Bain woke up suddenly and alertly, without any of the sleepiness that usually accompanied it.

Sitting up, he felt a constricting movement on his arms and looked down. They were covered in hard, white strips of cloth and strapped to hooks, holding them in the air.

"Ah, you're awake. Good. I shall alert the nurses."

Looking at the ceiling, Bain realized it was literally crawling with centipedes, a four-footer heading down the wall and out the door. All of the eyes on display were filled with creamy whiteness, and Bain's own eyes widened. "Nahma?"

The centipedes snorted in perfect unison. "Of course it's Nahma. Who else would I be?"

Bain blinked. "Uh, I guess that's a good point."

The centipede army - Nahma - chuckled, and a few of the centipedes crawled down the wall, indicating a spot next to the door. "Is this person who he says he is?"

Looking to his side, Bain saw Stitches sitting on a hard plastic chair leaning against the wall, snoring gently with his head on his chest. Bain grinned as he saw him. "Yeah, this is the guy who offered me a job."

Nahma's many eyes narrowed. "Really? He only told me he had to knock you out in order to calm you down. While surprised that he managed to do so, I am relieved that he has such good common sense."

As a whole, the centipedes gripped onto the ceiling and began to cling to each other, a mass of writing claws and carapace reaching towards Bain and patting him on the head. "If he bothers you, kill him and you'll be fine. I will protect you in the tunnels for all of time."

The sentiment was morbidly comforting.

Stitches snapped awake, mumbling incoherently as he did. "Immamurfrmana... whazzat?" He saw the centipedes and flinched, falling out of the chair. "Frickin-" He noticed Bain sitting up in his hospital bed and froze, his mouth spreading into a wide grin. "Oh, you're awake! So the centipedes-" He looked back to the horrifying mess of insects, and his eyes narrowed. "Nahma?"

The centipedes' heads all tilted sideways in synchronization. "Are you that walking corpse that forced me to do a full shed?"

Now that Stitches was more awake, he automatically fell into a relaxed position, leaning against the wall. "Yup, that's me. You're not going to try and take revenge, right?"

The centipedes started laughing in a terrifying cacophony of clatters and clicks, and with horrendous timing, the nurse entered. She barely even had time to process what she was seeing before she fainted, falling to the floor. Stitches crossed the room in a moment and grabbed her before she hit the ground, carefully lying her on the ground. The larger centipede slithered in behind her. "I assume she is dead. May I eat her?"

Bain and Stitches glared at him at the same time, and Nahma's shedding performed a shimmery shrug, the movement rippling along his body. "I'll take that as a no. Bain, when you're ready, come back to the tunnels. I have much food for you."

Ripping his arms out of the supporting straps, Bain rotated his arms, testing his shoulders. "Actually, the Tower's got plenty of food. I'll be there in a day or two."

The antennae on all of the centipedes drooped slightly, just enough that Bain didn't notice. "Ah. I suppose I shall have to eat it all."

Bain grinned at them. "Heh. That's just like you." Turning to Stitches, he asked, "What happened? I don't remember anything after you told me to step it up."

Stitches shrugged. "You went bananas. I mean, your performance was a lot better, but you went ape-crazy. Anyway, it's been a day since the fight. You stayed here last night, which was presumably when the small army of centipedes arrived looking for you. I don't know how he got in, though."

Bain narrowed his eyes, all of them. "Was anyone hurt when I went... ape-crazy?"

Nahma sighed, a slight rush of air brushing through the room. "I see I am not needed, as you are fine. Come back soon." The centipedes dispersed into the vents, the ceiling fan, and fitting into cracks quite a bit smaller than they were. The largest one simply left through the window.

Stitches shivered. "Man, that guy gives me the creeps."

"Are you quite done?"

Startled, they both looked up to see an utterly nonplussed man wearing a suit. Bain jumped out of the bed, snapping the casts off his arms. "Uh, ready for duty, sir!"

Benedict (for of course it was he) only raised an immaculate eyebrow. "Good. And keep the sir, I like it."

 Stitches groaned, dragging a hand across his face. "Bain, why did you have to call him that? It took me months of quality annoying time to get him to stop asking me about it." 

Benedict smiled thinly. "Indeed it did. At any rate, I found the low-risk mission you asked me to acquire for your sidekick."

Stitches raised a hand, shaking his head. "No, Bain can't do it right now. He's still recovering."

Bain rotated his arms carefully, testing their limits. "What do you mean? I regenerate pretty fast. And besides, it's low risk! I can handle it."

Stitches raised an eyebrow. "No, I don't think you can. I asked for the lowest risk, yeah, but the highest difficulty in that area that Benedict could find." 

Benedict nodded and held out a clipboard, which Stitches took and began flipping through. He whistled quietly. "Man, this is perfect. You'd have a tough time with this guy in perfect condition, Bain. You sure you want to take him on?"

