by Jamie Hawke
“To be fair,” I argued, “it doesn’t sound like she actually destroyed anything. ‘Twitch the Relocator’ seems to make more sense.”
“Doesn’t sound nearly as cool,” Gale chimed in. “I’d own it. Hell, Gale the Destroyer.”
“How about we not call anyone ‘the Destroyer’ and move on from it?” Twitch said. She faced the guard and held out her hands in surrender. “Look, I really was trying to help. You can’t tell me your powers are always under control.”
“Oh, they didn’t tell you?” The guard glared, scrunched her nose, and looked down at her rifle. “None of us had powers. None of us do… the people from Harang. That’s why you all were sent out to fight for us to begin with. We have supers now, but only the ones who had been sent and were still here when,” she glanced over at Twitch, “well, you know.”
“Ah. Damn.”
“Maybe we should keep moving,” Shimmer said, giving Twitch a pitiful glance. “You’re really not making this any better.”
“Wait,” Twitch took a step back. “Am I walking into some mob waiting to string me up? Because if so, we can turn around right now.”
“I’ll vouch for you,” Shimmer said. “They won’t touch you with me on your side.
The guard scoffed.
“Wait, no powers?” I asked, then shot off a bit of light from my hands. “How about I vouch for her, and anyone who has words for her will go through me.”
“And you are?”
“Breaker,” I said standing tall.
The guard and Shimmer exchanged confused glances.
“Okay, you haven’t heard of me yet,” I said, “I get that. But soon….”
“He’s also the son of Apollo and Artemis,” Twitch said.
That caught their attention. Both women went from skeptical and confused or threatened to being in awe. As if my DNA suddenly made me the most important person in the world. Coming from an Earth that had finally done away with all monarchies, I had to say I was a tad annoyed at the idea.
“What brings you to this place?” the guard asked, eyes focused intently on mine.
“An accident,” I replied.
“Surely you’ve come to save us all, to put all of this back in order, send our planet back to where it belongs.”
“Where… is your planet?” Twitch asked when she saw I was dumbstruck.
The lady frowned, then motioned at our surroundings.
“No,” Twitch replied, voice catching. “No, your planet was completely covered in greenery, full of wildlife, and—”
“And in another galaxy or dimension,” Shimmer pointed out. “When they came here, they quickly joined the star system and became part of it all, but it had a devastating effect on… well, everything.”
“I guess Destroyer does kind of fit,” Gale said.
I nudged her in the side and she glared at me, then got it and said, “Sorry.”
“Don’t go looking to me,” I said. “On Earth, I was a simple man. I’m learning, growing, but still, I’m nothing special.”
Shimmer frowned at what she took as false modesty and waved me on. “Come on, Breaker. We have to introduce you to the chieftains.”
As we started walking I looked to Twitch for help, but she smiled, likely glad to have the attention off of her for a bit. Shimmer kept looking back at me, and I had the feeling she would have gladly pulled me aside and had her way with me, if the others weren’t here, or maybe even if they were. But like I said, I was exhausted. That, plus at the moment I was very worried about Charm.
“You know, I met your father once,” Shimmer finally said.
“Impossible,” Twitch countered, earning herself a stern glare.
“I did. Want to know how I ended up here?” When Shimmer saw we were waiting for her to tell us, she continued. “While the people of Harang don’t have powers, I was on orders from the Temple of Ishilda—”
“I’m not familiar with that god,” I interrupted, caught off guard by the name.
“One of ours,” Twitch explained. “So full of herself, she kept her own given name, didn’t even bother to take on a super or god name.”
Shimmer waved the comment off. “She was so humble that she felt renaming herself would be wrong, a sign of arrogance. Point is, she was there on a peace mission, to demonstrate to the people of Harang that the gods were accepting of them. It’s then that the attacks started, and before I could escape, we were sent here.”
“Are there others with powers?” I asked.
“Yes, other slaves here, and other supers on other planets. But like us, they have all been enslaved by the Nihilists. This isn’t a Nihilist world, but yet another dimension that was conquered. Imagine the complexities of it all.”
“Wait,” I said, turning to Twitch. “Didn’t someone say something about it taking seventeen years to reach the Nihilist homeworld? How’s that possible if it’s on another plane. Shouldn’t we just be able to jump there?”
“That number includes jumps,” she answered. “We know the way, or have it mostly figured out via a string of superpowered maps, A.I., and other means of tracking.”
“And he’s the one?” Shimmer asked, glancing back at me and allowing her eyes to move to my crotch with curiosity.
“Excuse me?” I said. “Eyes up here.”
“The one?” Gale asked.
“You know, the prophesy. That one of the sons of Apollo will foster a baby with one of the daughters… whatever her name was, and the son will somehow save us all?”
“That’s what they took your brother for,” Twitch said, turning to me with amazement. “Holy… holy shit! They’re going to try and get pregnant with him. I hope his endurance is up with the best, because they’re going to ride him till he dies.”
“Wait,” I held up a hand, trying to get this straight. “My brother was taken by a bunch of half-goddesses with the sole purpose being to fuck?”
“Technically, to make a baby,” Shimmer corrected me.
