Powerhouse

[Flare Knight]

Table of Contents

• Introduction.....[goto=EOD]Down this page[/goto]
  I saw this thing on TV....

page 1
Powerhouse's History Pt 1....Page 2
Powerhouse's History Pt 2....Page 3
Powerhouse's History Pt 3....Page 4
Powerhouse's History Pt 4....Page 5
Powerhouse's History Pt 5....Page 6
Powerhouse's History Pt 6....Page 7
Birthday Party....Page 8

[anchor]EOD[/anchor]

12/16/10

So...I just got this journal today. It's pretty nice looking, and it's...nice to be able to write as Powerhouse, instead of as Tim. I've been meeting so many new people these days, like that I wanted to be able to record them, so I don't forget. If the Chosen find me, maybe I'll be able to bring this back with me. It would be...nice. To get to read about my friends if I have to go back there. But in the efforts of protecting people, I can't tell you anything about them, not really. Not their names, or their uniforms, or anything. Hopefully I can get just enough across that I'll be able to remember them, and THEY won't be able to figure out who they are. If I screw up, and they manage to find everyone, I'll just go ahead now and say I'm sorry. If you aren't after me, and you're reading this without my permission, I'd appreciate if you'd put this down. Thanks.

I'm gonna try to keep this updated as much as possible, but I'm not sure how often 'as much as possible' is.

Freedom City seems like a nice place for me to live though. It's comfortable to live in this place, where there are so many fully fledged Heroes who make sure the streets are safe. I'm a bit wary of really doing any heroics, but it's not like the City really needs them, so it's more for my personal comfort, I suppose. I can't help but look up at the sky whenever someone flies past though.

[Flare Knight]

12/17/10

So I was watching TV earlier, which is such a fun thing to do! I can't believe I'd never gotten to watch one before! And I saw this show about a guy who ran around asking heroes a lot of questions. I figured it would be fun if I did those in here too. I think. Oddly, after doing this, I feel asleep, and now there's two or three questions in here I don't remember doing, but I don't want to erase them, they seem to fit.

1. Where is your hero from?

Yellow Forest. According to my map, I think it's near New York.

2. How would your hero physically describe him/herself? Is this different from how others would?

I have blond Hair and blue eyes. I'm not too buff though, which I always thought were so weird. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get any thicker.

3. Does your hero have distinguishing speech characteristics or recurring mannerisms?

People say I have a bad habit of only reacting to stuff, instead of doing things I think I should do. I don't think that's right.

4. What is your hero's motivation?

To be a Hero. I mean, it's really simple, isn't it? I want to do the right thing.

5. What are your hero's greatest strengths and weaknesses?

I'm really strong. Like...REALLY strong. But that's all I can do. So, I guess I'm one giant weakness other then being strong. Magnets, really strong ones, cause me to get stupider though.

6. What does your hero love? What does your hero hate?

I like Drawing, but I don't know if I Love it. I HATE the people from Yellow Forest. They were mean.

7. How would you describe your character's mental and emotional state?

Powerhouse is severely stunted mentally and emotionally. He lacks almost any sense of Self-Worth and has trouble doing anything without direct orders. At best, he could be trusted to hit things if ordered, but more precise orders might require constant supervision. Emotionally, Powerhouse has little to no concept of gratitude, as he's had no need to develop it. This does, however, also cause him to label even the smallest things extremely good, such as finding a penny on the ground

8. What does your hero fear the most?

Being found by Yellow Forest.

9. What is your character's greatest ambition?

Becoming a Hero on the same level as the Centurion, and being free of Yellow Forest.

10. How does your hero feel about the state of the world and his/her place in it?

Powerhouse doesn't really understand the world, having lived in a small, controlled environment for his entire life. He assumes his place is to be a Hero, and nothing else, but doesn't necessarily feel bad about such a scope. In his ideas, that's just how the world works

11. Does your hero have any prejudices? How does he/she get along with others?

Powerhouse isn't really prejudiced, against anyone, due to not understanding the idea. He usually gets along decently with other people, mostly because he does exactly as they ask without question. If they don't like that, then probably not.

