“Several months ago, you accepted an invitation from FIST,” said Havoc. “You agreed to be a potential trainer for the Sidekick Internship Program, if you were so chosen.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“You were chosen.”
A hint of realization suddenly flickered through Flex’s eyes. His gaze slowly shifted to me and then jolted back to Havoc, wider than ever. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a sec. I only agreed to that for the money. I didn’t think they’d actually be stupid enough to pick me!”
Well this just kept getting better and better. I had been pawned off to some hippie alcoholic mooching off the system.
“Well, apparently they are stupid enough,” said Havoc. Stepping to the side, he gestured to me. “Flex, this is Marrow. Marrow, Flex. You’ll be spending the next three months with each other. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” said Flex. “Do I look qualified to train a freaking sidekick?”
“Nope.” Havoc shook his thick bald head. “But that’s not my problem.”
With that he turned and exited the bedroom.
“Wait!” said Flex. He bolted out of bed but flopped onto the floor just as fast. Tangled in his own bed sheets, he eventually managed to free his legs and stagger upright. He cast one frenzied glance at me before chasing after Havoc. “You can’t leave this kid here with me!”
“Watch me,” Havoc called from the hallway.
I abandoned my suitcase and slowly followed the two of them as a hopeless spectator. It wasn’t bad enough that I was being dumped with a hero reject. Oh no. I was officially being rejected by the reject as well.
As Havoc started across the living room, Flex flung his arm forward. Against every law of physics, his arm stretched thirty feet like a bungee jumping cord. His hand latched onto the doorknob. If that wasn’t weird enough, he pulled back and then flung himself across the room like a slingshot. He hit the door with a weird splat and then puffed out into his normal human shape—which was still quite eccentric as, wild eyed, he blocked the doorway with his gangly limbs.
“I’m not letting you through here without that kid,” said Flex.
Havoc chuckled to himself. “I didn’t use the front door.”
In a subtle poof of wispy smoke, he vanished.
Flex continued to stand at the front door in a blank daze. His gaze slowly drifted across the living room to me. Our eyes remained interlocked for several long seconds, and we were like two wild animals staring each other down. At least Flex seemed like a wild animal. I felt more like a rat in a cage. Finally, Flex let out a long sigh and staggered off into the kitchen, rummaging through the pantry. He came away with another liquor bottle in hand.
“I’m not nearly drunk enough for this,” he said.
Taking a long swig, he shuffled back to his bedroom and shut the door.
CHAPTER 7
Flex’s nasty apartment was my arch nemesis. I was dead set on defeating it.
After a fast trip to the quickie mart on the corner, I was armed with scouring pads, sponges, a box of garbage bags, and a monstrous bottle of Greased Lightning all-purpose cleaner. Heck, I even bought a carton of plug-in air fresheners. And before you go calling me a clean freak, believe me, I wouldn’t have bothered if the place didn’t smell like Flex’s dead grandmother was hiding under the floor boards.
Honestly, I’d never taken the initiative to clean in my entire life. But this . . . this wasn’t just about cleaning. It was about survival. If I was going to live in this hole for the next three months, it at least needed to be livable. Currently, it was a biohazard.
Most of the battle involved filling garbage bags. The worst part was scraping half-eaten moldy food off of a gazillion mismatched plates before stacking them by the sink. Some of them were completely engulfed in moldy fuzz, practically unidentifiable. These particular dishes triggered my gag reflex more often than not. Four trash bags later, Flex’s apartment looked practically empty.
After filling the sink with water, I dumped the toxic dishes inside. I was almost shocked to find that Flex actually owned dish soap. The bottle was practically full and looked like it had only been used once. I squirted a hefty amount into the sink and watched the foam rise before wielding my dish scrubber like a battle axe.
As for Flex’s crusty, nasty clothes lying around, I simply tossed them in a pile in front of the bedroom door. The pile became a small mountain reaching up to the doorknob. By the time I finished, I was only slightly disappointed to not find the slightest hint of a Superhero jumpsuit. Then again, maybe that just meant that it was hung up in his closet or folded up nice in his dresser.
