Superheroes in Prose Volume Six: I, Pink

by Sevan Paris

  “Thinkor, really. I don’t care what is going on. Maybe you were possessed by someone. Maybe another telepath took control of your mind. Maybe you’re an evil clone. Maybe you went bonkers. Maybe this is just the way you always were. I really. Don’t. Care.”

  “Oh?” he says, raising a finger. A student next to him raises the gun to his own temple. He wears a UTP jacket with “Isaiah” stitched into the chest.

  I laugh. “You think I care about these people? As if.”

  “ …. Very well—let’s find something you do care about.”

  Whispers from all around me: “Care, care, care …”

  Burning, cold fingers curling around the insides of where my brain would be, making me scream more from surprise than pain. I bolt to the ceiling, trying to escape, only to find that I’m somewhere, some-when else … I’m human again and I’m talking to my mother and she is blaming me for something that isn’t my fault and telling me what a complete loser I am and how I wrecked her life and my eyes are getting blurry from the leakage and then—

  “STOP!” I say.

  I’m back in the classroom, floating ten feet above everybody. The students look at me, blank faced. Casa places his hand on the wall to steady himself and quickly shakes his head as if to clear it.

  I let my body meander back and forth in the air, unable to think about moving. “What … what the hell was that?”

  “That,” Thinkor raises a finger, “was what everyone in this room saw just now.”

  “Now, now, now …”

  I look at Gabe. “…. Everyone?”

  “A random slice of your life from way back when. How old do you think you were? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

  “You can’t—wait, this doesn’t make any sense. Telepaths can’t touch me.”

  Thinkor laughs. “Then how have you been able to hear this voice of mine all of these years?”

  “You said … you said it was a kind of projection that only—”

  “I’ve gained a special insight since then.”

  Memories rush at me …

  Wave after paralyzing wave … back from when this hot mess started five years ago. And with them come feelings, for other people—the kind that make you hurt. A lot. “What are you doing to me?”

  “In laymen's terms, I’m giving you back all of the emotions you lost. I imagine, that for a person who has felt as little as you have for this long, the experience must be quiet drowning.”

  “Don’t …” I say softly. “Don’t make me relive this. These memories. These feelings …” for the first time in five years, my voice trembles with shame. “Please …”

  “Please what?” Thinkor says. “Don’t tell you ‘why’?”

  “Why, why, why, why …”

  The biggest wave hits, bringing with it all kinds of emotional suck.

  I try to drown out everything with a scream.

  FIVE YEARS AGO …

  Man, I’m so nervous I wanna scream.

  I want my iPod. Need my iPod. Only some Brittany can get me zen when I’m like this. Or maybe some beer.

  Liberty takes a seat at the helm of the Icarus; it’s the crazy cool arrow-shaped jet we keep in the HEROES Tower hangar bay. (I said we!) Since I don’t have my iPod, I try to start up a conversation to settle the butterflies instead: “So this’ll be a fun day, huh, Liberty?”

  He turns in the pilot’s seat and faces me. The Icarus rocks slightly as the other members of HEROES take their seats. Liberty shakes his head and turns back, flipping two switches above his head. “You have an interesting idea of fun, Daisy.” The cabin fills with a vibrating hum of the engines.

  “If not an all together ironic one,” Ms. Mystick says. I turn to face her. She sits in the last seat, closest to the tail of the jet. Silver Sentinel and Thinkor sit in her row. Rock and I sit on the opposite side, facing theirs.

  “What? This Cobb guy doesn’t sound like he’s all that.” I cross my arms, trying to match Mystick’s confidence. My glam costume totally helps: It’s a school girl looking ensemble, complete with green plaid skirt, white button up, and knee high socks. I tied up the shirt front, to show off my belly. Pink ties hold back my braided pig tails. And For that extra Superhero flair, I had the HEROES seamstress add a matching pink domino mask that covers my green eyes.

  “His name is Ma-cabre,” Mystick says. “And I assure you, he is ‘all that’ and significantly more.”

  I shrug and fiddle with the end of a my brown pigtail, trying not to notice how Mystick’s boobs make my flat chest look even flatter. I try to focus on something else instead. Something awesomely distract worthy. Like the fact that I’m FINALLY a Superhero! And that I’m a probationary member of HEROES at just nineteen! And that I’m about to face my first baddie-bad! A real, bonafide Supervillain!