“Well, damn.”
“Jealous?” Twitch asked, challenging me.
“I mean, no, but I’d much rather sit around nude with you all, making love or fucking or whatever you want to call it, than… all of this.”
Shimmer frowned. “Crude.”
“Oh, sorry.” I nodded at Twitch. “Her fault, her and everyone else I’ve met so far outside of Earth seem to be really open about this stuff.”
Shimmer winked. “I’m just playing. If I were a goddess, I’d totally rock your world and see if we could beat your brother to it.”
My mouth must have fallen open because she reached over and gently closed it.
“Besides,” Twitch said, trying to ignore this, “I doubt he’s sitting around fucking. According to everything we know about the prophecy, the enemy will be after them, trying to do anything they can to stop it from happening.”
“At least we know what he’s up to.” I arched my back, then rotated my shoulders, trying to stop my mind from wandering into thoughts of this nude woman, trying to race that other group toward making a baby. “You said you knew my father?”
We turned down a set of spiral stairs carved into the ground, and she nodded. “That’s right. Served in his court for about a month. Nice guy for a god, not shy in the least… certainly hung like—”
“I don’t need to know that part,” I said, though by the way she was looking back at my crotch, I had the feeling she was finishing the thought in her mind, wondering how I compared. Not something I wanted to think about.
Finally, we reached the bottom, and when she rapped on the door three times, it swung inward. More glowing stones lined the walls down here, giving it a dim, green aura.
“Pause,” I said, stopping just outside the door. “How exactly are these people going to help us save our friend?”
“Easy,” Shimmer said. “They’re the ones who would have to grant access to Wendlor, the only person here possibly capable of sending you into the next level of the Nihilist’s worlds. You
want to track her down, I can’t see any other way.”
Considering that, I nodded and said, “Let’s not waste any more time then,” and we entered.
5
Eyes stared at us. So many of these rebels hiding out from the supervillains and the Nihilists, all waiting for someone to come along and save them. Maybe, I was starting to think when I saw the look of hope in their eyes that I could actually be that someone?
Then they saw Twitch, and they were hissing, throwing out insults. One even picked up a stone that he was about to throw. So yeah, about that…
Fuck these people.
“Enough!” I called out, shooting a burst of light into the sky so that they all stepped back, caught off guard by the brightness down here.
“She will meet with the chieftains,” Shimmer said, stepping to my side. “We have already discussed her crimes, and—”
“Crimes?” I said, turning on her. Hearing that word after having been wrongfully imprisoned set me off, and I didn’t mean to take it out on her, but I wasn’t having it. “I am Breaker, son of Apollo,” I said at the top of my lungs, really playing the part here, “and I’m going to say this just the one time. Twitch committed no crimes. She was trying to help, to defeat an enemy—but that enemy won. You want to blame someone for your problems, find that enemy, destroy them, and dance on their graves. Piss on their graves! But anyone says something bad about my friend or calls her a name,” I turned to the man still holding the stone, “and especially anyone considering throwing a stone, well, we have a saying for you back home. Your ass is grass.”
Everyone seemed very convinced until a young woman cleared her throat and said, “Um, what’s that mean? Like, you’ll paint our butts green? I’m very confused.”
“Yeah, me too,” the man with the stone said. He dropped it and held up his hands. “I don’t want you doing anything weird to my ass, okay? Okay?”
I blinked, then held back a laugh. “No, it just means I’ll kick your ass. And to be clear, I’ll not just connect my foot with your buttocks, but actually make you bleed. Likely with my fists connecting with your faces, but maybe with my superpowers too.”
“Oh, yeah,” the man nodded, still backing up. “I don’t want that either.” He turned to Shimmer and cocked his head. “This is really… one of them? The sons?”
“He is,” she said, giving me an odd stare.
“That’s why he talks so funny!” the young woman said. “Now I get it. Earth-speak.”
“Yes, I’m from Earth,” I said. “So… my message is clear?”
“Say something else funny!” a teenage boy called out.
I frowned, turned to Shimmer, and gestured.
“They’re always like this,” she explained. “Stir crazy from being in hiding all the time.”
“See, that right there,” I said, knowing I was getting off topic but not caring. “How is it you all have ‘stir crazy’ but not ‘your ass is grass?’”
“We took some sayings from Earth when we left. Others didn’t make the cut, I guess.” She turned to address the crowd. “Again, welcome our new supers, including, yes, Twitch the Destroyer, but I think it was all a big misunderstanding. So, we’re going to the chieftains, then these fine people are going to be on their way to defeat the Nihilists and bring order to our world.”
“What the fuck?” I mouthed to Gale, but she wore an amused smile.
“Just go with it,” she replied with a wink.
It was weird enough already, but I said hey, might as well give them something to be excited about, so I gave them a wave and said, “Blood makes the grass grow,” a phrase I’d heard my brother and his Marine Corps buddies say from time to time.
Again, everyone stared at me, but then they started cracking up.
“Earthers are so weird,” one of them said, and they all started to disperse, making way for us to go see the chieftain.
“I gotta say,” Gale admitted, walking up next to me, “not what I expected.”
