“Hey, move it. Move along.”

I looked up from my phone to see a balding cop with a thin mustache and mirrored sunglasses coming out of his car, waving his hand up at me in a dismissive gesture. Then I looked around to check if he could be waving at someone else. Then I pointed at myself. “Are you talking to me?”

He sighed and tilted his head at me. “Ain’t no one else here. Move it.”

I blinked in confusion, then shrugged, and switch my phone from the latest chapter of the book I was following to record instead. “No.”

He snorted. "Can I see your I.D.?"

"Am I being detained?"

The cop held his hand out. “No. Show me your I.D.”

I shook my head at him. “I will not show you my I.D. You can move along.”

He put his hand on his gun. “What are you doing here?”

Is he seriously…? "I'm waiting for a ride. I gave this address to be picked up at. So unless you are arresting me. This conversation is over."

That’s when he shouted, “Put your hands on your head!” and began to pull his gun out.

I could claim I was concerned about the children playing down the street being in the line of fire, but the truth was that this guy was trying to point a lethal weapon at me, for the crime of refusing to let him abuse his police powers to harass me.

...Why should I let him do this?

Respect for his position? He was abusing it.

Fear of armed policemen? Being arrested? Locked in a jail cell? How long had it been since that was something that would be an issue for me?

A single step and my hand was on top of his before his gun cleared the holster, it wasn’t much of an effort for me to push his hand down until his weapon was holstered again.

This close and I could see his eyes go wide behind his glasses. “Don’t do this. Just... don’t.”

He licked his lips as I took my hand away. Then he tried to pull his gun out again.

Grabbing his wrist and his shoulder, I brought my knee up beneath his elbow, the bones cracked, and he screamed.

“You just had to do it. You had to try to put someone’s life in danger with a gun just because you didn’t like the way they were waiting for a ride.”

Once I had his belt along with his phone and his keys, I walked him over and helped him into the back of his patrol car, undoubtedly a lot gentler than he had ever put anyone back there, then I got behind the wheel in the front seat. He didn’t put up much of a struggle, I guess he was kind of in shock, both from the pain and the surprise that someone had fought back.

I took a moment to cancel my ride share before I drove him to the hospital near my house.

St Ivan’s wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but the old houses there had spoken to me and I needed a new project to keep me busy, or at least I had until Psycho Cop decided to pick a fight with someone who didn’t have to fear his gun or his badge.

Now I was guessing that I wouldn’t have the time to be able to finish restoring my three story Edwardian home.

I walked the cop into the emergency room with his good arm over my shoulder and tossed the keys to the security guard at the entrance. “His car is in the parking lot, and he is all yours.”

The cop was yelling by now, first at the guard to stop me, then at me for walking away. The guard just sighed and waited for me to get out the door before he got his phone out and handed it to the cop.

I walked the rest of the way home.

The cop has gotten a good look at my face, the hospital had cameras at the entrance, not to mention the camera the cop had worn and the one in the squad car.

It wouldn't be too hard to identify me. My prints were on record, it wasn’t going to be all that hard for the cops to find my current home address.

I could run. A lot of my money was in offshore accounts due to having to change my identity every twenty years or so, and I had enough cash in the vault in the basement to be on an island in a nonextradition county somewhere within a day.

But why should I run? All I did was defend myself from someone who had no business being authorized to threaten people just for not submitting to his whims.

No. This is my home, even if I had only been here a month. And I’ll be damned before I spend even one day in jail for standing up for my civil rights.

Let them come. I don’t think I have anything to fear anymore.

In fact, why wait? The last thing I want to do is have them bust down my door at four in the morning.

It’s oak and hand carved. It’s also covered in layers of graffiti and someone’s had the bright idea to cover it in three layers of white paint at some point. But as long as someone doesn't hit it with a battering ram, I think I can save it with a lot of hard work involving sanding by hand.

So I took the old rocking chair that came with the house and set it on my front walk, then I started to make a call.

First, though, I got back up and knocked on my neighbor's front doors. The people on the right hand side of my house I was pretty sure were both at work on midnight shifts which may be why no one answered. But the house on my left answered after a few minutes. The frazzled looking woman who I had always assumed to be the mother of the three children who she walked to the bus every day answered the door from behind a chain and gave me an irritated look.

"Why you banging on my door for?"

