Chapter III: First Flight

When Katrina was seven years old, she wasn’t that good of a swimmer.  She remembered the first time she was let loose in the pool, her arms free of the floatation devices.  She paddled forward, her body immediately plummeting into the depth’s of the big kid’s section.  Her arms flailed about, managing to push her head mere inches above the surface.  One full gulp of air entered her system before she crashed downwards again.

That’s how it felt to fly in the city, except instead of inches it was more like one hundred foot dives.

Her grapple would shoot from her forearm, latching onto the roof of a building ahead.  The cable would go taut and her body would fall.  The headlights of the sea of traffic became larger, more successful in their attempts to blind her.   Every time she dipped down, she would flinch, scared that she wasn’t going to see the next adventure.

And then she would rise upwards, the cable carrying her back up into the sky where she could fire off the grapple from the second arm.  Despite all the Kevlar that held her body down, she had never felt more free in her life.

Her nine o’clock curfew had prevented her from almost never seeing the city at night.  There was something beautiful in the way that the city lights shined, giving life to the dark and foreboding industrial jungle.

The only way to express the bliss screaming in her heart would be to shout “WOO” but she was a little too out of breath to do so.

Below her were seas of people and light traffic, honks and whistles dipping in and out of her hearing as she flew.  For a moment, she lost herself, throttling through the sky.

Then she remembered her uncle screaming as his bodyguards swarmed around her.  She had a job to do.

Instead of flying forward, she started to curve her trajectory, flying off the streets and above a skyscraper.  At that moment she released the grapple, her body plummeting towards the ground, her cape catching the air and pushing outwards, slowing her fall.  She still managed to tumble on the roof, falling flat on her back.

“Could have been worse,” she muttered, looking up at the full moon and taking in a deep breath.  From within the visor, a grid came into focus, a flashing dot speeding through the city.   It was coming her way.

“Well I’ll be damned.”

She got to her feet and sure enough, an armored car was speeding through the street, switching lanes with no regard for traffic laws.  But her hopes were dashed; how would she stop a moving vehicle?

“I guess I could jump on it,” she thought, when she heard clicking from her arm.  Another hatch opened, this time from under her wrist.  Her arm, without a thought, as if controlled by the suit, pointed out straight, aiming at the building across the street.  A jagged, black dart shot from the hatch, stabbing through the building’s wall.

“Or I could do that.”

…

Within the van, things were stressful for the three thugs, whilst the smooth Welles lit up a cigarette.

“Boss, do we really need to drive this fast?” the driver, Johnny, panicked, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.  “I mean, we’re going to get a speeding violation or something…Hell, we could hit someone!”

“Shut up and drive,” Welles said calmly, nostrils flaring while he breathed in the fresh smoke.

The van suddenly jolted, the balance shifting to the left side.  Following that was another jolt, and a screeching sound.  The van rolled a few more feet before stopping.

“From the sounds of it someone just blew out our tires,” Welles sighed, coldly staring straight ahead of him.

Johnny looked into the rear-view mirror and saw the Nightmare glide to the ground.

“Take care of him,” Welles commanded, focusing ahead on a nearby mailbox.

…

When Katrina landed, she stumbled forwards a few steps before catching herself.  Behind her were about twenty darts, all jammed into the road.  She raised her head, staring at the passive van, hoping that sheer adrenaline would carry her through this.

After a long pause, Johnny jumped out of the van, sidestepping quickly, unloading six shots from his gun in one go.  Unfortunately, one made contact, hitting her square in the chest.  It was akin to being slammed with a battering ram, except with all the mass and pain put into one small, specific section.

Once again, she fell to the ground.  She figured from there it would only get worse, so her body went limp in hopes that he might fall for her playing possum.  To complete the act, she closed her eyes, even though he couldn’t see them.

“Well that was easy,” Johnny laughed, approaching the fallen hero and kicking her with his foot.  She did nothing to react, so he shrugged.  “This guy really bothered you for the past few decades, boss?”  There was no response from the van, so he knelt down and lowered his hand towards the helm.  “Let’s see who you are…”

Now or never.

Her hand shot up, grabbing onto his wrist, squeezing it with all her might.  Her balance somewhat off, she rose, bringing her knee upward, crashing it into his stomach.  She kept moving, trying to keep up a steady rhythm.  She moved forward, swiping the gun from his hands.

Ahead, another thug, Steven, was stepping out of the van, aiming his gun at her head.  Going with the flow, she hurled the gun at him, the firearm spinning in the air like a boomerang.  As luck had it, it knocked him right in the hand, throwing off his aim, a bullet instead piercing a Prometheon Rangers flag dangling from someone’s window.

There was no thought in her mind beyond staying alive.  Her body followed accordingly, first by running over to Steven and decking him straight in the stomach.  It felt dirty, but she had to keep going.  Next, her fist flied upwards, striking the man in the jaw.

Within moments, the two men had surrounded her, fists flying, a flurry of chaos.  She could feel their punches push against her, but the Kevlar prevented almost any pain. She felt impervious, almost as if she could take on these men that were at least a foot taller than her height of five feet.

Her blows however, were restrained.  She was hoping that things would go down cleaner.  There had been a vision of landing on the van, causing the thing to immediately stop.  She would shatter the windshield and drag Welles out by the collar of his shirt, then send a fist crashing into his head.

She caught herself, realizing where she was, and when she did she saw that one of the men had been sent straight into a telephone pole ten feet away.

Did I do that? she thought before burly arms wrapped around her thin neck.  Straight ahead, new tires were sliding down to support the bulk of the van.   She had moments before the armored car was off with her target.

Her hands shot up, grabbing onto the man’s arms and snapping them outward.  It was easy, so she didn’t stop there.  Her arms whirled around with all the force she could muster and released the man who soared upwards, straight at the van.

