Twins 99 Volume 1 – How Heroes Start Chapter 6: Criminal Misunderstandings

The next day, it is nighttime and I’m playing video games in my room. “Hey, where is your brother?” Dad asks as he enters my room. “He is exercising in the Training Room.” “Why aren’t you exercising?” “Because, I have reasons.” I hesitantly answer. “What are your reasons?” Dad sternly demands. “Um, I guess I have to go find them.” I reply while trying to go past Dad and leave my room. “Go get your brother and put these on.” Dad hands me our criminal-looking outfits. “Vigilante time?” I guess. “Yes.” I run all the way downstairs to the Training Room. I see Jovan right outside of the door. “Dude, I thought you were exercising in there.” I note, looking confused. “I forgot the password.” Jovan responds. “Seriously?! So, you were just standing here the entire time! You left my room thirty minutes ago! You’re so dumb.” I point out. “Shut up, you probably don’t know the password either.” I walk past Jovan and I slowly put in the code so Jovan can clearly see what I’m typing. “It’s twins99.” “You’re a dick.” I chuckle a lot after his response. “Okay, we gotta put these on again.” I show Jovan our “Them” costumes. “Vigilante time?” “Vigilante time.” We put on the criminal outfits and head out of the house with Dad. “Where are we going?” I question Dad while we jump across the buildings in Radix City. “To a small food market.” “Wow, from a drug store to a food market.” “Yeah, like from rated R to PG.” Jovan and I comment. “Whatever, just don’t get yourselves killed. You have a piece of paper, right?” “Yup.” I hold out a piece of paper to Dad and it immediately flies out of my hands. I race back to the piece of paper and quickly retrieve it. “My bad.” I can’t believe I dropped it so easily. Dad looks at me like I should give the paper to Jovan. “Do you have a pen?” “Yeah.” Jovan points to his left pocket. “Good, we’re here.” Dad confirms. We stop jumping and look at the food market. “Beat up the thugs and make a name for “Them”. Got it?” “Yeah, Dad, we got it. Let’s do this, Jo.” “Alright, Ja.” We jump down to the food store. “I wonder how they’ll handle this one.” Dad wonders as we enter the food shop. We see 10 thugs shooting bullets. “Oh, shit.” I grab Jovan and dash around the thugs to the counter. “Damn, that was close. How’d they know we were coming? I guess you only have to stop one crime to be popular in these streets. So, what’s the plan, Jovan?” I comment, trying to sound calm. Jovan doesn’t answer back. “Hey, are you listening?” I'm starting to get annoyed. “Look.” Jovan speaks with a dazed face. I put my head above the counter. I spot a purple haired girl in a superhero-like outfit with interesting guns in her pockets. She is swiftly evading the thugs’ bullets. There’s no way. “Jovan, is she who I think she is?” I remark with a solemn voice as I look Jovan dead in his face. “Yes, she is.” Jovan also phrases with a grim look. “Okay.” I gradually turn my head away from Jovan.  A VIGILANTE! OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD! I look back and get another glimpse of her. Yep, she’s real! In the flesh! No superhero would come to a food market. And, it’s only our second day on the job! “Jovan, she’s a vigilante.” I announce with an excited voice. “I know, shut up.” “What do we do?” I simply ignore his retort. “We help her, obviously.” “Oh, right. The normal response.” Jovan leaps out from the counter and charges at the thugs. “Yeah, I'll wait for them to run out of bullets.” I cowardly react when I notice that the thugs are still firing their weapons. I acted so gay. The vigilante detects Jovan and bolts towards him. “Is she going to help me?” Jovan wonders in his brain. In the blink of an eye, the vigilante kicks Jovan at the thugs. “What the hell?” Jovan says in frustration. “Hey, aren't you a member of “Them”?” “Good, you can assist us with this cosplayer.” Two thugs state while looking down on Jovan. One of the thugs hand Jovan a gun as they watch their group get pummeled by the vigilante. “Whoa.” Jovan is fascinated and terrified of the fact that he's holding a gun. “What do you mean whoa?” “How old are you?” The two thugs rejoin, but the vigilante knocks them out afterwards. “You're the last one.” The vigilante confirms just when Jovan glimpses at the unconscious thugs. The vigilante prepares to kick Jovan in his face. I instantly grip the vigilante’s leg and toss her through a wall and out of the store. I hope that didn't hurt too much. “You're welcome.” I gloat. “Yeah, yeah. Did you just move out from the counter?” “Yeah.” “Wow.” “Shut up, I was confused when she hit you the first time. I was like “Does she know what side she's on?”