Hero

by Perry Moore

  "He won't be telling Justice anything." Dad entered the room.

  I pulled my hand away, but it was too late. Dad had seen it. He cleared his throat. He knew he'd intruded on a moment of unguarded intimacy. It was impossible to mistake. He'd loved, too.

  Dad struggled to hide his emotions. But I could tell that he was trying as hard as he could to understand. In an instant he was back to business.

  "My suit, please."

  I handed Dad his old costume, and he suited up in the uniform. He didn't bother to put his mask or gloves on; he shoved them in his belt.

  I slowly pulled on Goran's cape and cowl.

  Goran discreetly took Dad's work clothes and put them on. Then Dad snatched his wedding ring back from Goran with his good hand and pointed upstairs with the melted lump of flesh.

  "If we're going to do this," he said without looking at me, "let's do it now."

  The observation deck to the Wilson Memorial was alive with radioactive crystal that would soon detonate and take our planet with it. This was an unfortunate side effect of Justice's plan to create an explosion that would propel him into the stars and home. The human race, the one that smelled, was apparently an acceptable loss.

  He stood, arms folded, waiting, and stared out into the sky. Dad and I crept onto the deck.

  "Is this all I'm going to get from this planet?" Justice sighed. "An old has-been and his lackey. How's the wife, Hal?"

  Dad didn't stop inching toward Justice.

  I could now see that Justice was sitting on a strange apparatus. It looked like a miniature rocket, and he'd strapped himself into it. I'd always thought heroes on his level could do anything, and here he had to strap himself into a rocket and explode our planet to go to some remote sector of outer space? His planet wasn't even there anymore. Maybe he should have used his big mental powers to wrap his head around that one.

  My dad carefully observed his every move as Justice punched a code into a keypad on the rocket and unbuckled the harness. I watched Dad turn the numbers over in his head. Justice hopped off the rocket.

  Dad tensed, ready for the first move, and I tried to withdraw into a shadow in my best Dark Hero style. Unfortunately, there weren't any shadows on the deck, and as I stood in the light I thought Justice was right. We weren't much of a cavalry.

  Dad struck first. A quick left jab, which Justice easily blocked by raising the palm of his hand. But the jab was just a distraction so Dad could deliver a swift kick to the groin. Normally the move worked like a charm, but it was little more than an annoyance to someone with indestructible testicles.

  Still, it took Justice by surprise, which gave Dad enough time to spin and land a high kick to Justice's face. Justice stumbled back and rubbed his eyes, temporarily blinded by the blow of Dad's boot to his pupils.

  I raced in to join the fight, but almost tripped over my long cape. Dark Hero knew how to use the costume to his advantage, but I had trouble with it. Before Dad could pummel Justice any further, I took a swing.

  Justice didn't even look at me. He palmed my forehead and gave an effortless push that sent me flying across the room. I landed on the crystal floor with a thud. The cape floated down after me like a deflated parachute.

  "Be patient," Justice said to me. "You're next."

  Dad jumped on Justice and delivered two quick chops to his windpipe. The moves would have killed most people, but they didn't have much effect on someone who didn't breathe. Justice tossed Dad aside, but Dad hopped up, ready to strike again and again, as much as it took. Justice rubbed his Adam's apple and then licked at something on his lip. He looked down at his tongue and was surprised by what he saw—blood. He didn't know that he'd bleed red in this atmosphere, and the discovery incensed him. His alien eyes bulged from their sockets; he clenched his teeth and lunged for my father.

  Then Dad received a drubbing like I'd never seen before. Blow after blow at superspeed. Dad bent his knees and lowered his center of gravity to meet the force of the blows, reduce their impact. I couldn't believe he was still standing, still conscious. That didn't last. Justice blew on him and pinned him to the floor with his superbreath.

  I hopped to my feet to help, but I stumbled over the cape and fell to the floor. Justice saw me trip out of the corner of his eye and momentarily stopped mangling my father to scoff.

  "This has got to be some kind of joke," he said. His eyes searched the corners of the deck for a hidden camera. Then he turned back to my dad.

  "So, Hal, where is the little faggot, anyway?"

