• A train rolls by the valleys and hillside of the landscape. Inside a young woman stares outside her window as the various towns and forest pass her by without a care in the world. She sighed as she passed another small town, as it reminded her of her own home that she had left behind.

    The girl turned her aqua eyes to the letter which sat next to her and brushed aside some of her curly blond hair as she placed her reading glasses upon her face to once again go over the letter which she had received only a month ago.

    “Ms. Olivia Pesca.” it said. It was a form letter, which held her name. She knew how the legal world worked, or at least she hoped to learn a bit more of it. She continued to read after passing this thought through her head. “Due to your academic excellence, you have been invited to join some of the most prestigious training grounds of higher learning, Claws University. Enjoy our beautiful and highly equipped campus by attending our open house and make sure to check out our new living arrangements next to downtown Mavrigo.”

    “Mavrigo” she said to herself, sitting back and leaning on her seat. “Such an odd name for such a big city.” Mavrigo was far from her home; far from the simple life of her nearly rural hometown.

    She didn’t consider herself a country bumpkin, but she knew she was in over her head. That’s why she was glad that she had relatives that lived in the city. She never actually met these relatives, but she knew they were happy to hear that she planned to stay while she took a look at the college.

    She had heard good things about this University, and the fact that it had offered her a substantial scholarship was like music to her ears, or like the soft rhythmic rocking of the sea.

    That was another thing she was looking forward to. Olivia lived in the heartland and never went anywhere near the ocean in her life. She wondered if it would be like anything she had heard from the media. She looked up again, knowing that the trip would be overnight and that she still had a way to go before arriving at her destination.

    “Hopefully my cousin will be able to get to the station on time. I wouldn’t want to be alone in a city.” With that passing thought, she closed her eyes and imagined the ocean once again.

    [hr][/hr]

    “I’m telling you, this is going to be big.”

    “You’re joking, right? That will never work”

    Young Jeffrey Travers was sitting on a small elevated wall next to a house by the alleyway, reading up on an article he had found while browsing the internet on the house’s connection. Meanwhile, his two friends were discussing the finer points of their delusions of grandeur. He peeked his young eyes over the top of his laptop and scratched a bit at his messy hair as he watched them.

    Spencer Myers was stretching a bit as he listened to the ringleader of the group, Andrew Goh, relate a plan he had. Spencer was seventeen years old, but was like an older brother to Jeffrey, whom they called “J.T.” The older teen was the fighter of their little group, always trying to look tough by walking around wearing a black leather jacket unbuttoned to show off his muscles to the ladies. He constantly seemed to need to exercise as if he felt that his whole body would atrophy if he didn’t work out whenever he could. He wore his hair a bit longer than most men would, and seemed like a pretty boy more than a tough guy.

    Andrew was a bit different. He was the organizer, the one with all of the plans. He really seemed to stand out from the rest of the crowd, what with his purple hair that seemed to stick out in a sort of odd way. He also looked like a billboard of sorts, wearing only shirts with logos on them. He seemed to think things were too plan.

    As for J.T, he was the analytical brains. If there was a plan the three would try to do, he was usually the one to make them. What exactly was it their little group tried to accomplish?

    “Make it Big!’ Andrew shouted, stretching his arms to the sky. “This is a large city and we are only three people living in it. Gentlemen…by the time we finish my master plan, we will be the most recognized faces in all of Mavrigo city.”

    Spencer began to do some squats and laughed at his grandiose friend. “Listen, pal” he began, pausing to catch up with his breathing. “There’s nothing” pause “we can do” pause “to make it big” pause “at this time.”

    “Oh really?” Andrew began “What if we were to…” he reached into his jeans pocket with a sort of dramatic air about him before pulling out a newspaper clipping “catch a notorious thief?”

    Spencer stood up and snatched the paper from his “leader’s” hand. “Hm…local antiquities dealers robbed of priceless collectibles. Tch, you want to help some old people find their older things?” He tossed the article back to Andrew, who caught it and straightened it out a bit.

    “You know, if the older generation gets to know us as heroes, we could have their younger relatives appreciate us as well.” He looked at the article and began to read. “Mrs. Carlson, the owner of the most recent store robbed, is worried that her business will do bad. She tells reporters that her nineteen-year-old granddaughter needs constant care due to a rare disease that keeps her weakened and in bed most of the time.”

    Spencer paused and thought about this. “Nineteen huh?”

    Andrew nodded “yep.”

    “Got pictures?”

    Andrew pulled out another piece of paper from his pocket. It was the picture that matched with the article. Spencer snatched it from his friend and took a look. The image showed an old woman and a younger woman looking sad as police investigated the antique shop behind them. Taking a look at the girl, Spencer whistled.

    “Well then, boss” he said, handing back the paper. “What do you suppose we do?”

