Shatter Gets Sidetracked

Ok, where do I start? 

I should probably start with my little hobbit hole that I call a home. Well actually, I have a bunch of 'em all over the world. That morning I woke up in one of my favorites: an abandoned cigar factory in Moscow. I looked at my watch, saw the time, and shot up out of my snowy bed under the hole in the roof. That December day was important to me. No, it wasn’t Christmas and no, it wasn’t the birthday of anyone I knew at the time. It was important because as I got my clothes on and I walked around my little factory home, I looked on the wall at the schedule for the day. 

    Man, that day was busy. 

    But the most important thing on that list happened at 11:18 P.M. 

    Let me explain.

    When I was ten, I found a mask. 

    This mask put me into the body of a baby in the Stone Age. Since then, I have reincarnated over and over and over again. I have lived many lives over the years but three things have remained the same. 1. I have superpowers. 2. I have a list of bad people that I either have to kill or capture in that life time. 3. I fall in love. 

When I died the last time, I reappeared in my original body at ten years old, at the very second that I touched the mask for the first time. Now, seven years later, I continue to use the mask to help free the world of as many bad people as I can. In my first life I was given a name that I decided to keep as a handle for my crime fighting alter ego: Shatter. 

    Now, how does this relate to that one day? Well I’ll tell you. All you need to know is that the small little shoe box in the corner with the big red bow on top was for a very special girl. I have had many soul mates. This girl feels like my soul mate for this life. The moment I heard her voice for the first time it was like lightning inside of me. It made me want to scream and laugh and cry and clap my hands all at the same time. Is that crazy? Yes. Is that love? Absso-frigin-lutely. 

    So I grabbed the box and put it in my backpack. I then walked to the door when I felt something tug at me. I reached into my backpack and pulled out this life’s list of evil people. Apparently, Jengo Raltz was on the move. I could tell because his name was glowing. I had a lot planned for that day but it would have to take a rain check because out of all the baddies on my list, Jengo Raltz is the worst. So I pulled my mask and my gear from my backpack and put it all on. When I was in my full crime fighting attire I put my backpack on my back and I jumped through a portal to Hong Kong. 

    A little run down on Jengo Raltz. Jengo Raltz is the real life Joker. This guy is a cereal killer, kidnapper, and gangster. He even looked super creepy. Jengo Raltz is a bald guy with albinism so his skin is white as snow. He had legs and arms that never seemed to stop to grow. Because of this, Raltz began to call himself The Slenderman. He even puts makeup on to give him a wide and creepy smile at all times. Even when he’s frowning it looks like he’s got a shark’s set of teeth barred and ready to rip you apart. He has the intellect of a real life Moriarty and an anger I haven’t seen since I tangled with Al Capone. That man was mad 24/7. The Slenderman has evaded capture for twenty years since his first recorded crime of poisoning a batch of syrup in a candy factory which provided most of North America with delicious treats and I was finally going to bring him to justice. 

    Once I crossed through the portal I looked out at the afternoon view of downtown Hong Kong from the top of a hotel. Taking out my list again, I saw that the magical piece of paper had morphed from a list of names to a map of the city. This happens whenever I am within a certain distance of the target. On the map was a glowing golden mark that represented The Slenderman. There was also a black arrow which represented me. I looked at my watch and set it to Louisiana time. I had a total of 24 hours and 45 minutes to track down and either kill or capture one of the greatest evil masterminds the world has ever seen and I had to do it with a valuable package in my backpack all by myself. A part of me considered asking the girl for help, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise of my visit. 

    I took another look at the map and saw that the slenderman was on the move. I then quickly folded my magical parchment and put it away safely so that I could teleport from rooftop to rooftop in a truly  epic fashion if I do say so myself. 

    I chased The Slenderman all over Hong Kong. He put up a pretty good fight. I have the bullet wounds to prove it. He shot me on the Tsing Ma Bridge during a traffic jam. 

After he evaded me on the bridge, I found him again inside a bar he owned at the time. The bar is now closed because the police received an anonymous tip that the bar was a cover for illegal gambling. Now I can cross “get into a bar fight” off of my bucket list. It was classic. The bar was themed as a western saloon so of course there would be a bar fight there. It was hilarious. Deadly, but hilarious! There was even a short Chinese man playing the piano like in the movies! 

Sorry, I’m getting off track. 

    The Slenderman got away in the chaos of the brawl, but I had a feeling where he was going. 

    So when Raltz walked into his penthouse apartment among the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, I was sitting on his couch with my 21S loaded and my finger twitching on the trigger. 

    Raltz looked at me with his makeup looking like he had a giant smile, but I could see the from of his lips and the anger in his eyes. This was a man who had the blood of hundreds on his pale, boney hands and I, some kid in a mask and a fashionable costume, had him cornered. 

    Raltz Is from New Jersey, so his accent shown through when he said “You little…”

    “Uh uh uh,” I said, Interrupting the mad man before me, “watch your language.”

    The Slenderman chuckled, stretched his mouth into a psychotic smile,  and said, “You have been a pain in my side all day.”

    “Well, under different circumstances, I’d say that if you have a pain in your side then you should have a doctor check that out, but right now seeing as I have a loaded gun aimed at your head, I’d say you have bigger things to worry about than a pain in your side.” 

    I finally had him. 

But then he laughed. 

He laughed like I had just told the funniest joke in history.

He laughed as though he knew something that I didn’t. 

And he did. 

“You think I don’t know who you are?” He said as he began to move about the room. “I know everything about you, Shatter! Cool name by the way. But a stupid name, a costume, and a mask doesn’t make you a hero and it certainly doesn’t make you worth my time.”

At this point, The Slenderman was sitting next to me on the couch with his forehead a few inches away from the barrel of my gun. 

“This little game of yours is over. If you kill me, my men have orders to blow this building, as well as the rest of this city block, to kingdom come. Now, I know you can zap or whoosh yourself to safety or whatever, but think about all the lives that would be lost if you pull that trigger!”

He was right. I couldn’t do it. I put my gun down and teleported to a nearby rooftop in defeat. From there I could still hear that evil man’s laughter. I cried. I sobbed. He scared me. What if he was right and I’m just some kid playing dress up.

A part of me wanted to give up on anything but then the other part of me checked the facts and the fact was that I have overthrown empires, I have started and ended wars, I have been to places and done things that most people don’t believe to be possible. I am Shatter: globetrotting, teleporting, woman wooing, dragon slaying, pirate killing, day saving, bad guy stopping, totally awesome crime fighting vigilante!

And in that moment of inspiration and confidence, my watch beeped. 

IT WAS 11:17 IN LOUISIANA TIME!

I gasped and then jumped off the building and through a portal. After landing on my feet in New Orleans, I took off running, dropped off the package, and teleported to the top of the building. Moments later, a black van rolled up, dropped off a girl, and then drove away. The beautiful girl walked up to the door and picked up the package (which was surprisingly in one piece, I might add). She opened the box to find a small radio with a lightswitch attached. The girl flipped the switch and a pin on my belt began to beep. Usually I’d check the quadrilateral on the little screen on the pin to see where the girl was, but I could see that she was a member of a secret organization that required her to spend her winter break training which is why she was in New Orleans. 

I teleported behind the lovely girl and taped her on the shoulder. She looked at me with those beautiful eyes and I said,

“Hey Carli.”