Shadow Crow

Hey Guys this is my first story in what I hope to be a multi-story arcing very long tale revolving around a character that eventually becomes a pretty cool fictional character. The first chapter is more to simply explain his situation before it all gets hectic. It doesn't have any sexy bits and only one semi-decent fighting bit in it.

P.s. although only minor mentions are made, there are superheros in this world and their minor mention is to show that they are just a normal part of life, this nothing particularly special.

P.s. if it's shit I apologize, but I am still going to keep writing, and you can blame that on frozenhero1 (how to date a superhero), FinalStand (life as a new hire), RedStarFic (The Pirate and the Elf), Bokhun (Disposable Hero), and James Cody (Quest for the Dragon Soul) as it is the lack of new chapters for their various stories that has left me with the time to write my own story, and it is because I enjoy their works that I have decided to give my own story a shot.

Well without further ranting...

*****

Meaningless, absolutely meaningless... If Philip Jackson had to sum up his entire life, filled with all the choices and decisions that he had made over his twenty-one years of life, these are the words that he would have used. Its not that he was depressed by this definition of his existence, no far from it, he was just at a level of brutal honesty with the situation that if he told others of, they would be convinced that he was either in the grips of some kind of melancholic episode, or, as his adoptive parents had put it, just at that age where being a functional member of the real world and working a "9 to 5" job had caused the realization that he would never get to live up to his life's ambitions. Even had he wanted to change his lot he knew that it was impossible, this was his life, and it was always going to be this way.

He had been woken almost an hour ago by what he guessed was another super hero related event somewhere in the neighborhood. He stared at the crumbly plaster roof if his crappy new york inner city apartment, and despite his best efforts, of which mainly revolved around counting the various darkened patch's of future mold growths that littered the other wise yellowing white plaster, he just could not get back to sleep. He chuckled quietly to himself as another completely reasonable reason for his insomnia snored loudly beside him. Rolling on to his side he regarded the sleeping form of his ex-girlfriend. Her dark brown hair splayed around her head acted a peculiar frame for her contorted face, that would otherwise be a collection beautiful features. He loved that face, but mostly he loved its small button nose, that mere hours, he checked the alarm beside her reading 04:45, he corrected his thoughts, fours hours ago he had kissed as she feel asleep, due in equal parts to the strenuous sex and excessive alcohol that she had undoubtedly consumed. It was more than likely the alcohol that had caused her to think that arriving drunk at his door at quarter to one in the morning and declaring that "he'd do" was a good idea. But hey... sex is sex and he'd been in a dry spell for going on four months, which coincidently enough was also the last time they had fucked due to almost identical circumstances. He hated himself a little more every time she was able to snake past his ability to turn her away after she had hurt him, when she dumped him cold. Her logic was sound, according to her friends, he wasn't rich, powerful, or going anywhere soon. He was a library catalogue auditor, which sounds about as interesting as it is. But most important to her, and by her he knew that it was more important to her mother, who gave her the allowance that allowed her to live the "New York Party Girl" lifestyle, he was neither an American nor, most importantly, a Jew. The way she put it was that "A Goy-friend is fun but not a future.". But be damned if he could say no to those deep dark brown eyes that screamed the sorts of pleasure that she would inflict upon him if he let her slither in to bed with him.

Stretching out over her, he turned off his alarm, realizing that in his current contemplative state he would have no need of it. He rolled back toward his side and slid out of the mostly exposed side of the bed, feeling what little of the cover she had left him with slide down his back send a pleasurable thrill down his spin as its soft warmth was the complete opposite of the oppressive cold of his apartment. Fumbling around on the floor her found his prey, the driest towel, and quickly took a double take on what was perhaps the ugliest sleeper he had ever shared a bed with. He hated her for how weak she could make him, but loved her because she could crawl right back under his skin and give him pleasure unlike any before her. Opening the bedroom door he snuck out trying not to awaken her, once sufficiently out of the way he closed the door without making a sound. He stretched still holding the unused towel in his hand, and facing his closed door, before turning around. A quiet "yipping" noise alerted him too late of his mistake. Standing before him was one of his two roommates, and also his best friend. Before he could properly think out something to say that would lessen the awkwardness of this situation his mouth opened and what came forth was nowhere near helpful.

