Seven Steps to Becoming a Superhero

The villain known as Icer barked into his cell phone.

“Does this look like a few supes to you?” he yelled. College students with every superpower under the sun descended from the sky, all eager to fight.

As it stood, Icer was having a really, really bad day.

The client assured him he was doing great - just keep it up. Just break into Innshadow U - the second-rate super academy - and cause a distraction.

Fortunately for the client, causing distractions was Icer’s speciality.

What the client failed to relay to Icer was the sheer level of supes waiting for him on campus. Icer came prepared to do battle with a supe or two - this was supe college after all - to say nothing of the school’s own heavily-armed security.

What Icer didn’t expect was the mob of dozens and dozens of wannabe supes pouring in from every direction. From the jump, one girl shot the lightning bolt at her. He brought her down with an ice blast, but he had no doubt six more were coming in behind her.

All of this had led to Icer running down the Promenade. The scenic grass, once neatly manicured by several landscapers, smoldered into crystalline ash after a misplaced fireball from one of the students. It missed Icer by just three feet.

“Don’t you people have class?” he yelled over the rush of battle, to no effect.

He would have had his client’s head for this, if he didn’t need that head still attached to carry out his plans. He wasn’t getting paid enough for this.

Strictly speaking, Icer wasn’t getting paid at all.

His father’s costume hung loosely off his thin frame, complicating every step he made, making his movements long and erratic. A flier streaked above him, buzzing him like the world’s most aggressive mosquito. Icer turned around and fired another ice blast at the flier, dropping in a burst of hailstones.

Icer watched the ice gauntlet’s indicator start to recharge with the light blue indicator on his wrist shrinking before immediately starting to extend once more. These ice gauntlets weren’t made for this level of close quarters combat. His old man had only ever intended them to be a back-up weapon for the big guns, or at most, a non-lethal equivalent. He actually intended to sell it to a few local police departments, as a show of good will.

And look where that got him, Icer reminded himself. Playing nice with heroes landed him in lock-up for twenty-five to life.

Icer vowed to put his old man out of his mind for now. He couldn’t afford distractions. Not when he was getting close. If all went according to plan, his goal would be in sight by the end of the day. Icer could hardly believe it.

Hard work and skullduggery really do pay off.

A dinging chime alerted Icer that his ice gauntlets were back to full strength. Icer deployed a sheet of ice down the concrete path, sliding out of the way of several energy blasts. He regained his upward momentum, pounding down the path as he moved towards a nearby brick building. He leapt up towards the nearby wall, using the gauntlets to give him some extra grip as he scaled the wall.

Once he had a better shot, Icer pointed one of his gauntlets down at the crowd of charging supes from atop the second story building, scattering the supes until his right gauntlet was completely depleted. As collectively powerful as the supes were, they weren’t disciplined and they certainly weren’t trained. Their erratic movement and lack of cohesion gave Icer an advantage.

He’d need every edge he could get with the deck stacked against him.

Icer’s biggest issue was the ice gauntlets themselves. They weren’t made to take this much heat, literally or figuratively. It was true that the ice gauntlets could pack a punch, but they weren’t Freeze Ray’s finest invention either. They were portable and lightweight, but that came with its own set out drawbacks, mostly in the power output, or rather, lack thereof.

Icer’s ice gauntlets couldn’t freeze an entire structure. It had taken Icer nearly six minutes to freeze the statue in the Promenade, and by now his handiwork would have almost certainly melted in the hot September sun.

To make matters worse, his gauntlets wouldn’t freeze a whole person solid. His old man Freeze Ray could freeze an entire crowd in place, leaving the supes to administer the necessary medical aid while Freeze Ray fled high and dry with the bags of bank notes in hand.

Icer’s ice gauntlets, on the other hand, just weren’t that powerful. An ice blast could ruin someone’s day and probably knock them down for a spell, but they couldn’t immobilize anyone long-term. He just didn’t have that much juice on them, meaning any victory he secured at the mobs of supes coming at him was temporary at best and fleeting at worst.

Icer moved across the roof-tops while he waited for his right ice gauntlet to recharge. As he ran, he deployed sporadic bursts of ice from his left gauntlets to increase his speed, or at the very least, trip up any of his pursuers still coming at him on foot.

Across the way, past the looming Gothic structures and creepy gargoyles, Icer could see the central parkway coming into view. All Icer could do was keep running towards the rally point and hope his extraction was there when he showed up.

He put a lot of faith in this client following the plan to the letter. So far, this client’s actions had not exactly filled him with confidence. Icer turned the corner and began to race down a nearby fire escape. Icer had to keep his enemies guessing where he was going. Besides, the longer he stayed on the rooftop, the longer he made himself a target.

