Scratch

While I'm at it, I shall present to you all another story I started a while ago, but of course, haven't finished, 'cause I'm like that.    It's a superhero story, as you might have guessed, and I'm planning for it to be a trilogy, as I consider trilogies to be an excellent structure for a superhero series.


Adrian Fletcher was a fairly tall, intelligent young teenager. He had very dark brown hair, with the fringe neatly combed back to the side. He was deceptively strong, unlike his brother, Cassidy, who was outright blatantly powerful. Cassidy, two years older than Adrian, had black hair. He somehow managed to keep his physique despite slouching in his chair all day. He was brilliant in his own way, as was Adrian. Cassidy was lazy in almost every respect, but was very good at programming. He’d made more than $1000 in a week after one of his releases. Adrian, however, worked much much harder for his money. As well as having a paper round, he cleaned windows for as many people as he could, sold books he’d written, and just generally looked for work wherever he could find it.

It was one day that changed Adrian’s life. Just one, almost completely average day that started in all. But it wasn’t a completely average day. Not completely. The one thing that made it different was what happened to him at the park, while playing football with some of the kids there. There were a gang of five teenagers walking past them as they were playing, when one of them turned to one of the kids playing football. He then said something to his friends, before pointing at the boy. He jogged over to them, beckoning for his friends to follow. Interrupting the match, one of the gang kicked the football hard at Adrian, hitting him in the stomach.

“Hey!” one of the kids objected.
“What you gonna do about it?” the teenager who’d kicked the ball at Adrian replied.
“What’s your problem?!”

The unruly teenager then shoved him in the chest, knocking him over.

“Hey, stop it!” Adrian called over, quickly walking towards the two.

One of the others from the gang stepped in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. He was a good few inches taller than Adrian, and was far more intimidating.

“Seriously, though. What is your problem?” he insisted.
“This little idiot here insulted me at school today,” explained the one who’d shoved the kid.
“Oh, I see. So what exactly is your intention right now? Beat him up?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“And what exactly is that going to achieve?”
“It’ll make sure he doesn’t do it again.”
“Hmm, fair point I suppose.”
“Adrian!” yelled the kid in question.
“Don’t worry; I’m sure we can settle this,” he assured him, stepping past the teenager blocking his way.

The teenager wasn’t having this, and grabbed Adrian by the arm, before immediately getting a punch in the inside of his elbow. The teenager clutched his arm, letting him go, as the three others charged towards Adrian. In little over a second, he had sprinted over to the one who was threatening his friend and dived at him, tackling him to the ground.

“Run!” he shouted to his friends, quickly getting up off the ground.

They all did, quickly followed by the gang. They weren’t quite sure, however, who they were supposed to get. The one who Adrian had punched in the arm obviously went after him, as did the one he had tackled to the ground. One of the others did too, while the two remaining teenagers split up and went after Adrian’s friends.

“Get back here now!” the teenager closest to Adrian shouted.
“Why on earth would I do that?!” he shouted back.
“Because I’ll kill you if you don’t!”
“That’s highly unwise, actually!”

Adrian looked behind him to see how close his pursuer was. He was a comfortable distance away, but while he was looking, he noticed that one of his friends had been caught. He had been grabbed by the collar and yanked backwards. Horrified, Adrian ran back around and sprinted over to help, narrowly missing the teenager chasing him as he ran past. The person he’d punched in the elbow was still in front of him, however, and they were both sprinting towards each other as fast as they could. Adrian desperately shuffled through several different possible actions he could take, before having to make up his mind. He leapt to one side, evening bending down to use the ground to pull him over, and just clipped his feet against the person.

Adrian landed on the ground on his side and rolled over on the ground several times, before managing to get up and continue sprinting to his friend being attacked. In just under ten seconds he reached him, being held by the collar by one of the gang. He had stolen his phone from his pocket and was about to hit the defenceless boy, before noticing Adrian charging towards him. He kind of froze, trying to decide whether to finish the punch or turn his attention entirely to Adrian.

Before he could make up his mind, Adrian had got him. With one hand, he chopped the teenager’s arm holding his friend and used the other to push him back, still ploughing into him. He immediately stopped, letting the teenager continue flying backwards and land against a fence behind him. Adrian quickly went over to him, picked up the phone and tossed it back to his friend.

“You alright?” he asked, before the teenager against the fence moved closer to Adrian and shot his fist towards him.

Adrian blocked and shoved the person back against the fence, and then backed away.

“Yeah, I’m fine thanks,” his friend replied.
“Now run!”

The boy against the fence dived forwards, forcing both him and Adrian to the ground. By this time, the two others who had been chasing him arrived, and began trying to attack Adrian. Just as one of them went to kick him, he pushed the one who was on top of him off in the direction of the kick, blocking it. He then rolled over to the side towards the other person, and grabbed onto one of his feet. They tried to kick him off, but Adrian quickly jumped up and bashed into their chest, knocking him over.

Just as he began running away again, he was crushed to the floor by someone jumping at him. He tried to get the person off him, but couldn’t. But they soon did, of their own accord, and grabbed Adrian by the back of his shirt. They yanked him up, and with all their strength, swung him at the fence of the basketball court next to them. Adrian crashed into it and slumped to the ground.

By this point, four out of the five gang members had come over to Adrian, cornering him. Adrian couldn’t do anything. There was no way he could get past them, and despite his charm, he probably wouldn’t be able to reason with them either. He just stayed there, preparing himself for the inevitable.

“Hey! Get away from him!” came a familiar voice from behind him.

The voice belonged to his brother, Cassidy. Then came to noise of someone rapidly bounding up and over a metal fence, before his brother landed a few feet in front of him and rolled to absorb the impact. The four teenagers in front of Adrian quickly stepped backwards, trying to avoid being landed on by Cassidy, but one of them had their feet knocked out from beneath them as he rolled. He then leapt up from the roll and darted over to Adrian, yanking him up by the hand.

“Run!” he said, pulling Adrian as fast as he could.

The gang was so taken by surprise, that a few seconds past before they got the idea that maybe they should go after them. But this was a good enough head start for Cassidy and Adrian, as they knew the neighbourhood like the back of their hand. After a few corners, they had disappeared.

“What happened there?!” Cassidy hissed after they had got far enough away.
“One of the kids I was playing football with apparently insulted one of those chavs at school earlier today,” Adrian explained.
“And so they beat him up?”
“They tried to, but I stopped them.”
“You should have just got out of there when you had the chance. Don’t try to be a hero.”
“You saved me just then!”
“Yeah, I saved you. But I didn’t try to take on four people at once, did I? I got you and ran.”
“Alright, I suppose.”
“So don’t get into something you can’t handle, ok?”
“Fine, I won’t.”

Adrian was being honest. He would try his hardest not to get into any fights he couldn’t win. But he was going to keep that promise in a way that Cassidy certainly didn’t intend.