Two teens covered in black gore flickered into the front of Miss Wickers’ classroom, just as she was handing out quizzes. As the teacher’s back was turned she did not see them suddenly appear into existence out of nothing, but the other students did and they collectively made noises of befuddlement.
Alexa made a shushing noise at them, putting a finger to her lips. She placed one of her smaller-sized chemical grenade-bottles atop the teacher’s desk, dramatically spun her lighter in the air and ignited the wick, quietly dragging Martin out of the classroom.
The students just stared, their mouths open.
Just as Alexa closed the door and Miss Wickers turned around to see what the students were gaping at, the teacher’s desk detonated in a fiery explosion.
"Fire! Fiiiire!" The teacher shrieked in shock and surprise, rushing to grab a fire extinguisher. Her eyebrows were nearly gone and a chunk of wood sliced a line across her cheek. The students clamoured. Never had they seen such blatant disregard for authority and direct destruction of school property.
As the smoke from the burning desk reached for the fire sprinkler system, an alarm resounded and the sprinklers activated. Whatever horrid chemical concoction Alexa created, it was utterly immune to water. The desk fire hissed, sputtering and blossomed even higher, acrid smoke blooming.
"Evacuate!" Soaked Miss Wickers yelled, spraying foam from the fire extinguisher all over her desk. The chemical fire refused to surrender, the desk smoldering like an active volcano. The teacher began to coordinate students out of the classroom.
Alexa pulled Martin into a janitor’s closet.
“What?” He muttered, wincing in pain, as she started to scrape the black sludge off herself and him, sloshing it into one of her bag compartments, her headlamp occasionally blinding him.
“This blood is a precious resource that allows us to successfully integrate ourselves into skinwalker society. Also, it might be radioactive or something. Best not to keep it on your face all day.”
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about. Why did you set the teacher’s desk on fire? Was that really necessary? What if she saw us? What if she stood closer to her desk? Couldn't you wait until...”
“Ain’t nobody got time for that.” Alexa declared as she scraped skinwalker guts from his sneakers. “There’s asking WHAT IF while standing around like a mushroom-covered log and then there’s jumping into the action.”
“You do jump around a lot.” Martin sighed.
“Hrm. I declare your leg out of place.” She observed his injured foot. “Let me fix that for ya. Hang onto a broom or something.”
“Out of what? ...eeeeeeerrk!” Martin yelped as Alexa swiftly pulled and twisted his foot back into its socket.
“There. I’ve un-dislocated it. You’re welcome.” She grinned.
“Thanks,” Martin nodded, feeling too hurt and tired to complain further. He felt like this day has gone on for far too long already. As the fire alarm continued its wail and the entire school population evacuated outside, Alexa emerged from the closet with Martin in tow. He was thankfully able to walk on his own now, albeit slowly.
Martin glanced at the clock on the hallway wall. It was 11:32. It didn’t feel like it was eleven in the morning. Wanting to know the real time, he wiped black gunk off his wristwatch. It was showing that it was 5:49 pm. They had spent the last several hours slowly making their way from the mall across the ruined city, freezing in place every time a monstrous thing came near. Had it not been for the crushed skinwalker residue, they’d already be dead many times over. It was no wonder he felt so drained, both emotionally and physically. His body had experienced far more hours than the day normally contained! He looked at Alexa - the poor girl must have had one screwed up sleep schedule. Wait... How did she sleep at all?
Alexa, uncaring for Martin’s looks of pity, produced a large hammer from her backpack and barged into the smoke-filled classroom. Awash with sputtering sprinklers, she swiftly swung the hammer at the desk drawer’s lock, smashing it open. Martin watched as she freed her precious pink raygun from its desk prison, merrily cuddling it to her chest in the sprinkler rain without a care in the world.
"Mommy's back, my precious deathray. See? Don't be scared, I won't abandon you ever again!" She muttered, nuzzling her raygun.
. . .
The duo emerged from the school, right into the waiting arms of Mr. Canard, who had been standing guard at the back door.
“Where were you?” He growled, dragging the pair of students down the stairs and onto the grass.
“In school, obviously. Being a studious drone.” Alexa smiled. “Can I have my backpack back? I’ve important things in there that I must…”
“No.” The gym teacher lowered himself to her eye level. “I’ve looked inside your backpack.”
