"Now, Noxie. I know what you're thinking, okay? I think we just need to calm down here," Braintrust urged.

"You know what I'm thinking, do you?" I asked in an irritated tone. "You know what the fuck I'm thinking!? YOU KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO LOSE A SON!?"

"I never said that, Noxie."

"It's fucking Noxus. Don't act like we're friends just because I've spared you and your ilk for all these years."

"Noxie - Noxus. Look. I know you're going through a lot right now. But they're just kids. They don't know any better. They saw a villain, and they attacked. It's what they were trained to do. You can't blame them for that. Your son knew the risks when he took up the mantle."

"DON'T SPEAK TO ME OF MY SON!" I exploded. "He was a good boy. He never hurt anyone. He did a couple of low-level bank robberies. His power was the ability to walk through walls. That was it. He wasn't dangerous. He wasn't like the other villains in our ranks. He was just a sweet boy that was made for robberies. And they killed him like a dog. Not because they had to but because they could."

"And I will make sure they are punished within the League of Superheroes. They will face full disciplinary action and likely be stripped of their status." I stole the breath from his lungs so he couldn't say another word. He gasped for air, but none would come. Not until I released him. He collapsed to the ground, gasping.

"You think that your fucking disciplinary action will make up for the death of my son? What am I to say to his mother? Don't worry, darling, they got a good finger wagging. There's already been news stories about the fucking heroes and how valiantly they acted. Top of their class, the new generation of heroes. Their first act as professional heroes after school. Bringing down the dreaded Phase Walker. Who has never harmed a fucking soul in his entire goddamn life! No, I will take my revenge on this team. And you will not raise a finger to stop me, or I will kill you, too."

I returned the oxygen to the air around him and let him breathe again. He gasped for air as if he had been held underwater for minutes. He breathed heavily and hard.

"Noxie. Please. They're kids."

"They were kids. Before they killed my son, they were kids. Now they are monsters that need to be put down."

He sighed, but he knew there was nothing he could do to stop me. He was only my nemesis because his pathetic league had assigned him to be so. There was no hero in the world that could stop me. I was going to show them why Noxus was a name to be feared.

I stalked down the stairs of my hideout, and Braintrust followed. "Get out," I said as we came to the first exit. "And if I find that you stand in my way on this, Braintrust, I will kill you without remorse. It will be slow, and it will be painful." He left without a word.

I continued down to the basement that also functioned as the garage to my tower. I got on my motorbike and started up the engine. It roared to life. I was already in my outfit. I was meant to look like a vulture. Not that it mattered. I wasn't trying to hide anything anymore. This was revenge. And I wanted everyone to know it.

I opened the garage door with the remote built into my suit and revved the engine. As soon as the door was open enough, I sped out. I kept my head low and swerved through the streets. I passed Braintrust, who was walking solemnly down the road. He wasn't on the phone. It appeared as though he had given up the foolish notion of standing in my way. That was good. I had known him for twenty years. I had no desire to extinguish his light.

Before long, I made it to city hall. In front of the building was a giant set of stairs. Upon those stairs was the team of superheroes that had killed my son. They were basking in the glory of reporters and camera flashes. Asking them questions, getting their insights on their conquest. When I pulled up, everyone turned to see me. The reporters flocked to me immediately.

"Noxus, what is it like losing your son?" one asked.

"Noxus, will you be releasing a statement of apology for your son's actions?" another queried.

"Noxus, what do you have to say about the prank you pulled on Instruct-a-Girl last week?" a final one asked.

I lifted them all off the ground with a gust of air and flung them to the side. Cameramen included. They went tumbling down the stairs, and I'm pretty sure I heard a crack. I wondered if it was a bone or a camera. I didn't much care either way. The heroes on the stairs turned their attention to me from the few cameras that had lingered behind.

"Noxus! Have you come to apologize for your son's actions?" the leader, Thunderboy, asked.

"You believe that I have come here to apologize to you, young one? You know me as the benevolent trickster. A villain in name only. Someone who plays light-hearted pranks on your beloved idols. Have you ever done any research on me, Thunderboy?"

"No, Noxus, I don't believe I have. I've never seen a reason to. You're a washed-up villain that is categorized as no-risk in our bingo books. Why should I do any research on you, of all people?"

"I know that you graduated top of your class, but your records are sealed," another of the team, Azure, said.

"Good. Then you know I am not one to be trifled with. Do you want to know why they sealed my records?" I seized the air from all of their lungs at once and replaced it with carbon monoxide. "It was because I agreed to never harm a hero. Only to use my powers to play games."

The entire team collapsed and began choking, but their bodies didn't have the air to do so. They were convulsing within seconds. I returned the air to them long enough for them to catch their breath.

"And I am not one to be underestimated, Thunderboy. Are you grasping that now?" I stole the air and replaced it once more. Again their bodies began to convulse. After a few seconds, I returned the air to them once more.

"I am going to enjoy this. You will regret killing my son. You will regret ever looking at him. And once that regret sets in, the fear of your own mortality will soon follow. And as that fear envelopes you, I want you to know this was avoidable. And I want every hero to know that this is the fate that awaits you if you ever bring my son's name up again. I am no longer the fun-loving prankster of old. I am Noxus, the god of air. And I will do everything in my power to make sure that my son's name is not dragged through the mud any longer."

I stole the air from their lungs once more and watched their bodies convulse upon the stairs. Some of them began falling down the stairs. I used gusts to keep them all on the same level. It made torturing them easier. One by one, their bodies ceased convulsing. Until only one remained. I returned the oxygen to Thunderboy's lungs and used a gust to lift him off the ground. He was gasping for air, holding onto hope that I would allow him to live. It was not a hope I would allow him to hold for long.

"Cameraman. Zoom in on his eyes. Let everyone know the fear that this young man contains within his soul. Thunderboy, you killed my son today. And for that, your life is forfeit. I hope that you meet him in the afterlife. If you do, apologize to him. Or I will find a way to traverse to the afterlife myself and kill you again. When I look upon the stars tonight, I had better find peace staring back at me. For the hope of your eternal soul rests upon that peace. Now die."

​

--------------------

I'm still working on a lot of things as a writer, so any feedback or criticism is appreciated <3

Danielle stood over the grave of his son as the rain poured down, one thought looping through her mind.

God this is such a cliche.

A horrible thought to have when she could have been remembering all the times she'd had with her son.

But to be fair, it really was a cliche. The pouring rain and clouded sky mirroring hir grief. The solitary figure alone over the interred body of her son. Heck, it was even late fall so all the trees were barren of leaves. She contemplated stopping the rain, but everyone with sufficient power to control the weather was currently out of range, and there was something almost soothing of having the very weather reflect how you felt inside.

How did it all turn into a cliche? Danielle wasn't even sure how long she'd been standing there, let alone how many times she'd asked himself that same question. I've spent my entire life avoiding the cliche. Changing the story, making the unexpected happen. Well, you didn't expect this, did you?

"Hello Danielle."

Danielle glanced over her shoulder, saying nothing. Even if she wouldn't have recognized that voice anywhere, David had sensed him approaching from miles away, a warm little glow in the back of her mind, and they both knew it. The handsome man with a bodybuilder's physique was only a few paces away, sheltering under an umbrella in a formal black suit.

"I'm so sorry for you loss."

Danielle remained silent, turning back to her son's headstone.

"It wasn't supposed to happen the way it did." The visitor tried again, the barest hint of strain entering a voice that normally held nothing but pure confidence. "You know how kids are, especially ones with real power. It goes to their head. They get reckless, egg each other on, make mistakes. And... and I can tell you that they're really torn up about this. They're having a hard time accepting wha-"

"So that wasn't them celebrating their big win a few nights back, partying the night away? Toasting the highlights of their 'epic battle'? Did their mentors even scold them once they knew, or hand wave it away as the cost of raising the next generation of 'heroes'?" Danielle interrupted, looking over her shoulder again. "When was the last time you tried to lie straight to my face? It's been years, at the least."

The man said nothing.

"Well answer me this. Are you as Triumph, or is it just Terry today?" Danielle asked. "I would genuinely like to know."

"I don't know," He shrugged. "What would help you more right now, Dani?"

"I don't know either." Danielle looked back at the gravestone, one last time. Wow, you are just full of cliches today, aren't you?

"I'll tell you this though." Danielle finally turned away from her precious child's resting place, giving her friend and career-long nemesis her full attention. "I'm a little surprised you came alone. My best guess was that you'd have brought half the League for an ambush. You know I'm not just going to let this slide, so you would have tried to nip it in the bud."

"You know me so well." Triumph smiled sadly. "I actually did try to do that, but, well..."

"But no one believes the Prankster is actually a threat. After all, she's just a joke. A clown who pops over inflated egos and isn't worth the effort of catching. No one ever really gets hurt fighting her. No one innocent ever dies. I bet they laughed when you tried to tell them."

"I know you're strong, Dani, stronger than you ever let on. Stronger than most of the League." The warm glow in the back of her mind brightened, as Triumph gathered his power. "But so am I. You've never seen me go all out before, and I'm sorry today you-"

Dani reached out and took the warm glow away. She didn't flex or quip or move at all. One moment, Triumph was indestructible and strong to level a building with one blow, mentally preparing himself, and the next, it all belonged to Dani, and Triumph was left impotent. She'd always been able to feel the powers of the supers and villains around her, instinctively known she could just reach out and take them.

But honestly, where was the fun in that? It had always seemed to boring, to just take it all. The fun had been in taking little slices, and then still pulling off the joke. So little no one ever noticed it was gone.

Danielle wasn't really in the mood for fun anymore.

"How..." Terry was kneeling on the ground, arms shaking. It seemed like there were some side effects to having the entirety of one's superpowers ripped away. He looked up at her, and for the first time in their long rivalry, Danielle saw real fear etched into him. "No, that doesn't matter. What are you going to do?"

Danielle looked down at her hand and squeezed it into a fist, felt the inhuman strength pulsing through her. She could have cracked a diamond with the power she'd just exerted. It would be the work of minutes to fly through the air, smash into the tower of those arrogant little children and make them regret every choice they had ever made to bring them to this point. She wouldn't even need to use Triumph's power to do it, she could just take theirs away as well, and the powers of anyone who tried to stop her. On and on, until there was no one left but her.

A supervillain seizing power and swearing revenge on an unjust world, using any and all means to reshape it into whatever they desired. Heroic last stands and brave speeches to rally anyone and everyone to stop the madwoman. Just like everyone expected. Just like how the story always went.

She didn't want to do that. She wanted a different story. Something people wouldn't expect. Something that might actually change the stories that were told.

"God, even now, I can't help but hate cliches." Danielle murmured to herself.

And then she let the power go, the warm glow rushing back to its original owner.

