Ordinary Champions

by Hayden Thorne

  Dude, you almost decapitated me, Althea said. Don’t ever do that again, especially after all the trouble I went through to track you down.

  “I’m sorry.” I sniffled, immediately plopping myself down on the chair. “I’ve been leaving a trail for you to pick up, but I haven’t heard from you for a long time, so I thought—God, I thought I was just fooling myself with such a stupid idea. Now…I never thought I’d be chatting with you like this, while in prison.” I grinned. “You look great.”

  Shut up.

  I chuckled. It was so cool, being told off like this.

  “So—I guess—I guess you, Peter, and everyone else will be able to help me zap this place into dust, now you know where I am.”

  Lemme think about that…

  “So are you, like, more powerful now than before?”

  How’d you know that?

  I blushed, but it was too late to cover up. Not that it mattered, really, since Althea couldn’t see me. “I just know,” I stammered.

  Peter told you, didn’t he? Well, that confirms a few suspicions of mine.

  “Like what?”

  Like his whereabouts last night, when we were all supposed to be assembled at the police station, monitoring the Trill’s men. Peter wasn’t with us, and he showed up after the robbery at the Pyramid Bank.

  “Hey, don’t tell anyone,” I said. “He said that he just wanted to see if I was okay. He didn’t mean to screw up your vigil—or whatever it is you guys call it. Please, Althea? I honestly thought that Magnifiman’s gang would show up to beat the shit out of me, not Peter alone.”

  Yeah, well—it wasn’t cool, no matter how you look at it. He could’ve put your ass on the line, and he could’ve screwed up our plans.

  “Plans? You mean those plans that let the Trill get away with a crime? Some plans they were!”

  Jeez, Eric, what happened last night was approved by the mayor and the bank management. We knew where the Trill was going to strike next, and we knew why.

  I frowned. “How’d you find out all that?”

  Lucy told us.

  “Lucy!”

  Yeah, a new superhero. Check this out—she’s actually a human chameleon. Isn’t that kickass? She showed up at the police station a couple of days ago with information about the Trill’s operations, and she told us who she was, but she never SHOWED us what she really looked like. She couldn’t stay too long, either, because she hadn’t been able to master her powers of transformation yet, and so far, she could only manage around—oh—half an hour in a mask.

  I shook my head, relieved and delighted. “Go Freddie,” I breathed. “Looks like he’s improved on his mask time. Last time we talked, he said he was working his way up from fifteen minutes to twenty. He’s done way better than that, I guess.”

  Lucy’s really a ‘he’?

  I leered at the screen. “Yeah, and Freddie’s hot, too. Too bad he’s straight. Good thing is that he’s single. Ahem.”

  Althea was blank for a bit. I know what you’re thinking in that horny brain of yours, Plath. Don’t even go there, hunk or no hunk.

  “Oh, come on, girl—I’ve always wanted to play matchmaker for you!”

  Kiss my cyber ass. I won’t let my love life get taken over by someone else. I’ll betcha you’re going to do that just to get back at me for liking Peter.

  “No, I’m not. Besides…” I shrugged when I paused. “Peter’s done with me. I think.” Okay, that sounded kind of lame.

  Eric, Peter isn’t Wade’s boyfriend. He’s, like, gay, remember?

  “I know, and I don’t give a damn. He broke up with me. He wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me, Althea. Sure, he’d piss off Trent just to see if I’m okay, but don’t you think that’s got everything to do with us being friends for so long? I’d do the same thing if I were in his place.” I fumbled. “Well—he did say he loves me.”

  Well, there you go.

  I squirmed. “I don’t know, Althea. I just—I can’t get the thought of him and Wade together out of my head. It’s like totally buried in there, and it won’t let up, no matter how much I tried to tell myself there’s nothing to worry about.” That much was true. It was like, I heard one thing from Peter, and something else told me another. I figured it was instinct doing this, keeping me on the alert and to stay safe from any more pain that Peter and Wade would cause.

