Power

“Hey!” the woman cried. “That guy took my phone!”

Sure enough, a man in ragged clothes was bolting down the street with a shiny new smart phone clutched in one hand. People tried not to notice.

“Gee,” Dave said, elbowing the man next to him as he watched, “Sure would be nice if someone would do something about that, wouldn’t it, Marty? Wouldn’t it?”

“Shut up, Dave,” Marty said.

“Oh, sure,” Dave said. “But you know, I gotta make deadline tonight, and if I don’t have an update about Protonic Man, I may have to write something else. Something maybe like how the real secret identity of Protonic Man is some kinda shmo low-life working 9-5 for an insurance company. In other words, he’s the guy what tells you they ain’t gonna pay your doctor bills. How’s that gonna sell, Marty? Not to mention what happens when the feds get involved, oh they’re gonna love that. I never got into the law myself, but I imagine what you’re doing violates some kinda rights or something. So…”

“Fine,” Marty said. He knew he didn’t have a choice, really.

He took off with an earth-shaking rumble.

Seconds later, the phone dropped into the woman’s hand, smelling just a little of ash. “Oh,” she said on cue, looking up at the cape disappearing into the sky, “Thank you, Protonic Man!”

“Don’t mention it,” Marty almost snarled as he flew away. He could hear Dave’s camera whirring in the distance.

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This story inspired by the below prompt from

Scoot

: write about a reluctant superhero.

Crunch: The Hero