by C. T. Phipps
“Good idea,” I said, sighing. “We’ll call in all of our crew to help. I can use some of the weak first level magic I can do to send a message past the jammer technology they have here to our crew and get some reinforcements.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Gary. That’s at least third-level magic,” Cindy said, smiling.
I wanted to say something more. That I loved her, that I cherished her, and that Cindy was the closest person to my heart aside from Mandy. Even over Gabrielle, who would always be special to me but would never know me the way Cindy did. I wanted to kiss her, honestly, and tell her that we’d figure this out because it was possible to love two people.
But I didn’t want to betray my wife either.
So I kept silent.
Unfortunately, the jackass outside didn’t stay silent. The Faux-Ultragod levitated a few feet off the ground and crossed his arms like M. Bison, his cape fluttering in the wind behind him before he spoke in a voice that projected itself into the minds of everyone inside the hospital, myself included.
“Feeble mortals, I, Ultradevil, ruler of the anti-matter universe of Htrae, command you to come out and pay with your lives for the perfidy of challenging my right to rule this world! I have made an alliance with President Omega and together we shall crush all the sub-beings of this reality! Your time to debate your surrender is up and I am not so weak as to care for the lives of insects!” Ultradevil raised his right hand and aimed it at a group of civilians trembling on the ground.
One of them had a baby.
“Oh shit,” I said, realizing what he was about to do and powerless to stop it. I kept my eyes open, though, because atrocities like this deserved to be witnessed. Beside me, I felt a whooshing sensation followed by a sudden empty feeling in my arms.
Right as Gabrielle appeared in front of the blast, taking it against her costume and staring Ultradevil down.
“Halt, evil doer!” Gabrielle shouted at the top of her lungs.
Ultragoddess was back.
And we had to make use of her distraction.
“Ben-11,” Cindy said, looking at the nurse. “Take care of all of the patients as best you can. See if they can be moved safely to the security ward. Anyone else, ask Melissa to teleport away. She likes to hide the fact she’s a super from everyone else but we could really use that right now.”
“And people think you’re an awful doctor!” Ben-11 said.
“They what?” Cindy said. “Fuck them!”
Dragging Cindy out of her office, I said, “Come on, we need to get to that underground tunnel you mentioned.”
“I bet it was Rosemary Floral a.k.a the Florist on floor seven. She’s always had it out for me. See if I ever screw her in a closet again.”
Briefly distracted by that mental image, the Florist being one of Maxim’s Top Ten Hottest Supervillains (Cindy was seventh on the list), I reluctantly shook it away. “Gabrielle isn’t going to be able to hold out against Ultradevil long.”
“Why not? Isn’t she always on about how she’s more powerful than her dad?”
“Those cyborgs had Venusian anti-force cannons. I know because I used to date her and every one of her villains had their henchmen armed with them. They’ll sap her strength until she can’t fight him anymore.”
“Dammit,” Cindy said. “I hate smart villains who aren’t us!”
“You and me both.” I started muttering a spell invoking several Jewish spirits before sending them to speak to my closest associates. Honestly, if I’d known religious studies could grant you magic, I would have paid more attention during my rabbi’s lessons.
Much to my surprise, Diabloman responded by contacting me mentally. I sometimes forgot he knew magic too. “Boss, are you there?”
“Yeah, just currently under siege by cyborg mercenary goons and Ultragod’s mirror universe counterpart. Shouldn’t he have a goatee?”
“I’ll pretend any of that makes sense to me,” Diabloman said. “I have transported your niece and sister to a cabin on an island in Lake Falconcrest. They should be safe from the President’s forces.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “The President is an insane time-travelling despot from the future and killed Ultragod. He’s also outside.”
“I see,” Diabloman said. “Well, that would explain a few things. You need reinforcements.”
“Just a wee bit.”
“Then you are lucky I have been assembling a task force for just such an occasion,” Diabloman said. “You can thank me with a bonus.”
