Super Frost: Confessions of a Teenage Superhero
Chapter 8

Watching the kids get pummeled in battle class was like watching a matador fighting a bull in Spain. Anyone who was summoned to defeat their chosen “villains” was asking to get maimed. Anyone who was crazy enough to get up there and fight needed professional help.

“Nervous?” Pat said, who was sitting next to me before I was about to meet the fire starter and butcher.

“No,” I squeaked out.

“Liar,” Pat said. “Your hands are shaking in those gloves.”

I tried to steady my hands resting on my legs by gripping my knees tight. “Hey, I have every right to be nervous if I want to. I’m going to die out there in that arena. I didn’t even know we had an arena. Is this where we’re having the September Ball, by any chance?”

“Actually, our dance is in the gym,” Andy said, taking a seat next to Pat. “The arena is usually more sustainable to damage. When things get broken around here, we want it to happen in here, not anywhere else in the school.”

“Yeah, if you want to wrestle, you do it here and not the gym,” Pat said. “We don’t use our powers anywhere else but here.”

“I guess this is the place when you want to have a fight,” I said.

“You’d be right,” Andy said. “Friend of mine tried to settle a fight with someone who was an upperclassman because he stole his girl. He had healing powers and the upperclassman had teleportation abilities, but with random things, not himself.”

“So what happened to him?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you when he returns to school from whatever hospital or country he went to,” he said.

Yip, I was still nervous in that big arena that looked like the one in Gladiator, only there was a roof over our heads. Falcon High School was a big campus with an arena the size of the New Orleans Saints’ football field. The entire school would gather at the end of the day to watch people get shredded before going home. The flags draping the walls were in our school colors, silver and crimson. And Principal Rushman and the school nurse were sitting on the balcony, watching. I hoped we were going to get some serious medical attention after our battle. There had to be some doctors on staff, for I don’t think I would be able to survive with just the school nurse taking care of me.

I really did not want to be there.

“Don’t worry, you won’t die,” Pat said, putting a hand on my back. “You’ll just get some contusions, some bruises, some broken cartilage, and maybe a broken bone or two. You’ll probably be really sore after your first battle.”

“But what if you’re challenged again tomorrow or the same day?” I said.

“Trust me, they won’t make you fight until you’ve fully recovered from any injuries. Most students only go up once every three weeks. You won’t be down there long, if they call your name today.”

“Well, let’s hope they don’t pick me.”

“That’s not entirely up to you,” Andy said. “They pick the first three heroes or villains first, and then the first person called has to pick the other three.”

“Well, that’s just great,” I said in a sardonic tone.

Then the gym teacher Peter Alexander, the guy who kicked me out before I was admitted to the school the second time, came out to the middle of the arena and pulled down the microphone from the ceiling. He said in his booming voice, “Who is ready to BAAAAATLE?!”

The crowd swelled with cheers and hooting. I was probably one of the only people not applauding. I still kept my hands massaging my knees to keep myself from shaking. But no matter what, I couldn’t stop.

“Let’s see who will be the first hero or villain to compete!” the gym teacher bellowed. At that moment, Jean Harley came up to him with a red bucket of paper scraps, which I imagined had people’s names written on them. He drew the first name. “Joooordan Huuuuuughes!”

The crowd cheered again when Jordan, a tall black guy in baggy pants, came down to the arena floor. He put his hands up in the air, waving and putting up peace signs in the air. I couldn’t sympathize with him because this arena was anything but peaceful.

The gym teacher drew the second name. “Waaaaanda Lewiiiiiis!”

Wanda, who apparently was Fiona’s best friend, went down to the floor from our side of the arena. Her girlfriends, including Fiona, were cheering for her louder than the rest of the crowd. She was blond and definitely prettier than me in her designer jeans, her beach bunny top, and her designer hoodie to go with her sun-kissed Palm Beach look.

And finally, the final name. “Jeeeeremy Russeeeeeeel!”

I heard boos and other insults being shouted from the crowd when Jeremy came to the floor. I was kind of glad that Jeremy wasn’t picked first or he would have chosen me to be his opponent. I hoped I wouldn’t be picked next. Not on my first day.

Jean Harley took the bucket back with her, leaving the arena. The gym teacher shook everyone’s hand there, and held the mic to Jordan. “So, Jordan, since you were first, would you guys like to be heroes or villains?”

Jordan gave a cold smile. “Villains,” he said into the mic.

“You got it,” the gym teacher said. “And who would you like to be your heroes?”

Jordan leaned in to the mic and said, “I want little Richter scale up there…”

Pat stood up and put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, wish me luck,” he said. “I’m gonna need it.”

