Growing Pains

Lightning cracked through the sky as rain poured down steadily, providing the perfect backdrop for my nightly activity. One that any aspiring supervillain would treat with utmost seriousness.

Plotting how to beat their nemesis.

Superman had revealed himself to not be the paragon of truth and justice he pretended to be during our fight.

No, instead he was some kind of spank-happy sadist hiding behind the mask of a hero.

Clearly I had landed in one of those bizzaro universes where Superman was secretly evil and it was up to me to take him down! I blinked as I realized I had gotten a bit excited and then sat back down to continue cooking dinner in my newfound supervillain lair.

Okay, it was a random cave I had found and moved into but it was a start. Thankfully my Attack Ball had included a remote that allowed it to autopilot to my location so I wasn’t forced to sleep on the floor even if it meant everything else was just rocks repurposed into furniture and my stove was a campfire.

It was still fun though. Camping is waaaay better when you are tough enough to ignore small sticks and stones poking you constantly.

I shook my head. Enough getting distracted. I needed to think of a way to beat up the big blue bully. The problem was, Superman was just too fast for me right now. I had gotten lucky with my cheap shot sneak attack, but otherwise nothing I had tried got close. I hadn’t managed to figure out Ki sense on my own yet either.

So I needed to get faster or get better at hitting things.

I thought about the heroes I could potentially train against.

The Flash was slower than Superman, right?

-o-

Central City was…fine I guess.

After Metropolis I had kinda hoped that all the new cities I checked out would be cool and interesting. Gotham was probably going to be filthy but it at least had a cool aesthetic. But from what I saw of Central City so far was that it was…normal.

At least the Flash museum would be pretty neat. Was that built yet? Probably not, everyone seemed pretty new.

Meh.

I kinda just wandered down the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the Flash, but I wasn’t getting much luck. So I tried multitasking by practicing sensing other people’s ki.

I wasn’t having much luck with that either.

“Whoa, watch yourself kid!” A hand stopped me from walking forward just as a car passed by in the street.

Had I been zoning out that much? Oops.

“You gotta be careful crossing the street.” the man who stopped me continued. “And where are your parents? Central is pretty safe but kids shouldn’t be walking around by themselves.”

Did my entrance not make the news? An alien spaceship attacked Metropolis, I should be famous!

Although come to think about it, I didn’t see a bunch of cameras around when I showed up. Maybe they didn’t have a good picture of me?

“I can take care of myself.” I told the man. “Besides, I'm here looking for someone.”

“Oh, going to a costume party? It’s a really cool outfit. The tail looks pretty real too.”

“My tail IS real.” I waved the thing at him for emphasis. “And I said I’m looking for a person not a party.”

We were starting to draw attention. Pedestrians were whispering between themselves and pointing. While I didn’t mind it at first, the longer it went on, the more annoying it got.

*CRASH*

Oh hey look a distraction!

The sound of something large crumbling to rubble grabbed everyone’s attention and I felt it was a perfect excuse to leave.

“I’m gonna - well, that’s just rude.” the man I had been talking to vanished before I could ditch him!

Ignoring that I lifted off the ground and started floating towards the sound from earlier.

Good news is I found the Flash. Too bad he was fighting that ice villain of his. Shoot, what was his name? Commander Chill? Private Popsical? Something like that.

Anyway, the villain had just robbed a jewelry store and had frozen then shattered a wall during his escape. Now he was taunting the Flash while blasting the ground around him with some kind of frost gun, causing Flash to slide right past him when he tried getting close.

It was neat to see a real superhero fight but I wanted to start training soon, so when Flash slammed into a nearby parked car I floated over until I was in front of him.

“Hi there, I’m Califa! I need you to help me.”

The speedster seemed surprised and kept looking between me and checking up on the villain. “Ah, sure mysterious floating monkey kid. But I’m a little busy right now and it’s dangerous, so why don’t we talk once I take care of Captain Cold there?”

So THAT was his name! I knew I was close.

