[Fiction] Crusading Counselor

[Warren Verona]

"AAARRGGH!" Revenant threw his fist hard into some unknown object on the roof of the WCK building. "That ignorant inbred Cajun..." He paced from side to side the tentacles of energy the siphoned the life from all they touched writhed angrily about him. "I should just go back down there and kick his sorry ass..." Revenant turned on the gravel roof and started walking back towards the stairwell door.

[Sam 'The Crusader' Hill]

The musclebound marvel behind him layed a huge mitt on his shoulder.

"Ah, my raven-feathered friend, violence is never the solution between friends. And beneath your grim death-like exterior, I know lurks a heart of gold. You just need to get that gold heart beating again, and feel it's shiny warmth once more!"

[Warren Verona]

A blue digit quickly found it's way close to Sam's face. "He's not my friend. Did you hear that shit Sam? "My City" Jager isn't even gone ten minutes and Cade has gone of the deep end on his power trip. I mean open your damn eyes man! They don't need us! Him and Jager could save this city single fuckin' handedly with out batting an eyelash. But instead, we're doing it, and they're taking the clicks! We're pawns, well... you're a pawn, I'm technically not even required to be here anymore."

[Sam 'The Crusader' Hill]

"Now Revenant," Sam chided as if it were as obvious as the handsome nose on his face, "of course it's his city! It's my city, too! And yours! Yes, this great metropolis is 'my city' for all of us who would do right by the righteous and wrangle the roughians and wrong-headed!"

Clamping an arm around the dead-cold nova's shoulders in a manly hug of comraderie that was almost as welcome at the moment as athlete's foot, The Crusader said, "Now how about we go back down there, shake hands, and be one happy team again?"

[Warren Verona]

"Happy team?" Revenant pushed Sam off him, "And get off me, jesus, people might see us." He brushed off his duster in an attempt to salvage what was left of his coolness. Sam was just difficult to be pissed at, like the stray puppy you couldn't help but feed, then let it sleep on the porch... then before you knew it he had his shaots and the kids had named him.

"What's with you man? Don't you ever get sick of the shit that goes on around here? You can't seriously be that blind."

[Sam 'The Crusader' Hill]

"Sick of... huh?" It was as though words like 'shit', 'fuck', and other vulgarities simply didn't exist for The Crusader; Revenant might as well have said, "Don't you ever get sick of the hargleblop that goes on around here?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, my grim bluish friend, but by gum, I do see what goes on around here. Yes, these old eyes are always open and on the alert, and they spy many a sad and sordid thing on the mean streets of this grand old Windy City of ours. But that's why we're here: to work together to stand four-square in the path of those who would drive the 5:15 straight to Heck, and save the passengers to whom we have sworn our very lives to protect.

"Now, I know that we have our little dust-ups now and again, but by gosh, we can clean up that dust, clearing it from the lenses of our ever-vigilant binoculars of duty so that those tarnished specks of discord don't get in the way of the light of justice!"

[Warren Verona]

Despite his foul mood Revenant chuckled. His shoulders bounced a bit beneath his heavy cloak of eufiber. "Dude..." Revenant said placing his hand on Crusader's shoulder. "Wait... what? Can you run that by me one more time... you lost me at 'sick'."

"Jesus, Sam... what's it like in your world?" His arm plopped down at his side and Warren stood there beside The Crusader chuckling to himself.

[Sam 'The Crusader' Hill]

The blonde god smiled.

"What's it like? Blue skies, my friend, and a vast city in need of two-fisted justice! It's a world where cries for help do not go unheard, and where heroes are around every corner... whether they know it or not," he added. In that moment, just a tiny, brief moment, the Angel of Death could have sworn that there was a twinkle of genuine understanding and even insight in the impossibly azure eyes of his opposite number, the optimistic Beacon of Life.

With a broader smile that broke the moment, Sam said, "So what do you say we go find out the new score, so that we can plan our next play on the gridiron of the big city and call our forward pass of righteousness?"

[Warren Verona]

It's a world where cries for help do not go unheard, and where heroes are around every corner... whether they know it or not.

Warren stood almost paralyzed. Sam was known to be an idiot, a complete moron 99% of the time. Yet here we stood on the roof of The Tower, a wise man, Revenant had to admit, if only for a moment. It wasn’t long ago that Revenant was living on those streets as an inhuman nova monster capable of evils and carnage that would taint even the innocent mind's eye of The Crusader.

Not long ago it was his cries on those streets below, and despite his best poker face he could never deny that more than anything he wanted to be saved if only from himself.

Whether he knew it or not, Revenant was trying to be a hero. A hero to those he had wronged. A hero to the past he felt he had to atone for. He wanted to be that open ear listening for every cry so it would not go unheard. In his life he had suffered and deep down inside he truly hoped no one else would suffer like he had.

"I suppose with out me around we'd have less crying." He joked. "But you're right Sam, there is no way I can leave this city in the hands of that megalomaniac while Jager is away." He slugged the cleft chinned cliché in the arm, hard, and started for the door. "C'mon let's get back down there. Let’s fist the anus of Evil and pull out its soupy entrails, shaping them like balloon animals to spell ‘Justice’."

There was a long…

Long…

Long…

Very long…

Silent pause on the rootop.

“How bout I just leave the metaphors to you?”