“Like the case of diamonds I gave you last night?”
“Point taken. We shall be there in ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes may be too late!” I broke contact with him.
Cindy and I headed down the stairs into the hospital basement. The place still had graffiti on the walls and there was an unclean feeling in the air. No matter how much good Cindy had done in this place, it was still one where hundreds of people had been massacred by gangs and zombies both.
Good didn’t erase evil.
But then again, maybe the reverse was true as well.
Or neither mattered.
“How can you say that, Gary? With everything President Omega and Ultradevil are doing? What Gabrielle is doing to oppose them? Good and evil are very real.”
“Omega isn’t complex,” I replied, gritting my teeth. “He’s a bully who gets his rocks off with petty displays of power. Ultradevil is probably the same. There’s nothing terribly complex about them. Most people aren’t so single-minded and devoted, though. What’s going to happen when the president is killed by a Super? What will they demand as punishment? Who will have to pay the piper? Will it matter one way or the other that Omega was an asshole or will they just string me up? I think we both know the answer. I’m not going to let that happen, though.”
“I see,” Cloak said. “You’re thinking this through further than I thought.”
“Heroes and villains depend on who is telling the story,” I said. “I choose to reject that argument. I’m the villain because I do what I want and tell the rest of society to fuck off for it. I forgot that because Mandy died. I thought, maybe, if I’d had an ounce of forethought that she might still be alive. No, it’s not. It’s the fault of this reality and not being smart or hard enough to get what I want. In that respect, Omega and I aren’t so different.”
“You two are nothing alike,” Cloak insisted.
“We’ll see when I come down on the White House with a couple of pipe-hittin’ Supers to go to work on Omega with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. I intend to get medieval on his ass.”
“Down here!” Cindy said, gesturing to a janitor’s closet door. Heading down inside it, Cindy pushed on a shelf which caused a door to open to a dark water-filled hallway. The interior of the hallway contained her Red Riding Hood cloak and a picnic basket. Tossing off her doctor’s smock, she put on both. She didn’t have time to change into the bustier or dress, which was probably for the best.
“Cindy, there’s some things I should probably tell you—”
“Now is really not the time, Gary.”
I took a deep breath. “You’ve made my life incredibly fucking complicated and I don’t want you gone from it. Ever. You also know I find you hot as hell. You’re my best friend I want to have sex with. I’m not sure that qualifies as love but it’s probably close enough for government work.”
Cindy turned around and looked at me. “Gary?”
We didn’t get to speak further because the end of the tunnel collapsed. Gabrielle smashed through the ceiling and created a crater around her. Ultradevil proceeded to strike her with a gigantic Ultra-force Morningstar. Thankfully, the weapon didn’t crush her outright, as she knocked it away with an Ultra-force hand the size of a car, then conjured a bullet train, which she smashed Ultradevil in the face with.
“I’m not sure we’re going to be able to do much out there,” Cindy said, watching the battle between Titans as it spilled out onto the stree
ts.
“We have to try,” I said.
“Because we’re heroes now?”
“Because Gabrielle is our friend,” I said. “Also, because we hate the people outside.”
“Good,” Cindy said, taking a deep breath. “I’d hate to think we were getting soft.”
“Yeah.”
“Try not to get killed, Gary.”
“You too.”
The two of us ran down the hall to join the battle.
Chapter Fourteen
The Big Epic Brawl that Gets Bigger
In what would be a surprise to many of my detractors (and quite a few of my supporters), I don’t actually like hurting people.
I was very good at it, I didn’t particularly mind it, and I’d gotten a lot of practice at it in the past year, but it wasn’t something I enjoyed. If someone were to cut me open and examine the reptile portions of my brain, they’d find I exist somewhere in the spectrum between “is a killer when he needs to be” and “Murder is the best solution to any problem.”
Knowing these facts about me, you should take note that when I said, “I am looking forward to killing each and every one of these bastards,” I wasn’t saying it on a whim. No, I was saying it because I was really looking forward to killing each and every one of these bastards.
