Girl Power Omnibus (Gender Swap Superhero Fiction)

by P. T. Dilloway

  “Sounds lovely. I think I’d rather stay here and disintegrate.”

  “Diane—”

  “I thought you were a hero. Scorched earth is something not even that idiot Geiger would do.” Diane’s fists clenched, but she held herself in check for the moment. “What about all those people down in the shelters? You going to leave them stuck there the rest of their lives?”

  “That’s why I called it a last resort.”

  “What about your purple friend down there? Shouldn’t we give them a chance to do something?”

  “It’ll take a while to get the missiles fueled and launched. And we’ll have the chance to deactivate them if we don’t need them.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all thought out. Why are you up here then?”

  “I wanted to warn you so we can pull out. Kila will cover us.”

  “Who?”

  “The purple lady.”

  “Oh. As I said, I think I’ll stay here.”

  “Diane—”

  “You said we were trying to save Earth, not blow the place to cinders. If that’s your plan, then we might as well let these space blokes finish us off.”

  “From what Kila says, those space blokes aren’t going to stop until they’ve killed everyone. At least this way we might have a chance to save some of humanity.”

  “I didn’t figure you for the type to think that way.”

  “I don’t have the luxury of being naïve anymore.”

  “Well don’t let me hold you up.”

  “Believe me, if there were any other way—”

  Diane wasn’t sure why Melanie had stopped until she looked down. Amongst the robots were two people who should have been dead: Velocity Gal and Velocity Kid. Overhead streaked a dark-haired woman dressed in a costume a couple sizes too big and that revealed practically all of her breasts. Apex Girl carried a red tube under one arm that definitely looked like a weapon.

  She turned to Melanie. “I think your other way just showed up.”

  ***

  “Power levels critical,” the warning voice said in Tonya’s ears.

  “Squeeze every last volt out,” Tonya said back. Not that it would do any good; the suit was already conserving as much energy as it could.

  The problem was it simply had not been designed for anything like this. When Tonya had rebuilt the suit for her womanly frame, she had intended it for limited engagements with supervillains and the like. She hadn’t intended to reenact the epic space battles in Robotech. She supposed that geeky 80s reference was appropriate since she was wearing a robot suit and battling other robots. Too bad there was no one around she could share that with.

  Tonya dodged a barrage of laser fire and then fired another burst of her ion blaster. Smoke escaped from the end of the barrel and a warning flashed in her helmet. She was empty. While Tonya ducked some more lasers, she went through the ion blaster’s systems, trying to wring a little more out of it. There was nothing.

  Well, there were only two choices available to her now: run away to hide like a villain or go down swinging like a hero. She thought back to Baltimore and how enamored she’d been with the superhero business then. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  The worst part was knowing even if she sacrificed herself it wouldn’t do any good. There were so many of the aliens left that her last stand wouldn’t slow them for a nanosecond. With that being the case, she might as well go somewhere to hide. Maybe she could return to her workshop in Detroit. If they didn’t follow her, she could try to recharge—

  The displays in her helmet went blank. “Oh shit.”

  There was nothing she could do as she tumbled towards the water. The fall wouldn’t kill her, but with the armor powerless, she would die for sure. Again she wished for a manual release. She smiled to herself; it would be fitting to die not thanks to the aliens but her own poor engineering.

  The armor did at least cushion the blow when she hit the water. The suit was sealed against water, which meant she would suffocate instead of drown. That would take a while, leaving her hours to sit on the bottom of Redoubt City’s harbor like some old car its owner shoved into the water to dispose of illegally.

  Everything would have been different if she hadn’t ever gone with Midnight Spectre. She should have told the bitch to fuck off. If she’d stayed in Gitmo she would have lived longer, until the aliens decided to level that place.

  Six of one, half-dozen of the other, she thought. At least when she got to the big man upstairs she would have a few marks on the good side of the ledger. Would that be enough to get her through the pearly gates?

  She found her thoughts turning away from that and back to the conversation she’d had with Melanie in the hospital lab. It looked like they’d never get to go out for that night on the town. At least she wouldn’t. Maybe Melanie would survive this. God, how she’d wanted that night to happen. She could see them both getting sloppy drunk, enough that Melanie could forget she was spoken for and Tonya could forget she was from a good Catholic family who didn’t believe in woman-on-woman intercourse.

  If she could have shaken her head, she would have. This last train of thought definitely wouldn’t win her any points with the big guy. Coveting another woman’s girlfriend was one of those Ten Commandments, wasn’t it? Was it the eighth one? Maybe the sixth—

  She felt herself rising off the bottom of the harbor. She didn’t have any idea who was rescuing her until the helmet was ripped off her head. She hoped her disappointment didn’t show when she saw Paul hovering over her. The merman smiled down at her. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you.”

  “Take a couple of nice deep breaths,” Paul said. Tonya wanted to tell him to fuck off, but then she supposed Melanie would get pissed at her; they were supposed to be on the same team and all.

  It was hard to take deep breaths with fifty pounds of metal pressing down on her, but she managed it. Paul’s smile broadened. “There you go. You’re going to make it.”

