Ordinary Champions

by Hayden Thorne

  “Hey! Pretty boy! Like, whose side are you on?” someone called out, and I saw Jamie crouching across the way on a window ledge, the glass having been broken after she was thrown against it.

  “Not sure,” I returned, feeling way more smug than I probably should be. “I guess it depends on who’s winning. Too bad for you guys, no one is. Looks like you and the Trill met your match, huh?”

  “Screw you! There are only, like, two of us against twenty of them!”

  Alerted by a few gunshots, Jamie quickly turned and surrounded herself with a thick electric field. The bullets—I didn’t have a clue as to how many were fired at her—hit the barrier in an explosion of bright sparks that fell onto the battling crowd below in a shower of light and color.

  “Awesome!” I yelled, clapping. “Your powers rock!”

  “Of course they do! Not like yours!” She crinkled her nose at me before leaping down in a crackling ball of electricity. She landed in the middle of a group of the Trill’s goons, totally mowing them all down with long, thin ribbons of charged currents that shot out of her body the moment her high-heeled feet made contact with the slippery asphalt. I watched in growing fascination as bodies surrounding her fell back, limbs jerking spasmodically as electricity tore through them. Like jagged chains, these currents seemed to join separate bodies as they entered and exited through feet or hands or heads.

  Jamie’s powers—and Jessie’s, I was sure—weren’t deadly, I found. They were strong enough to knock people down and leave them stunned for a few moments, but the Trill’s thugs eventually dragged themselves back onto their feet. Maybe it had something to do with the Noxious Nocturne’s effects, especially if the program had just been tweaked and the bugs removed. At any rate, whatever the reason, the masked goons reminded me of the Puppet’s killer dolls in the way they kept coming back to life for a fresh wave of attacks.

  One other thing I remembered about the Noxious Nocturne was that the effects didn’t last very long. The guys had been at it for nearly half an hour now, with no one showing signs of fatigue. The Debutantes themselves seemed to feed off the energy of the battle, and the girls even exchanged high fives every once in a while.

  The whole thing looked like a video game—only in real life. It was bizarre. And dumb.

  I realized that the good guys hadn’t shown up yet. I glanced around me, taking in the familiar dingy sights of Vintage City in the evening. I strained my ears despite the noise below and the knowledge my hearing, along with my superpowers, was going back to normal.

  Nothing caught my attention anywhere.

  “Where are those guys?” I muttered, frowning in surprise. “I’m sure they know what’s going on.”

  I looked below me and scanned the general area. Nope, no signs of cops anywhere, either.

  “Is—is this a setup? Are they just letting these guys duke it out among themselves or something?” I breathed.

  It sure seemed like it, and it definitely made sense. Why dirty their hands, when the villains could do just as good a job pounding each other to dust? Might as well save themselves the trouble, right?

  My thoughts drifted back to what Peter said once upon a time regarding the Trill and the Puppet: If the two of them would go after each other, that’d be a relief. That’s less work for me and Trent.

  I grinned when I turned my attention back to the battle. This was turning out to be way better than I thought.

  Something moved in the shadows that lined the area’s periphery. I held my breath and looked, narrowing my eyes. There it was again—movement. Jerky, rhythmic movement in the darkness, and little by little, faint figures emerged from the gloom. I recognized them immediately—sharp angles, hats, and, once their forms came out into the light, tommy guns in their wooden and ball-jointed hands. The Shadow Puppet’s kinda-sorta men had arrived.

  Several of them were present. I couldn’t gauge the number since most of them stayed buried in the shadows, but there was a pretty good-sized contingent there.

  “Whoa. What the…”

  The first few dolls that appeared stopped, then raised their weapons and aimed.

  “Holy cow!” I cried, powering up.

  They fired at the group—a steady stream of those creepy bullets they were known to use—and the recent noise of battle was drowned out by a series of popping sounds. I didn’t know why I did it, seeing as how they were my enemies, but I quickly blasted the Trill’s men with a protective energy cloak. It came a little too late because a few of them went down and then struggled back to their feet, which only confirmed my suspicions of their being completely under the effects of the Noxious Nocturne. Maybe a maximum strength formula.

