Hero High: Figure In The Flames

by Chara, Mina

  “What, what is it, what are you laughing about?” I asked looking for a table.

  “Ashley. I mean, who names a kid Ashley? Ashley’s a girl’s name,” he giggled. I rolled my eyes, and pointed to a booth at the back.

  “Is it?” I said, setting my tray down, and looking out the window overlooking the city.

  “Duh. It doesn’t matter, point is, they’re gonna be the next big thing, I’m telling you!” said Jake.

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it. When Aya starts selling her merch, I swear I’m buying! She’s already number one in the year!”

  “Really?”

  “Aya and David were in the public eye before Hero High, they’re legacy heroes,” Jake told me. “Rumor says they went to a superhero summer camp for the kids of heroes and that’s how they met!”

  “Keep your voice down,” I hissed.

  “Okay, okay. Over there.” Jake pointed to a table full of kids lifting objects two and three times their size, and claimed they were called ‘the buffs’. The handlers sat at corner tables, studying non stop and another, large round table held all the heroes destined for Hero Control. Methodical and organized, their powers were not particularly useful in a fight.

  Right at the back were boys and girls who appeared to be brooding, next to them were a few bubbly team mates, and off to the very center were all the kids that were guaranteed to be the most popular by the end of the year. Most of them would switch teams to create a gigantic heap of popularity which everyone predicted would be the gold team, and then, there was me. Where did I fit in? Why exactly was I in a team by myself?

  Jake stumbled and rammed into one girl’s back. I caught his tray in the nick of time, but the girl’s clattered to the ground. The cameras interviewing students spun round, and the producers went silent like a documentary presenter trying not to disturb wildlife. Jake had walked straight into her, and she stood, glaring at both of us. I felt sure I could hear a growl as she looked down at her ruined lunch, and back up at Jake. Like someone navigating a tight rope, I stepped in between them, and Jake tensed behind me. It was the girl who’d cried about her totally not broken arm.

  “‘Day, what’re you doing? Move!” said Jake.

  I ignored him and held out my tray to the girl, offering her some of my food.

  She looked directly at me, her right eye twitching. “My lunch,” she said, moving her gaze back to Jake, and I realized the whole room had gone silent, “how dare you!”

  “Relax lady,” said Jake stepping out from behind me. He put his hand on the girls shoulder and I heard whispers from the other students. Her name was Mary Mayberry. “Take a chill pill. Okay?”

  Before I knew it, she’d grabbed Jake by the collar, and the students were up in their seats, wondering if they should run to fetch a teacher. Not a single member of the camera crew tried to call for help or step in to stop what was happening.

  “What did you just say to me?” said Mary raising her fist.

  Not hesitating for a moment, it was only my power that slowed her down as I blinked. My heartbeat slowed, and then stopped, forming that tiny pocket of time that allowed me to think for as long as I needed. What could I do? I could put the tray in-between her fist and Jake’s face. Would that really stop her though? No, and Jake would still get hurt, plus I’d throw away all my food. I told myself to be real, that I was probably going to lose my lunch if I got into a fight with this girl. I could ram myself into her, that would be fast enough to throw her off balance, but once again I’d lose my food. But… It was all I could think of.

  The world snapped back into acton, and I rammed into Mary as fast as I could, my tray and all my precious lunch falling to the floor. My body hit a table, and all the kids sitting there screamed at me for falling on them. I pushed myself up, only to have one boy at the table shove me backwards. I heard another plastic tray clatter to the floor. It was Ashley Ang, dressed in an up-tight sweater and tie combo, the glint of his glasses obscuring his eyes. His gaze shifted to the lunch I’d knocked on the floor.

  “I had to pay for that,” he said, looking genuinely distressed.

  “Apologize, freshman,” called Mary Mayberry.

  “Yeah, that was so not cool,” agreed another girl.

