by R. J. Ross
"Fine," the pilot says. "Some random super saved us."
"But who?" the co-pilot asks, sounding frustrated.
I know, I think, my mind whirling. I know what happened. I just have no clue why. Why would Jason crash a plane?
***
"I have reason to believe you're the one I'm looking for," Superior says, floating over the woman that had just jumped out of a hospital window. For a second a look of panic crosses the woman's face, before it's replaced.
"Who are you?" she asks.
"That's not the question. The real question is who are you?" Superior demands, dropping to the ground. "Drop the shift, Mimic, or else."
"Make me," the woman says with a grin too wide for her face. The grin drops, though, as Superior reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a pair of heavy gloves. "Wait--seriously--are you Superior?" she asks.
"Too late," Superior says as he disappears from sight. The fist slams into her face, sending her through the wall behind her and skidding into the hall of the hospital. The shift falls as Mimic is knocked unconscious for a second. He wakes up and catches himself in a second, but it's too late. He's lost Marilyn's form and Superior is grabbing him by the throat and throwing him before he can regain it.
He winds up in the parking lot of the hospital, causing shrieks and terror among the norms already there. Superior comes out of the hospital almost leisurely, floating above his head. He looks like a vengeful demon, Mimic thinks almost hysterically. Without the powers of another super stronger than himself, he's got no chance in a one on one fight--not unless he can touch skin.
He forces himself to calm down, examining the super's outfit. It's a suit, ironically, but that means long sleeves and pants. Add in the gloves, the only exposed flesh is the face and neck, which even he realizes is pretty impossible to get to. He needs to get Superior to rip something. It's a cliche, of course, the superhero ripping his normal clothing, but--
A ripping sound rents the air and he stares blankly at Superior, who is ripping his suit off just as he'd hoped. Only... that's a full body suit in white, isn't it? Mimic mentally groans. Clearly this white-haired Superior came fully equipped to kill him. "Why are you so intent on this?" he demands, getting up. "You're the good guy! You aren't supposed to attack someone until after they've done something bad!"
"Tatiana," Superior says, his eyes gleaming dangerously, "is my wife."
"Oh." Not much else you can say to that, he thinks, although the norms all around them look shocked. "What happened to your hair?" he asks a bit belatedly. He gets no answer, other than the most powerful super on the planet slamming into him so hard that he goes through the concrete. The hits are so heavy that he feels his ribs crack and heal over and over again with each punch. Once they hit his lungs, but the lungs heal before they fill with liquid.
Just because he has regenerative powers doesn't mean it doesn't sting, he thinks, trying to get a hit in. He needs to touch Superior's face, he thinks, reaching for the uncovered skin. Before his fingers touch, though, Superior is dragged off of him and thrown into the air. A man dressed in black looks down at Mimic for a second with a dark expression. He looks a lot like Superior.
"Run," he says before taking to the air after the man he just threw.
"Do you really think I'm going to let you stop me?" he hears Superior bellow at the man that just saved him. "Mimic is going to die for what he did--"
"No, Father, it's what YOU did--or should I say 'Are going to do'?" the man says before slamming into the white clad Superior.
For a moment Mimic just stands there, stunned. Then, after a moment of thought on how much alike they looked, and the word "father" being used, he runs.
***
"What is this about, Nicolas?" Superior asks as they float far over the city. Planes fly past, but the father and son ignore them, focused fully on one another. Nico had made a comment earlier about underestimating him, but Superior never has. He's just never allowed his son to realize that fact. Of all the supers still alive, Nico is at the top of his list of most dangerous threats. He's also his only son.
This man that stands in front of him--"You aren't from my time," Superior says, realizing what's going on.
"I'm not," Technico agrees. "I'm from eighteen years in the future from you. I'm from a time where my mother is dead."
"It's when she disappeared--"
"Yes, it is. When you decided that you would go back in the past and kill Mimic. Do you want to know what'll happen if I don't stop you? Because I think you'll find it interesting."