12. Where do your heroes loyalties lie? In what order?

Powerhouse is only really loyal to doing what he thinks is good, and to those people who he's 'adventured' with and calls friends. His loyalty, however, is to whatever he thinks is good first, then his friends.

13. Does your hero have a lover or partner? How do they feel about the hero now?

No. Powerhouse has never even had a crush on someone, much less an actual lover.

14. Does your hero have a family? What is the relationship there like?

Though he has parents, Powerhouse doesn't even realize they exist, and has no relationship with them. While Yellow Forest could be called 'his family', his relationship with them is one of him being terrified and them wanting him back.

15. How would the people closest to your hero describe him or her?

I don't really have anyone close to me. I have friends, but I don't know if those count.

16. Is your hero a role model?

Powerhouse's use as a Role-model could be overcoming something that has been a problem a person's entire life, but even that might be a stretch, if it was even found out. His lack of creative thought makes him unlikely to be use as a mental role-model, however.

17. How spiritual is your hero? Does your hero follow a religious tradition?

No. Powerhouse's only 'tradition' is 'Worship the Chosen', which he has been trying to abandon as much as possible, but it's only working enough to turn them into nightmares driven by his own terror, creating his own larger-then-life demons

18. Is your hero part of a team, or would he/she like to be? Why?

I'm not part of a team, but I'd LOVE to be part of one! To have a bunch of people that I can rely on when the going gets tough and that can rely on me would be great! I want to be a part of every team ever!

19. How does your hero feel about the place of metahumans and aliens on Earth?

Being a Metahuman himself, though through Genetic experimentation, and having spent time with an alien, even if he wasn't very nice, and doesn't much care if a person is or isn't human or from earth. Even if the treatment he got from the Alien and Metahumans or regular humans with super intelligence was bad, it was consistent, showing that everyone's roughly the same. Now that he's in Freedom City, where Good Aliens and Metahumans run around too, he knows that all the groups are pretty much capable of anything.

20. If you could give one piece of advice to your hero, what would it be?

Powerhouse needs to stop doing only as asked, stop fearing the Chosen, and do what he thinks is right, instead of what he's been taught/forced to consider. He needs to spend some time really thinking about what he wants to do, and go from there. He might end up at the same result, but instead of just going with the flow, it would end up with him deciding what he wants to do.

[Flare Knight]

So, Over the next few entries, I'm going to be writing about how I got here. It's a bit dry, but I think it had to be done, otherwise, what's the point of this entire journal? I don't...really want to think about this stuff from being me, so...I suppose I'll just right as if Powerhouse is someone else.

__________________________________________________

To say that Powerhouse’s Parents were lucky is, word-wise, true, but it’s like saying someone whose house was on fire was lucky it was in foreclosure. His parents, lower-middle class Americans, entered a lottery for expecting mothers, that they would be treated with great care in exchange for signing a few small papers, sponsored by a small corporation named GenecticCorp. They won, and when the child was born, the contract bit them. The stipulations stated that if the child was born healthy, it had to be put up for adoption in a special facility, owned by GeneticCorp. Of course, with this, the Company had completely control of the child, and the parents were left with no child, but with enough money to live.

Then the fun began, or, fun for everyone else. Unknown to anyone, GCorp had a team of Superheroes they used for Research, called The Chosen; Cherubim, Ophanim, Dominion, Virtue, Power, Principality, Metatron. Each hero had a different set of powers; each one was a master of their own powers. Dominion was a master of elements, able to blister with a flaming blizzard or chill with a freezing blaze; Principality was an alien with modified physical abilities, faster than light. Cherubim was a living conduit of radiation, able to do almost anything with his massive powers, Virtue and Power were two twins, Virtue rivaled Einstein, and built a suit as strong as any to move in, capable of stunning defense, incredible offense, and even rapid speed all at once, and Power was able to tap into a Primal Urge and turn into beasts, master of them all and able to turn into a Demonic ‘Battle Form’ with flight, strength, and even growing and shrinking, Ophanim was a master Mage, so advanced that he did not even have to speak and gesture to cast his spells, simply think of them, and they came into existence, and Metatron, Metatron was the greatest of them all, with control of gravity, and simply enhanced genetics, granting her so many abilities it would be nigh-impossible to list them all, but among her most powerful were her strength, her endurance, and speed. The Chosen never fought, and was never even known to exist. They were born, and then trained extensively until their powers reached their absolute maximums, and that was it. These people were drained of their DNA, of their own will, and it was then implanted into the bodies of those women who had won the lottery. Any child who came out wrong was left, and any good child was taken by GCorp and sent to an orphanage, where the children learned basic schooling skills such as math or science, while being watched 24/7 just in case any powers were shown to emerge, when they swept down and took them off to Yellow Forest.

