Rule #13: Actually fight your nemesis (and try to win, it's kind of important).

It had been several days since my fight with Ike and things hadn't improved. He and I hadn't spoken and I had basically become a hermit. I didn't leave my room except to go to the bathroom and to go to the kitchen for food and I had been pretending to be sick so I didn't have to go to school and see Ike. Or Lena. What was I supposed to do about Lena?

I had informed Rachel of everything that had happened, and in turn she had told Dan, but we hadn't actually decided anything yet. Or maybe they had and they just didn't tell me. My hermit-ness had made me avoid training as much as I had been avoiding school so I wouldn't put it past them.

I just had no reason to go to either place. Even if Ike and Lena magically disappeared, that didn't mean that my troubles were over. I had realized, far too late, that I spent so much time mocking and making fun of people that other than Ike I had no other close friends. So if I went to school I'd just be that weird kid sitting by himself. That wasn't exactly ideal. And training... training seemed worthless. I wasn't sure if I was any match for Lena and facing Dan and Rachel seemed impossible. I'd much rather be in my room so that's where I was staying.

It took about a week of this beautiful little system (my mom was getting afraid that I had mono or something) for Rachel to get really annoyed. She had seen my fight with Ike, the girl always knew the best ways to spy on people, so she had cut me some slack but the slack had run out. She didn't care if I went to school but I couldn't ditch training anymore.

"Rachel, wouldn't you rather I stayed here?" I asked. "That way I leave you alone."

"To be honest, I don't care if you go to school. I don't care what you do at all, actually." She put a hand on her hip. "But for some reason the universe decided to give you powers and that's actually made you important to this city and I can't let you give up."

"I'm not giving up."

"Says the boy who only leaves the room to pee."

"I go to the kitchen too..."

"At some point in the near future, you're going to have to fight Lena," she said. "And if you don't want to die, which might lead to the end of the city if not the world, you have to train. There's no getting around that."

"But I just wanna stay in bed..."

"Jesus, it's like I'm the only mature one around here."

"Gee thanks."

"You just said 'I just wanna stay in bed,' you disqualified yourself."

"Fine," I said.

"Now come on, you need to train. Shit's going down and you need to be able to help."

"What shit is going down?"
"Dan will brief you. Now up."

"But if Mom sees me leave then she'll know I'm not sick."

"I'll sneak you out. You can stay home sick a few more days but you have to promise to train in the meantime."

"Okay."

"Good," she said, tossing me a t-shirt. "Now up."

I had to hand it to her, Rachel knew how to sneak someone out of a house (should that fact worry me? Nah, I'm not her father). As soon as I was dressed and (somewhat) presentable, she had me out of the house and into the car in two minutes flat. It seriously took longer for us to get into Dan's lair, where we were expected, than it took for us to sneak out of our own house with our parents home. It was impressive.

When we got there, I expected Dan to be all business and training ready. You know, cause I had missed a few days and we knew who Sinister Shadow was and everything. But of course he wasn't anything like that. Instead he was pacing the room alternating between giggling like a little girl and anxiously muttering to himself. It was like he was auditioning to be the Grinch or something.

"Dan?" Rachel said, looking as weirded out as I was.

"Dude," I said. "What's going on?"

He ignored us both.

Shrugging, I walked away from Rachel and got myself a soda from Dan's fridge before making myself comfortable on his couch. If Rachel could convince me to show up she could figure out what the hell was going on with Dan. I was just here to train, no more no less.

"Dan?" she said again, this time walking up to lightly touch his arm. This gesture took Dan completely by surprise and he actually jumped in the air like he had been shocked or something.

"Yes?" He hesitated a moment. "Wait, what are the two of you doing here? I thought you were sick," he said, pointing at me. I looked to Rachel.

"He wasn't sick, he was pretending to be sick to get out of school."

"And training," I said.

"Wait, you weren't really sick?" he asked.

"Did you tell him I was really sick so you didn't have to tell him that I was avoiding training?"

"Maybe," Rachel said.

"Wait, you lied to me?"

"Yes."

"The web of lies just gets thicker and thicker," I said, gulping down my soda.

"I wouldn't have lied if you weren't being such an asshole," Rachel said.

"My bad."

"But isn't he always sort of an asshole?" Dan asked.

"See? Dan understands me."

"Oh shut up." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You two need to train."

"Training?" Dan asked. She gave him a look. "Oh, yes! Training! How could I forget?"
"What's up with you, dude?" I asked. "You're extra space-y today."

He blushed. "I just had a good day of work."

"How good of a day?"

"What are you insinuating to him?" Rachel asked.

"I'm just trying to tell if he's 'I won a case' happy or 'a paralegal gave me a blowjob today' happy."

"Matt!"

"Please, he's a grown man! He can do what he wants."

Dan was even more flustered now. "That's, uh, not what's going on."

"I'm so sorry about my brother, Dan. What really happened?"

"I asked out Kelly Barnes."

"That's fantastic! See, Matt?"