  The cloak helped absorb most of the bullets, or at least reduced their damage.

  I saw, more and more, how weak my energy blasts had become, and I was already in full battle mode. The Trill’s men, realizing they were being attacked from all sides now, divided their attention and threw themselves into an even more desperate fight.

  “Aha! Like, suck it up, you bastards!” Jamie crowed, adding more blasts of electricity to the ongoing assault on the Trill’s men.

  Whatever the Trill was trying to achieve, it sure looked as though things had backfired on him. The Puppet and the Debutantes aligned themselves, yeah, but they joined forces with each other against the Devil’s Trill.

  “What on Earth are you doing, boy?” a voice hissed from nearby.

  I gave a start and turned. Hovering above me and off to my side was the Trill himself, and he looked—different. Weird. He still wore his usual costume, with the cloak and hood, the spandex bodysuit, the mask, but it projected something else against the night sky. He seemed to glow a little. I saw a faint pulsing aura around his figure—a soft, throbbing outline of red that made me nervous. I sensed a higher threat of danger from him, just from that vague glow. He also appeared to have grown or bulked up somehow. Head, torso, limbs—his entire body appeared to have expanded to abnormal proportions. He looked like a floating giant, all a mass of tight muscles and simmering strength that didn’t need much to be unleashed.

  I gathered myself and swallowed, faking my usual attitude around him. “They don’t need my help,” I replied. My voice shook a little, and I hoped that he didn’t notice anything. “Can’t you tell how well the guys are doing? They’re holding their own tonight.”

  He said nothing, but I saw him clench his fists.

  “What do you expect me to do?” I prodded. “My powers are weaker now. I can only manage to cloak them a little. It helped, but I know I can’t do any better than that.”

  His body tensed, and I braced myself.

  “Back me up as well as you can,” he finally said.

  Without waiting for a response from me, the Trill flew down, and like a human—or superhuman—bowling ball, he plowed through the advancing group of wooden dolls.

  Several flew up in the air, writhing, and some continued to shoot even as they were knocked about like that. The rest crumpled to the ground, but they scrambled to their feet and continued their attack.

  The Trill’s men appeared to be weakening, finally. They fought against the Puppet’s dolls and the Debutantes, but their blows were clearly less and less effective. Some tried to throw more barrels or crates at the girls, and they couldn’t do it. Even with their boss in their midst, the thugs faded pretty quickly. I only wished I’d known how long it took for their powers to go away.

  The Debutantes appeared to be torn between triumph at the sight of their enemies’ fatigue and dismay at the presence of the Trill.

  Jessie launched herself with a full-throated cry of rage, blasting the Trill with round after round of wind blades.

  They seemed small and quicker, which reminded me of ninja throwing weapons. He knocked the blades away with his arms, and, catching Jessie by an ankle as she tried to fly past him, swung her above his head and threw her toward her sister.

  The girls collided in an explosion of wind, electricity, and shrill cr
ies, their figures tumbling in the air for several feet before both crashed against a massive window and vanished beyond.

  The Trill seemed to grow some more, and I watched, totally freaked, as his body literally expanded itself while he threw his head back, howling at the night, his fists raised and clenched.

  “Oh, my God.” I scrambled to my feet, balancing dangerously on the window ledge and not daring to take my eyes off the Trill. He seemed to be morphing right before me, growing more massive, more distorted in proportion, and more powerful. He reminded me of those werewolves in movies, changing from their human to their animal forms, their silhouettes set against a full moon as they howled their hunger.

  The Trill turned his attention back to the Puppet’s dolls, taking two at a time. Holding each by the head, his large hands practically dwarfing their wooden skulls, he once again yelled and crushed his enemies with a tight curling of his fingers. Two by two, the mannequins advanced and attacked, and two by two, they were destroyed, their heads crumpling in the Trill’s hold or getting torn off their shoulders, their bodies tossed away in quivering piles of wood.