“My apologies, but I put a cop in the hospital tonight, and they’ll be showing up here looking for me pretty soon. I don’t plan on surrendering, so you might want to either get out of the neighborhood or get everyone in your family down in the basement. Cops tend to get trigger happy when they're scared.”

She gave me a wide eyed look before slamming the door shut.

Then I called the emergency number.

“This is Nine One One emergency.”

“Hi. My name is Tobias Herns. About a half hour ago a cop pulled a loaded firearm on me without cause. As I considered this an act which was placing me in clear and present danger, I took his gun away from him and placed it in his car before driving him to the St Ivan emergency room.”

“...Sir, what was the condition of the Officer?”

“He was acting aggressively and reckless enough that I believe he was either mentally disturbed or on some kind of narcotic. Physically I think his arm was broken.”

"Sir, what is your location?"

"1347 Timberline Road. I'll be the guy out front, unarmed, in the rocking chair. Oh, and please warn the officers that I consider any firearm aimed at me to be a lethal threat requiring an act of self defense on my part and I’m not taking anyone who places my life in danger to the hospital myself again, at least not tonight.”

Then I hung up.

Cops have an impressive response time when it’s one of them that someone hurts. It only took a few minutes for the first car with flashing lights to show up.

“Get your hand in the air! Get on your knees!”

I shook my head. “I’m not…”

They began shooting at me before I even managed to refuse to be arrested.

I had liked that hoodie, but my issue was that most of the bullets were hitting my house.

Leaning forward, I leaped into the air and covered the twenty feet between me and the cop car, settling down next to one of the cops. After getting a hold of his arm, I slammed it down on the front hood of his car to loosen his grip so I didn’t tear his trigger finger off as I pulled his gun out of his grip.

I squeezed the gun in my hand until the metal began to worm its way out from between my fingers. Then I hip checked his car sideways into the woman aiming a gun at me from the far side, knocking her to the ground, before half jumping half slipping over the hood to where she had landed.

As she had dropped her gun, I tried to stomp it flat, only to look down and see that instead, I had pushed it into the pavement. Reaching down I drove my fingertip into it to crush it down in the middle. I figured that would disable it well enough.

Then something wet was spraying onto my face.

I licked my lips. Then spit a little to try to get the taste out of my mouth. I never did like spicy, and this was way too strong.

Looking at the officer hosing my face down with what I figured was pepper spray, I gave her an annoyed look. “Could you not?”

She stopped. I stood up. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. “Are you a Superhuman?”

I shrugged. "Pretty much. Can you call that in and warn them? If they send in anyone else and they start shooting at me too, I might get annoyed enough to stop holding back.”

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Walking around the car I could hear her on her radio as I looked at the guy aiming a plastic yellow gun at me while giving me a terrified look.

“Taser?”

He nodded after a moment. “I don’t think it will work. The needles won’t have enough force to break my skin, but you can try it if you want. I won’t hurt you since they aren't meant to kill people.”

The needles didn’t even hurt, it was like being poked with a set of dull tipped pencils for a second. I picked them up off the ground and looked at the cop. “Give them some juice, I want to feel if it will do anything.”

I didn't have to ask him twice. I had shocked myself as recently as last month learning to rewire my new house. I had assumed something electrical meant to knock someone out would feel different than household current, but it was the same tingle. “You might as well ease off, it isn’t doing anything.”

He looked pretty disappointed. “Sorry if I hurt your arm. You at least had some cause to pull a gun on me, but I still don’t like it when people try to kill me, and I’m not going to put up with it anymore.”

He looked over at his partner as I turned around and walked back to my rocking chair.

“You’re welcome to park out front and warn anyone else who shows up. I will take away any gun that is aimed at me, and I will break the arm of anyone who shoots at me. Anyone who shoots at me with something bigger than a handgun I will seriously hurt."

They started making some calls even as other cop cars arrived. The woman rushed over to warn them not to pull out their guns. Then she walked over with someone who looked too higher up in their ranks to look at the gun curled up from its center in a gun shaped hole in the asphalt.

The new guy walked away and made some calls before he hesitantly walked up to me.

"Mr. Herns?"

I nodded, “That’s me.”

He swallowed nervously. “Sir, I have to place you under arrest…”

I shook my head. “I’ve decided I’m not complying. Your Officer had no cause to pull a gun on me, and I’m not willing to spend a single moment under arrest because of his actions.”

