Green Phantom

Vince Porter was fresh out of high school. Eighteen years old, and had a scholarship to Notre Dame to play wide receiver for the Fight Irish.That was, until, he was diagnosed with a very rare form of brain cancer. His mother had died of the same type of cancer three years prior. After his diagnoses, he lost his scholarship, and was almost exclusively confined to his bed. Doctors were telling him, and his father, that he only had a month left to live, if he was lucky. His father, however, was not going to give up on his son.

Vince's father, Charles, was a scientist, who had turned all of his attention to finding a cure for his son. Charles was the head scientist in the Medical division of LouTech Industries. One day, he was in his lab, working on a serum he believed, or hoped, would cure his son. His assistant, Luke, was aiding him.

"Here's the last of the ingredients you asked for Mr. Porter," Luke said, putting down a number of boxes.

"Thank you, Luke." Charles rubbed his eyes. He had been at work for almost fifteen hours, and was exhausted.

"Mr. Porter, maybe you should go home and rest. It'll be here tomorrow, sir."

"I'll go when I'm done adding this to the serum. Do you know how close we are to finishing it?"

"I know how close we seem to be. But we still need to test it."

"We're not going to test it, Luke. We don't have the time. No. When it's done, I'm taking it right to my son, and having him try it."

"Do you really think that's wise, Mr. Porter? It could have serious side effects. It could kill him."

"If it doesn't cure him, he's dead anyway." Charles added all of the last ingredients to the serum, mixed it, and quickly put it into a flask. Charles hurried and changed out of his lab clothing and sped home and quickly as possible. He jogged into his apartment building, waved to the girl at the desk and flew up four floors of steps, not being able to stand still waiting for the elevator. He reached his apartment, 4D. He entered the dark apartment, ran into his son's room, and turned on the lights. Vince didn't wake up right away, so Charles shook him awake.

It took a moment for Vince's eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did, he mumbled, "Dad, what are you doing? It's...two in the morning."

"I know, Vince, I'm sorry, but, I finally finished it. The serum. Here, take it!"

Vince took the flask and stared at the green liquid inside of it. He swirled it around and said, "Will it cure me?"

"I'm not a hundred percent sure, but, right now, it's all we've got. Go ahead, drink it!"

"What if it kills me?"

"Son, listen. The doctors have given you only weeks to live. If this works, great. If not, we'll keep working. But I'm really sure this is going to work. Go ahead, drink it."

Vince uncapped the flask and drank the serum. It tasted so awful, Vince almost spat it back out. "Well?" asked Charles, "How do you feel? Any different?"

"No, not yet. But it can't work immediately can it?"

"I suppose not, no. Well, go back to sleep. If you're feeling up to it, maybe we'll go to the doctors tomorrow and run some scans." Charles left his son's room, and tried to go to sleep himself. Despite being so exhausted from working all day, and getting little sleep the past year, he couldn't fall asleep. Eventually, around 5 AM, he dozed off.

It was eight o'clock when something woke Charles up. He got out of bed and went into the living room. He found Vince doing pull ups on a bar hanging in a doorway. Vince was dressed in his old workout clothes that he hadn't been able to wear since being diagnosed. "Vince!"

"Oh, hey Dad! Look! I woke up this morning with energy out the ass!"

"You don't feel weak? Or sick? At all?"

"Nope! Dad, I think your serum worked!"

"Vince...that's...that's great! But we should go to the doctors, have them run some tests on you."

Vince and Charles went to LouTech to meet Vince's doctor, Dr. Swift. Dr. Swift seemed skeptical when Vince and Charles told her that Vince took the serum and woke up feeling completely fine. An hour later, the tests came back. Vince and Charles were in the doctor's office, which was a large open room, with bright white walls, and white chairs. Dr. Swift sat down behind her desk, opened the file and her jaw dropped. "I...this can't be right."

"Did it work?" Charles reached for the test but Dr. Swift pulled it away.

"It would appear that the tumor has shrunk almost one hundred percent. And Vince, your white blood cell count is up. Charles, I...I think your serum worked! I...what did you put into the serum?"

Charles explained to Dr. Swift what the serum was made of, but Vince wasn't paying any attention. He was too excited about the reduction in the tumor, and his sudden increase in energy and strength. Not only that, though, he could also feel a sort of tingling sensation that felt like it was going all the way from his skin to his cells. All he wanted was to finish this appointment and get back to seeing what he had the strength to do. He also wanted to run all the way to his best friend, Micky's, place and tell him everything. Unfortunately for Vince, Dr. Swift wanted to run some more tests, which took two more hours.

It wasn't until about one o'clock when Vince and Charles left LouTech and went back home. Vince tried to get his father to let him go to Micky's, but they agreed on just calling Micky and having him come over. When they got back to their apartment, Vince did some more pull ups, some push ups, squats and sit ups. And after all that, he, Vince, didn't even remotely feel tired.

