Martin released Alexa from his clutches, lost in his thoughts, tired of shaking her. She had been far more villainous than he had expected. Just how far back did her plan stretch?

“Is spilling cereal all over my bus part of the Equalizer business?” The bus driver inquired, looking at Cottie. “I’m kind of on a schedule here.”

“The loops are an essential part of our business. Thank you for your participation. We’ll be off now!” Alexa bowed to the bus driver.

“Yes.” Cottie answered him with a slight nod. “You may depart now.”

“Depart to where?” Martin blearily asked off the floor.

“That depends. How are you doing, number one?”

“Well, I just lost a whole bucket of blood. That’s probably not healthy.” Martin sighed, wiping his face with his sleeve.

“You’ll be fine!”

“I don’t feel like I’m fine. Seriously, what did you do?”

“Remember when you couldn't break a metal bench with your bare hands that one time?”

“Okay?”

“Well you still can’t, but you’re a hero now! Yay!”

“WHAT?!” Martin looked at Alexa with wide open eyes.

She grinned even wider, helping Martin stand up. Then, the supervillain girl looked at an extremely confused blonde that was occupying the other front row seat. “Out.”

The cheerleader looked back at Alexa with a mildly challenging look.

“Go join your boyfriend in the back. And do be quick about it, unless you want to be raygunned too.” The villainess said, twirling her pink raygun and nodding at Martin. “My patient zero needs the front row seat.”

The blonde shook her head, staring at Martin’s pale, blood splattered face. She rushed out of her seat into the back of the bus, quickly moving past the trio. It was clear that she did not want to be raygunned.

Alexa guided Martin towards the window seat and sat beside him, swinging her legs. The boy looked at her with a look of confusion and irritation.

“Why, thank you Alexa, for making me a hero six years ahead of schedule!” Alexa announced with a deep, fake voice.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!” Martin shuddered. “There’s supposed to be training at the hero academy for two years and graduation with a diploma listing my specialty skills from Grand Dean Otter! I don’t even know what my power is!”

He couldn't believe that she somehow managed to awaken him by nearly killing him right on the floor of the schoolbus, of all the places! He felt weak from the bloodloss, feeling twisted up in some unnatural way. This was not how he was picturing his awakening. What had happened to him somehow felt very wrong, forced, dirty. Maybe it was just the brain spider thing. No, it was definitely the brain spider thing!

“Well, whoopity doo. Aren’t we spoiled with fancypants luxuries? I simply graduated you the villain way, made you claw your way out of near-death into your power. You’re welcome! You can still probably go hang out with Dean Otter, don’t worry so much.”

Martin turned, quietly staring out of the window onto the passing streets of Saint Mary, having put his aching head against the cool glass. He knew that the skinwalker was moving its tendrils inside of him, expeditiously trying to reassemble itself and repair the damage to his insides. It was freaky as hell and frankly weirded him out

“Look. There’s a spider in my brain doing... stuff. I can feel, see what it’s doing. It’s not a fun thing to know. People aren’t supposed to know what’s going on inside them with this much graphic detail, damn it!”

“Hang on… I know what’ll cheer you up.” Alexa took off her new backpack. Martin noted that it was silver-blue and featured hero Knight Chalice. She dug into it, pulled out a notepad, ripped out a page and scribbled something on it and slid it to Martin. He glanced at the lined piece of paper that was now laying on his lap.

“Genuine Hero Academia Deathschool diploma! Super-power: control of one brain spider from 2424.

~ Dean Cassiopeia Terror Nova.”

Martin rubbed his head in resignation.

. . .

Alexa yawned and glanced at Cottie who was simply standing in the middle of the row next to their seats, swaying ever so slightly with every turn and stop of the schoolbus.

“Sit,” Alexa stood up and pointed at the seat next to Martin, addressing Cottie. The Equalizer sat down next to Martin without an argument. She had no idea what had just transpired between the boy and the villainess, but she would undoubtedly get to the bottom of it -

Alexa sat onto Cottie’s lap.

“You do know that there’s other seats on this bus?” Cottie said, feeling somewhat awkward.

“I wouldn't want to leave Mittens unsupervised at this pivotal moment. Number one already threw two whole mutinies. That's twice more mutinies than necessary.”

“Look, I can just stand...”

“Noppers. Am plenty comfortable where I am now.” Alexa stretched atop Cottie. She took off her construction helmet, put it on Martin’s head and nuzzled into Cottie’s chest.

Martin turned his now helmeted head away from the window to discover Alexa using Cottie as a couch. His image of The Equalizer Enforcers as the unbendable killers of supers cracked. He’s never seen anyone so blatantly disregard the authority of an Equalizer and get away with it. It was far too absurd, like a robber that chose to nap atop a police car.

“How are you doing that?” He whispered at Alexa.

“Doing what now?”

“Uhm. Sitting on her.”

“I can sit on whomever, whenever I want to. It’s a free country. Also, she’s my minion. Being a minion implies being used in all sorts of ways.”

Martin turned back towards the window to hide his reddening face.

