Planet Hero- Civilian

by M. A. Carlson

  I felt for the all too familiar rhythm of fast and slow, sending them my mental request. Trying to convey what I needed. To take something back to the state it was in at a previous point in time. It felt just like when I first tried to use Portals. I could tell almost immediately that I didn’t have enough power to do it. Not nearly enough.

  I wanted to rail in anger at how helpless I felt. In my desperation, I mentally pleaded with my Nanos to show me a way, any possible way to heal Nick. This time, I felt something different from them. It was still a manipulation of Time, but I wasn’t reversing time. I was . . . accelerating time. I was accelerating healing, more specifically, I was accelerating the body’s natural healing ability. It was able to relate what I knew about the body’s ability to naturally heal with my ability to manipulate time. It was powerful and fast. Just like that, I understood how to target my time manipulation to accelerate the healing in a specific area of the body. It was exactly what I needed.

  I checked my Status. I needed to see what it said.

  Davis Malory

  Aliases: Dr. Portal, The Physician

  Occupation: N/A

  Alignment: Neutral

  Milestone: 31st

  Nano: 7,501,135/7,875,000

  Body

  Athleticism: 25

  - Strength: Average (3/10)

  - Agility: Above Average

  - Accuracy: Above Average

  - Speed: Below Good

  - Stamina: Average (1/10)

  Resistance: 3

  - Physical Resistance: Average (2/10)

  - Energy Resistance: Above Average

  - Mental Resistance: Above Average

  Recovery: 6

  - Physical Injury: Average

  - Nano Energy: Average (5/10)

  Ability

  Power: 64

  - Time: Average

  Time Compression: 65%

  Accelerate Healing: 3-Injury Scale Reductions

  - Space: Below Good (13/25)

  Void Burst: 5.8-Uses at Maximum Size

  Spatial Awareness: Passive senses may be enhanced for up to 5-Seconds

  Portal: up to 5.8-Foot Diameter

  Teleport: 5.8-Uses

  Control: 64

  - Time: Average

  Time Compression: 20-Seconds Uncompressed Time

  Accelerate Healing: up to 2-Inch Diameter

  - Space: Below Good (13/25)

  Void Burst: up to a 68-Foot Range and up to a 5.8-Inch Diameter

  Spatial Awareness: up to 68-Foot Range

  Portal: Travel 0.48-Mile Range

  Teleport: 68-Foot Range

  I grinned. ‘3-Injury Scale Reductions’. I could work with that. Assuming the Nanos worked off my medical knowledge and the scale it was applying was the same as the scale I used back home. On Earth, we used a scale to determine the severity of an injury. Minor was the lowest level. These were things like cuts, scrapes, and bruises to the body and extremities. Moderate was the next level. This was for things like fractured or broken bones. Serious was for things like open fractures and head wounds. Severe came next. These were injuries that could kill if not treated with some urgency, deep lacerations and the like. Critical injuries were things like gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, higher chance of death and more urgently in need of care. And last were maximal injuries, basically this meant you were going to die no matter what treatment was provided. Although, with superpowers, that may no longer be the case.

  Anyway, it was just what I needed to reduce Nick’s injury. My gold energy bar was still low, but I should at least be able to take him out of danger. Waking him up . . . that was still questionable. I know I should have used it on my shoulder and ribs first, but I needed Nick more and my power was already running low. I placed a hand over the dark purple contusion near the man’s temple and closed my eyes. I could feel my Nanos enter Nick without any resistance, the small orb of them telling Nick’s Nanos they were there to help. With a thought, my Accelerate Healing went to work. The purple discoloration faded rapidly. The effect was more than I hoped for. Nick’s eyes began to flutter and open without my prompting.

  “Wha . . . what happened?” Nick asked groggily.

  “You hit your head pretty hard,” I said, sitting back and feeling even more tired.

  “Where are we?” Nick asked, blinking as he tried to take in the surroundings.

  “Terminus’s fortress,” I answered.

  “Oh,” Nick said, not quite registering what I said. Then he sprung upright about to shout before he blinked dizzily and laid right back down again. Then he asked softly, “How? Why? Huh?”

  “Terminus attacked the city. We tried to escape in the van,” I explained.

  “I . . . I remember,” Nick said, looking around from where he was laying. “Wait, where’s Samantha?”

  “Terminus got her,” I said. “Look, a lot has happened, and I don’t have a lot of time to explain. I need your help if I’m even going to have a chance at saving her.”

  Nick groaned as he leveraged himself into a sitting position against the wall and asked, “What do you need?”

  “Sam and I were working on crashing the fortress. We’ve taken out several engines and the fortress has lost some altitude and has begun sinking toward the wilds. We didn’t get to finish so I can’t be sure we took out enough engines to finish the job. She said we had four left,” I explained.

  “And you need me to tell you which engines to take out next?” Nick asked. “Does that mean you’re abandoning Samantha?”

  “I’m not abandoning her. But I do need to finish what we started, but with a few changes to the plan,” I said.

  “What changes?” Nick asked.

