Issue #28: Ninth II - Hot Tub Party

"The birthday is off to a rocky start. Let me tell you that much."

"Want me to make a scene and rock the boat?"

"No, mom would've expected that from you. She knows you hate this shit as much as I do."

My gaze travels from one corner of the pool to the other as I surreptitiously converse with Olgar. 

It has been an hour since J'onn has revealed himself and purpose to me and, frankly, it has also been an hour since my nerves taut in anticipation of something. It may have just been my hypochondria–or lack thereof–elevating my wild imagination, but hacking into the League's database is something that only a few creatures can do, or at least within this planet. I doubt alien civilizations are yet aware of their existence.

I slap my face a little, giving it a bit of color before heading straight into the monkey's nest. While the parents of every affluent family in Gotham and the nearby satellite city are presumptuous, arrogant, and downright insidiously ignoble, their kids are a different breed of monsters.

Their third and fourth generation wealth had proven to be a breeding ground for laughable spawns of gratuitous greed and lucid lust. In another life, I would have been one of them and, frankly, I would have enjoyed it.

"I guess I'll take on for the team." I mutter as I lock eyes with my mother.

I check my watch to see if it has an option to be waterproof, which it has and one that prevents any security camera within thirty meters from seeing my face.

Leaving the amused Olgar to himself, I walk towards the pool in my swimming trunks. There, mired in meat sweat and pre-puberty putridness, I swim in the pool and pretend to laugh along as the kids enjoy the pool in the middle of winter.

'I guess the stress of being in the city full of weirdos and serial killers is taking a toll on them. It's not just the adults who are being menaced by society.'

As my thoughts become clear, a smile tugs on my lips as a pair of blonde twins wrestled atop the shoulders of their friends. A certain relief comes over my body, knowing full well that this party and its goers are protected by a powerful superhero and a good friend.

"Hey, no eating in the pool!" I shout and point at the son of a fashion designer as he dabbed a chicken wing on a bowl of ranch.

His eyes widened before trudging through the pool of water away from me. Unfortunately for him, I'm trained in such tricky situations.

"C'mon, Wallace. Drop the drumstick!" I shout once more.

"NO!" He shouts back.

To be fair, there are some of them that are somewhat decent. Decent, being a word I say gently as these people do not actively partake in the underbelly of Gotham, yet neither do they inhibit others in doing so.

Neutrality. The other side of the Gotham coin. This is how people in this city survive long enough to see their great-grandchildren, and this is how Gotham is run. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, such as the Waynes. Rumors and folktales of old have whispered into mine ears of their generosity and low-tolerance for evil, even going so far as to protect a small clinic from a triad of gangs. But even they had dipped their toes in the puddle of evil.

"I don't know you? Which school do you go to?" A tender voice reaches my ears as I slap Wallace's head.

"Oh, uh, Gotham Heights…" A girl's voice responds, hesitation evident in her tone.

"Where is that? Is that a new school?"

I turn towards the voice as I see a collage of cliched teen girls surrounding a clearly embarrassed redhead with glasses. Their conversation and silent snickers are reminiscent of the 90s coming-of-age movies my mother watches every Saturday night.

"Oh, shit." I mutter, only to see Wallace's eyes widen.

Wallace grins, "I heard you curse, Eddy. You're through. If I tell your mother about this–"

"I don't give a shit, Wally." I flick him on the forehead. "Don't eat in my pool. Do it in the hot tub."

I trudge towards them when Wally complains further, "But there are juniors in the tub. They won't let me in."

My Eddy-sense tingles as I turn around to see the largest hot tub is occupied by four teenagers–the oldest is barely fourteen years old–giggling amongst themselves while a gaggle of tweens my age sits on the corner, drenched and clearly upset about something. To Wallace, Mickey, Samuel, and Rork they might be an insurmountable wall of peer pressure and coolness, but in my eyes, they're nothing but prepubescent chumps waylaying me from saving a damsel in distress.

'God, I can't believe I still remember all their names. Damn it!'

I scoff at Wallace as motion for him to follow me, face morphing into a scowl.

"You know your dad owns seven boutiques on the west coast, right? You can buy these chumps with money to spare for their whore of a mother." I scold Wallace, regretting my choice of words after.

'What is happening to me? Am I becoming a misogynist?'

Wallace shrugs his shoulders, a creepy smile on his face. "I heard from Rork that you've been practicing martial arts. Are you going to break their bones?"

"Shut up. What happened, Mickey?" I ask the bold-faced kid in front of me.

