Secret Origins

by James Riley

  “They’re superheroes,” Mason said, turning away. “They’ve got all these powers, but just use them to catch bad guys? Why don’t they actually change things? Anyway, it’s great to meet you, Mr. . . .”

  “Sanderson,” Doc Twilight said, grinning at Bethany’s mom. “Nice to meet you as well, Mr. Black.”

  “Wow, just like the real Doc Twilight’s secret identity,” Mr. Black said, looking incredibly bored with the conversation. “Good luck with things. Have fun messing around, Murray. I’m getting back to work.”

  Mason Black? That was the man that Doc Twilight had blamed for everything, the same person who’d written the note to his fans at the end of the Dark’s issue. So this was Doc Twilight’s writer?

  Mr. Black left the panel, leaving Murray to shake his head and follow Bethany’s mom and Doc Twilight, probably to a certain blue-fire portal, Owen figured.

  Before they went in, though, the next panel shifted scenes completely, this time to Mr. Black looking over some scripts. He picked up some pages of art and looked them over with confusion.

  “Hey!” he said, staring at the art. “This isn’t what I wrote. Murray, what were you thinking?”

  And then he took a closer look and gasped. Whatever had been there previously, now there were drawings of the same meeting that had just taken place, down to Mr. Black leaving, and then looking at the same drawings he was currently looking at right now, almost like a mirror reflecting a mirror to infinity.

  Owen gasped too and quickly moved on to the next panel, where a knock came at the door. Mr. Black stood up, still confused about the art, and went to open it.

  And there was the henchman Doc Twilight had been chasing down.

  “Are you Mason Black?” the man said.

  “Yes, but I’m really busy right now,” Mr. Black said, looking back at the art he’d left at his desk.

  The crook pulled out a gun and aimed it at Mr. Black’s face. “You created me, Mr. Black. But you made me wrong. And now I need you to fix me.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Owen! Bethany screamed in her mind. We need help!

  But if he ever answered, his response was lost in a sea of chaos. The Lawful Legion swarmed over the four of them, and Bethany quickly lost track of what was happening.

  Captain Sunshine came at her first, his black eyes glowing with bright white light as they burned lines in the floor heading straight for Bethany. She leaped out of the way, only to be grabbed by the duck man, his huge wings beating hard to send them soaring up to the roof.

  “You’ll pay for disobeying the Dark,” the duck man said, then released her right near the ceiling, dropping her toward the floor at least four stories down.

  Gwen grabbed her before she fell more than a few feet, her jet pack leaving a trail of flame behind her. “Got you!” she shouted. She had to dodge an attack by the duck, who immediately took a ray gun shot right in the chest and crashed into the wall.

  “Thank you!” Bethany shouted to Charm as Gwen set her back down on the ground, then took right back off into the air.

  “No time for thanks,” Charm said, her robotic eye lighting up as she turned her ray guns on her next target. “Not now, or ever.” She began shooting at Captain Sunshine, who rose into the air menacingly, his eyes glowing again.

  “This is crazy!” the Rotten Banana shouted as Man of Iron, the empty armor of an old-fashioned knight, strode toward him holding a sword made from laser light. “We can’t fight these people. They’re the most powerful heroes on Earth!”

  “Not sure how heroic they’re being right now,” Bethany said. A light disc came flying at her, and she leaped behind the banana to avoid it. The light disc careened off of his suit, only to boomerang back to its owner, Future Soldier, a man in what looked like a science-fiction movie costume from the 1960s.

  “We need to talk about this!” Gwen shouted at Athena, whose staff rose into the air, growing out in all directions like a malevolent tree. “You’re being controlled by the Dark’s shadows. We’re not your enemy!”

  “You broke the Dark’s rules!” Athena shouted, her black eyes flashing. Her staff’s branches snared Gwen, in spite of EarthGirl’s aerial acrobatics. “And we’re not going to get punished for it.”

  “Gwen, watch out!” Bethany shouted, then almost lost her own head as Charm went flying by, slamming into a nearby wall hard enough to put a hole through it. Behind her, Man of Iron raised its laser sword. “Only rotten children go out after the sun goes down,” the armor clanked, then stabbed right down at Bethany.

