Superheroes in Prose: The 1-4 Collection

by Paris, Sevan

  “You don’t! You don’t think I’m pretty! I’ll kill you! I’ll—” what comes next is the most impressive, hate and gore filled string of obscenities I’ve ever heard. Deathbot, about to fire a blast at Matchstick, pauses to face Liberty Girl.

  You know some messed up shit is coming out of your mouth if you give that dude pause.

  She flies at me, but another Grav Blast stops her short. She covers her face, flips head over feet through the air a couple of times and stops at a hover. She shrills a sonic attack at me, sending blue ripples through the air. They collide with my force field, ramming me into the cell door behind me.

  Gabe, you need to put her out of commission quickly. That sonic attack just sent our energy level to fifty percent.

  “Already?”

  Hey, I’m the one managing the energy level—you’re the one that has to keep us from getting shot, remember?

  She lets loose with another series of screams that tear into the cell behind me. I fly out of the way and the cell door caves in. The blue ripples follow me around the cell block—like machine gun fire they tear into metal, flesh and bone. Prisoners scream.

  I fly up to her. She tries to blast me close range right before I send three quick Grav Blasts into her face. Her eyes roll back in her head and she thuds to the floor, twenty feet below. Thank God she isn’t as strong as Liberty or that never would have worked.

  Gabe, DIVE!

  I twist and dive in mid air as Matchstick sends a gush of red flame right where I was.

  Deathbot, standing in a burning crater, fires a blast at Matchstick from his arm cannon. Matchstick—powered up and covered in an armor of blue flame—absorbs the blast and flies into Deathbot. The two go into a tumbling skid of flaming limbs and purple metal.

  Pink backhands Lion with Elephant Man’s massive arm. Lion leaps onto her back and sinks his fangs into her neck. She falls back. Letting the weight of the body crush him with a loud thud. Slither wraps around her, and Pink leaves Elephant Man’s body right before Slither’s fangs sink into her neck.

  Pink rushes across the prison, flashes into Matchstick and then separates the blue flaming body from Deathbot. “Take them!” She yells. She turns and roasts the remaining Circus Six with a geyser of red fire, pouring from Matchstick’s hands. Deathbot, still partially engulfed in flames, quickly puts the situation together and turns his shoulder bazooka on the Circus Six.

  The bad guys never stand a chance.

  They flail about, bodies immersed in an inferno, acting like running somewhere will help. There aren’t any screams—either because I can’t hear them over the roaring fire or their vocal cords have melted.

  Elephant Man exits the carnage, arms covering his face. Aside from a few patches of flame here and there, his thick hide seems to be protecting him from the worst that Matchstick’s powers have to offer.

  But it doesn’t do jack against Deathbot’s shoulder bazooka.

  A high pitched whine is the only warning Elephant Man gets before a big ball of yellow energy burns through his stomach and explodes out his back. Elephant Man trumpets in agony before collapsing onto the ground.

  The flames extinguish as soon as Pink lowers Matchstick’s hands, leaving only blackened bodies and a scorched concrete floor.

  More cell doors open.

  I fly to Pink and Deathbot. “We can’t keep this up forever. They’re eventually gonna overtake us.”

  “Speak for yourself, human! Deathbot’s might shall win this day!”

  Liberty talks to someone behind him on the screen.

  I turn to Matchstick’s pink eyes. “Can you get to processing, close to the Brain?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But why—” she stops and puts it all together. “That will never work.”

  “How do you know? Have you tried it?”

  “No, but it’s not alive.”

  “It’s kind of alive.”

  She looks in the direction of Processing. “And the equipment …”

  “I’ll take care of the equipment.”

  “AND Liberty’s there. He’ll just destroy the Brain before I can—”

  “I’ll distract him. You do the rest.”

  “Galaxy, I—”

  “You do the rest.”

  Matchstick’s head reluctantly nods.

  “COME, FOOLS! FEEL THE WRATH OF DEATHBOT!” Deathbot repeatedly fires his arm cannon.