    Andrew deposited the papers back into his pocket and began to speak, when a song started playing from his other pocket. “Oh excuse me” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cell phone. Looking at the name on it, he sighed and flipped the phone open and put it to his ear. “Hello.” He paused as the person on the other side began to talk. “Yeah…uh huh…alright.”

    J.T. and Spence looked at him with curiosity.

    “Guys” he said, putting his phone back into his pocket. “That was my mom. I gotta pick up my cousin from the train station tomorrow. This is going to be boring.”

    Spencer pumped his fist in a motion to get his friend to think better. “Hey man, we can still investigate a bit tonight. C’mon man! You can’t show me a hot girl in distress and then bail out on us before we come with a plan.”

    Andrew smiled and turned toward J.T. “Alright then, let’s do this thing!” he paused then asked. “What are you reading there, anyway?”

    J.T turned the laptop toward the others. “I’m reading an article about the new museum exhibit on the recent archeological dig out in the desert. They say that they have found some interesting artifacts that may show how civilized and advanced the ancient peoples were.”

    The two looked at the monitor with mild interest, then Andrew stood up and shrugged. “Whatever. That stuff was never really my field of interest.” He began to walk out of the alleyway as he spoke to his companions. “Come on guys, we have a thief to catch.”

    [hr][/hr]

    It was nearly day and the museum had been closed for hours. The previous day, the workers had been busy setting up the new exhibit that was to be opened later in the week. Because of the fragile and valuable nature of the artifacts, the security of the building was upped considerably.

    On one of his rounds, a guard patrolled near the centerpiece of the exhibit. It was a small crown-like object that could fit into one’s palm. The guard looked at hit and shook his head, wondering how such a little thing could be so important. He decided not to think too much about it and instead moved over toward the keypad and entered his security code. In a matter of moments, the motion sensors around the artifact were deactivated and he was able to reach inside and take the artifact with ease. He stuffed it into his pocket and headed towards the last stop of his rounds, the back exit.

    When he arrived, he pulled out the strange crown-shaped artifact and held it out. A low laugh was heard from what seemed to be a voice concealed by electronic means.

    “Excellent work, my friend” the laughing voice spoke as a robed figure stepped out of the shadows into the light of the street lamp. His robes were a dark blue color and helped conceal him in the night. He also wore a pointed wizard’s hat which bent backwards from a fold in the middle. His strange voice was the result of a device he wore to cover his face. It resembled something like a gas mask and kept his true identity a secret, as well as protected him from the effects of his own malicious activities.

    The guard handed the robed man the artifact, and the man slowly took it in his gloved hands. “Here you go, Master Poison.” The guard spoke in a near monotonous tone. “It was easy to take for you.”

    Poison looked at the guard with what could be understood as a harsh glare. “I hate that name. Poison. The media hyped that one up for me and now everyone calls me that. I am an alchemist and a chemist and a mixer of many potions, such as the mind-control potion I slipped into your morning coffee while you were on break.”

    The guard stood there like a silent statue as Poison continued to ramble on, beads of sweat were forming on his brow as the villain continued to speak. Suddenly, in the middle of his monologue, the guard’s eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he collapsed on the floor.

    “And I suppose that’s why they call me Poison then. It is unfortunate that I can’t seem to make a single concoction without harming my victims. Oh well, that’s one less witness to my crime.” He tilted back and laughed maniacally, but was interrupted when something whizzed by him.

    Poison jumped in surprise as the object landed in the ground. It was long and rectangular. The black strip stuck to the pavement of the street, covering the small bit of ground with its blackness. Poison turned toward the direction of which the projectile was thrown and made a gasp of shock.

    “You should know better than to do things like this out in the open where the general populace can see them.” A voice from the shadows spoke. Soon the voice’s owner jumped down from the roof and landed in the light.

    He was a caped man wearing a bright green shirt with the letter “C” emblazoned on the chest. Over his head was a helmet which held a visor that covered his eyes. The hero was hunched over in an imposing way, like a terrible defender of the weak and punisher of the unjust. This caused the villain to step back a few paces in fear.

    As the Poisoner stepped back, the hero jumped up and started yelping. “Oh owow that smarts my leg my leg ahhhh!”

    The strange alchemist froze, unsure what was going on. “Um…what the heck are you?”

    The strange hero was standing, hoping on one leg while holding the injured one. He stopped and looked up at his adversary before coughing and standing in a heroic pose. “I am the defender of the innocent and the weak. The one who saves the innocent from the corrupt influence of the world. Defender of innocence and goodness of children everywhere! I am Censorman!”

    “C-Censorman!” Poison responded, reaching within his robes discreetly, pulling out a vial. “There’s no way that I can fight against a skilled hero of your caliber. In fact, I’d think it would be better off if I ran!” he quickly threw the vial and Censorman dodged it.

