by Simon Archer
Eventually, though, I had to leave my watery piece of paradise. As I dried off and pulled on a thankfully clean uniform, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one who had drawn things out as long as possible. Matt was still in the showers, and Eric was done and dressed but had splayed himself out on a bench in front of his locker, staring at the ceiling with his hands folded on his chest.
“You going to live there, buddy?” I asked with a tired grin.
He swiveled his head towards me, his normally frizzy blond-and-blue hair hanging limply on the bench. “Nick, I have never ever had to zap so many times for so long, like, ever.” He stuck out his tongue. “I think my zapper is zapped out.”
“I doubt that,” I said, grinning as I walked over to him and held out my hand. “You’re the endless dynamo, the guy who never runs out of juice.”
“Well…” A grin crept across Eric’s face as he grabbed my hand and pulled himself up. “I supposed I could whip up a few teeny tiny zaps if I needed to.” A few crackles ran through his body, both into his hair and into my body. I stepped back with a playful wince as Eric’s hair spiked back up from the static electricity. “See?”
“I would argue that wasn’t necessary, but…” I shrugged. “Let’s go see how we did.”
Eric and I meandered our way back to the central meeting room of the luxuriously sized locker area. Gemma was already there, standing behind the leather couch, arms crossed as she looked at the monitors mounted in the far wall. Kara and Andie were leaning on each other on the couch, Kara with her knees pulled up to rest her head on them while Andie had her feet up on the coffee table and chin tucked into her chest.
“Good,” I called out as I walked around the couch. “I’m glad to see we’re not the only ones who just want to take it easy.”
Andie simply groaned and patted the empty space of couch next to her while Gemma favored me with a smile. “You all should be tired after that amazing bit of heroing… though it does mean I need to talk to City Master about increasing your cardio training during gym.”
All four of us groaned as a collective at that as I splatted out on the couch, though it was a playful one. Eric grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and sat down so that he could rest his arms and head on the back of it.
“They’re still calculating the results,” Kara mumbled as she cracked her eyes open. “With the complicated criteria and potential disagreements, well, it doesn’t surprise me that it’s taking a while.”
“Well, whatever the final results are, I’m confident you all did well,” Gemma noted. “I’m biased, of course, but then again, I’ve been doing this job a long time. I know when I see good heroes performing well.” Almost in synch, Matt and Kristen walked in from the opposite locker rooms, and Gemma nodded. “Speaking of good heroes, well done, you two.”
Kristen smiled a bit and grabbed a piece of floor next to the couch, using the side of it as a backrest, while Matt snatched another chair and flopped into it. While they weren’t exhausted like the rest of us, Matt looked a bit drawn, probably from having to regenerate so much tissue.
“Does that mean we made it to the next round or something?” he asked as he ran his hands through his still-wet mane of hair. Maybe it was just me, but he seemed a little nervous at the prospect of winning.
Before Gemma could answer, a streak of purple and white burst through the room, rushed past Gemma and everyone else, then stopped abruptly in front of the monitors with a rush of wind. Now that she was still, I could recognize the form of a very excited Aylin blocking our view of the screens as she somehow managed to bounce in mid-air.
“Did we come out victorious?” she got out in a breathless cry that would make Eric proud. “Did we rescue the most? Or perhaps Starlight’s felling of the mighty ormalus secured us a place on the offense boards?” She spun in mid-air to face us, her eyes glowing with anxious energy. “I know we did not do well the job of defending the poor buildings and cars, not with using so many of them as shields and shells and combat vehicles.”
Despite our fatigue, everyone got a good laugh out of that. Aylin looked confused for a moment, but I smiled at her.
“It’s just that you’re way more excited than the rest of us,” I explained. “Also, you’re blocking the screen, so if anyone has an idea if we won, it’d be you.”
