Invasion
I get it.
I mean, of course I do.
Psychics mind control people. It’s what they do. Practically their whole power base.
And I’ll be the first to admit I could admire the current plot by John. It was honestly pretty inspired to mentally dominate every hero in the city and beyond. It was a brilliant scheme, with plenty of moments for some real evil gloating. And under any other circumstances, and if his ambition was world domination, I’d applaud such inspired villainy.
But not only was he being so depressingly realistic in his aims, but he was using Psyren.
So fuck that guy hard.
And by the time we reached the Hall of Heroes, it was pretty fucking apparent he knew shit was about to go down. A pinkish haze crackled up and down the obelisks by the doors, buzzing above the water of the fountain and over the golden arches that framed the front doors. Clearly, he had turned on the Mind Spike.
And worse, of course, were the heroes currently all over the damn place.
With the magnifier of my visor set to max I could pick them out pretty easily. There was Mister Invincible standing right before the big glass doors. I spotted the Brute perched on top of one of the building’s obelisks and the Rubbernecker in his mustard yellow spandex holding position by the entrance, while Hot Stuff stood out like a beacon with her hair of lava, hands on her hips as she scanned the skies. A bunch of minor heroes were also all over the place. Over two dozen of them at least, with Olympia standing at attention near the entrance.
But as I scanned the front of the building, I nodded in satisfaction. Excellent. Looked like they’d cleared out the employees, and given the hour, I didn’t have to worry about tripping over a bunch of tourists. Even if I did blow up my reputation as a villain for hire by doing this, no reason to paste a bunch of civvies. That was one reason I’d sent the warning in advance. Heroes predictably evacuated the citizenry, and John was only using the Heroes of Earth to defend the place, confident he could take me with his own group.
Time to show him how wrong he was.
I tapped my helmet, the image zooming back. That amount of security was going to be a bitch to breach, but it was no less than I expected.
“It appears your plan has worked, sir,” Glacia said as she lowered a pair of binoculars she’d brought. “There are a lot of heroes out there.”
I tried not to stare at the tinfoil hat she was wearing. “I know,” I said, rolling my shoulders with a grunt. We were standing atop one of the nearby skyscrapers, observing from a distance. I tapped the side of my helmet, activating the transceiver. “Dolly? How’s it going?”
“Beautiful, Victor,” Dolly purred over the clicking of keys. “I’ve set off the seismic alarms all over the bay area. Every hero in the city is going to be heading there, thinking a kaiju class monster is about to come out of the waters to stomp on the downtown. No one’s going to be interrupting your party with the Heroes of Earth. And if you’d given me a week, I could make an actual kaiju too!”
“We don’t have a week,” I said grimly.
Dolly sighed with disappointment. “No, no. I get it. And all the attention from the emergency services are turned that way as well. But that won’t last long. Not with what you’re about to do.”
“I know,” I said. “By the way, about the other thing…”
“Tracking it now, Victor. I’ve got at least six likely suspects for you.”
“One will do. Don’t need too much collateral damage.”
“Always the worrywart. The city has insurance. That’s what it’s for!”
“No, Dolly.”
“Fine. Then I guess we’re set.”
I nodded. “Alright,” I said, glancing back at Glacia. “Ready?
“Yes, sir,” Glacia said, fairly trembling with excitement.
That made two of us.
I knew I shouldn’t be as eager as I was to take on the Heroes of Earth. It was a mistake. A major one. But deep down, there was a certain… I don’t know. Thrill to the idea. To finally cutting loose. To really unleashing it all and seeing how I stacked up to one of the biggest hero groups in the world.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
I lifted myself into the air with a gentle push of magnetic force, Glacia joining me with a rush of arctic wind, and together, we floated towards the Hall of Heroes.
Naturally, our approach did not go unnoticed. As we drew near a shout went up from the Brute. Probably smelled us coming.
I drifted in slow, letting the heroes gather near the shining Hall of Heroes, and I finally came to a halt over the parking lot, leaving a fair bit of open ground between me and the assembled heroes. My cape flapping around me, my arms clasped behind my back imperiously as I floated into view, several of the Hall’s spotlights were quickly turned on me, illuminating me in the night.
