OMP: Muse Prompt 1 - Who or What Would You Risk Everything For?
I used to think a hero wasn't really a hero if he or she thought herself or himself as a hero. And what made a hero, anyway? A flashy suit and codename? I was a kid when I started hearing about the so-called 'costume vigilantes' by the media (making them already a bit sensational from the very beginning). Some were looked upon with great favor, like the Fantastic Four or the Avengers, while others, the ones who weren't so open about their real identities, Spider-Man and the X-Men, people looked upon them with utter distain. I thought they were all wonderful. Amazing people who, because of their strange abilities, declared an obligation to the human race to protect us from foreign and domestic threats.
But though they existed, they weren't in an immediate vicinity to me. All of them were in New York City, the capital of the free world, and I was just a kid out in Deerfield, Il, a suburb of Chicago, a bit posh by the standards now as my parents didn't always lock the door at night and I could walk the streets at any time of the day, alone or with my cousin or friends, and not worry about getting mugged. We were safe because of not just the costumed heroes, but the normal folks like the police and firefighters, people who are willing to do the things we don't think we can or don't want to do. Or, just one so young that it's not even a real consideration yet.
Everything changed when I met the X-Men. I figured out who they were on my own. Even without the costumes, they held themselves differently-and it wasn't just in their unique physical appearances, either. There was an innate difference, something which made them physically stand out, an innate vibrance of sorts. There was something more apparent about them that others lacked (which is something that could have really existed or was just a manifestation of my sense of awe, hero worship, and immediate crushing (at least for Piotr) I was feeling simultaneously.)
My normalcy as I knew it came crashing down, literally, when my favorite malt shop was attacked by the Hellfire Club. The people who were the heroes, the ones who always saved the day, were taken into custody. I don't think I would have believed it if I had not been witnessing it myself.
Despite being frightened by the sudden attack, watching the removal of a group of superheroes, and dealing in the aftermath of finding out that I was a mutant who apparently could push herself through walls, I didn't run back to my normal and safe life; I did what I thought the X-Men would have done: I placed a phone call to the other X-Men who had not been kidnapped and joined in on the rescue mission. Thirteen and a half and the largest dilemma of my life I had faced until that point was what I was going to do for science fair so Bill Horowitz wouldn't win.
I went in not having any idea what I would do, what I would need to do. There was nothing. Since then, the situation has been repeated hundreds of times, though now I know what I am capable of doing to my adversary. Each mission is still unpredictable. Anything can happen.
There's some predictability, especially if the threat is one I've seen before, but there's the chance what worked last time won't work now. But what happens to me ultimately doesn’t matter. If someone’s life is at stake, and there’s anything I can do, I act against the threat. I bring to it the same focus on the objective that I realized on my first time of being depended on. People don't think of what could happen to them, what threats are lurking out there with the intent to do them harm. But the people shouldn't have to, not when they have individuals like me who are fighting for their continued survival.
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