My blood ran cold as the rampager stared me down, letting slip the corpse that it had just impaled. For the very first time, its bloody maw twisted to sound out a string of mangled, yet comprehensible words.

"That was a mean thing you did," it spoke, seemingly amused. It was beyond jarring to hear such banal, almost friendly words slipping past those inhuman teeth. Despite everything I had assumed up to this point, this thing was not only completely human, but totally lucid.

Somewhere in there was a thinking, feeling person.

I couldn't understand how this might be true. Between the form of this super and the unstoppability of his power, it had been easier to think that he was some kind of lab experiment gone wrong, but he wasn't. He was a regular super like everyone else on the field this day, capable of understanding the gravity of his own actions. He was simply uncaring.

Worse than that, it was like he was killing for the fun of it.

This wouldn't have been the first time that a super of immense power lost control of themselves at the dawn of their second birth. I knew from experience; powers came to people at the moment when their grasp on reality was most tenuous. Rampagers were an inevitability of such a dynamic. Yet, his eyes, and the green calm of his aura, were nothing like a man in frenzied delusion. Up to this point I hadn't made much of the green before; I'd written it off as an abnormal psychology presenting itself as clearly as it was able to my power, but now I knew it was reflective of a far more mundane state of being.

This man had all the cool, calm, and clarity of someone at leisure, as if he was playing a videogame he'd already beaten a hundred times before. Realizing this, I had pins of fear rolling over my scalp, and a cold sweat gathering at my brow.

Good God, I thought. He's a genuine psychopath.

I'd never heard of such a thing before. Lunatics went on rampages, and villains robbed banks, but this was something else entirely. Seeing him stand in the middle of the street, surrounded by panting supers who had only moments ago been giving everything they had to put him down, calling off his berserk carnage just for a laugh about the situation, was the uncanniest thing that any of us had seen.

As soon as the heroes realized this same truth, they were just as stunned as I was. Bombardment came down from the sky and shut off his jetpack, immediately barking out orders now that he thought that the thing he was fighting was human. "You must stand down! The Saviors are on their way! Don't be a fool. You know we can hold you here until Void Monger's containment is ready, and you won't get out from that alive. Even though you're a bastard who deserves to rot in hell, there is still a prison waiting for you where you can bide your time until then, but only if you stop this now. We'll show you mercy."

Bombardment was more of a platform for artillery than a recognizable person, but his star-spangled costume and his square jutting jaw was still enough to announce that this was a man in charge. No amount of power was intimidating in the face of one who'd just cracked a joke through teeth soaked in human blood, though, and all he got from the rampager was a dismissive sideways glance.

The monster's focus was entirely on me. His eyes had gone from empty to filled with curiosity in the span of a blink, wondering who and what I was. My focus was more specific, however.

Underneath all the blood and rubble on the monster's body, I saw a deformation in the skin along his forehead. The image of that face leaping towards me a second ago was still seared with perfect clarity into my mind, so there was no doubt about it. That cut there was new. It had been caused while he was knocked unconscious from my power.

It wasn't much, but it was a start. Bombardment was certainly bluffing about the Saviors' coming, which meant we were still totally and utterly screwed; except for the fact that we had found a way through this monster's armor now. Finally, we'd done some damage. It wasn't quite time to be pretending like we had this in the bag, but maybe it was close.

"What was that?" the monster asked me, full of earnestness. His voice was as creepy as you'd expect, but with an average tone and curious affect, coming out more unsettling than overtly scary. "I know about every super in this little city, so you must be new. What do they call you? Say it."

Bombardment was not playing these games. He jetted once to put some distance between himself and the demon as all the supers cleared out in preparation for another showing of his namesake. "Get him out of here!" He said to Stumblebum. "Get him to Wonder Boy and then back in the fight!"

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

The rampager looked between us. The glaze was returning to its eyes. He bared his teeth in a twisted snarl and prepared to tear at Stumblebum and me.

Before I knew what was happening, I found myself laying up against a car out on a deserted street. Stumblebum had dived onto me and teleported, and I had only happened to miss it as I was slipping in and out of awareness. My headaches were now more consuming than my fear of death, and the blowback from my psionic blast earlier was still being felt. Ghosts of electric pain would well up and cause my arm to clutch closely to my chest, or my legs to kick and clench. I needed to keep my eyes tightly closed, or else I risked nausea returning in full force.

"Okay. Shit," Stumblebum swore. He laid down beside me.