  I turn and look at Liberty’s new prisoner line-up: Glop, Multiplicity, Brick, and Mortar. Deathbot’s shot blows apart Glop, sending chunks of his green snot looking body in every direction. The pieces instantly start moving toward one another as Glop tries to reform.

  “Can you show me the power lines leading into Prisoner Processing?”

  “How am I supposed to know where they are?” Pink says, a look of annoyance on Matchstick’s fiery face.

  .… Yes—the power feeding that equipment is considerable.

  In my vision, M highlights a network of wires in shades of blue. They start under the floor, go behind the concrete wall and disappear to the right of the door leading to Processing. I fly up, holding out my hand for a Grav Blast, but M doesn’t do anything.

  “What—”

  What good will this do, Gabe? You have no guarantee Pink’s powers will work on that thing.

  Multiplicity slides on a piece Glop and collides with a wall, triggering his power. With a flamf, he’s created two more of himself.

  “M!”

  M blasts the section to the right of the door. The blue highlights throughout the room flicker and then fade as Prisoner Processing and the Brain Tank loses power.

  The group of Multiplicities run toward Deathbot.

  Before I can say anything, the Cyborg quickly fires his arm cannon at the one in front. The lead Multiplicity goes down in a tumble of arms and legs, but his body slams into the other two, producing six more who collide into the others producing eighteen more, and then so on and so on.

  Pink flies up to join me as Brick, Mortar, and Deathbot disappear under a rushing wave of orange flamfs. Pink shoots a jet of flame from Matchstick’s hands. Dozens of Multiplicities fall away, screaming and burning.

  “NO!” I say. “You may kill Deathb—”

  Liberty flies into me with a kick to the stomach.

  M’s forcefield can stop an eighteen wheeler traveling sixty; it can stop a bazooka; it can stop a grenade. It can even stop a collapsing roof of an Italian Restaurant from leaving so much as a bruise.

  But, I gotta say, that kick from Liberty hurt like hell.

  Without even realizing it, I’ve been sent into a cell and through a prisoner’s body. M’s forcefield is the only reason I’m alive and not covered in some unknown person’s entrails. I stand as a chunk of prisoner drops from the ceiling. I catch a glimpse of the hatch that leads to Prisoner Processing: Liberty didn’t even bother to open it—he just tore through the massive door like it was tissue paper. And not only that, he did it with such speed that M didn’t even have time to warn me.

  And I said I would distract this guy?

  Liberty hovers into the cell, arms crossed. As if he’s posing for a camera.

  “You can scream now.”

  He tackles me through the wall.

  And another wall.

  And another wall.

  We stop in the cafeteria. He crosses the room right as I hit the floor, sliding backwards on my heels. I raise both hands in front, queuing M for a Grav Blast.

  It’s the only thing that saves my life.

  Liberty hits the blast with the full force of a punch—as in the same punch that sank battleships in World War II. The same punch that knocked the Zyborg destroyer into the sun. The same punch he’s going to use to kill Mom later if this plan continues south.

  He throws another punch—I deflect it with another blast. The sheer force of it scatters tables and chairs. He raises his hand for another …

  But—with a little boost from a Grav Beam—I punch first. His head rolls to the ri
ght. I punch again, sending him to the floor. I punch again, sending his head into the floor. I punch again …

  He snatches my fist—pulls me to him—and smiles …

  I never even saw the hit that sent me through the roof and into the night sky.

  I recover my senses just in time to fly to the right—he streaks past in a flash of gold and red. We hover thirty feet from each other, the moon to my right.

  “Very few people can say they’ve hit me hard enough for me to feel it,” he says. “Even fewer can say they’ve survived what you have.”

  “In their defense, you’ve probably never given them much of a chance to say anything.”

  Liberty crosses the space between us in less time than it takes to blink and gives me a two-fisted punch.

  I skid off the roof of the Electric Power Board building, four miles away.

