by Matt Carter
“Ow.”
There was applause around us as the judges finished critiquing someone. Tapping her microphone, Blackjack called Carnivore to the starting line.
This was it. No more distractions, no more thoughts of what Shooting Star might want to do to me. It was time to pay attention.
For the harassment. For the threats. For keeping Iron Bear in my nightmares.
For revenge.
They gave him a countdown.
Five…
Four…
Three…
Two…
O(focus)ne…
I only meant to trip him, maybe distract him long enough so the drones would catch up to him quickly, and then knock him out of the competition once and for all. Then I wouldn’t have to put up with his shit anymore.
Snapping his shin bone the moment he took a step forward was just a happy accident. He howled, falling down on his face. He called back to the judges, asking if he could see Spasm before the competition continued, but they refused. His head start continued to count down. I thought he would give up, hopefully even start crying.
Somehow, he got back up. He grabbed a downed tree branch and started using it as a walking stick. Then, somehow, he ran limping into the jungle.
The drones followed after him five seconds later.
I thought we’d hear the bell of his defeat in seconds, but we didn’t.
One minute passed. Nothing.
Two minutes. Still no bell. There was some roaring, some thrashing in the distance, but still he eluded them.
Three minutes. Three and a half minutes.
The bell rang at just shy of four minutes.
Carnivore hobbled out of the forest, sweating and panting, looking near-death. He stood before the judges and took his criticism well. According to them, he was brave and strong for making it through despite his handicap. They called him an inspiration. Shit.
He collapsed back in his seat, looking at me smugly as Spasm came over and mended his broken bone. I doubt he knew what I did, I think he just wanted to gloat.
I fumed for the rest of the test. Odigjod and Nevermore did well, using teleportation and dark projections respectively to hide well at ten minutes each. With powers that didn’t really line up with the test, Felix, Showstopper, and Firewall didn’t do as well. Firewall could at least fly above the trees, but was hardly subtle, while all Showstopper and Felix could do was run through the jungle and hope for the best. They all got caught pretty quick… but most people did.
This test was definitely a tough one. While I could normally tell who was going on to the next round, this one was up for grabs. By rights, most of my friends would be eliminated, but most of them had done well on the previous tests and I was confident that had to be enough to keep them moving on.
Finally, with everyone finished, Blackjack and the judges tabulated their results. We knew our time was up when they opened the Tri-Hole.
“All right. Just wanna thank y’all again for your patience,” Blackjack said, as usual. “Tonight’s cuts are the toughest ones yet. A lot of y’all did great, some of you not so much. Some of y’all who didn’t do so hot will make it based on the results from your previous tests and classes—but barely. There’s thirty-one of you here, and only seven spots on the team. Twenty-three of you are moving on tonight. Eight aren’t. Black Blur?”
As I did every time an elimination came around, I closed my eyes and kept repeating I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfine…
This time, however, Ghost Girl sat next to me and (against her better judgment, I’m sure) grabbed my hand tightly.
Black Blur whirred through the chairs, grabbing people and dragging them to the Tri-Hole. He ran uncomfortably close to us, and for one fearful moment I thought I’d felt his hands clamp onto me. Instead, I just heard a nearby grunt, and the whirring was gone.
Then, so was Black Blur.
I’d made it another round. Relief flooded my body. Ghost Girl finally let go.
“All right, thanks again for your patience everyone! You guys are doing great!” Blackjack said over the loudspeakers. “Now you get tomorrow off, pure rest and relaxation. You’re gonna need it, because day after’s gonna be your final elimination test before the final choosing. Congrats on makin’ it this far!”
I opened my eyes in time to see the heroes disappear through the Tri-Hole. We got a free day tomorrow? Sweet! We hadn’t had free time in ages! I’d get a day with friends, we could hike, we could explore, make some trouble, or we could relax, and maybe, just maybe I’d even finally get the courage to hook up with Nevermore.
