Karma Girl

by Jennifer Estep

Caveman Stan let out a loud bellow, thumped his chest a few times, and ran in my direction. But I was still holding on to those black waves of energy that pulsed around him, still holding on to his power, which meant I was still as strong as he was.

  Caveman Stan swung his fist at me, but I was able to avoid the blow. Stan drew back his fist for another pass, but I whirled around, building up enough momentum to raise the heavy chains and smash them into his face.

  One of the links hit him just right, breaking his nose underneath his black mask. Blood gushed out of Stan’s nose, adding garish, red drops to his horrible, zebra-striped toga.

  “You’ll pay for that, slave girl!” Stan bellowed.

  “I’m not your stupid girl!” I yelled back. “And you could at least be politically correct and call them slave women!”

  The ubervillain reached for me again. Once more, I dodged his blows. Only this time, one of my boots got caught in the dangling chains. I stumbled back, and Stan came after me. The ubervillain swung at me again, and all I could do was hold up my arm to ward off his blow—

  “Duck!” I heard Lulu yell behind me.

  I ducked.

  WHACK!

  Her cane arced through the air where my head had been a second before. Lulu timed her blow just right, her cane slamming into the side of Caveman Stan’s temple. The Baseballer himself couldn’t have executed a more perfect swing.

  The ubervillain’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he stumbled away. I chased after him and smashed the chains into his face again. Stan took three more steps before he crashed to the dingy floor. He moaned once and twitched, like he was going to get up, but then, his whole body went limp. The ubervillain was out cold.

  I hurried over to Lulu, who had gone down on one knee. She’d put everything she had into that swing, and I helped her get to her feet. I eyed her cane, which she still clutched in her hands. It looked simple enough, with a shiny black finish, a silver tip, and a curved silver handle, but I was willing to bet there was more to that cane than met the eye.

  “That’s a sturdy little device,” I said. “Want to tell me where you got it? Or do I even have to ask?”

  “It was an early Christmas present from Jasper,” Lulu said, grinning. “It’s painted to look like ebony, but really, it’s made of pure solidium. He also included a few extra features for me. There are some special buttons hidden in the handle.”

  By extra features, Lulu no doubt meant explosives, because her friend Jasper was Bigtime’s most notorious bomb maker.

  I shook my head and started to ask her where Fiera, Mr. Sage, and Hermit were, but Lulu’s dark eyes widened.

  “Duck!” Lulu shouted.

  I ducked again.

  That weird, green gas sprayed through the air over my head and hit a metal table. Once again, the gas turned into a shimmering goo that immediately started shrinking whatever it came into contact with. By the time I got up on my feet, the table looked like it belonged in one of the dollhouses on the toy tree.

  “Drat!” the Mintilator cursed, shaking the gun he’d taken from Frost’s lab. “Empty already. But no matter.”

  The ubervillain threw away the gun. The glass tube on top of it shattered against the concrete floor, and a last bit of green gas puffed up into the air. Well, that was one less thing to worry about.

  But I had another—a ball of green acid coming my way. I ducked for a third time, and the acid whooshed past my head and slammed into the crates on the far side of the warehouse. The wood on the crates immediately disintegrated, dripping all over the floor like liquid splinters. Smoke boiled up from the crates, and the smell of spearmint filled the air, so sharp, clean, and fresh that it burned my lungs to breathe in the aroma.

  I scrambled to my feet and whirled around to find the Mintilator standing behind me, forming another glowing green ball with his hands. I’d been right before when I’d thought that the ubervillain had an acid-based power. Apparently, he was so minty-fresh that he’d melt the skin right off your bones.

  The Mintilator threw another acid ball at us, and I shoved Lulu out of the way. I rolled to my right and managed to pull myself back up onto my feet. I headed toward the ubervillain as fast as I could, my chains clanking like those attached to Marley’s ghost. I put myself in between the Mintilator and Lulu, who was struggling to crawl over to where her cane had fallen.

