Rise of Heroes by Hayden Thorne

Author:Hayden Thorne [Thorne, Hayden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Queerteen Press
Published: 2013-11-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

“Violent Showdown in Downtown Vintage!” the newspaper’s headlines screamed the following morning.

We sat at the table, staring at Dad—waiting with utmost patience as he tried to sort through the news so he could summarize it for us. Our breakfast was fast congealing on our plates. It was a good thing I didn’t bother to mess around with my eggs with blue food coloring. I’d have the nasty experience of seeing over-easy eggs turn cold and hard, and somehow blue quasi-fossilized eggs sounded really disgusting.

“Mannequin Man caught the Trill red-handed,” Dad presently announced from behind the paper. “Apparently the Trill was about to booby-trap the subway.”

Liz whistled. “Damn. With the aerial train still out, that would’ve been a real mess. Now I’m wondering if all those other jobs he tried to pull were just for practice, or if they were diversions.” She paused and glanced at me. “Like mixing the important and the trivial together to throw people off guard.”

“Sure,” I mumbled, swirling my spoon around my cereal bowl. I could’ve colored the milk blue, but I was pretty moody that morning.

“You know, Eric, I just realized that you keep getting yourself mixed up in these things. Were you born under a bad sign or something?”

“Yeah—something like ‘sucks to be me’ or, like, born under the sign of the loser.”

Mom clucked. “Now, now, honey. Don’t be such a teenager. You know you’re not a loser. Now have some orange juice and take your vitamins before I get mad and ground your butt.”

“So Mannequin Man gets the Trill,” Dad continued, “while his partner—that superkid—rounds up all the Trill’s thugs. Did it pretty fast, too—guess that’s his superpower. Speed. Too bad that Bailey reporter can’t corner him the way she’s able to corner Mannequin Man sometimes.”

“He’s too quick for her.” Liz sniggered. “Hey, Eric, can you imagine what kind of name she’ll be coming up with for him? Something like Perky Feet Boy, maybe. Or Flying Feet Kid. Or Speedy Gonzalez—but that’d be copyright infringement, wouldn’t it? Speedy Kidzalez. How’s that?”

“Pathetic.”

“You’re a real charmer this morning,” she said before turning her attention back to Dad.

“The Trill got away,” he said, to a chorus of Awww from Mom and Liz. “His goons are behind bars—hopefully for good—”

“And hopefully radios are banned from the police station!” Mom cut in. Dad grunted his agreement.

“—but The Devil’s Trill escaped.” Dad, finally done with the news, folded the paper and set it aside. “I can’t even begin to imagine the cost of all the damage the fight caused. It wasn’t just the mall that got in their way. Three other buildings up and down the street got pummeled.”

“From what I heard in last night’s news, those were mostly superficial damages,” Liz offered, her words partly muffled by the bagel in her mouth. I’d no idea why she got away with her table manners because Mom rode my ass with every mealtime infraction, no matter how small.

“Not as bad as what happened to Emporium Grande.”

“That’s really gross,” I grumbled at her, and she wrinkled her nose at me.

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