4. Heroic... I Hope
The villain sighs as he sees me stepping forward. Josh just groans and gets poked with the nuzzle of the bad guy's gun a few times as he attempts to quieten him.
"What do you want?" he asks. "Can't you see I'm busy?" That's a good question. What do I want? I spend several seconds brooding over this, but then stop when I see him start to tap his foot against the ground in impatience. "Well?"
"Er..." I gulp nervously. "I'm here to..." I hear some muttering in the crowd and I have to force myself not to look back at all the countless people staring at me.
"To..." the villain prompts, rolling his eyes at me.
"Er..."
Josh sighs from his held hostage position in the bad guy's arms. "Look." He looks up at the robber and gives him an apologetic sigh. "My friend Tim here... he's a bit wacko. Some type of mental disorder. In fact, he's only just been deemed fit enough to be around human company..."
"Hey!" I give Josh a look that could be perceived as both perplexed and slightly annoyed. "What are you...?" My face starts to grow red from embarrassment and I can feel my hands fizzing. I look down, to see that they are sparking. Oh dear...
"See what I mean?" Josh gives me a one over. "Mental disorder. Barely fit for human company."
The villain chuckles, and I clench my fists together at the sound. "So what, exactly is your friend doing?"
"Ah, well, it's anybody's guess how that crazy mind of his works, but... my first guess would be that he's gonna try and save me."
"Josh," I grind my teeth on the syllables of his name.
"What?" The villain is completely confused now and he lets out a chuckle of uncertainty.
"I know, right dude? Completely wacko!" Josh grins madly and I scowl at him. "In fact, if I was you, I wouldn't listen to anything that he's about to say..."
"Josh. Shut. Up." I growl and raise my balled fists up to my chest. I hear the murmuring from the crowd around me increase and I have a look down at my hands. There's a pretty hefty amount of static electricity flying off them and I might have found it spectacular, under difference circumstances. But right now, I'm just mad.
The villain grins at me and my sparking hands, before dropping Josh and pushing him back into the steadily growing crowd. If there's one thing that attracts people more than one super, it's two supers.
"What's this?" He asks. "Another fellow super, I see. What's wrong? Am I robbing in your territory or something?"
'No,' I think, 'you just grabbed my friend. He might be a total dickhead at times, but he's still my friend. And I'm gonna kick your ass.' But I don't actually say anything, instead I just stare him down.
"Not the talking type, huh? Strong and silent? Well, let's see if you are as strong as you are silent." He grins at me, before dropping the gun and running straight for me. The crowd starts to go absolutely crazy around me, but they fade out of my mind as I focus on the super as he runs at me.
He gets closer, and I start a mental countdown to collision. Three, two, one and a half... The guy swings his fist at me and I duck instinctively. It's a good thing I did, because I see a sword materialise in his hand at the last moment and slice straight through the air where, only moments ago, my head was.
It's gone serious, it appears. So I grab his leg as I duck and try to imagine enough electricity to stun a large dog flowing through my hand and into his body. He yelps and tries to fly away, but I hold on as tight as I can and the result is that we both go flying through the air and smash into a game display rack.
I scramble to my feet at the same time as he does and we square off, circling each other.
"Nice, kid. But you will need more tricks than a few little electric shocks." He grins at me, but before I have time to think of, let alone speak a witty comeback, knives materialise in his hands and he starts throwing them at me, blade after blade. I succeed in dodging a few – an act which surprises me, as I never have been a good reflex person.
But the knives keep coming. And coming. Honestly, where is he getting all these knives from? I duck again, and a blade whirls a hairsbreadth from my face. What am I doing? I can't face a guy like this! This is ridiculous. How am I even managing to dodge these! I'm gonna get myself killed. I hold my hands up in the universal, okay, you win, mercy please, gesture, but he only grins and keeps the knives coming.
Oh, great.
I don't know what to do, so my body acts for me. I raise my hands, and, BAM! Out shoots a blinding white lightning bolt of electricity and it connects, right with the middle of his forehead.
Smoke waffles around us and I cough in its fumes. "Ah..." I gasp and slowly walk over to him. No knives are flying. The crowd has gone deathly silent. The suspense is killing me and I cough some more. Well, the overdose of smoke is also helping, but the blame is mostly on the suspense.
There the villain lies, tangled in a mess of charred video games. He groans, and barely manages to move into a sitting position. He looks relatively unharmed, which is surprising when you counter in the overload of smoke and the fact that almost everything around him is charred and burnt.
