There was nothing worse than having a great dream of the past, only to be forced awake by the piercing sound of a phone ringing. Jack groaned, his eyes opening and burning from a beam of sunlight. The man growled and turned over as he set up. The nearest clock read that it was around lunchtime. Typically, he worked evenings to nights, so this was quite early for him to wake up.
There was ringing coming from the pile of clothes he had dropped when he first got home. He stumbled towards it, wiping sleep from his eyes and finding the phone in one of the pockets. Only one place ever calls him.
“Talk to me.”
“Hey, Jack! We got a new recruit over in the Squad and hoped you could come in early and help train them.” The voice of his boss blared through the phone. “You’ve been here the longest, so I figured you’d be the best for it.”
“I’m not the one who normally trains new recruits. Wait... Do we even train recruits?” He sighed, rubbing his eyes. He had just been thrown into the deep end when he first got the job. On top of that, he had never been asked to train someone in the fifteen years he had worked here. Most people quit after a week, maybe a year, due to the conditions.
“This one is a little special.” His boss admitted. “Just get down to the office when you can. That’s an order.”
“Sure thing, boss.” He closed his flip phone and rubbed the sleep away from his eyes. “Maybe the overtime will be worth it.”
The ride over to the office wasn’t long. He lived close by. “Hey, Jack! Welcome! C’mere.” The voice of his boss shouted at him. There was almost no one else in the building. Most of the workers were either stalling before they’d have to head out or had already left for another big job.
“Yo boss. So, where’s the new part-timer?” His words stopped as he entered the small office building and saw his boss, a thin man in a suit who only managed the paperwork and bills, never actually doing any of the physical work, standing next to a young girl.
The girl couldn’t have been older than fifteen, maybe even younger. She was so young, he would guess she was still in school. She wore a red T-shirt with the famous pop singer hero on it. Her raven hair was long and wild, and her eyes were a childish bright blue, the kind that hadn’t reached adulthood yet, hidden behind a set of round glasses. She was young. Just a kid.
A very familiar kid at that. Instantly, he could tell she recognized him. They both stared at each other in shock, processing it. Oleander was a massive city with dozens of areas and living conditions. What were the actual odds of running into one another again?
The girl practically jumped when the boss clapped her on the back. “Mr. Larison, you remember my son Armin, right? Well, this girl here is one of his friends. I thought it would be best to introduce the two of you. Hope here has been acting up a bit at school. It’s a Monday, and she got kicked out. It’s not the first time, and at this rate, I doubt it’s going to be the last. Her mother’s a good friend of mine, and long story short, she’s gonna be working here to teach her a lesson.”
The girl flinched at the man’s words. “It’s not that big of a deal.” Hope muttered bitterly.
“So why me?” He wondered, scratching at his beard.
His boss gave him a larger grin. “Well, since she’s a kid and all, we don’t wanna have her being pushed too far, and you’re always complaining about how you need someone to keep track of the tools and what goes where, so I figured you could use a little bit of extra eyes. Also, Hope is really into superheroes. Her mother even threw her a hero-themed party last year and somehow convinced me to come dressed as Max Lightning.” The boss’s words caused the girl’s face to flush, and she looked like she wanted to murder the man for a second. “You know a lot about heroes, so I figure it would give her something to talk about.”
The girl's eyes traced him over dozens of times, and he found himself gritting his teeth. She seemed smart enough to not blab anything in front of the boss, so that was good at least. “Sure.” He finally said through a clenched jaw. “I would love to. I have just the job for her.”
***
That’s how Hope found herself in an itchy jumpsuit, plugging her nose to prevent the stench of the very dead monster from hitting her. She had no idea how the others were seemingly fine with the conditions, but none of the Cleanup Squad members batted an eye as they hacked into the beast.
“Isn’t this a little too fast?” She asked. Armin’s dad, the friend her mother had been talking about, was nowhere to be found back at the office, where it was nice and safe. She was left in the hands of Jack Larison.
As it also turned out, Jack’s idea of a secretary was someone who did literally the same job as everyone else.
“Nope,” Jack said, letting out a pop sound. The man handed her a very heavy-looking metal rod, which she easily held. “Look, while they’re working on that dead monster, we’re gonna be working on some of these buildings. Go find some blocks and chop away at them. Have fun.” He left her standing there while he reached into his pocket and lit up a cigarette. The man made his way over to a group of workers that seemed to be playing poker on a flat piece of detached bone.
Thanks to her enhanced hearing, she heard the entire thing, and it caused her teeth to grind. “It's been a while since we had a girl on the team.” One of the men muttered unhappily. “She’s too young, slowing us down.”
