29. Some Things Never Change
"You wanna know something terrible?" I ask Josh. He grins, nodding eagerly.
It's late Friday night. Josh and I are lounging around in his room, playing the occasional video game - but mostly just laying around and talking. We have the whole weekend ahead of us. His parents are out on some conference, so we can, in theory, do whatever we want. I even brought my suit. Naturally, however, we have no idea what to do with our free weekend.
"Well, yesterday..." I drop my voice down to a whisper. "I got home and my Mum decided that it was the perfect moment to give me a lecture on how to... date girls." He chuckles and I glare at him. "It's not funny."
He laughs even harder. "Dude," he says, between fits of hysteria. "If you really needed to know, you could have just asked 'Master of Women and Everything Love-Related.'" He points to himself, his finger wobbling as he continues to chuckle. I can't help but join in and next thing you know, we are both rolling around on the floor, unable to contain ourselves.
"So what would the Master of Women suggest then?" I ask, rolling my eyes but deciding to play along.
"Master of Women and Everything Love-Related," he corrects. "Well, the first step to a heathy relationship is to show a woman that you care. Save her from death or something."
"Uh?" I ask, not getting his logic. "Aren't I meant to buy her flowers or something, eh, something a little less drastic?"
"Flowers are for lesser men," he explains, raising his hands for empasis. "To show a woman you really care, you gotta save her ass-"
Josh is cut off, as his bedroom door opens and Julia sticks her head in. "Can you guys be quiet? I'm trying to sleep here." She looks annoyed, but man is it hot. Her eyes look tired and grumpy, but that doesn't stop them from being their usual amazing blue, like little circular windows to the sky. She sighs through frowned lips and I blush, blood flowing to my cheeks at the sight of her beauty. Her normally long and flowing blonde hair is tied up in a messy bun and she is wearing button up pyjamas, which are blue like her eyes with little clouds all over them. Aww man, I feel bad for keeping her from sleeping, but at the same time-
"Tim," she interrupts, with another sigh, "are you aware that you are hovering in the air and almost starting a small electrical fire in each of your hands?"
I snap out of my daydream, quickly stopping the current to my hands and letting myself fall to the ground. The one thing I can't stop, however, is the blood flow to my cheeks.
Josh snorts and rolls his eyes. "He does that."
"What is keeping you two up past eleven, anyway?" she asks.
"We were just talking and playing games, planning the weekend and stuff," I answer. "Why?"
"Tim was telling me this really traumatic story," Josh starts and I glare at him to shut up. "Yesterday," he continues, not taking my hint, "he got back to his house and-" Is Josh seriously about to embarrass me by... Only slightly panicking - okay, panicking a lot - I quickly leap across the room and roughly cover his mouth with my arm to muffle his speaking. Julia rolls her eyes at me, while Josh pushes me off. "Dude, fine then. I didn't know it was a secret."
"Do you guys plan on actually sleeping anytime soon?" she asks.
"No," Josh and I simultaneously answer, grinning at each other.
Julia groans upon hearing this. "Looks like I won't be sleeping either then. Hold on." She quickly walks out and I shoot Josh a confused look, wondering what she is doing. She returns, holding a few printouts and a notebook. "Okay," she says, sitting down between us. "So I was browsing around on the internet earlier and I found these. I was gonna show you then, but you two were too involved in whatever game you were playing."
"It's not just a 'whatever game'!" Josh complains, while Julia and I both roll our eyes at him. "It was G.T.A Five, man!"
"Okay, okay." Julia turns to me. "If you are still stuck for what to do this weekend, you should take a look at these."
"Hmmm," I muse, taking the printouts from her and giving them a look over. It's a quick list of all of the city's current and up-and-coming supervillains, sorted into three categories of lesser, middle and greater, based on what kind of damage they do.
"I know you took down Captain Catastrophe and maybe a few other minor villains, but I think it's time you stepped your game up." I sigh, knowing she is probably right. "Down, at the bottom here, in the lesser group are some of the more prolific villains that go for smaller establishments, like malls and pawn shops. The middle here is for banks and the like, whereas greater targeting villains go for heists, kidnapping and arson, museums and some of the more richer houses around the city."
"Okay," I say as I inspect the lists, trying to take this in. Only two names are listed for the greater category, Superto Thefto and Psychosetter. I recognise a few of the names in the middle catagory, mainly Icebreaker. There is quite a few names in the lesser catagory, none that I really recognise, but some that stick out to me are 'Pyrola' and 'Magic Man'.
"The ones in the middle and lesser category attack the most often," she explains, "but they also tend to 819Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfgahElQWJ6
copy each other, so if you take a few out of business, the rest will follow."
"Right," I say, trying to figure out how I can manage this. "But what about Ghostanna?"
Instant cringe on Julia's face when I mention the name of the city's other superhero. Clearly I'm not the only one who thinks her name is terrible. I suppose that's why Julia warned me against letting the media pick a name for me, but mine didn't turn out too bad. Ghostanna, however - terrible.
