The Hero and the Thrall •  Act 1

The frightened man half ran, half stumbled around the corner, plowing into a trash bin with a clatter. The din echoed eerily in the dark warehouse. He scrambled back, trying to find his footing, but instead found a wall.

He was trapped.

Panicked eyes swept back the way he’d come and fell upon a spiny silhouette. He choked.

“Please, man! I won’t tell anybody!”

“You seen too much,” growled the Martian Menace, advancing on his quarry.

“Just let me go. Please!”

The Menace heaved a husky chuckle, drawing his Gladorian scimitar with relish. “You know what your trouble is? You’re a loose end,” he sneered in a voice that Krissy imagined was just as slimy as his primordial skin. “The boss don’t like loose ends.”

 “Lay one claw on him and I’ll loose my FOOT in your end!” called a voice, offset in a jagged speech bubble.

Krissy bit her lip and flipped the page to a dazzling, full-bleed illustration of the Valor Patrol, in all their caped, heroic glory. They posed majestically among the steel and concrete beams of Dr. Discord’s warehouse hideout. Krissy’s gaze darted all over the comic panels, drinking in the bold swatches of ink and halftone.

She stole a glance up to the front of the classroom, where Mr. Vanderhoeven was demonstrating how to balance a chemical equation beside a distinct “No Cell Phones” sign. Satisfied that he was fully engrossed, Krissy wriggled her phone out of her pocket and surreptitiously snapped a photo of PurpleX’s latest redesign. The colors were all wrong, but the overall aesthetic of the superhero’s bodysuit was just right for Krissy’s tastes.

With a tap and a few deft swipes, she dropped the photo onto her Mindle app, alongside numerous other pictures she’d snatched from comic books, the Internet, displays at the mall, and anywhere else she found inspiration. Krissy couldn’t draw to save her life, so she had to resort to curating ideas for her dream superhero persona. She even had a list of possible aliases jotted in the corner of her notebook, along with notes on superpowers.

She contemplated her collection, smiling as she pictured the way all the pieces would fit together. A suit like PurpleX’s, but in Infernal’s colors, combined with long hair like Miss Tress’s, and those cute boots she’d seen online. It was really starting to fall into place.

She tucked her phone into her pocket and returned to the Valor Patrol’s altercation with the Martian Menace—all while Mr. Vanderhoeven’s unheeded lecture carried on.

Three tinny bells later, Krissy plowed through the courtyard of Rosetta Preparatory High School, still admiring her Mindle board when quick footsteps caught her attention.

“Hey, you’re the new girl—Coach Cliffords’ daughter, right?” said a breathless blond boy, hefting his backpack more securely onto his shoulder as he drew level with her.

“Yours truly!” Krissy responded, grinning a little at the way the boy’s voice had cracked. “I’m Krissy!”

The boy shifted the soccer ball under his arm to the other side and held his hand out as if to shake. “Anthem Henderson.”

What was this, the Victorian Era? Krissy chuckled at his formality and gave him a fist bump instead. He was so taken aback that his soccer ball slipped out from beneath his arm. He stooped hastily to retrieve it, but froze in his half stoop. “Are those Valor Patrol shoes?” Anthem gaped.

“You bet they are,” Krissy grinned and scuffed her heel against the flagstones. The various crests of the members of Valor Patrol lit up in response. Krissy’s mom had nearly died when Krissy said she wanted the Light Up Valor Patrol Teen Edition shoes for Christmas, but her dad had indulged her. She wore them everywhere.

Anthem looked awestruck. “No way! I didn’t know light-up shoes came in teen sizes!”

“You like Valor Patrol?” Krissy asked.

“You kidding? I’ve got every issue! I saw you reading Number 15 in Chemistry—”

“Oh man, it’s so good!” Krissy burst in her enthusiasm. “That part with Stunbeam—”

“I’m completely obsessed with Stunbeam!”

“Right on!” Krissy punched him playfully in the shoulder. Anthem laughed, but winced a little, rubbing his bicep. She hadn’t hit him that hard, had she? She brandished her hand at him to show him her Arrowman watch. “I’m an Arrowmaniac, myself,” Krissy said with glee.

