The Superhero's Cure

by Lucas Flint

  As we watched, what remained of the yacht sank beneath the waves, disappearing from our sight like a coffin lowered into the ground.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Panting and sweating, I stared, not so much as the spot where the yacht had sunk into the ocean, but at Edge. I held him with one arm, forcing him to hold tightly onto my body to avoid falling into the sea below. His gaze was locked on the ocean below, and like his grandfather, I had a tough time sensing what he felt. He seemed both relieved and anxious at the same time, although the anxiety might have been because we were several hundred feet in the air above the roaring ocean below and he would probably die if I dropped him, which I had no intention of doing.

  “Do you think he’s dead?” said Edge. Despite his low tone, I could hear his voice above the wind blowing all around us.

  I shrugged. “I would be surprised if he wasn’t. I didn’t see a lifeboat or anything launch from the yacht. Unless he had a secret escape pod in his stateroom, I think he probably went down with the ship.”

  “I hope he did,” said Edge bitterly. “It’s what he deserves for everything he did. I hope his death is long and painful.”

  Edge’s harshness surprised me, making me wonder once again what his real backstory was. Back when I was his age, I had of course always fantasized about becoming a superhero, but I didn’t think my parents would have allowed me to throw on a cheesy edgelord costume like his and go running around the streets of our town fighting crime. Heck, they didn’t want me to become a superhero even when I was seventeen And Edge, as far as I could tell, was either a powerless human or his powers hadn’t manifested yet. It could be hard to tell sometimes with kids like him, especially without knowing who his parents were.

  “Regardless of his fate, we should find some place to land,” I said, looking around the ocean around us. “Don’t see land anywhere, but I think Florida is somewhere east of us, so if we keep flying east—”

  “Can you even make it that far?” said Edge, looking up at me suddenly with skeptical eyes. “How good is your sense of direction? In the darkness, when you’re tired from all the fighting you did? Also, it looks like a storm is about to start, too, so that will make things more difficult for you.”

  Edge could be a little smart aleck when he wanted to be, but I had to admit he had a point. I might have been one of the strongest humans in the world, but even I had my limits. If I was just by myself, I might have risked flying back to Florida all on my own, but Edge’s extra weight meant I was using more energy than I normally would. Combined with my fatigue from the excitement of the day, I might not be able to make it back to Florida without conking out and stranding us in the ocean.

  “The only other place we could land is the pirate ship,” I said, glancing toward the Dread Fish, which sat silently in the dark waters below. “But it’s far from safe. I bet if we tried to land there, Red Tide and his gang would immediately attack us. I mean, if they’re willing to attack Seth, who is their client, then why wouldn’t they attack us, too?”

  “Maybe they’re not as bad as you think,” Edge offered. “Even if they are, you could beat them, couldn’t you? You’re super strong. We could hijack their ship if we had to.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m not sure it was well cast,” I said. “I’m not invincible. They could overwhelm me with their powers. Red Tide’s powers in particular could—”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” said Edge, who I realized hadn’t been paying attention to a word I said. He was staring down at the Red Tide below as closely as he could. “Someone on the ship is waving a white flag. That means they’ve surrendered, right?”

  Puzzled, I looked down at the ship and was surprised to see that Edge was correct. A man stood on the main deck of the Red Tide waving a comically large white flag as if his life depended on it. I couldn’t tell, however, if it was one of the pirates or someone else.

  “Think it could be a trap?” said Edge.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, “but they aren’t firing the cannons anymore and I don’t see anyone else. I’m going to bring us a little closer to get a better look. If it turns out to be one of the pirates, then we’ll fly away. Hang on.”

  I slowly lowered us closer to the Dread Fish, ready to fly away the second I smelled a trap. The man on the deck, however, didn’t do anything except continue to wave the white flag back and forth as fast as he could. And the closer we got, the better I got to see him. He was a black man wearing a navy blue pea coat, and when he looked up directly at us, I saw his face for the first time and gasped.

