Super

Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them... Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

– Rob Siltanen

Despite leading this mysterious double life where I work with supers and plot to take down a super villain, I still had to go to school like any other normal teenager. Unfortunately, that meant two things. One, I was a living, breathing target. Crammed in one small high school of no more than six hundred students when the aforementioned super villain already knew who I was was probably the worst thing to be.

Another issue was that I couldn't sit still. I had to go to school like normal and pretend everything was okay, but a lot had happened over the last week and now I was antsy, almost as ADHD as Ardie (the infamous Lodestone) himself! Then there was that.

Lodestone's secret identity was no longer a secret (not to me, anyway) and I couldn't help staring at him in the halls, watching him do mundane things like talk to his friends or pick what passed for spinach casserole at our school out of his teeth after lunch.

See, with Lila it was fine because Lila was not normal and therefore she didn't do normal, mundane things. Instead, she fangirled about other supers, refused to eat the cafeteria's mystery meat, and rambled on and on about her crazy double life. With Ardie, it was different. He was in the grade below so I never saw much of him, but when I did, he never once mentioned his other personality or any of the other supers unless they were in the news.

It was like he had two completely different personalities: one with a mask and one without! So naturally, it surprised me when on Wednesday, he ignored that rule, sat at our table, and started in on the hero talk with so much gusto that Lila was forced to stare at the both of us and try to figure out how the heck we knew each other.

"Collins." I looked up at the use of my last name just in time to see Ardie slam his lunch tray on the table and plop down on the seat next to mine. Lila sat opposite us with her eyebrows in her hairline. "Did you see the report on Channel 44 yet?"

"No, Ardie, I've been in school," I rolled my eyes, "there's not exactly a T.V.–"

"Alright cut the attitude and look," Ardie thrust his phone into my hands and pressed play. Being a sophomore, he probably would have gotten his ass kicked for treating a junior like we were equals, but then again, Ardie was a super and probably didn't think twice about the bullies in the school. He was only a little taller than me, but his presence was intimidating enough, well, to those who knew about his alter ego.

Meanwhile, I watched the Channel 44 broadcast in horror, my gut wrenching and threatening to throw up yesterday's "spinach casserole" as the beautiful news reporter droned on.

Yesterday's heroes and tomorrow's super villains, it seems, as human fireball "Arson" was spotted teaming up with villain "Alloy" to rob a bank earlier this morning. Some grainy footage played in the top right corner of the screen showing Arson, in his fiery orange and red body suit – complete with flame decal plastered across the chest and arms – glowing sunset orange as he high-fived Alloy who was busy lugging sacks of money into a van. Lila straitened a little at the mention of "Alloy". Unfortunately, Brady (a.k.a. the villain Alloy himself), being Lila's brother and all, went to this school too, but we couldn't exactly expose him without exposing Lila so we were forced to live with a super villain in our midst.

The reporter continued, as more and more supers have been disappearing around the city, we are forced to wonder whether they, too, might have turned to the dark side and gone rogue. Now when did all of this start?–

I handed back Ardie's phone as the reporter started to recount the story of Grace Williams's murder at the Invisible Hand's hand.

Ardie watched me closely, trying to gauge my reaction. He wasn't the only one.

"Good morning friends," Brady fell into the seat next to her and swept a piece of her brown hair affectionately behind her ear. The two were identical twins. Had it not been for the gender difference, they would have looked exactly alike. In fact, Ardie looked back and forth frantically, piecing it together.

"You guys are twins."

"Well done Sherlock," Brady complimented. Brady wasn't very intimidating considering he looked just like Lila with his average brown hair, eyes, and height, but the menacing tone in his voice was just about enough to tip Ardie off that something was seriously wrong.

"Brady, get a life," Lila hissed. They started having a whispered argument and Ardie turned to me, eyes gleaming.

"Cat fight," he snickered and I froze in my seat. Neither twin heard, but could Ardie have known? And if Ardie knew, did the others know too? "Mist and Electro go at it all the freaking time," Ardie rolled his eyes, seemingly oblivious to my puckered face. "They're twins, too, you know."

