Supers - Ex Heroes 3

by Jamie Hawke

  16

  I understood now why the pyramid had seemed to be both helping us and not, why it had felt conflicted. Even though I was still there, mentally, everything was growing confused. My body and soul were connected to the metal, part of this pyramid—hell, I was the pyramid. But my old thoughts were coming through garbled, like someone talking underwater.

  My loyalty to my friends was being overridden by an urge to protect myself as the pyramid, to do whatever it took to ensure all invaders were expelled… maybe even punished. Power surged in me, connecting my mind to everything within the pyramid and certain elements without. Some of the turrets were still in place, as was a deeper power I couldn’t quite understand. Willing the turrets to open fire, I began my barrage against Ranger’s incoming fleet. He’d clearly suffered losses in his recent battle, and seemingly came straight here—half the ships were already singed, and I was certain he had at most one-tenth of the power I’d seen previously. Knowing what little I did of him, he wouldn’t have left anything behind if it meant getting to us, and by that point I had to assume he would’ve found out.

  The first turret was taken down and pain shot through me, pulling at my deeper powers so that it was almost like the pyramid was guiding me as it prepared the attack. Parts of me were opening up—no, not me, the pyramid. Distinguishing between the two was becoming harder with each second of being connected to it. How my mom had managed as long as she did was beyond me. Metal moved aside, unfolding, and then a burst of that light shot out, obliterating three of the enemy ships in one blast. Other craft spun out of control as they tried to avoid getting hit, and then Ranger and his troops were out of their ships, flying down, assaulting the pyramid.

  More pain, more losses as the final turrets were hit. A blast hit the opening and the metal retracted, closing back in on myself as everything in my being was certain this was the end.

  “They’ve taken the core,” Ranger shouted, and I could see the supervillains landing on me, assaulting my walls and breaking through. Each block would be replaced, only for them to tear new openings, throw up energy fields to block me, and blast new holes in my walls.

  Andromida appeared—not outside, no. As much as it was hard for me to tell exactly what was happening, it seemed she was within, pulling on the ships still in the air, tearing into them so that they unfolded and entered my pyramid body behind the attacking supervillains. The influx of flattened metal took out several of the invaders on its way to fuel her powers.

  But Ranger flashed through a portal and was suddenly deep within the pyramid. Using what I had to hand, I even threw the skeletons at him as I called upon my innards to form robot armies. He walked through hallways and passages casting his explosions about him.

  I could see him as if on a screen, as I could see the rest of them. Twitch was in the room with her screens quickly analyzing the stones and other machinery she’d discovered in the walls. Charm knelt at the side of the box I was in, and it was creepy seeing myself lying there connected to wires. Gale and Shimmer had taken up a defense outside of our chamber, while Andromida was bringing as much hell to the enemy as she could.

  Ranger appeared then, staring at me, and all I could see was him. It was like a series of camera shots were at my disposal, but now all were focused on his evil glare with those gold eyes, his long, blonde hair flowing, his pointy ears and face lit by gold tattoos.

  “I did warn you,” Ranger said. “I told you I’d return for your lives, and that day is upon us. Step forward, bow… and maybe I’ll make it quick.”

  He spun around thrusting out his hands so that more explosions rocked the pyramid. Before, on the prison ship, I’d managed to stop him by using canceling powers that limited what others could do, and then Twitch had helped us escape via a portal that we’d thought was a black hole.

  Each strike of his felt like a part of me dying, so I dug deeper, further implanting myself into this pyramid to see what it could offer me. Metal crushed down upon him, flames shot out, and at one point I was certain he shouted out in pain.

  For a moment I could see the rest of the pyramid again, and see that Twitch was gesturing at me. She had apparently made a discovery, but it wasn’t time for me to get out yet. Ranger was approaching the core, where I would be helpless. His other supers were doing their best against me and Andromida, but it wasn’t enough. As strong of a force as he had arrayed against me, we were tearing them down bit by bit.

  A portal appeared in the next room over from where I’d last seen Ranger, and then he was here, stepping through into the room I was in, and looking as refreshed and ready for a battle as ever.

  “You can’t beat me like this, son of Apollo,” he said amid explosions from his fury. “Your father couldn’t stand against me. Your mother became our slave. Now you, their abandoned offspring, think you have a chance?” He spun, more explosions tearing me apart and creating an opening for him to come at me. “I think not.”

  Instead of trying the same techniques, this time I found myself reaching out to my ladies, to Twitch—no, it was she who was reaching out to me. We were connecting, and I didn’t understand at first, then realized she was hacking into the pyramid, in a sense.

  The Tier Ones’ powers, they’re stored here in the gems. You have access.

  Her words didn’t make complete sense, but I reached for the stones and, sure enough, was able to access new levels of powers that felt alien and amazing. When Ranger took his next step forward, I created a projection of myself there in front of him using these powers.

  Liquid metal formed into me, light shining out until I felt real—I was in two places at once, but equally present in both.

  “You’ve come a long way, little boy,” Ranger said. “Confused prisoner to this? Impressive. Possibly enough to join my side.”

