So I sat back to enjoy the show.

Thing was, this wasn’t happening according to the script.

Red Champion did get up, but Sound Wave just knocked him down again. This time he held out his arms and sent Champ flying through the donut shop’s side wall, across the street and into a parked bus. Then he shot a car into the hero, flattening him against the bus’ side. I think it was a Volvo.

This was not good.

Then Sound Wave held his hands above his head. I couldn’t tell what he was up to, so I grabbed my sandwich and what was left of my Diet Coke and ran to the space where the windows once were.

At first I couldn’t see it. I squinted and stared, but I couldn’t tell what Sound Wave was pointing at. And then, as I stared and stared, I saw it, a little black dot in the sky, a little black dot that was getting bigger all the time.

That little black dot changed, man. It became a small airplane. Then a bigger airplane.

Then, of course, a full-fledged jumbo jet passenger plane.

That’s when I realized that this was serious. That maniac was dragging an airplane down from the sky, and aiming it straight at the spot where Red Champion was slowly struggling to his feet.

How many people were on the typical passenger plane? Beats me. But I knew it’d be a lot. I could even imagine the headline in the next day’s paper: “Hundreds die in downtown plane disaster.”

And then, in smaller type, “InfraRed saves beef-and-cheese.”

OK. No one knew who the hell InfraRed was. But you get the point. I’ve never had trouble sitting on the sidelines and watching superdudes beat the crap out of each other. What’s the big deal? They always get up again. But most times these fights didn’t involve planes hurtling to the ground and hundreds of innocent people dying.

Red Champion was getting up. But he looked like shit, and was barely able to push away the car that Sound Wave had sent into him. I knew he’d never be able to get to that plane in time.

They always say that time slows down in great emergencies. Let me tell you, that’s bull. Time was speeding past me here. Like a rocket.

I couldn’t help but imagine how much it would hurt to be thrown through a window. I could only guess that it’d hurt a lot more to get tossed through a concrete wall, then slammed into a bus and then smashed by a two-ton car. I had the feeling that Sound Wave, even though he didn’t know me from Adam, wouldn’t hesitate to do all that to me. And, man, I knew that would hurt like heck.

It’d probably hurt worse than MegaloLord’s fist. I rubbed my jaw, just thinking about it.
But then there was that plane full of people who were going to die.

Crap.

No good choices here.

Eyewitnesses surrounded me. Cops, newspaper reporters and TV talking heads were among them. Would I be able to slip even a thin laser beam past all the eyes in this crowd? Would I blow my cover?

Flying through a wall. Man, my bones ached just thinking about it.

But … all those people. That plane was getting closer, close enough so that the rest of the crowd was able to see what was happening. As you can guess, a lot of screaming ensued.

Double crap.

 I had no choice, not really.

So I squinted, right in front of everyone.

Sound Wave must have felt a breeze, because he looked down.

That’s when he saw that he had lost his pants.

Care to guess what kind of underwear a supervillain wears? In this case, a nifty pair that perfectly matched his costume: a crisscross of red and white jagged lines. I never knew supervillain uniforms were so well-coordinated.

By the time Sound Wave got his pants back on, Champion was in the air and tossing the airplane back safely into its flight path. And with one hand holding up his pants, Sound Wave was no match for our hero. It took just one well-aimed super punch – square in the middle of Wave’s ugly puss – to send the villain to la-la land.

Applause followed, of course.

The shocking thing was, it wasn’t just for Red Champion. It was for me, too. Everyone, it seemed, had seen my little trick.

Even the Champion. He came over and shook my hand. He asked my name. I gave it, without thinking.

Red raised my hand into the air and proclaimed: “Ladies and gentlemen! Let me introduce you to the newest member of the Legion of Light… InfraRed!”
    
So that’s how I ended up here, wearing red-and-black tights, sitting between Diamond and FirePower in the Light Flyer supersonic jet.

And where am I going? To confront Mr. Menace and his army of fire-breathing robots atop the Empire State Building.

I just know I’m going to get hit. I just know some robot’s gonna’ breath fire up my ass. I just know it’s going to hurt like hell.

Damn those Mr. Chubby’s gift certificates! Why 25 in a book? Why not 20, or 15?

“Excited, Infra?” Diamond asks, giving me a wink. “First outing with the team?”

I nod and smile.

I think, just maybe, that I’m going to crap my pants.