Emily Monroe is NOT the Chosen One: Re-chosen: Emily Monroe is NOT the Chosen One, #3

By Erik Schubach

Emily Monroe may be a lot of things, but one thing is for sure, she is NOT the Chosen One.

Emily has a long day.  After fending off another villainous attack during the night shift at Big Burger, and all she wants to do is to go home and get some sleep as the sun rises.

What's a unpowered girl to do in a super powered world when she gets home to find the most notorious villain of Big City in her kitchen?

An even more dangerous threat to the city takes precedence as after Containment's detention facility is damaged, dozens of criminals escape.  But the biggest threat?  The person hired to replace the Chosen One as the city's protector... Mega-Girl!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erik Schubach
• Release date: Oct 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393441946

Book preview

Chapter 1 – Even the Score

Hi, I'm Emily Monroe, and I am NOT the Chosen One.  My life had been a living hell and chaotic as a platypus on rollerskates diving on a beehive since Big City's superhero darling, the Chosen One, arrived on the scene.  I had the misfortune of the Chosen One looking virtually identical to me.

That caused all sorts of problems in college and after, as people thought they recognized me, thinking I was her.  Supervillains trying to make a name for themselves or wanting to even the score, came out of the woodwork and tried to defeat the Chosen One.

So here I am, a twenty-six-year-old with a degree in Powered Science, relegated to working fast food since nobody wants to hire me, as it would make their business a target for all these crazy wannabe supervillains.

I had done everything in my power to change my appearance, so complete bullshit like that didn't happen.  I had so hated the Chosen One for looking like me since it had ruined my life.

In a world where superpowers are fairly common, I got stuck with looking like the one superhero who could manifest virtually unlimited abilities in order to fight the growing number of powered people who went the other way and decided to use their abilities for nefarious purposes.

Supervillains outnumbered Superheroes almost three to one in most cities, but they didn't have the Chosen One.  I especially hated her because I actually do have powers... extremely lame powers.  I can change both my eye color and the color of my finger and toenails.

While saving me the cost of nail polish, and helping me to try not to look like the blonde-haired, blue-eyed, flying sweetheart of the city, my powers are laughably pathetic.  On the Peltier Scale, where zero is unpowered, and fifty is what they call Prime, the most powerful people in the world, I'm a zero point one, the Chosen One is a forty-nine point nine.

I started dying my hair brunette back in high school and grew it in long when the teenage sensation first showed up to save the day at city hall when the Subjugator had shown up to mesmer the leaders of the city, and bend them to her will.

The sassy blonde with her cute pixie cut made short work of the villain and had been the de facto protector of Big City ever since.  Then everyone started pointing at me because I looked exactly like her, almost scarily so.

So I changed my blue eyes to brown and have continued to dye my hair brunette ever since.  At one point, I was contemplating saving enough to get some cosmetic surgery to change my looks so I didn't have to live under her shadow my entire life.  On a night manager's salary here at Big Burger, it was a long way off.

That was then, and this is now.  My life has changed so drastically in the past few weeks.  Not only have I discovered that Wendy... the Chosen One and I are twin sisters, she with virtually all the power and me the leftovers from the experiment by Genesis Labs in creating her, but Wendy had stepped down from her role as Big City's protector after learning the truth and all the lies she's been fed her entire life.

Now my sister—it's still so strange saying that—lives with me and my roommate and best friend for life, Violet, and works as an Installation Specialist for Big City Insurance.  Her range of powers and abilities is a godsend to a company that prides itself in repairing any property covered within twenty-four hours or the policyholder gets a free toaster.

They've never had to give anyone a toaster yet.  Mostly because the company employs a brother and sister who are semi-pre-cognitive.  They can see anything that will be damaged within a twenty-mile radius and temporally five months in advance.  So in other words... they cheat.

Unfortunately, Wendy's rebellion against the mayor, the woman she believed to be her mother her entire life, had her status as Big City's protector revoked and the city employing Mega-Girl from Mega City to keep the metropolis safe alongside the other registered heroes of the city.

I sliced at a mass of twisted plant matter that exploded toward me in the kitchen of Big Burger, I sliced down with a meat cleaver, severing the ivy-like vines before they could encircle me, and... she screamed.  I sighed out heavily, Toxic Viney, Paula, I'm not her.  Don't you think if I actually were the Chosen One, I'd have just incapacitated you with super speed?  And why would I be working the grill at a Big Burger if I were her?

The woman dressed in leafy greens hissed out, Everyone knows you quit.  Without being the city's protector, you have no employable skills.  And how do you know my name!?  Are you in my mind?  Get out of my head! 

I sighed.  I try, I really do.  I try to talk sense into these mental giants, but they are always either too sure of themselves or too busy monologuing to listen.  Just how cliché is a supervillain monologuing?  I mean, holy mouse on a marshmallow unicycle, can't they at least try something new?

I looked through the opening from the grill to the seating area, it was empty except for one table, I had the night cashier call Containment and usher the other two customers out to safety.  The lone table was filled to capacity by two women.  Violet Finch, and her new girlfriend, Echo, who was five identical girls at the time, all dressed differently, fawning over my roommate.

Vi, who was secretly the city's most notorious vigilante hero, Blue Canary, always sat at that table sketching the comic books that paid most of our rent.  And I learned it was to protect me in case someone I couldn't handle ever stepped through the doors to even a score against the Chosen One.

When I learned her secret, I wondered how I never saw it.  She had always been a hero, even when we were growing up in the orphanage together.  And loquacious my bestie was not.  She could distill an entire conversation down into as few words as possible, usually just two or three.  She looked over and shrugged, saying simply, You got this.

Then, if I hadn't been fighting for my life at the time, I would have snorted, when I noted there was a whole squad of Echos in stark white cheerleader uniforms complete with white pom poms which matched her white hair and lipstick, cheering, Go Emily go!  Gimme an E!

The girl was certifiable and almost painfully cute.

Gee thanks.

I slapped another vine attack aside and pinned it to the grill with