Daniel Peterson

It had been code red over at the Defenders’ Tower as every drone in the city had been reduced to burning wreckage over the dark morning sky. Walter was shrieking at us from our watches, but I had no taste to intervene when super hobo was wrecking the entire defense fleet with ease, and from the look on The Blue Justice’s face, he didn’t either.

I could already imagine the footage being streamed all over the internet. Debris and fiery metal was raining everywhere on the city below. A lot of people were going to get hurt, both from the falling wreckage and from the dry tinderbox that was City 57. I could already see great plumes of smoke from where several shantytowns had caught fire.

I groaned, picturing the outrage. Where were the Urban Defenders!? Why weren’t they saving people!? Why weren’t they opposing this menace!? I got news for you. The Urban Defenders were shitting their pants alongside everyone else. But to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure we could’ve stopped Adam Mason even if we wanted to. Or rather, if The Blue Justice wanted to.

He was fucking terrified. I had never seen John so tense before, and that made me more worried than anything.

As much as I hated his guts, John was still the leader. He was Walter’s poster child. He was the one StarCorp chose. And as much as I was loath to admit it, he was also the one who occasionally wrangled all of us in line.

I saw him take a deep breath, and he tried to swell up his chest. I could already see him cooking up a speech in his head. If his costume looked as ridiculous as ours, it would’ve been comical. But John was the corporate darling, and the costume designers actually did a good job of making him look the part of a hero. He wore a blue uniform with a white star emblazoned on the chest. The bulky muscles and abs were just padding made to look real, but he looked imposing nonetheless. Out of all us, he was the only one who could pass for a B-Rank.

“So, do we have a plan?” I asked our fearless leader, hoping to be spared the pep talk and get down to business.

It was hard to make out in the fiery sky, but we saw Mason fly back to one of the skyscrapers. Apparently, the show was over.

John turned to us and crossed his arms. “The plan is we see how strong he is. Probe for weaknesses. Listen, all of you, we’ve been training for this day for a long time. We’re ready. We’ve been through the simulations against a class five a hundred times. Me and Yellow Bolt are going to open with everything we’ve got. Atomic Girl, you’re on support. Try to restrain our target with forcefields, and if you can’t, try to deflect some of his attacks. Nighthawk…” The Blue Justice glanced at me with none of his usual snark. He was completely professional—something new for both of us. “You’re in the rear. If things go south for any of us, it’ll be up to you to reposition and get us out.” He nodded at me with a reassuring smile.

Oh wow, we really were fucked.

I guess that plan sounded good on paper if it wasn’t coached straight from Walter. The real plan was to go in completely blind after seeing a single man wipe out all the attack drones in City 57 and pray he was winded by that exercise. If not, then it was going to be on me to get everyone out of there alive—if not in one piece.

I gotta say, I never thought I was ever going to be put in actual danger working this job. Not once had I ever been put in a situation I couldn’t deal with. The most I had to do was teleport some poor bastard up ten stories and then drop him. Or, if the reporters wanted something particularly gruesome, I would teleport him inside some concrete and let him suffocate. With this guy, I could do neither.

I was out of my depth, and if it wasn’t for Atomic Girl, I would’ve turned tail and ran at that moment. Nothing back at StarCorp was worth getting an arm rammed through my chest, that’s for sure.

“All right.” The Blue Justice sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s go.” He took off flying towards the skyscraper.

I placed my hands on Yellow Bolt and Atomic Girl and we teleported from rooftop to rooftop, following the Blue Justice shortly behind. The Ranger—Carl—wasn’t there for obvious reasons. Thank goodness Walter wasn’t an idiot. It was one less life that I had to worry about. But you know, I never thought I’d ever be envious of Carl.

As we popped in and out of reality across City 57, I would’ve done anything in the world to trade places with him.

We appeared shortly behind The Blue Justice on a rooftop. Just five feet in front of us, Adam Mason sat on the edge of the building, dangling his legs over the open air. He was covered in black soot from all the drones he destroyed, but he didn’t look any worse for wear after all the damage he did.

And he was naked.

“You… uh… forget something there, chief?” The Blue Justice asked, more caught off guard than anything else.

Hobo stood up and turned to us. I kept my gaze eye level.

“Yeah, I’m not in my best. Missiles and all that, y’know?” he said.

“Yeah,” The Blue Justice replied, unsure of how to respond to that.

To be fair, I didn’t know how I would’ve responded either. This was not how I expected our first (and hopefully last) encounter to go down.

“Listen, if it’s all the same to you, I would rather not have to fight naked. And I’m sure it’s even more awkward for you guys. Why don’t we call a truce, and I can get some pants, and we can do this tomorrow?”

I very much wanted to say yes to that arrangement. In fact, that was the best thing I heard all day. I don’t have to fight the super powered crazy man who could crush my skull with his fist? That was a very good deal.

“You’re under arrest,” The Blue Justice put on his gruff voice while I cringed. “Come with us, and we won’t have to hurt you.”