  I lifted the cowl off my face and let the cape drop to the floor. The brightness of the room felt good in my eyes.

  I ran as fast as I could and body tackled Justice.

  But he just stood up and dusted himself off.

  "Stupid disguises for stupid humans. You'll have to do better than that."

  Goran dropped down on him from the roof of the observation deck. God only knows where he'd been hiding or how he'd gotten there without our seeing him, but there he was. If he'd had his cape, he would have engulfed Justice in the flowing, dark fabric.

  But that wasn't his job. His job was to fell him, if only for a moment, in order for Dad to get close enough. Justice, caught by surprise, lurched forward to the hard crystal floor. If not for his invulnerable bones, his cranium would have cracked like a melon. He quickly got to his knees and bent his nose back in joint. Even an alien with impenetrable bones had cartilage.

  "You've always been a loser. You just don't know when to quit." He moved in to my father for the kill.

  Dad smirked, which I thought was strange. Then I watched him reach into his pocket and pull out his wedding ring. He held it up to Justice—a vampire hunter presenting his homemade crucifix to Dracula. And Justice recoiled from its powerful glow.

  Of course. This unique gem was a remnant of his home world, the last tiny chunk of his dead planet. The one thing in this world that was poison to him was now an inert wedding ring from a marriage long since dissolved. A few major villains had once dared to gather some of the precious material years ago, but the League had confiscated it all, sent it into the sun. And come to think of it, all of those villains seemed to have disappeared mysteriously over the years, or died suddenly—foiled robberies, car collisions, premature cardiac arrest.

  Justice shrieked at a pitch that shook the city. We covered our ears, but still my left eardrum popped. Justice was in agony. He clawed large chunks of flesh off his neck and chest and arms, like he'd been poisoned with a topical agent and all that mattered was freeing himself from the prison of his own body.

  He screamed at the devastating purple glow of the ring, and for a moment I actually felt sorry for him—despite his plans for mass destruction. He wanted to go home to a place that was no longer there, to re-create in a hopeless void some sense of belonging, because he didn't feel like he belonged anywhere here. I knew exactly how that felt. I watched the purple glow of the ring illuminate his face, his wrinkles and his fear. Dad walked steadily toward him, holding out the ring as Justice scraped and ripped at his skin; I thought it was an especially cruel way to go.

  Apparently so did Justice. He mustered whatever strength he had left and stared at my father. His pupils were now gone, his eyes entirely milky white. Then he squinted and launched two lasers from those cloudy eyes. The beams shot across the room and severed my father's good hand from his arm at the wrist.

  Dad's good hand flew to the far corner of the deck, on the brink of a large fissure that had opened up in the crystal floor. The fingers still clasped the ring tightly.

  Dad muffled a scream and clutched his forearm above the cauterized stump. He dropped to his knees in pain, and Justice was behind him in a flash. Justice took Dad's arms, yanked them out of the sockets, and tied them behind his back as if they were rope. Then Justice did the same with Dad's legs, folded them like a pretzel. He dropped Dad face-first to the ground and made his way toward the severed hand.

  Dad turned to me with anguished eyes an
d screamed. "The ring!"

  Instead of going for the ring, I ran to my father. I put my hands on his face and let them burn; all I could think about was soothing the immense pain that racked his body.

  "Thom!" Dad shouted. "The ring!"

  Had I made the wrong choice? Was this the choice Ruth said I would face, and had I already failed it? I couldn't let my father die. I felt the heat of my power flow from my hands into his body, which drank it up like years of thirst in the desert. He was broken inside, dying, a lump of bleeding organs. I poured on as much heat as I could. I had to save him.

  Justice moved cautiously toward the severed hand, toward the little piece of anathema it held, to remove it from the building. He approached it purposefully, but with extreme caution. He examined the ring, tried to figure out the best way to pick it up, as if he were a chef who had to determine the least painful way to take a steak off a fire-hot grill without any utensils. He reached down once or twice, tentatively, then withdrew his hand quickly. Touching it would most likely kill him. Instead of reaching again, he put his fingers to his temples and thought.

  In the split second it took Justice to transmit a thought, Goran snatched the hand and made a run for it.

