Chapter 1
Sticks was born with a stick for a brain.
Like, actually.
A stick. The kind with dog slobber all over it. At least according to his dad. And his dad was always right. He was a scientist after all, so being right was sort of, kind of, totally his job.
Good thing too, because Sticks was almost never right. He might as well have been born with two left hands and two left feet. So, it was a very good thing that Sticks had a very right, very smart, very correct, very genius-like father, who could tell him everything he needed to do before Sticks had the chance to blow everything up with his incorrectness.
Like now.
Right now, Sticks was standing absolutely still, waiting for the signal. This part of the job always excited Sticks the most because he was very good at standing still. He was more than good. He was excellent. A professional. In fact, he was so good that if there were a standing still competition, he’d win a million dollars and be famous all across the internet as the world’s greatest stand-stiller. Maybe then his father wouldn’t think he was such a ‘FISH STICK!!’ all the time. Maybe—
Sticks heard the explosion before he saw it. A volcanic rumbling burst of bricks, cement, and other bits of the wall flew up into the air, trails of smoke following the pieces like the tails of a shooting star. Sticks squealed, flinching at the noise but above all, at the piece of rock that decided to smack him with a kiss right in his mouth. So much for being a champion stand-stiller—
The shiny butt of his father’s greatest nemesis flew through the smoking hole in the wall. Manta, with his manta-ray inspired spandex outfit and manta-ray inspired gadgets (including a grappling hook that whipped forwards and backwards like the tail of a stingray), spun through the air, doing a series of quadruple flips before landing on the concrete with his legs sprawled and his body twisted in his signature pose. His laughter, a big “HO-HA-HO” of a guffaw, sent vibrations through the metal platform Sticks was standing on.
“Your reign of terror ends TODAY, Doctor King!”
Sticks felt the platform and steel girders judder as his father hacked and hawed over the declaration. Sticks’s mouth felt like the aftermath of a poor decision to make out with a hive of bees, but the glorious sound of his father’s laughter—as gentle and harmonic as an elephant birthing a jackhammer—shooed away all semblances of pain and swelling that Sticks might have been feeling.
“Aha! And here I was thinking about what a lovely day it was—” His father spun around with a gun in his hands, “—TO GO FISHING!”
Oh—! That’s the cue!
Sticks snatched the tire shaped metal contraption next to him and leapt from his platform right as Dr. King sent a torrent of bullets towards his nemesis. Manta did a fine job twirling, rolling, and leaping away from the danger, but Sticks had seen this routine enough times to know how to get him. With a single motion, Sticks managed to catch up with the super hero and threw down the metal hoop around him. It was so easy, so devastatingly simple, that for a second, Sticks was stunned in place. He didn’t even realize that there were squirts of fresh blue blood squirting out of the newly formed bullet holes on his pink skin.
Holy moly?!
“I did it?” His red, mop-like hair squiggled, first in confusion, and then in excitement. “I did?!” Sticks beamed with joy and pride, spinning his shining face towards his father, “Dad I got him! I—!”
“ACTIVATE THE STUNSILIZEEEER!!”
“O-Oh!” Sticks slapped the big red button below the bright yellow Post-it note stuck on it (‘PRESS THIS’). Immediately, a flicker of electricity sparked across the big metal hoop, before a paralyzing shock wave went sizzling through Manta’s body.
“AUGGGHHH!!” Manta cried out in pain, as Sticks beamed at his father.
But instead of giving Sticks a thumbs up, Dr. King slapped his forehead with an aggravated groan, “God, how many times do I gotta tell ya? When you trap the bad guy...What do you do? Eh?! You…? You…?!”
It took a second for Sticks to realize that the question was not rhetorical. Suddenly it felt like he had sticks for a tongue and throat in addition to a brain. It was like being asked to divide and subtract fractions on the spot without any warning. Only a madman could do something like that!
“U-uhm…” Sticks felt his body sweating. His mind was a blank, black computer screen. Inside a lightless, windowless computer room. In space. “You...t-t—?”