"I'll tell you what I'm going to do." Danielle said as Triumph rose back to his feet. "I'm going to walk over to my car and go home. I'm going to cook my meals and talk with a few friends as they try to console me, and I'm going to mourn my child. I'm going to spend the entire day ignoring everything else in the world, just me and my memories, and then I'm going to go to sleep. The real question is what are you going to do?"

<Continued in Comments>

Weasel #35 waddles into the room just as I finish my cotton candy.

"My lord, my jester I mean... I have news about your son."

I sit up in my chair. "Yes, today marks his first villain anniversary, right? Thank you, 35, I had forgotten." I open my chair to enter my son's house across the world, but a paw on my shoulder stops me.

35 looks absolutely terrified as I turn my head. "Sir, you won't be able to find your son there."

I sigh in relief. "Oh thank goodness. 35, you had me convinced something has happened to my son. He must be out doing his 'real villain' stuff right now, I'll pop in later."

I close the chair and sit back down, but 35 still holds his expression. "well..." he squeaks out at last. "Something has happened to your son. You see... the Junior league killed him."

Fury shoots up like a Jack-in-the-box inside of me. "The juniors KILLED HIM?!" my mind is wobbling like a slinky. The Junior League never kill! Even against Jack Jr., they shouldn't have resorted to that! I know us Chesters are hard to pin down, but this? I slam the chair open again. This time it opens to the hideout of the Juniors. 35 protests weakly, but I cut him off by closing the wall I just stepped out of.

Silently, I stalk towards the main room of the hideout. I've been here many times, mostly to set up pie-in-the-face traps, so I know the way through the annoyingly dusty halls of the Junior League HQ. I only get a few steps towards the first corner when a very shiny person walks by.

The star of the Heroic World, Light Muscleboy, stands before me. For a guy so easy to spook, he looks fearless as he stares me down. Muscleboy holds up a hand. "Listen, Jack. It was an accident. There is no need to do what you are about to do."

"An accident?" I spit, taking a step closer. "The death of my son was an accident? That excuse holds up as well as your relationships, Light, and you know it."

I take another step. The Shining Knight seems to falter slightly. Expected, but still a little disappointed. "Jack, they do not know your powers. They expect you to, I don't know, put weasels in their bed, or gum in their hair. They don't know, Jack!" Muscleboy's voice shakes a little on the last sentence.

I'm so close I can smell his disgustingly minty breath. "Listen to me, Light." I poke his chestplate and slinky starts to wrap around him. "You know what *I* didn't expect? I didn't expect to lose my ONLY SON TODAY!"

The slinky has rendered the Knight immobile except for tremors of fear. "They are someone's sons too. Please."

I tap his chest again and he falls over. "Then those parents will be in for a..." I giggle as the thought comes to me. "*Surprise.*"

I turn and open the wall, walking straight into the main room. Five kids stand before me, and all have defiant eyes as they turn to look me in the face. A blonde kid points at me. "Jack Chester, you die here." A threat of death? They must have changed their no kill policy. I shrug off the thought, I'll deal with it later. Right now all that matters is this moment.

I glance at each of them, looking down at them through my nose. "Alright, pipe up. Who killed my son?" as soon as I finish asking the question, I start the timer in my head. *All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel.*

Everyone looks at some short kid on a couch by himself. He's clad in blue, hood concealing his face. He lazily raises a hand. *the monkey paused to pull up his sock.* "Yeah." The kid says in an infuriatingly uninterested tone. "It was me."

Behind my back, I point a gun at the wall behind me. "Let this be a lesson to you kids." The blue hero makes a choking sound and slumps over, a piece of candy corn portruding from the back of his head. *POP! goes the weasel.*

The 4 remaining supers step back from me. One rushes over to the blue kid, seemingly ignoring that I dropped through the floor onto the couch. His hands glow green, but when nothing happens he looks frantically to the others. "I can't heal him!"

A healer, eh? I laugh, the sound drawing the teens' eyes. "So you can only heal people? That means you had nothing to do with my son's death." The kid stares at me. "Right?" I growl. He frantically nods, scooting ever so slightly away from me.

I clasp my hands like I'm closing a deal. "Sweet. You can live to tell the Hero Council about what's about to happen." I stand and open all the walls, turning the room into an infinite void.

All furniture disappears, leaving just me, the remaining 4 heroes, and the corpse of the blue one. The blonde kid adjusts fast, slinging some sort of golden cord at me. I'm instantly behind him though, sticking a piece of gum to his chin. I teleport again, yanking on the gum. His neck snaps and he stops moving. The healer screams, a shrill sound not unlike a rusty crank on a wind up toy. A kid in all red twists his body to look at his mate, then the healer, then me. "Where are we? What do we do?" He asks frantically.

I straighten my polka dotted tie. "You can't do anything. I can teleport through walls, and I have made this whole room my infinite wall. This is my masterpiece. This is Jack's box.

I gum the kid like i did the blondie but he doesnt die when i yank his neck. Oh boy, he's like taffy! I manipulate the room so that I am on both sides of him, and pull him until he becomes as thin as licorice. I take the boy-cord and use it to strangle the last one, who has been frozen this entire time. I knot the cord and bring the room back to normal.

The healer is crying now, bawling his face off. I kneel down in front of him, my rage fading. "Go tell the council now, boy. And make sure my son's funeral is on every channel."

I teleport back to my chair, where 35 is still nibbling his claws. He hands me a cotton candy, but my tears ruin the whole thing.

The phone was ringing. Captain Z didn't want to answer it, only one person has that number, and that person was the last person he wanted to talk to at the moment.

Better to get this over with now. He picked up, "I'm sorry Gate."

The silence was almost as terrifying as the one word that was spoken. "Explain."

The Captain could feel the sweat start to bead. "We can't control them, they were formed when you were off world they never faced you, they were never brought in line. They went rogue and attacked without provocation, Jeff wasn't even in costume.... I'm sorry so so sorry..."

"That does not fix the situation Captain, what is the councils stance." The words were hollow, devoid of emotion, cold.

"The public's opinion prevents the council of heroes intervention, it was seen as a positive that the young team took the initiative and attacked a villain hideout." He paused and took a deep breath. "The council will not take action against you or attempt to prevent you from taking the action you see fit in response to Jeff's death."

More silence, deep and ominous.

"I will not kill them." A click, a dial tone.

Captain z started to shake.

The gatekeeper leaned back in his chair, his rage cold, and unforgiving. This was his fault, he had become lax in his duties and it had cost him his son. So many years spent as a villain and not just any villain but the gatekeeper, "if you could beat the gatekeeper then you were a real hero!" "He's not that tough, but pretty much everybody has fought him at one time or another." But there was more to him than most knew, he was more than the gatekeeper, to the council of heroes he was a schoolmaster secretly working to weed out the weak or those who might injure themselves or others. At other times a secret executioner for those who were a danger to every one around them. And now some of those he had failed to test had killed his son. His successor.

The gatekeeper glanced over the files of the team that had attacked his son. A girl super strength, hard to use that strength when you become a paraplegic. A young male, super speed, hard to use that speed when you have no limbs. Another male super sonic vocals and sound production, no voice box fixes that. There were more but he would start with those three. He would let them live, but there are consequences to every action. They would be humbled.

Fireye opened her door to find Paragon on her front stoop. Paragon, lynchpin of the Security Council's global defense strategy, was pushing her recycling bin aside and inspecting the chipped paint on her doorframe.

"Holy shit!" dropped out of her mouth before she could stop herself. "Paragon? What are you doing here? I mean, what the hell are you doing here? Is it good or bad? Could you sign my–"

"There's no time for that now," he said in his famous basso, eyebrows tight on his face, lips drawn into a hard line. "Get inside, out of sight. Do you know where your family are?"

Fireye's fiery eyes widened, and the temperature around them raised a full degree. "Bad, then." She cleared her throat and put on her hero game-face, then one that the cameras knew, the one she'd worn under the blood spatter when she'd put down Exterscius. "Ok. Ok. Do you need help? What can I do?"

Paragon pushed past her and swiftly pulled the curtains shut. It was only then that she noticed his hands were shaking. Paragon's hands were shaking. What fresh hell could shake the hands of the man who had literally turned back Hell's own invasion?

"Get your wife, get your kids," he said. To his credit, his voice didn't waver. "You need to vanish. New identities, new names. New bodies if you know a polymorpher who will help you within the hour. If not, just get out and get to the other side of the planet. Whatever contingencies you have, use them."

"Fuck, Paragon, slow down and give me a real sitrep." Fireye forced her breathing to steady, pulled her focus in. "What in the absolute fuck are we dealing with?"

Paragon turned his arresting ice-white eyes to meet her burning ones. She could feel the pressure emanating from them, could feel her own flames rising to match. He took a deep breath.

"The Tickler is coming for you." He said it slowly, clearly, without inflection. In her mind, Fireye could distinctly hear a record-scratch play, stopping the inner music of the moment.

"Say that again," she said.

"The Tickler is coming for you." His voice, balm to millions, cracked just a bit. "She'll be here soon."

"The Tickler," said Fireye. "The prankster. The one who made the mayor of Lagos piss his pants on the news last week. That Tickler."

"Yes," said Paragon, his voice level.

"You are not serious," said Fireye. "This isn't funny. You scared me."

"I am far past serious," said Paragon. "My daughter is dead."

Fireye's jaw slowly descended, dragged inexorably downward with uncompromising force.

"No. No no no. Your daughter is The Black Knight. I just saw her on the news."

"Do you know why?" asked Paragon in a dead voice.

"She foiled a plot on the President," answered Fireye, alarm rising in her chest.

"As it turns out, she foiled a prank on the President." Paragon's tone turned flat and clinical, the words of a recon unit reporting to command. "The Tickler's son Sideshow was setting off some cuss-word fireworks over the President's head, protesting the fracking policy or some other nonsense. But Shelley's team was there, and Sagittarius put a stellar arrow through his eye. Sideshow was gone in seconds."

"That's terrible," began Fireye, "but we both know he shouldn't have been there. And the kid makes sparkles. His mother makes people laugh. The hell is going on, Paragon?"

"Omar," he said in that lost, hollow tone. "My name is Omar."

"Omar," said Fireye, "please help me understand."

"She's not just going to kill our kids," said Paragon, said Omar, said the most apocalyptic single human force in recorded history. He looked at the floor. "She's going to make us kill our kids."

Fireye noticed then the bags under Paragon's eyes. She ran out of words; he'd run out of tears.

"It's very Biblical, isn't it?" he mused without affect. "An eye for an eye, a child for a child. She caught me in the audience at Shelley's award ceremony." He paused, then looked back at her, gaze to gaze, parent to parent. "Did you know that a laugh is an involuntary spasm? That's what she really does. She makes you spasm."

"So..." said Fireye, and then it caught her. "Oh. Oh, no."