  "Get it back," Dad murmured to me.

  I wanted to help, but I couldn't let go of Dad.

  "Thorn, don't be foolish." Dad licked back a trail of blood that had spilled out of the corner of his mouth. "You have to stop him; it's more important."

  I let myself go, poured on so much heat from my hands that I couldn't tell where I began and the heat ended. I struggled to stay conscious. I'd never used this much power before. I felt my toes begin to twitch, then my calf muscles tremored. Not now, I thought, not now, hold it together.

  Goran had sprung out of Justice's reach, not an easy feat considering he was evading an alpha superhero with superflight, speed, and reflexes. As Goran zigzagged around the deck, Justice managed to gain on him. He was right behind him, and then Goran faked to the left and ducked right. My signature move. Justice shot past him and plummeted into the open fissure. Goran made a break for the exit to the stairwell.

  He ripped open the door, and there in front of him stood Uberman. Goran, who never took shit from anyone ever, took a step back. This was not good.

  Uberman swiped at him with superstrength and agility. Goran barely ducked in time. The blow would have knocked his head clear off his shoulders. Goran leaped up, and wirh one hand pushed off Uberman's shoulders inro rhe air like he was springing from a pommel horse. With his other hand, he clasped the severed hand with the ring tightly to his chest.

  "Go," Dad whispered to me. "Help him."

  I felt Dad's insides coagulate, enough for me to remove my hands. I sprang to my heels. The sounds of crystal shattering emanated from the fissure, and I knew Justice was making his way back to the surface.

  Dad's eyes went wide. He held up the nub of his forearm where his hand used to be. I think he actually thought he was pointing, that he still had his index finger.

  "I see him, Dad, don't worry."

  "No," he said weakly. "Behind you."

  I whipped around and saw Warrior Woman, her sword raised high above my head, ready to bring it down executioner style, a one-woman guillotine. I sidestepped her as she swung, and elbowed her in the kidney. The crystal surface crackled with sparks as her sword plunged into it. She tugged on her sword, but it was stuck. She abandoned it and wheeled around to swing her scepter directly into my face.

  Instinctively, I raised my palm to absorb the blow and caught the scepter like a catcher would take a fastball in the strike zone. It didn't hurt. Instead I felt immense and strong. I tossed the weapon aside and decided to return the favor with a right to Warrior Woman's jaw.

  I was shocked to see how effective I was. Somehow my body coursed with strength I'd never felt before. My powers had developed. I'd learned to transmute the energy I'd absorbed from healing, and the results were incredible. Warrior Woman flew across the room upon impact. I'd never seen her felled by pure strength before; she was nearly indestructible. She coughed and pushed herself up and reached for her magic lariat. I wasn't sure what I was going to do if she lassoed me. I wasn't sure how to use my newfound strength to avoid it.

  She swung the lariat high above her head, and then all of a sudden it escaped her fingers as if pulled by an unseen force. In an instant, the lasso wound itself around its owner. It wrapped Warrior Woman like a child would thread a spinning top, cocooned her in her own weapon. With her feet tied so close together, Warrior Woman teetered and tried to maintain her balance.

  Then an invisible blow knocked her to the edge of the observation deck. Her eyes filled with panic as she tipped over and began her fast plunge to the ground below.

  Where the hell did all that come from?

  I looked around in time to see Uberman pin Goran to the floor. Goran, quick as ever, threw the severed hand as far away as he could. Uberman took his boot off Goran's sternum and started for the hand.

  Goran shot up. He sprinted and snatched the hand away from Uberman as he reached for it. Goran sped toward the ledge, grabbing his cape on the way. He held the severed hand, fingers still twitching, high above his head, taunting Uberman with it. He kicked something with his foot, but I couldn't see what. My eyes were focused on the hand. And so were Uberman's.

  Justice pulled himself out of the crystal hole the instant Uberman flew after Goran. Goran fastened the ends of his capeto his belt and bounded from the building as if he were hang gliding. Uberman followed him down into the sky, and they both dropped into a billowing smoke cloud.

