nowhere in sight. I heard sirens a few blocks off, she must have heard them. I dusted myself off and looked up at the building I'd just fell off of, seeing a few helmet-strapped heads poking over the edge. One yelled.

"…you okay?"

I looked down at myself for a second before yelling back.

"Yeah."

He yelled back.

"Okay then. Tell you what, anyone asks, you were presumed dead and we performed our duty like true public servants."

…less paperwork, eh?

I heard from a friend that the insurance companies absolutely hate 'superior life-forms' like that girl. Every event has to be documented, every last catch-phrase and colorful leotard that should be a few sizes baggier.

I nodded slowly, tipping my hat up at them before walking off.

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Needless to say, I went over to that restaurant to get that penny. Took ten minutes and the help of three blonde waitresses, but eventually I walked out with both Mr. Lincoln and one of the girl's numbers. Which I later dropped into a wire trash bin in my apartment/wall-hole that is overflowing with similar numeric codes and feminine signatures scrawled under them.

I haven't had good luck with women. Let's leave it at that.

The Next Day

I've woken up in some weird places, and with even weirder people. So I can't say I was utterly flabbergasted when I opened my eyes to see a leaf-green basset hound sniffing my face to see if I was dead. I just yawned and pushed the mutt off me before checking under my head to make sure the pizza-bag was still warm.

First of all, I wasn't bumming around the pizzeria when this happened. My boss caught an early flight back and I did three runs before the nearly nightly call came, and I braved the ankle-high waves of the lakefront in my trusted plastic boat with the usual order.

…and waited outside the front entrance of this capital letter of a dorm building for close to three hours. Eventually I just made myself comfortable on a concrete slab and decided to wait it out. Did I mention I get paid by the hour on weekends?

I assumed I'd just shoved off their pet or something that they'd let out to run around or something. I'm used to this from normal customers. I dusted the paw-prints off my shirt and shoulder my bag, deciding to try the intercom now that they'd probably come home while I was out. Thankfully, the instant I pressed the button a voice answered. It was a new one, softer spoken but with the grammar of either a cub scout leader or a guy mocking the former.

"Stop trying to remember the code, Beast Boy. Just use a window or something."

I nearly sent my hat flying off with my eyebrows before looking back to see that green dog was nowhere to be seen. I spoke into the recently replaced speaker box.

"Um…this is the pizza guy. You guys still want these?"

Silence. Then sharp crackling, like some one was sighing through their teeth into the microphone.

"…so, some green guy didn't take the pizzas?"

I shook my head and went to tell him no, but he cut me off. They must have a camera in this thing now.

"Beast Boy! Get the pizzas, and get your lazy butt up here!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin, but I think the scar tissue was too tight to let that happen, when a voice screeched from right behind me.

"HEY! I was trying to wake him up the whole time!"

I jumped to the side and backward to see what looked like a middle school kid in a purple/black male cheerleading outfit had suddenly appeared behind me. As he gritted his slightly crooked and somehow pointed teeth at the speaker as if I'd never been in front of it, it dawned on me that this kid's face was a striking shade of green. For two seconds I dug through the cardboard box that is my memory and recognized him as that one nerd who answered the door that one time.

…Dang…I thought that was just face-paint.

The intercom shot back.

"I've been watching the monitor, you didn't go near him until just now…"

These guys apparently forgot about me. Well, the fact I was still there at least. The green kid suddenly stepped back a bit, his elongated ears flattening back like he was part dog or something. He looked both ways, probably looking for the camera.

"Um…uh…Star broke the elevator again!"

"You can fly…if it turns out you were trying to get into Raven's room from the window…again…"

The next ting I knew, there was an empty pizza bag dangling from my wrist and the sliding doors of the place were sliding shut. I leaned over to see through the crack into the entry-way, seeing a black and purple pair of shoulders walking towards the elevator. Right before the crack sealed, I heard a growling grumble echo out through the gap.

"Geez, he thinks he wears the tights around here…"

After the door closed, I spent a few moments wondering how he'd snatched the pizzas out of the bag. I examined the locking-latch over the zipper to find it has been pried open without tearing the material. I modified this thing myself in a high-school metal shop. The teacher was a bit senile, he thought I was a student. A twenty two year old sophomore, it could happen. So how'd a little shrimp like that…pry the lock open that fast? And without my noticing? Green skin…odd facial features…could he have been a meta-human? And what happened to the dog?

"…are you still there?"

I glanced over at the gray box, seeing the red light was still on. I shook it off and leaned down so he could hear me.

