The night was cold, and the air smelled of salt. Solomon stared out from the ledge of the tallest building overlooking the Bay City. The sparkling lights slowly started to disappear as the fog rolled in to strengthen the scent of salt in the ocean air. From where he stood the city lied in a serene lull. To the eyes, Megapolis slept, so deceiving from the evil that thrived under the cover of darkness.

Honestly, Solomon knew that he was strange odd sight, standing at the ledge of a hundred-story building, scanning the city in an odd Batman-like suit wasn’t something everyone normally does. It had only been two weeks since he’d donned the powered suit his father had left him. A billionaire from a young age, his parents had left him with all the family had owned when they had died. With so much money, and no family or friends, except a servant, to share it with, life had been difficult, as he had grown up. He had never gotten over his families death, the sole survivor of what was thought to be some cataclysmic accident.

A swift breeze whipped across the top of the building signaling that the wind would soon pick up. Standing at the top of the tallest building of the city had its perks. Standing on the top of the tallest building that belonged to you, even better. When his family died, whatever belonged to his family went straight to Solomon Richards. Solomon became the sole owner of Richards Conglomerate and all of its branches. Bruce Wayne, had Wayne Enterprise, Solomon practically held the world in his hands.

Solomon heard a buzz as the radio uplink clicked to hear the familiar voice of his servant, “Sir, our sensors are indicating the storm will reach shore within the hour. I will upload the data to your suit.”

“I can see it from here Kenzington. I’ll probably be returning earlier than usual. Intelligence is harder to come up with when it rains”

“As you say, I’ll have fresh clothes and refreshments prepared.”

“Thanks Kenzington, you the best.”

As the radio connection clicked off, Solomon’s visor swooped into place covering/ protecting his face. He couldn’t get enough of it. The process of thought controlled most of the suit, and not even the latest technology could keep up with some of the things the suit could do. Best of all, it was a perfect fit, light as a feather, and he always had a hell of a fun time running around in it.

A message beeped and projected itself to his visor. With how advanced the suit’s technology was, it was relatively easy to configure and compatible with nearly anything he’d try to streamline with it. He cracked a smile as images and video of the location of Yamamoto, Jin. Solomon’s newest addition to his suit’s functionality was the ability to stream into the local camera network of Megapolis. Since every camera was on a different network, it had been a tedious process to hack into the various network camera feeds, and from there had run the feeds through the government’s face recognition database. All the sleepless nights had paid off with this lead. It was time to meet this thug.

Solomon stepped forward to the edge of the ledge. He spread out his arms and took one last deep breath and jumped. Falling from one hundred stories wasn’t something he had gotten used to yet, but he couldn’t get enough as his adrenaline pumped stronger as his barometer counted down his decent to earth.

For two weeks Solomon had been running around Megapolis at night fighting the creepy bad guys, looking for someone to beat up. Masquerading as some kind of superhero. It must have been an amusing sight as he’d caught a few petty thieves in action, a few robberies here and there, even running into a burning building saving a child. Solomon had just one policy for himself. He would always stay out of sight from the public, never stepping out of the shadows. Publicity wouldn’t mix well with his plans.

Contrary to his actions or policy Solomon wasn’t a crime fighter. He was no super hero. It was a true masquerade, it would be a lie to call him a protector of the weak, the hand of justice. Perhaps the closest thing to him may have been Batman. Solomon’s reason for picking up the suit was full of ulterior motives, perhaps not ultimately for revenge, but rather to find out the truth. Stemming from the death of his family, he knew as a kid the deaths of his family members just didn’t add up. He had obsessed over their deaths, he had nearly driven himself to obsession as the loneliness picked at him, prodded into his soul. Sadly enough, for Solomon, this became the meaning of his existence.

Solomon, the man in a suit of armor continued to streak down to earth. Ten stories from the ground the jets in his boots automatically operated, cushioning his fall. He leveraged his fall to churn the movement into a run and sped through the city at inhuman speeds. Leaping from roof to roof, cutting from alley to alley, Solomon put free runners to shame powering through the city at sixty miles per hour. He could see bits and pieces of the dock through the fog as he grew closer and closer to his destination.

