THE CADETS: Children of the New Aion

CHAPTER TWO - THE CURE FOR THE COMMON COLD

      Common Cold is a joke villain's joke villain. A D-lister if there ever was one. Any superhero that ever brags about taking him down is met with immediate mockery. No other supervillains want to collaborate. No mercenary agencies want to recruit him. He's never even been kidnapped by a big bad and forced to fight a hero under mind control. He's a nothing burger of a villain. Even victims of the Common Cold feel slightly embarrassed by their encounters.
     Before this morning he was a fat, balding man with a bent, beak-like nose and several noticeable gaps in his teeth. What remained of his thin red hair formed a crown around his egg-like temple. His armor was bulky, and made it look like he was wearing a massive tube over his torso, his limbs popping out of sawed out holes on the sides and bottoms. The pack he wore to contain his hydrogen peroxide spray was equally as bulky, with a thin spray tube coming out of it that shot out the hydrogen like a mist. He wore a thin silver bodysuit to protect him from his cold rays, and the material was so cheap that it looked like he wrapped himself up in tin foil. There are over twenty different clown-themed villains operating on Earth right now, and none of them look as ridiculous.
     But in that moment, seeing him sitting on a massive throne made of ice in the center of the bank, this pathetic man was something fearsome. His body was completely covered in ice, his mech armor gone and his protective suit now blending in with his skin, and his eyes were completely blank. He now looked more like a husk then the pathetic man I'd come to resent spending so much time with. An avatar for the power of stagnation.
     Mystery Girl was the first person I noticed shivering upon entry to the building. She wrapped her arms around her chest and brushed them as her teeth clattered wildly. The Pupil clicked the symbol on his belt and he was quickly covered by a Snow White variant of his costume complete with goggles and a breathing apparatus. He said upped the snaps off his new fur cape and handed it to Mystery Girl who begrudgingly slung it over her shoulders. Frippet rubbed her hands together, then quickly clapped them to create a jolt of electricity that brought a smile to her face. Inch-Foot didn't seem bothered by the cold, but I did notice a slight spasm from her shoulders every once in a while.
     "Who dares disturb the domain of King Cold!" he boomed.
     "King Cold?" Pupil mumbled.
     Dr. Patty lept from my shoulders and grew to her usual height of two-hundred and fifty centimeters. She stepped forward and Cold sent an ice chunk in front of her feet, stopping her in her tracks. I detected a low growl from the back of Dr. Patty's throat that was halted by her gritted teeth.
     "Knock this off Cold!" Dr. Patty yelled, pointing at him with a firm stance. "You don't know what you're dealing with!"
     "Don't you dare mock me by leaving out my honorary title!" Cold yelled, standing up. "I am King Cold now, and I will accept nothing less!"
     "Whatever!" Dr. Patty shouted, her hands motioning in the air wildly. "Just turn yourself in peacefully before anyone gets seriously hurt!"
      "I am a God! Gods do not surrender peacefully to worthless worms!"
      "Didn't you vomit in the back of Pupil's car!" Frippet said.
      "That smell lingered for two weeks," the Pupil moaned. "I cleaned that backseat so much."
     "You mean your Uncle cleaned it out so much," I said.
     "Silence fools!" Cold boomed like thunder. He floated from his seat and pulled ice chunks towards himself with the wave of his hand. "You will pay for your insolence!"
     Cold clasped his hands together and the chunks fused into a massive ball floating over his head. In a flash he flew to the top of the ball and kicked it towards us. Helen and II jumped towards the left side, while Pupil, Frippet and Dr. Patty jumped to the right. I aimed my canon at Cold, but he quickly threw an ice blast over my canon's barrel, obstructing my ability to blast him. My arm's heating system kicked in to melt the ice as Mystery Girl hid behind me.
      As Cold floated towards us, Frippet scooped some snow off the ground, packed it into a snowball, and flung it at Cold with her super speed. The snowball beaned Cold in the head, knocking him back in the air. He turned to Frippet with a horrible scowl.
     "You dare mock me!" He growled.
      Pupil pulled two throwing knives from behind his utility belt one after another. Cold blocked the first one from hitting his head with a quick swipe from his left forearm, but he wasn't able to halt the second one from digging into his shoulder with a horrible crunch.
