Laurie Leyton, all of five-foot-five, in her dark clothes, fishnets, eye shadow, jet-black hair, and combat boots, quietly snuck out of her family’s apartment in Hogan, the red-light district of Gothametropolis York, and leaped into the empty night sky. It was only ten minutes until eleven o’clock, when the TV would boldly ask her parents “Do you know where your children are?” as they fell asleep in front of the warm light of the boob tube.
“I don’t get it,” said her father, watching an episode of NYPD Blue. “How can a respectable police station not have at least three telepaths on duty? And there’s not one alien on the force?”
“They prefer to be called Extraterrestrial-Americans, dear,” her mother corrected him.
“Whatever,” replied her father. “This show’s just not realistic at all. Where are the super-villains? Why aren’t any of the murder victims’ ghosts fingering the killers?”
“It’s just a TV show, dear,” her mother assured him. “It’s not like real life. Now could you please switch over to the news?”
He pressed a button on the remote control to turn on the news. “Two invisible charter jets crashed into each other this morning, and crews are currently working on locating the debris,” stated the fuchsia-skinned anchorman. “But in other news, we turn to the unveiling of recluse billionaire Jaime Bautista’s latest invention to improve humanity’s standard of living...”
Laurie landed perfectly in the sidecar of a flying motorcycle driven by one of her best friends in the entire world. “Hey, Lis,” said Ross Domino, the Visible Boy, dressed in a purple and white outfit that straddled the line between ‘fashion’ and ‘garish superhero costume,’ complete with ‘Visible Visor.’ “Parents still giving you a hard time?”
“Yeah,” she told him as she lit a cigarette. “They’ll find I’ll snuck out again, there’ll be arguing and yelling, we’ll all have a good cry, and then I’ll do the same thing next week. They think this whole “superhero” thing is just a phase, like when my dad went around as Boy Wonder. It’s worse than that time they found lingerie in my bureau...”
The two of them were now crossing over Parodiopolis Sound, towards the coast of Parodiopolis, into Hell’s Bathroom, grimy outer district of the usually gleaming city.
“If you think that’s bad,” Ross began, “you should’ve seen the look on my ‘rents’ faces when I told them I wanted to move to Earth… well… if that was physically possible. But, anyway, look at me now, I’m a respectable college student and part-time super... you’re giving me that look where it’s like you see right through me.”
Laurie rolled her eyes. “That’s because you’ve gone invisible again.”
“Oops,” said Ross, readjusting his visual matrix. “Sorry. Every once in a while I lapse out. I am just a poor invisible kid from outer space with the power to turn himself visible, you know.”
“Argh!” Laurie grunted. “I just can’t wait until I turn eighteen and can officially change my name to ‘Lisette’ and move out of this dump.”
“You can say that again,” Ross said. “Grim ‘n gritty is fine every once in a while, but who’d want to live in GMY when a bright and shiny city of the future like Parodiopolis is just around the corner?”
He was right. Gothametropolis York was the dark and dingy cousin to the towering, tremendous wonder of Parodiopolis, excitement capital of the world. It was the place where dreams both literally and figuratively came true and wild adventures waited at every bus stop. The night life was both dangerous and fabulous, and Ross and Laurie... that is, Visible Boy and Lisette, were headed right into the thick of it.
Parodiopolis had gone a bit overboard during the “Japanese Invasion” (the cultural one, not the actual one, where thousands of ninjas parachuted into the city) and rebuilt their aging entertainment district into Mangatown, a glamorous borough that never slept, filled with bright lights and brighter stars, a place of infinite fun and excitement. It came complete with a gigantic amusement park (Joycore Island), a shopping super-mall so large it had to be relocated in a pocket universe (small on the outside, massive on the inside), and the Never-Ending Arcade, as well as numerous night clubs, theaters, and studios.
It was in the Never-Ending Arcade, a soaring tower, hundreds of stories tall, resembling something akin to an upside-down rocket ship, where the current generation of hip youth hung out. The Arcade never closed, as it was fully automated by high technology and a cluster of artificial intellects, which meant it was the ultimate hang-out for teenagers with super-powers.
Visible Boy parked his hovercycle in the hundredth-floor hangar, from which he and Lisette took an anti-grav tube to the “penthouse,” where only the best players congregated.... or so most people thought. It was a lavishly stylish rumpus room of sorts, and, at the moment, populated by a multitude of colorful characters.
“Welcome to the Battlers’ secret headquarters,” Visible Boy welcomed her. “You’ll recognize a few of the gang, but there’s going to be a lot of members here, including the new recruits, like you.”
“Guess I’ve made the big time,” said Lisette, eyeing the tremendous bank of televisions, video games, tables for pool, ping pong, foosball, air hockey, and every other boredom-breaker imaginable. “I didn’t know there were so... many of us.”
“We’re pushing two hundred members, right now,” Visible Boy told her as they made their way across the floor. “All the biggest names are here tonight.”