Shimmer chuckled as she passed, and said, “See what I have to deal with every day? When it’s not Nihilists or someone betraying us, it’s these whackjobs.”
She led us to a raised platform that had huts built into the stone, a light smoke escaping from the back. I had to pause to look around at the massive statues on each side, intricate carvings on the walls.
“How did you have the time to do all this?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s one of the supers I saved,” she said, pointing to a man napping against the wall. He had no shoes, and only wore a robe that hung down to his knees. In his current position, he was dangerously close to letting the mouse out of the house. “Since we aren’t using our powers to fight yet, he did all of this. Had set up most of the cities on this planet, before we got him out of there.”
“Dammmmn,” I said, appreciating his handiwork.
“Come, the chieftains await.”
We entered one of the huts to find steam everywhere—what I’d mistaken for smoke outside. Several older women reclined as a man sat in their midst, cross-legged and eyes closed. The steam seemed to be coming from him, rising off of his skin in great plumes. As soon as I breathed it in, life seemed clearer, my situation obvious.
Not that I didn’t know before, but now I was able to look at Twitch and Gale and feel a complete understanding. They were with me, as was Charm, through thick and thin. While they had their own lives before, the moment we left that prison ship, we were linked. I left behind my old self for them, them for me and each other.
Twitch had an interesting look in her eyes, staring back at me with an approving grin, while Gale seemed surprised, but in a good way.
“It’s an honor,” I said to the man, but Shimmer cleared her throat and nodded to the ladies. Of course they were the chieftains, I realized, feeling like an idiot. Apparently, the steam didn’t compensate completely for that.
“More supers?” one of the chieftains said, eyes still closed. “List their powers, so we might decide how best to use them.”
“The time for striking back is soon at hand,” another said, ominously.
“Actually, we have a bit of a different situation on our hands,” Shimmer said, and then started to explain our situation. As she talked, their eyes opened, their looks of peace vanishing. By the time she finished, even the man was looking at us, the steam gone.
“You must give us time to confer,” the one who seemed the eldest said, then stood, gesturing to the back door. “Please.”
We followed Shimmer’s lead, and she took us to an area where the rocks formed a sort of sitting circle. Others were glancing at us as they walked by, but we sat, waiting. My gaze moved back to the grand carvings and statues, wondering if the powers of this guy had anything to do with old structures on Earth, like the pyramids. Maybe there had been supers of some sort even back then, and maybe that’s where the idea of the gods came from? It was pointless to speculate, so I resigned myself to leaning forward with my head in my hands and closing my eyes, trying to get a quick moment of rest in. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I opened my mouth, about to go off on how stupid it was that we were just sitting around while our friend was in trouble, when out stepped the lead chieftain.
She smiled and beckoned us back inside. We followed her in, then formed a semi-circle around them, the steam man gone.
“The issue is that our world is broken,” the chieftain elder said. “The only man who might have an idea of how to fix it is indeed Wendlor, who you seek out, but last we’d heard, hes being held prisoner far away.”
“How long would it take for us to reach him?” I asked. “By foot.”
“Impossible.”
“But you have a solution?” I asked.
“Not one that would work.”
I frowned, beginning to really not like this lady.
“The thing is,” Shimmer said, clearly trying to be helpful in spite of the way the elders glared at her as she spoke, “you would need to fly there. To do that, yo
u’d have to procure yourselves a vessel, and to do that you’d probably have to look like one of them. You could try to steal a craft, but the supers and Nihilists on watch would put up quite a fight, and they’d probably be expecting you anyway.”
“So, you illusion us,” Gale said. “Easy.”
Shimmer shook her head. “It’s too far, meaning it would wear off before you got there. And I can’t go, because the moment I go this whole base is susceptible to the enemy. They’ll be discovered, our people either slaughtered or enslaved again. You can see the problem here.
“There’s really nothing we can do,” the elder said, waving her hand. “Dismissed.”
In spite of our protestations, Shimmer escorted us out and showed us to a room, where we could discuss the situation. She told us of another room below, just down the stairs and to the left, where she was going to consider her own options and power up. When I asked what she meant, she explained that the stones channeled energy from the old sun, saving it up, and supers could get a sort of energy charge out of it similar to the way the Citadel worked back home.
“Meaning you will all eventually run out of the energy that feeds your powers?” I asked.
“Not many of us have powers anyway,” she replied. “Only those of us who came to help before the planet was moved here. But yes, we wouldn’t have the recharge advantage. It’s not like our powers would go away, but the stones, like proximity to the sun back home, kind of give us a plus on the strength of our powers. Like a temporary plus ten to your skills, if that makes sense.”
“Perfectly,” I replied, intrigued by the idea.
“I’ll get to it then,” she said with a nod and glance my way, then left us to ourselves. We immediately set to debating our best options, but it all came back to the fact that we needed to get ourselves a ship and fly out to this Wendlor guy.
“It’s simple,” Twitch said, eyeing me. “Make her one of us.”
“What?”
“You know, induce her into the group, our little harem, if you will.” She said the word with a hint of sarcasm, as we all knew they were really in charge of me, contrary to the way the word was traditionally used.