  I considered it for a second, but with everyone’s eyes on me, expecting me to grovel, something in me refused. I was trying to save my friend from getting punched in the face. If the producers wouldn’t do it, I would.

  “I’m waiting, freshman!” shouted Mary, again.

  “I have a name,” I replied.

  “Like I care.” she snorted.

  That was it. I picked up a glass of cola, and poured it straight onto her head. She screamed like I’d stabbed her and threw a pie in my direction, but instead of hitting me, she hit the boy behind me. He threw something, and then his target threw something, and in seconds the room erupted into a full on food fight. The cameras rushed back and forth from one person to the next trying to keep up. For a moment I thought I could escape, until I saw Jake lobbing a slice of cake at Mary. She thrust her arm into the air, then she charged towards Jake, slashing small holes of swirling light. The cafeteria roared as the older students raced for the corners, escaping Mary’s power. Everyone watched Jake run round the room like a dog on a race track, dodging Mary’s attacks as each hole tried to pull him in, only to be plugged with tables and chairs.

  I blinked again. Mary had to have a weakness, she had to have a quirk. What exactly was her power? Black holes? No. Superpowers are specific, scientific. I’d seen her card on my first day, it said, ‘space exchange’. So she wasn’t a black hole, she could exchange one space for another with a slash of her hand. The air that sucked and blowed out of the hole’s in space were simply air displacement, which was great, but didn’t help me. Could she control where to send someone? I looked at each lingering hole out of the corner of my unmoving eyes. One led to grey skies, another to blue, they weren’t in the same place. What did that say about her? That she could control it? If so, then why those places? Was it random? I didn’t know, and I didn’t like not knowing.

  I could run an experiment, and find out, but I didn’t have the time. I’d just have to try manipulation and see if I could throw her in one. It was a long shot, but it was all I had.

  I blinked back in, and ran for someone’s apple, chucking it at Mary’s head. Once I had her full attention I backed up against the cafeteria wall, my eyes scanning the crowd. How could I get her to think of somewhere specific? All I could think of was the Power League theme song. “P-p-p-p-power league! P-p-p-p-power league! Using super powers to play a sport”

  There weren’t any actual lyrics for the power league theme, I’d made them up as a kid because it was more fun to sing along when Power League came on. Mary’s brow raised as she slashed through the air and I could see on the other side, the power league stadium. She’d be able to get out if she could focus, but it would keep her occupied enough for me to hide. I ran forwards to push her in, but she grabbed me by the collar.

  “That’s enough!” Captain Fantastic’s voice boomed through the cafeteria, and the cameras ran to catch it. “You two, detention. Everyone else, get back to classes, now!” The room cleared in a mumble of complaints and curse words, mostly from the producers. The Captain strode towards us, and forcefully removed Mary’s hands from me. “Ms. Mayberry, Ms. Fitzsimmons, what happened?”

  Mary clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes.

  “I tried to stop her from punching Jake,” I told him, “and well, things escalated.”

  The captain sighed. “I can see that Ms. Fitzsimmons. I was hoping you’d be one of the good ones.”

  Jake looked back from the doorway, and gave me a thumbs up before leaving. Had he bumped into Mary deliberately? Was he giving me a chance to prove I could fight with the power I had? Jake had always had faith in me, but now it seemed like I was in trouble. He’d come laughing and smiling into my life when we were only two years old and as so
on as I realized there was a difference between boys and girls I’d had a crush on him. Jake had even been my first kiss, a kiss that had led to nothing, as first kisses should. He’d stared at me awkwardly, and acted like it never happened. I’d taken it as a polite ’no thanks’, but to be fair, we were both ten at the time. I sighed at the captain’s words. “I just didn’t want her to start a fight,” I said.

  “So you started one of your own? Really?” The captain said in a tone of pure disbelief.

  “No-one got hurt.” I insisted.

  “You need to learn how to resolve things peacefully, Ms. Fitzsimmons,” said the captain.

