Author's note: A one-shot based on the brother of James, one of the protagonists from WGM. What was Rush, the main antagonist of WGM, like as a middle-schooler? Well, first of all...his name is Marcus. And he wasn't always too keen into being an assassin...

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"Are you seriously messing with me right now, Marcus?"

"Nope," I quipped back.

"Put on your new contacts that I ordered for you... out of my own hard-earned money I might add...now."

"And what if I want to keep wearing these glasses to my first day of junior high tomorrow?"

"Why are you not excited at the prospect of finally not using those derpy glasses anymore?", she inquired.

"First of all, double-negative. Secondly, they're amazing glasses, but someone like you who is not visually-impaired can't recognize that and..."

"Said no one ever," she mocked.

"Don't put down my spectacles...As Spiderman once said, with great glasses comes great responsibility!", I declared.

Emilie tapped her foot impatiently, "I'm waiting, Marcus."

"They make me look like Clark Kent. There, I said it," I retorted back.

"And why is that exactly a good thing? You know us Ambassadors of Evil aren't well-known for our fondness for fictional superheroes, especially the Man of Steel. Do you know what will happen if dad finds out?"

"You mean if he finds out...", I teased.

"Stop it with your Disney references and be serious with me for one instant."

"I am serious...just don't call me Shirley," I answered. Jumping on the couch, I lounged for a bit before explaining my oddity at not accepting the contacts.

"You know everyone sees Superman as the 'great man' and ignores Clark Kent. He's treated as a normal person even though he's hiding who he truly is; even with only the glasses to differentiate between his alter-ego, he's always been a hero, but no one sees that. In real life, there are villains who don't have powers, but cause chaos in their wake just as there is heroes who are heroic even without powers. I think that to be a hero doesn't mean necessarily that they lift cities, but that they choose not to and do the right thing regardless if they get recognition in the long run or not."

"That's commendable and all...only for the fact you're not training as a super-hero, but as a super-villain," she remarked.

"Our mother and father are super-villains, but why do we have to be what our parents expect us though?", I whined.

Emilie sighed and asked, "Is there any other reason you want to wear glasses besides looking like Clark Kent?"

I stopped pretending that she couldn't see right through me as she knew I didn't choose to be an outcast. It was in my nature to be an introvert, but that didn't mean I felt good when people ignored me.

I confessed that, "As long as I have glasses, no one can expect anything of me, so they can't be disappointed when I'm found lacking."

My sister's eyes watered as she came over to where I was sitting and gave me an awkward side-hug.

"I am so sorry, little brother. I forgot what you've been through for a second...you know that you are not a disappointment, right?"

I brushed her off. "Of course, I am!", I shouted, "Why do I bother to prove them otherwise when I have a younger brother who is chosen instead of me as the Heir? They will never believe I will amount to anything, but be the spare who wasn't chosen."

She slapped me out of my misery and uttered three words. "How dare you!"

I looked up in shock at my current guardian. I remembered at that moment that she had retrieved custodial rights from my parents as my mother...well, she liked to express her disappointment in me physically.

As a result, as soon as she turned 18, Emilie argued with my mother about my mistreatment and basically threatened to go to court and expose the abuse that she had put me through. As a result, I went to live at my sister's place and she was the older 'Nani' figure that practically raised me from age 8.

"You are not the spare! You are a..."

"A what?", I interrupted, "My younger brother will always be good enough unlike me...I've always been the black sheep in our family and nothing's gonna change that."

The reason my youngest brother did not live with us was that he not listed under my parent's care as his records were wiped when he became the most wanted protégé to the head villain of AoE, Mockingbird. People in AoE wanted his head on a platter so that they could inherit the title of the Evil Hand and outside AoE, they wanted to stop AoE in their tracks by getting rid of the next-in-line to lead them so his whereabouts were on a need-to-know-basis at all times.

I wondered if my sister, Emilie, as high as she was in the ranks of the AoE's Warrior Division, even knew about James's current location.

Not that I wanted to know, James had always been a sore subject for me.

"That's simply not true! Marcus...how can you carry all this self-loathing around?", she cried out.

"The same way you doubt yourself for having a mental condition," I answered back.

I realized I hit a nerve as soon as I saw the tears threaten to swallow her whole.

"I'm sorry...I didn't mean that! Please, I'm a zero...a nobody. Don't let what this loser says affect you so much," I said, ashamed of my past actions.

Why was I always a douche to her? The one who loved me no matter what?

She straightened up from her position and responded, "You're right, but how mother treated you in the past gives you no right to talk back to me, young man!"

Drat. I just activated mom mode.

She charged at me as I evaded her and willingly attempted to go to my room.

The last time I had acted out, I had been banned from watching Disney movies as my punishment. Consequently, I wanted to make sure she could not touch my new Finding Nemo DVD! I hadn't seen in theatres this year and I was not letting her throw it out now before watching it at least once!

