Secret Origins

by James Riley

  A thought hit her hard enough to stop her dead in the street. Inanimate didn’t necessarily mean something couldn’t move, just that it wasn’t alive. That meant—

  “Staying together makes sense to me,” the banana said, interrupting her train of thought. “I’ve been so lonely without my usual bunch—”

  “Shut him up,” Bethany told Charm. If she could turn into something inanimate that could still move, she could get them to the Lawful Legion’s headquarters in no time. What were the restrictions of her new power, anyway?

  “I might have a really bad plan,” she told them as Charm’s punches slid off the banana suit, making him giggle like he was being tickled. “Give me some room, okay?”

  Charm sighed in frustration, then yanked on the Rotten Banana’s rope to pull him out of the way, but ended up knocking him off his feet and sending him sliding down the road. “You intended that!” he shouted back at her.

  “Quiet or I leave you to the shadows!” Charm told him, then grinned. “I totally did intend that,” she told Gwen and Bethany.

  Bethany rolled her eyes, then slowly formed an image in her head, making sure to get it as accurate as she could. A lot of it involved things she knew nothing about, but hopefully all the little details would be taken care of by the superpower, like Owen had implied. Otherwise, this was going to be a very short trip.

  Once she had the image in her head, she pushed herself into it, just like pushing her way out of a book, melting into the idea in her head until she felt her old body disappear. There was a loud POINK, and everything felt different.

  Hoping it worked, Bethany opened her eyes . . . except she didn’t have eyes anymore. Yet, she could still tell that she was surrounded by metal buildings, a half-robotic girl, and a jet pack.

  “So?” Bethany tried to say, but realized she couldn’t just speak as normal. Instead, she turned on her loudspeaker and blared, “Get in!”

  “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Gwen said as she opened Bethany’s door, taking the pilot seat. “What is this thing?”

  “It’s an antique,” Charm said, and Bethany didn’t need eyes to know Charm was looking around with disgust. “Why didn’t you turn into something newer? With antigrav thrusters or something?”

  “Can you fly her?” Gwen asked.

  Bethany felt Charm’s hands on her guidance sticks and blared an alarm. “No one’s flying me,” she said through the inside radio. “Bring the banana on board. I’ll get us there.”

  “This is so gross!” the Rotten Banana said from outside. “It’s like you two are sitting in her guts or something! I’m not getting in.”

  A second later he crashed into the backseat as Charm yanked him in and slammed the door shut.

  With everyone now ready, Bethany began turning her blades faster and faster, and her altimeter told her that they were rising right off the ground.

  After all, if you couldn’t be a flying dinosaur, turning into a helicopter was sometimes just as good.

  They rose off the streets and out over the city, Bethany flying higher and higher as Gwen laughed joyfully from the pilot’s seat. It all just felt so freeing, knowing that they were flying under her power! This wasn’t some fantasy superpower, either: These were her helicopter blades keeping them in flight. Something moved below, and like a bat, she sensed it with her radar—an empty subway train traveling through the city—and she realized she could track it wherever it was going.

  Wherever it was going? She could go anywhere! The sky was literally the limit! She could fly—

  “Do you see the Lawful Legion headquarters?” Gwen asked, and with a start, Bethany realized she’d completely forgotten what they were doing. Guilt came crashing down on her, and she quickly spun around in the sky, all of her instruments searching for the building the banana had described.

  This was what happened when she got too fictional. She lost sight of what was important, and nothing was more important than finding her father.

  From high up, her radar and flight cameras showed the city below her, laid out like a bunch of concentric circles. Behind Apathetic Industries was a warehouse district, complete with more joke factories, fish suppliers, and chemical companies than anyone could possibly need. From there, a circle of shadow-filled neighborhoods surrounded the downtown area, filled with crumbling stores and alleyways. That would be the rough part of town that Doc Twilight had probably patrolled, back before he’d met her mom.

  In the center of town she made out the Daily Current building again, complete with its giant neon lightning bolt, and the Second Cousins headquarters. And then she saw it, right in the center of the city: a domed white building with huge columns that sat on a field of green, fountains and broken statues surrounding it on every side. That had to be it.