The Corp itself was unsure as to what child had what DNA, as all 7 are placed inside a subject’s body at differing intervals. As the children came to them, they were tested for their abilities. Those who were quickly identified as having powers based on one of the Chosen were shunted into a training camp- though it was more of a military school, as it wasn’t that bad, if they never noticed that everyone in the nearby town of Yellow Forest was actually a scientist working for GCorp- where they received more injections of that Chosen’s DNA while learning to use their powers. The camp was not as a standard military camp. The students learned to listen to authority and to never question it, trained with their powers almost daily, were forced to work together, slept in bunks, but did get weekends off. However, survival was not taught- because it would cause them to be independent- and History and English were heavily censored and modified, removing all mention of Superheroes, Freedom City, and anything else where supers had permeated. In this way the children were raised on a sub-par and mostly worthless set of history where they had no idea other people with powers even existed. Even the weekends off were severely censored without the students even being aware. Comics, particularly those of heroes, were never brought into Yellow Forest, and any item which ran a promotion based on heroes was quickly shunted away. Beyond that, leaving the boundaries of Yellow Forest was forbidden, and those who did cross the boundaries found themselves stopped by the police, who quickly escorted them back to their barrack. It was not something that bothered the children, because they didn’t know any better.

_____________________________

And that's our setting point. Next pages will detail more information.

[Flare Knight]

______

Not every child who came out without a deformed body and gained powers was immediately sent to Yellow Forest, however. Those who had powers but could not be identified- for example, being able to lift up 500 pounds, moving fast, but with no flight ability, had their abilities narrowed down to three of the Chosen, then they were locked up as roughly normal children, while being given the DNA of all three likely candidates, no matter who they were. This had a higher death rate then the training camps- even if the camps often suffered power-meltdowns taking out as many as thirty children at once from a single child of Cheribum turning into a bomb and annihilating a building because they got annoyed- because mixing 3 different power abilities into one person didn’t work very well due to the different areas where they came from, because, as it turned out, trying to mix a naturally born gravity controller with a hyper-advanced alien while simultaneously throwing in radiation ends up having more explosions then combinations of powers . The children that survived this brand of torture and experimentation, eventually, displayed only a single set of powers by ‘accidents’ always conveniently happening at a time where the child either had to use one particular power, or die. Those lucky children who managed to get out of the triple injection phase fast enough displayed little in the way of side-effects- for the first few years, at least- and were sent to join their peers, being deficient to them in all ways, however; they had to work to make their powers better, because they had not received any training, but also had to work on their grasp of the heavily censored English and history they were being taught, because the ‘orphanage’ did not teach it.

However, one child, and only one, survived the triple injection phase without showing only one power. This child was limited down to just two possible powers, either he was a radiation conduit with severely restricted explosive powers, like Cherubim, or, more fortuitously, he was a gravity being like Metatron. Metatron’s DNA had resulted in no viable test subjects, for while students had, at times, shown those traits, they always died rapidly, not to the power troubles of the others, for even at their weakest, it took the full power of Cherubim to even scratch them, or even to their own powers, they just, died, for no reason that anyone could find. To have even a single Meta-Child would be a stroke of incredible fortune when this child had already shown to be so resilient that even triple injections for five years could not put him down. However, they couldn’t rightfully place him in the Metatron School- it’s curriculum had flight Sections he couldn’t do, and he wasn’t near as strong, proportionally, as Metatron was, - and they couldn’t rightly just put him as a person with special privileges would breed dislike and anger- so instead they kept him in a single area, a personal School, and trained him.