    Quickly he noticed that the vial was heading toward the fallen guard. Censorman threw his arm out toward the unconscious man and a black strip flew from beneath his sleeve, knocking the vial out of the way. It found its way onto the wall of the museum, the acid inside spilling and melting the wall away.

    Censorman turned to confront the assailant, but was surprised to see that he had run away. “You won’t get away from me!” He said, pressing a button on the side of his helmet. A slight hum could be heard as his visor lit up. “With my abilities, I can see where the malefactor has left for. He won’t get away for long!”

    After locating the trail of Poison, Censorman ran forward and fell flat on his face. ‘Gah, stupid leg!”

    Poison had made it to a bridge on the highway. He panted and held onto his mask. He felt along his pockets to see if he was still holding onto the artifact. He still was. The sun was beginning to rise and he knew he had to escape before that hero would find him. He turned as he heard footsteps and groaned when he saw the injured hero hobble toward him.

    “Hey you! Stop!” The injured hero cried as he tried to catch up with the thief.

    “You’ll never stop me, boy!” Poison called as he looked over the bridge and turned to continue running. Censorman responded by throwing another strip toward the escaping robber.

    The alchemic enemy tripped over his own robes, falling to the ground before the strip could hit him. Unfortunately, it continued along its trajectory and hit the windshield of an oncoming car. Blinded, the driver swerved in order to try to avoid the downed criminal, but he was able to roll out of the way quickly.

    Unfortunately where he rolled there was no more roads and he was able to fit under the guardrails. With a scream, he began to plummet to the ground.

    Censorman jumped from the side of the bridge after seeing this and started to fall down with the unfortunate soul. Holding both of his hands out, the super was able to launch a large black square that spread itself between two buildings. The tangled target landed on it as if it were a trampoline, but Censorman was not so lucky. He found himself falling down straight toward the train station.

    [hr][/hr]

    “Attention passengers, we will be arriving in the Mavrigo Station momentarily.” Olivia woke up and stretched, looking out of her window and gazing at the cityscape. She felt awe and worry. This was the start of a new life for her in a big city, and she had never been alone in such a large and imposing place. Hopefully she would be able to meet her cousin soon and he will be able to show her around the city.

    “Attention Passengers” the voice continued “please gather your luggage and leave in an orderly manner. We have arrived in our destination.” Olivia sighed and got her suitcase, stepping out into the new city that she may be calling home.

    That’s when Censorman crashed through the ceiling of the station and landed right in front of her.

    [hr][/hr]

    Andrew was sleeping soundly in his bed, the covers falling off of the bed and his clocked knocked over from the previous night when he had stumbled in only a few hours ago in an attempt to set it for some important date he had or keep or something. Soon the full-blast of the sun’s rays hit the room and the young man stirred a bit uncomfortably. His eyes fluttered open and he stretched in bed, sitting up, still half asleep.

    “Was there something I was supposed to be doing today?” He thought to himself, unsure about something. He looked over at a note board on the wall that read “Pick up Cousin at 6:00AM. He looked over toward where the clock was and noticed that it was nowhere to be seen.

    He saw that his clock was on the ground and he causally lifted up, seeing that it was knocked out of place and had reset itself. He placed his hand on his forehead and breathed deeply. “Oh wow I need to not stay up so late.”

    He put his hand down then leaned forward and picked up his pants from yesterday. Reaching into their pockets, Andrew pulled out his cell phone and turned it on. He could feel his eyes slowly moving back shut when he looked at the time. “8:30 huh? That’s nice.”

    The boy jumped up and his eyes shot open. “8:30! Crap I’m so freaking late my mom’s gonna kill me!” Quickly he scrambled to put on some clothes.

    After about five minutes, Andrew was out the door and running down toward the railroad station.

    “Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap!” He panted as he sprinted down the sidewalk. This was not going to be good if his mom found out that he let something bad happen to his cousin.

    As he turned around the corner, he slammed face-first into someone, falling backwards into the ground. The man he collided with dropped whatever he was holding and Andrew could hear something fall into a nearby sewer drain.

    “No!” The strangely masked voice cried at the loss of whatever it was that fell.

    Andrew rubbed his head and apologized. He then looked upward and looked in shock as he saw Poison looking over the sewer drain. “Oh crap.”

    Poison turned toward him and reached within his robe. “You little brat, how dare you do that. Do you know how long it took me to get that? All of the planning and plotting gone to waste!”

    Andrew’s eyes moved around a bit. He knew that hardly anyone passed through this part of the road during this time of day, so finding anyone to help him was nearly impossible. He was alone. “Look man, I didn’t know, I wasn’t looking where I was going.” He tried backing up, crawling on the ground.

    “Oh well you will wish you would have when I burn out your eyes with this powerful acid!” He pulled out a vial and shook it threateningly. Andrew turned and tried to get up when Poison reached out and grabbed him, pulling him toward the villain facing away. “Now hold still you little cretin!”

