Chiron Academy

The moon was high in the sky as a wind blew across the city. A white streak shot across the skyline, accompanied by a shrill yell.

“You can’t possibly think you’ll get away with this,” yelled the streak.

Beneath him, a car sped away, tires screeching as they skidded around a corner. The figure in the sky slowed, giant wings behind him stretching wide to catch the air, then flapping quickly to follow the direction of the car.

“Because it really looks like you think you’ll get away with this,” he continued, a little less confidently. “Y’know, like, just to the untrained eye.”

-----

Inside the car, the roar of the speeding car’s engine was drowned out by a song on the radio.

“-a not so very ordinary girl or name, but who’s to blame-” the song slowly crooned. Its lackadaisical tone clashed harshly with the stress felt within the car.

“Will you shut that off?” shouted a woman in the back seat. “I can’t even hear myself think.”

A man in the passenger seat was hyperventilating, his face consumed with terror. He was a scrawny man, long and thin. His skeletal fingers were racked in a vice-like grip on the door handle.

The driver, a thick set man with a crooked nose, squinted out into the streetlights’ blaring light, trying to pick out the flying man’s frame against the maze of skyscrapers around them.

“This was the wrong night,” the woman in the back seat raved. “I told you that a hundred times. But you said it was a sure thing. You said there was supposed to be minimal security-”

The driver made no response. If he could hear her at all over the chaos in the car, he gave no indication. His eyes were riveted to the road.

Suddenly, the driver swore loudly: headlights from a speeding car were glaring through the windows on the right side of the car.

The driver pulled the e-brake and cranked the steering wheel hard, shifting the car just enough to avoid a collision with two oncoming cars.

They must have run a red light, the woman thought. In all of the excitement, she hadn’t been paying attention. All of her thoughts were directed far above them, focused on the flying man behind them.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he whispered, his eyes scanning frantically for their pursuer in the rearview mirror.

“Do you think they’re gone? The super type?” the woman in the back seat asked. “Did we lose them?”

The driver did not respond. He just continued to swear, quietly under his breath.

The woman looked back through the window looking for any sign of the winged person. She didn’t see it. Him? Whatever it was.

She strained her ears to listen; maybe she could pick out the sound of the giant wings waving in the air.

She wasn’t really sure what she expected giant wings to sound like. Could she hear anything?

All she could hear was the roar of the engine, the ragged breaths of the man in the passenger seat and the slow song that continued to emanate from the car radio.

“-tripped the light and danced together to the moon-” it crooned.

To the woman, it almost seemed to mock the deadly seriousness of the situation. The muttering of the driving served as a counter beat, and the heavy gasps of the man in shotgun drove it almost to a mad symphony.

Seconds passed. There was no sign of the man with wings.

“...Maybe we lost him?” She thought aloud.

Suddenly, a sword stabbed through the roof of the car, its point coming down right between the driver’s and passenger’s seats.

The man in the passenger seat let out a terrified scream, which descended into almost a laugh, wheezing for breath. He cowered in his seat, pushing himself as far as he could from the sword.

The driver’s muttering raised in intensity as he looked around the streets wildly for options to take. He began swerving hard, back and forth, trying to lose anything above them.

The sword seemed to cling in its spot resolutely, not seeming to jar at all despite the rapid movements of the car.

I’m going to die here, thought the woman in the backseat. I might not even make it back to prison. It was funny how that used to seem like the better prospect.

She reached into her jacket and pulled out her gun. It still had a full clip. They hadn’t had to fire any at the bank when they walked in. Their intel had been right: there had been only minor security. Or so they thought...

She aimed the gun right above where the sword had pierced the roof and pulled the trigger. BLAM BLAM BLAM.

"-maybe I was absent or was listening too fast-” the radio continued to blare.

BLAM BLAM, she pulled the trigger again and again.

But didn’t seem to make a difference. The gun should be able make something happen. That’s what guns did: make you powerful. But there was no change from above them. No cry from the super as the bullets tore through him.

The sword stayed resolutely in place. The gun was powerless. She idly wondered that all it seemed to be accomplishing putting bullet holes in the roof.

“-stay. I have learned to lead a life apart from all the rest-”

“Hold onto something!” yelled the driver, calling the woman back to reality.

