Villains Wear Masks
Chapter 9: Problems in paradise

“Voldemort is my past, present, and future!”

~ Tom Marvolo Riddle (Voldemort)

School was no longer as boring as it used to be for Xander Mendez. Dating the arguably the most popular girl in school definitely had huge perks. For instance, he wasn’t as much of a loner as he once was. There was no real hierarchy at Oakland of real popular kids, but there were the kids that you heard about all the time because they did something worth noting. Xander was glad to know that people now knew him because of Mera, a beautiful kind girl, not because he was a Satanist who ate chicken tenders out of the trashcan while screaming, “Metal as fuck!”

(Yes, this kid existed.)

Xander would hang around with her friends in class and at lunch, and because he was dating Mera, they made an effort to include him. Xander would also drag John along, because John was still his best friend. It turned out some of Mera’s friends even liked Silver Streak as much as John did.

John didn’t really ask about the Taylor Hale incident like Xander thought he would. In fact, John seemed to stop asking about the suspicious activity Xander did entirely. It seemed he had just given up trying to make sense of his best friend’s strange behavior.

It was a perfect situation.

“. . .weekend he got out of the car and started pushing it just to prove he could.” Mera exclaimed. “I didn’t think he could do it.”

One of her friends, Harrison, laughed and held up his arms in defense, “hey, just because I’m amazing doesn’t mean you guys have to make fun of me.”

“Why did you even think to do it?” Xander asked.

Harrison shrugged. “You can never know what this mind can come up with when presented with a challenge.”

The conversations went on like this usually. Most of Mera’s friends were really cool with amazing stories of times that they were hanging out, just being stupid. It hadn’t taken long for Xander to notice that Mera never starred in any of them. It was like she was on the outskirts. A sun too bright to be associated too closely with.

He figured most of those times when they’d been hanging out, she’d been helping Wild Fire save people. To think how much life she gave away to fight crime from a computer.

On the way to lunch, John made to go down a hallway opposite to the cafeteria. Xander, confused, stopped him. “Hey, where are you going? Lunch is the other way.”

John shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m thinking about going to eat in the theater room today.”

Xander furrowed his eyebrows. “Theater? Who do you know in theater?”

“Just a couple of guys from my environmental science class, they’re pretty cool.”

And why hadn’t Xander ever heard anything about them until now? But he didn’t ask that. “What about the cafeteria with me? We always eat together in the cafeteria.”

John mumbled under his breath.

“What?”

He sighed and looked Xander in the eye. “What I’m saying is that we don’t ever eat lunch together anymore.”

“Of course we do,” Xander replied, now extremely confused, “we’ve eaten together every day since forever.”

John clenched his hands, frustrated. “Okay, yeah, I’m sitting next to you, but I’m not really there. It’s like I’m just observing the Mera and Friends show.”

“No you aren’t. You’re included as much as the rest of us are.”

“No I’m not,” John argued. “You’re only tolerated because your Mera’s newest distraction.”

Xander was blindsided. “Woah, what is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think it means?”

He crossed his arms and looked at John incredulously. “I thought you were supposed to be happy for me. I finally caught the girl of my dreams and here you are tearing me down because of it.”

John shook his head. “I was happy for you before I realized how much it changed you. Do you even really remember the last time we hung out? Just us two?”

Xander opened and closed his mouth like a fish.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’ve been so busy with Mera lately you haven’t seen that you’ve been leaving your oldest friend behind. Not to mention the Taylor thing the other day. What was that about? You’ve been so caught up in Mera and all of a sudden you’re doing something real secretive with her arch nemesis? I feel like I don’t know you anymore.”

Xander didn’t have any defense. If only John knew that he wasn’t avoiding him only because of Mera. Being a superhero was a lot of work.

Taylor Hale then picked the worst time to say hello. “Xander, just the person I was looking for.”

John looked between the two of them and seemed to make up his mind. “So, that’s what’s going on.”

“What?”

