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  SIDEKICK: THE MISADVENTURES OF THE NEW SCARLET KNIGHT

  Pab Sungenis

  For Bryan.

  SIDEKICK: THE MISADVENTURES OF THE NEW SCARLET KNIGHT is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Pab Sungenis.

  Sidekick: The Misadventures of the New Scarlet Knight

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC. Month9Books is a registered trademark, and its related logo is a registered trademark of Month9Books, LLC.

  www.month9books.com

  Summary: When superhero Scarlet Knight dies, Bobby Baines must take up his mantle and become more than just a Sidekick.

  ISBN 978-0-9850294-5-6 (tr. pbk) ISBN 978-0-9850294-4-9 (e-Book)

  1. children’s. 2. young adult. 3. fiction. 4. adventure. 5. Sidekick: The Misadventures of the New Scarlet Knight. 6. Pab Sungenis.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, address Month9Books, LLC, 4208 Six Forks Rd, Ste 1000, Raleigh, NC 27609.

  www.month9books.com

  Edited by Courtney Koschel

  Cover Design by Stephanie Mooney

  Cover Copyright by Month9Books

  Ebook Formatting by Studio 22 Productions

  Praise for SIDEKICK: THE MISADVENTURES OF THE NEW SCARLET KNIGHT

  “I can’t recall when I’ve had more fun. Sidekick is full of the kind of secrets you wish super-heroes would get around to talking about. Sungenis has created a fun, exciting superhero world that is just a molecule’s vibration away from DC Comics and his familiarity with every trope and trick of the comics genre shows. Anyone who loves—or even just loved, once—comics has to pick this up.” - Jason Henderson, author of the Alex Van Helsing series

  Acknowledgements

  The story of Bobby and his super-friends has taken many twists and turns since its conception, and there are many people who deserve part of the blame, so here they are.

  First of all, thank you to Bryan Irrera, my partner of over twenty years, not only for the understanding and support he gave me throughout the writing process but also for re-introducing me to the world of comic books back in 1994 after far too long an absence in my life.

  Thank you to Georgia McBride for taking a chance on these characters, and reaffirming my faith in their story.

  Thank you to my editors, Courtney Koschel and Rae Bateman, who took a machete to the word jungle that was my prose and somehow turned it into a lovely topiary garden. You two make me look talented, which is not an easy thing to do.

  This story literally would not exist without the work, when I was of an impressionable nature, of Marv Wolfman and George Perez. With The New Teen Titans they reinvented the concept of the teen sidekick and rescued it from the hokeyness that had plagued characters like Robin and Wonder Girl for years. Then during Crisis on Infinite Earths they took the bold step of allowing a sidekick to take on his mentor’s identity. There would not be a Bobby Baines Scarlet Knight without a Wally West Flash, and for that I owe them a debt of gratitude.

  Ron Motta, who knows more facts about comic books than actually exist, provided an excellent sounding board for the story concept and for major plot points.

  Kris Leeds was the first person (other than me, of course) to read the first draft of this book and has had even more faith in it than I have, pushing me to keep shopping it when I started to despair. His childhood reminiscences of the Jersey Shore were merged in with my own when creating Harbor City and its unique geography, so if you can’t figure out where something is located while trying to map it out in your head, he is the one to take it up with.

  A very special thank you goes out to Phoebe Yeh, who writes the loveliest rejection letters I’ve ever read, for inspiring this story through our conversations about the need for young adult literature aimed at boys. Any similarities between her and a certain social worker and superhero are purely coincidental.

  The first draft of this novel was written in a twenty-eight day sprint in November of 2009 as part of “National Novel Writing Month.” Every year thousands of participants try to complete a manuscript of at least fifty thousand words in one month’s time, and I have to thank Chris Baty and “NaNoWriMo’s” army of volunteers for the concept and for giving me the impetus to get this story out of my head.

  Finally, thank you to every teen that picks up a book when looking for entertainment. The fate of the world rests on your shoulders.

  SIDEKICK: THE MISADVENTURES OF THE NEW SCARLET KNIGHT

  Pab Sungenis

  The Mourning After

  Of all the crappy ways to spend my seventeenth birthday, attending a funeral was probably the worst. To make matters even more awful, it snowed the day we buried my Uncle Jack.

  Someone once told me that snow is the great equalizer. It hides the beautiful and the ugly, covering the deeds of good and bad, and leaves behind only a uniform coating of white. The best-manicured lawn and the most overgrown, weed-infested garden look the same under snowdrifts. And there at Uncle Jack’s gravesite, it was truly a case of the mighty and the lowly standing cheek-to-jowl.

  As the closest thing Uncle Jack had to a real family, I stood next to the big, granite paperweight that some fool thought would make an appropriate grave marker. From my position, I watched everyone who came to pay respects to the man they called “Little” Jack Horner: genius inventor, billionaire investor, tireless philanthropist, and, for the last six years of his life, my legal guardian.

  The usual suspects were all there: dignitaries in the front, trying to look like they were weeping over the senseless loss of a fellow human. I bet they were more concerned with figuring out how their pet projects were going to survive without his donations. Behind them, his employees seemed truly sorry to see their benefactor laid to rest, but also perhaps nervous for what a future without him might hold.