“You’re not even teaching her anything, Jack?” Another one asked.
“Teach her what? The rare skill of picking up bricks? It’s not my job to babysit some brat.” Jack spat out.
“Don’t you feel a little bad for her?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a little?”
“Nope.”
“Do you really have a heart?”
“Nope. Sold it.”
One of the men chuckled, leaning back on what was left of a streetlamp. “How long do y’all think she’ll last before she goes whining to mommy to take her out?”
Jack ignored the man, watching her work. Her arms shook as she tried to stab her tool into the stone blocks in order to move it out of the road. Today, they were at the site of a collapsed building that had been tossed over by the rampaging monster. A Super merch store, judging by the scattered replicas of various heroes’ weapons.
“Looks like she’s having trouble. Anyone wanna help?” One of the workers asked.
Only Jack knew just how wrong the others were. She looked like she was struggling. Key word being ‘looked’. Despite how heavy she made the stones look, she wasn’t sweating, grunting, or even looking tired, and her awkward movements looked more like someone going out of their way to do things slowly to waste time rather than put effort into it. The man’s eyes narrowed as he watched her work.
Jack sighed and moved over to her. “You’re gonna throw your back out.” He stated when he reached her.
“How so?” She grunted as she managed to get the block up. It was a piece of stone from one of the supports that held the wall up. She placed it in a barrel and nearly collapsed to her knees, feeling a dull pain in her back. Super strength or not, the things still weighed more than most people could carry, and while it wasn’t hard, it was hurting a little.
The tools weren’t easy to use. A thin needle, yet long like a spear. It was made to stab and then latch onto whatever it was in, allowing them to move it, similarly to a weight.
“Don’t lift them like that.” Jack barked, walking up to one and raising it. “Watch me.” He stabbed it down as hard as he could. It barely made a dent in the stone, but he pushed all his weight into it. “Once you get this in, you want to turn it as best you can.” He grunted a little, steadily twisting the spear. It took a few seconds, but it pushed further in. “Next, you need to turn it over and not lift it with your back.” He pushed his weight into it, letting gravity and his body tip the stone over. “Then you wanna lift it with your legs the best you can. You’ll throw your back out if you keep lifting it like that.” He placed the spear over his body, lifting it like a barbell, using his legs to push himself up.
Jack lifted the rock and dropped it into the barrel. Despite how easy it seemed to look, she could tell that it was something most people would struggle with. Yet not this man.
“See. It’s easy.” Jack was a little winded and couldn’t stop clutching at his chest every now and then, but he wasn’t nearly as tired as the other workers.
She stared for a second before moving to one and trying it the way he showed her. She took it slow and made it look like she was struggling. It was even easier to lift it, though, forcing the weight into her legs. “That is easier, I guess.”
There was silence in the air as they worked. Broken by her stare once more. “What?” The man asked in annoyance.
“You’re a superhero, aren’t you?”
“Nope.”
“But you had powers-”
“Keep it down, will ya.” Jack groaned. The man took a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Yes. I have powers. I ain’t a hero. Not a villain either. Not everyone with powers dresses up in tight costumes and fights crime. I’m just plain old Jack Larison. A nobody.”
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“I don’t get it.” She shook her head and frowned. “If you had powers, why wouldn’t you be a hero?”
“Not everyone has the same dream that you do, kid. Trust me, the world would be a lot better if it were so black and white.”
“It can be, though! If you have the ability to help someone, then you should. Powers or not, if everyone just attempted to help other people, the world would go a lot smoother.”
Jack turned away from her and picked at the debris in front of him with his spear. He didn’t know why, but her words made him mad. They weren’t the first time he had heard that after all. In a way, she reminded him of ‘that man’ from so long ago. It really pissed him off. Little did he know though things were about to get way worse.
He was about to have a very bad time.
***
The sound of ringing bounced off of the walls of the sewers as Ears moved forward. The villain normally traveled alone, but today he had been placed on a team with Intake. It was likely Polaron’s way of punishing them both for him failing to bring Intake to the bank.
Ears’ costume wasn’t like most other villains. It wasn’t fancy or interesting. Instead, it was a tattered brown cloak barely clinging together with dozens of black phones and walkie-talkies stitched into the side of it. Every step the villain took caused more ringing to pour out as he walked down the tunnel of the sewer and found their partner.
“I’ll make him pay; I’ll make him pay; I’ll make him pay-” Intake was on all fours; the villain’s body had already fully healed. The man’s flesh was made out of the jagged stone of the sewer, and claws dug into the ground as their head morphed and expanded out like a hound's. “I smell him!”
