31. King of the Drama-Queens
The following Monday morning, Mum laughs at my attempt at claiming I am too injured to go to school. She throws a change of bandages at me for my leg and sends me on my way. But not before she casually tells me to be 'prepared' for this afternoon. Because, apparently, we're going to be 'training'. Great.
My day gets progressively better from then on. Not. Josh spends most of the day trying to convince me to ask Anna on a date. Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with her. She is pretty, kind and her personality isn't bad either. She always seems genuinely interested in talking to me and listening to what I have to say, which is a bonus. But what I don't like, is how determined Josh is to hook us up. Why would it matter to him?
Eventually I give up and ask him what his motive is. Two reasons, he says. One - Anna is genuinely interested in me and I would be 'beyond stupid' to pass this up. Two - Anna isn't his sister.
"I don't even know what you see in her," Josh confesses, over lunch. "Julia is my twin. She looks like me, with a wig on."
I sigh, before stopping for a second to look at things from his perspective. If I had a sister - well, I've got a sister, but one closer to our age. Like an older Amy. Terrifying, but it would be even more terrifying if Josh wanted to date her. I'm not even sure if I would want to hang out with him anymore after that. I mean, sure, he would still be the same person, but I would barely be able to talk to him, because every word I say would be interrupted by a mental image of him banging my sister.
"Yeah," I reply, agreeing with him. I'm a terrible friend. I'm disgusting, actually. And stupid too, because why would Julia be interested in a public-school guy like me?
"I mean," continues Josh, looking down, like he is embarrassed to say it. "Sisters are meant to be off-limits, but twins are just gross."
"Yeah, I see what you mean." It's not like I dated or did anything real with his twin, but I'm still an ass for liking her. Come to think of it, she does look a lot like Josh. If I'm attracted to Julia, does that mean I'm attracted to him too? No. Nope, not going there. I suddenly stand up and see hope appear in Josh's eyes.
"Okay, I'll do it," I say, with much more confidence in my voice than I actually have. I look over at the table where Anna is sitting with her friends, laughing and slowly eating lunch. Awww man, I don't stand a chance. I sit down again, shaking my head. Josh glares at me and nudges my shin with his shoe.
"Dude, go on. I know you want to."
"Well," I say. "She is pretty and nice, all that, but..."
"But what?"
"Maybe," I sigh, trying to think of an excuse other than 'I'm too scared' or 'she doesn't like me'. "Maybe I should focus on being a superhero, rather than dating chicks." Josh yawns, obviously bored by my statement. Whatever. "What if I die next week or something?"
"Then we shall make it our mission," he says, standing up and speaking a bit too loudly for comfort, "that you do not die a virgi-"
I grab his arm and pull down, forcing him back to his seat. By this stage, a few people are looking at us weirdly, including Anna, who has stopped talking with her friends to watch us with curiosity. Ugh. I slump on the table and bury my head under my arms.
"Maybe tomorrow," I mutter, trying to stop the current to my fingers, just in case somebody sees and asks why my hands look like high voltage wires. Why can't I get sweaty palms or something, like a normal person?
"Fine," answers Josh. "You have twenty-four hours."
I groan, trying to bury my head deeper underneath my arms.
I collapse on the couch when I get home, trying to think of ways to get myself out of my current predicament. Right now, it's looking like Death-by-Embarrassment when I ask Anna on a date, or Death-by-Embarrassment when Josh does whatever he plans to do when I don't do the former. It gives me chills just to think of the destructive power Josh wields. He could do anything from ask Anna out for me (cringe), to tell somebody else of how I was "too scared" to ask out Anna (like Julia or my Mum), or maybe even-
"Too afraid to ask out a girl?" asks Mum in a teasing tone, successfully breaking me out of my internal monologue. I look up to see her in the kitchen, grabbing a glass of juice from the fridge and giving me a not-so-subtle eyebrow raise. Damn mind-reading.
She puts her glass down on the counter and disappears right before my eyes, there one second and then 'poof', gone. Well, without the poof bit, but you know what I mean. Not even a second later, I feel a shift of weight on the couch beside me and almost jump a foot in the air when I turn to see her now sitting on the couch beside me. Damn teleporting.
"Whoops," she says, before disappearing again and reappearing half a second later, with the drink in her hand. "Forgot my juice."
I don't know how to respond. Telepathy and teleporting are two very cool superpowers, don't get me wrong. Very cool - for the user. For the victim like me - not so much.
"So I dropped Amy off at a friend's house for the night." She takes a big sip out of her glass, leaning back and savouring the taste.
"Where is this going?" I ask. "If this is leading into the two hour sequel of "How to Date Girls", can we just get it over and done with?"
