True Sidekick - *Sequel to Hero by Day

Chapter 18- Super Villains are Bullies

"'Enough! You are all of you beneath me. I am a God, you foul creature, and I will not be bullied by - *Hulk smashes him*'

'Puny God'"

~ Loki and Bruce Banner (The Hulk)

:Aden:

Getting a hold of Dylan's DNA was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I mean – the TV shows and movies make it look easy. All you have to do is reach over and pluck a piece of hair from their head and they wouldn't notice a thing, right?

Wrong.

What they forgot to mention was how hard it was going to be to actually get close enough to your victim without them realizing what you were doing.

In our shared Chemistry class, Mr. Tier gave us a review packet to work on. Seeing as Dylan's table with Burke was right in front of me, I should've been able to just reach over and take a hair, but it was a lot harder than it seemed.

Tyler being right there next to me didn't help either. I couldn't reach over and grab Dylan's hair without Tyler asking questions. I loved the guy like a brother, but right now I wished he wasn't here so I could complete my hero mission.

"So, did you hear about White Lightning's save this weekend?" Tyler asked.

I nodded. "Yep, I heard Kratos was there too. Didn't he, you know, lift a truck to save like ten civilians?"

Tyler shrugged. "I don't know man. All I know is that White Lightning made a save. But if he did, I guess that's pretty cool too."

I sighed. I was starting to notice the ups and downs that came with being a sidekick, especially the downs. You were kind of pushed to the side while the hero was the one glorified. I kind of felt sorry for Oliver after all of his years living under Captain Impossible.

"But, did you see that article your dad wrote about Kratos? That was pretty cool. I mean – White Lightning never stops for an interview. Plus, a super villain attacked right in the middle of the interview. How cool is that?"

I smiled. I guess being a sidekick wasn't too bad, especially when people noticed when you stood out.

"Yeah, that was pretty awesome. I heard from my dad that Kratos was also a pretty cool guy. Saving him from a super villain must've helped."

Dylan scoffed from his table in front of us. "Please, we've all seen that video. All Kratos did was shove a statue at Inferno."

I tensed up. I remembered the conversation down in the Man Cave, about Dylan possibly being Inferno. The facts matched up: his huge ego, his need to hurt and embarrass Oliver and I at every turn, the fact that he was hired by a bigger bully, and the fact that he was in the same accident as me, the one with the strange chemical from Paramount Pharmaceuticals that caused superpowers. I figured it gave me powers because it was mixed in my circulatory system after seeping into my wounds, but Dylan had barely been covered compared to me. Little, if any, of the substance could've gotten into Dylan's system. If that small of an amount of the chemical gave him powers, then I wondered why someone wasn't trying to mass produce the product.

But if Dylan really was Inferno, then he must've known who I was. And, for some reason, that pissed me off.

All I wanted was to save some people and maybe get some fame along the way, Dylan didn't need to sweep in and take yet another good thing away from me. Hadn't he had enough?