  “I’m sorry, Captain.” He looked so disappointed in me my heart broke. Mary sneered in my direction.

  “Clearly Ms. Mayberry doesn’t think it’s possible to resolve things peacefully.”

  “Oh no, I do,” said Mary, “I just think that’s funny coming from a murderer.”

  The Captain’s face tightened, and he took a long deep breath before tearing his gaze from Mary.

  “Detention, after school, my office, both of you,” he stated firmly.

  “You want to put us in the same room together?” I cried, looking back and forth between them.

  He paused, and nodded to himself. “You have a point. You two will serve detention in different rooms.”

  Mary re-adjusted her jacket, smoothing out the collar, but didn’t seem to want to change her wet clothes. She stomped down the hallway. My stomach rumbled. I was not going to skip lunch. I put the last penny of my weekly allowance in the vending machine, and got myself a crappy sandwich. I was about to tear up the packaging when I saw Ashley talk to the captain who clapped him on the back as he left. Ashley just stood there as though he had no-where else to be, like he’d turned off, waiting for orders. My stomach rumbled again. Jake had ruined Mary’s lunch, but I had ruined his.

  Ashley was a long way down the hallway as my grip on the sandwich tightened. I sighed, and threw the sandwich at his head, hoping he’d catch it. It hit him in the center of his back, with a faint plastic slap. He swerved, his lips pushing against each other, his features almost shaking.

  “I swear to God, Fitz, if you want to start something-” his hand extended towards me in a warning gesture, like an owner to their dog. It really pissed me off; but then he caught sight of the sandwich on the floor. He shook his head as he knelt down and muttered something under his breath, all I could make out was, ‘at my head’.

  “Sorry about your lunch!” I said. His eyebrows twitched upward and his eyes widened, as though I’d spoken a different language. Then I left.

  ✰✰✰

  The rest of the school day went as expected, I was terrible in English, but couldn’t wait to get to math, it had a way of making me feel at home. I liked math. In math you’re either wrong, or right, no in-between. Not to mention my power helped a hell of a lot, I could think through all the problems and never frustrate myself with a time limit. As the bell for the end of the school day rang, everyone collected their color coded bags, and headed out the door.

  I had almost forgotten about detention until I saw the captain at the end of the hallway blocking access to the elevators. In my old school if I’d got detention, no one would have come looking. In fact, I don’t think I ever went to detention when I was told to, and none of the teachers ever brought it up.

  The captain though, he seemed more hands on. I kind of hated and admired that. I disliked his attempt at a firm grip on my behavior, but enjoyed the support. I’d never had an adult force me to do anything before, but there he was, forcing me to go to detention, and you know what? I was happy about it. He held out his arm down the hall, and followed beside me. A few students gave us some strange looks, after all I was the kid who got detention on the very first day. We stopped at a set of glass doors etched in large black triangles. The captain pushed them in, and went to sit behind his desk. The walls of his office were black and gold just like the lobby, and the chairs behind his desk were an off white color, their backs and arms like a U. It all seemed just a little too flashy; he’d always been a man of the people, a man’s man and this, apart from the pictures of his wife on his desk, wasn’t very, him, like the sleek suits you saw him in, as opposed to the loose ties and oversized shirts he preferred.

  I took my place in the U shaped chair opposite his desk, and saw Mary already sitting in the other. The captain signed something and then looked up to the both of us, pushing his paper work aside. “So. We need to figure something out between you two.”

  Mary refused to look away from the wall, or even acknowledge that I’d joined her. She wasn’t wet anymore, someone had dried off her clothes, or the school day had done it for her. “We don’t need to talk about who did what, we just need to discuss the emotion behind the fight. The others say you used your powers Mary, why was that?” the Captain asked, leaning forwards.

  “That handler was pissing me off,” she spat.

  “Good, but why was he pissi- I mean, annoying you?” he replied, in a tone that was far too calm.