"Who taught you how to use sass? No, silly. Training, remember?" Oh yay, even better. She puts down the glass and reaches for my arm. I give her a questioning look as she makes contact, wondering why she wants to-
By the time I finally realise why she is holding onto my arm, it's already too late. Energy -- the painful type - ripples through my body, starting at where my mum's hand makes contact with my arm and pulsing through my muscles, freezing them in place. My stomach twists itself into knot and I clench my fists, trying to wish the feeling away. Oh come on, why do we have to teleport? Can't we fly, or drive, take the bus to where she wants to go? Even walk? What about walking? Exercise is healthy. Teleporting... well, it makes me feel sick, so it can't be all that good for you. I close my eyes, not wanting the sight of seeing my surroundings implode on themselves make me feel even more nauseous.
Fortunately, as soon as the feeling starts, it stops. Unfortunately, it's replaced by a different but no less horrible sensation - falling. I know I'm falling, because my stomach feels like it's in my throat and I can't hear anything over the wind screaming past my ears. I open my eyes to see the city spread out below me, all of it, from the outer suburbs to the towering skyscrapers - at least, that's all I manage to see before my eyes fill with water from the force of the wind.
It isn't until the wind flips me around and I feel the hot sun on my face and my arms that I realise Mum is gone. Of course she is gone. She can't fly, so she has to teleport away. I can fly, or at least I know I have flown before - but it is kind-of hard when the wind keeps on flipping you around and you are having trouble telling which way is up or down. So what was the 'training' purpose of teleporting me up high above the city? To test my reflexes? Whatever, I'll answer that when I am no longer in imminent danger.
You would think that I should be able to just will myself to stop falling or something like that, stop letting the wind whip me around and start gliding through the air instead of roughly falling through it. But I'm not that good. 'Recognised superhero' or not, I still need a moment's concentration to take flight, which is hard to get when I keep getting tossed around like the clothes in a washing machine.
I'm so high up, the ground doesn't appear to be getting any closer. But I can feel myself falling, so I know it must be. I feel really annoyed with my mum - I mean, who just drops their son off in the air to possibly free-fall to their death - but I try and push my thoughts out of the way, focusing instead on the flying part.
The worst part is not being in control. Spiralling around, not knowing one direction from another, not knowing if it's gonna stop when I make it stop, or if it will stop when I hit... Okay, I need to calm down.
First of all - straighten out, so I'm not uncontrollably tumbling and can concentrate. Probably easier said than done, but I manage to flip myself around so that I'm falling headfirst, feeling a little increase in speed as I create less air-resistance. Shoot, now I'm falling even faster! What if my speed continues to exponentially increase and get faster and faster until I smash into the ground... eek, I'm doomed.
Okay, I can avoid that. I think. All I need to do is concentrate. Think flying thoughts. How does flying feel? Like... weightless. I'm weightless. No longer am I affected by gravity, my body isn't pulled down anymore - I can move any direction I want. Scary, but also exhilarating.
As soon as I start to imagine this, I feel it for real. I'm still travelling downward at an exponential speed, but only because I haven't chosen to do anything else. I curve my body and swoop out of my descent, climbing a little bit before levelling out. It probably looked spectacular, or at least a tiny bit impressive to anybody that was watching. Hopefully nobody is, though and if they are, I hope they didn't see the ten seconds of terror before I actually started the impressive flying bit. Also, I hope they didn't have access to a camera or a cellphone...
Now that my first-world issues of free-falling from high above the city have been sorted out, I can get onto my other first-world issue... dealing with my crazy, abusive parent.
I find her sitting on the edge of one of the more taller skyscrapers, lazily flicking through a womens' healthcare magazine. She sits in the most casual manner, leaning back and swinging her legs out, like she is merely relaxing on the top of a low concrete wall, definitely not one of the city's tallest buildings. It's frustrating and annoying, to say the least. She just sent me tumbling down through the air, putting my life in great danger - sorry, 'training' - but can still manage to casually lounge around and read?
"Drama-queen," she says, closing her magazine and rolling it up into a tight cylinder. "Just in case you forgot: You are a superhero. You can fly. Actually, you are flying right now."
That is true. In order to talk to her at eye level while she sits hanging her legs over the edge of the building, I have to float in the air, suspended over fifty stories above the ground. A height of which I'm trying really hard not to think about, lest I look down, freak and start falling to my death again.
"Sure, luckily, I can fly. But you caught me by surprise. I wasn't prepar-"
"You think the next person to attack you is gonna wait for you to be prepared?"
"Attack me? Who said you were attacking me?"