  “It’s over,” I said. “Stan’s down already, and the rest of the Fearless Five will be here any minute. Give up now, before I have to hurt you.”

  The Mintilator’s eyes narrowed with rage, his gaze just as green and glowy as the acid ball in his hands. “I don’t think so. I’ve worked too hard and come too far to let you ruin this for me now. This is it. My big score, my last hurrah, my retirement fund—and I’m not going to let some newbie superhero stop me now.”

  Newbie superhero? Anger pulsed through my body at the casual way he dismissed me. I’d show him exactly what a newbie superhero could do. I reached for the green waves shimmering around his body, even as the ubervillain drew back his hand to throw the acid ball at me.

  This time, I was quicker.

  I grabbed hold of the Mintilator’s power and used it to form my own ball, and we both threw acid at each other at the same time. But instead of tossing it at the ubervillain’s chest as he did with me, I aimed lower, going for his knees, hoping to take him by surprise and make it harder for him to avoid it. I ducked out of the way of the acid he hurled at me, but the Mintilator wasn’t expecting the quick counterattack, and he wasn’t nearly so lucky—the acid hit him square in the balls, eating right through his costume.

  Needless to say, having acid sprayed all over your, ah, sensitive regions is a bit painful, even for an ubervillain.

  Make that excruciatingly painful, given how the Mintilator howled and howled and howled, dancing from one foot to the other. The ubervillain stumbled back, and his white cape wrapped around his legs. That was the proverbial straw. The Mintilator teetered back and forth, trying to find his footing, cursing and howling all the while. His boot caught in a crack in the concrete floor, and he slammed face-first into one of the solidium branches on the toy tree. I heard the crack of the impact all the way across the warehouse.

  The Mintilator slumped to the floor without another sound.

  I stood there, hunched over, my hands on my knees, trying to get my breath back. Taking on ubervillains was tough enough to start with. Doing it with thirty pounds of metal weighing me down hadn’t made it any easier—

  Bang-bang-bang!

  My head snapped up, and I wondered if there was yet a third ubervillain I’d somehow missed in all the confusion—one who was on his way to kill me right now.

  Instead of another ubervillain, the double doors leading out of the warehouse rattled, like someone was trying to get inside. Then, one of the doors caved in, sporting a distinctive, fist-like dent. The person on the other side drove a fist into the door again, this time punching right through the metal. Gloved fingers curled around the opening and then—

  SCREECH!

  The door was torn off its hinges. A second later, Fiera strode inside in all her flaming, orange-red spandex glory, followed by Hermit and Mr. Sage. Fiera, who was holding the door with one hand, casually tossed it across the warehouse like the heavy metal weighed no more than a paper clip. To her, it didn’t.

  Fiera marched over to me and stopped, staring at the unconscious forms of the Mintilator and Caveman Stan. Then, she looked at me. “Aw, you’ve had all the fun already. You should have at least left me one ubervillain to take down.”

  “Yeah,” I wheezed, still trying to get my breath back. “I had that very thought while I was dodging balls of acid.”

  Fiera sniffed and tossed her hair over her shoulders. “Rookies,” she muttered.

  I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to wrap the chains hanging off my body around Fiera’s neck.

  Teammates. Can’t live with them, can’t choke them unconscious.

&n
bsp; Chapter Five

  Using her superstrength, fire-based powers, and some explosives from Jasper that Lulu had stashed in her backpack, Fiera was able to blast the solidium chains off me. Meanwhile, Mr. Sage arranged for the police to transport the still-unconscious Mintilator and Caveman Stan to a secure ubervillain prison. Which, of course, they would no doubt escape from in a few months. But at least they wouldn’t be bothering anyone else—at least not before New Year’s.

  But all I could do was stand there and look at the toy tree. The sun had come up while we were getting everything squared away, and it was now past seven in the morning. Oodles o’ Stuff was supposed to open at nine sharp so the kids and their families could get their Christmas presents and other goodies.