“Stop that! Focus on the important things, human! Demand answers!” Spiderbro mentally hissed at Martin.

Alexa yawned again, stretching halfway onto Martin. “Gosh, I’m beat. Learn my lesson, don’t try to take down poles with your head.”

Martin looked down at her bandage-covered face. “Uh. Sorry that happened. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Why are you apologizing? Why are you like this? She planned everything, she set you and me up! Did you forget this already?” Spiderbro pressed.

Martin ignored the skinwalker shard lodged in his brain.

Alexa yawned wider. “Cottie, I’ma have a brief nap. You’re in charge. Make sure number one doesn’t start any more mutinies.”

“Umm. What happens if you flash into the future now with us on the bus. Are we going to get flung into the future at 40 miles an hour? Is this bus going to get flung into the future with us? What about all the other kids and the driver? How does it determine where you and the things you touch end and the bus begins?”

Alexa didn’t answer any of his questions, as she was now quietly snoring atop him and the Equalizer.

Cottie turned towards Martin, observing him with her big emerald eyes.

“Hi. I’m Martin.” He said to her stiffly.

“You aren’t part of the prophecy.” She finally commented.

“Ehhhh. Does this mean I’m not important?”

“It means you weren’t mentioned by Eminence Equality, but you are theoretically valuable because Alexa seems to have involved you in her plans.”

“Why are you here? Are you trying to make her join your Order?” Martin said, feeling mildly offended at being only theoretically valuable. “Convincing Alexa of anything is beyond useless.”

“I’m not here to recruit her.” Cottie shook her head.

“Hrm. You seem to be much too agreeable. I’ve seen a video of one of you guys in action. You guys don’t let anyone boss you around. Both heroes and villains know not to mess with the Equalizers.”

"I’m here to aid her plan while making sure she remains human.”

“You know what her plan is?” Martin pointed at the snoring Alexa.

“No.”

“Seriously?! What does she have on you? I don’t believe for a second that you’d cooperate with her shenanigans so willingly.” Martin nodded at Alexa’s slightly drooling face. “Why do you let her call you Cottie?”

“An incredibly vast number of hydrogen bombs, buried around the country.” Cottie answered with her usual calmness.

“What?” Martin blanched. “How? When?”

“She used time travel to replicate a suitcase nuke...” Cottie proceeded to explain the concept to Martin in the same way Alexa had explained it to her, albeit less dramatic.

“But that’s… so insane! Oh my god!” Martin whispered, looking out through the window of the bus at the peaceful city of Saint Mary. He imagined nukes going off all around town, vaporising buildings, trees, cars, people. It was the ultimate judgement day. Even if just one of them went off accidentally or was found and dug up by a random, dumb criminal, it would spell disaster!

“Humans are so very gullible, especially you, my unfortunate host.” The skinwalker muttered in his head.

“Eh? What?” Martin thought back, distracted from imagining armageddon.

“Think, human child. If the future really changed the way Alexa described it to the Equalizer, then how come the skinwalker she labelled as Mr. Noodles was wearing so many human skins? Where did these skins come from if not from the dead bodies of Alexa? Why did she make you rob a bank yesterday when she could have easily acquired infinite gold this way? Infinite anything really!”

Martin froze, his mouth snapping shut. Was the sneaky spider in his head right? There was no way that his dad and the SCA prognosticators would miss millions of bombs buried around town. It was all just a clever trick, a ruse set up entirely for this Equalizer’s sake. That’s how she got Cottie to obey her! A beautifully orchestrated lie!

“That’s right. The whole time-travel concept she sold you is a lie.” Spiderbro added. “While I can’t remember much of my former skinwalker self, I can examine your memories. Your actions here do not impact the place where I came from. It is not the future of your world. She is most likely jumping to a parallel dimension - another earth, 400 years ahead in time.”

“But what about the hole in the bank floor made by Mr Canard?” Martin thought back.

“Just a coincidence. Do you really think that the Supers would fail to repair their own bank? Besides, a lot of things in 2424 are damaged by fire and feature holes. What happened in the world where I came from cannot be stopped, cannot be prevented. The skinwalkers are new life, part of the new biosphere. They will not vanish just because somebody flushes a toilet in your world in some sort of an amusing butterfly effect scenario.”

“Damn it!” Martin inwardly groaned, looking at the silver-haired sleeping girl. He’s been duped again and again by Alexa. She’s been messing with him since the beginning all for one purpose - to get him infected with a skinwalker.

“See! You cannot trust her. She is a most fiendish villain.” Spiderbro concluded his thesis.

Martin looked at his own pale reflection in the glass window. His eyes were still tinted the tiniest bit silver.

“You’d rather have me trust an insidious alien spider that murders or enslaves people to make more of itself? Really?”

The skinwalker in his head grew silent at that. Either it had nothing to say to that, or it decided to take a nap because it was exhausted from repairing his insides. Did head spiders take naps? Martin glanced at the Equalizer. He would not reveal his head-spider’s deductions to her. He had no reason to open up to her or to trust her. Cottie would have to figure Alexa’s bullshit out on her own.