  “I’ve got it,” Bethany said over the internal radio, turning toward the green area.

  “Can’t you go faster?” Charm said, kicking the floor and sending a wave of annoyance through Bethany. “They’re going to see us coming for miles.”

  Bethany shook herself a bit, getting a satisfying feeling as Charm knocked her head against the window. “No kicking,” she said on the radio, but realized the half-robotic girl was probably correct. The Dark would see them coming, if he hadn’t heard the helicopter already.

  But it’s not like she’d turned into a rocket or something. There was only so fast she could go if she were going to land everyone safely.

  . . . Unless she stopped worrying about their safety.

  “Everyone hold on,” Bethany said, morphing her dashboard into large, fluffy pillows with a loud POINK, then clicking the seatbelts over everyone’s lap, even the banana’s. “Ready?”

  “Finally,” Charm said.

  “Yes!” Gwen shouted.

  “I think I might throw up,” the banana said.

  And with the idea of a puking banana pushing her to hurry, Bethany sent herself diving straight at the Lawful Legion’s headquarters.

  The g-forces sent all three of her passengers slamming into their seats, and Gwen and the Rotten Banana began screaming, though at least Gwen was doing it from excitement. Bethany turned the attention of her instruments back outside, knowing this would have to be timed perfectly.

  She stopped her helicopter blades to pick up even more speed, and now they were plummeting toward the ground like a rock. Just in case, she added even more pillows inside as they got closer and closer to the ground.

  And then, right before they crashed, Bethany kicked her blades back in and sent her engines into overdrive, propelling them straight into the Lawful Legion’s headquarters.

  Her helicopter body exploded through the glass windows and doors, and Bethany winced in her head, but none of it seemed to damage her. She immediately stopped her blades and tried to stabilize herself, only to crash onto her side, plow through the reception desk, then gradually come to a stop against some pretty white marble columns.

  After a moment of letting out a deep breath of exhaust, Bethany opened her eyes (by turning on her instruments again), just to make sure everyone was okay.

  “You guys still alive?” she asked tentatively on her internal radio.

  “YES!” Gwen shouted, jumping out of the helicopter door. “That was amazing !”

  “The Dark still probably saw us coming,” Charm said, climbing out next, then pulling the banana out after her. “Even if he didn’t, he’ll have heard that crash.”

  “I’m bruised!” the banana shouted. “Don’t let him make bread out of me!”

  As soon as they were all out, Bethany pulled herself out of the helicopter image and changed back into herself. A quick check over her body revealed she weirdly didn’t have a scratch. It was as if any damage to the helicopter had been left behind in the image. That might be useful!

  “Is anyone here?” she asked the other three.

  As she said the words, two bright-white lights exploded through the floor, and they all jumped backward. The marble surface expl
oded up, and out of the wreckage rose men and women in bright, flashy costumes.

  “You wrecked our building!” said a terrified-looking man in a yellow suit and cape. “The Dark ordered us to stay here if we wanted to live, and now he’s going to punish us!” His fear quickly turned to rage, his shadow-covered eyes narrowing. “You’ll pay for this, you criminals!”

  A woman who looked like a living statue of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom and war, struck her owl staff against the ground, sending the building shaking. Her black eyes glared at them. “If we deliver these children to the Dark ourselves, Captain Sunshine, then perhaps he shall show mercy upon us!”

  “Lawful Legion? A-QUACK!” shouted a furious man in a duck outfit, who pointed a large mace down at them.

  And at that quack, the Lawful Legion attacked.

  CHAPTER 31

  Owen knew he should get back to Bethany, Charm, and Gwen. At least check in on their comic pages and see how they were doing, assuming those pages had been drawn by now. They should be, given how long he’d been gone.

  Only Owen still didn’t know who the Dark was, or how Doc Twilight knew him. And now more questions had come up. Where had Bethany’s father disappeared to? Was that in the comics? How had Dr. Apathy built a portal that could bridge the fictional and nonfictional worlds in the first place? And what happened to Dr. Apathy’s henchman that Doc Twilight was chasing?

