Sidekicked
Authors: John David Anderson
To my parents, Wes and Shiela Anderson,
who never leave me hanging
Prologue Thirteen Years Ago . . .
Part One: IN WHICH I ALMOST DIE
4 The Superhero Sidekick Code of Conduct
Part Two: IN WHICH I ALMOST DIE . . . AGAIN
13 Something Doesn't Smell Right
16 The Best Two and a Half Seconds of My Life
17 The Worst Fifteen Minutes of My Life So Far
Part Three: IN WHICH SOMEONE ELSE ALMOST DIES FOR A CHANGE
Part Four: IN WHICH SOMEBODY FINALLY DIES
34 The End Justifies the Means
THIRTEEN YEARS AGO . . .
C
aptain Marvelous sighed.
The Nullifier loomed over him, arms crisscrossed in a pretzel of triumph. The supervillain held the detonator in one hand, his thumb hovering over the oversized red button. His black armor leeched the light from the streetlamps, and his mask hid his undoubtedly twisted grin. All around echoed the heavy percussion of gunfire as the minions of the Void confronted the Legion of Justice in a battle that had raged for hours.
It was pretty much epic.
Battles like this only came around once every decade or so. Most of a Super's time was spent stopping bank robberies, starring in commercials, and changing the spark plugs on the fill-in-the-blank-mobile. Seldom were a Super's powers truly tested.
Then again, seldom did a villain like the Nullifier get his hands on enough explosives to take out the entire city. In the comics, this would have been a five-part special.
And for a while it looked like a happy ending. The Legion of Justice had managed to locate and disarm four of the Nullifier's bombs and crush twelve dozen Zilchbots, all before evening rush hour. But their heroics were ultimately for naught. Kid Caliber and the Diamond Dame were trapped in the Nulzone, Mr. Malleable was stretched to the limit nearly two miles away, and the Mantis had fallen prey to a posse of armored mechanical minions.
And Captain Marvelous, the leader of the Legion of Justice for nearly two decades, the cover boy for superhero fanzines everywhere, had been beaten for the first time in his thirty-year career. There were still six bombs planted around the city, and the Nullifier was simply one drawn-out speech away from ending it all.
Captain Marvelous lay helpless on the cold pavement, his own superpowers sapped by the Nullifier's coup de grâceâthe marvelantium-infused laser that had leveled the Legion's leader with one blast. Marvelantium was the Captain's only known weakness; there was nothing the Captain could do but squirm. The big yellow M on his chest was obscured by the explosive charge the Nullifier had strapped there, and his arms and legs were bound with simple duct tapeâmore than enough to hold him in his weakened state. With his ruby-red cape wrapped half around him like a shroud, the Captain could only watch as his nemesis quivered with glee.
“You wewe foowish to think you could beat me.”
The Nullifier's words were muffled through his mask, but the Captain had heard enough of these final speeches to get the gist. The villain would lead with a taunt or insult. Next would come a series of revelations designed to induce feelings of shock and chagrin in the Super, followed by some grandiose claim to power, something along the lines of “Soon I will take over the world!” Or Manhattan. Or the top bunk. Depending on the rank of the criminal.
Most of the time Captain Marvelous took these speeches as opportunities to gather his strength for his final heroic maneuverâa pile driver or a simple bone-crunching punch. This time, however, he really
had
been foolish and nearsighted. He couldn't beat the Nullifierânot without his powers. He couldn't even wiggle around enough in the tape to scratch his butt. Which meant that, for the first time in decades as a Super, he would have to listen to this stupid speech from beginning to end.
And then, apparently, he would blow up.
The Nullifier cackled. “It was
I
who intercepted the armored convoy and stole the top-secret sample of marvelantium.
I
who sent you that text message that you thought was from that redhead at the bookstore, which led you to your doom,
I
who crippled your precious Legion. And soon I will rule the
galaxy
!”
The Nullifier cocked his head to the side, perhaps rethinking his ambition. But it felt right. He had bombs. He had laser-toting robots. Things were on fire. So for emphasis he added, “I will be the greatest supervillain the world has ever known!” Then he laughed again, because, as near as the Captain could tell, insane supervillains always laughed at nothing funny at all.