Unfortunately, his flight was inhibited by the vehicle.  His knee caps slammed into the steel, his body flipping downward face-first into the car’s roof.  A screech similar to the sound of nails against a chalkboard followed his slide against the van before he collapsed the ground.

I think I overdid it, she thought, leaping at the van, just managing to miss it as it sped away.  It didn’t go far before it whipped around in a full 180° turn, headlights lighting up the road.

“You’re kidding me,” she said, motioning to get out of the homicidal driver’s path before she tumbled to the ground, a gun pressed against her helmet.  One of the men she had clobbered grimaced, eyes popping madly as he glared down at her.

“You do realize there’s a truck heading straight towards us,” she said, but the voice was not her own.  It was deeper, the voice of a rugged baritone, with an edge of electronic distortion.

The thug looked over to his right then back to the Nightmare.  “God dammit,” he gasped, all the energy he had left leaving him in that one breath.

She had no idea what impulse was motivating her to do it, but she stepped forward and grabbed the man roughly by his shirt, everything around her lighting up a brilliant white, the screech of the tires getting closer and closer.  But that meant nothing.  All that mattered was the weight of his body and how far she could throw it.

She tossed the body straight to the sidewalk, turning her head to the right to see the incoming vehicle, yards away from that crunch that would smear her body across the road.  Never before had she been that close to a speeding vehicle, nor faced with anything equivalent, but her body once again moved without thought.  It was like a dance or a performance, just without the rehearsal.

Her body lurched forward, landing on the hood, her cape blowing over her head.

Her arm thrusted forward, smashing open the window to the car.  In the front seat she only saw one man, and that was the one she had decked to nick off the cloaking device.

“Where’s Welles?” she asked darkly, the glass shards tumbling past her and rolling off the head.

“He had to get milk at the grocery store,” the man replied, his voice greasy and rough.  His teeth were yellow, arranged at awkward angles.  A gloved hand raised up slowly, a gun trained on her head.  “You’re goin’ to want to get off the hood unless you want me to blow yer head off.”

The armor made her feel impervious, so her body stayed still, her lips pressed tightly together.

A bullet shot straight from the gun and hit her at the right side of the head.  Sparks erupted from the helmet, the steel caving in, shards of the visor hurtling onto her face, leaving light scratches.

At the moment though, she was more concerned with the fact she could barely see.  Ahead was blackness, aside from faint hints of light peeking between the jagged interior of the helmet.  The gun was still pointed at her, and he was saying something to her, but his lips appeared to just move.  Sound was non-existent to her, the bullet blast deafening.

“Get.  Off.  The.  Hood,” the thug demanded, centering his aim again.

She couldn’t hear herself say it, but she spat out a defiant, “No thanks.”

Everything slowed down, every motion clear with purpose.  The muscles in the man’s hand tensed, his eyebrows arching inwards.  Her left arm raised, following the gun, her body going through similar emotions to his.  A dart shot from the wrist shooter, the blade a blur until it made contact, plugging the gun so that the firearm only gave off a loud blast, clattering out of the driver’s hand.

Wheezing, she threw herself forward, part of her body within the interior of the tank.  Shaking, her hands clamored for the wheel, managing to twist it to an extreme left before she rolled off, landing hard on the pavement.

She laid on the ground for a moment, allowing her senses to return to her.  When she looked up, the van was sitting still, a telephone pole bent against the hood, surrounded by broken glass.  The low hiss of the van was soothing to her ears as she got back to her feet, watching some shards of the visor slip through the hole and fall at her feet.

Meanwhile, within the van, the thug, Carlos, was regaining his consciousness, blinking rapidly at the pole a foot from his nose.

“What the Hell?” he whispered, rubbing the side of his head.  “That was a nice van…boss ain’t gonna be too happy.  As long as Nightmare’s dead I guess…”

“Hate to disappoint.”

Carl’s head snapped to the right,  feet throttling towards him, the Nightmare gripping onto the roof of the car from outside the window.  The next thing he knew his body was flying off his seat and right through the already destroyed car window, his body landing flat on the ground.  Soon after his landing, the Nightmare passed overhead, gliding swiftly as if unharmed.

He tried getting back to his feet, but two rough, Kevlar-lined gloves found themselves pressing into his neck like a clamp.  He didn’t dare move his head.

There was a quiet thump from behind him, the pebbles scattering across the street shifting about as an object rolled through them.  His eyes scrolled downwards and he saw the damaged helmet at his side.

He felt something soft brush against his cheek.

“Where’s Welles?” a voice asked.  He could hear a forced sense of confidence emanating from it,  the voice heavy with pain.  It was a high, feminine voice, not to the deep one that stood up to a gun blasting at it.

“You…you’re just a kid,” Carlos responded, the grip around his neck tightening.

Lips tickled his ear, its sounds weak, yet venomous.

“I asked you a question.”

…

Welles had been running for at least fifteen minutes and by then he had no idea where he was.  Stopping to take a few deep breaths, he looked around for any recognizable signs.  Bah.  Slums, he observed as he noticed all the garbage.  I’m too old for this.  He placed the diamond back onto the end of his cane and slammed it onto the ground, then proceeded down the street at a normal pace.

That was when a shadow passed overhead him, a dark shadow passing through the ominous street lights.  It looked like a demon.  He could hear wings flapping.

Welles opened his jacket, sliding a gun out of his inner pocket, eyes darting back and forth from one end of the open night sky to the other .

The shadow passed by again, this time smaller.   His body twisted around and he unloaded an entire clip above him, but he hit nothing.  He turned around again, watching the shadow escape, suddenly cutting off when it passed by an alley.

His fingers drummed against the barrel as he patiently awaited for the next showing, but the shadow never came, rather it passed directly over him and vanishing before he could let out a single bullet.

“Show yourself,” he muttered between gritted teeth.

“Okay,” a voice answered in a low hiss.  The sound of wings beating was heard again, but this time it was far louder than before, and clear.  It sounded more like cloth slapping against the air.