  After a hard bounce off the brick building across the street and the sidewalk below, I land on top of the Rivoli Theatre sign. Sparks fly from its broken bulbs, and a few letters of a Kris Kristofferson concert flutter to the ground. Man, I think the Prose reconstruction Supers just got this thing fixed too.

  “Thank you for making my point,” I say without even looking to see if Liberty’s here yet. Why bother?

  “You want to know what your problem is, Galaxy?” Liberty says from above.

  “Are you implying that I have the option of your NOT telling me?”

  He picks me up by the throat and hovers us above Main Street. Cars slam on the breaks to check out the coolness that is him and the about to be dead that is me.

  “Your problem is that you never take anything seriously. Even now, when you’re about to lose everything, you’re making jokes.”

  I take hold of every car in the lot behind Liberty with a Grav Beam.

  “Which I’m sure are nothing more than some sort of pathetic coping mechanism,” he says.

  “Actually, they’re also a spectacular means of distraction.”

  The forty cars slowly surround us. Some pass in front of street lights, casting a shadow. Liberty looks back.

  That’s all I need.

  I pull away from his grip—my Grav Beam slams the cars into him from every direction. I clap my hands together, screeching the massive ball tighter. And tighter. It goes from the size of an eighteen wheeler to a Cadillac. It slams to the ground, crashes into the theatre lobby and grinds to a halt.

  I land on the street, out of breath. “M, can you get a reading?”

  You mean of Liberty? Loud and clear.

  My stomach falls to somewhere below the pavement. “Are you kidding me?”

  What did you expect, Gabe? That man can survive a nuclear blast. Did you really think a few cars would slow him down?

  I don’t say anything because that is exactly what I thought. And I’m ashamed to say, I was hoping for a bit more.

  The tangled mess of car rolls slightly to the side and begins to bubble red at the top. I raise my hand, signaling M to ready a Grav Beam. If nothing else, I’ll just shoot the whole thing into space. Maybe I can drag it to the sun before—

  The cars explode. Shrapnel flies through the building and into the vehicles on the street.

  The vehicles with people in them.

  “NO!” I change my hand motion, signaling M for a force field. Surprisingly, he doesn’t hesitate to form a barrier protecting the dozens of innocent people from the shower of deadly metal.

  It’s all the distraction Liberty needs to grab me by the neck and spin me through the EPB building. I come out on the other side and he’s already there, eyes still glowing red. He slams me with a fist, sending me through the aquarium, one mile away. I come through the other side of several concrete walls, two fish tanks and the river opens up below me … and Liberty is already there, vein bulging in the side of his forehead.

  He hits me again.

  By the time I have my arms up to deflect the blow, I’m back at the UTP campus, going through the Rackenzie Arena and out the other side … Liberty is waiting for me again. He grabs me by the upper arm and neck and flies us into the side of the Blue Cross building, two blocks away. My face and body grind through I don’t know how much concrete.

  He bites his bottom lip so hard it draws blood.

  And then we’re in the river.

  He drags me across the bottom of the Tennessee, forming a ten mile trench from the aquarium all the way to the 153 bridge. He throws me out of the river ahead of him and I hit the ground right next to the Rickamauga Dam.

  I roll onto my back, fully expecting another hit. Or pain. Or both.

  “M?” I cough a little and it hurts to breathe. “Where … is …”

  I’m not reading him.

  I look around, like an idiot. M senses reach pretty far in all directions. If he can’t detect Liberty, there’s no way I can see him. And then it hits me. Or what Pink said about the way Liberty killed Leech hits me …

  “M! Give me a reverse Grav Beam a hundred and eighty degrees from where Liberty took off! Full strength!”

  Gabe, that’s going to be a serious drain on our power—you can’t just—

  “DO IT!” I spin on my heal and throw up my hands, like I’m trying to catch a softball from hell.

  The air in front of me shivers and the light bends with a shade of blue.

  And then Liberty appears from nowhere. He has just enough time to give me a look of totally sweet surprise before our reverse beam bounces him in the opposite direction. He disappears into the stars.

