Sarah POV
"Are you kidding, coach?" Lash protested. "She's a sidekick! And we just would have defeated
the king of snakes! What could a sidekick do against the reigning champions?"
"Then you have no reason to be worried. Unless you think my sister has a chance of beating
you?" Zach called out.
Lash glared at the boy, clearly marking him as a target.
The coach decided it was time to take control of the situation. "K, fighter chick, who do you pick
as your partner?"
This caused a few gasps. Usually the villains got to pick who to challenge. But what Sarah said
next, she knew, would cause an even bigger reaction.
"Ethan."
As she saw, more gasps. The coach looked worried now, but that was nothing compared to
Ethan, who was practically trembling with anxiety. Ethan slowly picked his way down the
bleachers, entering through the door and coming to a stop next to Sarah. He looked at her and
she could see the mixture of confusion and wonder in his eyes. "Why?"
She knew he was smart. He clearly knew she had a reason. She lowered her voice, "Because
they are ineffective against your power. Speed can't knock you around as slime, in fact, he'll
need to be cautious of slippery floors. And Lash can't stretch into any shape, just extending
limbs and his torso. Meaning he can't grab all your slime and you can slip through the cracks in
his grip, just like water. You just need to slime your way up to the platform, and transform while
jumping, grabbing the girl. The rope is weak, try thinking of your body's slime becoming more
acidic. I don't know if it will melt the rope, but, even if it doesn't, the weight of your human body
will bring the dummy to the other side. Just don't transform in midair, there won't have been
enough power in your leap as a slime. While you're basically carrying the team, I'll distract them
before they can get creative enough to stop you or realize you need to be human to grab the
dummy."
Ethan was nodding along, his face slowly stretching into a smirk as his figure straightened with
confidence. "Plus. Assuming I'm acidic, that greatly expands the range of my abilities." He
nodded before speaking the agreement I knew was coming from five minutes previously.
I knew he would gain confidence from this fight. Just then, my five minutes of vision reached the
end of the future battle. I felt my face stretch into a victorious smirk. Only Ethan saw it, his own
smirk widening at my assumed confidence. He still didn't know my power allowed me to see it
would work, but he was drawing confidence from mine.
"Ready?" I asked, knowing the answer.
"I'll show them a sidekick."
The coach seemed to sense the end of the strategy session. He was also in the unique position
of being able to see my expression over the top of Ethan's head, being perched on a very high
lifeguard's chair to referee.
"Heroes!" he boomed. "You ready to see what a couple of sidekicks can do?"
Sarah knew the comment was meant for more than the two players. She turned and nodded in
thanks.
"Bring it," Sarah said calmly.
Warren's POV
The fight seemed to be over in seconds. In almost no time at all, the two sorry excuses for
bullies realized that their powers were useless against slime. And! Turns out that the nerd can
be acidic. Melting through the rope. Warren doubted many others caught that fact, but he was
used to checking for signs of heat damage. He often had to tone down my temperature when I
was emotional, meaning he needed to be certain he wasn't damaging anything. Fire was great
for destroying, but it didn't fix the plastic tupperware his mother packed. Metal was just a bad
idea. Melting that would have been horrible. While plastic smelled bad, at least it tended to
disappear when melting as quickly as he melted it, not becoming dangerous in itself.
The chick had a plan. There was no way she'd choose another sidekick unless she was either
extremely confident she needed nobody or she had an idea.
As the nerd went past all the villains' defenses, Sarah brought on the storm. She effortlessly
dodged any of Lash's attempts to trap her, and, as he got frustrated, his attempts to hit her.
Speed was also trying, unsuccessfully, to knock her over with the force from his speed, but she
always seemed one step ahead of them, dodging attacks flawlessly and perfectly positioning
herself at the last minute in clearly choreographed movements to avoid his charges. How she
was planning her movements in advance, Warren didn't know, but she was clearly carefully
planning her movements.
He was intrigued. And impressed. Usually, thinking out actions in advance led to slow reactions.
But her reactions weren't even faster than a non-super athlete. She was just seemingly able to
anticipate their actions.
Wren was lucky. If Warren didn't know how the mate thing worked, he might make his own bid.
Sure, she, being human, would be able to resist, but mates were literally made by the fates for
each other, being able to perfectly balance and support the other. There was no way that he'd
take it away from his brother, or anyone else.