  “For a few minutes,” she said. From on her back she could see the alien ships swarming over Redoubt City. Maybe it was her lack of oxygen that caused her to see so many purple spots in the sky.

  “Can you get the suit off?”

  “If I could, I wouldn’t have been playing Jacques Cousteau down there.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get you back to shore. Maybe we can find some way to charge you up.”

  “Sure, take me into the generator room, where Mel and I were working before. That should have enough juice to get me going.”

  “Good, then you can meet our new friends.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll let Mel tell you.”

  “She made it?”

  “She did. With some help.”

  “We have something in common then.”

  “I suppose you do.” Paul nodded to her and then disappeared. Tonya had a few minutes to consider what he’d said. She thought she must have fallen asleep when she saw Apex Girl standing over her.

  “Someone said you need a lift?”

  “Oh, sure.” Tonya tried to hide her surprise. “I guess rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated.”

  “For now.” Apex Girl lifted Tonya as if the suit weighed nothing, which was probably true in her case. If Tonya were surprised to see Apex Girl, she was shocked a thousand more times to see the Velocity Gals waiting for them.

  Velocity Kid’s eyes narrowed at Tonya. She lunged forward in superspeed. She was too quick even for Apex Girl to stop her before she slapped Tonya twice across the face. “You son of a bitch! If anything happens to Jenny, I’ll kill you!”

  Velocity Gal dragged her sidekick back. “Come on, settle down. Jenny’s fine.”

  “I’m not going to settle down! She took us away from Jenny.”

  “Now she’s going to help us save Jenny and everyone else. Right?”

  “Right,” Tonya said, but she still felt like a total shit. It was pretty clear where she was going to end
up when she got to the pearly gates.

  Chapter 31

  The plan was remarkably simple: keep the robots busy until the weapon could be delivered. This would require everyone, especially Kila’s fellow Peacekeepers. She would have to relay the plan to them as she was the only one with a voice translator.

  She wasn’t alone, at least not at the moment. Starla flew next to her, dressed strangely in a yellow tunic, red skirt, and a red cape. “Is that your typical manner of dress?” Kila asked.

  Starla’s cheeks reddened as they often did when she was uncomfortable. “This is traditional superhero wear. When I’m not being Apex Girl I wear normal clothes.”

  “What is Apex Girl?”

  “It’s the name they gave me. It’s supposed to mean I’m better than humans—physically at least.”

  “Human culture is very strange.”

  “It does take some getting used to.” They had to pause their conversation so Starla could smash one of the ships that was too close to them. Having seen Starla mostly as a weakling prisoner, it was still odd to Kila to watch her tear through these ships as if they were made of paper. It was no wonder the Elders had wanted to kill her.

  Kila saw some of her fellow Peacekeepers above them. To her surprise they seemed to be ignoring the robot ships to fire on each other. As she closed in, Kila saw they were targeting Sulfam. Slong must have gotten through to them. She wondered where her friend was in all this chaos.

  When Sulfam saw her, he launched himself into a dive. Kila barely had time to raise her staff before he collided with her. Their bubbles sparked as they came into contact with each other. Kila’s was about to give way when Sulfam was flung away from her.

  “Are you all right?” Starla asked.

  Instead of saying anything, Kila shoved Starla out of the way before a burst of lightning from Sulfam’s staff would have hit her. The lightning crackled against her bubble, weakening it further. She turned to Starla, “Don’t worry about me. Go!”

  There was a pained look on Starla’s face before she nodded. She launched herself higher into the air. Kila turned back to face Sulfam. “It’s over,” Kila said. “You might as well surrender now to avoid further bloodshed.”

  “You dare to threaten me? I was a Peacekeeper when you were suckling at your mother’s foul breast!”

  Their bubbles collided with each other again. This time Kila’s evaporated. She began to plunge towards the ground. Sulfam hovered over her enough that she could conjure a tether from one end of the staff. The purple line attached itself to Sulfam’s bubble. Her weight and momentum carried him down along with her.

  Kila had to concentrate to maintain the tether while they plunged towards the ground. If Sulfam wanted to save himself, he would have to save both of them. She heard him growl as he fought to gain altitude. Kila used this opportunity to swing back and forth like she had done as a child. When she built up enough speed, she launched herself.

  For a long moment Kila flew through the air. She wasn’t sure her swinging would give her enough height, but now at the apex of her jump, she found herself above Sulfam. With the tether still attached, there was nothing he could do as she landed on top of his bubble. She flipped the staff around to launch a burst of lightning.

  “You fool! You’ll kill us both!”

  “If I must.”

  With her on top of the bubble, Sulfam raised his staff to fire a burst of lightning at her. She managed to step aside in time. While they played this dangerous game, Kila noted they were sinking towards the ground. He looked up at her and clacked his claws. “I’ll finish you on the ground with my bare claws.”

  “You will try.”

  He turned off the bubble while they were still a few feet over the pavement so Kila landed hard on the ground. She quickly regained her feet and then whirled the staff around in a defensive pose. She knew Sulfam would make the first move. Owing to his rage, he charged at her almost blindly. She easily stepped aside and then used the staff to take out his legs from under him. Before he could get up, she hit him with a burst of lightning. Sulfam’s screams should have brought her some pleasure, but there was too much at stake at the moment for her to care.