  I took advantage of the moment when he had his back turned to me, and I leaped backward and into the dark, abandoned apartment, tumbling and rolling on the debris-littered floor. There was no time to think. I stumbled to my feet and ran, blindly throwing my hands out and hoping the door was somewhere close. I needed to lose myself in the maze of empty apartments in that building and escape through one of their windows before the Trill could get his hands on me. Plan B? Screw it. There was no way.

  The Trill had evolved, just like Magnifiman and Peter and Althea. He was a hundred times stronger now—and thirstier for destruction. But it was all twisted—too extreme, compared to the heroes.

  It felt like an eternity, but I found the door in the darkness and threw it open. Still running and stumbling—and a little blindly now that my vision had weakened along with my powers—I hurled myself against another door to a random apartment down the hall. I tripped over something and tumbled inside. Picking myself up, I searched around for a window to escape through and spotted one near the back—a filthy, broken thing that moonlight could barely pierce.

  I hurried toward it, panting.

  A sudden explosion tore through the darkness.

  Something had blown up the wall—or the front door of the apartment, I couldn’t say—and I was thrown down by the blast. The dark world flew in wild circles before my eyes, and I had to pinch them shut when dizziness came over me. I rolled over the floor, sliding as I did, my body a mess of pain.

  Run, you idiot! Run!

  I tried to get back on my feet despite my dizziness, but could only stagger a couple of paces before pitching forward again, my balance completely gone. When I hit the floor, something was thrown on top of me.

  A cloth—like a blanket, it covered me from head to foot. Then a weight pressed down, holding me fast against the floor. I kicked and bucked, but I couldn’t free myself. I was also suffocating under the cover and the pressure, and I blinked my eyes open only to see nothing but thicker darkness as I gasped for breath.

  “Your services, young Mr. Plath, are no longer needed,” that guitar twang voice hissed against my neck. I could feel the Trill’s hot breath penetrating the cloth. “I’d reward you for your efforts, of course, but I don’t take betrayal very lightly.”

  He managed to snake one of his hands under the cloth until his massive hand found my face. Before I could turn my head, he had his palm and fingers firmly pressed against my eyes, nose, and mouth. I struggled all the more when I felt something cold tickle my face.

  “Now, now, be a good boy,” he cooed. “This won’t hurt a bit, I assure you. You might be useless in battle now, but you’re still invaluable to me in other ways. Now sleep.”

  I tried not to breathe, but my lungs were screaming, and I was forced to take in that cold, slightly sweet gas that he was forcing on me. I coughed a few times, my cries muffled against his hand, and then blacked out.

  Chapter 16

  When I came to, my fuzzy brain immediately clamped itself around the idea that I was going to open my eyes to a phony baloney Venetian fresco that involved half-naked, cavorting people with no gay boys anywhere.

  “Story of my life,” I whispered as I blinked my eyes open. “Oh.”

  No, I wasn’t staring at a fresco—just the barrel of a gun. My bad. I blinked several more times until the web of sleep completely fell off me. As full consciousness gradually caught up, I realized I was lying on something hard and fairly good-sized, like a table or a slab. I also couldn’t move, and when I tried to figure out where my limbs were, I felt resistance against my wrists and ankles.

  I turned my head to one side and saw that my arm was stretched out, my wrist anchored down to the table with a rusty but heavy metal cuff. I tested one leg, and judging from the quiet clicking sound of metal against wood, it was pretty safe to say my feet were secured the same way.

  I sighed, cursing my luck. When did I not curse it, anyway? I looked back up at the ceiling above me, pointedly ignoring the gun barrel that was still aimed at my face. “Great,” I muttered. “What if I need to go take a leak?”

  The weapon disappeared, and a masked face appeared, smirking. “Then you piss in your pants, Einstein,” he said and then laughed as he straightened up. Good thing the gun didn’t show up again.

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  “The boss’ hideout, of course. You’re dead meat.”

