by Jamie Hawke
Realizing they couldn’t answer without giving themselves away, I stepped in. “I had to borrow them. Special orders and all.”
He turned to me, eyed me with confusion, but then looked back at the rocks and grinned. “Ah, special orders. Yeah, I could use some of that. They were good?”
I almost wouldn’t have caught his meaning, if not for the insane amounts of perverted thoughts going through my head in the last few days.
“I’ll see that they get where they need to be,” I said.
The guy looked letdown and slightly miffed, but pointed to one of the makeshift huts lining the side of the where the ships were, and said, “You too, actually. Get to it.”
We quickly moved on, and Twitch caught up to me, whispering, “Did that guy seriously intend to…?”
“Take advantage of you two?” I shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
Gale shivered. “Imagine his surprise when he would’ve tried to… oh, wait, that would’ve worked the same, huh?”
“As long as he didn’t try to give you a reach around,” I replied. “And my best guess is, he wouldn’t have.”
“Not even a fucking reach around!” Gale grumbled, and I couldn’t help but laugh in spite of the situation.
“Okay, so we head that way and then make a run for it, we—”
Before I could finish the sentence, another two men, these two in red trim, stepped out of the hut we’d been sent to and one of them blew a whistle before calling back into the hut, “Three more incoming.”
“I thought that was the end of ‘em?” a voice shouted back.
“Three more,” the first repeated.
“Do we still make a run for it?” Twitch asked.
“Maybe… see what they want?” I suggested. “Get it over with, then move for the ships without causing a scene.”
“Yeah, okay.”
The guys looked down their noses at us. The smell inside the hut should’ve been the first clue, but next came the splattered blood. A short man stepped forward, blood dripping from a glove on his right hand and some on his cheek, and that was it—I wasn’t going to wait to find out what they had planned.
My fist cracked against his jaw, hitting him so hard that it tore flesh and knocked teeth free. The man staggered back, head rolled, and he was out.
“The fuck?!” one of the others shouted. At that moment, someone came out with a sort of dead animal leg, looking similar to a pig, and I realized they might have simply assigned us to dinner duty, but it was too late now. Whether they were going to rape and kill us or have us butcher animals for dinner, these guys were our enemies and I’d already acted, so I charged this one and took him out too, with a good punch to the gut and then a thrust of my head into his face.
Gale was hissing, “What the fuck?!” while Twitch turned to join in the fight. She might not have had any great powers at the moment, but she’d had her training from the Citadel, and was still faster and stronger than many. When she drew a blaster in one hand, a knife in the other, I knew the guy in front of her was dead, and the next one, too.
We flew out of that hut like a hurricane, taking out guys left and right as more charged at us to see what the hell was happening. The two guys at the door were down, with more from the hut charging over toward us with butcher knives and animal limbs that they apparently meant to use as weapons.
Then the real shooting started, sections of the wall exploding as my shield fizzed and I was thrown back. More shots came, but I flung myself to the ground and crawled over to a body, using it as a shield as I ran back to connect with Twitch and Gale.
“Blind ‘em,” Gale said.
I tried, forgetting that I’d given that up for the illusion power. I quickly recovered, and we were up and running for the closest ship.
Part of the ground opened up to our left and a new army of those bastards charged up, so I was shooting and punching, kicking and stabbing, and it was like I was the bowling ball and they were the pins. My level went up and I felt a surge in strength and speed, and as I took down another couple dozen, the level went up again. If we could keep this up, I thought, I’d max out—if that was a thing.
We were almost at the ships when the man from earlier appeared—the one who’d wanted to take Gale and Twitch behind the rocks. I had thought his trim was red but now realized it had been the lighting. It was actually a color none of the others had, a bright purple.
When he lifted his hands and they lit up, I understood what the color meant. He was a super, and we’d been lucky to avoid him the first time. Only, nothing shot out at us. When he thrust his hands forward, a portal appeared and he stepped through, appearing at my side and landing a strike, before another portal appeared and he was gone, dodging my knife only to land on the other side of me and hit me again. I stumbled forward, aimed back and shot with my blaster, but unfortunately it hit Gale’s shield as she turned to me with crazed eyes.
“Sorry,” I started to say, as a portal opened above me and the guy landed with a baton he’d pooled from somewhere. It cracked across my jaw and I collapsed, seeing stars. This time he didn’t even bother to teleport but came down with a second strike. His mistake, because that allowed Gale—who was already looking my way—to catch him with a blast of wind that threw him off of his feet and toward her. Twitch was there to plunge her blade into the man’s shoulder, right as he vanished again, taking the blade with him. He reappeared about twenty feet off, pulling the blade out and cursing, but I was already up and staggering toward the ship.
He teleported, but it glitched and he appeared at my side, instead, for a split-second before being thrust back and appearing again further off, shouting in frustration. Apparently, the knife wound was screwing with his chi.
“Go!” I shouted, knowing we had to move fast.
“I’ll find you,” the man shouted, and then he tried again, only to land exactly where I wanted for my front kick to slam into his sternum, sending him crashing back into three other would-be attackers.
