by Lucas Flint
The Necromantress shook her head. “No. The Necromantress fled the battle as soon as it began. The Necromantress dislikes fighting and cares not if either of those two groups win, for she hates them both.”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter why you abandoned the battle,” said Sasha. “You came just in the nick of time. The entire plan is falling apart and the only way I can rebuild is if I get away.”
The Necromantress glanced over at the scene where Takeshi and Rubberman were still exchanging blows. Oddly enough, she did not seem to be enjoying the fight, even though Takeshi was getting in some pretty good hits on Rubberman. Maybe she was just jealous that she wasn’t the one beating up Rubberman.
“Yes, the Necromantress noticed,” said the Necromantress, looking at Sasha again. “Can the Necromantress kill Dennis now? That is the whole reason she came here. She wants to know if you are finished with him.”
“You’ll have to ask Takeshi,” said Sasha, gesturing at the battle going on near the elevator’s entrance. “Unfortunately for you, I think Takeshi will probably kill him. He’s already got Dennis on the ropes and—”
“What?” said the Necromantress sharply. “But you promised the Necromantress the honor of killing Dennis.”
“Who cares?” said Sasha. “Tell your zombie to get out of the way so I can get into my car. I have no time to spend renegotiating our original agreement.”
The Necromantress—who had been briefly distracted by the fight between Rubberman and Takeshi—suddenly looked at Sasha again, this time with an alarmed expression. “What did you just say?”
“I said it doesn’t matter,” said Sasha. “Now, tell your zombie to move or—”
The Necromantress walked toward Sasha until she stood in front of her. The difference in their height was startling even to me; Sasha barely made it up to the Necromantress’ waist. Sasha had to look all the way up just to see the Necromantress’ face. The Necromantress, meanwhile, had to look straight down at her, her eyes glowing with hatred and anger.
“Are you telling the Necromantress that our agreement has been terminated?” said the Necromantress, her voice more unhinged than ever.
Sasha backed away. “No, Shawna, I—”
The Necromantress grabbed the front of Sasha’s suit and lifted her off the ground with surprising strength. Sasha was sweating harder than ever, but she wasn’t screaming. She looked too afraid to even speak.
“Small woman, the Necromantress didn’t agree to this alliance because she cares about you or your dumb business,” said the Necromantress in a harsh, heavy voice. “She agreed to it because she thought it would allow her to kill Dennis. Yet now you go back on our agreement because you are scared of going to jail.”
“Shawna, please, Shawna, put me down,” said Sasha, her voice panicky, her stout legs waving back and forth uselessly in the air. “I didn’t mean … I mean … I can give you money—”
“Don’t call the Necromantress ‘Shawna,’” the Necromantress growled. “She abandoned that name long ago. Only the Necromantress exists now.”
“I-I’m s-sorry,” said Sasha, tears of fear streaming from the corners of her eyes now. “I didn’t mean to—”
“The Necromantress cares not what you meant to do,” the Necromantress said. “The Necromantress cares only what you did. And what you did was double-cross the Necromantress. Therefore, you must die.”
As much as I liked seeing the Necromantress scare the hell out of Sasha, I realized that I couldn’t allow her to murder Sasha. Sasha had to face justice, which meant that I had to save her life.
I looked down at the zombie’s foot and fired a laser at it. The laser took off three of its toes, which caused the zombie to suddenly lose balance. As the zombie attempted to regain its balance, it loosened its grip of me, allowing me to break free and blast its face with my lasers. The zombie’s head flew off its body, while its actual body collapsed onto the ground in front of the car.
Whirling around, I saw that the Necromantress was trying to strangle the life out of Sasha. Sasha’s face had gone purple already, which made me wonder if the Necromantress somehow had super strength, but I didn’t think much about it. With the little energy boost I still had left, I jumped toward the Necromantress and kicked her in the face. The Necromantress had only enough time to turn her head directly into the path of my foot before my foot collided with her face.
The blow knocked the Necromantress straight off her feet, causing her to collapse (in a similar manner to her now-headless zombie) onto the ground. She hit her head against the concrete and then lay there very still, though based on the rise and fall of her chest, she was obviously just unconscious.
Landing on the ground, I then turned toward Sasha. Sasha now lay on the ground as well, panting and breathing hard. She coughed a few times, gasping for breath, and her face was already returning to its familiar color; despite that, it was clear to me that she was not going to be running away anytime soon.
I walked up to Sasha, grabbed the collar of her suit, and pulled her up. Sasha glared up at me with hate in her eyes, a look I returned without hesitation.
“You … little … brat,” Sasha said, breathing in and out hard. Her voice was much weaker than usual.
“You’re supposed to say ‘thank you,’” I said. “I just saved your ungrateful life, if you didn’t notice.”
“Shut up,” Sasha said. “You’ve done nothing of the sort. You’ve ruined me. You’ve ruined my business. It would have been better for me to die than to live long enough to see the consequences of this mess play out.”
“No one is exempt from suffering the consequences of their actions, Sasha,” I said. “Justice isn’t always met out, but this is one time where justice will be served.”