  Wait a sec …

  A knot forms in my stomach, quickly followed by a tingling all through my body. What if I do something wrong? What if I get hurt? What if—what if I end up like Fusion. Or Amazon?

  My hands tremble so much that it’s all I can do to get my seatbelt fastened. The vibration of the Icarus’ engines does a dosey doe with my anxiety, pressing right on my too flat chest. I close my eyes …

  Stop.

  Just stop the freakage and get a hold of yourself, Daisy. Calm down and get this seatbelt fastened. Maybe the straps will keep you from running out of the Icarus, screaming like a baby.

  Liberty flips some more switches and the vibration throughout the Icarus goes up by a factor of a bazillion. The upper part of the hangar bay falls away from our windows and the city of Prose begins to shrink. My left leg shakes even though I tell it not to; it ignores me just like I ignored my mother back when she told me I’d never make it as a Superhero.

  In the seat next to me, Rock lets out a gruff. He gently places the edge of his ginormous, stony hand on my shaking knee. “You’ll do okay, kid.” His deep voice drowns out the engines.

  I take a deep breath, hoping it will steady my voice. Honestly, why is this hitting me RIGHT now? “Easy for you to say. You’ve been doing this for, what? Ten years?”

  He nods, producing a grinding sound. He took Fusion’s spot on the team after that thing crawled out of the Tennessee River and …

  I close my eyes again.

  Don’t think about it.

  Rock hunches over and shifts to the left, trying to find a more comfortable position for his stone body. Can’t imagine he’s going to have much luck. “But this isn’t really our thang, y’know?” he says, white eyes falling on Mystick. “We’re just there to run interference for She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named.”

  Mystick looks from the window to Rock. “Oh, a Harry Potter joke. How original.”

  Rock shrugs. “We all original in our own way.”

  Rock’s mostly right about that. Ms. Mystick is a Magickal Sayer, which brings it’s own unique kind of weird. Rock is, well, made out of his namesake. Thinkor has no facial features—just a brain looking thing for a head, color matching the rest of his green body. Nobody has ever seen Silver Sentinel’s face, but the guy is so abrasive who would want to. And Liberty is such a hero—such an icon—that nobody in the whole world can come close to his level.

  “Hang on, team,” Liberty says. “We’re about to go full throttle.” He pushes up a lever and, after a sudden jolt, the blue sky outside darkens.

  I catch Rock’s eyes looking at my shaking leg. At least, I think I do. He doesn’t have pupils, so it’s hard to say.

  “So what’s up with that Brittany Spears-looking outfit of yours?”

  I flick the ties on the shirt back and forth. “I don’t know … I just like her I guess. And her music. Gives me a spoonful of happy.”

  Rock shakes his head. “Her stuff is too fluffy. Except for that one song; it’s kind of clever, the one with the letters: F—U—C—”

  “ ‘If You Seek Amy?’ Those aren’t letters; they’re words. And the song—oh, wait—I think I just got that …”

  “Seriously?” A
sound escapes his slit of a mouth, sort of like a small rock slide. His version of a laugh. “How did you just now get that?”

  “Shut up,” I say, looking away and wondering the same thing.

  “I, okay—one more question. Then my ass’ll be quiet. Promise. What the heck is up with your name? Bubble Trouble?”

  “So, what, you got a problem with my Superhero name now?”

  “I don’t know, just seems like you should come up with something that fits your costume little better. Something like … Jail Bait?”

  “Shut up!” I elbow him, playfully, but it’s still hard enough to send pain shooting up my not-so-funny bone.

  More rockslide sounds, a bit lower, like a chuckle. “But seriously, you ever think of coming up with something more original? Something a little less Brittany and a little more Daisy?”

  I rub my elbow and raise the tips of my shoes. “My crocs and my mask are pink, my favorite color.”

  “Okay, yeah. Young girl, favorite color is pink—I can see how that’s original.”

  I give him the meanest glare I can. He returns it. We last a full four seconds before both of us crack up, laughing. I think I even catch Mystick smiling a little.