  “You’ve betrayed us all!” he shouted at her. “When Omega is done here, it will turn on the Elders. All of us will perish.”

  “It won’t escape here.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I trust my friend. Something you could never do.”

  Kila brought the staff around to knock Sulfam out, but he batted it aside with one of his claws. He must not have been as hurt by the lightning as he’d let on. His other claw raked across her right thigh; it was Kila’s turn to scream. She dropped to the ground.

  “You fool. Did you really think you could beat me in single combat?” He stood over her, his claws snapping angrily. She smiled at him, which only prompted him to glare at her even more angrily. “You find this amusing?”

  “You forgot something: the staff only amplifies magical abilities.” Kila raised her right hand to unleash a burst of lightning. It wasn’t very powerful, but enough to distract him so she could grab her staff. With a click one of its blades settled into place. She rammed this through Sulfam’s thick shell.

  He dropped to the ground. His claws clacked even after his eyes had gone fixed. Kila waited for a moment to make sure. Then she took his staff. The bubble formed around her, allowing her to shoot back into the air.

  ***

  Even with everything she’d seen during her time in the Peacekeeper prison, Starla wasn’t prepared for what she saw as she rose through the atmosphere. This was a space battle straight out of a science fiction movie. Everywhere she looked, Peacekeepers in purple bubbles tangled with alien ships.

  The ships didn’t notice her. She had Allison to thank for that. Somehow Allison had come up with a device that could mask someone from the robots. Starla didn’t have any idea how it worked, but for the moment it seemed to be keeping most of the robots off her.

  On occasion she did have to smash one that was too close to her. It was tempting to smash more to help even out the playing field, but her mission was far too important. She had been assigned the most important part as the only one who could fly into space without the aid of a Peacekeeper stick.

  Starla wove through a field of orbital debris, careful not to let anything damage her precious cargo. They would only get one try at this. From what Allison had said, there was no way to replicate this, not without some help from the aliens and with the Elders wanting to kill her, that didn’t seem likely to happen.

  The monster Allison and Sally had referred to as Omega loomed before her. It was made of metal and yet somehow it still seemed alive to her. She didn’t have any way to explain that. As she oriented herself to face Omega’s glowing red front, she couldn’t help feeling it was staring at her.

  She let out a silent gasp when a voice said in her mind, “Puny Kor-Gan, do you dare to challenge me?”

  “There’s still time to end this without further bloodshed,” she thought back.

  “You weak fool. It is no wonder for all the power they possessed your people were so easily destroyed.”

  This thought hit Starla like a slap to the face. “You killed my people?”

  “It was only fitting. When there are two alpha males in a tribe, inevitably they will fight for dominance.”

  Starla’s mind was barraged with images. Omega had appeared over Kor-Gan the way it had over Earth. It began to rain down destruction with its robot hordes. Starla’s people fought bravely, but they didn’t have a yellow sun to give them superpowers. Seeing the end at hand, Starla’s father had loaded his son into an escape rocket and sent it away into the distant cosmos so he would be safe.

  “I searched for years to find you. Now I have come to fulfill my promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “I promised when I arrived your world would die.”

  Starla again felt as if she’d been slappe
d. She remembered the strange message on the computer inside Stanford’s Titan base. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time; after a while she’d put it out of her head entirely. She had ignored the warning and now thousands—if not millions—of people were dead.

  “You monster!” she roared to herself. Gritting her teeth, she drove herself faster. The red heart of Omega loomed before her. Starla let out a silent scream as she smashed through it.

  Inside was like a whole planet. She saw what appeared to be cities, but as she closed in she realized they were factories for the robots Omega used. There were pipes and conduits all over the place, most of these crackling with energy. Those were Omega’s lifeblood, the nourishment it lived on. Starla untucked the antimatter missile Allison had given to her. This seemed as good of a place as any to use it.

  She shoved it into a cluster of pipes. She pressed a button on the top that would start the timer. Allison had given her a full minute to get out of there. Starla turned to go—

  Something yanked her back. She turned to see a whole forest of cables reaching out towards her like tentacles. She let out a stream of flame that melted the cables, but more took their place. “You will not escape,” Omega said, its voice echoing through the interior.

  Some of the tentacles reached out for the missile. Starla used her flame breath again to ward these off. A feeling of calm settled over her as she knew what she had to do. Pa had told her a story of back in Vietnam, how a member of his platoon had thrown himself on an NVA grenade to save the rest of his unit.

  It was Starla’s turn to throw herself on the grenade to save the rest of Earth. She had always claimed to be a hero, but the real mark of a hero was being willing to die for the cause she believed in. “Maybe I won’t escape,” Starla said as she reached out for the missile, “but I’ll make sure you go down with me!”

  With that she hurled the missile into the air, away from the cables. She watched with a smile as the missile exploded.

  ***

  After all they’d been through, it was anticlimactic for Melanie that the Super Squad Auxiliary huddled in the funhouse of the Finger Island Funland. They might as well have still been little kids for all they could contribute to the final outcome.