Bain held out a hand for the clipboard, asking, "Why? Is it a gang leader or something?"

Stitches handed the clipboard to him, shaking his head. "No, I'd honestly prefer the gangster to this dude. We've been trying to catch him for... a while, let's just say."

Bain looked the clipboard over. It was a dossier describing a man, one Michael Pratt. The picture in the top right corner was of an Eastern man with messily cut hair and crazy eyes, to say nothing of the manic grin. Bain looked up curiously. "One guy? That's it?"

Stitches shook his head. "Not just any guy. That's Michael Pratt, a high-speed adrenaline junkie who vlogs everything he does, but he's famous for his cross-city speedruns. He holds the record right underneath Hot Rod, at least at the moment."

All of Bain's eyes widened. "Seriously? What kind of speed power does he have?"

Stitches shrugged again. "As far as we can tell, he doesn't have a power directly related to speed. He does, however, possess complete immunity to explosives, the ability to create detonations - although he seems to be careful not to destroy property - and extremely high resistance to changes in G-forces. All of which to say, he can change direction in a split second, with no negative side effects. He calls himself Boom Mike."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Benedict chuckled quietly, then noticed their expressions. Sticking his nose in the air, he said, "What? I like puns."  

Stitches blinked, then shook his head and returned his attention to Bain. "All right, if you want to accept this, head to First and Manning. He usually starts his vlogs there."

Bain passed the clipboard back, grinning. "He's not as fast as you. I'm sure it'll be a breeze."

Stitches winced. "You really gotta stop jinxing yourself, bud. It's gonna bite you someday."

Bain recalled his fight and realized that perhaps he should close his mouth a bit more often.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The huge monster hunched on the corner of the hotel roof, looking for his target. Initially, Stitches had wanted to give him an earpiece, but Bain's plated ear canals didn't really support the small technology. Instead, he was holding an old-fashioned walkie-talkie, and old as it was, the static coming through made Stitches difficult to understand. "Bain! He's starting his live stream! Get ready!" 

Bain checked the small tablet that he'd been given, which had been tuned to the vlog. He saw Michael Pratt grinning into a shaky camera, wearing black-tinted metal goggles and a head-mounted streamcam.

"Good morning, guys! It's gonna be a good one today, I can feel it! Anyway, you all know how it goes - let's do this!" Attaching the camera to a selfie stick, he sprinted across a nondescript roof and leaped off, howling in excitement. "BOOM MIKE FOREVER!"

Spinning around, Bain saw the man hurtling off a building, spinning and screaming in a controlled freefall. Was he crazy? They were fifteen stories up! 

Muscles bunching, Bain launched himself toward him, reaching claws out to catch him. A split second before he made contact, a fireball exploded underneath the man's feet, and he was sent into the air in an unexpected direction. Missing him entirely, Bain crashed into the building, grabbing onto it with his claws. Turning, he saw Boom Mike hurtling away in an almost balletic spin. Growling, Bain leaped after him again, strapping the walkie talkie to his arm. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Mike was grinning hugely. He loved this job! He'd hit a hundred thousand followers yesterday, so this stream had to be great! 

Holding up the cell phone, he used one foot to blast himself a little higher into the air and took a selfie, sticking his tongue out and holding one hand up in a 'rock on' gesture. "All right, guys, let's see what I can - HOLY CRAP!" He was interrupted by a monolithic black creature jumping at him. Extending one hand, he launched himself downwards, neatly missing the monster as it hurtled through the space he'd just been in. Mike shouted after it, "Watch where you're goin', ya baby kaiju! I'm streamin' here!"

Sailing through the air, the smoke from the explosion trailing it, it crashed into a building, turned, and jumped at him again. His eyes widened as he realized that it was deliberately chasing him, and he blasted away in a series of palm and foot explosions, yelling, "Okay, okay, I'm sorry! You're not a baby kaiju! Now get off my tail!" 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bain was seriously annoyed. He'd tried to save the crazy vlogger and had gotten a face full of smoke in return for it, and then had been called a kaiju, whatever that was. Sprinting along the side of a building, Bain built up more speed and launched himself towards Mike, who was using short bursts to maintain his rate. He looked nothing more than as if he were jogging midair, albeit with massive strides. Right as he was about to catch the streamer, he flipped around, blasted a small fireball out of one hand, and swiveled downwards in one motion. Bain sailed over him, trying to grab onto him and missing by an inch. 

He could hear Mike as he bombed himself upwards some more, maintaining his usual height of about a hundred feet and grinning into his camera. "All right, guys, we got ourselves a chaser! He's a bit scarier than usual but we'll be fine if we keep it up. Let's do this!"