I tried to project my voice telepathically with nothing coming of it except a flare of pain at my temples. Instead, I had to painstakingly sound out my words. "H-he had a c-cut."

"Yeah, I noticed that. I think Bombardment did too. This motherfucker can be killed, he's just got to be put to sleep first, I guess. That's what you did, right; mind control him to sleep?"

I shook my head and immediately regretted it. My breaths were beginning to sound wheezy. "I j-just... used pain."

"Wow. Must have been enough to knock him out. So, we get you to Wonder Boy like Bombardment said and then try that little number again but with a some more, uh, gumption on the coup de gras. His ass will be history for sure." Stumblebum clapped loudly and pulled himself back up. "Ugh. Yeah! I'm getting my optimism back here, Adrian. Can you stand?"

It brought on waves of dizziness, but I could stand. It was mainly my arms that weren't responding to me now. It was as if I'd done a hundred pushups more than any man should have. I need not say anything, however, as my movements spoke for themself.

"Okay." My compatriot had his phone out. "Since you seem to be way out of the loop, all you gotta know is that Wonder Boy heals people. That's obvious enough. BUT! I have no fucking clue where he is... Hang on a sec." He raised his mobile to his ear and initiated a call.

My worries began to mount. With us out on this street, we were totally sitting ducks. I heard crashing in the distance that was getting closer. The rampager was letting out a series of feral wails, as if in distress that he couldn't find us.

He said that he knew every super in the city, I thought. Behind his monstrous appearance, that sounds more like a methodical and intelligent personality. Someone who would take great care to make sure that they were striking at exactly the right time and place, when no one around could stop them. Yet, no one could have foreseen that a super with my exact set of powers was waiting at the wings. We must either be very lucky or very unlucky. I'm not sure which.

New Marion was taking a beating today. Of course, if I'd come out of hiding sooner, the rampager might have passed her by for a different city that he felt more comfortable with attacking. But it was good it happened this way.

Given his power, this rampager was only ever going to be stopped by a tremendous stroke of luck. Certainly, he knew that as well. And he wasn't about to just let it happen without a fight.

Perhaps it was a sonic boom that I heard. I only knew that the next thing I felt was the impact.

The rampager had launched himself over the city, right through the defenses of the heroes, and collided with the earth out in front of Stumblebum and I. The shockwave from his impact knocked us apart and put me flat on my back. Since the rampager was doubtlessly unharmed, he wouldn't waste time in following up on an attack. All I could do was sit up and wait to see who got to me first.

Would it be Stumblebum... or him? My fear kept my gaze locked straight ahead, and I waited to see.

The gaunt and pale body blitzed out of the rubble. It was nothing but a blur at this point, ready mince me in a single hit. But not before a hand fell on my shoulder, whisking us both out of harm's way.

With no routes of escape visible, he took a new move to gather some perspective.

For just a moment, we were in freefall over the city. My eyes widened at the sight of New Marion sprawled open from the clear blue sky above. Stumblebum was with me, and he was yelling something I couldn't quite make out. His plastic mask was flapping in the wind and obstructing his vision. He had no choice then but to rip it off and get a clear line of sight. The ground was rushing towards us quickly, and he had to pick a safe spot to set us down.

I felt his grip on my shirt begin to slip and I looked back in panic. Stumblebum was a plain-faced man, with dark eyes and short dark hair. Seeing his expression for the first time, I was taken off guard by just how dead he was emotionally, even as we fell to our doom. Despite his jovial nature, the man looked like there wasn't a soul at all inside him, and his aura had no correspondence whatsoever with his apparent affect.

There was a flash of darkness and then I felt my knees slam against concrete once again. Our momentum has been suddenly stopped without any inertia. Not something that physics normally allowed for and confusing as hell. But it had done the job, and we were safe once again, this time much further away than before.

It would take the rampager quite some time to catch up to us now if he could even find us. Unfortunately, I was throwing up again.

"...Fuck," I swore, short and sweet as I coughed. I'd always wanted to try flying, but not like that.

Stumblebum simply reached into his back pocket and withdrew a backup mask. It was a fabric spiderman head, and he was just barely able to squeeze it on.

"You're telling me,” he said. "I've only got maybe six more of those left in me for the day. Since you've seen my face now, I might as well tell you it does run out. Boy, you're learning quite a few secrets today, aren't you?"

I shrugged. "You know my n-name."

"Fair enough! The man with no secrets is always a magnet for them. Now, let's get you fixed so we can throw you back into the fire."

He pulled out his phone again and resumed right where he'd left off, as if nothing happened.