  Except Bethany jumped herself into a new form with a POINK, and the empty armor’s sword slammed into a steel shield. The force of the blow sent her shield-self skidding across the floor until she stopped, not moving.

  Hmm. Maybe this wasn’t the best choice.

  Bethany quickly turned back to her normal self and, thinking quickly, took a running leap at the animated armor. Right before she crashed into it, she transformed into the knight’s greatest enemy: rust.

  She landed on the knight’s armor, coating it completely. And the armor did come to a creaking halt! Only, she was now stuck there, not sure what else she could do.

  Why couldn’t inanimate objects be more useful in a superhero fight?

  “Really?” she heard the banana yell at her as Captain Sunshine’s eye rays slid right off of him. “That’s the best you’ve got? Rust?”

  Annoyingly, the banana made a good point. She turned herself back human, then kicked off from the armor, hoping to just get out of reach of the laser sword. Then she dove back behind the banana, who seemed like the best protection to be found.

  “Don’t just hide, do something!” the banana yelled at her.

  “I’m open to suggestions!” she shouted back, trying to avoid Captain Sunshine’s eye beams.

  “We need to break the shadow’s hold on them,” Gwen shouted from midair, tangled up in the branches of Athena’s staff as they slowly closed in around her. She set her jet pack’s throttle to full blast, and the staff caught fire, releasing her. She went rocketing up and barely missed hitting the roof before the duck man attacked.

  “And how do we do that?” Charm yelled, punching the now free-of-rust Man of Armor across the room with her robotic arm. “We need to get out of here!” She aimed one ray gun back at the duck, while the second turned to Captain Sunshine just moments before he plowed into her, knocking her through a different wall.

  Bethany didn’t even know which way to turn. There was just too much happening at once, and it was all so violent! Was this what all superhero fights were like, just excessive destruction and mayhem for no reason? These were the good guys, weren’t they? Gwen was right, they needed some way to break the shadows’ control over the Lawful Legion, or at least stop them all from attacking. But what—

  Something smacked her hard enough to send her reeling, and she turned in a daze to find herself staring at Athena and someone dressed exactly like Doc Twilight, if a lot shorter. Weirdly, he seemed to be about as tall as Bethany. Was she seeing things? How hard had she been hit?

  “. . . Dad?” she whispered in confusion as the short Doc Twilight slowly lifted what looked like a dart gun toward her, his black eyes glaring at her.

  “You should have learned to fear the Dark,” Athena said with a sneer.

  “Eh,” the shorter Doc Twilight said. “Who’s afraid of the Dark, after all?”

  He turned his dart gun on Athena, then shot several darts into her skin. Most broke before they penetrated, but at such a close range two managed to insert themselves, and the goddess of wisdom and war actually stumbled, then fell to her knees.

  “What? Who are you?” Bethany asked the masked hero, her head still jumbled from Athena’s hit. She watched as he pulled out two black-colored contacts that had turned his eyes as black as the rest of the Legion’s.

  “I blew my cover for you,” the masked figure said, glaring at her angrily. “I hope this little sightseeing tour was worth it.” In spite
of his growl, his voice sounded younger, closer in age to hers than the rest of the adult Legion.

  “Who are you?” she repeated, grabbing Athena’s staff from the goddess and aiming it at her just in case she got back up.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the boy in the Doc Twilight costume said. “We all need to leave. They’re going to tear us apart otherwise, and the shadows are on their way.”

  Captain Sunshine had turned his eye beams on Gwen, chasing her around the room with them, so Bethany aimed Athena’s staff at him. “I’m not leaving until we find the Dark!” she shouted, then slammed the staff into the superhero from behind.

  The staff vibrated so hard that it jumped out of her hands, and Captain Sunshine turned around slowly as if she’d tapped him on the shoulder.

  “You’ll be seeing the Dark very soon, you little monster,” Captain Sunshine told her.

