by Matt Carter
“You think they’re using a new shampoo?” Showstopper asked.
“Same as always I think,” Spasm said, munching from a bag of popcorn.
“Seems to be taking a lot longer than usual to wash out,” Showstopper said, stealing some of his popcorn.
“This one’s on me,” Circus said, smiling and bouncing back and forth spastically in his lawn chair. “Touch a bottle, change its molecular composition just so slightly that it still looks, feels, and smells the same but takes ten percent longer to wash out. Don’t all thank me at once.”
For someone who usually hung out with Carnivore, Circus wasn’t so bad. On the rare occasions when he dropped the cartoon look and slowed down, he was almost decent to hang around, at least as pudgy, fifteen-year-old Japanese nerds go. However, given his ability to hold complete control over reality within six inches of himself and the fact that puberty was hitting him like a ton of bricks, he could also be unpredictable and annoying as shit.
“Thank you,” I said before he might have decided to do something more attention-grabbing… at least more attention-grabbing than what he was already doing.
Some of the other guys were able to ignore him. Sitting right next to him, Spasm wasn’t.
“Could you restrain yourself, or perhaps just go to the bushes?”
Circus scoffed, “I see a hot girl, I’m gonna ogle. I see a hot naked girl, I’m gonna file that in the spank bank. I see three hot naked girls showering, I’m gonna jack it. It’s biology. Can’t be helped. Besides, I put up the censor bar! What’s the problem?”
I had to give him that. He did put up a floating black bar in front of his hand and crotch, but you could still see what he was doing, even though you couldn’t actually see it.
“Your bar’s too big,” Showstopper suggested.
“Yeah, but it’s still there! I’m totally fucking PG-13, cut me some slack!”
Spasm had less patience for Circus. He pointed at him.
The younger boy looked like he’d been kicked in the gut, jerking and falling out of his chair with a face that looked equal parts pleasure and pain.
“You’re done,” Spasm said.
“The fuck, dude!” Circus exclaimed. “Did you just—”
“Now wash your hands and let us watch in peace,” Spasm said, never once taking his eyes off the shower. Staggering to his feet and looking confused, Circus took on his cartoon clown form and bounced away towards the men’s showers.
“Thanks for taking one for the team,” Showstopper said, joining the rest of us in patting Spasm on the back.
Spasm shrugged, lighting up another cigarette. “I’ve done worse for better reasons.”
Too soon for our liking, the girls finished. Though this got some groans, it wasn’t the end of the world; the girls traveled in packs when it came to the showers, so we knew that more would come soon.
Unfortunately for us, that more happened to be Ghost Girl and Firewall.
“Okay, guys, show’s over. Shut it down, Odigjod,” I said, to the groans of the rest of the group. Though Firewall and Ghost Girl were probably the two least attractive girls on the island, they weren’t that bad looking, and these guys would take anything.
I couldn’t look in on their private time, though, something about it just felt… weird. So we went off in search of breakfast and Felix. Breakfast was in the mess hall, as usual (though boasting a waffle bar today), but Felix wasn’t. Since he hadn’t announced a hike, though, we had an idea of where we could hunt him down.
Sure enough, he was in a dark corner of the ruins, making out with Swashbuckler (Carnivore’s pirate friend).
Showstopper decided to announce our presence by touching a finger to his temple and making Felix and Swashbuckler engage in an elaborate tap dance routine.
“You’re getting better at these,” I said.
“That’s the thing about art, you always have to outdo yourself,” Showstopper replied. “Wanna join them? Make it a threesome?”
I shuddered. “Don’t even try getting in my head.”
“Fine, fine, ruin all my fun,” he said, letting them go. Swashbuckler bounced off a couple walls parkour-style and leapt over us, yelling a long string of British profanity (which, to my ears at least, wasn’t dirty in the slightest). Felix was only slightly less offended.
“Seriously guys, what the fuck? When’s the last time I ever cockblocked you?” he said, crystallizing the palms of his hands before smacking Showstopper and me in the backs of our heads.
“We’d need dates first, so, never I guess,” Showstopper replied, rubbing the back of his head.
Even with the pain, I started laughing like hell. “So we gonna plan a wedding for you guys or what?”
Showstopper poked me in the ribs. “That joke was funny until you started laughing.”
Felix took up most of our walk to the mess hall explaining how he and Swashbuckler weren’t serious, that they were just making the most of being the only two gay guys here and had what fun they could. He didn’t need to defend himself, not to me at least. Though Swashbuckler was a douche who wore more makeup than most of the girls here, I was glad at least someone in our group was getting some.
Of course, dealing with Swashbuckler’s friends was another matter entirely.
Swashbuckler, Circus, and, of course, Carnivore intercepted us before we could make the mess hall. As usual, Carnivore was angry, and as usual he directed that anger towards me.
“You shouldn’t have cut the shower show off. Some of us weren’t finished,” he growled.
Three-plus weeks on this island, and I still hadn’t figured out how not to feel like a deer in headlights around Carnivore.
