Heavy

Even though I know my own judgment is laughably fallible, the story I tell myself every day is that I've done more good than evil. More righteous acts of justice than horrendous mistakes that cost unknown plethoras of lives. But for some unknowable reason, the pain of all my failure still weighs far more on my heart than the glory of my victories could ever lift, even with all my blasphemous might and power. The story I'm about to tell you is the greatest of all my tales. The one I'm known and loved for, as well as the one which all of my enemies and naysayers justifiably despise me for. And it simply starts with a petty pickpocket named Herbert. Known to the Union City police as Tape worm. Why is he called this? Because the police I work with are all bored. So bored that all they have to do all day is sit around and give funny names to the few criminals left uncaught in the city. Tape worm was just a small time thief who worked the subways and never took more money than a blue color kept in his wallet on payday. And I had not once ever heard his stupid name or seen his stupid file. No, my prey was much, much more flashy. I was the only Professional Suppressor in the city. Many called me a superhero, and all the media and upstate story Grubbers spun that narrative. I've long since figured out that the citizens and news corps do this for their own benefit, to keep me and the other brave Suppressors at the job. Afterall without the handful of Suppressors in the world willing to step up to overpowered criminals, who have the genetic abilities that only so few of humankind has, the world would burn and topple. even with all the thousands of uniquely gifted people who stay on the up and up compared to the tiny amount of crazy scum bags who use biological lasers, internal advanced muscle control, and telepathy to do harm. Because these people are just citizens, not heroes. Who would honestly expect a 40 year old lawyer with very fast reflexes to fight against a crime boss and his armed guards? Much less a hyped-up lunatic robbing banks that grows a hundred pounds of muscle when he snorts cocaine. Only a being incapable of thought would dare challenge the monsters who not only want to commit violence in the city as they please but also think they have enough power to do so blatantly and without consequence. Those lunatics often have quite a good reason for thinking so.

I started the morning with a Jog through the city. My job has more requirements then just being born with a genetic mutation. And one of them is that I stay in shape. The people I passed by all smiled and pointed but nobody stopped me for a talk or autograph because I was moving at the speed of a car while jumping over most obstacles in my way. I can't run like the Suppressor in New Orleans but I'm not slow either, at least when I focus my energy on my legs. I was just starting to sweat when I got a call from my handler Lenny. I slowed down and answered the phone. "Yo, Heavyweight I've got some good news." Lenny's voice was as grating to my ears as ever. "Lenny, my name is Steven. stupid names are for the bad guys." Lenny just laughed like he always does. "Yeah sure. Anyway, it's time for Heavyweight to strike down evil again, The detective working the Undercat case finally discovered Undercat's whereabouts." I ignored the blatant disrespect with a frown. "Good. Text me the address and I'll just run there now." Lenny giggled like a schoolgirl and hung up. I gritted my teeth and held back the urge to fire my 5th handler this year.

The address was just a shabby subway station on the very north side of the city. I looked at all the faces around me as they loaded onto the train and didn't see the redhead I was searching for. Before I could call to yell at Lenny, I got another text message from him saying I should look down. I sighed and pushed my energy into my eyes as I gazed below the unswept concrete. several stories down I spotted it. the hidden chamber, the notorious psycho, and the mayor's daughter. I cursed my luck, the only way in there was teleporting. There were no doors and the air vents were too small for a human. "Lenny, you could have told me I would need help." I mumbled as I walked back up towards the street. For some reason, everyone I worked with hated me. Was it because I didn't play their stupid superhero fantasy games? Because I didn't take their jokes very well? Yes I yell a lot, yes I'm entitled and I'm hard to get along with, I always have been. But I'm not in an office job where pranks and jokes are okay. One day this nonsense is going to get me killed. I gritted my teeth when I reached street level again and had my phone in my hand about to call Lenny back to scream at him when I changed my mind channeled some energy into my left arm and chucked the phone a mile into the sky. It glinted nicely as it arced over Lilly tower. already back in the subway, I looked back down at the floor and decided to just do it my way. I put all of my inner energy into the muscles and skin around my hands bent down and shoved them into the floor. A lot of people think my power comes from enhancing any part of my self with an energy I keep stored inside my stomach and that's true. But only a handful of my closest friends know about the seals on each of my limbs. They look like regular tattoos of Chinese symbols. But they are far from what they look like. Before my hands touched the floor I channeled just a touch of energy into the seal on my left arm. "Boooom!!!" My hands hit the concrete with enough force to blow this entire station to the ground. But contrary to expectations all of that power was focused into a human sized hole heading straight down, the surrounding area was untouched. The gravel in that hole turned to dust and I jumped down. Power control. Seal 1. My personal favorite, Keeps those around me safe from my power.

