The Rivalry of Renegade X

by Chelsea M. Campbell

I start to make my way down the stairs. “What did you think you were doing?!”

  He rolls his eyes and exhales, like he just can’t be bothered with me right now. “You said we couldn’t appear in public together, and we didn’t. I went for a walk. You were home. It’s nothing to get all zappy about.”

  I glance down at my arms and see sparks I didn’t even realize were there. “I’m talking about the video! What did I tell you about pretending to be me on TV?!”

  “It wasn’t on TV. It was the internet.”

  “That’s even worse!”

  “Yeah, well, someone has to make us look good. I saw the article about the puppy.” His smile withers as he makes a disgusted face. “That was the best thing you’ve done, and it still makes you look like a villain. Which, like, I guess you are, so…” He shrugs, then flies up the stairs, passing me at the halfway point. He lands at the top and smirks at me in a way that’s half Amelia at her worst, and half… I don’t know what. Me, I guess. “See,” he says, “this is why villains like you need someone like me to make you look good. All you can do is blow stuff up. At least I can actually—”

  He cuts off, his eyes going wide as I lift off the stairs and fly the rest of the way up.

  Because I’m that pissed at him. Because he doesn’t get to stand there and literally look down on me when we’ve got the exact same DNA.

  His mouth drops open. “What the hell?” he says, his voice coming out a whisper.

  I take a step toward him.

  He takes a step back, looking kind of terrified, like he just witnessed something horrible.

  “I’m half villain and half hero, just like you,” I tell him, “so shut up.”

  “Did you just… Did you actually—”

  “Fly? Yeah, I did.” I make a dismissive sound in the back of my throat, letting him know how much I think of him. “I’m surprised you didn’t see it when you looked me up online, but I guess you were only focused on the stuff that made me look like a villain. But yeah, I can fly, so shut up already about how much better than me you think you are.”

  He swallows. “You can fly, and you have lightning?”

  I make sparks fly across my hands to show him, even though we both already know that I do.

  “But then that means…” His face goes pale, and he looks like he’s going to be sick. He stares at his own hands like he’s never seen them before. Then he holds them up, trying to emulate what I’m doing, but nothing happens. He tries again, and there’s still nothing. He sighs with relief, and some of his earlier self-righteousness returns. “You and me?” he says, pointing back and forth between us. “Not the same. At least, not in any ways that count.”

  I wish I could agree with him, but I’m not convinced. “You sure about that?” I ask him.

  But he pretends he doesn’t hear me and disappears into Amelia’s room.

  After dinner, the whole family goes out for ice cream to celebrate Amelia’s newfound success as a backstabbing liar. Oh, wait, I mean YouTube entrepreneur and dance sensation. As if her success has anything to do with their dancing and not with her using my likeness without my permission.

  Even if said likeness was actually my interdimensional twin who did it willingly, it’s still me they’re screwing over. Which is apparently ice-cream worthy.

  And they don’t seem too put out when I say I’m not going, either. They hardly even bat an eye at the news of my absence, and then other me offers to go instead, and everyone is just fine with that. No, not just fine with it—ecstatic. I mean, I guess he was the one in the video, not me, so maybe it makes sense for him to be there. Except it’s still my infamy—er, celebrity status?—that they’re profiting from, which should be getting them both stern talkings to, not a celebration.

  Ugh.

  There’s a moment before everyone leaves where Gordon puts his hand on my shoulder and pulls me aside, and I think he’s going to ask if I’m sure about not going with them, but instead he says he saw the show today and that we’ll talk about it later. Whatever that means. I wince a little on the inside, hoping he’s not too upset about my lackluster performance and how bad the ratings must have been, and I’m all prepared to tell him that sometimes fathers and sons not working together is for the best, but then he runs off to join the rest of the family as they head out the door, a giant smile on his face as he puts his arm around other me, and I don’t get a chance to say anything.

  Once they’re gone, I head over to Sarah’s house. I probably could have just called, and I don’t even know if she’s home, especially since Riley’s not working today, but I felt too restless to just make a phone call.

  Sarah lets me into her room when I get to her house. Riley’s sitting on her bed, and they have her laptop set up and the screen is paused in the middle of some show, meaning I’m definitely interrupting something.

  She beams at me. “We saw the video!”

  Great. “Which one?” I guess I should be thankful they’re not watching my episode of Gordon’s show.

  “Both,” Riley says. A grin slips across his face, and he looks like he’s trying really hard not to laugh.

  I hold up a finger. “For the record, that wasn’t me in Amelia’s video.”

  “We figured.”

  “Do you think suing my doppleganger from another dimension for using my likeness without my consent would hold up in court?”

  Sarah purses her lips, giving me a really serious look as she considers that.

  “Is that what you came here to talk about?” Riley asks. “Because we’re kind of in the middle of something here.” He gestures to the laptop.

  “We’re catching up on one of our favorite shows,” Sarah says.

  “Yeah,” Riley adds, “and this is, like, my one night off this week, so if you don’t need anything—”

  “Okay, first of all, Perkins? I have it on good authority that when you spent the night here last week, all you did was read books and then let a giant dog sleep in the bed between you. So you don’t get to complain about me interrupting whatever… whatever this is.” I gesture to the bed.

