AAAEEH

AAAEEH

AAAEEH

The person robbing the bank shoots the alarm and it stops.

“Now that’s better,” the crazy-looking woman in spandex says with a sigh. “That was giving me a headache.”

Everyone is on the floor with their hands over their heads because that’s what the supervillain demanded when she first entered. Everyone got down before she brought out her weapon because she’s the infamous Intelegant! She never hurts anyone but she has never been caught either. She’s been a public favorite ever since she first made a fool out of the city's resident hero; she’s the only person who’s ever done this and she’s just kept on doing it over and over ever since.

The supervillain is clad in a latex costume; mostly deep red with hot pink gloves, a pink I for Intelegant, a black mask (the skin-tight gas mask-looking thing covers her face, except for the protruding, bubble-like, plastic goggles), a hot pink utility belt, and a black hood.

“Speed it up,” she says to the worker as she pokes him with a weird-looking gun. It’s another of her signature collection of custom-made weapons and yet another reason the world remembers her. She has a variety of homemade guns no one else has, and this is the debut of her latest ingenious creation. The first one she appeared with froze people in place for an hour with no long-lasting consequences.

“I’m trying!” The bank teller shovels money into the bag, his movements growing frantic.

“I’d like to get out of here before-”

CRASH!

Another spandex-clad weirdo flies into the bank. This one is male with a costume that is mainly blue with a brown belt, a pair of gloves the same color, boots, and a very intricate mask adorned with a branching pattern.

“Stop right there, Intelegant!” He lands and poses, pointing at the villain heroically.

The supervillain laughs and swings the gun toward him. “You actually think you can stop me?!”

“I have before,” the hunky-looking, brown-haired hero says snarkily.

“That was a long time ago, Naturalist!” 

“It was three weeks ago.”

“I’m sure three weeks is a long time for you. You know, since you obviously can’t keep a job or relationship with your hero schedule,” she says with a smirk.

He raises an eyebrow. “And you think your villain schedule is better? You must spend hours every day coming up with your awful plans to defeat me.”

“At least I can control when I work instead of running around getting cats out of trees twenty-four seven.”

“I get to help people every day; I couldn’t be happier!”

“I get to do what I love every day, and I actually make money from it!” She shakes the bag of money at him.

“Is this normal?” one of the people that happened to be in the bank when the villain attacked whispers just a little too loudly. The guy is very old and spends most of his days inside his house doing who knows what, so he’s rather disconnected from the world and does not know the unique way these two weirdos function, specifically Intelegant; she insists on chatting with her opponent. 

“Is what normal?” the hero asks.

The civilian blushes. “I-I just meant that police and the people they are trying to catch don’t usually… talk the way you guys do.”

The person lying beside him, a college student with a roommate that’s a huge fan of the two, gives him a deadpan look as if to say, “How could you not know this?” which makes his blush deepen.

“The banter is the best part of being a supervillain,” Intelegant says. “The police don’t let me do this, but this guy is fun to mess with, especially since he always shows up to ‘stop me’.” She mimes air quotes.

“You’re right.” Naturalist ignores Intelegant and speaks directly to the citizen. “But I do this to get her to reveal all her plans, so I can catch her easier.” In reality, he just enjoys talking to her.

“Good job!” the villain claps. “You finally learned how to use your brain when dealing with me!”

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” the person lying beside the man mutters to him.

“Put down the weapon right now and I’ll try to get you a reduced sentence.”

“Ha! You’ve never been able to catch me before! What makes you think this time is any different? ‘Cause there’s no way in heck that I’m going down.” She drops the bag of money and starts boxing the air with the hand not holding her gun.

“What does that gun even do?” he asks.

“Attack me and you’ll find out.” She has a huge smile under her mask. Like always she still manages to make her emotions clear as day.

Naturalist rushes towards the villain.

BZZZZZTT!

A metal spring shoots out of the gun.

Naturalist dodges it.

“No fair! You have super speed,” the childish girl says with a pout as the hero gets closer to her.

“If that’s not fair then your mystery guns aren’t either.” He punches her in the gut, throwing her back into the counter behind her.

“That’s different! I had to work for my weapons and you got yours just ‘cause you were born,” she says as she gets up, seemingly unaffected by the punch.

“You know, I’m always going to show up and defeat you.” He picks her up by her black hood. She takes the chance to pull the gun back up and shoot him square in the chest.

Naturalist goes limp. The second he’s down the supervillain smiles and leaves with a “Tata!” (but without the bag of money). The hero gets up within less than a minute, looking rather annoyed.

“She made a taser,” he mutters as he starts running after her.

“A really strong taser!” she shouts from outside of the bank.

As Naturalist runs out of the bank after the villain, most everyone starts getting back to what they were doing as if nothing happened. The bank manager, someone who’s dealt with Intelegant before, even picks the bag of money up and returns it to where it belonged, chuckling to themself; thinking about how their children will react when they tell them about this.

Naturalist finds Intelegant; she’s at the top of a ladder on the side of the building beside the bank. “Get back here!”

“No way!” She climbs on top of the building. He jumps off the ground and floats up to the top to see her running across the roof of the fast food place next to the bank.

“Why are you running up here? It’s slower and more dangerous than just running normally.” He sounds slightly annoyed.

She turns and sticks out her tongue at him. “I like it this way.” She emphasizes the thought by jumping to another roof. He flies over and starts catching up to her.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he states.

She doesn’t respond. He floats over beside her and reaches for her hand to stop her so he can bring her to the cops. She has been waiting for this second and uses it to shoot him with her homemade taser again and he faceplants into the roof.

“See you later!” she yells as she keeps running.

It takes longer for Naturalist to recover this time, but once he does, Intelegant is nowhere to be found. She simply vanished, as if into thin air. That’s how these interactions always end: Intelegant disappears then she shows up in a few weeks to some similar antics. While Naturalist’s arch nemesis is gone, he has to deal with more boring things like regular old criminals and his day-to-day life. Intelegant is the only person brave enough to be a supervillain in Naturalist’s city. He has super speed, super strength, and he can fly. After his first sighting, the public named him Naturalist because of his color scheme. They later learned that his powers had nothing to do with nature, but the name still stuck.

The hero has the most raw power out of pretty much all heroes. There are only a handful of heroes that would stand a chance in a fight with him, and there are no villains that surpass his natural abilities. Only one has ever come close to beating him and you’ve already met her. It’s probably because the girl is really smart, and he always underestimates her… Some attribute the fact that he always loses to the fact that he has a big fat crush on her; a crush that has persisted through all the five years that their alter egos have known each other. 

Of course, Naturalist and Intelegant can never get together. Why? Because one of them is a lesbian.

Fun fact: this is actually the beginning of my published book, Intelegant and the Hero Hunt (available on Amazon). I worked hard on this and the rest of the book so, if you liked this excerpt please check out the full work.