by Drew Hayes
“Not the only ones who can, just usually the only ones that do,” Zone pointed out.
“Though I loathe to admit it, it seemed Hexcellent was righter than she knew,” Bubble Bubble said. “Titan’s presence truly does keep things more interesting.”
62.
As much as Owen would have liked to lie down in his bed once the team got back to the penthouse, such luxuries would have to wait. Instead of passing out and finishing his sleep that had been so suddenly interrupted, he stripped off the costume that was coated in chalky concrete dust and grime, laid out a fresh one, and hit the showers. It took a long while and a lot of strong-handed scrubbing to get all the dirt off of him, but when eventually he emerged he at last felt clean.
Silly as it seemed, Owen had learned over the years that whenever he had to go into a place as an authority figure, he felt it put him in the mood to make himself presentable. Owen had never much been one for leadership roles during his Hero days. There were always smarter people than him on the team, ones who could look at a situation and immediately see where best to deploy every asset they had. Those were the people that took up a leadership role, and Owen was more than happy to give it to them. He might be one of the most lauded strongmen in the world, but he was still just a strongman at the end of the day. Melee was his bread and butter, where he shined and where he felt most at home. Given a choice between having his boots on the ground, staring down a hundred enemies or having to make the calls that would determine who lived or died during a fray, Owen would have taken the hundred enemies any time.
Still, as his star had risen all those years prior, it had brought with it a certain amount of prestige. Titan had become a role model, an icon, one that many people, including other Heroes, looked up to. With that had come public speaking gigs, being chosen to chair meetings, and even getting called upon by other Hero teams to work with their own strongmen. Owen didn’t relish such roles, but he accepted them at the time as the price of fame.
Over a decade later, Owen Daniels was no longer certain if such a price was worth it. Time off had given him the perspective that perhaps fame itself was the price of fame. If he’d been asked by nearly anyone in the world to make an appearance as Titan for anything other than helping his team, saving people, or punching bad guys, then Owen would have likely told them to go fuck themselves. Topsy was different, though. He was an old friend, one who’d been with Owen back when they were doing all they could to survive in the insane world where Heroes fresh off their internships roamed. Even beyond that, Topsy had been one of the people who stuck with him during the Titan Scandal. Owen had spent two weeks on the man’s couch as the media hunted him and he tried to think of what he could possibly tell his wife and sons to mend the relationships. More than one person he’d counted as a friend turned their back on Owen Daniels during those weeks, but never Topsy. Which meant if he was the one who needed help, then Owen was damned sure going to deliver.
Before leaving the peace of the penthouse and heading out on the town, Owen paused to put in a quick call to order more costumes. He’d thought that doing a job with less direct battle would mean he wouldn’t go through so many of the things, but it seemed the strongman’s clothing curse was still at work. His supply was dwindling dangerously. At least his supplier cut him a break on bulk orders, a formality they extended to most of the Heroes that got down in the rough and tumble with real frequency.
That done, Titan took the elevator down and stepped out into the last rays of the setting sun. He could have taken the town car or just used his own vehicle since it was stored in the garage, but tonight he felt like walking. A lot of Heroes didn’t care to do street patrol; they felt like it lowered the sense of terror a criminal felt at the sight of them. But Owen had always thought it added a sense of danger to the punks' daily lives. Seeing a Hero exploding out of the sky or bursting from a portal was one thing, but to just be walking along and suddenly find one’s self in the presence of such power was jarring, and served to remind them that Heroes could appear at any time. Owen liked the idea that he was making sure everyone out there was always on their best behavior.