"Oh, you're… talking to me?" He asks, eyes in full disbelief.

I glare at him. "Spit it out. I don't have time."

Wallace pushes out Mickey's face before tattling what the teenagers had done.

"–And they were mean, too. When we said that we were friends with you, they, like, just laughed." Sammy tattles some more. "I think they know something we don't."

"They're high schoolers, Sam! Of course, they do." Rork grunts, exploding in his friend's face.

"Shut up, all of you. God, I can't believe I used to be part of your gang of losers." I push Wallace out, an anger unbefitting of me coursing through my body. "Don't move and I'll handle this."

"Thanks, Eddy." Wallace says before Rork hums an idea. "If you do this, you're back in the gang."

I deign not respond and merely walk towards the group of teens. As I step past the pool, a snap clicks within my body and pain assaults my head and feet. Not as much agony as the previous ones, but enough to halt my pace and close my eyes.

"Fucking shit. Now I know why I'm angry." I mutter under my breath, controlling the intake of oxygen as my eyes water. "Time to take out my anger on a bunch of tweens. Jesus Christ."

We were once as rich as the Wayne's–at least back in the 50s–and with that money comes a certain appeal to having a monument to our egos. As such, my great grandfather had built the estate to have a hedge maze to the north–overlooking the Catskill mountains–and two Olympic-sized pools to the south, as well as five hot tubs arranged by size in ascending order. The farthest one–about four meters long and three meters wide–can house fifteen full-grown adults, while the nearest one where the teens are, can house two or three adults.

It has been renovated over the years and one of the newest attractions is the retractable thermal canopy along the ridges of the stone floors. Be it winter or summer, the canopy can relatively regulate the temperature of the air within the bounds of the hot tub. The energy consumption is downright atrocious, but worth it once you find yourself chilling in warm water and air in the middle of a blizzard.

I loom over the teens as they ogle and leer at the women in swimsuits leisurely resting upon the pool-side lounge. My shadow earns their attention as an acne-ridden punk glares at my interruption.

"Get away, midget. You're blocking the view." He says, insulting my height.

Sure enough, even though my height has increased over the last few months, the insults get under my skin. I, however, suppress the violent reaction and give them a hapless smile.

"My friends were enjoying the tub, and you pushed them out." I inform them. "There's four other tubs. Why don't you use that?"

"What happened to your hand? Why do you only have two fingers?" The freckled skin of the bunch asks me.

"Oh, yeah. It's fucked up." Another coo followed by a chorus of laughs and pointing.

'God, I don't miss this part of childhood.'

I clear my throat. "If you want permission, then you have it. My father owns the manor and its my birthday that we're celeb–"

"Oh, is that your mother we saw earlier?" The teen to my left asks with great interest.

The boy with acne snickers licentiously. "Did she tell you when she's going to swim? Man, I can't miss that."

My smile widens as I turn towards Olgar, who's quietly sipping a can of soft drinks which he replaced earlier with whiskey. I give him a charming smile before I turn on the switch that unfolds the canopy, effectively hiding us from the hubbub of the pool-goers and the song blaring in the background.

"Did you see–What are you doing?" Acne boy shouts like a bitch.

I grin at him as I drop into the middle of the tub, limbering my arms. "You're wearing shirts, good. That means the bruises won't be seen."

"Get–"

My elbow hits the freckled boy's chest, surprising his three other friends. Their nonreaction allows me to kick the freckled boy's shoulder as he wheezed in pain. His back smashes against the edge of the marbled tub before I finish him off with a well-placed chop at the throat.

His eyes widening in surprise when finds his breath shortening, knees crumbling down as he thrashes around the bubbling water.

"What the fuck!"

The acne boy's shout was like a war cry that spurs the others to flee the scene, their fight-or-flight instinct telling them to achieve the latter rather than the former. Unfortunately for them, I don't let my food go.

I bowl both my hands together and smash the back of the boy who leered at my mother earlier. His body curving in response to the great pain emanating from his lumbar before I follow up with an upright elbow blow at his shoulder blades.

His shrieks are like muzak to my ears; irrelevant, but good enough to enjoy the scene before me. Their thrashing continues on as I kick the back of the knees of the acne-ridden boy–their leader and the oldest of them. His momentum stumbles, causing him to fall down and hit his chest on the edge of the tub.

I jump towards him, smashing my shoulders at his back like a battering ram. I hear a snap and a crack, widening the smile on my face. He screams, in fear and in pain, but that, however, is futile as the music of the party suddenly increases and the bass rumbles the very ground.

