LeftOvers - How to Become a SuperVillain and Take Over the World

TGIF

It was Friday.

Thank all the gods above it was Friday.

Monday, the first day of orientation, I had missed. Tuesday had all of us doing silly tests and walking around the campus. Wednesday was our first day of actual classes, where I had met Clarence and had learned about my teammates. Thursday found me facing down bullies and meeting (though that's only the roughest definition of the word) Annabelle, the fourth member of our team. And today... today was Friday.

Clarence and I were sitting in a booth tucked in one corner of the dirtiest little coffee shop I could find. It was called 'The House,' though there was little about it that seemed like home. The place, only a few blocks from the Crawford campus, had the the perfect blend of crappy 'jazz' music, empty spaces, unpleasant waitresses, and urine flavored coffee. In short, it was the best damned shop within two miles of Crawford.

I stretched and looked about the room. It was mostly empty, despite the hour. Gym class had led into English for me and more Math for Clarence. Both classes finished at about the same time. Our afternoon classes started a little later than most, giving us a whole hour and a half to be lazy and chit-chat in peace.

The only others in the place were a few students in brown and dark green uniforms, laughing and acting up at the far end of the room. They were from Richardson Academy, the Bear school. It was another college in this city competing to create and teach the best heroes in America. There was supposed to be some rivalry between Crawford and Richardson, both on and off the campus.

"So," I began after taking a sip of coffee. The stuff went down like acid and tasted like paint thinner. "Tell me about Teams."

Clarence adjusted his glasses, then took them off to wipe them on a corner of his polo. "Was that a team with a capital 'T?'" He asked. A chipped mug sat on the table before him. It was the house's special hot chocolate blend. Clarence had professed a dislike for coffee that he now seemed to be reconsidering.

"Yup," I said. "I've been hearing about Teams. Mostly about the bigger, badder ones around. There's one group calling itself the Rockbiters, and another the Flame Wasps. Just about the stupidest names I've ever heard, but everyone seems to be okay with that."

Clarence nodded and tried another sip of his hot chocolate. His face twisted in disgust. "That's normal. I think the real goal of Teams is to get students used to the idea of working together, and it makes it easier to organize tournaments and the likes. They tend to group non-combatant sorts together, so those groups drop out quickly and can keep focusing on their school work."

"So if there's no real point to Teams, why bother?"

"It's simple," he said. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine myself being lectured by an eighty year old professor, one with a squeaky, pre-puberty voice. "There is a point. Those of us who want to be part of the hero world need practice, and we need to get out there, create an image as it were. Doing it solo is possible, but not nearly as easy. By making teams, you reduce the number of individual attention-seekers into groups of attention-seekers, those, in turn, can compete for the attention as a unit. More overall participants, but less prizes to be grabbed. The difficulty of the contest isn't reduced either."

It made sense, in a rough way. Twenty people all competing to be noticed and chosen as a hero would be bound to make a lot of noise. Five groups of four people would make more noise in concentration, but across less room. The Team thing was a focus for both the efforts of the individual students and a way to grade students without the trouble of setting up massive exercises.

It also meant that people with abilities that might be useless on the front lines of a fight could still shine without getting their teeth knocked out. I could live with that.