I don’t know if John suddenly thought he could take Mason because the other guy was naked. I mean, the homeless dude did not look imposing in the slightest. He was several inches shorter than John, and he had less muscle. If you were betting man, it was essentially the clown versus the manlet.

But that was forgetting the wreckage of an entire defense fleet now strewn across City 57. I braced myself, ready to teleport Atomic Girl out of there if it came to it.

Mason raised his arms. “Do you really think you can take me? Believe me, I don’t want to hurt any of you.”

“Take the deal, John,” I hissed to The Blue Justice.

This whole thing was a farce, and I didn’t feel like getting killed for it. Let the B-Ranks clean this mess up for all I could care. Fuck Walter and our social media! I didn’t want to die!

The Blue Justice glanced back at me with utter contempt in his eyes. My eyes widened as I realized my mistake, but it was too late. He lunged forward and punched Mason right in the jaw. I heard a loud crack as Mason was sent flying into the city below.

John turned to the rest of us. Putting one foot on the edge like he was trying to be cool, he exploded at us. “Get your shit together! All of you! We’re the Urban Defenders, and this is our city! You're supposed to be fucking heroes! Stop pussyfooting in your boots just because you were asked to do your fucking jobs for once! You’re supposed to put your lives on the line! Stop being crybabies and act like it!”

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That got the others’ attention, but I just crossed my arms and shook my head in disbelief. We weren’t anything. We were—

I didn’t have time to finish my thought when Mason appeared right behind The Blue Justice with vengeance in his eyes. Before John could even turn around, Mason slapped him down into the roof. Almost faster than my eye could track, John went crashing through the concrete, several walls below, and then exploded into a cloud of dust, falling off the side of the skyscraper.

Mason rotated his jaw and rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, so which one of you is going to be next?”

I had my hand on Atomic Girl’s shoulder in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, Yellow Bolt raised his hands and unleashed the full power of a lightning storm on the man. Teleporting us to the roof of another building, I saw gigantic arcs of electricity consume the rooftop we had been on.

“We have to go back there!” Atomic Girl shouted at me. “Rob’s in danger!”

“That’s on him!” I yelled back. “We’re just going to get ourselves killed! What can’t you see about that!?”

“Because Rob’s my friend! And he’s yours too!” Atomic Girl shouted.

I wanted to claw my own eyes. This whole situation was beyond stupid. And just to make things worse, Walter’s voice screamed at me through the watch.

“Nighthawk, what the fuck do you think you’re doing!? Get yourself and Atomic Girl back in there, or you’re both getting booted back to Gen Pop!”

“We can’t fight him! He’s going to kill us!” I snapped back at the watch. “The Blue Justice could be dead already! Give us the fucking order to withdraw!”

“You think I care!? We don’t bring in Mason here and now, our whole operation goes under! Everything is ride or die on this! And if you can’t do your job as superheroes, that’s on you.”

I looked over to Atomic Girl who heard every word of that. Her face was ashen white, but I saw the choice had resolved in her mind. “We can do this,” she said. “We just have to work together. We can take him down.”

I wanted to scream at the madness of the situation, but seeing as Walter took retreat off the table, I guess it was ride or die.

“All right,” I said, glancing back to make sure Yellow Bolt was even still alive. Lightning was still crackling, so I guess that was something. “We’re going to make a little revision to the plan. Once I teleport us there, you’re going to keep your distance. Save your energy. This is going to be a war of attrition. Don’t try to restrain Mason. Just keep yourself and Yellow Bolt alive while I find John. You got that?”

Atomic Girl nodded.

I gritted my teeth. It was all completely insane, but I didn’t have a choice either. I put my hand on Atomic Girl’s shoulder, and we were back on the rooftop. Yellow Bolt was still firing electricity at Mason, but he couldn’t keep it up forever. Meanwhile, our favorite homeless man stood there without a scratch on him.

Atomic Girl threw up energy discs, ready to use them as shields if Mason got close. I didn’t know if they would even slow him down. I hoped they would. I turned to go look for The Blue Justice, but I hesitated. I kept my grip firmly on her shoulder, waiting to see what Adam would do next.

“Really?” Mason asked, crossing his arms as he stood totally unharmed in the lightning. “Can we stop now? I don’t have anything against you, but if you keep trying to annoy me, I’ll finish this.”

“You know what? How about we talk this out?” I begged Yellow Bolt, trying desperately to be the reasonable person in this clusterfuck.

“You don’t get it, do you Daniel?” Yellow Bolt yelled at me, panting for breath. “You think I’m going back to the ASA and Gen Pop? You were born and bred in super camp! Some of us had to claw our way to the top!”

I sighed, so none of us were going to be reasonable. That was fantastic. Continuing to shoot lightning at ultra hobo was obviously going to de-escalate the situation.

“You know, I’m just saying maybe we shouldn’t kill ourselves!” I shouted at the idiot.

“Yeah, well,” Yellow Bolt replied, turning back to Mason. “Some lives aren’t worth living.” And he increased the voltage.