Something about the measured words, as if Ardie had chosen them carefully told me he did, in fact, know about Lila. As for Brady, I had no idea, but I knew he suspected Brady of being a super. It was just a matter of which super. I grabbed his arm and tugged him to his feet, making a rushed excuse that we were going to get some more mystery meat and that Lila and Brady should stay here.

"I wouldn't trust the mystery meat," Lila frowned, breaking her glare with Brady to turn to me.

"Why not?" I tried to look innocent.

"I'm pretty sure meat's not supposed to come out of a tube," she cringed. Ardie and I let out a nervous laugh as I dragged him away.

"Alright, spit it out. How do you know?"

"The Invisible Hand paid me a visit," Ardie said quietly, taking care to lower his voice in case there were any prying ears.

"Well isn't he just a social butterfly this week," I rolled my eyes.

"He told me all about Lila's little secret. He seemed to know her well enough. And if he knows both you and Lila, he's got to know me, right? That's probably why he paid me a visit and not the others."

"Do the others know?"

"No." Ardie shook his head, "IH said something cheesy along the lines of now I'm trusting you Lo, don't go spilling another super's identity. But I have no idea why the hell he would tell me! Like, what's the point?"

"I don't know," I frowned, glancing back at the bickering twins.

"You got my hint, right? Electro and Mist are twins and they both have super powers. They can both control/turn into an element. Brady and Lila are twins and if Lila has the ability to take on characteristics, the only other super that matches that description is Alloy!"

Like I said before, Alloy can take on the characteristics of any metal and hence, he can practically turn into said metal. The Claw is pretty much the same with her feline friends, except that where Alloy didn't just randomly turn into a gold brick, the Claw actually turned into different species of cats.

"Well done," I breathed, feeling very queasy, "you figured it out."

"Hold up, you knew?" I nodded. "And you didn't tell us?"

"If I told you guys, I would have had to tell you how I knew, which would involve spilling Lila's secret."

"You could have just told us not to ask," he countered weakly. I raised an eyebrow and his argument petered out. Ardie knew as well as I did that if anyone found out I knew the identity of a super villain, they wouldn't stop until they found out how I knew. "You know," Ardie sounded excited, "if we can capture Brady, we can get him to tell us about Arson!"

"If he talks," I pointed out, but Ardie ignored me, picking up steam now.

"And then we can find out about the Invisible Hand: where he comes from, what his motives are, all of it! We won't even have to stage your mugging."

"Ardie," I said carefully, "your ear chip isn't on, is it?"

"No," Ardie said, "we keep them off until we get the whole tingly someone's-in-trouble feeling."

"Okay," I nodded, "just checking."

"Speaking of which," Ardie frowned, clutching his stomach, "I can't tell if the mystery meat is making its grand reappearance, or– nope, it's just my sister's cat again. Gotta run," he winked at me and dashed out of the doors.

I wondered whether McKenzie knew about her brother's mysterious double life. She definitely wasn't a super. Siblings only shared powers if they were twins. And besides, other than the Claw and Mist, there were very few other female supers in the city that weren't retired or defeated. The closest one matching Ardie's sister was the White Panther who could talk to animals. Though they were both in their late twenties, McKenzie Ladders would not be getting her cat stuck in a tree for the umpteenth time if she could communicate with her stupid pet.

Grabbing a slice of Wonder bread to avoid suspicion for coming back empty handed, I headed back to our table where Brady had vanished and some of our friends had taken his place.

"Wonder bread?" Lila c****d an eyebrow.

"The mystery meat didn't look up to par," I laughed.

"The only wondrous thing about Wonder bread is the amount of preservatives in it," Ashton scoffed, having just joined in the conversation. "That loaf is probably ten years old." I didn't disagree.

✩✩✩

The rest of the day was pretty bleak. After lunch was biology, which meant the frog dissection that I really wasn't looking forward too. Not to mention my lab partner alone made me want to upchuck the slice of Wonder bread I had hastily stuffed down my throat in attempt to eat something other than mystery meat.