  “Oh, shut up,” the teenage Doc Twilight said, and threw what looked like a rock at Captain Sunshine. The boy didn’t throw it hard, but as soon as the rock touched Captain Sunshine, the superhero collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain.

  “What was that?” Bethany asked, her eyes wide.

  “Just a moon rock,” the boy told her. “Captain Sunshine’s only weakness. And that was the last one I had. We need to get out of here. Now that they know I’m not one of them, I’ll be handed over to the Dark too.”

  “I told you, I need to find the Dark,” Bethany said. “If he’s coming here, all the better. I don’t care how dangerous it is!”

  “Do you understand that these are the most powerful people in the world, and they’re infected with shadows that bring out the worst in them?” the boy said. “You know what? Let’s do this the easy way.”

  Without another word, he aimed the tranquilizer gun at her and fired.

  And that’s when things got really weird. Before Bethany could move or jump out of the way, the Rotten Banana leaped between them, taking the dart meant for her right in the cheek, one of his only vulnerable spots.

  “Watch where you’re pointing that thinnnngggggg,” the banana said, then collapsed in a heap.

  Bethany’s eyes widened in shock. What had just happened? Had the banana actually just saved her . . . by sacrificing himself?

  “Okay, that was pointless,” the boy said, putting another dart in the gun. “It’s not like I don’t have more.”

  Bethany looked from the snoring banana to the boy and back, then jumped herself into the first image she could think of: a cloud of sleeping gas.

  The boy’s dart flew harmlessly through her cloud, and she smiled, if only in a way that gas would notice. Then she began to fill the entire hall as best she could, enveloping all the various Lawful Legion members, but staying away from Gwen and from Charm, who had just made her way unsteadily back into the hall.

  The teenager who’d been about to shoot Bethany got enough of a faceful of sleeping gas to knock him to his knees, but reluctantly, she let him breathe after that.

  After all, she had a lot of questions, and at least he wasn’t infected by the shadows.

  When the entire Lawful Legion was slumbering peacefully on the ground, Bethany jumped out of the sleeping gas, returning to her normal self.

  “Now,” she said to the dazed teenage boy as Gwen and Charm formed up behind her. “You are going to tell me who you are, why you infiltrated the Lawful Legion, and where I can find the Dark.”

  The boy started to raise the tranquilizer gun again, but Charm shot it out of his hand. “Good aim,” the boy said, massaging his hand. “Not bad, any of you. Well, except the one who kept trying to talk them out of fighting.” He nodded up at Gwen.

  “Yeah? She’s the most powerful of all of us,” Bethany told him, and Gwen smiled even while blushing.

  “Whatever,” he told them, standing up. “Come on. We stay here, we get captured.”

  “I’m not leaving until—” Bethany started to say, but the boy just shook his head.

  “Don’t you get it? There’s no way to beat him. If he comes, we’re all done for. We needed help from the world’s most powerful superheroes if we were going to have any chance, but look at them. I’ve been trying for days to free them from the shadows, while making them think I was infected too. But nothing worked. Nothing. And now he knows we’re here, which means he’ll send every shadow he has at us.” He glared at Bethany. “You either stay here and get taken over just like they did, or you come and maybe live. Your choice.”

  And just like that, the boy strode off, not even bothering to see if she was following.

  Charm lifted her ray gun to his back, but Bethany pushed it back down . . . eventually.

  CHAPTER 33

  Owen slowly turned the page and saw only one inked panel. The rest of the panels were much sketchier, incomplete.

  “What is this?!” said Mason Black to Dr. Apathy’s henchman. He put his hands up and backed into his house.

  In the penciled panel that came next, the crook followed him in.

  “I’m sorry to do it this way,” the man said, looking behind him out the door, then slowly shutting it. “I know who you are. I’ve seen the—what do you call them?—comic books. Doc Twilight and I, we’re not real, are we?” He swallowed hard. “We’re just figments of your imagination that came to life somehow. And if I came from you, then that means that you’re the only person who can help me.”

  “Please, just put the gun down,” Mr. Black said, and Owen wasn’t sure if he was going to attack the man or run screaming.