Two more came up behind me. I slit one’s throat before doing a spinning jump kick and bringing my shin down along the side of his face. I turned and attacked, and then attacked some more, always pushing toward the ship.
Another enemy fell and my screen showed that I’d gone up another level! My best guess was that shooting with the blaster didn’t do much. It had to be superpowers and hand-to-hand combat. It made sense, considering the fact that it was really my suit and powers that it attributed to me going up levels.
Finally, there were no more in our way, and we darted onto the ship. I was the last one on and turned, firing the blaster back behind us while Gale took the controls.
“Any day!” I called out as a new barrage of the enemy came at us, at least one Nihilist in their mix.
“Working on it,” she replied, and then with a jolt, we were off the ground. As the door closed for departure, I made my way to the ship’s bridge and strapped in, the other two staring at the display as shots rang out after us, along with at least one lightning bolt.
Then we were pulling almost straight up, and Gale was whooping with excitement, and I felt there was time to pull up my screens. We might be pursued soon, but in the meantime it wouldn’t hurt to see how much I’d advanced.
It seemed I had a few more skill points, I guess from all of the fighting, and my level was already up to fourteen. Not bad! Looking over the points, I saw that I was a little over halfway to the strange glowing skill that showed up on the one with Twitch’s powers. While I’d had to delete her power to use the illusion, that one skill still showed.
Was it Lamb’s way of telling me I’d need it? Or maybe it was just a really special skill, one I needed to get eventually. Of course, to get the others on the way there, I’d need to get Twitch’s power back, and that meant blood or sex. A glance over showed her staring at me, thoughtfully. I shifted under her gaze and raised an eyebrow.
“What?” I asked.
“I ever tell you that you remind me of s
omeone I once knew.”
“Hopefully that’s a good thing,” I said. “Not a brother or something.”
She laughed. “Gross. No. My old boss, actually. I kind of had a thing for him. I can see why he picked you to become an Elder at the Citadel.”
“If I make it,” I pointed out. “And… thanks.”
She nodded, then stood up and came over to the seat next to me. Her hand found mine, and she squeezed. “We’ll find her, you know. Don’t worry.”
I debated telling her that I thought the key might end up involving the two of us fucking again but didn’t feel the moment was right. Holding her hand like this was sweet, but we hadn’t exactly gotten dirty without Charm, and for some reason that made the idea of trying to make a move on her feel wrong.
“That guy back there,” I said, shaking my head. “The one who could teleport? If they have more like him, he might be right. They’ll find us eventually.”
“And we’ll be ready,” she replied.
I nodded, wishing I could feel that same sense of security right now. I don’t know if it was because we didn’t have Charm’s bubbly attitude or if it was just the exhaustion taking over, but my mood was falling, fast.
Twitch must have seen, because she reached over, hit a button on my seat, and it went into recline mode.
“Oh my God,” I said, feeling like I could pass out right there. “Do we… have time?”
“The coordinates show at least a couple hours,” Gale said. “You two sleep, we can take turns if I need it.”
Twitch smiled at me like, ‘there you go.’
I closed my eyes for a moment, but then had a thought. “If you two, or you three, are like this…”
“Like what?” Her voice was surprisingly close, and I opened my eyes to see that she had leaned in, apparently watching me as I was about to sleep. A bit weird.
“I mean, you three are clearly not villains, not the way I would think. Especially not supervillains. Yeah, I know you were wrongfully imprisoned, and Gale’s story and all that, but my point… how many other prisoners might not have been super evil?”
“Huh.” She looked away, thinking about that, and my drowsy gaze settled on her lips, thinking how perfect they were. The bottom one stuck out in just the right amount of pouty, with that look that made me want nothing more right then than to kiss her. She licked her lips, making them even more enticing, but when she looked back at me, she seemed troubled and the thought left.
“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.
“Not wrong. Maybe too right. When I was fighting them, before, it was always something I dealt with. Fighting wars is always like that, though, isn’t it?”
“Like what?”
“You know, there are two sides, and sometimes a lot of the people you’re fighting aren’t really the evil ones, but the people who have no choice. The people who are fighting on behalf of the evil ones. And maybe your side is a little evil too, in some ways. The Citadel names superheroes and applies the alternate label as well. If you get in there…”
“I feel like that’s a big if sometimes.”
“But if you do, remember this conversation. Don’t make decisions lightly.”
“Maybe you’ll come with me?”
She smiled, ran a hand through my hair. “Me, back at the Citadel. You know, I used to dream of that my first few weeks on that prison ship? I thought about what I’d done, thought I deserved to be where I was, but I also knew I was a good person. That was at first. Then there were days on end by myself, without being able to use my powers… then the ship, the way it would move, the way that damn A.I. would show up, telling us we were evil, that we would be there forever because we were so evil. After a while, I started to believe it.”
“But you don’t anymore, right?”
“Sometimes I wonder.” She stopped with her hand in my hair, and I felt it tighten, almost hurting me. “Sometimes I have bad thoughts. I’m even jealous… you know? But there was something about you and Charm when I first saw you—”
“Ah, that time.”
