Almost Infamous: A Supervillain Novel (14 page)

I was sure I could take all ten; this wasn’t a test of precision, as I could send one wave and destroy them all. This would be easy, just
focus
and done. Maybe I’d even impress Nevermore enough to finally get her naked.

I got up to the line and prepared to strike.

The pigeons were in the air. I began to
focus
.

There was a roar behind me, and I half-turned to face it. Before I could, I was face down on the ground after being hit from behind.

Then the
focus
kicked in, blasting me—and my attacker—off the ground. I was confused when I first saw the ground flying away from me. I only started to get scared when I saw the trees start to fly away from me.

What do they say?: It’s not the fall that kills you, just the sudden stop?

I must’ve started screaming around the time gravity kicked back. I don’t know how long I kept screaming, but it was a while. Even after Helios flew up and brought me down to Earth I was still shaking and gibbering with a rapidly expanding piss stain forming in the front of my shorts.

“What the fuck were you thinking? You almost got us all killed!” Helios roared at my attacker.

“I was just doing an assignment for class! You can ask Mr. Creature! He wanted us to stalk and take down someone without them seeing!” Carnivore said, his voice dripping innocence.

The two argued back and forth for a while as the rest of our class looked on in confusion and amusement and maybe some fear for me, as I finally started to calm down. Carnivore was good at faking innocence, but when Helios turned away to call for Creature, he snuck me a wink.

He’d humiliated me in front of a superhero
and
Nevermore.

I had to destroy him.

There were only thirty-one of us left by the time the fifth elimination test rolled around. In the past three weeks we’d buried five people next to Iron Bear; one because of a dinosaur attack, two from suicide (a hanging and a guy who fed himself to some vampire vines), and another two who had their Creepers activated in front of us after attempting escape.

The rest had been cut from the competition by the judges and sent straight to the Tower.

On their own, the tests weren’t so bad; they were mostly to see how we’d do under pressure in simulations of various challenges supervillains would face in the field. Wardrobe problems, delivering a powerful monologue to the press, containing a group of hostages. Simple stuff.

They weren’t that difficult so long as you did exactly what the heroes told you, and though I was rarely the top of any of them, I always did well enough to move on.

This test wasn’t any different. Blackjack told us that, while most of our encounters with superheroes would be coordinated and choreographed, there might be times when we would need to escape from prying eyes and blend in to our surroundings. As such, we were given a thirty-second head start into the forest before having a half-dozen robotic drones sent to hunt us down. Without attacking the drones, we had to evade them for as long as possible.

Easy enough. I’d spent enough of my life blending in that this wasn’t a difficult task, and I made it five minutes in the jungle before they got me, which was actually pretty long compared to the others. Black Blur and Shooting Star gave me top marks, and even the Voice of the People had to give me slight praise for using my powers for tearing down a part of a tree for cover. Based on my performance and the hero’s praise, I was confident that I’d make it through to the next round.

Now it was time to make sure that Carnivore wouldn’t.

I was so focused on his turn coming up that the rest of the world around me might as well have not existed. I didn’t even hear what my friends were joking about. All my attention was on Carnivore.

Then Showstopper said the one thing that could have stolen my attention from revenge.

“You know, I think she likes you, mate,” he said, punching me in the shoulder.

“Nevermore?”

“No, Shooting Star,” he said, pointing to the judge’s table. She was looking at me, even flashing that million-dollar smile of hers she always showed off in her toothpaste commercials before turning back to the other judges.

“She wants you,” Showstopper joked.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, she does.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Actually, she does,” Ghost Girl said.

“Really?” Showstopper and I said simultaneously.

“Oh yeah.”

“Why?” Firewall asked. That would have been my question, too, but I would’ve sounded less disgusted.

“She keeps a prim and proper public image, but she dreams of fucking bad boys. Or girls even, if she gets drunk enough,” said Ghost Girl.

“Why’d you look at me when you said that?” Firewall asked.

“I was looking at Aidan, you just happen to be in between.”

“Because I like guys.”

“So you’ve made abundantly clear,” Showstopper chimed in.

Firewall shot back, “Look, just because I don’t spread my legs like all the girls here doesn’t mean I’m—”

“Shooting Star?” I said to Ghost Girl, trying to get things back on track.

“She’s always wanted to fuck a supervillain, and with the pickings of straight male villains pretty low, she looks at you as the most fuckable by default,” Ghost Girl said.

It was times like this I really loved her aura-reading power.

“I can work with default,” I said. Trying to hook up with Shooting Star had never even entered my mind. I mean, sure, like any red-blooded American I’d spent my time jacking it to her back home, but she was a celebrity, impossible for someone like me to have dreamed about getting with before.

But you
are
a celebrity now. You’re Apex Strike. You can get her.

Then it hit me.

“Wait, you can see who wants to have sex with who?” I asked.

Ghost Girl nodded. “I see lots of things.”

“What about Nevermore? Do I stand a chance with her?”

“Of course you do. Just ask to have sex with her and you’re in.”

“Really? It’s that easy?”

“Of course. She’s desperately unhappy from a hard and depressing life and thusly has incredibly low self-esteem. She’s been used by people so often she’s confused sex with happiness and has so tied her identity to her sexuality she’s lost who she is. So if you just want sex, then yes, it is that easy. If you would truly like to touch her soul and forge an enduring romantic bond, then I would recommend talking to her. Getting to know her. No one has given her that courtesy in a long time.”

Most of what she’d said was awful, but the rest swelled my hope (among other parts).

“So… she would fuck me?”

