"We have to kill him."
"What was that?" Dr Helen turned to him. "We? I have no interest in spilling blood to fulfill your desires Mr Victor, I was only deployed to help achieve Project V.E.X.A.M, anything else is nothing more than an inconsequential hassle."
"What?"His eye brows jerked a little. "That vigilante is a threat to Project.V.E.X.A.M, you can't tell me it's no coincidence that he's intervened twice now. I know you think he poses no threat but we haven't even begun V.E.X.A.M! Till we do, there's no telling what's going to happen."
Dr Helen closed her eyes for a bit, though she viewed it as unnecessary, there was truth in what he said. In the first place, how did the vigilante think to go down to the docks of all places?
If he truly got into the business to play hero, he would have searched for the most obvious places where crime rates were high, banks, stores, supermarkets. Places of interest to rob, but he chose the docks?
It might have been a coincidence, but coming back twice?
"Fine, I'll help you find your vigilante, but that's it, anything more than that is no longer my concern."
"I'm fine with that."
"Hmph, you're looking for a teenager within the age limit of 16-22."
"What!? You expect me to believe a mere kid is playing dress up!?" He refused to believe it, according to his man he sent to shadow the hijackers, the vigilante managed to put Lady Impulse down on her ass. It was going to take a lot of convincing for him to believe a mere kid could do that.
"Superheroes registered under heroic factions have been trained since childhood, what fully grown adult who isn't registered under a heroic faction had time to play dress up?"
"I don't know, the Avengers?? The justice League?? Make it make sense!"
"You idiot, members of the justice league and avengers are either trained soldiers or billionaires with too much money on their hands. The vigilante uses a rope and smoke bomb and he works alone, if you had any braincells left from too much bloodshed, do the maths properly."
She closed the rear door of the van carefully before walking back into the warehouse, tugging firmly at her lab coat.
"Hey!"
________________________________________
[The next morning]
[Titan Industries]
[Titan Heroic Faction]
It was another busy day at Titan Industries, staff members moved quickly from meeting to meeting across the hallway, while higher-ups barked orders from across their offices.
Within his office, Shawn sat with his legs crossed, and a phone held tightly in place by the side of his ear. His secretary stood in front of his table, awaiting his final judgement from the results of the call he was on.
His face remained neutral, even as he received one of the most unsuccessful calls since he started acting as the manager to lady Impulse and the other superheroes under him.
"I see, thank you for your time."
The phone line cut.
He placed the phone on his table, aligned his fingers and let out a soft sigh. Everything wasn't going according to plan any longer, and now he had to do something to fix it.
"It seems there's been a change in plans, get me Lady Impulse, tell her the meeting for Tuesday has now been rescheduled to later this afternoon."
"Yes sir." His secretary replied and wasted no time in carrying out his orders.
"Wait." His voice brought her back, and she turned around almost immediately.
"Yes sir?"
"When is the new recruit supposed to come in?"
"Tomorrow sir, there are still loose ends needed to be tied up before the new recruit can officially come in."
"I see, you may go."
_______________________________________
School was just as busy and more rowdy as ever, news spread like wildfire, and before Mason even knew it, the arrest of the three hijackers had already gone public.
Classes were on hold due to the break and everyone was having lunch in the cafeteria, it was buzzing with excitement, contagious whispers and laughters flew around, trapping everyone in it's grasp.
"Thank you." Mason expressed his gratitude to the waitress as he grabbed his tray of food off the counter and walked through the noisy cafeteria. He was used to this on several occasions, but today in particular was more noisy than expected.
"What's got everyone so revved up?" He asked as he approached his friends table before sitting down.
"I guess you haven't heard the news huh? Well I'm not surprised." Mike sighed as he chowed down on his rice.
"Usually, but didn't it spread a little too fast?"
"Yeah, you can blame Emily for that though."
Their eyes all turned to the girl standing in the middle of the cafeteria, handing out the school's newspapers to everyone who passed her by.
"Damn mass comm students.." Mason muttered under his breath as he filled his mouth with a spoon of rice.
"In her defense, she's just doing her work, can't blame her for that, she even gave us newspapers." Conner handed his newspaper to Mason, and he examined it carefully.
Their school's newspapers were filled with the events of the school, the upcoming prom, the sports festival with several schools all competing, but the one that stood out the most was the front page.
It was completely unrelated to school activities.
"Night Hunter? Who the fuck is that?" On the front cover of the newspaper, an article about how the Night Hunter had singlehandedly saved two individuals while stopping the robbers the previous night.
"Apparently that's what people are calling him, yunno, the vigilante. And in all honesty I think it suits him, I mean he only ever works at night and he hunts crime."
"The Shadow Vigilante — Night Hunter huh, that kinda has a nice ring to it."
"Yeah. And get this, he already has a fan page!" Mike said, unable to contain his excitement.
"For real??" Mason's brows jerked in disbelief, he already had a fanbase?
"Yeah, check it, the Night Hunters."
"Night Hunters? That doesn't sound cliche?"
"Well I'd assume whoever made it is gay, but who knows, it could be a woman, bro's already pulling chicks and here we are, single asf, he's so lucky."
Mason didn't say anything, he didn't want to make matters worse, especially for the single mfs he called friends. He looked up the page and to his surprise, they were right!
The Night Hunters, and it already had followers of more than 200 people!
"Damn..."
"Mason." A voice spoke behind their table, and when they turned around to see, it was their teacher, Miss Mary.
"Miss mary? What brings you here? Did I do anything wrong?" He couldn't understand why a teacher was looking for him especially during the break.
"The principal wants to see you."
"What??"
Connor and Mike chuckled, whenever anyone was called into the principal's office, they were bound to be in trouble.
Miss Mary guided him from the cafeteria to the principal's office, and as he shut the door behind him, he saw the principal at her desk, with his girlfriend, Vanessa, seated across from her.
"Vanessa..."