A Diverse Alliance of Superheroes

Sometimes, the things we dread facing are the truths about ourselves. Take me for example. My name is Adam LeRoi. A big and tall young Black man of Haitian descent living in the city of Ottawa, Ontario. I'm a student at Carleton University, majoring in Criminal Justice. Lately, I've been having some forbidden fun. Let's just say that I got seduced into it. Of course, I had to face the dire consequences. I tried to fight it but I'm okay with it now. You can't fight who you are. And you can't turn your back on your family. No matter what.

I'm not quite sure how to say this so I'm just going to say it. I'm not human. I was born different from the rest of humanity. A genetic twist gave me superhuman strength and speed along with an extreme resistance to injury due to a micro-thin, vibrating energy field which surrounds my body. I am invulnerable. None of this is obvious about me. I was born in the city of Preston, in the province of Nova Scotia. The first day of February 1987.

My family is one of the oldest Black families in the Province of Nova Scotia. For over a century, the city of Preston has been the top Afro-Canadian community in the country. It's the only place in Canada with a Black majority. The Black community of Preston has its ups and downs, but it's well-known around the world for its political and social contributions to Black life in North America.

My mother, Crystal Joseph LeRoi was born in the city of Cap-Haitien, Republic of Haiti. She came to Canada at the age of nineteen, and studied business law at the University of Ottawa. That's where she met my father, Leonard LeRoi. They got hitched right after graduation. My father works for the Nova Scotia Provincial Police as a Patrolman. My brother Tony is a Constable with the Halifax Police.

My sister Cleopatra is in Graduate School at the University of British Columbia in the city of Vancouver. I guess she got tired of small-town life because we don't hear much from her anymore. We live in a big, beautiful farm which has been in our family since the nineteenth century. We currently own four hundred acres of land. We own horses, cows, goats and chickens. Our family made its living off the land in ages past. Now we're mostly working in law enforcement. These days, my mother is a Crown Prosecutor.

I thought I was a normal guy, until the day my powers began manifesting themselves. I didn't know I wasn't the only one in the LeRoi family with special abilities. My father Lionel can move at inhuman speeds. We're talking about more than twenty-five hundred miles per hour in the blink of an eye. Yeah, the kind of speed force that I can't even dream of tapping into. My mother can transform herself into any object she touches...as long as it's similar in size.

I've seen her become a wolf, a mannequin and a wooden pole, all in under five minutes. Now that is a cool power. My brother Tony has the sharpest senses out of anyone I know. He can see through solid matter, and also into the ultraviolet spectrum. He can also hear a tiny heartbeat across a distance of a hundred feet and track a person or animal by smell over huge distances. Sharp senses aren't his only talent. He absorbs the memories of any object he touches, whether animate or inanimate. Now that's an amazing power. Tony and I are really close. Our sister Cleopatra has the power of Telekinesis. She can move objects with her mind.

Yeah, pretty much everyone in the LeRoi family has super powers. Up until recently, nobody knew of our existence. People thought superhumans existed only in comic books and in the movies. Well, now a few people know we're out there. And they're coming after us. I kind of feel responsible. I met this Irish-American guy named Lance O'Shea at Carleton University. A real cool guy who could be a bit of a hothead. The guy could generate massive blasts of electrical energy and he was really cocky and careless. I actually befriended him, and I thought he was cool. For a while, we were pals. Lance O'Shea was a really strange dude. He grew up in isolation, raised by a sociopath who thought he was a freak and kept him locked up. He grew up hating ordinary humanity and thought he was alone in the world until he met me.

At first, Lance was thrilled to finally meet someone else with special abilities. We hung out all over the city of Ottawa, checking out the bars and clubs. My whole life my parents taught me to hide who and what I was. Lance was so different from anybody else I knew. He was comfortable being himself. In fact, he embraced his abilities and thought people like us had a duty to change the world for the better. I liked Lance. He was bold, cool and free-spirited. Hell, Lance introduced me to this gorgeous young Black woman named Nadira Abdul-Matin. She's around six-foot-tall, sexy and absolutely stunning. This long-haired, brown-skinned beauty hails from the Republic of Somalia. I've always been shy with the ladies but Lance encouraged me to get out of my shell. I asked Nadira out and she said yes. We've been going out ever since. Yeah, Lance was a cool guy.