“Oh,” she said softly as she bowed her head for a moment. “I forgot again that your human perceptual abilities are so limited. I simply assumed you could see the photonic emissions through my physical mass.” Aylin floated back to a position on the other side of the couch. “Yet, I note that you have yet to answer my questions. If you do not know, perhaps you could conjecture?” She poked her index fingers together in front of her repeatedly, a strangely human gesture of anxiety. “I confess to not understanding your Terran ways of judging worth in battle yet.”
Andie stretched up a hand to pat Aylin on the shoulder. “It’s okay, blackberry, most of us don’t get it either…” That’s when Patty Brownstone’s smiling face flashed onto the monitors. “... but I think we’re about to find out.”
That got everyone’s attention, and any traces of fatigue that lingered were pushed aside. Kara’s head snapped up as her eyes focused, Andie went from splayed out to sitting on the edge of her seat, and Eric scooted his chair forward a few feet as if he might miss something if he was too far away. The only person who wasn’t eager to find out what was going on was Matt, who actually seemed a little annoyed by the whole thing.
“Hello, fine students, faculty, and visitors to the Brand’s first World’s Finest competition!” Patty chirped as she tucked back her graying hair. “For those of you unfamiliar with me, I’m Patty Brownstone, the Brand’s very own junior official with the World’s Finest committee, and it’s my honor and privilege to present to you the results of this year’s defense event.”
“Do you think she has that memorized?” Kristen muttered. “Or do you think she’s just that much of a parrot?”
Gemma shushed her as Patty kept on rolling. “For our first category, the one that always pleases the crowd the most as well as being Lord Inferno’s favorite, it’s time for Offense!” She actually shot finger guns into the air while making pew-pew sounds. “In third place, securing seven points for their academy, is Carter Academy!”
Despite our collective urge to grumble, no one did. Considering they had taken out one of the titan Androsaurs, they had to have scored some solid points there, and you couldn’t take that away from them.
“In second place, earning nine points, is Valcav!” Patty winked at the camera. “Looking good, young Lord!”
I groaned a little out of sheer principle, but at this point, I honestly didn’t care. I was more caught up in the cheers that ripped through the room and the fact that Aylin, Andie, and Kara all managed to somehow hug me at once. It wouldn’t have worked if not for Andie’s elasticity and Aylin’s flight, but it did, and I was happy for it.
“Oh!” Patty cooed. “It should come as no surprise then that our very own Brand team won the big enchilada with a triumphant first place win, which earns a big twelve points!”
Matt grumbled at that. “You took out three of those giant dinosaurs, Nick, and then we did half the work on another with Kai-lao. How’d they earn the top spot?”
“You probably didn’t see it, Matt,” Kara answered for me as I was still in the middle of a lovely snuggle pile, “but while Aylin and I were on aerial duty, I saw just how many of those things they, er, defeated. It looked like the Brand went into full offense mode from the first moment, just like we went on rescue patrol.”
“Quantity bottoms for quality in this case,” Aylin noted after our pile of limbs disentangled.
Andie snorted and giggled at that. “I think you meant quantity over quality, right?”
“Is that not what I said?” the alien princess asked innocently, and I was about to explain the difference when Patty spoke up again.
“Now, for our second category, we will go to the
defense column.” Patty let out a girlish giggle. “I mean, that is the name of the event after all! So, in third place for saving inanimate objects from getting wrecked, putting a big seven points on the board, it is… Krona Academy?” She actually looked down at her clipboard, mouthed out the name, then glanced off-camera. “Is this right?”
An incoherent whisper answered her. She frowned a bit in disbelief and turned back to the camera with a shrug.
“Yay for Krona!” she cheered before clearing her throat.
“They must have cleared out an important building or two before the big ones came,” I mused. “I thought I saw some red marked structures when I flew in to save their asses from a Big Lizzie.”
Eric chuckled as I used the name he invented. “I hate to be that guy, but it doesn’t matter. We’re still totally kicking their butts.” Gemma nodded thoughtfully at that as Patty collected herself and moved on.