  “We both know that won’t happen,” I replied, my voice echoing through the pyramid.

  “Perhaps.” He took a step toward me, hands rising. “But after I’ve broken you, the question will arise once more and you’ll sing a different tune, I imagine.”

  His attack struck me like fire within, which was surprising considering the fact that it wasn’t even really me. The real me was tucked inside this box, this sarcophagus of wires and cables. The attack felt real enough, but at the same time I was outside of myself, seeing all directions of possible attack.

  With a thrust of my energy, metal swept in and warped around him, tearing at flesh and shooting through him. He cursed, disappearing and reappearing on the other side of me, where my metallic body thrust its hand forward so that it became a spear, tearing through him.

  As much as the attacks hurt him, they weren’t doing any lasting damage. He could heal as fast as I could hurt him! If only my real body was there I could’ve cut him right after cutting myself and stolen some of those powers. What I wouldn’t give for healing like that!

  Instead, I had to settle for bringing attack after attack, as fast as I could. In the meantime, I brought other weapons into the game, rearranging the pyramid until I had flamethrowers to blast him, and when that didn’t work, an army of robot spiders fell out of the ceiling onto him, filling him full of electricity.

  None of it did a damn thing.

  But nothing he did to me could cause lasting damage either. We were like two battling gods, getting attacked, hurt, and then we were back up and pounding the shit out of each other again. Only, I was at a disadvantage because he knew this place, and he was on the offensive. Being on the defense can sometimes mean a better position, but it can also mean being the one who has something to lose.

  When Ranger remembered this, he made it less about attacking me and more about gaining ground.

  I threw everything in his way, practically bringing the entire pyramid down on him, but he kept coming. Electricity and fire couldn’t stop him, and neither could any combination of what I had at my disposal.

  “The problem with you,” he said, grunting in pain as another wave of shocks went through him, burn
ing his skin only for it to heal a split-second later, “is that you brought friends.”

  “You didn’t?” I grabbed hold of him, wrapping my metal around him and becoming solid to try and trap him there.

  He threw out his arms and I shattered apart, hitting the ground as liquid metal and absorbing right back into it. “It would be incredibly stupid for anyone in my position to ever have friends. As arrogant as I may be, stupidity has never been one of my faults.”

  “That sounded like a pretty stupid thing to say to me,” I countered, my face appearing from the wall and then pounding metal back in on him again. I tried encasing him in pure metal, but he could simply teleport out, appearing in another portal and walking out into the next room.

  To my horror, I caught a glimpse into that portal—a glimpse maybe no mortal would’ve been able to see, but my being everywhere at that moment changed things. It wasn’t a random portal, but a land of corpses, all of them identical, all of them him. It would seem that each time he traveled like that, a corpse would be brought there and a new version of him spewed forth. And now that I had come to this realization, small aspects of him stood out—the fact that the look in his eyes looked more tired, more full of hate, more pained. His hair was less silky, more ragged. His joints, even, had a more gnarled look to them.

  While he was able to heal, he still died. But it was often by his choice, simply to move about faster. What that said about him, I couldn’t begin to comprehend.

  There was something else about him that bothered me, then, and that was the fact that he was smiling. Smiling, I now saw, because he had come to the room where Shimmer and Gale waited on the defense.

  I sent out a warning, an alarm of sorts that rang through the pyramid, and sensed Andromida returning to me. My other awareness was moving throughout the pyramid, chopping enemies to pieces and setting them aflame, creating new monsters from their corpses to turn on their friends who had somehow survived, until I had an army of the undead like the necromancer I’d always dreamed of being.

  Part of me wanted to laugh as I turned them inwards so that they were all charging in for the attack on Ranger, but part of me wanted to scream as I saw him attack my ladies. My walls fell to his explosions, my attempts to safeguard the ladies with lasers and barrages of robots did nothing, but they weren’t helpless. Charm was cloaked while Gale sent her attacks at Ranger, moving about as best she could, and then I was there as ten liquid metal versions of myself, the rear walls falling open to make way for my undead supers army.

  The attack could have possibly taken him down with sheer numbers alone, all of us piling on him, attacking and tearing and trying to destroy. He threw us off, casting a barrage of explosions, and was about to walk out when I found myself latching onto him somehow, a power I hadn’t known was there creating a sort of invisible robe that held him to me.

  He turned, confused, then turned again, not sure which of the three remaining versions of me to look at. I latched on with all my strength and started to pull.

  “No…” he said, eyes wide as he lifted his arms, trying to resist. “You couldn’t have…”

  I did it! Twitch’s voice came to me as if distant, in my mind. We’ve just accessed the bank of powers stored in the gems. You now have access to a practically unlimited store of powers, including whatever he and other supers stored here might have had. I’m guessing they were trying to figure out how to truly harness this, but have only been able to grant a few powers here and there, especially at a time.

  Point being—kick his fucking ass.

  “Looks like it’s playtime,” I said, knowing I was going to enjoy the hell out of this. Not only did I bring up more of myself with powers, but I imbued my undead army with the power to bind with energy like this, as it had been the only thing to seemingly work so far.