“Dolly?” I murmured into my speaker.
“Locking down communications from the Hall of Heroes… now,” Dolly said. “You’ve got thirty minutes, Victor, before someone notices.”
I nodded. More than enough time for me to either win, or end up pasted by the heroes. Better get started.
“John!” I shouted, voice booming from my helmet’s speakers. “I’ve a bone to pick with you!”
Mister Invincible laughed, arms crossed as he rose into the air in classic hero pose. “I’m afraid your business is with us first, Magneron” he said.
Bastard was still hiding behind his fucking puppet, eh? Well, that was fine. Less than ideal, but it meant it was going to be easy to stall.
Evil monologue time.
“The mighty Magneron is not here to talk to a mouthpiece. Bring yourself out here, John Blend!” I said.
“Got one, Victor. Eleven o’clock to the north,” Dolly said in my ear.
I mentally thanked her as I narrowed my powers, throwing them like a hook into the sky. Ooooh, this was a tough one to pull off. I never did it. Not since the first time. Too volatile. Too dangerous. Too deadly. It was a terrible thing to do, but it was necessary here. But I had to keep him talking while I did it. That was the trick… “You know what I come for. Return to me Psyren, and I will consider leaving your pathetic Hall of Heroes intact!”
“A bold threat, villain,” Rick said, but his eyes had narrowed a bit. No surprise. John was too much of an old hat not to recognize that when someone seemingly outnumbered and outgunned was acting confident, it was because you’d overlooked something.
“Do you doubt my power?” I said, only half listening. I felt some things in the upper atmosphere. If I was right… Ah. Got one. I felt the weight tether me, trying to drag me out of place through sheer gravitational pull, but I anchored myself using the magnetism of some sewage pipes underground. “Do you doubt my strength! You thought a mere copycat would be enough to fool me, but I figured out your switch immediately,” I said, carefully manipulating my powers as I stalled for time, reeling them back. Ohhhhh that was a heavy one. “I know you’ve got Psyren in there. Now release her! Or I shall make you.”
Rick scoffed, shaking his head. “Magneron, Magneron Magneron. It seems you’re badly mistaken! Such a shame. But if you don’t remove yourself from our property, we will be forced to assume you are here to attack us.”
“Do not dare keep from me my minion, Mister Invincible!” I shouted in my most emphatic villain voice, a threatening hand leveled his way. But, more importantly, to the sky. I felt my arm creak as I pulled. Come on baby. Come to daddy… “You will rue the day you dared challenge me, Heroes of Earth!”
Mister Invincible laughed throatily, throwing back his head with mirth. Looked like he’d decided I was bluffing after all. “And do tell, Magneron?” he said. “How will you do that? You have but a single villain with you, and we have all of us. The Heroes of Earth shall never falter!”
“Yeah!” Olympia shouted, pointing at me. “Justice will be done here, villain!” she declared.
I smiled behind my mask. “Then face your doom!”
Rick was still smirking, but it slipped a little when he noticed his shadow getting longer beneath him. His brow knit, puzzled. And then Hot Stuff let out a scream.
Rick looked down at her, and saw her staring at the sky, pointing.
He looked up.
And when he saw the miniature sun screaming down from the heavens, all smugness was wiped right off his face.
I never got to do this. Not just because it was hard. But because pulling a satellite out of orbit is a pain to do. Finding a derelict one was annoying enough, and wrenching it out of gravity’s pull was even harder. But more than that, it was not a small thing. A crashing chunk of space debris tended to leave an impact, and then NASA always had some very serious questions.
“No!” Rick whirled back around, staring at me in shock. “You didn’t!”
“Oh, I did. Glacia?” I said.
“With the greatest of pleasure, sir,” she said, no longer trying to hide her smile as she cast her hands forward. A freezing ray blasted the ground before us, rising up and forming a massive wall of glacial ice between us and the Hall of Heroes.
And just in time.
I watched as the satellite screamed down like a hammer of the gods. Ooooh, this was gonna be a big one. From through the distorted window of the ice I watched the heroes try and scatter.
