The bitter wind blew fiercely over the city, bringing with it fresh snow and ice. The ground was rock hard, meaning it was impossible for studs in boots to get the grip in the dirt they needed. The school day had started and the students of Rainsbrook Academy sat in their classrooms, glad of the warmth and windbreaks they provided. Teacher's stood at the front of their classrooms, instructing the various classes of pupils in their subjects.
Jason Kent, Wally West, Ben Parker and Alex Manning sat in their history class, all four of them staring out of the window at the school field. Tonight was the first of the Westminster Borough School Rugby Tournament matches, between them and St Oswalds. However, the bad weather was a potential threat to the game. The sound of their teacher going on about the origins of the Cold War was blurred out as they each hoped that when the time came to step onto the pitch, they wouldn't freeze to death. All this talk about the Cold War also wasn't helping. Warm thoughts were needed instead.
The school bell rang dismissing them for the day, but also sounding the end of the warmth for those involved in the match. The four boys headed to the changing rooms where they would get into the school kit and wait for the students of St Oswalds to arrive.
The PE Department had, over the summer, invested in a set of new kits for the various sports that they competed in. The rugby kit consisted of a form fitting shirt with a blue background colour and a gold stripe heading diagonally down from the right shoulder (starting wide) and curving slightly down to the left hip (getting thinner). The shorts were blue and the long rugby socks where blue and yellow horizontal stripes. The school had also fortunately managed to get a sponsorship deal with Under Armour, who had supplied them with the kit and various thermal layers. The team were today supplied with yellow compression shorts and also a long sleeved yellow Cold Gear base layer. Some chose to brave the cold, but the four lads chose to wear the layers.
Soon the team from St Oswalds arrived and the game could get underway. Mr Sanders had sent notes to the 20 boys during the day in class to inform them of their playing positions. They jogged out to the school field, the cold air slamming into them as they left the safety of the school buildings.
Jason knew that using his powers in front of everyone was dangerous, but he carefully blew a stream of hot air over his body, careful not to make it to hot, that a large cloud of vapour would surround him.
After warming up, the two teams took their positions and the game began. Rainsbrook started with the ball and after a few minutes, managed to score the first try of the game. Wally had been nominated as one of the fly-halves, so went to kick the ball into the 'goal'. He managed to score a conversion meaning Rainsbrook were now leading 7 points to 0.
As the game went on, the score kept climbing until in the last 5 minutes of the game, St Oswalds were leading 33 to 28. Rainsbrook needed to score a try to equalise and then convert to win. The ball found its way into Jason's hands as he ran down the field, being careful not to use his powers. He turned and threw the ball back into the waiting arms of Wally. He ran forward, dodging the opposition. Alex moved up behind him and took the ball in his arms. He noticed Ben was nearby and threw the ball with great accuracy into his awaiting hands.
Ben was struck momentarily with shock at the fact he had the ball in the final two minutes of the game. With encouragement from his team mates and those who gathered around the pitch, he ran forward and jumped into the air. He spread out his arms and made sure he held on tight to the ball. Gravity came into play and he began to fall back down, stomach first. He landed over the line, with the ball next to him, his hand still firmly attached to it. Well, those sticky spider like hands came in useful.
The crowd and team erupted in joy. Ben's try had equalised the score. It was now 33 to 33. The conversion was needed to get those two crucial points to take Rainsbrook to victory. The team nominated Ben to take the kick.
The referee placed the ball down and invited Ben up to pace out. He looked carefully at the position of everything. His spider sense seemed to be helping him to gage where to send the ball. He tried to ignore it and do this on his own and without his powers. He pulled back his leg, took aim and thrust his foot forward, slamming it into the ball. He, the team and crowd watched, with baited breath, as the ball flew through the air and passed straight through the centre of the upright goal posts. Ben had done it, those two crucial winning points were theirs.
The team and home crow erupted in cheers as they all ran towards Ben. They lifted him up and onto their shoulders.
"Well done Ben!" Alex shouted over the crowd, a large smile filling his face.
"Thanks!" Ben shouted back.
As he was crowd surfed, Ben caught a glimpse of his parents standing at the side of the pitch, glee and joy emanating from them. He smiled back towards them.
Down on the ground, Wally was being "strangled" by his girlfriend Rachel.
"You played so well," she said to him, as she leaned in to give him a big kiss.
They released each other and Rachel looked down at his kit.
"At least there is no mud, you would have ruined my clothes in that hug."
"Its all about the clothes with you isn't it?" Wally teased.
