Chapter Thirteen: Who’s the toughest villain?
Jimmy was starting to get tired of being bossed around. Who does Naomi think she is? He was the leader of the villains! She had joined his gang, not the other way around. But now she was making all the decisions. She was smart, but he knew he was smarter. And stronger. She was yelling at him right now, but he wasn’t listening. Instead he was thinking about how he was better than her.
Cocking his head to the side, he heard her say, “Where is Nikki?! She doesn’t even care that we smashed up Cragglyville! Here’s what we’re gonna do next: Jimmy, you’re gonna attack Town Hall, while Peter and I go after the rest of the town…”
“No!” Jimmy snapped.
Naomi’s head jerked to look at him. Her eyes were black and piercing. “What?” she said, staring at him, a scowl forming on her face. She lifted her hands to her hips. For a second Jimmy was scared of her. But then he remembered that he was the boss.
“No,” he said again. “You had your chance to come up with the plan, and it didn’t work. I’m the leader of this gang and I will decide what we do.”
Naomi laughed, but she didn’t sound happy, like he had just made a funny joke—more like she was laughing at him. He didn’t like being laughed at. He frowned.
Naomi said, “You think you’re the boss?”
“I don’t think—I know,” Jimmy said. “I am the boss.”
“No way,” Naomi said. “I’m smarter and tougher than both you and Peter put together.”
Now it was Jimmy’s turn to laugh. This girl was crazy! Between clenched teeth, Jimmy said, “Either you listen to what I say, or you can fight Nikki Powergloves by yourself.”
Naomi grinned. Her face was all clenched and angry, but she was still somehow grinning. “I guess you would be too scared to challenge me then?”
Jimmy didn’t understand what she meant. “What do you mean challenge?” he said.
“If you are really the toughest and the smartest, then I think you should be our leader. But I don’t think you are, so I want to challenge you.”
Jimmy thought about it for a minute. It sounded fair. “Okay,” he said. “I accept the challenge.”
“What about me?” Peter asked.
They both looked at him. Jimmy shrugged. Naomi said, “You can compete, too. Whoever wins is the leader.”
“What are the rules?” Jimmy asked.
Naomi was grinning again. “There are no rules.”
First, Jimmy teleported them to an out of the way place. A field nearby Cragglyville. Not farmland. It was just empty land, not owned by anyone. The three villains walked for a few minutes. Naomi scanned the countryside. Couldn’t see any people. A few birds, maybe, but no people. She said, “Choose your weapons!”
Simultaneously, each villain reached into their pocket and extracted their powerchest. Jimmy was the first to get his open. Peter was second, Naomi was third. I’m winning already, Jimmy thought.
Jimmy thought about it carefully before choosing his powerboots. He selected one white boot with a picture of five identical stick figures on it. The second boot he chose was black, with a picture of the ground with a big crack in it. He called the ability that the black one gave him a powerstomp. He had never used the white one in action before, but was really looking forward to trying it out on Naomi.
Happy with his selections, Jimmy closed the chest and watched it shrink down to bite size. After stuffing it back in his pocket, he shook off his shoes and stuck his feet into the boots, first the black and then the white. He glanced over at Peter, who was wearing a bright red hat with a picture of bull horns on it. Jimmy could guess what power Peter got from that hat. Naomi was wearing a blue skirt with a drawing of three other skirts on it. Jimmy had no idea what power it gave her.
As he gazed at her blue skirt wondering whether it made her fly or run fast or do any of the amazing things that Nikki could do, the skirt color suddenly changed rapidly, from pink to purple to gray to orange and then back to blue. Weird, Jimmy thought. He tried to figure out what it meant, but couldn’t figure it out.
With all the villains ready, Naomi said, “Ready, fight!” and the battle began.
Jimmy’s first move was to use his white boot, the one with picture of five identical stick figures on it. He thought hard about what it would be like to have a twin brother, and then a third. A fourth…a fifth. When he looked around, he saw himself. Actually, he saw four of himself. His cloning boot had worked! Now there were five of him and only two opponents, Peter and Naomi. He liked his chances.