"Yes." Behind his voice, Fireye could hear the bile rise in Paragon's throat, could hear the acid hit his vocal cords. "I killed them. I killed my little girl, I killed them all. I twitched and they died and I knew it was her. I'd be glad that the President wasn't there, if I thought I could ever be glad again."

"You need to know," he continued, dead-eyed,, "that she can do it from anywhere. She's got a truly photographic memory, and all she needs to do is see you once. That's it, that's all she needs, and she's got you forever. Most of us have been marked for years, and we never guessed. What would happen to your kids if you lost control and looked at them?"

Fireye's face went ashen. "She has to be stopped."

"How?" asked the most powerful man in the world.

She searched for answers. "Surprise? Mind control?"

"How many of us do you think she's ever seen?" His voice rose, fear and anger meeting in rising volume. "How many of us could she turn against one another and make fucking chaos bombs out of our powers?"

His shoulders squared, finally, and his face evened out. "So you will get your kids, and you will vanish. And we will both pray that ordinary humans can handle her, with their invasive security cameras and their terrorizing drone strikes. We will pray they can even find her, a lifelong fugitive with a singular strategic genius and massive popular support, who has decided that the hegemony of heroes is over and that she will personally visit upon us the Plague of the Angel of Death."

"Yes, yes I will." Fireye began to leak cinder-tears down the sides of her face. "Thank you for telling me."

"Thank me when we live," said Paragon as he mastered his grief and began to flex his onyx wings. "Now go. I have a hundred more stops to make tonight."

EDIT: re-jiggered a paragraph and added punctuation. Also, feedback always welcome!

I stared out the window thinking about my son for hours. The hours flowed by and the life seemed to drain out of me as the time rolled on. I had so many dreams for him, so many ambitions. Though I knew that I would never be a perfect father, I wanted to love him for the rest of my life. Really, all I ever wanted for him was happiness, and now that was snuffed out.

Throughout my life, I had never once felt hatred. I had not liked people, and therefore I would prank them to get even. But now, something had changed inside me entirely. Not many people knew how much I had held myself back except Hix. Hix was the only hero in the world I held some respect for, and though I would still pull my antics on him, I ensured that it was never anything too serious.

Now, in the midst of my son's death, he was the only one beside me. Maybe he was a friend, maybe he was just there because his role called for it, I didn't care. He looked over at me and kept quiet for a while but then finally spoke up.

"Well, I am sure you have some nasty prank up your sleeve, right Jinx?"

"No. This is different. A prank would be glossing over it like it didn't happen. They knew my son was weaker than them and only wanted to be friends with them. Yet still, now he's dead and it's all their fault."

"They're just kids, Jinx. They made it a poor decision and it got him killed."

"Poor decision? You call setting him for the "greatest prank ever" and then running him over with a car is just a poor decision?! It's intentional homicide."

"We don't know tha - "

"I do. I know it for sure and there's nothing you can do to change my mind."

Nix sighed and stared at me for a moment.

"So what will you do? Kill them to get even?"

"No, and you know that's not my style."

"Ok, but I know you're planning something, so what will you do?"

"I am going to do The Prank."

"You wouldn't. Even I know that's too far out of character for you."

"You know that I have already made up my mind right, nix?"

"Yeah Jinx, I do. Well look, your grieving and decisions after have nothing to do with me, so I am gonna go and pretend that this isn't gonna happen."

Before I had a chance to respond, he was gone. My only close ally was gone and so was my son. But, I didn't care. I had to get even.

The prank was the ultimate role reversal that I had devised and never executed on because I knew the irreparable harm it would cause to my reputation, and I was never in the mindset to do it. Today though, everything changed. Pranks to me are really just an insecure way to jest at someone with actions instead of words. While most of mine were harmless, some did cause harm. The Prank however, was a whole different level. It involved a combination of actions and psychological techniques to leave the victims trapped in it forever.

---

I watched the teens for days on end, mapping their every move. I learned about their mannerisms and habits that could be used as weak points and soon I knew everything that I needed to know. Since they were all boys, I knew that they would be ruthless if physicality came into the picture, so I had to be careful. Then, I began my revenge. I made a costume based on the female character of the show that they loved to watch and even found a way to virtually change my appearance on the outside for a time. When I was done, I looked perfect.

I walked past the teens on their way home from school and pretended to drop something in front of them. They all stumbled over themselves to pick up my stuff and sneak peeks at my body. Excellent.

"Oh, sorry boys, I can be really clumsy."

"No, no, no. Every girl needs help sometimes miss. All of us are heros too, so we can help."

"Ok, then could you please escort me home? I think someone might be following me."

With a little too much eagerness, they huddled around me and took me home. I spent that time confirming all of my research and was astounded at how easy they were to predict. Once we got to the bogus address that I had given them, I gave each of them a kiss on the cheek and left.

The next day, I found one of them walking to school (at the time before he met up with his friends) and talked to him. I told him that he was my favorite of the bunch and that he should come on a date with me that night. Later that evening, I went on a fake date with him and got all the details of his other friends that I needed.

They were apparently an arrogant bunch and not surprisingly, there was animosity towards one another already about me. With that information, I then started the other part of my revenge. I hand wrote love letters to each of them from me, and talked bad about each one of the other guys. I then asked if they could all meet me the next day at the same place.

I watched them walk home that night and they were already arguing. It was glorious. They were angry at the hurtful jabs that I had taken at each of them in their letters and they even fought for a bit. This was going perfectly.

The next day, I met them in person with a picture of my son in my hands. I looked sad and dejected and asked who he was. You could see their faces get somewhat sad but then they remarked that my son was some idiot that they took care of. Apparently they believed that he had not deserved to live given that he was a son of a villain. I felt my rage well up inside, but I contained it.

"Ok. But how did you kill him? Whoever tells me first might get a do over with me."

I said that while using the nicest voice I could and while pushing up my chest. Finally, one spilled the beans and the others corroborated the story.

They hated my son more than anyone. So, they tricked him into trying a new prank where he could deflect their powers while under a car and hurt them instead. From there, they borrowed one of mom's cars and ran him over 8 times. They all seemed to smile far too much about it. It was grim and horrible.

That's when I finally looked at them with my evil grin and they stood in terror. They could feel the change in my behavior.

"That's horrible, and you should not only feel bad, but realize that you have become the villains yourselves. Because of this, I have already alerted the authorities and uploaded this confession to your school's social media page. Everyone will know what you have done, and you cannot run from it. May these scars burn in your mind forever as you become cursed to never to be heroes again!" I quickly turned off my disguise and they looked at me in horror.

As I heard the sirens blare in the background, I threw my signature smoke bomb and vanished. Though I never wanted to be the hero of a story, my son was worth losing every ounce of my villain dignity in doing this. I miss you buddy.

I hunched over my workbench, soldering one more piece into place.

An alarm sounded behind me, the one for someone passing the perimeter. With a low growl, I rolled my stool over to the screen. Some dork with a hoodie on was approaching the door, his hands in his pockets.

I put my finger on the intercom. "Google maps is wrong, numbnuts. Go back to the fork and take a left."

His eyes moved over, looking for the camera. Looking into the lens, he reached up and pulled off his hood.

My eyes narrowed. I recognized that stupid domino mask. I'd first seen it on that hyperactive little sidekick next to Thunderpunch, and now Lightning Rod (nee Sparky) was a hero in his own right.

For a moment, I debated just leaving him there. But I knew if he wanted in, he'd get in eventually, and I'd rather know where he was (and leave my door in one piece). Irritably, I hit the button to unlock the door and rolled back over to my work.

He was in my workshop in a moment. "William," he started.

"Oh, we're friends now, Jeremy?" I retorted, not looking up.

I'd expected a little reaction, the story of how I'd figured out his identity had been more than a little embarrassing for him. But he didn't. "I'm sorry about what happened," he said.

"You weren't there," I said simply. It wasn't an accusation--he was literally on the other side of the city at the time, helping open a local food bank. It was a big publicity event, a big to-do. Politicians aplenty, with oodles of photographs to prove it.

And exactly why they'd chosen that moment for what they did, knowing he and other heroes would be out of the way and unable to stop them.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"I came to ask you to not."

I stopped. I set down the soldering iron. I looked up. "To not?" I asked, my voice low.

"I know you're angry-"

Enraged, I grabbed a piece of scrap from the table and hurled it at him. He rocked to one side, easily dodging it, not even taking his hands out of his hoodie pocket. "You have no idea how angry I am!" I roared. "He didn't deserve that!"

"I know," he said gently. "What they did was wrong. I'm not here to defend that at all."

I clenched my fists, knowing it made me look juvenile but unable to stop myself. He was being so calm about this, and that made it worse. "You don't have kids, do you, Jeremy?"

"I don't," he admitted. He looked down, his shoulders slumping. "But I did have a father. And the first time I fought you, I remember laughing about you afterwards. He stopped me. Showed me a clip from when he'd first fought you."

"The Water Tower incident," I said coolly. "I'm familiar."

"He told me about how you took control of the entire city water infrastructure."

"Please. When everyone leaves the login credentials as 'admin/admin', it's not exactly difficult," I scoffed.

"He said you started a flood, and when the Coalition couldn't stop it from nearly flattening a school, you reversed it. You saved a lot of people that day. You didn't have to. You could have made it much worse."

"You have a point to this?" I asked.

"Not really," he admitted. "I mean, I promised I'd come talk to you. They said I should talk you down. Help you see reason. But I mean, if something happened to me, I'd want my father to do something. And I guess..." He shook his head. "Never mind. Forget I was here. I'll see myself out."

I grunted as I turned back to my work.

He walked out the door and paused, one hand on the doorframe. "Oh, and, uh, tell me when you're going out."

"So you can stop me?"

"So I'll have somewhere else to be." There was a brief pause, and then he hit the frame, clearly unsure what to say, and walked out.

I finished the next soldering joint and moved on to the next one. I wasn't sure how I felt about that, so I pushed it aside.

I had work to do.

Rage was the only thing in my heart. Rage at “heroes,” who killed my son in cold blood and rage at the lackluster display of false sympathy shown by their parents. They like him, were only sixteen years old. Some were a little older but that’s not the point. The fact of the matter is, my son was no real threat to anyone. Especially, not the sons of five most powerful heroes.

I know why they did it; they wanted to make a name for themselves, as if being the children of the “Big Five,” wasn’t enough. They thought that I wouldn’t be able to do anything to them because I was known as nothing more than minor villain. An annoying prankster was all that they considered me to be. My nemesis, however, knew better.

Her alias was “Silent Silver.” She came to me a week later.

“Hello,” she said, in a calm voice that seemed to hold genuine sympathy, “I know that our relationship has been tenuous at the best of times but I want to give my condolences.”

“Why did you come to do such formalities yourself and in person no less. Don’t you have some minimum wage secretary who does this sort thing for you.”

“I do but that’s really not why I came here.”

“Well why did you? Can’t you just give a grieving father just a little bit of time to mourn the death of his only child?”