  And, of course, there were the local grief monkeys—people who attended every major funeral in town so they could try to appear almost as important as the guy in the casket. Everyone you would expect to see at the funeral of a guy with the connections Uncle Jack had: governors, senators, mob bosses, real estate developers, Internet billionaires, you name it.

  In the back, behind all the “important” people, wannabes, and crooks, was Uncle Jack’s real family; the family he chose, not the one grafted onto him by an accident of birth. Although none of them shared blood with Uncle Jack, let alone with me, I affectionately called them all “uncle” and “aunt” because they felt so much like family to me.

  Uncle Hank was kind of hard to miss. He tried to hide his hugeness, but it was hard to get a baggy suit when you had a chest like a tank, and slouching only hid so much. Though he did make a useful pallbearer. He could’ve lifted the casket all by himself, with every mourner and the big granite paperweight on top. Instead, he winced and grimaced along with the rest. And I’m pretty sure behind those coke-bottle glasses he insisted on wearing, Uncle Hank cried when the minister reached the part about the Resurrection and the Life.

  Next to Uncle Hank was a woman with a dark veil. Auntie Clytemnestra. Her regal bearing gave her away. The veil was understandable, because her face was one of the most recognizable in the whole country, if not the world. Someone like her attending the funeral of someone like Jack
Horner would raise too many questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

  Uncle Lawrence stood on the other side of Auntie Clytemnestra, scanning the crowd as eagerly as I was. He always knew everything that was going on around him, was on top of any situation. When the worst goes down, he’s the one you’d want on your side: reliable, capable, and decisive. Still, I wished that just once he would let himself relax.

  Professor Seth Smith stood behind them. Some people might wonder what he was doing there since they were used to seeing him on TV talking about historical events, but since Uncle Jack had given a lot of money to colleges, his presence could easily be explained away. Phoebe Penobscott held his arm, but only screw-ups like me would know who she was or that she was a social worker. Next to her was a woman I’d never seen before, but could guess who she really was. When you can create illusions, it’s easy to move through the world unnoticed.

  I wondered what all those stuffed suits would do if they knew who the nameless, faceless losers really were.

  What would they do if they knew the losers standing behind them were really Paragon, Clytemnestra, Mister Mystery, Mr. Zip, Prism, and Morgaine?

  They’d never know the person in the casket wasn’t just “Little” Jack Horner, but the guy who had single-handedly (well, with a little help from me, I guess) saved Harbor City’s ass more times than I could count.

  And what would happen if they knew Uncle Jack was really the Scarlet Knight, and I, Bobby Baines, was his “faithful sidekick,” the Squire?

  With Friends Like These …

  I didn’t really feel like talking to anyone or doing anything, so I turned off all the phones when I got home. Even the red phone. I wouldn’t be able to stay incommunicado for too long—there were legal loose ends that would have to be tied up with the lawyers and managers of each of Jack’s businesses. And my “bereavement leave” from school wasn’t going to last forever—but I’d earned at least a couple hours shut off from the world. After all, I’d helped save the world a few times. The least it could do on the day of Uncle Jack’s funeral was shut up and let me stew in my own juices for a while. Was that too much to ask?

  Apparently so, because as soon as I’d collapsed onto the couch, the doorbell rang. I answered it with a baseball bat in hand, ready to bean whoever was disturbing my good, long sulk. Fortunately, one of the people on the other side was one of the few people fast enough to stop the bat in time.

  “Dude! I know you’re upset, but that’s no way to greet a guest! At least not me!”

  The rush of wind and disappearance of the bat from my hand told me who one of my visitors was even before the distinctive voice came from the living room, behind me. It had to be Tommy Heber.

  Of course, as with most of my friends and acquaintances, you might know him by another name: Zipper, the fastest teen in the world and sidekick to Mr. Zip, the fastest man in the world. Tommy was my best friend this side of kindergarten. We’d been thick as thieves ever since we met.

  “Aren’t you going to say hi?” Tommy gestured back through the doorway to the only other people who really understood me: Rick (“Shadow”) Major and Sarah (“Pandora”) Marsh, the sidekicks of Mister Mystery and Clytemnestra, respectively. We’d all gotten into the game around the same time, when it was fashionable and almost compulsory for a hero to teach teenagers to fight against crime and for justice.

  “Hey. I’m really not in the mood for company tonight.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Rick said as he held up more cans of beer than should be physically possible to carry in your arms, “because when you’re not in the mood for company is the time you need it most. Besides, who else would you want to spend your birthday with?”

  Truer words had never been spoken.

  ***

  The four of us blinked, and our eyes adjusted to the bright lights as they swept away the darkness, revealing the secret base Uncle Jack had built years ago.

  I hadn’t been down there in ages, having pretty much retired from the whole sidekick game to concentrate on school (my skills as a hero could get me inside Doctor Warhammer’s secret fortress, but not into Harvard).