It was going to be a good day. I knew it.
It was only when I heard Odigjod crying, only when I turned to see Firewall setting a comforting metal hand on one of his tiny shoulders, that I realized Showstopper was gone.
The sadness hit me harder than I’d expected. Somehow, I’d thought the six of us were invincible. I was sure we’d all make it onto the team, that one day we’d run the world together. Seeing him gone made me feel so unbelievably… vulnerable. So alone.
This was suddenly so… real.
#Supervillainy101: The Family Maxx
While most villains have done well keeping their family and careers separate, some have attempted to make supervillainy into a family affair. The Maxx family consisted of some of the greatest supervillains of the 90s (you can tell they worked in the 90s because of the extra x in their name). The father, Jonathan, controlled fire, while his wife, Ginny, controlled ice. Their twin teenage sons, Lucien and Sammy, were speedsters, while twelve-year-old Hannah was considered one of the greatest florakinetics the world had ever seen. They were a powerful, intimidating team that had defeated every group of heroes that the Protectors had thrown at them.
It was when Lucien started dating Maria Modesto, the daughter of superhero Crystal Skull, that everything went to hell.
Neither family approved of their love, so the young couple tried to elope. Crystal Skull and a team of Protectors caught up to them, capturing the young lovers and using Lucien as bait for the rest of the family.
While Jonathan and Sammy fought Crystal Skull, Ginny and Hannah tried to free Lucien. They failed; Hannah was captured, while Ginny was accidentally killed while trying to imprison the Golem in a block of solid ice.
Insane with grief, Jonathan and Sammy were able to convince a few of the lesser members of the Offenders to join their cause and led an attack on the floating island headquarters of the Protectors, The Pearl, just off the coast of Seattle.
To no one’s surprise but their own, I’m sure, they were killed to the last man.
#LessonLearned: Sentimentality and supervillainy don’t mix.
9
SPONGEMAN RISES
It wasn’t the free day I was hoping for. It should have been fun. Instead, it felt unbelievably oppressing.
Showstopper was gone.
Any of us could be next. I could be next. It was a lot to absorb, and I wasn’t in any mood to absorb.
I wasn’t in a particular mood to do anything, really. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and thankfully they didn’t seem to want to talk much either.
Odigjod tried to follow in Showstopper’s footsteps to keep our spirits up. Watching him teleport a dozen velociraptors he’d managed to fit into tutus to the main street of the town ruins was kind of funny. Even seeing him line them up and try to get them to dance was amusing as well, but that only lasted a few seconds as well. Overall nothing—not even raptors in tutus—would have cheered us up.
I should have planned for the test, but I didn’t. How could I? They didn’t give us any clue as to what it would be. It was probably going to be the toughest of them all, but I wasn’t going to kill myself preparing for it (especially when I didn’t know what to prepare for). If I was going to freak out over it, I was going to freak out over it after a good night’s sleep.
When the next day rolled around, I wasn’t a rested man. None of us were. You don’t go into
a final well-rested, no matter how much you want to. Pure force of will can get you so far, fear can get you even further. The rest requires a few energy drinks.
Thankfully, they delivered a new crate of those with breakfast.
Four energy drinks, three tabs of aspirin, two pieces of toast with butter and jam, and one hot shower later, I almost felt human. I felt more like a twitchy ball of fear, but closer to human than when I’d woken up.
They delivered the clothes and costumes we originally wore to the island after breakfast, laundered so they wouldn’t smell of seawater and puke, and told us to put them on for the test. After doing my tests in gym clothes for so long, my old costume felt claustrophobic.
Most of the town ruins had been rebuilt overnight with facades to look like the main street of a small town. At least a hundred people walked the streets, though on closer inspection I could see that they were all costumed Everywhere Men.
We all walked to meet Blackjack and the judges at the edge as she explained our final test.