“You want to get revenge, right?”

“Yeah, of course I do but I’m not quite sure how you can help with that.”

“I am a sworn to bring justice. Even for those who are not innocent themselves. I want to help you. Besides I am not stupid and know what you are really capable of. Honestly being on your good side sounds like a really good idea.”

After about an hour of back and forth, I finally agreed to let her help me. We planned for about a year and we are going to bring my son’s killers to justice. We will strike tomorrow. My son will have justice.

“My poor son. Why did they take you? Your power was just bad luck! Why would they hunt you like a dog?!”

“Lucky, come on man, calm down. You don’t want to make any mistakes right now. Please, let’s go to the funeral and mourn. I’ll make sure no one interferes I promise. Just calm down please, I beg of you.”

“Fred?”

“Yes lucky?”

“Where was his assigned hero?” The heat rising on lucky’s voice was almost physical.

“What are you talking about?”

“Fred, we have been arch enemies for so many years. I know you were assigned to me because you can’t slip. I know your powers, and you know how mine can go, so don’t lie to me. Where. Was. His. Assigned. Hero?” The anger just getting more physical.

Fed was activating his powershr could feel his grip to the earth getting stronger. Everyone thought Lucky was just lucky. They thought he just got away and completed his robberies unscathed because he was lucky.

However no one believed Fred when they told them he controlled luck. They laughed at him and his underwhelming power because the main source of Luckys escape was people slipping and falling while he got away.

More often than not Lucky got lucky because other heroes got in Fred’s way and stopped him from nabbing him, but when we there wasn’t anyone to hinder him, he would witness Lucky‘s ability full force and it was awe inspiring.

“Lucky, Phase girl is in her honeymoon and your son wasn’t deemed a high risk. No one expected him to go into a casino and bankrupt the mob with everyone winning! Did he k ow his bad luck could affect others??”

“I don’t know Fred, but I know I’m going to your headquarters. I’m going to bring your headquarters down and everyone in it. You try and stop me and so many more will be hurt.”

“Ok Lucky, I’ll at least try and get people away.”

“That’s a good hero Fred. Your hearts always in saving people, to bad you didn’t have a stronger power, because you would’ve been the best.”

As Lucky approached the Hero Hall with its big gaudy letters on the front, cyberman stood before him.

“Lucky, dead or ali—“

The H fell off the building crushing the former cop now cyborg.

“Dead like my son Cyberman.”

Lucky concentrated his powers and watched as hero’s started running for the door when a meteor cam careening through several buildings and slowing it down enough that as it crushed the building and heroes inside it barely made shockwaves outside a few meters of the building.

“Well that was lucky” Lucky said to himself.

“Ok Fred, I know you are nearby and we can go to the funeral and I’ll let you arrest me. I have a feeling nothing will cause us any problems on the way.”

I'm sitting in a run down bar on the edge of the docks with a bottle & glass in front of me, when Jack walks inside. He looks around, scanning for tricks, traps, or other assorted "surprises" I may have set up for him. Understandable force of habit; my villain name being "The Trickster" after all. Satisfied, he approaches the bar & sits down.

"There's nothing here for you, Sam.", he says. I say nothing, but I get a glass, some ice, & set about making an Old Fashioned for him. We've reached an understanding in the years we've been nemeses, besides, it isn't his fault. I take a drink from my glass & set his drink down; the me behind the bar vanishing without a trace.

"There's nothing back home either, Jack." I flatly reply, setting my drink down & pouring some more whiskey into the glass. I didn't want to believe the news when I saw the headline, "Villain Killed in Superhero Showdown!" The story went on about how Phase Master had been killed by The Teen Team during a bank robbery gone bad. How the team of super-teens had come in through the solid ceiling; completely wrecking the building but saving the civilians inside. How they had permanently put a stop to Phase Master's crime spree.

What it failed to mention was the call I had gotten ten minutes later. The county coroner's office, asking me to come down & confirm the identity of my son. My son; who wanted to follow in his father's footsteps & become internationally famous. My son; who had been working villainy for a year! Dead at 27. Dead from "severe blunt force trauma" to his skull, along with other injuries to his torso & abdomen. Dead at the hands of a bunch of idiot teenagers that didn't even do a third grade level of research on who they were going up against.

"Sam, you're yelling." Jack's voice startles me. I hadn't realized. I didn't want this. He knew how I worked, knew I just wanted the money & opportunity to make sure that the people at the top were taken down a peg, on occasion. Funny; how the guy who had, for years, been trying stop me was now the only person willing to consider how I felt. He had to, of course. He was the only person who knew how powerful I actually was. Some of the others suspected, I was sure, but Core-Fire knew. Core-Fire, "The Man with a Heart of Fusion", was the only person who bothered to actually consider that the person he was fighting, week after week, was also a human being with their own feelings.

"Sorry, Jack. I just- you know I am." I say, "This is why I keep those rules. Why right now, you're Jack Calliope & I'm Sam Hollingshead. Why you've only ever had to visit hospital beds, not gravestones." He gives me a look that I can't quite place, pity? Remorse? Doesn't matter, I continue, coldly, "You have a week to get me, meaningful compensation."

"I'll pay whatev-", he starts, but I cut him off; growing massive & bestial, my eyes flaring into burning red, teeth shifting into shards of black glass, talons of pure un-reality sliding out of my fingertips, the frozen bystanders in the time locked bar starting to crumble to dust, the walls of reality itself beginning to crack with the sheer, ZK level POWER I was just barely holding in check, "I said MEANINGFUL compensation, Core-Fire. The Council doesn't get to just throw money at this problem." He flinches, but I suspect they forced that offer, "If I wanted money, I'd just take it."

"What do you want, then?" he asks, lifting his glass & taking a drink. I do the same, returning to normal & considering. I do have a code, of sorts: Take the money & run, don't harm civilians, minimal collateral damage (if any, which is almost never but Core-Fire occasionally has to get creative stopping me.)

"Well, the entirety of the current Teen Team getting their capes revoked would be a nice start", I said bitterly, swallowing before continuing, "I'd also put them under a year-long geas to obey the Justice Council Code to the letter, as well."

"The entire team? Even the ones that weren't-", he can't stop himself, it's a bad habit of his.

"DID I FUCKING STUTTER, JACK?", a brief flashback of the true nature of the Class 12 Reality Bender, "Or, you can hand over the ones that landed the killing blow; for me to deal with as I personally see fit." He's not gonna do that, though, too "Lawful Good" for that.

"I'll see what I can do, Sam", he replies, outwardly unfazed, but I know that display rattled him, "I'll also see about getting some Superhero Academy Upperclassmen to help out at that free clinic you run." He finishes his drink, stands up & pulls me in for a hug as I stand to go too.

"You'll get through this, pal. I know it", he lets me go & heads for the door. I smile wanly & pay the tab with the cash I lifted from his wallet, before making my own way home.

When I heard the news, it was like a darkness engulfed the entirety of my existence. The first feelings I recognised were despair and disgust. Two feelings I haven't felt for the past 25 years. Since that day, I had never felt anxiety, worry or any sort of doubt about the future. Everyone, from the homeless man on the streets to the most powerful hero has a moment when they have some sort of doubt. A moment they felt abandoned and helpless. But not me.

At least not until tonight. Then feelings of rage started to overtake me. I had always considered anger to be beneath me. Lesser men lose their temper and solve their differences with force. That is what my father taught me, and I had never hurt another person in my life, no matter how much they had hurt or insulted me. And throughout my life, I had been the subject of ridicule and abuse numerous times. Most people are just animals wearing clothes, making pretend they are something more. They consider weak those that do not try to force their opinion or will on others. What fools, my worst nightmare has always been that I became like them.

That didn't change even when I received my powers. Had others been in my shoes, they would have probably conquered or destroyed the world. How void and empty goals, as void and empty is the man that has those dreams. No, I accepted the true gift my powers gave me, freedom. Yet now, all I could think of was destruction. All I could think of, was that I am becoming like them.

"Jason."

The voice interrupted my waking nightmare. A voice I had not heard for 20 years, yet I could never forget. How haven't I felt her presence approaching me? Was I so entrapped into my thoughts? Or perhaps I am that old indeed..

"Lady Dusk" I replied stoically, trying to keep my cool. She was breathtaking as ever, even for her age. Well, she always looked younger that she is, while life had taken its toll on me. If someone was to look at us here, in my dusty library, there is no chance they would have thought we are the same age.

"Please, Jason, don't call me that." she replied, with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"Alright Christine, my apologies. To what do I owe the pleasure?" I replied, staring at her and nothing at the same time.

Tears began to roll down her face, while her arms visibly started to shake.

"Jason.." she said with a trembling voice "I.. I am so sorry..".

"It was not your doing, Christine." I replied, trying to bury my feelings, at least for now, at least for her. She had been my friend for most of my life, perhaps my only true friend.

"No.. I.. I should have known! I should have been there! I can't even begin to.."

She grabbed and hugged me. For a moment I wanted to resist, but it seems that my egoism had died together with my daughter. She cried at my chest, and for a moment, I felt my eyes watering as well, before I came to my senses and got a hold of myself. I released myself from her embrace gently, and took a step back.

"It was not your fault, Christine." I assured her once more.

In another lifetime, we could have been happy. I knew Christine long before we gained our powers. We were 16 at the time, long before anyone in this world had any superpowers. What started as a playful rivalry, resulted in a short love affair and a long lasting, deep friendship. I could never understand why she always supported and believed in me, what she saw in me that made her admire me so much. But fate had other plans.

" I really do not get it! I mean, I have not been in the academy for some years because of the invasion, but still, I can't understand why they went so far for just a harmless prank.."

"Oh, please Christine" i cut her off "I did the exact same thing and got the same treatment from those government bootlickers that are you precious league. The only difference is, that they can't catch or kill me. What do you think is happening for the past 25 years?"

25 years, that is how long I had my powers. Others would have enslaved the world. Others liberate it. I just tried to help people and protest against the corrupt politicians amd bankers that rule this god forsaken world. The interdimensional invasion solidified their power and with the founding of the Heroic League, they were now unstoppable. I always hated violence, in all its forms. So even if I wanted to, I could not bring myself to go full out. I resorted to try and expose corrupt officials, but it seems that every time, everything was buried and I was portayed as a vandal. So, I decided to play the part

So then, I mostly used to blow up some ATM's and distribute the cash to the poor, rob a bank to help a bankrupt family pay their mortgage, put some itching powder on some banker's wig, dance on top of police cars, stuff like that. You can imagine what a ridiculous show it was to have a jolly chubby man tap dancing on top of a police car in the middle of protests, wearing my signature top hat and holding my trusted cane.