“Hiding behind kids now, Flash? Not very ‘heroic’ of you.” the ice villain taunted while twirling his cold gun.

“I’m not hid-!”

“Look, can we wrap this up already? I’ve got things to do.” I interrupted Flash. “So just give up already so we can get going.”

“...” I think I might have made Captain Cold a bit angry. “You know what? I don’t want to deal with some random superpowered kid so why don’t you cool off in timeout for now.”

The next thing I knew, I was suddenly covered in some kinda weird ice.

Weird because, yeah it was cold, but I could breathe through it? I don’t think you can breathe through normal ice.

Still, Captain Cold had trapped me in about an inch of ice so that meant he attacked me. And that meant he was fair game.

I focused my Ki and exploded it outward, shattering the ice and freeing me to both Flash and Captain Cold’s surprise.

“My turn!”

I pitched a sphere of Ki into the ice villain’s chest hard enough to knock him off his feet and into a parked car. If the Ki orb didn’t knock him out of the fight, the cracked ribs from denting the vehicle’s doors probably would. He would be fine though. It was only a few bones at most.

“Okay, now you have to help me!” I ordered Flash, grabbing him by the wrist and starting to lead him off.

“Uhhh, sure…he's gonna be okay though, right?”

“He’ll be fine, I barely hit him.”

Unfortunately Flash refused to leave until Captain Cold got picked up by the cops and an EMT.

He was fine just like I promised. His ribs would heal in a few weeks.

-o-

“So you want to explain what you need my help for? I don’t mind helping but you’ve been kinda light on details.”

“I need you to help me get faster.”

We were in the middle of some random field outside the city limits because I didn’t want to be tripping over random people while doing this and frankly, I was surprised the Flash didn’t ask sooner.

“Get faster? I mean I appreciate the thought but you know not everyone can just do what I do, right?”

“Yeah, but if I’m working my way up to Superman levels of speed, then it just makes sense to train with someone a bit slower right? And you could help me just get used to keeping up with people faster than me.”

The speedster opened his mouth to say something when I could practically see the moment his train of thought latched onto something I said.

“Hold on, Superman is fast but he is not faster than me. I’m the fastest man alive.” he protested.

“Are you sure?” I tilted my head doubtfully. I mean Flash was fast but…

“Yes, yes I’m sure! You know what, fine, I’ll help you get faster. And we’ll do it the fun way.”

I perked up. “Fun way?”

The scarlet speedster nodded sagely. “Yep, using the best way there is to get used to moving fast…”

He walked over to me and slowly reached out one finger. Poking me in the forehead.

“Tag, you’re it.”

I smiled widely and flared my Ki.

It was so on…

-o-

“Ha, ha, haah…”

“Hey, you’re doing better! You almost got me that time.”

Hours later I was tired, sweaty, exhausted. Not only had I not come close to catching the Flash he hadn’t run out of breath the entire time we were training. And this was including the times he had to run back into Central City to help break up a crime while I took a break to recover.

It was working though!

I was already able to move much faster than when we first started thanks to all the practice I was getting controlling my Ki. Flash had also given me pointers about my running form when I got too tired to fly. And the biggest improvement was that I figured out Ki sense!

No idea how I managed that last one, but I think it had to do with me constantly trying to find Flash when he sped away and something just clicked. I didn’t even realize I had done it until Flash mentioned something.

“One…one more time…” I panted, wiping sweat off my forehead.

“Sorry, kid. I gotta head back to the city. I’ve got another appointment.” He waved his hands in front of him negatively. “But keep up those exercises we started on and you should be way faster in no time!”

“Pfft, fine.” I grudgingly accepted. I was getting hungry anyway.

“Great! Now take care and don’t do anything dangerous. Don’t want a newbie hero biting off more than she can chew too quickly, right?” Flash had the audacity to ruffle my hair before vanishing back towards the city in a blur.

Wait…

Hero?

I did tell him I was working my way up to take on Superman though?

Meh, oh well. He’ll figure it out at some point.