Supers - Ex Heroes

by Jamie Hawke

  “Ugh, I wish that were code for something.”

  She chuckled. “Anyway, it all started to make sense. There’s a bit of a hierarchy surrounding supers, related to their powers. One is the best, but pretty much nobody is tier one. There were some, but they were, ironically, defeated. Killed off or trapped, some disappeared. It’s all very mysterious.”

  “Considering that they were the most powerful supers ever,” Charm added, “I’d say very fucking mysterious.”

  “Right.” Twitch paused for effect, so we did too. “And here’s the kicker… One of them named himself after your Earth god, Apollo, since our sun gave him more power than any before.”

  “Or after, that we know of,” Charm said.

  “He had a lover, who called herself Artemis—”

  “Wait,” I interrupted, having studied a bit of Earth mythology in my time. “They do realize… I mean, if I’m remembering this properly, that Apollo and Artemis were brother and sister?”

  Twitch looked confused, then shared a grin with Charm.

  “You didn’t know that, I take it?” I asked.

  “Not many here really remember the details of Earth’s history,” Twitch said, “Or mythology. But that’s hilarious.”

  “Pretty damn funny,” Charm agreed.

  “But as far as we know, our Artemis and Apollo were not brother and sister.”

  “And to be clear, what’s all this have to do with me?” I wasn’t sure I’d like where this was going, but at least learning more about this galaxy was interesting.

  “First, let me ask this.” Twitch’s expression grew serious again and she leaned in, staring into my eyes. “Do you know who your mom and dad were?”

  “What?”

  “Your parents… you said you were adopted?”

  I frowned and nodded, then froze. “Right. Get to the point.”

  “Gladly. See, Artemis and Apollo were rumored to have had children, though nobody knows what happened to them. Based on what I’m seeing in your code, and the way your powers work...”

  “NO!” Charm blurted out, then covered her mouth, gesturing with her free hand for Twitch to go on.

  “My parents were Apollo and Artemis,” I finished the thought, trying to process it as the words left my mouth. “Not the gods from Earth legend, but some top tier supers from your galaxy. Holy fucking shitballs.”

  Twitch beamed as if she’d just aced her final tests, while Charm took a step back, eyeing me with more interest and lust than I’d seen from her so far.

  “But I’m not that powerful, I’m just a guy,” I protested. “Some guy who knows a bit of martial arts and spent most of my working life welding spaceship parts and making fun of people who watch Planet Kill. What the hell do I know, I mean… no, this doesn’t make sense.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Twitch replied. “Think about it—why else would Xin have selected you? This whole time, you couldn’t have really thought it was random. Some Earther who he just happened to select. I don’t think so. Even if he didn’t realize the connection, at your near-death moment he sensed the power from across the universe, and knew you had to be one of the new elders.”

  “And my brother?”

  “Probably also in training or being tested or whatever you want to call this.”

  My nostrils flared and I took a deep breath, then turned and said, “Xin, dammit, are you there?”

  Nothing.

  “XIN!” I shouted. “Where the hell are you? Did you hear this? Is any of this true?”

  Again, silence… until finally there was a deep breath and then he said, “Chad, or Breaker, I guess… I’ve just been caught up. We’re growing weaker here, my connection’s fading. Everything Twitch said makes sense, though I’m ashamed to admit I hadn’t fully made the connection.”

  “And my brother?”

  “He’s out there with some of my best, in for his own adventure,” Xin said. “If you two both become Elders, you will see him again.”

  Wow, hearing it confirmed made my head spin, my ego float through the roof. I was likely a descendant of these supers, as was my brother, and we might both be Elders at some point? I stared at my hands, looked from Twitch to Charm, and then nodded.

  “Let’s go kick their butts.”

  “Be careful,” Xin said, his voice already fading. “This might be the last time we speak… and if that’s so, know that I believe in you. Prove me right.”