Rachel put a look of mock offence on her face. They each smiled at each other and embraced once more.
Over to one side Jason stood with Lois as she congratulated him on the success. Clark was not with them, but Jason's super senses had alerted him to the fact that there was something floating a distance above them. He looked up and used his super sight to see that Clark was in fact there, but dressed as Superman. He must have been on patrol. Jason could see a smile on his face. He grinned back.
Later on, Jason lay, still wearing his kit, on his bed. His laptop was perched on his chest, the screen tilted down so he could see the video that he was watching. When it finished, he clicked back to the homepage and pressed the 'Most Popular' link. The first video that came up made him sit up straight and spin his legs over his bed. He sat there and clicked onto the video. It loaded up and began playing. He paused it and shouted,
"Wally, come in here!"
The sound of Wally rushing out of his and down the landing, was instantaneous. He burst through Jason's door and asked,
"What is it?"
"Look at this."
Wally moved round and sat next to Jason on the bed. Jason clicked play.
"People of the world, I have another warning for those who are in my way. If you cross me in my next plan, you will suffer greatly. I will be victorious and no one will be able to defeat me. Consider yourselves warned."
The video finished, leaving Wally and Jason sitting there, again horrified at what had been said. He was definitely going after Superman and still against the three of them.
"What should we do?" Jason asked.
"Tell your dad?" Wally asked as a proposal.
"Yeah we could do, but it sounds like an attack is coming soon."
"But we don't know when and we can't stop your dad from going out on duty."
"I suppose, because he will also go after those who will try and stop him."
There was a knock on Jason's door. It opened and Clark stood on the other side.
"So, there has been another threat then. What did you make of the video?"
"Dad, we need to stop him, he's a maniac."
"Its fine, I will be ok. Did you see anything in the video that you thought odd?"
"No, did we miss something?" Wally asked.
"Well, I may be making something out of nothing, but did you notice in the background, near the bottom left hand corner there is a bag sitting on the floor and just poking out of it is a piece of clothing that looks very much like the kit you are wearing."
"Where?" Jason asked.
"It is about half way through, when he turns the camera."
Jason rewound the video to the part which Clark had said and clicked play again. Almost immediately, he paused the video as the items mentioned came into view. Both Jason and Wally studied the image carefully, using the kit that Jason was still wearing to make certain that what they were looking at, was correct.
"That is definitely one of our new rugby kits," Wally said.
"That means that this is someone on the team, but who?" Jason asked.
"Do you recognise anything about him?" Clark asked.
"There is something," Wally started to say, "but, I can't be certain what exactly."
"Right, then your next mission is to scope out your team discreetly, trying not to give away your identities. What we don't know is if this is one person acting alone or a group of people. He must be one clever kid to have come up with the attacks he has."
"We have a meeting tomorrow in the changing rooms about next week's match, so we will start to look then," Wally stated.
"Warn Ben and be careful," Clark agreed with their idea. "I need to go out on patrol now, but I will alert Batman on the developments."
Clark moved towards the door. As he did so, he began to remove his shirt, revealing his costume below. He opened the door and with a sudden burst of speed, disappeared leaving his clothes in a pile on the landing.
"I still find that so cool," Wally said in awe.
"When you have stopped drooling over the 'coolness' of my dad, can we get on with devising a plan for tomorrow?" asked Jason.
"You can't deny that wasn't cool though?" protested Wally.
"Yeah it was cool," conceded Jason.
The two lads then set down working out how they were going to determine which member of their team was after Superman.
Back in the secret base of the masked figure, he sat there at his computer watching as his video's figures grew and grew. He gave a small chuckle at the panic he had most likely caused with his threats at the man of steel. He and his new 'heroes' had managed to thwart him once, but not again. His next attack was going to be bigger and more daring.
He stood from his chair and moved over to the bag on the floor. He lifted it up onto a table and began rifling through it to find his 'civilian' clothes. He pulled off his skin tight black top, to reveal a well toned figure. He folded it neatly, placing it back into the bag. He took a plain blue, loose T-shirt and pulled it over his head. Next he replaced his trousers with a dark pair of jeans and his boots for trainers. The last item he removed was his mask. He placed that into the bag and zipped it up. Stepping into a light area his face came into view. He gathered all his things together and headed out, down his secret tunnel and out into the busy London streets. Moving forward, he blended in to the crowds on the street, perfectly disguising himself from any spying eyes. Tomorrow he was going to unleash his next plan. Let's just hope those meddling heroes stay out of his way, or he would have to get rid of them as well.