“You forgot?” Athena repeated mockingly, drawling the last word. She suddenly had a deep Southern accent. I realized she was imitating me. Did I really sound like that? “Where are you from, Theodore?” she drawled in the same mocking accent. I felt all of two inches tall.
“South Carolina, ma’am.”
“South Carolina, ma’am,” she repeated in the same accent. “Since you can’t be bothered to pick a code name on your own, I’m going to select one for you. For the duration of your training, your name is Carolina. Does that suit you, Carolina?” It did not, but I was certainly was not going to tell her that. Besides, I was starting to get irritated. I did not like being made fun of. I had gotten made fun of far too often in my life.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” I asked in response. There was a whisper of a smile of Athena’s face. It disappeared so quickly I thought I had imagined it, replaced by the same scowl she had been favoring me with since I had drawn attention to myself.
“Carolina, report to my quarters at oh seven hundred hours tomorrow morning. Between now and then you will memorize the page of the manual that discusses how you were to select a code name. You will recite that page to me by heart. Perhaps that will aid in your reading comprehension. And, since you’re so interested in excrement, after that you will clean the men’s latrine. I want to be able to eat off the toilets by the time you’re finished.”
Athena moved on before I could get out a dismayed “Yes, ma’am.” She started to berate someone who had laughed at my bear comment. He was a light-skinned black guy a few people down from where I stood. He told Athena his name was Myth. I hoped she would make him help me clean the latrines.
Misery loves company.
12
Athena and the other drill instructors led us outside after Athena berated Myth and then finished giving the rest of us the world’s worst pep talk. The way she talked, we trainees were too stupid to come in out of the rain, much less to become Heroes.
Outside, Camp Avatar looked exactly like that—a camp. It was as if someone had cut down a huge circle in the middle of a massive Oregon forest, and then plopped down several buildings in the middle of it. With much cursing and questioning of our intelligence, the instructors lined us up in rows in front of them, near the edge of the surrounding woods. Once we were finally in place, Athena surveyed us with her hands on her hips. She looked disdainful.
“Well, you’ve already proven yourselves too stupid to line up properly,” she said. “I’ve half a mind to tell you all to go home and to start off fresh with a more likely group of trainees. Can any of you infants at least fight?” No one said anything. Everyone was so quiet, I could hear someone’s stomach rumbling. Athena’s face grew even more contemptuous. “Come on. Nobody? I’m not asking you to take on all the drill instructors at once. Just little ol’ me. Surely there’s somebody among you who’s not scared of a woman.”
“I ain’t scared,” came a voice from behind me.
“Oh good, someone who’s not a complete coward. I was starting to think I’d have to give you all a testosterone transfusion. Step up so I can see you,” Athena said. A hulk of a man squeezed from out of the lines and stood before Athena and the rest of us. Though he did not look to be much older than I, he was well over six feet and a half tall, and as broad as the side of a barn. He was a mountain of a guy. Even his muscles had muscles. He made the Three Horsemen look like malnourished children.
“What’s your name?” Athena asked the massive guy. As tall as she was, he towered over her.
“Brute,” he said. Of course that was his name. As far as I was concerned, a guy that size could call himself Tinker Bell and I would happily call him that with a straight face.
“And your powers?”
“Strength.” It came out as more of a grunt than a word. Brute did not seem like the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe when you were the size of a shed, you did not have to be. He was white, hairy, and had a low, sloping forehead and a jaw that jutted out. His jaw looked like it was designed to chew boulders. Brute looked like the missing link between modern humans and our caveman ancestors.
“Looking at you, I can’t say I’m surprised super strength is your power,” Athena said. “All right Brute, attack me.”
Brute hesitated. “You sure? Don’t wanna hurt you.” Athena smiled at him condescendingly.
“It’s adorable that you think you could. Just attack.”
A confident smirk sprouted on Brute’s big dumb face. He twisted his head from side to side. His neck popped a few times. It sounded like exploding firecrackers.
With no further warning, Brute suddenly rushed Athena. His hands were outstretched. I thought Athena was about to be ground to a pulp. I did not feel too badly for her; I was looking forward to her getting her comeuppance for her cockiness and dubbing me Carolina.