  His eyes were wide and frightened—a strange look for Ranger! When he tried to teleport again, the energy pulled against my latching, but more hit him and as much as he pushed and struggled, it wasn’t working.

  “Get out!” I shouted to Gale and Charm and sent a barrage of attacks Ranger’s way when the door had closed behind them. This time, with the latching holding Ranger in place, the attacks actually seemed to be working! I found new powers to attack him with as well, such as a blast of solar energy that left the room in flames, followed by a storm of water and ice, trying to freeze him and break him to pieces.

  Each time when I thought I was close, though, he’d break out of it, getting caught by new latching moments later.

  “No…” he screamed, and I saw he was looking at the doorway, where Twitch stood with several stones.

  “Hold him in place,” she said, approaching and laying three amber stones before him. The latching kept him still, though he was thrashing about, screaming now. Andromida finally entered, watching, and she nodded.

  “Help me,” Ranger said, reaching for her, eyes pleading. “Don’t let them…”

  “Don’t let them what?” she said. “Do to you what you did to me?”

  She knelt beside him, leaning in close. “I want my powers back, you son of a bitch.” And then she stood, walking past me to join Twitch. With a glance at the versions of me, she asked, “He has the power?”

  Twitch nodded. “Breaker, just make it so. There was a super, one they started with, whose power was to suck out those of others.”

  It hit me in that moment that the power sounded similar to mine, in a sense. I took powers from people. Could this have been my mom or dad she was referring to? It wasn’t the time for questions, however, so I searched and found it, and then started pulling the powers from this man.

  A scream in a movie is one thing, but a scream when one truly fears for their life, or even worse feels their powers being sucked away—powers they’ve relied on for so long—it’s chilling to the bone and near deafening. His golden eyes went black and he called out a name, a name I couldn’t make out, followed by a soft chant.

  I should’ve known it wouldn’t be so easy. With a series of explosions like fireworks, he twisted and turned, spasming. The explosions hit the air all around him as if tracing back through the invisible ropes we’d latched to him, and then he was floating sideways, looking near dead, the blackness in his eyes expanding into a portal.

  A face stared out at him from the portal, black eyes standing out in stark relief against her ghostly pearl white skin, and she said, “Welcome, brother.”

  In a flash, he was gone, the portal closing around the spot he’d been. The moment the portal vanished, a massive shock rang out through the pyramid and the walls thundered.

  17

  I was lost. Confused, floating in darkness, appearing in metallic hallways, disappearing, reappearing.

  My mind was a wash of memories, flooding at one moment and fleeing the next, so that I’d go from an assault of sorrow and nostalgia to complete forgetfulness and not knowing who or what I was. How long had I been this pyramid? What was the point of it all?

  One light blinked into existence in a dark room, then others, and I was swimming toward them. The first grew larger, engulfing me and I was young, running along the side of a river with a boy. At first, it didn’t make sense. He was older than me, stronger. Who was this? And then my footing gave way and I slipped, starting to fall over the bank and into the waters below. He turned, reaching, and I remembered that face and the fact that he was my brother. His hand missed mine and I was in the waters, torn away by the current.

  It was pulling me, throwing me, dragging me under so that I came up with a mouthful of water, gasping and choking. A figure lunged and there he was, Drew, grabbing hold of me and nearly slamming his head into a rock in the process. It hit his shoulder instead, and he managed to grab hold, pulling me with the leverage of that rock, until we were safe.

  We never told our parents, I remembered now. We had lain on that riverbank, laughing, crying… feeling like complete idiots.

  And why? He’d been on his way to meet a girl, me running after
him because I wanted us to play together. If he’d ran off and left me, as I’m sure he could’ve many times over, I could’ve drowned that day.

  I was back in the darkness, longing to see him again. Whatever else, I would escape this place, I’d go to him.

  But in the darkness, it started to fade again. There was another light, so I swam toward it. When this one took me it wasn’t something that had actually happened to me, as far as I could tell. There I was, sitting on a boat on the waters of a planet I didn’t recognize. Women were around me, one with ears and a tail, another with skin a sort of lavender color, and then a child ran past, giggling.

  Before I could see the face of the child or anything more than a blur, I was pulled back, spinning through space and looking to see Andromida and Charm floating there with me, smiling, calling me back.

  “Breaker,” Charm said. “I’m here… I want you. I need you.”

  I tried to swim to them, but they grew darker, translucent like ghosts. Always out of reach.

  “What the fuck is happening to me?” I shouted, and again I was the pyramid. Nothing but metal and walls and energy.

  A voice was nearby, but I couldn’t hear it. All I could do was focus on the invaders and my intense desire to see them expelled from my pyramid. My home… Me.

  There was a strange smell, a breath hitting me… and then a voice in my head.

  It’s me, Charm. Are you in there? Can you hear me?

  While on one level this voice didn’t make sense and all I wanted to do was destroy, something was holding me back. I was in the pyramid, a metallic form running away, trying door after door but having them close in my face. A form in red was chasing me, walking slow, glitching and appearing next to me. Again I would run, leaping over long drop-offs, throwing myself up ledges and climbing ladders.