Where is that idiot brother of mine? Aiden and I had come to the masquerade ball to give one of our clients the masks he had ordered for the occasion. Of course, we got separated as soon as Aiden caught sight of all the pretty girls after we arrived. So for the past three hours I’ve been looking for my brother and I still hadn’t found him yet. To make matters worse my dress had been ripped while I was looking for him by two boys who had gotten into a fight and now it was trying to slip off. Aiden, when I find you you’re so dead!

Finally I spotted him, his back turned to me, in a corner with a bunch of giggling girls. Of course. My eyes narrowed in anger as I made my way over.

“Aiden… Aiden!” I hissed, trying to get his attention. When that didn’t work I shoved him with my free hand, the hand that wasn’t holding my dress together. “Aiden!”

He turned around, green eyes looking at me in surprise through the holes of a white and green masquerade mask.

“Stephen!?” I asked bewildered.

“Ani?”

“What are you doing … never mind, where’s Aiden?”

“I don’t know, I came here looking for him. I think he grabbed the wrong mask, so I have to find him and give him the right one if he did. What happened to you?” he asked, noticing the state of my dress for the first time.

“My dress ripped and now it won’t stay on!” I said. He laughed. I went to hit him but the dress started to fall as soon as I did, which only made him laugh harder.

“Stop laughing and help me you prat!” I huffed.

He stopped laughing, but he still had that annoying smile on his face. “Okay, okay, calm down Ani. It just so happens I brought some extra clothes with me. You can use those.”

“Thank you. Now get rid of your fan club and come on.” I said pointing to the group of now pouting girls behind him. He smirked at me, but did as I asked, and soon we were leaving the ball room - though not before I had received some rather heated glares.

When we got out of the ball room, Stephen led me down a hallway to one of the bathrooms that the owner of the house had set aside for the ball. He handed me a bundle of black clothes, when walked over to the opposite wall to wait. I turned to go into the bathroom, but a sign on the door kept me from going in. I turned back to Stephen and he looked at me, an eyebrow raised.

“Yes?”

“This bathroom is for men.”

“Yes.” He said, nodding his head not seeing the issue. “And?”

“Umm… I’m a girl!”

“Well, we can’t have you go into the girl’s bathroom only to come out dressed in a boy’s clothes. We’ll get kicked out.”

I looked down at the bundle, noticing for the first time that I was indeed holding some of Aiden’s nicer clothes.

“I can’t wear these!”

“Why not? You’re about the same size. Look, it’s either you suck it up and wear your brother’s clothes, or you can continue to wear a dress you have to hold up to keep it from falling off you. Your choice. Personally, I think the later would be funnier.”

I glared at him. He grinned, raising an eyebrow as he returned my stare.

“Fine,” I said through a clenched jaw after a minute. “But can we please find a different room for me to change in? Sharing a washroom with you and Aiden at home is bad enough, I really don’t want to see what that one looks like.”

He rolled his eyes, but led me to another room a few doors down. After testing the door to make sure that it was unlocked, Stephen went over and leaned against the opposite wall to wait for me to change.

The clothes, surprisingly enough, did fit. The pants were a little long, and the shirt didn’t fit me as well as it would have fit Aiden, but, other than that, they fit almost perfectly. Stephen looked up as I came out of the room, dress and mask in hand.

“See Ani, told you they would fit.” he said, pushing away from the wall.

“Yeah, thank you. Hey, can you hold the dress for a second while I put my mask back on?”

“Well actually, it would probably be better if you wore the one I brought to exchange with your brother. You’d look kind of funny walking around in your brother’s clothes but wearing a woman’s mask.”

I thought about that for a moment, realizing he was probably right.

“Okay, fine.” I said, holding out my hand for the mask. He started unwrapping a small bundle I hadn’t noticed he had been carrying until now. “Though, should I worry that you know more about mask fashions then I-” I stopped mid question when he finished unwrapping the mask and I saw it for the first time.

It was a half-mask, designed to sit on the nose and cover the just the area surrounding the eyes. The left half of it was a solid black, while the right had a black and red checkered diamond pattern. The ends had a slight point to them, adding a subtle masculine quality to the mask. He handed me the mask, and I was surprised to find that the front of the mask didn’t have a texture of a fabric, but was smooth like plaster, even on the side with the checkered diamond design. Also, the string or ribbon that was traditionally used on a male mask to tie and hold it on the wearer’s face was missing.

I looked up from the mask to Stephen, who had a look of apprehension and nervousness in his eyes. “Well? What do you think?”

“Stephen this is… is amazing. How’d you make-”

“I’ve been experimenting with a few new methods of mask making. It doesn’t need a string or ribbon to stay on because it’s flexible enough to form around the natural curves of the wearers face, while strong enough to keep its shape.”

He took the mask from me to show me what he meant, his eyes lighting up in excitement as he explained it to me.