"If she is smart," Julia mutters, staring down at her thumbnail. "She probably has a similar plan."
The next morning, the three of us decide to make pancakes for breakfast. Julia makes up a big batch of batter, while me and Josh fry them in a pan. Well, try. We actually end up with a pile of misshapen and slightly burned 'pancakes', so Julia pushes us out of the way, quickly cooking a dozen more that are perfectly cooked and circular shaped, nothing like our failures.
While we eat, Julia tells me which areas of the city are the most crime-heavy. I'm surprised that she has bothered to find out all this information for me, though. She must really care about seeing the city become a good place to live in, or, maybe-
The sound of a phone ringing snaps me out of my thoughts. Julia smiles apologetically to us before answering it and taking it into the next room. While Josh and I finish off our breakfast in silence, I hear the occasional snippet of conversation coming from her direction. Loud squeals of "Right now?!" and "I'll be there!" She runs off towards what I assume is her room, returning with a day-pack over her shoulder and a excited grin plastered on her face.
"My friend Maddie got us tickets to... Oh my gosh, I gotta go! Catch you guys later!" Just like that, she slips some white sneakers on her feet and runs out the door. Didn't even stop to put on makeup, or anything. It seems suspicious, for example she did pack that bag awfully fast. Maybe she had been waiting for that phone call? Also, tickets means a show of some sort and don't people, I suppose girls in paticular, like to get on nicer clothes (than the ones they threw on upon waking) before rushing off? Not that there is anything wrong with how Julia looks after just getting up and having breakfast. She certainly doesn't need makeu-
"Tim!" Josh yells and I look up from my thoughts, I notice he is holding one of his pancakes high above his plate, brandishing it like a weapon. Uh oh, what did I do? "Don't tell me you were daydreaming about my sister again."
My cheeks redden slightly. "I wasn't daydreaming about your sister?" It comes out more like a question though, to which he snorts and hurls his pancake at me.
"Dude, you are a terrible liar."
I grimace, as warm pancake slides down my face, leaving a trail of maple syrup as it slowly droops down. It might feel yuck, but it still tastes good, as I discover when I stick my tongue out and taste it. "I know, I know," I grumble, after peeling it from my face. "But I also know..." I quickly skewer a pancake onto my fork, flinging it at Josh's face as hard and fast as I can. "This means war!"
"This means war!" cries BOMB, right before a carefully placed right hook from me sends him sprawling onto the grass, unconscious. That's right, I'm fighting a supervillain named 'BOMB'. Yes, caps included. Or rather, I was fighting a supervillain named 'BOMB'. While I was having a nice afternoon... flight around the city, I found him threatening to blow up a children's park unless the parents paid him a hefty fee... What kind of douche-bag does that? A knocked-out one, as it didn't take me very long at all to take him out. Some villains are all talk and little bite - he was definitely one of them.
A ticking sound brings me back out of my thoughts and I look to the centre of the park, annoyed to see BOMB's bomb (original, I know) is still alive and counting-down, with barely a half a minute left on its electronic timer. Damn, what am I going to do about that? Option one, also known as Tim's solution to everything, was to blast it full of electricity until it hopefully stopped working - or blew up, killing me and most of the parks inhibitants. Great, so much for my plan.
I look over at the bomb again. Twenty-Five seconds left, shit. Okay, what I really need is a safe place to detonate it. Not very comforted by me standing here staring at the bomb -- probably because I've got some sort of dumb look on my face -- a lot of parents are continuing to run away screaming with their kids in tow, which probably isn't helping my image. Right, save people. But where can I put the bomb? It's not like I can teleport it off to the desert or the ocean. Twenty seconds.
I look up and suddenly, I have the answer. Wasting no time, I rip the bomb from the ground, the metal pegs that BOMB used to anchor into the dirt proving no match for my strength. I fly it high up into the sky - as high as I dare - all the while watching the timer slowly tick down, ten, nine, etc. I hold on to it until the last second, flinging it away from me and flying as fast as I can in the other direction.
I hear the explosion behind me as I quickly descend, trying not to let the insane height freak me out too much. I come down too fast and land flat on my face on the grass, much to the surprise of the onlookers, several of which are paused in mid-clap. I struggle to my feet and wipe the grass off me, falling over again at least twice before I manage to get up. My stomach lurches and I grimace. Shouldn't have come down so fast...
Despite all this, the parents and kids around me continue to clap, a little girl with white-blonde pigtails even runs up to me and wraps her arms around me, squeezing my legs in a tight hug. It's adorable, but my upset stomach isn't, so I awkwardly smile at her and quickly send her away. Don't barf, don't spew up, it's fine, you can do this... I carefully walk away, smiling and nodding at my small audience, but mostly trying to convince my stomach to resume normal digestion behaviour.
