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Have you ever met your wit’s end? Been devastated by the pain of grief, rendering your conscience lost? As I sit on my pedestal of guilt between a rock and a hard place, I debate the hardest decision of many lives. The world is an utterly dark place, barren of hope, but there is still a glimpse of potential in its lasting endurance. This place where we are now. I can see a beautiful world before us. A child-like first perspective of this reckoned reality. Subjective innocence. Surrounded by the bane of my accomplishments, my life haunts me.

As the rain falls, hitting my forehead, it trickles down my mind. Passing my tears, it continues downwards as my thoughts transcend. What is justice but an immunity to understanding? Circumstances are not neatly defined as one or the other. Black or white. We live in a contentious world of gray. We live in a nation where our wants compete with the value of our needs. Only those who have experienced true loss understand what they need. No ecstasy in excess is true. Life is about finding your balance. Where discontentment thrives, bad things will follow.

August 15th, 1997. The eighteen-year-old boy prepared himself in his room for the big night. He strapped a bulletproof vest over his allblack outfit. His weapon, a metal sparring staff that could split into two. The night was young.

“Axel! Your brother is waiting for you in the garage,” his father yelled up the stairs.

“I’ll be down in a moment,” he responded.

1

Axel was a tall young man, standing around six foot three. His medium-length hair was a dirty blond shade. His eyes a deep brown with a hint of green caressing the outer rim of his irises. He sat down on his bed facing the analog clock on the wall in his room. Reflecting on his life and how it had led up to this moment. His eyes gazed into the clock. Time slowed down. Each tick of the hand flooded his mind with anticipation. His memory drew those words his father used to tell him in his adolescence: “You can either be a good man or a great man, but in life, oftentimes, they are very different things.”

Those words resonated through his mind. Each tick of the clock’s hand took him a year further into his past.

He remembered when he was eleven years old. Before he had discovered his ability. He was practicing with his older brother, Karl. Karl was born with his power, as was his grandfather before him. Karl was gifted, his surreal attributes making him hardly considered mortal. On this particular day, fate was in the air. The brothers were attempting to jump across a long gap between two buildings downtown. The gap must have been at least ten feet long, and the buildings over three stories high. Karl made the jump with ease. When Axel headed for the gap, his momentum failed him, and he completely missed his landing. He hit the side of a fire escape, breaking his leg, then tumbled down onto a dumpster, shattering his ribs. His limp body slid down the side onto the ground as his brother hurried to his aid. Karl rushed him to the hospital. By the time the brothers arrived, all of Axel’s injuries were miraculously healed.

The young man shook his head, trying to clear his mind. This was the moment he had been training for. The clock’s hands passed their vertical peak. He finished getting ready, then hurried downstairs and out the door. He headed to the garage. As he took his first step through the garage door, Karl greeted him. Karl stood at a broad six foot five. A couple inches taller than his younger brother. Wide shouldered with a very fit build. Dressed in a leather jacket and blue jeans.

“’Bout time. You ready, brother?” Karl asked him.

“I’ve never been more ready in my entire life,” he answered.

Karl smirked. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out some black leather fabric. After he handed it to Axel, he explained, “It’s a mask. It won’t shroud you from people we know, but it’s just enough to deter camera footage from identifying us.”

Axel nodded in understanding. The two then loaded everything they needed for the big night into their dad’s car, a 1975 cherry red Pontiac GTO in mint condition.

“So much for low profile,” Axel remarked as they got into the car.

The two embarked on their mission, driving through the starry night. Down a single lane highway out in the boons.

“How about some tunes to get us in the mood?” Karl proposed.

He turned the radio onto the local rock station. “TNT” by ACDC came on the station. The radio always knew how to set the mood, Axel thought.

They drove for nearly an hour until they reached the city, driving through a tunnel in the dark. As they exited the other side, the city lights lit up the sky. The brothers were dazzled by the city ambience. Living out in the country, they didn’t often experience the sky in this manner.

Karl looked for an exit that would lead to a seemingly low-income neighborhood. Inherently, struggling people tended to commit more crimes. He took them into an old beat-up area by the railroad track and found an alleyway to park in. Once he’d pulled the Pontiac over, he put the shifter into park and flipped the ignition into accessory mode.

“Now what?” Axel asked, curious how their plan was going to play out.

Karl turned on his police radio. “We wait.”

Their task was clear, their motive pure. They had the upper hand in pursuing crime compared to their opponents. No one would see them coming. The lurking wretched filth of the slum would have scattered like roaches in direct light if a blare of a siren went off.

The two waited silently, listening to a few routine transmissions communicated over dispatch.

Finally, they got something. “Shots fired on Prescott Avenue. Assailant is wearing a gray hoodie, heading southbound,” a woman’s voice stated.