“I would’ve expected better from you, Xander,” John shook his head, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Xander watched John walk away with a confused expression. He had no idea what was going on.

Taylor gave him an exasperated look, noticing his perpetual confusion. “He thinks you’re cheating on your girlfriend.”

Xander reared backwards, “with who?”

“Me, I assume. You men are all real dumb.”

He looked back down the hallway where John had disappeared. He had to go clear this mess up right now.

“And you can’t go back there and change his mind with the truth.”

Xander looked back at Taylor, “why not?”

She sighed like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “If you go back there and tell your best friend that you’re Momentum, then what? It only explains going off with me if you tell him I’m Silver Streak. In turn, you can only explain how close you got to Mera when you barely talked to her before if you say she’s been working for Wild Fire in her spare time. I don’t think neither of us would appreciate you spilling our secrets to someone we don’t know we can trust.”

“I trust him.”

Taylor shook her head, “It’s not enough. Besides, what if he decides to go spill all of our secret identities once he knows just to spite you?”

“Why would John do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she acted like she was searching for the obvious answer, making Xander feel enraged and stupid. “Maybe the fact that his best friend gave him up to be a superhero with people he doesn’t know.”

Xander’s heart fell. “You really think my best friend would abandon me because I’m a hero?”

“People do dumb things when the ones they’re close to keep secrets from them, even if they’re for the good. The only reason Mera didn’t spill my secret to the media to stop me from being a hero was because Ross told her not to.”

Once again Xander was reminded of the fact that Mera did not approve of Taylor being Silver Streak and it was the reason they had a falling out. What he hadn’t known was the fact that Mera was willing to tell the media that she was a hero to get her to stop saving people and putting herself in danger. If the world knew who you were it was easier for villains to replace you.

“Mera wouldn’t do that.” Xander defended.

Taylor scoffed. “You may be dating her, but you don’t know her. Trust me, I thought I knew her too when I was in your position. Believe me, if it would’ve stopped me from doing something she didn’t approve of, Mera would’ve even killed a man.”

Taylor walked away, but Xander wasn’t done with her. “Hey! What did you need me for?”

She turned around, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I can function perfectly fine without you tagging along.”

Xander was pretty sure she had been trying to get him to respond to a robbery or something with her, but now that they had fought, he knew it wasn’t happening. She would go and try to do it on her own.

Xander, after a moment’s hesitation, headed towards the cafeteria.

Xander punched the dude as hard as he could, adding some speed to it for some extra juice. The dude, in turn, fell into a heap on the ground.

“Are you sure you don’t know where the Black Tiger gang hangs around?”

The dude on the ground spit and looked up at Momentum with fear in his eyes. No one had ever really looked at Xander like that. He found he didn’t quite like it too much.

“All I know is that they control the Oakland streets,” the guy squeaked out, “and that they’re planning something big. They’ve had a lot of movement over the past couple of months getting ready for some huge takedown.”

Xander crossed his arms and took a superhero stance, hoping he looked intimidating. “What is it they have planned?”

“I don’t know, dude. The last time the Black Tiger gang was this active, X was just about to take over.”

Xander backed away for a moment. X was the worst villain to ever hit Kingdom City because he had held it under his fingers. Superheroes didn’t dare try and go after him because though he was no super, he was terrifying. The Pill, his own creation, turned people into addicts and the rumor was that it did the same for supers. The prospect of something that could disable even the strongest was what kept the heroes away.

Actually, he couldn’t even remember what exactly happened that led to X’s eventual capture. All he remembered was seeing White Knight on the news in all of his glory for the first time, the birth of a new era of superheroes. X’s downfall was White Knight’s beginning.

Xander stepped backwards, letting the guy on the floor know he could run back to whatever hole he came from. Xander now knew a lot more about the Black Tiger gang’s activities in Oakland.

Taylor wouldn’t let him in on her runs, fine. He’d just do runs of his own. Maybe he’d replace something she hadn’t.

