Evil Maybe

Chapter 5- Max

It was always slightly jarring to realize how much power I could hold in the palm of my hand. There was a single red glowing button on my screen. I knew what it did. Of course I did, I designed it. But I chose not to think about it for too long. It was easier not to see the damage I was causing, to pretend like I wasn’t really hurting anyone. But still, it was strange to think how much more destruction I was causing from a single screen than both my father and brother were combined, engaged in combat in the sky.

Oh, right, I should probably mention there was a battle going on. THINK and EVIL had broken out into another random fight. Everyone was antsy under the looming threat of the war to come, which was why we kept getting into little skirmishes, I supposed. The war hadn’t started officially yet. We would know when it did. This was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. It’s the only reason I was allowed to be at this thing in the first place.

It’s pretty obvious once you’ve seen me that I’m not exactly battle caliber. I’m super lanky and skinny, unusually pale, and I flinch really easily. So yeah, not exactly what you’d imagine when you think of a soldier. But technology was where I’d found my niche. And so, I figured, that was where I’d stay for the rest of my life. Not a terrible fate, but it still took some acceptance to wrap my head around it. But at least I had a place at all.

I returned my focus to the battle after staring down the button for a long time. I wouldn’t press it unless (or until) I had to. My father and Norman were not far from each other, both in the sky engaged in separate fights. For a while my eyes were glued to my father. I was holding my tongue, as the last time I screamed to try and help I’d gotten a warning shot of fire blasted towards my feet, which was good enough encouragement for me to shut up. I heard a grunt to my left and glanced over, remembering Norman’s presence. My brother swore colorfully and barely dodged a bolt of green light that whipped past his arm. I watched as he grabbed the girl’s shoulder, twisted her arm, and pulled. There was a sickening crunch that I took to mean her limb had just been broken. She fell erratically to the ground, like a moth’s flight, and shuffled away whimpering. I grimaced.

He took this opportunity to call out to me. “Max! Do it already!” I knew what he was referring to. I didn’t want to do it. I ha already set off one, and the guilt was pressing on me. But if I didn’t, my father would surely find out, and that would be condemning myself to a horrible fate. Pressing my eyes shut, I put a finger down on the button. The repercussions were almost instantaneous. From somewhere far away, I heard a sound like a gunshot amplified. Screams followed and a cloud of dust seeped out from between two buildings like a guilt-ridden fog. My hands went clammy and the shame set in.

“I’m so sorry,” I muttered from my place in front of a demolished bakery whose red-and-yellow-striped awning managed to miraculously stay intact. No one could hear me, logically. I knew that much. But putting it out into the universe made me feel better, if only by a fractional amount. I sighed, shook myself, and reverted my gaze to the battle, knowing that if I didn’t pull myself out, I’d wallow in the guilt and lose myself completely.

The first thing I saw was a man in green coming at my father from the side. I opened my mouth to yell out a warning, but then hesitated- was the hero coming in from the left or the right? More importantly, was my right his right or his left? I was so confused, I thought better of calling out. I’d learned my lesson from the last time. Unfortunately, my dad did not see the man and ended up getting hit in the back with the handle of his blade. My father grimaced, arching his back, no doubt shocked. But he knew what he had to do. Of course, he retaliated.

He grabbed the man by the hair and delivered a few quick blows to his face. With a final swing of his arm to his chest, the hero flew back and fell into the wreckage, sending up a cloud of debris and smoke. All I saw was a rip of rich green fabric from his cape sticking on a broken pipe in the wreckage. I winced again, not wanting to imagine what had happened that I could not see, and again my thoughts were interrupted.

“Maximus!” my dad called out, grunting as he hit another hero square in the stomach. “Don’t you think that might’ve been a good time to warn me that there was a hero bloody right on top of me?”

“But I-” I started, but was interrupted again. “The right answer is yes!” He spat with more venom in his words than any of the heroes or villains here possessed. Without any further explanation, my father resumed fighting, streams of lava flying in every direction.

I took this moment to survey my surroundings. The layer of smoke in the sky could be seen for a mile or so ahead of me. Buildings were crumbling all around me, and citizens of the decimated city were running around trying to find cover, of which there was none. The sidewalks and once-busy roads were now cracked and missing chunks. Cars, street lamps and other large structures were strewn about haphazardly. Half of them were broken and missing parts, and the other half were folded in half or crushed into rubble. Flames erupted everywhere and the wail of sirens and screams was a constant sound, splitting through the air. All the hard work put into building the city so many called home- destroyed. I shuddered.

The constant drone of violence was starting to become white noise to me. However, my TerraPad vibrated suddenly, forcing me out of my daze to look down at it. A box-shaped message had popped up on the screen: “High target concentration. Initiate Explosive: 2?” A small image displayed a blue box surrounded by dozens of smaller red dots- heroes. Actual people with actual lives. Just dots. I took a shaky breath and raised my finger above the button labeled Initiate.

Suddenly, there was a noise above my head. I heard a whoosh which was immediately followed by a face popping up from atop the awning. The face was accompanied by a cool voice.

“Hello.” I yelped, startled by the suddenness of the person’s arrival. I took a step back, straight onto a pipe, which presently rolled out from underneath me. My legs gave way and I fell into a pile of rubble beneath me. My face burned red and I shook myself, attempting to focus on the stranger’s face.

When my vision finally cleared and I could see straight, my first thought was woah.

The girl standing above me gave off an indescribable air. It was as if she radiated confidence, and her smirk was the physical evidence. She had jet black hair that fell straight to her waist even in a ponytail and tan skin, like melted caramel. She was short, much shorter than I was, and her figure was just slightly curvy, showing her athleticism. Her thin nose was angled towards the ashy sky and her hands were on her hips, immediately establishing that she had the power between us.

