Superhero Crash Course

18- Mask on. Hood up.

Chapter 18- Mask on. Hood up.

Ever gotten hit by a tennis ball in the gut? No? Well, my friend did that to me once by accident and it hurt bad.

Now imagine the person who threw the tennis ball was the most powerful superhero of all time equipped with super strength.

Yep. It was 5 AM in the morning and I was playing catch with Titan who seemed so determined to turn the simple throw&catch game into the duel to death. Survival mode.

I couldn't breathe as I laid on my back on the itchy grass. Rainbow tennis ball with a smiley face on it rolled past me. There were a villain's names written on each one of it. Pyro. Lava. Feline. Titan's got a weird sense of humor. He was defeating me with a dozen of smiling rainbow tennis balls. It's distracting and humiliating as hell.

"Get up. Enemies won't wait for you." Titan urged. Easy for him to say. He was invincible. Titan maybe a cool superhero but as a coach, he is the worst. I wondered how could Cryonics survive a whole day of this apprentice thing with this guy without getting his head cracked opened. 

I staggered to my feet, adjusting the crimson mask on my face. I was grateful the sun was yet to rise so the temperature was quite low or I wouldn't reek only scent of grass when I got to school later. "Can I at least take off the mask?" I shouted at him. We were training in the clear, wide field in the countryside of Brackenbridge. My shout echoed off the mountains surrounding us. 

"No. You can't take off the mask in the real field, you don't take off the mask during the practice." Titan replied. 

"But it gets into the way of everything!" I shouted back and realized I just quoted Cryonics. That upset me more than it should. 

Titan chuckled and replied by throwing some more tennis balls my way. I was supposed to shoot flame at them and not let them hit me. I failed.

"You can do it, Jamie! Just stay focused!" Aunt Casey shouted at me about 10 meters away.

She was watching her favorite niece (I'm her only niece) getting killed by a superhero. She was just standing idly with a green clipboard and a pen. She was supposed to be keeping my score, you see? 30 minutes past and I only saw her scribbled something down on that clipboard thrice.

That's the amount of time I actually hit the ball. Ha.

So she refrained to shout words of encouragement at me instead. It was not helping. I was anything but focused. My mind kept jumping back to the thought of Les and what he told me yesterday. Kat and the cold war between me and her. My drama project that I hardly worked on. Then, my math homework I was supposed to submit on first period.

Dozen of colorful balls shot past me. I managed to hit 2 with my ball of flame. I noticed that the material they were made of was heat-resistant and no matter how bad I wanted to, I couldn't wipe that stupid smirk off their faces. 

I looked up and almost got hit in the face with Ranch's grinning face. Someone caught the ball right before it could create a dent on my face. It was Frosty.

"Thanks." I nodded at him. I hadn't seen him since we met at the fair. We didn't really have a proper and noble goodbye. Just him screaming at me to be responsible for Coldfront's death and me knocking him out cold with an iPhone. 

My heart raced, thinking of what happened.

Titan gave me a break and told Cryonics to go get ready for his training session. I went to get my water bottle in the cooler under a tree, making a mental note to bring some fizzy drinks next time. I needed some sugar to wake my sleepless self up.