  He rolls his eyes at me. “X, that’s not—”

  “And second of all, you’re the one who takes so many shifts. I’m only going to say this one more time—quit your job.”

  He sucks in a deep breath. “For the last time, I’m not quitting, okay? And how me and Sarah spend our time together is none of your business.”

  “Yeah,” Sarah says. “And just because we spent a lot of time reading doesn’t mean we didn’t make time for other things, too.”

  I raise my eyebrows at Riley. “Oh, really?”

  His face turns bright red. “Sarah!”

  “What?” she says. “It’s true.” Then she looks over at me. “Did you need something?”

  I glance over at the giant chemistry book that’s sitting on her desk, the one she got from the library. There’s a bookmark sticking out of it, but it’s not very far in. “How’s the chemistry coming?”

  “Oh.” She adjusts her glasses. “Didn’t Other Damien tell you?”

  “What? Why would he have told me anything?”

  “Because he asked me the same thing when he was here earlier.”

  “Wait, what? He was here?”

  “Mm-hmm. He came by this afternoon, and we ended up walking Heraldo together.”

  Riley’s eyebrows shoot up. “You did? You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I told you he came over.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t tell me you guys actually hung out.”

  “I wanted to ask him about Other Sarah. To see how I can improve.”

  “Improve? But you don’t need to—”

  “You’re perfect how you are,” I say, interrupting him. “You don’t need to change a thing, blah blah blah, etc. Can everybody just stop comparing themselves to their counterparts in his stupid dimension already?”

  Riley tilts his head at me. “Even you?”

  “Uh, no, not even me, because unlike
everybody else, I can actually see what my interdimensional counterpart is like in real life, and it’s not something to be jealous of. If anything, I see him as a cautionary tale of just how screwed up my life could have been.”

  “Uh-huh,” Riley says, not sounding at all convinced.

  “Shut up, Perkins. And Sarah, just tell me where we’re at on the chemistry thing. Other Douche didn’t think to tell me.” He was too busy mocking me and then having an existential crisis because there’s a good chance he’s secretly got a villain power lurking in him. And then after that he was too busy celebrating with Amelia over the success of their stupid video—I could hear them congratulating each other for the rest of the afternoon—but I’m sure he was still suffering on the inside. Probably.

  “Well…” Sarah scrunches up her face in kind of a guilty way and glances over at the chemistry book, which she obviously hasn’t gotten very far in.

  Not that I blame her, because it’s only been a few days, plus it’s chemistry, which is, like, one of my least favorite subjects. I’m not sure if it’s one of Sarah’s least favorite subjects, but there’s probably a reason she hasn’t learned it before now. I look over at Riley and shake my head at him. “Is this what you want, Perkins? To be distracting Sarah from her superhero work?”

  Sarah’s whole face suddenly lights up at that. “Superhero work,” she breathes, like the words are too delicate to say at normal volume.

  Riley scoffs at me. “Yeah, right, X. And I can take a night off to spend with my girlfriend. If you want this done so fast, maybe you should learn chemistry.”

  I hold up a hand. “Yeah, that’s not happening. Besides, why would I learn chemistry when I could just outsource the problem to my mom, who’s already an expert?”

  “Uh, maybe because she’s evil? I mean,” he adds, when I start to scowl at him, “she is in Other Damien’s world.”

  “She’s not evil.”

  “I said in his dimension! That’s what he said anyway, right? From what you guys told me, it sounds like he’s super freaked out by her or something.”

  “Yeah, well, Other Damien also said that Other Riley’s a letterist douchebag who betrayed him, so obviously people in his world aren’t always the same as the people in ours.”

  “Wait, he said what?”

  I open my mouth to tell him, but Sarah beats me to it.

  “You abandoned him after he told you who his mom was. Other you did, I mean.”

  I wrinkle my eyebrows at her. “How do you know that?”

  She shrugs. “He told me on our walk earlier.”

  “Geez, Sarah, how long was this walk?” And how long was he actually gone from the house without me noticing? I make a mental note to be more vigilant, especially if I don’t want him sneaking around, making more dance videos or rescuing orphans and completely ruining my reputation. “Anyway, Perkins, my point is, you can’t compare people in our dimension to their equivalents in his dimension. And his mom might be evil, but I know my mom’s not.”

  “But is she trustworthy?”

  “Well…” That’s a good question. Again, I want to say yes, that she wouldn’t do anything to screw me over again, but… I clear my throat. “She doesn’t have to know what she’s working on.”

  “Uh-huh. So, in other words, even you don’t trust her with this.”

  “Other me can’t stay here.”

  “Nobody’s saying he should. At least, not forever.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” Sarah says. “I just need time.”

  I look over at the giant textbook again, which is only part one of her training. “How long?”

  She bites her lip, considering it, then says, “As long as it takes.”

  Which is pretty much a cop-out answer if I’ve ever heard one and not what I was hoping for.

  Not even close.

  Chapter 16

  I PRETEND TO BE surprised when Riley shows up at my house in the middle of the afternoon on Wednesday, even though he’s theoretically supposed to be working.

