A New Challenger Approaches!

So the night after I had some stimulating conversation with an old friend, I was going through local news. I always check the police beat section, for obvious reasons, and I came across this little gem.

The other morning, a young girl was found in the bedroom of her boyfriend, Nicholas Freeman, dead. She had blood coming out of her ears, nose, and mouth. The paper from yesterday said that the autopsy revealed her brain had essentially been expanded, then like, melted.

Crushed into goop, almost.

Nicholas was missing, and has been since. The only thing he took with him before he disappeared was his electric guitar and his amplifier.

I don't know much, but I do know a new super villain when I see one.

I've been going on patrol the last few nights, and haven't come across any leads. I helped an old woman get her bedroom window shut, and I gave a middle school bully a noogie for picking on some fat kid.

Don't pick on the fat kids, especially when the super hero in your town was the fat kid that got picked on in school.

So anyway, I'm out on patrol tonight, and I'm getting a little chilled, so I swing into the Huck's on 15th street to warm up and maybe grab something to drink. Walking into a business late at night in costume is one of my favorite things to do. I grabbed a can of Soup At Hand and a Red Bull and threw the soup in the dingy microwave over by the coffee pots.

The cashier is this guy about my age. I've been in here tons of times out of costume, and he's always really cool about things. I always think he's flirting with me, though, which is cool. I mean, to each his own, and female or not, it's always flattering. He's staring at me with his mouth open, gawking at me like I'm some kind of six-armed space octopus man. Come on. Haven't you seen a man with an eyepatch before?

I love this way too much. I try to hide that I'm grinning. I bet he's scared out of his mind.

The microwave beeps and I take my soup up to the counter.

"That going to be all for you?"

"Yeah."

"You're not..."

"I am."

"Should I um... I don't know... Be worried?"

"No, I'm just getting something to warm up."

"Yeah, freezing out there... are you like... worried about me calling the cops?"

"Think it would do you any good? I'd just knock you out and steal this stuff instead of paying for it."

"I wasn't going to call anyway. I think what you do is, like, pretty cool."

I suddenly hear sirens approaching. That bastard!!

"You didn't trip the silent alarm, didja?"

"N-no! I said I wasn't going to call the cops!"

I'm starting to get mad, but lucky for the cashier, the squad car whizzes by the gas station without slowing down.

"Oh! That's my cue! Keep the change." I slam a 10 down on the counter and take off before he can say anything else to me, running, but not so fast I spill my soup.

It's really cold out here.

The squad cars stop outside of a house in the North End. The cops I followed in were just more to add to the four cars that are already here. Something big's going down. Among the cop cars is a firetruck two ambulances. I'm sitting on the roof of a house down the block and across the street, drinking my cream of broccoli and sipping Red Bull. My police scanner tells me it's a suicide. Cops pour in and out of the house. I overhear one saying "Damndest thing, we can't find what he did it with."

I notice a light shining on the tree in the back yard, so I quietly move to a house across the alleyway, keeping my distance until I'm there.

Two officers are standing in the bedroom in the back. Band posters line the walls, most of which I've never heard. All the people in the posters have long black hair and tight pants. That's why I haven't heard of them. That crap sucks.

One cop says to the other "You haven't touched anything?"

"Nothing, man."

"He had to use something. I mean, he didn't CHEW through his wrists, did he?"

The two clueless heroes kick around in the room for a while as I formulate my own theory. This was no suicide.

It was murder.

And how did I come to that conclusion?

I can hear the cops so well from outside because the bedroom window is open. When the officers talk, I can see their breath come out in plumes of steam.

I've got a lead.

Eat your heart out, Batman.