“Good luck,” I said as he went down. I hoped he wouldn’t get killed or get a concussion from this.

“And we want Toby Whitmore,” Jordan said. The crowd booed some more.

Please, not me, I prayed. Not me. Not me. Not me. Anyone but me. Don’t choose me. Let me stay here and watch. I don’t want to die.

“Don’t worry,” Andy said. “It’s your first day, you probably won’t go down there to get your ass kicked.”

Then I saw Jeremy whispering in Jordan’s ear. This was not good. That moment, Jordan laughed and fist bumped him before he turned back to the mic. “And I want the little frost girl, Violet.”

Jordan pointed at me like he was calling a shot. All the other kids were staring at me. This was not going to look good on dignity.

“On second thought, maybe not,” Andy said.

People stopped the boos and went on to whispers and murmurs. When I came down to the floor, I approached the gym teacher again and said, “Hi, remember me? C’est moi.”

“Violet Jennifer Harris,” the gym teacher said, staring down at me. “I thought you were never coming back.”

“Well, actually, I just got my powers a few days ago and it’s my first day here,” I said. “It’s my first day of superhero school, so I was wondering if you could maybe get Jordan here to pick someone else to be on the hero team or at least let them go easy on me. What do you say?”

“Hmmm,” he hemmed, holding the mic under his arm and putting a hand to his bearded chin part of his goatee. “Let you go, you’re asking me?”

I nodded. “That would be preferable.”

He bent over to look me in the eyes and said, “Even if it’s your first day, I wouldn’t let you off the hook. They picked you, and you’re here already. If you leave now, you’ll make your little friends forfeit the battle. You’re fighting. That’s that.”

I stammered. “But, I don’t want to get hurt on my first day! I have a condition…”

Gym teacher stood up. “I don’t care if you’re a wimp!” he shouted. “Get out there, suit up, and get ready for battle!”

So the six of us got separated into the locker rooms for the heroes and villains, me headed for the heroes’ room, and we got suited up. The person fitting us for our armor was a nice woman with a Slavic accent. When she measured me, she said that I was actually too small for a regular suit of armor that would protect me, so she gave me a black jumpsuit. Like Black Widow’s outfit, this one was really tight and uncomfortable; I even had to take off my bra to get it on and zip it up.

Then she took my hands before going out there and said, “Why you wear gloves with the suit?”

“I need them to keep my hands warm, along with the rest of my body,” I said. “It’s for protection.”

“I don’t think you need them in there,” she said. “You’ll be fighting in arena. It will be hard to compete with the villains if your frost powers are concealed.”

She held out her hand and expected me to hand them over. From how she was thinking, she was hard to escape from because she had the power to put up invisible walls in front of doorways and open windows to lock me in until she had what she needed. So I gave up and gave her my fuzzy white gloves.

“Thank you,” she said, putting my gloves in a locker where she also kept my clothes. Now there was only one thing left to do… face my certain doom.

“Let’s get ready for our heroes and villains of the hour!” the gym teacher boomed on the mic.

The three of us, Toby, me, and Pat, all went to the center of the arena where it was turned into what looked like an obstacle course or something out of a laser tag course. There were steps, ramps, ropes hanging from the net above us, and another giant net surrounded the whole arena, separating us from the crowd. And in the hole in the center of the floor was a tank of boiling acid. Hanging above the tank was the civilian, which in this case was a dummy of a woman in a plain pink polka dot dress. I knew how this was going to go already. That dummy was about to be eaten alive by dangerous chemicals while I was spitting up blood on the floor.

We met everyone in the middle of the course, just outside of the hole in the floor.

“Handshake?” the gym teacher said, telling us to play fair. From the looks of the kids playing the villains, nobody wanted to shake our hands. I knew they were going to kill us, one, because I was too short, two, because Pat and I were not ready for this kind of thing, and three, Toby looked really scrawny and weak with his inhaler and his face overwhelmed with fear. Jordan and Wanda did not want to shake hands with us, for they both looked at us with fearsome faces. Jeremy only looked at me with anger in his eyes.

“Ok, fine,” the gym teacher sighed. “Just make sure you don’t break anything.” He turned back to the audience and started shouting on the mic again. “Remember, you have four minutes to immobilize your opponents! Ready! Set! BAAAAATLLLLLE!”

The moment the battle started, the gym teacher slid himself behind the net and put the mic down to press the button on the floor, signaling the start of the clock on the top of the wall opposite us. Four minutes were on the clock.

So to start off, I said, “Ok, listen, Jeremy, I don’t want to fight you. Can we just get the dummy down together?”

“No,” he barked. “We fight, and we fight to get even.”

