People talk about Megajoule like he was a god. Normally, I’d shrug it off or scoff the way I do about other capes. But I only have a fraction of his power, and when I bring it to bear, I can’t help but wonder whether maybe Megajoule really was something divine.

“Yes!” He cries, and his hands are on my shoulders. Guiding me. Pushing me forward.

Light shines from my skin. The heat radiating from me stirs the air into shimmering patches like mirages in a desert, and Krater’s easy smile drops off his face as he sees the full power within me. Concrete squeals beneath my feet, the canvas roof of the bumper car arena catches fire behind me, and the behemoths of the derelict amusement park are revealed by my light.

Krater holds a hand up to shield his eyes from my brightness. He hesitates for a moment too long, giving me a perfect opening.

I smash into him like a meteor. Steam pours from my shoes. The light shining from my skin dims for a second: Krater’s shocked face is cast into darkness.

I slam him into the supports of one of the roller coasters. The entire frame screeches and wobbles before falling backward onto the walking paths.

Huge metal spears shoot out from the plume of dirt, beams ripped from the roller coaster. Krater leaps from the dark with one in each hand and hurls them at me. I launch myself away, uncertain if I could actually stop those spears with my power. I land in the walkway, melting fences and abandoned shacks nearby.

The rods pierce the earth with thunderous might, sinking like knives into the world. Krater sends more of these deadly spears my way, just missing me as I rocket in a circle around his position, revolving closer and closer like a blinding coin swirling down a drain.

I explode through the conductor booth for the roller coaster, kicking off one of Krater’s spears to launch myself into the sky, then blast downward with a kick aimed for his chest. Krater dodges at the last second and grabs my arm. He howls in pain from the heat spilling off me and sends me flying, but I stop mid-air with my power and crash back down.

Krater comes out with a huge chunk of the roller coaster track, swinging it like a club. The metal melts before it reaches my skin.

We meet in a furious bout, stone arms pushing through the elemental fires surrounding me. We shake the skeletal frames down to the earth as my aura turns steel to slag and the forces of our blows send shock waves that they must be able to feel across the highway. Helicopters and drones hover over our sweltering battleground, wavering as hot gusts soar up from below. They must be as close as they can get, and that is far away, hundreds of feet above even the tallest remaining rollercoaster.

“Must be like astronauts staring into the sun,” Megajoule muses. “Now come on. Let’s finish this.”

I’ve turned the ground beneath me into molten rock, the air around me into a deadly soup of hot gas and blazing radiation. Krater’s entire body is covered in stone now, though he still moves, each of his thunderous steps shedding tons of debris. Each of his blows give me buckets of energy.

My heat sense is overwhelmed by the symphony of energy. The music of thermal and kinetic power weaves around me. Each strike brings me closer to gassing out, to hitting the limits of my endurance, and still he doesn’t stay down. He gets back up, he gets back up, he gets back up.

“You’ve got to hit harder!” Megajoule shouts. “Just like Danger Close. Hit him so he doesn’t get back up!”

Krater tackles me through the field of molten rock, swinging haymakers that would level skyscrapers. I drink their energy. Heat overflows. Another coaster squeals out its death as it falls into slag like all the others.

I weave through another barrage of spears, most of which melt before they make it halfway to me, and speed around him in a circle, searching for the right angle. I find it behind on his left, where a huge chunk of stone skin hasn’t sloughed off. He won’t be able to move that arm as fast.

The thought occurs and I barely have time to blink before I’ve thrown Krater into the cement remains of a restroom.

Krater rises.

“Hit him harder!” Megajoule shouts.

I’m on top of him, blazing feet pressed into his back. Again my fist sings with kinetic energy.

Krater rises. And stumbles.

He reaches back and wrenches me from his shoulders. He throws me, and it’s much weaker than before. I’ve worn him down. I’m going to win.

I seize a piece of metal that begins to glow at my touch. Krater lurches forward and begins a charge, screaming. The emotions wafting from him are nothing like rage. I feel his fear. I feel his doubt.

He’s going to lose.

He charges. I stamp my foot, twist my heel into the ground, and wind back.

I pour every ounce of kinetic energy I’ve built up into this one motion.

“End him!” Megajoule screams.

My heart drops. Megajoule’s hands are on top of my own, willing me to swing the bat. His wild whispers are right in my ear, alongside the heavy breathing of a beast about to dine.

And I realize just how much power I’ve gathered, how much I’m about to unleash. I’ll kill Krater… and maybe half the city if I let this go off.

Megajoule wants that. But I don’t. I couldn’t care less about Krater now, but the rest of the city? I can’t do that. I pull back as much as I can, letting more than half of the joules I’ve gathered flow back into the earth below. It’s too late to change what I’m going to do - just how hard I do it.