  Ugh. This was how comics roped you in. Bring up all kinds of questions, then promise to answer them the next month, maybe the month after. And then years later you realize you’ve been permanently hooked, and now there are thousands of new questions to answer.

  Anyway, Bethany would be okay for a bit. After all, even if she got in trouble, Owen could just go back a few pages and warn her about it, like he’d already done. She’d be fine! Besides, this wouldn’t take too long.

  Feeling much better about the whole thing, Owen pushed the pages forward in time just a bit, skipping the fight with Dr. Apathy to get to the good stuff faster. Figuring he was far enough, Owen stopped the pages and found Doc Twilight showing Bethany’s mom around Jupiter City.

  “This is the thirty-first century museum built to honor the Flying Duck, one of the members of the Lawful Legion,” the superhero said, pointing at a museum with a statue of a man in a duck suit about to fly into the air. “They’ve got a real thing for old FD. Probably because he inspired the Army of Super Ducks in that century. So they came back and built us a museum to honor his future exploits.”

  “Doesn’t that change the timeline?” Bethany’s mother asked him, giving the museum a confused look.

  Doc Twilight shrugged. “There are so many future timelines out there already, who can even say?” He put an arm around her shoulder (Owen gagged) and moved them on to the next point of interest, the Mystic Monastery of Professor Weird. “Don’t get too close,” Doc Twilight warned her as Mrs. Sanderson started to walk up the steps. “The house has been known to eat people.”

  “And that’s safe to just have out there in the city, for anyone to walk by?”

  “When I’m around, everyone’s safe,” he told her with a grin (Owen gagged again).

  And of course, that’s when a monstrous foot the size of a car stamped down in the middle of the street. Because this is how comics worked.

  “DOC TWILIGHT,” shouted a hundred-foot-tall alien wearing fierce-looking armor. “YOU’VE INTERFERED WITH MY PLANS FOR THE LAST TIME. I WILL RULE THIS WORLD AS I WAS MEANT TO. MY FATHER BESTOWED EARTH UPON ME THE MOMENT I WAS BORN, AND—”

  Doc Twilight turned to Bethany’s mom, looking a bit embarrassed. “One second,” he said as she stared up at the alien in terror. He launched his twilight grapple at the alien’s chest armor, then flew up after it, the alien never pausing his rambling speech. The superhero quickly climbed up the armor to the alien’s shoulder, then whispered something into an enormous ear.

  Whatever Doc Twilight said immediately stopped the alien, and it turned an odd shade of blue as it glanced down at Bethany’s mom.

  “OH, I’M SO SORRY,” the alien giant said, spreading his hands almost in apology. “I DIDN’T REALIZE YOU HAD A GUEST. TERRIBLY IMPOLITE OF ME. SHOULD I COME BACK IN A WEEK OR SO?”

  “That’d be perfect,” Doc Twilight told him, squatting to pat the alien’s shoulder in thanks. “And don’t worry, we’ll get your dad off your back soon enough. Trust me, I’ve got a plan that’ll make it look like you conquered the world, and he’ll never know the difference.”

  The giant alien grinned sheepishly and toed a six-foot hole into the street. “AW, DOC, YOU’RE THE BEST. I’LL SEE YOU SOON.” He waved at Bethany’s mom, who waved back as if in a daze. The alien then tapped something on his wrist and disappeared completely, leaving Doc Twilight hundreds of feet in the air with nothing to hold him up.

  Instead of panicking, the superhero just grinned as he plummeted toward the ground. At the last possible moment, he shot out his grapple, swung from a gargoyle on a nearby building, and landed neatly next to Bethany’s mom. “Apologies for that,” he said. “I completely forgot we’d had an appointment for today.”

  “That was a giant alien,” she said, taking a step back, her mouth hanging open. “And you made him go away!”

  “We’ve been friends for a few years now, yes.”

  She shook her head, still shocked. “You really must be a superhero. How could any of this be real? How can this place exist? How can you exist?”

  Doc Twilight grinned. “I can’t share my secret origin with just anyone, Catherine.”