  Mary didn’t reply for a moment, she looked at me briefly.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be here,” I suggested, “maybe you could call us in one at a time or something?” Mary’s sneer reappeared and Captain Fantastic chewed on his bottom lip.

  “Now now Ms. Fitzsimmons, there’s no need for that,” he said. “Mary?”

  “It’s none of your business,” she growled.

  The captain’s face dropped, and he sighed. “Well, in that case I really am going to have to give you two detention. You realize you’re giving this young lady detention too Ms. Mayberry?” Mary didn’t reply so the captain got up, opened a classroom door and shook the hand of another teacher. “Mary, this is Coach Flat, he’ll be overseeing your detention period.” Coach Flat tipped an invisible hat to her, and then to me. The Captain extended his hand, showed Mary to her seat and then closed the door behind her. He led me to a different door. It opened into a slightly smaller classroom with exactly two desks, one for me, and one for a teacher. Instead of a teacher, Ashley Ang sat at the front.

  “Ms. Fitzsimmons, since I’m Mr. Ang’s mentor he’ll be overseeing your detention. Don’t start any more fights.” With that, the captain left, closing the door behind him.

  Even as I sat down Ashley didn’t look up from what I assumed was his homework. I spied a small camera in the corner of the ceiling that probably linked directly to the website, they knew someone would be having detention in there, so no doubt they had a live feed. I kept my gaze firmly on those frosted glass doors, but I could feel Ashley’s eyes flickering up and glaring at me, sneering, frowning, whatever. There was nothing, nothing in the room to entertain me. I counted the tiles on the ceiling, I tried to unscrew my desk with my finger nails, but by the time I looked to the clock, only fifteen minutes had passed. I let out a sigh. The only vaguely interesting thing in the room was Ashley.

  He hunched over his work like the gawky giant he was, almost too big for the chair he sat in. This was Mrs. Adkins class room, and she was about as tall as me. Nothing in this room was the right scale for someone his height, he looked like an adult at a toddler’s tea party. Why did he have to be so dull? If it had been anyone else, I could have made up stories about him, figured out what his deal was from the hair on his sweater, or the paint on his jeans, but there wasn’t a speck of anything on Ashley Ang. His tie was deftly aligned, his shirt beautifully pressed, and his sweater, bright, but not too bright, heaven forbid someone would notice him! No, Ashley Ang was profoundly DULL, and it was annoying as hell. I bet he was the kind of guy I could lob a spitball at and he’d ignore me.

  Don’t do it Friday. Don’t do it. You’re just going to get into more trouble. I had to do it. I took a spare sheet of paper, crumpled it up into a nice neat ball, and in my boredom, I threw it at his head. The paper bounced right off his shoulder, without even so much as a flinch. I knew it. Ignore at all costs was his policy. Boring.

 
I tapped my toes against the floor, and sat up, trying to force myself to figure him out. So, his clothes were pressed and pristine, what did that say about him? What could I figure out about this guy? A choice in hairstyle or lack thereof says a lot about a person. I have messy, puffy hair, and a fringe straight out of the eighties. I work a lot, so I keep it in a bun, you can tell just by looking at me that I’m a hands-on kind of person. Jake is the kind of guy that likes to flip his dirty blonde bowl haircut. He does it because he likes to be trendy, but he also says the style is really easy to maintain. Captain Fantastic had an old fashioned comb back, in a glorious strawberry blond. Not that I was a fan or anything like that. Ashley, his hair was the kind of black that looked blue under the light. It went to the nape of his neck, combed back, with a gentle kink in it. It was actually kind of nice. Soft looking, whatever. He wasn’t interesting.

  I pulled out my phone to check school rankings, but everything was the same; Ashley sat comfortably at number five for the freshman class. I cycled through all the cameras currently live in the school and found the feed to the room we sat in but watching it was weird, so I looked to see if they’d put my face on any of the games in the app store.