Mister Invincible flew above the Hall of Heroes and pushed out his arm, the air around him distorting as John used his puppet as a conduit for his powers, trying to use his telekinetic might to stop the meteor. But he couldn’t even move the fireball as it screamed down at him. For gravity was a harsh mistress, and she was about to spank him hard.
“You!” Rick snarled, looking back at me furiously. “You son of a-“
The satellite slammed into him, smashing him out of the sky with a scream of heat and metal, slamming right into the lovely glass ceiling of the Hall of Heroes.
And then came the boom.
The entire upper portion of the building exploded. Glass shards blasted out of the windows on the wings of a fireball. The whole building opened up like a flower, girders groaning, cement and stone flying everywhere. It was the sound of doom. Of apocalypse. The sound that ended the rule of the dinos. I braced myself as the blastwave hit the ice wall, cracking it, steam pouring around us as layers of ice were vaporized. I held myself steady, waiting for the explosion to end.
Man, I loved this job.
The explosion slowly faded, and as the dust settled, I saw it had mostly cleared the grounds of heroes. Some were lying where they had been thrown by the explosion, others lay sprawled around the crater. A couple had even been blasted into the ice wall and hung there, slumped. Among them was Olympia, much to my relief.
But far from all.
A burst of molten fire hit the ice wall, blasting through it with a flash of steam. Hot Stuff rose into the air, her bubbling magma hair rolling around her, her tanned skin lit with the balls of fire that consumed her fists. I saw the Rubbernecker’s body wriggle out of the wreckage and climb to his feet on long, elastic legs. Then I heard the groan of rubble as the Brute heaved off a massive chunk of the Hall of Hero’s wall, the furry hero climbing out of the hole he’d been near buried in, shaking his fuzzy head to clear it.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the core heroes of the HoE had survived the blast. They’d faced bigger menaces than a derelict satellite. But it did complicate things a fair bit.
“Alright,” I said, “guess we’re doing this.”
The Rubbernecker stretched towards me, his hands bulging into massive fists. “Bastard,” he shouted in fury. “Do you know what you’ve done!”
“So you’re not going to give up?” I said.
“Of course not!”
“Cool. Alright,” I said, gesturing bracing myself midair as I let my powers radiate outwards.
After the blast, I had no shortage of metal to work with. Chunks of cement threaded with support beams. Cars thrown about by the impact of the satellite. Red-hot girders, all rose into the air at my command. From behind us, lamp posts ripped themselves out of the sidewalk, and even park benches rose into the air around me.
“Glacia! Take them!” I shouted.
“Yes sir!” Glacia said, raising her arms.
Freezing air surrounded her in a roar, the blistering cold ripping around us as she pulled her powers about herself.
Hot Stuff surged forward on a column of magma, only to be thrown back as I sent several cars flying at her. She dodged one, two, but then a Buick caught her, sending her flying across the parking lot to crash into one of the surviving walls of the Hall of Heroes.
“Rebecca!” the Rubbernecker shouted, his head twisted around like an owl, then whipping back towards me. “You son of a bitch!”
“Glacia? If you would,” I said.
Rubbernecker stretched his legs, rising at me, his hand growing as he used his stretching powers to try and grab me, but he was so focused he failed to notice Glacia as she sent a blast of freezing cold into him. The ray hit him in the chest, spreading a layer of ice over him. The rubber hero yelped as the sudden weight overbalanced him, sending him crashing to the ground.
“Keep on him,” I told Glacia.
“Sir!” she replied, further freezing the rubbery hero with her powers.
“Rooooooor!”
I turned quickly as the Brute bounded out of the wreckage and hurled himself at me bodily. I tried to pull myself out of the way but he caught my ankle in his furry mitt.
“Aha!” the beastman said. “Now I have you!“
“Sure ya do,” I said as my powers swung a lamp post into him so hard it tore him right off my leg, sending him flying into the wreckage with a crash. I quickly grabbed one of the pods I’d asked Dolly for before heading out, and as the Brute tore his way out the rubble I flicked the ball at him with my magnetic powers.