“But you still don’t get it,” I said. “I don’t see myself as anyone’s enemy-”

Before I could get anything else out, Jeremy made a ball of fire and threw it at me. I ducked, and instead the fireball went right for the ramp behind me. Before it could burn down, I flung my hands up and froze the ramp, making it a little more slippery like a slide. Toby tried running up it and ended up slipping.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry,” I said.

Both Pat and Toby were running for their lives while the other two villains began chasing them. I turned around and found Jeremy, standing there with his arms ablaze with fire.

I put my hands up, palms facing him. “Look, I don’t want to fight you,” I said again. “This is ridiculous. I don’t want to see anyone hurt, especially me because I have a low threshold for pain, and I don’t think you want my death on your conscience.”

“Your death?!” Jeremy shouted. “This fight isn’t to the death, Frost Girl. This is to the damage you left on me. I’m taking your powers away.”

“What?!” I said, my voice breaking. I was really terrified at this point. I started backing up while he moved forward. “I like my powers! I just got them! You can’t take them away from me now or I’ll just go back to being normal, and I don’t like being normal!”

“Then you should have backed out when you had the chance,” he said. Then he threw the next fireball at me. I winced. But then I heard a clatter on the floor. By my feet, there was the fireball, completely frozen like an ice sculpture, like I snuffed out all of its heat quality.

The next thing I knew, Jordan Hughes was running past me, wicked fast. I felt him whip my arm around, spinning me until I hit the floor. When I looked up, Jeremy was out of sight. But then Wanda Lewis came in, conjuring lightning bolts at Pat, who jumped in dodging them when they hit. Toby was huddled in a corner, kind of whimpering, still afraid of showing himself or his powers to fight off the villains. I had no idea what his power was, so I didn’t know what to do about him. I figured I needed a plan to beat these guys, and I needed it fast.

I stood when something metal came hurling at my face. I crossed my hands, holding them in front of me, and a big sheet of ice appeared in front to stop it from smashing me. The ice shattered, but I pushed the metal out of the way. It was a metal door from an opening on the other end of the stadium. Good thing the net protected the crowd from things that flew in other directions. But the last person I wanted to get hurt was either me or one of my friends.

“Jeremy, I mean it,” I shouted. “I’m NOT gonna fight you!”

Jeremy came out from the obstacle course and came closer, circling the acid tub. “If you think you can just get away with surviving this battle without losing your powers, you’re wrong!” he shouted back. “It’s time to end this, now.”

“We can negotiate,” I said. “We can talk this over, hero to hero!”

He threw another fireball at me, which I turned to ice.

“We can play Cards Against Humanity!” I said.

He threw more fire at me, but I ducked and froze the fire on the net behind me.

“We can play Fluxx or Munchkin!” I said.

He stepped closer and threw even more fire at me, but I deflected it all with my frost powers. I kept stepping back until I was up against a wall. I turned. Pat’s shoulder was on fire, so I flicked my fingers and froze the fire on his suit without freezing him.

“Thanks, Vi,” Pat said, before he took off.

But suddenly when I turned back, Jeremy had his hand on my throat. He picked me up by my neck, squeezing my trachea, which felt like someone had shut me off from swallowing and breathing. I struggled to take another sip of air, but I was practically gagging. He pulled me close to his face and showed hot rage through his teeth. I could feel his hand getting hotter. I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. I had to get through to him to let me go, but I didn’t know how.

So in my head, I shouted, truce, TRUCE! Please don’t kill me!

Then he loosened his grip, looked up, and said, “Who said that?”

The girl you’re choking, you idiot, I said telepathically. Put me down and let me breathe!

He looked down at me and his eyes went big. My face was probably turning red because I was getting some serious head pressure from gagging. It was like he was completely shocked that I could speak to him with my mind.

So he put me down. I fell to my knees and coughed, taking big gulps of air to get some oxygen back into my blood rushing to my head. There, I continued in my mental voice. Now you can take my powers away if you want to.

Jeremy stood back, still in shock. “I wasn’t going to kill you,” he said. “I was only going to knock you out and then take your powers.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I said, getting enough strength back in my head and lungs to speak. “God, I need water! I could have died!”

“Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you like that,” he said. “I thought your ice powers came from your throat or your heart.”

“It doesn’t work like that!” I said, getting back to my feet. I was really light headed, so it was hard to stand firmly on the floor. “Your fire powers come from your core, right?”

“Yeah?”

“From the abdomen, right?”

“So?”

“Same with me. My diaphragm and my abs freeze up my hands to allow me to spread chillier temperatures to people and things. You should have aimed for my belly, not the throat.”