The senior officer, Barns by his name tag started to shake his head. “You…”

I held up one hand. “Let me tell you how this is going to go. I’m going to ask you to pull out your gun and you, and only you, get to take a free shot at me.”

“Feel free to empty the thing, reload, and try again. Get a shotgun or a rifle out and try you’re best. It’s your free shot, and I won’t do anything to you or damage your guns.”

“Then call in SWAT, they get one shot with their best gun. Free. Anything after that and I go after them.”

“Or we can skip ahead and you can call in the Superheros.”

A voice came from above. “No need, one’s already here.”

I looked up as the man in white and gold slowly descended from the sky. I winced a little.

I was expecting one of the locals first. Them I was pretty sure I could handle. Instead, I got Valiant.

He was actually Valiant Two, the original's grandson. People hadn’t been sure at first since he looked like his Granddad, a muscular white guy with blonde hair, and he seemed to be just as strong.

I could only hope he was just as reasonable, a fight here could wreak my house.

“I’m hoping you could save us all a lot of time and just surrender to police custody, I’m sure this can be settled without too much trouble.”

After sighing I shook my head. “A man shouldn't have to be locked in a cage like an animal just for defending himself. I’m not going to do it.”

The hero gave me a disappointed look. I held up one hand. “Thirty seven tons.”

He raised an eyebrow at me.

"I'm sure you could lift more, but that was the heaviest thing I lifted that I knew how much it weighed. It may not be all that impressive, but I only used one hand, and it felt like I could lift a lot more."

I leaned back in my rocker. “The point is I’m pretty sure if we throw down in this neighborhood, a lot of people are going to get hurt, and even if you take the time and help the cops to evacuate first, a lot of people are still going to lose their homes."

He crossed his arms. “I’m not going to back off just because this is a bad place to fight.”

I shook my head. “No, of course, you won't. But, do you think we could do this tomorrow? It’s late and I want to get some sleep without anyone kicking down my door and trying to tear gas me while shooting up my house. We can meet at the old Atlas bread factory, after the cops clear out the homeless people there.”

I spread my hands out, "Noon sound good?"

He stared at me for a minute. "I have a lunch date, how about two?"

I stood up, “That will do. Good night all.”

Surprisingly, no one else bothered me that night. I was sure some higher up dink’s ego wouldn’t let me get away with sleeping undisturbed after defying their authority, at least not if it didn’t involve them else risking their lives kicking in my door.

But all that happened was the sounds of the cops chattering on their radios for a few hours as they evacuated the neighborhood which kept me up until they moved further off. Then I dozed off and had the best sleep I had in years.

Whatever happened the next night, I didn’t have to worry about hiding anymore.

I didn’t have to pretend to fear the abuses of little men with badges and titles anymore. After tomorrow I would either be able to live however I liked, or I would be in some sort of jail for Super Powered criminals until I was strong enough to leave.

Of maybe I would be dead. Any which way, my worries would be over.

I cooked up a steak for breakfast the next day, because you know, the rules don’t apply to me anymore.

Along with the steak, I did up two baked potatoes, a half of loaf of Italian bread toasted with garlic salt, butter, and some grated Romano cheese. I also made a small garden salad and dug into an individual boxed slice of cheesecake. This got downed along with most of a bottle of bourbon I had been saving.

Not bad for what might be a last meal.

Then I watched the latest Micheal Bay film. Nice action, but the main actors and the plot were kind of annoying. The supporting cast was great.

After finishing that, I took a shower and got dressed. Heading outside, I faced down the nervous cops waiting outside. “Who’s in charge out here?”

A guy in a suit stepped forward. “Agent Brown. Homeland security.”

I handed him a key before he could say anything else. “Here, it’s a copy so you don’t have to break anything down if you think there's anything that matters in my house. Personally, I would wait until you hear how my showdown with the most powerful superhero in the world goes. But I understand if you got orders. Just remember that if I find anything missing, I'm going to come looking for it."

Then I was running, at about thirty miles an hour. Even then it would still take me nearly an hour to get to the old bakery.

What? I can’t fly. And doing anything like trying to jump my way there would be a series of blind leaps, and I don’t want to land on someone. Not to mention leaving footprints a half foot deep everywhere. Running with a little bit of Parkour is nearly as fast as a car in the inner city. At least for me.

