Parthenon Walters

Nonny liked the arcade, not enough to remember its name, but enough to make it her home after school. She switched around from game to game as they became free, having long since put her initials in the high score slots.

“Fine, I’ll leave,” a loud voice interrupted Nonny’s round on “Save the Princess”. She leaned over to see a boy in a wheelchair accosted by a bunch of bullies who plagued the place with their presence. She stalked over.

“Why are you attacking the boy in the wheelchair?” her brother asked before Nonny could do anything. She couldn’t be mad about him doing his job as an arcade employee.

“He’s not letting us take a turn,” they complained.

“You asked me to stop halfway through a run,” the boy defended, “I was going to give it to you.”

The computer was still fighting his character. Nonny could tell by the lack of insert coin messaging. She cringed at the thought of losing because of distraction. It was the worst kind of loss.

“We heard him loudly say he would leave,” Zephyr said, unimpressed. Wind rushed lightly around the boys faces.

“Fine!” They ran from the arcade and Zephyr let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m so lucky Gust has made aerokinetics look intimidating,” Zephyr said, slightly collapsing.

“Thanks,” the boy said, “I’ll stay away from Death Gambit from here on out.”

Nonny watched him. She’d seen him around the arcade before. He switched between available games like she did, but he never seemed to actually pay attention.

“Do you want to see my favorite game in the whole arcade?”

“Nonny…” Zephyr started.

“Sure…” the boy said, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Nonny,” Nonny said, offering a hand, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Harold, and I don’t shake hands.”

Nonny returned her hand to her side.

“Okay,” she turned around, “Follow me.”

She guided Harold to the game she’d been playing earlier just to the side of the entrance. Most of its branding and advertising had been rubbed away by the years, but the screen was intact, asking, “WILL YOU SAVE THE PRINCESS?”.

Harold read the question aloud.

“Will you?” Nonny asked.

“It’s only one player,” he noted.

“We can work together,” Nonny offered, “C’mon.”

“How is it played?” Harold asked.

Nonny inserted the token.

“Favorite superhero?” Nonny asked. Asking and answering questions gave them the exact amount of focus to play properly.

“Between Tesla Coil and Xer.” he said the second name like the X was two distinct sounds.

“Xer?” Nonny had never heard that name before.

“Elemaster,” Harold said, “He prefers Xer.”

“Oh…” she had no idea.

“Mine’s Tesla Coil, too,” Nonny said, “I want to build things like she does someday. Nightingale’s cool too.”

Harold “hmm”ed in acknowledgment.

“Is Nonny your real name?” he asked.

“It’s Parthenon,” Nonny admitted, “But everyone just calls me Nonny. Is Harold your real name?”

“Harold Elias Piec IV,” Harold quoted, “Named for my grandfather, he was the third.”

“Oh, full full names,” Nonny processed, “I’m Parthenon Walters then.”

“What about your middle name?”

“My mom’s a mage, says the third name’s a chosen one, so I don’t have one yet.”

Harold stopped, reversing himself until there was distance between them. Nonny heard the sound of their character dying behind her as she turned to look at him.

“What was that about?” she asked, accepting the game loss.

“If your mom’s a mage, then you’re a mage too.”

“Yeah?” Nonny asked. She’d never done any magek, but she’d had enough explanation to know he was right, “Do you have a problem with mages?”

Harold swallowed.

“Yeah, sorry.”

He left her for a different free game.

“Your favorite superheroes work with a Mage!” Nonny yelled.

“I know!”

“Lower your volume,” Zephyr commented with minimal tone.

Nonny rolled her eyes and put another token in the game. She died almost immediately and put in another token. She was stewing too much over Harold to pay enough attention.

Why did he apologize if he had a problem with mages? Most people thought they were right to dislike them, because of power or something. Maybe she could make him her friend and he would stop having problems with mages.

She joined him at his game.

“Are you any good?” she asked.

He leaned back far away from her.

“Why are you acting like I’m sick?” she asked.

“I’m allergic, to Magek.”

“What?”

That didn’t make any sense.

“That’s not possible,” Nonny explained.

