Levi wiggled the sequined fabric, slowly walking backwards as Blasterman approached. “Come on… a little further…”

Blasterman touched down. His eyes lit up again.

Levi dropped the sequined fabric and darted in, whipping his dagger out from behind his back. He drove it toward Blasterman’s face, reaching out for the man’s hair with his other hand.

Blasterman jerked back. A drop of clarity shone in his eyes. Red light flashed forth.

Levi pushed his arm up. Twin holes burned through his forearm. A hole cut through the edge of his skull, bloody and raw. Grabbing his injured hand with his good hand, Levi thrust it toward Blasterman’s eye. The pain hovered over him, waiting to fall. Before it could, his blade found the man’s eye.

Blood spurted up. Levi twisted his blade before yanking it free. He jumped away. Blasterman stumbled, grabbing his eye, his motions jerky and disorganized.

“Stop killing civilians,” Levi ordered him. A second later, he shrugged. “Guess it’s a bit late for moral lessons, huh.”

Blasterman reached for him. He let the man grab his shoulder and patted his hand. “Hey there, buddy. You don’t look too hot.”

“You… why…”

Levi shrugged. “Do unto others as you would like done unto yourself. You did unto me, so I did unto you.”

Blasterman’s brows furrowed. He sagged, sinking down. “You… how…”

“It’s a mystery to me, too, bud. Trust me.”

Abruptly, Blasterman stiffened. He stared at Levi with his remaining eye. “The Immortal. You. It’s you. I killed you. I—”

Levi smiled. “Yep. Me in the flesh.”

“Alpha…he misses…”

Blasterman went limp. He fell to the ground.

“That’s right. He’s missed me with every bullet yet,” Levi said, tossing Blasterman’s corpse a wink. “Factually false, but conceptually correct.”

The pain struck then, searing into his arm and head. Levi hissed, stumbling back. He backed into a pair of dueling female supers and was thrown forward, wiggling his aching head. He crouched down, wrapping his good hand around the good half of his head.

“Hmm, you know? I knew he couldn’t have armor on his eyes. It’d get in the way of the lasers,” Levi muttered to no one.

The chaos continued. All around him, supers fought supers. Beams and strange emissions flew every which way. Strange monsters and vicious-looking half beasts clashed below.

Levi looked at Blasterman’s body, then dialed Maury’s number. “Haste makes waste,” he muttered to himself. The phone picked up, and he grinned. “Yo! You there?”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“I’m here. Why?”

“Got a body headed your way.”

“Hmph. Alright. I’ll head to the basement.”

“Ready when you are.” Levi hung up. He looked at Blasterman’s corpse, considering, then lunged for it. Patting its pockets down, he stole the man’s cellphone and wallet, then set his cellphone on Blasterman’s chest. He picked the cash out of Blasterman’s wallet and threw it in his pocket. Turning the screen on with a press of a button, he found himself with access to Blasterman’s cellphone.

“Man. These supers. At least set a PIN,” Levi commented. He pulled up the browser and started searching. “Is…there…anyone else here…worth…killing.” There had to be other supers with dark pasts. If he knew anything about supers, it was that most of them had some kind of bullshit in their past.

“Power corrupts. Absolute power makes you an absolute asshole,” he muttered to himself. He scrolled past news articles about supers insulting this group or another, past nonsense about the latest super-on-super drama, past articles about how this super had shamed this other super by rescuing more puppies, or whatever. His brows furrowed. “Come on. Let’s see something meaty, not gossip. Even I’m not going to kill someone over gossip. That’d be insane.”

He kept scrolling. Rose tapped up beside him, tilting her hand-body to the side, almost like a dog. Crouching down beside him, Handel slowly withered in the darkness of the theater, leaning his head against his knees.

Levi smacked his forehead, then instantly grimaced with fierce regret as pain rocked around inside his head. “The news is all curated by Alpha’s minions! Of course there’s no actual bad press on supers in it. I have to find the real news. The tiny stories on social media websites no one cares about.”

Rose tilted the other way. She rumbled.

“What are you doing?” Handel asked.

“Uh…having a quick browse on the social medias. You know. As you do, when you’re in the middle of a mosh pit of mentally altered supers,” Levi said.

Rose bounced in place, letting out a coughing rumble almost like laughter.

Levi looked up, at that. He gazed over the theater, at the torn dresses and ripped suits, the powers flying every which way and the supers beating the crap out of one another. “You know? I think I improved the party, quite honestly. No one likes a boring-ass, stuffy awards show. All the viewers are only watching to see what drama unfolds this year. And I think I brought the drama.”

Rose thought to herself, then nodded.

“What kind of awards do the supers give themselves, anyways?” Levi wondered aloud.

Handel opened his mouth.

Levi quickly lifted his hand. “No, no, no. I don’t actually want to know. I think the knowledge would kill me from the sheer hypocrisy alone.”

Rose leaned in. She bounced in place, her eyes wide.

“Levi, are you hurt?” Handel translated.

“Huh? Oh. It’s just a scratch,” he said, delicately touching the side of his head. Blood poured down his neck, soaking into his shirt. He glanced down. A puddle of blood pooled around his foot.

“Huh.” Levi pursed his lips. “I might not be long for this world.”

Stiffening, Rose bounced in place on her very fingertips, her eyes full of concern. Even Handel raised his brows at that one. “Do you need help? I can take you to the hospital.”

“Nah, nah. It’s fine. I’ve got a healing factor, it was a joke,” Levi said. He turned back to his phone.

Beside him, bright light flashed. Blasterman’s body vanished. His phone clattered to the floor.

“There we go.” Levi snatched his phone back and put it in his pocket. His vision darkened at the edges, threatening to blacken. He leaned back, barely able to hold his head up, and took a deep breath. “You two. Handy and Big boy.”

Rose and Handel looked at him.

“I’m about to pass out so I can get to healing. Watch over me while I’m KO’d, okay?” Levi asked.

Rose rolled onto her side and gave him a thumbs up. Handel nodded, just a little. He lowered his hand over Levi, encapsulating him in a green tent of plant fingers.

“This isn’t what it usually means to pitch a tent,” Levi chuckled, a little lightheaded. His body grew colder by the moment. He laid down and closed his eyes, waiting for the darkness to take him.

[You lost a life!]

[Lives remaining: -17258]

DEBUG: Corruption Level Medium [WARNING] | Ability Points non-degraded | status GOOD

Press X to reallocate your ability points.