  As Goran and Uberman disappeared into the smoke, Justice emerged from the crystal hole. Justice hadn't been as foolish as Uberman. He knew better than to fall for such a simple deceit. I looked over to my father, still recovering on the floor, trying to breathe. The ring lay a few yards away, where Goran had kicked it. It glowed and tempted me. He'd drawn Uberman out of the fight, and now it was up to me to get the ring and stop Justice.

  I scrambled across the jagged floor for the ring, but Justice intercepted and kicked me across the face. The skin on my forehead ripped open, and I felt my skull crack. I reached up with burning hands and patched my forehead.

  Then I caught a purple glow out of the corner of my eye. The ring was levitating into the air. Purple reflected off the crystal floor and cast us all in an eerie grape hue.

  Suddenly the invisible force that had tied up Warrior Woman and pushed her over the ledge revealed itself. My mother willed herself to become visible. Her jaw was clenched with determination, her body shaking. Clearly the act of making herself visible brought her great pain.

  Dad's lips parted, but his dry throat couldn't find a way to produce any words. Mom looked over in his direction, but she wouldn't make eye contact with him. Her head hung low.

  "I'm sorry."

  That was all she said. She held up the ring in Justice's direction. I lashed out at Justice with a kick, but without even looking at me, he stepped over my leg and made his way to my mother.

  "Welcome back," Justice said, expressionless. "And goodbye."

  He fired two death blasts from his eyes, and they found their way directly to my mother's rib cage. In the millisecond it took for the blasts to obliterate my mother, she raised her head and met my father's gaze.

  "Hal—!" She threw the ring toward him before she disappeared.

  The resulting explosion wiped her off the face of this earth.

  Dad screamed out Mom's name as she vanished into the air—no bits, no pieces, no smell of gardenia—as if she'd never been there in the first place. My stomach dropped to my feet, and I went numb all over. I couldn't find the breath to scream. Mom was gone. The detonation blew a chunk of wall out of the monument steeple, which towered five stories above the observation deck. Debris showered us, and I could barely see my dad through the falling rubble.

  The ring skidded across the crystal floor, slipped past my father, and landed on the
ledge of the observation deck, eighty stories aboveground. It was now impossible for my father to reach it, even with his teeth, which was about all he had left to use.

  I ran to help my father, still broken, and took the mangled ends of his arms in my hands.

  "Dad!"

  "Never mind, Thorn. Get the ring. You've got to bring me the ring!"

  I grabbed the two nubs where his hands used to be and squeezed and prayed with all my might that I had enough strength in me to do what had to be done. I ignored the pain for as long as I could—my hands almost caught fire with more energy than I'd ever emitted—and just before I passed out, I heeded my dad's advice and raced for the ledge to get the ring.

  I nearly made it to the ring, but Justice fired an eye-blast that shot straight through my left arm at the bicep as I reached for it. I didn't wince at the pain; I kept moving. He clasped both hands together and brought them down on the back of my neck like a sledgehammer. I felt my neck snap and my legs go numb; then I crumpled to the floor.

  He stood above me, his eyes lit with fury and rage.

  "You."

  He kicked me in the stomach, and I felt my organs burst and rupture. I opened my mouth to scream, but shut it because it was spurting out blood.

  "What the hell do you care for the people of this planet?" He kicked me in the face as he ranted. "They hate you, they call you names and are ashamed of you. You know I'm telling the truth. You're all so stupid, you're killing this world anyway. I'm just giving you a little nudge, a gentle push."

  He lifted me off the ground, pulled me up by my collar with one hand. I dangled like a noodle, my insides were liquefying. I glanced at the hole in my bicep. It sealed, and I felt a strange crackle of energy work itself up from the base of my spine. I could wriggle my toes.

  I spit a bloody tooth at him. I wasn't about to agree with him on anything, and I needed some time for my body to recover.

  He then took two fingers and pushed them toward my eyes. I shut my eyelids as he thrust his fingers forward. I clenched my teeth and strained, and sent all the energy and heat and power I could muster to my face to defend myself. The pressure was shocking, unbearable. I struggled desperately in his grasp, but he clutched me tight and kept pressing, pressing. . . . I could heal fast, but not fast enough to survive this. I gritted my teeth but couldn't help crying out in agony.