"Yoshi, its all good... don't worry people are naked all the time... like under there clothes and shit... I mean... what I mean is... that friends can see each other naked... not saying that I want to see you naked... which isn't to say I think your not good looking... naked I mean... no that's not what I mean... what I mean... um what I mean... fuck I have no idea what I mean..."

Philip had fallen into what his friends like to call the verbal logic trap, that came out when he was thrown into an embarrassing situation that if he just turned away from or ignored wouldn't be a problem, but nope, he had to dig a whole. Yoshino Takagi, his small Japanese foster sister's hands shot to her eyes covering them from her naked friend... Naked... Phil realized that he still hadn't covered the whole cause of Yoshi's bright pink complexion. He hurriedly covered himself with the towel.

"Its ok, I've covered up now."

His embarrassment rich voice groaned out, as he rubbed his right had through his thinning brown hair. Yoshi slowly lowered her hands, as though unsure of Phil's "decent" state. He was mortified, its not that being seen naked embarrassed him, but he knew that having seen him naked would be equally as mortifying for his friend. Or so he thought...

"You think that friends should see each other naked?"

A sly smile had spread from one side of her face to the other, he was not going to live this one down. She started go shake as the giggling fit ensued.

"Even for you that's rich, David and Fran are going to love this."

He knew he was in for it now, seeing as she had told him of her intent to tell their parents. But two could play at this game. He charged the two feet that separated them, hand out with fingers wiggling.

"Don't you dare."

He was on her, tickling her relentlessly, she convulsed trying desperately to get away from him but it was no use, he was bigger and stronger, so she had no choice but to grit, or rather grin and bare as he tickled her into submission.

"Ok, ok, I wont I promise."

He let go of her baggy sleeping tee-shirt, and nodded in her direction.

"I'm glad we could come to an agreement young grasshopper."

He said in his mock Japanese accent. She nodded and placed her hands in the similarly parody induced traditional bow.

"You have honor me Onii-chun"

To the outside world this would have been viewed as a borderline act of racism, but as the level of familiarity between these two was very real, Phil was allowed to be a little cheekier with his "cultural incorrectness" than any other person she was a friend with. A moment of silence hung in the air as Phil readjusted the towel that had begun to loosen during the tickle tirade on his sister. As he finished re tightening the tucked in fabric she looked disapprovingly in his direction then toward is bedroom door.

"Why is she here?"

He rolled his eyes, knowing the sermon that he was about to be delivered.

"Save it will you. I know you don't like her, and the truth is neither do I, but Jesus Yoshi, some times I just need a good meaningless fuck, and if it so happens that the girl I want to have said meaningless fuck with shows up at my door wanting the same thing... then who am I to turn her down."

Yoshi's eyebrow had risen, giving him a look that he was all too familiar with, and still, even after the sixteen years they had known each other, was uncomfortable with. She reached down to their couch retrieving one of the few cushions that decorated it and threw it at his head, it missed, but the message was still there.

"You're a pervert, sex is supposed to be special between two people who at least like each other. Not on who is hopelessly still in to the other, and the other who is a horrid bitch that is just using you. Now go and have a shower, her over perfume is all over you and its making me want to gag."

Phil knew there was no way out of her order. She was three years younger than him but could still order him around like she owned the place, which was technically the truth. But he still wasn't happy with that.

"Yes ma'am."

He walked toward their bathroom.

"Also we are out of coffee so I'm going to get some now. Please be out of he shower when I get home, as I need to get to work early this morning. Oh and can you do your book thing and fix the sink, its making noise again."

He closed the door and turned on the shower by way of reply.

***

He had his regular five-minute shower and dressed from the basket of clean clothes that he had thankfully left in the bathroom the day before. Hoping not wake Kate, his ex-girlfriend, he open the door, but she was there on his couch looking at him, she had redressed in the skimpy black dress that she had arrived in and was wearing one of his jersey's.

"Its cold so I am borrowing this. If you want it come over to mine tonight to get it."