  She opens her mouth to say something, but Liberty interrupts her: “We’re going to be at Macabre’s island in fifteen minutes,” he says. The Icarus angles down, taking us back into the blue. “Sentinel?”

  Sentinel nods, bobbing the purple plume on top of his head. He holds out his right hand, palm up and a wire hologram of a tropical island flickers to life.

  “That’s V-Island,” Rock says. “I recognize the mountain in the middle.”

  “It was Dr. Villainous’ island,” Sentinel says. “He hasn’t set foot on it since we locked him up in The Bend last year. Some researches are supposed to be there, studying Villainous’ stash of Zyborg tech.”

  “Supposed to be there?” I say.

  Sentinel nods. “We lost touch with them this morning, and a satellite recorded this just an hour ago.” He taps a few buttons on the forearm of his armor and the image zooms into the beach. Large skulls appear and disappear from under the swirling sand, the mountain, and the water along the shoreline. They seem to be laughing, screaming or both. “Even Villainous’ stash of Zyborg tech couldn’t rearrange the topography like this. In fact, no tech that I’ve ever seen could. The only possible explanation here is Macabre.”

  “Wait, there are other people,” I say. “Other Magickal Sayers or whatever. How do you know it isn’t one of them?”

  Mystick shakes her head. “There aren’t that many Sayers that can exist at one time. So I asked where all of the others were and they told me.”

  “And that’s it?” Rock grumbles. “You just believe them?”

  Mystick seems to consider Rock’s comment for a moment. “When Sayers speak, we must speak the truth. To do otherwise jeopardizes our ability to say Magick.”

  I wonder, for a moment, if that outfit and her double D’s are supposed to jeopardize other people’s ability to use Magick too.

  Liberty flips the Icarus over to autopilot and steps into the back, joining us. Even in the cramped cabin, the guy seems larger than life: black costume with gold highlights, dark red cape with a star on the back, grey hair that he manages to still make look handsome, even to a chick my age. A strong jaw to match the rest of his strong body, and a presence—an air—about him that commands respect before a word even leaves his lips.

  Liberty crosses his arms and his cape falls perfectly around his strong shoulders. “Okay, team, sorry to do all of this on the way, but Mystick and I were afraid Macabre would Magick his way out from under us if we took the time to brief before leaving Prose. And we’ve been trying to catch him since Fusion. Now is our chance.”

  “Whoa, wait, THAT guy was what killed Fusion?” I say. “I thought it was that tentacle monster thing that came out of the river.”

  Ms. Mystick leans over, boobs somehow staying in her top. “Macabre summoned the creature. But for what purpose, I cannot say.”

  “But you have a guess,” says Liberty.

  Mystick nods and leans back. “I believe his intention was to send a clear message to the rest of the Sayers: I’m ready.”

  The lonely hum of the Icarus’ engines is the only thing we hear for a bit.

  Sentinel’s plume turns to Mystick. “Ready for what exactly?”

  “When one Sayer kills another, he becomes more powerful,” Mystick says. I believe Macabre is saying that he is ready to kill all of the other Sayers. To become as powerful as he possibly can.”

  “So that’s why we didn’t bring any of them?” Thinkor says. His whispery, telepathic words seem to come from behind me. “You’re afraid that he will be ready for them. Prepared some sort of trap, specific to Sayers?”

  “Precisely,” Mystick says. “But I don’t thing he’ll be ready for the skill set that HEROES and one lone Sayer, such as myself, can bring.”

  Rock shifts in his seat. “But, Mystick, you joined the team same time I did. The world knows that, and Macabre knows that. This could just as easily be a trap for us too.”

  Mystick’s eyes fall to Liberty.

  Liberty crosses to the other side of the cabin, arms still crossed. His cape sways behind him, as if it dares any of us to break his thoughts. After pausing for a few moments, facing the the tail of the Icarus, he finally turns back. “Bubble Trouble, let me ask you a question …”

  My heart leaps into my throat, quickly followed by a hammering in my ears.

  “You took the oath, just this morning, correct?”

  “Yep. I mean, yes. Yes I did.”

  “And would you mind repeating it for the others?” His tone doesn’t leave room for a question.