This child slept with the others, walked with the others, and went to the town with the others, but he was shunned for being weak and making no sense in his powers, plus his education was different. Because they were unsure if he really was a Metatron, they continued to give him Cherubim injections, though they slowly increased the Metatron Dose. He almost always had Classes by himself, for he had spent 10 years in the orphanage, while most children only stayed for 5, so he was very much behind, meaning faster learning of the butchered history and English as the others, and his lessons on his powers were often taught not by lecturers or former Army Men, but by the Chosen Themselves.

________________

And that's how our little soldier began his career, already an outcast.

[Flare Knight]

To him, the Chosen were not just teachers or guides, but they were something close to friends, alongside their portrayal in their studies as beings who should forever be admired, beyond the concerns of all. Whenever his ‘history’ and math were over, he could always count on someone who was actually interesting coming to see him, even if they weren’t always fun. His interactions with the Chosen were as varied as they themselves were. Dominion would amuse him with displays of his manipulation powers, summoning rains of fire and blazes of water with waves of his hands, and was generally more of an older-brother then a teacher, though he did make sure he worked, the load was light in comparison, only with almost impossible goals instead of completely impossible. Principality was the opposite, a fierce taskmaster who seemed constantly disappointed with the child, making him push himself to the limit every day without even the tiniest break, pushing the boy until he couldn’t move, then making him get up and do it more. Every instance of Principality was focused on running, but while it was second nature to the alien, the boy could only barely put one foot in front of the other, and it was obvious that the alien only grew more and more infuriated with the child as he proved incapable of doing more. Virtue was a scientist, and she showed it. She never taught the boy anything, only made him lay down on a cold table and preformed test after test, the only time her eyes were ever shown under the suit she always wore was when her eyes glinted off a computer screen as test results the boy never saw were printed out by the computer screen, and her constant muttering under her breath about the ‘anamoly’. Power, Virtue’s brother, was almost as bad as Principality, but he focused on power. He would force the boy to do constant reps or squats, always in a position that was not the easiest, and forcibly corrected the boy when he made a mistake, often with his burly fist. The boy would often emerge from those lessons sporting several new bruises. Cherubim’s lessons were nice, but oddly so. The radioactive being taught harshly, focusing on the applications of his powers- just what could be done by having super-strength, besides punching things hard- but to say he was anything but fair would be a lie, as he offered as many compliments as corrections, but his every action seemed tinged with disappointment, not the constant , carless disappointment of Principality, but more that, sometime in the past, the boy had so horribly disappointed Cherubim that he could never possibly do enough to make up for his mistakes to the man, and it made the boy feel bad, because if he called the Chosen his family, Dominion was his older brother who always looked out for him, Principality was his Perfectionist Uncle, Virtue would be his scientist sister who didn’t really seem to care and spent more time locked in her lab then outside, Power was a Bodybuilder cousin, and Cherubim could almost be his father. He never really thought of them like that, but when he would amuse himself during the day without them around, he’d usually think like that, just to keep himself distracted. But, as much as the other Chosen were not his family despite him sometimes thinking about them like it to classify them, Metatron could not be described as anything other than Motherly to the child, usually, and doting at her most motherly. Whenever the older woman entered the room, she inquired at length about the child’s day, about his week, and how everyone was treating him- he would say fine, of course-. This amount of care had not been something the child was used to receiving, and was somewhat concerned the first time she entered the room, walked over to him silently, then crouched down head level to him and asked him about his day, which had shaken him so much he had been silent, crouched in a corner of the room, for the entire lesson, as she tried to speak to him. Eventually, he got used to it, and spoke mostly freely to the woman, who nodded and offered advice dependently. This was not to say that she did not train the child, her training was probably the harshest of all, in most ways; while Principalities would run him until he collapsed, then got him up and made him do it again, and Power would make him do Reps with weights for hours at a time, Metatron would make him use his judgment. She would throw a sufficiently heavy object at the child, then throw a much lighter one, and tell him not to break the lighter one. Switching the level of his Strength on the fly was something no one else taught, or even bothered to do, so it was a tough problem and required him to repeatedly think about what he did. This resulted in thousands of baseballs turned to dust and a few injuries from Grand Pianos hitting him in the face, and whenever the pianos hit him, she would rush to his side and make sure he was alright.