"…are you…"

I glanced down at my hand and squinted at the sweat-smudged blue ink.

"…Rodin?"

He corrected me like my old English teacher.

"Robin. Why are you still here?"

…a complete jerk. Just like my English teacher. I narrowed my eyes, not caring of there was a camera around or not.

"…I'm Dave Setanta. I've been delivering your stuff for a couple months now. I've been trying to reach you, but apparently the note fell off the brick."

A whirring sound. Yeah, he has a camera on me. I adjusted my hat brim on reflex.

"That was you? We…thought it was another protester…"

A protester? Could a stay-at-home mom or some wimpy college kid hurl a masonry brick into a fifth story window? I think not.

"…you didn't actually break anything, those windows were open."

…that…explains why I didn't hear glass break…

"Kid, I've been down here more than thirty times. Sometimes twice a day. Every so often I ask for the tip, and your name comes up. In fact, you answered the 'com the first night I came out here. In a Goddamn' hurricane."

Sharp crackling from the speaker. I leaned down closer. The thing was mounted about five feet high so I had to bend a bit.

"…I have no life, what so ever…and I will hunt you down and shake you down for quarters if I don't get a…"

Without even losing pace I took a small step to the right. A potted plant shattered on the white concrete I'd just been standing on.

"…tip."

I looked over my shoulder to look at the blossom dirt that just barely hit my shoes. It was a synthetic plant judging by the lack of roots, but the soil was wet and dripping over the red pot fragments. Who waters a fake plant? Throwing it at the pizza boy I get, but watering it?

"…you carry a math compass on your little swiss army belt…and you throw a plant at me?"

"H…How'd you…"

I rolled my eyes up at my hat brim.

"Your friends gave me one of your outfits. Shoulder pads? Traffic light colors? What are you, a color-blind nerd? I give you credit for the cape, but still…"

I stepped to the left, over the plant remains. I let my eyes rise and quickly drop to the stone as what looked like a…green basketball with a tail…dropped down near my shoulder and bounced a bit when it hit the ground. I stared down at it, expecting it to explode. Instead, it unrolled into a little green rodent with armored plates covering its cat-sized body. It shook its pointy little head a few times in a daze, and I jumped back as I was suddenly faced with that green guy again. He looked up at the row of windows over the entrance and shook a gloved fist.

"Robin, just pay the dude! And stop throwing out windows before I call PETA!"

As he spoke, I creaked my neck up to look at the windows expecting to see another shape-shifting adolescent thrown at me. Instead, a small green song bird shot up past my other shoulder and ducked through an open window. One glance to the side told me the kid was nowhere to be seen.

…shape shifter. Figures.

Eventually I turned my attention back to the black box on the wall. Remembering something, I reached into my jacket and pulled out something I'd brought along just in case this guy was home. I held it up so hi camera would see it and calmly asked.

"…this look familiar?"

In my hand, was that little memento from my home city. A little throwing blade, with its prongs carved liked little bat wings. No answer. I reached over and tapped the speaker.

"I know you're there. I looked at your incoming mail once. You got packages coming in from Gotham City. And the stuff on your belt was made of the same metal as this thing. I used to work in a scrap yard, trust me on this."

The speaker didn't react. Its link just kept on blinking, and I kept on staring into it. Right into the camera.

"Either I get my tip, or I get some information. I don't care who you punks are, and I don't care about whatever it is you do. I just need to find the guy who threw this at me."

Nothing. I stared into that little red light for close to forty seconds. Nothing at all. I just shook my head, managing not to smash the thing as I turned and sighed.

"I'll be back. You can't live on the frozen crap forever. Pizza, is pizza."

Note cards. I should have written note cards.

As I walked away from the silent intercom and the uninviting porch, I swung the empty bag over my shoulder and wondered if maybe I should just hand this route to one of the rookies. Let them deal with it.

When I was about twenty feet away, there was a dull thud from the door. I didn't turn around, I just asked the path in front of me.

"…he threw you out again?"

An embarrassed, possibly pained voice answered.

"No…I just…uh, tripped."

I nodded slowly, walking off to the shore to find my kayak and possibly head back to my dancing school attic for the night. 'Home' isn't a correct title for it. It's just where I go to sleep at night.

Or most of the time, spend twelve hours lying on a cot wondering if my little brother is still alive.

Author's Notes

Will edit typos out tomorrow, maybe edit the body a bit if it comes off as too rough-cut. And for reference, BB turned into an armadillo. That's all I have to say.