by Simon Archer
I nodded instead of speaking and glanced out toward it. The island was a dark mark on Alexandria’s horizon, its details too hazy to make out properly from this far away. Created by another hero back when my dad was still considered one, the island had been used in defense of Alexandria in the years leading up to his fall. He’d built a massive tower there within the bowels of the volcano and used his fire-based abilities to protect it from harm. It used to be called Inferno Island in reverence to the hero who safeguarded the world. Now it was spoken in fear of the villain who hid there, planned his devastation, and ruled his empire with an iron fist.
“I... I hate admitting this,” I said as I pulled my gaze away, “but sometimes, I miss it. My life there wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, but he never hurt me. Just everyone around me.”
Kara’s eyes were soft and still somehow stubborn all the same. She shook her head and tsked a little with her tongue. “That’s still hurting you, Nick.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” she said, rather bluntly. “It’s because of him that you struggle to live a normal life. You shouldn’t have to hide in a world where the name Gateon inspires people like Matt into a rage. Matt’s a dick, but he wasn’t always one. He used to idolize you. If it weren’t for this, you two would probably be pretty close.”
The reminder of Matt made me sigh, and I settled back on my palms. I glanced up at the sky again and found a cloud that looked a bit like a wolf. Or a dog?
“When I was thirteen, I told him I wanted a dog for my birthday,” I mused. “He gave me a killer canine unit. Had these laser eyes, could breathe fire, the works.”
“Did it hurt anyone?” Kara’s question was soft and hesitant.
“Tried to.” I shrugged. “A bully. I’ve always had those. I destroyed the unit before it could, then lied to my dad and told him the dog went rogue and ran off a cliff.”
She snorted and shook her head. “He actually believed that?”
“Yup.” I smiled a bit at the thought. “That’s the thing. He knew I wanted a dog and tried to provide. When I destroyed it and gave him such a poor lie as an excuse, he believed me because he didn’t settle well with the idea that I wasn’t happy with his gift. He’s always... despite our differences, he’s always believed the best in me. So...”
I gestured vaguely in the direction of the island and sighed. I wasn’t sure how to put it into words, nor if I should in the first place. Kara hadn’t said a lot about what had happened to her in the years we’d been separated, but I sensed she was a lot less forgiving about Inferno than Andie was.
Kara waited patiently for me to continue, so I shrugged helplessly.
“Andie claims it’s alright if I still care about him. I’m trying to follow her line of thinking, but it’s difficult. I can’t help feeling guilty.”
“You’re... I mean...” Kara hesitated as she tried to formulate the best response. Her hands twisted into her lap. “You’ve been put into a difficult position. You and your dad have an okay relationship, but he’s also the guy who’s dominated the world, taken cities by force, and killed countless people in the last few decades while he consolidated his power... but I kind of get it.”
She smiled a bit. “Me, I hear the name Inferno, and I have to justify the memory of a man who used to dress up as the Easter bunny and dad-dance around his front yard with that new image.”
I snorted at the memory and shook my head. “He’s still like that, you know. Just... less innocent.”
We fell into a moment of silence. I began to play the sand at either side of me and made swirling patterns that reminded me of Aylin’s glowing features. I was so focused on the lines that I didn’t notice her approach us as she gently glided in the air with a conflicted expression. She twisted her purple hands and glanced between Kara and me before settling down in the sand to join us.
“I am sorry, Kara Johnson and Starlight. I did not intend to overhear, but my hearing is—”
“It’s alright,” I reassured her with a smile. “You’re part of the team, now. We don’t really have any secrets.”
Aylin’s shoulders sank slightly with relief, and her black hair fell before her glowing white eyes. My eyes traced the glowing patterns that curled along her neck and then sank below her shirt to no doubt wrap around her body. After realizing I was staring again, I forced my gaze back down to the sand. I erased the pattern I’d drawn with a rake of my fingers and wrote ‘ERIC SMELLS’ instead.
