A Guide to Being Super

Rule #11

"Hey!" I yelled. "Let her go!"

Hearing me, the woman, who was actually more like a girl, turned around. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but I was shocked to see who it was.

It was Lena.

"What the fuck?" I said.

"I'm glad you made it, Matt," she said, smirking and placing one hand on her hip. I know I shouldn't have been noticing this but the spandex did make that motion look way more impressive.

"What is-"

"Going on? Of course, you're confused, you always are. Come closer and I'll explain."

I was, understandably, a little put out by the "you always are" comment but I didn't have time to be stubborn. So I walked closer, relieved to see that Faye looked scared but overall unharmed, and stared at Lena like she was an alien from outer space. At this point that would have made more sense.

"How- how is this possible?" I asked. "You're a... supervillain?"

Lena laughed, making me squirm. "Obviously. I believe you may know me better as Sinister Shadow."

All I could do was stand there, shocked. My first solo encounter with a villain was not going well, that was for sure. But come on, my supposed nemesis had turned out to be a bitchy girl from my class. That would surprise anyone.

"So you're-"

"The villain the heroes are all worked up about, yes. You see, Matty, my parents are villains as well. So when I reached the proper age, they sent me to the villain training school to be just like them. Only now I'm better than the whole bunch. Hence, I was the one the villains chose to destroy Cytropolis."

I snorted. "Only you would use the word 'hence' in an evil speech."

"Fuck off," she growled, taking me by surprise and throwing me against a nearby ride without even moving.

"What the-"

"I forgot to mention, I have telekinesis. I've gotta say, it's pretty sweet. Much better than strength or whatever the hell you have."

"Gee thanks."

She smiled sweetly. "Anytime. As I was saying, the villains chose me to represent them. And the heroes chose you to represent them. So I guess we're going to have to fight."

I stood up, trying to seem as calm as possible. "Wait, so my nemesis is a girl."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Wake up and smell the equality, asshole."

She wasn't wrong, it was a stupid thing to say. But, come on, I had a right to say something stupid in that moment. It was traumatizing!
"Are you done wrapping your head around this now?" she asked, looking bored.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Good."

"So, uh..." Why did I feel so awkward? I was supposed to fight her, not ask her to prom. "I guess we fight now."

Lena laughed, throwing her head back and sounding like a crazy witch. "Yeah, no."

"What?"

She turned away from me and walked over to Faye, smirking at her. Then she raised her hand, raising Faye up into the air.

"You see, Matt," she said, as she turned a squirming Faye around slowly. "We're not going to fight until much later."

"Why not?" I tried to step forward but she threw a horse from the merry-go-round in front of me.

"Because you're not trained enough yet. If we fought now I would surely win. True, I'm going to win in the end anyway but I want our fight to be a fair one. It's much more fun that way. Besides, I've spent so much time training and planning it would be a waste of time to not make it fair. "

"Then why am I even here?"

"It's simple: so you could know what you were up against."

"Then why have Faye be here."

Lena paused, still holding Faye up. She hesitated before saying: "Two reasons."

"And they are?"

"One, it was to make sure you came here. Everyone knows you have a soft spot for this one, but who knows why." She dropped Faye a few feet, almost giving me a heart attack, but raised her back up again. "Two, I wanted to make sure you wouldn't try to fight me even after I said I wouldn't fight you."

"How do you plan to do that?" I asked, trying to seem like I wasn't sweating like a pig and like my heart wasn't pounding.

"Long story short, you'll be too busy saving her to come after me."

With that, Lena and Faye both disappeared. I jumped over the merry-go-round horse and yelled after them but they were nowhere to be found. And then, up in the air, I heard Lena.

"You hoo! Matt!" She was on top of the old ferris wheel, still holding Faye in mid-air. I flew up to them, ready to strangle Lena.

"How did you-"

"Teleportation, my dear. Now aren't you going to try to grab your sweetheart?"

"Only if you don't drop her first."

"Damn, I'm getting predictable. See you at school."

Lena disappeared again, this time leaving Faye where she was. Or, almost where she was. As soon as Lena teleported, the hold she had on Faye evaporated and Faye began to fall. Immediately I flew and caught her, Superman style (see? I can be cool). By the time I had untied her and made sure she was okay there was no hope of finding Lena. Of course, there wasn't much hope in finding her before, but you know what I mean. All I could do then was take Faye home.

I flew her back, worried the entire time that she would start freaking out on me or immediately start texting her friends my secret. But when we landed she was gushing too much to think about telling anyone. So I took the opportunity and filled her in on everything (at least, the Cliff-Notes version of everything) that had happened and swore her to secrecy.

"You can't tell anyone, all right?" I said. "Especially not Ike."

"Why not?" Faye looked at me quizzically. "Isn't he your best friend?"

"He is, but he has to hear it from me. It'll hurt his feelings too much to hear it from anyone else."

"Oh."

"So you promise?"

"I promise. Thank you so much, Matt."

Then she was kissing me. I guess it shouldn't have been that surprising, I did save her life, but I was still taken by surprise. Unfortunately, I was surprised in two ways. One, that she kissed me and two, Faye was a really bad kisser. Like I didn't (and still don't) have a lot of experience in the area, but I knew enough to know that she was bad. It was disappointing to say the least.

Once she had finished slobbering all over me, sorry to put it that way but it's true, I sent her inside to go rest. I had to go fill in Dan and Rachel about everything that had happened and I didn't have time to babysit her, even if I would have killed for the chance before that day. I was proud of myself for not, you know, letting her die but I still felt disappointed. The whole encounter, from Lena refusing to fight me to Faye's kiss, hadn't been what I thought it would be. But I did save someone, which was good, and I guess I could console myself with that fact.