I stop looking out at the empty field to look back at the fence line. Ernie's been watching the fence as that's about the only thing he can clearly see. There is a little light to see by from the glow of fair lights reflecting from the low cloud cover. I spot cut fence about ten feet in front of us, which must be what Ernie is having us stop for. No one is there right now, but we have no way of knowing if that piece of fence has been cut for an hour or a month. All I know is it wasn't cut at last year's fair. "You want to do a stake out?" I ask him.
"Yeah, let's give it some time and see what happens,” is Ernie’s reply.
There's no place to hide, so we back off and go prone about twenty yards out in the field, and away from the fence, so we're not being backlit by the fair. Time to wait.
It doesn't take long. Someone in the park yells, "Stop! Stop!" and is then drown out by yells and the stomping and pounding of feet from people scattering just on the other side of the two big rides that are placed up against this part of the back fence. Ernie smacks my arm and points at the large canvas tent flaps between the two rides that are being used to give a solid appearance and keep people from wandering behind the rides. The flaps blow out like they were hit by a strong wind and three people come running out through the opening. They're all pretty big, dressed in dark colors, and wearing Halloween masks. The one in the back is wearing green camo pants and a black t-shirt and is yelling, "Go, go, go!" at the top of his lungs through his rubber Frankenstein mask.
I'm pretty sure one of them is a super because the flaps on the tents didn't blow themselves out. "I think one of them is a super,” I say, “Maybe an ele.” Then I bounce up into a crouch. "Bubble, can you snipe until we know what kind of power these guys have?" I don't want to see a repeat of the Bubble-E and Animal Show.
Elementals are some of the most dangerous supers there are and my mentioning there could be one was all Ernie needed to overcome his eagerness to get in the fight. At least a little. "I'll stay back as far as I can and still use my power, but I'm not going to stay out of it while you go it alone."
That’s fair. "We do it together, but we do it smart. Try to work from the field and stay away from the fence. I don't want us to be backlit by the fair." The three masked men had to have lost their night vision while they were in the brightly lit fair and I want to take advantage of using the night for cover as long as we can. Bubble will be hitting them with his bubbles, so I pull my goggles up from around my neck so I won’t get any bubble goop in my eyes. Ernie moves out into the field in front of the fence then turns back to our three villains, soon to be victims of our vigilante justice. I head for the cut in the fence. Having him stay at range will help me focus on what I need to be doing without worrying about him.
"What are you going to do?" I hear Ernie shout-whisper from behind me. Fortunately, there is so much commotion going on from the three men and all the people yelling and trampling around on the other side of the two rides that no one else hears him.
I turn back to Ernie and reply in my own shout-whisper, "I'm going to peck them to death." That's what I call it when I do hit and runs to avoid getting hit myself. I can't hit them as hard, but it is much more effective at keeping me protected from taking a hit by someone when I don't know what their powers are. Ernie and I have used this tactic before, but this'll be the first time we did it in the dark where blinding them with bubbles won't have much more of an effect on them as the darkness will on Ernie. The stinging eyes and bubbles will have a better chance of confusing them, though, as they're not going to know what's happening to them. I can use that.
The first guy to reach the fence is wearing black pants with a hoodie and is wearing a green alien mask. He stops suddenly about six feet from the fence and, like the Three Stooges, the other two guys smash into the back of him. Both of them fall down and the guy that stopped didn't move in the slightest from being run into. It seems our little green alien is at least a Class 1 in strength.
"What the hell! Why'd you stop?" One of them yells while the other is rubbing his face after running into the back of the first guy in what I’m betting felt like a brick wall.
A muffled, "Ow," comes from the guy who is now holding his nose. You can bet he's a baseline, at least physically.
"Quiet!" Green Alien Guy says.
All three of them freeze where they are. I think he heard us. They’re not looking my way, though, so it doesn't look like they have infrared or night vision. I concentrate on my mind for a second to see if I can detect someone attempting to probe my thoughts. Nothing, they're probably not telepaths.