All of a sudden, his phone rang. Xander cursed and searched for it in his suit. He was very grateful that the makers of the spandex suit had included a sort of hidden pocket big enough for his phone, emergency money, and a portable charger.

It was his mom.

“Hello?”

She gave him a tone Mrs. Weasley would be proud of, “Where are you, Xander Ivan Mendez?”

“Um . . .” he actually didn’t know what street corner he was on seeing as one street sign was tagged with the Black Tiger gang sign and the other was stolen (which meant he was either on Boner Street or Butthole Lane).

“I hope that you’re just messing with me, young man. I need to know where you are right now and why you aren’t at home in your room doing homework or studying.”

“I’m . . . um . . . taking a walk.”

The answer was so out of character that it took his mother a moment to register it. “Walking?”

“You know,” Xander was sweating now, “feeling the fresh air on my skin and whatnot.”

“Oh . . . okay.” She measured her words slowly, like she was still registering the fact that her child was outside, which he technically was. “How far away are you?”

Xander looked around the city intersection. It was probably pretty far from his house. “Not far.”

“Okay, just get home as fast as you can.”

“Bye, mom.”

Xander put the phone away and looked around the corner before running as fast as he could back to his apartment complex. He opened the window to his room, thanking god that the door was closed so his mom couldn’t see Momentum sneaking into her son’s room from the kitchen, and hoped inside. In seconds his Momentum outfit was under his bed in a shoebox and he was dressed in the clothes he was in before he went out as Momentum.

About to open the door to his room into the house, Xander remembered that he was not supposed to be in the apartment, but coming back from a walk. It would really be weird if he came back through the window of his apartment instead of the front door.

“Mom, I’m back!” Xander announced as he walked through the front door after jumping out of his window again.

Katy Mendez ran up and hugged her son almost immediately. “Don’t you dare scare me like that again, Alexander!”

Even when she was mad and using his middle and last name at him, she never called him by his full first name. Ever since he was little and he announced he would only answer to Xander she obeyed his wishes. The only other time he could remember her calling him Alexander was when she got fired from her job was uncertain about work. It was a good thing that Rossi Corp left her with good references even if they did fire her.

“I didn’t mean to mom, I swear.”

She nodded and pulled herself together, smiling at Xander. “I overreacted a bit, but you need to tell me next time if you plan to go out, even if I’m not home. I tried calling the Jacksons, but they said you hadn’t been there in months and I started thinking you’d been kidnapped or something.”

“I won’t be at John’s ever again.” Xander replied in a melancholy voice.

His mom frowned, “Why not? Did you and John have a fight?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Over what?”

Xander hesitated. His mom was young, and therefor very well versed in teenage problems, but the problems he and John had were entirely Xander’s fault and something he couldn’t tell his mom about. She would freak if she knew her son was a superhero.

“Mera.”

It was enough of the truth to where he technically wasn’t lying.

Katy sat down on the couch in their small living room and Xander sat down with her. She was still frowning. “I know you have this girl for the first time in your life and it’s exciting, but you can’t leave your friends behind just because you have new ones now. You and John have been friends since preschool, and I don’t want you throwing all of that away just for some girl, even if she is very nice. If feelings have changed, that’s all right too, but I think you and John need to try at least to get through this big change.”

Xander sighed. It was a lot more complicated than just being about Mera. “I try to include him, I really do, but he doesn’t really make the effort. Plus, there’s all this other stuff he’s seen and now he’s assuming all these things about me that aren’t true and he’s been totally different.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe he seems different to you because you’re different now. Hasn’t it occurred to you that you’re going through a big change in your life and sometimes people aren’t going to change with you? You need to go and have a talk with him. Even if you feel like you need to leave your past behind you, you still owe John an explanation. Don’t let him think you gave him up just for a girl.”

Sometimes it seemed like mothers knew more than they should.

Katy lovingly tucked Xander’s hair behind his ear and he scrunched his face up, “Mom!”

“I know, just let me baby you. Kids grow up so fast.”