  “Thank you,” I said, the heaviness of Xin’s situation conflicting with the elation of finally understanding a bit of my past.

  “You know,” Twitch said as we started walking down the halls again, “being what you are… back home, that’s practically like being a god.”

  “Fucking A it is,” Charm said with a grin, standing taller now.

  “What’s up with you?” Twitch asked, noticing the bounce in her walk.

  “I sucked the dick of a god,” Charm replied. “And maybe when this is over, I’ll sleep with one.”

  The thought of her sweet pussy finally sliding down on my cock almost put me back in the mood, but I pushed it away for now, sharing her smile and doing my best to ignore the rising worry that was working its way up my spine. This responsibility, if I allowed myself to think about it, could be crippling. Instead, I’d focus on what I had the potential to be, and ensure I achieved that point by the time we faced off against Ranger’s troops.

  Only then would I allow myself to consider how amazing it would be to fuck Charm.

  18

  Even with our new understanding of what I was, we didn’t lose sight of the goal. We still needed to contain the powers of the others, or as many as we could, and that meant finding the brother of the Elder. The one who Ranger had used to unblock the powers of everyone on this prison ship.

  Twitch had located the area where she believed he would be, then shared it on my mini-map. Only problem was, we had to go directly into what I could only think of as hell. Our path would take us into the area controlled by the Blue Lady, likely exposing us to Chains, Drakonis, and all number of other supervillains.

  “Before, you were very secretive about the Blue Lady,” I said, treading carefully. “And now?”

  “She’s not with or against us,” Twitch said. “She’s more like a force of nature, one who would simply destroy cities for the entertainment, or to observe people in moments of death and suffering, as if to understand something she could never feel.”

  “Meaning what, exactly? She’s incapable of feeling pain and death?”

  Twitch frowned but nodded.

  “I hear there’s more to her than that,” Charm said. “That she comes from the outer realms, and her village was destroyed by a super when she was young. She lost everything, everyone. When she got her powers, she started doing the same in an attempt to understand why someone would’ve done that. Then she began to enjoy it, to crave the sensation of death.”

  “Or maybe that’s all a bunch of bullshit,” I said. “Maybe those are rumors, spread to make her sound more mysterious or threatening, but… could she be an ally?”

  “What?” they both said, looking at me with horror.

  “Hear me out. Back there, she took Metallica, right? But not us. She didn’t attack us… why?”

  “We got out of there in time,” Charm said, looking away, fidgeting with her nails.

  “You know that’s not the truth,” I argued. “She looked right at me and continued on. Maybe there’s something about me, this whole Apollo business, I don’t know, that she sensed. If we could get her on our side, working with us, getting to Ranger’s top supers would be a lot easier.”

  Charm ran a hand through her short hair, her tail tucking between her legs. She clearly didn’t like the idea, but turned to Twitch to see what she’d say.

  Twitch had folded her arms under her chest in a way that made her breasts stick out, a look of concentration on her face that was sexy as hell. It was moments like those, me standing there talking about how to kill a bunch of
supervillains while my other head—the one in my pants—tried to take over, that made me wonder if my weakness was my obsession with sex. Every superhero or supervillain had a weakness, right? Well, maybe mine was both my strength and weakness. A strength in that sex could give me powers (although, in theory so could blood sharing), and a weakness in that it was a very big distraction.

  “It could work,” Twitch finally said.

  “What was your plan?” I asked.

  She frowned, pointed to one of her screens with a map, and said, “Charge in, kill them all. Go from there.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I like my plan more.”

  “Me too, actually,” Charm said. “As much as the Blue Lady terrifies me, I think Breaker has a point about all this.”

  “Fine, fine,” Twitch said. “Lead the way.”

  “Well, I still need your help trying to figure out where she might be,” I admitted.

  “Oh, so they need my help now.” Twitch took on a smug look, stood tall, and moved her map front and center. She moved her hands along it, elongating it, and then frowned. “I’ve been wondering something, and maybe our Blue Lady is the answer. See here,” she gestured to what looked like smudges on the map, “and how they follow a pattern?”

