Stumblebum had put in the call. Our meeting place with Wonder Boy was set for a park on the southern bay of New Marion. To get there, he was happy to show off his skills in hotwiring a car, and there were plenty of them abandoned to choose from. Once outside the rampager's path of destruction, the roads were clear and open, but without a single soul on them. All had become a ghost town.

We chose a blue Camaro because that made my new friend happy, and I was told not to fall asleep as we drove. I didn't think that I was at any risk of dying, however. It wasn't as if I was experiencing significant blood-loss. I simply couldn't think straight through the pain coming from my power. What little damage the rampager had done colliding into me was a distant thought compared to the unnaturally heightened stimulus it was causing in my arms and head.

Still, it was probably for the best. I watched the world fly by as we drove and kept an eye out for the water. We wouldn't see it until our final arrival though, as we had to pass into a national park first, just off the highway, and the trees were obscuring.

We chose this spot, not because it was the closest for either party, but because it was likely to throw off the rampager's path. According to the reports that Stumblebum gave, the heroes and villains were still trying to slow him down as he searched for us. It was as if the monster had nothing better to do. The destruction he caused was seemingly incidental, as he was far more interested in testing out his power; that was my guess, anyway.

When we pulled down a sloping road to an expansive parking lot, I saw Wonder Boy standing below at the bay boat-launch. As soon as he saw us, he walked over to the nearest pavilion, someplace we could get out of the sun, and waited. On my own I could stumble well enough to get there, but I was helped along just in case. We didn't want to make any more work for this hero than we had to with me faceplanting on the concrete.

Wonder Boy was dressed up in a spacesuit, complete with a big domed helmet of one-way glass topping off his head. The retro aesthetic he was going for was probably my favorite thing that I'd seen today. Not that it mattered much. His design was functional, and the cool factor was merely a nice side-effect.

His voice came out with a techno-filter from a speaker on his chest, right beside a host of fun light-up buttons. "I might as well hit both of you," he said, looking to Stumblebum.

"Eh, better not to waste it. Drugs have no effect on me."

I sat down at the bench and watched Wonder Boy raise up his hand. At the wrist there was a spray nozzle that, once a button had been pressed, released a stream of strange purple gas. He beckoned me to lean my face in and instructed, "Breathe deep. Get four good inhales."

Immediately, I felt a headrush that had me almost fall out of my seat. Tingling began to build first in my chest and spread outwards. The buzz took away the pain as quickly as my blood was able to pump it through my body, and when the rush had passed, my eyes popped open with wild electric fervor.

Stumblebum hadn't been exaggerating. This was one hell of a drug.

Wonder Boy was more than a one-trick pony, though. "You've got cracked ribs, a slow puncture in your lung, and some minor internal bleeding in the abdominal cavity. Not to mention this nerve exhaustion, which I don't know the technical term for. My nanites will be done very shortly."

"You're in good hands," Stumblebum said, slapping me on the shoulder now that he could get away with it. He kept a wary eye on the horizon, even as he joked. Every time a bird took off and rustled a branch, I could see him snap to look.

"I see older scarring in the neck and chest," Wonder Boy told me, “and unaddressed scar tissue that I have been able to detach. Stimulants have been distributed in crystalline packages throughout the cellular matrix for a slow release. Please exhale a few times to give back my nanites now."

I nodded and did as I was told. The sensation of dust collecting on my tongue to be exhaled was a strange one, but next to my flight earlier, it was downright mundane. Now I just had to see if this had worked in the way it was intended to. With some caution, I tried out my power again by a simple projection. "Hello?"

"Oh, shit," Stumblebum gasped. "Have you been talking using your power this whole time?"

"Yeah. You didn't notice my mouth wasn't moving?"

"I noticed you picked up a stutter after you lost it your bandana, but that was pretty much it."

"I have a surgical mask if you would like one," Wonder Boy interjected. "It is not much, but it will hide some of your features."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

I shook my head. With my name being known to everyone, I didn't think a mask would be that important.

Stumblebum insisted I was wrong. "It's not about keeping it a total secret, Adrian. I don't know what your plans are for after this whole shitshow is over, but people always get the wrong idea about masks. You're gonna be on the TV a lot if you become a hero, and there's a big difference between being recognizable to people who go digging on the internet and being recognizable to every schizoid on a street corner. It's only a matter of time until one of them shanks you because they're convinced you're the one stealing their left socks or gang stalking them. Especially a psychic. God, can't imagine the nutjobs you're going to pick up as fans."

I just stared at him blankly. None of this had crossed my mind up until now, as I'd assumed it was just like in the comic books. Since I didn't have any loved ones to protect, what did it matter if everyone knew my face? "Thanks," was all I said.