I introduced him to my folks while they were visiting the campus. I thought the meeting went well, and I was quite wrong. My parents didn't want me hanging out with Lance. Especially my father. Dad did a background check on Lance and found out he'd been a delinquent when he was younger. I was mad at my father for judging Lance so harshly. Give a guy a chance before judging him. Lance's body is littered with scars from the torture he endured at the hands of his father Eric O'Shea, a career criminal and sociopath. Lance didn't grow up in a loving family like I did. He endured hell on earth. Torture, abuse, he went through it all. I didn't. How could I judge him? I couldn't, not in good conscience. Instead, I offered him friendship.

Lance was the first 'super' friend I ever had. And he was a really interesting guy. He backed me up when I needed it. Growing up in the mostly Black community of Preston in Nova Scotia, I had a firm sense of identity as a young Black man. However, in lily-white Ottawa, I ran into quite a lot of racism. People from overseas think all Canadians are nice and friendly.

They're absolutely wrong. There are quite a few racists in Canada and most of them aren't thrilled that millions of immigrants from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East are moving into the country every year. That's a side of Canada which they never show you on the news. The hidden side. In Ottawa, I wasn't sure who to trust, to tell you the truth. Everybody was two-faced here. I was far from home, living in the big city for the first time. For a country guy like me, it was a bit overwhelming.

Lance had lived in big cities like Toronto and Vancouver his whole life. He also spent some time in American cities like Boston, New York and Los Angeles. He became my wingman in the city of Ottawa. He stuck up for me when I ran into some bigoted Quebecers in a bar in Montreal. These rowdy white dudes surrounded me and called me racial slurs. They were just a bunch of bigoted assholes and I let them know. That pissed them off royally and they started to come at me. I've avoided fights my whole life because I didn't want to accidentally reveal myself to potential enemies. Lance on the other hand had gotten into fights every day of his life. He wasn't scared of a bunch of drunken, bigoted Quebecers.

Out of nowhere, Lance pulled a switchblade. Before my amazed eyes, he cut into the cheek of the burliest of the drunken Quebecers. Then he kicked him between the legs for good measure. The big guy went down, howling. Laughing, Lance waded into the others. Kicking and punching, slashing left and right with his switchblade, he made short work of them. Hot damn. I couldn't believe it. Amazed, I stared at Lance. Grinning, Lance shrugged and we left the bar together, leaving the bigoted bastards bruised and beaten. The Irishman was a grade-A ass-kicker, and you'd never know this about him. At five-foot-nine, Lance is slim, with dark brown hair and steely blue eyes. And he's really skinny. Not the kind of guy who looks menacing, until you look into his eyes. My new best friend, ladies and gentlemen. The inimitable Lance O'Shea.

Yeah, Lance was a cool guy and a good friend. I liked hanging out with him. He was a rock-solid friend and good company. And he had a way with the ladies. He borrowed me his bright red convertible for a whole weekend when I wanted to surprise Nadira for her birthday. Isn't that awesome? Yeah, I was loving my new life in the big city. Lance and I met another person with special abilities.

This tall, good-looking Arab guy named Amir Salim. A newcomer to Carleton University from the United Arab Emirates, Lance was an outcast like us. Even though Arabs living in North America are a hard-working, law-abiding and God-fearing bunch for the most part, some people still give them funny looks when they see them walking down the street. I ran into Amir in my Persian Language class, an elective I opted to take. He sat right next to me, and I found his intelligence and friendly manner quite appealing.

Just as I thought, Amir was really cool. The guy had traveled all over the world. His father, Saudi Prince Ahmed Salim was a world-renowned engineer and philanthropist who worked all over the place. He built schools in South Africa, water towers in Brazil and power plants in Northern Ireland. The man was on a first name basis with folks like U.S. President Barack Obama, the Canadian Prime Minister and the Queen of England. We became friends. I introduced him to Lance. The three of us were grabbing a bite inside Second Cup when some guy came in with a gun. Robberies were rare in downtown Ottawa. Especially in broad daylight. Man did this robber pick the wrong place. There were two supermen in the restaurant when he walked in. I looked at Lance, who smiled. Neither of us were worried. It was just a matter of which one of us would take him out.

Well, that day, Lance and I were in for a surprise. The robber pointed the gun at the lady behind the cash register, and ordered her to give him its contents. Everybody inside Second Cup looked worried. Not us. And strangely enough, Amir didn't look worried either. In a calm voice, he told the robber to drop the gun and leave. The robber laughed, and pointed the gun at him. Amir waved his hand, and next thing we knew, the robber's hand burst into flame. Howling, he ran out of the restaurant. I couldn't believe it. Neither could anyone else. Lance and I looked at Amir knowingly. This guy was definitely a member of our club. Amir discreetly exited the restaurant, only to find Lance and I waiting for him outside.