  The crook looked down at the gun like he was surprised he still had it, then tucked it into his belt. “Sorry, it’s really just all I know. But that’s why I need your help.”

  The next panel had Mr. Black sitting at the kitchen table as the henchman paced behind him, his gun still in his belt. “What is it that you want from me?” Mr. Black asked. “Money? Because I hate to break it to you, but writing comics hasn’t made me rich.”

  The crook’s eyes lit up briefly, then he shook his head violently. “No! That’s exactly what I don’t want anymore. You wrote me to be that person, a criminal who lies and steals and cheats out of greed. But I want more from this life, Mr. Black. And I think you have the power to help me with that.”

  “What power?” Mr. Black asked, his fear now seeming to be mixed with curiosity.

  The crook turned and glanced out the kitchen window, like he was waiting for Doc Twilight to come swooping in at any moment. “I want you to rewrite me,” he said. “I want to be a hero, Mr. Black.”

  Mr. Black stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  The henchman immediately went for his gun, then consciously stopped himself, moving his hands back to his side. “I mean it. I’m just some random crook now, getting kicked around gang to gang, but you’ve got the power to change that. You could make me someone important, someone good.” He took the gun out of his belt and tossed it on the counter. “I don’t want this life anymore. Help me, please! You’re my creator, the one who gave me life. Can’t you see that I’m capable of more than this?”

  Mr. Black slowly stood up. “What you’re asking for is impossible.” He slowly moved toward the gun as the henchman growled in frustration.

  “You created us. How can it be impossible?”

  Mr. Black paused, his eyes on the crook, then leaped for the gun, grabbing it and turning it on the other man. “I did nothing of the kind!” Mr. Black shouted. “Don’t you get it? You’re not real, you can’t be. This is all some kind of dream. A nightmare! I’m not actually meeting you, or Doc Twilight, or any of the stupid superheroes I’ve made up. You weren’t even my idea, don’t you get that? Murray Chase did all the work. I just suggested a superhero who only worked at night, and he came up with all the Twilight stuff. I doubt I even wrote you at all! He’s the one who’s always adding in quirky henchmen to make the battles more fun. If it were up to me, there’d be whole stories about Doc Twilight taking down mob bosses and crooked politicians, not evil scient
ists!”

  The henchman took a step forward, ignoring the gun shaking in Mr. Black’s hand. “I refuse to accept that! You’re the one who created me, and you have the power to fix me. Make me better, tell my story differently. I don’t want to be any part of this anymore. You must have had a plan when you made me, and—”

  “I write four to five comics a month!” Black shouted, the weapon shaking even more now. “You think I have time to plan out any of this? That’s why Chase does most of the work!”

  “Please!” the crook said, taking another step forward.

  And then Mr. Black turned his head away and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet hit the wall behind the henchman, who put both his hands up in surrender. “You don’t need to do this. You can fix me, please! You can change me, change this. I know you can.”

  Black opened his eyes and dropped the gun to the floor as if disgusted with himself. “Get out!” he screamed at the henchman. “Leave me alone! I’m not going to rewrite you. I’m not sure I’ll ever write again! Just . . . just leave. Go back to your life. Never come back here again, or I’ll call the cops!”

  The crook just stared at Mr. Black sadly for a moment, then quietly picked up the gun and walked out of the house. He stopped outside and looked back, only to see Mr. Black slam the door and turn off the lights.

  From there, the henchman strode through the dark and rainy streets for a panel or two, before finding the same fiery blue portal that Doc Twilight had emerged from an issue before. He looked back one last time, then dropped inside, going back to Jupiter City.

  “Wow,” Owen said, his eyes wide as he turned the page. “This is not a kid’s comic.”

  The next issue had the crook sharing his story with a woman, who just laughed at the idea of “their creators.” Not knowing what else to do, the man went from hero to villain, sharing his story, begging them for help changing him. “We’re all just a story, but I don’t know how to rewrite myself,” he’d say. Some humored him, claiming they didn’t have the power to help, but most just ignored his insane stories about a writer and artist who’d created their world from nothingness.