“Oh, cool! Wow, I’ve never seen one like this! Did you get this at—”

The sound of shrieked insults and scuffling broke out across the courtyard. Krissy shot her attention over Anthem’s shoulder to a group of students near the wall. A leggy girl with streaky dyed hair was flinging threats at another girl who’d been shoved to the ground. Paper flittered around on the flagstones, and the girl on the ground looked like she was ready to cry. Krissy recognized her as Amelia Devereaux from her Home Economics class.

As for Hair Dye, well, Krissy didn’t know her name, but she’d seen little Miss Anthropy and the Hater Brigade around before. They were your garden variety “it” girls: popular, collectively good at everything, dressed to the nines, and impossible to ignore. Krissy had never pegged them as the types to shove their classmates in broad daylight, but it looked like Hair Dye and her four backup singers were making a special exception for the occasion.

Krissy scowled. She stepped past Anthem, shoving her notebook into his chest and taking his soccer ball from him in one slick movement. “Hold this for me,” she ordered, before pressing into the throng that was gathering around the scene.

“What are you doing? Stop!” wailed a friend of Amelia’s. She lurched as if to help Amelia to her feet, but one of Hair Dye’s minions, a one-woman brute squad named Eden, held her back.

“Hold on, Peach,” Eden grunted in her strong southern accent while Hair Dye continued firing off cusswords like it was going out of style.

“Did you think nobody would figure it out!? Tell me right now why I shouldn’t smear you all over this sidewalk!” Hair Dye screamed at Amelia.

“Or better yet, smear your face all over Twitter,” said I-Woke-Up-Like-This Meredith, holding up a phone that appeared to belong to Amelia.

Amelia blanched. “No! Don’t do it!”

Krissy tried to fight through the crowd with greater urgency, employing her sharp elbows to make her way.

“Maybe if you’d wash your hands occasionally, we wouldn’t have cracked your pin from the streaks,” scoffed Teacher’s Pet Odette.

“Stop it!” sobbed “Peach,” twisting against Eden’s arms. “Let go!”

“Trust me, she’s not worth your friendship,” snipped Femme Fatalons Claire, drumming her lacquered fingernails against her waist. “Witches like her don’t deserve friends at all!”

Hair Dye reached out and grabbed Amelia’s arm to haul her roughly to her feet. “Why don’t you—” she snarled.

Just then, Krissy broke through the circle of onlookers and hurtled herself between Amelia and her attacker.

“Whoa, whoa, quit the reindeer games before I have to give someone a red nose!” Krissy yelled, shoving Hair Dye away.

Hair Dye released Amelia as she staggered back into her friends, and Amelia tumbled back to the ground. Hair Dye’s expression twisted in murderous rage. At this proximity, Krissy could see that Hair Dye and Femme Fatalons wore cheerleader windbreakers. Typical.

“Stay out of this, sweet pea,” Eden growled at Krissy. She still had both of her arms tightly around Peach, who was crying brokenly, but no longer struggling. Krissy bristled.

“Call me ‘sweet pea’ again and I’ll give you a sweet piece of my fist. Comprénde? Let her go!” Krissy barked, angling her hips and shoulders in a bold stance and pointing with condemnation at Eden—like Arrowman had in that one scene in issue 15. Krissy then swung her glare on the rest of Hair Dye’s gang. “And the rest of you, back off!”

Hair Dye wasn’t listening. She was screeching at Amelia under Krissy’s arm. “You’re done for, Amelia! We’re going to tell everyone all about your cute little game, and then I’m gonna kick your—”

“I said, enough!” Krissy roared. She hurled the soccer ball into Hair Dye’s face in a blinding fastball pitch (Olympic quality, for sure). It connected forcibly with the bully’s nose, and she crumpled instantly amid screams. Krissy ducked to avoid the ball’s ricochet while Meredith flung the stolen phone aside in her haste to catch her friend.

“B!” Eden and Claire gasped in horror. Blood cascaded down Hair Dye’s face. Peach twisted away from Eden and fled as whistle blasts sounded.

“Let’s see how you like it when people laugh and call you names, Rudolph!” Krissy crowed at the very red-nosed Hair Dye. “Now, scram! And take Prancer and Blitzen with you!”

