• Preface

    Welcome to Phoenix City. It was so named for its chronic history of being burned to the ground by super hero battles and colossal monsters the likes of which movie makers dare to dream. It even says that on the sign as you enter into city limits, “You are now entering Phoenix City, Home of being burned to the ground. Please steer clear of debris.” To clear things up, this is not one of those cities written about in books and comics that for some reason seem to be the watering hole for superhuman criminals and building-sized scientific anomalies. In reality, it’s an exaggerated caricature of such cities.
    To give you an idea, citizens set their clocks by an alien invasion that occurs every third Tuesday of the month at 7:03 pm. How and why the aliens learned to account for Daylight Savings Time is still a mystery. It’s as if that spot at the edge of the map that says “Here Be Monsters” swam right up onto the beach and set up a souvenir stand.
    Of course, it wasn’t always called Phoenix City. Before it originally went up in flames, it was called Fairview City because early settlers thought it was such a lovely piece of land. But then those settlers did what most people do when they’ve found something lovely: they put up a big fence and charged admission. Then when the tourist industry died out, they tore it all down and put up a shopping mall.
    Of course, where there’s something to be sold for money, there’s something to be stolen for free. So with the growth of this fledgling portside metropolis, so grew the criminal underworld. Initially, Murphy’s Law was in favor of the criminals, since it would be more damaging to the city to help them rather than the law-abiding citizens, but soon, through Murphy’s meddling, there were more criminals than citizens and the balance of misfortune shifted.
    The city then gained a host of heroes through a series of natural, unnatural, and supernatural events to balance the scales. Fortunes favor has been tilting back and forth ever since with this unfortunate city at its fulcrum and unimaginable characters and impossible events being added to either side everyday.
    However, every now and then, something always happens to tilt the balance and help this city live up to its name. It may happen in the corporate skyscrapers of the business district or in the underdeveloped slums near the piers, but it always happens. This time it started with a sinister looking figure creeping down an alley.

    Chapter 1 - Sinister Beginnings...

    The figure moved nervously in the darkness. He was almost as tall and thin as his shadow on the starlit ground. He dressed all in black to blend in with the night. He didn’t like being outside and he didn’t like being seen by people. Bad things happened when people saw him, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
    This was the third time he’d been outside of his house this month. It was also the third time in several years. He traveled only through back alleys when he could help it, and only at night. He stopped to pull a city map from his coat pocket and examined the unfamiliar lines. He tried folding the map again to put it away, but struggled for a moment until the silence of the night was shattered by a sharp expletive and the sound of crumpled paper landing in a nearby dumpster.
    Coming to the end of the alley, he poked his head out and glanced down the street. Not a soul in sight. Then, looking the other way, he saw his target: A small convenience store that shined through the night like a lighthouse. He looked around one more time and slipped out into the street and hurriedly made his way toward the fluorescent beacon.
    Inside the convenience store, two clerks were half-way through their graveyard shift and were passing the time by seeing who could jam more hotdogs into a slurpee container. Money hinged on the outcome.
    The two store clerks looked like the number ten when they stood together. One was quite tall and lanky and the other was fat enough to make it clear why their contests involved jamming food into things other than their mouths. The fat one would have quite the advantage.
    “I’ll go first, John, and you count,” said the skinny clerk.
    “Ok, Jack. Go for it,” John replied, officially beginning the contest, “one, two, three, four, five…”
    John counted to an impressive seventeen before his partner simply couldn’t fit any more hotdogs into the cup.
    “Ha! Seventeen! Suck on that!” he said, raising his arms in the air, “Now it’s your turn. I’ll count for you.”
    John began pessimistically shoving hotdogs into his cup.
    Jack counted, “One, one, one…”
    “Dude, what are you doing?” asked John.
    “I’m counting your hotdogs, dude,” Jack replied.
    “But you’re only counting to one,” said John.
    “Right. Aren’t you jamming hotdogs into the cup?” asked Jack.
    “Yes,” John said.
    “And each of those hotdogs is one hotdog?” Jack continued.
    “Yes,” John begrudged.
    “So each of those hotdogs only counts as one, right?” Jack asked.
    “Well, you have to add them up,” John replied.
    After this exchange, they silently stared at each other in an awkward way that left you waiting for tumbleweed to blow by.
