„Right after school we went to Vince to tell him about our decision.“

„We’re in“, Hego said. Shego coughed slightly and he added: „But we don't know...if we are...“
Shego completed Hego's stammering with a shake of her head: „The decision wasn't unanimous. Do you pledge your word that we can break up whenever we want?“
„Y'know, superhero training is no newspaper subscription. But if someone is not made for it, I don't see a reason to force him to do it. Yes, okay.“
„And what about the twins?“
„I’ll take care of them, whenever I have to. I know how to do it. Got some brothers, too, and had to babysit more than once. Do they have superpowers too?“
Hego looked at the the twins, who sat peacefully in their buggy.
„I got no idea. I thought I saw something once, but it never happened again.“
Vince just nodded and stroked his thin hair.
„Good“, he said, „the training starts now. You got some homework to do?“
„Yes.“
„Sure.“
„Unfortunately.“
„Then do it now.“
„What kind of superheroes are we supposed to be. The fantastic boost teachers?“
„Still better than 'The Fantastic Morons', isn't it?“ replied Vince. „Education is an important cornerstone of heroism. That's why you'll do your homework every day. Except if it's about algorithms. You will never need them. And when you have finished your homework, you go onto the treadmills over there and run, till you can't anymore.“
„What“? all three asked at the same time.
One of the twins added a „Ga“.
„I wanna see how fit you are. Let's go to work.“

„I still can remember the end of that day. Vince let us really run till we couldn't run anymore. When we came back to our room, we fell immediately in our beds and didn't move anymore.“

„Not so bad for the first day“, Hego said with an touch of pain in his voice.
Shego tried to turn her head to her eldest brother and puffed: „Y'know, if I wasn’t so tired, I would come to you and give you such a strong pinch in your arm, that everybody who sees your arm after that, will think that you got a tattoo over there.“
Hego thought with a shudder about the last time, when his sister gave him a pinch in his arm.
„I'm...really happy that you are so breathless.“
„I don't know about you“, said Mego with a gasp, „but I hope tomorrow will be better. If being a superhero means to do every day what we have done today, then it's not as good as I imagined.“
„It's gonna be better. He just wanted to test us. Tomorrow we'll do something exciting.“

And on the next afternoon they did: „Push-ups!“
„You are kidding, aren't you?“ asked Shego.
Vince shook his head. „No, I'm not. But you are doing push-ups. Of course you do your homework first, but then you are doing push-ups.“
Mego already knew the answer, but he asked anyway: „And how many?“
„Till you can't anymore.“
„Yes, sure.“

1 ½ hours of homework and 4, respectively 9 and 15 push-ups later.
„That's all?“
„Well“, replied Mego, while he tried to ignore the painful prickle in his arms, „yes.“
Vince nodded understanding, but said then: „Show me how many sit-ups you can do.“
Shego grinned.
„How many can you do?“
„Four“, replied Vince unexpected honest. „Let's see, if you can beat this.“

„I made four, too. Mego did just three and it took ages. Hego could do six. And so it went on in the next days. We came after school to him, did our homework, and then we did nothing, we wouldn't do any physical educatioin in school either . Stretching, rope skipping, knee bends, pull-ups, we even trained to throw balls! All of this would have beeen almost to abide, if we were able to find a scheme in his training, but he seemed to let us do whatever came to his mind. Mego and I were already ready to quit, but Hego dissuaded us this with his constant optimism every time. But then, in the end of week #2, it became really bad.“

Vince put a bucket full of water on the floor, dropped three sponges in front of the siblings' feet and said: „Today you can scour the floor.“
Shego, Hego and Mego looked at it. It wasn't really dirty. Then they looked up to Vince.
„What's the matter?“ he asked.
„We should crawl on our knees and scour the floor?“ asked Shego with a clearly agressive sound in her voice.
„Exactly.“
„Why?“
„Ever watched 'The Karate Kid'? Wax on, wax off. Or here, kneel down and scrub the floor.“
Shego just wanted to say something which was meaner than everything, she has ever said to anyone before, when she noticed that Hego grabbed a Sponge and went for the floor.
„Come on“, he said, like scouring the floor would be the greatest leisure activity of all times. „How do you wanna fight evil, if you are scared of that little bit of dirt.?“
Shego and Mego looked at each other and began to scrub the floor together with their brother.