What happened next happened too fast for me to completely follow. What I think happened is this: Athena stood rock still as Brute rushed toward her. Right as he was about to grab her, she stepped out of the way, grabbing one of his extended arms. She turned and twisted, using Brute’s momentum against him to throw him over her back. Brute flipped in the air. He then hit the ground back-first with a bone-rattling thump. He moaned weakly and stayed down.
Athena stood over Brute. She bent over and looked at him carefully.
“I’m pretty sure I just knocked the breath out of you and didn’t really hurt you,” she said to him, not unkindly. Not a hair on her head was out of place. She was not even breathing hard. “But we’ll take you to the infirmary to check you out just to be sure. If you’re all right, I’ll start teaching you how to channel your strength rather than merely rushing forward blindly. Carbon Copy, will you do the honors?” Carbon Copy nodded. Two identical versions of him stepped out of the Hero. It was like watching a cell divide under a microscope. The two new versions of Carbon Copy grabbed a stretcher. They loaded Brute on it with the help of a couple of trainees they drafted for the purpose. Struggling a bit under Brute’s dead weight, the two Carbon Copies lifted Brute off the ground. Then, with the stretcher between the two of them, the Carbon Copy versions trudged slowly off toward the infirmary.
Athena turned her attention to the rest of us again. An arrogant smirk was back in her face. It was in stark contrast to how she had just sympathetically spoken to Brute.
“In case you all were wondering, unlike Brute I’m not super strong,” she said. “Nor am I super-fast, nor do I have super reflexes. What I just did there to Brute any of you can do. You will be able to do it by the time we’re done with you. If you don’t wash out first, that is. All right, despite the fact he was as graceful as his name implies, at least Brute was not a coward. Anybody else with the stones to fight me?”
I knew better than to volunteer. I had little doubt after that display with Brute that Athena could handle me with one hand tied behind her back. With both hands tied behind her back, maybe. And, I had not even seen her use her powers yet. I marveled at the ease with which she had handled Brute. If I could learn to fight like her, I bet I would be able to handle the Meta who had killed Dad.
“I’ll take a stab at it,” came another voice from the ranks behind me. A wiry little guy stepped forward. He was short and small, even smaller than I. Even so, he walked with a confident strut. He reminded me of the bantam roosters Uncle Charles kept on his farm.
“Name?” Athena asked.
“Nimbus,” the wiry guy said.
“Powers?”
“I can fly, plus I can shoot energy beams. What about yours?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Athena said. “That is your first lesson of the day—never volunteer to an opponent what your abilities are. It gives her a chance to prepare for you. Are you ready?”
“Born ready,” Nimbus said.
Without no further ado, Athena sprang toward Nimbus like a pouncing cat. She was fast. But, Nimbus was faster. A white and yellow energy field suddenly surrounded him. He rocketed up
above us, leaving Athena clutching at air where Nimbus had been an instant before. Nimbus turned in mid-air. His clenched fists stretched out in front of him, pointing toward Athena. A blast of the same yellowish-white energy that surrounded Nimbus shot out from his fists toward Athena. Athena moved to the left, easily dodging the blast. It hit the ground with a loud concussion, making my teeth rattle. An odor like what you smelled after a lightning strike filled the air.
Something long and narrow appeared in Athena’s hand out of seemingly thin air. She spun whatever it was quickly at her side, like she was turning a jump rope. She released the spinning object, sending it shooting toward Nimbus overhead. He tried to dart to the side to avoid it. Too late. The object wrapped around him like a piece of wound string. Now that the object was still, I recognized it. It was bolas, a weapon with weights on the ends of interconnected cords. I had seen pictures of them, but I had never seen one in action before.
A visible spark of current ran along the length of the bolas. Nimbus cried out in surprise and pain. The glow of energy around him flickered for a moment. He fell slowly out of the sky, like a punctured helium balloon. He crumpled onto the ground. Athena quickly moved over to where he had fallen and stood over him. She rolled him over with her foot, pressing her boot against his chest. Nimbus struggled against both his bonds and her boot. A sword flickered into existence in Athena’s hand. She held the point of the sword against Nimbus’ neck. Its blade looked razor sharp. Nimbus stopped struggling.
