The Best Worst Day of His Life

Quixotic stood in front of the sink in the boy's locker room feeling exposed. The belly shirt he was wearing hardly covered anything. The white Y H school initials spread across his chest where his boobs would be if he were a girl, it made him wonder, if he had boobs instead of just being skin and bones would the shirt fit better? There was also the matching black skirt that he kept pulling down to cover the trimming of his boxers. But it was just too short.

Frowning Quixotic took the burn ointment the nurse gave him out of his backpack. He had lied and told her that the burn was from playing junkers ball too roughly with some friends, but she didn't ask.

Pulling the black spaghetti strap down he went to rub the cream on his burnt shoulder when he saw Phoenix scowling at him from the lockers across the room. The cheerleading uniform had the opposite problem with Phoenix, instead of being loose the top squeezed his chest so tight you could see the outline of his muscles.

"Hey, they're beautiful." Mocked Animus walking up to Phoenix. "You should smile more if you keep scowling your face will only get uglier, and I would hate to see what that would look like." He laughed "Oh hey, one more thing. You forgot your pom-poms!"

Animus handed Phoenix a pair of black and white pom poms. Without taking his eyes off of Quixotic Phoenix lit them on fire. Quixotic glared back, squeezing his bottle of ointment all over the floor. Phoenix cocked his eye as he threw the pom-poms aside startling the kid beside him who promptly doused them with water.

Another sketchy looking student in a black cap and hoodie smirked before falling into step behind Phoenix as soon as he passed him.

"Well, don't you look proud for a useless liar." Snapped Phoenix. "I would usually teach a lesson to anyone who has the balls to glare at me like that, but I'm leaving this trash heap of a school to train to be a hero soon. I don't have the time or patience to put you in your place.."

"You don't deserve that letter." Said Quixotic.

"Excuse me?"

"You're no hero, you're just a bully."

"Ha ha ha! Wow Phoenix, what are you going to do about this guy?" The kid with the black curly hair and hoodie standing behind Phoenix cackled. " There's finally someone besides Animus who doesn't just bow down to you. Hahaha!"

Phoenix's eye twitched as he looked down at Quixotic.

"You know what, I'm starting to think he needs to cool down!"

Tentacles shot out from the scrawny teens' pale spine wrapping themselves around Quixotics ankles. The smaller boy's face fell onto the tile before he was dragged across the floor. More tentacles wrapped around his arms pulling him up so that his face hovered inches over the dirty toilet bowl. The stench of the yellow liquid in the toilet was enough to make him gag. Phoenix sat on top of the toilet filter with his legs spread. The cheerleading skirt revealing his jockstrap underneath.

"Any last words?" Asked Phoenix.

But before Quixotic could answer Phoenix put his foot on top of his head. The smaller boy's face hit the warm smelly water forcefully. As soon as Phoenix took his foot off of him Quixotic came up gratefully for air.

"Eww, you reek worse than the rest of the bathroom." Phoenix laughed."Oh, that's right. You know what, I think this is the toilet I pissed in earlier that wouldn't flush."

Phoenix put his hand on the valve but it didn't work.

"Yup, this is the one I pissed in."

Quixotic looked disgusted. He went to take a deep breath to say something when Phoenix pressed his foot down on his head again. His mouth was open when his face plunged into the toilet. The bully lifted his foot off of the smaller male. Quixotic coughed up the toilet water and Phoenix's piss.

"Not acting so morally superior now are you?" Asked Phoenix.

But Quixotic only glared at him. Phoenix paused, taken back a little.

"Hahaha! What's wrong defect? What are you staring so intently for?" Asked the boy holding him down with the tentacles. "You homo or something?"

The kid with the tentacle didn't notice when Phoenix's face suddenly shifted to worry. But Quixotic noticed because he knew something about Phoenix the rest of the school didn't.

"So what if I am?" Asked Quixotic. "Is there something wrong with that?"

The tentacle bully stopped for a moment as if trying to buffer. before his face contorted back into its sneering self.

"Suck my unwashed cock faggot!" Yelled the bully, dunkin Quixsotics' head into the toilet. "Speaking of sucking an unwashed cock," the bully turned towards Phoenix.