“I don’t mean because your dick was out,” she said with a smile, her hand letting go of my hand and moving to my shoulder. “It was the look in your eyes, and in hers. I hadn’t seen that playful innocence for so long, it reminded me of what else was out there.”
“And there was my dick. Out there.”
She hit me. “Shut up. I’m trying to be heartfelt here.”
I laughed, sleepily, and said, “You’re a good person, Twitch. A true superhero in my book.”
“It’s Stacy,” she whispered in my ear, and I only then realized that my eyes were closed. “Don’t you dare ever repeat it to anyone, but that’s my birth name. I wanted you to know. And you’re a true superhero, too.” With the light touch of her lips on my cheek, I was out.
7
I was awakened by Gale shouting for me, yelling about incoming and indicating three blips on the screen.
“They’re too close to be coincidence,” she said. “I’m going low and was thinking…”
“On it,” I said, groggily. Sitting up, I worked on my illusion power, trying to figure out the best way to do this, and then realized it was simple—how does a ship cloak? By bending light around it or using imagery to match the other side, so I told her to give me a view of the ground from the angle they’d be, and then focused on replicating that above us.
All I had to do was focus on it, keep that image there… try not to think about coffee or pancakes. That was a tough one, but a few moments later, as we all flew with bated breath, the blips veered off in three different directions.
“They’re confused,” Gale said, grinning.
“Except,” Twitch was up now too, watching the screen intently. “I doubt they were using purely visuals to find us.”
As soon as she’d said it, the first shot hit. Our shield flashed orange, then another hit came, missing us but exploding rock in our path. Gale steered us left, diving into a ravine as more shots landed wide.
“They’re not targeting us properly,” she said. “But I’m guessing they have weapons on board that work with automatic target locking.”
“Keep focused on the illusion,” Gale said. “This section of the screen is you,” she indicated the left, that was now starting to show sky as she pulled up and over, “this section is my target.”
Our full visibility versus their only being able to target via radar gave us a distinct advantage, and as soon as we registered missile lock, Gale blasted the closest ship from the sky. She swerved around and let out a whoop, shouting about how much she loved flying, and then let out another barrage that sent the second ship spiraling into a tall rock to then explode.
More shots hit us.
“Keep focused,” Gale told me.
I frowned, not understanding how they were seeing us, but then it made sense. “They followed the shots fired. Swerve away so they can’t guess our trajectory based on where we just were.”
“Easy,” she said, but then cursed as the screen blipped—apparently, they’d fired missiles without waiting for the lock. “Hold tight.”
She brought the ship around, and then let go of the controls to hold out her hands. A gust of wind sent the missiles slightly off course, directing them down, and then she grabbed the controls again and veered to the right, through the canyon and around a group of large boulders.
The explosion hit right behind us, sending a jolt through the ship, but otherwise leaving us unharmed.
She was back up again, spinning and then said, “Got you.”
“Got what?” Twitch asked, shaken from the jolt.
“Missile lock on them this time,” Gale replied with a childish giggle, and then let loose.
The explosion was satisfying, and as we flew over it and back on track, we all whooped and laughed. We were in the clear again, and flew on without problem.
I tried to get more sleep once I felt comfortable that no other enemy ships were close, but was too amp
ed up from the dogfight. I’d turn left, then right, trying to think about counting sheep or whatever. None of it worked. When I was younger I’d often fantasized sexually to help me sleep, thinking that maybe the flow of blood from the rest of my body to my dick would cause me to be drowsy, so tried that. Maybe there was nothing to it, but it had often worked back then.
As I lay there, imagining Charm’s tongue playfully toying with the tip of my dick, her green eyes staring up at me seductively, I felt it happening. My cock grew, pressing on my pants and making me have to shift to adjust, and I heard a chuckle.
“Need help with that?” Twitch asked.
She was lying in her reclined chair, watching me.
“Not able to sleep either?” I asked.
“Hell no.” She pushed her chair up and shrugged. “Come on, I’m starving anyway.”
“Any chance of coffee and pancakes?” I asked, making some appear in front of me with the illusion power. I quickly dismissed them, as that only made it worse.
“I wish,” she said, moving to the supply bin at the back of the bridge. She pulled out a couple of food pouches and tossed one my way. “Not pancakes, but will slosh do?”
My laugh was pitiful. “Sure, that was my second choice.”
Honestly, it didn’t taste bad. Kind of like fried chicken.
My head was spinning as I made my way to the restroom, only pausing to roll my eyes at the hole-in-the-floor toilet. Then again, I was on another planet, in another dimension. I should’ve been glad to find out the toilets weren’t strange creatures that ate your feces. A hole would do just fine.
I finished, washed up, and threw some water on my face. That little act made me pause, thinking how it was interesting that I hadn’t gotten some form of poisoning from the water up here, yet. Maybe another side-effect of their strange sun? It was possible it could have purification aspects, or that the ground itself somehow acted in this way.
No water-borne illnesses, low chance of pregnancy and STDs, and superpowers. If there weren’t so many evil bastards in these places, I’d say this could be heaven for those of us who didn’t feel the need to have children anytime soon.