    “Dude, are you cheating?” John realized.
    “No, dude! Why would I do that?” Jack said.
    “You were so totally cheating!” John said, playfully punching his partner in the arm in a way that wasn’t so playful.
    “Whoa! Calm down. I wasn’t even cheating,” Jack said, punching John back in the stomach. Never punch a fat man in the stomach. They’re exceptionally well-cushioned.
    John then gave out a sort of incoherent scream and shoved his flailing friend back against a container of ketchup packets, causing some of them to explode onto his shirt.
    “I’m bleeding,” Jack cried, “but I’ll take you out with me!”
    He grabbed his hefty friends head and pulled it under the soda fountain, spraying orange, fizzy beverage all over his round face. John blindly groped around for something to use as a weapon until his hand found a party size bag of potato chips. He swung as hard as he could, smashing it against his partners head and sending starchy bits of salt-covered shrapnel everywhere.
    “My eyes!” Jack yelled, “There’s salty goodness in my eyes!”
    Seizing this golden opportunity, John broke free, grabbed his friend by the collar of his shirt, and ran blindly in a straight line, which happened to send both of them flying over the counter next to the register. This winded John and Jack was able to climb out from under him. He started desperately climbing a series of product displays on the wall behind the counter and was about to send down a flying elbow off the top shelf when…
    Bing Bong…
    The two electronic doors slid open and a sinister looking figure entered the convenience store. He glanced over at the two clerks whose attention was instantly drawn to him. One was skinny, had red, puffy eyes with ketchup all over his shirt, and was clinging to the top shelf of a breath mint display with his head bent so as not to hit the ceiling. The other was fat, lying on his back, and gasping for air with his head drenched in what appeared to be orange soda. He looked like a beached whale that the other was trying to keep from drying out.
    “What are you looking at?” both clerks yelled in unison.
    The black-clad figure shrugged and slowly walked through the aisles, crunching bits of potato chips under his thick boots. He walked until he arrived at the medicine aisle and crouched down to examine a box of pain killers on the bottom shelf. He scrolled down its list of ingredients. Knowing he found what he had come for, he adjusted his scarf and hood to be sure his face was adequately covered. His hands were sweaty and shaky and his heart was beating loud enough to drown out The Girl from Ipanema playing smoothly from the ceiling speakers. This was his chance. They were probably blind, apparently confused, and standing right by the register. He reached into his coat pocket and wrapped his gloved fingers around the only thing he brought with him.
    Bing Bong…
    “Everybody get down on the ground,” went a voice booming through the convenience store, “Get down now! I’m not playing around!”
    The sinister figure let go of his wallet and poked his head out from behind the end of the aisle. He saw a man in a ski mask screaming at the two clerks. The skinny clerk fell off the top shelf to the floor, taking the opportunity to get in that flying elbow. The robber had his hand under his shirt with something pointing out toward the clerks, who had started crying in terror. The robber didn’t seem to be aware of him. He arose and slowly approached the robber from behind. The robber’s screaming was loud enough to drown out the crunching potato chip crumbs.
    “You two keep your heads down and your hands where I can see them,” the robber screamed at the blinded clerks as he opened the register, “and don’t try anything stupid. I don’t want any heroes tonight!”
    “How about a villain?” the figure said over his shoulder.
    “!” said the robber as he whirled around and pointed his weapon at the figure, “you take one step toward me and I swear I’ll shoot!”
    The black-clad figure inspected the shape of the robber’s concealed weapon closely.
    “My goodness, how round the tip of the barrel is. It’s almost exactly as round as the tip of the human index finger! I suppose if you had the money to buy a gun, you wouldn’t need to resort to such a drastic and, frankly, unwise course of action. The least you could do is wear thicker fabric to conceal its shape or carry a piece of pipe to mimic it better. This is almost insulting,” The figure said like a father lecturing his wayward son. He then tilted his head and glanced at the side of the supposed firearm and continued in a scathingly helpful tone, “Also, you should cut your fingernails. Very few pistols come equipped with fingernails.”
    The robber’s confidence melted away like so much hotdog slurpee as the man in black raised his eyes to meet his.
    “I admire your determination. You’ll at least sweat bullets if you can’t shoot them.” With that, he reached out with blinding speed, grabbed the robber’s protruding finger, and twisted as hard as he could.