It was been a while since breakfast, but I didn’t want to eat anything just before a fight. Bad things happen when you get punched in a full stomach. I had worn some relatively old clothes since Valiant said he was having lunch just before this and I didn't want him ruining anything nice.

Since it looked like I had beat him there I took the chance to look over the factory to make sure the cops had gotten everyone out. From the look of it, a few dozen people had been camped out here, but there was no sign of them still being there.

Plenty of new wiring going to brand new security cameras though.

The man in white and gold showed up about ten minutes early, I watched him land outside as I stood in a loading bay door with my hands in my pockets.

He paused and looked at me before his feet touched the ground. “I don’t really want to do this. Most of the people I fight are seriously bad people. Out for power, getting rich by taking things that don’t belong to them, or just out to hurt people. You, it sounded like you just had a bad day. We don’t have to do this.”

I shook my head. “If I can beat you badly enough to show that I can hurt anyone else who tries. Then I don’t have to… bow down before everyone who has some kind of power they can abuse when they feel like throwing their weight around, and expect people to just bow their heads and take it. I don’t want to do that anymore. A hundred years of it is enough.”

He jerked a little. “People haven’t had powers for that long.”

I grinned. “Don’t believe the lies, people have always had powers, long before modern science came along. They just haven’t been as powerful, or as flashy. When I got my powers from being a test subject for fifty bucks, my powers consisted of not getting hangovers anymore. Even after a fifty dollar bender.”

I rubbed my chin. "It must have been twenty years before I realized how little I had aged. I knew I had been getting faster and stronger, but not how much until I tested it. By the sixties, I seemed to have stopped aging at all but I was still getting stronger.

He stared at me and slowly shook his head. “Why didn’t you use your powers to help others, you could have been one of the first Heroes.”

I shrugged. “I served in World War One, although we weren't pessimistic enough to call it that back then, I did my duty. And then when I realized I had gotten stronger and tougher than other men, I signed up for World War two. I thought I could make a difference.”

I rubbed at my chest at the memory. "I wasn't bulletproof yet, and getting shot hurt, every single time. So after the war, I wasn’t in any hurry to get shot again. Besides, I wasn’t all that strong, not yet anyways. Certainly not up to the level of your grandfather and the rest of his team, not even for the second string teams”

“By the time I felt like I could do anything on that level, it was the Eighties, and everyone turned on the Heroes. I wasn’t about to get involved in that.”

I looked the Hero in the eyes. “Now, I’m old. I just want to be left the hell alone, but I’m not willing to be treated like… a peon anymore in my own country. A country I fought in two World Wars to preserve the freedoms and the dignity we’re supposed to have as Americans.”

"Now we have cowards in uniforms armed with guns, tasers, clubs, and pepper spray that will still force unarmed people they have outnumbered to get down on their knees or lie face down on the ground rather than risk getting punched. Or shoot people on sight for hurting a cop who was acting like a thug, as if cops' lives are somehow sacred and everyone else has to act too afraid to defend themselves!”

I realized that I was shouting and breathing pretty hard. “In short, no. I will not submit to tyranny. I volunteered once to fight, bleed, and risk my life fighting against literal Nazis, I'm not going to stop now and surrender like it's okay for people in my country to act like them."

Holding out my hand, I asked in my best German accent. “Papers?”

The Hero's jaw dropped a bit. "All this, just because he wanted to see your ID."

I shook my head. “No, all this is because I dared to say no when I wasn't required to show him anything."

He held up a fist, not at me, but so he could look at it. “I have to take you in. The Law matters.”

“You have to try. But morality has to come first for the people who are trusted to enforce the Law with a gun.”

I got my hands up to stop his first punch, he sort of flew in and threw a fist cocked back to his shoulder. Cement cracked under my feet as I braced myself to take the hit. “I can take it son, do it like you've been here before."

He leaned back out of the way of my backhand, then punched me faster than I could see. I went flying back before skipping a few times as I went through some supports in the building. I only stopped after getting my feet under me and sliding a few dozen feet. “All right, you got my attention with that one. But it was still pretty light.”

He was back hovering in the loading bay door, so we both had to yell. But I don’t think he really needed to hold his hands up to either side of his mouth. “I just knocked you back a few hundred feet Sir. Anything more and I'm afraid I might hurt you."