She didn't wait for his reply, and turned and left, reaching the door just Yoshi opened it.

"Good to see your out of here slut."

Yoshi greeted her with. Kate pushed pass her.

"Until the next time bitch."

Phil sighed and sat down on his lumpy couch. Usually he would have cared more about the exchange between the two women that seemed to dominate his life. But his mind, and judging by the way something between his legs had twitched at the invitation to come over tonight... unquestionably for sex. Well his mind was more focused on the sway of Kate's hips. Yoshi hadn't missed this and threw him a dirty look.

"What?"

He said as a weak defense. She shook her head and placed the shopping bag on their pea green counter. She broke her eye contact with him only for a moment to put one of the small disposable coffee pouches into the machine and turn it on, turning back to him, head still shaking.

"Your pathetic."

She walked into the bathroom and closed the door. He looked down at his beaten up old red tennis shoes. She was right, he knew that, but he just couldn't seem to bring him self to care. He heard the bathroom door open.

"Oh and book thing please, I am sick of that noise."

The door closed again. Standing and stretching his back, he patted his some what less than flat stomach, making an agreement to himself to get into shape, which was a morning ritual by now. He looked at his bookcase for the book in question and wandered over to it. His trip back to the kitchen sink was spent deep in thought, had it been the required twenty days since he had last used this book, and of all the powers to be born with why did this have to be his... he would have preferred flight, but then again who wouldn't. He opened the compartment that housed the drain for the sink and found all the tools necessary. Although his power didn't give him abilities, it did gave him knowledge and in this case that was just as handy. He laid his palm flat on the cover of the book and relaxed.

At first nothing happened, he sighed, his mind was too full of Kate to focus. He started to go over the mind trick that Gavin, his other roommate had taught him, finding something that resembled the fabled inner peace that their "Buddhist" companion was trying to find. It worked, or at least he hoped that it had worked enough, he laid his hand flat against the book again, this time however he felt the pressure in his mind build, he knew that the "explosion" of knowledge was coming, but it was still a somewhat frightening thing when it did. Suddenly flashes of information, in the forms of pictures and graphs and words ran across his minds eye. To an outside viewer this would have looked as though he was having a very minor seizure, or as though he had just got something very sour on his tongue. But after a few seconds of this, a warmth spread across his mind and he opened his eyes, that strange orange scented antiseptic cleaning spray flavor in his mouth told him that he had been successful. Within moments he had dismantled the offending plumbing and fixed the problem, a loose bit of an internal mechanism and was reassembling the pipes when the smell of coffee, and the smell of Yoshi's body wash took his attention.

"I've already poured you a coffee and put bread in the toaster."

With the racket he had been making it was no wonder he hadn't heard her. He threw up his right arm in thumbs up, unable to talk as he held a torch in his mouth. Finishing the job he turned off the torch and put away the tools before standing and looking at his friend, she held the book that he had just "downloaded" as they called it. Grabbing a piece of the popped toast and biting into it he caught her staring intently at him. Rolling his eyes he swallowed his mouthful.

"This isn't going to be about Kate again is it?"

She frowned looking at him, it was clearly going to be about Kate again, be even Yoshi knew when not to push something. She changed tact.

"No, I'm just trying to think of all the other plumbing related things I can get you to do in the next three hours, before the information wipes and we have to wait another twenty days to get something fixed."

Phil took a drag at his coffee, swallowing the dry toast. With both eyebrows raised he gave her an annoyed appraisal.

"Is that all I am to you, a Handy Andy, because I'll have you know that this superpower is only given to you for free because you are my friend, and I am your friend... not a Swiss army knife to be used to fix domestic problems when they arise."

She scoffed into her own coffee.

"A friend that doesn't pay rent because with the way this this place is falling apart its cheaper to buy some instruction manuals and have you live here and be a "Swiss army knife" than to hire some one."

His eyebrows dropped and he stuffed the last bit of toast into his mouth, washing it down with is coffee.

"So, what else needs fixed?"

He asked, acknowledging his rent-free status was on the line. She smiled her impish grin at him.