„That was too much for Mego and me. Especially for me. In the evening we had to talk with Hego.“

„Hego, we quit.“
Hego shook surprised.
„Quit? But Shego, that was just two weeks.“
„Two weeks in which we did nothing else than warming up. And we did this till we couldn't anymore.“
„Good, I understand. You didn't want to do this from the beginning. I can't change your mind. What about you, Mego?“
„I quit too.“
„But...“
„Hey, I'm sorry, but I've sworn to myself that I will never have to scrub a floor in my whole life.“
„Why this?“
„Because...I've just sworn it, okay?“
„Hego sat down and sighed disappointed.
„Okay, I...think that's it.“
„It looks so.“
„Yes.“
„I really wanted to be a superhero. Help other people“, Hego said sadly.
„You still can.“
„But why should I, without you?“

„When we went to Vince on the next afternoon, we wanted to tell him about our decision. But we couldn't.“

„Good that you are here“, welcomed Vince the siblings immediately. „Now the real training can start.“
„The real training?“ Hego asked.
„Yep. The last two weeks were just some kind of test, to see, how serious you mean it. Not too obvious that you notice it, but silly enough to let you possibly doubt of me.“
Hego scratched his head.
„So...you trained us, but not really, because the training that wasn't one, was a test that shouldn't look like one, although you told us that you wanted to test us? That's brillant!“
„I wouldn't call it brillant, but if you had to scour the floor for two weaks, you would have quit immediately, or not? Whatever, I hope you are not here to quit.“ Shego and Mego looked ashamed, but not too obviously at the floor, while Hego smiled gleefully. „Now it starts with, please imagine now a fanfare, Kickboxing.“
„Cooooooool“, whispered Shego, Hego and Mego and even the twins smiled.
„But now do your homework first, because I was serious about this.“
The elder siblings get grumbling to work, while Vince changed the diapers of the younger ones.

„And so it began. Vince turned out to be a great teacher. Within less time he taught us the basis of dozens of different fighting styles from everywhere in the world. Kickboxing, Karate, Judo, Tae-Kwon-Do, Jiu-Jitsu, Esdo, Capoeira, Taek-kyon, Kian-Do, Arnis, Eskrima, Ninjutsu, Muay-Thai, to name a few. He taught us also an experimental fighting style named Gunkata, which he, as he told us, learned from a guy named Kurt. We never used it. You need firearms for this, but we became weapons by ourselves. It became soon apparent who of us mastered which style better. Then Vince began to train us individual. One evening he told me in the absence of my brothers, what he thought about me.“

„Shego, wait a moment.“
Shego had just finished todays training lesson and was on the way to take a shower.
„What's up?“
„You are much better than your brothers.“ Shego opnened her eyes wide, but said nothing. „Your brothers are not bad. They are really good, you all are really good, but for some reason you seem to have a special talent for martial arts.“
„Really? Thanks?“
„I would like to train you more often. Not much more, because you are not even 12 years old...“
„But almost!“
„Yes, I would like to bail out your potential even more. Is this okay for you?“
She didn't have to think for long.
„Sure!“
„Okay, I’ll tell you more tomorrow.“
„Okay, so...bye?“
„Bye.“
Shego turned around and wanted to go, but then she had to ask that one important question.
„How much better than my brothers am I?“
„You could be better than me! You just have to come to grips with your aggressions.“
„Wow.“
Vince smiled.
„But don't tell this your brothers. I don't know how Hego would react, probably he would be happy with you, but Mego's ego would be shaken by this. Wait a moment, I got something for you.“

The 99 years old Shego rummaged around in a bag at the side of her wheelchair.
„He gave me this.“
She gave Julian an old photo. He smiled and gave it to Washington.
„Cute. Is this you and your brothers?“
„No, they are the losers of the Steven Spielberg-look-alike-contest. Of course it's us! What for a stupid question.“
„Why do you look so dumb on it?“ Washington asked.
„This is the photo that Vince made, when we met him for the first time. Right after he showed us, what he can do. It should be a reminder, that you shall never underestimate your enemy. He wanted to prevent that I freak out after all this praise. Really, he was a great teacher. He not only taught us fighting and all that stuff, he also showed us other things that could be useful in a superhero's everyday life. Sometimes more, sometimes less obvious.“

„Chess. The game of kings. 64 squares, 16 black, 16 white pieces. Eight pawns, each two castles, knights and bishops and each one queen and king. Can you play chess?“
„No.“
„Nope.“
„No.“
„I will show you. It indoctrinates the mind, benefits tactical thinking, is kind of relaxing and you feel much smarter than people who don't know how to play chess. It's not that it would be good to think like that, but hey, sometimes you just need it.“