The beastman saw it coming and quickly put up his arms to block, only for the ball to explode, wrapping cables around him and pinning his arms to his chest.
The beastman grunted, looking down at them. “What is this?”
“Iron mesh cables,” I said.
He laughed. “I’ll snap these in moments!”
“True,” I said, raising my hand.
The Brute yelped as he suddenly rose off the ground, my magnetic powers lifting him up. I floated him in front of me, his glare furious. “You’re very durable,” I said conversationally. “Now, if you’d be so kind, go away.”
He locked eyes with me for a moment, and I made a flicking motion.
The hero howled as he was suddenly shot through the air like a home run ball, sent flying far into the distance. There we go. That would take care of him for now.
A glow caught my eye and I jerked out of the way as a ball of molten fire roared past me, so hot I could feel my armour heat up like a skillet on a campfire. Hot Stuff was back on her feet, the ground around her liquifying as she focused her powers, her lovely face dark with wrath like some volcano goddess who hadn’t gotten her monthly virgin sacrifice.
And I’d have been terrified if I hadn’t come prepared for her.
I had my powers disconnect four canisters Dolly had made me and whipped it at the molten hero. She saw them coming and tried to fling some fireballs at them. She hit one, but the other three hit her one after the other.
Hot Stuff shrieked as a sudden deluge of fire retarding foam burst onto her, drowning her in hissing suds. She flailed, but already the foam was hardening, encasing her in a rocky surface, the heroine groaning as her strength fled her along with her powers, leaving her cold as a lump of coal.
Excellent. Now, where was I?
A sudden explosion blasted out of the Hall of Heroes. I looked towards it as Mister Invincible rose in the air, his pupils blazing with red squares, his face twisted with hate.
Oh, right.
Him.
“You!” Rick barked, hands bunching into shaking fists. “Look at what you’ve done! You’ve ruined my life’s work!”
“Well, maybe. But really, I did you a favour” I said, surreptitiously using my powers to lift a bunch of cars above us, gathering them into a ball of metal. “I mean, holographic globes? Giant glass windows? Sooooo 1960.”
His face twisted with fury. Good. Get mad you bastard. Because if you weren’t, I was in trouble.
Because this was Mister Invincible.
Gods at their heights had less power than him.
He was the man who’d taken down The Dreadnaught when it was revived by those Neo Nazis in the late eighties.
Who’d thwarted nearly every member of the Guild’s Council of Nine.
Who’d led the defence of earth against the Meegron invasion of 2005.
He was not a hero to be fucked with.
But that ship had most assuredly sailed.
Mister Invincible gave a roar and shot at me like a thunderbolt. I tensed, waiting for him to close the distance…
Now!
I slammed my hand down. The ball of cars hovering above him responded to my magnetic command, dropping through the air in a mass. Mister Invincible never even looked up before the cars slammed into him, carrying him down to the ruined pavement below. The ball of metal smashed him into the ground, car alarms beginning to scream and whirr as they were belatedly activated.
Now!
I grabbed the tinfoil hat from my jacket pocket as I dropped out of the sky. Oh fuck I hoped this worked! The junkpile I’d buried Rick under groaned. There was a sudden thunderous crash as the hero threw the pile of cars off him, sending half-crushed vehicles flying everywhere.
I dropped straight down behind him, a ball of repelling magnetism knocking the flying cars out of my way. I landed with a puff of dust. Rick turned, the red squares in his eyes spinning so fast they looked like circles.
And I slapped the foil hat down on his head.
There was a moment of utter stillness. And like a switch was flicked, the crimson squares flickered out in his eyes. Rick’s face sagged, a dull smile of relief taking shape, and I wondered if it was the man who’d once owned that body finally finding the first peace he’d known in decades.
Then, Mister Invincible toppled to the ground.
I exhaled heavily, my arms flopping down to my sides.
Holy fuck.
Holy fuck, it worked.
I’d hoped it would. When Psyren told me that her powers were blocked by foil, I prayed it would be the same for John, and dear heavens was I glad I’d been right.