  Charm and I both looked, but neither of us was with her.

  “My point being, what if these are those tunnels the Blue Lady creates? Or the remnants of them. I’d been wondering that, but didn’t see the relevance. However, with Charm’s idea that she might not simply be a chaos agent, that it’s all related to her home and its destruction… What if she’s targeting the supers that were involved in that?”

  “Holy fucknuggets,” Charm said, now following the pattern with her finger. “It’s leading up, too.”

  “Meaning?” I asked.

  “That she started with lower tier supers, those less powerful. She’s taking them out, maybe even forming a team…?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Twitch interjected. “Right now, all we know is that it seems likely she’s targeting supers and working her way up. Which means we have a way to try and intercept her.”

  “But with her powers,” I said, “I’m pretty sure she’d be able to just charge through and destroy them all a lot faster than we’d be able to catch up.”

  “We’re not going to catch up,” Twitch replied. “We’re going to figure out where she’s going next, and intercept. Plus, I think you’re giving her more credit than she deserves. Is she badass? Yes. But every super has a weakness, and she’s no exception.”

  “And maybe she’s taking time between, focusing on torturing or slowly killing each victim,” Charm said with her goofy smile. Only she could say that sentence with such an expression.

  “Fine.” I waved them on, ready to go. “As long as I don’t have to become one of her tortured or slowly killed. That happens, I’m blaming you two.”

  “I’ll accept full responsibility,” Twitch replied, leading the way.

  Soon we were charging along corridors, making good progress. We made a stop back by the Big Guy’s area, glad to see it was clear, and let them know what we were up to, and that they might not have to hold out for that much longer. They weren’t under siege at the moment, but when we ascended to the next level we found a group of supers staked out—we knew they were there before they saw us, thanks to Charm’s nose.

  “Ready to try out some of those new skills?” Twitch asked me.

  I nodded. First I ensured my shield was activated, even though Twitch applied a shield to each of us as well. Being doubly shielded made me feel a tad better about the situation, but to answer her question, no, I wasn’t ready at all. Sure, I might have those skills, but the last thing I wanted to do was go charge in there and find out I didn’t know how to use them.

  And that’s exactly what I did. Moving against the wall, I used an opening to move through and then went around the corner, all by myself. A glance down showed I was in camo mode, my clothes and skin appearing like the metal. At least that was still working, but now it was time to test my newly-acquired attack skill.

  There were four supervillains in this hallway, two shoving each other and arguing about a third, and the fourth watching with an amused grin. My mind said to run, but my heart said that these were supervillains, that they’d chosen their side, and needed to be stopped.

  I reached out, formed an invisible ball with my hands, and then stared in awe as blue light appeared, twisting and turning, a darkness in the center, growing outwards. The supervillain who’d been watching the others noticed this and started walking toward me, eyes narrowed.

  “What the fuck is that?” he said, pointing.

  He had the others’ attention too, and they all faced me with confusion. As far as they could tell, there was a strange ball of darkness encircled by crackling light appearing from nowhere.

  Time to strike.

  Even though I wasn’t sure how it worked, I had been getting a sense for superpowers and how to activate them, so I pulled on my emotional core, willing it to happen, seeing it with my mind’s eye.

  Sure enough, the ball surged with energy and then sent bursts of lightning through the room, first hitting the closest of the supervillains and then traveling like a chain to each of the others. The closest one fell, skin scorched and smoking, the next was blasted back, and the other two were hit with enough power to send one to his knees in pain, and cause the fourth to shake, but not fall.

  Apparently either the power had more strength the closer they were, or it was based on who it hit first. Or both.

  My camo wore off then, and the supervillain left standing made eye contact. I could see him processing what he saw, see him lifting his hand to counter the attack, but I was still too stunned by what I’d done, my reaction time too slow.

