Eleven years ago.

Reveca held her mother’s hand next to her shoulder.

“What’s for dinner?” She then asked with a high pitched voice, the air also escaping through the gap of a missing tooth, giving it a slight muffled tone. Some people at school had called her voice it annoying, but they were wrong and dumb.

It couldn’t be annoying, it sounded like a sports car!

“Mmh,” her mother voiced. “I was thinking… How about some pasta?”

“Spaghetti and meatballs?” Reveca asked with hopeful eyes.

“Spaghetti and meatball it is, then,” her mother said before nodding.

“Yes!” Reveca said, shaking the hand which grabbed her mother’s as she exploded in happiness. She was so excited that she almost lost the opportunity to put her master plan in place.

Plan ‘Pizza’... Should she change the name to ‘Spaghetti and meatballs’? It would basically be the same, only for spaghetti and meatballs. As the name suggested, the plan was meant for pizza, but pasta was still a good option. Especially spaghetti and meatballs.

“Mum, you know spaghetti and meatballs are su-super healthy? They told us today at school that-that they even cure the flu.”

“Are you saying that because you want to eat it more often?” Her mother asked. Maybe suspicious about her plan…

(No. She doesn’t know. The plan is impecla… Impcb… Implaca… Great, the plan was great.)

“Nooooo…” Reveca said, so natural that it would have been impossible to sense the lie even if her mother was a secret spy. It would be super cool if she was, but even then, Reveca knew what she was doing. She had seen it in the movies.

“Ok. Then I’ll make it a lot more often,” her mother said, turning her face towards the crosswalk in front of them, falling into Reveca’s invisible plan.

“Yesssss…” Reveca celebrated in a low voice as her mission was a success. It had been impicab… Perfect.

“You said something?” Her mother then asked, giving her a sidelong glance as they stepped onto the road.

“Nothing,” Reveca said, hopping from one white stripe to the other without touching the black concrete. If she did, she would die! Or lose the game, but both sucked as much as the other.

They were just crossing the Avia next to their house as Reveca looked up at the sky. She could see several clouds being bathed in the purple and orange tones that came with the evening, popping out in the midst of the vanishing grays of the city. Reveca kept looking at the beautiful and bright colors as she stepped onto the outer part of the pavement…

Two black dots quickly passed over her sight, distracting her from the natural scenery. She followed them with her eyes, and she eventually was able to distinguish what they were.

“Mommy, mommy, look! Heroes!”

Her mother followed her finger and saw the flying people.

“What are they doing here?” She asked, her tone one of worry. She squinted her eyes before saying, “I don’t like this. Come on, let’s go home before it gets-”

Her mother didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. The figures crashed through one of the window panels of the supermarket. Wood and glass flew everywhere, but her mother tucked her in a hug as she turned her around. The impact made the ground rumble through a couple of blocks.

Once the commotion had settled a bit, her mother relaxed her gripped and let Reveca breath. She looked into her eyes and asked her, “Are you okay? Does anything hurt?”

Reveca only shook her head.

“Good.”

Her mother grabbed her and raised her from the ground. It was once in her mother’s arms when Reveca was able to see the cut in her hand and arm.

“Mommy, you’re bleeding,” Reveca said, only a whisper due to the shock.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt at all,” her mother lied. She was clenching her teeth. Her mother wasn’t a spy, so it was clear that it hurt. “Now, let’s get home.”

They began walking in the direction they had come from, away from the hole that the collision had made. A few chunks of glass cracked beneath her mother’s feet, accompanying the screams of terror and surprise that had just appeared in Reveca’s ringing ears.

The up and down movement that her mother was putting her to stopped as well. Reveca turned around her head and faced the same thing her mother was looking at.

A bloodied man, covered in black strands of cloth from head to toe, stood in their way. The small crimson drops were falling onto the sidewalk, staining it even more besides the debris and slivers of glass.

