How To Be a Super-Villain {an origin story}

3 • Acquire Mortal Sidekicks

• not edited (again - sorry) •

          Most kids grow up dreaming about going to med school to be a  doctor, or going to law school to be a lawyer, or forgetting university altogether and becoming a bartender to be an actor. And graduation is the pathway to success - one step closer into adulthood, and childhood aspirations. But I want neither of that. I want to be a world class Superhero. Thus, I'm not as concerned about my high school's formal graduation ceremony, so much as my father's own idea of graduation into the Superhero life, which will come in the form of saving the New York senator tonight, during the post-grad party.

My friends, however, have other concerns regarding the party. "Do you think he'll buy me a corsage?" my best friend Myra asks as she absentmindedly tugs on her impeccably in-place blonde curls.

Austin, my other best friend, rolls his eyes and says, "Why would he? It's not prom. It's just a fancy dinner party."

Myra leans over me to shoot him a shocked look, as if he'd just told her her shiny new Louboutins are fake. "It's a ball, Rivera. And does this mean you didn't get your date a corsage?"

"I just don't get why we can't go clubbing instead of going to this dumb fancy dinner party." Austin complains to me. He then leans over me to meet Myra's glare and smirks, "Besides, I no longer have a date as of twenty minutes ago. Chanel talks to much about things I don't care about. Remind me to never let you set me up with any one of your dumb cheer friends again."

Myra's jaw drops open and she shoves my bent knees away to reach over and smack Austin upside the head. "You dumped her? Right before graduation?" She falls back against the wall we're all leaning against and scoffs in disbelief, "You can't even manage to keep a date long enough for one ball."

Myra is the perfect high school Barbie stereotype, in all her blonde-hair, tan-skin, cheerleader, Prom Queen glory. The only non-stereotypical features she possess are her saintlike compassion and her brains - which is what's giving her a full ride to Johns Hopkins University to be a surgeon. But everything else is basically spot on - which is why if you dare to insult any of her loves (which includes the annual post-graduation ball held in the Kingsley Hotel), she'll fight back.

"Technically," Austin says fake-thoughtfully, holding a finger up, "I didn't dump her. We weren't even 'together' long enough for me to dump her. I should've just pulled a Cash Nova and not bothered to ask anyone. Save me all this pointless drama."

Austin, on the other hand, is the give-no-shits kind of high school delinquent, who may seem like the dark, brooding, mysterious bad boy so fawned over by teenage girls these days, but is really just an uncertified asshole. He's a funny and loyal asshole though, which is why we are such good friends.

Narrowing her eyes at both of us, as if I did something wrong too, Myra growls, "Cash didn't ask anyone to the ball because he never asks anyone out. It's his MO. You, on the other hand," she jabs a finger at Austin, who has both hands up in mock surrender and is trying not-so-hard to hold back a laugh, "are just an asshole."

Austin looks to me for help but I look at Myra and then back at him before shrugging. "Well, she's not wrong."

And me? I'm somewhere in between Myra and Austin. I join clubs, student governments, and sports. I participate in class and extracurriculars. I go to parties and I make sure I'm the life of those parties. People like me. I'm a likable person. I'm not arrogant - well, not that much - I'm just resourceful. It's easy knowing what people want to hear and do if you can read their minds. And even before I started being a freaky psychic, I was already unnaturally empathetic. But mind reading has its advantages and disadvantages.