Meet Dresden Fox: the world's most annoying teenager to "grace" us with his presence. Hot was an understatement, unfortunately. With dark hair and a jaw that could cut glass, he definitely had the whole "bad boy" image down. Not only was he attractive, but he was painfully aware of the fact. He was flirty and self-centred. According to him he could make any lady swoon – and a lot of them did – but I wasn't falling for his act. He was a douche, plain and simple.

I glared down at the mutilated frog in front of me. Everything Ardie said at lunch was whirring around in my mind at a million miles per hour. Could we kidnap Brady? The government knew he was a freaking super villain so they wouldn't be against it (but I'll talk more about that later). Or should we stick to the original plan of putting both Ardie and me in harm's way when there was a huge chance the Invisible Hand wouldn't even show?

"I'm not sure what that frog did to you," my lab partner said with a coy smile, "but I'm sure he's very sorry." I switched my glare to Dresden, chewing the inside of my cheek since my lip was already split and sore from repeatedly biting it over the last five days.

"Why do we even need to know what a frog's intestines look like?" I huffed, "I mean, when the hell am I going to be paying a parking meter or busking a table when I think, gee, I sure am glad I know what the digestion tract of a frog looks like."

"Wow, someone's grumpy," he acknowledged, running a hand through his dark hair, "rough night?" Dresden Fox pretty much brought new meaning to the word selfish. For him to show even a sliver of concern was a rare occurrence in and of itself.

I squinted at him suspiciously and in a measured tone, asked, "are you high?"

Dresden only laughed.

Tying my hair back and securing it with a rubber band, I decided to give this dissection another go. Ignoring Dresden's amused gaze, I gingerly lifted a leg and dropped it back onto the tray. The frog's body was already somewhat deformed from my first try, so I didn't have much to lose. I picked up the scalpel.

"Well," I sighed, digging into the dead thing, "it's now or never." Guts spilled everywhere and whatever liquid this frog had been soaking in oozed out. It looked suspiciously like today's mystery meat. Bile was quickly rising in my throat and I didn't know how much longer I could hold out. And to the makers of Wonder bread: your bread was definitely not doing wonders on my stomach.

"You okay there?" Who was this guy and what did he do with my obnoxious lab partner? Dresden Fox was not supposed to be concerned about anyone but himself and the girls he shamelessly flirted with.

"I'm fine, I got this," I grunted, wincing as I dragged the knife through the heart. The jagged line splintered across its stomach like a crack in the pavement, reminding me so much of the wound in Grace Williams's side that... "Nope, no I'm not. Can't do this. Gotta go."

Putting down the scalpel and peeling off my latex gloves, I walked calmly and quickly right out of the biology room, ignoring Mr Jackson's disgruntled protests of "you need a hall pass!" He ranted, but I paid him no attention as I made my way straight to the history room where Lila and Brady shared a class.

Once again, I ignored the teacher's angry whims as I grabbed their arms and dragged them out of the classroom.

"Annabelle." A voice stopped me in my tracks and the three of us turned around very slowly to find Gold Thrush standing in the hallway. Lila's arm started shaking in my hand and I knew it was taking every ounce of her not to fangirl. "What's up?"

"Um, nothing much," I laughed nervously and ran my hands through my hair. A couple strands were plastered to my sweaty forehead and I went about untangling them whilst trying not to look suspicious in front of Gold's watchful eye.

"Okay," he narrowed his eyes in disbelief, but continued anyway, "I just wanted to stop by and tell you I'm staying at your house again tonight. I don't trust the Invisible Hand after–"

"OKAY!" I shooed him down the hallway and ignored the scowl Lila was sending my way. Had I forgotten to tell her Gold spent the night Friday night? Whoops, silly me.

At the end of the hallway, Gold dug in his heels and turned to face me, sizing me up as he asked, "are you sure you're okay? You seem a little... off."

"Relax," I rolled my eyes and patted his (wow) rock hard chest, conveniently averting my gaze from the spandex that clung to every groove of his washboard abs. "I'm a big girl, Gold, I can take care of myself." For the first time, I was close enough to see into his light hazel eyes and was so stunned I nearly peed myself. Flashing in the hazel orbs were small, golden glints, scintillating like tiny bolts of lightning. Eyebrows raised, the twins watched as I awkwardly continued to pat his chest while I stared into those vibrant irises. Sensing my apprehension, Gold chuckled.