    “Owowowowowow!” cried the robber, twisting his body in an effort to ease the pressure.
    “I apologize for what I’m about to do, but I have nothing to bind you with until the police arrive,” said the man in black. He then reached for a nearby napkin dispenser and brought it down hard against the back of the robber’s head. The man then gently laid the robbers limp body on the floor.
    After a moment of relative quiet, Jack ventured a peek over the top of the counter. His fearful tears had helped to clear his eyesight and it was the first time he could make out the fuzzy shapes around him since he was blinded by his friend. He saw a tall, thin man in black standing over the limp body of an unconscious man, holding a napkin dispenser in one hand. The man looked an awful lot like the large blurry shape that was screaming at him a few moments before. The clerk took courage at realizing that the man’s only weapon was a dispenser of gentle-on-your-skin, lightly scented two-ply.
    The two clerks arose and glared wild-eyed at the man in black.
    “You won’t get away with this! We’re going to call the police,” Jack screamed.
    “Excuse me? I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Said the man in black, taking a cautious step towards the exit.
    “Don’t let him get away,” shouted John.
    The two clerks leaped over the counter in a way that was most likely meant to be heroic. At least, it would have been heroic if John could get his leg up and over the counter and if Jack hadn’t screamed in such a high pitched, nasally tone. These two were like a couple of sidekicks with no heroes to follow around. As it was, John tripped and went rolling over the counter before landing face-up at the man’s feet. Jack was slightly more successful in that he flailed so wildly in the air that the man in black was momentarily taken aback by the possibility that the clerk may have rabies. Jack latched onto the man’s coat with one hand and started pummeling him madly with the other.
    “Forgive me,” the man said as he planted his boot firmly against the skinny clerk’s chest and sent him flying backward.
    Jack tripped over his downed companion and landed on the floor behind him. The man turned to exit through the sliding doors only to be stopped again by a sharp tug on his clothing. He turned and looked down to see John gnawing at the hem of his coat.
    “Come on. You can’t be that hungry,” the man said in disbelief. He saw the Jack getting back up for another attack and took off his coat, waving it in front of him like a matador tempting a bull. Jack charged and soon found himself blinded by the black coat wrapped tightly around his head.
    By the time he pulled it off he saw the man in black running through the door and down the street. He helped up his portly pal and as they watched him run into the night, the anger within them faded. Indeed, it seemed the further away the man in black was, the calmer they felt.
    Later, when authorities searched the abandoned coat, they found no credit cards or drivers license. There was only a few dollars in cash and an old, worn library card with a faded name written on the back.
    Realizing what he had lost, the man tried to go back in a desperate attempt to recover it, but the flashing red and blue lights of the police cars parked outside made him reconsider. It was too late; Phoenix City had discovered Dexter Testable.

    Chapter 2 - The Heroes


    On the top floor of the tallest building in Phoenix City a group of heroes meets every Tuesday to discuss the most crucial threats to the cities security, usually over a bag of chips and dip and something from the microwave. A row of five aluminum folding chairs were arranged in front of a bead curtain which seemed out of place in the high-tech chamber. Four of the five chairs were filled with heroes when the meeting began. There was the distant sound of a gong, followed immediately by the sound of someone tripping over lunch plates and shoving the laundry out of his way.
    The Great Kawalski burst through the bead curtain accompanied by a cloud of incense smoke. He was wearing a long robe, tall pointy hat, and holding a staff in one hand with a large gem on the end that glowed slightly. He was the group’s leader despite the fact that his only outstanding qualification was that he had once read a book on how to be a dynamic manager in one minute.
    “I, the supreme wizard, the eater of darkness, the guardian of the seven gates, have received,” The Great Kawalski paused and then boomed, “revelation!” Kawalski through his arms in the air and several doves flew out of his sleeves. The four seated heroes applauded.
    “By ‘revelation’,” a voice from deep within the gem on his staff translated cynically, “he means a phone call from the police department.”
    Kawalski gave the gem an accusing glance.
    “Also, by ‘eater of darkness’ he means ‘eater of food in the fridge without asking if it belongs to someone’, and by ‘guardian of the seven gates’ he means ‘guardian of the television remote’, and by ‘supreme wizard’ he means ‘supreme reader of Street Magic for Absolute Idiot’s’,” the gem continued.