  “I need the crash to be . . . less gentle but still survivable,” I said. “To do that, I need to know which engines to take out. Which means I need you to tell me which engines I need to take out to make that happen.”

  “First, I need to know what you’ve done already,” Nick started.

  I gave him a quick rundown and general locations of the engines we took out so far.

  “Okay, if they are already compensating then you’ll need to take out at least eight more engines, two directional engines and six levitation engines, as close to the rear of the fortress as you can,” Nick said.

  “I can do that,” I said. I assumed the directional engines where the ones on the sides of the fortress and the levitation engines were those under the fortress. “Now, I need one more thing from you. And I need you to trust me.”

  “You’ve gotten us through this so far,” Nick said. “I suppose I can trust you a little further.”

  A few minutes later, Nick was helping me limp my way into the throne room with more than a few soldiers escorting us, most of them looked like they were just waiting for the chance to pull the trigger.

  “Dr. Portal,” Terminus hissed when we finally entered her throne room, something she herself called it. “We meet again.”

  “Indeed, we do meet again,” I said, mocking her. I smirked as I felt her waves of negation being disturbed. I was already getting under her skin.

  “Do not mock me,” Terminus snapped.

  The throne room hadn’t been repaired after I basically blew it up a few days ago. There was still plenty of rubble and the throne was still broken into several large slabs of stone. It was on one of these stones, a bound and gagged Sam sat.

  “When you say things like ‘we meet again’, how can I not mock you?” I asked. It was so unbelievably cliché. I mean, I knew that heroes and villains had a way of speaking in this world, but that was too much.

  Terminus snarled. For a moment, I thought she was going to rush me. She took a calming breath and smirked. “And yet, here you stand. Surrendering like a good little hero, all to save the damsel in distress.”

  “Not exactly a hero,” I said, the smirk never leaving my face. A quick Time Compression, a keyhole sized portal, and a Void Burst, and an explosion shook the fortress again, jolting me forw
ard slightly as I felt the deceleration.

  Terminus’s eyes widened and I felt her negation waves speed up, making the gaps smaller than before. “Such power,” she said. “Is the device amplifying your ability so much you were able to change your ability?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I taunted her.

  Terminus snapped. “Give it to me. Give me the device now!”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that just yet,” I said. I was stalling. I knew it. She probably knew it. But she probably also knew I wanted something from her.

  “If you want to leave this place alive, you’ll give me the device now,” Terminus demanded, raising a sleek white pistol and aiming it at Sam.

  “I understand you want the device. I really do,” I said, trying to calm her down. I needed more time to recover my ability. Every second gave me more uses of my ability. “But first, you’re going to let my friends here leave.”

  “And why would I do that?” Terminus asked, sounding amused.

  I smirked. Another Time Compression, Portal, and Void Burst sent another engine into terminal failure. The fortress shook again, and I felt the room tilt. Sam almost tipped off the stone fragment she was sitting on. That explosion was accompanied by more alarms, these sounded much more urgent.

  “What have you done?” Terminus demanded, wobbling on her feet slightly.

  “What?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “You mean this?” I asked, doing it again and taking out another engine. Except this time, it felt different. The explosion was longer. In fact, it sounded like multiple explosions were being set off. The fortress tilted even further.

  “Stop that, stop it immediately or your friends die,” Terminus demanded, trying to aim at Sam but with the wobbling of the floor beneath her, her aim was all over the place.

  “No, I don’t think I will,” I said. This time it was all bluff. I was fairly certain that last detonation did significantly more damage than I intended. “You’re going to let Sam go with Nick. As soon as they are safely away from this place. I’ll give you what you want. Or . . . I continue to break your fortress, one engine at a time.”

  Terminus snarled. “Fine,” she said, then pointing to Nick, she said, “Take her and leave.”

  Nick looked at me hesitantly.

  “Go ahead,” I said. I knew well enough that they wouldn’t get past the door. Not with all the guards out there. I also knew this was part of my plan.

  Nick rushed forward and pulled the gag from Sam’s mouth first. “Nick, you’re alright,” she said, sounding relieved.

  “I am, are you okay?” Nick asked, working to untie her feet.

  “I’m fine,” Sam replied. “Just ready to get out of here.”

  “You and me both,” Nick said, helping Sam back to her feet now that she was free. He slowly guided her toward me and the exit behind me, being careful of her broken arm.

  “Now, the device,” Terminus insisted as Nick and Sam stepped past me.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said, mentally preparing myself for the crazy I was about to pull. “I destroyed the device.”

  “Liar!” Terminus yelled.

  I rolled up my sleeves and lifted my shirt, showing her, I didn’t have anything on me. “I’m afraid it’s true.”

  “Then how? How are you doing this?” Terminus asked, as another shudder ran through the fortress as a secondary explosion went off. “How are you able to get past my negation field?”

  “How much do you know about your Ability?” I asked, trying to buy more time again. “Never mind, I’ll assume you know everything, or at least you think you do. You see, when you use your negation field, it’s actually more of a negation wave. I just act within the gaps in those waves. It lets me do things like this,” I finished, destroying another engine. I was about to take out one more when I felt the fortress shudder again, only this time it tilted several degrees at once, throwing Terminus off her feet and creating a large gap in her field from the shock and surprise.

