Ordinary Champions

by Hayden Thorne

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “I’m working on simply calling you ‘mister’ when you insist on misbehaving,” he added cheerfully. “I’m sure your mother used it countless times already, and you’re quite at home with its punch. I must say, my dear boy, I’m benefiting very nicely from your company. Not once had I ever entertained the notion that I’d be speaking along such unrefined lines. I might be able to blend myself in with the rest of the riffraff someday.”

  I sighed as he opened the elaborately carved double doors and vanished behind them. “Snotty creep,” I muttered, turning my attention back to the unconscious body that lay crumpled at my feet. I really needed to have my job description plainly laid out for me and possibly signed by a witness because I knew that drudge work was nowhere in my Supervillain Sidekick List of Things to Do. Hell, I wasn’t even given a Supervillain Handbook.

  * * * *

  What a boring job that was, looking after the gluttonous needs of the auction attendees. In addition to condescending thanks or looks of obvious disdain, I was treated to little else but moment after tedious-ass moment of walking around with a tray of champagne glasses. Those or an open bottle in my clammy hand, completely at the mercy of greased-up men and women with more tacky bling than gangster rappers.

  I was also treated to some pretty embarrassing displays of appreciation—that is, I had my butt pinched in the crowd not once. Not even twice. I lost count after four.

  By the time the auction started, I was barely keeping my powers from surging and mowing everyone down, while I shouted, “Keep your gross paws to yourselves, you old perverts! I’m underage!” I had to hide myself in the men’s room for a few moments, calming myself and watching the energy glow that had begun to pulse around my hands fade away.

  I washed my face and, as I’d recently begun to do, inspected myself in the mirror, again confused by the bizarre transformation I went through since I’d come into my powers. Yeah, I definitely looked older. To a certain extent, I was flattered by the stronger angles and sharper bone structure, the light of confidence in the eyes even though I was aware of being an awkward, fumbling newbie in the supervillain game. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the whole thing. Weird though it might sound, my face and my body seemed to be my own mask and costume.

  My dear Mr. Plath, must I remind you to take your position outside the auction room?

  I sighed and raised my arm to bring my watch—a super tricked-out contraption that my guardian gave me—close to my face. I pressed the crown and said, “Yeah, I’m coming. I just had to go to the men’s room for a whiz. Is everyone assembled?”

  Of course! The auction’s just begun, everything’s in order, and everyone’s where they should be—except for you.

  “All right, all right, I’m walking out now.” I released the watch crown and marched out of the men’s room, my heart thumping in my chest. I’d only been in one fight with Trent and Peter, and I was growing more and more nervous.

  I was alone, walking down the well-lit hallway, listening to my shoes clicking against the floor. I neither sensed nor heard anything unusual, and I eventually reached the closed double doors of the main auction room and took my position there.

  From behind the thick, wooden doors, the steady hum of voices came—muffled and rhythmic, broken here and there by gasps or tepid clapping. I tried to focus on the reason behind that night’s crime plan. The auction was a private one, of course, with paintings and sculpture being put on the block, but that detail puzzled me. I was sure the Trill didn’t have any use for more stolen artwork, considering how much he’d already collected.

  Seriously, people should check out all those spare rooms in his hideout and their priceless contents, which pretty much crammed each room with jaw dropping value. From what I understood, too, the stuff being auctioned that evening wasn’t even major: no Van Gogh, no Rembrandt, no Picasso, no nothing. Those names came from an impromptu art history lesson from the Trill on our way to the auction, by the way. It was just a collection of art from a few fairly popular names, but certainly no one of any real importance.

  I frowned and scratched my head as I mulled things over. So what were we doing there, bracing ourselves for an offensive from Vintage City’s Paragon of Virtue?

  The hum of voices stopped. Then a few scattered screams followed.

  Immediately my belly throbbed with that familiar swirling heat. I looked down and saw my hands again covered in pulsing energy, my vision turning red and yellow.