The two on the ground get back up without making any noise and all three are scanning the area, but I'm not too worried if they haven't spotted me yet. I just need to be quiet and be still until they get through the fence.
They start moving towards the hole in the fence again and you can tell they are having a hard time seeing where they're going as the second and third guy are holding their arms out to keep from running into Green Alien Guy again. Green Alien Guy holds open the fence for the other two and they all get through the fence. "Get to the car," he tells them.
I wait until they start running away from the fence and then give my best pissed-off-dad voice, shouting, "Freeze! Hands up in the air! You're all under arrest!" The words are different, but that voice always works on me when my Dad uses it on me.
All three freeze and start looking around.
"I said get your hands up. Now!" Then, "If I have to tell you again I'm going to shoot!"
All three stand still and put their hands in the air and two of them start to go down on their knees without being told. Apparently, they've done this before. The guy in the green alien mask stays standing and keeps looking around.
"You're not cops." He says. "You don't have flashlights."
Flashlights? Are cops required to carry flashlights? "Shut up and get your hands up!" I shout back.
Green Alien Guy starts dropping his hands and I can tell he is zeroing in on the sound of my voice. I start sliding to my right. This is about to go south, but as a hero, I can't be the first to attack as long as they’re just standing there. There’s rules to being a superhero. Annoying rules.
Dropping into a crouch and ripping off his mask, Green Alien Guy shouts, "Get moving!" to the other two guys and leaps right at where I was standing.
Instead of turning and facing now unmasked Green Alien Guy, I make a speed move to the opposite side of him to his friends, looping around to put them between us, and rush the nearest of the two who is no longer on his knees and is now up and running toward the car I saw earlier. I punch him twice, once in his ribs above his kidneys where I feel the crunch of his ribs, then once again in the kidney, and he drops screaming to the ground. For a moment I feel a rush of air all around me, but it stops when he drops. The guy either forgot to use his powers, or they were not all that powerful to begin with. Amateurs.
The other guy that was kneeling is now making pretty good speed toward the car. He must have at least enhanced speed. I break toward him and look back to Green Alien Guy and see he's batting at something in front of his face and yelling obscenities continuously. Bubble-E is laying it on him.
That gives me time to go after the second guy running to the car. He's got a twenty yard head start on me now and I need to get him down before I can take on Green Alien Guy. It takes me about two seconds to catch up with the guy running and as I'm about to repeat the ribs and kidney shots I gave to the other guy, he must sense me and turns to take a swing at me. When he turns, it places his solar plexus right right in line with my punch and I drive a sharp punch into him. I can feel his guts seize up and air whoosh out of his mouth. I can tell he is a Class 2 strength as he resists the hit pretty well. I'll need to hit him a lot harder if I want to take him down. He's like The Dragon, but he would have laughed at me. It is clear this guy is not as good of a fighter as he lets me draw back again and put everything I have into a second punch into his gut.
He buc
kles under my punch and I jump back as he crumples to the ground with a choked on gasp of breath. “Stay down,” I tell him.
Green Alien Guy is about to plow into me when I hear Ernie's shout, "Look out!"
I jump straight up like a startled cat as that is the fastest move I have from a dead stop standing and Green Alien Guy passes directly beneath me. He manages to hit my foot on the way by and I start spinning and hit the ground pretty hard. It doesn't hurt me when I land on my shoulder, but it is disorienting, which is not good for staying out of the guy’s way.
I shake my head and have just enough time to see Green Alien Guy has swung around for another pass. He's going to try to use his whole body as a weapon like a Class 4 and 5 strong man would do. I know there’s no way a punk at a fair is a Class 5. Although, I think his freight train style attack is going to work for him in taking out a Class 2 like me, even if he’s a measly Class 3. I do something I never thought I would need to do until I really do go pro. I activate a similar device to the one I was trying to get Ernie to wear and my body takes on a blue glow.