“Oh, so you’re saying I should have heated your stomach, yeah?”

“I’m not saying you should do that now. It’s too late.”

“You’re also pretty good at deflection.”

I looked at my hands and shrugged. “Thanks. I have pretty good hand-eye coordination, for I used to be pretty good at volleyball and badminton.”

“Violet, save it for detention,” Pat said, who had just reappeared up above us by the opening to the ramp going down behind us. “I’ve managed to hold off the other two clowns for as long as possible. The party’s coming to us.”

I looked behind Jeremy, where Jordan and Wanda were coming straight for us. Wanda whipped her bolts of lightning with her hands, and Jordan slowly advanced toward us alongside. “Oh great,” I said. “I guess we’d better come up with a plan fast or we’re all dead.”

I looked around. There was not much going for us. But Pat did have the power to cause an earthquake inside the arena, if we were lucky. He could throw off their balance to stall them. If I knew Toby’s powers, he’d be able to help us, but someone needed to talk some sense into him so he could stand up and fight. Maybe if Jeremy was on our side, instead of the villains’ side.

Then it hit me. “Pat, I’ll need you to shake the floor,” I said.

“By what, using my powers?” he said.

“That’s right,” I said. “Make it a little uneasy for the villains to stand, and keep doing it long enough to stall them.”

“But that might also affect you,” he said.

“Just try to keep it on that side,” I said. “I’ll go talk to Toby. And Jeremy, try to hold them off with a ring of fire.”

“You’ve got it,” Jeremy said.

I ran to the corner where I found Toby, where he was still shaking, huddled, and alone. He looked like a total nerd as I thought he would be. But that would be nothing if I knew what his power was.

“Hey, you ok?” I said.

Toby put his head in his hands and said, “I’m not going out there… I’m gonna get killed.”

“Look, no one is going to die, all right?” I said. “It’s just battle class. We have less than two minutes before we run out of time and I need to know what your power is so we can fight back.”

“But I’m useless!” Toby said. “I’m just a sidekick who can turn into a puddle. Literally.”

“Yeah, well, up until a few days ago, I had no powers,” I said. “And now I can freeze things in ice, and talk to people with my mind. And we’re up against a guy who can run really fast and a girl who shoots lightning. None of this makes any sense.”

The floor rumbled. I could have sworn I lost my balance for a second, but I managed to crouch down and hold myself steady on the wall Toby leaned against. Pat was doing his best with his powers.

“But I’m going back out there because I want to survive high school,” I continued. “I can’t do that without outnumbering our villains four to two. I’m going to need you out there. If you want to survive this high school, you’ll need to stand up for yourself. I’ve got a pretty good plan going right now, but I can’t do this without your help. If you want to quit, that’s fine, I’ll tell the gym teacher that you’re quitting before time runs out. But if you want to join our team, you stand up, and you get out there. Man up, Toby. This is it.”

He stopped shaking and looked up at me as if he didn’t understand my entire pep talk. It didn’t really matter, though, because I think I still got to him.

“All right, good pep talk,” I said before leaving.

When I came out of the corner and onto the field, Pat shook the floor again by banging his fist against the floor. This time, he smacked it harder, sending Jordan and Wanda into the air. I tried holding on to something so it wouldn’t knock me over. So, I decided to freeze the floor beneath me and slide on my feet just like ice skating. I’ve never really been good at wearing skates, but I figured now was the time to learn a crash course in skating. I let my feet slip and slide across the floor as I froze a single path towards the bad guys, and this time, I realized I was moving almost as fast as Jordan was. By the time I got there, though, Wanda was hurling lightning bolts at my face when she got to her feet. I conjured some ice in front of me like a shield to make them bounce off me. But Pat saved me when he clapped his hands next to the floor and made the ground underneath her vibrate, sending her back against the ramp.

Jordan still didn’t back down. He kept running in circles around the course, knocking Jeremy off his feet as he came around. I guess Jordan didn’t take it too well when Remy said he was joining my side in the fight. Either way, Remy was losing. He tried to get up to throw some fire around at them, but Jordan was running so fast, it was hard to stop him. That moment before running around again, he knocked Jeremy over, sending him to his hands and knees.

“Come on and catch me, loser!” Jordan shouted.

I had one shot at this at the right moment. I broke my ice shield on the ground into tiny shards and picked up one of them. I closed my left eye, aimed for Jordan’s head, and threw the ice at him. Clunk. The ice bounced off his head, knocking him off balance that he stopped running, and then he slipped on something, falling on his ass. I looked down to replace a black puddle underneath him. Out of that black puddle, something moved, and the puddle turned into a human form, which turned into Toby, who stood there and punched Jordan in the face when he tried to sit up.