“Um… Are you okay?” Her mother asked the man. “Do we call an ambulance? Or…”

Her mouth hung open just as the man turned around, revealing a gun on his hand and a depiction of an open skull on his chest, the only unscathed part of what now clearly looked like a costume.

And it didn’t look like one a hero would wear.

His two sinister and crazy eyes lightly stopped on her mother before jumping to Reveca, making her blood run cold. For a moment, she thought of all the nightmares she had had, where a monster or something scary would chase whilst all she could be able to do was run. At that moment, all of them stopped being scary for one reason. They weren’t real.

Meanwhile, the man in front of her was.

The frightening figure gazed at her eyes, an instant that seemed to last an eternity. Those dark eyes of his, similar to an empty void, were capable of pulling anything into its nothingness, Reveca included. He extended his hand as he stepped forward, pulling Reveca away from her mother’s embrace.

“Hey! Give her back-!”

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The words coming out of her mother’s mouth fell quiet as he kicked her in the gut, making her fall on her back. She hit the floor, but thankfully she had missed the broken glass and sharp chunks of wood. The apparent villain then turned around and shot his gun multiple times through the hole of the establishment, making Reveca’s ears ring and hurt a lot before a wave of cold air rushed against her face.

Her ears yelled as the screeching coming from the bullets reached her brain, pressure gathering in them as she tried to see something, but ultimately couldn’t due to the hair in her eyes. Reveca managed to move away the strands of hair and a few tears that were blocking her sight, revealing that she was next to the clouds she had seen just a moment ago…

She was flying… She was…

Her mind quickly reminded her of the now growing pain in her ears, and that the only person close to her was a supervillain, a living nightmare.

And that she was a hostage.

She gave a quick sidelong glance to the ground, far away from her dangling feet, her mother now a black dot amongst many in the gray area that was the city. Air was escaping from her lungs, incapable of breathing as the tears and snot build up in her nose. Reveca tried to fight the man grabbing her, but it was futile. It didn’t matter how much she tried, he was simply too strong for her.

Yet, her arms kept moving.

Reveca was scared. She was angry, confused, and in pain. Everything had been so fast that her brain couldn’t make something out of it. It simply… Why…? How…? Her arms moved because doing nothing was worse… Giving up wasn’t a possibility.

Her vision was getting blurry, her movements slower… Hey, where was the man? She had been hitting him all the way up, but as she flailed her arms behind her, she found only more air… Pressure was building up again in her ears, her eyes slowly closing as sleep came to her…

A yellow flash appeared, so bright that she could feel it even with her eyes closed. It was brighter than anything she had seen , the only thing comparable to being the sun. Reveca opened her eyes and was able to discern the black lenses from the yellow mask, the white jet from the black torso, the brown fingers, reaching for her as she realized she was no longer in the villain’s grasp, but instead falling, not so far away from the pavement.

The yellow and black figure grabbed her by the waist with his right arm whilst the left tucked her head into his chest. Just as he made contact, Reveca felt the snot and tears going away, not because she was feeling better, but… Due to something else. She was tired, yet her body felt full of energy.

Reveca could feel how they were slowing down, her feet still in the air, until something hit them, or better put, the figure embracing her. She could barely see something from her position, but her peripheral sight caught small flashes of light coming from the back of the figure. She then tried to raise her head to get a better understanding of what was happening, but the hand grabbing her head didn’t let go.

“It’s okay,” a voice close to her ear said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

The words came out with a pained moan… Yet… Confidence flowed through them, like a fish in a pond until they struck Reveca, inserting the feeling into her… Making her believe it.

Again, she felt how something moved them, yet she could only see a bit of the yellow and black clothes the person grabbing her was wearing. Reveca then felt a rattling sensation at the same time as she heard something grinding on the pavement.

Disobeying the one protecting her, she fought to see what was going on, yet the figure didn’t yield. Nevertheless, in that instant she had managed to get, she had seen something that surprised her a bit.