Karl started the car and peeled out, heading in that direction. He floored the gas pedal to the ground, speeding up to sixty miles per hour in a forty-five zone.

“I remember Prescott is this direction, but I don’t know which way from us he’s gonna be.” Karl creased his brow in frustration.

“Just turn left and let’s hope he was further south,” Axel suggested.

They approached Prescott, and Karl slammed on the breaks, skidding the car into a drift around the corner.

“That’s him!” Axel spotted him off to the right.

The man in the hoodie jumped a fence and ran through a back alley.

Karl slammed on the brakes.

“I’m gonna look for him on foot. You follow me in the car,” Karl said.

Axel nodded. “Okay, go, go!”

Karl jumped over the fence after the guy with the hoodie and began sprinting down the road, going thirty miles per hour. Axel sped off in the Pontiac, heading around the block to try and corner him.

Karl caught up to the hooded man. The man jumped another fence into someone’s backyard. Karl grabbed the fence and ripped it out of the ground, breaking the metal links from the post. He hurled the heavy, fifteen-foot-wide fence behind him.

“H-h-how the hell did you do that?” the criminal stuttered.

Karl took a step toward him with no response. The man in the hoodie pulled a small Glock out of his sweater pocket, pointing it at Karl.

“Stay back or I’ll shoot you.”

Karl did nothing. Just stood there.

Meanwhile, Axel had exited the car that was parked on the other side of the house they were behind. He snuck around to the side gate and discreetly approached the hooded man.

“GET OUT OF MY WAY!” the hooded man shouted at Karl just as Axel jumped over the fence behind the assailant and swung his metal staff into the criminal’s head, knocking him to the ground, unconscious.

He bent down and worked quickly, slapping some police-grade cuffs on him.

Three police cars came swarming in, looking puzzled as they stepped out of their vehicles. The criminal was lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious, his hands cuffed. No one else in sight. The brothers had fled.

“Did you see that? Damn, man, that was exhilarating!” Axel said enthusiastically as they headed home in the Pontiac.

“You did good, Axel. You did real good. That’s what I call teamwork right there. Grandpa would have been proud of this moment,” Karl told his brother.

They drove back to the old country town they lived in, arriving at their home right at dawn. The Pontiac pulled into the long gravel driveway. They parked in front of an old, country-style, two-story hand-crafted log cabin. Before it stood a stained maple deck attached to four hardwood posts supporting the balcony above. On the porch, their father, Peter, and Axel’s best friend, Russ, waited for the brothers’ arrival.

Peter bore a great resemblance to Karl. With dark hair and blue eyes, he was wearing his usual heavy vest with a ball cap on. Axel spotted Russ first before he even stepped out of the car. He stood out with his distinctive red locks of hair and the flannel shirt he always wore.

“How did it go?” Peter Fassbinder asked his sons.

“We successfully took down an armed suspect without anyone getting hurt. The Police have him now,” Karl explained.

“Wow that’s awesome, guys,” he responded.

“That’s so cool, man,” Russ interjected. He walked over and gave Axel a fist pump. “So, you guys are gonna let me join on the next trip, right?”

Karl and Axel looked at each other with concerned expressions.

“Um…” Axel started to reply.

Russ interrupted, “Kidding, of course.”

They laughed and headed inside for breakfast. The brothers and their dad sat down at a large wooden dining table in the center of the room.

Russ walked over to the kitchen counter to plate everyone up.

“Mr. Fassbinder, where are the napkins?”

“At this point you know my kitchen better than I do, Russ. Where did you put them last?” he asked playfully.

The brothers giggled a little and shook their heads.

“Right, on it.” Russ figured it out.

“Your grandfather would have been very proud of you boys,” Peter told them.

Russ walked over and placed everyone’s plates in front of them.

“But Mom wouldn’t be?” Axel asked his father, frowning, his tone serious.

Russ paused, setting a plate in front of Axel, looking at Peter, who then looked at Karl.

After a moment of silence, Peter answered, “Axel, your mother…” He paused, holding back his conviction. “No, she wouldn’t have been. But that’s why… She wanted you boys to have a normal life. We always disagreed on what would happen when you boys came of age.”

Axel stared at his father with a blank look. He looked down at his plate, then stood up, pushed his chair in and walked up to his room without a word. Peter looked down, swallowed by grief. A moment later, he followed Axel up the stairs to his room.

He knocked twice on the door; with no response, he opened it. Axel was sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. Peter walked over and sat down next to him.

“Your mother would be proud of whatever man you decide to be. I just wanted to be transparent with you. She asked me to promise her that I would never let you boys become like your grandfather. She respected him. That wasn’t at all the problem. That just isn’t the kind of life any mother would wish for her children. I saw things differently.