No one really payed any attention to me, until that time the president really got on my nerves, so I popped up while he was giving a big worldwide speech and took down his pants on live broadcast. Things went nuclear after that, with certain members of the league going after me with specific orders to kill me, as I later found out. That incident was 12 years ago, and I have layed low since then. Well, except some inappropriate graffitis on some posters with my signature on it. I had a daughter to protect, and since Maggie died giving birth to her, I was all she had.

My daughter, Jocelyn, always admired the Professor. While others considered him at best a modern robin hood, and at worst a vile prankster, she saw something else behind his actions. She saw someone struggling for the every day person, someone that protested against the corruption of the government and society, and tried to reverse the death of human compassion for some reason. Little did she know her old man was her idol. I thought keeping it from her was safer. God was I wrong.

I tried to keep her idealism in check, but has there ever been a teenager that listens to their parents? I was just an "old man that could not understand". Teenage rebellions are a nightmare. She started just like me, although I have to say she really did put a lot of thought into her operations. After all, she did not have any of my powers, she was just a normal girl. Well apart from her super high IQ that made her old man wonder how can a normal girl evade League members that could see through walls or had super speed, and pull the most elaborate plans every single time. Never did she hurt anyone, she was so much like me. Why would they..

"I promise you, Jason, I will do everythi-"

"You will do nothing, Christine" I cut her off "I will do now."

Her eyes went wide, a look that I had never seen in her eyes. Fear, in the eyes of Lady Dusk. Something that the invading legion of Marxes, the terrible 12, or Erthoc himself did not manage to trigger. I was stronger than all of them, truth be told, but it still perplexed me.

"Wha.. whhat do you mean, Jason..? What are you going to-?"

"Even my father would understand. I am sorry, but I have to go."

I cut her off once again. I had trouble holding on to my feelings, and as such, I had trouble holding back my powers. The last thing I wanted was to lose control of them when she was near. God, at least let me have that, let one good thing remain intact in this world, the last good thing in MY world.

"NO! I CAN'T LET YOU!" She screamed " They will, they, they will kill you!"

Then I felt it. A rage I had never experienced before. A surge of power that I could no longer withhold. And now, I was screaming

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, THOSE FLIES COULD NEVER EVEN TICKLE ME. HELL, YOU ARE THE STRONGEST OF THEM ALL AND YOUR POWERS ARE JUST A PORTION OF MY OWN THAT I GAVE YOU".

Her eyes had become blank, staring at the floor, her entire body shaking.

"I AM THE PRIMORDIAL CHAOS THAT EXISTED BEFORE CREATION, THE DARK LIGHT IN THE ENDLESS NIGHT, THE CRIPPLING SHADOW THAT EXISTS IN THE MIND OF ALL MEN!"

She looked at the floor some more, then she looked at me. And that moment, for some reason, I understood. She would not try to stop me, and she would never try to fight me, not out of fear, but out of love. She was not afraid about her, she knew that I would never do anything to her. She was worried about me, and not because of the League trying to hurt me. She was afraid that I was finally broken, that the world finally managed to defeat me, to crush my morals and values, that I had started to become what I always hated the most. And the worst part is, she was right.

I started to walk away, out of my library. "Jason, please.." she muttered.

"Jason died tonight with Jocelyn. All that remains, is the Professor."

The flakes of ash pulled slowly from the rapidly weathering towers all around. This square was packed minutes ago, filled with citizens pulsing to dance music like maggots celebrating a corpse ; the corpse was of my son. Maggots begin to crawl from the earth and cracks in the steel and mortar.

"Please!", a quivering voice calls out from a billow of smoke adjacent a pile of flesh. "Please you have to stop this Zen!" Its that man again, what the fuck is his name.....Monsoon maybe, no; Deluge. The wind picks up, it's blistering. The sky opens; a true deluge.

"I can't, you know this. It is a kindness I'm doing, you've all turned on eachother, tearing eachother apart, it's not meant to be like this." The words leave my mouth, float through the air and twist the minds of all they touch. Strangers begin clawing at eachother, blood and meat render from bone until its all that's left to see.

My boy was 7 when it happened. One of the kids with powers could sense the powers of others. I understand it was a school of sorts, teaching them to use their powers for good. I lived far from man, with only my son, as my thoughts betray me and anyone near; I had to remain calm or nightmares leaked through. The curious little rats traveled far to see the boy with such tremendous power. He showed them some tricks, harmless tricks. They showed him pictures of the school they attend. Leo knew all about the world but understood well why we trained so far away. A photo of a balloon animal, thats what did it. A fucking giraffe made of inflated rubber. His thoughts betrayed him, he spared me the details but soon the animals around the curious children twisted and snapped. They called him sick. They said he was a sick little boy and that he "made them sick". Well he did. And when they went home it spread like wild fire. Some time passed before I found young Leo, his smile replaced with an exit wound. The work of the headmaster, he was powerless but gun powder is a nifty trick. I suspect I'll see him soon.

My attention is brought back to the present, presently rats swarmed, some feasting on the maggots, some becoming the feast. I cant remember where they came from. Deluge had succumbed to an injury it seems a woman traveled at great speed straight down to get her hands on him, it looks as though it was from some distance as well.

"Try to stay calm Zen," A voice like fleece, "try to calm down. "Headmaster." The only words I had, my mind blank. "It was a mistake, Zen, I only wanted to stop the plague. The world was dieing, you must see it had to be done." There is terrible truth in his words. "The children are safe Zen. Even you can't harm them where they are so please calm down. It's me, it's not their fault." More painful truth. His words burn me like acid I can't think straight. Headmaster opens his mouth to speak but only a sickly gurgle comes out, followed by steam and red mist, and finally viscous stews from deep inside. This is out of control, if I can get my revenge maybe I'll calm down, maybe I can calm down. It didn't matter how far away they were I could get them so why would he say I can't, even his underground vault would be flooded and attacked soon. They would have to be very, very deep. Fuck. The thought materializes neck and neck with a surge of anxiety. The ground shakes first, then splits. More than splits, I thought of the earth tearing itself apart from the very core, as deep as it gets. Too far. Mistake. Terror and panic. The only thing that can stop it is, if only I, I just wish I was

"Get down on the ground, NOW!"

The shout was authoritarian, demanding.

A dark skinned figure in a green costume sprinted across the screen, fleeing the direction of the voice.

" I SAID"

A bolt of red energy flew across the screen, hitting the figure in the back and continuing out through his chest.

The figure collapsed off camera, and four more figures walked into frame.

"Get on the GROUND"

The white armoured teen leaned down to check the figure. Ultraviolet

&#x200B;

"Awww, did his mommy turn him yellow by mistake?" That was a blue costumed boy holding a crystal. Clearcast.

Ultraviolet stood back up. "Oops. Hit him a bit hard, thought he was better protected. What a shame." He turned to the rest of the crew. "Least we won't have to worry about him again. Call the cops for the corpse and lets get pizza?"

The rest of the four cheered and one of them, half his face covered in metal, cocked his head to the side and several lights lit up "Hello. Police. Teen Force here. Armed bank robber has been.."I wiped the screen, restarting the recording."Get down on the ground, NOW!"

The area around me lit up with electricity, there was a crackle and then a gentle thud as someone settled on the rocks next to me.

I didn't look up.

"Get down on the ground, NOW!"

I swiped again, flipping to a different recording. This one showed the victim's face after he'd fallen. His jade mask had shattered, and the pain and fear were writ clear across his face.

"Oops. Hit him a bit hard.."

Swipe.

Swipe.

Swipe.

Tears blurred my vision. I don't know for how long."He was a Villain, but he wasn't *bad*"

"I know"

The other person's voice was calm, controlled, and nearly as familiar as my own.

"He never really harmed anyone. A year and nobody got worse than a few broken bones"

"I know"

"It didn't have to go like this. All he did was breaking and entering"

"I know"

I choked down a sob."He's.. he's the third..."

"But the first caught on camera. I know"

I finally looked up, snarling. The figure was as familiar as his voice. Tall, gold clad, built like a Demigod. Tempest. I thrust my phone in his face.

"Get down on the ground, NOW!"

"Is THIS what you lot call Justice??"

He turned his head away from me and raised a hand to block his view. "Please, don't. I've watched it too many times already" his voice strained slightly, and he looked sick.

I deflated at his tone, staring down at the rocks below. "I guess there's no chance then, that Spectrum, Glare, Fly and the rest are all wrong?"

Even without looking, I could hear him shake his head "I'm sorry, no. Confirmed on our end as well. Heard their stories... I identified Raki's body myself"

He held out a hand, holding a greenstone pendant in the shape of an Adze. "Here. I.. didn't want to risk something going missing from the police morgue"

I gently took the pendant, the stone a twin of the twisted spiral I wore. "Thankyou"

There was some hesitation to his voice "You know that this isn't what we're like, right? This.. this isn't normal""I know""We're here to help people. Look after them. Not.. this"

"I know"

"You know that the only reason we're on different sides is because you won't work within the system to.."

my glare had barely been raised to shin level when he held up his hands, placatingly

"I know, I know, not the time"

He took a breath "Raki shouldn't have even become a Villain. The kid could carve just about anything with more skill than I've ever seen. He shouldn't have been carving his way into bank vaults and museums"

&#x200B;

I shrugged.

&#x200B;

"Amazing what a racist art community and a shitstain of a father will do to a kid"

&#x200B;

"Yeah. I still.. don't know why you let that prick remain free after what he did to you."

&#x200B;

"Mostly for Raki's sake. He loved his dad in spite of everything. I tried to guide him, but his father is manipulative even without mental influence powers."

"So what're you lot going to do about.. this?"

&#x200B;

He grimaced. "The rest of us.. the rest of us are sickened by what's happened. The first, well, we both know what Blackfire did. Lot of people think it was deserved, on your side too. And Flowgrey really did seem like an accident. But this... look. They're going to be arrested later this afternoon. They'll be.. put through due process"

&#x200B;

I just raised an eyebrow at him and he fell silent. He looked nearly as sick as I felt.

"You know there's some serious Utu to be balanced here"

"I know. And I know I can't stop you"

A tiny piece of amusement made it into my voice. "Oh, you know do you?"

He snorted. "I've been your Nemesis since we were nineteen Chroma. I know what you can do, what you can *actually* do"

He looked directly at me, eyes serious "The public, and most of the heroes just think that you're a silly moron, a colour manipulator who couldn't handle not getting her own way in partliament and who now changes the colours of things to annoy, embarass or to confuse people. Most of them don't even realise you're altering government documents on the sly."

I shrugged. "Gotta make a difference somehow. Thanks for people like you distrusting computer records so much that they rely on paper, makes it a lot easier."

He shook his head, not letting himself be deflected. "I also know your power works on people, I saw you change that girl's hair, and that your area of effect is much larger than most suspect." His tone went hard. "And I know basic physics. Exactly how long would this city last if you just turned *everything* perfectly black, in the middle of summer?"