Bam. Smack. Thunk. My cleaning spree was interrupted as a series of sharp sounds from a neighboring apartment pierced through the thin walls. This was accompanied almost simultaneously by a harsh male voice shouting indiscernibly.
Shortly after, a girl screamed.
I rushed to the door and peered through the peephole just as the door across the hall burst open and slammed shut. A cute blonde—probably fifteen years old—with a midriff top and a belly button ring had stormed out. Not a second later, some punk kid in a white tank top and sleeve tattoos—maybe a year or two older than her—burst out as well. His hair was buzzed short, with a scraggly attempt to grow a goatee hanging from his chin. He grabbed the girl by the arm, jerking her towards him.
My hand tensed on the doorknob.
“Mia, don’t you dare walk away from me when I’m talking to you,” he said.
“Let me go!” she said, struggling to break free. “Tad, you’re hurting me!”
Tad. With a name like that, the guy was officially the king of douche bags. This was confirmed as he proceeded to twist her wrist.
“Teach you to talk back to me!”
Mia screamed. Her free hand flew out to slap him, but he caught this hand as well. Tad then released it only to backhand her in the face.
I threw the front door open.
“Get your hands off her!” I shouted.
The hallway went silent. Both Tad and Mia turned to face me with looks of bewilderment. The moment was enough for Mia to break free of Tad’s grasp, but he was too preoccupied with me to care now. His wide eyes narrowed and his slack jaw clenched shut with gritted teeth.
“You say something, kid?” he asked, chest puffed out.
“Uh, yeah, duh,” I said. “Did you not understand me? Do I have to use smaller words? Maybe I could spell it out for you?”
“What’d you say?” Tad took a step closer. “You have a death wish or something?”
“Ha! Death wish . . . that’s funny,” I said, pretending to chuckle. “Says the loser who picks on girls half his size to make himself feel tough. Seriously, dude. It’s pathetic. Why don’t you go be a juvenile delinquent somewhere else?”
Tad’s nostrils flared. Cracking his knuckles, he started towards me. “I hope you’re hungry, ‘cause I’m gonna give you a knuckle sandwich in that fat mouth of yours.”
Knuckle sandwich? Wow. This guy was as bad at comebacks as Nero.
I tapped into my bone structure and felt the pressure beneath my feet disappear. I was a feather on the ground. Tad reared his elbow back and launched a wide and extremely sloppy punch. I doubted he’d ever hit anyone but girls his entire life.
My hand lashed out, and I increased the density in my arm, tripling my normal strength. I caught his fist in my palm like a baseball. Actually, it was more like a flimsy softball tossed underhand.
Then I twisted it.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow owwy! OWWY!” Tad wailed in a shrill voice.
Yep. He really said “owwy.” Twice.
Increasing the remainder of my bone structure to match my heavy arm, I became an unbreakable anchor. “Does that feel good?” I asked in a calm voice.
Tad whimpered and shook his head vigorously. “What are you? Are you . . . ? You’re . . . you’re one of those Super freaks, aren’t you?”
The moment I noticed, it was too late. Tad’s free hand came o
ut of his pocket with the metallic glint of a switchblade.
The blade stopped short. Something whooshed past my right ear, hitting Tad’s face with a smack. He flew out of my grasp, across the hall, and into the opposite door with a hinge-rattling thud.
It took a moment to register what had just intervened. Tad had been punched. I was staring at the fist that did it. But this fist was attached to an arm stretching across the hall and over my shoulder like a skinny, flesh-toned anaconda. I whipped around, and sure enough, Flex was there, standing in the middle of the living room in his boxers. From where he stood, I realized he had thrown the punch an impressive thirty feet or more. As his arm swiftly snapped back, regaining its normal length and shape instantly, he pointed his index finger like the barrel of a gun.
“You.”
