Adam Mason

I struck off Cosmic Warrior’s head with a chop of my arm. The two of us fell onto the wet asphalt, grasping one another. His fingers relaxed, and I panted exhausted as I let go of the man’s corpse. The rain fell like many tiny hammers upon me.

The fight had not been long, but it had taken so much out of me. To be honest, I was surprised I had made it this far. I had leapt at Iron Shield first only for Cosmic Warrior to fling me to the ground with ten times Earth’s gravity. For any other man, it would’ve been instant death. A normal guy’s bones would’ve snapped, and his flesh would’ve turned to paste.

But instead, I stood up and looked my enemy right in the eye. Pushing myself off, I left a much deeper impact crater and went for Iron Shield again. He wasn’t the main threat. In fact, he was the weakest among them. But I didn’t want to fight the Alpha Trio. I didn’t want any of this. I wanted to end this battle as quickly as I could. I held the iron man in my grasp, ready to let him go if the others only stood down.

They didn’t.

I ran my arm through Iron Shield’s chest, and I ripped out his iron heart. Dropping him on the ground, I didn’t fly away or try to dodge their next attack. I was still hoping that they might second guess themselves, that they might give up. Anyone with sense would’ve surrendered. Anyone with sense would’ve stood down.

But instead, Lance Bain blasted me with a torrent of fire. I was enveloped with heat that should’ve disintegrated a normal man. You don’t really understand temperature until you’ve been put inside a fireplace—or maybe a furnace. Until then, you can only grasp the idea of pain. It’s never really real until you experience it.

Not to say I experienced it, but what I understood at that moment was the sheer desperation with which Lance Bain had been trying to kill me. I felt it with the sting upon my skin, the same kind of wince one might feel with alcohol on a wound.

I rose out of the flame—once again naked—but no less impaired. I was really annoyed how my clothes couldn’t keep up with my powers. That’s the side of superheroes they don’t like to tell: how many times you have to fight utterly naked. I guess the media was embarrassed by it. I couldn’t blame them, but it still felt dishonest. There’s an odd penchant to pretend mere fabric could contend with the superhuman.

We took to the sky. Cosmic Warrior bent gravity and space to his will. I was slammed into buildings and down to the ground and back up into the sky again and again. I tried flying towards him to snap his neck, but each time he teleported away. It wasn’t like Daniel teleportation. It seemed to take great effort on his part.

Each time he whisked himself away, I saw sweat grow on him. He was panting heavily. And in between the blasts of flame that Lance tried to scorch me with, I saw weakness growing in the purple warrior of the Alpha Trio. As we danced our violent tango in the sky, I knew Cosmic Warrior couldn’t keep up. And while I had more than a grudge to settle with Lance Bain trying to burn me alive, Cosmic Warrior turned out to be the more annoying thorn in my side.

He raised his arms as I flew towards him, trying to teleport away again. But this time I made a feint. As light contorted to carry him somewhere else, I had already predicted his destination. With a force that defied physics, I suddenly flew myself perpendicular to my previous trajectory, appearing just in front of where Cosmic Warrior appeared.

He only had a second to gasp before I took hold of his neck and decapitated him. Blood coated my arms, and I hoped it was the last blood I had to spill this day.

I landed on the street, hoping against hope that it was over. Lance Bain, ultimate pyromancer that he was, landed just a few dozen feet away. Jets of flame flickered under his hands as he took stock of me once again.

“Just walk away, man,” I told him, more tired than anything else.

I didn’t want to kill anyone. I never ever wanted to kill anyone. I just wanted to be left alone and given a few months to live my life. But for some reason, the world just wouldn’t let that be in the cards. It wasn’t fair that I had to kill these two already. But here I was. And there he stood.

“You know I can’t do that,” Lance replied as he paced in the downpour of rain. “Don’t have a choice.”

“No, that’s wrong,” I told him. “You always had a choice. Every day, every minute, every second of your life, you had a choice. And today, you made the one that got your buddies killed. So walk away now before I kill you too.”

I didn’t say it with any malice in my heart. It was just the cold, hard truth. Lance Bain looked over to the corpses of his teammates. I didn’t know how close he was to them, but I could see the grief on his face.

Coming here, I didn’t intend to be a murderer. And strangely enough, I felt sorry for the man who had just tried to kill me. At that moment, I would’ve done anything to make him walk away. It was funny. I had all the power in the world, and yet the one thing I wanted—to spare this man’s life—was out of my control.

Maybe I could break his legs. Maybe I could break every bone in his body. But I couldn’t break his desire to kill me. And while I could try to take this slowly, more reinforcements would be arriving. I didn’t have the time to make this a test of wills.

I was never much of a religious man. I don’t think I ever liked the idea of God. Not that I ever had a good reason to. I’m a spiteful guy, and I’ll own up to that. But at that moment, given my power, I could only imagine then what he must feel. All the power in the world, and all you desperately want to do is let the other guy off the hook. I would’ve done anything—said anything—to make him stop.

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But in the end, it was all up on him to make that choice.

“You don’t have to take orders from the Democratic Union. Listen man, take it from me. It sucks, but it’s better on this side of the line. You really want to live the rest of your life like this?”

Lance Bain looked at me. I could see him weighing the decision in his head. No doubt part of that was that he knew I could and would kill him. But that’s the thing with people. They don’t think they can die, not really. They always think they’re somehow going to get out of it, especially people who’ve lived on a silver platter their entire lives. Lance Bain saw I was weak and tired and that my heart wasn’t in it.