“TURN ON THE TRAP! For God’s sake—! I even made the darn button the size of the MOON and ya still CAN’T DO IT!”
The rumble of his father’s voice shut Sticks up instantly. He felt his head lowering, a cascade of shame shadowing his pink face. Beside him, Manta gritted his teeth with great pain.
“You’ll never...get away with this...you vile villain!”
It was like a light switch went off. No longer raving with rage, his father was now laughing with the type of glee only a mad scientist could muster.
“But I already HAVE!” Dr. King flipped around, slapping the giant rocket-sized contraption behind him. “Once I activate my Avoboom Ultra wave, EVERY single avocado in Seaweed City will turn into a bomb, thereby holding EVERY millennial hostage! And thus, the citizens of Seaweed City will have no other choice but to bow TO ME!” Once again his father did his hack-and-haw of a laugh and Sticks felt only marginally better. He sniffed, wallowing in his stupidity in complete stillness, next to the electrocuting Manta, for standing still was still what he was best at. He did not dare to interrupt or to do anything that could ruin his father’s favorite part of the routine, though a sudden whispery fart of a thought broke through the foggy despair of his mind.
Where’s the sidekick?
Sticks perked up, darting his eyes around, alarm bells ringing between his ears. He bit his lip. Normally by now Manta’s sidekick would’ve shown up for backup, tackling either Sticks or his father. Was he at home sick with the flu or something? Sticks watched with building anxiety as his father pranced around above them, still on his giant metal platform, showing off all the neat buttons and functions of his latest and greatest machine—monologuing about this bob and that bob and the complex cultural histories surrounding the metals he used in forging this latest, greatest creation…
What should he do?! If Sticks interrupted his father’s monologue again, he’d be in so much trouble—!
Another explosion went off—this time one he felt before he heard. A corral of smoke bloomed from the spot he was just standing in—he felt the rush of heat creep around his ankle before a great big shockwave blasted him from his feet. As Sticks flew, his eyes traveled up to the ceiling, honing in on the teenage boy who hung upside down from the ceiling.
Squid, Manta’s sidekick, dropped from high bars, pencil diving right into the ballooning cloud of smoke where Sticks had stood just moments before. Unlike Manta, Squid did not look anything like a Squid. Nor a superhero sidekick. Instead of spandex, Squid dressed himself in much more comfortable athleisure attire. He looked like a cross between a wizard, a ninja and a high school athlete, with his long, flowing sleeves that hid his hands, his hoodie, coupled with under armor underneath his sweats.
Sticks’s back hit the pavement and he rolled and tumbled all the way to the wall. He heard his father scream at him:
“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING FOR THE SIDEKICK! HOW COULD YOU FORGET—?!”
Sticks picked himself up from the floor, ignoring the new array of bumps, bruises and scrapes all around his arms and legs, right as the familiar hum of Dr. King’s flying battle drones came buzzing in. Sticks watched as the smoke cleared and bullets flew. Manta, now free from the Stunsilizer, did a series of forward flips as the drones sped after him. He reached into his utility belt and whipped out his signature three-sectioned-staff—each end piece being a gun that fired a single round of tooth-like bullets. Chains rattled as Manta whipped the staff across the air. The drones swarmed noisily around him as they tried to get a read on the hero. He slid across the floor, he threw his body up, he twirled and dodged and maneuvered himself in mid air as though it were water, thanks to his jet-propulsion boots and grappling hooks. He yelled as he brought the metal staff down onto a drones head, before whipping the gun section of the staff around to shoot another drone in the torso, which caused another drone to buzz with fury, prompting an army lurching over from behind it to attack. Manta leapt off, landing on his next metallic victim. He began bashing the metal face, whipping his staff against the drone’s body as he preached for the robot to say its prayers, pumping round after round of his bullets right into its unfortunate face, until finally, the singular drone could stomach no more and fizzled to the floor in tatters. It landed on the ground with the sound of a fart. Manta cheered as he leapt over it, grunting and heaving as he battled his next buzzing enemy.