"Fascinating, make it quick, though, I've got important things to do," Superior says, pretending to look at his watch.
"You go ahead and try to kill Mimic," Nico says. "You can't--his regenerative abilities are too good. When you hit him he heals. So you play nasty. You take him across the world and toss him into an active volcano. It almost kills him. It accomplishes what you want. He's not the one that takes out Tatiana."
"What?"
"We go back to our own time, we drop Noelle off in hers, and you destroy the watch, thinking you've accomplished what you set out to do. What you don't realize is that the man that released Mimic to kill Tatiana has other options."
"Who?"
"In our case it was Shadowman," Nico says. "If you go after Shadowman it'll be someone else, then someone else again, and so on--they're intent on taking out the USSR spy. Each one will be worse than the last one, I’m certain."
"How?" Superior asks in a whisper. “How does Shadowman kill her?”
"He slips into her house at night, and as she lies sleeping in the shadows he pulls her heart out. THAT is why she disappeared on the hospice bed, Father," Nico says coldly. "If we hadn't come back--if you hadn't interfered, Aubrey would have brought her back. But you did. And there's one thing neither you nor I realized in your time--one of the components for the watch won't be brought to Earth until MY time. You spent the past eighteen years hating yourself for this."
"Then who is it that let Mimic loose?"
"I never found out," Nico says. "But maybe you'll be able to." He stops, his eyes widening slightly as he turns to stare at the world below. "Oh no," he says before racing for the ground so fast that a sonic boom echoes through the air.
***
I put Nico down a good distance from the crash, handing him a toy before turning on the teen heading for me. "Why?" I ask Jason. At first it had seemed like no one was hurt, but that wasn’t the case after the first round of people came out. There are injured people still on the plane. Tatia is busy flying people to the nearest hospitals with space for them. There's broken bones and blood. There'd been a fire, earlier, but Tatia had put it out. "Why did you do this?" I demand, my hands in fists as my sides, tears threatening. "People could have DIED, Jason!"
"They didn't," he says, looking guilty as someone starts crying behind me. "I didn't have a choice--"
"You always have a choice!" I bellow, racing forward and slamming a fist in his stomach. It sends him flying backwards, but I don't even think of that. I keep seeing a baby being carried away by Tatia--the little one had been younger than little Nicolas, and bleeding! "I can't believe I considered you a friend!"
He's falling, and for a moment I hear myself thinking, "Good riddance" before he hits the ground, rolling. I feel guilty for that thought, but I'm also really, really angry and betrayed right now. "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED A BABY!" I bellow at the top of my lungs before launching straight for him.
The idea of an innocent little baby killed by my best friend makes me feel sick to my stomach. I'm crying even as he dodges my hit, grabbing me by the waist in an unbreakable hold. "I had no choice," he grits against my ear. "Calm down and let me explain!"
The sound of an ambulance's siren echoes through the air and I turn, watching in terror as they rush into the plane and bring out a woman on a gurney. The paramedics seem to be worried and I watch in stunned silence as they take her into the back of the ambulance and start doing CPR. She--<
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"No," Jason whispers as we see her chest stop moving. She's not breathing. She's DEAD.
I scream. I can't stop myself. It's like something that's deep within me is welling up all at once. The lights of the buildings around us flicker, and then die, but I'm too blind to notice. I'm floating in the air, and I think I'm inside a ball of pressure of some sort--
Then I'm not aware of anything at all.
***
There's only one thought in Jason's head as Noelle takes to the air. She's taking out all of the electricity in the area, which means there's no way they can use the defibrillator on the woman whose heart just stopped. Yes, he's worried about Noelle, she's having a breakdown, after all, but this is more important.
He races through the shocked norms, grabbing one of the paramedics and pulling him out of the way so he can place a hand on the woman's chest. "LIVE!" he roars, forcing the healing into her body. The body jerks, and he can feel her heart shudder back into action, beating against his hand.
