Back To Work

Charles awoke the next morning and quickly produced a large smile as he looked over to see Nana cuddling up to him and holding him strongly. He noticed it was 6:30 am meaning he should get up to prepare for his work at school. Realizing this he then lightly shook his wife and wiggled out of her grasp. She moaned in dissatisfaction as Charles began to prepare for school. Finally, after around twenty minutes Charles was ready to head to work while Nana was just getting out of bed.

A little less than ten minutes Nana joined Charles in the living room. “You know it is so unfair that your Power allows you to quickly get ready for the day.” Charles complained halfheartedly. Nana just lightheartedly danced and sang some kind of victory dance with the voice and body of a popular singer. “Truly I am the luckiest man in the world.”

Nana then quickly transformed into her All Muscles alter ego before taking flight and speeding away to head to her hero agency. Meanwhile, Charles was left to drive their car towards my work at our former high school where Charles got to with no notable events impeding his progress. Charles parked in the faculty parking lot before entering through the backdoor with his faculty key. Truly it was something I did a thousand times so Charles did it all half-lucid which was probably why Charles ran into a student.

“Ow!” The student shouted as they smacked into each other, Charles having kept my footing stood still while the young student crashed to the ground. “Oh, sorry! This is unbecoming of a teacher, here let me help you up.” Charles quickly scurried to offer my hand to them as he looked down at them. Charles recognized them as they gripped my hand strongly, it was a student of the Japanese class he taught.

It was Roxanna Bright, though she prefers to be called Roxie, one of those girls that if this was a high school drama would probably be one of those alpha bitches that the generic outcast girl will despise. Blonde hair (which admittedly is shorter and spikier than those in dramas), being a sports star (track and field), having a clique follow her, and of course, being mean to those she thinks she can bully around. Luckily for the rest of the school, she only has one she bullies regularly and she largely stays out of trouble and keeps her bullying far from physical. When Charles helped her up she said loudly, “Just stay out of my way next time, teach!”

She quickly sped away from Charles' field of view as she headed towards the gym while I made my way towards the cafeteria to eat some breakfast. The school was having waffles that day however Charles had to bring it to his classroom as it was on the other side of the school and he didn’t want to rush there when school began. The waffles were pretty good to Charles, he always preferred waffles over pancakes, and trashed the leftovers in the classroom’s trash can before putting the tray on a stand outside so he could give it back to the kitchen ladies when lunch began.

The bell rang and it rang again five minutes later to signal the start of class. He looked around to see Satsuki, Roxie, and all of his first hour here ready for the day. “Kon-nichiwa, minasan!” He said ‘hello class’ in Japanese to which they repeated. Charles grinned as he recognized that they said it back in perfect Japanese, now to get them that far in almost all the other common Japanese words and phrases.

Charles then went through the class as he planned for the day. They had a test where they had to answer using the Japanese language that day so he largely graded that class, and just before the bell rang he heard his phone ring. ‘Strange, everyone knows to not call me when I am having class.’ He fished the phone out and he saw it was from Nana, even stranger. He pressed the button to answer as he put it against my ear.

When he did he heard a voice unfamiliar to him and certainly not Nana unless she transformed herself for some reason. “We have kidnapped your wife. If you want her back, bring a 100k to this address and we will text you.” The deep thuggish voice on the other end said quickly. Charles couldn’t help but frown as he immediately figured out what was going on. Obviously, these punks didn’t beat All Muscles and much less did so that they would still have a phone to ransom him with.

‘Ah dear, did you lose your phone again?’ Charles thought to himself as he barely paid attention to the rest of the call towards the “kidnappers”. Once he hung up he quickly called the All Muscles number, otherwise known as Nana’s hero phone, and quickly explained the situation before adding a question at the end, “Did you forget to leave your phone at home again?” Last time this happened she dropped her phone when she was flying above the city.

“I swore I left it home. I will deal with it right away and fill you in afterward. Okay?” She said sheepishly before quickly hanging up with the usual ‘love you hubby’ at the end. Jeez, being a hero’s partner has its own troubles. Though he guesses if his wife wasn’t a hero he would be worried sick right now, so he supposed he should be thankful for small miracles. He then went along with his day, certain that everything would turn out fine.

…

‘I really am scatterbrained.’ Nana thought to herself as she sped to the address the fake kidnappers sent to Charles to drop the money. She was joined by one of her sidekicks, Flex, a male hero with the power to control his own muscles, who told her a simple **** plot could be solved by a sidekick such as himself. Nana had none of it of course because she was directly responsible and the supposed “victim” of it though she didn’t tell him that, and took the lead for this job.

When the two arrived at the dropping location all was silent, they were standing in front of an abandoned warehouse ready to be demolished. The two sneaked to the front door before putting their ears against it, again hearing nothing. Now growing worried Nana decided to just kick the door open to reveal not several thugs waiting for a payday as they expected but a dry and dead room that has recently been repainted with their blood. Their bodies lie down in pools of their own blood.

Flex screamed then as he froze in place, he was only a rookie so such a reaction was expected, while Nana stalked to the closest victim and put her gloved hand against the puddle. “W-what are you doing! Shouldn’t we call the police to investigate this!?” Flex asked with a scream. Nana nodded to herself though if it was to Flex’s question he couldn’t tell.

“Dry. These thugs were dead for a while.” Nana noted with a calm voice that hid her worried thoughts, mainly being that the caller was not the thugs but their killer. “Call the cops kiddo, I need to do an investigation of my own.” Nana ordered Flex to which he rushed out of the warehouse to comply and possibly throw up. She then scanned the room to see her phone was laying next to the farthest body.

She approached it and turned it on, when she did it immediately went to her notes app which must have been the last thing the killer did before he left it there. The most recent note the killer must have written was ‘I KNOW WHO YOU ARE NOW’. ‘The police don’t need this phone, it would reveal my identity. I will just tell them myself.’ She thought to herself as she put her phone in one of her pockets. ‘Now to find this son of a bitch.’