  Catherine? Owen frowned in confusion before realizing that must be Mrs. Sanderson’s real name. For some reason, that made Owen extra uncomfortable. He could have lived his entire life without ever knowing Mrs. Sanderson’s first name.

  Bethany’s mom shook her head. “No, I don’t want . . . I just . . . this can’t be real.”

  Ah, see? Owen grinned, remembering how he’d felt when he first discovered Bethany pulling herself out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He wasn’t the only one who couldn’t handle it at first! If Bethany’s mom fainted too, he’d feel a lot better about things.

  Doc Twilight shrugged. “I saw great injustice in the world and chose to step up. Surely there are heroes in your world as well?”

  She shook her head, then stopped. “Well, yes, but they don’t have powers. They’re just ordinary people.”

  “As am I,” Doc Twilight said. “No powers. The Lawful Legion barely keeps me on their payroll.” He laughed.

  She didn’t. “This is all so weird. Like something out of a comic book.”

  “A what, now?”

  She made a fair enough face, then half-smiled. “Could I maybe try your gun thing?”

  “It’s a twilight grapple,” he told her, handing it over. “Be careful, as—”

  She shot it at the nearest roof, then sailed up behind it, landing neatly on the edge. “That was so cool!” she shouted down.

  “It takes a bit of getting used to,” Doc Twilight finished, grinning from ear to ear. “I think I might be in love.”

  Owen puked in his mouth and quickly turned a few pages. Wasn’t this supposed to be a superhero book? Who let romance into these things? Okay, other than, like, Lois Lane, and Mary Jane Watson, and . . . okay, it was in all of them. Fine. But not with Bethany’s mother, of all people.

  What was next, Owen’s mom?!

  Something odd caught his eye as he flipped through the comic pages, and Owen quickly stopped them. Uh-oh. Mrs. Sanderson was showing Doc Twilight his own comic book. Somehow, he wished Bethany could have seen this. See? He would have told her. Even your mom shows fictional people that they’re from stories. It wasn’t just me!

  “So readers can . . . see me?” Doc Twilight said, staring at the pages. “At least they captured my good side.”

  “I think everyone assumes you’re made-up,” Bethany’s mom told him. “We didn’t know there were other worlds out there, or that superheroes might actually b
e real.” She looked at a pile of books on a table near her. “I wonder if—”

  “Who are these men, the writer and artist?” Doc Twilight said, turning back to the first page and pointing at the credits. “Anyone who can see into my thoughts and knows my secret identity is someone I should speak to. Can’t have enemies roaming free with that much power.”

  “They’re just the people who make the comic book,” Bethany’s mom said. “I’m pretty sure any power they have is with their fans, and that’s it.”

  “Superpowered fans?” Doc Twilight said, raising an eyebrow. “Do they use these fans to fly, or create tornadoes?”

  Owen rolled his eyes and flipped forward several pages, then stopped when he saw two ordinary-looking men shaking hands with Doc Twilight, one looking excited, the other disbelieving.

  “That’s quite a costume,” said the excited one, pulling at Doc Twilight’s cape. “Did you make it yourself? And is this bulletproof?!”

  “As a matter of fact I did, and of course,” Doc Twilight said, then paused. “Might my friend Catherine and I show you two something? It’s just across town, and I think you’ll find it familiar-looking.”

  “I’m a bit behind on the latest issue, actually,” the second man said, this one a lot less interested. “Can you just talk to Murray there? I’ve got other things that need doing.”

  Murray? Why did that name sound familiar? And then it hit Owen. The name on all of the Doc Twilight art in the house with the portal in the basement! This must be Murray, the artist. And now that Owen looked at him closely, he felt like he’d seen the man before. But where? The man’s face reminded him of a photograph he’d seen . . .

  Bethany’s birthday party. The photo in Doc Twilight’s house! This Murray person was the third adult in the picture, along with Bethany’s parents. How crazy, they must have stayed friends with Doc Twilight’s artist!

  The excited man, Murray, shot the other man a look. “Ignore Mason,” he told Bethany’s mom and Doc Twilight. “He’s always cranky. Wants to do more hard-edged stories, while I like the more fun stuff.”