“What are you doing?!” Megajoule, incredulous, tries to force me to drink more energy in, to bring everything I can to bear.

“No!” I shout. “I’m not going to-”

The earth cracks and melts beneath us, and as Krater lunges forward, he sinks into the ground with me. Still, he can’t stop himself either - we’re destined to meet halfway to our waists in magma.

He reaches for me.

I swing.

I hit Krater center mass.

The earth erupts.

Boom.

#

Krater does not rise.

I find him encased in solid stone amid the ruins with a metal support sticking out of his gut, slick and shiny with blood. That blood boils into steam as I approach.

Krater’s eyes follow me. He’s still alive. His ragged breathing barely escapes his gravel covered mouth. He lifts his hands to defend himself.

“Kill him,” Megajoule whispers in my ears. “He’ll keep coming after you if you don’t kill him.”

“D-don’t,” Krater grunts, loses his breath. “You- please.”

It’s the ‘please’ that snaps me out of my fury.

He swallows and says, “If I die… it’s gonna spread fear and create new monsters… it could kill people.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? A few minutes ago you couldn’t give two shits about the people. You almost seemed to relish the collateral! You don’t get to pretend to care now!” I jab my finger in his face. “I should kill you! You plaster your hypocritical face on that fucking skyscraper, you give the sexy interviews and live the fancy life, you get the key to the city. But you don’t risk anything. You just sit back and let people worship you and feed you, and when they need you, you toss them out like trash. You. Every cape.”

Krater has no answer to my tirade.

“I showed them, I showed them what Home Run could do, what I’m capable of. I showed them that I have the power to save this city from Pandahead, from the capes, from anyone!” I get on my knees and stare at Krater from beneath my goggles. “What the fuck have you done to save it?”

Debris rumbles and dances off his chest as he chuckles. One of his arms twitches but no more than an inch. “If this was a battle about whether or not Home Run was a hero, then you lost, little man.”

For all the heat and fury inside me, I suddenly feel cold.

He coughs, grabs my arm. It’s weak, feeble. “You just kicked the shit outta Houston’s Hero. Do you think they’ll praise you now?”

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“I’m just a mask trying to help the city,” I whisper.

Krater looks up at the burning sky. “Some help, Home Run. Some help.”

“I’m not your fucking villain,” I hiss.

“You’re Houston’s villain.” Krater wheezes and coughs. “I… need help…” He grimaces and closes his eyes, maybe for good.

I get off Krater and slump down, unsure of what to do now.

I stand up and gawk at the destruction I’ve caused. The few coasters still standing groan under the intense heat. The earth, still glowing with my power, sings in a chorus that sounds like a furnace. Beyond, the skyscrapers still stand, but I can see the nearest ones have shattered windows.

Why did I think that doing this would help? I should have just used my power to get as far away as possible, but I got so caught up in the fight that I just let it happen.

“Damn it.” I melt the beam off Krater’s torso and lift him, feeding energy out of my body so that the light inside dies out, transferring instead to the ground below, where I can feel it churn and join the heat deep below me.

I carry Krater out of Cosmoworld, bounding in huge lunges toward the south. I drop him off in front of random house in the middle of the suburban jungle, ding dong ditch every single person on the street, and then blast off into the night sky.

I make sure that I am not being followed by winding around the city until I’m confident that if anyone managed to follow me, they’d have already ambushed me.

Where am I going to go? I stick to the dark as much as possible, gliding my way along the rooftops until I’m back in my part of town. I debate returning to the junkyard, to see if anyone needs help, but the Vanguard might have already sent more capes.

I wander through the empty streets, hearing sirens echo like the cries of children. The skyline of Houston no longer displays the faces of the heroes on the skyscrapers, but an emergency message for people to stay inside their homes. I hide away on the roof of a pharmacy, watching people congregate in the street below, staring at a screen hanging over the patio of a small panaderia, transfixed at the apocalyptic news.

Krater is in intensive care. But thankfully, there are no reported deaths. A few injured, no one in serious condition. The news focuses on Krater’s “valiant stand” and his current condition in the hospital. The people watching the screen talk loudly.

“I thought Home Run was a good guy, but he’s a menace! Look what he did!” An elderly Black man complains. “Can’t believe he did that to Krater.”

“That poor man…” a young mother, child on her hip, says. “I hope he’s okay.”

“He’s a madman!” a drunk businessman shouts. “A lunatic poised to kill a lot of people.”