"No problem, new guy. I told you I was gonna look after you, didn't I? Well, I'm a dipshit of my word."

Wonder Boy stood up, seeing his job was done. "The same logic holds true of your name, Adrian", he told me. "Some of the villains may know it, but that does not mean you want it released as public knowledge. I suggest you find a suitable nom de plume, and if heroism is the track you choose, I look forward to working with you later on. Farewell."

He stepped right out from under the pavilion and onto the boat ramp. Little by little we watched him descend into the bay until the astronaut had disappeared, swallowed by murky waters. A moment of silence lingered thereafter.

I was deeply lost in thought. "What was it you called me before, Stumblebum?"

"When? I call people a lot of stuff, man. New guy, friendo, baldy, or maybe I just thought that one and didn't say it out loud. You got way too much of a peanut there to keep it shaved. You know, I call Zephyr wind-girl, which I think annoys her only because it's so obviously low-effort. Have you seen that girl's ass?"

I waved the mental imagery he projected away, trying to get him to focus. "No, no, back in the alley, right after your head exploded. Do you remember?"

"Oh! You were spazzing out, yeah, and I stopped you. Umm... I think it was... Headcase?"

"Headcase," I said. "Yeah, I like that a lot."

It had a certain ring to it and a pinch of humor that I loved. If I were to do this whole hero thing, I couldn't imagine being one of those guys that took himself so seriously.

"If that's what you like, sure! Just, uh, maybe sleep on it first, because people are gonna be calling you that for the rest of your life, however short it may be." He was walking back to the car when he broke out in a laughing fit. "It does probably fit you, though!" he shouted back.

I caught up with him and we both loaded into the car. My whole body was energized from toe to tip, and my power felt like it had just been topped off with nitrous oxide; turbo-charged to take on the world. I had to be careful now not to make any stupid decisions, because I could tell whatever Wonder Boy had hopped me up on was affecting my mood, too. Funnily enough, I couldn't see my own aura, but I imagined it was bright purple, just like the gas itself. Pretty sure it was literally just cocaine.

I can see into other peoples' minds, I thought, but not my own. Funny, that.

Stumblebum pulled up the real time map on his phone while he drove and confirmed, "The fight has sidetracked north a bit. Seems like the rampager hasn't got a clue where we've gone, which is good. We'll have the element of surprise when we drop back in on the bastard."

With just a little push, I summoned crackling snaps of yellow electricity back to my fingers. Only having learned this trick today, I was enamored with it now, and watched the psionic energy dance. You might blame me for not experimenting with my power more, but when you're a psychic with a conscience, you don't go around messing with others' brains. No matter how much you might have wanted to.

"You've got six teleports left, right? If you can get me in close, I think I can dial down my power a bit for a more sustainable barrage, which will keep him incapacitated much longer," I said. "Then Bombardment lines up a big shot and you pop us out. Clean execution."

He smirked. "Sounds like a plan... Headcase."

The rest of the ride was quiet. Stumblebum might have been unkillable, but I was very much not so, and that fact weighed heavy on my mind.

We left our Camaro behind at the battle's edge as we arrived and looked around for a nearby rooftop. Not all of them had easy access, but there was one with a nice planter out front that we could mantle to the top. With Stumblebum taking the lead, I turned my eyes to the skyline and searched for friendly figures.

I could clearly make out three people who were sky bound. A skinny girl, a square silhouette, and another man who I didn't recognize. From the rooftop my view was not much better.

Without flinging us into the sky again, Stumblebum lacked the perspective to put us into firing distance.

Using my second sight, I could see that our numbers in the fight had only dwindled further. The eight most mobile and powerful supers remained, but their auras were a grim mixture barely hanging on.

"Hey, what about Zephyr? Can she get us in closer without using one of your teleports?"

Stumblebum was pensive. "Never seen her lift more than two hundred pounds, if I had to guess, and you got some pudge there, fella."

"That's fine. She can take us one at a time."

"Not to the battlefield, she won't! It takes me a second to come back from the dead you know, and if I lose line-of-sight on you for even that long, you're fucking dead."

"To a nearby rooftop, then," I amended. "You first, then me second."

"Can you even hit anything from that far, though?"

At last, I stuck out my hand and aimed it at a car parked across the street. My index finger extended, and my thumb cocked up to form a gun, and with a small push, a dart of energy burst forth. It nailed the sideview mirror, causing no damage whatsoever to the object itself, but disbursing with an impressive little flash, striking right where I had imagined it going.

Apparently, I had aim-assist on.

"Yeah," I said. "I think we can do this."