1.8 Assassins Part 5

I sit in the living room the next day with Lily as we wait for the Moors to arrive. Our uncle, Harry Moors, is Dad’s older brother. He and his wife, Olivia Moors, have three kids, a son and two daughters.

Their oldest, Oliver, is almost two years older than me and is almost the opposite of me. While I’m more technically oriented, Oliver is more of a sportsman. While I’m lean, Oliver has a muscular physique as befitting of his status as a footballer and a bodybuilder.

We don’t exactly dislike each other, but our lack of common interests makes it rather hard to get along with each other.

Their middle child, Emily, is fourteen and is outgoing and social while remaining on top of her studying and greatly enjoys reading. She likes to write fanfic about the League much to my annoyance.

The youngest, Chloe, is twelve like Lily, but half a year older. They both share the same interests, but Chloe is much more girly and silly than my sister. Also to my annoyance.

You probably gotten the impression that I don’t particularly get on with my cousins on my dad’s side. That might be a bit harsh. We get on with each other okay, but I prefer to keep out of their way and for them to keep out of mine.

It doesn’t help that the Riley family decided to move into the base today and I’m busy here. I’m lucky that Narszara, James and Sam are free to help them move in. Alex also might show up later today as well.

Oh well, I guess I just have to put up with this.

By the way, I should mention that Uncle Harry is a politician who doesn’t like the idea of non-governmental superheroes. He has been campaigning to get the League of Heroes to be either disbanded, outlawed or made to work for the government over the last few weeks.

Not that any of League actually cares.

And what makes the situation even worse is that Lily and I have had a falling out last night. She feels that Britannia’s secret identity to busted wide open to be ‘cool’ and, well, you know how I feel about the subject.

“Be nice,” Dad tells me as he enters the room.

“Don’t worry Dad,” I reassure him, “I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t start any fights,” says Dad, “I know how you disagree with Harry’s beliefs and ideas.”

I ignore that last part. I’ve been quite vocal about how I disagree with Harry’s politics around the house.

“Just don’t expect me to play nice with his dumb ideas,” I mutter.

Dad glares at me. Unlike Mum, who is much more understanding due to her knowledge about granddad, the League and the rest of it, Dad just doesn’t get why I’m so strongly opposed to his brother’s beliefs. It bugs him and he has no idea on why I behave like I do.

Today’s visit isn’t looking like it is going to be a good one.

“When are they arriving?” asks Lily as she looks out the window.

“Anytime now,” answers Dad, “And I mean it Daniel, no causing or starting any fights.”

“You don’t need to repeat yourself,” I retort.

Dad glares at me, but doesn’t say anything. I might be in trouble later though, but I don’t really care right now.

We sit in the living room in uncomfortable silence until Lily shouts, “I see them!”

Harry has the look of a politician even as he enters the house. A fit body with a grin on his face, my uncle has handsome features including stubble instead of a beard and slick dark brown hair. He is informal clothing, fancy trousers and a polo shirt.

Olivia looks like a businesswoman even in informal clothing. Emily is wearing a crimson top and snug dark pink trousers and has a slender body shape while Chloe as a girly look to her.

Oliver, on the other hand, is major contrast to his father, wearing sport attire. His football uniform to be precise. His body is buff and his blonde hair is even shorter than mine and much neater. His brown eyes are just like his father’s.

We exchange greetings. Oliver gives Lily a great big bear hug, but simply gives me a friendly slap on the back. I just smile at him.

Dad and Harry start speaking with each other while the girls chat about girl stuff.

“Did you see the game the other night?” Oliver asks me.

“No, I don’t watch sports,” I tell him.

“So what do you do then?” asks Oliver.

“School work, engineering, hang out with friends, self-defence training and running my company,” I reply.

“That sounds boring,” says Oliver dismissively, “Wait, your company?”

“Yup,” I answer, “Griffin Engineering. Granddad left it to me. While I’m not old enough to run it, I’m still learning about it so I can run when I’m old enough.”

