Paragon

by Riley Tune

  I released a burst of my Impact Blast, and Infinity opened a small orange swirling portal in front of himself. My blast flew into that portal and then the portal closed. “I got that power from a girl two cities over about three months ago.” he said as he laughed. “I have no need for pointless powers. I couldn’t stand up to Flex and Impervious with pointless powers.”

  “Do you even have powers of your own?” I asked him. “I do. Father hated them though. This ability to leach others powers, was my power. I didn’t learn of the true potential until he traded me off like I was nothing. The Spellborn showed me how powerful I really could be. Just as I have offered to show you.”

  “Ready, on your word.” Jen said in my ear. “Now,” I screamed. Infinity squinted at me. My random scream confusing him. As I screamed, I also ran away. He watched me, and then he turned around and saw Jen standing in front of him, with an old enemy. She had concealed none other than Eric Rasenburg, aka E-Rase.

  Danielle had given me his number to validate her claims that nothing was going on between them. I was glad I saved it. He was the only way I could think of to halt a person like Infinity. He, for a small one hundred grand fee, had agreed to help us out. Then he was going to take his money and leave town.

  As he walked towards him Infinity, looked at him and them back at me. He laughed and then snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. Infinity snapped his fingers again and again, but nothing happened. He flinched and looked to the sky, but no lighting came down. He was powerless.

  Before I could move, Flex stood up behind Infinity, placed both hands around his head, and snapped his neck with such force that the pop made almost an echo. He fell to the ground, eyes still open, but unmoving just the same.

  He was dead. Infinity. Will Scott. The most powerful being in this world, taken down by a low life thug because his powers were considered small while compared to others. E-Rase looked at me and then pulled out his phone.

  I did the same and transferred the money to his account. “Awesome,” he said as he looked down at his phone. Jen went to help her dad, as E-Rase walked towards me with his hand out.

  “Hey man, sorry about the other day. I wasn’t going to really shoot you or anything. And, it wasn’t what it looked like. We never slept together. To be honest, I haven’t seen her since Lobo showed up. Now, thanks to you, I’m headed to Emerald Canyon for a fresh start.”

  I shook his hand. “Thanks for the help.” I said. He nodded, and then screamed, “I’m rich,” as he ran off. I laughed. I was guessing that in three months he would be back to doing petty acts of crime to get by.

  “Where is Z?” Flex asked me. He was removing some of the blood from his face. “In the baseball field near here. She’s trapped in my force field. She tried to kill me, too.” Flex sighed as he shook his head from left to right.

  “We thought, we thought she was better.” he said. “What do you mean?” I asked him. “Z showed signs early on of being a villain. She found pleasure in other people's pain, and even went through a killing animals phase. Well, in her case, freezing them. She had several doctors, a pile of pills, and special classes she had to take, but we thought she had worked it out of her system. She would have urges, but as long as she took her pills, she would had been okay. I guess we were wrong.”

  “She needs help Flex. That and a cell. Her powers are,” “More than she let people believe.” Flex finished my own sentence for me. “Yeah. Her pills keep her powered down. I don’t know why she stopped taking them suddenly after all these years.” His eye became glazed over. For the first time ever, I looked at Flex and didn’t see a showboating jerk. Instead, he was a big brother, who felt like he failed his sister. I wondered if my casual attitude towards what was right, and what was wrong had an influence on her.

  “I’ll take care of it.” he said as he flew off into the air.

  I looked around. Cops had finally come close to the scene and were talking to Jen and Life-Line near the children. Mr. Reid looked at me and nodded. I quickly turned away. I still wasn’t ready to address his part in what happen when Infinity was given away.

  Mr. Impervious was standing over the body of his son. His real son. “He was like this because of me.” he said in a broken voice. “He made his own decisions,” I said with a grimace. “Then again, so did you. You covered up deaths, lied, chose your happiness over what was right, and on top of it you gave your child away in some back- alley bargain.”

  It was odd, but right now I hated my uncle more than I did Infinity. All of this could have been prevented had he, and my father, just gone back home.

  “You’re right.” he said as he removed a small silver device from his suit, and clicked a button. As he did so, a green, swirling portal opened. I gasped, because I hadn’t seen one of these since the invaders came. I mean Spellborn. The same portals were used during the Battle of Ages.

  “I’m taking them home. To our world. They both deserve a proper burial, no matter what, they were still my children. One by blood, and one by love.” I wanted to say something but I couldn’t find the words.

  He shifted into super speed and in a blink of an eye, the remains of Picasso were gone. Then Impervious was back, bending over and picking up the body of Infinity. “Seems the Imperial Lords are done for now. Tell Life-Line and Flex to handle everything and to keep a low profile until I return.”

  I fought the urge to tell him that he doesn’t get to leave us in this cluster fuck while he goes to another world, but all I did was nod as he stepped into the green portal that closed behind him.