While he had been cloning himself, Peter had magically transformed into a raging, snarling bull. He stamped a massive hoof in the dirt, kicking up dust. Then he charged one of Jimmy’s clones, who wasn’t ready for the attack. The Jimmy was hit by the sharp horns and bucked high into the air, before crashing to the ground. He faded and then disappeared altogether.
Only four Jimmy’s left.
Naomi’s skirt had changed color again, this time to orange. There was a picture of a closed eye on it. Suddenly, she blinked sharply at one of Jimmy’s clones and a blast of orange light shot from her eye. A laser! When she was wearing her orange skirt, she could blink lasers! Jimmy still had no idea how she changed the color of her skirt so quickly.
Anyway, she kept blinking out lasers at the Jimmy clone. Soon, the clone was singed black from the heat. He fell to the ground and then, like the first clone, fizzled and vanished.
Three Jimmy’s left.
Jimmy was starting to worry. He was losing very quickly. Finally, he remembered his black boots. Each of the three remaining Jimmy’s was wearing a black boot. At the same time, Jimmy and his two remaining clones raised a foot and smashed it to the earth. The ground shook and rumbled, like there was an earthquake. Three cracks formed and tore through the earth, heading straight for Peter the bull, who was charging at Jimmy again. It was too late for him to stop. One of his massive hooves landed where a crack had formed. The leg buckled and Peter fell, landing hard in the crack. Because he was so big, he got stuck in the chasm, pinned between the two sides. His head bucked and his legs kicked violently, but he couldn’t get out. Jimmy had defeated Peter!
Jimmy whirled around to find Naomi. He spotted her standing away from him; she was now wearing a pink skirt with a gymnast on it. Jimmy was about to use his powerstomp again, but Naomi was faster. She leapt into action, flipping and doing handsprings, moving fast and acrobatically toward one of his clones. With a final spinning flip, she tackled the third clone, knocking him to the ground. He rolled a few feet and then slipped into one of the chasms that Jimmy had created with the powerstomp.
Only two Jimmy’s left!
Frantically, the last two Jimmy’s performed another synchronized powerstomp, aiming for Naomi’s legs. Two huge cracks formed and ripped toward Naomi, but she was easily able to spring out of the way using her gymnastics skills. After doing a cartwheel, she landed on her feet and her skirt changed color once more, this time to green, with a picture of a weird-looking monster on it.
Jimmy stopped breathing as Naomi started to grow. Her legs got bigger, her arms got stronger. Then she turned green and her face turned into that of an ogre, covered in warts and patches of black hair. Her eyes bugged out and her mouth got wide and full of crooked teeth. “I’m gonna get you, Jimmy!” the Naomi-ogre bellowed.
She ran toward him and his clone, and he should have run, but his feet seemed to be glued to the ground. He couldn’t seem to make them move. Jimmy felt his body being lifted off the ground as the ogre grabbed him and his clone around their waists using its massive, wart-covered hands. He felt himself being shaken and heard Naomi laugh deeply. “Har har har!” she roared. Jimmy didn’t know what to do. There was nothing he could do. With a final grunt, Naomi smashed Jimmy into his clone and he felt himself falling to the ground. Lying on the ground, Jimmy could see his final clone next to him. The clone smiled at him as if to say, “It was a good fight, Jimmy, but we lost,” and then he faded away
, gone back to whatever magical place Jimmy had summoned him from.
Jimmy heard laughter, not deep and throaty like from the Naomi-ogre, but shrill and triumphant. He turned his head and saw Naomi standing over him, smiling. She said, “Who’s the toughest villain, Jimmy?”
Jimmy knew he had been beaten, knew that Naomi was the toughest villain. The way she switched powers rapidly was amazing. She would be their leader, and he would accept that. With experience, one day Jimmy might be able to become the leader again, but for now, Naomi would lead.
“You are the toughest villain, Naomi. You are our leader,” he said.