Kara snorted when she saw it and reached over to erase that too.
“I-I... I do not know how to explain just yet,” Aylin said as she kept wringing her hands again. “But this strife between you and your father is very much like the problem I’d left back home. Your words inspire me. I... I wonder if perhaps your Andie is correct in her thinking. It is... okay to care for someone who is not a good person?”
I shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable again.
“I want it to be,” I confessed, “but I also don’t think good and evil are so easily defined. To me, my dad is... sick. He needs care. A therapist, maybe some medication... a program, something.”
“You want to help him?” Aylin lifted a brow at the thought, and she glanced towards the island again.
“It’s called rehabilitation,” I said. “Heroes arrest, villains hurt. I want to be a good hero, and that means considering that maybe not every villain requires a firm hand. Sometimes... sometimes it’s just a matter of fixing what was broken, you know?”
“In my culture, we do not... rehabilitate,” she almost whispered. “I... I wish we did. That sounds like a wonderful concept.”
Kara, like me, was confused at the notion. “What do you do with your criminals, then?”
“We had machines that could rewrite a personality,” Aylin said with a wince. “If someone were performing poorly, we would... fix them by...”
Kara was disgusted. “Sanctioned mindfuckery? That sounds awful.”
Aylin nodded with a look of shame. “It was quite controversial, though it did benefit our crime rate. But there was a war when I was young, and... and all the machines were destroyed, the methods to make them taken. We still do not agree with the notion of extended imprisonment as a culture, and so many repeat criminals are now sentenced to death or slavery.”
“So, what, someone robs a bank, and...?” I slit my finger across my throat to signify an execution.
“No,” Aylin shook her head. “On the first occurrence, the criminal, if found guilty, is generally enslaved over an extended period determined by the nature of the crime. Their rights and privileges are removed, and they are forced to serve within our government as—”
“Fodder.” Kara frowned. “You have slaves that you use as fodder.”
“Yes.” Aylin nodded, looking very uncomfortable.
“But you said your culture doesn’t approve of imprisonment,” I pointed out, raking my fingers in the sand again. “How did you jump from that to slavery? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Imprisonment is costly,” Aylin explained, “and the criminals within them are idle. By enslaving them instead, they are forced to work and produce resources for society. They have also become a part of our economy in recent years... my planet is very beautiful, but it hides a lot of sorrow. I was very vocal about the problems of our justice system before coming here. My... opposition, they did not approve. I fled to escape enslavement myself.”
“I see.” I frowned. “I’m sorry. That’s a long way to run from home, and you didn’t even come here willingly.”
“Your people have been very kind to grant me safe harbor.” She smiled. It was a hesitant little thing, but a smile nonetheless. “Anyway, I... I wish you luck in your endeavor to help your father, Starlight. If you can succeed, it may prove beneficial to my own people. I wish to take my world back, someday... and perhaps save those who have been wronged. I could design a better system to protect them, perhaps focus on the idea of rehabilitation.”
“Not everyone can be r
ehabilitated,” Kara said seriously, “but many can and should be given the chance. I like that you’re willing to keep an open mind... not many would even consider it.”
Before Aylin could answer, a scream tore out a bit further down the beach. My heart jumped in my throat when I thought about Andie, but she was safe with Eric by the snow cone stand. Clouds darkened in the sky, and the sea rolled in with growing agitation as the winds picked up all around us.
Up in the sky, a woman dressed in Inferno’s black and red burst through the clouds, the symbol of a fist wrapped in flames on her chest. She had menacing spikes on her shoulders and wore a long black cape that billowed and flapped in the growing storm. The clouds overhead gathered and swirled around her. Her long red hair whipped about her pale face as a lightning bolt cracked to her left top strike the beach below. People began to flee in terror, and they knocked over stands and beach furniture in their desperation to get out of the way.
