Ghost of a Hero

Allergic to bullets (edited)

"Do you make a habit of threatening defenseless teenage girls?" I asked, eye to eye with the barrel of a gun. The man behind it was angry, and more than slightly intimidating with the way he was waving around his gun. This encounter was more than a little unusual, as we stood in the middle of the park, and he wasn't asking for my money. Despite the gun waving in my face, my fear was minimal.

"We need you as collateral. Don't take another step." The man warned. I glanced up as he pressed the cold metal of the gun against my forehead. I looked the man over, unconvinced. He was a baby boomer with a beer belly. To be frank, he looked like a typical comedy henchman.

"Or what? Whatcha gonna do? Shoot me?" I asked, a goofy grin spreading across my face.

"I prefer my hostages alive, but dead works too." He hissed. His hand shook, and the gun wavered against my forehead. Either he had hand tremors, or he was off his tits on drugs. My intuition was leaning toward the second one.

"How are you going to use a dead person as a hostage? It doesn't work like that." I muttered, eying him over.

He shrugged. "It's not me who needs the hostage, so why should I care? The boss will have you killed eventually anyway." He sniffled and moved his hand to wipe the back of his nose. He was rubbing his nose with his gun hand. Who in their right mind takes their gun off of the victim to wipe their nose?

"Weird flex but ok." There was no way I was taking him seriously. I took a step closer to him. His gun hand shook. I prompted him with another question. "So, what's the plan? Take over the world with a girl's corpse?" I turned a falsely innocent gaze upon him. His hand continued to tremble, moving so much that the gun wasn't even pointed at my head.

His ears turned bright red as he stuttered out an answer. He refused to meet my gaze. What kind of villain takes their eyes off their victim? "Something like that." He grumbled vaguely. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he continued. "We can't have the Red Chrysan stopping us. He won't stop us if we have a hostage." The man muttered the last half.

I nodded once. He had referred to the town's superhero, the Red Chrysan. Crimes, after all, needed to be talented enough to get around his mysterious superpowers. No one knows what Red Chrysan's powers are. Sometimes he can fly. Sometimes he has super strength. One time he grew gills for a crime in the ocean. I suppose the inconsistency in his powers causes fear and desperation to form in the hearts of villains. But that's all besides the point.

I hummed in reply, realizing that the man was still waiting for a response. "Absolutely. Great idea. That is going to work," I reached up and clapped him on the shoulder. He flinched, gun still unwillingly clutched in his hands.

Puzzled, I looked him over again. There was something strange about this man. His eyes were glossed over, movements stiff like a puppet. It was almost as if he was under mind control, but the reaction being clapped on the shoulder had been real enough. I hummed as I examined him once again.

He wasn't anything more than a puppet for the mastermind of the operations. This was obvious from the drool that started dripping out of his mouth and down the side of his face. No respectable villain would be seen doing that.

"Try to shoot me if you'd like," I muttered to the man. "I doubt that as a puppet, you'll have fast enough reactions." I quickly spun away from him. I ducked to the ground, a foot swinging out and knocking my leg into the man's knees. A gunshot split into the air as the bullet hit a goose flying high above. The man crashed to the ground.

I hesitated for a split second, looking down at the pitiful man. "You have less potential in life than a disfigured sea slug," I said, looking directly at him. At that moment, the goose fell out of the sky and smashed into the idiot's head.