“In second place for defense, earning nine points, is… thank God… Kai-lao Academy!”
Though our applause wasn’t as loud as they had been for our own placing, we still let out an enthusiastic cheer to see the Kai-lao girls get on the board.
“If they can make a good showing in rescue,” Kara noted, “they might make the fourth place spot for nemesis still! They certainly deserve it.”
“And finally, taking top spots in the ‘protecting your stuff so you don’t have to’ category,” Patty enthused, “is Carter Academy! Our first team to take two spots on the board!”
That revelation dampened the mood a little. We didn’t need Kara’s genius-level math skills to tell us that it put Carter ahead of us, with twenty-eight points in total to our twenty-one. Still, no one lost hope. We had purposefully focused on rescue, and that category was next. As if it were a black hole, we all found ourselves drawn closer to the screen, so much so that Andie literally flopped off of the couch to lean over the coffee table.
“Now, for our last scoring category,” Patty began with more seriousness than I had seen her show yet, which was to say she was actually a little bit serious at all. “Rescue work is considered by some to be the most important part of heroics, and while I, as a loyal follower of Lord Inferno, might dispute that ranking, it’s still certainly very very important!”
She cleared her throat. “So, without further ado, the third-place school in the rescue category is… oh my!” Patty fanned herself with her free hand for a moment as if she was going to swoon. “Our very own Brand Academy! Great job, kids!”
“That puts Inferno’s team at twenty-eight total points, tied up with Carter now,” Gemma said as she leaned forward, bracing herself on the back of the couch with her hands. “There’s no way they’ll be knocked out of the top spots now.”
I nodded slowly as Patty regained her senses and went on with a big smile. “And second place goes to the Kai-lao Academy! What bunch of sweethearts those Eastern ladies are! You go, girls!”
Odd. They were all worth the same, but Patty was certainly buttering up offense and rescue as important while definitely shitting all over defense. It was probably just the values my dad instilled in the people of the Brand, but still, her bias was clear.
I put that out of my head as I joined in with a fresh round of cheers.
“Lioness will be happy,” I pointed out. “With a total of eighteen points, they’ve got fourth place locked down. Guess I really might have to fight her again, just one on one this time.”
“Huh,” Kristen said almost nonchalantly, “maybe I’ll have to give that a try when we get back. Think I’m one of the only girls here who hasn’t had a match with you now.”
No one had to point out how laced with innuendo that was, and even though I knew Andie was about to, no one got the chance, because Patty suddenly broke in.
“And your rescue category winners…” Her eyes widened. “Oh my Lord Inferno, I’ve never seen a rescue score that big!” She looked off-screen. “Is this right? Because if it is, this is a record!”
That same indecipherable whisper called back, and Patty leapt out of her seat, the camera scrambling to follow her as she raised her hands to the air. “Valcav takes it away! First place rescue scores and a new World’s Finest record at 97% rescue efficiency! All those rescues of civilians and the bonus points for saving fellow competitors knocked it out of the park!”
She went on, but I didn’t catch it, not with the entire room breaking down into cheers, applause, hugs, and celebration. With those twelve points, we were back on top, with thirty-three total, and to see our plan not only work but pay off in huge dividends was nothing but amazing. We all shot out of our seats, and I started with kissing all my girls before going straight for Gemma. She gave me a big, warm hug and then, a bit surprisingly, a kiss on the forehead, something she hadn’t done since I was a kid.
“You did it, Nick,” she praised. “Everyone really came together, but they came together around you, executing your plan. Congratulations, I’ve never been more proud.”
I smiled back at her as I stepped back. “Thank you, but I can’t take all the credit even for that. If it weren’t for you and Triton rescuing me and all the time you spent training me and helping me after that, I’d never have made it here.”
“You’re welcome,” Gemma replied with, again a bit surprising, a faint blush. “Now, don’t let me keep you!” She clapped me on the shoulder and gestured back to my cheering friends.