For two weeks he had tested the suits abilities in real life situations; with the armed robberies, combat with the thieves, and the fire, all too easy. Everything was too easy with the suit on, and every test surpassed his expectations. He had projected a month to get fully used to the suits functions, but with such great results and ease of control Solomon decided to set his plans into motions a bit earlier than planned.

Solomon turned into the last alley, which lead to a dead end. He sped up and jumped, scaling a third of the wall. He ran up the rest of the building with ease nearing the edge of his journey. He glided across expanse of the roof and launched himself from the top of the roof just as an enormous cargo boat entered the interior dock. Solomon, hoping to land on the large cargo boat, or even grab the tail end misjudged the power of his step in excitement. He let out a gasp as he realized that he was heading straight into the dark waters of the bay. He flailed his feet forward reactivating his jets, but only activating it for just a split second due to the time lag between boosts. In mid tumble he managed to grab a railing over the side of the ship successfully avoiding an extremely wet situation. Solomon pulled himself on deck as he stowed away among the huge cargo boxes on deck.

It was dark inside the building and he could hear orders being barked and feet shuffling around moving away from the boat. He turned on his infrared on his visor, which gave him a clear view of the inside of the docks. He could see around five to six men moving boxes from the boat off the docks. Something was up, a boat moving in through the cover of darkness and fog. Something was fishy, and fishy was exactly what he was looking for. Fishy would lead him to Yamamoto, who should still be at the docks, and Yamamoto had his fingers in anything relatively fishy. Solomon couldn’t get a good view of the docks from the boxes he was hiding behind and decided to prop himself on top of the boxes to get a better view.

Bingo. From the opposite end of the docks he spotted Yamamoto in his trench coat and fedora. He zoomed up the image to make sure, and it was crystal clear. Oddly enough, out of place, he spotted a young women tied to a chair.

“Was she kidnapped by Yamamoto?” Solomon tried to think.

He zoomed up to her face trying to figure out if it was someone famous or important that he might know of the top of his head, but she was blindfolded obstructing the view of much of her face. His mind raced, the sole reason of being here was for intelligence, and intelligence meant figure out information on Yamamoto. Yamamoto ran the streets with gambling, drugs, and whatever shady dealings made money, his hands would be on it. However, being one of the heads on the streets didn’t mean that Yamamoto was at the top. He had to have a boss, even someone like Yamamoto reported to somebody, and through complicated reasoning, and Yamamoto being Solomon’s only lead, he was stuck in a predicament. Save a random girl, or go through with simply gathering intelligence. Yet, Solomon played with the idea of possibly doing both.

He stood at the top of the boxes thinking, enjoying the wonderful view of the shady dealings of the criminals in progress. His mind began to race trying to calculate a plan to combine gathering intelligence, and saving the girl in the process. Both had their perks, gut instinct was to go save the girl. However, that would ultimately blow his cover as there was no way to smuggle the girl out of the dock without the dirt bags knowing she was gone. On the other hand, if he just gathered intelligence, he wouldn’t be noticed, he could be able to formulate a plan, and possibly figure out who Yamamoto’s boss was and go from there. Save the girl another day? Solomon was unsure.

As he tried to figure out a plan he continued to watch from the top of the boxes. Solomon thought it was so stupid how these creepy criminals always loved to make deals with the lights off, using darkness of night as cover. Perhaps doing bad things in the dark made these criminals feel better, or gave them some reassurance that no one was watching. Solomon laughed inside, knowing he was watching. Bad guys are so stupid, he thought.

In that instant something peculiar happened that startled Solomon knocking himself off the boxes creating a huge ruckus as boxes tumbled over. His visor went completely white then dark. He couldn’t figure out what happened exactly until he popped his visor open, which nearly blinded his true sight. Someone had turned on the lights, and the evil bad guys knew that he had been on top of the boxes… WATCHING!