She held out some sort of device in her hand, and a huge holographic image of my father’s face flickered to life right in front of her. It moved, then laughed, and I quickly realized the feed was live. More screams answered the sight of him, but Dad ignored them as he looked down at me with a proud grin.
“Hey, Junior! Enjoying the beach?”
Chapter 14
“Wait, Dad? What the—” I cut myself off, at a complete and utter loss. “What’s going on?”
I was surprised to see that my father picked up my audio from so far below him because he beamed down at me with utter joy glistening in his big brown eyes. He hadn’t changed much since I had last spoken to him. Like me, he had dark eyes and hair and wore a surprisingly soft expression for someone who dominated most of the globe.
“Well, since you’re doing so good at Valcav, I thought my dear Fulgurite and I would give you a little test run! See how well you’re doing, you know!” Lord Inferno gestured vaguely with a hand like he was offering math advice instead of an act of terrorism. “She’ll be the villain tonight, and you’ll be the hero! It’ll be fun!”
My heart sank into my stomach, and I felt sick. I shook my head. “Dad, stop, this is a horrible idea—”
“Ah, you’re right!” He chuckled like he’d forgotten the milk on the way back from the store. “To properly give you incentive, she should focus on killing some of the bystanders. Fulgurite, you know what to do!”
“Dad! Stop it!”
“Ta ta for now. Have fun!” His fingers wiggled a farewell to me, and then the feed cut out completely. I immediately let my power flow through me, and I sucked in a breath at the feeling of it rushing up my spine and all throughout my body. Andie and Eric joined us, glancing between me, the villain, and the chaos on the beach.
“This is bad, Nick,” Andie said as she pulled at my arm. She wasn’t happy that I’d powered up and knew that look in my eyes meant that I was going to fight her. “Fulgurite is one of your father’s top lieutenants! She’s way, way out of our league, we need to go!”
“If we don’t do something, she’s going to tear the beach apart,” I said firmly. “You heard him, he’s ordering her to attack innocents.” Kara pointed at all the people trapped between her and safety as if to back up my statement.
Meanwhile, Fulgurite floated between the main exit and the rest of the beach, likely to send a message of fear to all the citizens below. Or maybe it was a message to me because when she looked at me, the villainess stared me dead in the eye while summoning another bolt of lightning that struck right in the middle of the panicked crowd. Screams answered her, and I cursed softly. The wind picked up quite a bit, and debris began flying about the beach while innocent people were caught in the crossfire.
“There’s a lot of civilians here,” Kara said as she pulled out a device from her pocket. She handed it to me. It looked a little like a cellphone, but when I pressed the button on it, it turned into a small force shield generated by some inner battery. It was about the size of a buckler and fit securely around my wrist with a strap.
“I know you’re gonna try to fight her, so use that,” Kara urged. “It’ll hold off a fair amount of damage. You can turn it into a heat ray with the second button, but the shield will go on recharge then, so be careful.”
I grinned and thanked Kara with a thumbs up. The expression faltered when the wind picked up even further, and rain started to pelt the ground in thick drops. Thunder rolled through the clouds which swirled over Fulgurite like a building hurricane.
The civilians caught below cried out and fled back toward the buildings for cover. I doubted the storm would stay very docile for much longer and pointed upward at Fulgurite with a grimace.
“Let’s take her out of the sky, at least,” I said firmly. “This is going to get ugly. Be careful of the civilians, they’re still in danger. If we get her to move, we’ll save their lives.”
Andie’s long blonde hair whipped around like a wild beast. She struggled to keep it under control with a hand.
“Nick,” she warned, “we can’t take her. Not yet. We’re barely trained, and she’s—”
“I’m not going to fight her, I just want to stall her until the others get here.” I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be careful.”
“Nick—”
“It’s going to be alright, Andie.”
With a glance at Eric who was already sparking with little lightning bolts running up and down his arms, I gestured Aylin to follow.