He whirled around, gun ahead of him, but his bullet flew off into the sky, the gun clattering to the ground, alone in the spotlight illuminated by the street lamp.  The crushing sound of air rapidly scraping by his ear pounded into his ear drums, an arm squeezing against his stomach, his body flying through the sky until it crashed against a skyscraper.

He hung there for a moment, opening his eyes slowly to see the Nightmare staring down at him, feet pressing against the wall, acting like a cage to prevent him from falling or moving.

“Very cute,” Welles spat out, glaring at the hole in the vigilante’s helmet, a wire hanging from the gaping darkness.  “But you’re not him.  No one can ever be him.”

The Nightmare remained rooted to its spot, staring him down through the dull red visor.  Eventually though its body slackened, head dropping.  Welles’ body was released and he slid down the wall a few inches until he landed on a ledge, his feet hanging off the edge and to a drop that would last for several stories.

“That’s right,” Welles added on, his smile twisted.

Sirens began to blare several blocks away.

“That’s going to be my ride.  You don’t want to be seen with me, do you?  The great Hector Morton Welles: Found beaten, bloodied, and bruised with a vigilante,” he monologued, eying the streets which were increasingly lit up with the colors red and blue, the siren’s wail growing louder and louder.  “You’d best stay out of my way…” he said softly, then turning to look right into the helmet’s hole.  “…kid.”

The Nightmare suddenly dropped off the building, falling backwards into the shadows.  But there was no deception in the trick; he could see the grapple shoot across the street and the faint outline of a demon gliding across the street.  If it was really him, he would have vanished when Welles looked for the sirens.  Disappointment after disappoint.

A searchlight began sweeping across the area he was on.

About time.

“I’m up here you idiots!” he shouted, “Up here!”

…

From the building across the street, she watched the entire arrest; from when he climbed down the fire department’s ladder to him being stuffed away into a police car.  She had had hopes at first, but the more he talked to the officials, the more she realized he’d be back in his office within an hour.  He had money, and in the current state of Prometheon, that was all that mattered.

The same didn’t go for the thugs she had taken out though; they were going to be facing a few years behind bars hopefully.  For what crime though?  Maybe they would all walk away with nothing scarring their legal records.  It was entirely possible she nearly died for nothing.

But that wasn’t true either.  She fought for something that night, she fought for justice, for a better world.

The helmet fell to her side and a cool breeze brushed against her soft, sweat-ridden skin, carrying her hair into the wind.

“He should really put an AC in that mask of his,” she thought out loud, looking up at the skyline to see the sun beginning to rise.

It was the dawn of a new day.

Chapter II: Katrina Gawain

“Who knows you’re here?!”

She heard this again and again, each shout from Welles followed by another spark ripping through her body.  Every time she tried to get back onto her feet and every time she encountered the same failure.  Eventually she gathered the strength to spit out a forceful and determined, “Nobody!”

There was a pause, her eyes scrolling up to Welles as he sneered at her. In truth, no one knew she was there aside from the four of them.

“Why do I find myself not believing you?” Welles threatened, raising his cane, more sparks flickering between the jagged spikes at the end of the stylized wood.

“Boss…” Steven shuddered, pointing ahead of him.

“Not now,” Welles muttered through gritted teeth.  He turned his head back to the girl who had collapsed to the ground. “I’m going to ask you one more time–”

“BOSS!” Steven shouted, feet shuffling backwards.

“What is it?!” Welles shouted, grabbing Steven by the shoulder, glaring at him with fiery eyes.  Steven responded with a shaking index finger pointing across the room.  Welles took in a deep sigh, then, humoring his cohort, looked ahead.

The head of the Nightmare was moving.  It had been hunched over, but now the spine was stiffening, the head rising from its former droop.  The slit that went across the helmet lit up in a bright red.  There was a long pause, and then the armor lumbered out of the closet and stepped into the garage.  The three men and the girl stared at the armor dumbfounded.

“What are you idiots waiting for?!  Fire!” Welles shouted, his two thugs stepping forward to fire away at the armor, which responded by jumping high into the air, somersaulting past the gunfire and landing near one of the men.  This man, Johnny, received a punch straight to his chest.  He expected it to come off as a weak blow, imaging the armor to be hollow, but it was nothing of the sort.  Instead, it was more like a wrecking ball knocking him to the ground.

The other thug, Steven, jumped at the armor from behind, wrapping its arms around the neck.

Johnny got to his feet, rubbing his head and sending his own punch for the rogue costume, but attacked too late.  With agility beyond that of a man in his prime, the armor lifted its feet, placing them on the chest of Johnny, stopping him mid-attack

With the leverage, the armor sprung off the chest of the thug and somersaulted over Steven, landing on its feet firmly.  Unfortunately for Steven, he found his grip around the neck resulting in him being catapulted across the room.

Welles watched the event unfold with a frightened look in his eyes.  He stepped backwards blindly, unable to remove himself from the situation, when he felt the floor escape his feet, his body tumbling backwards, something slipping from his left hand.

When he crashed onto his back, he saw the young Gawain girl glaring down at him, the cane, still sparking, in her hands.

“Stay down,” she threatened, her voice shaking as she kept the cane steady.  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she explained.

“…you…” Welles muttered, “Your Gawain’s niece,” he added on in awe.  He jumped upwards suddenly, pulling a gun from behind his peacoat.

Without any hesitation, she pole-vaulted ahead, boosting forwards with the cane, and landed a swift kick on Welles‘ chest, knocking him onto his back.  She landed firmly, legs bent inwards, the cane awkward in her hands.

“I said stay back,” Katrina whispered, trying to maintain the aura of authority.

The two watched each other in nervous anticipation.  From behind she could hear the cries of the one man taking on the Nightmare suit. One man. Not two.

She jumped into the air, her legs spreading outwards until they were in a full split.  The cane stabbed downwards, right onto the back of the man who had been tossed near her and was now attacking her.  She winced, his cry of pain one with her mind.  As he fell forward, a burn mark on his back, she landed on him, her hand resting on his shoulder, supporting the rest of her body which hung in the air.