I could see it in his eyes that he thought he had a chance of beating me. And then he could go back to a hero’s welcome—back to all the comforts of his old life. And that was the only calculation in his head, really. He wanted the Supe’s life more than anything, and even though he didn’t know it then, today he was going to die for it.

I saw him make his choice.

“You son of a bitch,” I groaned as I muttered under my breath.

Lance raised his hands, but I was faster. My hands were grasping his head, and before he had a moment to cry out, I snapped his neck.

I caught his body and gently laid it on the ground. I wish I had a spot to bury him, but a city street wasn’t exactly the best place for a grave. Instead, all I could do for him was place his arms over his chest and make him look dignified.

Stepping from the body, I once again had time to take in my surroundings. It was still pouring rain. The damage of the fight was mostly contained in the street and the surrounding buildings. Huge chunks and gashes and scorch marks littered the area, but it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. This place never looked great to begin with.

I noticed a lot more activity in the buildings than earlier. There were the usual people streaming on their phones, but I noticed the weird static again. They were much closer now, watching in the windows instead of hidden deep away in the buildings. I could make out features—guys in black and blue military uniforms.

They were in pockets of three and four all around me. And it looked like they were setting some tube-like contraptions near the windows. They were very large, requiring trick-pods to be set into the floor. They looked unwieldy, and I didn’t know really what they were trying to do.

Looking directly at one, I called out to the soldiers. “Hey! You know you tried killing me with missiles, right!? I don’t think—”

It wasn’t so much that I registered an impact so much as my entire senses just became pain. It was bad, unbearably so. I think I screamed, but I don’t know. I think I fell down, but I couldn’t be sure. Everything was just suffering, agonizing noise.

The pain died down a little for a second.

And then it flared up just as bad as it was before. I didn’t realize such torture was possible, even before I had superpowers. If I had been playing God a few seconds ago, then this was my crucifixion. Blood poured out of my nose and ears, and I think my skin broke into open wounds.

It became a cycle. The pain lessened for a second, then renewed with more and more intensity. I was dying and dying slowly.

It was the kind of pain where the mere effort of doing anything seemed impossible. You just wanted to lie down and take it until you were dead. Mere existence seemed too much to bear, and I craved oblivion.

But there was also a part of me that was laughing.

You have to understand. I had begun to fear that I would never feel anything ever again. The pain was a reminder that I was alive, and I was still human. And the really funny thing was, after several minutes of suffering incarnate, I got used to it.

I can only imagine what those military guys must’ve felt when they saw me get up to one knee. The bloodied wreck of a man that I was, I can only imagine what I looked like. Through hazy red vision, I grinned at them.

They really did pick the wrong fight.

I put all my force behind what I did next. And I’m not talking about halfway or three quarters or any of that bullshit. I mean, I put all of my strength behind it. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t have the control to do otherwise. It seemed I finally got my wish of seeing my limits, but the trouble was I didn’t “see” much of it.

Through the static noise, I was vaguely aware of a huge explosion of force. Then all I saw was building, and I think more blood, though it was really hard to tell. I saw air and then building then air and then a little more building. None of it hurt. At least, I don’t think it did so any more than the incredible pain I was already in.

I was vaguely aware that I landed. And for a long time, longer than even I understood, I was stuck in this delirium of half-consciousness and more pain. But unlike before, I was slowly getting back to my senses. Strength would’ve been the wrong word. I knew I had been hurt bad, really bad. It was all I could just to stay conscious.

As I looked up into the dark sky, I saw a flash of lightning. I weakly lifted myself up in the air—I didn’t have the strength to move my body. I tilted myself vertically, and it still took several minutes to comprehend what I saw.

It was like someone had taken a huge gash to the city. Buildings were sagging, half collapsed, or outright reduced to unrecognizable rubble. The damage extended at least a mile, where it looked like someone had bombed out a portion of City 57.

It took me a few more moments to realize what that meant.

“Shit.” I groaned as I realized just how many people I probably killed.

I’m not going to lie. It broke my heart that I had just caused a lot more pain and suffering to others than I ever intended. Just looking at the absolute devastation made me suddenly wonder if the Democratic Union had it right on superpowers. If one person could cause all this…

But in the grand scheme of things, they were the ones who picked this fight. I may not have been a good guy, but they certainly weren’t either. And if there was the blood of a city on my hands, then there was also the blood of a nation on theirs.

I flew—floated—back to see if I could save anyone. Going back to the ASA headquarters, I saw the street was an unrecognizable crater, and the building I hit was just rubble. The surrounding buildings had heavy damage and most had outright collapsed. The ASA headquarters took serious damage itself, many of its offices and hallways were exposed to the open air. But thankfully, it was still standing.

With my improved senses, I detected someone buried underneath several feet of rubble. I set myself down next to it, and I struggled as I began lifting rocks. It took several awful minutes, but I finally lifted a piece of concrete, and I saw it was one of the black and blue guys. He had protected himself with a force field, and he looked terrified when he saw bloody me standing over him.

I offered him a hand. “Up on your feet, soldier. I don’t want to kill you.”

He pushed himself up and began running away as fast as he could. I was left standing there alone in the desolation and ruin. I looked tiredly as the soldier ran out of sight. Sighing, I just let myself stand in that awful rain. At least one man today had the good sense to run.

“That’s a lot of damage! Do you think you got it all out of your system!?”

I turned, and I saw up above Seattle Vance standing on a floor of the ASA building. And behind him, I saw a man in a strange uniform holding a big ass gun to his back.