Nicholas Vasil Jr

Now that I was in Brockton Bay I just had to find Jean-Paul Vasil aka Hijack. I knew it wouldn't be easy. After all I traveled here on a rumor about a Master with powers suspiciously similar to dear old Hijack.

Normally this would be worse than a stab in the dark, but his mother also suspected he might be here. Father had a problem letting people go, so when Jean-Paul ran away he didn't just forget about it and write him off as acceptable losses, oh no. Nobody is allowed to get away from Heartbreaker. I swear to god, it's because his girlfriend dumped him on prom night.

I chuckled to myself on the street prompting some people to look at me. They probably thought I was a druggie, but I didn't care. Just hinting at Heartbreaker's trigger event would get you a beating and now I could freely mock him, so I would do so as often as I could. Well at least until it gets boring.

"How can I find Hijack?" I thought to myself. I suppose I could go to a library and miraculously find out everything about Brockton Bay. Ha! Yeah, right. And maybe contact some local villains and hire then while having no money, just for the opportunity to serve my august self? How ridiculous.

When you don't know your way around you ask for directions.

I approached a normal looking guy. Didn't seem threatening. Not in a gang at first glance and nothing else indicated that talking to him would get me in trouble. I got his attention and introduced myself politely while shaking his hand. I told him I was new in town, asked a couple of questions a tourist might ask, even shared a joke or two and went on my way, all in all I knew now a lot more about the city than I knew before.

In a bigger city it's easy to ignore people bothering you, because they are often druggies or alcoholics asking for money. Even when they are genuinely homeless and starving, most people will ignore them. Sad but true. Also quite sensible because they might in fact be dangerous after all.

That's why I used the money the guy who bought me lunch gave me to clean myself up a bit. You probably wouldn't be surprised how much of a difference not stinking makes when talking to people. That combined with my knowledge on how to not be shy about talking to strangers got me... absolutely nothing on Hijack. Which wasn't surprising. Unless he was a major villain or hero the average person wouldn't know about him.

After 8 solid hours of talking to stragers I was quite resigned that he might not even be in town at least until by luck I managed to stumble upon a warehouse owner who was robbed recently. He told me a tale about the warehouse he was renting out to his friends. I quickly figured out that he was probably working for a gang.

Sure he might have been renting out to a genuine business, but I doubted it. From what he told me he was present when it happened. I was quite thorough when questioning him on how the robbers looked and what powers they had, because unsuprisingly the criminals were parahumans.

I sometimes wondered if normal people commited crimes anymore, or were they just doomed to be mooks for people more powerful than themselves. Something to think about on another day.

Now I was sure at least, Hijack was here. And he had a team. I didn't have the means to find him yet, but I was confident that it was only a matter of time.

A couple of days went by, during which I interviewed hundreds of people, and yes I even tried looking up everything about Hijack online. Predictably he wasn't there, and a chance that he would see an ambiguous message left to him on some forum no matter how popular was so astronomical that I might as well not bother. It was far more likely that nobody would respond, or somebody responded, but someone who wasn't Jean-Paul, and that would get me in trouble.

One morning however I was walking on some street filled with shops that I believe was called "Boardwalk" by the locals. I didn't have money for anything, but at least I managed to use the windows to fix my appearance.

I had long, brown, wavy hair reaching to my shoulders, a very androgynous, oval shaped face except for my big nose, grey eyes and thick eyebrows, but not excessively so. Since the adam's apple is responsible for how deep someone's voice is and I didn't have a visible one my voice was high pitched and quite girly, much to my annoyance. I always wanted to sound like Tim Curry, but oh well, what can you do?

I was 5'5" and not muscular at all, not to mention starving can absolutely destroy any muscles one might have. I supose I could've used my power to get money, but since that day I couldn't get it to work at all, so I was a parahuman in-name-only for now.

Anyway, someone must've thought I was suspicious looking, because after only an hour I was approached by some security guards.

"Hello gentlemen. Can I help you?"

"Yes, you can. Come with us."

I wonder what this is about. I didn't do anything wrong. Yet, at least.