“Congratulations for makin’ it to your final elimination test. Fourteen of you will move on to the final choosing, where seven of you will be picked for the team. Until then…”
She waved a hand dramatically to the fake town behind her. “Welcome, one and all, to Anytown, USA. It’s a nice place to live, the kind of place where people can walk after dark with no fear of being mo-lested by unkind so-ciety. Until today. You’re soon gonna give them a supervillain problem. In randomly selected teams, each of you holdin’ a specific job, you will break into this town’s bank. You will then make your escape to an extraction point at the other end of town. At some point—we won’t tell you when—a Tri-Hole will open and you will face some genu-ine superheroes. These won’t be our shining stars. They will be… mediocre. You will engage them, and you will lose. But this ain’t no school play. You have to make it look convincing, because if you don’t, if some poor fuck on the street sees that you’re fakin’ this, Project Kayfabe’s done with you.”
“How badly should we lose, then?” Firewall asked.
“Think a Silver Age Escape,” Blackjack said.
That didn’t sound so bad. A Silver Age Escape basically meant escaping, maybe a little bloodied, and with some but not all of the loot while shaking our fists and yelling to the heroes that next time they wouldn’t be so lucky, even though we all knew that they would.
She looked at us gravely as she gave a final warning: “And whatever you do, do not kill any civilians; you can’t scare people if they’re dead. We’re puttin’ everything you’ve learned to the test. Impress us. Convince us, and you just might make it to the next round. Now, your teams are as follows…”
We were broken up into five teams of four or five people. I was lucky enough to be in one of the teams with five, and also not the first to go up; Ghost Girl was stuck in that unlucky spot along with Circus, Apsara, and a hulking monster of a boy with stone skin and acid blood called Biocide. Right around the time that I was thinking that would be a fun show, Blackjack dropped the bomb that for this test, we wouldn’t be able to see the other teams perform.
Great. No learning from their mistakes.
I shot Ghost Girl a thumbs-up before I was guided with the rest to a large tent that would be our staging area. Hard to read as ever behind that mask of hers, she just nodded her head.
The energy drinks were starting to kick in pretty fierce when we got to the tent. I was rocking back and forth, hands shaking, mind going a mile a minute, and needing to take a leak, but they didn’t have any bathrooms nearby and weren’t letting us out of the tent and I really didn’t want to have to hold it in but was beginning to realize that that would be the case and…
And I still had to plan with my team.
I got lucky with my team. I got Firewall, Nevermore, Spasm, and Swashbuckler. I knew I could trust Firewall and Spasm to carry things if it got bad. Nevermore was powerful and good at following instructions. Swashbuckler was a wild card, but he was given the same menial job as Spasm (Crowd Control), so I didn’t think he could cause too much trouble. With Firewall and Nevermore tasked with the Breaking & Entering and Entry & Removal jobs, I was given the role of Shock & Awe.
That sounded easy enough.
We could hear explosions and screams coming from the Anytown set, but couldn’t tell what was going on. We tried strategizing some, like the other teams were doing, but after a few minutes of half-assing we just shut up and tried to remember our lessons. This may have been a team exercise, but it was still everyone for themselves, and I was trying not to piss myself.
Lessons. Enunciate. Remember your puns. Project. Ignore Shooting Star’s cleavage. Show nothing but pride. She sells seashells by the seash—
“Team Two, you’re up!” Blackjack said, lifting the flap of the tent. How long had I been doing those stupid rhymes?
At least the helmet could cover up my sudden terror.
We marched to the edge of town in silence as the judges eyed us, their faces solemn. The Everywhere Men wandered up and down the street, living out ordinary lives. Mailmen. Families walking around (far too many Everywhere Men in dresses). Riding bicycles. A milkman tipping his cap to a passing family (there are still milkmen?). Cars driving up and down the street. A perfect slice of Americana, circa sometime in the Silver Age. Still no bathrooms in sight, though there were a couple alleys that looked tempting.
Chewing on a short stub of a cigar, Blackjack smiled at us grimly. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Villains. Kick some ass.”