“Still sounds boring,” replies Oliver, “Like how dad wants be to follow him into politics. Football is much more fun than all of that.”

“Politics are important even if I disagree with your dad’s,” I reply, “And football only works as a job if you’re really good. Besides as the-”

“I am really good,” cuts in Oliver, “The Portsmouth Football Club has signed me on. In a year, I’ll be playing for them.”

“Good for you,” I reply, “In a few years, I’ll be running one of the biggest companies in the nation.”

“Which one?” demands Oliver.

“I told already. Griffin Engineering,” I answer, somewhat annoyed that he wasn’t paying attention.

Then again, I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying so I can’t really complain. Not without being a hypocrite.

“I know,” says Harry suddenly, “Why don’t you show Ollie the local park?”

“That sounds like a great idea,” agrees my dad, “The girls can play with each other and Harry and I can catch up.”

I sigh internal in response. It looks like I’m going to have no control over how my day is going to go.

1.8 Assassins Part 4

I look at my communicator. It says Laura the one calling me. I guess I should take it.

“Hello Laura,” I say, “Have you got any news on Nightblade?”

“I managed to track his payer to the same person behind the bounties on you, the warehouse tip off, Hall and Edison’s guns and the revealer of Britannia’s identity. ” replies Laura, “He was paid to kill Britannia’s family and heroes who got in the way. But his employer paid him even after he failed so he’s not going after them anymore. Why someone wanted to kill them in the first place, but then not be bothered when that doesn’t happen worries me frankly. We’re either dealing with an idiot or, more likely given his past known actions, our foe’s goals in this matter were fulfilled. Not that I can figure them out. I just wish it didn’t involve doing what they did to Britannia. But that’s not all I want to talk about.”

“So what else?” I ask.

“First you might want a bit of information your friend Mia Robinson, the captain of the Dust Corsair,” replies Laura.

“Definitely,” I say.

“She’s settled back down into her family and a normal life,” says Laura, “A bit of trouble respecting authority and she is still unusual. Mia is gotten on good terms with the Defenders of the Bush. Basically, she’s weird, but otherwise Mia is fitting in.”

“I’ll relay that to Darrac,” I reply.

“One last thing,” says Laura, “A personal favour.”

“A personal favour,” I repeat surprised.

Laura rarely asks for a personal favour. When she does, they usually consist of asking for information, using one of our contracts or getting some free equipment.

“What is it?” I inquire.

“You know my kids,” says Laura.

“Yeah.”

Laura has four kids. Her oldest daughter is called Bellona and is sixteen. Her second eldest daughter is fourteen and called Alexandra. Her third child is eleven year old boy called Halvard while her youngest is a nine year old girl called Lorica. All have been trained to take over from Laura when they’re old enough.

“It is to do with Alexandra,” explains Laura, “You know how she has never been the most eager for a fight. Well, she doesn’t want to follow in the family footsteps and I’m not going to force her to. But I’m not sure what to do with her now. I’m kind of hoping she could stay with the League. Not, part of it, but just live the base like Narszara does.”

“That’s doable,” I reply, “It would be good for Narszara to have a housemate and it shouldn’t cause any problems. Alex can be trusted like all of your family.”

“Alex will be pleased,” says Laura, “I’ll tell her the good news. Thanks.”

Laura ends the call and Charlie raises an eyebrow at me.

“Just offered to let someone else stay at the base without asking or telling the others?” says Charlie.

“In fairness to me, I do actually own the base when it comes to the paperwork,” I reply in joking tone, “And granddad built by himself and he gave it to me when he died.”

“True, true,” grins Charlie, “So are we putting some weapons into the Bulk armour.”

“Yup and the Sentinel armour too,” I reply.

“Good,” replies Charlie, “I got to go now. See you later.”

***

“Daniel!” calls Mum from downstairs as I sit at the desk in my bedroom, “Dinner!”

“Coming Mum!” I reply as I take off my headphones.

