Super

Chapter 1

[Noah]

          I collapsed onto my small twin bed on my side of the room, rubbing my bruised arm and grimacing.

          This was a regular thing. The worst villain in Philadelphia, Imperium, would try to throw someone off of a bridge or destroy a building full of people, and it would be my job to stop him.

         Luckily, my roommate wasn't in the dorm when I stumbled into the room. If I had to hazard a guess, I would have said he was off with one of our friends, like he often was. He was into that sort of thing: hanging out with people, participating in school events, going to parties. I was almost sick (for the second since I got back) at the thought of joining him.

          I hoped I wasn't blending in with the bed sheets when Matt finally got back. I did that sometimes when I was unfocused after a battle, and it always led to a nasty shock for him and a quick, made up explanation from me.

          As I laid there in pain, my mind wandered to the battle earlier that day that had put me in that position.

           I had been leaving my English class that morning when screams and shouts sounded in the distance. Students on campus were looking up in confusion, though there was no panic. I supposed that they were used to the disturbance with Imperium on the loose, and since they had their beloved hero, Talpa, there wasn't any reason to fear.

         Unfortunately, Talpa just so happened to be... me. And I wasn't on the scene of whatever crime was going on, meaning it was happening without interruption.

          I sighed and dashed around a clump of bushes, crouching down and out of sight. I began to dig through my bag, lifting up the little flap of fabric that hid my suit. I kept it with me at all times, or at least, when possible. Imperium tended to attack city interests at the most inconvenient times for me. More than once, I've had to race back to my dorm to change when I didn't have my Talpa clothes on me. Luckily, I had them this time, and it didn't take me long to change.

         I pulled off my shirt and jeans so that I was standing in the bushes in only my boxer briefs and socks. I quickly pulled on my embarrassingly bright green tights and long-sleeved green shirt. I slid my lizard skin-textured mask over my eyes, which I knew had turned into a pure milky white. (It was a fake lizard skin mask, of course. It would be wrong on so many levels for me to have had a dead chameleon on my face.)

         Why would it be wrong? Because chameleons were...kind of my thing.

         I know, I know, it was the lamest power ever. I could blend into things and turn practically invisible, big whoop. But, believe it or not, it had come in handy in countless situations.

          Like that one time when Imperium was trying to use mind control against me to harm a civilian, and I made myself disappear so he couldn't make the necessary eye contact. (A difficult feat, believe it or not. It was nearly impossible to tell when the villain was about to penetrate your mind.)

          Or every time Imperium tried and failed to sneak up on me because of my three hundred and sixty degree vision, due to the fact that chameleon's eyes can look in two different directions.

         Or when I managed to climb up a nearly vertical surface to tackle Imperium before he could trigger the traps he had set up in the park.

         Or that time that I—

         Okay, I made my point. I was great.