Newbie wants to enter the super hero scene.

Hi to all those heroes out there. I wanted to drop a line and say that I am preparing to don a costume for the first time. I am a feeling little trepidatious to say the least. I have been reading about the costumed defenders of Vanguard city since I was a small child. I am unsure if I will be worthy, but I don’t have much to lose. My father was recently murdered, and I am determined to seek out and avenge myself on the unnamed culprits.

My father was a brilliant but slightly eccentric man. He once worked for an ultra secret agency devising all manner of terrible experiments. Having become disgusted and terrified with his government masters, my father fled with me to the sewers of Vanguard city where we have lived in an underground fallout shelter ever since his death. I was only 5 at the time so my knowledge of the upper city is quite poor.
The sewers in Vanguard city are unfortunately really toxic due to the twisted experiments of the nameless secret society. When he was still alive my father regularly injected me with a protective serum made up of (among other things) Cockroach DNA. This tonic has been quite effective in building up my immunities to the radiation and poison that is so frequent in the sewers of our city. This serum has also had some other unsettling side effects. I appear to have some attributes similar to a cockroach. My reflexes and strength appear to be far above someone of my diminutive stature, and my forarms are covered with poisonous barbs.

Growing up in the sewers I mostly had my dad as company. He rarely had visitors and they were … strange to say the least. I spent much of my free time exploring the sewer systems of Vanguard city while my father continued his various experiments. It was upon returning from one of these exploratory jaunts that I heard a commotion from my father’s laboratory. Peering through a crack in the laboratory door I could see my father in helpless grip of what I could only describe as a complete monster. His eyes were without pupils and were overflowing with a white puss like substance. His skin was a pale blue and mottled with thick greenish veins. His hands looked like they were made out of some kind of jointed syringes filled with sinister fluids. His body was covered by what appeared to be a multitude of IV wires, bags and other medical paraphernalia.

Before I could react the monster stabbed my father in the stomach with his syringe fingers and injected him with some sort of toxin. My father began shaking uncontrollably and just as suddenly became as still as a leaf. The unknown assailant then tossed him aside, laughing like a maniac the whole time. The maniac then turned towards the exit of the laboratory, in my direction.

I wish I could say that what I felt was at the sight of my father’s casual murder was anger. Alas no. Much to my eternal shame all I could feel was fear as this medical horror approached my location. Before he had a chance to open the door that was between him and myself I leaped towards the ceiling and clung there (did I mention cockroaches can cling to walls and ceilings?) The monster passed underneath me leaving me unmolested.

I clung to the ceiling shivering in fear for several moments until I was sure that the medical monstrosity had left the premises. I approached my father’s dead figure on the laboratory floor and was horrified by what I saw. His frame was entirely gaunt and bloodless. His face was curled in anguish. Most of his hair had fallen from his head, and his eyes were a pitch black, devoid of any sense of humanity.
My fear was quickly replaced with anger. No longer can I afford to live in the sewers of Vanguard city relying on my father for sustenance and protection. Although I am still not legally of age I must learn to be a man and bring to justice the murder of my father. Taking as inspiration the costumed heroes of the upper city, I will don a costume that reflects my father’s legacy of a life raised in the sewers as shelter on cockroach DNA as sustenance and take the identity of ROACH-BOY!!

PS: I really am new to this sort of thing I hope roach Roach-Boy sounds OK. I thought of names like the Roach-Man or the Roach or the CockRoach but I figured there might other CockRoach powered heroes out there and I don’t really want to offend anybody as I don’t actually have a lot (or any ) friends and I don’t want to alienate on my first time out. (Did I mention that I am a little skittish?) I also am not really a man yet and there is nothing more annoying than a teenager who insists that he is a man when he just doesn’t have the age or life experience to back it up.

Roach-Boy

Oops you can tell I'm really new to the city above the sewers can't you, I didn't even call the city by the right name. (I meant Paragon city! doh.. doh..) This is really distressing me. All those other superheroes must be laughing their neon colored tights off.

Well if you plan on putting that costume on boy I'd recommend you try to learn not to be some vigilante that ignores everything and just causes trouble for villian and city workers alike.

Too many heros around this city would sooner blow up a building of criminals then capture them and let us jail and question them to try to deal with the problem by finding out where their main leader is to try to stop them.

Half the heros in this city would rather blow a building up and endanger all the people around it then let the police know and work with them.

Well said. . .

Although dropping a building on the leader of one of those groups isn't always a bad thing. Some of them get reather big.

And then city officals have to clean it up and we have to investigate WHY a building was blown up, find out who was injured, who was killed....

Shame we don't get called it often since I was reassigned to the SWAT. We could handle things much better...

Oh I would never try to be a nuisance to the people at large who live in the upper city. I actually hope to make some friends as I am really quite lonely since my father died. I have cockroaches for company but they do not ofer the best converation...
I just finished my costume. And amount to go and try and fight crime for the first time. I had to use rags that I found in the sewers so it doesn't smell that nice. It is a nice mottled borwn and black, very **** roach like. My little insect firends like it, I hope every body above the sewers is just as receptive.
Ok here goes... wish me luck.

Couldn't be worse then some "heros" i've seen running around.