Everything froze for a moment as she absorbed everything around her.  In front of her the corporate executive searching his coat, looking up at the girl with a grin that would scare away the most vicious of killers   Behind her, the thug the Nightmare had been battling had collapsed, the vigilante standing over him, its head turning towards Katrina.  It would save her, she was sure of it.

She landed, pointing the cane at Welles.

“Hands up where I can see them,” she ordered, trying to hold a firm tone before the man.

“If you insist,” he sighed, raising a remote control from his coat.  She blinked, examining the machine.  “Oh, you want to do know what it does?” he asked, pressing a button it.

A slot opened in the cane and two hooks slid out, stabbing through Katrina’s jacket and into her arm, holding the weapon to her limb.  Electricity shot down the cane, the feelings of pain from before hitting her again like a truck.

Everything became white and she started screaming, her body flailing about, even when she crashed head first onto the floor.  Her right arm lunged at the cane, trying to shove the contraption off, but it only tore through her flesh more, further exposing the wound to the shock.   The best she could do was bite her lip and try not to cry or give any sense of satisfaction

A shadow passed over her body, the shape of it more monster-like than human.  She lifted her head to get a better look and saw the Nightmare lifting Welles straight off of his feet.  Welles was saying something, but she couldn’t make anything out aside from a dull buzz as the electricity tore through her.

Then blood spat from her forearm, a burly hand yanking the cane from the spot it had firmly been lodged.  The man who had grabbed it, Steven, then lunged at the Nightmare, jabbing the cane straight into its spine.  The armor crumpled immediately, tumbling in a heap, helmet rolling off to the side.

“Anyways,” Welles began as he fell to his feet.  “Let’s try this again,” he said, brushing himself off and picking up the gun he had dropped.  “Steven!  We’re burning all this,” he sneered, casting a glance at the thug who had saved him.  “As for Johnny…strip her of any of the Welles Corp. material she lifted, and if you so much as itch your nose, little girl, I won’t give any hesitation in blowing your head off.”

…

A cloaking device.  A grappling hook.  Smoke bombs.  A knife. A camera.

“You little pick pocket…” Welles congratulated, observing the stray weapons and equipment.  “Well, I’d love to congratulate you on beating down one of my own men.”  He flashed another one of those evil grins.  “You’d make a good employee here.”

A wad of spit splattered on Welles’ cheek.

“You’d think a billionaire’s niece would know some manners,” he sighed, disappointment in his icy eyes.  He looked down on the girl in her black gym shorts, sneakers, Ultraman shirt, and black jacket.  He could see her squirm under the resistance of the man holding her down, her thin  limbs still layered with mild baby-fat.  “Then again you’re just a scrawny kid,” he sighed.

“Cuff her,” Welles ordered casually, dabbling his cheek with a hankerchief from underneath his long-coat.  He turned around, watching one of his men douse the room with trails of gasoline, a whole network that crossed the walls and trophy cases.

When Welles turned back he saw that the girl had promptly been taken care of.

“You’re scared of me,” Katrina realized.

Welles’ cane slammed her across the face, blood shooting out of her mouth like a fountain.  Katrina watched her blood gather in the form of a puddle within a dent on the floor.  When she looked back up, she saw Welles’ breathing with a forced sense of calm.  His nostrils flared at her.

“No,” Welles said quietly, “No, I’m not.” The gun in his hands raised, his grip firm and unshaken.

She shut her eyes, but the moment the darkness hit her she heard a shout from ahead of her.  She snapped back to consciousness, watching Ariadne claw at the old man, hissing as she leaped about his body.  Blood dripped from long scratches on Welles‘ empty hands.

The distraction was all she needed; she lurched forwards from where she, landing facedown near the confiscated items that had been dumped out before her.  By instinct, she went for the grappling hook.  Her hands tightly bound behind her, she used the one thing that was available to her; her teeth.  Her left shoulder crashed onto the mechanism, angling it upwards.  Then, with a bite, her teeth crashed on the trigger, dust rushing into her mouth, but she didn’t let go.

After a moment’s delay, the grapple shot out of the gun, knocking the firearm right out of Welles’ hands.  At that second, Ariadne leaped off of him and to Katrina’s back with a key in her mouth.  A few clicks and the handcuffs fell off, and Katrina sprung upwards.

Her cat leaped up onto her leg and made her way onto the girl’s shoulder, where it nuzzled against her soft hair.

“Good job, Ariadne,” Katrina said, scratching her friend behind the ear.

“You’re dead,” Welles muttered, rubbing his wrist.

“Yeah?  Try me,” Katrina growled, raising her hand so it was more ready for battle.

“Gladly,” Welles said simply, bounce in his voice and facial expression.  His arm shot from his side, pulling the gun straight from Johnny’s hand.  Without blinking, without a twitch in his body, he let loose a bullet on the girl and her cat.

Katrina, anticipating the shot after the sudden movement somersaulted backwards, lobbing her cat upwards so that her childhood pet was out of harm’s way.  The bullet missed, reflecting off the front of the tank, ricocheting off into the floor.

When Katrina landed, she was soon followed by Ariadne.  They were both on top the tank, bodies twitching for the next shot.  But there was no next shot; just a steaming gray orb.  From where she stood, a pin was sticking out between two of Welles’ teeth; it was a grenade.

It landed at her feet, the smoke spitting out rapidly, the object ready to blow.  Her horrified eyes looked at Welles, who looked back with a confident grin.

She looked down and shut her eyes.  She heard the beginning of an eruption, the darkness her eyelids showed her lit up into a pure white.  It was the end.  She felt her feet slipping off the tank, her body drifting through space.

But she wasn’t dead; unless death was a Kevlar-layered arm wrapped around a waist.

