Power Man and the City of Idas!

“That’s the thing about this city of mine. I built it from the ground up, brick by brick, with my own 2 hands! I MADE the people here. I am this city’s guardian! And you…” I picked up the defeated villain of the day by his neck, a look of fear visible even underneath his mask, ...are not welcome here.”

I flew high above, threatening to drop the evildoer to his demise. “See that sign over there?” I continued. He turned his head, right as the sunlight fell on the glorious sign adorning the front of my city:

IDAS

“Home of the Power Man!”

The villain read it, and turned back to me. “When I kick you out of this city, never come back! Don’t go past that sign! Or else, I’ll have to beat you up again!” I stared him down menacingly, even making my laser eyes glow slightly to push in the point. “Any last words, villain?”

“WAIT, wait, wait!” The shouting suddenly began, from under the mask covering his face. To my surprise, he suddenly began laughing, evilly and loudly, his voice getting deeper and deeper. “You will regret hurting me, Power Man!”

“Why is that?” I shouted back.

“You wouldn’t want to hurt family, would you?”

“What?! Explain, now!” My confidence was fading, and with every laugh of his, the sky looked darker and darker, as if he had suddenly begun to win. Even with his neck still in my grasp, the villain managed to grab the bottom of his mask, slowly pulling it upwards.

A mouth. A nose. Ears, then eyes. And finally, his hair spilled out, as he dropped the mask to the far ground below. We were both too far for anyone to make us out, so it was only my gasp that rang out when I realized that his face… was the same as mine!

I immediately let go and flew back, only for him to stay floating when he should’ve dropped to the ground. “Who-who are you?” I managed to get out.

“Haha! You don’t recognize me, your evil twin brother?!!”

“NOOOOOO! It can’t be!”

“But it is! And I’ve come to take your city from you! Might Man will be their new mayor!”

“Why would you want my city?” I gasped out, still reeling from the surprise.

“To break it all down!” And with that, Might Man flicked his hand, and a whole set of buildings collapsed to nothing.

“YOU MONSTER! There were people in there! I’ll fight you for that!” Just seeing that, I knew Might Man would be one of my hardest fights yet. As I got ready to fly up to him, he looked behind me, and began laughing once more.

“Ah yes, my special guest is here! I’m not the only villain you’re fighting tonight!” I followed his gaze, to a giant shadow on the horizon. As I watched, I began to feel its footsteps pounding the ground, and could even hear its roar from extremely far away: a deafening BOOM that resonated across the city.

“Behold, the glorious, the mighty, the terrifying, Chi-Mo!!”

The 4-legged beast bounded forward, swiping at the buildings and destroying them with ease. The citizens of Idas tried to run, but they were no match, and all were chewed and spat out by the giant Chi-Mo’s mouth. Seeing all I’d worked for get ruined filled me with rage, and I turned back to the laughing Might Man.

“Justice Punch!” I shouted, hitting Might Man in an instant. He was caught by surprise, and I used the opportunity to land a hundred blows without him reacting. The moment didn’t last long however, and suddenly he began punching back just as strong.

“Why-won’t-you-lose?!” I asked, punctuating each word with another punch. He managed to block and dodge each of them, grinning the whole time.

“We’re twins, remember?! I’m just as strong as you. Now you’ll never win!” Right on cue, one of his punches broke through my defense, and I fell to the ground, beaten, but not lost.

As I got back up, I looked around me, seeing all the damage we’d caused to my city. I was in the middle of the main street, and all around me buildings had lost their tops, their halves, and some were straight up gone. I knew I had to end this now, and as I heard Might Man land farther down the road, I turned to face him.

“Give up, Power Man,” he said, as he flicked his hand and another building turned to dust. “I know all your tricks. You have nothing left. You’ve lost!”

“No,” I whispered back. “NO!” Louder this time. “I still have one last power left!” I closed my eyes, and began focusing everything into my chest.

“Power… BEAM!” A focused ray of white light shot from my chest, colliding with Might Man almost instantly. He flew back several steps, but I didn’t let up. It looked as if it was working, him falling to his knees, until he stood back up, looking like he’d managed to catch the beam on his own chest.

“You think I didn’t know about your Power Beam? I was prepared for this! Might Beam, fire!”

A matching ray of dark light shot from Might Man’s chest now, pushing my beam right back to the middle of the street. We were at a stalemate now, both side’s beams barely moving from the midpoint. Desperate, I called on more power,moving his beam back by a few feet.

“aaAAAAHHHH!” I shouted out. The exertion was pushing me to the limit.

“aaaAAAAHHHHHHH!” Might Man fired back with his own strength.

