Named

What is in a name? According to webster it is

: a word or phrase that refers to or that can refer to a specific person

: a word or phrase that refers to a specific place or thing

: a word or phrase that refers to a type or group of things

That didn’t help much. Luke already had a given name but he needed another one. People usually got their given names from their parents, like Luke had. He said usually because there were exceptions to every non fundamental rule. When It came to getting a new name there were a couple of methods, at least for the kind he wanted. Some people just left it up to chance, the media or some idiot in a chat room. This didn’t always work out, but sometimes it did. It had really worked out for The Unkillable, but that was more of a title than anything. Other people chose their name, occasionally the media would change it if they didn’t defend it. This is what Dance did, when people used the wrong name she had a habit of throwing knives at them.

Names were usually based upon what kind of powers the person had, maybe not for Dancer. But The Unkillable was named as such because he just would die, and no one quite knew why. This was of course the root of the problem for Luke, no matter how strong he got he would never be able to live down a sufficiently stupid name. With powers like his there was no way he was willing to leave it up to chance. That meant choosing his own name and defending it, if he could even come up with a good name. He had a couple good ideas but things like Ethereal were already taken.

The question of the name was what really bothered Luke for the two years before he became a hero proper. His powers looked kinda stupid to start with, even now they looked kinda silly. When he got his powers and decided to become a hero he realized that his current self wouldn’t cut it. Step one: Krav Maga; step two, distance running; step three, strength training; step four, chemistry classes at a local community college. Luke quickly figured out that his powers came with a basic strength/speed/endurance package making all the working out a lot easier. It also came with an intuitive understanding of gaseous chemical properties.

His first costume was simple. Hero fashion was slowly but surely moving away from the body tight spandex of the past. These days it was mostly practical fighting outfits and body armor, at least for the people who couldn’t survive a tank to the face. Luke was fairly certain that he couldn’t survive a tank to the face, but at street level not many people had tanks so they weren’t really a concern. Small arms, knives and powers were a concern. He went for a motorcycle jacket that had been reenforced with Kevlar and a black motorcycle helmet. The helmet was actually kinda traditional for heroes just starting out. They could hide the face and provided good protection, they were also easy to buy with sweet sweet untraceable cash. He also had a pair of leather gloves that were lined with very fine chain mail. He could in theory use them to grab a knife if it came to it.

Luke’s first act of heroism went extremely well to start off with, not so good at the end. It started as a bank robbery that he was luck enough to be close to and therefore arrive first. Four bank robbers wearing balaclavas and a fifth wearing a motorcycle hemet. Entrances were important as was disabling the guns so Luke went for a twofer. He created a bubble filled with steam and a few other agents that would precipitate out of the atmosphere and jam the guns, along with every computer in the room. The Bubble held for a moment before bursting and filling the room with the steam.

Cloaked the in the steam Luke ran to the center of the room unobserved. He created another bubble, this one only containing normal atmosphere but at high pressure and allowed it to burst. The pressure wave cleared the steam out of the room. It looked to observers that Luke had materialized out of the steam cloud and was all dramatic and stuff. He proceeded to take the robbers down with little difficulty. His own abilities combined with their guns jamming made it downright easy. Well except for the guy in the motorcycle helmet, he was super strong.

They eventually just started wailing on each other for a little bit before Luke covered him in an accelerant and lit him on fire. The dude then proceeded to run around flailing for a little while before the Unkillable walked into the room. He put down the super strong villain with a single not very well placed punch. Luke extinguished the fire with a bubble of nitrogen. The Villain wasn’t all that badly burned since that particular accelerant didn’t burn very hot, it was more of a fear factor thing anyways. The Unkillable walked over to Luke and looked down at him. Not that Luke was short but the Unkillable was an eight foot mass of muscles.

“You know lighting people on fire is more of a super villain thing right?”

“He wasn’t that badly hurt, and besides I put him out.”

“I saw, you have some good moves Bubble Boy.”

Everyone in the room heard their exchange.

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT