Counterparts

by Lucas Flint

  “Don’t see anyone,” Stinger muttered. “Maybe a bird smashed through one of the windows or something.”

  Rime threw an annoyed look over his shoulder at Stinger. “T-They are p-probably in one of the rooms. L-Let’s check, b-but be careful. W-We have no idea who is u-up here.”

  Stinger nodded and the two advanced down the hall. They walked side by side, each taking one side of the hall, Rime on the left, Stinger on the right. Stinger opened the first door he came across, but at first could not see anything in the room until he flipped the light switch. A light on the ceiling turned on, revealing the room itself, although Stinger had to take a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the sudden change in lighting.

  The room had a bed with pink sheets to Stinger’s right, with a young adult romance novel lying on it. Above the bed was a shelf with a few of those young adult romance novels that Treehugger liked to read but which Stinger never cared much for, which told Stinger that this was probably the room of Rime’s daughter, Martha. That was confirmed when he saw a short blue dress hanging inside the partially opened closet to his right, but what got Stinger’s attention the most was the window directly opposite him. It had been smashed in, the floor covered in glass shards, but Stinger did not see who had broken in.

  Still, Stinger knew that this was the place, so he looked over his shoulder and said, “Rime! I found the—”

  Unfortunately, before Stinger could finish his sentence, someone grabbed him by the collar and yanked him inside the room. Stinger stumbled and crashed onto the floor where he lay, briefly stunned, before he heard the door slam shut. He looked up just in time to see a foot coming toward his face. He instinctively caught the foot before it slammed into his face and shoved it backwards, but he didn’t stop to see who had tried to kick his face in. Instead, he rolled backwards into a crouch and then finally looked up to see who had attacked him.

  Leaning against the door like she had caught herself before she could fall was a woman Stinger had never seen before. He thought she probably wasn’t much older than himself, though he didn’t know why, given how her full-body white costume hid her face. Her white suit had black markings on it, which stood out like spider webs against the rest of her suit. Her eyes glowed a golden color, while an orange stone glowed from her chest.

  “Who are you?” said Stinger, panting. “Never seen you before.”

  “Call me Switch,” said the girl. Her voice was rather high-pitched, making her sound much younger than she was. “And I’m here to take you down.”

  Stinger smirked. “Guess you don’t know about Rime, do you?”

  “Oh, I know all about him,” said Switch with a smirk of her own. “My brother should be dealing with him right about now.”

  As if on cue, Stinger heard the sound of something smashing through wood on the other side of the door, followed by shouts of surprise that sounded like Bolt and Talon. He also heard something else large fall through the floor, too, but he had no idea what that meant.

  “Ah, there you go,” said Switch, glancing over her shoulder. “Sounds like Bait—that’s my brother’s name—is already dealing with Rime, and probably with the rest of your little friends, too.” She looked at Stinger again. “That means I have you all to myself.”

  Stinger gulped, but he didn’t show any fear. “Normally, I’d be thrilled to be alone with a girl as pretty as you, but since you’re obviously a supervillain of some sort, I’m afraid it just won’t work out between us.”

  “Don’t break my heart now,” said Switch. “Let me break yours.”

  Switch suddenly raised her hands and fired several projectiles at Stinger. Stinger jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding the projectiles, which hit the floor where he had been standing mere moments ago. Taking a moment to stop, Stinger looked down at the projectiles and was surprised to see that they were metallic fingernails.

  Stinger looked at Switch again in confusion. “Projectile fingernails? That’s new.”

  “Oh, I have far more tricks up my sleeves than projectile fingernails,” said Switch. “Wanna see?”

  Switch scooped up one of the young adult novels on the bed and then hurled it at Stinger with devastating speed. The thick book slammed him in the chest so hard that Stinger was sent flying. He smashed through what was left of the window and landed on the lower roof of the house, crunching several tiles upon impact, which sent a sharp spasm of pain up his spine. He groaned, but then Switch appeared in the window and aimed her fingers at him.

  Stinger rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding another volley of metallic fingernails that tore through the roof. Rising back to his feet, Stinger shot into the air, his wings buzzing furiously as he tried to put some distance between him and Switch. But then he heard projectile fingernails whistling through the air behind him and he banked sharply to the right, once again avoiding about a dozen metallic fingernails that would have torn him to shreds if he’d allowed them to hit him.

  Turning around in midair, Stinger saw Switch climb out of the window onto the roof, but it was pretty clear that she couldn’t reach him even if she jumped. Given the distance he’d created between them, he doubted she would even be able to hit him with her projectile fingernails, though he kept a careful eye on her hands as she looked at him.

  “Aw, come on, Bug Boy, why don’t you come a little closer?” said Switch. “Afraid I have cooties?”

  Stinger was about to come up with a witty retort, but before he could say anything, he heard a crashing sound below and looked down to see a man in a black costume—possibly Bait, Switch’s brother—fly out of the house and crash into one of the palm trees out front, nearly knocking the tree over. A second later, Bolt stepped into view, clad in his black and red costume, his eyes blazing with red electricity.

  “Bolt!” Stinger shouted, causing Bolt to look up at him. “You okay?”

  Bolt gave Stinger the thumbs up. “Yeah, but Rime is in pretty bad shape. Let’s kick these two guys’ asses and then get Rime to the hospital.”

  Stinger nodded. “Sure thing, bro!”

  Switch was already starting to aim at him again, but Stinger shot forward. Knowing that Switch was a long range fighter, Stinger expertly dodged the metallic fingernails she shot at him. Switch desperately aimed at him again, but Stinger dove down toward her. He landed in front of her, but when she tried to shoot him, he grabbed her wrists and forced her hands up, sending the fingernails flying pointlessly into the sky.

  “Got you,” said Stinger, tightening his grip on her wrists, smirking at her useless attempts to break free of his grip. “And Bolt’s nearly got your brother. Then we’ll have a little chat and figure out exactly who you’re working for, though I can already guess the identity of your employer.”

  Switch desperately tried to free herself from Stinger’s grasp, but she was much weaker than him and was unable to break his grip. But then she suddenly stopped resisting and shouted, “Bait, let’s trade!”

  Before Stinger could wonder about that, the gemstone in Switch’s chest glowed. An orange light flew out of it over Stinger’s head, causing him to look over his shoulder to see a similar purple light flying from Bait’s gemstone. The two lights passed each other halfway and the orange light went into Bait, while the purple light went into Switch. Before Stinger’s surprised eyes, Switch’s gemstone changed from orange to purple.

  Even so, Stinger didn’t understand what the change in color meant until he looked into Switch’s eyes and noticed that she no longer looked afraid. Actually, she was smiling like a hungry tiger about to tear apart its prey.

  “It’s not nice to hit a girl, you know,” said Switch, “but no one ever said a girl couldn’t hit a boy!”

  Without warning, Switch tore her wrists out of Stinger’s grasp. Stinger staggered forward, but then Switch followed it up with a punch to the gut. But it wasn’t an ordinary punch; it felt like getting punched by one hundred fists at once. Pain flared in Stinger’s gut like nothing he had ever felt before and he thought
he heard one of his ribs crack, but he was in too much pain to verify that.

  Then Switch grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him down to the cars below. Stinger landed with a crash on top of the four door sedan sitting in the driveway, the impact knocking him silly, but he shook his head and recovered in time to see Switch falling toward him with a mad smile on her lips.

  Stinger rolled to the side, falling off the car’s roof somewhat clumsily, but it was the right move, because a second later, Switch slammed into the sedan, completely crushing the roof under her strength. Stinger managed to push himself up into a sitting position just as Switch stood up and looked down at him, her psychotic smirk still on her face.

  “What … how did you do that?” said Stinger, panting hard. His stomach still ached. “What was with the lights?”