Icer knew he only had a couple hundred feet to go before he reached the central parkway.

He also knew this would wind up being the hardest slog of the journey. He kept the pace. Icer slinked into an alley behind the buildings. He hoped it would be enough to throw off his pursuers. He needed to catch his breath.

His heart pounding within his chest, Icer laid his head down against the brick building. He heard the cries and shouts of the students all around him, most asking where the hell the Ice Guy went, and a few asking if this was some kind of drill. Icer continued to slump against the building’s gray wall. It felt cool in the shade, just the way he liked it. He didn’t move for several more seconds.

“I’ve got thermal scans! I’ll fly ahead!” Icer could hear one particularly loud student announcing his plans.

Never a particularly smart move, especially when you don’t know who could be listening.

Luckily, the students had plenty of inexperience going for them. They made plenty of rookie mistakes, and each one gave Icer a new way forward, if only for the moment.

With a resigned sigh, Icer pushed off of the wall and made his way down to an air conditioning unit pumping cool air into the nearby building. Icer felt his body fall onto the boxy air conditioning unit. With any luck, he’d blend in for any nearby thermal scans.

“Activating thermal scans!” the boisterous student announced. Icer could see him positioned high into the sky, sharply pivoting as he scanned the area.

The angle of the buildings would probably be enough to shield him from the scanner’s detection attempts, to say nothing of the air conditioning ploy.

Good luck with that genius, Icer thought.

Carrots. Apples. Ramen noodles. Tylenol.

Icer jerked up, alert, as it was his turn to scan his surroundings. Those last couple of thoughts were definitely not his own. Which meant one thing.

There was a psychic nearby.

Crap, did he hear that? Now was not the time to think about my grocery list.

Icer did his best not to act concerned. Psychic energy required a ton of concentration, something most young adults were not known for. Fortunately, Icer had a trick to weed them out. Icer softly pulled back on his gauntlet until a small burst of ice emerged into his hand. He gripped the hard translucent ice cube in between his fingers, and slipped it between his lips. Icer closed his mouth on the cube and began to suck hard.

You are getting sleepy. You want to slee-OW!

Brain freeze! Brain freeze!

Icer grinned as he heard a clatter of beer cans behind him. He turned to see a dark-skinned girl of medium height looking directly at him. She was holding her temple with a pained look.

“Yeah,” Icer said as he raised his gauntlet. “Brain freeze.”

He fired off another blast of ice. The girl was fast though, jumping out of the way. His winter blast clattered into the corner instead. Icer cursed under his breath, but it didn’t matter. Either way, his break was over. He couldn’t press his luck anymore. The Ice Cube Trick only worked on rookie psychics. He needed to move if he wanted to get out of this.

It was back to the races.

Icer darted out of the alleyway and into the promenade. He wasn’t very far from the extraction point. He began to move quickly, once again blasting ice onto the concrete path to increase his momentum. He could see the treeline in the distance. Icer knew he was getting closer.

The problem was the supes at his heel, as well as the dozens or so between him and the rally point.

Icer ducked out of the way of several blasts as he continued to coast across his makeshift slide. The various energy signatures whizzed by his insulated suit - electricity, fire, wind and occasionally even some large chunks of earth.

Fortunately, as powerful and varied as his enemies were, they were also extremely uncoordinated. Several times they managed to hit one another while he skated by. Icer grinned as he watched the large rocks hurled at him flatten down a few smaller students - freshman by the looks of it - who immediately fired back at the earth-mover without taking any notice of the passing supervillain.

Icer unloaded the last of his ice blasts as he retreated into the treeline. He knew any shelter he would find behind the trees would be short-lived, so he kept moving. Several tree branches started to wrap around him, but Icer responded by shooting out the meager amount of icy beams he had recovered by that point.

The weeds wrapping around him began to wither away from a few well-placed ice blasts. Even at half-energy, the ice gauntlets proved sufficient to deter whatever plant controller was trying to entrap him from a distance. He kept moving until he stood at the center of the parkway.

No sign of Knightbrand.

Icer cursed under his breath. Without Knightbrand, Icer had no means of extraction. And that still wasn’t the worst of it.

Without Knightbrand, Icer had no way of completing his true mission. All of this would be for nothing. The only source of comfort Icer could draw upon was that he’d have much bigger concerns in a minute or two.

Literally.

Icer turned to see a giant, at least thirty feet tall, stomping towards him. Several dozen students all charged towards him, with their energy signatures raised up. Icer aimed up his gauntlets.

“Well, crap,” Icer sighed at his dismal odds.

This day kept getting worse.