  I heard the Trill’s thin voice mingle with the confusion of alarmed cries and chairs scraping across the floor. He laughed while people ran to the door. I flew away and hovered against the opposite wall, blasting the door with an energy cloud just as it was being forced open from the other side. The cloaking heat of my powers muffled screams and shouts, even the frantic pounding against the door.

  I kept the surge steady, pinching my mouth as I strained to maintain its force and keep the doors shut. It took a little while. I couldn’t tell how long. All I knew was the sudden buzzing of my watch and the Trill’s voice crackling through.

  Done.

  I stopped and nearly dropped myself to the floor, exhausted.

  Come on in.

  I walked to the door and opened it cautiously. I peered inside and found myself staring at a room full of unconscious people, who all lay in tangled heaps from wall to wall. Picking their way among them were the Trill’s thugs, whistling or humming to themselves as they plucked off jewelry and fished out wallets and purses.

  “Okay,” I muttered, pursing my lips. “Now I get it.”

  Three of them followed with large sacks in hand, into which the others threw their spoils. From where I stood, they all looked like field hands harvesting some pretty expensive fruit.

  The art remained intact. No one was touching it. No one was anywhere near it. I shook my head and swept my gaze across the room.

  “Hey, where’s the Trill?” I asked.

  “Gone,” someone answered.

  “Huh? Did he go home or something?”

  “Sort of. Hey, kid, how about giving us a hand, eh?”

  I scowled at the guy who was struggling with an unconscious man’s gold watch. The way he was snarling and swearing under his breath as he fought to unbuckle the thing made me wonder if he was just going to cut the victim’s hand off and be done with it.

  “Hey, listen,” I said. “I don’t do that crap. I’m here to cover you guys, and that’s it.”

  “Wow, listen to the Boy Blunder, everyone.”

  “You can’t use that,” I retorted. “It’s trademarked—or something.” I paused, raising my hand to quiet Lefty—didn’t know the goon’s name then—as I listened. My heart’s pounding intensified when I recognized the faint but insistent sounds. “Look out. We’ve got company,” I said.

  I turned to the Trill’s thugs and immediately blasted them with an energy cloak. It was a pretty mild one, really, just enough to make them feel secure even though it wouldn’t do them a hell of a lot of good. In fact, they all paused in their thieving work and examined themselves, some whistling low.

  “Whoa,” one said. “This is cool.”

  “Dude, I’m glowing. Check this out.”

  “Yeah, good job, kid! Now let’s see them try to kick our butts,” another laughed from one corner of the room.

  I took my position in the middle of the room and waited. “Yeah, wouldn’t that be amazing?” I muttered dryly.

  The distant whooshing sound grew louder and louder. I braced myself while hissing at everyone to hurry up. They did. Even with the fake security of a dummy protective cloak, they still seemed to cringe before the threat of Magnifiman. They redoubled their efforts, with some of them tripping over unconscious victims as they tried to hustle themselves out.

  “Hurry!” I said. They all scampered out the door with their loot just as the whooshing sound finally reached its peak.

  I turned to face the windows when one of them shattered in a
n explosion of colored, frosted glass. I raised my arms to protect my head, my own energy shield absorbing debris that pierced through it. Game time.

  Chapter 4

  “What the—hey! We’re late!” a voice I didn’t recognize exclaimed.

  I blinked and lowered my arms. The two figures perched on the damaged window first gaped at the mess in the room. Then they both gaped at me. Twins, I thought—two girls, both clad in slinky dark blue with silver swirls, their half-masks dark blue, their chin-length bob all silver. They must have consulted one of those teen fashion magazines for their color coordination. Like Trent, Wade, and Peter, they also wore gloves and boots that blended nicely with their costume.

  “Ohmigawd, it’s him!” one of them shrieked, pointing at me.

  Her twin didn’t appear impressed, though. She raised a hand above her head, and I saw jagged strings of electricity crackle around it. “Like, let’s get the bastard,” she said grimly.