Sasha suddenly grabbed my arm, though her grip was very weak. She looked me straight in the eye. “Kill me, you brat. I can tell you want to do it. I can tell you hate me more than anyone else in the world because I threatened your loved ones and made your life such a living hell. I’ve seen your eye beams in action. I know that even one small blast would be enough to instantly kill me. What are you waiting for? Kill me, unless you’re every bit as cowardly as those vigilante idiots say you are.”
As much as I hated to admit it, Sasha had a point. I had thought, several times, of just killing her outright. She deserved it. She was a corrupt businesswoman who had not only threatened my family and tried to destroy my life, but had also engaged in countless other crimes against other people. Killing her would be easy. And it would also be very satisfying.
But then I looked up at Rubberman and Takeshi. The battle between the two was over; Rubberman was now putting some handcuffs around the unconscious Takeshi’s wrists and ankles. Rubberman had a lot of cuts and bruises on his face, but he nonetheless showed no anger toward Takeshi and, despite Takeshi’s current vulnerable state, he was not trying to beat him more than he already had.
Then I looked at Sasha again. She was smirking, smirking the same way she had back up in her office. I now understood why.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not going to jail for your murder. You’ve manipulated plenty of people in your time, Sasha, made people do things against their best interest which always worked out in your favor. This time, however, you won’t manipulate me.”
Sasha’s smirk disappeared like an eraser across a dry board. “Here’s one thing I will give you, brat: You’re smart. If you had only come to work for Munroe Acquisitions for your first job than Rubberman, Inc., we could have accomplished so much together.”
“No, we couldn’t have,” I said.
With that, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911. I intended to call the police and have them come and arrest Sasha, Takeshi, and the Necromantress. I heard Sasha muttering curses at me under her breath, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to see justice served.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
One month later …
For what might be the last time in my li
fe, I rode my bike through the streets of Golden City after a long day at school. The sun was out, though the wet March weather meant that there were clouds in the sky to partially obscure, but that was fine by me. It made my bike ride a lot more pleasant. It would be a good memory to have of what might be my last day at work.
Truthfully, though, my mind wasn’t really on work. I was thinking about school, where Mr. Peters had actually given me an ‘A’ on our recent homework assignment. It was the first time I’d ever gotten an ‘A’ from Mr. Peters. It had made me so happy that I almost thought about telling Mr. Peters about the success of his serum in giving me powers what seemed like a lifetime ago now, even though it had really only been a year ago.
As I turned a corner, taking the short route to work, I could not believe that I had had these powers for nearly a year. Dad was always complaining about how fast time flew, but I had never really understood what he meant by that until relatively recently. With almost a year of having superpowers under my belt, I wondered if time was going to slow down or if it was just going to go faster. I might be as old as Nightbolt in the flash of an eye, but somehow I sensed that the old man would still be around even then. He hadn’t seemed like the kind of guy who would die until he was ready to die. Like a true hero.
Speaking of time flying, the events of the last month sure seemed to go by even faster than the year had. It seemed like it had only been yesterday that Rubberman and I had defeated Sasha Munroe, the Necromantress, and the Vigilante Legion, yet it had been thirty times that many yesterdays ago, if that made any sense. Quite a bit of it was a blur due to how fast everything happened, but I remembered enough to be able to reflect upon it.
The police had answered my call and come to the Munroe Acquisitions headquarters about half an hour after I called them up. They arrested Sasha, Takeshi, and the Necromantress. Additionally, Agents Camel and Jake had emerged from the secret elevator at roughly the same time. They’d both been coughing up a storm due to having inhaled smoke from the office, but nonetheless immediately began talking with Chief Williams about what they learned while in Sasha’s office. I didn’t really listen to everything they said, but I remember Sasha’s expression becoming sourer and sourer the more they talked.
James had also been with them. When he saw me, he immediately went over to me and began acting like Mom, asking if I was okay, checking me to make sure I wasn’t suffering from any serious injuries, and generally treating me like I was five-years-old again. It had been both embarrassing and surprising, because James never showed that much concern for me. I guess he cared for me more than I thought.
The only two people who hadn’t been there were Greta and the Silent Shadow. I recalled asking James where they were and he said he didn’t know. He said that when the smoke had largely cleared up, neither Greta nor the Silent Shadow were anywhere to be seen. He said he thought that they might have gone ahead to help me and Rubberman, but apparently that was not the case. My guess was that they had probably slipped out at some point, perhaps because the Silent Shadow didn’t want to get himself or Greta arrested when the police arrived.
That was more or less confirmed when I went back to school that next week. I had spent the past week trying to call and text Greta, but she never answered any of my calls, and anytime I went to her house, no one answered the door. It was Frank who told me that Greta and her dad had abruptly moved away from Golden City sometime over the weekend. He said he didn’t know where they went, only that they had sold their house in a hurry, and then left even quicker. He said that Greta had told him that when she came back to school the day after Sasha was arrested. In fact, Greta hadn’t even stayed for her last day of school. She just came to tell Frank that and then left without saying goodbye to any of the other students or faculty.
