They sat on the side of the road, watching the other cars inch by.
"You—little Parker—what's your name?" Ben started off by saying.
"Ricky."
"Yeah, I knew it started with an R."
"Dad," Yancy said, annoyed. "It's not that hard to remember their names, is it? There's Ricky, Benjy—like you—and Alexis—"
"I'm never going home!" wailed Spider-Girl. "I'm very emotional! I will live on the streets, fighting crime with my last breath, and then I'll die and you'll all be sorry!"
Yancy watched her impassively.
"You're not going to die," scoffed Ricky.
"You don't know that," his older sister said slyly. As they spoke, the windows began to steam and frost over.
"She's not, right, Mr. Grimm?" Ricky appealed.
"No one is going to die unless I kill them," Ben snarled. "Now, I'm not gonna be able to drive if the backseat is full of Spider-kids squirming everywhere!"
Something crashed into the windshield and exploded in a shower of ice.
"Daddy?" Yancy asked warily.
The ice fragments had cleared a few peepholes across the glass. Two pale blue boots suddenly landed on the hood—whump.
"You kids stay here," Ben said, and opened the car door. Immediately, snow blew through, coating the interior of the car.
Stepping out onto icy ground—in July, no less—Ben looked up at the blue-suited figure standing on the hood of his car.
"Fear me!" roared the figure. "I am your worst nightmare! I now take this car and all its inhabitants as . . . hostages!"
"Who the heck are you?" Ben asked, singularly unimpressed.
From behind frosty goggles, the figure looked down at him. "I am everything you fear. I am the seeping coldness that you close your windows at, the frost on your windows that makes you want to go check your thermostat!"
Yancy peeked cautiously out of her window.
"Yeah, but what's your name?" Ben persisted.
"I," said the supervillain, with a dramatic pause. Energy crackled around his hands and a long icicle dagger began to grow inside his right fist, forcing his fingers to open wider. He held it above his head as it lengthened into a spear. In his other hand, a similar icicle appeared. The pause grew longer, until it reached the climax of its drama and began to decline.
"Yes? You . . . ?" Spider-Girl prompted, leaning out over Yancy's head.
"I!" screamed the supervillain, "Am! FLURRY!"
Yancy fell over laughing. In the back of the van, Ricky was giggling, and underneath her mask Spider-Girl was trying unsuccessfully to suppress snorting noises.
"'Flurry'?" Ben repeated.
"What?" Flurry whined. He flung down his ice spear and stamped his foot on the hood petulantly. "Why does everyone always react like that? It's a perfectly legitimate supervillain name!"
"'Flurry,'" Ben reminded him.
"See? It even sounds like 'Fury!'" Flurry raised his arms and started his ice spear over again. "Now bow to me . . . or you shall fall into the sleep of icy death!"
Half an hour later:
"I don't get why you guys are so uptight over attempted kidnapping," Flurry said, sulking. He was lashed to the statue in the back of the van. "I mean, it's not like I did anything illegal. Although there was that bank vault last week . . ."
"He just keeps digging himself deeper," Yancy said, glancing back, "doesn't he?"
"We're just going to drop you off with the police, okay?" Ben said.
"Nooooooooooooooooo!"
Hopefully in the next chapter I'll actually start writing something about the plot. Until then . . .