  “How are we supposed to get the toys all the way across town in time for the store’s opening?” I asked, a sick feeling filling my stomach, eating at me like the Mintilator’s acid had him. “Not to mention the tree? All those kids and their parents. They’re going to be so disappointed, so heartbroken, and it’s my fault—all my fault.”

  Mr. Sage put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not your fault the tree got stolen, Karma Girl. Don’t worry. We’ll get everything back in time. I have a good feeling about this.”

  I eyed him. “Is that what your psychic powers are telling you—”

  The air whirled violently through the warehouse, drowning out the rest of my words and causing the remaining toys on the Christmas tree to sway back and forth. My head snapped right and then left as I wondered once again what new ubervillain had come out of the woodwork to wreak havoc on my holiday, but it wasn’t an ubervillain at all.

  One second, there was only empty air in front of me. The next, Swifte was there, striking a cocky pose in his shimmering, opalescent costume. He stood like that for a second, making sure that we all got an eyeful of him in all his shimmering glory. Then, the speedy superhero turned to me and grinned.

  “Karma Girl,” he chirped in a cheery tone. “You’re looking well, all things considered. Love the silver spandex, by the way. Have you been working out?”

  Well, at least someone noticed my efforts. I started to ask Swifte why he was here, but my inner voice whispered, and I realized exactly who had called him. I looked at Lulu, who shrugged.

  “Once I saw how many toys the villains had taken off the tree, I put out a citywide call to the other superheroes,” Lulu said. “I figured we’d need all the help we could get.”

  “And naturally, I was the first one here,” Swifte said, striking another heroic pose, despite the fact that there weren’t any cameras around to capture him strutting his stuff. “Good thing too, because those toys aren’t even close to where they’re supposed to be.”

  I shook my head. “Even you’re not that fast—or strong enough to carry everything across town in time for Oodles’s opening.”

  Swifte just grinned at me. “Nope, but my friends are—and they should be getting here any second now.”

  He turned toward the open warehouse door, and sure enough, one by one, they started trickling inside.

  Granny Cane. Black Samba. Halitosis Hal. Pistol Pete. Wynter. The Invisible Ingénues. Okay, so I couldn’t exactly see the Ingénues, since they were, well, invisible, but they called out a cheery hello so I knew they were here.

  Practically every superhero in Bigtime walked through the warehouse door. Even Debonair popped! in using his teleportation superpower. In minutes, I had an army of heroes standing before me, ready to make sure the kids of Bigtime and their families got the Christmas they deserved.

  “All right, everybody, listen up,” I said, a smile spreading across my face. “We’ve got some toys to deliver.”

  *

  With Swifte’s superspeed, Black Samba and Granny Cane commandeering several city buses, and everyone else’s assorted powers, we managed to get all the toys and decorations back over to Oodles o’ Stuff. Using his teleportation power, Debonair was even able to transport the solidium tree back into its spot inside the store.

  Just before nine on Christmas morning, I once again found myself inside Oodles o’ Stuff. The Mintilator and Caveman Stan had managed to strip hundreds of items off the tree, and I was trying to put everything back where it belonged—but not having that much success, because all the superheroes kept talking at once, offering their suggestions.

  “I think the tea set goes over here, dear,” Granny Cane said, pointing her cane at a spot on the tree.

  Wynter shook her head and hefted the box in her hands. The motion made the giant snowflake pulse like a strobe light in the center of her ice-blue costume. “I don’t think so. That branch is too small for this big box.”

  “I’d say put it a little higher on the tree,” Swifte chimed in, zipping around both of them.

  And on and on it went, until my head was pounding just like it had been after Caveman Stan had hit me. I was just about to step in and tell them that it didn’t matter exactly where the tea set went, when Fiera shoved her elbow into my side.

  “Incoming,” Fiera muttered under her breath.

  I rubbed my side and turned around, wondering what she could possibly be talking about. A second later, I realized it wasn’t a what so much as a who.

  Abby Appleby marched over to me, a stony expression on her face. “Do you care to explain this—this mess, Karma Girl?”

