SCHOOL’S OUT

By Desmond Reddick

Robotman kept his eyes closed and had faith in Rita’s throwing arm as he whistled through the sky at incredible speed. It was the only effective way to sneak up on a place as well secured as Madame Rouge’s School for Girls: to be launched like a cannonball from the hand of your giant friend. Cliff chuckled as he felt a change in the pull of gravity.

He was no longer on his way up. To prepare for his descent, he shifted his weight and angled his body so he would land on his feet. It allowed him to open his eyes without fear of the resistance hurting his eyes.

On the way down, Robotman watched as a throng of men rushed out of the massive stone-built prep school onto the grass hockey field below.

Their loss if they get in my way, Robotman thought as he spread his limbs wide, making his body as big as possible for landing.

His mass worked beautifully with gravity as the ground rushed toward him.

THOOM!

A shower of dirt sod rained down upon Robotman’s would-be attackers. Unaffected, the men – all identical in appearance – pounded Cliff thunderously about the body and head.

“Robots, huh?” Cliff said. “Now I know I don’t have to hold back!”

His great arms swept left and right wildly, knocking the handsome automatons out of his way. They pressed their attack, but for how strong they were, Robotman found that their limbs crunched and tore rather easily in his massive hands.

It appeared to Cliff that the brunt of money Madame Rouge must have put into the creation of her menservants went into their looks rather than raw power. No such luck for ugly old Cliff Steele!

“You pretty-boys’re probably all anatomically correct, aren’t ya?!” Cliff shouted as he continued to tear through the robots piling into the crater his landing created in the field. “I might have to talk to your tech guy about that one!”

“Save some for us, Robotman!”

Negative Man’s soul self hummed through the air carrying Mento, as the fifty foot Elasti-Girl strode quickly behind them, shaking the ground with each step.

The Doom Patrol leapt into action. Elasti-Girl stomped on robots and swatted them away from the crater where Robotman stood his ground.

Negative Man dropped Mento near a small group of girls surrounding their target and set about attacking Madame Rouge.

As fast as he was, he had difficulty connecting with the sly villainess as she twisted and stretched her pliable body away from his charging attacks. When he did strike her, it achieved little. Her strange rubber-like body was insulated against most of the effects of his negative energy. Luckily Negative Man was really only trying to keep her occupied.

Mento stood outside the circle of three young women surrounding the girl they came for: Cheryl Tate. The poor thing was curled into the fetal position. Her face looked as though she had been crying, eyes puffy, and cheeks red. But her visage showed no connection to the physical world at this point.

Her hollow eyes stared at nothing while her bottom lip slightly quivered.

Really doing a number on her, Mento thought loud enough for his team-mates to ‘hear’ him, I’m going to need a minute without my helmet.

Take your time, darling, Rita said while kicking her foot into a triad of damaged robot in kitchen uniforms.

One didn’t need to be a telepath to ‘hear’ the worry in Rita’s psychic voice. The whole team worried about Steve’s state of mind. This mission without the power-amplifying, but sanity-deteriorating, helmet was a test they were not sure he could pass.

No one predicted a psychic battle for this mission.

Mento cut the psychic connection between him and his team-mates to conserve and focus psychic energy, and to make sure he didn’t broadcast any self-doubt.

The group of girls was clearly pretty powerful, but they were raw and, as a result, undisciplined.

Mento only needed an in.

He wasn’t very proud of what he was about to do – they were only children – but Steve had a pretty in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of insecure women. It was something he believed he could exploit. It would be difficult. Their psychic attacks were bringing about psychokinetic effects on the real world, as the air around them whipped into a furor, tossing their hair about their faces.

Exhaling through his nose and narrowing vision to pinpricks on the back of the petite brunette’s neck before closing his eyes, his very psychic essence was drawn into their telepathic torrent –

slutdykewhorekillyourselfuselessuglytrashshittyhaircutlesbofatskidzitsvirginforevernoonewantsyou –

Steve focused on being only a passing psychic leaf in a raging female teenage psychic river. He was pretty sure that he would lose if he attacked, so he waited for a name. There it was!

It was a lock! Without taking time to celebrate, he focused back in on the cadence of their attack and assumed a duplicate of Mercedes, the brunette’s, psychic voice –

stupidbitchtrailerparktrashMadison’sgotafatassdad’sprobablyherboyfriendbecausemom’sevenfatter –

“What?!”

The wind stopped and the three girls’ hair fell out of the air and sat flat against their faces the moment the blonde let go of the others’ hands.

“What?” Marissa, the redhead, asked.

“You know what! That bitch said I had a fat ass!” The blonde, Madison thrust her finger forward at Mercedes.

Seconds ago, Mento could have sworn the three were identical triplets with different hair colors. Now, they looked distinctly different. The brunette was clearly Hispanic and the redhead covered in freckles.

Probably more powerful than I thought, Mento said as he stepped up beside the girls and said: “Sleep.”

With that, the three highly powerful psychics slowly collapsed onto the grass in a peaceful broken circle around Cheryl.

Mento stepped over the girls and lifted Cheryl into his arms, trying to not expose her anymore than her body already was. Poor thing was given a school uniform two sizes too small.

With her cradled in his arms, he blinked, re-establishing the psychic connection with the team.

I’ve got her!

On ‘hearing’ that, Robotman climbed out of the crater he was in with one hand while batting away oncoming robots with the other. He looked Madame Rouge stretched her body into a rope binding the now shrinking body of Elasti-Girl. She was still almost twenty feet tall, but losing mass quickly.

He saw behind her that Mento was stumbling forward with the girl in his arms, barely able to stand upright. Negative Man must have exhausted his time as his soul self and retreated to safety in his body.

“Rouge!”

The voice barked over the struggle.

“Let her go! You lost today. We’re taking the girl, and that’s all we came for, so don’t make me take your school apart brick by brick for fun.”

“She is a student of mine.”

“Well, we’re cancelling her registration effective immediately!”

“Besides,” Steve said, “you should probably go take care of those three.” He threw his head over his shoulder in the direction of The Clique. “They’re going to wake up with nasty headaches and they’re probably not going to be too happy with each other.”

Everyone was silent. The robots had stopped, waiting to see what their headmistress would do. After a beat, Rouge slithered off of Elasti-Girl’s body and reconstituted into normal shape on the ground.

“Get off my property before I reconsider.”

Knowing when a fight’s been won, Robotman nodded, dropped the severed robot arm he’d been using as a club and waved the rest of the Doom Patrol to follow him.

Mento, having gathered most of his wits and pushed the dizziness out of his head, carried Cheryl at the back. Rita shrunk to regular size and smiled in empathy at the girl in Steve’s arms.

“You did great today,” he said as she gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Thanks.”

“You’d make a great dad too, you know?” she asked rhetorically while looking at the slumbering girl in his arms.

“After what I’ve seen today, I’m never having children for fear of it being a girl. Yikes!”

The team laughed as they walked toward Negative Man in the van parked half a mile away in the parking lot. When the conversation died down, Cheryl opened her eyes and looked at the handsome doctor who sedated her earlier. Only now, there were many of him in various uniforms and he was no longer holding a syringe menacingly, he was holding his head and moving it side to side trying to figure out what to do with it.

Second weirdest thing I’ve seen today, she thought, and then she fell asleep in Mento’s arms.

NEXT ISSUE: What is the Doom Patrol? It’s far more than just The Chief, Robotman, Elasti-Girl, Mento and Negative Man, and Cheryl’s about to find that out as she begins a new phase of life that’s sure to be far more rewarding than high school was. Join us next time as “The Golden Age” begins!