The woman looked forward just in time to see the curb approaching way much faster than she would like.

Just as suddenly as it had appeared the sword pulled back out from the roof.

KERTOW. The car hit the curb and then bounced up and over it, the body of the car groaning as it shot over the sidewalk into a narrow alleyway.

The alley was tiny, only a few feet wider than the car itself. Its walls were lined with a nondescript brown brick.

The driver hadn’t hit the angle of the angle quite right, leaving the right side of the speeding car grinding against the side of the alleyway. The air was filled with the sound of metal grinding against the brick as the driver scrambled to regain control of the vehicle.

“Slow down!” cried the woman. “You’re going to get us killed!”

The driver violently shook his head.

“If I slow down, that freak catches us,” he yelled. “I’m not going back to prison. You hear me? I’d rather die.

“DO YOU HEAR ME?” he shouted out the window. “I’m not going back!”

The engine roared as he pushed the gas harder and harder, sending them faster and faster down the narrow alley.

--------

High above them, the winged figure looked down on the scene, the car speeding through the tiny alley. He gripped the sword tighter in hand and broke into a dive, shooting downwards, with the sword outstretched in front of him.

--------

The sweat poured down the woman’s back. The man in the passenger seat had now progressed to loud worried moans. The woman felt the same way but made no noise. She gripped the gun harder and wrapped her other hand around the seat belt across her chest. She tried her best to keep her breathing calm but the closest she had gotten was to hold her breath.

This was it. She was sure of it.

Then, a something crashed onto the hood of the car with a loud dull thwack.

Screams erupted everywhere from the car. It seemed the walls were made of screams.

The driver hit the gas harder, putting the pedal all the way to the floor, but no power came from the engine. It managed only a pained wheeze, seeming to match the man in the passenger seat.

He looked up to see the same sword that had been stabbed into the roof, this time stabbed into the hood of the car. And it wasn’t alone.

The grey figure of the winged man was crouched next the sword, his hands wrapped around it for stability. He turned to glance behind him, seeming to want to watch both him and what was in front of the car. The woman in the back seat saw a little splinter of orange a light from a streetlight, indicating the end of the alley approaching.

She watched in horror as the driver pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, ramming the car into the side of the alley. The car erupted in shrill grinding as the metal scraped harshly along the brick wall, but didn’t stop.

The driver pulled the wheel to the left, ramming the car to the other side, then pulled back to the right again. Back and forth, from wall to wall, he rammed the car, wrenching the passengers and the figure on the hood with it. Sparks erupted from the ruined doors with each grinding impact.

The man on the hood pulled his sword out of the hood and brought it back down near the edge of the car. The car jostled bounced a bit then there was a loud thump as if they had run over something big and they were driving on gravel.

The car shifted left. Both sides of the car were now dragging on the different walls. The woman looked back to see the figure perched on the trunk, his sword piercing downwards once again. She could see this time, it had stabbed into the wheel well. He must have popped the tire.

“No, no, no!” yelled the driver, banging the steering wheel helplessly.

The car was definitely slowing down. Down one tire and grinding along both sides of the alley quickly dragged it down to a crawl.

The driver opened his door, looking like he was going to run, only for his face to be met by the fist of the flying man. The driver fell back into his seat, just in time for another fist to reach into the car, this time hitting him in the gut. The driver kicked outwards, hitting the winged man square in the stomach and pushing him back a little. The driver took this opportunity to shove the door open, rising quickly, his hand up ready to fight.

Suddenly, the woman remembered the gun in her hand. She shakily pointed it at the super outside, while reaching her other hand for the door. She swung the door open and she threw herself out of the car, taking position behind the hood.

In the close quarters of the alleyway, the driver and the super type were trading punches. Now that they were not moving fast, she was able to get a good look at the winged figure. He was a tall man, with only a medium build, but he was apparently stronger than he looked. He was going toe to toe with the much larger driver of the car. Not surprising considering his earlier feats.

A man who can fly can be as strong as he wants to be, she thought mutely.

He wore a grey and white jumpsuit, dark round goggles over his eyes and some sort of strap across his back.

She had a hard time aiming her gun. The two men were too close, jostling back and forth, trading punches. She yelled to the man in the passenger seat to come and help. She turned her view over to him just in time to see the mewling man from the passenger seat slam his door and tear down the street toward the end of the alley. She swore loudly.

