My brain was slow to catch up, trying to make sense of what was happening.
A slab of concrete broke from the floor and flipped up as a shield.
In less than a second, the rumble escalated to full on destruction. A blast wave tore apart the area around us. Rocks, lockers, and books were flying past me as I was shielded by the slab that Becks had raised to protect us.
“Mi—” Ryan coughed, splattering my face with blood.
My arms were around his shoulder, but I realized I was supporting his weight. He felt a whole lot lighter than he should have.
Several wet plops sounded at my feet, and it was with horror that I looked down. There was a reason that I was holding his weight, or more appropriately, half of it.
From the waist down, Ryan was gone. His guts were falling out of his chest as he looked at me in stunned horror. The slab of concrete hadn’t been big enough to protect him.
“Ryan.” My voice was hoarse, cracked. The words tore themselves out of me.
“Miles.” Becks grabbed my shoulder. “We need to go. Now.”
I heard her words, but I couldn’t even process them. My mind wasn’t working, still focusing on Ryan as the life faded from his eyes. I stood there holding his torso, unable to move.
I just continued to stare, refusing to admit I’d lost another person.
“Miles.” Becks shook me. “You’re in shock, but I need you with me.” She pulled my head away from Ryan, and I dropped him. He didn’t even groan.
That’s when I realized the damage.
My high school was gone, reduced to a pile of rubble. Among it, a few students groaned and shifted in the chunks of concrete, barely clinging to life.
It had been so sudden.
If not for Becks, I’d be dead too. I was glad that she was safe. I found myself thankful that she was an S class super and trained as a hero.
“What do we do, Becks?” I finally pulled myself out of the shock, at least for a moment.
A yellow flash shot past us from somewhere behind the concrete slab that Becks had used to shield us.
Thunderwoman wheezed, her chest caved in. Blood dribbled out the side of her mouth. She turned and saw Becks, she was trying to say something, but no words came out.
Two more heroes joined Thunderwoman, crashing into the remnants of the high school. Both of them were almost dead as well.
Becks tossed the stone slab aside. “Miles, I need you to get down.”
“What are you doing, Becks? I thought we were leaving?”
She shook her head, tossing her black hair. “I can’t, not now.”
I crouched, unable to look away from everything around us. The disgusting carnage was somehow fascinating, while at the same time, it made me want to curl up in a corner and hurl.
Becks tossed the slab aside, and as she did so, a broad-shouldered man pushed his way out of the rubble.
Fortress rose, his red cape billowing out behind him. He wore his black uniform, which had a big, red, stylized F across his chest designed to look like some sort of fort.
His suit was torn in a few places, scorched in others. But that was the only real damage. Through it, you could see the massive muscles he had underneath.
“Miles, I need you to run.” Beck’s voice was cold.
“You’re here and so is Fortress. I’ll be fine.” I pointed to the world’s strongest superhero. My voice was full of hope that whatever had happened would be solved by the two of them.
“Miles, something is very wrong.”
I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about, but then I watched as She-Hawk swooped in on white feathered wings, trying to grab Fortress.
He didn’t even budge. Instead, he reached up and grabbed her taloned leg before it reached him, snapping it and pulling her down. Fortress systematically broke every bone in her body with a crushing grip as he moved his hands along her body as if she was a rope.
She-Hawk screamed, but it was no use.
Fortress utterly crushed her. When he got to her torso, she wasn’t screaming anymore, just puking blood.
I realized Fortress’ red gloves were darker, soaked in blood.
“Okay, we need to go. What the fuck!” I cursed, grabbing Becks and trying to pull her away. But she was rooted fast to the ground.
“I can’t go, Miles. I have to help,” Becks replied.
I stared at her, hoping I’d misheard her.
“That’s fucking Fortress!” I blurted out. The horror of seeing him dismantle She-Hawk had sunk in and any shock I had was gone, replaced by fight-or-flight instincts. And my instincts were screaming for flight.
“Exactly. They will need every bit of help they can get to stop this.” Becks tried to gently push me away.
I shook my head, refusing to admit the truth. “Becks, come on. You aren’t even a hero yet.” I still couldn’t reconcile what I believed to be true about Fortress and what I’d just seen. “Maybe something happened to the other heroes. You don’t know which is the right side.”
Three more heroes squared up around Fortress and attacked together.
It was a brutal one-sided battle as Fortress literally tore them apart, dismantling them emotionlessly. He smashed their body parts into the remaining rubble of my school.
I knew then that there wouldn’t be any survivors if Fortress could help it. We needed to get out.
Wrath rode in at that moment, her dark red flames rocketing down into the mess.
“Becks.” She saw my date. “We need your help to contain Fortress.”
