Intense training, maybe.(Clayton, invite only)

Sitting in the living room of the apartment on the seventh floor of the building and working out to one exercise tape after another seemed like a fitting thing for a seventeen year old young man to be doing. John Capore really had no hope of ever explaining away his reasons for doing this in a manner that would make sense. He was not quite one for working out and in the past had only put in just enough effort into staying in decent shape. If somebody were to look at him they would probably not see a single muscle on him. Despite a near enough lack of solid muscular structure he was in fact a capable fighter. He had been studying martial arts and had shown to be exemplary in class. Perhaps he was simply a naturally skilled fighter or something else. Whatever it was it seemed he had peaked in his capabilities. Over the course of the last month or so he could feel that he had made any improvements. A few camera recorded time tests had yielded results that back that up. Hence the reason for these workout tapes.

After a couple of hours of working out to stuff that was recorded and some awkward conversations that came from the sight of him doing this, he had gone to bed for the night. It was friday. It had not been that good of a week. So much ridiculously aggravating stuff had happened that made him upset. Hopefully tomorrow would be better. Preferably the whole weekend, and stay good from there. He doubted it, but whatever.

The next day things were certainly going somewhere. Not really in a positive direction, but it was not in a negative one either. The day just went by. Later on in it he wound up dealing with a different situation. Muggers in some back alley in a neighborhood he probably should not have been in to begin with. Unlike most situations in which he was having to deal with muggers, this time he was the one being targeted. Normally he would be getting into costume to fight them off from attacking others. How strange it was to be on this side.

There were only three of them, but they were all individually bigger than him. A perilous situation, perhaps. He could simply use his powers, but that would be risky. Plus he might expose himself. Those will be of last resort. He certainly felt he could deal with these guys without them. If martial arts experts were capable of fighting off like ten people at once then he could potentially manage to deal with this. The fight commenced and went on for a couple of minutes before it reached an ending. He had managed to prevail it seems. They were shaken and certainly felt that they might just be outmatched. People in their field had the tendency to give up at the slightest sign of resistance. They decided to run off rather than continue. John leaned up against the wall to gently recover.

“Nothing in Chicago worth seeing more than once…” Clayton muttered to himself at the end of the bar. It was something his father always told him. He always hated to admit when the bastard was right, but this was one of those times. He found himself wondering exactly why he chose to retire to Chicago of all places. The wonder didn’t last very long, though. New York was a wreck, dear old dad resided in LA, and the rest of the world just wasn’t America.

Retirement had been good to him, perhaps too good and too comfortable. The first few months were nice, but the boredom grew (as it always did) and the itch set in again. He needed to find excitement, and that’s what drove him to Chicago’s infamous south side that night. Eschewing the higher end clubs he usually frequented for a dive that appeared far seedier than it actually was. Though the bathroom lived up to the promises the look of the place made. It was definitely not worth seeing more than once. Rather than discover anymore new smells, Clayton downed the last of his rail gin and took his business out the side door which lead to a slightly more sanitary alleyway.

His bladder’s timing was perfect, and held him captive audience for the sloppy display of violence in the alleyway. It appeared to be a young man taking out his high school frustrations on some local sleaze. Clayton was almost certain he was about to witness a murder, but somehow the young man prevailed and the three blue collar criminals stumbled over each other in a frenzied hurry out of the alley. He finished his task, stepped out from behind the dumpster he used to shield himself, and applauded the kid’s victory with a short slow clap, “That was probably the dumbest thing I’ve seen all week.” The alcohol carried his words to their target, “What’s with the deathwish, kid? Prom date turnya down?”

Leaning up against the alleyway wall to rest would be a short-lived event. His time spent after that absurd situation that was that fight was interrupted by the presence of a man emerging from behind the dumpster to introduce himself to John in his own way. He wondered how long this guy had been there. The young man had certainly not seen him there when he had first entered the alleyway. This dude must have came around while he was too busy focusing on fighting off those three other guys. He was not impressed by the sight of one guy beating up three at once. Clearly made evident by his slow sarcastic clapping. Even from here he could see the dreariness strewn across his face.

Struggling to contain the urge to laugh out at the man as he spoke to him, drunk people can be so ridiculous and unintentionally hilarious. Even though he felt it to be somewhat insensitive he just could not help himself at times. John thought of possibly ignoring the dude and just walking out of the alleyway, but he was of course standing right in the way and John would have to walk right by him in order to leave. He just wound up responding in kind. Sarcasm was met with sarcasm. "Actually I got turned down by three girls. Those were just their brothers trying to beat me up for even asking them out." he said sardonically. "Why are you back here? Did you get cut off?" he asked of him, but far less sarcastic than before. That time he just asked in a simple manner.

Clayton simply shook his head. “Anyway, kid, a word of advice: leave the heroics to the heroes.” Clayton turned to walk away from John and the alleyway, “Because otherwise you’re going to run into someone who knows what they’re doing.” He walked for a few steps with a slow, deliberate pace, and then stopped for a moment, “Someone like me, but not as nice. Dumb luck won’t be enough then.”

However, his exit was nearly halted as the three men from moments ago made their return down the alleyway. Clayton continued walking and one of the men shoved past him and flipped open a knife, “Keep fucking walkin’, faggot.” The thug snarled. Clayton eyed the man, shrugged, and kept walking. It wasn’t his problem. He could easily stop the men from whatever they were about to do to the kid, but it wasn’t his problem. The kid brought it upon himself.