His jog was a long one, but nearly-endless stamina and powerful leg muscles meant he could close the distance with haste if it was called for. Since he’d left early enough, Titan took his time running through Brewster, nodding and waving at civilians as he passed them. The Wild Bucks’ base was in what had once been an industrial area, before the primary company’s illegal environmental practices were brought to light and they were fined out of existence. Despite the area being certified by the city as safe, not many people wanted to live on land associated with terms like “contaminated” and “biological hazard.” Bad as it was for property values, it was perfect for Hero teams that needed an isolated area to set up shop that was still in decent proximity to the city they watched over. Legacy teams like Elemental Fury might have had fancy mid-lake accommodations, but most Heroes were just trying to find a spot that could be rebuilt cheaply after it was attacked.
As Titan jogged past thick iron gates that were half-rusted and half knocked down, he spotted a familiar figure standing in the middle of what had once been a private road. Topsy smiled at the sight of his old friend, and the two men shared a brief hug after Titan closed the distance between them.
“Really appreciate you coming out,” Topsy said as the hug ended. He looked tired, even more so than the last time Titan had seen him. No doubt the DVA was putting his people through the wringer, and him along with them. Titan didn’t exactly disagree with the need for that, though he wished they’d taken more care to leave his friend out of it.
“Don’t worry about it. I owe you a lot more than this.” Titan did a quick scan of the area, noting that there was a large building with better upkeep than most of the others to his right: either their actual base or the entrance to it, by his estimates. “How bad are things?”
“They’re pretty shitty,” Topsy admitted. “The DVA finally made its call last week, and I lost two of them. One has been busted back down to intern and had heavy restrictions put on how he can use his power, while the other is all the way out.”
Titan nodded, but otherwise kept his face stoic. Being a Hero was a privilege that came with a lot of responsibility. If one couldn’t live up to that responsibility, they didn’t have any place being a Hero and damned sure wouldn’t be once the DVA got a hold of them. For the amount of destruction he’d seen, only one person being tossed out on their ass was actually pretty restrained on the DVA’s part.
“That means you’re down to a three-person team then?”
“For the moment,” Topsy replied. “I honestly think if the whole team wasn’t pariahs right now they’d have split off and joined up with other Heroes. Problem is, after all that mess they caused, no one would want them and they know it. Rock and a hard place.”
“Well, I can’t change their situation, but hopefully I can help them find the best way to handle it,” Titan said. It was the sort of thing he was supposed to tell his friend, even if they both knew it was largely bullshit. “Take me in so I can meet the tykes.”
63.
Owen was surprised at how nostalgic he felt as he tooled around the nearly-abandoned building. The beaten exterior concealed a fair amount of furniture and creature comforts within, but it was still an overall sparse space. In fact, most of the interior had been left bare, save for a few weights in the corner. From the dents and broken pieces of concrete in one section of the building, Owen immediately recognized the sparring area. All in all, the Wild Bucks’ base felt a lot like the one he and Topsy had shared once upon a time: the base of a new Hero team just starting up, trying to do their best on a barebones budget.
Several mismatched chairs had been pulled together in this central space, only a few feet away from where a large throw rug marked the entrance to what appeared to be the living room where three costumed Heroes were waiting for him. They hopped to their feet as soon as Owen stepped into view.
Two were men, one wearing the familiar black fabric of someone whose shape would be drastically changing, while the other sported a simple black and blue costume with some interesting swirled patterns. The last member was female, and her costume was red and silver with curiously empty spots on her shoulder and outer thighs. They all stared at Owen, at Titan, with silent admiration as he and Topsy walked through the empty space to their chairs.
Enjoyable as Owen found nostalgia, it didn’t blind him from the fact that Topsy had clearly left something out when he talked about training these kids. His old friend had said he was hired on to coach them, but Owen doubted this team could afford take-out more than once a week, let alone the training of a Hero from someone as experienced as Topsy. More than likely, that meant a family relation of some kind. It at least explained why Topsy was sticking around even after the colossal fuck-up. Most Heroes who’d lived that many years understood a lost cause on sight.