  “Fingerprints!” I said, unable to hide my joy.

  Edge looked at me in confusion. “Who?”

  “A friend,” I said. “Or at least an ally. That means it’s safe to land.”

  I picked up the speed until we reached the surface of the Dread Fish. We landed a few yards away from Fingerprints, who dropped the flag the second we touched down and walked over to greet us with a tired smile on his face.

  Fingerprints didn’t look much different from the last time I saw him, except for a few bruises on his face that hadn’t been there before. His pea coat was also shredded in a few places, making it look slightly rattier than before, but frankly, I thought it just made him look more like a real sailor or pirate. He didn’t seem to have any major wounds that I could see, either, although torchlight wasn’t the best light from which to see.

  “I am pleased to see you made it, Bolt,” said Fingerprints, stopping a couple of feet away from us. “I was worried for a moment there that you might not get off the yacht in time, but it seems your powers are working again.” Then he looked at Edge and frowned. “Who are you?”

  “The name’s Edge,” said Edge. He let go of me and stepped away from me, dusting off his costume as he did so. “Edge Vigilante. I’m a vigilante who protects the streets of Showdown from thugs and petty criminals. I go to places where superheroes don’t and do things they would never even dream of doing.”

  “He’s just a kid in a costume,” I said with a shrug.

  “Ah,” said Fingerprints, as if my explanation made perfect sense. “I see. Well, if he’s with you, I suppose I can trust him.”

  “Yeah, you can,” I said, earning me a glare from Edge, although I ignored him in order to focus on Fingerprints. “So what happened? You implied you fired the cannons.”

  “That I did,” said Fingerprints with a nod. “And not merely the cannons, but the whole ship is under my command now. As it turns out, the Red Tide has a fairly sophisticated AI system that lets one person control most of it, although I still had to actually go down to the cannons and turn them on to fire them.”

  I looked around suddenly just then but didn’t see anyone other than the three of us on this ship. “Where is Red Tide and his crew? Are they still here?”

  Fingerprints chuckled. “Let’s just say they’re a bit indisposed at the moment. By that, I mean I tricked them all into getting onto one of their lifeboats and heading out to sea.”

  “You what?” I said in shock.

  Fingerprints folded his arms in front of his chest. “They underestimated me. They thought that my lack of powers meant I wasn’t much of a threat, so they put me in one of the cells on board the ship. Of course, since my powers are useless for combat anyway, they didn’t realize I knew other ways of fighting. To make a long story short, I convinced the pirates that the laser cannons’ battery was going to explode and that it would kill them all if they didn’t get off the ship quickly.”

  “And they just left you?” I said. “By yourself?”

  Fingerprints shrugged. “Since I’m not part of their crew, my life was irrelevant to them. By now, I am sure they’ve realized their mistake, but trust me, they won’t be catching back up to us anytime soon, certainly not in those tiny little lifeboats they took. And should a storm come through and sink them … well, that will save us on funeral expenses, at least.”

  In some ways, it was amusing to hear about how Finge
rprints tricked a bunch of pirates into abandoning their ship, but in another way, it was kind of unnerving how calmly he spoke about it. I made a mental note to avoid making Fingerprints an enemy because I had a feeling he could be a very bad one if he wanted to.

  “Once I made sure the pirates were gone, I took their ship and turned it around to head back to the yacht,” said Fingerprints. “Then I began firing on the yacht, hoping to sink it and the weapon with it because it was obvious that we couldn’t retrieve the weapon anymore.”

  “You mean you were willing to sink the yacht with me still on it?” I said in disbelief.

  “I thought you were either dead already or, if not, then at least would be able to get yourself off in time to avoid drowning,” said Fingerprints. “Sorry for not warning you ahead of time, not that I had any way of doing that.”

  I was kind of surprised to hear a G-Man agent of all people apologize to me for his actions. Maybe not all of them were irredeemable psychopaths who liked to abuse government power after all.