“We were hopin’ you’d still be here, kid.” The man in the middle now brandished a pipe and spoke to John, “That was a real stupid stunt you pulled, and I think we’re gonna have to let you know just how stupid it was.” He motioned for the other two to start their assault on the kid that made them look like fools before, but one of his friends was already floored, and the next thing he saw was Clayton’s fist heading straight into his face. The last thug, the one with the knife took a desperate slash at him, but even drunk Clayton sidestepped him as if he were a toddler, and less than a second later, that thug was grounded too.

“See what I mean?” He dusted himself off and began his walk ‘home’ again.

"Okay then." All he could think to say. The sarcastic response was left to be not even thought of. He rolled his eyes a bit sure, but he really said nothing in response. The fact that this dude was drunk made it harder. Normally John would be tossing the snippy remarks back with no issue. Still, it was no big deal. He was at least safe from those other guys. If things got too risky he had other options. Just not ones he wanted to employ. He was just watching the man walk away as he prepared to leave this alleyway himself.

A trip home was interrupted. His attempt to leave the alleyway was prevented by the return of the very same guys. This time they came armed with some melee weapons. Things just got really serious now. John stood his guard ready to fight for his very life then. If he had to get serious in order to survive then he would. He was ready to go at it with the the three muggers when that number was quickly reduced down to two. Then one, and finally none. The drunk guy he had just been talking to had just knocked all of them out like it was nothing.

John was impressed. He could not deny it. "Yeah. I see it." he responded as he walked past them and started to leave the alleyway as well. "You did have the jump on them though." he told the guy. An obvious statement. John just wanted to see how he would respond. Antagonizing a drunk guy that could fight. Yeah, real smart of him.

“Of course I did! And you did earlier before you went all knight in shining armor about it. Practicality is the foundation to success, and I’m pretty goddamn successful, yaknow?” He was as humble as ever, “Anyway, kid, have fun with this mess.” This time he was actually able to leave.

---
The adrenaline the violence brought that night was exactly the spark needed to set Clayton’s mind on fire again. Through the hung over, knuckle bruised fog of the next morning; he found a new paper article worth reading. “Chicago Museum of History to House Legendary Black Panther Diamond” It seemed worth a lot to a lot of people. Security would probably be tight. How could he resist?
---

It was broad daylight and seven days of planning were about to be put into action. If he were any less experienced, he would be sweating through his guard uniform, but Clayton was a professional. He studied everything he could about the museum and learned enough to know that the vault the diamond was stored in at night would not be worth the trouble or the cost to him to grab it then, so he decided to be bold with his new heist, and attempt a day time robbery. It was something he hadn’t tried since the LA incident a long while ago.

He knocked on the door of the surveillance room, and a portly, balding man with cokebottle glasses answered, “About-fuckin-time! I’ve been at this god-damn desk for-” Out cold before he could finish regaling Clayton with tales of his blue collar plight.

Clayton tossed the small spray bottle he used to render the guard unconscious into the corner. After that it was a simple process to reset the security systems from the control panel on the desk. While resetting, all systems, including the museum’s electricity went down for exactly ten minutes. They could be shut off completely, but where was the fun in that? He slipped out of the room and into the confusion of the museum, ready to claim his prize.

The skylights kept the building lit, but as long as no one really saw him, there would be no real problem, right?

Attacking somebody from behind was practical. John knew this well. He knew quite a few things about combat. The element of surprise was always a factor in a fight. Sometimes it could determine the entire thing. Fights were rarely even fought in a fair fashion. Not street fights at least. They are not organized and were often dangerous to whomever was in one. This time nobody got seriously hurt. Just a few bumps and bruises suffered by those three guys that would probably be healed up in a day or two. Their pride would probably suffer greater damage. "Yeah, you are definitely practical." he said quietly as the man walked away. Finally he could leave this fricken alleyway as well. Should not have even been around these parts. Things are too crazy around here. Way too crazy.

---

Days passed by and he no longer thought about that night in the alleyway. It was just another night of his life by now. The first day afterwards had been a bit weird. John spent most of that day having a hard time not thinking about that previous night. He barely even slept. He had thought about that one guy more than he should have. He was a really good fighter and drunk off his ass at the time. Big deal. It's not like it was somebody for him to think about.

---

It had been over a week since that one night. The thought of it was barely even in his mind anymore. It was not even worth remembering. Today he was at a museum with some friends. Purchasing the tickets to even get in had pretty much left his wallet empty. It the middle of the day and the crowd was relatively decent sized but the place was nowhere near packed. They had missed the recent tour and had to wait in order to see anything good. The front room exhibits were dull and uninteresting. Just a way to make people desire to see what else this place contained. Minutes after finally getting into a tour group the lights in the building went out. The visitors were worried as the various people at the museum called out to them to keep calm.

The place was quite dark but the skylights made it at least possible to see directly around you. Not much else though. Walking around in here was like some video game level where you could only see the immediate area around you as you traversed across the level. John couldn't see much either. He did see one thing though. A lone shadow moving across the hallway. It was probably best for him to not wander off, but he was curious. Of course he did the thing that wasn't safe. He snuck away from the group and attempted to follow whomever it was he had just seen sneaking around. There was nobody around but him and whomever he was pursuing. It seemed the person had not heard him following. He could see the person approaching an exhibit, he just didn't know which one. He then dashed forward and tried to grab the figure. He wasn't sure if he would actually do it though.