The fiery redhead tensed up for a minute, but his crony didn't seem to notice.

"You thinking about which girl you want to take to homecoming? I heard the Fatal sisters are interested in your, You know. I'll pay for a hotel room if you split them with me."

"Sharing two whores with you sounds absolutely disgusting." Phoenix retorted. "Not to mention kind of gay."

"Oh come on man you need to loosen up a little, and of course I diden't mean to split them in a gay way no homo man. Okay if you don't like little high school sluts how about my sister who's in college? She'll do anything you want if you give her opioids, you have my blessing man. She could use a big alpha like you to fuck her raw man."

Phoenix didn't have time to think about how messed up this conversation has gotten, he noticed Quixotic had stopped struggling.

"Okay, he's had enough brings him up for air." Said Phoenix.

But the tentacle boy didn't pay attention to the command. Instead, he smiled down at his dyeing prey.

"Don't ignore me fucker! I said..." Phoenix lit his balled up fist on fire. "That's enough!"

Phoenix gave a fiery punch to the tentacle that was wrapped around Quixsotic's neck. All the tentacles let go of the smaller boy, who fell to the concrete ground. Phoenix stared horrified at the kid he was bullying. Not realizing he was holding his breath until Quixotic began coughing up fluids.

"What did you do for that man?" Asked the bully rubbing his burnt tentacle. "That stung."

"What were you just going to drown him in the toilet?!" Yelled Phoenix.

"I don't see what the problem with that would be." Said the bully. "Besides it's not like you like him anyway, right?"

"Idiot! It's not about how I feel about him!" Yelled Phoenix. "How do you think it would look on my fucking record if I drowned someone in the school bathroom huh?! I would never be let into the main Xavier school let alone become a hero with something like that on my record! Seriously this is why I don't hang around lackeys like you. Maybe if you had a brain you wouldn't come to school smelling like skunk weed! You don't even try to cover your sent with gum or anything, so it's fucking obvious you smoke shit!"

Phoenix with his fist clenched stood over the other bully, who had shrunk, pressed up against the stall wall. When out of the corner of his eye Phoenix saw Rift, who thanks to the bet was also wearing the same cheerleading uniform. He shook his head before leaving the locker room. Phoenix unclutched his fist as he physically felt his heart drop.

"This is why you're the big alpha Phoenix." Laughed the tentacle boy with euphoria. "You demand to be respected and you back it up with brute strength and force, stepping on everyone in your way like the little pebbles they are. Hahahah!"

Quixotic lay on the floor in a daze, as the cackling continued. But he recognized the small exchange between Rift and Phoenix. Because he was the only one who knew Phoenix and Rift's relationship for what it really was.

The whole situation was funny really, if this was any regular Shonen manga they would have all been friends, who maybe started off on the wrong foot by losing a bet together, only for their relationship to grow into something more and triumph in the end through hardship. Instead, this story is a fucking tragedy, and no one got along with each other.

The sun became low in the sky, the orangey-pink hues of evening dipping down into purple nights. Quixotic walked home going through the empty marketplace, the cheerleading skirt he was wearing swayed. He was supposed to go to the homecoming game in this little cheerleading getup, but he decided to bail on that part of the bet. Phoenix and Rift might be mad at him for ditching them, but he didn't care anymore he had enough of being bullied for one day.

His head was buried in his notebook that he wrote down all the cool superpowers he knew of, flipping through it he searched for something in common with all the heroes and him. There had to be a way he could be a hero, even without superpowers. He stopped when he got to Phoenix's page, tears began streaming down his eyes, spilling on the note. Maybe it was foolish, but when he first met Phoenix he thought he had finally had a friend. Someone who was his personal hero.

"Get out of my way or get cut kid!"

Quixotic looked up to see a villain covered from head to toe with scales running towards him. Without thinking Quixotic turned to run, but right as he pivoted away he bumped into a woman holding a stack of papers. The papers scattered everywhere when the two collided.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I...." Quixotic began to apologize before looking down at his empty hands. "My notebook! Where is it?!"