  I sighed. Abby had every right to be upset. Thanks to me, a couple of ubervillains had stolen the toy tree and almost ruined everything. Even as it was, the kids wouldn’t get the picture-perfect Christmas they were expecting. But Abby deserved an explanation, so I filled her in on everything that had happened.

  I finished my story, and Abby looked around, her eyes going from the tree to the toys scattered around it to all the superheroes milling around. After a moment, her face softened.

  “You did the best you could, Karma Girl,” she said. “The best anyone could do. You got the toys back here for the kids to enjoy. That’s the most important thing.”

  Her features hardened once more. “But I’ll not have them digging through this disaster area. Swifte! Get your scrawny ass over here! Debonair! You too! Now! Now! Now!”

  Abby’s voice roared through the store. The event planner started barking orders at the superheroes, telling them where she wanted the toys, the clothes, the decorations, and everything else to go.

  Swifte raced around the store, stringing up lights and ribbons, while Debonair used his teleportation power to pop! things into place. Mr. Sage used his telekinesis to lift the heavier toys back where they were supposed to be, and the rest of the superheroes pitched in to help as well.

  At nine o’clock sharp, the front doors opened, and the kids and their parents streamed inside Oodles o’ Stuff. For a moment, they all stood there, staring up at the toy tree, expressions of absolute wonder on the kids’ faces, and gratitude and more mingled together with the tears on the parents’ faces. Then, everyone started clapping, yelling, and jumping up and down in glee and sheer excitement.

  The cheers made me smile—and I knew it would be the perfect Christmas after all.

  *

  The kids spent the next hour playing with the toys, trying on the clothes, and checking out the school supplies and other goodies while their parents watched. Then, everyone headed over to the store’s food court to dine on the ham, turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pies, and other holiday fixings that had been provided by Quicke’s restaurant.

  No one noticed when Karma Girl slipped away from the crowd—or that Carmen Cole took her place a few minutes later to cover the event for The Exposé. And I wasn’t the only reporter in attendance. Kelly Caleb with SNN, the Superhero News Network, was on the scene to film a piece for the evening broadcast.

  I talked to half a dozen kids and their parents, getting quotes for my story. I also made sure to interview Abby, because I wanted to highlight all of the hard work and long hours she’d put into the event. Finally, I talked to the superheroes wh
o’d pitched in to help at the last minute.

  Once I was done gathering material for my story, I stood off to one side, watching the kids, parents, and superheroes mingle, along with volunteers like Piper Perez and Roberto Bulluci who’d come to help with the event. Even Jasper, Lulu’s bomb-making friend, was here, along with Joanne James. Apparently, they’d both donated their time and money to the charity drive.

  Johnny Bulluci, Fiona’s fiancé, had also shown up to lend a hand. Johnny was keeping his distance from Fiona while she was still in her Fiera costume, but the two of them exchanged more than one lingering look. And Fiona thought Sam and I were still in the honeymoon phase. Please. It was a wonder Johnny didn’t spontaneously combust with the hot glances she was sending his way.

  I was happy that everyone was enjoying their Christmas—really, I was—but I couldn’t help but miss Sam and wish that he was here with me. It would make the day that much more perfect. With everything that had been going on, I hadn’t had a chance to call him, but Sam had sent me a text message saying that the merger had taken longer to wrap up than he’d thought. My heart ached at the idea of spending the holiday without him, but it looked like that was what was going to happen—

  A pair of arms snaked around my waist, and a low, sexy voice murmured in my ear. “Guess who?”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I whirled around. “Sam! You’re home!”

  My husband grinned at me. “I told you I’d make it.”

  “But how?” I asked. “In the message I got, you said your meetings had gone too long, and there was no way you could fly back in time for Christmas.”

  He jerked his head at Debonair, who was standing next to Bella Bulluci. The two of them were showing a little boy how to mix the paints in the art set he’d gotten.

  “When I realized I wasn’t going to make it back to Bigtime by plane, I called in a favor with Debonair,” Sam said.

  “I didn’t know he could teleport so far,” I murmured. “But it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you’re here with me now.”