Supers - Ex Heroes

by Jamie Hawke

  His eyes moved from me to the girl nearby, the one with the pigtails. An image flashed before my eyes of me and a girl like this playing catch, or me teaching her how to swim, and then this son of a bitch strolling in with his fucked-up eyes and trying to hurt her.

  This may not have been my daughter, but there was no way I was letting the bastard touch her.

  My rage boiled up and came out in a war cry this time. My legs carried me forward, my fist pulled back and ready, even as bursts like solar flares started to shoot from his hands. Nothing in me yelled retreat. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation, only the overwhelming desire to make this guy suffer for thinking he could hurt anyone, ever.

  And then I realized I was a gonner. Dead meat. No matter how fast my punch flew, this guy had fucking fire shooting out of his hands. As much as that didn’t make sense, it was there for me to see. My damn reality.

  Fuck it. I didn’t care, because I’d do my best.

  I let loose, and in the moment of panic and dread, processed a portal opening up beside me, a woman standing there, and the criminal turning in surprise.

  The fire was still coming, only it was washing over me, not affecting me in the slightest. My fist landed as he was distracted, and I knocked him onto his ass. Where my fist had connected with his chest, there was a burning circle. The woman in the portal looked at me, then to the man on the ground.

  “Oh, shit,” she said, eyes going wide. She grabbed him first, then turned to me, grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, and pulled us both through the portal with her.

  “My brother—” I started, turning back to look for him, but all I saw was his stunned expression fading as the world disappeared around me.

  Instead of the bank, now tall walls of metal rose up around me. They glowed as if from a warm sunset, but from the inside. As I watched, black lines like thick veins ran down the walls, expanding, fighting off the light. All around were tall statues that glimmered like diamonds, but they too were being covered in darkness, like a shroud slowly drifting down.

  Then a woman dressed in a black skin-suit appeared in the center of the room, at a spot that I saw was now surrounded by nine other men and women. Only, the woman in black turned to me and I saw she wasn’t a woman at all—instead of a face, a golden faceplate stared back at me with a glowing skull within.

  The sight of her caused me to stumble back, pulling me free from the other woman’s grip, so that I fell on my ass.

  “It’s done,” the woman in black said, and knelt. One of the men lifted his hands and energy flew from the woman, flooding the others nearby, and then they were pulled back into their statues, vanishing with a burst of white and blue light that pushed back the darkness.

  Finally, the woman in black collapsed, only there wasn’t anything left of her—just a black outfit, crumpled on the floor, and the glass that had held the skull. As it smashed on the ground, shattering across the floor in sparkling shards of light, it became clear the skull was gone too.

  “Who the fuck is that?” a man shouted, stepping over from behind. He came from the direction of a strange looking craft—a space ship, no doubt, but it had the look of a missile with turrets and razor-like wings.

  He approached us, having only just then noticed we were there. His glare focused on the criminal on the ground, not giving me a second glance. The criminal was still alive, apparently, and the fiery circle I’d left on his chest was smoldering. Nothing deadly.

  “Eclypse,” the woman who’d taken me said. “Apparently, Ranger’s already sending his supers to Earth. He’s made it through.”

  The man shook his head, gestured to the glowing statues, and said, “Our sacrifice will hold him off. We’ll find our heroes to reinstate the Elders, you…”

  “I have to do this,” she said, eyeing me as if I was a great burden.

  “Navani,” he said, reaching for her.

  She stepped back, pulled me up, and said, “If we want to ever truly defeat the supervillains, Andrew here is our only hope.”

  My mind swirled, confused with everything that had just come out of her mouth combined with the strange sight I’d just seen. Supervillains? Men and women vanishing and where the hell was I? What had happened to my brother?

  “Enough,” I said, yanking myself from the woman’s unnaturally strong grip. “I demand answers!”

  “You didn’t tell him?” the strange man asked of the woman, who he’d called Navani.

  “There was no time,” Navani replied. “He was fighting Eclypse here, nearly killed himself to save the others.”

  The man turned a curious eye to me, then nodded. “Truly his father’s son, no doubt.”

  “My father?” The mention of him here, like this, made no sense. “I’m going to tell you right now, my father went missing years ago, and I mean a lot of years. So whatever weird game you’re playing ends now. Who the hell are you, and how are you doing this?”

  The man on the floor—Eclypse, apparently—suddenly jolted up, turned on me, and growled. His eyes glowed silver again, then a darkness started to take over until each eye was half silver, half black, and I had a sense of how he’d gotten his name. His fingers started to glow with a flame, but then the other man sighed, stepped up beside him, and placed a hand on the back of his neck.

  Eclypse collapsed, a strange light flowing out of him and into this man.

  “Xin,” Navani said, “come with us.”

  “I wish that I could, but the only way I we can find these others is with my help.” With a deep breath, he walked over to the circle in the center of the room and knelt. “Go, now. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

  She bit her lower lip, nodded, and then turned to stroll over to the ship. Xin bowed his head, light pulling from him toward the statues, and he said, “Call the first hero.” Light intensified and I could see his skeleton within, hear echoing cries of torment, and then—

  “ANDREW!” Navani shouted. “Move your ass!”

  I’d responded so quickly to that phrase over the years and was in such a state of shock, that I immediately did as commanded. I high-tailed it out of there, following Navani up and into the craft, only pausing to wonder where I was going once the doors were closing behind me. Of course, by then it was too late.

  What the hell had I just gotten myself into.