Shadow

The Chair of Doom

    I hate supervillains.

    I mean, they're all the same. They capture the hero, then tell them their big, evil scheme with a dramatic flourish. Finally, they top it off with an evil cackle that would make the Wicked Witch of the West give up her broomstick and flying monkeys. Plus, supervillains even have the same clothes. Like, was there a villain black market or something? A store called Evil Ensemble? Supervillain Co.? I have no idea. All I know is that I was tied up to an electric chair. Wait, pardon me, an amp chair. I didn't understand the point of it, though, considering Cyanide got his name from shooting acid and poison out of his hands. In the words of Cyanide, the chair would shock me with a heart stopping 1 amp.

    Oh my.

    But according to my freshman physics teacher, it only took a tenth of an amp to kill you. So basically, I was in for a shock. Pun intended.

    Cyanide, the so-called villain standing before me, allowed his purple lips to spread into a ridiculously wide smile. Yes, you read that right. Purple. Lips. Not the stylish kind, but the sparkly paint like you would get for a Halloween costume at Target. Which reminded me that I needed to get more waffles before I got home. Cole and his habits.

    Anyway.

    "You will never get away from me, young Shadow," he taunted. His purple and green cloak billowed behind him. He was one of those villains that everyone secretly made fun of, but the snickers stopped when he was holding a gun to someone's head.

    Or in this case, flying a missile towards Cryptic City.

    I couldn't help it. I yawned. My jaw stretched and I leaned so I could try to pop my back. The metal chair was hurting my butt. "Can we get this over with? I still have chem homework to do. Mrs. Yuson will give me a detention if I have one more late homework. My parents would kill me."

    Cyanide stared at me. "What?! Why are you not trembling in fear? Why are you not even attempting to save your city? Has the great Shadow been taken over by her mundane side?" He smirked.

I mirrored him. "Oh, you villains. Sometimes, a little research could do you some good. Because, ya know . . ." I felt the familiar, heart-stopping feeling of my stomach dropping and pins and needles against my skin. Then, I was on the other side of Cyanide, examining a miniscule hole in my black glove. Better get that fixed. "I can still teleport," I finished.

He whipped around. His eyes, hidden behind purple contacts, narrowed in on me. I could practically see the gears in his head spinning, calculating what my weakness could be. My heart pounded, but I always had to remind myself that these people didn't know who my family was. Or, more importantly, whom I lived with. They only knew one side of me. The real me.

"I wouldn't do that," I said as he threw a punch at me and I ducked. "Or that." I grabbed the foot he tried to use to kick me. I used the momentum to flip him back. He groaned. I kind of felt bad for some of these villains. I mean, most of them were reaching their godforsaken midlife crisis. I could have just given this guy back and neck problems for the rest of his life. Sucks for him.

Putting use to my namesake, I reached my hand out to his shadow and twisted some invisible rope around his hands and feet. To anyone else, it looked like the guy was going crazy. He was struggling against an invisible force around his wrists and ankles. But really, I was just doing my shadow work.

I ran to the balcony. I had to admit, this guy had a pretty sweet view of the city. Sure, it was an old abandoned warehouse that would send any parent to give their child a tetanus shot, but you got a perfect view of both the city and the stretch of ocean to my left. Over that stretch of ocean was a black dot, rapidly growing bigger. With a sigh, I shifted my focus to that dot. I've always hated doing ports like this. If I missed, I could fall into the ocean. I shuddered at the thought. No more of those incidences. Unless he showed up again.