"You can always tell a super by their eyes," he winked, tapping his mask just below the eyes before turning to jog down the hallway. I already knew that, being best friends with Lila and all, but I had forgotten about it. In Lila, the shine was silver and it looked more like a trick of the light than anything supernatural. As for Ardie and Brady, I had never really paid close attention to their eyes, and anyway, Lila told me that most supers wear contacts to disguise the abnormalities in their eyes for their secret identities.

"We need to get out of here," I hissed in Lila's ear as I returned to the two gaping teenagers. Lila pulled her arm sharply out of my grasp and rounded on me.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on," she hissed. I knew she was right. I hadn't been telling her everything, which was pretty stupid considering she was a super and could probably help. I suppose I'd just been afraid of her judgement that I was teaming up with other supers when she had always been so against the idea. If you can't trust your own freaking family, who's to say you can trust complete strangers? was her go-to excuse. Honestly, it was a pretty good argument. Her own twin was evil, after all.

"SoArdieIsActuallyLodestoneAndHeKnowsYou'reTheClawBecauseTheInvisibleHandApparentlyPaidHimAVisitLastNightAndToldHimAndHeFiguredOutBrady'sASuperTooBecauseTwinsAlwaysShareSimilarPowersLikeElectroAndMistShareThePowerOverElementsYouKnowWeatherAndFogAndWhateverAndYouAndAlloyBothHaveThePowerToTakeOnTraitsOrFeaturesOfLikeCatsAndMetalOhAndGoldTrushStayedOverFridayNightToMakeSureIWasOkayAndHe'sActuallyReallySweetAndMuscular." Whew. I wiped some sweat off my brow and tried to ignore the silent stares I was getting from Brady and Lila.

"WHAT?" They both shrieked eventually. I hushed them and ushered them into a storage closet, glaring at Brady the whole time. Stupid evil bastard.

"He knows our identities?" Brady frowned, and then smirked, "well if you two can't do anything about it, neither can he," he winked and let himself out of the closet. Re: stupid evil bastard.

Lila and I spat a string of profanities after him until he slammed the door in our faces and she rounded on me once again.

"How could you not tell me, Annie?"

"I only found out at lunch!" I defended.

"I mean about Gold staying over."

"You knew the supers paid me a visit."

"BUT I DIDN'T KNOW YOU FREAKING SLEPT WITH ONE! Did he spoon you? Was it adorable?" She gushed.

"Don't be stupid" I tutted, "you know I only spoon two guys and their names are Ben and Jerry." Lila rolled her eyes at my attempt at humour.

"Shut up, Annie and think for a minute. If we can catch my i***t brother, maybe he can tell us a thing or two."

"Ardie said the same thing," I nodded.

"Another thing you conveniently forgot to tell me?" She c****d an eyebrow but I shook my head.

"Did you really want me to tell you my plan to kidnap your brother when he was standing right in front of us?" I looked at her sceptically. That was enough to shut her up.

✩✩✩

We hung out in the closet for a while, gossiping about Gold Thrush's abs and handsome jaw line, until the bell rang and we had to sprint back to our classrooms to grab our things before heading to the next class. This one we shared: English. Guess what class Dresden Fox had next? English. And guess which of my teachers was most anal about being timely? You guessed it: my English teacher.

Miss Morris was a monster of a woman. Weighing in at around 200 lbs, she towered over every quaking student, including poor Jeremy Jonson who was 6'5". Tall and fairly slim except for a pair of very plump hips, Miss Morris was every student's nightmare, as whenever she would lean down to fume putrid, acidy breath on whatever poor soul forgot to bring their homework that day, the unlucky bastard across the aisle would bear the punishment of dealing with fifty pounds of cheeks in their face. Miss Morris might have been pretty if it wasn't for the permanent scowl etched on her face, her eyebrows furrowed so deeply in a frown that not even plastic surgery would have righted them. As for her hair, it was a grey, mossy tangle on her head from years of tugging its roots in frustration.