He was pointing at Tad. He met Flex’s fierce gaze with his mouth ajar. A line of red connected his bloody nose and cut lip.
“Get out of here before I throw you down the stairs,” said Flex.
Tad was shaking as he staggered hastily to his feet. “Freaks!” he said. “All of you! You’ll be sorry. Just wait. You’ll be sorry!”
With that, he took off down the stairs.
Rather than lowering his hand, Flex’s pointed finger shifted to me. “You. Get in here. Now.”
Flex may have looked like a drunk hippie with his clumpy dreadlocks, scraggly face, and gangly build, but right now, he was a pissed off drunk hippie. I bit my lip and reluctantly stepped inside.
“Hey,” said Mia. She shifted from one foot to the other as I turned around and met her gaze, tucking a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “Thank you.” Her timid gaze shifted to Flex. “Both of you.”
“Stop dating douche bags, Mia,” said Flex. With that, his arm shot across the living room and slammed the door shut behind me.
I watched his elastic arm as it snapped back into place. He then proceeded to fold his arms with a stern gaze.
Hey, at least he wasn’t passed out in his room, right? And he actually looked halfway sober now.
“What was that?” asked Flex.
“That jerk hit her,” I said. “I was just trying to help.”
“Trying to help,” said Flex. “That’s interesting. Because to me, it looked like a twelve-year-old brat nearly getting shanked outside my apartment.”
“I’m fourteen,” I grumbled.
“I don’t care if you’re a hundred and fifty-two,” said Flex. “What you did was stupid.”
I bit my lip, struggling to keep a calm face. I could feel the irritation boiling hot. “I had everything under control.”
“Starting a fight outside my apartment is not keeping things under control,” said Flex. “What happens when that punk brings all his punk friends over to start a fight?”
“What, are you afraid?” I asked. “I could take that punk and all his friends by myself. I don’t need you.”
“Oh yeah?” he said, raising an amused eyebrow. “And was getting stabbed part of your plan?”
“I had it under control,” I repeated.
“You haven’t even hit puberty yet,” said Flex. “You don’t have anything under control.”
“At least I’m not some drunk wasting away my power,” I said.
Flex rolled his eyes. His casual reaction just made me even angrier. He didn’t appear threatened at all.
“And you’re just an annoying little brat that I have to babysit,” he said in a bored tone. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to bed. I’d like to wake up to my hangover in peace and quiet.”
“That’s it?” I said. A hint of despair crept into my tone. “You’re just going to go back to your room and pass out again? Don’t you care about anything?”
“Yeah,” said Flex. “I care about sleeping. Now if you don’t mind . . .”
Flex shuffled back to his bedroom. I found his lack of anger alarming. It was like he wasn’t really alive. Like he was a zombie or something.
Just an empty thing without a soul.
CHAPTER 8
Worst night’s sleep of my life. Ever.
I crashed on the couch, which I discovered had a spring sticking up somewhere underneath the middle cushion. I tried to sleep around it, but that only resulted in me shifting my position a million and a half times. When I finally awoke to daylight, I had a crick in my neck and an ache in my shoulder. I felt like I was a hundred and fifty-two years old.
It took several long seconds for my senses to register the dramatic music in the background. The grunts and smacks of fake punches and kicks. Buttons being mashed repeatedly.
I rolled over to find Flex playing a video game.
Not just playing. Like . . . he was seriously into it. His eyes were fixated, and his thumbs were moving faster than an army of texting teenage girls. He sat cross-legged, hunched over, with his face way too close to the TV screen, like a little kid on Saturday morning. But at least he had clothes on—sweat pants, a ratty old cutoff t-shirt, and a beanie pulled tight over his dreadlocks.
Okay, so video games were hardly the pinnacle of ambition, but at least this was a step up from yesterday. And it was nice to actually see him passionate about something.
“Whatcha playing?” I asked, forcing perhaps a tad too much enthusiasm in my tone in an attempt to compensate for yesterday. It was then that I glanced past the back of his head and noticed a certain caped crusader stringing punches through a group of thugs. “Batman?”