“He was,” Showstopper said, pointing at Circus.
“But I wasn’t,” Carnivore said.
“Well, you could have always used your imagination, or did they remove that when they gang-raped your genes?” Showstopper goaded.
Carnivore hissed, flicking a snake-like tongue at Showstopper and baring his fangs. That got Showstopper to shut up. Taking a step forward, Carnivore put a clawed hand on my chest. Threatening, but not enough to set off his Creeper.
“Next time, I don’t care if it’s your girlfriends or your mommy showering, we’ll tell you when we’re done.”
“They’re not my girlfriends,” I said, trying to sound tough while hiding my shattered nerves.
Carnivore cocked his head, sniffing something on the wind, and turned toward the mess hall with his gang.
“We’ll finish this after classes,” he said as they walked away.
After classes? What was this, high school?
The hero-led classes were a mixed bag.
Most of them were like being in school again, at least, what I’d imagine being in an acting school would be like. We had classes on diction and inflection, on line memorization and stage presence, on boosting our confidence and being able to radiate an air of being a professional supervillain. These were all right, and I did pretty well thanks in most part to the superhero teachers, who seemed to like me. Frankly, these subjects weren’t the sort of thing I’d have thought the superheroes would be good at teaching, but since most of them did more film and TV shows than actual heroing these days, it made sense. Periodically we would get pulled out of these classes for a sit-down with a personal image consultant who would run us through ideas for costumes and ways of improving our supervillain persona. I was good here as well, so they didn’t have much to change, but Felix, Firewall, and Odigjod were run through the ringer with suggestions.
The physical fitness and fighting classes that Blackjack led ran us ragged, but after the first couple weeks (combined with Felix’s hikes) I was beginning to feel pretty damn good about myself. I was getting the hang of Cape Fu (the showy and deadly mixed-martial-arts all respectable supers prefer), and was starting to figure out how to merge it with the stage fighting courses so that I could look cool without killing whoever I was fighting. Some of us even got special training in w
eapons; Ghost Girl had become fairly lethal with a retractable quarterstaff that her consultant thought would make her look cooler.
The class that I always looked forward to and dreaded the most was my Power Perfection class, where all of us with similar powers were put into small classes to be taught by a specialist hero who could help us “maximize our superhuman potential.”
I looked forward to it because I got to sit next to Nevermore. Though she wasn’t telekinetic, her powers of projection were deemed close enough, so I got at least a good hour every day to ogle and flirt with her. And by flirting, of course I mean her looking good and occasionally giggling at me and me trying not to say the worst thing possible (as Ghost Girl would say).
She was good at flirting. I was pretty sure I was improving.
I dreaded the class because of pretty much everything else… like the fact that I was at the bottom of the class. Apsara, the two other guys whose codenames I could never remember, and Nevermore all had precision, enough to a point where they could safely use their powers to fly. I was easily the strongest one there, but no way was I going to risk trying to pick myself up off the ground. I could break things too easily, lift some things with a bit more difficulty, and according to my teacher I was a long way away from having control over my power. Hell, I’d almost killed myself with a mango!
My teacher was the other problem.
I didn’t doubt Helios’s credentials as a superhero. In his mid-twenties, he had the devastatingly handsome look of a movie star and knew how to pull off his white and gold suit. His mastery of telekinesis was impressive, as were his energy blasts and superstrength, and I’d seen enough of his commercials and movies to know he was a pretty good actor.
I also didn’t doubt that he had it out for me for what I did to Icicle Man.
While he put the others through basic exercises, he put me through the most difficult tests where I’d always make a fool out of myself. There were times during exercises where I’d be covered in mud and bruises, and the only sound I could hear was everyone else’s laughter. I was sure I was gone after each class, but I kept passing on to the next stage.
I was pretty sure he just kept me around to torture me, and nothing he said or did contradicted this theory.
Yet even after my run-in with Carnivore that morning, I was feeling pretty good heading to Power Perfection class. Not even Helios dropping the bomb that we’d have our fifth elimination test later in the day could ruin my mood. Our lesson of the day was to see how many clay pigeons we could shoot out of the air when ten were launched. Apsara, normally the overachiever, managed to get eight. The other two guys managed five each. Nevermore projected multiple tattoos at once, sending out a swarm of birds, a swinging bladed pendulum, and a stylized (and surprisingly limber) orangutan to destroy nine targets before they hit the ground.
I was sure I could take all ten; this wasn’t a test of precision, as I could send one wave and destroy them all. This would be easy, just focus and done. Maybe I’d even impress Nevermore enough to finally get her naked.
I got up to the line and prepared to strike.
The pigeons were in the air. I began to focus.
There was a roar behind me, and I half-turned to face it. Before I could, I was face down on the ground after being hit from behind.
Then the focus kicked in, blasting me—and my attacker—off the ground. I was confused when I first saw the ground flying away from me. I only started to get scared when I saw the trees start to fly away from me.
What do they say?: It’s not the fall that kills you, just the sudden stop?