Her hand, no, her whole arm was glowing in the bright yellow light she had seen the figure emit. But why was it surrounding her? Since when had it been there?

Another impact struck against them, and it seemed to be very effective. The figure fell face first, with Reveca still tucked under its arms. Despite falling to the ground with an adult on top of her, she didn’t feel a thing except for the energy coursing through her.

She got a chance to see the rest of her body, and in addition, a layer of glowing yellow light over her white blouse and skirt. An aura that looked like golden armor.

It didn’t take long for her to realize that the person protecting her was the one responsible for it. But why was it wasting it on Reveca? Why not cover himself with it? By the sounds of it, they were getting hurt…

“Ok,” the figure hugging her said, more to himself than her. “Are you ok?” It then asked to her.

Reveca hesitated before nodding against its chest.

“Go-Good. Now, listen. We don’t have much time, so I’m going to ask you to do something. Is that okay?”

Reveca gave an even smaller nod than the last one.

“I’m going to throw you into the air, but I need you to stay calm and spread like a star, okay? Is going to hurt a little. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” she managed to whisper.

“Okay. To the count of three,” the figure said as steps echoed amidst the cacophony. “One, two, and three-”

With a burst of yellow light beneath her, she flew towards the sky once more, its orange darkening as it left space for the night. Following the instructions, Reveca extended like a star, forcing herself to open her eyes as pain began to sprout once more in her ears. Distorted by her tears, she was able to see what looked like multiple people closing in on the black and yellow figure, but instead of looking at it, they were all looking at her.

The one that had kicked her mother was amongst them, so she decided to get payback. Reveca pulled out her tongue and mocked him.

Light, brighter than the sun, exploded beneath her in a quick succession. It blinded her momentarily, but once her sight got back, she was no longer moving, and the black and menacing figures were all now on the ground, smoke rising from their bodies.

Reveca stared at them with her mind blank. Not knowing what to think, or what to do, she stayed like that for a moment… Until something tapped her side.

“A-Are you okay?” The yellow figure asked with a pained voice from below her, his chest slowly raising and lowering as he was taking gulps of air.

Reveca got off of him before turning around. It was then when she finally got a good look at the man. A brown man with a full body suit and average height had been the one to protect her from a villain.

Before her mind got time to set adrift again, she nodded to the man instead of talking since it was still difficult.

The man groaned as he got up, his muscles tired and without strength. Without further words, he walked away towards the five black figures laying on the pavement, four of them having turned into black and brown goo.

Reveca saw the back of her savior. A layer of skin that looked like the meat her father bought in the supermarket, only darker and far more disgusting.

That said, Reveca did not look away. At least, not until she heard cries around her.

She looked at the surroundings. There hadn’t been too much damage done to the structures in the area. A few holes in the street and a couple of broken walls were the only thing she could see. What was much worse was the casualties.

People laid in the middle and sides of the streets, huddles of up to six people standing above them, trying to wake them up or tending to their injuries.

Reveca managed to count thirteen groups that fit the description or one similar enough. Her legs then trembled until they couldn’t hold her weight anymore. The ground scratched against her knees as her hands leaned on it.

Shortly after, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Sweety? Reveca, are you okay? Where does it hurt?”

Reveca then realized the tears and snot falling from her face. And the pain in her chest.

It hurt a lot. She had some injuries, but they weren’t worse than the cuts that she would get playing in the park. Her chest hurt. She tried to grab it, grab the pain and try to make it stop, but she couldn’t.

She was so happy that it hurt.

Because even she could realize. Realize how lucky she had been. Other people had been attacked apart from her, other people had suffered worse wounds than the ones she had. Yet she was the one to have been saved.

She was incredibly happy because she knew that she had been immensely lucky. She had gotten saved by a hero when many others hadn’t. So lucky that it was making her feel guilty, something that only turned her even more happy and made the pain in her chest increase.

Reveca cried as she felt the most amounts of happiness and guilt she had ever felt in her life.