I looked around, but the remaining heroes were out of the fight. Then, I hastily crouched down beside Mister Invincible and felt his neck. Pulse was strong, but his eyes were pretty glassy. No surprise. The psychic shock had done a number on him. Hopefully he’d be alright, eventually.
“Victor?” Dolly said in my ear. “We’re running out of time. That satellite crash got noticed. I’m tracking emergency services converging on the Hall of Heroes.”
I got back to my feet. “How long we got?”
“Ten minutes, tops. But probably more like five.”
Shit. Well, I could swing it. There was just one thing left to do now anyway. I rose into the air once more, floating towards the ruined Hall of Heroes. Glacia drifted after me, coming in close. As we moved over the smoldering ruins, scattering clouds of ash and debris, I let my magnetic powers stretch out over the blasted shell, seeping down into the depths of the foundations.
As I’d expected, the impact hadn’t managed to penetrate deeper into the substructure of the Hall of Heroes. It had absolutely destroyed everything above ground, but the bunker-level underground had been more or less unscathed. In the corridor that once housed the statues of fallen heroes, I came across a blackened dome of steel emerging from the floor like some monstrous egg. Excellent. The last thing I’d wanted was to cave the place in on Psyren after coming all this way to rescue her.
And I did not have time to fuck around with whatever goddam security systems John had installed down there to keep out unwanted guests. Dealing with his coterie of heroes had been bad enough. I landed on what remained of the floor, moving my hands before me. I compelled my magnetic powers downward, letting them seep around the structure below, wrapping around machinery, corridors, and more. I felt the iron walls of the chamber where Dolly had indicated the hidden lab was. The one John had hidden from all the blueprints, but built deep into the foundation.
Alright.
Time to bring him up.
I pulled, grunted at the weight, for not only was I trying to lift the labs, but all the material between us. The earth trembled. Glacia stumbled as the rubble around the Hall of Heroes began to crumble and shift. I felt the ground under my feet crack, but still I pulled, my arms feeling like they were being ripped out of my sockets. But I lifted, groaning with the strain. Because whatever those stupid movies said, gravity was the strongest force in reality. And gravity was just magnetism’s little brother.
“Hrrrr!” I grunted, heaving up my arms, and with a sound like the moving of tectonic plates the ground broke open, torn apart and the cylindrical bulk of the lab lurched up out of the ground like a metallic whale breaking the surface.
I let my arms drop, panting, feeling the strain in every fiber. Ohhh fuck, I was gonna feel that one tomorrow.
“Sir!” Glacia gasped in awe.
“Keep an eye out,” I said, making my way towards the side of the metallic mass I’d ripped out of the ground. “Who know what else-“
The wall in front of me suddenly ripped open, torn apart in a flash of crimson light. I threw up my arms, jerking myself back, but still took the hit. The red blast of energy smashed into my armoured forearms, the force of it sending me spinning through the air before I could hastily right myself, floating in place and looking down.
Out from the hole torn in the metal John came, still in his dull, immaculate suit. Only his glasses appeared to have taken any damage, one having a deep crack along it. He looked about the ruins of the Hall of Heroes and the bodies of his team scattered across the battlefield. Then he popped his jaw and looked up at me coldly. “You’ve been very annoying, Magneron,” he said.
“Yeah? And whose fault is that?” I said, trying to put more bravado into my voice than I really felt. My arms were throbbing like I’d just tried to block a wrecking ball, which was pretty accurate, all things told. If he hadn’t first plowed through the reinforced wall of the lab, I probably would have been pasted.
“Sir!” Glacia said, beginning to rise into the air.
“Get Psyren!” I told her. “I’ll handle this.”
Had to admit, it was encouraging to see Glacia barely hesitate, looking between me and John before nodding and flying into the ruined lab. She really believed I could take him on.
John ignored her and took off his glasses, examined the broken lenses and then flicked them aside. Crimson light crackled around him, and he slowly rose into the air. The hairs on my arms tingled as I felt the air around him buzz, supercharging with his telekinetic powers.
“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, Magneron,” he said. “And even so, I do regret this. Really, I do. But you left me no choice.”
“You mean aside from, I dunno, not kidnapping Psyren?” I said.