"Nothing unfortunately, and seeing as both of us need to leave now I guess we'll just have to pray that the house won't need an almost useless superhero to fix the day anytime soon."

She picked up her last piece of toast and her jacket as they both made their way to the door.

***

Brooklyn College Library may not be the biggest, best, or even the most prestigious library that Phil had worked at, but it was by far his favorite. There was just something about it that screamed, he didn't know what, but it sure screamed it. Walking threw its main entrance was usually his favorite part of the day. Usually being the key word in this moment of inner thought, because judging by the fact that he was about to be greeted by his employer, the head librarian Mrs. Allan, never Genevieve. A personally greeting could only mean one of two things, neither of them good. He had just opened his mouth to greet her when she cut him off with her thick Brooklyn accent, he had been told by Kate, that referring it as "The Nanny named Fran" accent was anti-Semitic, not that he knew how.

"I will not ask again Mr. Jackson, tell you collogue Mr. Trudge, That if I catch him here again sleeping in your office that I will move mountains if necessary to have the two of you fired and sent back to Australia. As the sort of unprofessional behavior that you may be able to get away with there simply will not wash in my library."

She stood with one hand on hip looking about as amused as an astronaut who just farted in her space suit. Which as much as he tried to fight the thought, still made her look sexy as all hell. Her tightly pulled back black ponytail and busty physique made her, in Phil's mind at least, the perfect candidate for the angry librarian fantasy that his mind was rapidly creating. Realizing that she was waiting for a confirmation of her "request" Phil constructed what he thought was the best reply that would appease her.

"Absolutely Mrs. Allan, I will tell him word for word what you have told him, although..."

He had already uttered "although" before his mind had been able to edit his speech.

"Although?"

She cut him off again. Every time she did this, all he could think of was the meter ruler that he imagined her using on him, cursing his rather peculiar bondage themed thoughts that he was being plagued with in this encounter, he powered through hoping to explain an important piece of information, really a cultural respect of which had been missing since the beginning of his employment that had irked him since.

"Well I was going to say..."

He rubbed his head moving the grey beany that he was rarely seen without in public.

"Yes..."

And smack goes the ruler against his ass. Pushing aside his fantasy was becoming harder and harder for some reason this morning.

"Well I was going to say, that I would have to change Australia to New Zealand, as that is where he and I are from."

She rolled her eyes, and for some reason her hips as well.

"I don't care what city in Australia you come from."

A prick of anger got to him before the sex part of his brain could come up with anything.

"Its an entirely different country ma'am, as in not in Australia. Thus we are not Australian. Nor did we come from Australia. We are New Zealanders from New Zealand. And even though, as you have clearly showed in an act that blurs the line between your general rudeness and offensive act of racism, that you don't care what country we call home, I would take it as a sign of respect to me and my fellow country men, both at home and abroad if you were not to make that mistake again, thank you very much."

Phil had no idea where that came from. People always made that mistake and usually it never offended him. But Mrs. Allan had already rubbed him the wrong way... and again his mind flew into a sex tangent. He fought it off, making sure to keep his composure, as he knew that his out burst had probably spelt the end of his job. Instead he saw a look on the older librarians face that he knew to mean something other than rage, she was horny. Or at least that's what he though, and he knew that he was going to spend probably the better part of the day going over this "conversation" again and again in his mind. Her face regained its cold composure.

"I apologies for my mistake. But do not think this lets you or he away with the disrespect that the two of you have shown my library, as we will not have this conversation again. Are we understood?"

Phil nodded, something awkward was in the air and he just wanted to get back to his office and more than likely yell at Gavin for a bit, and then catalogue his days worth of books in a few hours before watching cartoons on his friend's computer. As he walked past the onlookers his eyes caught with two strangers that stood out from the crowd, a beautiful young woman with long wavy auburn hair and slender neck and a smile that could get a hard on out of a dead man. Her companion, who she was linked arm in arm with, was a man who looked like a mix of an MMA fighter and Marine, including the short shaved black hair. It wasn't just their physical looks that made them stand out. It was something else that he couldn't place... Something about their eyes. But right now he didn't have time for them, he had to go and berate his friend for fucking up again.