Side Dish #2

 

Odd Summer. A somewhat innocuous name for what is one of the worst disasters to ever befall our beleaguered planet. Named after the phenomenon’s tendency to only occur during the summer months, the phenomenon again reinforces its moniker by occurring on a schedule based on odd numbers. Specifically, events occur between one, three, five, seven, and in one recorded instance, nine years apart. Which number of years is next in the cycle is apparently random. The cause of this event is unknown. Whether it is a natural occurrence or artificial in nature is unknown. Whether the event is preventable or will ever stop is, unfortunately, unknown.

What is known is the effect the phenomenon has on the fauna of Earth. During an Odd Summer specific individuals of all species, from the smallest insect to the largest whale, have displayed the ability to suddenly manifest extra-normal abilities. When this occurs in a human we refer to these abilities as super powers. Flying, breathing water, lifting a simple pencil with your mind or holding a bolt of lightning as if it were a walking stick, these super powers run the gamut of human imagination. But despite the ability to hold perhaps the literal power of gods in their hands, I posit that no power held by any organism, animal or human, has ever had a more lasting impact on this planet than that given to the smallest of all, the microorganisms of earth.

Specifically, the symbiotic bacteria Pseudomonia benedicci, commonly known as Benedicci, and the more aggressive, yet still symbiotic, virus named Coactus mutavus, commonly known as Mutavus.

-Opening to A Thesis on Post-Odd Summer Microbiology, by Dr. Markus Mason

 

 

Villains:

 

The garage was bustling with activity, minions going to and fro. Several trucks were being offloaded, and the veteran minions were showing the newbies where all the stolen merchandise went, and how to repack the gear they used. Everyone that went on the mission had returned minus Tofu, a fact which had surprised Imp. Normally they lost a few of the black masks on the training run, mostly to arrests, but sometimes there was an unfortunate death if a security guard got overeager, or if the job involved rival gangs and villains. Truthfully this job had gone off a bit too cleanly, which was good, but it made Imp feel somewhat paranoid. It was rare to have such a clean victory when heroes showed up.

 

Imps musings were interrupted when his cell phone went off with a distinctive ring-tone. He raised his hand to his head, cell-phone already in it thanks to his power, and answered the call.

 

“Hey boss,” said Imp.

 

“How is she? How’d she do?” asked Hellion.

 

“Plan went fine, the team did great, thanks for asking.”

 

“Imp!”

 

“She’s fine Hellion, it was a pretty standard run, things went better than expected considering a hero turned up.”

 

“Good. Glad to hear it. I should be back in about thirty to forty minutes depending on how long this takes to wrap up.”

 

“Wait, you mean you’re still over there? Having trouble?”

 

“Oh please. A few new faces showed up so I’ve been scoping them out. We’ll go over the report when I get back,” and with an abrupt click the line went dead.

 

Imp sighed. Sometimes he felt like his job was actually cat herding. Except the cats were tigers, and sometimes they breathed fire.

 

Imp walked around the garage making sure things went smoothly, giving advice to newbies, informing the other lieutenants about Hellion’s status, and getting the report from the driver of truck one. Apparently Magenta had showed up and Tofu baited her away? Imp winced internally, if Magenta caught him they’d be scraping him off the pavement, and Magenta was tenacious. The newbies always made mistakes like that, stupid kid should’ve just surrendered and let the lawyers handle it.

 

Imp sent a message to Tofu’s mask, but when a minute went by without a reply it was as good a confirmation as any that things had not gone well. He’d have to remember to send a get well card to the hospital room, regen or no it’d be a long stay considering Magenta’s track record, and the kid had bought enough time for the truck to get away. Results mattered.

 

Minutes went by and eventually Imp began making his way to Hellion’s office. Sandra and Viper were already there when he arrived, Viper nose deep in her phone as per usual.

 

“Hello Imp, glad to see you back in one piece. Lily tells me you had some excitement,” said Sandra.

 

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” replied Imp.

 

Viper snorted, “Did you even manage to hit him with those pea-shooters?”

 

“Hey, don’t dis the revolvers. I’m pretty sure I hit him around ten times at least.”

 

This time Sandra snorted.

 

“Er, maybe more like five… okay twice,” amended Imp. Both ladies chuckled this time.

 

They continued to chat about the night’s events, eventually being joined by Rattleback, who had a few choice words for the amount of ammo Imp wasted trying to shoot a speedster.

 

“They don’t grow on trees Imp.”

 

“Yeah yeah.”

 

Jabs were tossed about in a friendly manner, jokes were made, chit chat continued, right up until a secret door clicked at the back of the office.

 

With a hiss the wall panel slid open. Out stepped the shadow of a man, or a man shaped shadow, it was difficult to tell which. It was somewhat possible to tell that he wore his own skull mask, similar to Imp’s, this one etched to intensify the impression of a human skull. He quickly scanned the room, noting each person in it with the intensity of a trained combatant.

 

“Come on Smoke, move it.”

 

Suddenly the shadowy man was shoved to the side. From behind him appeared a woman in what had once been an armored crimson bodysuit, but which was now almost completely black from multiple blasts and burns. In some places the suit still smoked, evidence of the firefight it had just been through. On her head she wore a red mask similar to Imp’s, but with a much grander pair of horns that rose from the temples and swept back over her head, and instead of being opaque the face plate was completely transparent, with only a golden tinge to tell it apart from normal glass or plastics. After all, she had no reason to hide her face.

 

She was Hellion. The infamous Queen of E13.

 

 

“Hey Hellion, how’d it go with the Espada?” said Imp.