Harold reversed away from her again.

“It is for me.”

He moved past her and she watched him this time. She followed him, because he didn’t tell her not to.

“I think if we became friends you’d realize mages aren’t worth being allergic to.”

“I know they’re not,” Harold said.

“Then why are you allergic?”

He turned around, eyes raised to look at her, though they didn’t actually seem focused on her.

“I don’t want to be,” He said, “But I am. Leave me alone. Please.”

Parthenon put her hands up and surrendered, returning to the task of saving the princess.

If Harold wanted to be alone, then she would leave him alone. Maybe she should stop trying to make friends.

The gate to the rest of the mall from the arcade slammed down, the gust of air pushing Nonny into the console, so her game died again.

“Finally!” half of the couple in the corner announced. She had long blond hair, and despite her height was clearly an adult, not a teenager like her clothes implied from the back. She moved with intention toward all the children on games.

Her partner joined behind her, dark hair and five o’clock shadow that said he was around her age.

A gust of air pushed both of them back against the wall and every kid other than Harold and Nonny screamed as they ran over to Zephyr behind the counter.

The creeps got up and moved like before toward Harold. Nonny ran in front to act as a shield.

“Don’t be a hero, girlie,” the man said, “We’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Don’t touch him,” she ordered.

The creeps laughed, then suddenly Nonny was very cold. She rubbed her arms.

“Cryokinesis?” Harold muttered, “No, thermokinesis.”

Suddenly everything burned, and Nonny fell down from the pain. That made her scream.

“You’re coming with us, Harold!” the woman yelled over Nonny. Her cries had lowered to a dull moan, though the pain hadn’t yet subsided.

“Promise you won’t hurt anyone,” Harold said.

Nonny saw Zephyr’s pant leg move into view as he stepped over her.

“Stay away from my sister!”

He blew them back again, and Nonny returned to normal, at least she felt something other than pain.

“Just let them take me,” Harold told them.

“No!” Nonny and Zephyr refused.

Nonny didn’t have any powers, but she could be a distraction.

She stood up, running in the direction of the creeps and screaming her head off.

One of them kicked her to the ground.

“Shouldn’t have gotten in the way, kid.”

She felt a sharp kick to her head. Things suddenly felt unconnected. She wasn’t awake, but she could see.

The woman grabbed her by the hair.

“Unless you want to see her brain freeze, you’ll let us take the kid.”

Nonny tried to yell to let it happen, because they couldn’t let them get Harold, but nothing did.

Zephyr’s hands went up, and Harold went around him to come to the kidnappers.

“Let her go.”

Nonny dropped to the floor, still unable to move herself.

She tried to watch as Harold left with the kidnappers, but she couldn’t move her head. She was just stuck on the floor, watching and hearing everyone else panic.

Someone shook Nonny by the shoulders.

“What?” she was surprised by the ability to speak again, checking her hands, which the paramedic pushed down as they took a look at her.

“Do you have a headache?” they asked her, “Nausea?”

“My head hurts, because someone kicked it.”

Then she’d been stuck, but Nonny had better things to focus on than being weird.

“Is Harold alright?” she’d hoped he’d somehow escaped, and informed people of the situation. He definitely wasn’t in the arcade.

“They got him,” Zephyr admitted.

“How could you let that happen?” Nonny asked, still angry at the trade.

“It was him or you.” Zephyr said, “They grabbed you and asked if we wanted to see your brain freeze. He surrendered after that.”

The gate door thing had a hole cut through it that she hadn’t seen from her previous angle.

“Through there?” Nonny asked.

“That’s how I got here,” the paramedic now grabbing her wrist said, “We should take you to the hospital to get you properly checked.”

“No thanks,” Zephyr said.

“Are you her legal guardian?” the person asked.

“I’m her brother, and our mom has her own healer.”

“Mage,” they said behind them before getting up and leaving.

“We don’t know any healers,” Nonny whispered to Zephyr.

“What are you going to do? Pretend to sleep at the hospital?” Zephyr asked, “They’ll keep you for longer. How did it feel to finally get some shut-eye?”