  “Don’t be stupid. He’s, like, one of us, yanno?” her sister snapped, elbowing her a little viciously. Before waiting for anyone to do anything, she leaped off the window and landed with barely a sound, even with the mess of glass shards all over the floor. I could go so far as to say that she appeared to float downward.

  Her twin stopped her electric threat and lowered her hand, but I could smell extreme distrust a mile away. She said nothing, but when she saw her sister walk toward me without a moment’s hesitation, she shrugged and leaped down as well. She landed with a thud—like normal people, I guess—and her boots let out a short explosion of electric currents when they made contact with the floor.

  “Wow,” I breathed, impressed at the way supervillains seemed to be completely with it from the get-go, compared to superheroes, who still had to struggle with their powers and go through all sorts of grief just to master them. I mean, these two girls pretty much reeked of confidence and ease, as though they were total veterans in the realm of bad guy-ness. I was sure that Wade, for instance, took several weeks to get her act together, and with Peter’s help, at that. How long did it take for Althea to get to where she was now? I sure couldn’t remember.

  The Trill, the Puppet, and now these girls—whoever they were—fell so easily and so smoothly into their genetically tweaked roles. It was strange, and, boy, did it give me all kinds of ideas for philosophical haiku. I felt my right hand twitch in anticipation of picking up a pen.

  “Hey,” one of the girls—the lightweight one—said, raising a hand at me. “What’s up?”

  “Um—who’re you?” I returned, frowning. I reduced my energy pulse to make myself look less intimidating or threatening.

  “Oh,” the lightweight piped up. “I’m, like, Jessie, and this is my sister, Jamie. We’ve already outed ourselves as the Deathtrap Debutantes.”

  I waved at them. “Hi. Nice to meet you.” I paused and glanced around. “Sorry for the mess.”

  “Yeah,” Jamie said. She was still cautious, and she inched forward, her eyes narrowing at me with every step she took. “What the hell happened here? We were supposed to, like, come and clean up, not you and your sugar daddy.”

  “Hey, watch it!” I barked. “The Trill’s my guardian. I’m not into sugar daddies. I’m not even seventeen yet!”

  Jamie shrugged, looking around. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter, does it? You still stole our thunder—almost literally.”

  “I guess we shouldn’t have, like, posted our manifesto before the heist,” Jessie piped up, making a face. “Or at least we shouldn’t have said anything about glamour and bling and shit.”

  “Yeah, well, who’s fault was that?” her sister shot back, and Jessie merely shrugged and trotted off.

  I watched them, half-confused and half-amused. Boy, these two were going to be fun to work with—as fun as rolling on a bed of broken glass, completely naked. “So what’re your powers, other than electricity, I mean?”

  “Wind,” Jessie replied as she moved away, her attention now divided. “You should see my wind blades sometime. They, like, kick ass.”

  “I’m sure they do.” I paused and strained my ears for danger sounds but heard nothing yet. All the same, common sense dictated that I needed to remove myself from the area ASAP. It wouldn’t be long, I was sure, before the good guys sniffed out the carnage. “Hey, listen. I gotta go. But we should get together sometime—like, hang out or form a bad guy league or something. I tried to convince the Puppet of that, but he was all, ‘I work alone, dude,’ or something like that.”

  “Well, we kinda work as a pair, Cloakie,” Jamie cut in. “We’re, like, not into group projects and stuff. Besides, what would you need us for, anyway? You’ve got—yanno—” She left the sentence unfinished, the final words unspoken but loudly heard. She smirked when I scowled at her.

  “Oh, damn!” Jessie whined from somewhere behind me. I could hear her high-heeled boots clacking sharply on the floor as she walked around to absorb the mess.

  “These people have all been, like, totally cleaned out! This sucks!”

  I glanced over my shoulder to watch her pout next to a heavy-set woman who lay in a crazy unflattering heap, her froufrou dress looking no more respectable than any of my second-hand clothes.

  “Yeah, the Trill’s goons took everything.” I noticed the painting that was still perched on the easel, waiting for a new home. “Except for the artwork, though. You have your pick of the litter, I guess.”