Amir looked at us strangely, and worry shone on his face. Grinning, Lance crackled lightning in his fist. Amir smiled. Then he looked at me askance. I placed my hand against the electricity jutting out of Lance's hand, for it could not harm my invulnerable flesh. The three of us shook hands. That day, a secret brotherhood was forged. How fascinating is this world we live in? Three young men from radically different backgrounds are united by genetics and circumstances. A bona-fide Saudi Prince, an Afro-Canadian cop-in-training and an Irish-American adventurer. Hot damn. The city of Ottawa, and possibly the rest of the world were ours. I mean, who could stand in our way?

Thus began what I thought were the best times of my life. At last, I had friends who were like me. Guys with special abilities. You've got no idea how much this meant to me. I spent my whole life on the outside looking in. Outside of my immediate family, there was nobody I could talk to about who and what I was. Amir and Lance shared similar experiences with me. Amir thought he was the only one in the world with his gifts. He was a senior in high school when he discovered his unique powers. He could generate heat blasts of varying intensity. Depending on what he felt like doing, he could heat up a waffle, or burn through titanium. Like Lance and I, he hid his powers from the world. Well, now he was among his own kind.

Life went on. I continued acing my classes at Carleton and dating Nadira. I've grown really fond of her lately. What is it about Somalian girls? They're so sexy and fiery. There are lots of them at Carleton. Nadira is the fairest of them and if it weren't for Lance I never would have met her. I can't thank him enough for that. Lance is seeing this sexy Japanese gal named Ayako Hachiro. She's a newcomer to Ontario and one of the brightest students at the Carleton University Faculty of Engineering. Lance has a love-them and leave them attitude when it comes to the local women. I've seen him with French women, Arab women, Aboriginal women and Caribbean women.

Lately he seems fascinated by the Asian beauties we see around the city. He never stays with anyone too long, though. Ayako seems determined to change that about him. She's slowly changing our favourite rugged Irish-American roughneck into a more polished, suave guy. Hell, she even bought him new clothes with her own money. I've noticed that Lance showers a lot more these days and shaves every day. He douses on Old Spice like his life depends on him. Amir and I laugh at the changes in him. He doesn't hit us for money anymore, he's working with tech support for a local computer company. Amazing, the effect women have on men.

I noticed that Amir was strangely solo, and asked him about it. For the first time since I've known him, my usually calm and reserved friend got mad at me. He told me to mind my own business. Whoa. That was unexpected. Where did that come? Usually Amir is the most easygoing guy on the planet. Was something the matter? I decided to follow him, to get to the root of the matter. Amir practically lives in the Engineering building. That Friday night he left awfully early. I followed him as he got on the OC Transpo bus and went into Kanata. There, he got off into an entertainment-district style neighbourhood and went into a bar. I waited five minutes then went in.

The first thing I noticed inside the bar was that there were over twenty guys, and about five women. Interesting facts. I asked the bartender for a Pepsi. Even when I'm in the bars with Lance, I don't drink alcohol. It's just not for me. The Irishman tries to get me to try some of the finest whiskey from his homeland but to no avail. I looked around and noticed a tall, burly Black man slow-dancing with a short Asian guy. Okay. Alright. I see. I'm not homophobic or anything I swear. It's just that the sight of two guys dancing gives me pause.

A hand landed on my shoulder and I jumped up. Turning around, I found myself staring into Amir's smiling face. He grinned, and asked me what I was doing here. I told him I was just hanging out. Amir wasn't fooled for a minute. He knew I followed him. And he wasn't happy about it. I told him I was sorry for intruding on his privacy. Amir shrugged, and told me point-blank that he was gay. Wow. I smiled and shook Amir's hand. I told him his sexual orientation didn't make any difference to me. He nodded, and asked me what I thought of his favourite bar.

I couldn't take my eyes off the Black guy dancing with the Asian dude. This bar was definitely an unforgettable place. I looked at Amir as he sat there, drank up and enjoyed the scene. And he wasn't strange. He was simply being himself. A closeted gay Saudi Prince with super powers. Who would have thought? Certainly not me. And I'm one of his best friends. You just never know people. I guess if we were all a bit more open-minded, those closest to us would keep fewer secrets. No matter who or what they are. I'll definitely keep that in mind.