"I was close."

"Shut up. Dan, that's so great."

"Yeah, Dan," I said. "It is great."

"Thanks guys." He blushed again. "I can't believe I finally got up the courage to ask her."

"Neither can we."

"Matt!"

"It's true!"

"Don't worry, Rachel," Dan said. "I don't mind. I'm just so happy right now. Anxious, but happy."

"Why are you anxious?" Rachel asked.

"Because of Golden Fire," I said. "I can see it all over his face, he likes Kelly but he likes Golden Fire too."

Rachel shot me a look. We both knew that Golden Fire and Kelly Barnes were literally one in the same but we had decided to let Dan figure it out himself. She obviously thought that I was able to tell him something I shouldn't. Believe me, I wouldn't do that. But there was no shame in helping the guy figure it out, was there?

"Matt's right," Dan said sadly. "I mean, nothing's happened with either woman but I just feel so weird about it, you know? I feel like I'm doing something wrong."

"Don't worry, Dan, you're doing nothing wrong."

"That's right, dude, there's no shame in it," I retorted. Dan didn't seem to hear me but Rachel shot me another look. She sure was in a bad mood today.

"Here, Dan, why don't you sit down," Rachel said, leading him to the couch. "Let's not talk about this anymore, it's just making you stressed. Why don't you fill Matt in on what's been going on with Sinister Shadow since the Faye thing."

Dan sighed. "Yes, that's probably a good idea."

His tone turning serious, I straightened up and half expected him to tell me that she had killed everyone in City Hall or something. But instead he, in true Dan manner, said something that was so boring in an unnecessarily dramatic way.

"Basically, since your little encounter with Sinister Shadow-" he said.

"You mean Lena," I said.

"Yes, Lena. Anyway, since your encounter with her she's been spotted a few times around the city. The damage hasn't been too bad, no one's been killed or anything, but she has been scaring the mayor and the city council and plenty of the citizens who have seen her. Kelly-" His face looked pained at saying her name. "Kelly said that people are in a panic about where she'll show up next."

"Why do the heroes think she's doing this? Does she have some kind of bigger plan?"

"It doesn't seem like it, at least not yet. Right now it just looks like she's messing with the heroes and the city for the fun of it. Like she's warming up for a bigger event or something."

"That would make sense," I said. "Lena was always methodical."

Rachel nodded.

"So is that it?" I asked. "There's nothing else to report?"

Dan shook his head. "Nope, that's all we know right now. We're hoping to know more before she strikes again. The council's in the middle of doing a full on investigation into her history. Usually they're pretty good at predicting which kids are going into the villain school but they had no clue about her."

"That makes sense," Rachel said. "She's obviously very powerful, the villains must have let information leak about less powerful students to keep us from hearing about her."
"Once again the villains are smarter than the heroes," I said. "What a fresh change."

"The whole thing is up in the air right now. All we can do is wait."

I stood up. "Well if we're just waiting then I'm going to head back home. I have a date with my bed."

"Oh no you're not," Rachel said, blocking my path. "I brought you here to train."

"Oh come on, Rachel. Dan just said that all we can do is wait."

"Wait and train."

"But I'm tired and I don't want to train today. One more day won't kill anyone. Dan's too caught up in his own issues to train today anyway."

"He's right," Dan said sadly. "I can't handle training today."

"This is ridiculous!" Rachel said. "You just told us that some super powerful villain is roaming about the city and you're too tired to train? No wonder the villains always have the upper hand, you two are pathetic."

Dan and I just stood there in silence, feeling ashamed but not ashamed enough to actually change our minds. Then, after she had collected herself, Rachel got an idea.

"I know what will make you guys want to train. Or at least what will make Matt want to train."

"I doubt that," I muttered, as she motioned to us and led us out of the lair and back into the old building it resided in.

"Just come on," she said, leading us out of the building into another one. "It's not finished yet but I think you'll like it."

She led us through the other building, this one even older the one Dan's lair was in, and down some concrete steps to a steel door. She pressed the center of the door with one finger and a panel opened to reveal a hand scanner. She scanned her hand and the door opened. Dan and I just stood there in shock while Rachel walked down yet another set of stairs, yelling at us to follow her.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves in a lair. It wasn't that different from Dan's, it had just about the same things, but it just looked cooler. Everything was new, for one thing, plus it had a bunch of snack machines and stuff like that. In short, it was heaven.

"What the-" I said.

"Matt Miller, welcome to your brand new lair."

"What?"

"Well you couldn't use Dan's lair forever! We had to get you your own."

"But how did this even happen? How did you design it? How did you pay for it?"

"I know people."

"But-"

"Let's just leave it at that, okay? I know people."

"Okay."

I wandered the main room of the lair like a little kid in a candy store.

"I take it you like it?" Dan asked, now recovered from his own shock.

"I love it."

"Good," Rachel said. "So now that you have your own space are you ready to get training?"

I turned to them. "Yeah, let's start training."