“It’s beautiful, Stephen. I’d be honored to wear it.” With that I took the mask back from him and put it on.

He was right. As I put it on I could feel the mask’s interior start to form to my face, but when I touched the outside of it the shape hadn’t changed. I shook my head really fast from side to side, then up and down. But no matter how fast I did it, the mask never slipped nor fell off.

“It works!” I said, laughing, shaking my head some more. He laughed, but I saw in his eyes that he was just as happy as I was.  Some giggling from off to the right caught my attention and I looked up to see some of the girls from earlier in the doorway of the ballroom, all of them looking at me. Turning to Stephen in confusion, I raised an eyebrow.

“Well, in your brother’s clothes and that mask, and with your hair cut so short, to them you probably look like, well like a guy.”

“Oh?” I said confused, looking back over at them. When they saw I was looking, the group of girls started giggling and blushing again, only this time a few of them started to come over, their gazes fixed on me. “Oh!” I gasped, the realization finally hitting me. Turning back to Stephen. “Yeah, um, no, I don’t think I’m going to stay then. That’s just a little too… strange for me.”

He laughed, but didn’t try to stop me.

After he was done telling me to take his cloak on my way out and I was done telling him to kick Aiden’s butt for me when he found him, we said our good-byes and I headed for home.

The night had become much colder and windier in the time I had been at the masquerade ball, and as I was walking the narrow streets home I found myself suddenly very grateful for Stephen’s cloak. It was a beautiful night though, and I found myself enjoying the walk home, despite the cold. There was just something about how the empty streets looked with the cobblestone paths and tall, narrow buildings all bathed in the pale moonlight that I found to be quite peaceful, serene even. I hadn’t felt this calm in years, not since before my parents’ death, and I was determined to enjoy as much of it as I possibly could.

I was walking on a bridge over one of the merchant waterways when a sudden sound of a woman’s scream cut through the night air, bringing me out of my peaceful state. I stopped where I was, turning and looking in every direction to see if I could find the source of the scream. Seeing nothing, I started walking again, and by the time I got to the end of the bridge I started to believe I had imagined it when another scream ripped through the night, followed closely by drunken laughs, coming from an alley close to my right. Running to the mouth of the alley, I saw a woman being pinned to the wall by two men while another stood and watched, a bottle in his hand. All three of them, even at my distance, reeked of alcohol. Not knowing what I could do to help, I began looking around for the King’s Guard until I realized that the men in the alley were the Guards.

As this realization hit me, the guard who had been watching his companions took one last swig of the bottle before throwing it against the ally wall, narrowly missing the woman’s head. She screamed again, and I could see tears streaming down her face as she tried to get away, but couldn’t. The guards laughed, and the one not holding her started making his way over to her, a look of glee in his eye as he took in her fear.

I had been standing there, frozen that entire time, but hearing the guards laugh and watching them get a kick out of terrorizing this girl caused something inside of me to snap. Roaring like an angry beast I charged at the guards, tackling one of them to the ground before the other two could even register what was happening. As soon as they did though, they let go of the girl and came at me in a drunken swagger, swords drawn. I was too consumed with rage to care though.

After rendering their companion unconscious with a blow to the head, I turned to deal with the other two. They lunged at the same time, the alcohol in their system making them misjudge the distance and knock into each other. Taking advantage of this distraction, I grabbed one of the guards by the back of the collar and slammed him first into one wall, then into the other, before throwing him back at the first wall once more. He fell to the ground like his companion, unconscious.

I turned to face the third and final one, only to see him running out of the alley. I started to go after him, but a noise to my left stopped me. The girl was still in the alley, lying on the ground in a fetal position, covering her head with her arms. As much as I wanted to go after the last guard, she needed me more right now.

Crouching next to her, I gingerly put my hand on her shoulder, pulling it back immediately when I saw her flinch.

“Hey, it’s okay, they’re gone. You’re safe now.” My voice cracked a bit, still sore from yelling. This time when I put my hand on her shoulder, she didn’t flinch. When she looked up at me from between her arms, I saw for the first time how young she really was for the first time, looking to only be about 16; my age. She looked hesitant at first, unsure at first, but when she saw I was telling the truth she lunged into my arms and started to cry even harder, only this time from gratitude.

“Thank you… thank you, sir.”

Sir? Reaching a hand up to my face, I felt the mask, still intact and on my face. I didn’t say anything in response, just sat against the wall and held her until she stopped crying. I stayed there even after she went home, thinking. Thinking about how tonight it had been me who had saved that girl.

I hadn’t saved her from just any thug looking for a fun time, I had saved her from three Guard members, the ones who were meant to protect her. This wasn’t the first time either, there were other stories, stories worse than tonight about the Guard, stories I’m beginning to suspect are true. But who was going to protect the people from their protectors? Tonight, in the shadow of a dark alley, a Masked Vigilante has risen. Tonight, the people got their protector. Tonight, the people got their hero.