“You better celebrate now, because tomorrow, the last event begins… and there are enough points on the board that anyone could win it!”
24
Gemma
“I know what you’re going to say, Douglas,” I said as I paced in the rather spacious faculty office Inferno had given each academy. “You’re going to say that you respect my intuition and that you know it’s saved our lives multiple times over the years, but we can’t do anything without hard evidence.”
Douglas arched an amused eyebrow as he looked up from the paperwork he was going over. What the kids didn’t know was that both him and Efraim were up to their armpits in diplomatic work during the World’s Finest, hammering out the last details of the cease-fire. He put his pen down and steepled his wrinkled fingers over his chest.
“Then I wonder why you’re saying what I’m going to say when you already know that I’m going to say it.” His tone was light, but as always, my partner had steel underneath it, like a shark below the waves.
“Because I’m going to say what’s on my mind anyway, and I hoped I’d beat you to it so we could get on with it,” I countered as I stopped and turned to him. “Did it work?”
Douglas laughed and nodded. “I suppose so.”
“Do you remember Wrath?” I tried to ask that question off-handedly, but from the way Douglas sat suddenly upright, I knew I wasn’t entirely masking my concerns. What can I say? I wear my heart on my sleeve.
“She is dead, Gemma,” he said by way of an answer. “And even if she weren’t, that was eight years ago. With how much she hated you, she would have resurfaced before now to…” Douglas’s words trailed off as he sighed and rubbed his temples. “She would have, you know that.”
It was something neither of us liked to talk about, and it was something we never mentioned around Nick. Wrath was… well… my nemesis for quite a few years, a ruthless assassin who had a very strange and limited power to phase through thin objects. She used that limited power like a pro though and leveraged it into a killing spree that took over forty lives.
And then, when I tried to bring her in, she set her aim on me… and anyone I cared about by proxy. The details are sordid and unimportant, save for the end. Wrath rigged an entire abandoned factory to blow up on top of me, but when she was the one caught in the blast instead by her own arrogance, well, the ability to pass through an inch of rock couldn’t save her.
Or so we all thought.
“Nothing about Carter Academy adds up,” I argued. “Not their team methodology, not their secrecy, none of it. Yes, I know it’
s all legal, and it’s all been accepted by the World’s Finest board but… I know something very bad is brewing.” I tapped my chest above my heart. “I know it in here.”
“Evidence, Gemma,” he retorted. “We will not set a good example for our students and especially not for young Gateon and Barbur if we break the law or jump to judgment. Efraim especially will not stand for it.”
“But what if we don’t act and Mother, a listed ghost to remind you, is actually Wrath?” I smacked my fist in my palm in frustration. “Who else is on Carter’s faculty and what horrible things will they accomplish here, in the Brand during the World’s Finest and in the middle of delicate peace talks?”
It was almost involuntary with how upset I was, but it was partly on purpose as I shifted to my double size multiplier and planted my ogre-sized hands on the desk Douglas was working at. The wood cracked, and the entire thing shook, but, well, this was Triton, and he was completely nonplussed… until I started talking.
“What will Nick, Matt, and Kristen think if the way we show them gets a lot of people killed?” I argued, my voice at double volume with my lung size. “And what if Nick is one of them? After what happened to Wrath, how she died, I’ll be her target… and the best way to hurt me is to kill Nick.”
My eyes were watery at the thought of it. I had helped to teach him right from wrong, to undo the damage Inferno had done to his psyche, and I had grown to love Nick in more ways than I was comfortable admitting to anyone, even to myself. The idea of something I had done, whether it was the right thing or not, putting him in an assassin’s crosshairs made my gut twist and my blood boil.
All of that was laid bare for Douglas and his insight into people at that moment. As I seethed and held back the tears, he stood, walked around the cracked desk and patted me gently on the small of the back.