I cough, my throat hot and tight, feeling like my whole head is going to squeeze through my eyes and nose. I clutch my chest, my heart pounds, my lungs crunch, my entire core is collapsing. “You ungrateful assholes,” I whisper.

I get up and run. I bound across the city, barely able to avoid drones or even people. I flee until my body wants to give up, and the long night catches up to me at last. By coincidence, or perhaps by my own unthinking need to find somewhere safe, I’ve fled to the underpass where Kitsune and I talked after Mr. Spiral. I don’t actually know if it is safe here, but I’m far beyond caring. I sit there, and the sky opens up, rain pouring in sheets over the sides of the underpass.

Megajoule materializes at the edge of the bridge’s cover, staring out at the stormy night. He holds his hand out to the pouring rain and the raindrops slip through his phantom fingers. He heaves a heavy, unnecessary sigh, and then whips his head at me. “I told you to kill him.”

My throat is too dry for me to speak. He’s got a severe look on, the expression of a disappointed father.

“How was he different from Danger Close? You killed that one without a second thought.”

“You goaded me on, you monster! You’ve wanted all this from the beginning.”

Megajoule sneers at me. “Nut the fuck up, Gabe. The world needs a monster. It needs you to wipe it clean, to remove the filth that has corrupted it to its core.”

I muster all the strength I have left because I’m not going to eat this shit, not for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re supposed to be the spirit of a hero, but you’re a psychopath!”

“You’re weak.”

I raise my head in defiance. We lock eyes. His gaze - it’s like I’m not even a person to him. I glance away, scared by the intensity of his hatred.

“But I can make you strong, if you just give me control.”

With that, he’s gone again. My skin crawls at the thought of him taking control of me. I didn’t even think that was possible, but I felt his hands on mine, felt his mind influencing me. He’s denied me access to Megajoule’s engrams before. I can’t deny that I felt him trying to force me to use my full power tonight.

Footsteps scrape on the pavement just above me. I tense up, realizing that it’s just one person, and they’re moving toward the edge of the bridge. There’s no reason for anyone to come this way, not unless they’re looking for me specifically.

I stand to run again, until I recognize the heartbeat.

Bedevil jumps over the edge, landing softly with her power. She is no longer in the Kitsune outfit, not even in her cape uniform, but a plain black hoodie, muddy jeans, and sneakers that she must have stolen from a thrift store or a garbage bin. Even in this grungy outfit, she bears herself like a real cape. Like a hero, who has all the world’s eyes watching her. Except if they were, they’d see the mostly empty bottle of vodka dangling by the neck from her right hand.

I curse myself for not accepting what I knew sooner. I knew she was Bedevil, deep under my denial and my desire. I knew who she was but I let this happen because Megajoule’s right. I’m weak.

Bedevil approaches me, her hands held out like I’m a wild beast she needs to placate. “I am… so… so sorry.”

“Yeah, you fucking should be!” I shout, rising to my feet. She recoils from me, clutching that bottle of vodka like it’s a lifesaver. “I trusted you! I trusted… Kitsune! I trusted you to keep my friend safe and you handed him over to the capes! You tried to capture me!”

“It was safer for him there than anywhere else. He’s safer than you are, right now.”

“No the fuck he isn’t! They’re going to throw him in a cell and let him rot, and that’s the best case I can think of.” I bury my head in my hands, feeling my tears soak my mask. “He might die, or end up in one of those fucking dampeners.”

Bedevil raises her head to the sky, her hands covering her face. “Metis!”

“You don’t even believe me, do you? You still don’t think the capes are doing something like that?” I ask. “That PK isn’t torturing people, Lilac isn’t still out there running experiments?”

“I believe you!” Bedevil cries. “I believe you. Something is wrong in this city.”

“With the whole world, Bedevil,” I say. “With all of the Vanguard.”

She struggles with that for a minute, her brow furrowed, her lips quivering.

Then the waves of emotion rolling off her hit me.

Pain. More pain than I’ve ever felt in my whole life. Sorrow, regret, guilt, and grief, pulsing out of her in waves. The wave washes over me, and I realize that I’m truly feeling her Affect for the first time. This is the real Bedevil, the one she’s carefully hidden, the one she hid under Kitsune, under her mask, every time I saw her.

Bedevil balls her fists, straightens her shoulders, and all that sorrow vanishes. Gone in an instant. She turns to face me head on. “You’re right. But I can’t do anything for you now. I can’t go back.”

She explains everything, her mother, the sudden arrest. How she left, because she knew something was wrong. How she looked for me. She finishes all of this by plucking out a small splinter from behind my shoulder. A tracker she’d planted on me months ago.