    Andrew tried to get out of the alchemist’s grip, but he couldn’t. He looked up in fear as the vial was slowly turned toward his face and knew that he was not going to survive this intact. At the last moment, he closed his eyes and prepared for the worst.

    Just as he thought that he was going to feel excruciating pain in his face, he felt a rumbling beneath his feet. Also feeling this strange tremor, Poison lifted the vial and looked around. “An earthquake? That’s impossible!”

    As he was trying to solve this phenomenon, a metallic hand burst through the cement by the malefactor’s ankle and grabbed it. This caused him to jump in fright and drop the acid.

    Andrew was able to break free of his captor’s grasp and turn around to view the scene in a morbid curiosity. Soon more and more ground was cracking and the form of some kind of golden robot rose from the ground. Its eyes glowed red and looked like some kind of LED lights. On its head it wore a spiked crown and looked to be wearing some kind of crazy battle armor.

    The robot was pushing itself through the ground using some kind of propulsion on its feet, as Andrew saw as it lifted up through the hole in the ground. Since it was holding onto the ankle of the strange robed man, he was flipped upside down with his outfit moving up to cover his face. Underneath he seemed to wear some normal clothing.

    Various beakers and vials fell from the robes as he tried to escape. “What’s going on? Somebody save me! Ahh!”

    It was then that the robot spoke. “You have brought judgment to this world through your deeds. You have doomed your home.”

    The poisoner pulled one last vial and moved a bit of robe out of his way. He tossed it and hit the corner supporting a dumpster. Apparently its brakes were not working properly and needed something to stop it from rolling away. Now the acid melted away the blocker and the large dumpster rolled toward the robot.

    The robot was too concerned speaking with the nearly helpless man to notice any of his bids for escape. The dumpster ran into the robot and began to push it. Noticing this annoyance, the robot turned and pushed it out of the way. At this point, Poison was able to free himself and run away. “I’ll get you later, boy!” he vowed as he ran across the street.

    The robot turned and chased off after Poison, running along the ground. It was its luck that a large truck was moving along the street. Without looking, the strange metallic being rushed across the street but was struck by the eighteen-wheeler, sending fragments of metal scattered everywhere.

    Andrew stood in silent wonder at this insane scene. “What the heck just happened?” he thought to himself. He looked and saw that most of the robot remained intact, but it appeared to be busted. The teen slowly approached the broken metal in the street and pulled it back into the alleyway.

    Propping the strange metal man on the wall, he looked at it in more detail. Its head was somewhat of an elliptical shape with a black space for its eyes, but with no place for its mouth. Its body was comprised of two sections for its torso and waist, connected in the middle by some kind of middle plate for its abdomen. Its joints were like little balls attached to its shoulders, waste, knees, and elbows and he imagined it would be the same for its wrists and ankles, if it still didn’t have bits of armor on it. It was all a bright yellow color that looked somewhat golden in the sunlight.

    As he was inspecting this odd machine, he noticed that on its chest was imprinted the letters “M.A.V.”

    He looked at the robot for a good amount of time, then stood up and folded his arms, as if thinking deeply. He then came up with an idea and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to call the others. He smiled as his mind raced.

    He had found his ticket to fame.

    [hr][/hr]

    “Are you alright?”

    Censorman opened his eyes slowly and could see some blurry figures around him. His eyes adjusted to waking up and he saw a girl kneeling beside him, looking at him with worry. Quickly he moved his head to his helmet and sighed in relief for a moment. He then looked over at her and a few other people who were gathered around him. “You didn’t find out my identity, did you?”

    Olivia, the girl beside Censorman, looked a bit confused. “Your identity? I don’t even know what you were doing wearing that weird costume and falling through the roof!”

    A man added. “You almost flattened the poor girl.

    The downed hero turned his gaze back to her and a slight rosy tint escaped through his cheeks. “Oh…oh I’m sorry. I was chasing a villain you see and-” with that thought, he jumped up in a heroic pose just before bending over in pain. “Ok, so maybe I should go rest a bit.” Holding his back, the humiliated masked man walked toward the exit to the train platform.

    Olivia stood up and watched him walk off of the platform in some kind of awed interest. As if to herself, she asked “Who was that?”

    The man next to her responded to her question. “That’s Censorman, the local ‘super hero. He usually winds up doing more harm than good though. I’m surprised he hasn’t been arrested yet.”

    “Super hero? We never had one of those back home.” It was then she realized that she had to meet with her cousin.

    Olivia picked up her suitcase and ran down the stairs to the outside of the train station. Looking around for her cousin, she did not find anyone matching his description anywhere. “Oh, this isn’t good” she thought to herself as she looked at all of the busy people walking around the city street.