"No capes!"

~ Edna Mode

"C'mon, Daniel! Can you drive at a normal pace for once?"

"No, not unless you want to show up late. This was your idea in the first place, you know?"

I sighed. Today was Elise's little brother's birthday, and since he was obsessed with Captain Impossible I decided that what a better present for a six year old than a visit from his hero?

Now, don't get me wrong, convincing Daniel to actually agree to show up took some work. He thought we had better things to do than show up at a little kid's birthday party, whilst I thought it provided the good publicity he craved and made a little kid's dream come true.

It was a win-win situation in my mind.

As to how we explained how we knew there was a party going on starring a six year-old who loved us? Well, I was just going to claim that a friend of a friend gave us a call. People like those in Elise's family knew powerful people who could pull some major strings, so it shouldn't be too weird that they might know someone who knew us.

(And technically Elise and her family knew me, just not as White Lightning.)

Daniel took another sharp turn, causing me to draw a huge dark line across my pre-calculus homework, which I was trying to finish on the ride to Elise's house. "Dude, really?"

I saw Daniel's shoulders shrug in the front seat. "It was the other guy's fault. When you see a superhero's car you get out of the way, not in the way."

I didn't remind Daniel that the car was currently in stealth mode, so no one really knew it was a superhero's car per se. But by the way we were driving, you'd guess Daniel was either trying to get somewhere fast to save someone's butt or to hurt them, so it wouldn't be too bad of a guess to say we were supers.

But that wasn't the point.

When we got to her house, I stiffened up. I'd only visited a couple times, mostly for projects with her and Mary or Ian, I also attended her birthday party last year, but even those few times at her house weren't enough to get me used to the sheer size of her home.

Elise lived in a mansion, to say in the least. It wasn't as large as some of the others owned by many of the Eldredge Academy students, but compared to my puny apartment with the paint chips on the walls and a barely functioning TV, it was daunting.

I took a deep breath before heading up to her doorstep, a couple steps behind Daniel. I wondered for a moment who would answer the door and what their reaction to two supers on their front porch would be before Daniel rang the doorbell.

Elise answered only seconds later, annoyance passing on her face until she realized who we were.

"Um . . . hi?"

I almost laughed at Elise's surprised and shocked nature, but stopped myself.

You see, when we put on our masks, Daniel and I ceased to be ourselves. It was like acting in a play. We became these sort of characters, Captain Impossible and White Lightning, supers here to save the day. To keep our identities safe, and to keep us from looking weak in front of villains, we put on an act. I wasn't the same person with the mask on as I was with it off.

The mask gave you a feeling of invincibility, unless you were Daniel, who was already invincible. It made you feel like you could do anything. You were no longer the scholarship kid at the prestigious high school who lived in a crappy apartment with a mom who could only afford rent because the landlord was your boss.

With the mask, you were a whole new, confident being.

So, when Elise stood there, I just grinned charismatically, matching Daniel's cocky grin almost exactly.

"Hello, dear citizen," Daniel greeted, sounding much more manly and trustworthy with his own voice modulator, "I heard that an occupant of this house was having a birthday and I wanted to come and surprise them."

Elise answered this time with, "Uhh . . ."

Daniel turned to me, "Maybe she's broken?"

I shrugged and turned to the door right in time for the speed demon that is Elise's little brother, Luke, to race out and jump in front of Daniel with big eyes.

With fluffy blonde hair and dashing brown eyes, Luke was almost a complete replica of his sister, right down to the freckles sprouting on his cheeks and the smile that would make anyone's day brighter. He wore a Captain Impossible costume, the same one that Elise had bought yesterday for him at the Comic Book Shop under my recommendation.

"Are you Captain Impossible?" He said, eyes wide and voice filled with awe.

Daniel looked smug.

"Why, yes, in fact, I am. I actually came-"

Luke cut him off as he tugged on Daniel's spandex to bring him inside, "Come on then! You have to meet my friends!"

I chuckled as Luke dragged Daniel inside with force I would've thought impossible for a six year old to obtain.

"Uhh . . . well, I guess you can come in." Elise gestured me in awkwardly.

Despite having been Daniel's sidekick for some time now, I'd never once run into anyone I knew when I was on the job. I didn't exactly know how to act in front of friends while in costume, and they certainly didn't know how to act around me, super sidekick extraordinaire.

