All-Star: Same As It Ever Was (Part II)
For an 18-year-old Nate Carter, time was standing still.
Sirens blaring.
Alarm wailing.
Panicked screams.
Shouting.
A voice.
"Nate!" Wheezer called out from behind him. "Nate, kill the fuckhead!"
Nate stared down at the sniveling bank teller at his feet, his chubby hands still on the button which triggered the alarm.
Sirens closer.
Alarm louder.
Screams turn to shouts.
Shout turns to scream.
A voice. A friend.
What?
"Nate!" Wheezer screamed, grabbing a bag of cash and gesturing towards the door with his gun. "We. Have. To. Move! Kill him!"
How did he get here?
Where did it all go wrong?
Head pounding.
Heart racing.
Room spinning.
Bile rising.
He remembered.
Somehow, Wheezer had convinced him to help him rob a bank, at the risk of his scholarship.
Somehow, it had all gone wrong when some pudgy bank teller triggered the alarm.
Somehow, he had leveled his Glock and pointed it at the cowering man at his feet.
Can't pull the trigger, Nate thought. Hesitating. Hesitating. Thank God, I'm hesitating.
He was only vaguely aware of Wheezer's hand on his shoulder, pulling him towards the fire exit as his head continued to pound and the world continued to cave in on itself.
What was he doing here?
"Oh, God..." he managed to blurt out, his mouth putrid with the foul taste of vomit. "Wheeze. Wheeze, what did we do?!"
Wheezer wasn't in his usual talkative mood as he forced Nate into the back seat of their getaway car and tossed a couple of bags full of money on top of him before climbing into the driver's seat.
"Fuck, Nate, get it together!" Wheezer yelled. "I can't believe this bullshit!"
Nate wasn't entirely sure when the car started moving. He could barely understand what Wheezer was yelling at the top of his lungs. Instead, he heard the sirens, the tires and the wind and struggled to grab onto something as the world continued to rush around him.
"We shouldn't-" Nate moaned, taking a break to vomit on the floor of the car. "We shouldn't have-"
"Yo, shut the fuck up, a'ight?! Actin' like a little bitch! What the fuck's wrong with you?!" Wheezer yelled back.
Nate really wished he had an answer for that as he continued to real.
Gunshots now.
They were being shot at? Nate heard each bullet. Felt every vibration.
"Aw, shit!" Wheezer cried, pulling his Glock and firing at the cops from out of the window.
Oh, God, Nate barely managed to think, He's gonna kill a cop. He's gonna kill a cop and we're gonna get killed.
"No..." Nate panted out, desperately trying to sit up. "No..."
"For the last god damn time, Nate, would you-" Wheezer began.
"NO!" Nate yelled as his world refocused. But it was different. Suddenly, everything made sense for the first time since he had entered the bank. Nate peered at Wheezer's gun with a bewildered look in his eyes and made a grab for it. It was all so obvious now. Quickly wrestling the weapon from the surprised man's grip, he pointed it at the three pursuing cop cars. without truly knowing how or why, he fired three shots, each one hitting the front left wheel of one of the cop cars. He then fired a fourth shot at the leading car's front right wheel, sending it lurching forwards with a loud screech as it flipped over, skating along the floor and kicking up sparks on all sides.
"What the shit, man?!" Wheezer gasped, taken aback by Nate's sudden capability. Nate merely fell back into his seat as the two remaining cop cars suddenly hit the breaks in an attempt to avoid ramming the first one, flying out of control due to their damaged wheels and crashing into lampposts. Nate panted, exasperatedly, as he tried to wrap his head around what had just happened.
"Shit, son..." Wheezer said, completely awestruck. "That. Was. Badass."
Wheezer rolled around in his pile of money, the happiest he had ever been in his entire life as Nate sat and watched him from an old sofa, frowning. They had managed to lose the cops and return to their abandoned warehouse/safehouse, but Nate remained confused about just what had happened back in the getaway car, despite the fact that Wheezer no longer seemed to care.