Martin gulped.
“Hey, you can’t rummage in backpacks. That’s private property,” Alexa said.
“Why are you so filthy?” Mr. Canard asked, finally paying attention to how the kids looked.
Alexa looked at Martin, likely expecting that he’d come up with a reasonable explanation. Martin did not. He completely forgot to think of one, ignoring her request entirely.
“Uhhh… we were trying to escape from the fire and the sprinkler water was very dirty.” Martin said unconvincingly, after a few seconds of awkward silence.
“The fire?” The gym teacher squinted at Martin. “This school had zero cases of spontaneous desk-fires before you two showed up. Z-e-r-o.”
“You can’t prove anything.” Alexa said.
“Something very fishy is going on with you two. First you somehow fled from the Vice Principal’s office and then the mall and now I find you two soaked and covered in god knows what.”
“Okay, okay, you got me. It’s supervillain business.” Alexa sighed. “Put us down, you giraffopottamus.”
At the words supervillain, Mr. Canard lowered the two kids back to the ground. “I do not like the sound of that. Are you children involved in something dangerous?”
“Extremely dangerous is an understatement.” Alexa nodded, yawning.
Mr. Canard looked at her, expecting further explanation. She didn’t provide one. Instead, Alexa took off her backpack, placed it down on the grass beneath a willow tree, laid her head atop it and closed her eyes.
“What?” Mr. Canard looked mildly confused.
“Please let her rest.” Martin shuffled in one spot. “I don’t know how long she’s been awake today.”
“Explain.” The gym teacher quietly said.
“She’s a hostage in a local supervillain’s sinister plot...” Martin began. “and she is forced to teleport into a very dangerous place at random. I… I’ve been trying to help her.”
Martin glanced at Alexa. She began to quietly snore. She must have been utterly exhausted to pass out that quickly right on the lawn. “Please, return her backpack. The stuff in it isn’t stolen.”
“I should report this to the SCA.” Mr. Canard said.
“You don’t have to.” Martin shook his head. “I’ll deal with it. I’m in contact with Super Central Authority already.”
"And why would I believe an 8th grader who just lied to me two minutes ago?" The gym teacher raised an eyebrow.
Martin took the recording pen out of his pocket. This one had miraculously managed to survive all of his misadventures with Alexa. He showed the base of the pen to Mr. Canard. He put his finger over the logo and it recognized his fingerprint, projecting the SCA logo and a holographic menu into the air.
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Mr. Canard simply nodded.
"It's a recording device and a communicator," Martin said. "Call base!"
The pen buzzed in response. The face of Ember came on, in her full gold and red armour regalia as hero Resonance. She was inside a Superstate cruiser, clouds flashing behind the window.
“Martin? Shouldn't you be in class right now? Why are you calling on this line?” Ember squinted her eyes at him, not noticing Mr. Canard who stood off to the side.
“We’ve had a fire alarm go off so now everyone’s outside for a bit. Sorry, just wanted to tell da… uhhh... Agent Sparrow something, but I see that this line forwards to you. I’ll talk to you later!” Martin quickly stuttered, hanging up. His plan to confess everything to his dad had been foiled by his sister, who as Martin had guessed had been put in charge of answering the calls made by the SCA pens. He had no desire to confess anything to her, as she would likely jump to conclusions and do something rash like arresting Alexa.
"Right," the gym teacher relaxed, smiling. "I believe you now. I recognize the SCA tech keyed to you, because I'm a retired hero." He showed Martin a watch on his wrist, put his thumb on it and the SCA logo shimmered into existence above it.
Martin sneaked another glance at sleeping Alexa, impressed with her powers of deduction.
"Look, if you need any help kid, come straight to me. No more running away, okay? I'm one of the good guys, see?" The teacher tapped the watch again and the holographic logo vanished.
Martin tiredly nodded. He was feeling exhausted and didn’t know whom else to turn to. Mr. Canard walked towards Alexa. Martin was about to confess everything to the gym teacher, but when he turned, he suddenly saw the gray cloak of the Equalizer. The blue-haired Enforcer was standing perfectly still, staring right at them from behind a flower-covered bush, her face devoid of any expression, cloak swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. Martin gulped, all remnants of bravery draining out of him. She WAS observing them! Alexa was right! When did she get here? What was she planning to do? Why the hell did Alexa tell the Enforcer to find them at school?!