I shrugged at him again "Here's hoping we don't find out""Yeah. Right."He stood up, and held out a hand "Okay, what're we doing?"I stared at his hand "Excuse me? We? I'm not relying on your 'due process' "

His posture was shaky, but his voice was firm "Neither am I. I'm just coming with you to... prevent civilian casualties"I took his hand.

I was frozen.

Here I was, the most powerful being on planet earth, worthless when my family needed me the most. My powers are rare, and so strong I keep them under wraps. But what use are my powers if I cannot even protect my own son.

I never wanted the attention or the spotlight, and if the Legion of Heroes knew the true scale of my abilities they would do everything they could to eliminate me. My ability to create matter using just my mind can be used to take over the world, but in reality I just want to live a quiet life. I have my home on top of Excalie mountain, far away from everyone else - and my ability to create anything I need not only means I don't need anything from the rest of the world - and can also track them with my surveillance drones.

But I had become complacent. After so long removed from the world I forgot why I've always avoided those godforsaken 'heroes' in the first place. They love the spotlight. Media darlings who help people not out of good will, but to show off how much stronger and more powerful they are than everyone else. I don't need them. I don't need to prove my power to anyone. I know who the strongest person in the world is.

My son, Darius, though, he was always excited to prove himself. He did not like that I only used my powers to lightly foil the Legion of Heroes. Sometimes I would jam up one of the engines on Magnificent Man's jet with sand. Once I put slick oil on the bottom of King Jameson's shoes, and my drone caught the amazing scene of him slipping and sliding around while trying to chase down a street robber who stole some woman's purse.

Darius was born with just a small portion of my powers, but was desperate to be the supervillain I never was. He could make small items appear. He made a gun appear after getting into the backroom of a bank while posing as a maintenance man. I'm not sure why he wanted to rob a bank, money is no item for us. He just wanted to see if he could do it.

Magma girl was seeing a banker in a side office when it all went down. Darius did not even know. They had gone to school together, and he would have likely recognized her outside even not in her costume if he had been more careful.

I'm not sure what they were exactly doing there, but Tusk and Metal-Son, the other two members of the Teen Trio were sitting in a car outside. When the alarm went off, Darius was outmatched.

I don't know how it went down. The bank's security footage cut off once the battle began - Tusk's energy shield shorted them all out - and I was fooling around with my drones elsewhere thinking of a way to foil Leopard as she fought Electra-Zill downtown.

Darius' body was brutalized. He was severely burned and torn into pieces. The Trio was so brutal the Legion is holding a Tribunal. It is likely they will be sent to Lunar jail and forever be disgraced figures in the super community.

But that is not enough. These kids were idiots, but putting them into Lunar jail wont solve the problem. They were emboldened by the system. Those Legion assholes in Geneva tell these kinds they are perfect. Special heroes who deserve the world. When you tell a youngster that they are perfect their whole life, they're going to think they have a right to play judge, jury and executioner whenever they want.

The tribunal will start at 8am today in Geneva. Every hero who is somebody will be there. Showing face and talking to the media - as if my son's death is just another press opportunity. Paying condolences to a young kid whose death they are partly responsible for.

What they don't know, is that there is a bomb deep under the Legion headquarters. A bomb that puts the Fat Man to shame. At 8:05 it will detonate. Atom-man and Venuspower are the only two that have even a chance to survive. Unfortunately, millions of civilians will die too. The entirely of Geneva will be wiped off the map.

But it's the price we will have to pay. A price we all will pay for a new, hero-less world.

I stood there staring into the frozen faces of the ones who murdered my son. They were celebrating when I found them, gleeful in their victory. The son of a washed up villain, harmless, murdered for stealing insulin from the pharmacy. The heros talked about stock losses and how my son was destroying a proud business. My son, who was only trying to help those this country turned their backs on. This world was corrupt, but I hadn't realized just how corrupt. I played my pranks while my son talked about change. He took after his dad that way.

"Kira, I expected to find you here."

I didn't turn towards him "Are you here to stop me, Chronus?"

"You know I couldn't stop you, even if I wanted to."

Time stood still around us, and memories came flooding in. Chronus was assigned to be my hero early on in my career. Apparently, pulling pranks on the top heros demanded the attention of one of the greatest new heros of the generation. Who knew a few pies thrown into some faces and tacks on chairs could warrant such a threat? Unfortunately, for the council and Chronus, he wasn't the only one that could stop time, nor could he stop my time.

"Where were you?" I asked. This time in-between time had been our getaway. No one could find us or stop us here. When you have all the time in the world together, things like heros and villains fade away.

"I was stuck, explaining how you got away with defacing the statue of Thunderus again. I had checked the routes earlier in the day, there wasn't a threat. I didn't realize..." He wrapped his arms around me. "They weren't supposed to do this, they were supposed to be on patrol in another city!"

"Why were they here?" As the tears stream down my face.

"They took on a contract job, lied to the council. No one knew until the press got the story." I can still see the blurred images of my son beaten body left lifeless on the ground and the smiles on these heros faces.

"I will be taking them, their families, and the ones that hired them." I felt Chronus flinch behind me. He was always able to keep my rage in check. To keep my contained. While the council might think he does an awful job of stopping me, it couldn't be further from the truth. We have balance. I stay harmless because I found happiness. Hidden away, in my pocket of time between time, and they somehow took that away from me. I would make them regret their actions for the rest of their miserable lives.

Chronus didn't say anything for a long while, but what was time for us anyway. "Let me help." I smiled a cruel, dark feeling came over me. My hero, my golden boy, they finally broke him. The world will remember the day they killed our son as the day the world would be changed forever.

Doctor Vile stood silently before his laboratory's Supercomputer, face illuminated by a dozen different monitors replaying live footage from the Young Wonders' latest - and seemingly final - victory over their nemesis, Mickey Menace. Vile hated when rivalries got ugly and, normally, he'd have taken great pains to avoid witnessing an outcome like this.
He would make an exception this once. He owed it to Mickey not to look away. Not to ignore his failure as a mentor, or as a father.

Vile pressed a button on his remote.

The scene wound back to a battered Kid Caster's interview with reporters on the scene, talking at length about how they had tried to de-escalate with Menace over the past three months before finally resorting to putting him down. Vile's composure almost cracked at the lie, but he soldiered on, committing the boy's every fractured bone and open wound to memory.

He remembered how proud he was when Mickey told him he had become an entire team's premier opponent. He remembered how he encouraged him to aim higher and higher with his escapades now that he wasn't up against police or bank guards but true, blue superheroes. He remembered barely being able to keep his mouth shut when Mickey invited his friends from school over and he instantly recognized them as the Young Wonders' civilian alter egos.
He wondered how it had all gone so wrong.

Vile pressed another button on his remote.

A screen to his left switched to Mickey's criminal record, and the Doctor immediately begins reading despite having memorized it days ago; for the first few months, it was nothing but stealing burlap sacks of money from the bank, kidnapping the mayor, and harebrained schemes to control the city just like his father's. Over time though, Mickey's listed crimes grew more and more serious - murders, attacks on government black sites, theft of bleeding edge technology from top secret labs, and more.

Vile had been proud of how quickly his son was climbing the ranks of the dastardly and despicable. He had given the boy all the shrink rays and funding he needed to start off with, and even when he began to cleave closer to the current trend among teenaged capes rather than the mustache-twirling pranks Vile himself engaged in, he believed it was simply Mickey trying to fit in.

Vile pressed another button on the remote.

The Supercomputer's displays switched to intel profiles and analyses of each of the Young Wonders' team members and their abilities; Dragon Girl, the mystical martial artist. Lightning Lad and Diana Danger, the dynamic duo. Starburst, the exiled alien princess. Kid Caster, the leader.

Vile was so engrossed in his preparations that he almost didn't hear the bulkhead closing the laboratory off disengage its locks or the soft footsteps into his lab that followed.

"Victor." Blackjack, his archnemesis - and longtime friend, off the books - greeted him, doffing the hat he always wore as a civilian. "My condolences about your son. I'm sorry I couldn't visit sooner."

"Joseph." He replied, turning around to face him even while surrounded by evidence of the atrocities he planned to commit. "Forgive me, but I'm not in the mood to put on the accent... And don't worry about it. I'd rather you didn't see what's become of me, anyway."

Blackjack nodded, taking in the prototype assassin drone that hung partially assembled from its rigging and the adhesive-insulator grenades that had taken the place of Dr. Victor Lain's famous nonlethal-dehydrator gun. "I see. Nevertheless, here I am."

"As Joseph or as Blackjack?"

"Both. As Joseph to extend my sympathies, but also to discourage you from reacting the way any father who's lost a child would." He raised his hand, showing Vile the ragged glove he used to influence his fortune. "As Blackjack in case Joseph fails."

Vile pressed another button.

A grainy video came to life on the Supercomputer. A home movie Vile and his late wife had taken of Mickey's seventh birthday, when Vile had helped him make his first friend - a rudimentary spiderbot that Mickey nonetheless loved.

"You'd stop a man going after the people who murdered his only boy?" Vile asked softly. "I thought heroes were supposed to fight for justice."

"I'd stop a man from making more parents bury their children." Blackjack replied. "Please, Victor. I don't want to fight you. I'll make sure the Young Wonders learn from their mistake. You don't need to bloody your hands again after all this time."

Vile's pushed another button.

The assassin drone moved before Blackjack could snap his fingers and summon his cards - before he could even turn to face it or blink in surprise. The next thing he knew, his wrist was dislocated and his fingers had been broken in seven different places. The drone hauled him up by the arm and threatened to pop his shoulder out of his joint, but Blackjack only began to panic when it began carefully peeling his glove off his ruined hand.

"Victor! They're only children!" He yelled as the reborn villain walked past him.

Victor Lain paused in the doorway of his lab, hand hovering over the keypad that would lock Blackjack in until he was finished. "No," He decided. "They're villains."

***

In the following months, the Young Wonders lived through a waking nightmare.

Dragon Girl was first; hit by a bolt from the sky that, initially, did nothing to stop or even slow her powerful, acrobatic abilities. Over time, however, her bones began to soften. Slowly, inevitably, her attacks began to hurt her own frame. She was soon hospitalized after sustaining an injury that pulverized her leg, and became catatonic after the revelation that she would continue to degrade until her skeleton was no longer capable of maintaining a humanoid shape.

Lightning Lad and his sister were next. After being covered in insulators that blocked his electricity, Lightning Lad was no longer capable of venting his excess energy. As a direct result, his own powers overloaded his brain and essentially cooked him alive, leaving him crippled by nerve damage and amnesia. With half the dynamic duo reduced to a bedridden vegetable, Diana Danger withdrew from public life and later renounced their career as a superhero, decrying it as the instigator of the attack on her brother.