That was all the cue we were given. No bells. No cheers. This was our time to shine.
Not like anyone knew what to do. We stood in a line looking at each other stupidly, hoping someone would get the ball rolling. Not even Firewall and Swashbuckler, who were two exceptional showboats, looked like they knew what to do.
I was as surprised as anyone when I took that first step forward, put my hands on my hips, and shouted, “Shock and awe!”
I focused, sending two cars flying end over end into buildings on opposite sides of the street. More focus sent a deep, long crack down the middle of the barely paved street, fracturing the sidewalk and sending people sprawling.
Taking charge wasn’t my first idea; up until the last moment I was still hoping someone else would do it. I only stepped forward when I realized that the sooner we got this over with, the sooner I’d get to a bathroom.
My opening got everyone moving. Firewall took off, hovering a few feet off the street as she fired lasers and small rockets at buildings, blowing them apart and setting them ablaze. Nevermore wasn’t far behind, sending a black cat—larger and fiercer than a tiger—from her chest, chasing people away from the bank. A few scattered police officers and guards ran from the bank, half of whom doubled over vomiting violently as Spasm pointed at them, the rest taken down when Swashbuckler darted through the crowd and cut a tree down with one quick slash of his sword.
I ran after them. I must’ve looked unvillainous as hell, shaking violently and with my thighs pressed together, but I made it to the bank just as Firewall ripped the front wall away with her four arms.
“Do you have this situation under control?” I asked no one in particular.
“We got it, friend,” Spasm said, pointing at a few pedestrians who’d started to take pictures with their phones and sending them running away, bent over with gushing nosebleeds.
“Good,” I said, darting for a nearby alley.
This couldn’t wait. Not anymore. Maybe I wouldn’t look cool, maybe it would deduct points, but I’d started this off strongly enough that I didn’t think it would be too terrible a problem if I stepped away.
I ran down the alley and started to struggle with the too-tight leather pants I never should have bought.
I’d just gotten the zipper loose when he spoke up.
“Surrender, villain!” His voice was shrill and cocky.
You couldn’t have waited thirty seconds?
Zipping back up, I faced a supe
rhero I’d never seen before. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I am Spongeman!” he proclaimed proudly, putting his hands on his hips. “Absorber of evil and scrubber of crime great and small! Your days are numbered, villain!”
Well, that would explain why he looked like a giant man-shaped sponge wearing a cape. That didn’t explain the Speedo, or the domino mask that did little to hide the fact that he was still a giant man-shaped sponge, but one thing at a time, I guess.
Hold it in. It’s showtime.
Trying to look threatening while holding my legs together, I faced him, hands raised. Remembering my lessons, I focused, picking up some odds and ends of garbage and pieces of brick from the ground, and hurled them at Spongeman. Grab a lot of small pieces and throw them one at a time. Very showy, but it does little permanent damage, Helios had said during training. True to his word, each of them bounced off of Spongeman as if they were nothing.
Once your first powered attack fails, always make a clumsy run at the hero. Try to hit them a few times, let them dodge, then let them get in a hit.
I dove for Spongeman with an awkward haymaker punch to his chest. He didn’t dodge. In fact, he let it sink in a few inches, enveloping my hand in soggy sponge. Gross.
He tossed his head back in another booming laugh. “Foolish villain, whatever you throw at me, I absorb, and the more I absorb, the stronger I get!”
Well, that ruled out pissing on him.
To illustrate his point, he swung his body around, lifting me off the ground by my arm and throwing me back out into the street.
All right, this guy was starting to irritate me.
Hands still on hips, he laughed again. “Do you have anything more for me to absorb, fiend?”
A plan formed quickly. A witty comeback, not so much. “Absorb this, cocksucker!”
I focused on the ground at his feet, ripping a large section of it up and hurling it—and Spongeman—through the air.
His scream was as glorious as I’d hoped.
