Rule #20: Make some kind of impressive choice when faced with peril. No one cares if you make good/impressive choices when you're training or alone, all that matters is what you do when it's important.
So where were we? Right, Ike had been kidnapped by my psychotic classmate. So I was standing in his living room, Lena had just teleported away, figuring out the fuck I was going to do. Part of me, maybe the smart one, wanted to fly away right then and save Ike (especially since I was dealing with the fact that if I had flown over instead of walked I could have gotten there in time) but another part of me, maybe the nice one?, knew I should wait until Ike's family woke up to make sure that they were okay.
Naturally, by the time I had waited ten minutes for them to wake up I was freaking out and was considering just leaving anyway because I hadn't even told Dan and the superheroes yet. Telling them seemed like a thing I should do.
But finally, after about maybe twenty minutes, his family started to come to. It was his dad who woke up first, which made me feel a little better. I may have had the powers but having a sane, responsible adult around was something I had been completely lacking the past couple of months.
"Matt?" he asked, as soon as he got his bearings. "What are you doing here? What did you do?"
In hindsight, I should have realized how bad it looked for me. I was standing in their house, the door was open, and the family was passed out around me. It wasn't a pretty picture.
"No! It's not what it looks like," I said, throwing my hands in front of me. "I can explain."
Luckily, Ike's dad was too groggy to argue just yet and he was focused on waking up his wife and children. I walked over and gently shook the shoulder of Ike's youngest brother, trying to seem helpful so Ike's dad wouldn't tackle me when he could focus on me again.
"So explain," he said, deciding, like I had, to wait for the family to wake up naturally. He had relaxed a little, he didn't seem like he was going to try to fight me yet, but his arms were crossed over his chest so I wasn't completely out of the woods yet.
"It's kind of hard to."
"Try."
This wasn't an easy situation. On one hand, I could lie and tell him that I had seen a supervillain flee when I got to the house and the family was just like this. That, at least, was sort of true. But I also had the urge to tell him everything, it seemed wrong for him to never know that this was all my fault. Sure, I hadn't kidnapped Ike or drugged his family but they had been targeted because of me. I knew I could trust Ike's dad (I'm sorry, he does have a name but I just don't know it, it seems wrong to call him Mr. Ramjattan in this situation), but I wasn't sure if he would even believe me or if he could handle it.
Then again, I had avoided telling Ike and look where that had gotten me. If Ike could handle it, his dad could do. His dad had raised him, after all, it was unfair to assume that an adult couldn't handle the truth. I had to tell him.
"Okay, I will. But I need you to stay calm and wait until I'm completely done," I said.
He sighed. "Fine."
"A few month ago, I was shot by a bolt of Daring Dan's electricity."
"I know. You were supposed to meet Ike for a movie but he had to babysit and was late. He felt awful."
"He didn't need to be, it wasn't his fault. Anyway, afterwards things began to change. Like things inside me."
"Inside you?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.
"Not like creepy weird things. Like weird sci-fi things. My little sister did some experiments and we discovered that I had, well, gotten super powers."
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah."
"Matt," he said. "I have known you for years. But seriously? You chose to lie to me now? Just tell the truth."
"Two things. One, I wouldn't lie to you right now and you know it. Two, you said you'd wait until I was done."
"Fine."
"I can't explain how it happened but it did, all right? I didn't really know what to do but Rachel decided to take over just about everything. She made me meet with Daring Dan-"
"The guy that caused this in the first place?"
"Yes."
"What the hell..." he muttered.
"Yeah, it was really weird. But he pointed out that my powers might become uncontrollable if I didn't try to, you know, control them so he started to train me. The superhero council, which apparently is a thing, decided that I was his prophesized hero they had been waiting for and I would end up fighting this horrible new villain, Sinister Shadow."
"What does this have to do with my family?"
"I'm getting to that. So as time went on, I trained more and more and eventually I met that evil villain. Unfortunately, it turns out it's Lena Lester. You know her, she's been in mine and Ike's grade since kindergarten."
"Lena Lester is, uh, uh-"
"Supervillain, yes. My nemesis, to be exact."
"And you're saying that-"
"That she did this, yes."
"Holy shit," Mr. Ramjattan collapsed onto the couch. "That's a lot to process."
"I know, I'm still kind of figuring this all out myself."
He froze. "Wait, why did Lena do this? Wouldn't it make more sense to do this to your family?"