I must’ve started screaming around the time gravity kicked back. I don’t know how long I kept screaming, but it was a while. Even after Helios flew up and brought me down to Earth I was still shaking and gibbering with a rapidly expanding piss stain forming in the front of my shorts.
“What the fuck were you thinking? You almost got us all killed!” Helios roared at my attacker.
“I was just doing an assignment for class! You can ask Mr. Creature! He wanted us to stalk and take down someone without them seeing!” Carnivore said, his voice dripping innocence.
The two argued back and forth for a while as the rest of our class looked on in confusion and amusement and maybe some fear for me, as I finally started to calm down. Carnivore was good at faking innocence, but when Helios turned away to call for Creature, he snuck me a wink.
He’d humiliated me in front of a superhero and Nevermore.
I had to destroy him.
There were only thirty-one of us left by the time the fifth elimination test rolled around. In the past three weeks we’d buried five people next to Iron Bear; one because of a dinosaur attack, two from suicide (a hanging and a guy who fed himself to some vampire vines), and another two who had their Creepers activated in front of us after attempting escape.
The rest had been cut from the competition by the judges and sent straight to the Tower.
On their own, the tests weren’t so bad; they were mostly to see how we’d do under pressure in simulations of various challenges supervillains would face in the field. Wardrobe problems, delivering a powerful monologue to the press, containing a group of hostages. Simple stuff.
They weren’t that difficult so long as you did exactly what the heroes told you, and though I was rarely the top of any of them, I always did well enough to move on.
This test wasn’t any different. Blackjack told us that, while most of our encounters with superheroes would be coordinated and choreographed, there might be times when we would need to escape from prying eyes and blend in to our surroundings. As such, we were given a thirty-second head start into the forest before having a half-dozen robotic drones sent to hunt us down. Without attacking the drones, we had to evade them for as long as possible.
Easy enough. I’d spent enough of my life blending in that this wasn’t a difficult task, and I made it five minutes in the jungle before they got me, which was actually pretty long compared to the others. Black Blur and Shooting Star gave me top marks, and even the Voice of the People had to give me slight praise for using my powers for tearing down a part of a tree for cover. Based on my performance and the hero’s praise, I was confident that I’d make it through to the next round.
Now it was time to make sure that Carnivore wouldn’t.
I was so focused on his turn coming up that the rest of the world around me might as well have not existed. I didn’t even hear what my friends were joking about. All my attention was on Carnivore.
Then Showstopper said the one thing that could have stolen my attention from revenge.
“You know, I think she likes you, mate,” he said, punching me in the shoulder.
“Nevermore?”
“No, Shooting Star,” he said, pointing to the judge’s table. She was looking at me, even flashing that million-dollar smile of hers she always showed off in her toothpaste commercials before turning back to the other judges.
“She wants you,” Showstopper joked.
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Yes, she does.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“Actually, she does,” Ghost Girl said.
“Really?” Showstopper and I said simultaneously.
“Oh yeah.”
“Why?” Firewall asked. That would have been my question, too, but I would’ve sounded less disgusted.
“She keeps a prim and proper public image, but she dreams of fucking bad boys. Or girls even, if she gets drunk enough,” said Ghost Girl.
“Why’d you look at me when you said that?” Firewall asked.
“I was looking at Aidan, you just happen to be in between.”
“Because I like guys.”
“So you’ve made abundantly clear,” Showstopper chimed in.
Firewall shot back, “Look, just because I don’t spread my legs like all the girls here doesn’t mean I’m—”
“Shooting Star?” I said to Ghost Girl, trying to get things back
on track.
“She’s always wanted to fuck a supervillain, and with the pickings of straight male villains pretty low, she looks at you as the most fuckable by default,” Ghost Girl said.
It was times like this I really loved her aura-reading power.
“I can work with default,” I said. Trying to hook up with Shooting Star had never even entered my mind. I mean, sure, like any red-blooded American I’d spent my time jacking it to her back home, but she was a celebrity, impossible for someone like me to have dreamed about getting with before.
But you are a celebrity now. You’re Apex Strike. You can get her.
Then it hit me.
“Wait, you can see who wants to have sex with who?” I asked.
Ghost Girl nodded. “I see lots of things.”
“What about Nevermore? Do I stand a chance with her?”
“Of course you do. Just ask to have sex with her and you’re in.”
“Really? It’s that easy?”
“Of course. She’s desperately unhappy from a hard and depressing life and thusly has incredibly low self-esteem. She’s been used by people so often she’s confused sex with happiness and has so tied her identity to her sexuality she’s lost who she is. So if you just want sex, then yes, it is that easy. If you would truly like to touch her soul and forge an enduring romantic bond, then I would recommend talking to her. Getting to know her. No one has given her that courtesy in a long time.”
Most of what she’d said was awful, but the rest swelled my hope (among other parts).
“So… she would fuck me?”
Ghost Girl shook her head, cursing in Afrikaans.
“Felix, smack him please?” Firewall asked.
“With pleasure,” Felix said, transforming most of his hand into crystal and slapping me in the back of the head.