As Bain hurled himself at the young man again, Mike created a harmless explosion with his left hand, blocking Bain's view. As he flew through the smoke, the streamer flipped over and flicked Bain's carapace, yelling, "TAG! You're it! Now come and get me!" 

Blasting with a short double foot burst, Mike tucked into a clean backflip. A faint glow built up near his legs, and they unleashed a huge shaped explosion, blasting himself away at an incredible speed. Meanwhile, Bain crashed into the opposite building, his balance off-kilter from the unexpected impact. Righting himself, he looked at the rapidly vanishing dot that was Boom Mike and growled, "All right, then." 

Gently, he dropped off the hotel and fell eight stories to the ground, landing lightly and startling the passersby. Bending down, he placed the knuckles of his arms on the ground and exhaled deeply, closing his eyes and bending his knees into a runner's stance. As he sucked in a huge breath, a rookie hero hurried up to him, asking, "Hey! You're disturbing the-"

Bain's eyes flicked open and he practically vanished, the concrete cracking and a burst of air sending trash and dust flying behind him, plastering itself all over the poor hero.

The unfortunate hero gasped, pulling a newspaper off his face and shouting, "Wait! You need to..." He trailed off, realizing that the terrifying monster was already gone.

The buildings around him were blurring from his speed as Bain rushed forward. Two of his eyes were fixed on the rapidly approaching dot in the sky, and the other four were ensuring he didn't run into anything or anyone. His feet practically skipped over the cement sidewalk as he took hundred-foot strides, which slowly evolved into jumps. Gaining height with each leap, he crashed into the ground. Tensing every muscle in his legs, he leaped onto the side of the building next to him, planted one foot, and then launched himself towards the other side of the street. Impacting the wall, he didn't slow down, blitzing back and forth between the buildings as he went higher.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Mike was having the time of his life. Not only had he encountered a kaiju (even though it was a small one), but he was getting to race it!

Mike checked behind him and saw a black blur of carapace and claws bouncing between the buildings, getting closer and closer. The streamer grinned. "Man, this dude's crazy fast! I love it! Hey guys, check this out - this is gonna be awesome!" Switching to the streamcam, he tucked the phone into a pocket on his vest and concentrated. Now was the time to get a little serious. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bain reached out, all four arms slicing through the air and leaving trails. The wind screamed in his ears, and Bain reveled in the realization that he could understand why Mike loved this so much. All eyes focused on the man's back, he extended his arms and...

Mike flipped over, hands glowing and a huge grin on his face. "Thanks for the race, man! Now try to catch me!" Bain's eyes widened, and the glow exploded.

Almost everyone on the street below was familiar with Boom Mike's exploits, but none of them had seen anything like the sixty-foot plume of flame and smoke that erupted midair. One side of the cloud practically imploded as something shot out of it at unreadable speeds and moments later, they saw a monster smash into a building, build up energy, and blast away at a similar rate. Most of them shook their heads and returned to their jobs, wondering who Mike was racing.

One of the watchers, a woman wearing a hoodie, stayed and watched, even when both forms were gone. She grinned and spoke into her watch. "Found him."

Bain shot through the air, and despite his best efforts, Mike continued to get further and further away. He was surprised to find tears coming from his eyes. One-handed, he wiped them away and stared at the streaking trails of liquid on his claws. Why was he so upset about this?

He noticed Mike slowing down and rubbed his hand on his side, deciding to ignore the tears. With a repeating spurt of low-level blasts, the streamer lowered himself to the top of the building at the end of the street. Bain hurtled towards him and landed, panting heavily.

Mike turned around and raised his arms, sauntering towards him. "Man, that was awesome! You gotta be one of the fastest guys I've ever raced - look at that, I almost beat my old record!"

Bain blinked. "What?" 

Mike patted him on the shoulder as he walked past him. "We're on the other end of the city, man! This is Hundredth and Manning! We're gonna hafta do that again sometime, but I gotta go for now. Keep movin' forward!" And saying so, he tilted off the side of the building and rocketed away.

Bain leaned back, crashing to the roof and breathing hard. What the heck was that guy? He wasn't a monster, he didn't have anywhere near Stitches' skills, and yet he'd left Bain in the dust without a problem. 

The walkie talkie buzzed, Stitches' voice coming through it. "Bain? You there?"

Bain sighed, clicking the small trigger. "Yeah, I'm here. Sorry. I didn't catch him."

Stitches laughed through the static. "I didn't expect you to. Boom Mike has been one of the best starter exercises we've ever had. Why would we want to lock him up? Anyway, get back to the Tower. We're gonna finalize your position as my sidekick. Man, I haven't had a sidekick in decades..." 

Stitches' voice faded out as Bain's face slowly spread into a massive grin. Despite the fact that he'd been duped into a simple training exercise, nothing would bring down the fact that he was going to be a hero, starting with this sidekick contract.

He was on his way.