The Normals

Chapter Eighteen: Uncomfortable Memories

Pet had almost managed the Shark very well on her own. With the pseudo-Super gadgets and her instinctive knowledge, she had spun him around in dizzy circles until he could barely stand up. To an outsider, it would have looked like an easily decided fight.

But the Shark was not Fantastic City's oldest Super for nothing. He knew how to not get beat. He had spent many, many hours, whenever he wasn't out in the city, replaying the hologram of the pseudo-Super suit and studying each minuscule detail. He had gotten Marianne to bring back countless plans and designs for the Stuffed Cloud gadgets, and though she said she couldn't possibly understand them, he stared at them until he did. He knew them all—and he knew their weakest points.

Pet rushed at him again. He swayed like he was going to fall. Then he let himself drop, and grabbed at her boots as she ran past. His fingers hooked around a panel in the side, and he tore it loose.

Immediately Pet started limping, the power in her legs suddenly mismatched. She growled and kicked the other boot off as well.

“You couldn't really think attacking me would work,” said the Shark with a laugh. He was trying to gloat like any Super should. But there was something worrying about this adversary: she didn't look thrilled about his gloating, but it didn't seem to affect her either.

She cocked her head, bending her neck so far it looked broken. The Shark shuddered. The movement looked terribly familiar.

“Oh, so you remember me?" Pet's voice was suddently, terribly gleeful. "You're one of those?” The Shark shook his head, but she paid no attention. "There aren't very many of you left anymore. Too few, too few. You must be so old.”

“I don't remember you,” said the Shark, and for the most part that was true.

“Nobody does,” agreed Pet, and rushed at him again. This time the Shark caught her arms and struggled with her for a minute before managing to depower both the strength-enhancing gloves she wore. Sparks and wires showered out as she twisted away.

“You must be one of those who fought me before,” said Pet. “And I thought you were all dead. Some kind of tradition with the Supers I knew—they always died.”

“I'm not big on tradition.” It was a good line, but Pet didn’t seem to buy it.

“That's a lie,” she said with a laugh. “You're so old, a fossil of the long-gone days. Nobody respects you anymore, and you know it. You're just a walking bundle of useless traditions that nobody wants around. Even ask your sidekicks.”

“You don't know anything about my sidekicks.”

“Oh, you may think so, but I've become close with a very good friend of theirs.”

Realization dawned on the Shark. “Marianne.”

“That's right,” said Pet, and this time succeeded in knocking the Shark over. He went down silently, biting down on the instinctive cry of outrage. It didn't surprise him one bit that Marianne had befriended the enemy. This kind of thing always happened when Normals thought they could wriggle out of their place in life. He waited until he heard his attacker step away from him, and then he leapt to his feet and barreled forward. Pet tried to trip him up. He leapt over her. She was quicker than he was, but that wasn't as much of an advantage as people thought, because the Shark knew what he was doing.

He made it to the door and flung himself out into the hallway. Behind him, Pet's scurrying footsteps flew back and forth and then stopped suddenly. The Shark glanced back, just for a moment. She was crouching perfectly still in the middle of the room.

“I'm out of practice,” she said simply. “I'll be ready when you come back.”

She won't be ready, the Shark thought as he pounded down the hallway away from that room. She would not be ready, could never be ready, for the reinforcements he was going to bring.

A Normal had betrayed the trust of the Fantastic City Supers. It wasn't unexpected, and it wasn't the first time it had happened. But what it did mean was an enormous fight ahead, because a Normal gone power-hungry was a hundred times more dangerous than a Super simply gone bad. You couldn't predict Normals like you could Supers.

And besides, the Shark didn't like how familiar Pet was. He had been feeling pretty at ease with his past until he'd run into her. Now he didn't feel sure at all.