The Humble Origins of Zach-Attack, Also Known as The Amazing Truck
Thinking up a superhero identity had been all cool and dramatic in the movies, with Peter Parker all hunched over his desk and scribbling away like he was a professional artist with professional markers with a symphony of intense strings music to back him up with each and every epiphany. What should have taken hours buzzed by in seconds, and by the end of it the boy had made himself a badass costume appropriate for scaring the s**t out of goblins, octopi, and strange alien oozes alike.
Zachary, however, was not struck with the same sort of inspiration.
He sat cross-legged at the center of his dorm with a pair of scissors in one hand and a glue-stick in the other, looking down forlornly at his supplies. Maybe if Evie had been there he could have taken a couple of t-shirts and a pillowcase and made himself a badass costume, but as it stood he was on his own. He bit his lip thinking of his little sister, then shook away the errant thoughts. If nothing else, he would have to try twice as hard, if not for her sake, then for Super Van's. He supposed that they were fairly similar after a fashion, that Evie would have liked his new caped crusader friend. She probably would have wanted to be a superhero of her own until she realized that heros weren't supposed to sing, but even then she would have likely offered to write them a theme song or something.
If nothing else, he had to smile about that.
His hands lacked the deft skill of someone who knew the craft, but nevertheless he took scissors to fabric, cutting out awkward letters that, to some, might look artisticly tattered. The glue made the ends of his freshly-cut appliques curl in distaste, but it held to the pillowcase well enough, if slightly wrinkled, and one by one, he spelled out his superhero name. The spare scraps of his old green t-shirt he discarded, but as a secondary thought he grabbed one of the stringier pieces and glued it to the bottom of his 'cape' for trim. There, now he was gettin' all fancy. He touched each of the letters to make sure that they were dry and were holding on as best they could, then lifted the pillowcase up and onto his shoulders, tying the corners at the collar and examining his reflection in the mirror.
He'd been wearing his under-armor shirt again, given that the thing was the closest a guy could get to spandex without being called gay. Granted, the way the pillowcase knotted at his throat like a little senshi-bow wasn't doing him any favors, but it was nevertheless something he made, and as he checked to make sure he'd spelled his name right in the mirror, he couldn't help but silently beam at himself. To hell with his kindergarden teacher that hadn't given him straight As in Arts n' Crafts, his cape was awesome. (Truth be told, his cape looked like a kindergardener who hadn't gotten As in Arts n' Crafts made it, but no one was going to tell him that any time soon.)
As an added touch, he reached for his lacrosse gloves and his helmet, trying them on for size and admiring the view once again. He wasn't the type to gloat, but he looked pretty kick-a** (it was a shame the name was already taken, curse you hilarious parody movies!), especially the way the grates in his mask hid his identity oh-so-well (read: about as well as Super Van's shades). Speaking of which, he reached for his phone and thumbed through his contacts, eager to tell his partner in justice about the recent developments. Perhaps that would have been an awkward phrase to use a few days ago, when he'd just been a normal Hillworth student, but now that Zachary set his mind to it, he actually sort of enjoyed playing the part of the superhero. Maybe this was how the senshi felt, he thought idly as the phone began to ring.
It was right after sundown, just past curfew, and so the sheer amount of silence should have been startling to Zachary, considering the normal hustle and bustle that went into people filing in late and avoiding the authorities. However, considering Zachary's one-track mind and the fact that he was usually out far past this time, it seemed to be a detail easily forgotten as he waited for Super Van to answer her phone. Communicator. ...Communicator? Did he really want to be that in-character? Ultimately, he chalked the errant thought up to something he would ask Super Van later.
"Hello?" The voice didn't sound like Super Van's, and despite its high pitch it put Zachary on the defensive. "Hi, is Su--is Vanessa there? Tell her it's Zachary, from the other day."
"Nuh-uh, she's not here." The voice sounded smaller then, and even frightened, and it struck a chord in Zachary when he shouldn't have been the slightest bit concerned. He heard what might have been a sniffle, and then the voice added, "She went to the hospital."
Zachary's heart froze cold.
"What?" the boy asked, his voice rising? "What?! How did she get in the hospital! How?!" Perhaps he was taking the news a bit hard in the presence of the younger boy on the other line, but he could literally feel his psyche falling apart. Image by image flashed behind Zachary's eyes of his living room, the newscast, the body bags, the blood, the blood, where's Evie, Dad, why isn't she there--
"I-I dunno. There's lots of people here. Something happened." Zachary knew the fear in the other boy's voice, wanted to comfort him, but the best he could do was hang up the phone before he started to scream. He tore off his helmet and his cape and sprinted for the door, running down the bus terminals. He didn't care if curfew patrol caught him. He didn't care who saw. He needed to get to the hospital. He had to. What if something had happened to his mom? His dad? Panic-stricken, he reached for the door--
--and nearly ran into another boy, taller and decidedly more angry than frightened by the situation. He pushed Zachary to the side with a brutish shove, then continued on with his phone conversation as if nothing happened. The central living area of the dorms were scattered with boys all calling home, some calm and some frantic like he was, but either way the entire room was abuzz with tension. Something had happened, but just what?
The jolt of his phone's vibration caused him to nearly jump out of his skin, but he shakily checked the window for the Caller ID, flipping it open with a snap when he read 'Mom'. "Mom? Mom? Is everything okay? What's going on?"
Mrs. Esther audibly let out a sigh of relief. "Zach, honey, just calm down, we're okay. Mr. Carroway next door was in a wreck, but they said he'll be okay. Everyone's okay."
Zachary couldn't believe his ears. "A wreck? What the hel--What happened? Why is everyone freaking out?"
And so, through his mother's calming words did Zachary hear about the events that led to mass comas all throughout Destiny City, including one Vanessa Rae AKA 'Super Van'.
