Chapter 4: Not so alone!

"Saya, any chance you're related to this Wiley guy?"  Liam asked as he pointed to a masked hero in an old book, belonging to a great collection of books, he was kidding because he's a fictional character but he wanted to make conversation.

Derek looked and observed the hero in the book Liam meant, and felt something very strange.

"Nope, who is he though?" Derek answered best to his knowledge and asked pretty curiously.

"He's my favorite protagonist in this entire series, his name is Quentin Wiley spelled exactly like yours and aka the first superhero, you remind me a lot of him." Liam answered his friend, "But you've only met me yesterday, what do you mean?" Derek responded genuinely confused, "Call it feeling the same vibe then?" Liam replied before he put his head down to think about it. 

Derek grabbed the book from Liam's hand while he was thinking as he had to double take on the picture of the scene. 

This "Quentin" guy was fighting off inhuman creatures, all nine feet tall and bulking with muscles beyond humanly possible, anyone who saw this picture would assume this to be fiction because Quentin looks outmatched, completely unable to compete. 

"Ah, I got it! You guys both give me the feeling you'll never quit at achieving the vanquishment of injustice in your lives, basically all the inequity you'll experience means very little to you because you'll find some sort of way to triumph over them." Said Liam as he thought about it further. 

"We've basically only just met and you already think that about me…?" Asked Derek in a very confused and shy tone of voice, "I do, trust me dude, listening to your heart might backfire a little more than thinking a hundred different things with your brain, but honestly it gets the job done a little more… only you're gambling with your humanity. Broken hearts can fracture the soul." Liam answered his question, as truthfully as he could, "That sounds like drama club trying outs." Derek replied jocularly.

This exchange brought a smile to Derek's straight and bored face, except then it was ruined when his crime-alerter went off all of a sudden, alerts of Bank robberies, gang robberies, police department robberies and all sorts of other mind blowing crimes were being sent to it. The Purlieu crime-alerta is a private app

"It's like someone broke every criminal who were held in every prison out and let them do what they wanted, wow!!" Derek thought in his head while Liam went on and on about some sort of need stuff Derek didn't care about… 

"What's going on? Am I even ready for some of these cases??" Derek questioned further in his thoughts, he still doubted even he could take care of even the lower level crimes after struggling with those giant goons, "I don't even have my suit on me!" Derek noted more...

The police station was close by and they're police, how bad could it be getting robbed, Derek was also curious why it was getting robbed too, so putting on his eye mask he decides to always keep on his person because of the utilities of it, Derek rushed out of the local library. 

-

Derek bought a ski mask for cheap on the way and combined it with his eye mask, now though he's in civilian clothing, his face was completely hidden. 

Derek snuck in with his Enotoskuran form, through an air vent on the side of the building and flew through it until he could find a room it led to… 

Derek found one room and slipped through, but immediately reverted back and feeling astoundingly fatigued, lightheaded and a tiny ounce of feeling unbalanced as the form can have very straining effects, he remained on the ground for a breather. 

"Uggghh, on the bright side, from dizzy to lightheaded means I'm mastering it greater, apparently to him…" Derek told himself, in an attempt to distract from the fact he hates that power. 

Then voices sounded from outside of the room so Derek quickly picked himself up and hid under a coffee table that was his exact height and it was dim enough for him to remain undetected so long as he remained quiet as well… that's the easiest part for him though. 

"Why is there even a coffee table in here??" Derek asked with the utmost baffling tone to himself while the robbers he heard approaching just walked into the room. 

"Bruh, bro, you didn't need to murder that innocent woman, what the-" Said one robber as he paced back and forth, this one had a lighter voice than his partner. 

"They needed to see we mean business, I swear it won't happen again but these are cops mannn!" The deeper voiced robber argued, "Who the heck robs a police station for their guns, these guys'll get cocky and try something, that should have ensured the morons we're to be taken seriously, so we don't have to murder anymore of them!" He finished arguing with his friend.

The lighter voice robber chewed over his friend's argument for a sec, "Yeah, yeah, okay, You're right… I'm just getting a bad feeling about all of this, let's… just go back to the crew." The lighter voiced robber responds. 

The robber with a conscience and the robber with the deep voice left so Derek got up from under the desk and given information that confirmed his inkling and basically all around easy guess, he felt zero glory being right about… 

The new question for him was, "What do they want with the weapons?" Which he knows has no good answer to at all. 