“Smell who?” Ears’s voice bounced around the tunnel, coming out distorted and layered as it emerged from all the phones he wore.
“The man who mocked me.” Intake howled and began to stand up. “I smell him and that girl as well! I’ll make both of them pay!”
“This man you speak of… Is it the one I had to teleport you away from?” Ears questioned.
“Yes!” Intake let out a guttural growl and began to absorb more of the stone, growing in size. “The golden man. I’ll slaughter him!”
Ears folded his arms and hummed. “We have a job to do right now. Polaron wants us to scout out these tunnels and discover the base of Red Ape, a member of Zoo. We don’t have time for-”
“To hell with what Polaron wants!” Intake smashed both his arms down into the ground, shaking the entire tunnel system. “I want to kill that man! I will kill him! I’ll rip him up and beat him to death with my own two hands! I won’t be humiliated by him again!”
Ears just let out a low sigh and reached into the front of their cloak, bringing out a vial of yellowish liquid. “If this is so important you’ll refuse to obey our leader, then I’ll have to insist you take this.”
Intake caught the glass jar and held it with two fingers, bringing it closer to his eyes. “What the hell is this?”
“Something we stole from a Wandering Coin base that we attacked. It should give you the edge you need.”
Intake’s eyes narrowed, but the villain unhinged his jaw and tossed the liquid, glass and all, into his mouth, swallowing it whole. It took effect almost instantly. The monster dropped to his knees and gasped, clawing at his gut as a rumble began to course through him. The villain could feel power. A lot of it. Bubbling up and fusing its way into his DNA.
The tunnel was filled with the sound of laughter as Intake’s body began to grow…
***
The rest of their workday was mostly busy. They moved stones, picked up shards of glass, cleaned up debris, and managed to get the building stable. They had to clean the inside up as well.
Soon, though, with the setting sun turning the sky a faint red, it was time to pack up. “We’re heading out, Jack.” Some of the workers called.
“Go on ahead.” Jack waved them off. “I parked my car at the end of the road, so I’ll head back last. I’m gonna do some quick check-ups. I wanna make sure the other crew didn’t screw up my work on the giant monster. If they pull another rib out of a wall without checking how secure it is, I’m gonna flip.”
“Sure thing!”
When everyone was gone, he began looking over their work throughout the city. It’d be back up in no time at the quick rate they were going, finally though he arrived at the center of the street where the massive corpse that had caused all of this rested. By now, it was loaded with hundreds of harnesses, and machines hummed around it, though no one else was present.
It was quiet. Too quiet. There was not a sound on the block. Everyone else had packed up. There’d likely be a midnight crew that would do more work, but none of them arrived. For now, it was simply peaceful.
So that was why, when Jack heard the faintest sound, it caused his hair to stand up. The silence had been broken by a noise so quiet that he thought he had imagined it. But just when he figured his mind had played a trick, he heard it again. A scratching sound. One directly in front of him. It was coming from the beast. He had gone through it nearly a dozen times, though; there was no way anything was in it.
Perhaps a worker who was trapped? It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. The last time it did, the worker had gotten a crazy plague and started a mini-Zombie outbreak, and the entire city had been placed into lockdown.
He missed Chrysanthemum City.
He placed his hand on the scales and tried to listen. He didn’t feel anything, and the sound seemed to have suddenly halted. “Hello? Anyone there.” He felt a little goofy, asking the corpse. He was glad no one was around. The silence had come back; the scratching was gone. “Guess not. You’re a dead animal; why did I think you’d respond?”
“Why are you talking to yourself?”
“Ah!”
Jack jumped and spun when he heard the voice. Standing behind him, he found Hope. Her face turned into a frown as she stared at him with her arms folded.
“Kid! Why are you still here?”
“The boss told you to watch over me. I rode here with you and figured we were leaving.”
“Oh yeah, I’m your ride.”
"Also, I wanted to say thanks.”
“For what?”
“You saved my life, right?” She bowed her head slightly. “I was in way over my head. That villain really almost killed me. I’d be dead if not for you. You were the one who took me to the hospital after, right? You kept my secret safe. I’m glad.”
Jack rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I was young once too. I get it, sort of. Wanting to use your powers for something. I guess at one point in my life, I wanted to be a hero as well. 'Course I’m old and worn down now.” He chuckled. “Only thing waiting for me is the slow crawl of death.”
She turned away but stopped. “I heard that Old Dog was still a hero in his nineties. It’s never too late, you know. You can always do good.”