The sight which greeted me and Cindy upon our emergence from the ruins of her tunnel was a bloody battlefield full of explosions, energy-blasts, black helicopters, building-sized suits of power-armor, armored cars, giant robots, and guys who looked like they’d come from a movie casting call for ‘Space Nazis: The Oppressing.’ Ultragoddess and Ultradevil were battling it over the hospital, but true to my predictions, the former was battling at a handicap thanks to everyone cherry-tapping her while she punched out the fake Ultragod’s lights.
Gabrielle was also forced to take a hit every time she had to get in the way of Ultradevil firing his energy blasts at the hospital or the groups of civilians nearby. Given how powerful the Ultras were, the entire city was endangered by Ultradevil’s complete disregard for any life but his own.
One thing I should mention: Movies and television don’t actually convey how frigging loud battles between superheroes and armies actually are. The amount of gunfire and worse going on made my ears ring just entering the battle. Plugging my ears with shadow-stuff, I conjured forth my Reaper’s pistols and said to Cindy, “Okay, we just need to find cover and pick off as many targets as we can.”
“What?” Cindy shouted, right beside me.
“Let’s kill these bastards!” I shouted back.
“No need to shout!” Cindy said.
Cindy reached into her picnic basket and pulled out a set of jacks and a rubber ball. They were slightly larger than normal, sized for adults to throw rather than small children, and shinier than the plastic ones I’d played with as a kindergartener. Cindy proceeded to throw them all into the air.
The jacks formed a cloud above Cindy’s head, hovered, made beeping noises, and then zipped across the battlefield. A single jack attached itself to a dozen Darklight soldiers before exploding in a series of grenade-sized detonations. The rubber ball, by contrast, slammed into one of the mecha walking around and knocked the tank-sized machine over before smashing into a car and sending it into a roll, before banging into a helicopter’s cockpit and causing it to explode.
I just looked at Cindy, stunned. “Where the hell—”
“Toymistress made these for the hospital’s Hanukkah charity drive. I told her these were probably unsafe for anyone under eleven.”
“Probably.”
Unfortunately, Cindy’s little opening shot had also gotten the attention of the rest of the paramilitary force surrounding us. Cindy slipped on a Star Knights energy shield ring which protected her from the initial barrage while I turned intangible.
“Okay, it’s time to go John Woo on these guys’ asses,” I said, staring all at them.
“Gary, have you ever even shot a gun before?” Cindy asked.
I looked at her. “You know, just the once.”
“Great,” Cindy muttered.
“Death wouldn’t steer me wrong.”
“She’s frigging Death!”
“Yeah, well…” I realized for the first time in my life I was out of funny rejoinders. I compromised by shouting out my battle cry: “Witticism and clever comeback!”
“What?” Cindy said.
I charged out into the attacking goon squad, firing both guns randomly because I was pretty sure it would be just as effective as my aiming. Much to my surprise, as I pulled the trigger, I saw the bullets and energy beams of the Darklight soldiers slow down to an easily avoidable crawl. I then realized what Death had done for me.
“Bullet time, jackasses!” I shouted, giving a whoop and firing dozens of shots while skipping over the attacks of my enemies. I even took time to aim at the mecha, giant robots, and armored cars around me since I hoped they would explode. After all, if we were running on movie logic, then we should have plenty of gratuitous explosions, right?
“Death is far too good to you,” Cloak muttered. “All I ever got was vague threats and promises of damnation.”
“You just don’t know how to treat a lady,” I said, cheerfully.
That was when I felt I’d reached the sum total of all my magical energy reserves and, just like that, time reverted to normal. Which, unfortunately, had the effect of causing a pair of bullets to graze my shoulder and leg.
“Ah, come on!” I said, falling to the ground. “It’s on a timer? Really?”