"You know what this means, Nate? I can pay back -everyone- I owe in this shitty city. I can finally get outta this dump and be a somebody!" He looks at Nate's vacant expression and tilts his head. "Uh, and I'd bring you along with me, yeah?"
Nate barely responded. "Superpowers."
"Gesundheit." Wheezer smiled.
"Dumbass. I think I -have- superpowers. I...I think I'm one of those mutants you see on the news or something..." Nate shrugged, frowning.
"Because you shot out a few tires, man? Tch. You got lucky, is all." Wheezer said, falling back into his pile of money. "And so did I."
"Nah, man. The way it happened-" Nate started. He looks to the table and picks up his Glock "I was, like, super-accurate, Wheeze. Seriously, I could've hit anything."
Annoyed, Wheezer sat back up and scratched his chin. "Shit, man, do you -seriously- think you're a mutant? That's balls crazy. What, you think this is a comic book."
"Man, you -dated- a mutant for a few months. Remember? She gave you herpes?" Nate said, indignantly.
"Oh. Right." Wheezer said, bluntly. "Was that her power?"
Nate gave a sigh as he stood up and looked around the warehouse. On a window sill a while away from them, an empty beer bottle sat alone and forgotten.
"I bet I could hit that from here." Nate said.
"So?" Wheezer replied, clearly annoyed by Nate's insistence on ruining his time with the money.
"I bet I could hit that from here without looking." Nate elaborated.
"Bullshit." Wheezer guffawed. "Go ahead, bro. I'm watching."
Nate stood back and pointed the Glock at the bottle before turning away.
"Should I do a Dirty Harry quote?" He asked, jokingly.
"Only if you want me to kick you in the balls." Wheezer answered.
Pulling the trigger, Nate fired the gun at the bottle. The bullet hit it dead on, shattering it on contact.
"Woah." Wheezer mouthed.
"I know, right?!" Nate said, excitedly.
"Know what this means?" Wheezer said, grinning from ear to ear.
"Uh...No?" Nate shrugged.
"We're gonna be rich, son." Wheezer cried, leaping to his feet. "We could knock off a dozen banks, man! Be legit supervillains like on the news! With my brain-"
"Drug-addled." Nate interjected.
"-And your skill, we could be somebodies!" Wheezer finished.
"No way, Wheeze." Nate said, shaking his head. "Today...Today was enough. I helped get you what you needed to pay your debt to Card Shark, and that's as far as I go. I've got a future, Wheeze. I'm finally gonna get out of this town and...I have a future."
"And you could have so much more if you decided to stay in the game a little. You could take a gap year and just get rich with me!" Wheezer said, draping an arm over Nate's shoulder.
"I...I dunno...I mean, my face would be everywhere..." Nate muttered, weakly.
"So wear a mask or something." Wheezer said with an annoyed grimace.
Nate looked around, catching an old newspaper out of the corner of his eyes. On the front page, a masked supervillain was being carried into a transport van by police officers, grinning maniacally.
"I think..." Nate murmured. "I think I've got a better idea..."
Wheezer finished hooking up the final piece of equipment to fully transform the old warehouse into a low-tech headquarters, wiping some sweat from his brow.
"Done. I say it's about time we pulled off our next heist. What do you say, Nate?" He said, grinning. "Nate?"
"What do I say, Wheeze?" Nate's disembodied voice said from behind a curtain now functioning as a makeshift changing room. With a flick of the wrist, the curtain was pulled aside to reveal Nate wearing a supervillain's garb. A ski-mask with a star painted over it covered his face and a leaver jacket wrapped around a t-shirt with a similar star on it. A variety of holsters and pouches were strapped to his jeans and combat boots with metallic stars on them topped the ensemble off.
"Nice..." Wheezer commented, rubbing his chin.
"I say it doesn't get any better than this." All-Star said, sneering behind the fabric of his ski-mask.