  “What can we do with a stupid painting?” Jamie snapped. She marched up to the easel, gave the painting a disgusted once-over, and blasted the whole thing with a massive electrical stream. Or something. It was pretty impressive anyway, whatever it was, with all the crackling mini-lightning-like thingies being discharged from the palms of her hands. The easel and the painting shivered from the blast and then toppled over, slightly burned in spots, with thin, wavy pillars of smoke rising up. For a second or two, I actually thought I saw them quivering where they lay.

  “Yeah.” Jessie sighed, still pouting as she picked her way through the unconscious guests. “I was hoping for, like, diamond necklaces and stuff.”

  “What, to sell?” I prodded.

  “No, dummy—to wear, of course! Duh!”

  I raised my hands up and made a move toward the double doors. “Well, it was nice meeting you guys, but I really gotta scram. Maybe both of you should, too.”

  Jamie glared at me before sashaying off to inspect other lifeless victims for a stray bauble or two. Seriously, those girls looked like a couple of sparkly vultures, the way they practically devoured organic matter with their eyes. I’d have to add that they were also rather gorgeous—slinky and tall, with all the right proportions. They were like supervillain supermodels. I was sure straight boys up and down Vintage would have killed for a date with one of them—barring the likelihood of pissing the girls off and getting obliterated as a result, of course.

  “If you’re warning us about Magnifiman and his gang, you’re so, like, wrong!” she spat out. “We’re not afraid of them, are we, Jess?”

  “Huh? Nah.” Jessie barely spoke those words aloud. She was too focused on searching for diamonds and pearls and whatever that she just waved her sister off.

  I raised my hands up in surrender. “Hey, you know? You’re more than welcome to take them on.”

  “So how do you escape, anyway?” Jamie asked as she took her place behind the little podium thing and picked up the gavel, toying with it as though she were bored out of her mind. “Looks like you got dumped by your minions.” She smirked.

  “I fly, of course. Duh?”

  “Pretty smart move from the ‘boss’ to turn his superficial pretty boy into a punching bag for the good guys. Makes it, like, easier for him to get the job done and then make a quick and clean getaway, while you’re stuck at the scene of the crime, getting beaten black and blue and stuff.”

  I hated to admit this, but Miss Congeniality had a point. I tried not to give her the satisfaction, though, and shrugged, pretending
carelessness. “I don’t really care. It isn’t like I’m not equally matched, anyway, so even if I’m stuck with a crap role like that, I can still hold my own against Magnifiman and his league of wimps.”

  Jamie’s smirk broadened. “Hmm. I’d like to see that sometime. By the way, how does it feel, like, being—yanno—abnormal?”

  “How about if I were to tell you the story about the pot and the kettle—like, yanno?”

  Jessie giggled hysterically as she pranced over to her sister’s side, holding up a long pearl necklace that, obviously, the Trill’s goons overlooked. “Oh, snap!” she cried, blowing me a kiss before turning to Jamie. “Look! Ohmigawd, this’ll look so cool with my Alexander McQueen collection!”

  Jamie wasn’t listening to her, though. She kept her eyes on me—like daggers, they were meant to pin me down while she gnawed her way through to my pancreas. The little gavel she continued to toy with looked more and more like a weapon of destruction in her hands. “So how’d he do it, anyway? Like, fix you, I mean? Everyone knows you’re not one of us, and you’re not one of them, so where do you really fall when it comes to your powers?”

  “If I knew the answer to that, I’d have done myself a service and deactivated it or reversed the effects a long time ago.” I shook my head and waved her off. “I’m done. I’m outta here. Have fun kicking Magnifiman’s ass.”

  As it turned out, I hung around too long. Served me right for letting them yak, yak, yak away. Like, yanno.

  More windows exploded, sending me and the twins leaping or flying away to safety—the other end of the room, that is. The victims stayed unconscious around us, which made me wonder what the Trill used on them to knock them out this completely for such a long duration.

  I didn’t hear music, so it must have been gas.

  Not the Trill’s gas, but the other kind. You know what I mean.