A campus security officer and a teacher came running, trying to push through the courtyard full of people.

Trust the civil servants to always be late to the crime scene.

As they swooped in to run damage control, Krissy dropped to snag Anthem’s bloodied soccer ball and the discarded cellphone. She turned to Amelia, who still cowered on the ground behind her.

“Hey, are you OK?” Krissy asked. Though gentleness wasn’t her strong suit, she softened her voice as she held the phone out to Amelia. The phone’s screen bore a small crack, but it looked like the case had taken the brunt of the damage.

Amelia took the phone with a whimper. Krissy attempted to give her a reassuring smile when she was suddenly hauled upright from behind by the campus security officer.

“All right, you’re coming with me,” he snapped.

“Wait—whaaaaaaaaat?!” Krissy replied as the security officer began to march her back toward the school. “But, I—!”

Anthem managed to stumble through the swarm, still clutching Krissy’s notebook. “Sir, she was just—the other girl—she was just trying to help!”

“Look, son, we don’t tolerate brawling, all right?” To Krissy, he scowled, “You’ll be LUCKY if you didn’t break that girl’s nose!”

All the buses had gone for the day by the time Krissy left detention. She stomped down the main corridor of Rosetta Preparatory High, levying glowers at the mascot banners that plastered the walls. Right by the front office was a big sign that said “SEE A BULLY? TELL AN ADULT!” with a picture of a girl in blonde braids valiantly tattling on her classmates. She even had a cape Photoshopped onto her shoulders. Krissy rolled her eyes. There was no way being an informant was more heroic than taking out the bully herself. Krissy should have been given a medal, not detention. The fact that Krissy could even hit Beverly “Hair Dye” Nicholls’ nose with such a perfect pitch should have at least had the school board considering a position for her on the softball team. But no. Instead, they’d sentenced Krissy to detention in Mrs. Chandler’s biology room, which reeked of formaldehyde.

The October air had grown chilly in the time Krissy had spent incarcerated. Krissy zipped up her hoodie as she began to make her way across the schoolyard. She kicked at the crisp, fragrant leaves that huddled in the gutters. Back in Austin, October was still shorts and t-shirt weather. In Rosetta, Wyoming, it was cold and overcast and threatening snow. Snow!

Krissy had never walked home from school since moving to Wyoming, but she knew her address and knew to turn left when she got to the intersection of Peter Street and Vine Avenue. Her house lay beyond the Ivy Heights, the rich neighborhood that Rosetta Preparatory High School served. Krissy gave the imposing Heights houses sidelong frowns as she passed them. Beverly Nicholls and her posse likely lived in these stately homes.

“Beverly,” Krissy snorted to herself, remembering the to-do the school officials had made over sending Miss Anthropy to the hospital. Of course an uptown cheerleader brat like Hair Dye (as “uptown” as someone could be in Podunk, Wyoming, anyway) would have a name like Beverly. Of course she would. Krissy’s mouth twisted in a little smile as she contemplated what Beverly’s alias would be if she were a supervillain. Strike that—Beverly didn’t quite qualify for full villainy. She and her entourage were flunkies at best. What had her cronies called her? B? Queen Bee it was, then. Queen Bee and the Haughty Hive.

The rage petered out of Krissy’s march as she began to reimagine the altercation with Beverly’s gang as it would have played out in panels and speech bubbles. Queen Bee would appear in her striped cat suit (to match her ridiculous dye-striped hair), poised in a domineering jeer over her helpless quarry, when she, Krissy, would arrive on the scene in splendid fashion, clad in Infernal red and tossing back a long dazzling ponytail. “Pick on somebody your own size!” Krissy would yell. Never mind that Beverly and Amelia were exactly the same size, come to think of it…

Krissy swatted her hand, as if mentally wiping away the dialogue. Surely, she could think of something better than that. The Rudolph digs had been pretty good—Krissy grinned at herself in congratulations—but perhaps some bee puns were in order. “Buzz off, Queen Bee, or ­you’ll be getting the sting!” Krissy shouted, throwing out her hand imperiously.