Captain Marvelous grunted. Even
that
took effort with the weight of the explosives on his chest. He knew he had to say something. If he could just keep the Nullifier talking, he might stall the city's destruction, though what he would do with the bought time was beyond him.
“You'll never succeed, Nullifier!” Captain Marvelous said through clenched teeth.
“Really?” The archvillain held up the detonator and wiggled it. “Which one of us has ten pounds of C-4 strapped to his chest, hmm?”
The Captain looked at the gray stuff settled above his rib cage, like a mound of Play-Doh with all the colors mixed together. There were a few wires and a little red light and a little green light. The little green light was on. Even if he still had his super strength, he wasn't sure he could withstand the force of the explosion.
The Nullifier took five steps back. His titanium armor would protect him from the force of the blast, of course, but there was no point getting bits of Marvelous all over it.
“O Captain, my Captain, I'm afraid your days are done.”
Captain Marvelous clenched every muscle he had. He hated poetry. Almost as much as he hated exploding. The leader of the Legion of Justice closed his eyes.
The Nullifier pressed the big red button.
At least he would have, if the detonator had still been in his hand.
Instead, the supervillain turned to see another man looming over him, five fingers wrapped around the detonator, the other five wrapped into a fist. The stranger was at least a foot taller than the Nullifier. He wore torn blue jeans and a tight black T-shirt underneath a leather jacket that barely seemed to contain him. He had no weapons, no capes, no armor. There were no letters, emblems, or sponsors on his chest. His only distinguishing feature was the sunglasses he wore, despite the fact that the sun had long ago set on the presumably doomed city.
The Nullifier shrugged his shoulders and reached out with one armor-clad fist to take back his remote, but the stranger slammed his fist into the villain's metal mask. A normal human would have broken every finger and not even made a dent, but this stranger's punch crumpled the helmet like aluminum foil, crunching the Nullifier's nose and causing the villain to spin halfway around before collapsing to his knees.
The Nullifier was out cold.
The mysterious new Super crushed the detonator in one hand the way someone much less extraordinary would crumble crackers over a bowl of chili. Then he bent over Captain Marvelous and tore the bomb from his chest, lifting the surprised Super to his feet.
“Who
are
you?” the Captain asked, brushing himself off.
It was a question the Captain himself had answered at least a few dozen times before. But he had never asked it.
The stranger looked up heroically into the sky.
“You can call me . . . the Titan.”
Four hours later, in a hospital room nearly seven hundred miles away, an infant coughed the last bit of fluid out of his lungs. The whole world assaulted him. The heartbeats of humans and machines, the smell of plastic and antiseptic and bodily fluids, the cool rush of air and the instant heat of the lamp, the intricately engraved tips of fingers poking and prodding him. If he could open his eyes and focus, he would see every pore in his mother's skin as she held him against her and the crystalline reflection of his own red and wrinkled face in the single tear that lingered near her eye.
On that day a hero was born.
1
JUST HANGING AROUND
I
t's Tuesday.
It's Tuesday and I'm in costume, but just barely. That is to say that I have my mask and outfit on, so nobody knows who I am. Or almost nobody, at least. Which pretty much sums up my life as a whole.
It's Tuesday, which means it was sloppy joe day in the cafeteria, which is bad enough, but that's not the worst thing that can happen to you.
It's Tuesdayâmiddle of September, only about a month into the new school yearâand I'm hovering over the Justicia community pool, which only two weeks ago was still filled with a dozen drowning bugs and the farewell tinkle from the last toddler to be dragged screaming out of it.
Today it is filled with acid.
Seriously. Acid.
There are only so many things you can fill a swimming pool with that will kill someone and make a dramatic spectacle in the process. I don't see any alligators or piranhas. Sharks are good, but you have to have saltwater. Spikes work if they are positioned properly and a suitable force is applied. But ask any supervillain, and they will tell you that acid will always do in a pinch. Besides, I can identify over three hundred chemicals by smell alone.
Note that this is far from a typical Tuesday for me. Most days I'd be at home, zombied out in front of my computer or asleep on top of my math book, my cheek in a puddle of drool, x + y marks the spot. Of course, I also understand acid-filled swimming pools are potential job hazards, but that doesn't make me any happier about it.