Bubble-E sees I’m in trouble and is running towards us screaming at the top of his lungs things I can't understand and Green Alien Guy is just about to run me over, so I make like an Armadillo, drop to the ground, and curl into a ball to protect myself.
Green Alien Guy turns his last step into a kick and drives his foot into my side. I can feel the kick and I go flying, but it's not like the rib crunching blast it could have been, and more like I'm being kicked through a couch cushion or blocking pad. Green Alien Guy's foot bounces back and literally makes him do a forward one-and-a-half flip and he plows his face into the ground. It didn't hurt him, but the humiliation factor is monumental. Around eighty percent of the force from the kick was sent back into his foot by the repeller field created when I activated my device.
I jump back to my feet and Green Alien Guy stands up slowly, confusion showing all over his face under the dirt pie he just ate. Even in the dark I can see the scowl and he says, "Nice trick. You're going to pay for that."
With the repeller field I am about an even match for Green Alien Guy in toughness. Strength works a little differently, however, so I can hit him just as hard as he can hit me, but I won’t win any weightlifting contests. That is so long as the custom five minute ionic battery holds out. I also have my usual speed advantage and that will only run out if he gets his hands on me. I say, "You're not going to win this before help arrives and your buddies aren't going anywhere. Why don't you just go get in your car and drive away while you can?" I can feel a vacuum created when Ernie's mouth drops open from him sucking in air. I have just committed an unforgivable sin.
Green Alien Guy says, "Yeah, you gonna do me a favor, eh?" And starts walking towards me. "How 'bout I just see how long that shield of yours lasts before I can crush your skull?"
I zip around the guy faster than he can follow in the dark to a place between him and Ernie. Behind my back wave at Ernie to get back. "Because you're never going to get another shot on my shield." That got his attention.
Realizing he's dealing with someone a good deal faster than he is and not just a shield buffed squishy, Green Alien Guy stops his advance. He says, "You're lucky I don't have time for you, punk," then turns around, runs to his buddies on the ground. One retching his guts up from the shots to the solar plexus I gave him and the other is nursing broken ribs and a ruptured kidney. Green Alien Guy grabs the guys and throws them over his shoulder as he runs for their car.
"You let him go," is Ernie’s statement in the form of an accusation.
"That's right, I did."
"Why?" He’s getting angry.
"Because we couldn't win." I say as I turn off my device while still watching Green Alien Guy running away with his buddies bouncing around over his shoulder. "It would have taken too long to take him down and the rent-a-cops will be here in any second. Somebody could get killed."
"But you let him get away," was Ernie's defeated response as he turned back toward the hole in the fence to meet the approaching flashlights of the fair's security people.
Right then I remember a line I heard in an old movie, "A good man always knows his limitations." Ernie knows his, he just doesn't accept them. That’s good and bad. Right now, it would be bad.
Chapter 8
The summer goes about as well as I can ask; Ernie starts using the repeller device I made for him. Tess and Maria find out about each other, or rather I find out they already know about each other. Neither says a word about it until I say my goodbye to Maria and she punches me in the gut and tells me I'm not as smart as I think I am, to which I silently disagree — Saying it out loud will just mean I have to pick myself up off the ground a second time. Silence is golden. Besides, at the moment I can’t breathe well enough to use words. Then she hauls me up and gives me a kiss, slaps me, and tells me not to screw it up. I think she means college, but I’m not going to ask. Mom and Dad are not making the trip out to Nova Academy to get me settled as they know I’m pretty independent and really don’t want them getting in the way. So instead I get a teary hug from Mom and a backslapping hug from Dad when they drop me off at the airport.
Nova Academy, in North Chicago, is located at a former Navy training center the government sold off fifty years ago. It is a huge campus that is spread out over the entirety of the former base to give enough room for all of the supers to be as super as they can be, without having to hold back because there’s a squishy nearby.