Micky came over, and Vince told him the good news. Micky was so excited he wanted to take Vince out for night in the city, but Charles wouldn't allow it, not until the rest of the tests came back with positive news.

That night, after Micky had left, and Charles had gone to sleep, Vince was sitting out on the fire escape outside of his window. Vince listened to the noises off in the distance. Cars, sirens, people shouting. All he wanted to do was go run around the city. So, he decided he would. Vince climbed down the fire escape, and took off down the street that his apartment building was on. He ran through alleyways, parking lots, leaped over hoods of cars, trash cans and stairs.

It was then that Vince turned onto a street a little to wide, and saw a pickup truck coming at him, full speed. Without thinking, Vince jumped into the air, clear over the truck. The truck kept driving as if Vince wasn't just in it's cross hairs. How could he jump right over a truck? Vince was always athletic, but he must have jumped ten feet into the air. He walked into an alleyway, and saw a dumpster and a fence. He planned on jumping onto the dumpster, and over the fence.

He took off, gaining speed quickly, faster than he had ran in months, and jumped onto the dumpster. He kicked off of it to jump over the fence. Instead of jumping over the fence, Vince jumped all the way onto the roof of the building next to the fence. The building was three stories tall, there was no way he could do that. Amazed, Vince stared at his arms and legs, wondering how he was able to do all these things suddenly. The serum his dad had made really worked, and it was working overtime. A minute later, Vince heard commotion down on the streets.

He looked down, and saw three men chasing after a young woman. The woman turned right into the alleyway with the dumpster and the fence. She was cornered. The men surrounded her, and one drew out a knife.

"Okay, sweetie, just give us your purse," said the one with the knife.

"And maybe a little dance with ya clothes off!" said another.

Vince jumped from the top of the roof, all the way down to the ground below. Suddenly, he felt a weird sensation over his face. He ignored it, and said, "Hey, assholes! Leave the girl alone, huh?" His voice was different, too. It had an echo to it.

The three men turned around, and the one with the knife said, "Who the hell are you? Get outta here!"

"Yeah," said another, "you and your fancy green mask ain't needed here!"

Green mask? Vince felt at his face, and that's when he felt it. His face was somehow now covered by a mask. Vince had no idea where it came from, but it must have been the strange sensation he felt. "Listen," he said, "it's time to let the lady go. Go to a strip club if you want to see a dance."

"Enough of this," said the one with a knife. "It's late, and I'm getting sick of this crap." The man jumped at Vince, and slashed his knife in the air. Vince caught the man's arm and bent it backwards, and heard it CRACK! The man dropped his knife and screamed. Just then, the other two jumped Vince. They were hitting him, but luckily, neither of them had a knife, or a gun. Vince took a deep breath and threw the two men through the air. They hit the walls of the two building next to the alley. Vince jumped into the air towards the man on his left and punched him in the face, flipped backwards and kicked the other man. They were knocked out, with the other man crying over his arm.

"Ma'am," said Vince, to the woman, who was cowering against the fence. "It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you, and neither are these fools."

"But who...who are you?"

"I'm...I'm just someone who wanted to help." Vince figured it was best not to tell her who he was. He didn't want one of the goons to overhear his name, nor did he want it to get out to his father that he had gone running around the city at midnight.

"Well, thank you so much!" The woman hugged Vince tightly which caught him off guard. The woman was about a foot shorter than Vince, white, with golden hair.

"Let me get you home, or at least close to it."

"Wait! Shouldn't we call the police about them?"

"Oh, yeah, I guess we should," Vince laughed. The woman called the police, and in a matter of minutes they were there, and arresting the three men. The police wanted a statement from the two of them. The woman gave her's, and her name, Bonnie Fray. As Bonnie was giving her statement, Vince realized he couldn't give one. So while no one was paying attention to him, he jumped up onto the roof and ran home.


The next day, Vince was sitting in the living room, with his father who was watching the news. "I'm all out of my pills," said Charles. "I'm gonna have to go to the pharmacy later, if you wanna come. Get you out of this place. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, definitely," Vince replied, not letting on that he had been out the night before. Charles needed to go to the pharmacy to get more of his pills that helped his bi-polar disorder. It never got too bad that it was anything to worry about, unless he didn't have his medicine.

They were about to leave when the news anchor on the TV said, "And now, before we leave you, something to give you hope for the world. Last night, a woman, Bonnie Fray, was walking home from work when she was attacked by three men who chased her into an alleyway. It was there, that a man swooped in to save Ms. Fray. However, the man disappeared before the police could get a statement from him. Ms. Fray and a few of the police officers who saw him said he was a wearing a green mask. The Philadelphia Police Department are calling him The Green Phantom."

The Green Phantom? It had a nice ring to it, Vince thought.



Thanks for reading! I have the next two chapters written and will publish them if this gets enough of a positive response!