“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” I couldn’t lose!

“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Can you both shut up?” Sam was standing on top of the stairs, looking down at her twin brothers both posing in front of each other. They hadn’t heard her first request over them shouting their lungs out, and Sam wasn’t willing to even step into the living room with all the Lego bricks lying around.

“HEY! BOTH OF YOU!” Sam’s shout rang louder than any of her younger brother’s, and both stopped posing to look up at her. “I need you both to shut up, okay? I can barely hear myself studying anymore, and it’s really anno-WAIT!” This new shout surprised both the boys, as Sam went down and braved the Lego covered floor into the half-broken city the boys were playing in.

“Ethan? Josh? What’s happening?” Their mom now stood in the doorway to the living room, brought out by the sudden change in noise.

“Mom! Look what they did! I really needed this one too!” Sam brought up her Adidas shoebox cover to view, revealing that the “Ad” had been hastily markered out. The twins had even managed to glue some sticks on it, letting it stand proudly on its own, a monument to the world they had built.

“You won’t even need it. It’s old,” Ethan said while staring down at the ground.

“Yeah, and we were gonna return it anyways,” Josh continued, fiddling with the knot of his makeshift cape.

“Ugh. Just stay quiet, please. I’m going back upstairs.” With a roll of her eyes, Sam headed back up, bringing with her the final proud signage of Power Man’s home.

With that out of the way, the mom turned her attention back to the twins, who were now having an argument of their own.

“I wanna be the hero now!” Ethan said loudly. “I wanna make my city too!”

“Only the strongest get to be the hero,” Josh proclaimed back, his voice entering the deepness of Power Man’s. “And with great strength, comes great power!”

“I don’t wanna play anymore then. Play with someone else.” Ethan crossed his arms, and that was when their mom knew to intervene. Otherwise, it’d only get worse, and the mess to clean up would be even worse than what it was now.

“Now, now,” she said, crouching to their level. “What’s the problem?”

“I never get to be hero!” Ethan said immediately, “He always makes me break everything, then pick it all up. I wanna make stuff too!”

“He’s not strong enough,” Josh said nonchalantly, with the air of Power Man’s confidence. “I told him if he wins, he can build next time.”

“But the bad guys never win!”

“Shush now,” the mother spoke up. “Why can’t you both be heroes then?”

Silence. “Because… there’s only one city! So there’s only one hero, and that’s me!” Josh seemed proud to have made that argument.

“Who says there only has to be one city?” The mom replied back. “The sign is gone now, isn’t it?” Both twins looked towards the empty space on the floor, and could confirm that indeed, the sign had not miraculously returned. They turned back, and nodded.

“So what’s stopping you two from making two cities?”

“It won’t… be the same?” Ethan began tentatively.

“Who says so?” Another round of silence. Their mom smiles gently at them now, as she watches their childlike minds connect two and two together.

“Cities will only be the same if you think they are. You’re only the hero or the bad guy if you want to be. Right?” Both boys nodded slowly. “Your world is what you make of it. So be nice to each other now, okay? Give fair chances. And before you start making your next city,” her voice lowered to a whisper, as all three leaned in close, “you should focus on saving this one. I think Mochi’s going for a second round.” She pointed to the excited ________, running back in to knock out more blocks as her paws swiped at the Lego buildings.

The mother stood up, and looked at both boys expectantly. Ethan and Josh looked at each other, but it was Josh who put out his hand first.

“Truce?” he asked.

Ethan smiled. “Truce.”

Mochi barked, and across what was left of Idas, the roar echoed. But from the streets where they had crashed rose Power Man and Might Man, an estranged relationship, an unlikely alliance, and now the only lifeblood left of this bleeding city. As the beast raised its paw once more, the duo, the brothers, charged ahead, fighting to protect what was now their city.

Marie stood up now, and she couldn’t help but smile as the dog chased her boys around and around the room. As she walked back to the stairs, it became impossible to avoid all the Legos that had been thrown all over the place, and the prick on her foot told her she’d managed to hit one dead on. She stared at the tiny figure her foot had landed on, a blue hat still hanging on its head to complete the mailman costume.

“Sorry.” The word left her lips without thought. She gently picked him up, and left him on the table. In anyone else’s hands, that might have been just another figure. But Marie had watched that city grow week by week, as the people lived under the watchful gaze of whichever hero was there that day.

Maybe next week, the evil robot D.A.D. would make his comeback. Or perhaps the ugly sea witch Mas would rise back from the depths. No matter what, Marie knew the good guys would always win, the city would grow, the people would keep on living.

That was what the boys imagined.

And it was so.