We land and debark at Terminal 3 of Chicago O’Hare and I make my way to the Shuttle Bus Center next to the Lot A Parking structure to catch the bus to the academy. The bus looks like it used to be one of the rental car shuttles with its green and white stripe paint, except that "Nova Academy" is painted over it in big red lettering. "Hi. You heading for Nova Academy?" I ask the driver, who is a little Italian guy with a pot belly and receding hairline.
He stands up from his seat and steps out of the bus into me in response, so I take a step back. His bus, his rules. "Sure is,” he says, “Let's put your bags in the back and get you loaded." We walk to the back and he grabs my bags and throws them over the lip of the back gate onto the floor of the shuttle along with several other bags while I cringe at the thought of how many of my tools and equipment he just threw out of alignment.
"Could you go easy on the bags? I have some pretty expensive stuff in there and I don't want it broken," I ask him.
He throws my other large bag in the same way, "Sure," is his only response as he heads back to the door to board the bus, "You're the last one, get in."
You know, some days I feel like being a super villain could have merit. Open up my options in explaining to people how I want things. I board the bus.
Three other people around my age are already on the bus, scattered about in the seats so none are within two rows of another. If I want to maintain the spacing standard they've established, I'll need to sit in the front row across from the driver, so I do just that to avoid disturbing the trend. None of them look up to see me come on the bus. Two have their faces shoved in their phones and the third is looking out the window and rockin' out to whatever music is coming through his earbuds.
We drive North along the coast and arrive at the campus gates, which still have the guard shack between the lanes from the old Navy base. We pass through and drive by what looks like the administration building, which is the first sign I've had that Nova Academy is actually a prestigious school for supers, rather than a rundown old military base. I’m wondering if they’re trying to keep a low profile, and why they would want to. Tuition is through the roof, so it can’t be they don’t have the money.
The admin building is a styled early American, three story, stone building with a dome tower in the middle like you'd see if you visit most state capitols. This is the first quality building I have seen and there’s nothing rundown about it. As the bus goes further into the campus, more buildings are popping up. The campus itself is huge wit
h a mixture of early American and modern design buildings scattered throughout its ten square miles. I can see as we drive through en route to the dorm areas that a lot of money had been spent. Some of the buildings qualify as architectural phenomena. Each group of dorms is clumped together surrounding a central common building that houses the student lounges, study halls, and food courts.
The campus is busy with cars, kids, and parents walking around and getting checked in for the new school year. Bags and luggage are being hauled out of cars over to the dorms while kids who arrived earlier are going in all different directions in search of their first adventure on campus. The energy in the air feels great and I'm even more excited about being here.
The bus driver looks up into his mirror, "Tesla Quad coming up. Anyone staying in the Tesla dorms?"
"Yeah," says the earphones wearing guy, and starts to climb out of his seat. I see a spark jump from his finger to the metal back of one of the seats as he stands while the bus is still doing forty. I guess bus drivers who haul around supers all day don't worry about them getting hurt if they don't stay in their seats until the bus comes to a complete stop. High school is over. Or, maybe that ended in grade school and I didn't notice. The bus stops and the driver pushes the door release, "Welcome to Nova Academy. Let's get your stuff."
Tesla Quad is the area supers with elemental powers live. It’s a mix of edgy modern design and 1920s style retro lighting with giant insulators and high wires. There are giant Tesla coils operating near the entrance to the Commons that are shooting huge arcs of electricity between them. That’s just cool. This isn’t my area though, and I won’t be spending much time here. Maria will if she comes here next year.
The next group of buildings will be my stop, unless the map I memorized from the student union website is outdated. "Atlas Quad, next stop. Anyone?" says the driver.
"That's me," I say, and stand as the bus comes to a stop. Looking back at the two remaining riders on the bus, I see they both have their faces scrunched up in distaste as they look out the windows. Huh. Then I turn and exit the bus with the driver to unload my bags and the driver points to the nearest building, "That's Atlas-2 over there. You a speed or power guy?"
Nova Academy: A Superhero & Supervillain Novel Page 4