  I looked around and realized there was nothing left for me to do. Flex was handling Zeva, and what was left of the Lords were either speaking to police, or getting healed by Life- Line. I had brushed Mr. Reid off when he tried to heal my arm. I just didn’t want to be around him, not yet. Now, he was with Jen and they were talking to the police. It was best if I just headed back to the base, took a shower, downed some food and went to sleep.

  I rose several feet in the air and then was suddenly stopped by several screaming voices. I turned and looked down on them. Reporters.

  “Can you tell us what happened here?” A blond woman said as she held a tape recorder in my face. “Where did Mr. Impervious go? Was that a portal from The Battle of Ages?” A large white man with red hair asked.

  Then between them all, a short black woman forced her way to the front of the crowd. “Forget all of that, just tell us your name!” she said. I landed back on the ground and walked towards them.

  I didn’t have a true name. I never really thought about getting one because I didn’t know if I was going to be a hero or a villain but now I knew. I knew I was a hero. I wanted to save lives and not end them. I wanted to protect with my power, not enslave. Then, from who knows where a name came to me.

  I smiled and looked at every reporter, and cameraman in the face. “Call me, Paragon.”

  EPILOGUE

  “P

  aragon?” Danielle said as she let her head fall back in laughter. “That was the first thing that came to you? You just help defeat a crazy ice bitch and a super powerful Icon and that was the first thing that came to mind?” I shrugged and continued to rub her feet.

  We were sitting in my room. Not my real room at the Reid’s house, but my room at the base that once belonged to the Imperial Lords. “It’s been about a month now you know? You’d think the name would have grown on you.” I replied as I put some more lotion in my hand. “Nope, not even a little, but the media seems to love it.”

  She was right. Since the fight with Infinity and Zeva, I had become somewhat of a celebrity for a variety of reasons. While many still knew me because of my villain dad, and hero mom, now they knew me for what I really was. Hell, they knew my family for what we really were.

  Impervious confessing to everything like he did on live television shed some light on some very old questions. Questions like why the invaders came to our world in the first place, and why they
left so fast. Knowing all of this and being the only Spellborn left on our world made me a celebrity of some renown for most people. I had also been warned by several government officials to not try and start any trouble.

  The Imperial Lords were officially disbanded, and the name was even retired. Yet, a majority of the base was still left open. Mostly the lower levels. The shops and stuff up top were closed to the public and would eventually be demolished.

  Speaking of demolished, my relationship with Mr. Reid wasn’t what it used to be. With the Imperial Lords gone, he decided to retire from hero work and opened a small healing clinic for the sick at a price and was doing rather well. Over twenty grand a month in profits was the expectancy for the first year of business.

  Finding out that he agreed with the events of trading Will Scott off as a bargaining chip didn’t sit well with me. I found it even harder to look at him, or Mrs. Reid in the face. Turns out she knew and agreed to it too. Apparently, she was a member back then that worked alongside The Mechanic. Another surprise to me. We all still talked here and there but not like we used to.

  I decided to move out of the house permanently, and not just for my internship, to live in the base. Jen spent most nights here, unless she was out doing recon for other supergroups like she was now. She was dating a girl from Up, Up, and Away and was on mission for the next month with her. Even with her schedule, she still went home more than I did. We were both handling things well, seeing as how we technically were still on our internships. We were just given a lot of slack since we had helped with Infinity

  Danielle had become my roommate, and girlfriend again. After E-Rase came clean, and came through for us, I gave in and gave her another chance.

  I had missed her more than I let on and she knew it. For the last month we were almost joined at the hip. I saw her face at the start of every day, and the end of every night, and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world. “You know,” I said looking down at her, “I guess we could be considered vigilantes, now couldn’t we?”

  She looked at me with a grimace. “Well think about it. We aren’t really affiliated with a hero group, yet we aren’t villains.” She cleared her throat. I raised my brow. “We aren’t villains, right?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, we’re not villains,” she added again with a grumble. “Whatever you say Paragon,” she said. Before I could respond a knock came to the door. “Come on in,” I shouted. The door opened slowly, and Flex stuck his head inside.

  “Hey. Got a minute?” he asked. I moved Danielle's feet from my lap and slid off the bed. “Hey Flex,” Danielle said as she began playing with her phone. “Hello,” he replied casually. Since Zeva went off the deep end, Flex had become more relaxed and less of a dick. I liked him better this way and we actually got along pretty well now. I hated that his sister had to become a murderer to bring out his better side, but life happens I suppose.

  With Impervious still gone to his home dimension, Flex was also the unofficial leader of whatever we were, and Power Prince was his second in command. Me, Danielle, Power Prince, and Flex often trained together, ate together, swapped stories, and even occasionally went on random patrols together.

  Flex had the most experience, so it made sense to follow his lead. He was unbearable to deal with the first week after the fight, though. Zeva had been placed in Vincula, a maximum-security prison for the worst Icons around, and since then, Flex and his family pretty much disowned her.