“Let’s start with introductions,” Titan said at last. “You’ll forgive the presumptiveness, but given the events of the last month or so, I’m going to assume you all have a pretty good idea of who I am. Since everyone in the room is familiar with Topsy, we’ll go ahead and skip him too. Tell me your names and what you can do.” It was a faux pas to ask any Hero how their power worked, since the exact mechanics could often betray a weakness in it, but asking what they could do was usually general enough to get a sense of one’s capabilities.
“I’ll start,” said the young man in the blue and black costume. “My name is Deadlift, and I am, or was, the leader of this team.” His voice was crisp and strong, but there was enough doubt hidden in his blue eyes to betray the uncertainty that had to be weighing on him after all that had happened. “My power is that I can lift and wield pretty much anything.”
“Super strength?” Titan asked.
“If I may, sir, it’s easier to show than tell,” Deadlift said.
Titan nodded, and Deadlift closed the gap between them. The young Hero reached over and grabbed Titan’s meaty triceps with a firm grip. To Titan’s surprise, he felt himself rise from the ground as Deadlift raised his arm, effortlessly lifting the man who weighed hundreds of muscle-heavy pounds in the air as if he had the mass of a cloud. There was no strain on Deadlift’s face, no visible effort in his muscles. In that moment, Titan understood: it wasn’t that Deadlift had super strength, it was that his power affected the weight of whatever he held.
Deadlift set Titan carefully back down and walked back to rejoin the others. Next to speak was the shifter, a thickly built young man with a freshly shaven head. When he spoke, his voice was friendlier than Titan was expecting, lots of energy and pep, despite their dire circumstances.
“My name is Kaiju, and as you can probably guess from the costume, I’m a shifter. If you’ve seen video or pictures of us, I’m the fourteen-foot-tall dark red one. I can shift if you need me to, but I’m not the quickest, so it will take a bit for me to get in and out of form.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ve seen your shifted form already,” Titan said. He had indeed taken note of the massive, scaly creature shown with the Wild Bucks during the footage he’d found. Shifter had been obvious, but it was still impressive. The bigger a form someone shifted into, the longer the process took. For this kid to have made it through the HCP he must have been impressively quick on the shifting draw.
“That just leaves me,” said the woman in the red and silver costume. “My name is Juiced, and there’s really no way to tell you anything about my power without giving away the whole kit and caboodle. Let’s just say I’m a strong woman.” Juiced had the vague remains of an accent that Titan placed as from somewhere in the northeastern United States. Maine, if he was guessing.
She reached down to the floor and picked up a water bottle that had escaped Titan’s notice before. Twisting off the cap, she gulped down several swigs of the beverage, and as she did her body changed visibly. Her already well-defined HCP-grad muscles swelled and she grew at least an inch and a half taller. The gaps in her costume suddenly made much more sense, as it became clear that her movement would have been rapidly hindered by constricting fabric in those spots. Juiced lowered the bottle from her lips, and Titan noted that she hadn’t even drunk a quarter of what was inside.
“I’m a metabolic converter. When I drink a certain liquid I get stronger, tougher, bigger, and can even heal faster. Diminishing returns kick in, of course, and pretty quickly at that, but I can still get powerful enough to hold my own.”
Titan nodded and watched as Juiced set the bottle down. She had pointedly avoided mentioning what was inside of it, and he made certain not to ask. The Hero had already given away much of her secret out of formality; there was no way he would be so rude as to try and uncover the part she clearly kept under strict guard.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Titan said. “All of you. It’s clear that you have some interesting abilities, and from the fact that you’re HCP graduates, I’m certain you know how to use them. That said, I’m not here just for fun and socialization. Given what you’ve been through in the past weeks, I’m sure you’re all keenly aware of the situation, but I’m going to say it anyway, because harsh truths need to be met head on if you’re going to conquer them.” Titan paused for a moment, and made certain to look every Hero there, Topsy included, directly in the eye.
“The Wild Bucks are on the verge of being dissolved, and I’m not sure that anything can stop it from happening.”
64.