The foyer at Elise's house was big enough to fit my whole apartment, and that wasn't even a tenth of her house. A huge chandelier hung from the ceiling and the stairs curved up to the higher floors of the mansion like the fancy ones you'd always see in those old-timey movies my mom made me watch with her all the time. And don't even get me started on how the marble floors were actually so shiny that I could see my reflection with no problem.

It was one of the reasons I didn't visit Elise's house too often anymore. Just being in her home made me feel like I wasn't worthy to even touch such wealth. Going to Eldredge, I should've been used to places like this, but somehow I wasn't.

I followed Elise as she walked into the living room, remembering that I wasn't supposed to know where we were going. When we got there, I almost burst out laughing.

Daniel was being attacked by six year olds.

Now, I would normally be concerned, but this was an act he did often. Since he was indestructible, he would normally let people (and kids) hit him as hard as they can. It didn't hurt him and it often made the kids very happy.

Right now, Luke was pummeling Daniel with a baseball bat while one of his friends, a black haired kid with a Marvel costume, came running at Daniel with a plastic sword.

If the kids weren't three feet tall, I might've been scared for Daniel by the vicious looks in their faces.

"So, he really is the real Captain Impossible." Elise commented as she watched a little auburn haired girl hit Daniel in the chest repeatedly with her little scrawny hands.

"Yeah, I doubt anyone would feign indestructability unless they were prepared to face vicious six year olds with plastic weapons."

Elise cracked a smile.

All of a sudden, one of the girls broke away from the group to come running after me. I braced myself for a second, thinking that she might've mistaken me for having the same indestructability powers that Daniel had, but she stopped about a foot away from me, no weapon in sight. "Are you White Lightning?"

I nodded, "The one and only."

She gasped.

"Can I tell you a secret?" She asked. I nodded, bending down to her height. The girl put her hand around one side of her mouth so that no one else would hear her words, but the effort was in vain considering how loud she was. "My mommy says you're a bad guy, but I don't believe her. Two-Face and Delinquent are bad guys, not superheroes like you and Captain Impossible. But she would be unhappy if she knew I thought that."

I frowned at her. "Why would she think I was a bad guy?"

She shrugged. "Mommy's been listening to the news a lot lately. Now she wouldn't even let me wear my Sonic costume to the party."

So her mother was a Remedist, no wonder she was being so mean about the supers. I was just glad for now that the little girl had a mind of her own and she believed in what was right, not what information was spoon fed to her.

"Listen," I started, staring into her eyes with determination, "your mommy is just scared. She doesn't understand that we're trying to help, but you do. Don't ever let her tell you that you can't be a superhero just because she doesn't believe in us. We're here to help, and it doesn't even matter who we are before we put on the masks because when we do put them on, it means we're here to help, no matter what."

The little girl nodded vigorously and I smiled. She rushed up and hugged me before I could do anything else.

She let go and backed up so she could look me in the eyes before saying, "You're my favorite superhero now, Mr. White Lightning."

I stood back up to my height of 6'2 (which was really 6'1 without the lifters in my boots to help protect my identity) and watched as she ran back to her friends, who were now listening as Daniel over exaggerated the story of how we captured Two-Face yesterday.

"That was an amazing impromptu speech." Elise commented.

I smiled her way, "It's all in a day's work of being a super, you know?"

"No, it's more than that. You might've just saved that little girl from ever becoming another mouthpiece for propaganda. She'll forever remember the day her favorite super gave her advice and talked to her like she was an actual adult."

Elise talked about the event like something similar had happened to her, but from what I knew about her, nothing like that had ever happened. Maybe she was just feeling really emotional about the subject.

"I was just trying to lift up her feelings." I argued. "No one deserves to grow up without being able to voice their own thoughts."

Elise grinned at me, "You know what? You don't seem to be that bad of a guy, White Lightning."

We ended up staying at the party for a couple more hours before Daniel and I got a call from Eric about a break-in at a local business. We had to leave, much to the sad stares of the children. Elise was even a bit upset to see me go, but she understood, the city needed saving and we were its saviors.

But when we left I felt a bit sad. I liked who Elise was around me in my mask. She wasn't overly respectful like adults and she didn't revere me like the kids. She talked to me like I was a friend (which I was, but she didn't know that) and it made me feel better to be a hero.

Maybe I could visit her again one day with my mask on. But, for now, I had an appointment to keep with a certain villain.