     "Grah!" he shrieked, shooting an ice beam wildly around the area, causing another round of wild ducking from the group.
     Cold stopped firing his ice beam and let out another wild growl. He clasped his hands together, creating another massive ball. As Mystery Girl would later outline in her dossier on the night, this was an example of Cold's repetitiveness and quickness towards frustration.
     Dr. Patty, also quick to frustration, shouted, "Hell no!"
      Hitting the switch on her forearm communicator, Dr. Patty grew ten meters tall, almost towards the bank's ceiling. Cold turned to toss the ice ball at her, but Dr. Patty swatted him to the ground with a thud. I slammed my right arm with my fist, knocking off the last of the ice chunk. Autolock pointed my cannon at Cold as he slowly got up to his knees.
     "This is impossible," Cold grumbled.
     "It's happened exactly seven times before," I said.
     Cold growled again, and aimed his fist to fire the ice beam into my chest. I fired off a mild stun blast into his chest that knocked him onto his back. Mystery Girl ran over towards Cold and placed her fingers on the sides of his temple, her eyes turning blank to match Cold's and I knew she was in. She cocked her fist back to give him a punch, and Dr. Patty caught her wrist.
     "You can't brutalize him," Dr. Patty said.
      "He's not going to notice," Mystery Girl scoffed. "What's it matter?"
     "Yes it does, now stand back!"
     "Okay," Helen started, walking back, "but this guy really started calling himself King Cold?"
     "We're not calling him that," Pupil said as he wiped vomit from his mouth with the backhand of his glove. No one pointed out that he then wiped it on his left calf, but I thought it bears mentioning.
     "Agreed," I said. "But if he loses these ice powers, we definitely shouldn't let him forget about this."
     "Let's tell the news he changed his name to a symbol," Dr. Patty giggled. We all stared blankly at her. Then, Pupil snapped his fingers and said:
      "David Bowie?"
      "Not even close," muttered Dr. Patty
      "The symbol thing might work with the other villains," Mystery Girl said.
     "I bet the Troll would get a kick out of that," Pupil chuckled.
      Mystery Girl pulled away, and her arm jerked  to where she was pointing towards the Teller's desk.
      "That asshole dropped a whole backpack full of Ice-Nine over at the Teller window," Mystery Girl started. "That general area is the point of origin for the blast. The Ice-Nine also bonded to his body and gave him his powers, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know how that happened."
     "Good job, Mystery Girl," Dr. Patty said. "Does he know of any way we can reverse the blast?"
     "Not from what I read," Mystery Girl said.
     Dr. Patty smacked her left fist into the palm of her right hand, decisively "Then I guess we have to put all our heads together. Send a signal to Callisto that we need him in here."
      Mystery Girl put her index and ring finger on the side of her head and her eyes went blank once more. Her mouth went agape, then, a metal gauntlet swung out of her lips, followed by another. Callisto popped his pallid, expressionless mask up from her bottom lip. He then shot out of her mouth, his red-and-gold trimmed Calle flowing out of her mouth. Mystery Girl looked steady and unshaken by the entire Experience. Callisto flew up into the air, and when the last piece of his cape pulled out, he threw open his cape to reveal his chain-link armor and mint green chest plate. A ruby hung off a necklace attached around his armored neck.
     "I see Common Cold has been defeated," Callisto boomed in a monotone voice.
     "He's turned his name into a symbol," I said, making an ampersand in the air.
     "Oh my," Callisto hissed, "that's shockingly bad."
     "I'm gonna tell some deep cover heroes  about it," said Dr. Patty, "make sure he never forgets tonight."
      Callisto gave her a thumbs up. Frippet nodded with a grin.
     "Do you know any spells that will allow us to reverse the Ice-nine explosion?" Dr. Patty asked Callisto. "There's no scientific way in which we can deal with the Ice-nine other than containing it, so maybe there's some kind of magic work around we could use."
     Callisto wrapped his index finger around the chin of his mask, and silently paced around the room for a few seconds. He spun around, lifted his index finger, then placed it back around his chin.
     He's always had a heavy, mysterious energy around him, far beyond his connection to the mystic and his mysterious power. It was the breadth of his knowledge: Something I see in my fathers, somethingI gain from Dr. Patty, and something people assume is just automatic to my programming. But with Callisto it's different; he sees everything around him fully and takes all of it in equally. It's a powerful perspective. His powers put him so above everything that even the idea of his power over others is a concept that doesn't matter to him. Instead, he seeks to be a part of this world. A benefit to it. A hero of responsibility and curiosity.