I stumbled into class no more than two seconds late when Miss Morris began chiding me in her raspy wail. Lila was already there, her history class having been much closer than my biology class.

"Miss Collins, where have you been?" Demanded Satan's niece.

"In biology," I shrank in on myself. "The lab ran late."

Unfortunately, Miss Morris liked to assign seats to late arrivals and wouldn't you know it, there was an empty seat right next to the World's Biggest Asshole.

"Liar," Dresden blurted under his breath as I plopped down in my seat with a grunt. Ignoring Dresden's jibes, I began to pull out my folders and books. Math, biology, theatre, history... Uh oh. I freaked out. Every folder was present and accounted for except my English folder. s**t s**t s**t s**t fuckity f**k s**t.

"Here," I hadn't noticed Dresden watching me until he snuck something under my table. Glancing down, I noticed it was a plain blue binder, just like mine, but a little messier: his English folder.

"What?"

Dresden rolled his eyes, "just take it Annabelle."

"I–I can't," I stammered, desperately wanting to snatch the binder out of his hand before the she-devil noticed. "She'll eat you alive!"

"Oh please," Dresden smirked, "I've got a reputation to uphold." And with that he raised his hand and started waving it in the air, "Miss Morris!" He hollered, "Miss Morris I forgot my binder." I stared wide-eyed at the suicidal teenager next to me as Miss Morris came lumbering down the aisle towards us. Her wrath was palpable as her nostrils flared angrily, and I swear I saw steam come out of her ears.

"Something's wrong with you," I concluded. Miss Morris almost upon us. "What's wrong with you?"

"It's called being nice," Dresden scowled at me. Miss Morris reached us, towering over Dresden who just smiled innocently up at her. "Something wrong, Miss Morris?"

"Dresden Fox," she screeched, "this is the fourth time this week! What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Um, I'm actually a really nice person?" He tried. If only Miss Morris knew...

"DETENTION!" She roared and whirled on me. I gulped. "Annabelle Collins, am I to assume you don't have your binder either?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked to Dresden for help. He nodded, smiling shyly and I had to push down the guilt as I reached under my table and held up his binder. "It's right here, Miss Morris," I smiled weakly, blushing as one of his papers slipped out of the binder and glided to the floor. Miss Morris harrumphed and practically stomped back to the front of the class. To me, it sounded like a freaking stampede.

"The she-dragon has returned to her lair," Dresden chuckled softly, winking at a girl who handed him a spare leaf of paper. "Thanks, love." She giggled and turned back to whisper to her friend as Dresden wiggled his eyebrows at me and started copying down what Miss Morris was writing on the board.

✩✩✩

"Honey, I'm home!" sang a familiar voice as the apartment door slammed. I ran to the source, throwing my arms around my brother. Terry hugged me back tightly. Only two years older, my brother wasn't much taller than me and we fit together like peanut butter and jelly.

"How's 'college'?" I asked politely, ushering him further into the apartment so we could talk normally.

"Just peachy," Terry rolled his eyes and laughed as he grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the island in the kitchen. Terrance, as I believe I aforementioned, worked for the government. He was like their intern, doing the government equivalent of fetching coffee or picking up dry-cleaning. Usually, that meant keeping an eye on things as the government's little spy. They threatened to expose my unsuspecting father for not noticing a super villain right under his own nose (a.k.a. his daughter's best friend's twin), which goes without saying, would have ruined his campaign and career, unless Terry – a recognised prodigy in the art of hacking, programming, and other technology-based manipulation – went to work for them. My father, of course, was oblivious. Oblivious to the threats, oblivious to Alloy's secret identity, and oblivious to just how much Terry was helping him out by "going off to college".

"Anything new?" I asked boredly. Most of the spy stuff Terry did wasn't actually all that big of a deal. It pretty much consisted of hacking suspected enemies of President Xavier and reporting back.

"Not much," Terry said and then looked around to make sure mom wasn't around.

"She's at the store," I said and he shot me a grateful smile before continuing.