That almost pisses me off to the point where I walk away, but then she dissolves it into nothing. “We should go. Oracle might not know where you are yet, but she’ll trace that soon enough to this place.”

I sit down against the bridge wall, tired beyond the ability to even move my fingers. The breaths come to me ragged and weak. “Gimme a minute.”

Bedevil sits down next to me, offers me a drink from the mostly empty bottle. I decline with a shake of my head.

She drains what’s left and then the bottle vanishes, melting away into thin air. She looks over at me, a faint smile on her lips. Metis, she’s still so fucking pretty, even now.

“I’m- I’m in a lot of trouble,” I manage. “I hurt Krater. I scared a lot of people. Volition got caught because of me. I trusted terrorists that left me to die when push came to shove.”

Her smile becomes pained. She reaches her hand out, waiting to see if I deny her advance, and then grabs my hand - really my thumb, in between her fingers. She strokes where my knuckle meets my palm.

“Why did you come here?” I ask.

“I… I don’t know. A sense that maybe you can explain a lot of things. If you take off your mask.”

I fall silent, unable to voice more. I’m not sure what I should do, or what I should say.

“I didn’t come here to force you. I came to ask you to tell me. Because when I kissed you, when we…” Bedevil blushes and goes all breathy, but continues speaking. “It was real.”

I swallow, my throat tight, suddenly aware of all the blood in my body and where it wants to rush.

“I did that because I wanted you, not because I was trying to manipulate you. At first, I was playing on your emotions as Kitsune… but now I have real and genuine feelings for you. I shouldn’t. I can’t explain why. But I do.” She stares deep into my mask and I can feel her yearning for me to take it off. To show her who she kissed, who she wants.

“I had feelings for Kitsune,” I say. Not a denial, not an acceptance.

Bedevil exhales like I physically hit her. She makes a noise that sounds like a scoff and a chuckle mixed together. “Yeah, I guess I walked into that one. I’m sorry for not telling you. I had obvious reasons. But they feel stupid now that I say it out loud.”

“You were doing your job.”

“I was. I even got pathically disentangled from you.” She shudders at that memory.

That must have been torture. I’ve never been disentangled but Paul described the procedure to me. It sounds awful. I get stuck on that thought for a moment, imagining someone shaving parts of my soul away, then I realize what she’s saying. “Wait- but you just said-”

“That I have feelings for you, yeah.” Bedevil wipes her eyes. “It’s why Oracle made me call the Heroes on you when you broke into Shortfin’s house. I was going to join you in finding Pandahead, but she… she got worried when the feelings didn’t go away. Because I was practically donating thousands of engrams to you from my own well.”

“So this all fell apart because of me.”

“N-No!” Bedevil gets up on her knees and clasps my hand in hers like a prayer. “Hun, this had nothing to do with you.”

I can’t help but chuckle. If only she knew.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it. She wants to know.

“I wish it was that easy,” I say. “I wish I could just tell you who I am.”

Bedevil reaches out and turns my head toward her. She cups my face with her gentle, lovely hands, and stares at me with her deep blue eyes. “I don’t care who you are under there, what you’ve hidden away from the world. Your heart is good.” This is a great time for her to just flip my mask up and see the truth… but she doesn’t. She respects my wishes, just leaving her hands on my cheeks.

I turn to face her, too. Somewhere far in the back of my brain, Megajoule’s distant voice warns me: “This will be the knife that slays you both.”

She continues on. “I haven’t been lonely since I met you. Everyone else here treated me like something to sweep under the rug, but you, you wanted me around, even after I told you I was a cape…” She trails off and frowns, looking up at me. “Please, tell me who you are. I want to know.”

Her question spurs me at last to speak my pain. “I can’t. I can’t.” Her heart will break. She will break. I can’t destroy her like that. I care too much for her to do that. Or for who I thought she was.

Bedevil sniffles, wipes tears from her cheeks. “I couldn’t place it, but every time I was with you I felt like I was visiting a place I knew. I felt like I knew you. I feel like I’ve always known you.” She grips my hand harder. “Like we knew each other in our past lives.”

She is so close to the truth it would be funny if it wasn’t the tragedy of both our lives.

I’m so tired.

“I hope this is really what you want.” All the permission I can give her. I don’t lift my own mask. I wait for her to do it.

A little slip of cloth, and she sees the truth.

Bedevil is struck dumb. She falls back on her ass, eyes as wide as they can get to take in the truth, to take in all the errant light bouncing from my stolen body, and she stares at me, and the tears fall torrentially, and her mouth works in vain to produce some sound but there is nothing.

After wordlessly gawking at me for what feels like an eternity, she finally says, “That rotten bitch lied to me.”