  This was my chance. I teleported across the room and opened a portal, pushing Sam and Nick through and stepping in after them before the negation wave knocked it out.

  “Now what?” Nick asked as he climbed back to his feet and looked around.

  We were in another hangar and inside another van.

  “Strap in, we’re in for a very bumpy ride,” I said, pointing to a couple of empty seats. I was barely able to keep on my feet as the last dregs of my energy left me. I could feel the nano-fatigue setting in rapidly.

  Nick moved fast, securing Sam first then himself.

  I sunk into the seat next to him and fumbled as I tried to strap in. The fortress shook again followed by a rumbling. I didn’t notice when Nick started trying to help me strap in, but I was glad he did. In the next moment, the fortress’s shaking became violent. Then the van started sliding across the hangar, knocking into another van and bouncing around it as it slid toward one of the doors where it slammed hard, cracking the windows.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t see much after that as the Nano-fatigue really set in and blackness engulfed me. The good news was, if I died during the crash, I wouldn’t be conscious to feel it.

  35

  With a groan of pain, the world came back into focus. Dim orange light was filtering in from somewhere above me. Or was it below me. My arms were hanging above me which suggested I was upside down.

  “Physician, you still with us?” I heard Sam asking from somewhere nearby.

  I groaned in response.

  “Nick, you alive?” Sam asked next.

  “Yeah,” Nick said, then groaned similarly to how I did. “Just for the record, Physician. Your plans suck.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly.

  “Shut up, Nick,” Sam said. “We’re alive, are you really going to complain?”

  Nick didn’t respond. I could hear the clicking of something metallic next to me followed by a thud. I opened my eyes again and saw Nick was lying on the roof of the van. I blinked away the spots from the blood still rushing and pooling in my head and tried to take in our surroundings. There were glass shards everywhere. Tools and supplies that were stored in the van were also scattered around us.

  Nick slowly climbed back to his feet and moved to get Sam free first. He was extra careful with her arm. It looked like the splint came lose but the arm was still set in place.

  I breathed out a small sigh of relief as it set in that they were both okay. Traumatized. But alive.

  With another groan of pain and discomfort, I moved to undo my own restraints. When the buckle clicked free, I fell in a manner that was very similar to Nick’s fall from a minute earlier. I winced and held my breath through the pain in my ribs and shoulder. Once it faded to something manageable, I breathed again, though not so deeply as to disturb my ribs.

  And speaking of my ribs. I moved my hand to cover the ribs I broke. With a thought, I used my Accelerate Healing. I winced as I felt the pain of my ribs knitting back together and the bruising fade. More importantly, I saw my health bar jump up. I also learned something knew about my ability as a result. While it healed the injury, it also made me feel all the pain associated with that healing process. At least it was over in almost an instant. With the injury reduced to a minor status, I did the same for my previously dislocated shoulder. I enjoyed the additional bump to my health bar. When it was done, I breathed out a sigh of relief. I was still achy. And my ribs were still tender. But I was functional . . . more or less functional.

  “Now what?” Nick asked, yet again.

  “We rest and recover,” I said. I had no interest in moving. I hoped to whatever deity ruled this world that the heroes were finally on their way. “The damned heroes better be here soon. I’ve got nothing left.” While my health bar looked much . . . healthier, I could not say the same for my gold and black energy bars.

  “Are we on the ground? Can we get out and walk back to the city?” Nick asked.

  I sighed. So much for rest. First, I mentally tuned into my
Spatial Awareness. I could feel the van and its contents. What I couldn’t feel was Terminus’s waves of negation. Either she was knocked out again or the fortress broke up and we were too far from wherever she landed. Second, I opened a few keyhole portals in an effort to figure out where we were. Outside of the van was a mess. There was no way we were leaving the van or hangar in its current condition. As if that wasn’t enough, the hangar door appeared to be underground, buried in the crash. Eventually I found the outside again. We were in the wilds, which was a relief. With my alternate plan, I was worried we would end up crashing inside the city.

  Eventually, I stood and opened a portal for us. I just hoped the crash scared off any beasts.

  “We lived,” Nick cheered suddenly, startling Sam and me both. Then he surprised us both when he pulled Sam close and gave her one hell of a kiss. As soon as he realized what he’d done, he apologized to the blushing woman. Something told me she didn’t mind all that much.

  A few minutes later, Sam finally asked, “Now what do we do? I can’t see the city through the wilds.”

  “Now we wait for the heroes to finally show up,” I said, finding a comfortable looking spot against one of the trees to sit back and rest against.

  “Is that safe?” Samantha asked. “I mean, this is the wilds. There are beasts.”

  I shrugged, then answered, “With my Spatial Awareness, I would sense anything coming.” That said, I continued walking toward the tree I picked out. Only to be proved wrong a minute later as a gunshot went off and I felt something impact my shoulder from behind. It felt like I’d been kicked by a horse or something that kicks really hard. My face planted into the dirt.