His green eyes scanned for it frantically, but couldn't find it in the stacks of paper scattered all over the street.

"It's gone! But it can't be g...!"

BANG!

Quixotic jumped. Looking over towards the noise, he saw that the short redheaded woman he bumped into was holding a gun.

"Ouch! You bitch! You shot me!" Yelled the villain.

"Well, what do you expect when you go around killing people in broad daylight?" Asked the gunned women.

"Sorry cunt, nothing personal, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Said the villain. "If you and that girly-boy die because you got in my way, well then I guess it's survival of the fittest, now ain't it?"

"Da...die?!" Stammered Quixotic.

"Survival of the fittest huh?" Asked the redhead. "Didn't realize I was in the presents of a Darwinist."

"Darwin who?" Asked the villain before shaking his head. "It doesn't matter who you know, lady, you and the boy saw me so this is where you meet your end!"

The villain shot one of his scales from his back at the boy. In one swift movement, the short women pushed Quixotic down to the ground. The scale stuck in the building behind where Quixotic was standing a moment ago. The redhead then pulled out her gun and began shooting at the villain. Bullets flew off of his hard scales until the 10th bullet knocked him backward. Quixotic just sat there still in shock.

"What, you got a death wish kid?" Asked the redhead scooping up the papers and throwing them in her black satchel bag. "Why are you just standing there?"

"It's just....why do you have a gun?" Asked Quixotic.

"Welcome to Arizona kid, now move it!"

She grabbed Quixotic's arm and pulled him up. He was still stunned as she ran with him hand in hand. But he couldn't help but notice how soft her fair hand was when she grabbed hold of his. Or that the light green bow that sat on top of her dyed red bob was the same color as her nails. He kinda thought she looked like an apple if apples were human.

A scale shot out of the villains back straight for Quixotics head. Before Quixotic could react the women ran into the alleyway with him pushing him down behind a crate in one of the alleyways. She reloaded the gun, cautiously looking over her shoulder.

"Bu..but, I mean is that allowed? Your gun, I mean." Continued Quixotic. "We as civilians shouldn't be fighting the villain. What we're doing is vigilantism, which is illegal. We should get a superhero to fight the villain."

"Well kid, do you see a hero around who can help us?" Asked the women

"Well...n..no...but..."

"Shhh."The women whispered.

The scally villain turned the corner stalking down the alleyway where Quixotic and the gun-slinging civilians was.

"What's your superpower?" Whispered the redhead. "Anything useful? That you can use to maybe get yourself out of here with? Like, super speed or something?"

Quixotic looked down biting his lip. Why is everyone so keen on superpowers? He had almost forgotten how awkward it was to introduce yourself to new people being powerless.

"Well?" Asked the women.

"I...actually..."Quicsotics twisted his skirt in his hands. "....don't have any superpowers."

The women sat there for a bit without saying anything. Quixotic felt that she, like everyone else, was disappointed in him. But why wouldn't she be? He was a useless failure from birth, a broken human.

"I want you, as fast as you can, run down that alleyway to the nearest police station and never look back." Said the woman cocking her gun.

"But, what about...."

"Hey ugly!" Yelled the women standing up. "You suck at hide and seek or something!?" She pointed her gun at the lizard guy. "I mean I was right here the whole time!"

The minute the villain looked towards the women, bullets rattled out of her gun.

"I'll cover you!" She yelled. "Run kid!"

Quixotic stood up, but couldn't get himself to do it. Scales came out of the villains back shooting at the gunned women. The women shot at the villain in retaliation causing the villain to doge and shoot out more scales. It was a brief moment, a mynute mistake on the villains part but Quixotic noticed it instantly. When the villain dodged, he forgot to hide his backside. It wasn't scaley like his front side, instead, it was pink and fleshy.

Quixotic quickly pulled the redheaded woman back by her overall straps. The villain's scale grazed her arm before sticking to the brick alley wall behind her.

"Why didn't you run!?" Yelled the woman. "There is no other way out of here if you don't!"

"I figured something out." Said Quixotic. "The villain this whole time hasn't turned his back to us."