"Don't pass out on the water." I whisper ominously as I turn my attention on the last fella.

Surprisingly, he still has not left the tub. Fear lingering in his eyes as he puts up his fists and growls. "My dad's a councilman!" He threatens. "Your dad's dead if he knew what you were doing!"

I smile. "Then do us both a favor. Tattle like a bitch."

I square up and rush forward before backpedaling a little, just enough for him to feel the rush of the wind as he closes his eyes and whimpers in defeat. He kneels down on the water, arms covering his head as if I'm going to eat him.

"Who's a little bitch?" I ask.

He opens his eyes and sees me glowering at him as I ask again, "Who's a good little bitch?"

"I-I am." He stutters.

"Alright, little bitch. Are you gonna make this worse by telling your parents? Or are you gonna be a good little bitch and tell them that you lifted some beer in the pantry?"

Tears roll down his eyes, nodding at my words like a bubble head. "I'm a good little bitch."

"Good. Get the fuck out and don't you fuck with the kids that came before you. Is that understood?"

He seems relieved that I let him go as he nods again and escapes the hot tub, nearly stubbing his toe in his hurry. I notice the freckled boy recovering, so I give him a swift kick on the side. His body gets buried under the water as I continue connecting the flesh of my foot to his kidneys.

"Don't kill him, Edmund." Olgar's voice brings me out of my reverie.

Sweat trickles down my face as I feel the pain in my body evacuate my body in the form of punches and kicks, relieving me of the anger that had escalated the event in the process.

"I'm sorry, Olgar. Thank you for putting up with me." I apologize meaningfully.

The spy laughs in bemusement, "Putting up? You aren't the worst punk I took care of, Edmund. Hell, at least you're entertaining."

I wash off the sweat and blood that had bled out of my fucked-up left hand before putting a smile on my face and leaving the restriction of the canopy. Quite a few people had begun being curious about what's happening inside of the hot tub, but Jasmine is quick to regale them with the appearance of the cakes we bought from the patisserie.

Yes, all that hubbub about buying me cakes is just for the guests. Mother would never let me eat a birthday cake she herself had not baked. That would be disastrous in her mind and, quite frankly, a waste of $100,000 per hour on a world-class baker that had trained her for five weeks.

"Whoa…"

"D-did you kill them?"

"Idiot, they're high schoolers–"

"I'm not an–"

"Shut up, will you?" I glare at them, checking my peripheral to see that no one is looking at us with an unusual eye. "Wally, you know how to clean the hot tub, don't you? Go ahead and do that, then it's all yours."

"A-are you sure?" Wallace's face morphs into excitement as he runs towards the hot tub with the other three following along as they say their thanks.

I sigh with exhaustion before I remember what I was doing before I beat up those punks. My eyes scan the pool and see Barbara Gordon laughing along with the girls that had asked her the question. 

"I forgot. She's very strong willed. She doesn't need my help." I mutter in relief, chuckling at my unfounded worries.

Seeing her eyes light up as she converses with her newfound friends, a certain emotion surfaces on my body. Something that I had only felt when I looked at Jasmine and mother, a protectiveness stemming from an overindulgence of a sensation. That sensation, however, is vastly different from what I feel from the two.

"Why do I feel like I need to protect her?" I mutter under my breath.

"Fear." A voice reaches my mind.

It takes everything I have not to seize up in surprise as my eyes widen to check whomever spoke earlier. My mind scrambles to find a plan to verify the identity of whomever it was as I slowly reach my watch.

"Fear not, friend Edmund." J'onn identifies himself. "I could not reach you through your mind, so I had to cloak myself and see if you are alright.."

I quickly place a hand over my chest, the beating of my heart slowing down considerably. "God, you sure are full of surprises, J'onn. Is that also part of your species' ability?"

"It is. Although even amongst my kin, I am somewhat considered an… expert." His voice takes a strange turn.

"Well, thanks for–You know what, since you're here," I gulp, hesitating to ask for a favor before emboldening myself. "My body is regurgitating energy and I can't handle it–That's why I beat up those punks, actually. I was wondering if you could help me with–"

"I am glad of you to ask, friend Edmund. I have been thinking of your ability since we met. Come, I have found a room where you can rest free."

I feel an energy suddenly enveloping my body, guiding me upward and out of the pool. Although I do not know the minutiae of every hero's and villain's life, what I do know of J'onn is that he is more than an important member of the Justice League and their subsidiaries. He is a mentor and a father figure, willing to go beyond the call of duty and honor.

I close my eyes for a moment before uttering, "Thank you, J'onn."