The Fall of Lady Mara

August 11, 2024 – 2:39 PM

She felt it the moment that it happened.

One moment she is zipping through the air, causing the golems to explode into fiery shards with a flick of her wrist, and the next moment, she is falling through the air, concrete-bound.

Winds whipped past her, her arms flailing for purchase. Anything, anything. She tried flapping her arms repeatedly, trying to will the air around her to buoy herself back up the air as it had for the past 105 years. Nothing. The concrete just rose up faster and faster and—

A loud CRASH exploded her eardrums as she landed right on top of a navy blue automobile, causing alarms to scream all around her. Not that she could hear them now. Her hearing had been declining in the past couple of decades, and the crash rendered her totally deaf.

Dazed and badly hurt, she gingerly and gracelessly pushed herself off of the hood of the damaged car and ended up sprawled on the street. Superheroes do not have the same fragility as regular mortals do but falls like that are an absolute pain.

One of the younger superheroes, donned in a tight red suit and a red bandanna over his facial features, is running over to her. “Lady Mara!” the Red Fury shouts. “What just happened?!?” Knowing that her hearing has not been reliable, he signs the words as well.

Irritated, Lady Mara grits her teeth as she forces herself to stand by grabbing onto the damaged car. She shouts back, “You know very well what happened! I’ve been retired.”

When superheroes reach a certain age, their superpowers tend to wane, leading to failure. Superheroes do have a mortal lifespan after all, despite their increased overall strength, constitution, and slowed aging processes (which explains why Lady Mara is still fighting even in her advanced age). For many, it is a noticeable decline, leading superheroes to focus more on precise, targeted attacks rather than the flashy displays of their youth. But for an unlucky few, it is a sudden drop—though perhaps not as literal as what Lady Mara just went through.

She was supposed to retire a long time ago when she turned 85. But after having been in the game for so many decades, she refused to back away even when younger heroes began eagerly taking up more and more of the superhero work. The golems have been worsening as an issue, and all hands on deck are gratefully appreciated. Including Lady Mara’s.

Lady Mara’s official role as an explosives expert pilot (meaning that she can fly and make stuff blow up) was instated in January 1919,  when she was just fifteen years old. A typical Child of Prophecy, she was expected to take on the mantle of the protection of the world whenever it was needed. At first, her role was scoffed at. The Great War, the war to end all wars, had just ended a few months prior. Superheroes like her were deemed unnecessary. Due to some genetic fluke, she ended up with powers that were not needed in a modernizing world where even mere mortals have the dangerous ability to cause mass destruction.

But she kept on training, waiting for a moment to prove herself for the next twenty years. And then the Second World War happened. She rose up through the superhero ranks quickly, fighting off many supervillains deep in the shadows and up in the skies. She gained many monikers during that time, such as “Lady Death” and “Bomber Angel,” though she settled on “Lady Mara” in the end.

From then on, despite the mortals’ varying attempts at international peace, it seems that the world has become addicted to blood and violence. Lady Mara hardly ever ran out of work through the latter half of the 20^th century and well into the 21^st.

She expected to work until she died a heroic death in the field, her powers bursting in a catastrophic supernova reducing her body to ashes as it took out her final foes.

But now her powers have vanished, and Lady Mara is still alive.

Red Fury is now pulling her arm, desperately trying to guide her out of danger as she had done for countless mortals in the past as chaos reigned around her. “Come on!” he shouted. “We don’t have a lot of time! We need to guide you to safety or else you are toast!” Lady Mara, now as powerless as a mortal and limping terribly, did her best to catch up but BY GOD is she in pain. They scurried past ruined cars, fleeing mortals, and pranced their way around wrecks of fallen buildings.

She could see the 18-kilometer steel-plated golems up ahead crumbling buildings with their fists and lasering down whatever unlucky mortals entered their line of vision. Despite knowing what had just happened, the hero urge is still strong. “Please let me help. I can still fight,” she begs Red Fury, who is shoving her inside of a still-intact small café.  

Red Fury shakes his head and signs back, “You’re retired. You would be more of a burden than a help as of the moment. I’m sorry.” As Lady Mara screamed to be let out, Red Fury uses his laser eyes to fuse the metal lock shut, trapping her inside. Then, he flew right back out to battle.  

“Bastard!” Lady Mara curses aloud, slamming her hands on the glass door of the café. Her irritation is not helped when she sees that the glass door only cracked slightly instead of shattering beneath her touch.

She soon felt someone gently tap her shoulder. “Madam?” a small, teenage mortal with facial piercings signs. “Would you like to take a seat? It’s safer to stay away from the door.”

Lady Mara fumed. It’s not fair. She is 120 years old and has served for over a century. She never got the opportunity to start young like the newer generations got to, and always felt like she had to prove herself to stay in the field, which sought out younger and younger superheroes every decade. The field is--was-- the only place that made her feel like she could be something. How dare anyone presume that she must stay indoors, brooding over a cup of tea?  

But she knows that the Red Fury is right. Powerless as she is, there is no way she would be allowed to keep fighting—the protocols are strict and don’t allow “depowered last stands,” as those risk slowing down other superheroes.

It is time for her to do the hardest thing, and step away.

She gave a tight smile to the teenage mortal, who gently shepherds her over to a seat and takes her order for a small cup of black tea with no milk.