  “Thanks. Nice to meet you, too.” I wanted to throw in that he was an ugly toad of a thug, but I wanted my skull and brain intact for as long as possible.

  “Yeah, well, you asked for it, kid. Can’t stand poseurs like you, strutting around like you’re something you ain’t.”

  I turned to him in time to catch him turning his face and spitting. Very classy guy, he was. Grossed out, I made a face at him when he looked back at me.

  “What? I had phlegm in my throat.”

  “I’m sure there’s a toilet somewhere in this dump. Besides, you can’t blame me for ending up like this. Who fucked with my head, huh? Your precious boss, that’s who! And what for? So he could have a sidekick? A shield against the heroes?” I paused and smirked. “Or did he need someone to back up your sorry butts? I mean—even juiced up with the Noxious Nocturne, you guys aren’t exactly Batman, you know.”

  I nearly laughed at the sight of his nostrils flaring. I used to think “flaring nostrils” was something that writers worked into their stories for melodramatic effect until that moment. Man, it was fabulous watching that guy’s nose open up as though he were about to vacuum a giant anthill.

  “I mean, come on. Ten of you for each of the Debutantes? And you couldn’t even get an edge over the girls? That’s pathetic!”

  He leaned over, his face turning red and the veins in his neck standing out in stark relief—yet another rage-connected image that I used to think was totally fictional.

  He clamped a hand against my mouth, and I thanked the cosmos that he didn’t shut me up by shoving the barrel of his gun between my teeth. Then again, it was because he had it pressed against my right temple.

  “When I take my hand away, you’d better be quiet. You hear me?”

  I nodded.

  He took his hand off and moved away. Silence fell on the room—or, rather, the warehouse. I looked around, wide-eyed and way more aware now of my surroundings.

  Yeah, we were in a warehouse. Well-lit with dozens of old fluorescent lights, some of which flickered weakly, with wooden crates stacked up to crazy heights here and there. High windows peered down at me, breaking up the dull monotony of wood walls and beams and thin metal sheeting.

  “You talk too much, dude.”

  I gave a start and looked around. Well, as “around” as I could go anyway, considering my situation. I saw nothing but warehouse junk to my left, where I’d been concentrating my attention for the most part. When I turned to my right, I saw that Mr. C
ongeniality had gone, and several feet away was another wooden table like the one I was lying on. Someone was shackled to it.

  “What the—”

  “Yo,” Freddie said with a rueful little grin. Then he yawned. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  I frowned. “Well, sonofagun. They got you, too? How?”

  “He got a little too—oh—enthusiastic about his masking abilities, you see,” a new voice cut in, which was followed by a steady crunch of debris as someone walked closer. Then between the two tables, the Devil’s Trill appeared. He’d kept his newly-morphed figure, which sent a shiver up my spine. If he creeped me out in the darkness outside, against the old fluorescent lights of the warehouse, he downright made me want to piss my pants at that point.

  I couldn’t understand how he’d managed to change all of a sudden. He was seriously disproportionately large, like a gorilla—the biggest hairy jungle mofo you can find—on ‘roids. I didn’t know if he’d just evolved in his powers the same way Magnifiman and everyone else had, but there was something seriously wrong about his transformation. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but there was a nagging little voice in the back of my mind that kept telling me this was all really, really wrong.

  It was totally abnormal. Considering how abnormal he was to begin with, this was saying something.

  I tried not to shrink back from his hulking figure as it neared my table. I guess yelling “Platypus!” in his face meant a death wish, so I held back.

  The Trill stopped beside me and gazed down as though lost in momentary thought. Then he looked over his shoulder to where Freddie lay and sighed.

  “Teenagers,” he said. “They simply don’t know when to shut up—or stop.”

  “What happened?” I stammered, fixing my gaze on one of his massive hands, which he rested against my arm. The weight was incredible. He could literally tear my limb off or crush it to a bloody pulp if he wanted.

  “Oh, just like the Puppet and the Debutantes, our dear young chameleon here just doesn’t know when to quit. Such is the way with youth, alas.”