Paying no attention to Martin's dread over the Equalizer observer, the gym teacher gently picked up Alexa along with her backpack without waking her.
"Um?" Martin looked up at him.
"I'm not going to let a child sleep on the ground. I'll take her to my portable office. She can sleep on the couch there. Follow."
Mr. Canard took off in the direction of the portables.
Martin followed the retired super without further questions, glancing back at the Equalizer. He was feeling somewhat euphoric that there was finally a responsible adult helping them. Finally his school troubles were over!
He didn't notice that a black claw had unzipped her backpack from the inside, a small hand-shaped spider with far too many knuckles slowly emerging from within.
. . .
“Four hundred years adventures… zzzz.” Alexa muttered in her sleep, twitching. “Alexa and Martin dot com. Farmin fyturrr tatoes. Why won’t the shkinwalkers just let me grow tasty tatters?” She turned, the blanket provided by Mr. Canard slipping off the couch.
Martin picked up the blanket and covered her with it once again. He briefly smiled at her sleep muttering. He was extremely worried that her bracelet would beep and she would be flung into the future asleep and entirely defenceless.
He realised that ever since he’d become Alexa’s friend, he’d been on edge - being rapidly flung from one disaster situation to another would do that to a person.
“You sure know how to turn someone’s life upside down.” He whispered at the sleeping girl.
Instead of the orderly, calm life in which his parents had provided and cared for his well being, he was now cast adrift in the turbulent river of Alexa, not knowing whether he would be bashed against the rocks or spun about, feeling like he was about to drown at any given moment.
He peered at his wristwatch, feeling tired and bored. It was a bit too stuffy and warm inside the portable office. Mr. Canard was taking a rather long time to return with Alexa’s pink backpack for some reason. Martin sat next to Alexa on the couch, closed his eyes and soon he too was asleep.
. . .
“Good tomorrow!” Alexa cheerfully announced into Martin’s ear, waking him. She was wearing Mr. Canard’s blanket like a cape and grinning wildly.
“Wuzsat?” He mumbled, rubbing sleep out of his face.
“This doesn’t look like the lovely park I’ve decided to rest in,” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Let me guess, the gym teacher took pity on me and relocated me?”
Martin nodded.
“How lovely! One less enemy for us to destroy.”
“Why do we need to destroy enemies?” Martin stretched.
“Treat everyone as a threat and you’ll survive longer, my good minion.” Alexa suddenly swung her hammer at Mr. Canard’s desk, smashing it open.
“What the hell are you doing?" Martin blanched. "You can’t just demolish another teacher’s desk like that, especially since he was nice enough to let us stay in his office!”
“Haven't you learned anything, kitten? There’s always a reason for all of my actions.” Alexa muttered, throwing drawers open one by one and digging through Mr. Canard’s possessions.
“What reason could there possibly be for this?” Martin got off the couch. Just when he thought he understood Alexa, she threw another wrench into everything. Destroying their homeroom teacher’s desk to get the raygun at least made some semblance of sense.
“Time, Mr. Mittens. Note the local time please.” Alexa nodded to the clock on the wall, returning to her rummaging.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Martin angrily said. “You know, Mr. Canard is actually pretty cool, a retired hero…”
His eyes drifted to the clock on the wall. It was 8:02 PM. Martin’s face grew pale. His dad was going to murder him. Not physically, of course, but -
“Exactly. He left us in this office, to sleep for eight hours. Also, when I woke up I noticed that my backpack was much lighter.”
“Huh?”
“The compartment that was containing skinwalker blood is empty,” Alexa said darkly, her figure lit by a flickering halogen light overhead. “And then there’s this. Observe.”
Alexa pulled the bottle of skinwalker residue from her bag. The liquid inside has congealed into the shape of an angry, albeit very squished spider. Finger-legs with too many joints angrily tapped against the bottle from within, glowing, blue eyes angrily observing the pair of teenagers.
Martin squeaked, jumping backwards upon seeing the bottled aberration.
