Super Conflicted

An explosion rocked the ground beneath my feet, causing the pencil stand on my desk to wobble and fall over. I sighed, looking out the window and seeing a giant robot crash through Main Street. That was only two streets across from the one my little dorm was on, giving me, and the rest of the Team a clear view of any supervillains that try to destroy our city. For some reason. 

No one really knows why there are just, like, two cities in a country that supervillains try and claim for themselves. I think it’s because those two cities usually have some seat of power in them, but I could be wrong. That’s what the Team assume anyway. That I’m wrong all the time. I mean, I’m a powerless nobody and they’re all superhumans (and one alien). They’ve got cool costumes and names, and all I’ve got is a badge that says I’m with them. What good is it to be the daughter of a famous superhero if I don’t have any powers?

I looked back down at the report I was writing, tapping my pencil in frustration. Here I was, writing a report on the escalation of crime in different environments and they were out there actually saving the world and stuff. The only time they really need me is to bail them out of difficult situations they got themselves into. Like that time I had to sneak into an abandoned warehouse to untie and un-gag them so they could finish defeating the bad guy.

Even Hazel, the newest member of Team Justice, didn’t really respect me. I mean, sure, she’s an alien princess, but usually she doesn’t even look at me when I enter the room.

“Anna! Can you help for a sec? I’m trying to make a suit for Hazel and got the materials, I’m just having trouble designing it. Can you come down and have a look?” Arthur’s voice vibrated through my radio, startling me. I picked the radio up and held the button.

“Sure, let me just finish up here and then I’ll help.” I placed the radio back on my desk and quickly summarised the report. I slid the pages into the little paper shoot we all had in our rooms and pushed my chair back, relishing the feeling of spinning freely around the room. A muffled noise and random clicks from my radio brought me back to reality and I headed downstairs.

“Ah! There you are! So I was thinking; to go with her reddish-y hair, we could go for an orange theme? Or maybe a red one? See this is where you come in handy, you’ve got such a good eye for super suits it’s quite brilliant. Here.” Arthur thrust an autumn-coloured bundle of soft, stretchy-feeling fabric into my arms, almost covering my head with the sheer volume of it.

“Arthur, I can’t stay long, and I can’t see, so do you have somewhere I can put this and see it all laid out?” I said, slightly muffled by the pile of fabric.

“Oh. Yes, sure, put it all here.” Arthur steered me towards what I hoped was a big vertical surface. I plonked the pile down, separating the colours and putting them together in different variations until I found one that looked really good (if I do say so myself).

“What was her superhero name going to be again?” I asked as I considered the matching and planned out how the costume would look.

“Magma, since she’s got a higher body temperature than a normal human and because thanks to the colour of the sun she can shoot lasers out of her eyes and fireballs out of her hands. OOH! That will look GOOD!” Arthur leaned in to admire my colour-matching.

“So I was imagining this colour would go down the sides of the suit, giving it a contrast while we used the black as a main panel right about here,” I said, gesturing to where it would be on my own body, “And then we can add some of that darker orange here and here. So what do you think?” Arthur got a glassy look in his eyes and I could tell he was imagining the suit on Hazel.

“Wow. That will be stunning. I’ll get started on it right now!” He whirled around, grabbing the colours I had laid out carefully and started rushing around muttering to himself.

“And that’s my cue to leave.” I said under my breath as I slipped out and ran up the stairs back to my room. 

I grabbed my already-packed bag and rushed back down the half-flight of stairs before sliding into the glass elevator that would take me down the ten storeys to the bottom.

When the DING! came, I hit the OPEN button repeatedly, not really helping much with the actual opening of the doors but giving my nervous energy somewhere to vent. As soon as I could fit through the gap in the doors I rushed out, nearly dropping my bag as I crashed into one of the adult superheros.

“Ohmygoshimsosorrybutivegottogobye!” I said, pushing past the bright green figure and bursting out of the back doors to the Tower of Justice, finally taking a deep breath and relaxing. 

I never knew who would call me next, so the quicker I could get out of the Tower the better. I walked down the slightly stinky alley and emerged onto the busy street, the sunlight temporarily blinding me as I put a hand on my bag to steady myself.

I plunged into the foot traffic, pushing and shoving until there was a bit of a gap, letting me glance down the small road that would lead me to my destination.

I stopped outside of number 8, ringing the doorbell twice, per my habit.

Clair answered the door with a smile, already holding out her customary plate of gooey brownie bites. I grabbed one and thanked her with a bright smile.

“Wyatt’s downstairs like usual. If you can manage to get through to him, can you please remind him he needs to put his laundry away? It’s been sitting there for days!” Clair said with a laugh. I nodded.

“I’ll see what I can do, but you know Wyatt!” I made my way through the house to the basement stairs and then descended. When I got to the door at the bottom I could hear the sounds of bubbling liquids and mixers whirring. I knocked gently on the door, not wanting to surprise Wyatt. Nothing happened, so I knocked again, this time a bit louder. Suddenly the whirring stopped and the door flew open. Wyatt stood in the opening, his hair sticking up all over the place and his protective goggles askew. Then he smiled.

“Anna! So glad you could make it. There’s something I really need to talk to you about. Come in, come in.” He said, stepping back so I could enter his basement lab.

“So,” He said as soon as he had closed the door behind him, “I’ve been doing a bit of research and I’ve talked to people myself, and what I’ve found has shocked me. The government has been lying to us. They don’t need taxes, there’s a gold mine under the city and that’s where all the funding comes from. They don’t need us to pay them for anything, mostly because they haven’t told us bout this secret under-city mine, but they just want to be richer, so they make us pay taxes anyway. I know your dad set up The Justice Team to protect the government from aliens and psychopaths, but they don’t need the protection. Apparently, they’re the ones who’ve created most of the supervillains you’ve had to fight. They’re doing genetic experiments on random people and that’s why most of the bad guys try to destroy the government buildings. They’ve got secret experiments underneath them. That’s actually why there’s a giant robot on Main Street now. I’ve sent it to confront the government so everyone can know the truth. I know this might be a lot for you to think about, but please, you HAVE to trust me. I’ve created a type of force field that will contain the Justice Team and the Junior Justice Team safely. They just won’t be able to use their powers for maybe a day or so, I couldn’t quite be sure without a test subject.” I blinked at Wyatt, processing what he had just splurged on me. The radio attached to my hip burst to life, blaring static and random grunts.

“Ann…Need…Help!... Robot…Containing us…Come quickly!” The words were hard to make out in between the burst of static but I got the message. I looked back up at Wyatt. 

He was gazing at me with a searching hope, wanting me to believe him. 

“If you save them, the robot will never reach the government buildings and no one will know about what they’re doing inside of them. It’s your choice. To enlighten your city, or to side with your makeshift family and keep everyone in the dark.” Wyatt said, not helping me feel better about what I was about to do.

“Fine. I won’t go and rescue them. I mean, it should teach them a lesson, right? They can’t have a normal girl swoop in and save their super-butts every time they can’t manage themselves properly.” I said, chucking the radio on one of the messy desktops that were scattered around the room. Wyatt beamed at me and threw himself into a hug, squishing me. I laughed, once again noticing that even though he was almost a year older than me, my boyfriend still acted like a 10-year-old sometimes. I patted him on the back and he picked me up, my feet barely lifting off the floor thanks to our similar height. He swung me around and then set me back on the ground, leaning in for a very sweet kiss.

“So,” I said, running my fingers along the desk nearest me, “What crazy thing has your genius mind come up with for us to do today?”