She wasn’t wearing any armor, not even a cape, but a black belt sat on her hips. It seemed to hold some heavy duty throwing stars- and was that an electric charge surging through the edges? All of it- the girl in general- was extremely impressive. But the feature about the heroine that struck me the hardest was her eyes.

Golden. I’d never seen anything like them in my entire life. They were so bright, it made me wonder if I’d hit my head too hard and was making all this up. They were like the sun, like the color of leaves in fall, yet as feisty as fire. They seemed to be permanently crinkled in a smirk.

I didn’t know what to say to this girl who scared me half to death. She intimidated me to no end, but I knew I had to say something. She got to it first.

“I said hello. Aren’t you gonna respond?”

“Umm…” was all I could manage at the time.

“Guess you’re not one for words then. God, you’re no fun,” She pouted, then smiled, flashing a perfect set of teeth. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, and I heard a crackle of static as it floated up slightly. Electrokinesis, I thought, finally putting two and two together as I scrambled to stand.

I realized my brain had caught up enough to form words. “How did you get up on that awning like that?”

“I have my ways,” she replied lazily, clearly bored with me already. She tugged her ponytail back into place and a bolt of electricity shot up her arm, sending a ripple through her raven hair. “So, what’s your problem?”

I was taken aback. “My-my what?”

She sighed, clearly frustrated. “Your problem,” she repeated, exaggerating every word like I was a child. “Why aren’t you out there fighting? My kid sister fights more than you and she’s seven.”

I flushed again. “I uh- don’t actually have any powers. Or anything. Um. Not that it should matter to you or anything, but…” I trailed off, suddenly realizing how much I was using the word everything and how large my tongue felt in my mouth.

She raised one eyebrow, then burst out laughing. “Wow, that’s pathetic. You’d figure that someone that looks as sad as you do would at the very least have a lame power.” My eyes narrowed and I recoiled.

“Why are you even-” I began, but she cut me off again.

“I mean that’s just awful, really. I would feel bad, but…” she trailed off with a shrug.

I didn’t know what to do. Needless to say, I’d never had an interaction quite like this before. A total stranger comes up to me and starts insulting me over and over. I sort of just watched her, confused and wary.

Her head was on a constant swivel, making the gold color of her eyes dance in the light. She appeared to be searching for something or someone with a familiar desperation. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of her, and she noticed. Her gaze finally swung back to me, and she met my eyes for the first time.

“You gonna stop gawking, weirdo, or should I teach you some manners myself?” she said, once again in a lazy drawl, but this time there was some ice in her words. I shook my head and looked down at the ground, where my shoes were beginning to turn a sandy gray color from the dust.

The strange girl seemed to get over her offendedness quite quickly. “What’s your little toy do?” she asked nonchalantly, her head returning to a circle of constant movement.

I wondered how someone who was supposed to be one of the “good guys” could be so rude. From stories, all I’d heard was how good and merciful and… well, how spineless they could be. But I could tell this was not the only way this girl was not like the rest. I responded, with as much courage as I could muster, “Why should I tell you?”

Her eyes met mine again, only for a second, glinting with condescending mirth. “Well, well. Look at you. Suddenly you’re all tough. That’s cute.” Then, quicker than I could process in the moment, her fingers danced to her belt, picked up one of the throwing stars, and threw. I heard a quick rush of air and another crack of electricity as it soared past my ear, moving my hair, and embedded itself perfectly in the wood remnants of the building behind me. I turned and looked behind me, just to check and see if I was making the whole thing up in my mind. I wasn’t.

My face went slack and I returned my gaze to the girl, who had returned to her usual sneer. Slowly she sauntered towards me and finally ended up standing on a pile of wreckage. She reached over my shoulder, and I heard the wood snap as she removed the shuriken. She made a point of brushing her arm over mine, near my shoulder and neck, as she withdrew, making all my hair stand on end and goosebumps raise on my arms. She chuckled, as if she was getting pleasure from torturing me, and was about to draw back when she stopped.

“Not so tough now, are you?” she said quietly, finally taking the last few steps back and looking at my face again. I was dumbfounded. Shocked by how cold her presence was, how much she intimidated me. I was about open my stupid mouth again when - luckily, I suppose- I was cut off by sounds of the battle getting increasingly close. A woman hovered above us, grappling with another villain before eventually tiring him enough so that he slunk away to recover. Then her gaze turned to us.

“Ree!” she yelled as she swooped overhead. “What are you doing? And… is that a TerraPad? Are you having a casual chat with a villain right now?”

The girl, whose name I now knew was Ree, rolled her eyes and yelled back. “No, it’s just a citizen who doesn’t know what he’s got his hands on,” she lied, casually taking the TerraPad from my hands. This response appeared satisfactory to the woman, and with a nod, she returned to the fighting.

Ree returned her gaze to me. “Alright, I think we’re done here.” No sooner had the words left her mouth, then, to my horror, she dropped my TerraPad and drove her heel through the screen. Repeatedly. Honestly, they’re not that difficult to break, so she must have just been adding insult to injury. But the damage was done, and with a final crunch, my T-Pad was no more. Of course, now was the time when I could finally comprehend thoughts.

Half-mourning, half-angry, I complained, “What the heck was that? It took me ages to modify that thing.”

She merely looked at me. “Oh, it did? Oops,” she punctuated her words with that stupid smug look and a shrug. “Now, how about you go back to trying to take over the world?”

I opened my mouth and tried to say something back but found myself silenced again.

“Whatever,” she smiled lopsidedly. “See you around.” And with that, she left, bounding into the air and leaving a trail of electricity in her wake.

Ree. Somehow, the name seemed utterly fitting. I was too wrapped up in utter awe of this girl- Ree- to notice the ball of debris flying past my head. Frankly, I didn’t really care.