"He said a crew, which means at least 4 based on the best case scenario, however it's safer to go the pessimistic route during these situations, at most 8 robbers are present in the building likely holed up where the hostage policemen are, which means I find the hostages I find the crew. Using one of these guns could draw a few of them away, since hostages always come first but my family and guns, oof. So, A combo of many different routes could work!" Derek noted all of this down in head as he held the door half open to see if he could hear down the hall. He couldn't hear a thing at all with his exceptional hearing. Derek realizing he wasn't picking up anything, ran to initiate his plan. 

"Time to flow in the smoke!" Derek yelled in his head as he grabbed a shotgun off the weapons locker then ran to double check if he could hear something with the door cracked again. 

Derek left out and checked left and right down the police corridors but tiptoeing some way down to the left side, he heard some voices sounding like anything but officers.

"Yeah man, I would love to taste the recoil on that hot babe he's got-!" Said one of the heistmen before he was interrupted by his friend, "Ewww, dude, she's so heavy and fat though, she'll knock any of us to the ground!" His buddy reacted with… 

Derek entered the room and closed and locked the door behind him… 

"I have a bit of a hunch you're not combining literal with figurative there!" Derek said as he entered and locked the door. 

The two men turned around real quick with baffled faces on them as they were confused why a kid in a costume was in front of them and how one got in...

Told by a few small details and their reactions, Derek could tell these guys weren't from around the city… 

"What business ya guys got holding up some of Chealb's finest day?" Derek questioned with an insistent tone as he crossed his arms and beamed oozing confidence, "There's justice to be supplied, you guys are kinda holding it up!" He finished still beaming brightly. 

One of the heistmen looked at the other, and shrugged… The men then immediately went on the attack but Derek made very quick work of each of them. 

One of the men wasn't knocked out so he decided to formally interrogate that one, who looked smarter than the others anyway.

"Just tell me what you guys are doing here and I'll go soft on you, but I know, tell me how come bad guys never wanna take the easy route?" 

"Because you're a good guy, and he's a bad guy, do the math genius. It doesn't take one to figure what he'd do to me if he finds out I snitched info about his business!"  Said the thug

Derek slowly approached him, this muscle he put on the ground next to his friends, and squatted down in front of him as he showed this muscle a very, very menacing grin, "I'm a vigilante, I was taught odious torture in the name of interrogation was very morally neutral, morally permissible, if you know what that means!" 

The muscle began sweating out of nervousness, his smug face changed to fear and he began trying to crawl his very sore, sore body away from the freak in front of him, he had to stop as he met a dead end in the room.

"Listen, kid, you're new to the game, so am I, I'm only doing this for the money. To support my family, wife and children and grandparents, man, you don't gotta do this!" The Muscle pleaded to Derek as he was looking away, terrified.

The Muscle's begging and pleading reminded him of a lesson his Grandfather tried to instill in him, "Remember Junior, while you're out there, please take consideration of the types of 'bad men' you've got against you first. Your father mercilessly punished the bad guys, not caring about the motive, the reason, their circumstances but everybody deserves second chances. The severity of action you decide to do shouldn't be merciless like he preferred, things got bloody often, very quickly, there are three types of criminals, you've got the situational kind, which speaks for itself.  the thrill kind, these men commit crimes and atrocities for the thrill of being chased, glory of getting away or they simply love what they do. Then the absolutely vile and pure evil type. These guys simply want chaos and others' destruction and downfall and deserve to be stopped at any cost, no. matter. the. cost!" Derek flashbacks to that lesson as that was the primary lesson after each of his Grandpa's turns, he always laid heavy emphasis on the ending bit. 

Derek came back to reality, he looked at the Muscle still shielding his face in fear. Derek let out a low sigh before knocking the muscle out cold, wanting to be like his father in the papers and stories, he was hesitant, he had the reasoning but not the heart to commit immediately.

"Jail is unforgiving enough." Derek said in his thoughts as that lesson stuck with him.

Derek's heart began to race before he backflipped away and transformed into smoke because he heard the Muscle's other men approach the door. 

A swarm of armed men vigilantly searched the room and checked on their downed pals while Derek was in his smoke form, hidden above in a corner, planning his escape.