Meanwhile, Squid stared blankly into open air as he became surrounded. One dozen. Two dozen. He sighed. Then flicked his wrist. The drones, the whole army of them, went down, with shurikens planted firmly on their faces, and exploded in an instant.
Then his eyes looked up at the Doctor.
His father winced, before baring his teeth at Sticks.
“What are you DOING?! DO SOMETHING!!”
Sticks felt as though there had been a fire lit from under his feet, fuelled by his shame and fear of disappointment. He knew it— He just KNEW IT! He should’ve said something about the missing sidekick! He even noticed it right on time but then he didn’t do anything about it like the dummy that he was.
Squid blinked, and the next thing Sticks knew, there was a pellet flying straight towards him. It blossomed into a blindingly bright explosion, causing Sticks to squeeze his eyes shut in shock. He felt something collide against his belly. Hard. Then something smashed against his face. Even harder.
Sticks was flying again, but this time something grabbed his shirt and forced him back to ground. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Manta had caught his father. The big meaty man was dragging his dad by the scruff of his lab coat, before throwing them both close together. The moment they touched, Sticks felt the venom seeping out of his father’s eyes as he snapped his head towards him.
Not noticing this quiet, menacing exchange, Manta hovered over them, standing tall and proud and very obviously, horrendously wounded. He cleared his snotty throat with a giant hack of a cough. Then smiled his superhero smile—the same one he used when the cameras were flashing. Even if there were no cameras.
“Today—!” Manta began, pronouncing and projecting his deep, masculine voice across the warehouse for the ants on the walls to hear, “JUSTICE is served once more!” It was clear from the way he spoke that Manta had prepared for this speech. He probably spent his whole afternoon memorizing it. “May this beautiful and illustrious world of ours, never again have to face the terror of such BLATANT ...such DASTARDLY horrid evil. It brings me great honor to bring such wicked souls through the porticos of JUSTICE—! For there is no greater duty than that of ridding the streets of such BLINDING evil—evil that will never see the light of the—”
“You’re under arrest.” Squid’s voice was bored and blunt. Without waiting, the sidekick roped the two villains together and began dragging the two of them across the warehouse, right as sirens whirred in the background. Sticks could feel his father vibrating with rage as they were dragged.
“How could you be so stupid?!” Dr. King hissed. The words may as well have been a knife. A sharp one, sinking deeply into his heart and belly. Sticks fought the urge to cry as he clamped his mouth shut with his teeth. “After all that effort splicing ALL those brains together, just for you to still be about as useful as a couple of MOULDING FISH STICKS!!”
The insult, as hurtful as it was, sent a lightbulb blinking in his mind’s eye. “Wait...I have a real brain? I thought you said I had a stick for a—”
“OF COURSE YOU HAVE A REAL BRAIN! Are you calling your father an idiot—?!”
That did it. Sticks had unleashed Pandora’s box of insults. And though Sticks had bathed in this oral current of curses before, every word still made him feel like he was a drowning guppy or perhaps a piece of poo, swirling deeper and deeper into a toilet bowl flush of misery.
Sticks could see the bright red and blue flashes of the Seaweed City Police Department. Several of the officers had arrived with their guns out, bustling about as though there was still some danger that needed to be thwarted.
Squid threw the pair into the back of a police van. The doors slammed shut, a lock clicking into place. Sticks felt himself being hoisted up as his father scrambled for the tiny, barred window of the door.
“Say!” He said, practically winking at the young sidekick. “Why don’t you leave that koi-brained lunatic and come work for me, eh?”
Squid blinked. “Do you offer dental?”
Next to him, Manta roared in laughter, patting his protege’s shoulder with the gentle affection of a father. “Lunatic you say?!” He was still flashing his pearly whites, but this time there was a flood of cameras arriving, reporters starting to swarm the scene for the latest scoop. “Well, dare I say, it seems to me that the only “koi-brain” here is...YOU!”
The man continued to guffaw as the police van started to drive away. Manta’s voice was so loud, or ‘iconic’ in his words, that Sticks swore that he could still hear the man as the two silhouettes of his father’s nemesis began to fade from view.
