Just shorts - 1. How He Became Fabulous

Jake was just your average nerd in school. He was teased mercilessly because of his Coke-bottle glasses. He was ridiculed for his dorky hair. He was taunted for his fashion sense. The last two he couldn't help since his dad chose his clothes and his mother his hair. He loved that he was a nerd, but no one else did. No one cared he was vegetarian. No one cared he would discretely watch the football players rather than the game. Nope, they jeered at him because he was a skinny nerd.

All that changed when the Legion came to Earth.

Jake was in his attic, simply because he felt a basement was too cliche even for him, where he was tinkering with his new drone. He had painted it gold and grey and replaced the rotors ones shaped more like golden bird wings. He liked it more, and it made his nerd heart happy to see it hovering in the attic.

Then his attic blew up.

Jake came to, trying to comprehend why his attic now had a huge skylight. There were sounds of sirens and screams from outside, and he pushed himself to his feet, wobbling more than a bit and catching himself on the railing leading down to the rest of the house. He felt woozy but was in no pain. Actually, he felt better than he ever had.

As he scanned the attic, he could tell the roof had been blown up. Not out, as if his missing drone had exploded; not in as if a meteor crashed into the roof. Nope, the roof was simply blown up, debris both inside and outside.

Jake tried to fathom how it happened. A quick implosion would suck it in and the resulting explosion would expel some of the debris. It was more likely the other way around. An explosion sent the roof flying, and the resulting vacuum pulled some of it back in.

Satisfied, Jake looked around for his drone. He was ignoring the obvious sounds from outside. They were distractions from his goal: What happened to his drone? He searched around but found no trace. When he was crawling to look under the work bench, he bumped into something. Looking up, he realized he hadn't bumped into something. Something had bumped into him.

He recognized those wings. They were just like the ones he put on the drone. Even the same golden color. Only these wings were far larger and attached to his body.

"Huh," was all he said as he stood to look at the wings closer. They extended as he willed them to and settled when he wanted. So, he thought, they're a part of me. "How peculiar," he murmured. He wasn't shocked, just curious. Like any other kid who suddenly sprouted wings, he wanted to try them.

He spread his wings and flapped once. He zoomed out of the hole in the roof to soar into the sky. His mind noted every sensation, even how he subconsciously began to hover to view the destruction all around his neighborhood. Not only his house had been damaged in the mystery explosion...although he could tell that the explosion's epicenter was his house. Specifically, his attic. As he scanned the area, he noted his body had also changed dramatically. Gone was the skinny nerd frame. Here was a tightly muscled body. Far better than any of the jocks at school. His dorky hair was gone, he noted as the now longer blonde hair fell into his face. In fact, he looked nothing at all like he used to.

Jake's now acute vision focused on a cloud floating above his street. The cloud's particles expanded and he studied how each one seemed different. It was a rather prismatic cloud, each particle a different hue and seemed to move differently. He flapped once to move closer to inspect it further, but the cloud evaporated.

"Huh," he mumbled. That was an odd behavior for a cloud, although he knew nothing about the cloud itself to base this thought off of.

"Feel fear, Earthlings!" came a booming voice from the intersection near his home. Hovering above the running people, held aloft by red and grey wings, was someone dressed like a comic book villain. A cheesy one at that. Jake watched as lasers shot from the villain's eyes, striking old Mrs. Daughtry's prized poodle. It went poof. "I am the Raptor!"

While Jake thought it was no real loss, that poodle was vicious, he didn't like someone bullying people on his street. Jake flapped once, rocketing toward the Raptor, lame name for a villain he thought, and kicking him in the balls. The Raptor, with his eggs scrambled, fell out of the sky, and Jake saw for the first time his legs below the knees were the same color as the drone he had just painted. "Have no fear, good people of Clay Court, for I am here!" Jake tried to make it sound bold and daring, and he sounded okay.

The people of Clay Court were no wimps and ran to hold down the Raptor, Mrs. Daughtry tying her industrial potholder over the villain's eyes to stop his lasers. Jake landed and walked over, the wind blowing through his hair and creating glittery sparkles. His body almost shimmered with light, very much like the light dusting of glitter he had put in the grey paint for the drone.

"Does anyone know if the phones are still working? Someone needs to call the cops," Jake said, his voice commanding.

"Don't you have a cellphone?" asked one of his neighbors snidely.

"Not until I turn sixteen," Jake grumbled.

"Jake?" asked Mr. Jennings. Jake mowed his lawn every weekend for some pocket cash. "You look fabulous."

"That's me...Jake Fabulous!" He struck a very superhero pose.

"But you need to work on the name," Mr. Jennings retorted. But it stuck. From then on...little nerdy Jake became Jake Fabulous!