  Or was it something else completely? I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

  As they say, denial is a long and deep river in Egypt.

  “Whatever. You can think what you want about Peter and me. I don’t care anymore. It’s over, and whatever it is we’ll have from now on has everything to do with crime-fighting, and that’s it.” Somehow all that came out with less force than expected. Looked like I was definitely, seriously torn between two conflicting realities.

  I never thought gay boys would be so dramatic about romance. And sooooo in denial. You wouldn’t recognize common sense if it came up to you, bit you in the ass, and called you Sally.

  “I like that. Can I use that line? I promise I’ll credit you.”

  Ask my uncle Moses via Ouija board. He was the one who used to say stuff like that when he was alive. Man, is this what being in love does to you? If it is, count me out. I’ll angst over a hot gay boy, but that’s it. Nuh-uh. No more.

  “Hey, wait ‘til you find yourself in the same situation, Horace.” I sighed. “So, seeing as how we can’t really do much at the moment but chat as though things between us haven’t changed like this—how about a status report? How’re things from the good guys end of this crazy world?”

  Same old, same old. The Shadow Puppet and the Deathtrap Debutantes are constantly being kicked around by the Trill. I guess you know that already.

  “Yeah, he’s been coming after them and screwing up their plans. Freddie told me he’s forcing them to align themselves with him and acknowledge him for their leader. I wonder how successful he’ll be. I mean, I’ve spoken with the Puppet and the Debutantes, and they hate the idea of forming a gang.”

  The Trill’s a sly dog. He’s hell-bent on being Public Enemy Number One around here…

  “Which doesn’t really say much for his ambitions.” I snorted. “I mean, come on—Vintage City? Who’d want to be top dog in this dump?”

  Yeah, well, there’s no accounting for taste, Eric. Now that you mentioned it, it’s almost sad that we—us genetic babies, anyway—that we’re kind of stuck here. This is our playground, and we can’t really go past the borders of Vintage City.

  “You mean, like, you’ve been hardwired into a limited existence? Like the way ghosts are stuck haunting specific places and shit?”

  Being a superhero OR a supervillain is living a limited existence, you know. We do certain things because we can’t help ourselves. We have a tendency toward speed or superstrength or fire power because we’re made to do those things, whether we like it or not.

  “Sure, but you guys are way better than average people can ever be,” I countered.

  That’s total bull in many ways, and you know it. You’ve been living with something like what we have for the past few weeks, haven’t you? How does it feel, eh?

  I nodded, my mood drooping. “Yeah, I know. I know. You’re right as always.” I dropped my gaze and rested them on my hands as I lost myself in thought for a moment. My hands looked like ordinary hands. Pale and a bit on the bony side, they’d always been those parts of my body that I took for granted. They could draw and sculpt and paint and write angst-ridden haiku in my long-ignored journal.

  By then they’d turned into instruments of destruction, despite how the destruction mentioned here was on its way to self-destruction of some form. “Be careful what you wish for,” I murmured, my words dripping with regret and an unhealthy dose of self-dislike. I heard a beep and glanced up.

  What was that?

  “Oh…” I sighed, shrugging lamely. “Just thinking out loud. I wished for this, you know—this power. Li
ke, I wanted desperately to be on your level—and Peter’s.”

  What’re you talking about? You were fine the way you were! What made you think we wanted you to be like us?

  “Well, yeah, I know that now, seeing how all this turned out. It just sucked being the odd man out all the time, Althea. I mean, I don’t have a lot of friends. All I have are you and Peter, really, and even then, I was still the outsider.” I took a deep breath. “Then Wade showed up, and I knew there wasn’t any room for me, especially when Peter started to spend more time with her and shit.”

  He was helping her, Eric, the way you both helped me out when I came into my powers.

  “I know he was, and he told me that every time. God, why do you think he broke up with me? It’s because I was driving him nuts over Wade! I know that now, and I accept it. It was my fault.” Man, those doubts surfaced again, telling me over and over that I didn’t have a chance getting back together with Peter, that he didn’t want me anymore—only Wade. Those doubts were shrill and freaky, and they wouldn’t let up. And it was, like, I had to listen to them and agree for them to shut up.