 

“Those bozos? Who cares? How’d my baby do? Tell me everything,” said Hellion as she plopped down in her office chair and released the locks on her mask, tossing it over her shoulder only for Smoke to catch it before it could impact the wall. Contrary to what one might expect from the pyrokinetic she did not have red hair, instead a curly-brown mop of shoulder-length hair flopped out from under the helm.

 

“Ms. Hellion, need I remind you that your promise to not interfere also extends to those times when she is not around?” chastised Sandra.

 

“Fine fine, you party pooper. Rattleback would you start us off?”

 

“Sure, overall the operation was a complete success. Teams one through four managed to accomplish all mission goals, with only team three having trouble when a vigilante showed up. There were a couple minor injuries, but powered minions on site managed to apprehend him, and his identity and information were recorded before they left him tied up at the scene. The encounter appears to have been a random patrol by the vigilante, and there is no evidence to suggest the vigilante was tipped off to the operation.”

 

“Huh, haven’t seen one of those in a while. Was he any good?”

 

“Apparently he was a decent fighter, but he didn’t have a power, and no tech backing from the looks of it,” answered Rattleback.

 

“Pity, haven’t had a good vigilante in this sector since, um, what was his name? The guy with the wolf mask?”

 

“Lycanthorp?” supplied Sandra.

 

“That’s the one! Now that guy was fun.”

 

“Ehhhh…” said several people around the table. Lycanthorp had had a tendency to use tripwire traps, the kind that exploded into a myriad of “interesting” effects. Many a minion had breathed a sigh of relief when he disappeared.

 

“Soooo anyways, how’d the training run go?” asked Hellion as she leaned forward eagerly.

 

“We had some trouble, but none from the minions surprisingly,” answered Imp. “It helped that Olson already knew the drill. Ifrit did well, followed orders to the letter and remembered her training.”

 

“Ha, that’s my girl,” interjected Hellion.

 

“Anyways, Gregor seems like the level-headed sort. He followed orders, asked relevant questions, and wasn’t bothered when asked to play the part of big bad mutant, otherwise not much to say about the guy. I’m for keeping him on, what do you guys think?” Imp asked, directing his question to the other lieutenants.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

 

“No problems with his interview. I’ve already explained the legal risks to him since he can’t really hide his identity,” said Sandra.

 

“His background checks out,” said Viper. “Mutated a year ago after a mugging gone wrong. Subsequently laid off, reason given as ‘company downsizing’, and moved to east sector looking for work. One of our recruiters approached him at the unemployment office.”

 

“Well then, seems he’s a keeper. You can go ahead and finalize his papers Sandra,” said Hellion. Sandra nodded and shuffled some of the files she had with her into a pile.

 

Imp continued, “And lastly we have Tofu, kid put up a good showing. Turbo roughed up the truck he was in and he not only kept his focus on getting the truck out, but also managed to injure the guy.”

 

“Wait, the shrimp hit Turbo?” asked Viper incredulously.

 

“Yep, wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself, that little stunt is what let me drive the hero off. Unfortunately it was also Tofu’s truck that ran into Magenta and he tried to bait her away, dude has no luck. I sent a message to see if he got out, but I didn’t get a reply back, so if we want to keep him on we’ll probably have to extract him legally. Over-all I’d say he’s fine for a rookie, no problems on my end.”

 

“Unfortunately there is a problem on mine,” said Viper. “Dude’s a complete ghost. No school records, no social media presence, plenty of missing person reports that match his description, but then there always are. Literally the only evidence we have that he existed before he walked into the interview is Jasper’s testimony, and the fact that Tofu brought in a friend of his for an interview as well, a Michael Chavez. Even then, both Jasper and Michael claim to have never seen the kid before this week. It wouldn’t really be a problem except Adder says he’s definitely had plenty of combat experience, mostly the back alley kind. I’d say the shrimp is a mole if it weren’t for the fact no one would make it this obvious.”

 

“Hmm, how was his interview?” asked Hellion.

 

“It went well actually,” replied Sandra. “He didn’t tell any lies, so at the very least he’s not associated with Central. The only odd point was that I needed to explain quite a few terms to him, I think his education is somewhat incomplete.”

 

“Maybe he is a villain’s kid? Homeschooled as it were?” chimed in Rattleback.

 

“Hah, would be kinda funny if we had two villain’s kids in the same batch,” said Imp.

 

“Hmmm…” Hellion tapped her gauntleted fingers on the desk in a rhythmic staccato. “It’s a bit odd that Turbo made a straight dash from the Espada fight right to the training team. Sandra are you sure there’s no chance Tofu is a plant for the heroes?”

 

“Absolutely. I was able to ask him several important questions so I got a good read on him. If he’s associated with anyone it’s not the heroes.”

 

“Alright then. We’ll keep him on for now, but keep an eye on him. I don’t need an angry villain showing up and causing a ruckus because we’ve let their kid get hurt.”

 

“Like you would do?” said Imp with a chuckle.

 

“Hush you.”

 

“Um, it might be too late for that,” said Viper suddenly. She was looking at her phone with wide eyes. “Found some footage from tonight that’s already making the rounds.”

 

She tapped her phone a few times and then turned it to show the whole group. It was some shaky video, obviously filmed from someone’s phone, but you could still easily make out the purplish form of Magenta fighting what appeared to be a mutated human in a mask. The fight was quick, only a few blows being traded before Magenta had her opponent subdued. You could almost hear them talking, but the recording wasn’t high enough quality to make out what they were saying.

 

And then the mutant split in half in a spray of gore.

 

…

 

“Holy-”

 

---

 

Heroes: