Deathfish

To begin this story there is one thing you need to know. One piece of information that will help you down the track, help you understand who I am and exactly what is going on here. There is one little thing you need to know before we begin, and that is this –

I am awesome.

Seriously, I’m not even joking.

Like, there was this one time where the city was being held hostage by some whack job in a gorilla costume. He climbed up some building like a King Kong wannabe and started throwing these paper airplanes made out of explosives all around the city.

And do you know who saved the day?

Do you know who kicked that asshole’s butt?

Yours truly.

And, do you remember that time some guy who worked for a clothing store met an unfortunate accident with a truck carrying some top secret chemicals and grew to ten stories tall, then kept attacking big & tall shops looking for clothes that would fit? Who took him down single-handedly?

Yours truly.

Damn straight.

So, when The Big Ugly put that message of the airwaves the other day – you know the one, how could you not? – who set out to save the world, yet again?

Damn straight.

You’re welcome, you lazy bastards.

The Big Ugly is one pissed off mother-fucker. Serious. But you can’t blame the guy, really. When that explosion happened, that big accident that gave all us guys super powers, he was one of them. That’s how he came to look that way. That’s, like, his super-power. I guess.

Who would’ve thought someone got a worse power than I did?

With what I got, the one thing I’m thankful for is that at least my power isn’t being butt-ugly.

But that doesn’t make him any less of a dick.

There’s his face, popping up on the television in the middle of the game, scaring the crap out of everyone like a cheap gore-fest movie. Announcing that he’s got some damn doomsday device. Get this – he’s going to blow up the whole god-damn world if he doesn’t get …blah blah blah… who gives a shit.

Funniest bit – guess what he calls the device.

Deathfish.

Yeah. What The Fuck?

What sort of stupid-ass name is that for a doomsday device? What’s it do? Shoot piranha at people?

You know, You’d think one of those bastards with powers like flying or super speed would be on their way to tear The Big Ugly a new one, but no. It’s me. I have to go book a flight across the damn country. Out of my own money too. And the bloody holidays are coming up soon, so my tickets are expensive as balls.

You think anyone would reimburse that shit?

(Seriously, who should I ask?)

You’d think one of those bastards with psychic powers, who made all that damn money, would be flying their private jets over there to give The Big Ugly brain spasms or whatever. But, again, no. I don’t see a single one of them zipping through the airport in their limousines or some shit while I’m standing in line waiting to check my bag. Hoping none of the security bastards open it up and find my specially hand crafted plastic weaponry.

It’s as strong and sharp as a metal sword, I swear. But it gets me through the metal detectors.

Plus – it is the shit.

Her name is Astrid. A katana, totally pearl white from point to handle with intricate patterns along the length of it. I made it myself.

Damn straight.

Instead of flying across the country like that dude who grew giant wings and gave himself some stupid super-hero name like angel-wanker, I’m stuck sitting at the god damn gate like some stupid tourist waiting for the plane to board.

And then, some woman sitting next to me starts chatting away. Happens all the time, believe me. The ladies love a bit of this guy.

Just a pity this one wasn’t good-looking. A bit of nice around the caboose but a total butter-face. You know the type – nice body, but ‘er face…!

So, I talk to her anyways. What the hell, maybe I’ll get a bit of mile-high-club for my world saving efforts. Not too much to ask.

And, as luck would have it – she looks over and sees my ticket.

‘Hey, we’re sitting next to each other,’ she says. ‘You’re 26E and I’m 26F’

‘Great,’ I said, hoping she didn’t like to talk after sex.

* * *

That fucking accident, you know the one – gave the world all these good-for-nothing superheroes, Nobody really knows the true story about what happened. We all lived in this little hole of a town with a population smaller than the passengers on this bloody plane.

Yeah, we all know each other.

Superdude? That teenage jerk with super-strength. Yeah, I know his real name. Kill-bot? That guy with metal skin who pretends to be a robot, I remember that nerd. Brain-baby? That little toddler with super-intelligence, who never ages a day. Yeah, that was my neighbour’s kid. He still has his mother change his nappy. Says, there’s a monster in the toilet.

‘So, what’s your super-hero name?’ the woman in 26F says.

‘Theodore.’

‘Not much of a super-hero name,’ she says. ‘What sort of power do you have?’

‘A giant penis,’ I tell her.

That was a lie. That’s not my super-power, I was just born that way.

She laughs.

Few minutes later, she tells me she has to go to the bathroom. As she gets up from her seat she runs her hand down the inside of my leg, grabbing my knee.

She smiles at me.

Damn straight.

* * *

So, I have my hand on her tit.

She’s up against that bathroom stall wall panting and moaning and gyrating and shit. And she says, ‘I’ve never been with a guy with super powers before.’

She slams her foot against the opposite wall, she grabs my ass.

‘Me either,’ I say.

‘What is your power,’ she asks me again.

So, I showed her – if you know what I mean. 

That was a lie, too. I was just born that good.

So good that the plane started shaking. At least, that’s what I was thinking, but when it was still rattling while I was doing up my pants, I knew something was up.

I busted out of the bathroom stall, while 26F was still fishing her bra out of the toilet bowl, and found the plane in pandemonium. Lights were flashing on and off, people were panicking, screaming. Some of the passengers seemed to even be trying to complete the physical impossibility of kissing their own ass goodbye. Doesn’t anyone pay attention to the emergency procedures?

Lazy bastards.

I get down to my seat at 26E and belt myself in. I had to knock out some crazy jerk running down the aisle trying to pull out the last strands of hair from his bald head, but I made it. A few seats in front of me someone’s baby was crying it’s eyes out. There’s one on every flight.

* * *

The plane goes into a steep decline.

‘Oh my god,’ I hear screamed in to my ear at an inconsiderate volume. ‘We’re all gonna die!’

It was 26F, sitting back in her seat. I see her bra, stained with that blue stuff from the toilet. She starts trying to do her little blouse up. She’s got her priorities straight, last thing you want while they’re scraping up your bloody corpse is for them to see some nipple.

At least I got some before I died, just a pity it wasn’t someone incredibly beautiful. Maybe someone famous, like that girl in that lesbian movie on the tele the other night. She was fucking hot.

It’s funny, the first time I saw that movie was when the accident happened, when we got our powers. It wasn’t for another two years that I got to see the ending. It was right in the middle of one of those hot-hot scenes, where the hot girl was going to kiss the other hot girl, when the tele flicked off and my windows lit up with a bright green-orange glow. The colour you throw up after a night of heavy drinking when you haven’t eaten all that much.

I walked out my front door, the neighbours had already come out. The whole town was lit up with that eerie vomit glow and was hazy like a thick morning fog. I was feeling a bit afraid that something would come out of it, kill everyone, some sort of giant frog-creature when the woman next door, Jenny, walked over to my yard. She was carrying the soon-to-be Brain-baby.

‘What do you think it is?’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘Fuck knows.’

‘What’s that smell?’ the guy across the road said. He started sniffing, his nose raised to the sky. ‘Smells like burning metal and rotten egg. With a little bit of vinegar.’

I couldn’t smell a thing. None of us could’ve from that distance.

We all later realized that was the first signs of super-powers, really.

Super smell. Good ol’ Dog-boy.

Just don’t call him that to his face, he can be a real bitch about it.

We all start following him down the road and around the corner like he’s bloody Lassie with Timmy stuck down the well or some shit. We’re five minutes down the street when the vomit glow starts to fade and the fog vanishes.

Everybody stops walking.

There, rising up from the middle of the town like a bloated Eiffel tower covered in corrugated iron plates, It was.

‘Holy fuck balls,’ Jenny said.

‘What the hell is that?’ Another person asked.

‘What the shit?’ Someone else said.

I’m not sure who they were asking. I still don’t know what it was.

We all walked on. We found it’s base, where it had crushed a dozen houses and planted itself deep into the earth.

One house was half saved. Well, one room stuck out from underneath it like a squashed balloon ready to pop. We watched as the window popped out and shattered on the burning grass. Then, out crawled The Big Ugly.

‘Oh god! Kill it!’ someone screamed. ‘Kill it with fire!’

We managed to stop them, we knew who it was. Probably a mistake but, you know, hindsight is twenty fucking twenty.

Soon after, everyone started moving out to various parts of the country. Everyone believed that thing, with its vomity glow, was radioactive. At the same time we all began realizing our super-powers, growing wings or metal skin or whatever. Although, mine wasn’t as obvious as most.

* * *

When the plane hit the ground, it split in half right where I was sitting. The row of seats I was in shook free of the plane. We were blown out, rolled through the air underneath the plane for a moment before plummeting into a small lake.

You know, those seat cushions really do float.

The plane bounced a couple of times like a pebble across a lake before all the other parts of the plane smashed into the ground just a few kilometres past us and instantly turned into a giant ball of fire.

I knew I’d make it out alive. How could I not? But it was certainly going to slow down my travels.

‘Oh my god. Oh my god,’ 26F kept saying. Over and over and over again.

Her hair was wet and hanging down around her face like seaweed and her mascara was running down her cheeks. It actually didn’t look that bad on her. A bit of an improvement.

I slapped her.

Because she was hysterical, not because she was annoying the fuck out of me. I swear.

‘Oh god, what happened?’ she asked me. ‘What do we do?’

‘The fucking plane crashed. We get out of the water.’ I answered both her questions.

I undid my seatbelt and started swimming to the shore.

I pulled myself onto the hard dry ground and rolled on to my back, I could feel a pain under my left rib cage. A god damn stitch. I breathed in deep slow breathes until the pain faded. I opened my eyes in time to see something falling out of the sky above me.

Something thumped the ground inches from my head.

My duffel bag.

‘Astrid!’ I cried and pulled the bag up to me.

26F crawled out of the water and slumped down next to me. Her blouse clinging to her like she’d just come from a wet t-shirt contest and was collapsing on the floor, drunk. Ah, memories.

Stop – I have to keep my mind on things. For now.

I pulled open my bag. Inside was my Astrid, still zipped up inside her leather carry case. I pulled some dry clothes out of the bag – Shirt, jeans, a jacket. Socks. And got changed.

I found my survival backpack – filled with food and weapons and other supplies. Lucky, I’m always prepared. And took out a small bag of trail mix.

I put my pack on my back, slung Astrid over my shoulder and picked up my duffel bag. After taking a minute to watch the wrecked airplane burn, the heat already drying my shoes, I started walking.

I’d barely taken a few steps when I heard 26F calling after me.

‘Hey, where’re you going?’

‘Well, I’m not going to hang around here forever,’ I said. ‘I got a world to save.’

It was late afternoon, so I turned and headed toward the sun. West. I dug around in the pockets of my duffel bag for some sunglasses, I was hoping I’d slipped in there. I found them and shoved them on.

‘Can I come?’ 26F said, struggling to catch up.

‘Sure.’ I shrugged. ‘Here, carry this.’

The duffel bag landed on her arms. She pulled the strap over her head and onto her shoulder. The strap ran down her front, between her breasts, pulling the wet fabric of her shirt tight. She pushed her wet hair back on her head and nodded to me – she was ready to go.

I sighed, started heading off through the trees with her following close behind.

A Toto of my very own.

* * *

The sun was heading toward the horizon, already hiding behind the tree line, and I was beginning to think I wouldn’t make it back to civilisation. Maybe it would’ve been better to stay close by the crash. My legs hurt like a bastard and I was sure there were blisters on my feet. The worst pain though – my bloody ears from listening to 26F talking shit all afternoon.

‘Where are we?’ she asked me. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked me. ‘What are those lights?’ she asked me. ‘Is that a town?’ she asked me.

‘How the fuck should I know,’ I spun and shouted back at her, finally cracking. I paused. ‘Wait, what fucking lights?’

Sure enough there were lights, slightly off to the left of where we were heading. They were pretty damn close. If 26F hadn’t been jabbering on so fucking long about her god damn boring life I would’ve seen them myself.

I picked up my pace and headed toward them.

When we got through the last of the bloody trees, the lights became clearer. They were the dim lights of a small shack the size of a caravan sitting alone.

‘What is it?’ 26F asked.

‘How the fuck should I know?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you run up there and check it out? Make sure no one jumps out and kills you.’

‘Can I borrow the sword?’ She says.

Yeah. Like I’d let anyone touch my Astrid.

The little shack was nothing. Four walls, a roof and a door locked with a thick padlock. The lights were coming from a couple of small windows, too high to see through. As I rounded the shack I saw another light, hidden from us by the shack, it was round and flashed red.

I stepped closer, slowly, peering at the flash flash flashing of the light. When I suddenly tripped over the railroad tracks.

‘It’s train tracks,’ I said.

I climbed to my feet and brushed my legs where the fucking gravel scratched up my jeans.

‘Do you think a train will come?’ 26F asked.

I shrugged. ‘Probably in the morning. We’ll stay here the night. One of us will have to keep watch, while the other sleeps.’

26F nodded, she wrapped her arms around herself and shivered.

We built up a small camp next to the shack for the night. I had a small tarpaulin in my bag which I hung up between the shack and some close by trees and built a fire out of some small fallen branches and dry wood laying around the shack.  I pulled off my shoes and lied down under the shelter, using some jumpers as a pillow.

Meanwhile, 26F kneeled down by the fire, warming herself.

‘If a train doesn’t come, wake me in a couple of hours,’ I said.

I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

* * *

Sometime during the night, 26F woke me up.

‘No trains, so far,’ she said.

‘I borrowed a hoody out of your bag,’ she said. ‘Just wanted to dry my clothes.’

‘Can you keep watch now?’ She wouldn’t stop talking. ‘I keep falling asleep.’

I woke up in the morning to a blast of wind ripping through the tarpaulin. One of the ropes tying it to the shack came free and flicked through the air. I was on my feet with Astrid ready in just under a second.

26F opened an eye. ‘What’s going on?’

The tarpaulin broke free of the ropes and wrapped itself around a tree. I watched as a blue stained bra danced humorously across the field. 26F jumped to her feet and started chasing after her run-away underwear.

‘Oh god,’ she yelled. ‘My clothes!’

Angel-wanker, with brain-baby strapped to his chest, pulled in his massive wings and landed a few feet in front of me. Speed-jerk popped into place next to him a split second later.

‘Well, if it isn’t Angel-wanker,’ I said.

‘Well, if it isn’t Theo-dork,’ he said back. The secondary smaller wings on his ankles made a little flapping motion. His cronies laughing at his pathetic attempt at a joke. ‘Brain-baby said he sensed you down here. How is my little bro?’

‘Screw you,’ I said. ‘That’s how I am.’

‘Nice ass,’ he said glancing over at 26F where she was running across the field with her hands in the air. Her cheeks peeking out from under the hoody. ‘You always were lucky.’

‘Not that lucky,’ I told him. ‘You’re here.’

‘Are you off to give The Big Ugly a bit of a visit, too?’ he said. ‘That’s so sweet!’

I tightened my grip on Astrid.

‘I suppose you want a lift there?’ he said. ‘Much easier than walking.’

‘Sure,’ I said. Surprised he’d actually help. ‘That’d be great.’

He laughed. ‘Well, there’s a train on the way. Should be here in a minute.’

He laughed his idiot head off some more and leapt up into the sky.

What a dick.

* * *

I had my bags and Astrid and was sitting back in a near-empty transport carriage, with only a few boxes piled up on one side, as the train began moving. It was an old wooden box, like the sort you see hobos riding in movies. Then, I started hearing something. I moved closer to the door.

‘Hey!’ 26F was yelling. ‘Hey, wait for me!’

I peered out to see her running alongside the train in just the hoody too big for her, the waist bouncing around her thighs, and a pair of socks. Her knotted hair flipping about in the wind. I reached out my hand and grabbed her, pulling her in to the carriage. We slumped back against the wall.

‘You dick,’ she panted. ‘Why didn’t you wait?’

I shrugged. ‘You were too busy chasing your panties. I have to go save the world, you know.’

‘I have had the worst luck since meeting you, you know,’ she said after a few minutes of glorious silence. ‘My bra fell in the toilet. My plane crashed. My clothes flew away and I didn’t even have time to put my shoes on. I had to drop them to catch up to the train!’

I shrugged. I was staring at her smooth legs where they disappeared into the waistline of the hoody.

‘My feet are sore as fuck,’ she said.

‘You poor thing,’ I told her. ‘It’s been terrible. But at least you’re alive.’

‘And, I’m freezing my ass off,’ she added.

I pulled her in close to me. Kissed her neck.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘You’re a jerk.’

I ran my hand up her thigh.

‘No,’ she mumbled. But she was giving in.

* * *

I was watching 26F standing over me, pulling my hoody back on over her body.

‘You know, you probably know everything about me by now and I still don’t even know what your powers are,’ she was saying when something hit the train.

The impact shook the train. We tumbled across the ground and into the wall across from the door. I watched as the boxes slid across the floor and smashed to pieces. Some liquid began leaking out, across the floor. An ear-splitting squeal echoed through the carriage as the brakes came on.

‘Fuckety fuck buckets!’ I yelled.

I made my way over to the door, trying to steady myself as the train lurched this way and that.

Grabbing hold of the door frame, I leaned out, trying to see what was happening.

I looked along the train, toward the front and back, but couldn’t see anything. Something in the corner of my vision caught my attention. Something high in the sky.

A small green dot.

As I watched, the green dot quickly grew. It became a large ball of green-orange light, I couldn’t quite make it out. But, there was one thing I could tell for certain, it was going to hit us.

‘We gotta jump!’ I yelled.

The train lurched again and my bags slid up next to me, like they knew it was time to depart. I took 26F by the wrist. She was shaking her head, panic in her eyes. I threw her from the train and leapt out after her.

I rolled down the incline and had barely come to a stop when the green ball of light smacked into the train, sending it off the rails.

I held 26F there close to the ground.

‘It’s going to blow!’ I said.

A few minutes later, when the train still hadn’t blown – not even a little explosion – I climbed to my feet and dusted myself off. We were in the middle of a massive valley, circled by mountains along the horizon. A few houses littered the valley.

‘I guess, seeing the future isn’t your super-power,’ 26F said.

In one of the carriages was a large hole. As we watched, a hand poked out. Then another. Then a head popped out.

‘Nicholas!’ I shouted.

I ran over to the train as he rolled out of the train and on to the ground. His massive white wings unfurled and lay limp on the ground.

I ran over to where my brother, Angelwalker, was lying silent on the ground.

‘Nicholas,’ I said. I knelt down beside him. His wings moved slightly.

When he first got the wings, he freaked out. We had planned to move out to the city together after the accident, he had a bit of money saved up which we used for train fare and he had a friend to stay with once we got there but we weren’t sure what to do after that. No jobs lined up, nothing. Like everyone else, we just had to get away from that thing. It was like it was a huge magnet pushing us all away.

We were halfway there when he started complaining about his back itching, his ankles itching. It was pretty annoying, the way he was going on about it for hours.

The wings exploded through his shirt and jacket, tearing them to shreds.

And, he just freaked out. ‘You gotta help me,’ he kept saying. ‘You gotta help me.’

How the fuck should I know what to do?

He couldn’t move his feet. I could see, every time he tried to take a step, the pain showed on his face. He flapped his wings and lifted off the ground. The force of the wings pushing through the air knocked me off my feet and I fell backward down the aisle, between the seats and the rest of the passengers staring at us. They’re mouths hanging open .

He busted through the doors and took off.

I didn’t see the bastard again for six months.

And now he was lying in front of me, dying. His wings moved again, and I thought he might be waking up. I shook him, called out his name, told him to open his god damn eyes. But it wasn’t him flapping his wings, they were shrinking. They were getting smaller and smaller until they disappeared behind his back.

Once the wings had completely vanished, he opened his eyes a little.

‘Theodore?’ he mumbled.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’

‘Stay away from...’ he stopped. He took a slow painful breath. ‘Don’t go. Lose powers.’

That was the last thing he said to me. Warning me not to go, because I’d lose my powers. Well, there’s only one thing I have to say about that.

Fuck that shit.

* * *

As I walked in to my old hometown the clouds in the sky pulled together. The old glow from the tower was still there, giving the dark clouds a green hue. I paused for a moment as I passed by an old house. It was falling apart like it hadn’t been touched in years.

‘What is it?’ 26F asked.

‘My home.’

She put a hand on my shoulder.

I continued on, following the path that all the neighbours and I had taken all those years ago. I rounded came down the corner and on down the street. All the way until we came to the old ruins of the Big Ugly’s old house.

I dropped my bags right there. I took Astrid from her case and strapped her in a sheath to my back. Ready for battle.

‘Wait,’ 26F said. ‘Good luck.’

She kissed me then. Different than before. Soft. And Since I figured I might die, I snuck in a bit of a boob grab too.

I stepped up to the ladder on the side of the tower and started climbing.

It began raining. Pouring down. I looked up at the clouds to see them swirling around like a vortex. A black hole in the sky.

I came to a platform, about half way up, a rickety old thing that had obviously been attached afterwards. It shook and rattled in the wind. I stepped onto it carefully, testing each foot. I had to be sure I wouldn’t wind up plummeting to my death just by putting my weight on it.

There were patches cut out of the panelling on the tower. Thick wires and electric boards stuck out here and there like Frankenstein’s laboratory. I followed the platform around until I came to another old ladder.

The rain was pouring down harder now, the rungs on the ladder were slippery as fuck. The wind pushed against me, trying to throw me off the ladder. My damn knuckles were turning white from gripping on too tight.

The second platform hung high above the town. I could see over all the houses, out past the very edge of town. In the distance I could almost make out the train, still lying on its side.

I stepped along the platform, moving against the furious wind. As I rounded the tower, he came in to view.

There are two reasons why they call him The Big Ugly.

The first reason is that he’s big. Fucking big. He’s actually about 8 feet tall with shoulders wider than a doorway. A gut like a barrel and hands the size of hammers. Even the nail on each pointed sausage shaped finger were talon-sized.

The second reason is that he’s ugly. Yeah, it’s not the most clever of names.

But, damn is he ugly. He’s bony and flabby all at once. His skin is somewhere between pink and red with a sickly grey tinge to it. His eyes are the size of tennis balls and his nose and mouth are pinched to a point.

* * *

‘Hello Darryl,’ I said.

The Big Ugly turned to me.

‘Theodore,’ he said and nodded. ‘How have you been?’

‘Fine. Yourself?’

He laughed. A horrible ironic laugh that ended with a snort. ‘Look at me, you jerk. How do you think I’ve been?’

I took a step closer, wiping the rain out of my eyes. I pushed my hair back.

‘So, is that why you want to blow up the world?’ I asked. ‘Because you’re not pretty? Believe me, you weren’t that pretty to begin with, Darryl.’

‘But I was normal, you dick.’

‘And so you’re going to kill everyone?’

‘You never were one for paying attention were you?’ he said. ‘I’ve been here for years. Working on the Deathfish...’

‘The Deathfish?’

‘This thing.’ He pounded on the side of the tower. ‘look.’

I followed where his finger was pointing. Above us, from the top of the tower I could see a series of symbols running down toward us. The first four symbols looked almost like it spelled out ‘DETH’. Just under that was a symbol that looked like one of those Christian fish symbols, only set sideways, the mouth of the fish pointing down toward us.

‘Death fish,’ I said. Then, ‘you’re an idiot.’

‘Anyway, I’ve been working on it. For years, I’ve been working. And, I think I know how to do it. I think I know how to reverse what it did.’

‘Why would you...’ I stopped myself. It was obvious why he’d want to reverse it.

‘What about everyone else?’ I asked him. ‘What about all those who have great power and use it to fight crime and shit?’

‘Like who?’

I thought for a moment.

‘Look, I didn’t say I was planning on blowing up the world, you daft bastard. I said I was afraid of blowing up the world. I was calling out for help from scientist types. I just didn’t know where to look. That’s how I got Professor Granger to come along.’

A short man in a white coat walked up to us with a clipboard. ‘Hello,’ he said as he passed.

‘But...but...you killed Nicholas!’

‘Killed? He’s dead?’ the Big Ugly shook his head. ‘He took a shock off the machine. He flew off. How did he die.’

I thought for a moment. ‘He fell, I guess,’ I said. ‘His wings disappeared.’

The Big Ugly smiled. ‘It worked?’ he asked excitedly, then frowned for a moment. ‘I’m sorry Theodore, but it worked?’

He looked over my shoulder and shouted, ‘Professor, it worked!’

My head was swimming. I couldn’t believe it, I wasn’t going to get to kick anybodies ass? I felt a bit bad for Astrid, still sitting in her sheath.

I watched, stunned, as they started making preparations. I watched as The Big Ugly set up his camera to make another announcement. Then, I turned and started climbing down the ladder.

* * *

Back on the ground, I took a few steps before slumping back against the tower. I slipped down to the ground. I was dumbfounded. I’d be without my power, but really what difference would that make?

I’d still be me, I’d still be awesome incarnate.

Wouldn’t I?

‘What’s wrong?’ 26F said. ‘What happened?’

I sighed. ‘Nothing Miranda,’ I told her. ‘It’s no bomb, no world destruction. He’s just removing all the super powers. We can all be normal again.’

She sat down beside me, put her arm around me.

‘Is that so bad?’ she asked. ‘What was your power anyway?’

‘My power?’ I said. I told her the truth, ‘I just get lucky all the time.’

‘Believe me, you’ll still get lucky,’ she said.

She put her hand on my leg. She smiles at me.

Damn straight.