“Aside from that,” he said with a nod my way. He chuckled. “This truly is a shame, Magneron. You could have done so much good with your powers. You and I could have done truly great things.”
“You kidnapped one of my girls,” I told him flatly, circling around him in mid air, letting my powers resonate with metals all around us, lifting them into the air.
John shrugged. “It was all for the greater good. Can you even begin to understand, Magneron? How much good I’ve done? And for what? Evil still flourishes. Villains still rise and challenge us. Crime has ticked down but always comes back up. The Heroes of Earth inspired millions, and yet it’s never enough. Because it never will be enough. Justice must prevail in the end. People need good to win.”
“I get it,” I said, stalling as my powers carefully aimed shards of metal sticking out of the ground towards him. “Honestly, I do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get away with this.”
“And I applaud you sticking to your guns,” John said. “It’s quite admirable. Still, I will enjoy killing you. And I will, Magneron. In the end, the hero always wins.”
“Not this time,” I said, and jerked up my hand.
Hundreds of shards of metal launched themselves at him like a storm of blades. John didn’t even look at them. He just raised a brow, and red squares glowed in his eyes.
The shards froze in midair, glowing with a crackling red light. Simply held there, inert.
John eyed them, and lazily gestured.
The shards suddenly turned, spitting through the air and at me. I swept my hand, a blast of magnetic power scattering the shards to fly into the ruined walls around us, vibrating as they bit deep into the blackened cement.
John chuckled. “Haven’t you learned anything yet,” he said. “These paltry little things will never hit me.”
“Good to know,” I said, swept up my hand.
And smashed the chunk of rebar I’d been floating behind him into his back.
It hit him like a racket would a tennis ball, sending him flying through the air to smash into part of a surviving wall, levelling the thing when he did and burying him in the rubble.
I thought so.
People who get their powers always forget the limitations of them. He’d spent so long puppeteering Mister Invincible, he’d forgotten he wasn’t invulnerable too. And it was time I showed John just how vulnerable he could be.
But he was also a telekinetic. Something John then reminded me of as the rocks glowed bright red, rising into the air. John rose back to his feet, his eyes locking onto me and he growled, a red crackle of energy surging around him, coating him in a protective field.
“You’re going to regret that,” he snapped, pointing at me.
The rocks flew at me, but I quickly dropped down, letting them fly over my head to crash away into the distance. But that was the least of my worries. Arrows of telekinetic light took shape around John with crackles of power. Uh oh. He snapped his fingers, and the darts of light shot at me like a swarm of chirping sparrows. I swung the piece of rebar into their path, but the second the darts hit the metal they exploded.
The blast sent me flying back, but I quickly straightened. John was still floating, his eyes murderous as more of the arrows formed in the air around him, popping and crackling with power.
“You villains just never learn,” he said. He snapped his fingers again, and I barely dodged another crimson blast of telekinetic force. “You think the world dances on your strings. You think you’re owed everything. Well you’re not!”
He fired again, another crackling blast of force ripping past me, my armour buzzing faintly like static.
“You’re not even a real villain! Just a pretender. A petty little man in a suit. All you’re in this for is money. Money. Money! You have no vision. No dedication! No understanding of what needs to be done! You treat this like a job!”
“Damn right I do!” I retorted as I circled around him, gliding through the air. “My job is to make heroes look good! To remind a public with the memory of a goldfish that heroes are here to help. And you? You’re no hero, buddy. You’re just some jackass with a god complex. But fine! You want me to make this personal?” I said, pushing out my arms to either side. “Let’s make it personal!”
Chunks of metal soared into the air, ripped out of the wreckage around us to swirl around me like armoured plates. As soon as they were, I threw myself at John.
The telekinetic hero snarled, snapping his fingers like castanets. Blasts of crimson force slammed into my mobile shields, ripping them away in bursts of crimson power. I let them go, shedding them as I closed with him. When I was nearly on him I whirled the last ones right before me, but as soon as I was hidden I dropped under them.