  If I didn’t know Flex, I would have never known he had a sister. It was sad because they were always so close. I always assumed they loved each other. In reality, Flex was making sure her darker side never manifested. Keeping tabs on her under the ruse of brotherly love.

  We all left my room and walked down the hall a few feet before we stopped in a lounge area. The area was small and only had two tables, some chairs, and a tiny kitchen area. “Where is Double P,” Danielle asked. That was her nickname for Power Prince. “He’s still helping with that power outage in Emerald Canyon,” Flex replied. “Two thirds of the city’s power is coming from him, until they get everything up and running.”

  I sat down in a chair and leaned on the table. “What’s up?” I asked him. His eyes darted around. “Nothing. What’s up with you?”

  I twisted my face. “Really? You lured me here to ask how my day was? What, did your trip to see Zeva go bad?” Flex shook his head. “No, she is still as violent as before. Refusing to take her meds, you know the usual.”

  I raised my hands a little with my palms out. “So, what’s wrong because I don’t know if you noticed, but I was in the middle of rubbing lotion on my hot girlfriend.” Danielle cleared her throat again, as I laughed. He shook his head.

  “Prism,” he called out. In a second the holographic butler appeared beside us. “You called, young Lord?” “Stop calling us that,” I said quickly. He was having a harder time adjusting than we were, and with The Mechanic working out of The Ebony District now, he hadn’t had the time to update his system yet.

  “Play the audio we received earlier today.” Flex said. Various speakers in the lounge made a loud clicking sounds as they fired to life. A high pitched male voice began to speak from the speakers. “Why do only Icons get to be heroes?. I’m a normal guy, with a drive to save the world. I’m going to do it or die trying. My name is Brandon Strome, but the world will know me as Mighty Defender! My legend begins now.”

  The audio suddenly stopped. “I looked at Flex and then smirked. “Okay? Am I missing something?” “This was sent to us, by an Icon friend of mine. Apparently, this idiot is her boyfriend. He tried to stop a mugging, and nearly got killed. She wanted to know if we could go by and talk to him.”

  I shrugged. “What’s this have to do with me?” “He saw Paragon on the news.” Flex replied. “Paragon,” Danielle said as she laughed. I glared at her, but she continued to laugh. “Apparently he is a fan. Look just talk to him. He’s at Atlas City General.” I protested for a few minutes, but ultimately, I gave in and figured I would talk to the guy. I had nothing else to do after I spent some time with Danielle, and he was a fan after all.

  “Sure. Anything else?” I asked as I slowly backed up to head to my room. “Next time don’t be so secretive.” Then as I turned around a swirling green portal sprung to life right there in the base.

  “Impervious is back, it seems. Good, now he can figure out what he wants to do with this place.” Flex said as he sat down. A body fell out of the portal and came crashing into several chairs and Flex.

  It wasn’t Mr. Impervious. Instead it was an olive skin girl with spiky blond hair, and vibrant green eyes. She had on some large blue goggles around her neck, a black shirt with a brown vest, and some black boots.

  “Who the hell are you?” Flex said as he stood up and grabbed the girl. She looked around quickly. “Is this the Imperial Lords’ base?” She asked. “It used to be, up until about a month ago,” I replied to her.

  Tendrils of dark energy sparkled around Danielle's hands that slowly moved and twisted up her arms.

  “My name is Perkins,” she said as she found a chair to sit on. “Impervious tells me that you may be looking for some new talent to join the crew.” I looked at Flex who shook his head, and then to Danielle who shrugged her shoulders. “You want to be an Imperial Lord?,” I asked her.

  “That’s right,” she said as she clapped her hands together and grinned. “So where do I sign up?” Flex stepped closer to her. “The Imperial Lords aren’t a thing anymore. The group has been terminated.” The smile on her face slowly faded.

  Just at that moment, Prism flickered into existence once more. “Sorry, young Lords,” we all glared at him. “Sorry all,” he continued. “There is a,” the hologram paused, and vanished. It reappeared again beside where Perkins stood. She jumped as she saw the hologram beside her. “Who is this?” Prism asked. Flex snapped his fingers. “Prism, there is a what? What’s going on?”

  “Sorry. There seems to be
a massive power struggle going on in Emerald Canyon. The power outage wasn’t an accident, and Power Prince has requested backup.” We all looked at each other and then Flex glanced at Perkins. “Looks like your trial period starts now.” and he turned and dashed down the hall. “Welcome to the team,” Danielle said as she slapped Perkins on the shoulder and walked down the hall.

  “Get a move on Paragon,” she shouted over her shoulder in a mock tone. I took a deep breath and held back a laugh, as I glanced at Perkins who to my surprise was standing inside her own, pale green force field. I nodded at her, and called my own force field to life, and flew down the hall to catch up with Danielle and Flex, with Perkins behind me.