  Painfully aware of every eye on me, I clear my throat. “I, Bubble Trouble, do solemnly swear to use my powers to triumph over evil, always behave in such a way to create respect for an established authority, uphold the law, and enforce the Wertham Act to its fullest extent.” My voice doesn’t get shaky until the last sentence. If anybody notices, they thankfully don’t show it.

  “Thank you,” Liberty says, eyes meeting everyone else’s. “Rock is correct: There is every possibility that Macabre has laid a trap for us. But that’s no different than any other emergency we respond to on a daily basis. What is different this time is that we’re facing the person that killed one of our own ten years ago. And that angers us. And scares us.”

  He lets the last sentence hang in the air for a few moments.

  Liberty places his hand on my shoulder. “People believe that HEROES don’t feel fear. But that’s ludicrous. Of course we feel fear. But we have the power to overcome it and THAT’S what makes us mighty. Not our powers. Not our outfits. But simply who. We. Are.” Liberty points a finger outside the viewport. The clouds clear, showing a distant, lonely island surrounded by blue. “Now, that man may be in a position to kill considerably more people by this time tomorrow. As in the people that don’t put on the costume. As in the ones Bubble Trouble and the rest of us swore to protect. I’m not going to lie: I can’t guarantee all of us will come back from this. But I can guarantee you one thing: Macabre definitely won’t.”

  Another silence passes. I don’t think there is a person in the cabin who wouldn’t lay down their life for him.

  Which is good because the flames that suddenly engulf the Icarus tell me we may have to.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alarms wail, as if the Icarus thinks we’re clueless about dying and stuff.

  Liberty stabs a finger at me and then points at Rock. “Force field NOW!” And before I even realize his golden boots have left the deck, the World’s Greatest Hero slams through the roof of the Icarus—red and orange flame rush in, angrily taking his place and cutting us off from the others. The ship lurches and metal screams. The world spins through the viewports: ocean/sky, ocean/sky, ocean/sky.

  A smarter girl—a hero girl—would have done what Liberty told her. Right the
n. Right there. But me—I just look around, mouth hanging open like it did when pictures of Brittany Spear’s tweety hit the Internet.

  “Behind me!” Rock says spreading his body out to cover me. The flames claw at us, burning away what’s left of Rock’s seatbelt straps. I touch Rock’s back, blistering the bejesus out of my hand. The hull buckles … a scream escapes my mouth before I have a chance to bite my bottom lip.

  Cowboy up, girl. People are about to die. You’re about to die.

  I hold my arms up, as far as I can reach. And force everything—the screaming metal, the roaring flames, and the banging on death’s door crap—I force it all into the part of my noggin that doesn’t care about anything. The part that will let me survive this. The part that always has my back when life get’s to be too much.

  A vibration balls up in my brain, in beat with Brittany’s music, and then quickly increases in size. It grows out of my head, the rest of my body, and then envelops both of us in a transparent, pink bubble.

  “How strong is this thing?” Rock screams, eyeballing the electricity arcing around the Icarus. He has a weird weakness to it.

  I don’t answer. Cause I, like, can’t answer. The music won’t let me. It knows I’ll die. I’ve never bubbled against anything this big, this hot. But if I don’t do it, I’m dead. Dead, dead, dead. And Rock too, even if the electricity never touches him—he’s just too heavy to swim and I know he has to breathe. Major Mayhem KO’d him with gas last year.

  The Icarus bounces once.

  I hold the bubble. Rock yells something else. I screw my eyes shut.

  We flip, spin, and bounce again.

  Viewports explode. Water crashes into the cabin, dousing the flames and shoving against my bubble. With a screeching wrench, the Icarus’ wings rip away and somersault into the waves fifty feet behind us. The hull on the far side peels back, yanking away seats and equipment. Then, the Icarus rises up and smacks into the surface of the water one final time, sending us out of the jet’s nose and into the sunlight.

  Inside my pink energy bubble, Rock and I skip hard across the top of the ocean, flaming pieces of Icarus skidding away in every direction. After five violent bounces, the shore smashes into the bubble, taking away the last bit of Supersauce that I have. The bubble pops, dumping us into the sand, an entangled heap of arms, legs and Rock.