by Archer, Mia
More exchanged glances. I looked down at the monster and was surprised to see movement down there. People were climbing out of the thing!
“See? I even saved your people! Don’t you care about that?”
More exchanging of glances. Every power armored humanoid out there seemed utterly confused about how to deal with me. It was enough to make me wonder if they’d never dealt with a human before or something.
Considering the only contact this planet presumably had with earth was Dr. Lana sending lizards over here to get a dose of radiation I guess that wasn’t too far outside the realm of possibility.
The lady raised the microphone thingy to her mouth again. I figured I was finally going to get my due. I’d saved their friends’ lives and they would finally recognize me for the wonder that I was.
“No, we do not care,” the woman said. “You eliminated our target and killed a highly endangered Sand Yorp while you were at it. Fire.”
A Sand Yorp? Presumably that was the thing I’d pulled out of the sand. Highly endangered? They had terms like that on this planet?
Then the last bit she’d said hit me. Right. That didn’t sound very good. Like they were getting ready to shoot at me!
Sure enough there was a sizzle followed by energy blasts streaking past me. One moment I was minding my own business floating above the endangered Sand Yorp’s corpse, and the next these darn aliens were doing their best to blast me from the sky!
It’s not like this was my fault. Not really. How was I supposed to know they had an endangered giant predator species on this planet?
I looked around at all the alien jerks surrounding me. I did not like the way they were staring at me.
I also didn’t want to do anything to hurt them. With great power and all that nonsense. The last thing I wanted was to use my powers to accidentally hurt someone. I’d had some close calls when I was younger, and I didn’t want to create an interstellar incident by having a close call here.
Well at least it would be a closer call than what I’d already done by throwing that giant monster around and accidentally setting it on a collision course with these aliens.
I also thought of what Natalie would do in this situation. I’ll admit there was a part of me that was tempted to play by the rules and obey the local authorities. Sure it’s not like they had jurisdiction over me since I wasn’t from their planet, but try telling that to the jerk faces with the guns.
I knew what Natalie would do. She would blow all of them out of the sky and she wouldn’t care if they ended up plastered across the sand or in the belly of another giant endangered Sand Yorp.
She’d probably think it was funny.
Well I wasn’t going to do something that extreme, but I sure didn’t have to stick around for the kind of abuse they were throwing at me.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to listen to you,” I said. “If you jerk faces aren’t going to go down to your city and use your weapons to save the day then I’m going to do what you’re unwilling to do.”
More confused glances. That seemed to be a theme with these guys. Well they could be confused all they wanted.
Their confusion was giving me a heck of a lot of clarity, actually.
I was a hero. Saving people is what I did. Maybe I was on some strange new world where the locals played by a different set of rules, but that wasn’t going to stop me from doing what needed to be done. From doing the right thing.
And right now the right thing was getting away from these jerks and going down to that city where I could make a difference and fight off those giant monsters.
Something slammed into me and I went tumbling through the air. I looked around in confusion. None of the jerks that were floating up in the air seemed to be holding their weapons. I figured that meant…
I looked down. Frowned. One of those flying saucers down below, one that had been saved when I’d killed that Sand Yorp by lifting it out of the desert, had fired on me! The ungrateful bastards were alive and not being digested because I’d saved their bacon, and their idea of repaying me was to fire on me?
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t understand this world. I wanted to be back on earth. Sure things were crazy there, but at least it was the sort of crazy that I could sort of understand.
“I’m out of here,” I said. “You all have fun walking back.”
More confused glances were exchanged. Finally the lady that’d been talking to me this entire time decided to take the bait. She raised her microphone thingy to her mouth and her voice projected out across the purple dune.
“Um. Walking back?”
“Yeah, because I’m totally not letting you follow me,” I said.
I grinned. I imagined it was the sort of grin that Natalie might wear before she did something that was both awesome and a little naughty.
6
City Scrape
Disabling all those flying saucer things had been a lot more satisfying than it probably should’ve been. Like that totally wasn’t the kind of thing I did.
Yet I’d done it. It turns out a couple of punches was all it took to take out whatever weird science these aliens were using to keep their flying saucers in the air. By the time I was finished all it took was one punch to the business end of those things and they floated gently to the ground.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have had that much fun, but it’d been therapeutic considering they kept firing on me even after I’d made it clear I was on their side. Idiots.
Now I was flying in low over this new city. The desert sand ended abruptly and was replaced by solid rock that the city rose out of.
I guess that made sense. After all, it wouldn’t do for them to build their city on the sand where the buildings could sink down. Or, for that matter, where endangered Sand Yorps could come up out of that sand and really ruin someone’s day.
I wondered if they were all as big as the one I’d accidentally killed. I was pretty sure I didn’t care.