I’ll admit, I was crushed that she had not said goodbye to me before Frank handed me a note she had told him to give me. The note had been short, written in Greta’s beautiful cursive handwriting, and had read like this:
Alex,
Sorry I couldn’t say good bye to you in person. Father said we had to leave immediately and he didn’t want to waste any time saying good bye to people. I don’t think he dislikes you as much anymore, but he still doesn’t want me dating you. I barely even managed to convince him to let me write this note to you. Still, I have to respect Father’s wishes, so there’s not much I can do when he says we have to leave.
As for why we left or where we’re going, I can’t tell you that, obviously. But I imagine you can probably guess why we’re leaving; if not, you’ll find out soon enough from the news.
Don’t bother calling or texting me; I won’t answer, because Father made me get a new phone, so I have a new number to go with it. I just wanted to let you know that I still love you and will never forget you. I don’t know if we’ll ever see each other again, but maybe we will, when we’re older. Just depends on the paths we take, I guess.
But whatever happens, don’t worry about me, because I’m always safe with my Father.
Love, Greta.
I had left that note on my dresser back in my room at my house, but I had memorized the entire thing because I’d read it so many times. The first time, I’d felt absolutely devastated, because I had thought that after all of this nonsense that Greta and I might be able to go back to normal. But when I checked out the news the next day, I immediately understood why Greta and her father had left town.
According to a breaking news article on the Golden City Journal’s website, someone on the Internet leaked the Silent Shadow’s identity: Frederick Jonathan Hammond, a local traveling businessman whose daughter, Greta Jean Hammond, was a student at Harold Golden High as an honors student. But when police went to the Hammonds’ home, they discovered that the place had been sold off already and the new owner of the house claimed that he did not know where the Hammonds were now. Nor did a police search of the house turn up any clues that might help them find or track down the Hammonds. Like a shadow, Greta and her father had seemingly vanished into thin air.
When I read that article, I felt a lot less angry about the Hammonds moving away so abruptly. Even so, I knew I would never stop missing Greta. James told me I’d get over her eventually, and maybe I would, but I didn’t think I’d ever forget her entirely myself, either. Maybe she was right that we’d cross paths again when we were older, though I had no idea what circumstances would ever bring us together again, given how she’s a criminal-in-training while I was a sidekick. Guess I would have to wait and see.
In any case, I was convinced that the Silent Shadow leaker had to be one of Sasha’s employees, perhaps releasing that info as a last blow against me. No one knew the identity of the anonymous leaker, but it seemed logical to me, because I figured that Sasha had to know who Greta’s father was. Not that it mattered much, given how the damage was already done, but it still bothered me and made me hate Sasha even more than I already did.
Speaking of Sasha, she had already gone to court and been declared guilty, in large part because she had pleaded guilty almost as soon as she entered the courtroom, according to the article on the subject I read. There was lots of speculation about why Sasha Munroe didn’t use the full legal might of the Munroe Acquisitions corporation to defend herself. Some thought that the audio which Camel and Jake had recorded was too damning for even the smartest lawyer to downplay or ignore, not counting the evidence for all of the other crimes she had committed, while others thought that Sasha didn’t want to waste precious company resources on a case she might not even win. And Takeshi, of course, being the loyal bodyguard he was, also pleaded guilty at the same time as Sasha.
Me, though, I didn’t think that the evidence or not wanting to waste money had anything to do with Sasha’s decision. I thought she had simply lost the will to fight when I refused to kill her outside the Munroe Acquisitions headquarters that fateful day. That may have seemed like an odd thing to say, especially given Sasha’s reputation of being a woman who didn’t tak
e shit lying down, but I didn’t think it was. Sasha, I think, stopped caring about actually winning a long time ago. After all, even when she got Rubberman’s business, she still ordered me to murder him like some kind of monster. Rubberman and I had thwarted her plans so many times before then that she just wanted to see both of us die at that point or have our lives ruined forever more than even owning the Rubberman business. That I refused to kill her—and thus avoid going to jail for murder—must have been the last straw for her will to fight and she therefore saw no reason to engage in some long, drawn-out legal battle that wouldn’t get her what she wanted. I could have been wrong, but I didn’t think so.
Regardless, Munroe Acquisitions was now under the management of a guy named Reginald Baron, who had been the Vice President of the company before Sasha was arrested. The company had already taken a major PR hit with the Barriers incident a few months ago, so when the knowledge of Sasha’s full crimes became public knowledge, it took an even worse PR hit. Last I heard, company revenues and profits dropped by 90% almost overnight, forcing the new CEO Baron to sell off much of their superhero acquisitions and assets in order to pay off the ludicrous amount of debt which Sasha had accumulated during her time as the head of the company.
This included the newly obtained Rubberman, Inc. Business, which Baron sold back to Rubberman. I wasn’t there for the negotiations, but from what Rubberman told me afterward, he had struck a simple deal with Baron: Give him back his business and he would not sue the ever-loving hell out of the Munroe Acquisitions corporation for trying to kill us (our lawyer apparently thought we had a good, winnable case if we decided to go that route). Unsurprisingly, Baron agreed to sell back Rubberman, Inc., including all of its assets and employees, back to Dennis Pullman, which meant Adams and I were Rubberman’s employees again and we had the Elastic Cave and Rubbermobile once more.