. But after that, I realized it was because of our criminal outfits.” I fool around a bit. Jovan just shakes his head. “That explains why she kicked me.” “What it doesn’t explain is why the hell do you have a gun?” “The thugs gave it to me. They thought we were here to help them.” “Oh. Is there a reason you didn't activate your blue eyes?” I inquire while noticing that his eyes are normal. “They didn't change?” Jovan is shocked. “Nope. “That's weird. My eyes always activate when I'm in danger.” Jovan thinks to himself. “I guess you thugs had a special one with you.” The vigilante steadily walks towards us. “One with quick reflexes.” The vigilante declares. “Huh?” I pronounce, sounding puzzled. Jovan and I glance at each other with bewildered faces. “Still, it won't matter. Because, you'll lose.” The vigilante rushes at us. “We'll see about that.” I boastfully say and sprint at her. “Hey, wait. You idiot! You know this is a misunderstanding!” Jovan states with frustration. The vigilante jumps in the air and attempts to kick me. I effortlessly run past her attack and punch her back through two aisles of food, which break apart and drop on her. “What the hell?!” Jovan criticizes. “What, she ran at me. I'm just accepting her challenge. Come on, you know I don't want to do this. She's a vigilante.” I arrogantly conclude. “How come Dad isn’t doing anything about this?” Jovan questions in his mind, feeling angry. I turn around and the vigilante is sprinting at me. I dash towards her and simply punch her in the stomach. She flies to the counter right away. The counter shatters into two large pieces on contact. Somehow, she gets up and leaps from one part of the counter. She pulls out one of her guns and aims to shoot me. Crap! I dart behind her to avoid her attack. “Wow, you really fell for that one.” The vigilante notes as she lands on the ground and kicks my stomach,which sends me to an aisle of snacks. I am covered in chips. Wait, so she wasn't going to use her gun? Son of a, damn it. “I need to fix this before Javon gets a grudge.” Jovan walks over to the vigilante. “Hey!” Jovan calls out. “Oh yeah, I forgot about you. This will be easy.” The vigilante puts her gun back in her pocket and charges at Jovan. “Wait, you've got me wrong.” She tries to punch Jovan, however he skillfully blocks her punch and pins her to the ground. “OH. MY. GOD.” Jovan comments in his mind. “What are you doing?!” The vigilante screams with confusion while Jovan's hand is on the her boob. “Is this how you pin people down?!” “No, um, uh.” Jovan tries to explain while his nose is immensely bleeding. “Ewwww, you're bleeding on me!” The vigilante points out. Jovan holds his nose to stop his blood from getting on the vigilante. He accidentally squeezes her breast and his nose erupts like a volcano. His blood gets all over the vigilante’s face. It also gets in her mouth. “EWWWWWWWW! Get off me!” The vigilante says with Jovan's blood in her mouth. She kicks Jovan off of her. The vigilante attempts to spit out Jovan's blood. She even puts her finger in her mouth to try to vomit his blood out. She chokes a little in the process. “I can't believe I just did that. What horrible timing. Anime cliches can actually happen in real life. How is that even possible? Anime is a sin.” Jovan whispers to himself, looking stunned. “Jo, you really just did that.” I comment while laughing. “You were standing there the entire time!” Jovan angrily notices while wiping his nose. “Your blood is ALL OVER her! You bleed in her mouth! I bet she swallowed it too!” I laugh and drop to the floor at a leisurely pace. Man, this is hilarious! “What the fuck?!” “Jovan, chill out. Look on the bright side. You must seriously live in an anime if crap like that happens to you!” “What kind of brother are you?” Jovan just stirs in his hatred. Okay, I should stop. Now, I'm going too far. “Now, you can't talk about my accident with Carol.” I ignore his question and continue giggling. Actually, I'm surprised that I didn't get a nosebleed when I touched Carol’s breasts. “Are you seriously mentioning this now?!” “Hey, look at that, your eyes are blue.” I notice and use as an excuse to change the subject. “My eyes activated. So, that's how I pinned her down.” Jovan calms down with an irritated face. “That's it. This is taking too long. Time to finish this.” The vigilante wipes the blood from her eyes and takes out both of her guns. It's about time that she started using her guns. Things are going to get serious. “Dead Eyes, activate.” The vigilante says and the guns light up with violet colors. I rush towards the vigilante and make an effort to punch her in the face. Right when I'm in front of her, she shoots me in the face. I get hit with a purple energy ball. It explodes on contact and creates an explosion that blows the roof off the store and covers me in detritus. “Holy shit.” Jovan and Dad say in their head with surprised looks. “That last explosion broke the cameras