Omega

Denki- Rule Number 4

Denki had learned several things from the few months he had spent at the school training to be an Omega-level hero.

Rule number 1: The school was located in America, and Americans were weird. He did not understand the abbreviations and slang they used in their everyday speech. He could barely keep up with the speed of their English let alone understand what they were trying to say.

Rule number 2: No one should touch Cole's food. He had scars to prove it.

The most important rule he learned, though, was that America was infested with terrible monsters who would crawl into homes and cause mass panic just by showing their twisted faces: spiders.

It was one fateful weekend that Denki went face to face with the dreaded enemy—a weekend that would come back to haunt him for years to come. He and his newfound best friend Rebel were lounging on their beds with the air conditioning on full blast. It was too hot to do anything. Another member of his team, Jonsi, had left with Cole to pick up ice cream from Walmart and another member, Shalimar, had left to get what she had called barbecue from a restaurant called Dicky's.

They seemed to get a kick out of him trying American food.

Denki yawned loudly and flopped onto his stomach. "Whadaya wanna do?" he asked Rebel, blowing his blond bangs out of his eyes and staring at the carpet.

Rebel shrugged as he stared at the screen of his handheld video game.

Denki frowned and tossed a pillow at his friend's head, causing the distracted teen to lose his grip and fall off his bed.

"Seriously?!" Rebel snapped, tossing the pillow back at Denki's head. "Do you know how long it took me to get to the boss on level five?!"

Denki shrugged as he reached down to pull the fallen pillow back onto the bed. "A while I guess," he admitted.

Rebel glared at him. "48 hours at least," he growled in an angry tone.

Denki whistled under his breath as he felt around for the pillow. "You need a life." his fingers clenched around the soft material as something tickled his hand. He brought it up to scratch his itch but frowned. A small black dot was crawling across his hand. He brought it close to inspect the dot and his eyes widened. A furry black arachnid was making its way across his hand.

Chaos ensued.

Denki was the first to react, screaming and flinging the unwanted guest across the room only for it to land on Rebel's video game. The young hero's eyes widened and he jumped from his spot on the bed, dropped his game, and leaped the several foot gap between his and Denki's matress only to huddle in the far corner of the room.

"Wh-what is that?" Denki stuttered, staring at the small black spider as it scurried across the carpet.

Rebel huddled closer to the wall and handed the blond his phone with a shaking hand. "I-it's an s-s-spider," he answered, "a-an arachnid th-that invades p-people's houses a-and brings d-d-death and d-destruction."

Denki quickly grabbed the phone as the spider scurried closer to their hiding place. He dialed Cole. "Answeransweransweranswer!" he whispered in an urgent tone as the spider drew closer.

"Hello?" Cole's voice echoed through the phone's speaker.

"Cole!" Denki almost shouted. "We're under attack! A monster came and invaded our room! It wants to eat us!"

"What?!" Cole yelled in surprise. "What's going on what does it look like?! I'm on my way back!"

Denki screamed and nearly dropped the phone as the spider rushed towards them. He and Rebel quickly clamored up the ladder to the top bunk of the beds and stared in horror as the spider searched for them. "Um," he started, panicking as he leaned over the railing to get a better look at their attacker. "It's huge! Cole it's huge and furry and it has eight giant legs and fangs and I think it's fangs are bloody! Oh my gosh its a killing machine! You've got to get here fast it wants to kill us!"

"Okay okay I'm on my way!" Cole promised before hanging up.

"It's climbing the ladder!" Rebel screamed as he backed to the far end of the bed in a panic. He looked around for anything to be used as a weapon and quickly found a dirty slipper. He wrinkled his nose against the smell but tossed it to Denki. "Kill it!" he told the blond.

Denki stared at the slipper then back at Rebel. "Me?!" he spluttered. "Why not you?!"

"You're closer!" Rebel pointed out. His face grew serious and he offered Denki a strong salute. "I believe in you."

Denki hesitated but nodded clutching the smelly slipper. "I wont let you down," he promised. Drawing in a deep breath, he leaned over the ladder and slipped closer to the monster resting on the wooden bars. He reached down to squish it with the slipper but, without warning, the spider crawled out of the way and up his arm.

Denki screamed and fell off the ladder with a thud. Electricity leaped from his fingers and aimed at the spider in a feeble attempt to spare Rebel from the monster but to no avail as the spider scurried out of sight.

Just in time, Cole broke open the door and flew inside, ready to fight. "Where's the monster?!" he demanded, looking around the room.

Denki pointed a shaky finger at the small spider as it made its way down the wooden beams of the bed.

Cole stared at the small creature, too stunned to speak. "That's the monster?" he asked after a moment. With a quick sweep of his boot, he brushed the unwanted guest outside where it belonged and closed the door. He turned to the two heroes huddled in the corner of the room and crossed his arms across his chest.

Denki swallowed hard.

Rule number 4: Cole was scarier than any spider.