„Once in a week Vince made a chess-day with us. On these days we played of course only chess. Till our heads began to hurt. We were all pretty good at it, but Hego thought too long, because he wanted to make his next move perfect. Mego lost many games, because he'd rather did something unexpected, instead of just trying to win the game. It was like he wanted to show his opponent, what for a great player he was. And I...I was perfect. No flaws. It happened one or two times that I bacame angry and threw the chessboard through the room, when I was about to lose, but when I won, I won without any problems. This...happened just rarely. That I began to scream and so on. Except for chess we learned also some other things from him.“

Vince and the Go-Siblings were standing around a car, in an unwatched corner of the backyard.
„Can you drive a car?“ Vince wanted to know from them.
„No.“
„Nope.“
„No.“
„Then I will show you. Hego, you are the eldest, go behind the wheel.“
While Hego sat down on the driver's seat, Shego and Mego both yelled: „I sit in the front!“ and scrambled for the front passengers seat.
„Hey, stop that or you sit in the back“, said Vince. „Oh, wait, you already will, because I, as the driving teacher, sit in the front.“
„Oh, snap“, said the siblings and sat down on the backseat.
„There is no key“, remarked Hego.
„I know. Hotwire it. I’ll show you what to do. Can you see anything back there?“
„Shego hit me!“
„You're a liar!“

„Hotwiring cars was just the beginning.“

While Shego, Hego, Mego and the Twins were standing on an old airport around something, that was definitely a jet, Hego asked: „Is this a jet?“
„Yes. And you will fly it. After you have hotwired it.“

„Of course we didn't fly immediately. First we practiced a little on the ground and then he gave us flight lessons. And I didn't freak out every time we played chess. I wasn't a baby anymore.“

On another day, Vince led his students to the maybe hindmost and darkest corner of the basement. There was a very huge machine, which you couldn't really tell what it was supposed to be.
Vince asked: „Do you know what this is?“
„No.“
„Nope.“
„No.“
„This is something, that you will see more than just once in your life as a superhero.“
„Could this be a doomsday device?“ asked Hego with shiny eyes.
„That's right. This one here is a little bit antiquated, but within the last 20 years, the machines, that mad supervillains use to rule the world, did not change much.“ Vince pushed a huge Button on the device and immediately dozens of blinking lights turned on. „Now it's on and warming up. With nearly every model of these things turn off in at least three ways. These are the safe ways. Of course there are much more, you just have to be creative and of course it depends on the situation, but you are always on the right side, if you look in the first place for a huge button or switch, which has written 'Power' on it.“
„Yeah right“, Shego laughed, „if they would make it so easy for us.“
„You would be surprised how easy they make it sometimes for you. The second method is to look for a shutter underneath or on any side of the device, open it and rip out every cable at random you see.“
A scratchy computervoice said: „Warm up completed. Five minutes to go.“
Mego lifted his hand.
„Yes, Mego?“
„What happens in five minutes?“
We will all go west. If you don't find the third method. Enjoy trying it.“

„I don't know why, but till today nobody invented a doomsday device, which you can't shut off in these three ways. But time went by and soon, one more year was over. A year, in which we didn't do anything else than being to school and learning, how to be a superhero.“
„Wasn't this supsicious, for the people around you?“
„Hm, yes, maybe. For any reason no one seemed to care. When we were in the orphanage, my brothers and I spent all the time only with us anyway. But one day we had a weird encounter with Mr Pink.“

„Where do we go?“ wanted Mego to know.
„I'll tell you, when we are there.“
Vince and the siblings were on their way out of the orphanage, when they ran into Mr Pink.
„Hey, I don't see you so much anymore. I almost started to be afraid, that you excist just in my head and that I start to become normal.“
„It's okay“, said Vince, „they help me.“
Mr Pink reacted as cool as usual.
„They help you. They help you or they help you?“
„They help me.“
„Okay, I didn't expected this. Take good care of them, and you five from which only three can understand me, but maybe only one is listening, do what he says, okay?“
„Okay“, replied Shego, Mego and Hego in perfect harmony.
Mr Pink walked by without turning around anymore. Mego tipped on Vince's shoulder.
„What was this?“
„That was Mr Pink. I thought you would know him.“
„That's not what I mean. Does he know it?“
„What should he know?“
„Our...special training.“
„Why should I know that?“
„But he made so strange insinuations“, added Hego.
„Did he?“
„Yes!“
„Who knows.“

„We never found out if and how much Mr Pink knew at that time. Vince remained silent about that and nobody wanted to ask Mr Pink. But like I already said, another year went by. Vince taught us within 13 months more then we ever dared to dream about. All of us, but especially me, became within this short time a real martial arts professional. It was incredible. Vince was a great teacher. I used some of his method, when I trained someone by myself. Then came finally the evening on which we had our first official assignment as superheroes.“