  Man, you two have a lot to talk about the next time you get together.

  “If we get together,” I cut in. “I might die in the process of destroying the Trill.”

  Hmm. I wouldn’t be so quick about that death thing, dude.

  I smirked at the screen. “What, are you saying that you know something I don’t?”

  No, not really, but I have more faith in you than you’ve ever had in yourself.

  “Story of my life.” I laughed ruefully. “So what’s in store for the good guys now? You traced me back here, and I’m sure everyone on your side knows where to find me and how to go about destroying this place.”

  You know us too well, but I’m not saying. I mean, damn, we’ve been chatting for the past, what, twenty minutes or something? I haven’t been offline long enough to help brainstorm a rescue plan.

  “You haven’t been offline at all, you mean.”

  Don’t be a smartass, smartass.

  I snickered and then glanced over my shoulder to scope out my bedroom for signs of espionage—or something like that. So far, so good. No suspicious items suddenly appearing to hide hidden cameras or whatnot. The door remained locked. Althea and I were safe. I turned back to face the screen.

  “Okay, I guess it’s best to stop now,” I said, dropping my voice again. “I can’t risk alerting anyone around here about you.”

  Got it. I’m glad that I found you, Eric. I’ll report everything later, when the group meets. Be careful, okay? I mean, the Trill might not know we’ve connected like this, but I don’t trust him at all.

  “Hell, who does?”

  I’m worried he’ll find out somehow, and you’ll be up the creek.

  “You shouldn’t. I’m pretty much ready for anything he’ll throw my way.”

  Don’t be too cocky. It’s hard to guess what he might do to you.

  I waved her off with an impatient huff. “He’s already screwed me over. Anything else he decides to do with me won’t matter at this point.”

  Still, though—be careful, Eric. We’ll help you bust out of that place soon.

  “Okay. Thanks, Althea. It’s—it’s kind of bizarre talking to you like this, knowing how dangerous my situation is, but I really needed it.” I paused to smile at the computer screen, hoping to find some vestige of humanity in it but seeing nothing but a black background that was broken up by several lines of white text. “I wanted something—normal. Oh, God…” I paused again, this time to laugh, running a tired hand through my hair. “Normal—what a word. I wish I could just fall asleep and then wake up to find everything the way it was before you guys came into your powers.”

  Eric, what do you think Peter and I have been feeling the past several weeks?

  I nodded, painfully moved. “See you later, Althea.”

  Yep—later.

  I was about to stand up to give the computer monitor another hug when the screen flashed a bright white, nearly sending me falling backward, completely blinded. But the intensity proved to be gentler than I first thought, and I merely blinked away the initial burst.

  Something pushed out from the suddenly white screen. A hand. It was more of a slightly fuzzy outline of a hand, which consisted largely of countless tiny pulses of electricity. Here and there, little bursts of charged light and color—or whatever defined the movements or information in a computer’s hard drive—crackled and sparked. The hand reached out for me, stretching itself so fingers emerged first, then the palm, then the wrist, then the lower arm. I sat, frozen in amazement, my eyes widening as the hand—Althea’s “hand”, I was sure—moved closer until the fingers brushed against my face, giving my left cheek a gentle pinch that felt cold against my skin.

  Then the hand withdrew, pulling back until it vanished in the white screen. There was another flash, and the screen turned black and lifeless.

  Chapter 15

  Living in a tunnel had its drawbacks. I’d long lost track of time since my evolution—what a joke!

  The Trill’s gang, including me, was back in the thick of things at one corner of Vintage City. This was the scheme behind our newest adventure: hustle on down to the Bubble and Bubble Electric Company, located near the northeastern border. Pounce on the Deathtrap Debutantes, who were both plotting something shockingly nefarious involving the city’s power supply—in this case, shutting down electricity and throwing the entire place into a state of blackout hysteria, while the girls ripped through emporiums and high-end boutiques to rob them of money and designer stuff. Those two really needed to work a little more on their ambitions, frankly. Take over the place. Plant our own—metaphorical—victory flag atop the rubble once everything was done. Then, maybe, the girls would finally throw in the towel and align themselves with the Trill.