"You're...." The woman put her hand to her chin in thought. "You're right, it's almost as if he's hiding some kind of Achilles heel..."

"My theories are that he can't grow his scales back if he shoots them out, or more likely that it takes a while before he does, leaving him defenseless for a little bit, but not forever. Which would make more sense seeing he has no thought or problems before discarding them."Said Quixotic. "So he guards with a part of his body and attacks with the other. We have to find a way to attack him from behind where there are fewer scales and quickly before they possibly grow back."

"I think you're right, but, it's not like he's going to let us just attack him from behind." She said.

A scale stuck into the crate they were hiding behind, cutting between Quixotic and the women's head.

"Let's not wait any longer." Said the villain. "You're going to die sooner or later. You might as well come out here and let me kill you now."

Quixotic had to think fast, what would someone with more guts than he could ever have do?

"You're going to die first fucker! So take the L loser!"Quixotic yelled with the kind of confidence he thought Phoenix would have had in this situation. "Ahhh!"

He ran out from behind the crate with a trash lid in hand, straight towards the villain. At the same moment, the women ran away disappearing from the alleyway. The villain saw her leave, but could only shoot his scales at the kid who was charging him with a trash lid in his hand. Some of the scales stuck to the lid Quixotic was guarding with, one of them got thew and scraped him across the cheek.

"Fuck you! You fucking fuck fuck!" Yelled Quixotic, still pretending he was Phoenix.

He then threw the trash lid right in the villain's face, hitting him in the eyes. Then turned and ran the other way into the next alleyway.

The scaly villain then shot out more scales from his back at the slender boy in the skimpy cheerleading outfit. The scales were moments away from landing the hit when Quixsotic ducked swerving around the corner of the alley. Quixotic continued running, picking up the pace.

"What's wrong?" Asked the villain. "I thought you said you were going to kill me? Did you lose your gut's, drag queen?"

The villain ran after the teen down the alleyway. When he got the boy in his sights again, he shot out more scales at him but this time Quixotic pushed a dumpster toward the villain and kept running. The dumpster flew back. The villain had to jump over it to keep up with the boy.

Quixotic stopped when he got to the red fence at the end of the alleyway, it was a dead end.

"Aww, it looks like the little bitch left the little drag queen to defend himself." Said the Villain, all his scales puffed up like quills. "But don't you worry I'll finish her off soon enou...."

BANG!

The redheaded woman jumped down from the fire escape behind the villain with her smoking gun in hand. The villain fell to the floor of the alleyway blood leaking out of his pink scaleless patch of skin on his back.

"How... how did you...?" Stammered the villain.

"Survival of the fittest huh?" Asked the woman gritting her teeth. "How's this for the survival of the fittest?"

She clutched the gun in her hand, firing bullets one after the other. The villain tried to crawl away, but the woman kept shooting at him until he stopped moving.

It's been about a week now since the first time he fought that villain with the red-haired lady. Quixotic had given up on getting his notes back, he went to that market over and over again to search for them. But they were just gone. Not that it mattered anyway, it's not like they were useful, it's not like he could ever be a hero, no matter how much he wanted to help people like him. But man did it feel good to help out that woman just this once.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Quixotic jolted as he looked from the TV towards the door.

"What in the...." Quixotic's dad groggily sat up in his recliner. "What are you doing just sitting around for, useless boy? Get the door so whoever that is can stop that fucking knocking." M.r Johnson nudged Quixotic with his foot.

Quixotic got up from the dingy carpet. His black smiley face T-shirt flowing down to the top of the kneecaps of his ripped jeans.

"Oh, and if it's any of thoughts damn child support, or tax lawyers tell them I'm not here!" Yelled M.r Johnson. "I swear If I catch you coming home in drag again I'm going to hide you worse than I did last time." He added.

Quixotic's dark baggy eyes widened when he opened the door and saw the short-haired woman from the other week.

"Hello." She said.

Quixotic stared at her through his shaggy black hair, he had meant to cut it a while back, but just, didn't.

"May I come in?" She asked.