Now the part I was really dreading. "Yeah, about that... She didn't do it to really get back at me, she did it so you guys wouldn't fight back."
"Fight back? Why would we..." His face paled. "Ike."
"Bingo."
He jumped up. "Well, what are you still doing here! Go help him!"
"I was going! I just needed to make sure you guys were okay first."
"Well obviously we're fine so get the hell out of here." He grabbed me by the arm and pushed me towards the door. "Go save Ike and whatever else needs saving. Out."
With that, he pushed me out the door and slammed it behind me. That's one way to motivate someone, I guess. Not seeing any point in hanging around and trying to get a proper goodbye, I flew to Dan's lair to let him know what was going on, if he hadn't heard yet. He would have some kind of solution for me.
But when I got to his lair, there was no one there. I checked every room (even the bathroom) but there was no one. So I walked over to my lair, figuring that Rachel might be there and she might know where Dan was, and instead found more people than I had been expecting.
Rachel was there, like I had hoped, but so was Dan and Kelly and even PG. There were a few other heroes around as well but I didn't know their names. They didn't notice me at first when I walked in and were standing in a huddle talking in hushed tones. They only turned around when Kelly spotted me and stopped them. They all turned to me with expressionless faces.
"What's going on?" I asked. "Did you guys hear about Lena taking Ike already?"
"We know," Kelly said.
"How?"
"The villains told us," PG said.
"The villains told you?"
Kelly nudged Dan and he cleared his throat. "Apparently the villains, Lena specifically, have had this planned for a while."
"Excuse me?"
Dan shot Kelly a pleading look but she just nudged him again.
"You see, Matt," Dan said. "The villains sent over Laser Linus to let us in on what's going on. This entire time, although we didn't know it, the villains have been waiting for the right time to stage an epic battle between you and Lena and her kidnapping Ike was her way of making sure you were paying attention."
"I know."
"You do?"
"Lena told me all that."
He sighed. "Yeah, that makes sense."
"Wait, I'm confused," I said. "What does this all mean? Aren't you guys going to help me figure this out? We have to get Ike back!"
"They're not going to," Rachel said, walking to the front of the group. "They made a deal with the villains and that was part of it."
"Wait, what?"
"It was our only choice, Matt," PG said. "The villains agreed to stay out of the fight and make sure Lena kept the damage to a minimum as long as we did the same with you.
"For the record, I still don't agree with the vote. We can't just abandon him," Kelly said.
"So you can't help me at all?"
"Yes," Dan said. "We can't help you plan and we can't interfere with the fight at all."
"WHAT THE HELL."
Rachel moved to stand next to me. "I can't believe you guys are doing this. How do you know the villains will even uphold their side of the deal? All Matt has done is try to help you guys and you're abandoning him."
"We don't know if the villains will uphold their side of the deal but we have to," PG said. "We're heroes."
"And that is why you've never beaten them," Rachel said, grabbing my arm. "Come on, Matt, we can figure this out on our own."
We were almost to the door when Dan, who hadn't said another word, called out:
"I'm sorry, Matt?"
"Whatever," I muttered back and lead Rachel through the door.
Even now, I can't begin to describe how completely pissed I was that day. Here were the heroes, the people who had forced me into this role and who had insisted I become their hero, and now they were abandoning me. They were trusting the villains, they were trusting Lena, to not interfere and were leaving me completely alone. What did that accomplish? Nothing. It would only make me lose and they would lose as a result. Rachel was right, they were idiots.
"It's okay, Matt," Rachel was saying. "You're not alone, I'm still here. They tried to rope me into the deal but I didn't let them. We can figure this out."
"But can we?" I asked, sitting on the concrete. "Is there anything we can really do without them? This was never the plan."
"No! You don't get to crap out on me now! Not you too!" She stood over me and pointed her finger right in my face.
"Come on, what do you expect me to do? Without the heroes, I can't fight Lena, I can't save Ike. We're screwed."
"Did I miss something? Do you not have powers anymore? Are you not a fucking SUPERHERO. Get off your ass and stop being such a pussy. If you keep acting like this then of course Lena is going to beat you. Anyone could beat you like this."
"Fine," I said. "But we still don't have a plan. We need a plan."
She put a hand on her hip. "Who says we don't have a plan?"
"Um, everyone?"
"Come on, Matt," she said, rolling her eyes. "When do I ever not have a plan?"