It was only then when Krissy took note of her surroundings. Her brow furrowed, and she dropped her hand, looking around. She’d been so lost in her fantasy that she hadn’t paid any attention to where her feet had taken her. She wheeled around, shading her eyes against the sunset, and squinted back down the street. She’d either walked farther than she’d thought or she had taken a turn somewhere, because she couldn’t see Rosetta Prep any longer.

Krissy reached for her phone, thinking to punch her address into her GPS app, but just as she pulled up the map, her phone chirped in swan song and promptly died, exhausted by all the unsanctioned time Krissy had spent on Mindle throughout the day.

Ugh.

There was nothing but houses on this road, and none of them were Casa de los Cliffords, so Krissy turned a few corners until she found a landmark: The Rosetta Public Library.

The library was the small city’s one big claim to fame. It was an enormous, sprawling building that supposedly had its own amphitheater and a museum wholly dedicated to the Aarne-Thompson Tale Type Index—whatever that was. Everyone spoke about the library in tones of reverence.

Where Krissy was from, gas stations were more interesting.

Sure, libraries always had comics and graphic novels, but their collections were never complete, and there was nothing dorkier than having to read a dilapidated comic book encased in a protective plastic binder. Besides, Krissy had run afoul of one too many librarians in her day. Apparently, providing your own sound effects was frowned upon in the reading lounges.

Still, libraries were supposed to be full of information, right? Surely a map was within the realm of possibilities—or better yet, an outlet where she could get a quick charge for her phone. Krissy was fairly useless at reading maps that didn’t digitally adjust in real time with verbal turn-by-turn prompts.

Krissy adjusted her backpack on her shoulders and crossed the street, scaled the steps, and heaved open the heavy library door. She was immediately greeted by the scent of paper and the sight of a vaulted ceiling propped up, it seemed, by the very bookshelves themselves. Stairwells and balconies ran the length of the building. Krissy found herself involuntarily gaping around, and for a second, it was as if her legs had forgotten how to move while her eyes drifted. All right, all right—it was cooler than she expected, she had to admit. Still, it was no skate park.

She shook herself out of her momentary reverie and treaded across the polished floor. The library didn’t seem to be very busy. A librarian sat at the front information desk, right next to a big sign that advertised the Middle Eastern Literature Exhibit that Krissy’s history teacher wouldn’t stop talking about. He’d even promised his class extra credit if they went to the exhibit. Maybe she would grab a flyer while she was here and make good use of this unexpected detour.

“Can I help you, miss? We’re about to close…” the librarian asked as Krissy approached.

“Oh…I just need some directions. I’m trying to get to Peter Street and Vine…”

“Peter Street,” the librarian repeated, thinking. “Ah, let’s see…oh, yes, that’s not far from here.” She began to draw out a simple map on a sticky note.

“…and then, just turn left, and you’ll be set!” she finished, passing the yellow square across the desk.

“Thanks, you’re a life saver!”

The librarian stood, a little shakily, reaching for her cane. “Have a good evening. Do come back soon!”

“See ya!” Krissy responded, taking a moment to grab a flyer decorated with Arabic calligraphy.

She trotted back out onto the street with a little bounce in her step as she squinted at the directions on the sticky slip of paper. The sun was already going down. How long had she been wandering the wrong direction? She’d probably missed tonight’s new episode of Upbeat. She’d have to catch it online before somebody spoiled it.

There was a crash and a tremor that made Krissy’s heart jump into her throat. She spun on her heel toward the sound, back toward the library, and her gut clenched. Something had just burst through the building’s ceiling. It almost looked like some kind of twisted metal structure. Thick, irregular spikes grazed through the roof, causing it to crumble in on whatever lay inside the library’s domed hall. Krissy staggered backward and made to turn and run as fast as her legs would carry her when there was an eldritch howl followed by a very human scream. Krissy gasped and pedaled herself to a stop, though it felt as if her lungs kept going without her.

“The librarian,” she said. She swung around, taking a few indecisive, hopping steps backward. The thing, whatever it was, writhed and ducked lower into the building. Krissy swallowed, then huffed, steeling herself.

“Hang on, I’m coming!” Krissy called, running back to the library at full tilt. Her Light-Up Valor Patrol Teen Edition shoes blinked with every step she took.

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