To the side of the crowd I see that moustached guy, from both the TV and the cinema, quietly scrutinising me with his beady eyes and thinly pressed lips. I roll my eyes and he shoots visual daggers at me. I shrug his gaze off, continuing to walk away from the centre of the park. Well, looks like someone isn't in the best of moods...
I fly back to Josh's house in time to catch the six-o'clock news, oh-so-casually floating onto the deck and letting myself in through the ranch-slider door. I jump the few steps to his couch and land on-top of it, stretching my legs out and lounging over the cushions. Josh laughs at me from the kitchen, opening the fridge and tossing me a can of fizzy-drink, which I reach up to catch with my hand. It will look pretty cool if I catch it, but who am I kidding, it bounces off my thumb and falls down my arm, landing square on my nose.
"Ow!" I cry. Sharp, sudden pain, though not nearly as bad as last time something hit me there. The can rolls onto the floor and I feel blood begin to roll down my cheek. I quickly rip off my mask before it can get covered in blood and cover my nose with my hand as I walk to the bathroom, awkwardly breathing through my mouth. A ton of paper towels and a hysterical Josh later, it finally stops bleeding. Not broken, just bruised, but still pretty sore. Looking at myself in the mirror, I notice my nose does look kinda wonky, but thats probably more from all my other nose breaks than this particular time. I walk back to the couch with not as much gusto, a wad of paper in my hand just in case it starts bleeding again. Josh turns on the TV as I sit down next to him, still snickering as he recovers from his laughing fit.
"You're a great friend," I comment, carefully picking the can back off the floor.
"What would you do without me?" he asks, flicking over to the news channel. "You still did good today though. Two villains isn't too bad."
"Isn't too bad? Dude, I barely ate lunch!" I crack open the can and take a sip, feeling the bubbles tickle the back of my throat as I swallow.
"I'm kidding, you did great. Bomb and what was that other guy's name? Whatever, it will be on the TV soon. I didn't see Ghost or whatever her name is do anything today." I look away from Josh and sigh, not really wanting to be compared to anyone, definitely not her.
"Today," says an asian newswoman, "we saw three different supervillains stopped in their tracks, two by the original "Lightning Strike' and one this morning by newcomer 'Ghostanna'..." I cringe at the titles 'original' and 'newcomer', while beside me Josh frowns when seeing Ghostanna appear on the screen.
"It must have happened around when we were eating," he says.
A knock sounds on the door. "Dibs -- not getting it!" Josh cries and I get up, rolling my eyes.
"But I'm still wearing my suit," I say, walking over to the door anyway. "Hold on, Xray-vision." Looking through their apartment door reveals it's only Julia, so I quickly open it, smiling at her as she walks in. Then I frown, seeing she has a nasty-looking graze on her cheek. A little bit of dried blood, ouch. "Love what you did with your face," I say, before I can help myself.
She laughs at me. "You can't talk." I frown and then remember, bringing my hand up to my nose, not too surprised when my fingers come away with blood. "Your nose is bleeding, Lightning Strike."
"Aw man, not again!" I cry, quickly walking back to the couch and grabbing the paper-towels.
"What happened to your face, sis?" Josh asks, as she puts her bag down and joins us on the couch, sitting on the other side of him. "Don't tell me you also got attacked by a soft drink can."
"I'm fine," says Juila, shrugging him off. "I just tripped up on the way."
"I'm sure you will heal," he says, before turning to smirk at me. Uh oh, this won't be good. "On the other hand, Superboy here might need plastic surgery."
I groan, covering my face in my hands. "It isn't that bad," I mumble, mostly for my own benefit. I look up to see Julia glaring at her twin, giving him a not-so-subtle 'don't-be-mean' look. She sees me looking and turns to face me, carefully looking my face over.
"It's not that bad, just ignore Josh. I barely noticed it." She smiles at me. She could be being honest, or she could be too nice to tell me the truth, but I blush all the same. I look down as my face continues to redden, too shy to look her in the eye. I quickly sneak a look at her face, biting my lip so I don't say something embarrassing. Why does she have to be so beautiful?
Josh's words from last night bounce around my head. "Show a woman that you care. Save her from death or something." Well, I did save her life, that day on the roof of the building... I need to stop being so shy. Tim, how are you meant to get anywhere if you can't even look her in the eye? Good point, myself. Okay, I can do this. Just look up... and everything will be okay. Actually, it probably won't, but... Stop being a wuss and look her in the eye!
I slowly raise my eyes, trying to figure out if that is a slight red tint on her cheeks, or if it is a trick of the light. Maybe she is just a little windburnt or sunburnt on her face from being outside? Or maybe... but before I can know for certain, Josh leans back and breaks my line of sight, frowning at me as he does it. The look on his face is obvious: 'What are you up to, bro?'
Nothing. Nothing. I quickly turn back and face the TV, trying to get myself engrossed in the news. 'LIGHTNING STRIKE STRIKES AGAIN!' I try not to snort. Some things never change.
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