by Madam Marvelous
#26130
Part 2
“Come on, I want to fight,” I said as Round 2 of League Wars
12: Year of the Tiger neared its end. We’d amassed a sizable lead over our
opponents, The BORG Team: L&D, and though we didn’t need the points, I
wanted to get in the ring like everyone else. “It isn’t right for me not to go
in. I can take them.”
Arcane Ace, my league leader for the Star Force: Junior
League, shook his head. “Save your energy. We’re going to need it for Round 3.”
“But Midgardsormr is out there waiting for me to take the
field. I can’t NOT go out there,” I said. Midgardsormr was seated in an
otherwise empty section, except for Eggie, my robotic babysitter, and my
parents in their armored conveyance. I knew I’d feel bad about saying what I
was about to say later, but Ace left me little choice. “You don’t want to make
him mad, do you?”
Ace drew in a breath, his eyes narrowing, but said nothing.
A two-count passed before he turned to the door to the arena floor and waved
for me to go. “Have good fights. Team meeting in the locker room after you’re
done.”
“Got it, chief.” I gave him a brief salute as I ran past him,
shapeshifting into a double-sized Siberian tiger in honor of the event’s theme.
For the most part, the other members of the Star Force:
Junior League had managed to ferret a good deal of information about each of
them. I set in hard and without meaning to sound rude, took on a lot of Johns.
Super John. Loser John. Savage John. Johno. Most of them used a fair amount of
magical armaments, so I decided to use my elemental abilities against them.
I defeated all of them but their highest graded fighter, not
wanting to risk giving them any defensive wins. I rejoined my league-mates in
time to hear the final buzzer announcing the closing of the round. We cheered
together, pleased we had managed to claim the first two rounds as our own. As
the rest of them headed into the conference room for our meeting, I noticed
Midgardsormr standing just outside our pen.
“Give me a minute,” I said. “I’ll be right there.”
Kyrie nodded. Her hover-cam floated to capture a shot of
Midgardsormr. “I’ll tell them your boyfriend’s here.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I whispered as loudly as I dared
over my shoulder while moving toward him.
“Whatever,” she shouted back, her twin pigtails bouncing in
the air as she disappeared into the hallway beneath the bleachers. “Don’t
forget to thank him for the flowers.”
Midgard had his arms crossed as he waited for me, his face
sour.
“Hey,” I said as I stopped before him, letting him tower
over me. “You made it. I kicked some butt out there, thanks to your training.”
“YOU DID NOT FIGHT ALL OF THEM.” His scales grated against
one another in clear displeasure.
“I didn’t know if I could beat him, so I didn’t want to cost
my team any points,” I replied. “We won, so what does it matter?”
Midgardsormr shook his head and then spat at the ground, his
caustic spit searing the metal floorplate and sending up steam. “BAH. RIPPED
THEM ALL INTO BITS IS WHAT YOU NEED HAVE DONE. THE FEAR SHOULD BE THEIRS, NOT
YOURS. YOU DISAPPOINT. DO NOT DO THIS AGAIN.”
His irritation was aimed fully at me, and I now felt a small
fraction of what others had warned me of. My body shivered, and it wasn’t my
shapeshifting powers causing it. “I…I won’t.”
He spun around and headed off to unknown business, his body
disappearing into the mass of heroes heading to their quarters, everything
above his shoulders floating like a ship on a sea of bodies over their heads. Eventually,
that too was lost in the distance.
My comm badge pulsed, bringing me back from my paralyzed
state. “What?”
“You going to join us?” Ace said.
“On my way. Sorry,” I said. I hurried to join my team-mates,
afraid I was about to anger more of my friends unintentionally.
MMMMMMMM
News wasn’t getting any better from the Earth. Reports of
the World Corps absconding with more Morphon-powered non-heroes increased.
There were even broadcasts saying league wars was nothing but an attempt to
placate normal humans by preening and showing off our abilities publicly. Would
it be possible that when we did return planetside, our lives would be more
difficult than they were before?
Some of my friends and league-mates had plans to try combat
the World Corps efforts. We had a three-prong approach planned. The first
involved Catalyst, Krystal Fae, Doug, Chaz Hamilton, and a few other tech savvy
heroes. They were using the resources available to them to find out who Judge
Alpha and her companions were, as well as how they came to power. Power like
they had accumulated doesn’t just come out of nowhere. They surfed, searched,
and hacked the web in every way possible.
The second avenue was being followed by Chained Angel, Infinite
Tempest, Lykos, and a majority of the other heroes helping us. They had been “borrowing”
shuttles, return to Earth, and moving as many vulnerable targets as possible to
safety. There were safe zones in multiple locations, such as Australia and Neo
Utopia, but moving across borders had become a challenge greater than many
could handle alone.
My team of rebels was assigned potentially the most
dangerous of tasks. Astra, Starmaster, Crossroads, and other heroes with rapid
transit abilities, such as teleportation, were going to scout locations where
these World Corp heroes were reported to be. Electronic devices couldn’t
capture their images, making identifying them extremely difficult. Chase had
been able to capture some images, but that was barely a scratch considering the
number of these pseudo-heroes. Prysmatica, Wyldfyre, and I were to travel with
these rapid-transit heroes and capture their faces in other mediums.
Prysmatica could create visual holograms with her
light-manipulation powers. Wyldfyre was a talented artist and could make
extremely lifelike sketches of them. I, of course, would use my shapeshifting
abilities to reproduce their exact images. Hopefully, by being able to identify
them, it would be possible to understand their role better in the World Corps’
plans.
The plan was to depart during the peak hours of Round 3, so
those competing needed to complete our matches before or after our mission
window. The reason for this is that he World Corps, believing us to be the
power-hungry murder-hobos they painted us out, to be wouldn’t expect us to
leave during crunch time, which made it our perfect opportunity.
In the meantime, my team practiced and continued to prepare for our match against the Bomb Squad. Based on information gathered by Arcane Ace using his All-Seeing Eye, we knew that our competitors in Round 3 were geared to the max. They had several pieces of equipment that I could only dream of having, and though I had managed to collect some useful gear in my time working with BADGE, most of my teammates only had a smattering of such treasures. Things weren't looking good for us, but what else could we do but try our best?
I made a mental note for next league war. I needed to find
some sponsors for my league who could spend the big Bux like the Bomb Squad
could. Maybe a Go-Fund-Us page?
to be continued
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