“You know, when I found out about my father’s abilities, I was five years old. He was working on his car and knocked the jack stand out. The car fell on him. I witnessed it all. He pushed the car up with hardly any struggle and moved it to the side away from him. When he realized I’d seen him, he told me about his power. He felt like it was necessary because he needed to make sure I knew that I wasn’t invincible like him.

When he told me I was just an ordinary boy, I was crushed. Then he explained that my son would be like him. I began focusing my whole life on raising this perfect man. Now I’m blessed with two. As selfish as it seems, I wanted to live my dream through Karl. And now you as well.

This world needs heroes, and I believe our family was bred for that task.”

Axel lifted his head up and put his hands on his lap. He turned toward his father, met his gaze, and asked, “Is it true that we’re the first generation of Fassbinders to have more than one child?”

“Who told you that?” his father asked, looking concerned.

“Karl. When we were kids. He said that every generation in our family only had one son until me. Was I a mistake? Was I meant to be a Fassbinder?”

Peter stood up and moved in front of Axel. He kneeled on one knee and lifted his son’s chin up with his two fingers.

“My son, you are a gift to us all. Of course you were meant to be a Fassbinder. No other family could bear a child with as great a talent as you.”

Axel smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”

When Axel lay down to sleep, no dreams visited his rest that day. He got up around three in the afternoon, a few hours after lying down. He used his landline phone to call Russ’s house and told him to meet at the river, their usual hangout.

Axel walked down the trail behind their house, which led to a circle of trees. In the center there was a big boulder to sit on. Russ was sitting on it, waiting for him.

“What’s up, man? Is everything alright?” his red-headed friend greeted him. “You seemed pretty upset earlier. I’ve been worried.”

“Yeah, I just needed some time to collect myself. I waited so long for that night to come, when it did it almost felt like… I don’t know. Different.”

“Well, you spent the last seven years focused on one thing. I can imagine you’d have mixed emotions about it. If it makes you feel any

better, I could only dream of doing something like that.”

Axel walked over to one of the large tree trunks and put his hand on it, leaning his head down toward the ground.

“I do feel like this is what I’m meant to be doing. I made my father proud, my grandfather, and Karl. Part of me just wonders what my mom would say if she was here. You know I’ve always felt somewhat responsible for her death. If she didn’t have me, she would still be here today.”

“Hey, man, you can’t think like that. She knew the risk months ahead of time. She would have made the same decision to choose you over her again and again,” Russ comforted his friend.

“I guess deep down I just wonder if my dad or Karl ever blame me. If they really love me like I think they do or if it’s only a façade.”

Russ walked over to Axel and put his hand on his shoulder. “Honestly, man, coming from a broken family myself, I have never seen so much love between a father and two brothers before. You are blessed, remember that.”

“Thanks, Russ.”

“Now let’s hit up the river, it’s like ninety degrees out here.”

The following weekend the brothers went out again. They began making a habit of heading down to the city every Friday and Saturday night. As time passed, the brothers earned somewhat of a reputation with the locals.

A couple of months had passed since the night with the hooded man, and they were sitting down for breakfast when their father said, “I heard about you boys from someone in the shop this morning. Some old timer was in getting a quote for some maple countertops and asked me if I had heard about this superhero phenomenon down in the Bay Area. I told him I had not. He said that people were calling you boys, the ‘Army of Two.’ Two masked men fighting off armed criminals. That was a proud moment. I thought you boys ought to know.” Axel and Karl looked at each other with big grins.

“Well, it looks like we have a name,” Karl remarked.

“I like that. Well, there’s no going back now,” Axel added.

 

February 11th, 1998. On a stormy night, nearing three in the morning, the brothers heard a call for a fire in a fourplex building. Multiple gunshots reported. The brothers drove the Pontiac to the destination. When they arrived, they saw the building was engulfed in flames.

“Oh man, that’s not good,” Axel commented.

They got out of the car and jogged over to the building entrance.

Karl opened the door as a powerful gust of smoke pushed them back.

“Is anyone in there?” he yelled into the building.

The brothers waited for a moment with no response. They looked at each other, and Axel nodded. A moment later, they entered the building, the smoke pouring out profusely.

Axel looked down the hallway to see two dead bodies on the ground, both armed. He ran up to one and checked their pulse. He looked at his brother and shook his head, confirming a negative reading. He evaluated the corpses, noting that both of their guns were melted at the tip of the barrels. His gaze rose upwards, and he peered into the remains of the hallway. In the darkness, he tried to focus his vision. The flickers of the flames distorted his view. He saw a figure at the end of the hall. Just a silhouette. He blinked a few times, trying to make out what he thought he saw. Two red eyes bore into him from the dark humanoid.

“Hello?” Axel addressed the figure.