The Antareans, Starburst's people, went extinct shortly after. Their Harvali rivals had been granted strange new weapons and technology, gifted to them by a third party who disappeared shortly after. When the Harvali won control of the homeworld they shared with the Antareans, they brutalized the Antarean population, destroyed all record of their history, and publicly executed the Antarean royal family. The scene was then broadcast to the entire country by the same space station that had withered Dragon Girl's body.

Finally, there was Kid Caster.
Victor Lain killed him.

"Key?"

"Yes... He's coming for you Zenith." Says the famous "Prime", leader of The Order.

"And..?"

"I know you only know him as a trickster, famously named for a shortened version of Loki, the trickster god of myth... But he is so much more than that." Prime is visibly shaking now. Prime is "the strongest hero on Earth", I was placed in charge of The Coalition, a young league of new heroes, as I am theorized to be stronger than him. We can't test it without destroying a city.

"This is because we killed his kid? It was an accident, Morgan can separate molecules into component parts, and unintentionally caused an explosion when some phosphorus got exposed to air. It was all in the report, even the news is talking about it, it was a tragedy, 200 people died that day. Traveler and I moved as fast as we could, and we still lost that many people. His kid wasn't even in costume, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"The circumstances doesn't matter, he is going to come for you, you need to get off-world as quickly as you can." Prime is starting to get angry, I can sense it, but I can also feel that he's terrified, I'm finding the mix confusing.

"Why would I run? It's Key for gods sake, he's just a guy who makes our lives annoying, even if he blamed us for the accident, what's he going to do?"

Prime swallowed, odd since he also doesn't need to "Key is the most powerful person I have ever seen, I have only ever seen a taste of it but I won't be able to stop him... You need to jump into space and pray he can't follow you. I will come find you once I am sure the threat is over."

"You are going to kill him? If YOU can, I can, let's just do it together and end this... The team had twelve members there, children of several high ranking members, let's do them a favor and end this if he's so powerful." I'm starting to get angry, I don't like seeing him like this, and he is underestimating his ward.

"I am not going to kill him... We just need to wait and hope, I think..." Prime let out a long sigh, contemplating his next words. We both think and move a lot faster than everyone around us, I swear he's been thinking for actual seconds finding the words.

"I caught him..." Prime started softly "... It was nearly twenty years ago. He had decided, after pranking Golden King, to go for a long walk... He loves doing that." Prime laughed gently, before steeling himself. "... I was starting to suspect that Key was a lot more powerful than everyone realized, and I theorized that he was getting stronger everyday. He was headed into the desert North of Las Vegas, he would be away from most civilians. I got Rush and Time Keeper to help me move civilians to keep the way clear... And I hit him... Lake T'Lana was formed from the punch, named after a hermit that was hiding in a homemade bunker we didn't see. I hit him harder than I've ever hit anyone, harder than the punch that destroyed that rogue planet from a few years ago."

"You... YOU actually hit Key? Full out hit him? You're expecting me to believe he survived that?"

"He didn't survive it, I suppose." Prime was sweating now. "He did die, I think, then again, so did I. I woke up in the hospital a few days later... He was standing over me, and told me "Nice hit, but you killed a young man named T'Lana. He didn't deserve that. Name the hole you made after him, fill it with water and keep it full. If that Lake dries up, I will kill you.""

"... That is wild, he survived that much of a hit and recovered faster than you, no wonder you are worried... But you have me to help you, we can do this!"

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Prime screamed at me, I've never seen him lose his cool like this.

"I saw him." He mumbles.

"Saw him?"

"Key... I saw him while I was dead."

"What?"

"I am pretty sure Key is actually a God." Prime says with tears in his eyes. "I need to fill the lake, and you need to run."

"I always wondered if you remembered." It was time for him to see.

"Oh God." Prime's fear... I can taste it.

It's been a long time since my "nemesis", Rodger Dodger- darkened my door.

Back in my youth, I was the Scourge of Cities, rebuilding metal into something beautiful without thought of those that resided in those skyscrapers I took for slag. My powers were beyond anyone in the world. No one could match my level. No one could stop me turning it all into what I desired. I desired domination of all so I can take what was broken and repair it.

These skyscrapers could have been homes for the homeless. These supermarkets with food abundance should be free so no one starved. When there was hoarded abundance I would fix the problem. It wasn't fair. It was never fair.

RD changed my mind. Asked me why break and rebuild when I could use what was there and gently nudge it into place. Why not equip others with the skills they would need to make the world a better place? I couldn't watch and make sure it all stayed in place forever.

So I shed the identity of the Scourge of Cities, to become something... smaller. Sillier. Something harmless.

I like to think of myself as a dungeon master, guiding hero's through trials. I get them to work together, work on their flaws, realize their strengths. I run them around, push them to their limits- but they were never in danger. Their success was my success. It ment they could put those skills to work. Make the world a better place.

And sure, sometimes I do things such as make all the furniture in a heroes apartment stick to the ceiling. A minor inconvience to their day when I'm feeling like Cadet Marsha has got a stick up her ass. Sometimes I needed a laugh.

A generation passed. Maybe two? The faces blur together, the spandex recycled. Cadet Marsha, Cadet Marshall- they pass on identies. RD was immortal like robots would be. He watched over the heroes, fighting their battles- and I would give those heroes the needed training they would need to face threats that without me they would be ill equipped for.

So I decided. If the heroes where having children, passing on their knowledge and experience, why couldn't I do the same? So I made a child. I raised them, showed them everything I knew, to create from their surroundings. To build, to plan-

And on their first time out, their villainous laugh still off pitch and their powers still unmastered- they were killed.

"It was an accident." RD told me.

Accident? No. It was not. They used deadly force. I had watched it from the cameras of the museum they had fought in.

"I missed out on my date because of some Jester wannabe?" One of the teenagers yelled. "Fuck it, wrap it up. I want to go back to the diner."

My child dodged their attacks, because they still didn't know their own strength, didn't want to damage the artefacts around them. And when they stopped to speak they managed to pin them-

"Accident." I repeated.

And since they always defeated me, as I yell out curses as I disappeared into a puff of smoke in a theatric way- they didn't see me as an actual threat, just a nuisance villain of the week to dispatch of and move to the next. This new generation wast taking away what I was trying to teach them. So I passed it to my child to deal with them as I began on a project in the desert. Maybe I was to out of touch. Maybe I needed to find new ways to guide the new generation. The same tricks become passed down and easier to manage.

I should have trained my child better. I should have been here.

"It wasn't fair." I said, sheding the Jester persona, feeling how my body itched like it had been held too tightly for years.

All Vex could think of was the feel of a small hand in hers and all those times it had slipped out purposely to look at a worm, to pet a dog, to reach a leaf shaped like a heart (which was then proudly presented).

As she sat at the bar, one hand held a glass of apple juice tightly. The other was opening and closing reflexively. The news on the TV was muted behind her but she knew what it was showing. The banner said something like 'Villain slain in dramatic showdown in city centre" "Heist foiled" with clips of the 4 "heroes" involved.

They had everything wrong. Her baby had just understood technology. For Vex it was beyond her, it was something she only ever worked with on a physical level. But her baby worked magic on anything with chips and code and she had always been so proud. She was powerful, not that she ever felt the need to use the full extent for her powers, but her child having dominion over a domain she didn't understand was wonderful and just a little charming.

Chip had always been a bit hard on himself despite anything Vex had consoled him with. What good were his powers? Why couldn't he be more like her, or be able to fly or fight. But the older he got, the more familiar he became with fake news, propaganda, and the injustice happening the world over he finally found his niche and she was happy to see him pick up the mantle of causing chaos and change.

Random and very damaging emails coming to light from politicians and their lobbyists, the reports made by companies regarding their sweatshops or environmental damage from their factories, a glitch repricing insulin to just cents for a week before anyone noticed.

Vex realised despite both him, and deep down her, thinking his power was useful but insignificant in comparison to others, it may have been that her son was one of the most effective at really attacking the system. It had got him on the radar of the rich, the powerful and the megalomaniac.

"Showdown"

What showdown? He never needed to physically be anywhere, he never even bothered getting a costume to disguise his identity. He could be working at undermining the 1% in a random coffee shop with free WiFi, or at home in his office. He was only ever in a graphic tee shirt and jeans.

This morning, at 11:16 Vex received a text. It said, "they are here Scared Love you mum".

Her power was huge, but it does not let her traverse distance. By the time she got to the city outskirts it was already over and her only boy was dead, labelled a terrorist tech villain.

Techrot they'd called him. Chip would have hated that.

"Hello Vex" came a soft voice between her and the lying screen behind her.

She didn't turn. Sensor took to the stool next to her and sighed.

There was an unbroken silence. She didn't need to look at him to see him. A tall man, broad shouldered, usually a wonky grin. He'd been her official nemesis since the old days as he was the only one who could ever find her.

Sensor collected her twitching hand and held it, "Vex, I'm so sorry. He wasn't a bad kid. He didn't deserve this.".

She scoffed. Damn right he didn't.

"A few of the old guard have contacted me. They know this isn't right. The world's changed without us noticing and it's sick to the core".

He got something out his pocket, a folded piece of scrap paper, and placed it on the counter.

"When you are ready. Call us."

He let go of her hand, stood, and kissed the top of her head and left.

She reached for the paper and memorised the contents. Vex let it fall from her hand and before it could hit the counter, it had disintegrated into nothing.

The lair was quiet, but for the quiet drip of tears.

Usually, it would be full of light and whirring gizmos. Useless, most of them. But it fit the image so well.

I was the Instructor. The stereotype of a Mad Genius, perfect for teaching young heroes. Their first test of using their powers, in the relative safety of my laboratory.

I used to love to design my inventions, each calibrated to challenge the budding heroes abilities.

My son never understood why I never made more of my abilities. Why I deigned to putter around in my cliche of a lair, basically training the very heroes who should have feared me.

How could I explain it to him, the beautiful dance of perpetual invention? He couldn't see past the waste of our power, and it consumed him.

He swore he would make the heroes respect our family name.

He lasted a mere year.

~

A cautious step behind me broke me from my reverie, lost in memories as I wept over my beloved son.

He looked old, my nemesis, older than I remember. I heard that they forced him into retirement last year, claiming "a well deserved rest, after a distinguished career." An old mule to pasture, more like.

The grey hair suited him, I thought idly. A warm salt and pepper hair, still in that perfect coiffure. It projected the right feeling of fatherly confidence.

He stopped on the top step of the risers leading to my desk, hesitating. His mouth opened again and again, working for the right words, the right phrase to convey his pitiful condolences.

I stepped toward him, my grief urging me to strike out at him. The same grief, echoed in his eyes, drew me up short. The hand that had stretched out to slap his chiseled jaw instead caressed it as he drew me into a viselike embrace. My tears stained his suit as we held each other, our cries echoing through the vaulted room.

"I couldn't save him." The titanic arms around me spasmed at his words, withdrawing until he held my shoulders and an unwelcome space separated us.