“Nice job, Toby,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said.

We looked at the clock. 30 seconds left. Someone had to cut the rope and save the dummy from getting burned with acid in the tub below.

I turned to Jeremy, who was now back on his feet. “Burn the rope,” I said.

“But how do we get the civilian down?” Jeremy said.

I had to think quickly before the gym teacher would cut the rope down and send the artificial civilian to its doom. I couldn’t fly yet, but Jeremy had the power to move things with his mind. “Throw me,” I said quietly.

Wanda jumped to her feet and growled. With her arms open wide, her hands crackled with electricity as she poised to hit us.

“Remy, throw me!” I shouted.

Right as Wanda clapped her hands and shot a bolt of lightning at us, Toby melted as Jeremy ducked and waved his hand in the air. I felt myself soaring through the air into the dummy hanging from the ceiling. The buzzer sounded and the rope detached immediately. The dummy was falling. But right on time, I grabbed the dummy and fell on the other side of the tub, landing on the floor before the electric shock of the lightning could penetrate me. Instead, the lightning went into the ice cold ramp behind me. I was exhausted.

The buzzer went off. The whole crowd got noisy. I sat up to face what we just did. I had no idea if we saved the civilian or not.

“What just happened?” I said when Jeremy was at my side, helping me up.

Jeremy sighed. “You won.”

I sighed in relief. “We won, yay,” I said. I was really sore from the neck down and I tried to get up, but I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. Pat came over and pulled me to my feet. When I slowly walked to Jeremy to shake his hand, he just grunted and turned away. We all followed him out of the arena through the locker room and up the stairs to the hallway. I knew I was going to need an Epsom salt bath after this.

When we left battle class and got to the hallway, Fiona Dangerous was the first one to greet us with her ridiculous laughter. Her girlfriends surrounded her as she went, while holding Tom Larkin’s hand and making me feel even more queasy. This was the first time I saw her, her hair dyed bright pink, held in place with an elastic headband, and her designer clothes looking tight around her tiny body. She was taller than me in those big heeled boots of hers, and I could smell prom queen on her.

“I like my name,” she giggled. “I’m too dangerous for anyone to penetrate me.”

“Like this?” Tom said, stretching his rubber arm and going for her butt.

She smiled and shoved him. “Ew! Don’t do that to me, Elastro!”

“Whatever you say, Dangerous,” he said.

Then Fiona finally turned to face us, all beaten from the fight and the truce we just made. She was the last thing we really didn’t need playing this name game with us. But she did anyway. “You know something, guys? You haven’t picked your names yet. But I have a suggestion for you.”

She pointed at Jeremy and said, “You should be Solar Fury.” Then she pointed at me. “And you should be Super Frost.”

She giggled in delight. I sneered. “I really don’t appreciate the name calling unless I do it myself,” I said.

“So?” Fiona said. “What would you rather be called for your hero name? Frostbite?”

Everyone laughed. Then Jeremy went straight up to her, his skin sizzling with heat and steam coming from the top of his head. “You know something, Fiona?” he growled. “You’re just as bad as they are, just like your father. Always laughing at people and making them feel low while you steal all the credit.”

That made her stop laughing. The smile on her face was wiped off. She looked just as humiliated as I was, and practically ashamed. She did not like him mentioning her own father, the former villain who my dad sent to jail. Yes, I’ve heard of Fiona’s dad, Volatile, whom my dad wouldn’t stop telling the story of how he defeated him. Let’s just say my parents had a lot of enemies back when they were still dating and working as a super team. Fiona inherited her dad’s powers to manipulate and warp metal, even make things explode.

Jeremy left us in the hallway that day, not even looking at me or saying another word, like I had just defeated him. I wanted to thank him for helping me in battle class, but I was sure he didn’t want to hear it. Tom and Fiona left without saying anything to me either, but I think Tom winked at me before turning his head. Fiona nudged him in the ribs for that. I didn’t really know what that meant. At that moment, the only mind I could read was my own, like my powers had given up on me. And there was no one waiting for me in the hallway to congratulate me for a job well done. It wasn’t until after school when Pat, Andy, and Glitch went up to me and told me some nice things about how I saved their asses and stood up for those guys, especially Pat. They were the only ones who praised me that day.

I guess it was kind of weird after my first battle class, and I was already an outcast because I helped Jeremy Russel. And now he didn’t even want to speak to me. I assumed that he probably needed the space, as everybody did. But I kept thinking about what I probably should have done differently. Why didn’t I just fight him back? Am I a coward? How could I have been so powerless around him to let my guard down?