With no response, the two brothers waited for a few seconds.

Suddenly, a hooded figure came running out at them, holding a little girl in their arms.

“Get out, quick!” a woman’s voice yelled at them.

The hooded woman ran straight between the two and out the door behind them. The brothers looked to see the house’s structure was compromised. They ran out of the building with haste.

“What happened here? Are there any more people in the building?” Karl confronted the woman.

The woman wore a cloak draped around her, and a hood covering her head. She set the little girl down.

“What’s your name?” she asked the girl.

“Abigail,” the poor girl answered softly.

“Were your parents in there, Abigail?” She shook her head no.

“Abby!” a woman yelled from across the street.

A middle-aged blonde woman jumped out of her car, leaving the door open, and hurried over, picking the girl up and hugging her.

“Thank you. Thank you... My daughter is okay,” the woman said gratefully. “I had to run to the corner store and figured she was safer at the apartment.”

“Maybe take her with you next time,” the shrouded, heroic young woman told the mother.

The brothers felt out of place, witnessing this scene. Karl looked at Axel awkwardly. Usually, they were the ones who got the thanks.

Sirens blared around the corner. The Army of Two and the hooded woman all looked down the road to see a fire truck and two police cars on their way.

“That’s our cue,” Karl commented.

The three heroes fled a block down and crossed the street. They headed down a small alley between brick buildings.

“Who are you?” Karl asked the mysterious woman.

She looked to be about five foot six. Under the black cloak she wore a black leather, skintight outfit. She lifted the hood from her head to reveal gorgeous, piercing blue eyes and pitch-black hair.

“I could ask you the same question.” She paused for a moment, studying the two. “Wait a second. I’ll be damned. You’re them, aren’t you? You’re the infamous Army of Two.”

“I guess we have earned a bit of a reputation,” Karl answered, borderline flustered.

“I thought you would be older,” she scoffed.

“You need to have a little youth in you to do what we do,” Axel interjected.

“So, what happened in there? What did you find? And are you going to tell us who you are now?” Karl asked.

She sighed, hesitating. “As far as I could tell, the perpetrators had some business that had gone wrong with one of the tenants of the building. I was in the area and heard gunshots. So naturally, I intervened. My name is Azrael, if you must know. And your names are?”

“I’m Karl, this is my younger brother, Axel. You just happened to be in the area and decided to intervene? Why do I get the feeling an average young woman wouldn’t go running toward the sound of gunshots in a building on fire.”

“Fine. I knew about the gunshots ahead of time. For the last couple of years, I’ve been fighting crime around the county. I’m just a little better at keeping a low profile than you two. So, you probably haven’t heard of me. I also don’t have a catchy name like you guys. I think the only thing I’ve heard a witness call me was ‘the witch’.”

The brothers looked at each other with puzzled expressions. “The witch? Why? And how exactly does a one-hundred-and-ten-pound woman fight off armed criminals?” Karl was determined to get answers.

She looked down the alleyway in both directions to make sure they were alone. She then whispered an elusive sentence in what seemed to be ancient Latin. Her eyes began to change color, turning a crimson blood red. As she held out her hand in front of her, out of nowhere, fire began to materialize. It then expanded, getting bigger, forming a six-inch diameter ball of flame that hovered above her hand.

“My powers are hardly limited. I can move things without touching them, heat objects, cool objects, and bend elements such as fire.”

The Army of Two’s eyes lit up, astonished by what they had seen. Karl wondered if she was the reason the building had caught fire.

“How did you obtain these abilities? What happened to you?” Axel asked.

“You know, honestly, it’s kind of personal. We did just meet. Do you guys wanna grab a drink and we can get to know each other a little better?”

“A drink? Are you even old enough to drink?” Karl asked.

“I’m twenty-two, but I went to bars before I was of age, so that doesn’t matter much.”

“Well, Axel’s only nineteen and hasn’t had anything alcoholic before, so that’s probably not the ideal place for us.”

“I can speak for myself, Karl. I think if I’m old enough to risk my life fighting dangerous men armed with weapons as lethal as assault rifles, then I’m old enough to have a drink,” Axel said brusquely.

Azrael grinned in an almost sinister manner. “I like that. I think that’s pretty reasonable, right, Karl?”

Karl exhaled slowly. “Alright, well if you know somewhere that won’t ID him, I guess a few drinks won’t hurt.”

“Are you guys on foot or…?”

“Our car is parked a few blocks down. Maybe we should go the long way around in case any of the emergency responders are still there.”

They all agreed. The three of them made their way to the Pontiac. When they got to the car, Axel opened the door for Azrael and put the front seat down. She climbed in and sat in the back. The Army of Two got in, and they headed off. They drove about five miles into the industrial district of the city until they arrived at a small dive bar with parking out back.