I had in the store. Well, at least, I can still see them. How will Jovan handle this?” Dad wonders as he observes Jovan and the vigilante. The vigilante points her gun at Jovan and fires a purple energy ball at him. Jovan dodges it, however the explosion knocks him to the ground from behind. The vigilante charges at Jovan and fires another purple energy ball as he quickly stands up. He sidesteps to his left to elude it, yet the explosion blows him towards the vigilante. She immediately kicks him away from her and towards more debris. While Jovan is down, she shoots two purple energy balls from both of her guns. He jumps up in the air to evade them, still the explosions hit him and send him higher in the air. “Dammit, her after-explosions are unavoidable. There's no point in dodging.” Jovan determines in his mind as he falls to the earth. When he gets near the ground, the vigilante tries to kick him. Amazingly, Jovan swiftly blocks her leg, kicks her vigorously to the ground, and lands softly. “Whoa, that was unexpected.” Dad remarks. The vigilante rises up and shoots a purple energy ball at Jovan. He ducks, avoids the purple energy ball and its explosion, and elbows the vigilante back to the floor. She stands up and fires two purple energy balls at him. Jovan eludes them by delicately sliding in between the purple energy balls. After the explosions occur, he punches the vigilante’s face and she drops to the ground again. “Okay, so that's how we're going to be.” The vigilante steadily rises up. “Dead Eyes, deactivate.” Her guns power down and she puts them back in her pockets. “Fine, let's go.” The vigilante runs to Jovan and endeavors to do a flying kick to Jovan. He just barely evades her attack and makes an effort to punch her. She leaps over him and does a quick jab to his chest that instantly knocks him to the floor. “Looks like they are about to engage in close combat.” Dad notes while Jovan stands back up. The vigilante strives to punch Jovan in his face. Jovan blocks it and attempts a punch himself. She smacks his hand away, jumps up, and hits him with a butterfly kick that instantly makes him spit out blood and turns his face the other way. Then, she kicks his legs, which makes him fall, and uppercuts his chin. Jovan is sent into the air from the vigilante’s last attack, however he recollects himself and lands safely on the ground. The vigilante tries to knee Jovan, still he spins around her and elbows her back. It hurts her, but she stands her ground and does a flash kick that bangs Jovan's head to the floor. He picks himself up and does his best to kick the vigilante. She grabs his leg with one hand, yet he jumps off one foot and gives her a strong left hook to her jaw. The vigilante goes down to the earth right away, even so she rises up without delay and strikes Jovan with a crescent kick. He drops hard to the earth and gets up straightaway. He throws a punch at the vigilante, yet she avoids it and also throws a punch. Jovan evades it and attempts another punch. The vigilante sidesteps away from it and uses her shoulder to smash his elbow. “AAAAAAHHHHHH!” Jovan shouts as she injures his arm. Afterwards, the vigilante does a roundhouse kick to his back. He flies toward a pile of debris. “Fuck, that hurt. Okay, it's somehow clear that I can't beat her in close combat so how can I defeat her?” Jovan brainstorms for a moment. He takes a look at the vigilante’s guns.  “Got an idea.” Jovan rises to his feet and dashes to the vigilante. He hops over her and steals one of her guns. “It’s over.” Jovan claims while pointing the gun to her head. The vigilante stays silent. “Just give up. I never wanted to fight you to begin with. First of all, I'm not a criminal.” Jovan states with an honest voice. The vigilante ignores his words. She notices that Jovan is hesitating to pull the trigger. She grabs Jovan’s injured arm and slams him on the floor. “Arrrrrrrggggghhhhhhh!” Jovan cries in pain. Then, she takes back her gun and points it in his face. Out of nowhere, an earthquake occurs. It causes the vigilante to drop her gun and fall down. “That must've been Dad.” Jovan concludes. He watches as I quickly pick up the vigilante’s gun and stand in front of her. “It’s over, Purple Shots.” I nickname the vigilante. “Wait, Javon, don't shoot her. We're talking about life and death.” “Jo, shut that crap up. If it didn't kill me, then it's not going to kill her.” I respond with an annoyed tone. Plus, this is payback for earlier. But, I can kind of understand why Jovan doesn't want me to shoot her. If this thing knocked me out, a guy with superpowers, imagine how much damage this would do to her, a girl without superpowers. Oh well. I pull the trigger on the vigilante’s gun, however nothing comes out of it. “What the hell?” I am very confused. I did pull the trigger, right? I