  Of course, it was expected that the good guys would come along and kick everyone’s butts, but—hey, look at this!—the Trill had me to keep them at bay. And it came with tons of drama, to boot: “Ohmigawd, it’s that—that poor boy again! Wasn’t he involved with Calais before? Oh no! Lovers on opposite sides of the law! It’s Romeo and Juliet at work! Only totally gay!”

  Seriously, being a supervillain? The novelty wore off pretty quickly. One important lesson I was learning then was that the glamour of being superhuman was short-lived. After a while, life became, well, predictable.

  And boring as Hell.

  I perched myself on a window ledge, idly munching an apple, with nothing but a deserted and run-down tenement building serving for my couch. Below me, about three stories down, quite a bit of action raged. I watched the fight between the Debutantes and the Trill’s goons, who outnumbered the girls ten to one. The masked guys were clearly juiced with that Noxious Nocturne. They were super-strong, but at the same time, they weren’t any better than either Jamie or Jessie, who had the advantage of range powers and could strike from a distance. The Trill’s thugs could only make use of objects within reach that they could pick up and throw at the Debutantes with deadly precision. “Deadly” being relative, of course.

  I tried to keep score but eventually grew so bored out of my wits that I started to zone out, at times responding to shouts from the Trill’s men for backup.

  “Hey, kid!” one masked guy bellowed after being thrown against a pile of crates. Jessie’s wind whips were cool to watch. “What’re you doing? Give us a hand here!”

  “Dude, I’m not getting paid for this crap,” I yelled back, punctuating my defiance with one final bite of my apple before throwing the leftovers away.

  “You’re getting free meals and housing, you stupid brat! Now haul ass!”

  “I don’t think so. Besides, you’re doing pretty well on your own,” I said, pointing at one of the girls in action.

  Jamie tried to leap out of the way of a flying barrel that one of the super-enhanced guys threw at her, but she did it too late. It was a marvel to see, with this glamorous super
model-wannabe supervillain getting slammed by a flying barrel, which carried her several feet across a wide open space—really, I should have brought a camera and taken pictures of the way Jamie’s long arms and legs wrapped around that barrel so that she looked like a silver squid in major trouble—and then crashed her against a wall.

  “Check that out!”

  The guy I was talking to snarled, pulled out a gun from his jacket, and fired a few rounds at me. I rolled my eyes and merely held out a hand, blasting the bullets with a small energy cloud, which easily ate them up. “You really need to chill,” I said. “See? Now you just wasted some precious ammunition.”

  He tried to shoot at me again and found that he’d just emptied his gun. I shrugged.

  “Told you so.”

  “Fucking punk!” he yelled, throwing his weapon at me.

  Too bad for him, but even without my defensive powers, he still wasn’t able to take me down. The gun flew up a few feet and then got dragged back down to earth. Gravity was a very good thing. Then again, it could also be because the split-second when he launched his gun at me, he got blasted by one of Jessie’s wind blades—a stray one, actually—and flew off, flailing, to crash against a second-floor window.

  “Oops.”

  Rebellion. Man, I loved it. I guess that moment would be the first phase of my Payback Scheme. Watch the Trill’s thugs get pummeled by a couple of girls who were most likely half their age and numerically outnumbered, at that. As a capper, watch that unfold from the window of an abandoned old apartment, snacking on an apple.

  Things weren’t as bad as I used to believe. No, not after my talks with Freddie and Althea, and not after I’d seen for myself the inner-workings of a supervillain like the Trill. I might not be on par with him or with any of the other heroes and villains, but I sure wasn’t powerless against the bad guys, either.

  Was this what people called an epiphany? If it was, it sure felt great.