I’ve been doing research for a school project in addition to my one of my other Sentinel projects. I’ve been trying to work on a way for quick and efficiently take a normal person down at range. For non-lethal crowd control.

At the moment I was thinking about a sort of laser-taser hybrid that uses lasers to artificially create ionised paths for the electricity to path. Trying to figure that out is as hard as it sounds.

It is a simply meal that Mum is dishing up, chicken goujons and hash browns. Lily is having chips instead of hash browns. She has never really been keen on them much to my annoyance as I have always preferred hash browns to chips.

I’m digging into my first goujon when Lily starts talking.

“Did you hear about the news this morning?” inquires Lily.

“What part?” asks Mum, but I already know what Lily is referring to.

“About Britannia’s identity,” answers Lily excitedly.

“I don’t why people seem to think that’s a good thing,” I cut in, “Her life has been changed beyond her control and not for the better. She has to live full time with people knowing she’s a superhero and can no longer live a normal life. Plus a superpowered assassin was able to go after her family because of it. And who knows how many more villains will try to after her family to get to Britannia.”

Not expecting my vigorous reply, Lily looks ready to launch an argument for the sake of it when Mum steps in, seeing the potential disaster in the making.

“Talking about families, remember that the Moors are coming to visit tomorrow,” says Mum, “Daniel, I expect you to spend time with your cousins instead of keeping to yourself all day.”

“Usually hang out with friends,” I protest, “I don’t hide away all day.”

“My point still stands Daniel,” says Mum sternly.

I sigh as I know I’m not going to win this one.

1.5 The Machine Part 1

I’m eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast when I find out about the bounty that has been placed on my head.

Lily came rushing into the dining room whilst mum and I were eating. Dad has already left for work about ten minutes ago.

“Guess what,” says Lily and she continues to speak before either mum or I can reply, “Somebody just put bounties on the League of Heroes. Isn’t it exciting?”

***

“How much?” asks Samuel.

Having heard about the bounties, Sam, James, Sky, Lucy, Stefan and Charlie have meet up before school outside the corner shop down the road from school.

“Most of us got fifty thousand in dollars,” I reply, “That’s over thirty thousand pounds by the way.”

“Damn,” curses Skyler while Lucy, James and Charlie echo their similar sentiments.

“Personally I think it’s kind of cool,” says Stefan, “Perhaps people will take us seriously now.”

“You said most of us,” says Samuel, frowning, “What about the rest?”

“Me, you and Narszara have a hundred thousand dollars over our heads,” I tell him, “That is easily over fifty thousand pounds.”

“I’m jealous,” grins Stefan, “Any idea who it is behind it?”

“Well, it’s in dollars,” says Lucy, “And we defeated Vengeance, who people see as heroes for some reason, so maybe some good intentioned fool wants to take us down for that.”

“What do you think?” James asks me.

It’s strange how they see me as the smart one. Everybody in the League has above average intelligence and James and Charlie are just as smart as me. Lucy and Kevin are even smarter than me. 

I suppose it is because I run the base and all our businesses in addition to our logistics and supplies, our information and a bunch of other things.

“Sam, Narszara and I have a theory, but I don’t want talk about it here,” I answer, lowing my voice, 

“Back at base after school.”

“Okay,” says James.

At school, everybody is talking about us. Again. This time it is about the bounties and a few conversations about Vengeance. Stefan’s right about one thing, people are starting to respect the new generation of the League of Heroes.

“So Daniel,” says Sam at lunch time as he sits down next to me and Charlie, “So were we right about you know what?”

I understand Samuel’s coded words as not only are me and Charlie sat at the table, but two other people, Brandon and Jake. Two normal people that have no idea who the League of Heroes really are.

“Yes we were,” I answer, “As I said before school, I’ll talk about more after school at our hideout.”

“Good,” says Samuel and Brandon and Jake share confused look between them.

“Did you enjoy DT earlier?” asks Sam, “I bet you want make your own hover drones rather than just design them.”