know this is my first time using a gun, but I'm pretty sure I used it right. The vigilante takes her other gun out. “Dead Eyes, activate.” Both of her guns power on and shine with violet colors. That's all I had to do? Thanks, dumbass! I pull the trigger again. Nothing happens. The vigilante pulls the trigger and a purple energy ball comes out of her gun. It explodes right when it touches my left eye and the explosion blows me away. I land on a pile of smashed food. Son of a bitch! She got me again! And, she injured my left eye. I can't even open it. “Wow, Javon couldn’t even shoot a gun.” Jovan comments with a discouraged tone while Dad shakes his head. I'm seriously struggling against a girl with guns? I sprint towards the vigilante and she fires two purple energy balls at me. I run past them and avoid their explosions like how wind blows by trees. Then, I punch the vigilante in her face. The strength of my punch makes her fly towards a broken wall. As she slowly gets up, I rush towards her and punch her to a bunch of demolished snacks. While I'm dealing with the vigilante, Jovan is writing a note. “Alright, this should tell the police that “Them” was here.” Jovan places the piece of paper on one of the thugs’ head. He gently walks away from the food store, which is now rubble combined with smashed food and a few small walls that are still standing. Suddenly, Jovan is hit from behind and falls to the ground. “Uh. Why?” Jovan sighs and complains when he sees the vigilante on his back. “Oh, my bad. I didn't mean to hit her towards you.” I clarify with a silly grin on my face. I was just smacking her around, forgetting about where we are. Heck, I already forgot what we came here for. Right now, I feel the mission is this vigilante character. I hurry towards her, worrying that she might do something to Jovan. I'm instantly knocked down to the ground. I don't know how she attacked me because I didn't see anything. But, after I got hit, all I saw was purple. Dammit. “How come Javon didn't try to dodge the vigilante’s purple energy ball? Crap, it’s because she shot at his injured eye!” Jovan realizes after visualizing what just happened in his head. “I'll give you props for lasting so long against me. You're different from other thugs. However, in the end, you are just thugs.” The vigilante shoots multiple purple energy balls at my unconscious body. A huge explosion erupts as soon as the purple energy balls touch me. It’s so gigantic that Jovan and the vigilante get hit by it. Dad doesn't move a muscle as he sees the explosion occur right before his very eyes. From his point of view, the explosion looks like a giant purple waterfall. His nose is just a few inches away from it. After the explosion ends, all Dad can see is that the remains of the food store are spread out and in smaller pieces. Dad is making a furious and regretful face. He clenches his fists so strong that the building, he is standing on, begins shaking. Jovan and the vigilante are unconscious next to each other while I'm lying inside a big crater. That last explosion tore off Jovan's mask and shirt along with mine. Dad jumps down to Jovan’s position. His landing instantly makes dust blow away from the area. “I can't believe this happened.” Dad looks at all of the damage around him. It looks like the aftermath of a war zone. “I have to get them out of here.” Dad picks up Jovan and puts him on his shoulder. He begins walking towards me, until he spots the vigilante’s guns. He picks one of the guns up and examines the detail of it. “I have never seen a gun like this before.” Dad confirms after a glance. He then remembers how Jovan and I struggled to use it. He points it up to the pitch black sky and pulls the trigger on it. Nothing comes out of the gun. “So, they really couldn't use the gun.” Dad carefully drops Jovan’s body and ambles to the vigilante’s body. He puts the gun in her hand and holds it up to the sky. He uses her finger to pull the trigger. A purple energy ball comes out of the gun and flies to the stars. “The guns require her touch? No, it's more than that. The guns recognize her as the user. They must have some advanced biometrics in them.” Dad figures out from that one event. He takes both of the vigilante’s guns and puts them his pockets. Afterwards, he picks Jovan back up and saunters towards my location. He picks me up and puts me on his other shoulder. As he strolls away from the demolished area that used to be a food store, he notices a burnt piece of paper that says ‘Them’. “Hmph, they actually did what I told them to do.” Dad chuckles a bit, feeling slightly satisfied with our work. He commences running towards a gap between two buildings. When he reaches the gap, he enters the shadows and just narrowly avoids the police as they arrive at the completely destroyed food shop.