Her body hit cold concrete and when she looked up she saw the Nightmare holding her to the floor, a blast of orange and red directly behind its back.

“Th-thank you,” she stuttered.

“No…this is the last time he interferes.”  Welles ripped his coat off of him, large black buttons falling to the floor.

“Boss, what are you–” Steven started, reaching over to assist his boss when he saw what looked to be an entire arsenal of grenades pinned to the interior of the coat.  Looking up, he saw small flames from the explosion falling onto the gasoline trails which started burning in their direction.

Before he could muster a cry to stop, the peacoat had been flung through the air, spiraling across the battlefield, skimming the fire.

“Let’s go,” Welles ordered, hustling straight for the elevator door.

The jacket burst into several violent explosions, a chain of reactions as if it was Independence Day.  The room changed from its sharp whites and grays to dark reds and oranges, the chilling room baking like an oven.  Flames spread about, the gasoline whittling away, the fire that followed its paths building up until they towered over everyone, smoke trailing off into the rafters.

As the trio of robbers head for the door though, a massive steel door slammed across the elevator’s shudders.

Welles stopped in his tracks, moments away from escape.  The remaining men continued their bull-headed charge, and went straight into the metal door, their hands trying to somehow gain a grip on the flat surface.

“Calm yourself,” Welles sighed, contemplating the door like he would to a surrealist piece in an art museum.  He glanced back at the room which looked more like a massive bonfire than the lair of a superhero.

“Boss, there’s no way we’re going to–”

A loud slam.  Welles’ hand slammed against the spot directly beside Johnny’s cheek.  Johnny, in turn, turned slowly towards his boss.

“If you want to survive, press your body against the wall…now,” Welles demanded, sweat building on his forehead.  He looked back at the fire that was rushing towards them, flames reflected in his icy eyes.  “I know him.  We hate each other too much not to understand each other.  Maybe he’s dead, and that armor is just part of a damn good security system.”

The flames built up, the dark gray smoke that had snaked its way into the rafters cutting off any vision of the ceiling.

“But it doesn’t matter.  He’d never let us fry.”

The flames were right in front of them when the metal door slid open, the three desperate men falling into the elevator. Welles personally stumbled back onto his feet, the other two who weren’t so unfortunate, had fallen face first.

The door slammed the second their bodies were in the room, the flames cut off, burning against the steel that separated them from death.  Eventually all they could hear was the loud buzz of the elevator as it creaked its way up the shaft.

“Now what?” Steven asked, raising his body, dumbfounded to be alive.

“We go to the fiftieth floor.  We still have a man up there,” Welles said calmly, readjusting his tie.  “Arms at the ready boys!”

“Uh…boss?” Johnny asked nervously.

“What?!”

“You…uh…have my gun,” he pointed out.

“Oh,” Welles said simply, looking at the gun in his hand for a moment and passed it to his henchmen.

…

The flames in the room burned still, but they burned away at nothing as the room stayed completely impact.  There was naught a single ash.

Atop the tank, the fire was twisting about, taking on a circular form that divided two columns of the destruction.  The circular form moved slowly, advancing through the inferno slowly.  Then it lifted off the tank, soaring through the smoke-filled air, unwrapping.

It was the Nightmare, a cape trailing behind the armor, carrying the flames on it.  The fabric snapped off the shoulders of the vigilante, and it landed harshly on the ground, stooping over in the middle of a ring of fire.

When its posture straightened again, a cat was shaking in the arms.

“Shh….it’s okay,” a voice said from behind the mask, hand playing with the cat’s ear.  The voice was high and soft.  At the very word ‘okay’ the cat stopped looking around the room wildly.  Its wide eyes rolled up to face the helmet, followed by a comfortable purr.  Ariadne climbed up to her master’s shoulders.

Katrina raised her arm, unsure of what to do as the fire tore through the room.  Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes, going backwards in time, thinking of the afternoons where she would watch the archive footage of her favorite hero on the news.

She heard a clicking sound, followed by the mechanical grinding of a steel cylinder sliding out of a chamber.  When her eyes opened again, she looked below her left wrist to find a turret sticking out.

A gust of white foam spewed from the turret, extinguishing the fire around her.  A similar turret slid out of her other wrist, and within the minutes the room was back to its normal state, albeit higher.

Ariadne leaped back to the floor, and Katrina, with some effort, managed to pull her helmet off, the heated air like a winter breeze.  She tried to wipe the sweat that was cascading from her pores with her hand, but only felt the harsh Kevlar stroke her forehead.

She let out a deep breath and examined the armor.  It felt like standing in somebody else’s body.  She could barely remember how she got in.  One moment the armor was falling onto her body and the next minute everything had a red tinge, her body baking.

She wanted to step out of the armor, but felt compelled to remain within the costume.  Something kept her glued to it, as uncomfortable as it was.

From her right she could hear clanking.  Turning, she saw several things happening at once through several hatches in the floor and wall; a keyboard with hundreds of buttons that she couldn’t even begin to comprehend, in-depth maps of every district in Prometheon as well as outlying areas, analysis grids and systems, and finally a screen that was at least twenty feet long.

On the screen was an image of Hector Welles and his trio of thugs entering an elevator to head back to what she guessed would be the first floor.  Amongst them was a tall man with a handlebar mustache in a brown jacket with a black eye.   The image made her smile.  One well-aimed punch and kick and he was down for the count.

The security camera zoomed in on the image, onto Welles’ belt where a flashing black circular machine lied, a stylized “N” at the center.  At the lower right hand corner of the screen was a layout of Gawain Co. Tower, a flashing red dot moving into the elevator shaft.

A tracking device.

She had everything in her power to take down Welles if she wanted to.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” she told herself forcefully, trying to rid herself of the one poisonous idea that she had been left with, I’m still alive, and I didn’t even need the armor.

“It’s not worth it,” she forced again.  But again, that idea remained in her mind.  It was worth it.  She closed her eyes.