No, I had something else to worry about. There were a couple of those giant monsters wading through the city, and I’d always wanted to fight one of these things. One of the most annoying things about suddenly finding myself without any of my powers was knowing I wasn’t going to be able to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams of fighting off a giant monster singlehandedly.
I smiled. It looked like dreams really did come true.
I reveled in the feeling of the air whipping all around me. It was a feeling I hadn’t enjoyed in far too long, and it was exhilarating.
I just wished Natalie was here. Only she wasn’t, and I knew if there were some giant monsters out there that needed taking care of she’d do what needed to be done to make sure those giant monsters didn’t bother her city ever again.
Sure this wasn’t my city. It wasn’t even my planet. Still, I needed to let off some steam. I was starting to get really frustrated with this place. They weren’t very nice here!
The first monster looked up and its eyes went wide right as my fist made contact with its stupid lizardy face. It was weird that its eyes went wide like that. That was more emotion than I would’ve given a giant irradiated lizard credit for. Usually they spent all their time roaring and swishing their tails around and stomping on the dinosaur displays at the Starlight City Natural History Museum in between breathing nuclear fire on the city.
Y’know, typical giant irradiated lizard things.
This one almost looked like it was thinking. And its last thought was that there was a crazy small chick flying through the air at it, because it turns out my punch was maybe a little more intense than I’d originally thought.
Think a human being very surprised that a housefly they were trying to take out with a flyswatter suddenly punched hard enough to knock said human across the room and you get an idea of what was likely going through the giant irradiated lizard’s head. Though that might be giving the thing’s thought processes too much credit.
The lizard’s head spun around and there was a loud cracking
noise that was louder than its foot stomping into the ground. One moment the thing was looking all surprised and the next it was falling for the ground where it smashed into some things that looked sort of like cars, but they were all in the same flying saucer shape as those military things I’d seen out in the purple desert. A couple of them flipped around and there were no wheels either.
Weird.
I got the feeling the whole flying saucer thing was sort of a motif on this planet. Which meant I’d just raised some insurance rates. That’s how Natalie always phrased it.
Assuming they had advanced technology like insurance on this planet. I hadn’t had a conversation with anyone from this world that didn’t involve them shooting at me, so I couldn’t be sure.
“Sorry!” I shouted down, but the streets seemed to mostly be empty so it’s not like there was anyone down there to hear me.
Plus the military could speak English, weird, but I had no idea if any of the civilians down there could do the same.
That lizard had caused some serious damage. That hadn’t been my intention. I bet to the locals down there it looked like I was deliberately causing trouble, which bothered me, but it’s not like there was much I could do about it now.
What I could do was take care of the other lizards before they did too much damage. That was how I’d pay back the damage I’d just caused. The lizards might look fearsome, but they were lightweights when I got down to it. This could be fun.
At least they would’ve been lightweights if I ever got a chance to punch one of the idiots. No sooner had I started across the city in search of another lizard to beat up, it was all weird bubbles and curves and stuff that looked like something straight out of the retro future of the ‘50s, than something slammed into me.
I was getting really sick and tired of things slamming into me when I wasn’t paying close enough attention to my surroundings. That was another lesson Natalie had constantly harped on with me.
When I picked myself up and brushed off I discovered I’d been thrown right into the middle of one of those buildings. They might look all futuristic and metallic at a distance, but when I was thrown through one it turns out it crumbled just like anything back on earth.
Also? That was really annoying!
“What is your problem!” I shouted at this strange new world.
“You will desist from attacking the creatures immediately,” a voice boomed.
Only there was something weird about the way the voice boomed. It wasn’t booming through the air like it was coming from someone amplifying their voice on a loudspeaker.
No, it was booming because that voice was coming from a bunch of places at once. As though everyone in this city was speaking at the same time. Creepy.
I looked around trying to find the source of that loud voice, but it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. There wasn’t anyone down on the ground nearby, that made sense considering there were giant irradiated lizards attacking, but there had to be people somewhere because I’d just heard them talking to me.
“What the heck is going on here?”
It was enough to almost drive me to swearing. Almost, but not quite. I didn’t want to have a potty mouth and make a bad impression out here, after all.
Though considering that I’d already accidentally dropped a giant lizard on their city and killed off a giant example of an endangered species on this world it was entirely possible that the Rubicon for making a good impression was already well and truly crossed.
Oops.
“You will cease and desist immediately or we will take action to make sure you cannot interrupt the acquisition,” the voices said again.
I was about to ask what exactly they were going to do to get me to cease and desist, but then that sort of became a moot point when I saw more of the flying saucers gathering around and looking like they were open for business if the multitude of ray guns and weapon slots opening up and descending from the things was anything to go by.