"Close the door, you're letting the air conditioning out!" Yelled M.r Johnson.

The stubbly old man threw the beer bottle at Quixotic. But it missed him by an inch hitting the door frame, the glass shattered next to his head. Alcohol sprayed Quixotic in the face.

"You know what," Quixotic stepped out of the house slamming the door behind himself. " I think I would like to go for a walk."

Quixotic walked with the women, passing all the piles of junk in the junkyard that was his home. That was his life. Quixotic walked by an old lighter that his old man lost when he officially gave up on physical therapy and got drunk. Who was he kidding, even before he completely lost his psychic powers that old man was always drunk. Quixotic thought he could get love and affection from his old man, but when he got to his front steps, he got nothing. Upset with him he kicked the stupid lighter with his torn-up red sneaker.

"Dr. Baleful." Said the woman.

"What?" Asked Quixotic.

"I just realized, I haven't introduced myself." Said the woman. "How rude of me. My name is Dr. Baleful."

Quixotic looked at Dr. Baleful and realized that this was the first time he got to stop and look at her face. He noted that she had small sprays of freckles that danced playfully across her nose like a child, but she had stern dark green eyes that made it seem like she was an adult who had seen too much in her lifetime. In fact, he wondered if she was really an adult and not just a teenager. She introduced herself as a Dr., but she couldn't have been that old... Would it have been rude to ask for her age?

"I found your notes to be very well done." Said Dr. Baleful holding his notebook in her hand. "I hope you don't mind, but when I picked it up by mistake I couldn't help but go over it."

"My notebook!" Yelled Quixotic. "How did you...? Where did you...?"

"I must have picked it up by accident when I was scrambling to pick up my paperwork. I'm a biologist, and even I didn't notice some of the things you jotted down here about some of these quirky powers at first glance. I got to say it's impressive."

"You really think so?" Asked Quixotic blushing.

"In fact, I could use an intern like you in my lab. Someone like you, I bet would be plenty capable."

"But I told you before, right? I don't...I mean, I wanted to be a hero, but I don't have any superpowers. So I can't do anything, even my father..." Quixotic paused in the middle of his sentence, before backtracking. "Even M.r Jhonson says I'm too useless to work around the junkyard..."

Dr. Baleful stopped in front of the store they first met a couple of weeks ago. The wind blowing her short apple-red hair. After a moment she turned around and faced Quixotic, her green eyes meeting his.

"You don't need to have a superpower to be a hero." She stated. "I think people are so used to aving superpowers now, that they have forgotten what humanity used to be."

"Pff, that's easy for you to say." Stated Quixotic. "At least you have something. You know, now that I think about it, I'm not that much different from my mother. She had beautiful big black eyes and gigantic butterfly wings, but her dense human bone structure made it so she couldn't fly. It was like she was stuck in her damned life, weighed down by herself. Until one morning she cut her wrist in the bathtub. I looked into her eyes as she died, and it was like....she was finally free...cut from the tethers that weighed her down in this world, she flew." There was a pause, Quixotic looked down tracing his finger on his tiny pale wrist. "Maybe I should cut my losses, follow in her footsteps."

Quixotic hadn't realized what he said until he said it. He looked up at the women who had obviously heard him. Where had this even come from? This is the first time he ever told anyone how he felt about his mother's death.

"I don't, you know, have any superpowers." Dr. Baleful finally said. "But I would never let that stop me, and you shouldn't either. Others might not see it, but you're plenty capable." Dr. Baleful handed Quixotic her card, along with his notebook. "I won't stop you if that's what you really want, but you do have a future, you can be a hero, even if it's not exactly in the way you wanted. Call me once you've given it thought."Quixotic clutched the card in his hand. He watched Dr. Baleful walk away into the setting sun.

The memory of that day decayed like the school's metal staircase that Tin ran up. Tin continued hiking up the school of yesteryear with Quixotic over his shoulder, only putting him down when he got to a pair of battered up glass double doors.

"You ass!" Yelled Quixotic hitting a kneeling Tin on the head."I told you to stop!"