    “Well, that’s about enough out of you, isn’t it?” Kawalski asked patronizingly and put the staff in the umbrella holder by the coat rack.
    Kawalski cleared his throat loudly and continued, “Don’t let Xiara trouble you all. We know full well all demons are liars. I never even finished that book. Now about that call from the police…”
    “Uh, aren’t you going to call roll, Sir?” asked The Sickly Avenger, seated to the far left.
    “Roll?” repeated Kawalski.
    “Yeah. You know, attendance,” Sickly explained.
    “Right, I’ve been meaning to talk to you guys about that,” Kawalski said, “you guys know there’s only six of us here, don’t you?”
    “Oh good,” said Xiara from the umbrella holder, “Maybe you’ve stopped counting me among you.”
    “Oh sorry,” Kawalski corrected, “there’s seven of us.”
    Xiara sighed in disappointment.
    “At any rate,” Kawalski went on, “I can clearly see that we’re all here even if I don’t take roll, so why do we waste so much time?”
    “Well, it’s become sort of a tradition from the days when we had a second row,” replied Sickly, “Besides, we try to make the meetings last long enough to eat a good fill of food so we can write off our meals as a business expense.”
    “Oh, alright then,” said Kawalski and stood up a little straighter, “The Great Kawalski, Master of magic. Special powers…”
    “None to speak of,” interrupted Xiara.
    “Manipulating the fabric of reality. Controlling the forces of the universe. Unraveling time and space. Levitating audience members and waving hula-hoops around them. Present,” Kawalski finished.
    The heroes stood one by one, beginning with the far left.
    “The Sickly Avenger,” the first said, “Special powers: super healing ability. Present.”
    The Sickly Avenger is a hypochondriac. He always believes he is sick, but because he has not yet died, he believes he has super healing power as well.
    “The Blind Bat,” said the second, “Special powers: echolocation. Present.”
    “The Whoosh,” said the third, “Special powers: super speed. Present.”
    “Techno Ted,” said the fourth, whose mechanical armor whirred as he stood, “Special powers: I have a lot of gadgets. Present.”
    Techno Ted was a popular member of the group. He was proof that even if you weren’t born super, or made super by some odd accident, all you had to do to become super was be rich, educated and emotionally unbalanced.
    After the fourth hero sounded off, they all turned and stared into the space directly in front of the fifth chair in complete silence.
    “Well, come on now, Steve,” said Kawalski, “Out with it.”
    More silent staring at empty space.
    “Well, fine then,” Kawalski said, “That’s Steve. Powers: Invisibility. Present.”
    “Xiara”, recited the deep voice from within the gem, “Xiara is a recurring acronym. Xiara is an anthropomorphic personification. Xiara was not born, but began to exist in the furthest planes of reality where time and space are but…”
    “Get on with it!” Kawalski interrupted, “and stop referring to yourself in the third person. You don’t impress anyone.”
    “Special powers: Formerly omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence,” the gem recollected mournfully, “Ironic, I lose one game of Rock, Paper, Scissors against a gambling man in a bathrobe and this is my fate: trapped inside a rock. If paper truly covered rock, what would be the point of a paperweight? There’s no justice. These days any confidence man can pick up a copy of the Book of the Dead at his local bookstore, summon me up and…”
    “Thank you, Xiara,” said Kawalski hastily, “That’ll be enough. Now as I was saying about that call…”
    “Present,” Xiara finished.
    Kawalski glared at the gem for a long moment like cats glare into well stocked fish tanks. The heroes took their seats in front of Kawalski as he turned back and began explaining the situation.
    “Now about that call from the police,” Kawalski continued, pacing back and forth, “Apparently there was a robbery a few nights ago at a small convenience store on the other side of town. Nothing was stolen thanks to the heroic efforts of two young clerks, but an innocent bystander was knocked unconscious when the assailant attacked him with a napkin dispenser.”
    “So a convenience store got robbed,” said The Blind Bat, “Why are we being called in?”