Ghost Girl shook her head, cursing in Afrikaans.

“Felix, smack him please?” Firewall asked.

“With pleasure,” Felix said, transforming most of his hand into crystal and slapping me in the back of the head.

“Ow.”

There was applause around us as the judges finished critiquing someone. Tapping her microphone, Blackjack called Carnivore to the starting line.

This was it. No more distractions, no more thoughts of what Shooting Star might want to do to me. It was time to pay attention.

For the harassment. For the threats. For keeping Iron Bear in my nightmares.

For
revenge
.

They gave him a countdown.

Five…

Four…

Three…

Two…

O(
focus
)ne…

I only meant to trip him, maybe distract him long enough so the drones would catch up to him quickly, and then knock him out of the competition once and for all. Then I wouldn’t have to put up with his shit anymore.

Snapping his shin bone the moment he took a step forward was just a happy accident. He howled, falling down on his face. He called back to the judges, asking if he could see Spasm before the competition continued, but they refused. His head start continued to count down. I thought he would give up, hopefully even start crying.

Somehow, he got back up. He grabbed a downed tree branch and started using it as a walking stick. Then, somehow, he ran limping into the jungle.

The drones followed after him five seconds later.

I thought we’d hear the bell of his defeat in seconds, but we didn’t.

One minute passed. Nothing.

Two minutes. Still no bell. There was some roaring, some thrashing in the distance, but still he eluded them.

Three minutes. Three and a half minutes.

The bell rang at just shy of four minutes.

Carnivore hobbled out of the forest, sweating and panting, looking near-death. He stood before the judges and took his criticism well. According to them, he was brave and strong for making it through despite his handicap. They called him an inspiration.
Shit.

He collapsed back in his seat, looking at me smugly as Spasm came over and mended his broken bone. I doubt he knew what I did, I think he just wanted to gloat.

I fumed for the rest of the test. Odigjod and Nevermore did well, using teleportation and dark projections respectively to hide well at ten minutes each. With powers that didn’t really line up with the test, Felix, Showstopper, and Firewall didn’t do as well. Firewall could at least fly above the trees, but was hardly subtle, while all Showstopper and Felix could do was run through the jungle and hope for the best. They all got caught pretty quick… but most people did.

This test was definitely a tough one. While I could normally tell who was going on to the next round, this one was up for grabs. By rights, most of my friends would be eliminated, but most of them had done well on the previous tests and I was confident that had to be enough to keep them moving on.

Finally, with everyone finished, Blackjack and the judges tabulated their results. We knew our time was up when they opened the Tri-Hole.

“All right. Just wanna thank y’all again for your patience,” Blackjack said, as usual. “Tonight’s cuts are the toughest ones yet. A lot of y’all did great, some of you not so much. Some of y’all who didn’t do so hot will make it based on the results from your previous tests and classes—but barely. There’s thirty-one of you here, and only seven spots on the team. Twenty-three of you are moving on tonight. Eight aren’t. Black Blur?”

As I did every time an elimination came around, I closed my eyes and kept repeating
I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfine…

This time, however, Ghost Girl sat next to me and (against her better judgment, I’m sure) grabbed my hand tightly.

Black Blur whirred through the chairs, grabbing people and dragging them to the Tri-Hole. He ran uncomfortably close to us, and for one fearful moment I thought I’d felt his hands clamp onto me. Instead, I just heard a nearby grunt, and the whirring was gone.

Then, so was Black Blur.

I’d made it another round. Relief flooded my body. Ghost Girl finally let go.

“All right, thanks again for your patience everyone! You guys are doing great!” Blackjack said over the loudspeakers. “Now you get tomorrow off, pure rest and relaxation. You’re gonna need it, because day after’s gonna be your final elimination test before the final choosing. Congrats on makin’ it this far!”

I opened my eyes in time to see the heroes disappear through the Tri-Hole.
We got a free day tomorrow? Sweet! We hadn’t had free time in ages! I’d get a day with friends, we could hike, we could explore, make some trouble, or we could relax, and maybe, just maybe I’d even finally get the courage to hook up with Nevermore.

It was going to be a good day. I knew it.

It was only when I heard Odigjod crying, only when I turned to see Firewall setting a comforting metal hand on one of his tiny shoulders, that I realized Showstopper was gone.

The sadness hit me harder than I’d expected. Somehow, I’d thought the six of us were invincible. I was sure we’d all make it onto the team, that one day we’d run the world together. Seeing him gone made me feel so unbelievably… vulnerable. So alone.

This was suddenly so…
real
.

#Supervillainy101: The Family Maxx

While most villains have done well keeping their family and careers separate, some have attempted to make supervillainy into a family affair. The Maxx family consisted of some of the greatest supervillains of the 90s (you can tell they worked in the 90s because of the extra x in their name). The father, Jonathan, controlled fire, while his wife, Ginny, controlled ice. Their twin teenage sons, Lucien and Sammy, were speedsters, while twelve-year-old Hannah was considered one of the greatest florakinetics the world had ever seen. They were a powerful, intimidating team that had defeated every group of heroes that the Protectors had thrown at them.

It was when Lucien started dating Maria Modesto, the daughter of superhero Crystal Skull, that everything went to hell.

Neither family approved of their love, so the young couple tried to elope. Crystal Skull and a team of Protectors caught up to them, capturing the young lovers and using Lucien as bait for the rest of the family.

While Jonathan and Sammy fought Crystal Skull, Ginny and Hannah tried to free Lucien. They failed; Hannah was captured, while Ginny was accidentally killed while trying to imprison the Golem in a block of solid ice.