  All of a sudden, Stinger heard the sound of projectile fingernails and looked over his shoulder. Bait was standing up now, but he was pointing his fingers at Bolt and had just fired several projectile fingernails at the team leader. Bolt, who appeared to have been taken by surprise by Bait’s new power, tried to move out of the way, but several of the metallic fingernails struck his left leg, causing him to stumble and fall onto his side in surprise.

  “Bolt!” Stinger shouted. He looked back at Switch. “How can your brother do what you did?”

  “Just another one of our fantastic powers,” said Switch in a falsely sweet voice. “We’re fraternal twins, which gives us a unique bond that even extends to our powers.”

  “So you can trade powers on the fly, huh?” said Stinger. “Okay, now that’s just plain unfair.”

  “Quit your whining,” said Switch. “Though once I’m done with you, you won’t be able to whine at all anymore.”

  Switch jumped off the car. Stinger rolled out of the way just as Switch landed beside him. He tried to stab her with his stinger, but she just grabbed his outstretched arm and threw him over her shoulder. Stinger flew uncontrollably through the air before he hit the pavement and went rolling several feet before coming to a stop, his head spinning and his whole body aching with pain. He thought he had broken three different bones in three different parts of his body, but he hurt so much that he didn’t know which ones were broken and which ones just hurt really, really bad. He thought his wings were broken, too, until he moved them a little and realized they weren’t.

  Shaking his head, Stinger pushed himself up and looked at Switch, who was running toward him. Stinger, knowing that he couldn’t beat her in a straight up fight, jumped to his feet and tried to fly into the air, but when his wings started buzzing, pain shot through his back, forcing him to double over. But then Switch’s fist came flying toward his face, forcing Stinger to roll to the side to avoid a super-powered punch to the face. When he was back on his feet, he tried to stab her with his stingers, but she easily jumped out of his reach, landing several yards away from him.

  “I don’t know what those stingers of yours do, but something tells me that it probably isn’t good,” said Switch.

  Stinger panted, taking a step back from Switch. Stinger usually tried to end his fights with supervillains quickly; unlike Bolt or White, Stinger lacked the endurance to take multiple hard blows, especially from someone with super strength like Switch. Yet Switch was clearly smart enough to stay outside the reach of his stingers, which didn’t even count the fact that she could trade powers with her twin brother for extra reach. Stinger estimated that Switch needed to get in only a couple more solid blows before he went down for the count, if not for good, which meant that he needed to figure out how to end this fight fast.

  Unfortunately, Stinger had no more time to think about this, because Switch leaped through the air toward him. She flew through the air with frightening speed, but Stinger rolled underneath her and, getting back to his feet, shot into the air as quickly as he could. He ignored the pain in his back and wings as he flew, because he needed to put some distance between himself and Switch if he was going to figure out how to beat her. He flew back over to the house and landed on the roof, where he leaned against the side of the chimney, panting and sweating hard.

  He looked down at the front yard of the house. Bolt was still battling with Bait, but due to the fingernails in his leg, he had been forced to take cover behind an overturned picnic table, which was somehow managing to hold its own against a barrage of metallic fingernail projectiles from Bait. As for Switch, she was looking about wildly for Stinger, but Stinger knew that it was only a matter of time before she found him. Given how far she could jump, she’d probably be able to jump onto the roof to attack him again.

  Can’t believe I’m running from a girl, Stinger thought with a scowl. Then again, she is a girl who can crunch a car with her bare fists, so it’s not like I don’t have a good excuse.

  Like lightning, an idea suddenly struck Stinger. At the same time, Switch finally noticed him and shouted, “I see you!” before leaping through the air toward him.

  Stinger, however, pushed himself off the side of the chimney and flew toward Bait. He barely avoided Switch’s reaching arms as she flew past him and shouted, “Hey, Bait!”

  Bait, thankfully, seemed to notice him, because he immediately turned his fingers toward Stinger and began firing at him. Stinger, on the other hand, expertly dodged each projectile that came his way, zipping this way and that, making it hard for Bait to get a lock on him. Every zip through the air made Stinger’s wings scream with pain, but he ignored the pain because he couldn’t afford to be distracted if his plan was going to work.