Two weeks ago, her uncle Lucius was giving a speech before a crowd of thousands.  He stood there, tall and proud, behind a podium, with an honest smile.  He was the Golden Boy of Prometheon.  Everyone saw that in him.

He was giving a speech on why the slums shouldn’t be mowed down by Welles Corp. to be replaced with factories for production, when there was a cry and he fell to the ground, blood spilling from his shoulder, a crimson bullet clattering to the stage he was on.  It rolled past his head and off the edge.

The crowd erupted in panic.  Katrina reached towards her uncle, but one of the Gawain bodyguards grabbed her forcefully at the shoulders, pulling her to the ground.

When her eyes opened again, there was a new light in them.  Something vicious and wild had appeared in them as cold tears dripped down her cheeks.

“I need to go, Ariadne,” she announced.  “I want you to stay here and wait for me, okay?” she asked, stooping down to her cat and eying her sternly.  “I don’t know if I’m coming back.”  Her fingers rolled on the helmet until she managed to turn it into her palm.

A few feet to her left was the cape she had tossed off; extinguished of the flames by the suit.

She looked back up at the map of Gawain Co. Tower.  Welles’ tracking dot exited the building, the map changing to a map of Prometheon Streets. His dot stopped on the sidewalk before it blasted off.  He had boarded a car, or a van.

“How will I catch up with him…?” she asked herself, eying the Kevlar outfit.  She didn’t see a jet-pack anywhere.

That’s when a clip from a movie rolled through her mind.  A high school kid was standing on a rooftop, yelling catch phrases into the sky.  Then he pointed his wrist at a billboard across the street.  A stream of web fired from under his skin and within seconds, he was flying through the city.

She felt stupid, but she angled and positioned her arm and fingers the same way as it did in the movie.

A hatch opened in the armor like before, except this time a grappling hook shot out, the hook landing several yards away with a thud on the floor.  Lightly, she ran her fingers over the rope, astounded by the suit.

“Are you…wait why would I say this…” she sighed.

Are you thought operated?  If so…come back to me.

The rope retracted back to the suit, hook sticking out, pointing upwards at a seventy degree angle.

“Oh, baby doll!”

Chapter I: Prometheon

Prometheon.  It was a dark night.

The citizens quietly slept under the vast, cloudy sky, unaware of the going-ons of the evening, innocent of the nature of the night.  During the day time, the city was at peace; the people could co-exist, but at nighttime, it all changed.  Everything became black like the sky, and suddenly things vanished, the tall buildings shadowing the tragedies below on the streets.

Each of those tragedies was just another headline in the newspaper.  It was a city that was being torn apart by crime, whether it be innocent blood or corruption dripping from the office windows; it was everywhere.

It was why so many were left stranded in slums, it was why more and more graveyards had to be constructed and plotted, it was why no one except the very unfortunate were seen on the streets past ten o’ clock, it was why the prison gates were a revolving door, it was why the police stood by with heavier wallets as drugs circulated the city, and most importantly, it was why the good people could do nothing as the city collapsed upon itself.

At the center of the city was a statue that had been chipped away at over the past few decades.  It depicted a masked creature that looked more like a gargoyle than a man.  His name was Nightmare, and he had once lead the Golden Age of Superheroes, a movement that gave hope to a dying world.

But those days had passed, and had been replaced with despair.

But amongst all the chaos there was a small sound, the clink of steel slamming against a hard floor.  It changed everything.

A lock fell to the ground, acid burning away at it, its impact with the floor echoing across the entire city.

A tall, elderly man in a black long-coat with a diamond studded cane looked to three masked men around him and nodded.  Two of the bulky thugs stepped towards the vault and swung the huge metal door open, exposing a dully lit, empty elevator.  The elderly man looked back at the thug directly behind him, his cold, blue eyes piercing through the dark room.

His name was Hector Morton Welles and he was one of the most powerful men in the city of Prometheon.  He was the CEO of major arms’ manufacturer, Welles Corp. His company was in fierce competition with another powerhouse in the city; Gawain Co, which was run by Lucius Gawain, who was almost murdered a week ago in an assassination attempt.  Instead, Lucius was just sent into a hospital for a month.  Without the company’s guiding light, Gawain Co. had fallen into distress.  It was less organized, making it the perfect time to strike.  A few bribes here and there, and entering the main office of the building after hours was all too easy.

The man whom Welles had glared at took a step backwards, tightening the grip on his assault rifle.  The mercenary then tapped a switch on his wrist and vanished into thin air, his shadow still lightly cast across the finely carpeted floor.  Slowly, without making his sound, his body turned, brushing through the tufts of fabric with nary a sound.  His gun was pointed directly at the door to the office.

The two remaining mercenaries, both armed with guns, followed Welles into the elevator.  The steel doors shut and the elevator creaked its way down the shaft, the lights flickering.

“Perfect,” Welles said quietly in awe, looking straight ahead of him with eager anticipation.  A few years there was an issue with the Prometheon train systems and Gawain Co. The former wanted to build a new line under the tower, and that proposal was followed by a fierce and passionate rebuttal by Gawain.   Welles, for once, agreed with his enemy, in that he too would not want a subway line under his premises.

Upon checking the blueprints however, there was something wrong.  Lucius Gawain’s office was smaller than calculated in the blueprints which were consistent to all other forty nine floors. He was hiding something, and in moments he would find out what.

After traveling stories and stories below the first floor, the elevator finally stopped and the doors slid open, revealing a large expanse of darkness.  Welles stepped into the room and immediately a light overhead activated.  Gradually, the room lit up, strip by strip.

The room was gigantic, a huge white room.  Newspapers were smeared all over the walls, each one detailing stories of crimes within the city.  None of the papers overlapped the other, several of them showing pictures of sneering masked super villains.

As the last light flickered on, holes opened up in the floor on the sides and glass cases rose through the floor, all of them containing various paraphernalia.  There were weapons, disguises, costume of super villains, and mysterious artifacts from days gone by.  There were puppets, broken masks, chemicals, and stylized weapons.

