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

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Still waiting for the fist to hit me, I began to smile. It might be fun to wreck his little, puny life.I almost regretted it when a brick flew across the alleyway going at about half the speed of light and rammed James in the jaw. The boy flipped in mid-air, his legs flying above him before he crashed, shoulder-first, on the ground with a gut-emptying Oomph.

I blinked.

"Boom, headshot!" Someone yelled from the entrance of the alley.

Clarence walked into the shadowy alley, followed by... Annabelle.

The short (she was only a hand taller than Clarence) girl was grinning from ear to ear. She skipped her way over, the bag she had wrapped around her waist bouncing with every joyful step until she came to a stop next to James' prone shape. "Oh, that must have hurt," she said while wincing in mock sympathy.

"Annabelle?" I said. She turned, bright green eyes locking on mine.

"Yeah?"

"Um, thanks? You did that?" I asked, pointing at James.

A roguish grin crossed her features. "Oh yeah. Wasn't sure if I'd hit him, but he just walked right into it, didn't he?" She squated down and poked James in the shoulder. The man groaned.

I'm usually a calm guy. I've been trained to sit back on my heels and see things for what they are. I'm not good at that, but I try. I'm more of a cynic than a realist. Either way, I'm usually good on my feet.

This was not what I expected. In under three minutes I had been pushed off my stride three times. It was getting to be a bit much. "Did you find her, Clarence?"

Clarence nodded, his eyes on James. "I saw you follow him out, and I knew it was going to be trouble. I ran off, thinking to find someone from the Civil Guard, or at least a few students from... anyway, I found her nearby and dragged her over."

"To help?" I asked.

He shook his head. "To witness."

Fair enough.

"And I," Annabelle said as she hopped back upright. "Decided to slug him in the jaw. With a brick."

I looked from the surprisingly chipper girl to the entrance of the alley. It was a good twenty feet. The girl was whip-thin and scrawny. She was as likely to throw a brick that hard as I was to sprout wings and fly.

"Annabelle, I'm glad we could finally meet, but not so much like this," I said.

She looked at me, a brown eyebrow perking up. "Oh? I was just returning the favour, Mister hero."

Ah, the thing yesterday. "Well, thank you, I suppose. If we're going to be on a team, though, I don't think we'll have to thank each other every time we keep each other alive."

She shrugged.

Clarence coughed, then looked to me, like a puppy that wanted its master's permission to hop on the bed. "Should we be here?"

"No, we probably should not," I admitted. This would raise all sorts of interesting questions if we were caught. But what to do with James? Killing him would cross all sorts of lines, and I couldn't trust Annabelle to keep quiet, or Clarence for that matter. Moving him might cause more issues. I winced.

"You two get out of here," I said. "I'll take the fall for this one." I reached into my jacket and when my hand came back I had a cellphone. "I'll get a medic over, and I'll tell them some of what happened. This kind of crap must happen all the time."

Thousands of super-powered near-teens in college, with booze and hormones mixing liberally? Yeah, I could see a few fights breaking out every so often. I just hoped I could bribe my way out of having it on my record. Which meant that James' record would be clean too. Dammit.

Annabelle looked at me, then at James. "Ah, I didn't think that far ahead," she said. "Are you sure? I'm the one that clocked him."

"Speaking of... Clocking?" Clarence said. "The average person only blacks out for approximately twenty to thirty seconds, and--" As if on queue, James groaned and his weight shifted. "And unless they are suffering from some rather serious medical condition or the blow was nearly lethal, they should only suffer some mild grogginess after awakening."

"I can fix that," Annabelle said.

Then, before anyone could react, she pulled a leg back and kicked James hard enough to flip the boy over. I winced in sympathy for him. If his jaw wasn't going to bruise, then that was.

"Alright, enough of that, Annabelle, we don't want to kill him." I looked at her sharply, channeling my inner nanny. "We should meet and talk, tomorrow. After all of this is resolved. Do you have a number, Annabelle?"

She looked at me and quirked an eyebrow. "You're asking me for my number? Not the smoothest attempt I've seen, but not too bad."

Heat rose in my face. I was too damned tired to deal with that just then. "Give it to Clarence then. Elsewhere."

With that, I shooed the two away and watched as they walked down the road, Annabelle talking the whole time with Clarence nodding solemnly beside her.

I dialed for emergency services and waited. Now I had some explaining to do.

A/N: I decided to start adding Author's Notes. Mostly because I can, and I like reading A/Ns on other stories. I'll be keeping it professional... ish. I rewrote that last bit so many times, and I'm still not satisfied with it. Still, some of the information revealed and hinted at here is important later.

I've been working on some interludes and that gave me an idea for a bit of a... contest, I suppose: Anyone who can figure out Will's power before the big reveal gets some nobody background character names after them. How about it?