Karl pulled up and parked the car. “Looks like a dump,” he commented.

“Well, it’s the only place that won’t identify us as our alternate versions or ask for identification cards, so you gotta enjoy it,” she explained.

They continued into the bar. Azrael walked in first, followed by Karl, then Axel. The bar was narrow with a couple of dart boards on one wall to the left. A juke box and some tables to the right. In front of them was the bar with only five seats. One old man sat there with a Budweiser in his hand. The Army of Two and Azrael all sat in a row next to him. The bartender walked over.

“We’ll have three hefeweizens, please.” Azrael slapped a twenty on the bar.

The man nodded and got their drinks.

“So, you come here often?” Karl asked her.

“You know you ask a lot of questions. I come here almost every morning after a long night of fighting crime. It’s the only bar in town that doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t close for the state’s mandated fourhour alcohol prohibition.”

“Right... Well, that’s reassuring. And I’m sorry if it seems like I ask a lot of questions. I guess we just don’t meet many people and well… you’re the first person we have heard of outside of our family that has any type of superpower or whatever it is that you possess.”

“Outside of your family, huh? So, all of you are superhuman?”

Axel chimed in, “Not all of us. Only a select few. You may have heard of one, though. The Patriot? That was our grandfather.”

Azrael’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Your grandfather was the first real-life superhero? Wow, that’s awesome. What ever happened to him?” The brothers looked at each other with dismay.

“We’re not so sure, to be honest,” Karl explained. “He went missing when our father was pretty young. Long before either of us were born.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

They were interrupted by the bartender setting their drinks on the bar in front of them. “Thanks, Mitch, we’ll need another in about five,” Azrael told him as she took a big drink from her ale, then let out a satisfied sigh.

She looked at the brothers, then at their drinks, as if to say, Drink up!

Karl took a sip off his and turned toward Axel. Axel hesitated slowly, lifting the glass to his lips. He tilted it and took a small taste. “A little bitter.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“I know we just met, but I honestly need to know. How did you create that fire back there?” Karl pressed.

“I don’t know if this is the best place to talk about certain things,” Axel commented, gesturing his head toward the old man sitting next to them.

“Don’t worry about Bill, he’s an old Vietnam vet. He has no clue what’s going on around him,” she reassured them. “Hey, Bill, who’s running for office next year?”

The old man turned in their direction, a crazed look in his eye. “That goddamn, bloodthirsty Nixon will win every time,” he yelled violently and followed with a chug on his bottled beer.

“See, you don’t have to worry about Bill. He’s here 24/7. I’m pretty sure he sleeps out back too. How I got my abilities is a little disturbing. I’ll tell you, but it’s pretty heavy, and I don’t want you to think differently of me. I’m actually starting to like you guys, which is unheard of for me.

I’ll tell you if you promise I won’t scare you off.

“I promise,” Axel said.

“Karl?” she asked.

“Yes. I promise.”

“Well, it started with the most tragic moment of my life. When I was thirteen years old, my parents were brutally murdered in our own home.” She paused, looking at the wall. She took a big drink of her beer. “Another round, Mitch.”

Turning back toward them, she continued. “I remember that night vividly. I relive that moment almost every single day. It was a couple of minutes past midnight. There was an intruder in my room. His intent was never fully determined. He broke through the door, and I screamed. My Dad came running up the stairs. When he got to my room, the intruder shot him dead on the spot. My mother, after hearing the gunshots, grabbed our family rifle to help. When she entered the room, the gunman shot her twice before she had a chance to lift her weapon. Debatably the most haunting part of it all was after he killed my parents. I’ll never forget how he looked at me and said, ‘You are your own worst enemy.’ He then turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger. Blood everywhere.”

She stopped because she started trembling. Her hand was shaking.

Karl put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re okay. I… I don’t know what to say.”

Axel, with tears in his eyes, commented, “That’s horrible. I can’t believe you had to go through that. Especially at such a young age.”

“Yeah, it’s unbelievable. Some men are made of pure evil. The worst part is probably that we’re pretty sure he didn’t know any of us. It was some random catastrophe. Something else disturbing about it was that the police were never able to identify the murderer. Something wrong with his fingerprints and DNA.

“Anyways, I wasn’t just telling you about this for your sympathy. The reason why is because of what came after. After the loss of my parents at such a young age, I didn’t deal with it well. All the emotions from the grief. Living with a foster parent that didn’t understand me. It was terrible. I couldn’t go on like that. How could someone move forward after experiencing such chaos, so much pain. I began spending a lot of time at the public library. Researching into some dark subjects. I found some books that I shouldn’t have. I started studying witchcraft.”

The bartender interrupted her with the next round of ales. The brothers just sat there, completely invested in her story.