“You have a bolas wrapped around you,” Athena said to Nimbus, her voice raised so we could all hear her. Despite her raised voice, her tone was conversational, like she was describing what the weather was like. “It’s electrified to disrupt the powers of most Metas. As you should have surmised by now, my Metahuman power is the ability to generate any known weapon. From anything as simple as this sword here to a nuclear bomb.” She paused. “Do you yield?” she asked Nimbus.
“I suppose I don’t have a choice,” he said. He sounded frustrated and somewhat deflated.
“No you don’t,” Athena said. “Not unless you want your throat sliced open.” The sword in her hand and the bolas around Nimbus disappeared. Athena helped Nimbus up. He brushed himself off while shaking his head. He returned to our ranks.
“If that’s the best you infants can do, I and the other instructors have got our work cut out for us in trying to make you into anything resembling Heroes,” Athena said to us. “It’ll be like trying to carve a statue out of a steaming pile of dog-doo. If no one else wants to embarrass themselves, let’s get to work. Split up into—oh wait, here’s a new masochist after all.”
One of the trainees had quietly stepped out of the ranks and in front of Athena. She was of average height, slender and toned, and maybe a little older than I. She had shiny black hair that was up in a braided bun. Her skin was olive-colored. Her skin tone, along with the aquiline shape of her nose, made me conclude she was of Indian descent. The Asian kind of Indian, not a Native American. This trainee was pretty, but evidently not too bright. You would not have caught me volunteering to take on Athena. A wise man learned from the mistakes of others.
“Name?” Athena asked of the trainee.
“Smoke,” she said. Her voice was clear and firm, with just the slightest hint of an accent.
“Powers?” Athena asked.
Smoke smiled a bit. “Stylishness,” she said. She seemed entirely sure of herself. Then again, so had Brute and Nimbus.
Athena actually smiled back at her. I thought the expression might break her face. I had thought it was permanently etched with a scowl.
“See?” Athena said to the rest of us. “That is the way you should answer that question when an opponent asks. Don’t volunteer information.”
Athena and Smoke separated from the rest of us a bit, getting close to a copse of tall trees.
“Ready?” Athena asked. Smoke nodded. Athena quickly closed the gap between her and Smoke. Smoke remained still. Athena let loose a roundhouse kick that I thought was going to take Smoke’s head off. At the last moment, Smoke’s head became translucent and misty-looking, like it was made out of a grey cloud. Athena’s kick passed right through Smoke’s head like it was, well, smoke. Athena was thrown off-balance and staggered, struggling to regain her balance since her kick had unexpectedly met with no resistance. Smoke hit Athena with two quick punches in the torso. Athena danced back out of Smoke’s reach. Smoke pushed forward toward Athena. Her whole body became gaseous and pink, and it spread out to engulf Athena’s body. Athena tried to move out of the gassy area, but Smoke’s gaseous form followed like she was Athena’s second skin. Athena coughed, staggering slightly. She looked up. She was under a thick branch that was high up on a tree. Athena lifted her hand. A bulky, silver-colored gun with a grappling hook on the end of the barrel suddenly appeared in her hand. Athena pulled the gun’s trigger. The grappling hook shot out of the gun with a loud blast. A long and thin metallic cable extended out, running from the end of the ascending grappling hook back into the gun. The grappling hook wrapped around the overhead tree branch.
Holding onto the bulky gun with both hands, Athena quickly ascended out of the gaseous area Smoke had formed. Tendrils of pink gas ran down from Athena’s body as she shot upward. Once she was clear of the gas, Athena let go of the gun. Athena fell toward the ground in an arc, clear of the gas. Athena landed, rolling gracefully to her feet. She turned toward where she had left Smoke’s gaseous form behind.
Still in vapor form, Smoke surged toward Athena. A backpack containing two big tanks formed on Athena’s back, connected by black tubing to a gun-like wand in her hands. Athena suddenly looked like a Ghostbuster wielding a proton pack. Athena aimed the wand in the direction of the approaching gas. A jet of flame licked out of the wand Athena held. The thing on Athena’s back was obviously a flamethrower. The flame did not hit Smoke as Athena was not aiming it directly at her. Rather, the stream of flame extended out like a fiery tongue slightly above and to the right of the mass of Smoke’s gas. The mass of gas visibly recoiled from the flames near it. The gas collapsed in on itself, away from the flames, quickly coalescing into the form of a figure. Smoke reappeared, crouching on the ground.