  Avoiding another barrage of fingernails, Stinger glanced over his shoulder. Switch was getting ready to jump toward him again, which meant he had only a few seconds at most before he could get into place. Stinger zipped closer to Bait, but still twisted and turned in midair to avoid every barrage fired by Bait. Out of the corner of his eye, Stinger noticed Bolt was still hiding behind the picnic table, which was good because that was where he had to be.

  As for Bait, he was so focused on shooting Stinger out of the sky that he did not appear to notice how close Stinger was getting to him. He just kept firing fingernails after fingernails as Stinger got closer inch by inch, but then Stinger heard a yell and glanced over his shoulder one last time to see Switch soaring through the air toward him, the trajectory of her jump timed well enough to the point where she would undoubtedly collide with him.

  If Stinger stayed in the air, that is.

  At the last second, Stinger stopped buzzing his wings and plummeted like a rock through the air. He hit the ground at a roll, like he had practiced in the Training Room, and managed to look up in time to see Switch collide into Bait. The twins went rolling across the ground in a tangled mess of limbs until they crashed into another palm tree, but they still had some trouble actually untangling from each other, perhaps dazed by the impact.

  Seeing his chance, Stinger rose to his feet and zipped through the air toward the twin supervillains. His stingers popped out of his wrists and he knew that he had only seconds before the two recovered in time to dodge his attacks. His wings beat furiously across his back as he hurtled through the air toward them, the pain in his wings so acute that it was almost unbearable.

  Finally, Stinger landed in between the now-separated siblings (who had been arguing with each other about who was responsible for the crash) and slammed the tips of his stingers into their chests. Both Bait and Switch screamed in pain, but their screams abruptly cut off as Stinger’s paralyzing venom entered their systems and they both fell over like cardboard cutouts. Their eyes were still open and showed anger and hatred toward Stinger, but the venom in their bodies meant that they couldn’t act on that anger and hatred no matter how much they wanted to.

  Stinger sighed, his arms flopping to his sides. His back and wings ached so badly that all he wanted to do was sit down and rest, but then he heard movement behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Bolt standing up. Bolt’s leg still had the metallic fingernails in it, but somehow he stood
up anyway, leaning on the overturned picnic table for support.

  “Bolt, your leg—” said Stinger, but Bolt cut him off.

  “Don’t worry,” said Bolt. He grunted. “The fingernails didn’t get very deep into my leg. Think I’ll be okay with a few bandages. What about the twins?”

  “They’re down for the count,” Stinger confirmed. “The venom will wear off after a few hours, but that will be plenty of time for us to interrogate them.”

  Bolt opened his mouth to say something, but then there was a sudden rumbling sound, which Stinger at first thought was coming from Bait and Switch, but when he looked over his shoulder at them, the twins were still lying on the ground as paralyzed as ever.

  That was when Stinger realized the rumbling sound came from the sky, but before he could do anything, a lightning bolt fell from the sky and slammed into the ground between him and Bolt with a huge boom, like a bomb going off.

  The sudden lightning strike sent off a blast that knocked both Stinger and Bolt down. It was like getting hit by an avalanche, the impact of the blast wave sending Stinger’s head spinning. There was also a huge flash of light that temporarily blinded Stinger, and the thunder filled his ears, making it impossible for him to hear anything else. All of that faded in an instant, however, allowing Stinger to raise his head just enough to see what had happened.

  In the spot where the lightning had struck was a barren, blackened patch of dirt, and standing in the center of the smoking patch of dirt was a woman. She looked to be in her early forties, wearing a yellow spandex suit that left little to the imagination. She had long, dark hair and appeared to be in good shape for a lady her age. She wore a mask with lightning bolts on either side of her head, making her look like a superhero, but Stinger knew she was anything but.

  “Mom?” said Stinger, his voice hoarse from the explosion. “Is that you?”

  Electrica—Stinger’s supervillain mom—waved at him with a smile. “Hello, Christopher. You don’t seem very excited to see your own mother, do you? Then again, most teenagers do find their parents embarrassing, after all.”