I started walking toward him. “You use your flying to brace yourself when you get hit. I can't fly and I only weigh two twenty, any good hit is going to send me flying, that doesn't mean it going to hurt me.”

I braced my feet. “Gauge that up about four times and try to punch down so most of the force goes into the ground. You don’t want to send me out of the area, we got people watching out there.”

Or at least I assumed there were.

He rubbed his fist in thought, “Yeah I saw them when I came in. Let’s try twice as hard first.”

His punch sent me knee deep into the ground in a crater of broken cement. I pulled my legs free as I climbed out of the pit. The hero held his hand out to help me up, "Thanks…”

With a yank I was in the air then smashing into the floor once, twice, and then a third time. With the “Hero” flying up higher each time before swinging me into the ground. After the third hit, he held me up by the hand while looking at me in concern. “I am sorry. But no one is above the Law.

I raised my head, coughed out some dust, and glared, muttering “Dick move.” just before reaching up to grab his hand holding on to me in both of mine, and then I squeezed.

He frowned a little, then winced. Then he was trying to shake off my grip while rising into the air. I grinned up at him. "Big mistake, hero. You're faster than me, but I think I'm stronger and tougher than you."

I could feel the bones in his hands, the ones between the wrist and his fingers, start to touch each other.

He flew up through the ceiling, letting the momentum carry me above his head, then headed back towards the ground to slam me into the cement again.

Heavy chunks of cement when flying, supports for the roof buckled, and a good sized section of the building began falling down. I looked up.“Feeling that huh?”

Have you ever taken a hard fall, something hard enough that you sort of freeze up afterwards to see if anything hurts before you try to move again? That is how I felt after that last impact.

I think I might even have a few bruises after this, which might even take a whole three minutes to heal.

I squeezed the Hero’s hand some more, even as he tried to pry himself from my grip, and then something gave in his hand.

I don’t think it was a bone, more like something that held a bone in place, but his eyes went wide.

“Son, I’m not going to let go unless you are willing to call it and not show up at my house again. But you’re going to get hurt if we keep going.”

His face was twisted up in pain. "Not yet."

Then he punched me. Arm fully bent back, punching from the hip.

I could see clouds of dust flying away.

Then he punched me again, and again. Driving me deeper and deeper into the ground each time before yanking me up by my hand into the next punch.

I tasted blood. Sucking on my lower lip I could feel where it had split up against my teeth.

I put a little more pressure on his hand. Something popped. He screamed and began to fall to his knees from the pain.

Letting go of his hand, I grabbed his shoulders before he could fall. “We can keep going. You could come back with others. But this could end with people dying. Maybe me, maybe you. Is this really worth ending someone’s life because I resisted being arrested for resisting a false arrest?

He clutched at his hand, probing his injury with his fingertips as he winced. "I think I could beat you, but if you got a hold of me again… No, this isn't worth it."

He straightened up and looked me in the eye. “But I will show up at your door again. Not to fight, but because I think we should talk some more. A man who is willing to fight for what is right has better things he could be doing than fighting to be left alone."

Then he flew up off. Hopefully to get his hand taken care of.

I looked up at the cameras. “I don’t want to be above the Law, I’m just tired of being treated like I’m beneath it.”

No one had gone into my house, but they had evacuated everyone in the surrounding houses, for quite a few blocks away in fact.

Homeland security delivered a dozen bags of groceries and gave me a web address for me to order anything else I want, free of charge so I don’t even have to leave my home.

They also got me full memberships for all the computer sites which have replaced regular TV and are slowly choking out the movie theaters.

Even after everything, they have still effectively managed to put me in a prison, one of convenience.

But at least it's in my own home, and they didn't do anything about me buying up the houses to either side of my house or the three behind me.

It's nice to have some projects for the future, now that I seem to have figured out the practical skills for restoring old houses.

The Hero manages to stop by every few weeks and even has some of the others with him now and then. Nice kids, even if they care about silly stuff too much. The kid himself is pretty busy and is always telling me how much easier some of the things he has to take care of would have been if someone even stronger and tougher than him had come along.

Maybe someday I might be willing to volunteer for the sake of others again.

But only if they come up with some way for me to fly, I am not going to be princess carried.

There are just some things I am just not willing to tolerate. Especially if I don’t have to.