Nonny looked away. She’d stopped sleeping around a month ago, though the siblings had kept it a secret. She wasn’t tired, she just stopped needing it, and sleep became less interesting than reading, or working on game technique, or searching the internet to figure out if anyone knew what the save the princess game was. Maybe that was why she still saw what happened after being unable to move.

“Did my eyes close?”

“Yeah?” Zephyr asked, “Don’t tell me you still heard everything.”

“I saw everything, too,” Nonny said, “Well everything that my eyes would see I think, but I couldn’t move or do anything else.”

“Freaky,” Zephyr said, looking around. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Nonny took his hand as he led her to the food court, so they could get some smoothies.

“Do you really think they would freeze my brain?” Nonny asked.

“Maybe,” Zephyr said, “The other one kicked you in the head, I wasn’t going to test their resolve.”

“How are we going to save Harold?” Nonny asked.

“What?” Zephyr asked, “No, we tried, but it’s out of our hands now. I don’t even know where to start.”

“You have access to security footage, right?” Nonny asked, “We could search for when they showed up, and maybe find their car, and then we could take it to the police.”

“If it’s not already a DSR case,” Zephyr complained.

“Then we take it to the DSR, it’s something.”

Zephyr watched her.

“You already got hurt trying to save the day. I won’t let you get hurt again.”

“You tried to save the day too,” Nonny said.

“And it nearly got you hurt,” Zephyr said, “You shouldn’t have come here after school.”

“But—”

Zephyr held his phone up in threat.

“I’m calling dad, and he’s going to come pick you up, and you can watch the news to see if they have updates on the situation.”

“Or,” Nonny and Zephyr turned to see a woman in a white mask, dressed in all white, with red hair in a braid, “You two could come with me.”

Nonny held her hands over her mouth to muffle her screams. Zephyr stepped in front of her, hand held out towards the woman.

“You’re not taking my sister, too.”

“She’s cool,” Nonny insisted, “She’s Nightingale.”

“She looks like Nightingale, but Nightingale’s a whole state over, and more importantly, nobody’s staring. Why wouldn’t they be staring at a woman dressed like her in the middle of the mall.”

“It takes less effort for people to ignore me here than, say, a dark warehouse.”

She pushed the two of them to a wall bench by the bathrooms.

“You’re one of my favorite superheroes,” Nonny said, “You’re my Death Gambit main, and my deck leader for HGTCG.”

“Thanks,” Nightingale said, “I saw you try to save that kid earlier, well, Coil saw you, asked me to track you down.”

“Tesla Coil!” Nonny yelled. That made people stare.

“You’re saying a lot of the right things to make my little sister like you,” Zephyr observed, “But I don’t trust it.”

“Good instinct,” Nightingale said, “And I don’t think there’s anything I can say to make you trust me, so,” she pulled a tazer from her belt, handing it to Zephyr, “Test it.”

“What?” Zephyr asked.

“It’s a tazer with enough Xenobotanicum to bring anyone down to normal. If we do anything you find suspicious, hit us with that, take your sister, and run.”

Zephyr nodded, activating it so he could see proof of the sparks.

“What if I find you suspicious right now?” he asked.

“You heard what I said.”

Nonny thought she liked screens, but seeing so many told her that was wrong. She liked one screen at a time, as long as that screen had something fun on it. These screens played security footage of her failing to save her friend, not that Harold actually wanted to be her friend.

The saving grace of the room was that Tesla Coil was in it. Parthenon immediately ran to her and gave her a hug.

“Okay, kiddo.”

“You’re my favorite superhero!” she said.

“Thanks,” Tesla Coil said, “Do you think you can help me with something, Parthenon?”

Nonny pulled back and made a face.

“Nobody calls me Parthenon.”

“How did you know her name?” Zephyr asked.

“I do my research,” Tesla Coil said, “You’re Zephyr, right?”

“What do you want?” Zephyr asked.

“I need your help to save Harold.”

“I’ll do it,” Nonny agreed.

“What do you need help with?” Zephyr asked.

“Tell us about these two,” Nightingale tapped the people who attacked them on the screen. The time stamp was two weeks ago.