Good thing I did. John’s next attack smashed through them like a shotgun blast through tissue paper. I saw his puzzled look when the last shields scattered, failing to reveal me. Then he looked down, saw my metal fist coming up, and his eyes widened.
Very few things had ever felt as satisfying as plowing my magnetically augmented fist into his smug face. It took him right in the chin, an extra push of magnetic force slamming his jaw shut, throwing his head back with enough force to lift him clear off the ground. I followed him up, and as his face came back down, his eyes filled with murder, I smashed my fist into his cheek.
The punch whirled him like a top, but as he came around he threw out his arm. A blast of crimson telekinesis hit me in the chest before I could recover, blasting me across the battlefield, my heels skidding across the ground until I managed to stop.
Gah! There went a few ribs. Red danced in my vision from pain and I staggered.
John rose back into the air, crimson static rolling off his suited body like the mantle of some managerial god. His eyes blazed with squares of light, his hands tightening to fists, spitting energy, a bubble of power forming around him.
“Enough!” he shouted, his voice echoing, booming with psychic resonance. “Did you think that would stop me?” he demanded. “Do you really think you can win? Do you think you can beat me?”
“Honestly? No,” I admitted, catching from the corner of my eye movement from the ruined lab. “But I’m hoping this can.”
John tensed, his eyes moving quickly around me to try and see what my next play would be.
But it wasn’t mine.
He suddenly reeled, a hand flying to his forehead. Even I was staggered by the spike of pain that lanced into my brain. The air throbbed, a pinkish haze washing over everything.
“You bastard.”
The words reverberated with such force they could have written themselves in the sky. John looked down shakily, his eyes widening at the sight of Psyren standing amid the rubble, supported by Glacia. The icy villainess had an arm around the psychic, supporting her as Psyren’s eyes looked wrathfully up at the hero. Psionic pink fire crackled all around her like a halo of neon flame, her eyes glowing so bright they looked like they were on fire, her short hair flicking and crackling with pink static.
“Y-you!” John gasped.
“Me,” Psyren said and raised her hand, pointing at him.
Another shockwave of psionic force blasted through the air, throwing John off balance. He grabbed his head in his hands, veins bulging on his brow. The sphere of power around him flickered, blinking like an old fluorescent bulb. Even just being near the amount of psychic force Psyren was putting out made my head feel like a watermelon in a vice. I could only imagine what John was getting.
“You bastard,” Psyren said, every word thrumming with psychic power. “You bastard! You tried to use my power? Well, how do you like it, hm? How does it feel!”
John reeled again, blood spurting from his nose. Oozing from his eyes. He grit his teeth so hard the gums showed. Veins bulged in his forehead as he tried to resist the psionic pressure pounding through his head.
“It… it was all… all for… for the g-greater g-good,” he gasped.
“Yeah?” Psyren said. “And this is for me.”
She suddenly tightened her hand into a fist. Another blast of force pounded through the air with a sound like a thousand screams. John’s head jerked back, a garbled howl of agony escaping him.
And then his head exploded.
I winced at the sudden spray of blood and offal spurting in the air. Only John’s lower jaw remained, his arms falling limply to his sides. The crimson light that had held him aloft suddenly blinked out, and his corpse plummeted out of the air, landing with a wet thud among the wreckage of the gate to the Hall of Heroes.
Yikes.
I looked back to Psyren, but her arm had fallen to her side and she’d slumped against Glacia. I ran through the wreckage and took her in my arms.
“Psyren?” I said. “Psyren, you okay?”
Her lashes fluttered and Psyren gave a weak smile. “B-boss,” she said, sighing. “You came for me. Knew you… you would…”
“Of course I did,” I told her. “You’re my villainess.”
Psyren smiled, then her eyes rolled back and she went limp in my arms.
“Is she…” Glacia said.
I felt Psyren’s pulse and leaned in, relaxing a bit when I heard her slow, steady breathing. “Just passed out,” I said, shaking my head. “No surprise,” I added, looking about the battlefield and the heroes strewn about it. Fucking hell. Well, we sure as hell wouldn’t be sporting a low profile after all this.