“Arkham Origins,” said Flex in a half-trance.
He removed one hand from the controller only to reach for his can of Mountain Dew Code Red. He took a quick sip and returned to the fight.
I blinked incredulously and glanced back and forth between Flex and the TV screen. I didn’t know if he could see the horrible irony here, but it was almost too much for me to take.
“You’re a Superhero . . . and you’re playing a Superhero video game?” I said
“Uh . . . yeah. It’s Batman,” he said.
“But you’re a Superhero,” I said, putting extra emphasis on the “super” part. “I mean . . . Batman doesn’t even have a superpower!”
“Batman doesn’t need a superpower,” said Flex. “He’s Batman.”
Someone desperately needed to inform Flex that Batman’s name alone was not the ultimate justification of the universe. I sighed. But maybe I could use this to my advantage.
“What’s so great about Batman?” I asked.
Flex stumbled with the controls. Batman fell as two clowns simultaneously pummeled him into the ground. Flex seemed to take the defeat reasonably well as his attention shifted to me.
“Are you kidding me?” said Flex. “He’s Batman. Everything’s great about him.”
I officially felt like I was having a conversation with a seven-year-old.
“I mean . . . Batman is like a symbol of justice,” he said. “He always sacrifices for the greater good. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have a superpower. If he sees something that needs to be done, he does it. If that’s not a hero, I don’t know what is.”
Okay, now we were getting somewhere.
“So . . . does Batman inspire you to be a better Superhero?” I asked. It was a stupid question, I’ll admit. But right now, it seemed like the only way of getting through Flex’s rubber skull.
Flex had already started navigating through the menu to start a new game. He halted the moment the word “Superhero” came out of my mouth. Setting his controller down, he scooted around on his butt to face me.
“Let me tell you something about Superheroes,” he said. His tone was dead serious. “They don’t believe in fighting for justice. They believe in getting famous. Once they make it big and score a big advertising deal, it’s just a job to them. They’re celebrities. They save the world so they can maintain their popularity so they can make more money.”
“Well . . . I mean . . . they have to support themselves somehow,” I said.
“It’s not about supporting them
selves,” said Flex. “They’re greedy. And they’re corruptible. Did you know that forty-two percent of every Superhero ever recorded has gone bad? Forty-two percent! That’s almost half of us! And thirty-nine percent of those are FIST graduates. Why do you think that is, Minnow?”
My expression went flat. “It’s Marrow.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
I pushed my pride aside, wanting desperately to respond back with something smart. I had nothing. Forty-two percent? I didn’t realize the percentage was that high. Especially the thirty-nine percent that were FIST graduates. I mean . . . FIST drilled justice into our heads. It wasn’t just about fighting. It was about morals. And if we ever joked about it, then Havoc would, in the immortal words of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “layeth the smacketh down.”
“You know what it is?” asked Flex. “It’s power. Power makes people go bad. You give someone a little bit of it, and all they want is more.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but I had nothing. Every word pierced like a needle. Not because this was suddenly some big epiphany. Not because I suddenly believed every word he said.
It was because I personally knew a Superhero-gone-bad. One that many referred to as the most infamous Supervillain of all time.
My father.
His name was Spine. He was the only Supervillain ever to have eluded Fantom. For this reason, many considered him Fantom’s arch nemesis. Even though he had disappeared, it was likely that he was still out there. Somewhere.
“What about Fantom?” I asked. The confidence in my argument had become notably hollow.
“Fantom doesn’t believe in justice,” said Flex. “What’s the point of a judicial system if he kills every villain he fights?”
“But . . . but they’re evil, aren’t they?” I said.
Flex didn’t respond. Instead, he stood up and chugged the remainder of his Mountain Dew and then crushed the aluminum can against his head. It looked like he was about to toss it on the floor when his wandering gaze suddenly scoured the living area.
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