At the back of the room was a steel, cylindrical closet that was halfway embedded into the wall.

Welles’ scowled twitched upward for a moment.  He tossed his cane from one gloved hand to the other and paced into the room, eying each item in the room with greed, as if he owned it. His two hired thugs followed after him, placing gas containers onto the floor as they entered.

At the very back of the room, wedged into the two corners, were two extra large glass cases, each one holding a costume.

On the left was a costume made of fabrics.  It was a bright blue with a yellow diamond on the chest, a red U at the center. An American flag dangled from the shoulders of the heroic outfit.

On the right was something much different.  It was not made of fabric, but Kevlar, composed of blacks and grays.  A punctured and torn crimson red cape and bandanna clinged onto the armor that had a gaping hole in the stomach area.  Unlike the suit on the right that seemed built for rippling muscles, this one was slimmer, seemingly built for a more feminine shape.

“Hey boss,” one of the deep-voiced thugs shouted.  Welles turned on his freshly polished shoe’s heel and looked at the center of attention; a hole that was opening up at the middle of the floor.   A platform was rising, turning around in full rotations, holding up a massive black tank with six monstrous wheels, the body made of titanium plates that had been melded together.

Dust covered the machine, cobwebs linking sections together.

“What is this?” the same thug asked, breaking rank and heading towards the tank, mystified as it rose from the floor.

“It’s a tank,” Welles said slowly, placing his hand on the steel and wiping his hand down its side, years worth of dust collecting on his hand.  “For years I thought the Gawains were muscling in on my operation, but no, it’s much bigger than that.”  With a crooked smile he looked above them to see the rafters.  From above, a cube was lowering with five television screens on the various sides.

“What do you think this is, boss?”

“For decades the Nightmare had been plaguing my company, and now it’s all clear,” Welles monologued, eyes falling back onto the majestic tank.  “Gawain must have been sponsoring the Nightmare.  It explains everything; the technology, the immunity, and…this.”

Loud dings came from the end of the room, lights above the elevator doors lighting up as the elevator descended below the earth.  All three men turned towards the door, grips on guns tightening.  Welles reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a walkie-talkie and spat into it immediately.

“Is there a problem, Carlos?” he asked, eyebrows arching inward after a long pause.  “Hello?  Carlos?” Again, no response.  He deactivated the device and jammed it back into his pocket and nodded to the elevator.  The two thugs flipped their guns so they were trained on the door.  For a long time, all three focused on that door, sweat building on their foreheads.

At last, they slid open.

No one was there.

“Carlos?” Welles said in a statement that was dangling somewhere between a statement and a question.  As expected, there was no response.  Welles needn’t give an order.

The hideout was filled with the sound of gunfire, blasting holes in the steel, bending and twisting the walls inward.  The onslaught lasted for twenty seconds before silence fell again.

“Someone took Carlos’ cloaking device,” Welles sighed through gritted teeth.  “I didn’t hear a shout, so they’re not dead.  On the bright side, that means they’re trapped here with us.  Johnny!” he ordered, flicking his head lazily towards the elevator.  The thug named Johnny immediately sprang to the elevator and took his position there.  The other thug, Steven, started doing rounds around the room.

Welles walked up to the cylindrical closet at the end of the room, looking at it solemnly.
“Who are you?” he muttered, pressing an aged hand against the cool steel.  He shut his eyes, tilting his head downwards, pressing his forehead against the steel.

Suddenly, he felt movement under the ridges in his rough skin.  Looking upward, he saw that the cylinder was turning clockwise, a gap opening up in the wall as it turned.  Welles stood back in wonder, watching the rotation.

Eventually it stopped and what rested within the closet was a horror to behold; a costume.  But not just any costume; THE costume.  The body armor of the man who had plagued Welles for decades, chasing him deal after deal, cutting his resources until there was nothing.  He vanished years ago and to that day, no one knew why.

One day there was a Nightmare and one day there wasn’t.

Before him was a battle suit.  The body was composed mostly of a light black cloth.  On specific parts of the body, namely the chest, shoulders, and pelvic area, there was Kevlar that was black as the night itself.  From a little below the elbow to the tip of the fingers there were heavy, black gauntlets.  The same black appeared at the feet in the form of boots, as well as around the waist.  A utility belt was there, holding unknown contents underneath its pockets.

Between the arms and body, specifically attached halfway up the forearm to the hip, was a jagged webbing that gave the appearance of wings.

Separated from the main body was a helmet made of similar material to the armor; two short, sharp, flat ears at the top of the helm.  A thin, red bar crossed the helmet where the eyes were supposed to be, given off the appearance of glass.

Welles reached a shaking hand out towards the costume, just to feel the armor that had single-handedly destroyed his empire, when a hand pushed his downwards.  Looking to his left, Steven was cowering, lip quivering.

“Sir, I…I uh….” Steven sputtered.

“Get a hold of yourself!” Welles shouting, tearing his arm away, then patting it with his hand as if he was wiping away the germs.
“What if he’s…y’know…asleep in there?” Steven asked, frowning at Welles’ annoyed look.  Sputtering more, Steve ran a hand through his hair and down to his neck and added on, “My friends told me that he’s not human…He’s…”

A hollow sound as a knuckle wrapped against the knee of the costume.

“Armor,” Welles said harshly, raising an eyebrow to his henchman.  “Whoever he is…or was, he’s not here.”

CLICK!

Steven turned around, teeth pressed tightly together, and fired into one of the rafter beams above him.  Not just one bullet, but clip after clip until Welles forced the gunman’s aim to the floor.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Welles shouted, glancing up at the ceiling with an eye, a soft, satisfied smile crawling across his left cheek.  “No one’s been here for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just the building falling apart.”