  The array of computers, scanning equipment, tools of the trade like spare armor, anti-grav boots, and Uncle Jack’s workbenches covered with projects that would never be finished, was sort of overwhelming. When you’re out on the job seven nights a week, all your support stuff sort of seems mundane, but after a few months on the sidelines, it was special again. Even after seeing it thousands of times, coming back to it made my jaw drop at least as far as Rick’s and Sarah’s.

  “Whoa!” Rick gasped as he took in the enormity of the base. “The Knight had a pretty sweet setup here! It sure puts Mystery’s digs to shame.”

  “You’re just being modest.”

  “No,” Tommy said. “I’ve seen Mystery’s lair. He’s right.”

  “This is really where you operated out of?” Sarah drifted down into the well of the operation, as if she were drawn to become one with it in some kind of technological ecstasy. “This is beautiful. I wish we had this kind of base.”

  “Are you kidding?” I chuckled. “Your boss operates out of a Greek Temple.”

  “Yeah,” Sarah shot back. “A Greek Temple in Buffalo. Do you know how cold that kind of place gets? Of course, the cold doesn’t bother Clytemnestra, being supernatural and shit, but I freeze my ass off most of the year. Especially in that outfit she makes me wear.”

  Rick laughed. “Do what I did. Change it. You remember the costume Mystery gave me at the beginning?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah. Including the Speedo and booties. I think you took down more bad guys with laughter than with your fists.”

  Rick playfully mimed punching me, and I playfully ducked. He likewise dissolved into laughter. “I swear, there’s got to be something wrong with a man who makes a teenage boy dress like that. I kept complaining about it, but he never listened. So one night I showed up for patrol wearing jet-black sweatpants. Said it fit the whole ‘Shadow’ image better than making me look like a reject from the high school swim team. He wasn’t too pleased, but the next day he arranged for a more … ‘appropriate’ costume for me.”

  “I might try that. Clytemnestra is usually pretty easy to reason with. Just because she looks like a bodybuilding hooker in her costume doesn’t mean I have to. And none of you are going to tell her I said that.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I said, making a “zipping my lips” motion. “I would never say anything to make her angry. I’m not one for grievous bodily harm when I’m on the receiving end.”

  “So this is really where all the magic happened, huh?” I could tell Rick was still impressed. I’d never seen Mister Mystery’s hideout (as paranoid as he is, I’m sure if he could’ve found a way to keep himself from seeing it, he probably would have), but I’d heard it was a sweet operation. Of course, it helped that Uncle Jack was pretty much the Justice Federation’s resident engineer and “gadgeteer,” as he used to refer to himself, so he tended to have the best stuff. He had invented the teleporter for those of us who couldn’t move faster than the speed of sound, those special glasses that let Mister Mystery see in the dark, and a lot of cool gizmos the heroes couldn’t figure out how they’d ever fought crime without. It stood to reason that his workshop and base of operations would seem cool to the other sidekicks. Hell, it was cool, even if I needed to be away from it to appreciate it.

  “Yep, this was the Scarlet Knight’s hidden base. Seems kind of strange coming back now. It’s so quiet.”

  Rick popped open a beer. “Well, it won’t be quiet for long.” He tossed me a can. “We still need to celebrate your birthday, dude. Drink up.”

  “How the hell did you get beer?” Rick’s grief-warming gift confused me. Those of us in the sidekick business tended to be pretty straight-laced, even guys like Rick and me who’d started out on the wrong side of things. This was unlike him. “You’re only a year and a half older than me.”
>
  “I’m old enough to buy it in Canada.”

  “Yeah, but we’re nowhere near Canada. And the only way you could’ve gone up to Canada after the funeral, bought the beer, and gotten back here is … ” I spun to look at Tommy, who was blushing and had that “aw-shucks” look, like a kid caught with his hand in an entire bakery, not just a cookie jar. “Of course.” I spun back to Rick. “You made Tommy an accessory to your crime. I don’t even want to know how he managed to carry you, since you weigh enough for two of him.”

  “Not when I’m wearing your anti-grav boots. I asked Tommy to sneak in and borrow your pair for the trip. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “You could’ve asked.”

  “And ruined the surprise? Come on. Besides, I’m sure there’s some loophole in the law that lets you get wasted on your birthday if you buried your foster father that morning.”

  I was sure there wasn’t but didn’t feel like arguing with Rick. After all, it seemed like he had my best interests, or at least my sanity, at heart.

  ***

  They say you never forget your first beer. That’s probably because you’re never, no matter how long you live, ever going to forget your first hangover.

  I woke up, sprawled on the floor, with a very loud fire alarm echoing in the empty space between my ears while a souped-up paint-stirring machine did its best to separate my left wrist from my body.

  “Dude.”

  Whoever was calling for my help was going to have to wait until I managed to free myself from the Sherwin-Williams demon, and then put out the fire. That’s what heroes do, right?

  “Dude!” The plaintive cry came again, a little closer this time. Was the person attached to that voice running toward me? Was some horrible beast pursuing them? Was it connected with whoever set the fire? If only I could get my wrist away from …

  “DUDE!” someone with super-voice powers yelled at three hundred decibels, trying to deafen me (the fiend!). “IT’S THE WATCH!”