As I reached my bedroom door, she piled into me and I fell smack dab into the hallway's carpet.

Ooo...did she just vacuum? It felt so soft that I could just lie down...nope!

She grabbed my arms, stood me upright and then proceeded to lecture me on the importance of being kind to oneself as well as their neighbors.

I immediately scoffed. "Since when do you follow your own advice? You were a popular girl in high school, so I bet you were a bully to other girls, am I right?"

"The Ambassadors of Evil encourages us to follow our doctrine everywhere we go," she repeated as if from memory.

"So isn't it hypocritical for you to expect me to be kind then?", I asked.

"Fine, be polite and show respect...", she started.

"That I can do...", I interjected only to be cut off.

"Even to yourself."

"Pssh..as if"

"Alright...I'll leave the contacts here if you change your mind, Einstein."

As she left the living room and went into the kitchen to cook our dinner, I thought about the fact that she had called by my nickname again.

She usually only called me by my first name, but when she wanted to annoy me particularly, she would poke fun at the fact that I happened to help her out with her physics homework when she was in high school and now that she was in college.

I couldn't help it if physics...just made sense to me. Glasses didn't make me smart as some people thought, it just made me see clearer.

Right as I was thinking that, Emilie came out with an omelet in a pan and said, "You know that contacts can help you with your near-sightedness."

"What!", I jumped at seeing her with a pan in her hand in pure terror.

"Oops. Forgot you had bad memories surrounding kitchen utensils and that's the reason you won't let me teach you how to cook..."

I got a hold of myself and said, "The other thing...is it true?"

As she plated my omelet and placed it on the breakfast table, she remarked, "Yeah, studies say it can help improve near-sightedness in kids."

I ate my omelet and between bites, muttered, "I don't like to be...called a kid."

"You are a minor legally."

"Don't remind me," I groaned.

"Now, what do you think of the omelet?"

"It's fine."

After she fell asleep, I tried out the contacts and found them to not be as bad as I thought they would be.

Taking them off for the night, I woke up the next day to put them on and head to my first day of the rest of my life as my sister so eloquently put it.

"It's just 7th grade...it will be just like 6th grade, only at a different school where people can make fun of the new kid instead of the geek or the outsider."

She sized me up before I left and shrugged, saying, "It's all up to you how this year turns out."

"Everyone at this school has parents who are members of AoE. I'm probably already a target in their eyes as the one who wasn't chosen."

"Who knows? Maybe you can make some new friends?"

"Did you just hear...never mind." Once Emilie had something set in her mind, there was nothing that could make her change her mind.

That's probably why when she started in the Warrior School, she outshined her classmates and even got a scholarship to cover undergraduate as well as graduate university courses.

Her persistence was one of her greatest skill-sets, but obviously not one of mine.

As she dropped me off before going to classes, I was preparing myself for the onslaught to come.

Lowering my head to the ground, I saw a shadow standing behind me and swerved when I felt an arm touch my shoulder.

"Hello! My name is Nicholas!", a guy that looked to be about my age said in a foreign accent.

"I'm Marcus?", I answered back.

"I'm a transfer student from Greece, so sorry if my English sounds funny. How are you?", he asked.

My introverted-self felt pressured to respond so I replied, "Good, I think."

"I am good as well, thank you." Was this...Nicholas even listening to me?

"That's great...are you also in 7th grade?", I inquired.

"Yes! Are you in Classroom 207 too?", he said, opening his mouth wide and showing braces.

"Yes..." By this point, I had realized he spit a lot when he talked, it probably had to do with his braces being in the way of him talking.

"Wait a minute..." He walked off and I thought he must be done with our conversation until he came back with three other boys my age.

"This is Sam, Ahmed and Dmitri." He introduced them to me and grinned, saying, "This is Marcus."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"Nice to meet you, Marcus," they all shouted and laughed together.

"Now we can all be like the Merrie men of Nottingham and go on adventures together!", Nicholas yelled.

As I attempted to leave the vicinity of these 'Lost Boys', Sam yanked me to his side and draped his hand over my shoulder, leaving me clue-less as I saw all the boys placing their arms on each other's shoulders and strutting into school.

"This is a nightmare," I muttered under his breath.

However, on the inside, I was beaming. I was finally making friends even if they resembled a group of misfits rather than Robin Hood's Merrie men.

Maybe one day I would no longer be a Loser after all.

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Author's note: I do not condone any type of abuse and ask that you please report it to the authorities if you know anyone who has to suffer through that.

Also, I personally wear glasses and made the choice not to wear contacts even though I have pretty good eye-sight so I am not advocating for contacts in this story, but rather illustrating what led up to his decision to wear contacts instead.