     I feel like if we ever talked we'd find that we have a lot in common.
    Callisto spun back to face us and said, "There is a spell that will allow me to reverse the destruction of the ice-nine."
     "Thank you," muttered Dr. Patty, clasping her hands together.
     "But I need to take ownership of the Saving & Loan."
      "What!" yelped Dr. Patty.
     "Not legally," Callisto interjected, "but there will be a charm in the building that gives me a connection to it. I know it's a little weird, but trust me when I say it's the only way."
       Callisto reached under the shoulders of his cape and unclasped his ruby necklace and held it up in the air by the chain.
     "Klaatu....barada....nikto!" Callisto boomed.
      The building shook, then Callisto tossed the amulet onto the point of impact. The ruby exploded, creating a floating holographic pentagram over the impact point. Callisto floated up over it, then began rotating his hand over each other counter-clockwise like he was doing some embarrassing arm dance. At first it looked like the ice was melting at the front door, but through careful examination I saw that the Ice was backtracking its movement. I then saw the first fly off Dr. Patty's arm, and she opened and closed her fist perfectly. Callisto waved his arms until it all finally coalesced under the pentagram. The protective shell of Common Cold's ammo pack reassembled and encased the ice-nine. Callisto slammed his hands down and the pentagram covered the ice-nine, pushing it through the ground until the pentagram was covering it as a flat surface.
     "That should hold it," Callisto said.
     "What was that?" Mystery Girl asked.
    "Well," Callisto started, "I targeted the point of the Ice-Nine's explosion, cast a dominion spell,  and that caused the flow of time around the Ice-Nine explosion to reverse. Then I placed the protective charm on top of the point of impact so that it will stay in that space and time until I break the spell."
     Frippet, Pupil and Mystery Girl all blinked at each other in disbelief. Dr. Patty and I glanced at each other with slight annoyance.
     Pupil raised his hand. "Could you repeat that one more time?"
     "No," Callisto said.
     "Nmph...!" groaned Common Cold as he pulled himself up on the wall. His body was back to normal, so now he was back to being the pathetic schmuck wearing aluminum foil. He waddled towards the front door, desperately making his way to the exit, but Dr. Patty and I scooped him up by both arms and carried him out.
     "Let me go!" He gargled.
     "Not how that works," Dr. Patty said, "Duke Cold."
      "King Cold!" Common Cold yelled.
      "Queen Cold?" I said.
      "No," whined Cold.
      "What about Prince Cold?" Dr. Patty asked.
      "No," Common Cold's voice was starting to crack like a pubescent human.
      "We'll figure it out," Dr. Patty said as we tossed him into the back of the Prisoner wagon.
     "Bye-bye," I waved as the trucks pulled away, and I could hear Common Cold banging on the windowless door in vain.
     According to Callisto, he can only produce one portal at a time, but we all like to stick around and let him do it for us after a long mission. Especially when it rouses our more human members from their much needed sleep. Despite our superhuman gifts, exhaustion is still an issue we all deal with. We usually go by who lives the farthest away first, with Pupil taking the lead and Frippet following after. Dr. Patty went next, warning us that she'd "crack our skulls" if we ditched school. It's always a joke, but no one ever wants to test her because we've actually seen her do it before.
     As I approached my portal, I turned my attention to Callisto. He was flipping through an ancient grimoire on a podium, staring at its contents intently. He playfully wrapped his fingers on the side of the podium, and it awoke something in me.
     "That was cool," I said.
     "Excuse me?" said Callisto.
      "The way you made the Ice-Nine turn back," my voice modulator squeaked, something I've never experienced before with that shell. "That was cool."
      Callisto stared for a moment, looked down to the concrete, and said, "Thank you."
      We stood there for a moment, facing each other, but not really looking at each other. The dawn was rising, and the calming morning sun shone down on us as the rest of the city began moving at its own pace around us. I broke without saying anything, making my way to the glimmer of the portal, but I turned back one more time to see Callisto staring back at me. I wondered what, if any, longing existed behind those slits in his wooden mask, and stepped back into my home.