Mum disappears as soon as I finish speaking, teleporting off to who the hell knows or cares where. She doesn't reappear after a few seconds, so I land on the concrete roof of the building, treasuring the feel of solid ground beneath my feet. Sure, flying is useful to have, once you get used to it - but is it fun to have? No.
Where did my mum go, anyway? I'm guessing she probably went to go get something. I wonder what is taking so-
WHACK! I stumble forward, head pounding like the cruellest drum in existence. Almost falling forward into the paved roof, I raise my hand to the back of my head as I turn, already in full knowledge of who hit me. Mum, gripping her curled up magazine and dramatically smacking it into her open palm.
"Me. I'm attacking you." I barely comprehend what she is saying. The back of my skull thuds like a second impact with each beat of my heart, oh man, if I wasn't mad already, I am definitely mad at her now. She vanishes again and this time I spin around on my heel, sure to catch her before she can attack me from behind again. But then I feel her foot as it collides with the back of my leg, sharp pain ripping through my calf.
I fall forward, my hands swinging out in front of me as I stumble towards the ground. But instead of landing on them and grazing my palms, I force myself to float up into the air, awkwardly flipping over as I strain my neck around to see her. My hands rush full of power of their own accord, as I grind my teeth together in frustration. This isn't cool, or funny.
I know that, she says, or rather, thinks, her voice crystal clear inside my head. I'm being fully serious here. Sooner or later, you will come across another teleporter. Best you practice on one that won't kill you when they win.
"Who says you will win?" I shoot back, rising higher, but not feeling overly confident on my odds of beating her.
She grins up at me and we lock stares, her eyes daring me to make the next move. Fine, have it your way. This electricity has to go somewhere. I raise my hand and blast a bolt of energy in her direction, swearing as she teleports out of the way, reappearing on the edge of the building, pivoted on the tips of her toes.
I don't hesitate to fire another bolt of electricity in her direction, even though I know in the back of my mind that she will just teleport out of the way again. But she chooses to quickly leap out of the line of fire instead, flipping upside-down as she bounces off the tips of her fingers and vaults herself up the right way again, landing on her heels. Damn. Either my mother is an ex-Olympic gymnast, or that move was power-aided. Oh no. Don't tell me she can do worse things than teleport and read minds...
Our eyes meet as she takes a step forward, the briefest look of concentration appearing on her brow as she continues to stare me down. For a second I hear a faint ringing sound from the back of my mind, before my world suddenly erupts into deafening screeching and white light. A second later and everything returns to normal, but I can feel the rough concrete beneith my hands and it stinging my back, my concentration and therefore my flight obviously broken by whatever the hell that was. I feel weight lightly pressing down on my chest and I look up to see Mum, standing over me and holding me in place with her foot.
"What on earth was that?" I ask, groaning as I lift and twist my head around in a vain attempt to properly look at her.
"A sort of 'mind blast', I suppose." I tense as she shifts a little bit more of her weight onto my chest, pressing into my ribs. "Watch out for telepaths, they aren't all about running around and intruding on people's thoughts."
Cool - but also very annoying. I suddenly reach up with my arms and grab her leg, twisting and pushing her off me. I jump to my feet in time to see that I probably used a bit to much force in my push, as she flies a metre or two up into the air, towards the edge of the building. Or not, as she agilely spins around and lands on the balls of her feet, barely half a step away from the fifty storey drop.
I raise my hands and she vanishes as I fire, only to materialise with her arm around my neck, squashing my throat and cutting off my breathing. Seriously? Another attack from behind? I concentrate on the areas of my skin that are touching hers and do what I do best, blast her with electricity. She yelps and quickly removes her arms, but before I can begin a counter-attack she hits me with a well placed kick to the back of my thigh, causing me to reflexively stumble forward. A slight ringing in my ears is all the warning I get before she hits me with another one of her 'mind blast' things, forcing me to the ground.
I'm laying awkwardly on the ground again, this time on my stomach and her foot on my back, pushing me down. My ribs ache from her weight bearing down on me and the sole of her shoe is made of rubber, effectively stopping me from shocking her again. I slump my shoulders, realising my defeat. The world implodes once again in the horrible teleporting whirl of death, the paved roof turning into carpet , as we appear back in our lounge.
She lifts her foot and leaves me to roll over and struggle into a sitting position, as she walks into the kitchen and opens the freezer door. I can feel the beginnings of what will probably be many bruises forming on my legs and chest, so I am grateful when she tosses me an icepack and a thin towel. She materialises in front of me, offering a glass of water and some painkillers for the throbbing in my head, which I gratefully accept.
"Nice fight," she says, smiling down at me. "Tomorrow?" she askes, to which I respond with a 'you-have-got-to-be-joking' look. "Kidding." She rolls her eyes and I groan in response. She better be.
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