And speaking of… I squinted, catching a flicker of lightning arcing like a blue bolt through the night skies. Grimly, I passed Psyren to Glacia, who took the heroine with care, lifting her up as I took a few steps away.
I hadn’t long to wait. Soon enough the blue bolt slammed into the earth with a boom. As the lightning faded, I found Valkyria before me, buzzing with static, a tinfoil hat upon her head. I smiled. Good old Steve. I knew he’d come through.
Valkyria stepped forward and looked around slowly, halting when she spied John’s body. “Is he…”
“He’s missing the top half of his head,” I pointed out.
Valkyria winced, then looked at Psyren. “Did she do it?”
I slowly crossed my arms, the metal around us humming with magnetic menace. “And if she did?”
Valkyria’s lips tightened, but she nonetheless shook her head. “It was… clearly self-defence,” she said. “The Heroes of Earth were… were clearly in the wrong in this matter.”
Ya think?
Though obviously I was too diplomatic to say that.
“Your… friend explained things at the hospital,” Valkyria said stiffly. “And based on my own… experiences, I am inclined to believe he spoke the truth.”
“So,” I said. “Are we done here? You’re not going to come after us or declare a vendetta for me destroying your base?”
“The Heroes of Earth are more than a building. Or one man,” Valkyria said, looking out over the ruins sadly. Her eyes landed on Rick, and the pain in her expression honestly made my heart ache. To lose a friend was one thing. To have two of them be the same guy who betrayed you was something completely different. “But though the infrastructure was badly damaged, we will rebuild. Our reputation, however, may take longer…”
That was for damn sure. There were other heroic organizations of course, and ones that could probably shoulder a bit of the burden defending the earth from villains, but none as well known or respected as the HoE. Honestly, this was probably great news for a lot of hero groups to really build up their reputation.
And a lot of them would be looking for villains to fight.
As this occurred to me, Valkyria gave me a measuring look. “Rest assured,” she said. “I will explain what happened here to the proper authorities. You will not face organized repercussions for what has happened.”
“Oh. Thanks,” I said. Well, that would make things a lot easier, and I certainly appreciated it. It would have been very easy for Valkyria to try and throw me to the wolves here. Sure, the truth would probably get out eventually, but who would really believe a villain against a real hero?
But I supposed that’s what made her one of earth’s true heroes. Valkyria really believed in truth and justice. Well, she’d do a much better job at organizing the Heroes of Earth than John did. And knowing a high-ranking hero who wasn’t looking to bust my head open would be a relief for sure. But it would be a damn long road she’d have towards rebuilding the HoE. And I was hardly out of the woods either.
Because like it or not, word about this was going to get out. It was the kind of gossip that couldn’t be repressed. And unfortunately, a big part of that would be that I just took on the entire HoE and beat the tar out of them. True, I’d gotten the drop on them. Literally. But that sort of cred was going to get me a lot of attention, and not necessarily in a good way.
I grimaced. I could already imagine how many streeters would be looking for me now. Those heroes would love to build a name for themselves on my corpse, and though I was a target before, now I had one painted on my forehead with ‘kill me’ written in bold red ink. I sighed, shook my head.
Ah well.
So it goes in this business.
“I hope you manage to bring the Heroes of Earth back to snuff soon,” I said.
“As do I.” Valkyria thrust out her hand.
Taken a bit aback, I nonetheless reached out and shook it.
“Thank you, Victor,” she said seriously. “You have helped us tremendously here.”
“Uh, you’re welcome,” I said uncertainly. “I guess I’ll be heading out, then. Best of luck with the whole… rebuilding stuff.”
“We will endure,” Valkyria said. “That is what heroes do.”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
I left her there, Valkyria already moving among the wreckage and helping other heroes back to their feet. I didn’t intend to linger. Though most of the heroes had been duped into fighting me, I wasn’t going to wait around and see what their reaction would be. As Glacia and I rose into the air, we saw the telltale flashes and whine of sirens as emergency crews closed in on the ruins of the Hall of Heroes.
“We won, sir,” Glacia said in awe as she surveyed the wreckage.
“That we did,” I said, looking down into Psyren’s sleeping face. “Let’s go home.”