"Listen Annie, I overheard something while I was there." Terry had taken a road trip down to D.C. while I was at school today. One of the conditions that he could take such a long break this winter was that he checked in regularly. "I was waiting to speak to the president when Vice President Rhodes walked out of his office with State Senator Brown. They were talking about Grace Williams and her brother, who apparently, is a super." I gasped. I didn't mean to be so stereotypical with my surprise, but the government knew a lot of secret identities through all of their spyware. I didn't doubt they were right.

"But if Grace's brother is a super... He'll go crazy on whoever's responsible, which is the Invisible Hand! That's a good thing!"

"No," Terry shook his head, "Liam Williams is only thirteen. He'll get himself killed if he goes after the Invisible Hand."

Liam Williams. I remembered the name. Ben, that manager from the convenience store, had mentioned Liam had come in screaming bloody murder at him for not doing anything about his sister's murder.

"Terry, you underestimate supers. I mean Lodestone's only sixteen for Christ's sake!" For the second time that day, I gasped and clamped my mouth shut, staring at Terry's surprised and suspicious face.

"How do you know?" He asked slowly, narrowing his eyes. I played it cool.

Shrugging, I said, "I think he said it in an interview or something." Terry let it drop, but eyed me carefully for the next few minutes. I didn't think my nonchalance was very convincing.

"Listen Annie, I don't know which super Liam Williams is, but from the way Rhodes and the senator were talking, they weren't too enthusiastic. I'm scared he might be dangerous."

"Look, Terry, you said it yourself. If he's thirteen, he can't be that dangerous. We don't need to worry. For every villain, there're at least five supers."

"Not anymore," Terry shook his head. A mop of blondie-brown hair, just a shade darker than mine, fell into his eyes and he swept it away annoyed, "haven't you been watching the news? Supers have been disappearing left and right. Only six or seven have been spotted recently." I gulped. Six of the six or seven in question, I knew. They were all powerful supers, but some were more powerful than others. Take Bat Boy for example: he had supersonic hearing to the max, meaning he could hear conversations from miles away. He was probably listening in on this one as we spoke. He could also glide – but not fly – and had night vision as well as crazy navigational skills, but not much of that was useful in a fight. Lodestone had magnetism, which was handy in any fight involving metal, but if the attacker was smart, they would use something non magnetic to attack him. Even the Claw had her limits. She could turn into any type of cat, but apart from scaling buildings, she wasn't very fast without alternative transport. Sometimes she was even spotted taking the Metro to crime scenes. Even with a car, that wouldn't have been very effective given New York City traffic. It seemed the only supers that were safe were Electro, with his control of the weather; Mist, who could turn into a gaseous state making her almost impossible to catch unless she was taken by surprise (she could even turn into poisonous gas!); and of course, Gold Thrush. With his super strength, speed, agility, and the ability to fly, he was virtually unbeatable.

"Did you hear? White Panther's just gone missing!"

"I'm not surprised," I admitted sadly, "she was never much of a fighter. She was always the one to rescue animals, et cetera."

"Except McKenzie's cat," Terry chuckled. I laughed. McKenzie Ladder's cat, if you haven't already figured out, was somewhat of an inside joke in my family. The Claw was forever complaining about White Panther never being there to rescue the damn thing.

"Did you hear about Arson?" I asked quietly, once we had sobered. Terry shook his head. "Apparently he's gone rogue. He and Brady were spotted robbing a bank yesterday."

My brother blew out a hot breath, fanning out the mop of hair in his eyes. "s**t," he said.

"s**t," I agreed. Arson was a powerful super. With the ability to control, set fire to, and turn into a raging ball of flames, as well as being fireproof, we relied heavily on him for a lot of fire-related rescues. Now, victims of burning buildings were most definitely screwed.

"Without Arson on our side, this city's screwed," Terry groaned into his palms, "especially since all the heroes are just dropping off the face of New York City!"

"Is this happening in any other state?"

"No! That's the weird part!"

"One minute there, the next gone," I sighed, furrowing my eyebrows. How had they just disappeared? They were supers! Sure, some weren't that powerful, but the majority could take care of themselves. "Poof."

Terry nodded sadly. "Poof."

✩✩✩