This story takes place in the same universe as X Marks the Spot and will be my own take on a super hero universe. It will owe a little bit to the Wild Cards series of books. This is a WIP and is covered by the Creative Commons License below.
Finding that box in the woods was both the best thing and the worst thing to ever happen to me. I was right that my life would never be boring again, but like my favorite comic book says, with great power comes great responsibility. I had a clear vision of how the world needed to be. The aliens told me that they had given me my abilities to fight in a war that had already passed. That was their mistake. There was still a war on of sorts and it needed fighting. The world was being controlled by idiots. I needed look no further than my own high school to see that. The power structure was determined by looks, popularity, and money in varying combinations. I had none of the above. For the first couple of years after my experience with the box I just sat back and observed. I tested my abilities, sipping intelligence from those around me and learning how to use the limited telekinesis. I read volumes that were beyond my years. I kept these things secret from those around me, even my beloved mother.
Once I was ready to begin my journey to power, I began to build the cadre I needed. I surrounded myself with outcasts. Boys and girls who were smart enough to be of use to me, but not so smart that they would catch on to what I was doing. I tried to add one other gifted person to the circle but that ended in disaster. I mishandled it and she doesn’t trust me any more than perhaps she should. Overall I was successful in my efforts. I had a few friends that I carried with me to the beginning of my Freshmen year and was able to convince my mother and my teachers to let me engage in a period of self study with these people. I used that time to begin to build to my ultimate goal, the takeover of the entire school.
Mind you, I don’t mean that in the strictest political sense. I didn’t want to be class president or the like. I wanted to run the daily operations. I wanted to control the actions of the adults from the principal down to my fellow students. If I could do that, I reasoned, then I could do the same thing once I was out in the real world. School would serve for me the same purpose it purported to serve the boys and girls that would grind through the next four years. It would mold them into what they wanted to be.
The school bell rung shrilly on that first morning. It amplified the headache that I carried with me nearly constantly. Being around too many people made me feel like I was in a vast echo chamber. I was able to damp down the effect, but it cost me. The pain was a dull throb that was only alleviated by solitude. Even my prescription for migraines, the source of which only I was aware, barely touched it. But I could function.
Billy sat across from me. We were the only two in the library during the homeroom period. I was supposed to be tutoring him. I had helped him all through Middle School, at first to avoid beatings. Eventually, even he saw the benefit of a more amiable relationship. While we could never be friends, he was now less of a threat and more of a weapon I could use when I needed strength of arms.
He flipped through Captain Underpants, while I took notes and doodled in my moleskine. It was the end of the first grading period and I had my first target in my sites. There was a small gang of miscreants that “ruled” the ninth grade. They were lead by Joseph Ramirez, a tenth grader who was by all accounts smart for his age. They weren’t a gang as such, but they certainly had a loose power structure and even made money by selling everything from tests to illicit over the counter and prescription drugs. Ramirez was smart enough not to delve into the harder drug trade. The Dragons and Ochos filled that niche and would step hard on anyone who tried to interfere. I was certain that he knew where the boundaries were and was likely being groomed for upward mobility.
Continue reading Hostile Takeover – WIP