Not Your Villain (Sidekick Squad #2)(12)
“So it’s possible that there are people with meta-abilities who don’t know it? Or just never registered with the Collective?” Sasha asks, playing with her hair.
“Perhaps, but unlikely.” Harris drones on. “And I’m sure anyone who we can confirm is a mutant, who does not have a registered meta-human relative, would be of interest to our studies on the gene, but there is no such person.”
Bells looks at his desk and smiles.
*
In the last week of training, the Heroes’ League of Heroes starts inviting people into their ranks. The offers usually come after the final assessment: the combination obstacle course. So far, Bells has done pretty well at hand-to-hand combat, the speed test, and even the weight test. He didn’t try to lift a car, because he knew he couldn’t.
At the sight of the gleaming dome of Crabb’s bald head, Bells grimaces. “Really? Crabb is running this test?”
James Crabb is the strictest trainer at the center. He’s not going to give Bells points for trying, as Barbara did for the weight test. She gave Bells a passing score for “solid judgment and not injuring himself trying to lift a car.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll do fine,” Christine says. “I mean, you’ll do better than fine. You’ve gotten a lot faster in your evasion tests! Wasn’t that your personal best in the last run?”
“Yeah, speed and sprints are one thing, but like… Crabb hates me.”
“Carmichael! You’re up!”
Bells takes a deep breath and steps into the testing arena. Some of the students watching from above give him thumbs up.
Crabb has his DED ready to give marks. “You can skip this portion, Barry,” Crabb says. “No need to be humiliated. We know your shapeshifting abilities don’t lend themselves to shielding from attack. And I know you’re not very fast. I can just give you a zero for this, and you can move forward.”
Bells bristles. He’s not going to take a zero just because Crabb doesn’t think shapeshifters are worth their salt.
He regards the projector; it’s been modified to throw out electric shocks. It looks like a bigger version of the one they had last year. Bells was zapped on his first try. Christine created a shield from her jacket and ran forward toward the bolts. Another student was invulnerable to electricity and simply took attacks. Ricky went invisible and walked through undetected. Other students ran faster than the bolts.
The projector rumbles and shoots a bolt, creating a scorch mark on the floor.
Holding his hand out, Crabb walks up to the projector, which recognizes his signature and powers down. “So, a zero then?”
“Absolutely not.” Bells steps into the arena. He stretches and nods at Crabb.
Crabb waves his hand at the machine and steps out of range.
“Intruder alert,” the bot says, advancing. And the bolts start coming.
Bells swerves, running as fast as he can, and the bot follows him. Fifty points are awarded if a trainee reaches the other side unscathed; for every zap, points are deducted. For the assessment as a whole, three hundred qualifies for entry to the League. With Bells’ poor performance on the weight test, he’s coming in at a weak two-sixty, barely passing the requirement for the Associated League. If Bells wants to do hero work with the League, he’s going to need close to a perfect score.
He shifts into Crabb, complete with his balding head and Associated League uniform.
The bot stops. “Instructor Crabb.”
Bells walks forward casually and, with a wave of his hand, turns off the bot.
“That’s cheating,” Crabb says.
“How is it cheating? The object is to evade the attacks using my physical fitness and my abilities. I have done so.”
“Full marks!” Christine cheers.
Crabb puffs up. His face turns mottled purple, and a vein throbs on his forehead, but he gives Bells fifty points and even tersely offers congratulations on his final passing score.
Bells smirks at him. He’s in.
“And so, we induct Barry Carmichael into the League…”
Bells stands tall.
He’s alone with the trainers and a few blinking cameras in a small room that’s decorated only with the seal of the North American Collective. Crabb drones on about the values of the North American Collective: safety in unity, protection, peace above all else. Bells wonders about the person who wrote the speech. How many different ways they can say justice and good?
He’s too excited to make fun of the cheesiness; it’s happening, after all his hard work.
Finally, Crabb turns to him, and Bells raises his right hand.
“Do you, Chameleon, vow to uphold peace as a member of the Heroes’ League of Heroes?”
“I do.”
“Do you promise to inspire others as a shining example of justice…”
The oaths drag on. He says “I do,” over and over again: to follow Captain Orion into battle, to be a mighty defender of justice, to rescue cats. Bells eyes Crabb to see if this is a joke—it isn’t.
Finally, the ceremony is over. Bells shakes Crabb’s hand, then Coach Barbara’s; Harris and all the other trainers congratulate him.
Bells is the youngest at the after-party and the first to have completed the training program by age sixteen. Powerstorm, one of the most recent heroes to join the League, started training at fifteen and completed the program at seventeen. Though it took Bells four years to complete training, he’s still the youngest to finish. Even Harris is proud.