  He hit me with a beam of light from the palm of his hand that darkened the room and would’ve likely sent a hole through my chest. Instead, my armor shimmered, one layer of it vanishing, and I stumbled back a few steps.

  Apparently, it was my personal shield that had gone, because I saw a recharge bar appear.

  What didn’t need a recharge bar, I noticed, was my ball of lightning. My tempest skill was still ready to go, growing larger in the imaginary circle between my hands.

  This time I directed it fully at the one who had shot at me but he was already dodging, moving behind the one who had fallen earlier but was now starting to push back up. My blast arched but hit this second guy, sending a wave of shocks through him and then chaining off to find the other one who’d gone to his knees, but stopping there.

  Apparently, if I couldn’t see the target, they weren’t included in the chain. This guy realized it too, because he picked up what was now a corpse—as he was the only living opponent in the room—and charged me.

  More blasts came from his hands, through the corpse and right at me, but I moved against the wall and focused on my other power, my hidden travel ability, letting my ball of energy fade. The power kicked in instantaneously, in a way that felt like I’d merged with the metal, unable to breathe or even think for a short burst of time, and then I was out again, down the hall and past this supervillain, staring at his back.

  If I hadn’t taken that huge breath of air as I tried to calm myself, he wouldn’t have even realized I was there. I’d have to work on that next time.

  Before I could even get my tempest going, he’d blasted me with another shot. It felt like a sledgehammer against my leg, knocking me to the floor. When I rolled out of the way of the next, I glanced down to see that, in spite of the pain, I wasn’t harmed. Thank you, Twitch and your shield.

  On that note, where the hell were Twitch and Charm?

  I appeared as a werewolf for a moment, but the guy scoffed and shot at me again. This time I pressed the floor to travel, and shot forward, reappearing to his left, only three feet away. I closed the distance and hit him with a roundhouse kick to the stomach, followed by another to his face that snapped his head back
and knocked him to the ground.

  “Ugh,” Charm said, suddenly appearing on the other side of the guy. She knelt, claws at his throat. “The point was to kill them with your superpowers, not your dance moves.”

  “Kung fu isn’t a dance,” I argued, cringing as she sunk her claws in and then yanked, leaving the man dead and with half his neck missing.

  She gave me a condescending look, wiping her hands on the man’s clothes. “Looked like you were dancing with him.”

  “Twitch,” I said, seeing her walking our way. “Tell your friend here that martial arts isn’t a dance.”

  “Why didn’t you just blast him, instead of dancing the guy to death?” Twitch replied with a wink.

  “Fuck you both,” I said, standing and trying to fight back the urge to puke at the scent of the other three charred corpses.

  “This stuff turns you on too?” Charm asked, backing down at the look I gave her.

  “After-action report,” Twitch said, changing the subject. “You did okay.”

  “Okay?” I spun on her. “Did you see the way I shot them full of lightning? Or when I traveled through the metal?”

  “Yes. It was okay, but you’re far from a top tier super. You need to get accustomed to your powers, learn to control them and remember that they’re at your disposal.”

  “Worked, didn’t it?” I grumbled.

  “Against these wusses, yes.”

  I frowned, staring her down, but then nodded. “Fine. Put me up against someone harder. Let’s see how I do.”

  “Oh, you’re ready for the challenge now?”

  I nodded.

  “Good,” she said. “But not yet. This is enough for us to know what you’re capable of. How close are you to your next level?”

  A quick check showed it wasn’t close, and I said so.

  “No worries.” She started walking, apparently expecting us to keep up. “When you level up, let us know. We need to ensure you’re always upgrading as soon as you can.”

  The next part of our journey led us to more ladders and walkways. We had to avoid a couple of rooms where supers were fighting, but most of the areas had cleared out. According to Twitch, the factions had all likely been formed at this point, and they were either fighting or holing up, waiting for the big event of Ranger’s arrival.