"I know," Said Tin, continuing to let Quixotic hit him on the head as he stayed bowing. "I don't mean to disobey you, but we have a destiny only you can fulfill. The sky is dark, the city filled with sin, the only pure one left shall bring back peace again."

Quixotic went to hit Tin again when the cowboy grabbed the other man's hand and kissed it.

"You're the only one who can do this, you're not like us monstrosities with the devils power in us, you're human, you're pure." Said Tin. "Please let me protect you."

Quixotic looked over the city from the school rooftop. His eyes landed on the market place he first met Dr. Baleful when he was a teen, where she handed him her card and walked off into the warm sunset. Quixotic now stood above it all in the cold darkness, looking back at the top of Tins swaying long blonde hair that was tied in a ponytail.

"If you are serious about protecting me." Said Quixotic pulling a syringe out of his vest. "Then feel free to use this. Phoenix is an unstoppable monster, it doesn't matter if he is broken in mind, or body, or soul. He won't stop coming for me until one of us ends up dead."

Quixotic tossed the syringe to Tin. The cowboy quirked his eyebrows at it.

"While playing with genetics, I accidentally found a way to heighten the radiation that has infected our DNA." Explained Quixotic. "That's when I finally understood, superpowers weren't a process of superior breeding in our own code. They were a mistake of human folly, completely alien to our own body's blueprint."

The rest of Quixsotic's gang members climbed up the staircase, panting and out of breath.

"Gee Tin, you sure are fast." Said one of the minions. "You could slow down a little bit man."

Quixotic clutched Dr. Baleful's rotten disembodied hand, her green nail paint long chipped off, and replaced by rotten black skin. He glared back at the villains who he up until now had been beneath all these years.

"Oh, and Tin be sure to stop ANYONE who tries to get through."

Quixotic left his most faithful servant with those instructions. He walked through the glass door locking it behind himself.

"Hey! What the hell is he doing?!" Yelled one of the gang members. "He has to let us in so the gas doesn't get us!"

"Ya, how are we supposed to take over the world if we don't have any superpowers?!" Yelled the other minion.

Some of the villains ran up to the door, but before they could get to it Tin blocked the way.

"Let us in or move out of the way Tin!" Yelled another gang member.

Tin-Can-Tim held the syringe in his hand, he glared at his companions. He knew what he had to do. He stabbed his pink sunburnt skin with the syringe. The steroid pumping through his veins.

"If any of you want to get through..." Tin-Can-Tim grew into a huge metal monster, who towered over all the other villains. "...you have to go through me!"

The other villains stood still staring at the gigantic monster.

"Step forward if you dare to deny destiny!" Stated Tin. "We will regain humanity again! These powers we got from the devil will be no more, as Quixotic the pure purifies us all!"

"Did you really just call Alloy's old fuck toy pure?" Scoffed one of the gangsters. "If you really love him that much why don't you go suck his sluty little dick off!"

Not a second later the gangster who spoke out became impaled by Tin's huge metal arm. Tin retracted his metal arm back, the minion's dead body hit the metal landing with a thud.

Meanwhile Quixotic opened the door to his school's media club room. Heading straight for Alloys machine, which he was glad he set up earlier because it would have been a pain to do so now. It was also the perfect place to put it, the room which was set up so high it can reach the radio waves and send out the perfect signal, was now going to be used to spread out a mist that will put an end to this superpower society. Will put an end to the inequality in people's abilities, no longer will the powerful and strong pry on the week.

Quixotic put his old teacher's disembodied hand on the console. He began to implement the code to release the mist. All over the county, starting from Yorha public school.

"For the glory of mankind." Laughed Quixotic.

BANG!

Quixotic moved to the side just in time, a bullet whizzed by his head and hit the machine. (Thankfully not breaking it.) Quixotic turned around to meet face to face with Phoenix. He saw the recognizable machine gun clutched in his hand, the machine gun that was Dr, Baleful's salvation, and her demise.

"Ignited," Quixotic smiled. "Oh, how seeing you makes my heart race. How did you even get past Tin-Can-Tim?"

Phoenix held the machine gun in his hand, panting before he rasped out.

"This ends now."