"Hell! That's not good." Those words delighted my ears as I landed into a house sized chamber with clouds of stone dust and blood trickling down my fists. Too much energy in the muscles not enough in the skin, a very painful combination. I had thought the Undercat... I mean Sam Goldi would have teleported away after my loud entrance but it looks like he was still here and not because he wanted to be. "Sammy, how did they find us?" The voice of the mayor's daughter was familiar to me but I wasn't surprised she was now one of my targets, after all, I knew her scumbag father. "Babe, it's not important. Just kill Heavyweight while I activate..." those were the last words of the nutcase known as Undercat before I put my right foot through his chest. Seal 2, speed. The real reason I can run as fast as a car, this seal. My weakest. The mayor's daughter didn't even have time to hit me with her gift before I knocked her out and threw her over my now blood splattered shoulder. I looked up through the hole I had come from and laughed at myself. "Moron! How are you going to get back up?" I didn't much care about that though as what I thought was surely a plan meant for failure had paid off without the need to publicly blame Lenny for why Sam got away. I looked at the Technology that crazy genius was tinkering on down here and watched as it all went up in smoke. Set to self destruct upon his death I'm sure. He never liked to share. I wondered why he hadn't used it to teleport away...

The job was done, so easy I couldn't help but smile, Damage was minimal and would be easily covered by the city's Suppressor grant. Yeah, I wouldn't get the bonus for a clean apprehension but the city wasn't my main source of income anyway. I carried little Miss explosion as the police had dubbed her over my shoulder as I climbed out of the hole slowly. Dirt, blood, flashing camera lights, a crowd of recording teenagers, all of this was so familiar to me I didn't even notice the Pickpocket pretending to ask me for my signature as he snuck his sticky fingers into a pocket that didn't belong to him or me. He was one of over ten bystanders way too close to me, and when I shouted at them to all back off he was the first to do so with what I had thought was a pen in his hand.

a moment later as I was carrying my catch away from the scene towards the exit. A sound made me pause right where I stood. the voice of a man I had heard three times before in my career. "This is quite the little surprise. It would seem I'm dead. I wonder... was it Heavyweight?" The voice of the Undercat made the hairs on everyone around me stand on end. That voice had been playing on the news for the past year and a half, as the recording of his massacres and crimes were shown. And his victim's families called for me to do my job. 

I dropped Miss explosion and pushed through the crowd to find where it was coming from. "No matter. I never intended to live very long anyway. This recording is proof of that." When I saw the source I felt my heartbeat quicken, the Undercat was always planning something annoying. And all of his seemingly endless gadgets were made to kill and do so with brutal effectiveness. If he had a paperclip and some gum in his mouth he would find a way to make a weapon. How much worse then would it be if he had months to plan out his final act after his death? The Pen shaped recorder in Tape worm's hand was as frightening to me as a knife to my throat. And I rushed at him to take it and destroy it, but the scared looking Kid who held it just threw it away and took off. The pen continued to talk as I changed course and chased after it yelling. "Everyone! Get Away! It's a bomb!!" I didn't know what it was but I knew citizens being around it was a bad thing and that word made them scatter like a dropped bag of marbles. I kept my eye on the pen as it flew over the crowd. "So I decided what I would do." The recording continued. "If my weapons were too weak then I would just find one someone else made and steal it." While the gibberish went on, I channeled my energy from my legs into my eyes again and got a good look at the inside of the pen just as I was about to catch it. "Good, nothing explosive." It was a complex device but it wouldn't blow up. I was a half second from crushing it after it landed in my hand when the recording finished. "My idea paid off, I found the most powerful weapon in the world. The morons who don't understand it called it a silly name. But of course they did, she never used her full power so they thought she was weak." I heard the click of the pen doing something again right as I crushed it to powder, I knew I was too late.