“You’re telling that those two S&M weirdos over there are big names?” Lisette asked, gesturing to the two superheroes
“Sure!” Visible Boy assured her. “The one in the leather, chains, and piercings is Fetish Lad, and the one in the day-glo skintights is Spandex Lass. They’ve got a bit of a, um, super-kink thing, but otherwise they’re good people.”
“I’m bored,” said Fetish Lad. “Turn on Visionary, huh? We’ve gotta get it on this pirated satellite.”
“No way!” refused Spandex Lass. “Put on Survivor: Monstrous Island. Visionary’s too safe, and predictable, and boring. Reality TV is never anything like actual reality.”
“But reality’s not all what it’s cracked up to be, either,” declared Lisette, throwing herself into the conversation.
“Let me guess,” said Spandex Lass. “Gothy Angst Girl?”
“Lisette, actually,” explained the gothy angst girl. “Pay good money for those boobs?”
Spandex Lass’s bosoms defied all known laws of physics and seemed eager to burst out of her lime-green leotard. “I did, actually. Well, it came out of the Battlers’ expense account. But, you know… supersurgery doesn’t come cheap. The twins here give me super-acrobatics and help me glide on air currents and stuff.”
“And the botox?”
“Super-botox,” Spandex Lass corrected her. “Enhanced perception. I can read your body language like a book. You don’t have any superpowers, right?”
“Just heat vision.”
“Don’t try to get one past me,” replied Spandex Lass. Her eyes flashed green and her voice became eerie and distant. “I can see truths and untruths.”
“How’d you get that?” asked Lisette. “Ass implants? Genital piercings?”
“That, you suburbanite poseurette, came from the magical mists I was bathed in when I reach puberty. It’s an Abhuman tradition.”
“Yes, I’m sure you must be very happy,” Lisette told her. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go throw up, though certainly not in a bulimic fashion like you must do after every meal.”
“Tramp.”
“Slut.”
Fetish Lad unzipped his gimp mask and butted into the conversation. “Hello there,” he greeted Lisette cheerily. “I am a leatherclad urban warrior with S&M powers. I fight crime with a combination of chains, sex toys, and tantric intercourse. Pleased to meet you. Don’t mind Aphasia. Her role model is Cordelia from Buffy, and she hasn’t yet mellowed out like in later seasons of Angel.”
“Um, hi. I’m Lisette. I’m weirded out.”
Visible Boy returned with several cans of Red Bull. “Hi, I’m back. Everything going along good?”
“Frabjous,” replied Lisette gravely.
“Awesome,” he smiled, a sincere smile loaded with exuberance and naiveté. “Here, drink one of these. There’s supposed to be a big mission tonight, and we’re taking along all the new recruits. The caffeine’ll help.”
“Will it help me get over the weirdness of seeing a feral monster kid in a cage?” she asked him warily.
“Who? Oh, Dead Boy. Don’t mind him, he’s cool. Well, when he’s not trying to gnaw on you. He’s been with the Battlers for a while… they found him wandering the streets after the big zombie outbreak of ’96. He’s not very sociable, but he’s loyal and good in a fight.”
“Do you guys normally speak in exposition?”
“All the time,” Visible Boy said. “It’s a common practice among some super-circles. It gets information across quickly… we picked it up from old comic books. You’ll get the hang of it.”
Lisette took a swig of Red Bull. “I surely hope not.”
Suddenly, a strange blast of techno music spliced with horrified screams echoed throughout the room, immediately transforming the shindig into what it truly was; a battle-ready collective of the world’s most dangerous super-teens.
A compartment opened up in the ceiling and down dropped a platform upon which sat a laughing, pimply-faced boy surrounded by a bay of patchwork computers and monitors. Visibly Boy was quick to explain to Lisette in his super-dense expositive lingo that the pimply-faced young man was Haxxor9, a computing genius who could hack into any system known to man, and probably quite a bit that weren’t. He was in charge of maintaining the Battlers’ own personal intranet and monitoring for trouble, surfing the internet, disabling government firewalls, downloading pornography, that sort of thing. Apparently the blaring, screaming music was his idea of an emergency alarm.
“#@XX0rZ-9 $p34k!N&, p33pZ!” he shouted in what Visible Boy called ‘133t-speak.’ “413rT! $T@r$33|) (4pT00rd! B4TT13 $T^T!0nZ!”
“What the hell did he just say?” asked Lisette.
“Starseed’s the Battlers’ leader. He’s been kidnapped again,” said Visible Boy. “Don’t worry, this thing happens every few weeks or so. He’ll probably break out before the night’s over, but we’ll need to be ready just in case.”
Lisette opened a pouch on her dad’s old utility belt and slipped on her adamantine knuckles. “Some kids steal from their parents’ liquor cabinets,” she said. “Me? I steal from the hidden box of crime-fighting gadgets they don’t want me to know about.”
Dozens of super-powered teenagers raced towards the anti-gravity tubes, off to fight an offbeat battle in an offbeat war. It wasn’t a calling… It wasn’t a responsibility… It was an adventure.
Visible Boy hurled himself into the unknown, just like he did every Tuesday. “After this, ice cream’s on me.”
Up next: Penultimate Starseed!
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