_______________

Already, admiring these people as being unreachable beings above what anyone could reach, imagine how someone below even 'anyone' must have felt in their presence.

[Flare Knight]

There was also a naming problem. Most of the children, those who received individual powers, received generic names with a Number. For Example, Cherubim’s Children were called ‘Cherubs’, while those with Principality’s were called ‘Principals’. These names were simple enough, and avoided any confusion between two children on who was who. However, the Double Child had nothing to grow off of, so they couldn’t name him. He was nameless for a long time, just referred to as ‘Hey, Kid’ or ‘You’, for several years, until, one day, in the middle of October, he tripped and fell into a building while distracted with a drawing he was doing. His head hitting the side of the building knocked it off its foundlings and sent it sliding across the ground. By the time Metatron had heard the child’s shriek of pain and the sound of the building scraping, and then rushed to see what happened, the Child had the building over his head, preparing to drop it back into place, with not even a scratch upon his forehead. As she took it off his hands and placed it back, she remarked ‘The Kid’s a powerhouse…’. Upon receiving the report of the incident, it was decided they would stick with his name of Powerhouse, as nothing else really fit him.

However, the child was not fit to be in a Military school, not necessarily because he was a bad student, but because he was not built for captivity. So, one day, he left. He got 15 miles out of Yellow Forest, and then Principality appeared out of nowhere and punched him so hard he flew back into the school. That was the end of his Freedom. That very day, he was chained up in his six collars, and chained to a wall. He hung there daily, only lowered to eat and study. Where the Chosen had once been people to talk to, now they were friendless statues, who appeared, ran him through rigorous testing, then disappeared, never a word of compliment, only telling him what he was doing wrong and forcibly correcting it. As time went on, he gained more and more privileges, but he was never released from the chains.

Then, several years later, on his 23rd birthday, when Powerhouse was more skilled, he ran. This time, he was not stupid enough to be seen. He leaped straight over Yellow Forest in a single Jump, and kept Jumping.

He didn’t know where to go, and he didn’t know who to turn to, so he just jumped. Every now and then, he stopped in a city for a few days, but with no money, he was just a homeless bum. He also couldn’t stay long, because the Chose was after him, and with Principality AND Metatron, they could cover large distances in a single day. It was on one of these stop-overs that he found out about Freedom city, his information about other heroes having been heavily censored. A city where Superheroes abounded, somewhere he could hide, maybe even in plain sight, and maybe finally get away from the Chosen. It was like a Paradise for him.

It was as he was heading down the 525 Interstate, running down the side of the road instead of leaping, hitch-hiking when possible, only a few minutes after the sun had completely set, with little to no traffic on the road, that the Chosen found him.

__________

And now the hero has escaped his bonds, only to be confronted by his worst fears.

[Flare Knight]

He didn’t realize they found him until he had fallen off the highway into the water below, only to be hoisted out of it by Cherubim and thrown to the nearest land mass. The Next hours were a blur as he attempted to run from them, all seven of them. Every time he thought he had managed to escape, he would run smack into another one, as all 7 beat on him. He eventually got the feeling he was only escaping from one because everyone wanted a turn. Eventually, Metatron punched him from mid-air into the ground, and, not wanted to bother checking if he was dead, they left. Powerhouse landed in a dumpster, beat to a pulp and collapsed as the sun was rising on the horizon.

The only reason Powerhouse was found was because, after the Dumpster began to compact, he broke it, and the smoke rising from it alerted a nearby man that evening that something was wrong. Pulling Powerhouse from the wrecked dumpster, he considered dropping him off at Freedom Medical Center, but Powerhouse’s insistence in the moments he was conscious dissuaded him from doing so. The man instead took him home, and took care of him when he wasn’t at work at Castle Comics. It was three days before Powerhouse became conscious, and he couldn’t move for three more. On the Seventh day that the man had brought Powerhouse into his home, he entered after work to find the Hero scribbling away on paper. They were highly detailed drawings, mostly of cars, but some included finely detailed people and others. The man left him alone, and Powerhouse went back to sleep for two more days right afterwards.