  “Anyway, what happened to the weapon?” said Fingerprints, leaning in closer to me. “Did you get it?”

  I shook my head. “No, I did not. It was lost when the yacht sank. So were Seth Richards and his wife, from what we could tell.”

  I didn’t tell Fingerprints what the weapon was, mostly because it was irrelevant at this point.

  Fingerprints just pulled back and nodded, a disappointed frown on his face. “Director Smith is not going to be happy when I tell him this. The only consolation, I suppose, is that the weapon is probably lost forever, which means that at least the Chinese and Russians won’t be able to use it. That was really what we were worried about.”

  I nodded as well but looked out across the ocean at the spot where the yacht had sunk. Two realizations hit me when Fingerprints mentioned the weapon:

  First, Uncle Jake was missing, most likely dead, which would be the second time he died. It was an awful way to go and made my stomach twist at the thought that I didn’t get to meet my uncle again.

  Second, however, and perhaps even more personal, I had failed to retrieve the weapon. That meant that the G-Men would not give me Miracle for Blizzard.

  And if I didn’t get the cure, then Blizzard was going to die.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The next day found me standing underneath the big, shady oak tree outside of the Hero Island Hospital, staring up at the large building and watching people walk in and out of it. The weather was beautiful today, with clear blue skies, bright warm sunshine, and even a nice cool breeze blowing through to take off some of the heat. It was one of those unusually beautiful days that happened in Hero Island, which due to being so close to New York normally had pretty bad weather, especially in October. The visitors, patients, and medical workers entering and exiting the hospital were all smiles and laughter, their moods no doubt lifted by the day’s nice weather.

  But I couldn’t enjoy it, no matter how beautiful today was. I was debating with myself whether I should go into the Hero Island Hospital or not. That was because I was worried about Blizzard. The knowledge that I had failed and that she was going to die of her illness made it almost impossible for me to enjoy the day. It seemed like a rain cloud perpetually hung over my head since last night when that realization hit me.

  Indeed, I hadn’t even been sure I would go to Hero Island at all this morning, but Fingerprints insisted I go. He told me that he would take the Red Tide back to Florida and make sure it was handed to the G-Men, who would most likely use it for their own purposes. Even Edge said I should go and that I didn’t need to worry about him because he could find his own way home, which I was kind of doubtful about, but didn’t argue with. The way I saw it, Edge would be with Fingerprints, who would hopefully keep him safe until he got back to Florida at least.

  As for me, I had retrieved my Teleportation Buckle and teleported straight back to Hero Island. But I still hadn’t entered the Hospital. I couldn’t stand to see Blizzard in that condition, with her skin so gray and her hair so thin and dead-looking. It was made even harder by the knowledge that I had come this close to getting a cure—from the G-Men and Seth—but had failed. Completely and utterly.

  Fingerprints hadn’t said anything about the cure to me, but I knew the deal. I was supposed to get the weapon and return it to the G-Men, who in exchange would give me a vial of Miracle that I could give to Blizzard to heal her disease. Yet I botched it so badly that I felt ashamed to show my face to Blizzard, even though she was probably still in a coma.

  I had failed before. Plenty of times before, in fact. But this time was different. My girlfriend’s life had been in the balance. True, that was objectively smaller than saving the world or even the multiverse, but to me, it was far worse because it was far more personal. I had gone above and beyond to save Blizzard, but due to circumstances outside of my control, I had failed, and now she was going to die and it was my fault.

  My own Mom was still alive, but I wondered if Dad had ever failed Mom in a way like this before. Once again, I found myself missing Dad and his counsel and advice. Dad could be cold sometimes, but he had cared about me more than anyone else. He would understand what I had been through, especially since he had been a superhero himself.

  But I guess I was on my own, like always. That meant I had to make my own decisions, right or wrong, and accept the consequences. But was I really ready for this? Would I even be able to look at her without breaking down? Could I even call myself a superhero after this?