Even though the pen was destroyed Undercat's stupid voice continued. "This is my greatest device." I turned my head to the voice's new origin. The girl I had dropped to come get this pen. The body of miss Explosion was still unconscious, but from somewhere inside her a recording spoke. "A bomb so powerful that Union City won't even be considered ground zero by the survivors when it blows. The entire state will look like a bullseye." I was next to her in a flash and searched the inside of her body for the tech... but there was nothing. She looked perfectly normal inside and out, the voice was coming from somewhere... but I couldn't find it no matter how hard I looked. What I did see however was the source of her powers, The energy inside her that let her blow up small buildings and homes. This energy was a lot like my own only... "goodbye dear world, I hope you miss me. Or at the least remember me." Undercat's voice was getting excited, meaning he was just about to pull the trigger on whatever plan he had made here. The energy inside miss Explosion was starting to shrink, so I figured it was time to do something. I hesitated for just a second but then I stomped on the girl's neck as hard as I could. She died and I felt less than proud of it, but right now she was a bomb not a person and I had to do my job. I could see her heart stop beating but the energy kept shrinking. The recording didn't stop either. "All the stupid people in the world, all the animals in human bodies. At least I am no longer surrounded by them, that is the only reason I don't hold a grudge against you all. And the only reason that my final act of erasing this land like a smudge is not something I am doing to get revenge, it's just something I thought would be funny." I ignored the expert level lunacy and focused. The subway was empty now, I had no semblance of help with this problem. And I didn't doubt for a minute that this bomb was exactly what the Undercat said it was, after all, he'd never once lied about his plans or powers. He always delivered, in the most bloody and grotesque way possible. For a second I thought maybe I could use my 1st seal to control the power and focus it away from people, but my seal was far from strong enough to do the full job, and I would die the very moment the seal broke. Running this bomb away from the city was also stupid, it wouldn't work as this thing was too big and again I would die from being so close. I could run away without the bomb and maybe use my power to protect myself... that seemed like the best choice. At least there would be one less death. "Vision, speed, power control, lightning, and..." I listed the powers of my five seals to myself. None of them were helpful in this situation. unless... "Void." My right hand twitched just thinking about it. Time was running out. I needed to make a choice, run like hell away from here or open a black hole like void in the middle of the city killing anyone around for a mile long disaster zone. This power was my greatest, but also my most useless as the power was nondiscriminant. This bomb was not my doing therefore is not my responsibility, but if I opened up a void then I'm a murderer. Women, children, infants, their blood would be on me. If someone found out? I might get executed. But even if they didn't, that wouldn't change the fact that I was a killer. The energy stopped shrinking when it reached the size of a grape. It was condensed now, and that seemed to change it somehow. It was shaking in a way that told me I was going to die even if I ran from it and giving me the vibe that this thing would change the very world as we know it. I felt like a flower looking up at a giant boulder falling towards me. The very moment it was about to crush my dream of living. I activated my 5th seal. 

"The damage Is unprecedented." A news reporter shouted out on my screen. "After a black hole like creation opened up on Deadra street, Four miles of the city got sucked in and all that is left is a smoking crater. The death toll is uncountable, some say we may never know just how many died here..." I turned the channel to see the host of a talk show sitting next to Alecia Strumbud the actress. "So you don't think Heavyweight is responsible?" Alecia shook her head. "This is the work of the one who made the bomb, Undercat. Why would we blame the one who tried to stop it all?" She smiled that million dollar smile and I almost forgot how horrified I was about all this. "But isn't it true that Heavyweight went in Recklessly? That he acted alone and his killing of Undercat is what set off the bomb in the first place?" I turned the channel. "Heavyweight is an under-trained, overconfident, hypocritical, professional hitman. If the government wasn't such a mess, and the politicians weren't so cowardly, and maybe if the people were not so Mind-numbingly blind he would be put behind a sturdy cell door. Because that's where he belongs! Am I the only one who sees this?" I muted the television and rolled over on my couch to stare at the ceiling. "No your not." I answered. "I see it too."