Shaking his head and recovering from the initial shock of losing his vision he fumbled around. His adrenaline started to pump as he realized he was in danger. There were foot steps clamoring up toward the ship signaling that the creepy bad men would be where Solomon was very quickly, if he didn’t figure a new place to hide.

“How ironic.” Solomon popped his visor back on and turned off the infrared view returning his vision back to normal. I guess that means I’m not gathering intel today…”

He measured the distance between the girl and where he stood and jumped off the cargo boat activating his jets, which sent him flying toward the girl. Shocked by a fully armored man hurtling towards them at high speeds, the evil baddies didn’t even get a chance to take out their guns. Solomon had swooped the girl out of the chair and was halfway toward the nearest exit when he heard bullets whiz by as he dashed faster and faster toward the nearest door. As he neared it, he jumped up and slammed into the door feet first, which smacked one of Yamamoto’s henchmen in the back.

Flying through the air, Solomon held the girl tightly, riding the door, and simultaneously riding one of the henchmen. Solomon smashed into the ground, smashing the man underneath the door and continued to run.

“Ouch that’s gotta hurt… I guess next time you won’t stand in front of the door, when Solomon needs a quick get away.” Solomon shook his head and leapt up the side of a building, then hoped to the next.

He noticed the girl mumble something and Solomon took the liberty of removing the cloth tied around her face so she could see and communicate.

“What the hell are you doing?! Put me down right now!”

Solomon lifted his visor half way so that he could talk to the girl yet keep his identity hidden. Puzzled he looked down at the girl as he continued to hop from building to building leaving the docks behind in the thick fog. Rain started to drizzle across the bay as he continued to run away from the dock.

“Excuse me?” Solomon looked down.

“K-k-kendrick!? Kendrick, what is this?! Is this some kind of joke!?”

Solomon, now a little confused and a bit irritated checked the distance from the docks on his visors and decided it was safe to let the girl down. The fog would cover his tracks, and it was safe enough to drop the girl off in the current area. He cut the ropes off her hands and feet and could see that she was a bit mad.

“You know, I just rescued you from some really bad people.”

“Kendrick, if you’re trying to make up for what happened today, it’s not working. You know that I’m going to be a journalist, and the best there is. Even if I have to put myself in danger to do so!” Her eyes glowed with passion as she stared off into the distance monologuing.

Solomon started to string the situation together. “I’m sorry, but I believe you are mixing me up with someone else.”

“OH PLEASE! Lose the super hero gag Kendrick. How could it not be you?! Same hair as this morning popping out of that helmet thing of yours, same height, you could change your voice just a bit to make you sound a little bit more heroic, and heck… I can spot you standing around from a million miles away. Don’t even try that on your girlfriend.”

Solomon flinched backwards as he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He began to think that she may be a stalker that was infatuated with him.. After all, he was a boy billionaire. Could Kendrick be her special nickname for him? Solomon, Kendrick? No, nothing added up.

“Look, I don’t know Kendrick, and I am not your boyfriend. Obviously…”

“Obviously what? Obviously, you are stupid. I can’t believe you’d go through this much trouble… You know, all I ever want to hear, is a SORRY?”

With that statement Solomon concluded that the girl was insane. In a split second, disregarding keeping his identity a secret, and a bit of frustration, he accidentally slipped a thought to open his visor revealing the entirety of his face. The female gasped and slapped him in the face.

“You are so kidding me…” Solomon rubbed the side of his cheek. The girl knew how to hit.

“You’re not… Kendrick.”

“Like i said…” Solomon shook his head and flipped his visor half way. “Take a cab from here. Don’t do anything stupid like that anymore. Mixing yourself up with Yamamoto will only end with you dieing.” Her eyes were still wide as saucers unable to comprehend the situation. She looked as if she was about to fall into shock.

“The area should be safe, so take a cab out.” Solomon’s visor slipped down covering the rest of his face and he sped off. Her eyes were still wide with fright and shock, not knowing how to react to the situation. Before the girl had returned to Earth, Solomon was three buildings away. No, make that four.