Powerhouse, two days after his first drawings, awoke again. In a Mostly unfamiliar home- though he knew kind of where he was-, he slowly stood up, getting used to how it felt to walk again. He found the man’s computer unlocked, however, and, upon sitting on it and opening his written files, found page after page of Comic Book storylines and dialogue. Taking a pencil and some paper, Powerhouse began to draw these characters and dialogue, his hand flying across the paper as the characters written of and their interactions went from words on a page to real comics, not just drawings on a page. He did not color them, but he worked throughout the day, and when the man came home that night, he found Powerhouse sitting at a table, several issues of completed comics around him. Surprisingly for Powerhouse, the man did not tell him to get out. Instead, he looked through the issues, and smiled. He offered to help Powerhouse get a job at the company, and Powerhouse accepted, knowing he would need money, however, he specified to the man that he would have to disguise himself, though he did not reveal why, and the man agreed, getting him a long brown wig and contacts, as well as a jacket to hide his collars.

Hired as an Artist under the name Tim C. Tricoas, Powerhouse/Tim made his money by drawing Comics of people he’d never heard of despite their existence, and fully intended to never reveal his superpowers; after all, it would just cause the Chosen to return. He moved out of the man’s house, and enjoyed not having to train every day, all day. However, one day, as Powerhouse finished up a comic about a Hero who existed even then, and took a break, he walked along the center of Freedom City, and, on impulse, entered the Super Museum.

_________

[Flare Knight]

It’s hard to say what exactly spurred Powerhouse to enter that museum that day, as he had avoided everything regarding superheroes, save for drawing them, ever since he got his job, it was something he didn’t want to think about, and something he never wanted to deal with. However, there, among the statues and items of those who, at possibly this very instant, fought for everyone who didn’t have powers, and for people like him, who refused to use them, Powerhouse could only feel worthless. In an attempt to escape from what he thought were their glaring eyes and judgments, he wandered into the Hall of Honor. In this dark hall, Powerhouse stared up at the statue of a man who had given his life for this City without fear, a Man named the Centurion. It was not just him, however. Every step he took down this hall, he was shown a person who was better than he was, a person who had near the same problems he did, and, instead of running from them, they stood tall, and never backed down. He had never heard of any of these heroes, he had never been told of such a man as the Centurion, of any of them, and to him, it was all new. Sure, he might have drawn them a time or two, but he never really cared about what the adventures themselves were, and he certainly never read the comics. Drawing the comics about these heroes was just so he could get paid and go on with his life, but standing in that hall with the faces of those who had never given up even when their last breath was taken, he felt like a fool for running away from using his powers for good, no matter what. Sighing loudly, Powerhouse took a long look at the statue of the Centurion, and contemplated his life. His hand strayed to the metal collar that always hung around his neck, that couldn’t be removed, and, what had been a man who was always slumped over, always bent over his desk working, straightened into a man who had a sense of purpose and ideal. Sure, maybe he wasn’t the best at this Superhero stuff, sure, maybe no one was really sure where his powers came from, heck, he might not really ever be as worthwhile a hero as anyone in this Museum, and he surely would never be as good as those in this particular Hall, but, as he stood there, he realized that, really, all he had ever wanted was probably just to be a Superhero, instead of a Superhero in training, and even if that wasn’t what he wanted, that he had been given an incredible gift, and to not use it was just wrong. Taking on what he knew about Superhero costumes- Spandex was a Must, don’t hide anything that isn’t ugly as heck or hard to draw- he made his own, and, instead of abandoning the name he had been given so long ago, took it up as a moniker of his own making- or close enough- and decided to see what all this ‘superheroing’ was really about. Is he unsure of how he’s going to do at Superheroics? Most definitely, he could end up causing more damage than he prevents, it wouldn’t be hard. Is he scared of the Chosen coming back? Might as well ask if a Shadow runs from the sun, he’s terrified of them. Is he going to let either of those things stop him? Nope.

_______________________

And that's teh end of my story. Now, I have a future ahead of me to be shaped by my own hands.