As she looked back to the driver, she saw the exact moment when the man in the jumpsuit’s fist contacted with the driver’s jaw, sending the man’s head up, and then sent his other fist into the driver’s chest, right below his rib cage. The driver grunted heavily and crumpled to the ground.

The woman froze. Time seemed to slow. The man looked up at her, his body already pushing itself forward towards her. Fear gripped her mind, as her finger stayed paralyzed on the trigger of the very small seeming gun. She remembered prison. She remembered her mom’s disappointed face, inert but sorrowful on the day she had been sentenced. The man grew closer and closer. She just stood there. Finally, her finger closed on the trigger. Then suddenly, everything happened at once.

BLAM went gun, but the man was pushing her arms, throwing her shot off. The bullets harmlessly shooting into the sides of the alley. He was pressing her arms into her chest, the gun aimed harmlessly at the pavement. She shot once or twice more, still not thinking, then dropped the gun.

She saw his fist come in, a haymaker to the right of her head. She threw her left hand up to block it then, punching with her other hand, at his temple as best she could with her shaking arms. It connected. She felt him get thrown off balance. She threw her arms forward into him, pushing him toward the wall. She threw her whole weight behind it, pushing the man as far as she could. She pushed until she could feel him hit the wall, but it wasn’t enough.

She felt him shift his weight, shifting toward her side, his arm coming to wrap around her arms and neck into some sort of a choke hold. She struggled, her arms flailing uselessly, She began to feel a little light-headed, her rapid pulse beginning to slow.

She saw her mother’s face again, framed by the growing blackness behind her eyeballs.

She was dully aware of hitting the ground. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, she was aware of sound around her. Her hands were fastened together behind. Zip-tied. She saw the blue and red light of police cars approaching the alley entrance. Slowly she settled her head back down to the asphalt she was laying on.

The car radio blared on. “-just to say. She had beeeeeen mine fooooor a daaaaaay."

-------

Sgt. Rogers surveyed the scene: A car, trashed. Millions in cash in a bag in the back seat. One man unconscious. A woman, restrained, lying on the ground. It certainly painted a picture, he thought. Not every night you see something like that.

It might have seemed strange ordinarily, but a few details helped make sense of the scene. The quarter inch slash mark across the top of the car. The puncture hole in the back on the far right of the trunk. A deep dent on the hood, indicating whatever had hit was going pretty fast and was pretty big. Ironically, that made the scene a lot more regular.

“What do you think it was?” asked a nearby deputy.

“Flyerman,” responded Sgt. Rogers, matter-of-factly.

“What? Flyerman?” the deputy asked, confused.

Sgt. Rogers handed the gun he had found off to an officer to bag and process.

“Are you from here in Baltimore originally?” He asked.

“Just moved in from Atlanta, sir,” the deputy replied.

Sgt. Rogers nodded.

“In that case,” he said,” I guess I can’t blame you for not knowing. Flyerman is one of our local superhero types. Been operating for a few years. ”

“What makes you so sure,” asked the deputy, eyeing the scene,” that this was... what was his name again?”

“Flyerman,” Sgt. Rogers responded. He pointed casually to the damage on the car.

“I know very few people stab cars with blades that large. Or can dent a hood that severely.”

“Are you serious?” the deputy asked, incredulously.

“Well, that’s kind of his M.O.” Sgt. Rogers explained. “Carries a sword, swoops down on people with these big wings. Kind of strange, I know, but ever since Vectron and Johnny Magma took down the Miami crime syndicate on national television, you see them more and more-”

“No, I understand that,” the deputy said. “We have superheroes back in Atlanta. It’s just... Flyerman? That’s his name. Really?”

“Yeah, insane, right?” replied the detective, shaking head. “Only a person who would do what they do would pick some of the names I’ve heard these guys call themselves.”

Still, all things considered...

He surveyed the scene around him: Armed bank robbery. Speeding car in a densely populated area.

It had a lot of potential to go wrong. But Flyerman, he’d got it all with no injured civilians. All of the perps a bit busted up, but otherwise pretty unharmed. Not a bad job. He smiled.

“All right,” he yelled over the din of the scene. “Let’s wrap this up, folks. Some of us have a family to get to.”