Tears are pouring down his cheeks, but he lets out a laugh of relief. He takes a moment to look up at the girl floating over their heads. There's metal pieces floating around her, in fact the plane is starting to shift and jerk, alerting him to the fact he only has so much time. The norms are stupidly still trying to figure out how to stop her. He doesn't bother to tell them they won't be able.
Man, he thinks as he runs into the plane, she's high maintenance. He stops at one of the norms still strapped in, pressing a hand to his chest and checking him. The man jerks, waking up and looking at him in shock. "You're good, get out," Jason says before moving onto the next one.
The plane shudders and he slams his foot down. The plane goes down, sticking to the ground. He can feel other metal pieces floating all around them in a whirlwind of danger, but he can't do anything about it yet. He has to clean up his mess first.
The last thing he wants is for Noelle to cry over him killing somebody, he admits as he heals another norm. Actually, the last thing he wants, he adds, feeling pathetic, is for Noelle to cry at all.
Stupid, he thinks, but as long as she doesn't figure out how much power she's got over him, it doesn't matter, right? THIS is why guys and girls can't be "just friends" he decides irritably, because the girl will probably always have the upper hand.
***
"Kitten," Tatia says as she gets back to the plane wreck. The poor little girl has lost control of her abilities. In a way, Tatia thinks silently, it is amazing for such a tiny thing to have so much power. There are hints of distortion, she notices as the colors around the girl change for a second, flickering as if they were under a light. There are metal pieces floating around her--except the plane. The plane makes Tatia confused for a second. Why isn't it flying?
No, she tells herself as she rushes forward, she has no time for this. "KITTEN!" she bellows as she finds herself on the other side of the girl, never having touched her. She does have distortion. It's small, a bubble, really, that surrounds her, but she has distortion. What else?
She turns, looking down at the ground as the concrete shudders and cracks. This is her grandfather's telekinesis in a more simplified form. This combination--it could destroy the little planet that they live on as the girl grows older. "Kitten," she says in a gentler tone, "wake up, my precious child." because she's now positive that they're related.
"Noelle!" she hears someone shout. She blinks as a man in a dark blue uniform races straight through the distortion, grabbing the little girl in a hug. "Wake up, kiddo," he says, as if nothing about the power she's displaying affects him at all. "Wake up. It's okay, sweetheart, it's okay."
The whirlwind of machinery starts falling and Tatia races into action, catching the pieces before they fall onto the watching norms. She's curious about who the man is, something about him strikes her as extremely familiar. For some reason she finds herself glancing at the little boy sitting about a mile away, playing with the straps of his baby bag. Little Nicolas does not seem bothered by the whirlwind at all, she thinks with amusement as she catches the last of the metal, tossing it into a pile away from the crowd.
The distortion has stopped. The little girl is limp in the stranger's arms.
"Is she--" Tatia asks.
"She's fine," the man says, looking at her. Her heart jerks as she sees the familiar steel eyes of her child in a full grown male's face. "Thank you, Tatiana." He looks at the plane. "Jason! We're leaving!" he calls down to it.
"Coming!" Tatia hears a boy call from below. She watches in surprise as light glints off of the boy's skin as he steps out of the plane. "Everyone's healed--well, they might need a little sewing up, but they're not in danger of dying--is Noelle okay?" he asks with a worried look.
"She's unconscious. Let's go."
They race away before Tatia can say anything.
***
Is the Nico from his future telling the truth? Superior floats in the air, watching as his son leaves with his great granddaughter in his arms. Is it his fault that Tatia disappeared in the hospice? Is it his fault that she died?
His eyes fall on the woman cleaning up the mess and helping with the victims. When there's an accident people suddenly stop thinking of accents and origins and focus on the more important things, he thinks, a bit disgusted with humanity. He knows, though, that part of his disgust is with himself. He'd approached it from the wrong angle.