“Your lightning friend makes a good point.” Mason shrugged. “Some lives aren’t worth living. Tell you what, how about you go get blue man and bring him back here, and we’ll finish this once and for all.”

“Fuck all of you!” I teleported away. And as much as hated it, The Blue Justice was the only one who made so much as a bruise on this guy. I could only hope he was still in one piece.

Well, I found our beloved leader laying on a pile of broken glass in the side of a nearby building. His face was bloodied and purple. There were cuts and scrapes all over him, but he was alive and conscious, which was a lot more than I was expecting. He struggled to sit up.

“That son of a bitch.” He wiped the blood away from his nose. “Just give me a minute, I need—” He fell back on the floor.

I could tell he was out of this fight, or he soon would be if Mason got his hands on him. The guy was in a different league altogether. There was no chance we could beat him—and I was the only one willing to admit that. My heart fell in my chest as I realized that, if something didn’t change, the whole team was going to get killed.

“Teleport me back.” John groaned. “And I’ll get back in the fight.”

“You’re an idiot. You know that?”

“I’m a superhero.” The Blue Justice spat out very red blood. “Can’t back down. Got nothing else.”

“Can you just stop with the act for just—” I shut up when I saw the look on John’s face. He was desperate. He was trying his hardest to keep things together, but broken and bloodied as he was, he couldn’t hide that look of fear in his eyes.

I never really understood John or why he did what he did. To be honest, I never tried to begin with. But I think I began to understand then. Being a superhero was the only good thing we were allowed to be. It was the only good thing we had going for us, especially after all the terrible things we’ve done. And though it was just a social media fad, John needed it to be real. He needed some small part of it to be real, even after all the bullshit photoshoots and the interviews and the autographs. He was just broken as the rest of us, searching for something he could cling to.

I had hated his guts ever since I met him, but right then and there, I couldn’t bring myself to throw him back in that meat grinder. I didn’t want to see any of them die, not even him. And I realized that I was the only one left who could be the adult in the room.

I held my hand out, and John took it, stumbling to his feet. He fell onto my shoulder, and I had to support him to keep John upright.

“Come on,” he grunted. “Let’s finish this.”

“Yeah,” I replied somberly. “Let’s end it.”

I teleported him halfway into a concrete floor. He wasn’t injured—mass got displaced whenever I teleported. Instead, he was stuck waist deep, too weak to get out.

“What are you—”

I kneeled down to meet him eye level. “I’m not going to say I ever liked you John, but I think… I think your heart is in the right place. And I respect what you’re trying to do.”

“Get me out!” He yelled at me.

“Listen, fuck you… but I also think you could be a good leader one day. If the Urban Defenders survive this, just put the team first before kissing Walter’s ass. You want to be a superhero? You can at least be one for them.”

His eyes widened. “What are you—?”

I took off my watch. Walter would rather see his C-Rank team die than give us the order to back down, and I wasn’t going to let that happen. I knew he was serious this time, and I think for the first time since I joined the Urban Defenders, so was I. Dropping the watch on the ground, I smashed it with my foot.

“See ya, John.”

I teleported out. I grabbed Yellow Bolt first and placed him on the bottom floor of the skyscraper. He didn’t have a chance to react before I left him. I grabbed Atomic Girl too and took her away to another rooftop. I kissed her on the cheek.

“This is probably it for me.”

Taking one last look at her, I smiled. She really was the most beautiful girl in the world.

Her look turned to panic as she realized what I had done. “Wai—”

I was back on the roof with Adam Mason who looked bemused at this sudden turn of events.

“What’s this?” He asked.

“I’m sorry my dumbass friends thought they could take you.” I took off my purple hawk mask and tossed it away. “And I don’t want them to die. Please don’t kill them.”

“I don’t know.” Adam shrugged, rubbing his chin. “I just wanted to enjoy my night, and I’ve had nothing but trouble. I let your friends go, and who’s to say they won’t be knocking on my door in a few days time?”

“They won’t, at least, I don’t think they will. The big guns are going to be rolling in soon. You’ve riled up a lot of people, and they’re all going to be coming for you.”

Mason laughed. “Let em try.”

“That’s on you, man. Just please let my friends go. They don’t understand a thing.”

He paused, thinking for a moment. “You know, I heard your boss on the watch. It looks like you’re breaking orders. Going off the reservation and all that.”

I winced at that. I was not going to be looking forward to the near future. I didn’t feel like going back to Gen Pop or whatever future Walter would devise for me.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Let me tell you, if there’s anything I learned today, it’s that you’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

I looked at his lack of clothes. “I can see that.”

Mason glanced down. “Yeah, this isn’t my proudest moment. Not exactly the best time to make a pitch, I know. But screw it. Your teleportation powers could come in handy for a clean getaway, and I got the muscle to take care of the rest.”

“You suggesting we team up?”

Mason shrugged. “Got anywhere else better to go?”

“No,” I said. “Nowhere.”