Wrath’s suit was torn with sizable holes that showed off her pale skin. Wrath had no doubt healed from some terrible injuries prior to this, based on the holes in her suit.
When Becks tore the skirt of her dress off, I knew I wasn’t going to get her to leave. Wrath had asked her to stay, and she wouldn’t ignore that plea.
I crouched deeper in the mess, praying that Becks would somehow come out alive. I couldn’t lose another person… that I loved.
It hit me at that moment, emotion rolling over me. I loved Becks, and I hadn’t even told her.
Wrath stepped forward, throwing a meteor sized ball of dark red fire as the same fire wreathed her.
Fortress’ head turned almost mechanically. It was eerily inhuman. Then he raised a hand, catching the massive fireball and punching out with the other, shattering it and splashing fire all over.
The dust and the wood in the surrounding rubble caught fire, only making matters worse for me.
I couldn’t run at that point, even if I wanted to.
But I didn’t want to move. Some part of my human brain had rooted me in this spot, almost forcing me to watch. I couldn’t leave, not until I saw Becks was okay.
Fortress was in the middle of the crater one moment, then holding Wrath up by the throat the next.
Becks slammed into him, and for the first time, he stumbled.
Hope flared inside of me. Maybe she was strong enough to take on Fortress.
Fortress ignored Becks for a moment, throwing Wrath hard enough against the ground as blood splattered out against the rubble.
“You.” He turned slowly to Becks.
She wasn’t idle, her fists blurring. Each hit created a small shock wave, and Fortress was forced to take a step back, a single step with each hit.
But it wasn’t enough.
Fortress caught Becks’ fist, bending it and forcing her to her knees. “You were never enough. None of this was enough. You aren’t a hero. YOU CAN’T FOOL ME!” he screamed as he ripped Beck’s arm off.
Her tough body tried to hold on to it. Ligaments stretched even under Fortress’ impossible strength.
I couldn’t look away, my entire body frozen.
The hero worshiped by so many had just ripped off Becks’ arm mercilessly. He was supposed to be one of the good guys.
Becks jumped to her feet, clocking him in the face with her remaining arm, even as she bled out. She was trying, even in her dying moments, to stop Fortress. She was a hero, but that wasn’t enough. At least, it wasn’t enough to survive that day. She was tough, but she wasn’t immortal.
Fortress caught her next punch and his other hand emerged from her back in a spray of blood. He finished her by grasping her spine and ripping it out of her chest.
Becks hung there, her head lolling back, and our eyes met for just a moment. She was terrified, but yet she still fought.
The horror in her face was enough for me to take a deep breath and stand up.
I didn’t have anything to live for in the world anymore. And I was going to do what I could to avenge her, even if it meant my death.
Fortress saw me and cocked his head as he tossed Becks to the side like a piece of garbage.
“Kid, what are you doing?” Wrath screamed, holding onto her side. It was gushing blood even as her skin knitted back together.
Truthfully, I didn’t fully know what I was doing.
But I had so much rage building up inside of me. I had to do something. I felt this force in me, deep down. It was like a volcano on the verge of erupting. I just had to do something.
Fortress had a smug grin as his shoulder drew back, his fist crackling tight in perfect clarity before it disappeared.
I raised my hand, and all I could think about was how Fortress didn’t deserve his power. He was a monster.
His fist stopped in my open palm. It wasn’t exactly like I’d caught it. At least, I hadn’t caught it with my fist, but I’d done something to stop his fist.
A tremendous rush filled me. I had survived.
And now I was pissed.
Fortress’ focus was entirely on where our hands met. His face was a mask of shock.
I wound up my other arm, punching what felt like a normal punch. At the moment, I realized I didn’t have a physical superpower, but something was riding on my arm, a force I didn’t understand.
Not caring what it was, I focused on what did matter. I was going to give Fortress what he deserved.
My fist landed squarely on his chest and his body disappeared, hurtling far off into the distance and taking a chunk out of a skyscraper as he went.
The shock wave came next, and I put more of this force between me and it.
Everything exploded around me as the earth underneath where I hit Fortress pressed down a dozen feet into the ground.
There was so much pressure from my attack that it compressed the concrete and the earth below it to a degree enough to cause the trench.
“Kid,” Wrath wheezed. “Hold up.”
“No,” I said, staring down at my fist as my resolve tightened. “I need to finish this. He needs to pay for what he did.”
“Wa—”
I didn’t stay around to listen to her. She’d failed me; she’d failed Becks and everyone else that had been at the school.
She wasn’t a hero.
Whipping my arms down, I threw more of the force at the ground and launched myself high into the air after Fortress.
I knew he was the most durable hero in the world. There was no way my one punch finished him.