    “The police suspect the assailant may have supernatural abilities. You know the normal city police don’t have the training or resources needed to take on a super villain. Police interviewed the two clerks working at the time who had gotten into a rather sever food fight just before the robber entered,” said Kawalski, “the time when he would have been approaching the store. The two clerks also reported their negative feelings fading as the suspect fled. The suspect seems to have a talent for inspiring negative feelings in those around him.”
    “If that’s a crime,” Xiara said in tones as deep as distant thunder, “then you should have been locked up long ago.”
    “Yeah,” said the Bat, “since when is being annoying a super power?”
    “It’s not,” agreed Kawalski, “but the clerks reported feeling the influence before they were aware of the robber, so it couldn’t be mere social ineptitude that caused it. We also have other information at our disposal that makes this seem like a pattern.”
    Kawalski removed his pointed hat, raised his other hand and, with a wiggle of his fingers, reached in and produced a manila envelope filled with files from the police department. The four seated heroes applauded.
    “We don’t know very much about him,” continued Kawalski, skimming over the papers, “and it’s not for lack of effort. The only thing he left at the scene of the robbery was a wallet containing a library card with the name Dexter Testable written on the back. They ran the name through the DMV and got a match. The license has been expired for almost a decade, the picture is obviously out of date, and the address turned out to be a foster family that reported Dexter missing when he was sixteen.”
    “So he’s an orphan and a runaway?” asked Sickly.
    “That’s right,” said Kawalski, “a likely background for a criminal. When Dexter turned sixteen he got a Driver’s License, graduated early from high school and drove off into the sunset. That family never heard from him again, but the high school recorded sending his transcript to a Medical School across the country.”
    “Medical School?” asked the Bat, “So his name is Dr. D. Testable?”
    “Sounds like a villain to me,” confirmed the Whoosh.
    “But wait,” interrupted Sickly, “you said this information shows a pattern in Dr. D. Testable’s power.”
    “Well, when authorities interviewed the people who had interacted with Dexter, they had nothing but horrible things to say about the boy,” Kawalski explained, “they said he was lazy, disobedient and was always a problem child. It seems like no one has ever come across the boy and come away happy. Dr. D. Testable causes nothing but anger in those around him. Even though these opinions may be biased by Dexter’s power, we have to assume this information is, at least, relevant and proceed accordingly.”
    “You said they found a library card,” said Ted, “did anyone look to see what Dexter likes to read?”
    “Sure did,” replied Kawalski, shuffling again through the papers, “about two weeks ago he checked out 'Gray's Anatomy', 'So You Want To Be A Brain Surgeon, What Now?', 'Your Limbic System and You', and 'Dissecting the Insular Cortex and Rewiring Neural Pathways for Morons'."
    "Your Limbic System is a part of your brain that controls emotions and your Insular Cortex is a part of that system," said Sickly, then added, "I did some research about the brain that time I came down with autism."
    "So it sounds like the good doctor is looking to perfect his sinister science," said the Bat, "but if he's in hiding, why would he check out books at the library?"
    "Highly specialized information generally isn't available to the public, even on the internet," said Kawalski, "People won't give away for free what they can make money off of, including information, but sometimes people try to make a buck by writing books on these obscure topics which libraries then offer for free. At any rate, we have a potentially dangerous and powerful super villain at large. His books are due back in a week and we'll be there to meet him."
    "You mean like a stake out?" asked the Whoosh.
    “That’s right,” said Kawalski.
    “Are we going to use the Final Resort?” asked Ted with all the excitement of a young boy on Christmas morning.
    “While I appreciate you’re zeal,” replied Kawalski, “it wouldn’t be the Final Resort if we tried it first, would it? Besides, that’s only for the most dangerous of adversaries. It causes way to much collateral damage.”
    "I actually can't be outside for very long in the cold," said Sickly, "I'm sick."
    "How are you sick?" the Whoosh protested, "You have healing powers."
    "I know," Sickly said solemnly, "but this time it may be too strong for me. I’ve got hyperthermia.”
    “What?” asked the Bat, “You mean heat stroke? Wouldn’t you want to cool down?”
    “Wait,” said Sickly, “Hyperthermia is heat stroke? What’s the one you get when you’ve been out in the cold too long?
    “Hypothermia,” answered Xiara.
    "They sound so similar,” Sickly said, then added hopefully, “Maybe I've got both!"
    Xiara groaned.