  Amelia’s off somewhere with Melissa and Hil, and Alex and other me went to the park, and Jess is with Helen at the antique shop, and Gordon’s still at work, so the house is empty when I let him in. He’s dressed in his normal clothes, though he still smells like French fries, and his hair’s kind of sticking up, and he looks super stressed out.

  I mean, it’s pretty normal for him to look super stressed out after he’s been at the diner, but there might be another reason for it today. Another reason that I might have had something—a.k.a. everything—to do with.

  A guilty feeling gnaws at my stomach as he sits down on the couch and scrubs his face with his hands.

  I take a deep breath and remind myself this was for his own good, then sit down in an upholstered chair. “What happened?” Because even if I didn’t already know what must have happened—assuming everything went according to plan, anyway—it’s still obvious something’s wrong.

  “I just…” He swallows. “I just got fired, X.” He says it like he can’t believe it, like he’s still reeling from the shock of it. “These guys came to the diner. They were supervillains. They showed up in full costume and started demanding to speak with me. They knew my name. Everyone was really freaked out. Well, everyone who worked there. The customers thought it was part of a show or something, even though we don’t do those. And I was in the back, and I could hear that something was going on, and then I heard shouting. I thought I heard my name, and then everyone was looking at me weird, and I was already on my way to the front of the diner when someone came and told me there were people there to see me. Except they said people weird, like they were being sarcastic, or like they were mad at me for something, and I had no idea why. But it was kind of freaking me out by that point, especially because everyone else was obviously freaking out, and when I got up front, there were these three guys in supervillain costumes. They were demanding to speak to Riley Perkins, and I said that was me, and then they told me that Night Mask was very grateful for my help the other night, that he didn’t know what he would have done without me, and then they handed me a little box and said it was a token of his appreciation. And I was so stunned, I actually took it from them and said thank you. Thank you!” He groans and makes a face. “Then they finally left, and all my coworkers were staring at me like I was insane, or like they didn’t know me, even though I’ve been working there all summer. My manager was pissed.”

  He better have been, since that was the point. “Your manager’s a douchebag.”

  “You don’t even know which one it was.”

  “I don’t need to. All your managers are douchebags.”

  Riley rolls his eyes at me, even though it’s true and he knows it. “He yelled at me about the importance of the ‘superhero diner experience’ and how their employees are supposed to uphold certain expectations, like not fraternizing with ‘anyone who could jeopardize our reputation’—that’s actually how he put it—and that we especially weren’t supposed to be working with famous supervillains.” Riley winces as he tells me that last part, like he doesn’t enjoy reliving it. “And even though him saying that kind of bothered me, I still tried to explain that I didn’t know those guys, that I don’t work with Night Mask.”

  “Did you explain about the puppy?”

  “I tried, but he wasn’t listening. And it’s not like any of the articles about it mentioned my name or anything. Not that it would have helped.” He sighs. “He didn’t believe me about not knowing Night Mask. He said I could save my breath because it was obvious I did have a connection to him, and that either way they couldn’t have supervillains coming to the diner looking for their employees. I said it would never happen again, and he said it definitely wouldn’t, because I wasn’t going to be working there anymore. And then he kept yelling at me, but I didn’t really hear any of it, because once I realized he was serious, I walked out.”

  I shift my weight around in the chair, simultaneously wanting to get this over with
and wanting to drag it out, like maybe I can avoid the inevitable. “Then what happened?”

  “After that, I turned in my uniform, and everyone was still looking at me like they didn’t know who I was. And they were talking about calling the bomb squad about the package those guys gave me, because someone thought they heard it ticking. And that pissed me off so much that I opened it right in front of them, like I needed to prove a point. And that freaked them out even more, like they really didn’t know me, but it was just a watch—well, a really nice watch—and I felt like I didn’t actually know any of them, either. Then I stormed out of there and got in my car. I kind of just sat there for a minute, because I couldn’t believe all that had just happened, and then someone came out back to take out the garbage and gave me this really nasty look, like I didn’t belong there, so I left. And Mom’s still at work, so it’s not like I’d have to explain any of this to her yet, but… I wasn’t ready to go home. Plus, she’s going to be way too happy about it.”

  That guilty feeling gnaws at my stomach again. “Listen, Perkins, there’s something—”

  “I just don’t get how they knew where to find me. And why me?”

  “Night Mask wanted to thank us all personally, remember?”

  “Yeah, but we told him he didn’t need to, and then we got out of there, because people were already trying to take pictures of you with him.”

  “And the puppy.”

  “Right. But my name wasn’t mentioned in the paper. How did he even know who I was?”

  I clear my throat and take a deep breath. Setting all this up was easy. This next part? Not so much. And I could probably get away with not admitting anything—it’d be a lot less messy that way, and there’s no reason he’d ever have to find out—but then I’d actually be a terrible friend instead of him just thinking it. I mean, he doesn’t think it, not yet, but he’s about to. “Because I told him.”

  Riley blinks at me, like he didn’t hear that right. “You… what? When? We all left together that night, so—”

  “My Grandpa knows him.” And has informed me that he has a thank-you present sitting in his kitchen with my name on it.