“They would be nice,” I reply, not mentioning that I have already done that with granddad, “But why would I need them?”

“Besides, you would need to have the money to get all the parts and equipment,” points Brandon, 

“You would have to be millionaire or something to have that sort of money spare.”

“Daniel is a millionaire,” whispers Jake in Brandon’s ear.

I grin as Brandon’s face flushes red. It’s true that I have eleven million pounds that I inherited from granddad when he died. While he left everyone in the family a hundred thousand pounds, he left the majority of his wealth to me along with his vehicles, house and other processions. I think he surprised a lot of people who didn’t know he was Sentinel, but neither of his daughters cared they were skipped.

As to where granddad got his riches in the first place, he ran the League’s side businesses which supplied, manufacture equipment and other things. It started out small, but when he had been doing it for just over six decades, things build up.

It’s strange that despite being so wealthy, granddad and our family lived fairly normal lives. I guess it was mainly to do with granddad being the Sentinel again. He got his wealth from being part of the League and I guess he didn’t want to abandon the League to live the high life regardless of how rich 

he became.

He was a nice guy like that.

I also think granddad never wanted to forget what he was fighting for. Personally I feel that he wanted to stay in touch with being a normal person despite also being a superhero.

I wonder how many superheroes are in touch with normal people these days. I hope the answer is a lot.

I can’t help, but compare it to what Laura told me about feudal lords of the past. The nobles started off as heroes who rose from amongst the common folk. But as time went on, the original generation and their children died and the number of nobles rose. Eventually titles were inherited rather than being earned. This meant that the nobles stopped being in touch with the common folk they ruled over. A few stayed in touch and remained good leaders, but they were ultimately too few and most nobles been removed from power by the present day.

I wonder if the same thing is happening with supers. Minus the being removed from power part.

The old Leaguers were some of the first superheroes and were noble and moral as was the Paragon and the Patriots, their American counterparts. Now things have changed as more superpowered people have been born and things have gotten worse as time has moved on. Secrecy and security seemed to much more important days than a few decades ago.

But then again, at the end of the day, there are more than enough heroes to fight evil where ever it may be. 

1.2 Partners Part 9

I disliked the questions that were asked of us. Halfway through the conference, that dislike turned into hatred. By the end, most of the reporters in the room I hated with a passion.

And yes, it was that bad. It didn’t help most of them were dumb and pointless. Do I mean the questions or the reporters? The answer is yes.

Some of their questions were okay such as ‘what are our powers?’ and ‘which superheroes are we related too?’.

Others were just plain, old and stupid such as if ‘Bulk and Storm Knight could be trusted?’ and ‘how it was possible to be certain that they wouldn’t become supervillains like their grandparents?’.

The rest were simply irrelevant to the point we were making. In fact, I didn’t even bother to remember them.

But enough of me going on about my newfound hatred of the press, the media and all they entail.

Once it ended, we returned to the base and changed out of costumes before splitting up for the night.

Charlie and James decided to head home while the Walters went to some fancy place that their family could afford. Stefan stayed to use the training room and Sam and Sky decided to join him. Vance and Kennet when to a coffee shop for a drink together. Lucy stayed at the base to use one of the high-tech computers to do some of her homework.

I just decided to go home and see my family. I wonder how Lily will react to tonight?

I’m just coming out of the base when Helen runs to catch up with me.

I’m surprised at her appearance, jeans and an sleeveless shirt. While the jeans are normal for her, the shirt isn’t.

“I didn’t expect you to wear a shirt like that,” I say as I stop and wait for my cousin.

“I’m trying out a new look,” explains Helen as we begin walking again, “Girl Stuff.”

“Got it,” I reply.

‘Girl Stuff’ is Helen’s standard way of saying that I won’t understand the explanation. It includes pointless shopping and owning far too many shoes.

Of course my own younger sister, Lily, does the same stuff so it is probably just an example of boys not understanding girls and their strange habits. Not their girls understand all of our male habits.