I figured that meant they were going to bring the hurt if I did something stupid.
“What’s your problem?” I asked. “I’m trying to save your city! You have giant monsters attacking and you keep trying to attack me! I saved your people and you keep trying to stop me from helping you!”
“You will be acquired as well,” the voices said.
I narrowed my eyes. Looked a little closer. Some of those flying saucers were of the open air variety, and I could see the mouths moving on aliens who’d moved in close. Like they were mouthing the words all at the same time.
Okay. That was creepy. There was something terribly wrong with this world, and I didn’t know if I wanted to stick around long enough to find out what that terribly wrong something was.
Not that I had much choice since it appeared that portal was a one-way ticket. I just had to hope Natalie figured out a way to open another one so I could get home, because there wasn’t a chance I was going to come up with anything on this end.
“Um, on second thought maybe y’all can have your city,” I said. “I’ll just mosey back over to where I started and wait for a portal to open to my world or something.”
“Your world?” the voices said.
I got the feeling I’d just said something really stupid. Like this would be one of those moments when Natalie got annoyed with me if she was here to be annoyed with me.
Which she wasn’t.
Those flying saucers started moving in closer. Like they were going to do their best to capture me. How had they phrased it? They were going to “acquire” me, which didn’t sound like a good thing.
In my estimation some of the most evil things that ever went down on earth were the result of jerkfaces trying to “acquire” things for their government or business. Though I got the feeling there was some weird alien invasion vibe to the whole “acquire” thing on this world.
“Um, yeah, I don’t think I should say anything else about other worlds,” I said.
I was reminded of an enterprising lawyer who’d realized he could make a fortune standing at the main road leading into student housing handing out bottle openers that had his name and contact information on one side and a handy list of tips on the other side about what to do in the event a person was underaged and approached by the cops.
The top thing on that little advice list had been that the single worst thing to do when the cops brought you in was talk. I got the feeling the same was true here with these aliens confronting me.
“We regret that you have decided you are not coming quietly,” the legion of voices said. “But unfortunately that is not going to stop us from acquiring you.”
Yeah, that really had a creepy vibe to it. It reminded me of those weird robot people that bald guy was fighting with his android buddy in that movie Natalie had thought was a good date night movie.
Well if they thought I was going to come quietly they had another thing coming.
“I’m out of here,” I muttered.
The only problem was that was right about the time they all opened fire. They didn’t seem to care that we were in the middle of their city and firing off military grade hardware usually meant there was a big risk of civilian casualties.
Even back in Starlight City the military had been reluctant to get involved in the super fights that regularly went down. Sure Natalie claimed that was because they didn’t want to get their butts kicked, but I figured some of it had to be they didn’t want to get in the habit of firing on their own population.
These jerkfaces didn’t seem to have any worries about that, and so for the second time since I got to this city I found myself being thrown back.
Not for long though. I was ready for them this time, and I was done taking this crap.
7
Unlikely Savior
I pushed back against whatever they were firing at me. Clearly it wasn’t all that impressive because it didn’t take much for me to hold in place.
I was sad there was no SCNN to catch me do
ing this. I always liked to go back and watch myself on the DVR after I’d done something heroic. I had the thing set to record SCNN constantly so it never missed anything when I was in the hero business.
Turns out Natalie did something similar. She was always complaining about not having a computer around to record her exploits. I’d had to show her how to use the DVR which didn’t seem like the sort of thing I should be explaining to a super genius, but…
Something slammed into me again, but it was different from whatever the heck they were firing on me. Arms wrapped around me, and for a brief wonderful moment I thought maybe Natalie had figured out a way to come through that portal and rescue me after all.
I also had a brief moment where I thought about all the fun we could have teaching these jerkfaces what it meant to mess with Fialux and Night Terror.
I wasn’t going to give into those urges though. It wouldn’t be nice to go on a villainous rampage with my girlfriend. It was a nice thought for a moment though considering everything these jerks had been doing to me since I got here.
Even the outfit looked right. It was almost a match for mine, one of Natalie’s castoffs, except it was bright purple instead of the usual dark slate grey Natalie seemed to prefer.
I slammed into a building and found myself looking into the deep green eyes of a very pretty raven-haired woman who looked like she couldn’t be more than a few years older than me.
Also? She totally had regular human colored skin rather than the blue stuff they were rocking on this planet.
“Are you crazy?” she asked. “These suits might save you for a little while, but you can’t stand up to a direct attack for long!”
“Um, excuse me?” I said.
The girl whipped around and held her hands up as the aliens in their flying saucers reoriented and opened fire again. Like I’m talking they really opened up. They were clearly pissed about something above and beyond me showing up and killing off their protected megafauna.