She continued, “I discovered a spell that supposedly would summon a demon that could grant you a wish in return for a great price. I took the book into the woods and chanted the spell. Blood costs blood was its name. When I completed the ritual, the demon appeared. It was far more frightening than I could ever imagine. However, I wasn’t scared for a moment. It asked me what I wanted. I told it that I wanted it to bring back my parents. It could not complete this wish. So, I asked it if it could grant me the power to overcome any man, so that I could avenge my parents. The demon told me it could grant this wish at a great cost: When I died, my soul would never rest but would go to hell for eternity. I made my blood pact with the demon, and instantly it granted me powers beyond imagination.”

She finished her story, and both the brothers just sat there, leaning toward her, speechless.

Finally, Karl said, “I don’t even know what to say… I’ve always thought of demons as more of a spiritual or metaphorical subject. To think of someone interacting with one, let alone making a deal with one, is just inconceivable.” His tone was condescending.

“I understand about making rash decisions. I mean, you did what you felt you had to. I’m sorry that you were led to take those kinds of measures,” Axel said.

“Yeah… no going back now. Now you guys know my big dark secret.

Basically, everything there is you need to know about me, to be honest.” The brothers both grabbed their ales and drained them.

“I think we’d better get going. It’s almost seven. Do you have a phone we can reach you on?” Karl asked.

“Yeah, of course. I have my own apartment and have a landline there.” She pulled a pen and paper out of her pocket. “Never know when you need to write something down. Especially doing what we do.” She wrote down her number and slid it across the bar to them. “Hope to hear from you guys. It was nice meeting you and getting to know each other a little.”

Axel looked at Karl with a sorrowful face, then said, “It was a pleasure meeting you, Azrael. You’ll definitely hear from us soon.”

Karl left the bar and walked out to the Pontiac. Axel followed. They headed home. On the drive there was an awkward silence. For thirty minutes, neither brother made a peep.

Finally, Axel said, “So… I’m guessing we aren’t going to see her again?”

“She seems nice, but aren’t you a little skeptical too? I mean, at least she was honest, but that is a lot to take in,” Karl replied.

“It is, but we all have our own demons. Hers are just more real than ours. I really liked her. Shouldn’t we at least give it a shot?”

Karl didn’t respond. He just focused on the road. After a few minutes, he turned the stereo up.

Axel started getting angry. He turned the music off. “Aren’t we supposed to help people? Maybe it’s not just protecting them from physical danger. I feel like she needs us. And honestly, maybe we need her. Maybe I need her.”

“Those are very strong words to say about someone you just met,” Karl lectured. He paused for a moment or two. “Alright, Axel. We’ll give her a chance. Tomorrow night, you give her a call, and we’ll see how it goes. It’s gonna take me some time to warm up, though.”

The younger brother nodded. The brothers got home and rested, and that night they gave her a call and arranged to meet down in the city near where they had met. Parked in an abandoned parking lot they waited for her. The brothers were both watching off to the left where they assumed she would be coming from. Suddenly, a hooded figure knocked on the passenger window by Axel, startling them.

“Give me all your money!” a woman’s voice demanded.

Azrael laughed and pulled her hood off, revealing her face to them. Axel joined in the laughter, then noticed Karl’s stern expression and instantly matched his.

“That’s not funny,” Karl remarked.

“You should really try to enjoy the little things,” she told Karl.

The brothers got out of the car and walked over. They stood in a circle with Azrael.

“So, what’s the plan?” Axel asked his new colleague.

“Well, I have a personal preference to pursue crime on foot. I actually have a portable two-way radio that I managed to figure out how to get the police radio channel on. I say we head into the city and keep the radio on till we get something.”

The two nodded. The three heroes embarked on their first night together. Shortly after walking around in the abandoned old industrial district, they heard a transmission just for them. “Armed Robbery on Barnes Road. There are four armed suspects.”

“Four of them? You guys each get one, and I’ll take two. Sounds perfect. Barnes Road is only about a mile from here,” Azrael told them and started running in that direction.

The brothers looked at each other curiously, then followed.

“Hurry!” she yelled.

They ran around a few quick corners and arrived in front of a big building with beige pillars near the door. The glass door was shattered.

Azrael slowed down to a walk and pulled her cassette player out of her pocket. She put in her favorite album by The Romantics. “What I like about you” played on her headphones. She walked through the building entrance, followed closely by the brothers. Inside the broken glass doors, the bank opened into a twenty-foot wide by thirty-foot-long open room. One robber was off to the left behind the register. Two were toward the right looking through the cabinets on the wall. The fourth robber was nowhere to be seen. All of them wielded AK-47s. They all stopped in their tracks simultaneously when they saw a beautiful, hooded woman with headphones walk into the bank so casually.