“I’ll be honest, that’s a little less optimistic than we were hoping for,” Deadlift said, filling the silence that had descended after Titan’s declaration. “Don’t get me wrong: we all know we’ve screwed up. But the team members deemed responsible for that were handled by the DVA. We just want to make a fresh start and put that behind us.”
“There is no such place as behind you, no such thing as a fresh start.” As he spoke, Titan felt old, his years weighing down those massive shoulders in a way that not even hundreds of pounds could. “Even if you could purge the record, change your mask, begin with an all new identity, the mistakes you’ve made will still carry on with you. No one else might know they’re there, but you will. And the more that get heaped on, the heavier each one becomes. Your team’s mistake caused hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in property damage, and that’s something the DVA won’t likely ever let you forget. But more importantly, it cost nine people their lives, and that’s something you should never let yourselves forget.”
Juiced began to speak hurriedly, words tumbling over themselves to get free of her mouth. “We were cleared-”
“Maybe you didn’t make the big mistakes, but those two who got held accountable were your teammates, people you put your trust in,” Titan said, interrupting her for both of their sakes. Talks like this were hard enough when everyone was receptive. Odds were that if she got the chance to dig into a position, it would make her more stubborn and unlikely to listen, and they had to hear this if they ever wanted to rise above it. “Sometimes innocent people get hurt in what we do. It’s inevitable, because if we don’t step in then a lot more would be affected, but it doesn’t change the responsibility we bear for those actions.”
“I. . . I thought it was eight.” Kaiju was staring at the ground, and Titan could make out the slight glisten of tears through the sides of the eyeholes in his mask. His voice, only moments ago full of life and humor, sounded beaten.
“Eight at the scene,” Titan said, lowering his own voice by several degrees. “A ninth killed himself when he heard what happened to his wife. The DVA didn’t tell you about it because it wasn’t directly linked to your actions, though I think we all know better than that.”
“Titan. . .” Topsy was staring hard at his friend, clearly struggling between protecting his team and having them hear the truth. He was invested in these kids and obviously didn’t want to see them get broken by one bad call. At the same time, he had to know that what Titan was doing
was necessary. Casualties were part of the job for any Hero. If one didn’t find a way to deal with it, they’d be buried under the guilt, and if they never acknowledged it. . . well, that was how the true monsters were made.
“There is no fresh start,” Titan repeated. “Not in that perfect world where no one knew about your mistakes and especially not in this one where your entire team’s reputation has been run through the shitter. The other Heroes don’t trust you; they think you’re all half-cocked liabilities, and not without good reason. That’s not even mentioning the DVA, who are probably only looking for one screw up to pull the rest of your certifications.”
“So. . . that’s it? Topsy brought you all the way over here to tell us that no matter what we do, we’re fucked?” Deadlift asked.
“No. Topsy brought me over to lay down the harsh truth in a way that no one who is close to you ever could. You want to keep going in the Hero world, want to work with people who don’t trust you and a public that hates you? Then you need to go in with your eyes wide open. Don’t waste time thinking about forgiveness or redemption; those are fairy tales we use to make the world more palatable for children. What you’re walking back into is going to be shit. Shit so deep you’ll have to fight to keep from choking on it. There is no light at the end of the tunnel; there is no undoing what’s been done. If you hope for something other than the shit, then the shit becomes unbearable.”
“Then why would we go back in?” Juiced asked. Of the three, only her tone remained unchanged. Titan had a feeling she was more personally vested in what had gone down than the others, at least in her innocence at the scene.
He prepared to tell her why, but Kaiju beat him to the punch.
“Because we can still help people.” Kaiju raised his head, making the guilty tears in his eyes all the more apparent. There was nothing wrong with crying over lives lost. Heaven only knew how many times Titan had broken down in his early years when he heard how many people he’d been too late to protect. Titan didn’t judge Kaiju for crying, but he decided he liked the kid based on the fact that he lifted his head. Of them all, Kaiju seemed to feel the guilt the strongest, and he wasn’t letting it stop him.