Addendum; The Origin of Powerhouse’s Birthday

Powerhouse’s Birthday is a source of some confusion to himself, as well as most people. According to him, it’s December 25th, and no one else could even attempt to confirm or deny this outside of Yellow Forest. The reason his birthday is located there is because of a conversation he overheard regarding the Chosen.

When he was still a child, Powerhouse was wandering outside on December 25th, when he saw Power and Virtue exchanging small items wrapped in colorful paper. Wary of them, but interested in the items, he let the area quickly, and asked Metatron why the two were giving each other presents. Her response was ‘Because it’s someone’s birthday.’, as she had to leave out exactly what the purpose of the holiday of Christmas due to Yellow Forest’s restrictions on material involving positive role models. Confused, the younger Powerhouse assumed it meant his birthday was on December 25th, after all, it was someone’s day, so couldn’t it be his?, and has used the day as his birthday since then.

[Flare Knight]

12/21/10, 4:38AM

Today was a pretty good day. Some crazy Superhumans had been attempting to hold up a traffic stop after a wreck, and I had managed to be lucky enough to get there right before they showed up. They were easy to deal with, I mean, they were like a Low-quality workout, but there were a lot of people, more than usual for the stuff I did. I was about to help the rest of the people in the cars, but a quick look proved the EMTs probably didn’t need my help, so I was going to leave, but then something tapped me on the back. I turned around, and some kid was staring at me. I asked what he wanted, not really sure. The kid, wearing a red shirt, which I remember very vividly for some reason, smiled.

“Thanks for saving us mister!†He said, and that really shocked me. I mean, that’s what Heroes do, so I told him that much, to correct him. “Well sure, but not everyone is a Hero. It’s good to see someone making that choice.†The boy said, holding out his hand to me. Inside it was a well-worn Centurion Action Figure. I mean, I knew this particular one. I saw it in a toy store one time when I walked in by accident. It had Kung-Fu Grip. Then he said, “Here Mr., you can have this, I don’t really need it anymore, but it kind of looks like you need a friend.†And put it in my hand. I really didn’t understand what was going on, so I had to ask him, thinking maybe he was confused, and wanted me to sign it or something, but I didn’t have a pen, so I couldn’t really do that. “It’s a Gift, and a Thank you.†The child said, and he looked as confused as I felt. I mean, what’s a Gift, and what did I do to deserve one? It seemed like me and this kid were having two different conversations. “Mr., you helped me, all of us, so it’s only right that you get something back. That’s the Thank you. The Gift is just because you look like you need one.†It still didn’t make sense to me, though. “But what’s a Gift?â€, I asked, finally just trying to pinpoint the major problem with what was going on. The boy honestly seemed confused, like he couldn’t answer the question, and then pointed at the toy again. “It’s…when someone gives you something you don’t...you didn’t do anything for…maybe? Everyone knows what gifts are…shouldn’t they?†I really couldn’t answer that, so I just left.

So I’m sitting here, looking at this Action figure, and I still don’t understand what this ‘gift’ idea is. I wonder if it’s distinctly related to giving Centurion Action Figures to people? Maybe this 'Thank You' has something to do with it to.

[Flare Knight]

1/14/11

So, as I was about to head home tonight, one of the people at work stopped me and told me they were having a party in the break room for one of the secretaries, as it was their birthday. I kind of wanted to go home, but he dragged me into the conference room before I could actually raise a complaint- which is weird, because I have super-strength, but who knows-, to the party

It was lots of fun, really, spending time with the other people at the office. Then they brought out this thing they called a cake, and they sung this weird song called 'happy birthday'. I mean, I knew it existed, but I'd never heard it before! Then they cut the cake, and actually gave me a piece! I don't know why, it isn't Christmas and I didn't help pay for it, but they still gave some to me! It was delicious, some of the best food I've ever had!

While we were cleaning up, someone- I think his name is Jerry- asked me when my Birthday was, which I thought was kind of strange, and I told Jerry it was December 25th. He looked really surprised and asked me why I hadn't mentioned it before; I told him I didn't figure it was important. Jerry then told me that my Birthday was very important, and that this year, on the day before we got out for holidays, they'd have a party for me.

That sounds....really nice.