For the third time today, Kelvin’s face got smashed in.
He had padding so it didn’t hurt as much as he expected. But his instinct told him to roll back with the punch, and lose his balance, and fall flat on his ass.
The “hero” he fought against then straddled him, aiming a pair of crossed ninja swords at his throat. “Man, do you suck,” the boy-ninja said, slicing the metal, the wires, and a small part of his neck. “This guy isn’t even worth our time.” The ninja got off of Kelvin, not even giving him a hand up.
Shadow, the leader of the supergroup, shook his head. “Look, dude,” he said to Kelvin, “you gotta learn to fight your peers.”
“I don’t know why I need to,” Kelvin protested, for the fifth time today. The wires on his left side were cut, so he felt all the weight of his power suit on his left side. He struggled to get up, like a turtle on its back. Nobody helped.
“Because they’re the kinda people you meet out there,” said Shadow.
Kelvin finally got to his feet and shuffled out of the ring to let another pair go at it. The man who had recruited him into the super group of teenage mutants had disappeared off the face of the earth, and the one who had been the leader also disappeared. This one set himself up as leader, and chose instead to concentrate all their efforts on fighting each other, which Kelvin thought was stupid.
“I’m leaving,” Kelvin said.
“You forfeit your spot in the tournament,” said Shadow, turning away from the new fight.
“Like I had one anyway,” Kelvin muttered, trying to get the rocket boots to work. They didn’t, so he hobbled up the stairs, dragging his useless left side behind him.
His mother picked him up in the mini-van. It probably didn’t help his image at all, seeing him climb into the back of the van and having her shut the back door in on him. His father could have picked him up in the Excursion, and it probably wouldn’t have felt as bad.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Ninja sliced the hydraulic wires,” he said. “None of the magnetics work below the neck on the left side.”
“Ninjas?”
“One ninja, mom. I don’t want to talk about it.”
They got home, in the suburbs of Millenium City. He went downstairs to the cellar and got out of his suit. He wore knit boxers underneath the suit now, so it wasn’t as embarrassing as it used to be. He started to work on the wires.
He got a text but ignored it as he soldered the wires back together, and encased them in plastic tubing. He heard the door open from upstairs and someone come down the stairs. “Hey, Kelvin, I texted you.”
He finally looked up, eyes bleary from staring at wires. “Oh, hi, dad.”
Kelvin’s father was a tall man, blond haired and blue eyed, with a light goatee with speckles of gray. Kelvin got his height from him, and his broadness from his mother’s side of the family. Kelvin sat back, the remnants of his work laid before him. “I was busy.”
“So I see.” He sat down in the chair across from him. “What are you going to do?”
“Fix it, and get back out there.”
“I know you’re old enough now, but I think that these guys are using you for a punching bag.” Kelvin said nothing as his father went on, “You’ve come home every night, something else was broken. This never happened when you worked for PRIMUS.”
“These guys are better than me. I have to get better.”
“No. No, you don’t.” He got up and went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottled waters, giving one to Kelvin. “Let me tell you a story. I worked for a place that was very competitive. There were four of us there, and all of us were cutthroat, out for each other. I couldn’t survive in that, and I was always the last one in the pile.”
“So you left.”
“Yes, I left.”
“You’re telling me to leave.”
“That’s what I’m getting to.”
Kelvin rubbed his eyes. “I want to. They’re not what I signed up for.”
“Tell them that when you tell them you’re leaving.”
The next day, he did go to their headquarters, which was in the leader’s apartment. “You missed a great tournament yesterday,” Shadow said. “Nexus won.”
“Again,” Kelvin said disgustedly, and took off his comm link. “I’m leaving the group.”
“What? You can’t.”
“What do you mean I can’t? I didn’t sign anything saying I had to stay.”
“Well, no, but I mean, don’t you want to learn things?”
“By getting beat up? No. No thanks.” He offered the comm link to Shadow. Shadow didn’t even take it.
“You still have a lot to learn, you know,” Shadow said, glaring up at him. “A lot to learn.”
Kelvin dropped the comm link on the floor. “I think I have.” Then he stepped on the link, which shattered the comm link.
Shadow heard the feedback through the speakers in the other room, and then a chorus of people demanding what happened. Shadow turned to face Kelvin. “You’re going to regret this.”
Kelvin said no more as he turned smartly on his heel, and walked out of the apartment. The first thing he was going to do was sandblast his power armor and repaint it back to its bright metal green and golden yellow.
(Explanation of why Power Shift left his super group)