Hovering in the air, I reached for my blossoming new superpower and wrapped myself in the force, pushing myself forward. The sound barrier broke around me, booming in the middle of the air as I rushed faster than my brain could process in a series of quick bursts.
I spotted the edge of the city and a fresh crater just beyond it. I headed that way, knowing that was where Fortress had landed.
I used whatever force was powering me again, sending myself down to greet the son of a bitch.
Just before I hit, I reversed. My stomach did somersaults that nearly made me puke.
Sirens were going off in the distance, and people were peeking out of their homes, venturing to the edge of the city to see what had happened.
Soon the hero they once knew and trusted would attack them. He needed to be put down.
Fortress was dazed, but as I approached, he was pulling himself out of the hole his body had made. I looked him over. He was unblemished except for a bruise starting to form on his cheek from where Becks had punched him.
That reminder was all I needed.
Reaching for everything I had, I drew all of my new ability forward into my fist. Wind picked up around me, the ground compressing downward and static filling the air.
I opened my palm, finding a little black bead forming. Somehow, all the power I’d gathered was within that little bead, and I could feel the intensity of it.
Pushing it as far as it would go, little jagged black cracks broke out from the bead. I paused, some instinct in me telling me that it was beyond where limits should be pushed. But then I remembered Becks, and I didn’t care.
Holding up the bead, I let it float above my palm, then pointed it towards Fortress.
My vision went white, and the world roared.
I was able to keep my focus on Fortress for a moment, but then he was washed out in the blast as well.
It only took a moment before the blast was over.
My vision came back slowly, my ears ringing.
Where Fortress had been was now a channel. It looked like a titan had drawn a line in the dirt. The ditch was massive; there was just nothing for miles.
I took turns staring at it and staring at my hands. Somehow, I’d done that; I’d just killed Fortress.
Everything inside of me chose that moment to give up. I sagged, falling to my knees as I puked. My mind was a mess of grief and fear. I had no idea what I was going to do from that point forward. I emptied my stomach again, my entire body in revolt, until I ran empty.
Out of the corner of my vision, flames carried Wrath down to the ground near me. She was still clutching her side, but she was almost healed.
“Kid, put your hands on your head.”
Her words were enough to snap me out of my shock as it turned to outrage.
“You want to arrest me?” I screamed it at her, throwing a wave of the force out from me and knocking Wrath back. I had saved her from somebody who was supposed to be a hero. It was easy to place my pain on her. “I should decimate you and every other pretend hero in the world.”
But most of all, I wanted out of there to leave this behind me.
Slamming my hands down, I launched myself up into the air, spreading my arms and legs, trying to stabilize myself.
I wobbled, still getting the hang of whatever my abilities were controlling. I spun a bit, but it didn’t take long to spot a few landmarks of the city.
“If that way is north. Then…” I turned ninety degrees. “Coast City is that way.”
Slamming this new power over myself, I launched myself across the sky, still not understanding just what this power was or how to use it. Trying to fly gave me something concrete that I could focus my attention on, burying the feelings and the horror of what had just happened.
I flew in the air for a long time, not worrying about being efficient.
When I finally touched down, it was dawn the next day. The sun was just beaming between the leaves. Landing in the nearby downtown area, I saw myself in the glass reflection of a shop. I was a mess, dust ridden with a suit torn to hell.
The news was playing inside the shop, and I watched as Wrath got up on stage.
“A terrible tragedy has occurred today. Fortress was killed by a new villain…” I didn’t hear the rest of the broadcast as I lost control of my power and the entire storefront exploded. Turning and stuffing my hands in my pockets angrily, I got out of there as fast as I could.
I was not the villain, he was. After what he did to my high school, how could I be the villain?
I walked the couple of blocks to my aunt and uncle's house. They’d left the back door open, and I slipped in earlier than they were expecting.
I was supposed to stay the night at Ryan’s, so they didn’t expect me home until later. But I assumed they’d see the news.
“I can’t believe it. What sort of vile monster would kill Fortress?” my uncle was shouting at the TV.
It felt like someone had just shoved a pick into my heart. Logically, I knew he wasn’t talking about me, at least not knowingly. But I froze there and listened.
The story on the news was nothing like what had happened. They were blaming everything on some new unknown villain.
On me.
And that included the destruction of my high school and the deaths that had occurred there because of Fortress. They were blaming it all on me. Wrath stood there, lying to the world.
She stood there telling the world that I had killed Becks and Ryan.
“Wait, was that Miles’ old school? Oh no. We have to call Ryan’s parents.” I could hear my aunt scrambling to grab her phone.
I slipped back out the back door, deciding it was best if the kid they knew had died in the attack.
I stole money, a surfboard, and a wetsuit. Then I found a dude on the beach and paid for surfing lessons.
After that, I used my powers to make sure I lived comfortably, not caring who it affected.