She looked at them without a speck of fear in her eyes. Her voice muttered a spell in Latin. All three of their guns began heating up. They heated up to the point where they couldn’t hold onto them, and they threw them on the ground in front of them. Axel stepped in the door behind her. He split his staff into two metal batons. He smirked and looked at Azrael.

The three robbers ran toward them. A man to the right came in with a right hook toward Axel. Axel dodged it and hit his chest with his right baton then turned against his initial swing with a second blow from his left baton to the back of his attacker’s head. The next robber ran up behind Axel and scooped their arms under his in an attempt to put him in a hold. Azrael clenched her fist and sent it into the side of his head, knocking him back. Axel turned around and did a one-hundred-andeighty-degree spin, hitting the robber on the forehead, splitting it with the back of his left baton.

The third man charged them just as Karl dashed behind him and grabbed him by the back of his neck. He threw him five feet into the concrete wall, where the impact shattered multiple bones. The fourth robber entered the room, coming from the vault with a bag of cash in each hand. He looked at his three accomplices scattered across the room, then his gaze fell on the three heroes. He dropped the bags and tried to flee the scene. Karl swiftly ripped a metal file cabinet off the wall and hurled it at him. It smashed into him, knocking him to the ground and leaving him incapacitated.

“That was a little too easy,” Axel commented.

“Short and sweet as I like to say,” Azrael replied.

“Maybe we’ll make a good team after all,” Karl said, his tone apologetic.

He was reinspired. After the first night with Azrael, the brothers went home and told their father about her. He was very pleased to hear they had expanded the team.

Army of Two wasn’t a suitable name anymore, now that they had a new member. The three vigilantes built up traction and became known across the country as the infamous Army of Three.

A few months after meeting Azrael and continuing to grow as a unit, Axel asked her a question that had been on his mind since they had first met. Karl was off on his own solo mission. Sitting on a roof top, watching the city lights, Axel turned toward Azrael. “Do you think... Maybe this morning you might want to get together for breakfast or something?”

“Are you asking me out?” she asked him in disbelief, but she was smiling.

“I mean, maybe. I don’t know. Should I be?”

She chuckled. Grabbing her pen and paper, she wrote down her address. “Pick me up at eight.”

At 7:15 that morning. Axel drove to her apartment complex downtown. He parked and waited, looking in the review mirror, trying to fix one of the locks of his bang. When he saw her approaching the car, he was awestruck. She looked beautiful. Her hair was curled with a bow. She wore a deep blue skirt with a matching blouse. He felt underdressed. She opened the passenger door of the Pontiac and sat down.

“You look...” He paused for a moment, flustered, trying to come up with the right words to say.

“Beautiful, I hope?” she finished his sentence uncertainly.

“Yes, sorry, I’ve never seen you in this light before.” She blushed and looked out the window.

Axel started the car and exited the apartment complex. They made their way to a diner in the old town.

Over breakfast, they chatted about their nights performing acts that some might call vigilantism. Axel felt that their connection seemed stronger than before. Something special and real was growing between them.

After that morning, Axel and Azrael continued having their casual dates from time to time. Another month passed, and he invited her to his special spot in the woods where he went to get away from the world. He drove up onto a small gravel road near his family’s house and parked behind by the forest. It was approaching dusk. As the sun hit civil twilight, it shone across the looming lake. The trees glowed with a special tint. He opened his door and stepped out, walking around to open the door for Azrael.

“Close your eyes,” he told her.

She covered her eyes with one hand and held his hand with the other. He led her down the trail to his favorite spot. The middle of a circle of trees. They were very tall old redwoods. In the center of the trees was the rare-looking boulder.

“Do you trust me?” he asked her.

“Is this like a trust fall or—?” They snickered.

“No, but do you trust me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Axel pulled down her hand from her face. With his other hand he stroked her hair behind her ear. He leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. She kissed him back. He pulled away from her. She opened her eyes and tried looking into his.

“You had to bring me all the way out here for that? We should have come here sooner.”

Axel smiled and looked away. “I just wanted to make it special. This is my sanctuary. I’ve been coming here since I was a little kid.”

She looked around, astonished by her surroundings. “It’s gorgeous. These trees must be hundreds of years old. Maybe thousands.”

“They were here long before we were and will be here long after. I…” He paused for a moment not sure if he wanted to continue his sentence.

“This was my first. You were my first.”

“First what?” She pondered for a moment. “That was your first kiss?”

He nodded awkwardly. “Well, here is your second.”

She put her hands around his head and planted one on him. They spent the next few hours together just sitting on the boulder. She leaned into him, and he held her tight with his arm around her shoulder.

At one point he stood up and walked over to the tree in front of them. Pulling out his Leatherman, he started etching into the bark. “What are you doing, honey?”