On the other hand, Skyler also has no idea why anyone would do Girl Stuff.

“Mum is visiting yours,” says Helen, “So I figured I’ll tag along with you and go and see her.”

“Sure,” I reply as I stuff my hands in my pockets, “I guess they’ll both want to see how we are after the conference.”

“I’m going to take a guess and say that you found the reporters and their questions to be dumb?” inquires Helen, “Possible downright stupid at the same time?”

“That obvious?” I grumble in return.

“Nah,” replies Helen, “I just thought they were stupid as well. So did Charlie, Stefan, Samuel, Skyler and Vance. James and Lucy understood where the media was coming from, but they also agreed the reporters were still stupid.”

“Probably trying to play on public fears to get more readers and viewers,” I muse before another thought strikes me, “Have you noticed how many children and grandchildren of supervillains are becoming superheroes?”

“I’ll admit that there are a lot of them,” replies Helen, “I suppose they want to throw off the stigma and make their own name in the world.”

We make other trivial small talk as we walk back to my house in Shirley. It takes us about a good hour and forty minutes and we spend most of that time discussing superhero stuff. And not just about the League as we talked about the Albion Defenders and other English heroes and villains.

“Mum still doesn’t approve of changing the name from Protector to Defenders,” says Helen walk towards the door, “She said it was only done to appease the Americans and their Defenders. Because, as you certainly know, they have the Justice Defenders, the Liberty Defenders, the Freedom Defenders and etc, etc.”

“I get it,” I reply as I get my key out, “That’s one of the downsides of being government funded and one of the reasons the League was kept internally funded.”

“I will never understand how you keep track of all that,” says Helen, shaking her head.

She is referring to how I been managing the League’s resources and assets since Granddad’s death.

“Oh, it’s quite simple once you got the hang of it-,” I start to say as I open the door.

“Daniel!” shouts Lily as see spots me.

Lily’s got blonde short hair and slight tomboy streak to her. As shown by choice of attire with her loose t-shirt and patched up jeans. We have to be careful around her as she hasn’t figured out about how we’re connected to the League and superhero business. And I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can.

“Hiya Helen,” grins Lily as we enter the house, “My Mum and your mum are in my mum’s bedroom. Did you hear about it on the news?”

“About the new members of League of Heroes?” I ask, knowing the answer already.

“Yup,” says Lily, “It’s awesome isn’t it! Having the New League of Heroes about. Especially since they’re local.”

“They’re officially just the League of Heroes,” I point out.

“Who cares about that?” snorts Lily.

“Anyhow, me and Helen are going to see Mum and Mary,” I reply, “I’ll talk with you later.”

“Okay,” says Lily before going back to watching the TV.

Helen and I make our way upstairs to my Mum and Dad’s room where Aunt Mary and Mum are talking at her desk.

“There you two are,” says my mum as she notices us enter, “I guessed it was coming ever since you started going out in dad’s old armour, but it’s still a surprise for any mother.”

“I been involved since before granddad’s death,” I reply, “I just wasn’t going out and fighting before Tuesday. Even that was only to help Sam, Sky and James against Vistorix.”

“Still it’s dangerous and can tear families apart,” says Mum solemnly, “It’s happened before.”

At my Mum’s words, Helen shakes her head and Mary sighs.

“Mum, you know that applies to the Americans and fiction,” I counter, “Granddad and grandma stay together until old natural death did them apart. The same goes the rest of League and their families, ours included. And the Lantern doesn’t count as he sacrificed himself to stop the Invasion. The same goes for the Albion Defenders, the Guardians of Ireland and the Highlanders. Only a few of the heroes in Isles seem suffer like the American ones seem to and even then, its only because there’s so many more American heroes to suffer bad fates. When you look at the percentages, the Americans suffer about the same as most countries ”

“You’re right,” concedes mum, “But it’s still hard for me.”

For that I have no words, but Mary starts speaking again. The conversation continues in a similar fashion from that point onwards before I excuse myself and go to my room.