He groans again. "Okay, kiddo. You win. Do what you gotta do." I glance around perplexed for a few moments, trying to factor in what he just said. Did I... win? Seriously? I shake my head in surprise, before slowly turning around and walking back to the crowd, who are just as surprised as I am.
Josh leaps through the crowd and grabs my arm. "Wow, man. You just kicked his..."
"Yeah, I did." I sigh and try to ignore the many eyes burning holes in my forehead. "Now let's get out of here. Too many people are staring." The crowd parts for us in awe as we head for the exit.
"That was, like, amazing, dude!" Says Josh in awe as we walk through the car park. "The way you dodged those knives over and over again with your killer reflexes..."
"I don't have killer reflexes." I mumble, but Josh isn't having any of it.
"Yes, dude, you so do! Who else could have dodged those knives?"
"It wasn't that hard..." I nod sheepishly to the ground and concentrate on placing one foot down after another.
"Look at me." Josh orders and I sigh and look up at him. "Stop being modest. Yo just whipped that guys ass! You should be stoked! When we get back to my place or your place or wherever we're heading, we need to jump online and find out how to join the villains..."
"I'm not becoming a villain." I shake my head firmly and continue walking.
"What are you gonna do then? Be a superhero? Because that is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed."
"Sure." I half-heartedly chuckle. "But if I don't become one, who will?"
"Er... nobody! This city doesn't need heroes. It is quite fine without them, actually." Josh laughs.
"Obviously, your definition of 'fine' is screwed." I kick at the ground in front of me. "That guy, held you, and pointed a gun at your head. And people just stood around and watched. You tell me, how that's 'fine.'"
"Yeah, but then you walked up and kicked that guy's ass. So it was all fine." Josh grins at me and I facepalm myself at his stupidity. Honestly?
"You can't be serous, can you?" I sigh.
"Yeah, why?"
"You just stated that this city was 'fine' without heroes. Them you said that it was no problem that you just had a gun held at you, because I was there to come in and save you. Do you know what the act of saving people is? It's being heroic. In other words, I was being a hero." By the intelligence of his previous few sentences, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he gave me a funny look and said what, really? Josh is a good guy really, but sometimes he has less IQ points than a... decomposing octopus.
"Well, I guess that makes sense." He scratches his chin and I groan. "I suppose this city could use a few heroes..."
"You think?"
"But dude, the only problem, is, that if anyone tried to be a hero, like you want to, all the villains would shout 'feeding time' and kill you faster than a mob of lesbians." I burst into awkward laughter and sigh.
"Did you just say, 'faster than a mob of lesbians'?"
"Yep." Josh grins at me. "Feeling pretty proud of myself. It's a simile." I laugh. I guess maths isn't the only class in which Josh has had a substitute, lately.
At the halfway point, we decide to spilt paths and each go to our individual homes. When I arrive back to our flat above the shop, I open the door to find my exasperated mother standing in the entrance, holding a slightly singed television remote that I suspect is not working. Actually, I think I can confirm that.
"Do you know how this happened?" She asks in a frustrated tone, "because your sister reckons she didn't do it, and unless remotes these days have a built in self-destruct feature-"
"You never know," I but in, "they might."
"Do you have any idea what broke this?"
I laugh nervously. "Er... It's a long..." I see my mother's unamused face and gulp. "...story."
"What did you do?" Her tone is serious. I better not muck around here.
"Well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you..."
Several minutes later, we're sitting down on the couch and mum still wears her exasperated expression. I grin nervously at her in what I hope is a convincing way. Oh, please, let it be convincing...
"So, what you're telling me is," she is so unconvinced, I can see it, "you spilt soda on it, and it caught fire?"
"Yep." I pop the 'p' for special effect.
"Stupid mortal." My sister mutters as she walks into the kitchen.
"Hey, Amy!" My mother calls. "What were we saying about calling people 'mortals' again?"
"But it's true!"
"Oh, so then." My mother sighs. "I suppose it's alright if I call you a mortal, then?"
She leaps into the lounge, wielding an apple as a weapon. "You wouldn't dare!"
I sigh. Sometimes, I worry about that child. You should be worrying as well.
After dinner, I head off to my room and carefully shut the door behind me. Unfortunately, I lost the rubber gloves in the alley yesterday and I sigh at the thought of this. This means, that unless I want to find a new pair and spend the rest of my life on the cover of Bad Fashion Weekly, I need to learn some self-control.
It will be easy, I suppose.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