“They were casing the joint,” Nonny realized.

“Yeah,” Zephyr said, “I saw them. They didn’t talk much, just played their game on easy mode, probably watching for the opportunity to kidnap a kid. Why do you care so much about this kid anyways? He seemed pretty isolated.”

“I work with his mother sometimes,” Tesla Coil explained.

Nonny watched the screens as her brother kept offering info, realizing they were all different times of the same two people, at the same game. It was a very boring rhythm game that her legs were too short to actually be good at. Nonny had been glad to see it occupied every time she came, so less people had to suffer from it.

She remembered feeling excited about that a year ago.

“They first showed up a year ago,” Nonny interrupted whatever conversation the others were having, “You only have a month.”

“Didn’t you say there was another leak of the Electron List a year ago?” Nightingale asked.

“Electron list?” Nonny asked.

“Harold’s father is on that list, right?” Nightingale asked.

“He is,” Tesla Coil watched the screens, “Did you notice anything else, Parthenon.”

“Nonny.”

“Right, sorry, Parthenon just sounds cooler in my head.”

Well if it sounded cooler…

She focused on the people on the screen.

“They made me feel really hot or cold when I tried to stand in front of Harold, but they switched about it.”

“Thermokinesis,” Tesla Coil muttered.

“And they waited until the gate shut.”

“What?” Nightingale asked.

“The gate,” Zehpyr gestured it going down, “It’s probably got a real name, but it keeps people from getting in when it’s closed.”

Nightingale nodded, “So they didn’t know when it would happen, just that it would.”

“They weren’t alone,” Tesla agreed.

Tesla Coil and Nightingale stared into each other’s eyes.

“Thanks for your information,” Nightingale said.

“That’s it?” Zephyr asked.

“You’ve been a great help, both of you, but we can take it from here.”

Nonny nodded. She’d helped her favorite superheroes!

“You’re welcome!” she said.

“You don’t want to stay?” Zephyr asked.

Nonny shook her head.

“It’s rude to get in the way of people doing their job.”

“Okay…” Zephyr took her hand and started pulling her out of the security room.

“Wait!” she realized, “Can you let me know when you save Harold?”

“Listen to public radio,” Nightingale said.

“I will.”

Parthenon sat in her room, two days since Harold had been kidnapped. Their parents had forced Zephyr to quit his job at the arcade, and banned her and her sister from ever returning there again, not that Percie minded at all, since she didn’t like video games. Apparently fighting supervillains was a danger they shouldn’t be in.

“Why are you listening to a lecture on a song being good?” Percie asked.

“I was told to listen to public radio, and I still haven’t heard if Harold is safe.”

“So you don’t trust that your heroes saved him.”

“I know they will, but those guys were scary. It might be hard.”

Percie rolled her eyes and left the room just as the hourly news turned on again.

“Updates on the kidnapping of Harold Piec IV. Thanks to Tesla Coil and other members of the Abnormals, he is home safe with mother, Catherine. According to Catherine, this was made possible by some good samaritans who revealed this kidnapping was planned for almost a year. She would like to thank those good samaritans, and hopes they are happy to know Harold is alive and well.”

“He’s safe!” Parthenon yelled, running down the stairs.

“He’s safe?” Zephyr asked from his room.

“He’s safe!”

“Who’s safe?” their mother asked in a tone that told Parthenon she shouldn’t be so excited.

“Harold, the kid we tried to help at the Arcade.”

Her mother sighed in relief, and Parthenon mimicked the motion.

“How did you find out?” she asked.

“The radio,” Parthenon pointed back to her and Percie’s room, where the muffled sounds of jazz could now be heard.

Her mother walked past, entered her room, and turned the radio off.

“Did you help save him?” she asked as she returned, bending down to look Parthenon in the eye.

“Yeah!” Parthenon gladly admitted. “I said that earlier.”

“Did you want to help?” Mom asked.

“Of course,” Parthenon answered, “He needed help.”

“Did you want to help?” Mom asked again.

“Yeah,” Parthenon answered. Was she not clear?

“Good job.” Mom ruffled Parthenon’s hair and left her be.