  I shook my head. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. I would go into the Hospital and see Blizzard one last time before she died. Then I would head back to Showdown and get back to work. That would mean spending the next five days or so dreading the inevitable phone call I would get informing me of Blizzard’s death. I suppose I would have to come back to Hero Island for the funeral, although I wondered if Blizzard would be buried here or back home in Arizona, where she’s from.

  I took a deep breath and walked out from under the tree to the Hospital’s front doors. I was about halfway there when Healing Touch suddenly rushed out of the Hospital like he was being chased by a demon. He ran so fast that he actually collided into me, causing him to fall backward on his bottom while I just staggered from the blow.

  “Whoa, man,” I said, rubbing my chest and looking down at Healing Touch. “Are you okay? You sure seem like you’re in a hurry.”

  Healing Touch suddenly looked up at me and a big smile broke out across his face. “Bolt! Just the man I was looking for. Something amazing just happened and I need to tell you about it.”

  Despite Healing Touch’s optimism, my heart felt heavy in my chest. “It’s not about Blizzard, is it?”

  “Of course, but it’s not what you think it is,” said Healing Touch as he jumped to his feet like a rabbit hopping into the air. He put both of his hands on my shoulders and said, “She’s cured!”

  My jaw dropped. “What? No way. No freaking way.”

  “It’s true,” said Healing Touch. He was speaking excitedly now, his words practically tumbling over each other in his haste. “I didn’t believe it myself, but when I came to check up on her this morning, her vitals were fantastic. Even her skin is practically back to its normal shade.”

  “H-How?” I said. I still didn’t let myself get excited, because I was afraid there might be a catch I was unaware of. “How is this possible?”

  Healing Touch slapped my shoulders. “That’s just the thing: I don’t know. Last night, she looked worse than she’s ever been and I wasn’t even sure she would last until the morning. I fully expected to find her dead this morning, but instead, she’s alive. It’s a miracle, the kind doctors see all the time but can’t explain even with our vast medical knowledge and experience.”

  As happy as I was to hear this news, hearing the word ‘miracle’ reminded me of the cure the G-Men promised me. Touch, of course, wasn’t talking about that Miracle, but somehow it seemed way too coincidental t
hat he would use that word to describe this situation. Then again, Blizzard’s health was a pretty miraculous thing. Perhaps it really was an honest-to-god, old-fashioned miracle. I could believe in that.

  “And even better, she’s awake and wants to talk to you,” said Healing Touch.

  “She is?” I said.

  Before Healing Touch could confirm that I activated my super speed and rushed around him into the Hospital. I sped past patients, medical workers, and NHA members on my way up the floors until I found Blizzard’s room, where I nearly burst the door off its hinges as I came to an abrupt stop that left skid marks on the floor. That would probably get me into trouble later, but for now, I didn’t care, because my eyes landed on Blizzard on the other side of the glass wall.

  She was no longer lying flat on her back. Instead, she was sitting upright, supported by her pillows. Although she still looked fairly weak and tired, she didn’t look sick. Her skin was back to its normal tan, while her bright blue eyes flashed out from under her snow white hair like the stars.

  “Bolt?” said Blizzard. Her voice was weak, but she still spoke clearly. “Is that you?”

  I shoved open the door into her room and run over to her. Without hesitation, I wrapped my arms around Blizzard and hugged her as tightly as I could. “You’re alive! I can’t believe it. I thought you were going to die back there and—”

  “Bolt?” said Blizzard again in a slightly tight voice. “Can you let go of me, please? You’re making it hard to breathe here. Plus, I don’t want you to get sick by touching me.”

  I let go of Blizzard and stepped back, but I didn’t take my eyes off her for even one second for fear that she might disappear if I looked away. “Sorry. You hug me to the breaking point all the time, so I thought I’d return the favor.”

  Blizzard chuckled softly. “Yeah, I guess that’s karma, huh? A really weird form of karma, that is.”