I took off like a rocket toward Fulgurite, fist extended outward to connect with her face. Aylin was much slower to follow, her top flight speed clearly much lower than mine, but her eyes glowed with white-hot energy as she focused on the woman’s chest. Aylin’s eyes released twin beams of light just before I connected, and it was enough distraction that Fulgurite didn’t dodge my punch. The impact sent her smashing into the sand below.
For a moment, I thought the strike might have stunned her enough to keep her down... but then she rose up back to her feet and laughed like a lunatic. Her body flickered with a strange red energy field.
“I’m glad to know you share his strength,” Fulgurite cooed up at me and then ran a slow hand all along the curves of her body. She looked at me like she wanted a lot more than just a battle on the beach. “He’s been very proud of you. We’ve all been very, very proud.”
Rumor was that Fulgurite had slept her way to the top of Inferno’s empire, but that had nothing to do with her skill as a fighter. Rising to power shortly after I left the island, she was insane and eager to please her ‘master’ in any way that she could. Inferno had many, many sycophants, but Fulgurite was likely one of the few to fall in love with him. It was disturbing on multiple levels, to be honest.
I wasn’t in the mood for conversation with a supervillain and rocketed back toward the ground to punch her again. This time, the storm picked up around her to hurricane-force winds that threw me backward, right into a lightning bolt that struck me square in the chest. My entire body jolted from the assault, and I shrieked in pain before I stumbled into the sand.
Fulgurite laughed again and planted her hands on her hips. The storm was a torrent now, and Aylin struggled to keep flight.
“Your time at the Academy is serving you well,” the villain shouted over the roaring winds, “but you’d be far better trained if you just came home! He misses you!”
“I am home,” I spat and tried to kick her. She caught my leg and knocked me back into the sand again. I grunted in frustration.
“Are you, now?” Fulgurite’s gesture was grandiose when she spread her hand out toward the screaming people struggling to escape the storm. “I know your heart is soft, but these people don’t deserve your tenderness! They would not mourn the son of the great Inferno! Not like I would!”
Raw energy built in my palms, and I focused it into a beam to launch at her. The winds made it hard to aim, and the rain did my vision no favors, so Fulgurite easily dodged it, moving through the storm as easily as if it were a clear day.<
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“Ah, but who cares?” she chided. “You’re a hero now, and you have a sworn duty! It would be such a shame if something happened to all these poor little people down there!”
She slashed at the air with her palm, and a huge burst of wind smashed along the beach, targeting civilians still huddled under the thin shelter of the drink stalls.
My heart skipped several beats. At least a dozen innocent people were tossed up high into the air, and Andie caught them on the descent by stretching her body out like a trampoline.
Fulgurite wasn’t content with this development and then summoned several lightning strikes down on both Andie and the civilians.
“Oh no!” she teased, “Those poor innocent beach hippies! What a shocking state of affairs!”
Andie was struck by a few of the lightning bolts and shrieked in pain as she reverted back to her normal state. Kara raced to her side to help her while Eric furiously pumped a fist into the air. A sharp bolt of lightning came down from the skies at his command and hit Fulgurite with a loud bang. She cried out and fell back down to the sand, crumpling to her knees. For a moment, it looked like she was stunned again.
But then she laughed, as before. “What’s this?” Her eyes grew wide and mocking. “It’s almost like... wait... I can absorb lightning? Wow, feed me again, that was delicious!”
She breathed in deep and took the energy of the bolt to feed her own power. The storm blew with the force of a hurricane, and the people still displaced on the beach went flying. Debris was everywhere, crashing onto everyone. Andie nearly got hit with a random pole while she struggled to recover from the lightning strike, and Aylin took a bucket to the face. She fell down into the sand and held her head in one hand.
“Your father’s been keeping a close watch, and he’s quite impressed with your little band of misfits.” Fulgurite grinned as she pointed down at Andie. “That blonde one, she’s your girlfriend, right? Maybe I should do you a favor and rip her tongue out while I’m here. We can’t have your lovers speaking back to royalty. She looks spunky enough to try.”