The Masked Outcasts by Riley Waverly (free e novels txt) 📕

Chapter 1: Why So Serious? !The Joker!

I'd known from the day I was born--well maybe not that early--that I was meant to save the world. Whether it be from evil snakes, like the ones that wrap around you and make you fart, or from Venom, the greatest villain of all time. Next to the Joker, of course. I knew I was supposed to do something great and I always felt the energy of a hyped up guy on RedBull when I thought of my destiny. Or maybe that was just my gut telling me I had had too much of Mom's stored away vodka and I was about to toss my cookies. 

She really shouldn't bother with hiding things with a superhero in the house. 

Okay, I'll admit, I'm not technically a superhero, yet. I just have to go through some DNA changing experience, like getting bit by a radioactive spider, or falling in a bin of toxic waste, or maybe watching the season finale of The Walking Dead again. That'd change a girl's DNA. 

I walked through the massive apartment my family owned and over to the bayside window. Opening the window, I poked my head through and looked around. There were people bumbling around like little ants down below in the cluttered city of Miami, Florida, hot dog vendors called out prices and offers loudly, people huddled in little crowds, and palm trees stuck up like little dots from the ground. Miami needed saving and I should be the superhero, I mean, why not?

"Elizabeth!" my mother called as she entered the apartment with my annoying step brother, my strict step father, and three bags full of groceries. 

"I told you, Mom, my name is Libby."

"Your given birth name was Elizabeth," she said strictly as she set down the bags on the island, "I should know, I was there." She proceeded to start pulling food items out of the bag and stacking them in the cabinets and on the counter. 

Our apartment was small, but large at the same time. There were two sofas, each one opposing each other and both were made of leather, a small coffee table sat in between them, our kitchen was out in the open, exposing the marble island, cherry wood cabinets, and four oak chairs surrounding a massive oak table.  There were four doors next to the dining table, one for Mom and Step-Monster's room, the other for Step Bother's room, one was my room,--which was the best room in the house, by the way--and the very last one was the bathroom. 

I plopped down on the couch and spread my limbs around everywhere. I knew that the step bother would come and try to poke me like it was Facebook, so I had to make sure he had no room to sit down. 

"Elizabeth, that is not how a proper lady sits, straighten your posture and stop lying on the couch!" Mother snapped, putting a can of beans away in the process. I groaned and sat straight, shooting her a glare as germy--or Jeremy, as his name somehow stated--waltzed over to me and sat next to me, jabbing his finger into my arm, he started to repeat my name over and over again, and in a new fashion, too. 

"Lizzie, Liza, Eli, Beth, Eliza, Elia, Bethie, Beth Bug, Libby--"

"Okay!" I shouted loudly, throwing my hands up and causing the step-monster to drop a can of peas. "What do you want, Germy Wilson?"

"It's Jeremy Wilson to you." he sniffled, holding his head high up in the air. 

I snorted, "Does that mean that your friends get to call you Germy, like the disease you are?"

"Elizabeth," I heard the step-monster boom, "that is not the way you talk to my son and your step brother."

"More like step-bother." I muttered under my breath. The little rat unfortunately heard me and jumped up, pointing his finger in my direction, he jumped up and down. 

"Dad! Dad! Beth Bug is being mean to me! Meanie!" he stuck his tongue out at me, while I flicked a certain finger in his direction. He gasped like he'd just had a heart attack and collapsed on the floor. "Your words hurt, sister dear." He panted and rolled around on the floor like it was a fire; well, my presence was extremely hot. I rolled my eyes at his theatrics and walked over to the island. Mom bought cookies again, ooh, my one weakness. As soon as I reached for one, she slapped my hand away. 

"That's not a meal, Elizabeth."

"I know," I grinned, "I never guaranteed I would eat a meal every night, where do you think your pint of Ben & Jerry's went last week?"

"That was you?" she gasped, seeming shocked about my confession. 

"Why so serious?" I hissed in a Joker voice, I had a dead on impersonation, I swear I was his twin, 'cept you know...good. 

"Now is not time for one of your kiddie antics," Mom rubbed her temples, angry at my lack of maturity. 

"'Kiddie antics'?" I asked loudly, "Excuse me! Batman is the greatest superhero of our time, I'm studying art! This is the classic dream of a true inspiration! Whoever created him surely knew what true talent was!" There was nothing more I hated when people dissed my superheroes. I lived in an alternate universe, it wouldn't kill Mom to appreciate it, because I'm not here annoying her. 