Axel finished his project without responding. He took a step back to show her. A heart, carved in the tree with their names in it. “So we never forget.”

She smiled. This was that pivotal moment in his life where suddenly everything made sense. He knew what his life was meant for. It had a deeper meaning than just trying to help others.

Azrael and Axel fell in love. The following year included some proud milestones. They both got jobs and decided to move in together. Axel began working as a carpenter at a cabinet shop. Azrael became a bank teller at the most prestigious bank in town. The new couple found a onebedroom house in a pleasant, friendly neighborhood and had to have it. Life had never been happier. Axel felt like he was living a dream.

They made an effort to make sure that their romance did not affect their night job with Karl. In the last year of fighting crime for county and state police, the three of them had reduced major crimes by over ninety percent. The heroes had been working on a mission to shut down a drug smuggling operation that had been ongoing for quite some time. A few weeks prior, they had finally found the source and put an end to it once and for all.

The federal government began losing millions in the worldwide drug trade. So Big Brother, the dirty hand behind the government, tasked the deadliest department of mercenaries known to man to eliminate the three heroes.

 

June 27th, 1999. Three black SUVs arrived in front of the one-bedroom house that the new couple called home. It was around three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. Axel had taken his new green Honda Civic to the corner market to get some eggs for their late breakfast. Twelve men exited the three vehicles, armed to the teeth. Two snuck around back, a few, set up base around the perimeter. One of them placed C-4 on the front and back doors of the house. Azrael was lying on the love seat in the center of the living room, watching her favorite sit-com, Friends. Nodding in and out of sleep, wearing her favorite matching pink pajamas, she rested, waiting for her significant other’s return.

Right as Azrael was on the verge of sleep, the mercenaries burst through three windows whilst detonating an explosion of C-4 at the doors. They breached the house in all directions. She immediately awoke, stood up, and began to murmur a spell. All the mercenaries’ weapons began heating up. Before she finished her sentence, a fifty-caliber bullet pierced through her neck from the window behind her. It burst through her neck and out the other side, preventing her speech. Sniper at six o’clock. As she was riddled with bullets from all angles, she dropped to the ground, drawing her last breath before hitting the floor.

Moments later, Axel pulled up in front of the house in his green Honda. He had a dark feeling like death was breathing down his neck. He immediately noticed the three SUVs. He then looked at the devasted opening of their home. His heart sank. He approached the house with a steady jog. He couldn’t fathom something terrible could have happened. She must be okay, he thought to himself. He walked in the doorway, his eyes dashing around the room. They locked onto the most horrific sight anyone could lay eyes on. Azrael’s body in the middle of the room.

The intruders opened fire on him. He took bullet after bullet, step after step, as he moved toward her body—her disturbing corpse. The one good thing to ever have happened to him was lying dead before his eyes. Her beautiful face was so pale and blank. If only he had gotten home sooner. He dropped to his knees and held her head in his lap in tears. The mercenaries slowly devastated his body with automatic weaponry. Every bullet was rejected instantly from his body, healing the wound. But he was ready to go. His life had been with her, but from that moment on, it no longer would be. He was ready to join her in death.

A few weeks ago, he had bought her an engagement ring that he had been saving for, with plans to propose the following Friday. In the woods, under the starlight where they would go to get away from the stresses of the world. Right by the tree where they had their first kiss. The feeling of holding the cold, absent skin of the one you love in your hands is something you never forget. He kissed her cheek while he held her body. Stroking her hair behind her ear one final time, he whispered to her, “I will see you again, my love.”

Tragedy spawns many things in a person and changes who you are. As he was torn apart by bullets, one of the mercenaries approached him from behind, wielding a machete to attempt to decapitate him, hoping that would prevent his healing ability.

“Do it,” Axel muttered to the man. The mercenary raised his arm for the kill. Just a moment before Axel was gone forever, the wall exploded behind them, and the roof collapsed onto everyone in the room.

As the dust, rubble, and smoke cleared, standing there was Karl Fassbinder. During the raid, Karl had been tipped off that there was a price on their heads and had headed for Axel and Azrael’s place with great haste.

One of the attackers started to get up and lifted his gun toward Karl. Karl swiftly picked up a giant chunk of concrete and hurled it at the gunman, smashing him completely, killing him on impact. Karl ran over to where his brother had been and dug through the rubble until he found the crumpled-up dangling parts of a body barely held together. Karl tossed Axel over his shoulder. He paused when he saw Azrael did not make it. He knelt and closed her eyes as he grieved for a moment before he jumped up and ran out front, carrying his brother. He loaded Axel in the passenger side of the Pontiac and hopped in the driver’s seat, heading for their family’s house in the countryside.