She tried to walk away and act all cool, but his words stopped her. “You’re a smarter kid than I thought.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Jack chuckled as she shot a glare at him. “I’ll let you know I'm at the top of my class! I’m not just strong but also smart.”
The block had been left mostly barren, with all the workers having gone home and civilians not allowed to enter. The next crew always took their time showing up. It should have been silent save for the two of them, yet an ear-piercing crack filled the air. A loud rumbling caused them both to stop, and the ground began to shake.
Jack felt himself being tackled to the ground by Hope just in time. The spot of the road he had been standing at exploded, firing debris everywhere as something large crashed down in the spot they had been at. He rolled across the ground with Hope in his arms and tried to shield her from the rain of rocks that poured down.
“I knew I wasn’t wrong.” A familiar voice hissed out. “I smelled you. Oh, I must truly be blessed by the Emperor to have run into you both again so soon!”
“You again!” Jack groaned.
Intake was bigger than before. A lot bigger. His muscles bulged out wildly in size, and he was nearly fourteen feet tall. His stone skin was covered in spikes, and he had to walk almost like a gorilla, balancing on his arms, which he held out in front of him. A massive tail also poked out from his rear, sporting a large hammer-like head at the end of it. His nose was long and jutted out with his jaw, almost like a dog's snout.
Her and Mr. Larison tried to climb back to their feet, but the villain was way faster than he had been before.
“Move!” She felt a set of arms shove her down as Jack lunged towards her. One moment, she stared at him, and then the next, that fist hit him.
She could feel the wind ripple around her from the sheer force of the punch. The strike made Jack’s eyes go wide in shock and pain as he was flung high into the air, smashing into the side of a building, breaking through the stone, and causing it to shatter and topple over him.
“Mr. Larison.” Her voice was filled with shock, and she nearly tripped over her own feet.
She felt her heart pounding, and she stared toward the collapsed building. She wouldn’t exactly say he had been a nice man, but he also wasn’t bad. He didn’t deserve to be crushed like that. She stumbled back to her feet, gritting her teeth, and she could feel her blood pumping through her veins.
The villain didn’t even seem phased when she let out a yell and threw a punch. Her rage instantly faded and was replaced with pain when her fist barely left a crack in the creature’s stomach. She did more damage to herself than the monster, and it let out a low chuckle and simply backhanded her across the face.
She cried out in pain, the force of it lifting her off of her feet and sending her crashing down the road several feet with a gasp. He was bigger, stronger, and tougher than he had been before. She wasn’t a superhero. She was just a young girl compared to him.
She could feel blood dripping down her lip; the villain had busted it once more, and her face stung. She was utterly outclassed.
Its hand came down before she could stand back up, grabbing her by the top of her head. She tried to scream, but the pain caused her to gasp instead as the villain began to slowly squeeze. Her skull felt like it was about to pop, and no matter how much she tried to pull herself out of the monster’s hands, she was unable to get it to budge.
The pain got worse, getting tighter and tighter as tears began to roll down her face. Just when it was about to get too much, it suddenly stopped. The beast roared in pain as something smashed into its face from out of nowhere, hard enough to cause it to stumble back. Its grip loosened, and she felt herself slide down, landing on her knees. A set of arms wrapped around her, and someone carried her away from the monster.
“Are you okay?” The voice of Jack asked his arms around her.
She looked up at the man with wide eyes, shocked to see he was fine, and was wielding a stop sign he had ripped out of the ground to smack the beast. “You’re alive?” She said, stunned.
“It’ll take more than that to put this old man down.” He almost sounded like he was joking, but his eyes were serious, and he stared at the villain on full alert. “He must be juicing or something. He got stronger way too quickly.”
She bit her lip, staring at the monstrous creature. A real supervillain, the one she had seen heroes fight many times. This wasn’t like the school bullies or even the gang members. This was a certain death for a normal person. “So, what do we do?”
“You run as fast as you can, kid,” Jack told her simply.
“But what about you?”
“I’m gonna stay here and make sure this thing doesn’t hurt anyone.” Jack raised his makeshift weapon.
“You’ll die!”
The man snorted. “Did you forget the night I saved you? I’m strong. Crazily so, in fact.”
“But you just said that guy is juiced up on something? Can you beat him as he is?”
Jack reached out and flicked her on the head. “I outrank you. I’m the adult here, got that? Which means I make the shots.” She was pushed by him in a direction away from the creature. “Please hurry. I don’t want to die, so save me quickly, okay, Ms. hero?” And like that, she felt her instincts kick in as her legs began to run. She looked back, seeing his smile.
With a turn, she left him to his fate and ran faster than she had run in her life.