"Superheroes are figments of the imagination, Elizabeth, it's not realistic and it's idiotic, I best suggest you get rid of this little addiction towards fictional beings before college comes."

"College people won't care about whether or not Superman can kick Batman's butt, which he can't, but it's not like they'll pay attention to me anyway. No one in high school ever does. So why should you care about whether or not I put on Flash pajamas and watch reruns of the old Hulk movies? 'Cause you're not me." I put my hands on my hips. 

"I never wished to be." she hissed. Ouch. That hurt. Shaking off my stunning amount of pain towards this comment and the step monster's laughter at my abashed expression, I sulked off to my room and grabbed a DVD case. Opening the DVD, I shoved the CD in the video slot where the movies went. Plopping down on my futon, I cuddled up with my blanket and grabbed the stash of potato chips that I kept in my night stand drawer, which was massive. 

It was time to go with my best method of coping, which was watching Batman and pigging out on junk food. 

Ah, Bruce Wayne was a really good guy. 

He didn't hurt my heart like my mother did, either. 

I had seen a lot of villains in my day. Venom, the Joker, the Penguin, Syndrome, Bane, and Loki, but there was no villain greater than the one I faced now.

She had long curly blonde hair that fell freely down her shoulders in golden waves, a glimmering smile that hid her obvious evil, and bright green eyes that reminded me of poison ivy, the plant, not the villain. She was in a cheerleading uniform because like in every cliché high school hell hole, the villains were always part of some clique that was above the storyteller, her stunning red heels looked like they could kill someone, or she looked like the fraternal twin of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Only bad. Really, really, really bad, like evil and disgusting and vile.

She was currently applying lipstick while walking slowly, a hazardous event that could get her reputation killed, but she managed it easily. She was gossiping like an old woman, running her free hand’s fingers through her locks. What she was talking about wouldn’t be hard to guess.

The cliché new bad boy had arrived and she was buying everything that he was selling.

Despite his obvious issues.

Some people called this girl the saint of Notre Dame, the perfect essence of beauty and sincerity.

I called her a few names that I should not be proud to say are in my vocabulary.

She’s perfect from her head to her toes.

Meanwhile, I’m starting to lose sight of my toes.

Her name was Lucy Hemmings and I’m sure she knew that I, Libby Trucco, could never compare to the beautiful stature that she held up. Lucy was the kind of girl that liked to flaunt her obvious popularity in the faces of those who didn’t even know what a Tumblr was. Like me. I was still trying to scroll to the end of it, that was my only reason for making an account, just to reach the end of the social network, but I was not having any luck in that area.

I could see why she picked on me, really, I could. I might’ve packed just a little too heavily on not only Mom’s delicious vodka, but the Chips Ahoy cookies that she left lying around on the island last night. I had the hair color equivalent to dishwasher water that went to my shoulders, an repulsive shade of dirty blonde, wide, almost too wide, brown eyes, too-full lips (even though Mom insisted your lips can never be too full), and my fashion choice was that of a prepubescent boy.

I almost wanted to zip up my jacket over my HULK SMASH! shirt as she glanced over at me.

Lucy’s lips automatically curled into disgust and she started to walk over in my direction, surely getting ready to tease me once again. Thankfully, I was prepared this time with a stack full of books and an oddly, newfound incentive to get to class early.

“Look at what the cat dragged in,” she drawled in her apparent southern accent. Lucy’s family had moved up from the south about two years ago and she still hadn’t lost that stupid, sweet ‘southern belle’ accent that I loathed so much. I mean, if I was gonna save the world one day, I wanted to have an accent, too.

“Yeah,” her goony, Ruby, sniggered, “and the cat didn’t waste no time sinking the ugly claws into you, now did they?” Ruby was just the girl that went along with everything, I swear the chick was brainwashed. Her name did not suit her previously black hair, so she dyed it red, obviously the chemicals in the dye seeped into her brain and poisoned her thinking process because before Lucy moved to this blasted place, I actually had her as my only friend. Ruby and I used to be best friends, she’d comb through my hair and say I looked just like Aurora the princess. I told her I was more of a reading comics kind of girl than a princesses and faeries type of gal.

Anyway, her red hair and her brown eyes coupled with the fact that she had a flawless complexion added up very well in her favor, so once she had ditched the crazed superhero crack female dog, in her exact words, she was set. She had done more dirty things in these past two years than my mother had actually asked me about my superheroes. Let’s face it, after three times, she