Rather than kill Mimic, he should simply kill whoever let him loose.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"I--it's my fault," Jason says quietly as the Technico he had grown up knowing lays Noelle on her bedroll. "I shouldn't have done it--"
"Why did you do it?" Technico asks him. He knows exactly what the boy did, it had been obvious when he glanced at the scene. "I'm not training you to take down planes, kid. I'm training you to get control of your powers."
"Su--Superior said that that Tatiana lady was visiting Mimic--"
"And he used you for the distraction, is that it?" Technico says. "Sounds like him."
"Isn't he supposed to be a hero?" Jason demands. "I did my best to make sure nobody was hurt in the wreck, but I'm only fourteen! I don't have the control my dad has! Dad would have gotten them down with no problem at all--"
"Stop comparing yourself with Jack, Jason," Technico says, walking over to Jason and placing both hands on his shoulders. "Don't compare yourself with your dad. Has he ever asked you to be the same as him?"
"No--but--"
"I didn't figure," Technico says. "Look, did anyone die?"
"Almost," Jason says quietly. "But I've got just enough healing ability from my mom to keep it from happening."
"Then you did good," Technico says. "I'll deal with Superior."
"But why did he use me? Couldn't he have done something else? Something that wouldn't threaten people's lives?"
"I want you to remember that question, Jason. Every single day I want you to remember it," Technico says seriously. "And by remembering it, you'll turn into the cape I know you can become."
Jason nods slowly, knowing just how big a question it is now. Before coming to this time he'd always thought that being the bad guy would consist of teasing heroes and playing games--not risking peoples' lives. But his dad DOESN'T risk peoples' lives, he realizes. His dad always sets things up to look dramatic, but not dangerous.
"I'm not my dad," he says slowly, "but I want to do things like dad does. I want to be a super villain that does a good show--one where nobody really gets hurt, one that has fans all over the world. Sure it's fake, and sometimes stupid, but--" he shrugs, glancing over at Noelle. "It won't make anybody cry."
"It's a dangerous balancing act," Technico says. "It seems easy, since your dad's been doing it for almost twenty years, but it's harder than it looks. You need to have absolute control of your powers to pull it off. Do you know where I'm going with this?"
"I need to train more," Jason says.
"Until you saw just how dangerous your powers can be, would you have thoug
ht that? You have the potential to be one of the strongest kids in the school, Jason. But until you take it seriously you’re a danger both to yourself and everyone around you.”
“So you just let my powers go wild last night?” Jason accuses him.
“What’s more dangerous? You going out of control on a small camping trip with me overseeing it, or you losing it in the middle of school, where some of the capes are barely over D class?” Technico asks bluntly. “It’s already happening at your home, in your sleep, but it’s getting more powerful each time. Your dad asked me to deal with it before you fell asleep in class one day. The first step is to make you aware.”
“I guess I’ll have to be careful about really boring classes, too, huh?”
“Exactly,” Technico says, messing up his hair. They hear a groan from behind them. “Looks like Noelle is waking up.”
***
The Nico from 2014 jerks, looking around the lot of ridiculously cheesy super villain toys (mostly broken) for a second before taking to the air and looking over the now blackened Kansas City. He curses, forgetting for a moment that Banshee is right next to him, and holds out his arms. The lights come back on.
"How did you--"
"Noelle must have lost it," he says. "I knew I should have taken her back to her own time already."
"How did you do that?" Banshee demands; appearing in front of him so he's forced to reply.
"I'm a technopath," Nico says, giving up. "And so is my granddaughter. Except I know what I'm doing and she--" he grunts as someone slams into him, hauling him away from the lot before he can finish his sentence. They pull to a stop over the ocean far away from Missouri, and Superior lets go of him. "Well that was rude," Nico says.
"Who let Mimic out?" Superior demands.
"What?"
"WHO LET MIMIC OUT?" Superior bellows, as if getting louder will make the question more obvious. "He's the one that aimed to have Tatia killed--he's the one that will hire someone else if we kill Mimic--I want his name, address, and what size of underwear he wears, NOW!"