“Yea, we got us a smol spiderbro,” Alexa shook the bottle. “There’s also a bigger one out and about. I was tired and careless. I didn’t know that they could reconstitute out of goop like that. We brought skinwalkers to the present, minion.”
“We have to tell the SCA about this!” Martin yelped, pulling out his pen, the little holographic screen turning on as he shakily brushed his index finger against its base. The menu came up with about a hundred missed calls. Drats! The buzzer was off.
"Dial base!" He yelled at the pen. He didn’t give a damn that he was outing himself and his family to a supervillain’s daughter. There was a horrid monster loose in the present. A monster from the future that he helped bring here, like a fool!
Alexa grabbed the pen out of his hands. “No.”
“Give it back!” Martin whined, unable to stop the far more agile Alexa.
"Martin? Where the hell..." His dad’s voice echoed from the pen, an image of him and Ember flashing in the air, just as Alexa snapped it in half. The screen winked out with a flicker of static.
“What is wrong with you?!” Martin yelled, desperately grabbing at the pen shards on the floor. “Why?!”
“This is my mistake! I have to deal with it myself." Alexa answered.
Martin glared at her from the floor, not understanding.
"Do you think the SCA are a bunch of clueless middle-schoolers like yourself? Do you think they don’t know anything about the future, Mittens? Your mother is a global prognosticator, is she not?” Alexa loomed over the boy who was still clutching at the pieces of his pen. “Do you really think they don’t know anything about my unfortunate situation?”
“What?!” Martin angrily rose from the floor. He didn’t like that Alexa somehow already knew about his mother’s disaster prevention job at the SCA. The girl villain was making far too much sense - his mom should have already been aware of the future, as she operated the biggest probability calculator server up on Titanomachy. Did his parents already know about the future and didn’t deem it relevant to let Martin know? If so, they probably just didn’t want to make him worry, after all - it was their job to prevent disasters, not Martin's.
“The true villains are the people in positions of authority. People bound by agreements, secrets and laws. The sky-eyes of Titanomachy are always watching the ground. The Big Brother Superstate observes all and acts only in its own interests! It would do you some good to learn that.” Alexa declared, hammering her point in.
“The supers of the SCA are good people!” Martin protested. “My parents are heros! Their job is saving people...”
“Oh, really?” Alexa sneered. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that you’re my neighbour, Mittens? Ask yourself - why would a family of upstate, city-dwelling supers suddenly move to a small town?”
“Uhm.” He pondered her suggestion. Did his family intentionally move to Saint Mary to spy on the Terranovas?
“Now that I’ve ousted you as the little pawn of the SCA - do you really think that it was a coincidence that I asked you to be my minion?”
Martin gaped.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“But you… but I…” Martin blinked. His worldview was sliding sideways, an avalanche of conclusions burying Martin within it. All along Martin thought that he was the one trying to catch Alexa, when in fact it was -
“You… you knew everything. You set me up.” Martin stammered. “You’re…”
“A supervillain?” Alexa clapped her hands. “Congratulations, you’ve solved the greatest mystery of all! It only took you all day! Oh, you look so adorable when you’re surprised. Of course, I knew about your superhero family from the beginning. Remember I told you about social hacking? I got the SCA database password from a very clueless super who thought that I was his human resources manager on the phone. Even the most secure database on the planet has a weakness in the dumbest employee that uses it.”
Martin simply stood there, feeling tricked, betrayed. He presumed that his friendship with Alexa was genuine, but now -
“Sorry. I’m a bit cranky due to the whole releasing a skinwalker biz,” she said, returning to her desk rummaging.
Martin gulped, putting aside his inner struggle about the nature of their friendship.
“Here we go!” The teenage villain announced, finding what she was looking for. She pulled out a wallet from the damaged desk.
“Why?” Martin asked, exasperated.
“I need to know where Mr. Canard lives.” Alexa said as if that explained anything, pulling out a driver's license from within.
Martin’s mind struggled with her answer, still trying to process being awake at 8 PM. Did she want to rob the teacher or something? He could find no reasonable explanation for her actions.
“Want a pocket burger for breakfast?” Alexa unzipped one of her pockets, offering Martin a somewhat pancaked meal.
The face of Nonpareil printed atop the tinfoil burger wrapper was very smushed and the staple-shaped super looked like he was very disappointed with the young hero.