I didn’t have much reason to complain, though, because my earlier thought about explosions was right. Dozens more Darklight soldiers fell backwards as my hellfire bullets passed through their armor like it was paper. Even more so, the mechs and robots detonated like it was less a John Woo movie and more Michael Bay. Enough, really, that I was almost willing to forgive Bay for the Transformers movies.
Almost.
Unfortunately, all of that didn’t mean a damned thing, as there was still a whole frigging army of Darklighters surrounding us. Which was the purpose of an army, really, to make sure that no matter how good a fighter you were, you still got your ass kicked in the end. Worse, it looked like Gabrielle was starting to lose against Ultradevil. He was hitting her with pretty powerful strikes and she was only barely able to fend them off. My only consolation was half his face was horribly burned, and there were several bloody strikes on his costume from where Gabrielle had overwhelmed his protective aura.
I managed to turn intangible, just barely able to hold myself in said state, as another round of blasts and gunfire headed my way. Looking over the wreckage and battlefield, I saw the bodies of the prisoners the Darklight mercenaries had taken. Despite Gabrielle’s best efforts to protect the bystanders, the psychopaths had executed them during her brawl with Ultradevil. President Omega had gotten himself a real set of headcases.
Which gave me the strength to continue fighting.
Managing my output of necromantic power, which I never thought would be a concept I’d have to master, I levitated with my jumps to leap on the top of cars and mecha before firing down at the Darklight soldiers below. The bullet-time effect and my intangibility powers could be used at once but only for a few seconds at time given how draining they were.
I conjured walls of fire and hid behind armored wreckage whenever possible as they were some of the few things capable of withstanding their attacks. Contrary to what decades of cover-based shooters had taught me, it turned out that you needed really solid places to hide behind unless you wanted to be cut to ribbons.
I had no idea what Cindy’s state was or if Gabrielle could keep fighting given the fact that we still hadn’t managed to take down even half of the Darklight soldiers. Struggling to get up, I found I couldn’t. I managed to get barely an inch off the crushed car hood before collapsing back down on it. The pain was intense, but I couldn’t draw from it to move. Worse, my magical reserves were not just rea
lly spent but really most sincerely spent. I doubted I could conjure a candle with my mind let alone continue fighting.
But I had to.
For Cindy’s sake.
For Gabby’s.
For everyone’s.
Unfortunately, while in most stories that would have given me the adrenaline rush to pull myself up, it seemed heroic willpower wasn’t actually a cure for getting blown up and I found myself unable to do a damned thing. I was a sitting duck for whatever psycho, cyborg, or head of state that decided to kill me.
As much as I’d managed to fight my way around them, I didn’t have the kind of skills that many other superheroes relentlessly trained themselves to possess, and as much as my powers confused them, it didn’t take long for one of the giant robots to fire a pair of rockets from its hands that blew up the armored truck I was standing on. I turned intangible just a wee bit too late, and the force of the explosion sent me spiraling through the air and slamming into the top of a Cadillac in the staff parking lot.
If not for the fact that I was partially invulnerable, I would have been killed outright, but that didn’t prevent me from feeling like I’d had ten guys beat the hell out of me. I also had a couple of bullets lodged into my costume. It was also possible they’d buried themselves into the surface layer of my skin and I’d have to pry them out with a screwdriver. Some of the magics I’d traded my extra power for had been protection spells woven into my skin, and while they didn’t quite make me bulletproof, they certainly lowered my armor class a bit. Increased my armor-class? Which was better? I couldn’t remember which edition of Dungeons and Dragons real life worked on.
Ah crap, did I have a concussion? Because I wasn’t quite sure what I was thinking anymore. My ears were ringing and I could only vaguely hear the sounds of the battle outside. Kirk or Picard? Sisko. Luke or Han? Leia. The Expanse was the best thing the Syfy Channel had shown in years. The ninth and tenth Doctors were awesome. Eleven was okay but loved the companions. Don’t much care for twelve. Okay, cool, still conscious and thinking clearly.