"I couldn't save our boy." His voice rasped with emotion, "Those young punks, drunk on their own power. They could have stopped, he wasn't a threat after the first couple of hits." His fingers dug into my skin as he gasped, his tears streaming down that handsome face. "But their leader, Hyper's boy. That.... That.... Little shit wanted to send a message. To prove he was better than his old man."

I knew the brat. Helios. Son of the Leagues Founder, Hyperion, with powers to match. How he could walk with a head that large was beyond me.

My love sank to his knees, clasping me to him. I held his head against me, the weight of his head against my stomach an echo of the hole in my heart.

The sorrow in my soul began to smolder with rage, and with hate. Helios never considered me enough of a challenge to visit my lair, but his father had. And as my fingers twined in my beloved hair, I began to plot.

I fought many budding heroes over the years, and took delight in my inventions that could challenge any hero who strode across my door step. But in that challenge, I learned those heroes. And how to defeat them.

I vowed to crush young Helios. And I would send my own message with his broken body.

// Oooh, this was delicious. Thanks for the prompt, OP!

Rage swelled through her body.

They had taken her boy. The news echoed and tumbled in her ears, bouncing through her skull like a ball in a pit. Her sun, her radiant beam had been extinguished. Her mouth gaped open, but no words nor strangled cry escaped.

Killed during his proudest moment.

It was of little consolation to her, even if it meant that her son had went down with a smile on his face, wrench stained with the blood of another corrupt politician. Terrorist, they had called him.

Her teeth gritted and grinded against each other, her grief violently tugging upon the layers in between-

It stopped. Though her anger had not ebbed, a psychic knife had came down upon her tether to the beyond. Slowly, it all stabilized, and only ripples remained of the waves that had formed upon the surface of the Infinite Sea.

The winds brushed across the neon-lit skyscrapers of Yukon. An unnatural aurora forming upon the horizon - a phenomenon atypical of the time of year. Reporters and journalists had gathered from all over the region to photograph the lights - strange, but calm.

And like her son's life, it was all shattered in an instant.

The cameras found the face of the up-and-coming hero - a visage that had often appeared on national TV for its near-perfect looks. Now, however, it was /ruined/. Norse's manicured hands clawed at his face, digging deep gouges into his skin and flesh. Trails of blood ran down from empty sockets, his eyeballs held in either hand. A crippling scream rang out from a jaw that was locked open. In its wake, the reporters found themselves rooted to the spot, unable to end their casts and helplessly left to try and decipher the perpetrator of this vicious attack.

They did not have to think long, for from behind him stretched a two dimensional plane of color - one that was incomprehensible to the eyes of its helpless audience, yet often so, for they had seen it before, always heralding the appearance of the Jester. Yet what stepped out from within was a woman - her stature normal, scarlet hair flowing out behind her. Its every strand was tinged with abstract, impossible shapes that clung to it like tortured fingers to a cross.

What happened next, they could not properly describe.

Norse was dragged into the earth itself, the redhead diving in after him to close a grasp around his throat. Instead of stone, he could see - no, this wasn't seeing, his eyes had been left behind. Yet, his mind witnessed a swirl of dangerous, indescribable colors, pulling his body, his mind, his very /self/ into a spiral. His mind fractured from the strain of trying to understand something else, something that he was not supposed to see, much less learn from. It tore apart at its seams, leaving him with only the most basic of ability for what happened next.

At the bottom, he could hear - his very mind could feel what awaited him. The tormented screams of his fellow heroes etched deep into his shattered consciousness. And when he reached the end, he was himself, and he was them. His body was no longer his, and neither were theirs to them. Their minds mixed and crumbled at the edges much like his had, his very /self/ being grafted onto theirs as much as theirs into his. Space fractured and twisted, rendering their bodies malleable to her vicious will. Their apologies and pleas were no longer coherent, for they now shared the same mouth, broken consciousnesses unable to coordinate any last words.

Space twisted for a final time, and reality ripped a hole in itself, dumping the mangled, twisted and singular body of five people. Their flesh had been churned into a neat ball, expressions agape as they attempted to understand what had happened.

They never would.

I stood at home on my phone when I saw a news report "Johnson a man who had commit many crime was found murdered by a team of teen hero" I sit there shocked tear come streaming down my eyes, I collapse on the ground crying in a stage of disbelief but then I lay there crying until I hear my door bell ring I am still on the ground crying, "Hey its alright, please calm down Johnson it was and accident" as my archnemeses says reassuringly "NO ITS NOT THEY KILL MY ONLY SON, I MEAN WHAT DID I EVER DO TO DESERVE THIS" I scream at him and he backs away and seems go runaway to tell the other super heroes about what is about to happen, I scream up in pain the world seems to crack around me the fabric of reality starts to crumble as I snap back to my senses everything appears to be normal as I run light can not keep up but no one is outside. "The brats who killed my kids are not here, but I will find them and kill them" I say to my self, Driven by madness I run to the hero base and I see them waiting for me, "I know who you are here for" says one of the heroes and in an instant blood splatters every where, "NO YOU DO NOT, I HAVE RESTRAINED MY SELF FOR SO MANY YEARS AND NOW THIS HAPPENS I BREAK AND THERE IS NO FIXXING IT" I scream "Wait, Lance we can talk this out" I cut the hero off "No, no we can not" and then he ceases to exist every memory wiped then my nemesis reasons with me "Lance remember all the run times we had, I know he was your son and I don't know the pain but please think of everything else in life do you really want to get rid off all of that just for your son, your peaceful life, your happy life, your life" "MY SON WAS THE ONLY THING I HAD LEFT AND IT WAS ALL TAKEN AWAY FROM ME I HAVE NO REASON TO LIVE ANY MORE" I scream in retaliation, but then I let my guard down and when I awake I am in space far, far, far, far, away from earth I can't move my arms or my legs I am trapped and then 10 cosmic men appeared in front of me "Lance you are at trial of the galactic beings you have been found guilty of universal destruction on multiple accounts and leave the space time continuum" They say "Wh-What what do you mean?" I say "Then my son appears "Dad you are a bad person you should not have done that" He says, I burst down in tears crying, and crying, and crying, and crying. But then I remember my nemeses power, I wake up everything is normal but my son is still dead and he is surprised to see me awake "You are awake" he says "YEAH WELL NO SHIT, But you have convinced me that it is not worth doing it" I say after that and as he sighs in relief I punch him just for showing me my dead kid one more time "Ow the hell was that for ?" he asks "I'm not telling" I say and then the "Heroes" step in and one moment they are there the next they are not "I think their parents will love their kid's corpse at their door step right?" I say "YO DID WHAT?!?!?!" he responds "What?" I respond then I feel a sharp pain in my stomach and I see blood all over the walls I see him painted on the walls "That is what you get for killing me" I say in my final breath I move so fast I reset the universe to revert it all.

(I am bad at writing and grammar please do not judge)

Pullman’s ears were ringing. Despite being familiar with the echoed ringing in his ears from gunfire and explosions, the silence that accompanied this ringing was deafening. His questions on why he was plagued with a foreboding feeling in the back of his head all day – that sixth sense that so many parents seem to have with or without super powers – had finally been answered.

“…Pullman…?”

His ‘nemesis’, Fortress, gave him the news that Pullman’s son had been killed. However, the word executed was the one that was exploding in his thoughts.

The ringing got louder, drowning out Fortress’ voice as he felt the world shrink around him. The ringing gave way to crying. Pullman heard the crying of his son the day he was born. He could still feel the enormous weight of his newborn child on the skin of his arms.

Time sped up.

Pullman heard the laughter of his son as a toddler. The memories of what he laughed at were hazy now, but the warmth that once soothed the soul felt like icy fire now. That icy fire oozed up from his fingertips and through his veins.

Time sped up again.

Pullman still felt the stinging of tears running down his cheeks as he ushered his son off to his first day of school. Part of him felt silly; the parent shouldn’t be the one crying. Yet, there he was fervently waving his hand to his son on his first day of life without him. The tears on his face now felt electrified with rage.

Again and again, Pullman saw his son’s life flash before his eyes. He had heard how one’s own life could do this at the point of death but never knew of the cruel torment that would play out should a parent live beyond their child. Some memories played in a flash and others dragged on as he lived through them all.

Intermediate school. When his son became a teenager. When his son first started developing his powers. What was once such a sweet memory that made his chest swell with pride and joy was now a ball of molten lead burning within him.

High school. Helping him become a confident man. Guiding him to being what he wanted to be – whether that was a hero or a villain that was his decision. Pullman really wanted to hammer home that while society deemed what was “good and evil” when it came to super powered beings, there was ultimately a right and wrong.

His son’s execution was the latter.

As all of these memories and thoughts swirled around Pullman’s head, the furniture in the dining room became affected. The first thing Fortress noticed were the chairs. They began to vibrate ever so slightly before they began to slide towards Pullman; their legs scratching on the hardwood floor. The ceiling light began to lean towards him. The dining table cloth, the cabinets, the plants until finally Fortress himself was being pulled towards the grieving man in the middle of the room.

“Pullman! Pullman, please!”

He snapped out of his trance. Everything went still. Pullman and Fortress looked into each other’s eyes.

“Pull- Keith. Keith listen”, Keith Pullman stared back at him with vacant eyes.

“I’m…”, he contemplated saying sorry, but Fortress knew those were not the appropriate words right now, “at a loss of what to say”

“…then don’t say anything”, dead air hung between them.

Finally, Keith broke the silence.

“Who”, was all he asked but the gravity that single, uttered word was immense.

“Keith. I will tell you. I promise you. But I don’t think you’re ready to hear this.”

“I will not. Ask. Again”, Fortress felt the tugging of Pullman’s powers drawing him closer. Instinctively, his powers activated, adding mass to his body to resist that force drawing him in, but he knew it was to be a fruitless endeavor. Fortress opened his mouth to speak but Pullman cut him off.

“The next thing out of your mouth will be names or I swear on my son’s-“, he choked on the words as soon as they were spoken, “…Or I swear you will not like what I will do to find out.”

Fortress could deal with threats spat in anger. Threats boasted with confidence. Threats dripping with malice. The frigid, lifeless way that Pullman spoke his into existence chilled him to the bone.

“It was Generation neXt”

Generation neXt. The last bit of humanity that held Pullman together snapped like balsa wood. They were ‘Old Powers’, as the public liked to call them. The tenth generation of people with powers that have always seemed to have been around. Flying, super speed, super strength – the classics.

Pullman didn’t say a word. He slowly stood up from his chair and walked to his door.

“Keith! Wait! You can’t-“, was all Fortress managed to say before he was off his feet and before Pullman with his throat square in his palm.

“No. No no. I can. I will. What I cannot do. Is wait”, he dropped Fortress, “Please. Do not attempt to stop me or I will forget the friendship that we share.”

All Fortress could do was a slight nod before Pullman walked away.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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