  I go down to my knees right when the sonic boom hits. I guess M protects my ears because it’s not that loud.

  “Do we have enough power to get back to The Bend?”

  Just barely.

  ***

  The flight back to The Bend takes two minutes. Two minutes of constantly looking for Liberty over my shoulder … two minutes of feeling him breathing down my neck. I land on the roof next to where the pile of unconscious guards was and jog through the rain, towards the elevator shaft. If Pink hasn’t been able to get to the Brain yet …

  Liberty’s feet hit my upper back and we go through the roof of The Bend, into Prisoner Processing. Chunks of concrete and metal scatter throughout the room. I land on the tile floor and slide into the wall as Gabe Garrison.

  I’m out of power.

  Crap.

  I stand and immediately fall back down. “M! What—”

  That’s only a fraction of the pain that you would be feeling if I hadn’t have taken the time to heal the life-threatening injuries. All that you’re left with is some fractures, bruises, and lacerations.

  I stand again and marvel that my life has come to the point that having fractures is lucky.

  Liberty hovers above the rain-soaked tile. Lightening flashes above him. Emergency lighting flickers on and off. The eyes in the Brain Tank bob in the green water. “What … you’re not gonna just kill me out right?”

  Liberty lands and crosses over the red line to me. He clutches my throat and slams me against the wall. “There’s something to be said for the anticipation.”

  The eyes in the Brain Tank on the other side of the room slowly turn and look at me … and glow pink.

  I reach into my pocket. “You got that right.” I jab Casa’s stun gun into Liberty’s neck—a rush of angry clicks sends him to the ground.

  I stand. Even though I hurt like hell, the sight of a hurting and surprised Liberty gives me a second, third, and forth wind.

  “What …” he looks at his hands as if he’s never seen them. “What did you do to me?”

  “It’s not what I did … son. It’s what Pink did—or do you prefer Daisy?”

  I kick him in the face. His nose breaks and he lands on his back, surprised at the pain—surprised at what pain feels like.

  “You remember that brain you ripped out of Leech and dunked in a tank fifty years ago?” I pick up a broken rebar from the rubble. “The one that you use to take a villain’s powers away? The one that you apparently
left unguarded?”

  “You … she …”

  I jab him in the chest with a rebar. “Took your powers away.”

  “But you—”

  “Don’t think it worked on me.”

  Nope.

  I shrug. “Apparently I’m like a demigod or something.”

  “But I—”

  “You? You can scream now.”

  I hit him in the chest with the rebar.

  He grunts and goes to the ground. He tries to get up but trips on his cape. I whack him again in the rib cage. He screams and rolls over, face twisted in pain and anger.

  I hit him again, breaking his arm with a satisfying crack! He reaches up at me, yelling my name. He is about to say something else too, but another crack breaks his jaw. He goes down, his eyes slightly rolling up in his head, trying to say something else. Crack!—broken ankle.

  Crack!—broken knee.

  Crack!—broken face.

  Crack!

  Crack!

  Crack!

  “STOP!” a voice says, inches from my ear.

  I freeze, with the rebar raised right above Liberty’s temple. His face is bloody and swollen, like that Kuato baby thing from Total Recall.

  Pink drifts closer to me. The rain showers through her. “Don’t do this.”

  “Why? What do you care? He deserves this! He deserves worse!”

  “But you don’t. You don’t deserve what you’ll become.”

  Don’t listen to her, Gabe. This is the best way. The only way to make sure he never threatens us—your mother again.

  “Believe me, Gabe, I know.”

  So do I. If you let him live, you’ll be looking over your shoulder the rest of your life.

  “What if Casa is right? What is this city, this country, this world going to do when he’s gone? They’re going to look for a replacement. They’re going to look for somebody to be him.”

  And you can’t do all that if you’re dead.

  “You can be that person someday. But if you do things the way he did them, things aren’t going to get any better, are they? You’ll lose a big piece of yourself today, and you’ll keep losing little tinier pieces of yourself until there is nothing left.”