Excerpt: Jamie Fox

Here are two random excerpts. In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, they have not been edited, so they are probably really crappy. :) Enjoy anyway.

“This…this superhero stuff,” it pained me to say the word. I felt like I was labeling myself a character in some science fiction novel. “I mean, how could I possibly think that I could do this at all? Looking back at what I’ve been doing in my nighttime adventures…I’ve noticed a nasty trend where I either nearly get killed by somebody or nearly caught by the police or some criminal creeps.”

“You just need practice, that’s all. I mean Spidey used to suck at what he did but-”

“Please, please, please don’t compare me to Spiderman.”

“Can’t help it,” Matt said with a large goofy smile. The smile left, and he tried being serious this time. This time it wasn’t me as the one goofing off. “What else would you do with your powers? Become an electrician?”

“A darn good one,” I giggled. “You know, I’ve wondered the same thing. But I still don’t feel qualified for this heroing thing.”

“With great power,” Matt started.

“Don’t say it!” I laughed again. “You never know when those Marvel folks are listening for copyright infringement!”

We took a minute to calm down. Then I said, “Do you really think I’m up to this? Answer truthfully. You can’t hurt my feelings by telling me the truth here.”

Matt looked me in the eyes. “I believe in you,” he said, and the worst part was I could tell he meant it.

***

Here's the other random excerpt:

The head guy knew where to look when the alarm blared painfully in all of our eardrums. I was pretty sure at this point that this jewelry store heist was an inside job. He was most likely an employee. A disgruntled one. Then again, nobody’s ever heard of a gruntled employee.

This was not the time to think or even care what this guy’s back story was. Three pairs of eyes were trained on me, and none looked too pleased.

The head guy who looked A-Student material shouted something at me, probably forgetting that the alarm would make any talk useless unless it was off again. Giving up on the verbal banter, though I already knew the gist of what he’d been shouting at me, he took a few aggressive steps closer. I immediately backed towards the door, but was met with resistance. I looked up, and saw the third guy had gotten behind me and was blocked the mashed entrance where the door had been. Dead end.

The guy blocking the exit grabbed onto my upper arms, holding me there. I could wiggle out of his grasp and I couldn’t slip away. Then I saw the real reason he was holding me still. The lead guy, the one I’d internally remarked about how nice he looked and so not thuggish, was stalking towards me for intentions I had no clue towards. I had the vaguest notion that the least he wanted to do was beat me up. I raised my hands in self defense. I wanted to get out of there; away from the agonizing bell ringing, away from this awful store, and most away from this guy stalking towards me.

An explosion of light and energy erupted away from my hands like ball lightning and flew straight at the leader. He was pushed back against the back wall of the store, knocking into his other accomplice along the way. They crumpled to the ground. Meanwhile, that sudden and unexpected burst had thrown me off balance too, and as I flew back my captor came with me. I landed heavily on top of him out on the sidewalk, and scrambled back to my feet as fast as possible.

My captor, now victimless, got clumsily to his feet too, looking around for the source of the explosion that had taken us all, including me, out. His eyes landed on me.

I did what I’d never done before, and let him in on a little secret. I held my fists out by my sides, electricity crackling around them again. I leveled my gaze, locked my eyes on his, and said as evenly as I could, “You do not want to mess with me.” It worked. He backed off. I resisted pumping my fist in victory.