As soon as Smoke became corporeal again, Athena’s flamethrower disappeared, leaving behind the smell of fuel in the air. Another gun appeared in Athena’s hands, this one looking a bit like a sawed-off shotgun, only far more high-tech looking. Athena fired the new gun at Smoke’s crouching body. There was not the usual sound of gunfire I would have expected. Rather, there was more of a low whistling sound as a mass shot out of the end of Athena’s gun. The mass expanded as it flew toward Smoke. It was a net. The net landed on Smoke. It constricted around Smoke like it was an animal trying to squeeze her to death. Visible sparks of current ran along the webbing of the net. It looked similar to the current that had neutralized Nimbus. Smoke struggled against the netting. But, the more she struggled, the tighter the net constricted around her.
Athena walked up to Smoke’s struggling form.
“Do you yield?” Athena asked. She had to ask again before the question seemed to sink into Smoke. Smoke stopped struggling against the net. Smoke nodded.
The net around Smoke disappeared as if it had never existed. Smoke stood. She shook her head both ruefully and with appreciation.
“How did you know I was flammable when I was in my knockout gas form?” Smoke asked Athena.
“I’ve encountered that gas before,” Athena said. “I recognized the smell. Who trained you? You clearly have combat experience.”
Smoke hesitated for the briefest of moments before answering. “Doctor Alchemy,” she said. She said the name almost like a challenge, as if she expected Athena to make something of it. There were audible gasps in the ranks of trainees behind me. There was some ugly muttering until Sprint yelled at us to shut up.
Like others obviously had, I recognized the name Doctor Alchemy. It would be more surprising if I did not recogn
ize the name. Doctor Alchemy was a supervillain. Actually, that understated the reality of the situation. Saying Doctor Alchemy was a supervillain was like saying George Washington was a President: it was technically true, but still understated the facts of the matter. If there was a Mount Rushmore of supervillains, Doctor Alchemy would be on it. In his own way Doctor Alchemy was as famous as Avatar, though maybe it would be more accurate to say Doctor Alchemy was infamous rather than famous the way Avatar was. Among other things, Doctor Alchemy was the supervillain who had tortured and killed Wildside, a very popular and well-respected Hero. That killing and other monstrous deeds had made Doctor Alchemy one of the most hated of all the supervillains.
Why in the world was someone who had been trained by a supervillain like Doctor Alchemy at the Academy?
“I see,” Athena said simply in response to Smoke’s revelation. “Doctor Alchemy trained you well then. You’re the only one today who even came close to giving me a run for my money. Return to the ranks.” Smoke did so. A few trainees gave her dirty looks.
Athena proceeded to lead us through a series of rigorous body-weight exercises. I was relieved when they were finally over. My arms and legs were rubbery. My torso burned. I was exhausted and dripping with sweat. I could have used a nap. I did not get one though, as the day was not nearly over. The body-weight exercises were apparently just a warm-up. Half of us trainees were sent to the gym with Carbon Copy. It was housed in a building on the other side of the camp. The rest of us, including me, went for a run through trails in the surrounding woods with Sprint and Athena. Lucky us.
We did not run to the Moon and back, but it sure felt like it. Athena encouraged us during the run, if you could call what she said to us encouragement. I did not know how she ran just as far as we did in heels, but she did. As she easily kept pace with us, she questioning our parentage, our hygiene, our ability to fight anything more formidable than a one-legged elderly woman on dialysis, and our worthiness to breathe the same air as her and Sprint. Her ability to belittle us without once using a curse word was remarkable. I might have admired it had I not been one of the targets of it. Sometimes Athena ran backward as she singled out a straggler for special attention. I knew because I was one of those stragglers. I was not used to running that hard or that far. I was convinced that my lungs would collapse and that my heart would explode.
Omega Superhero Box Set Page 9