Welles let go of Steven and paced to the elevator.  “Come,” he ordered, looking into the dim lighting of the shaft.  “We saw what we came for.”   Steven looked up at the ceiling, never breaking eye contact until he was at Welles’ side in the elevator.

“Oops,” Welles sighed, reaching out of the lift and onto a switch outside on the wall.  “I almost forgot.”  His hand jerked on the lever and the room was veiled in absolute darkness.  The sound of the elevator doors closing filled the massive room and then there was silence.

But there was someone up there!  High, high up in the rafters, hanging upside down off a steel beam was a young girl no older than fourteen!  In her pale, thin hands was a camera that had taken several pictures of the crime that had unfolded before her very eyes.

I think I’m safe, she thought, hearing the elevator rise back up to Floor Fifty.  The cloaking device she had snatched from the henchmen on guard deactivated, revealing her thin, childish frame.

She lowered the camera down to her eye level and licked her lip as she looked at what she just snapshotted; Hector Welles standing beside Steven with a huge gun.  Perfect, she thought and ran a dainty hand through her cherry red hair.  With a quick swing she found herself right-side up again, sitting cross-legged on a metal beam.  She stuffed the camera into the pocket of her black jacket then looked ahead with her emerald green eyes.

She couldn’t see it, but she could feel her tabby cat jumping into her lap.  They had been looking around her uncle’s office when they heard the massive door to the office opening, unfamiliar voices arguing on the other side.   Scared, they hid under the desk until only one of the brutish men were left.

She ran her fingers through the cat’s fur, a harmonious purr soothing to her ears.
“You like that, Ariadne?” the girl whispered, her voice bubbly and joyous.

Her name was Katrina Gawain, niece to the prestigious Lucius Gawain.  A fourteen year old girl who had just started her high school career.  When asked what she wanted to do with her life, she would tell people that she just wanted to be an actress, hence her long-lived career in musical theater.   But the child in her would whisper behind the hand blocking her mouth that she wanted to grow up to become a superhero.   She wanted to help people.

As she scratched the cat’s ears, her left hand dove back into her pocket and pulled the camera out again.  Slowly, afraid but excited, she reopened the camera and started searching through the archive, stopping at a picture of the Nightmare costume.  Ever since she could remember, the Nightmare had been her hero.  And now she was helping him.

The camera slid back into her jacket, her left elbow landing on her thigh, her head drooping for rest onto an open hand.  A dreamy look wavered on her visage.  The two sat there in peace for fifteen minutes until Katrina slowly got onto her two feet, careful not to fall off the thin beam.

“We should get out of here,” she said to the cat in a hush-hush tone when suddenly all the lights in the room lit up again, the intensity nearly blinding, with one of the fixtures dangling almost right in front of her.  From below her there was a loud ping, a bullet whizzing through the beam, a low rumble under her feet.  She took a step backwards to get away from the burning light and then suddenly she was falling through the air.

Mid-fall she reached to her belt, taking off a squarish gray box with a handle.  Pressing a button on the box fired off a claw-like hook that went all the way into the rafters, grabbing onto one of the vertical beams, sliding downwards until it hit a network of rafters.

Her body froze in the air, dangling at least forty feet above ground.  Below her were two of the thugs, guns trained on her from either side.  Worst of all though was the confident Hector Morton Welles who still carried a confident smile.

“Little girl,” he said, a bit of cheer to his otherwise rocky, dark baritone of a voice.  “If you want to survive, I’d recommend you come down here.”

Katrina looked up at the rafters, her cat peering down at her curiously.  Biting her lip, she looked downwards to see the triangle formation below.  Closing her eyes, she let go of the grappling hook and fell to the ground, landing swiftly and nimbly, on all four limbs.

“Now, let’s have a talk,” Welles said in a parental way.

“I don’t think so.”

Katrina jumped upward from all fours, sending a kick straight for Steven’s stomach.  The man doubled over in pain as the girl pushed off him, rolling backwards, careening right between the legs of the other thug; Johnny.  A leg soared upward, slamming the man in the most personal of locations.

From her rolled up position, she uncurled, soaring onto the back of the man she struck and somersaulting off, the extra force sending the cringing gun for hire into a face plant with the cold, tiled floor.

When the youth landed, her leg were bent inwards, her rear an inch above the floor.  Steven charged for her, arms swinging to grab her in a crushing grip.  Then, like a spring that had been pressed all the way into its first rung, she rocketed upwards, through the gap between his arms, and landed a swift kick across his chin.  When Katrina landed, both of the men had fallen to the ground.

Katrina struck a pose, raising her fists near her head, bobbing up and down on her heels, inhaling and exhaling quickly, but there was no one in sight.

Then there was a sharp pain in her lower back, small steel spikes biting through her flesh.  Then her entire body started screaming in pain, blue electric bolts coursing through her body; her legs, her feet, her toes, her torso, her arms, her hands, her fingers, her ears, her nose, her eyes, and even her lips, all of them simultaneously feeling a pain she had never felt before.

Her scream was loud, deep, and scratchy. She only had enough energy to release two seconds of a vocal sound before her body, like the two others, collapsed, her limbs folded inwards and outwards, sprawled out in random directions.

Looking upward she could see a grinning Hector Welles harshly patting his hand with his cane.  The diamond head had been removed, exposing four short spikes at the end, electric sparks rippling between them.  Shadows swept over her body, the two thugs grunting, reaching for their guns.

That wasn’t the worst of it though.

She was still conscious.

Johnny Act II: The Deal of a Lifetime

Masked by shadows, Johnny stood in the doorway, his left hand clutching the door frame, cracking and splintering the wood, his body shaking, rain drops dripping from his trenchcoat.  In his right hand, he was clutching onto a briefcase, arm dangling from his body as if it was dead of life.

“You cheated me, Welles…” Johnny muttered, his voice somewhat strained and tired.  Welles merely blinked,
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said quietly, restraining the shock in his voice.  “How’d you get through security?” he asked, pacing towards a table that had a button for the security resting under it.

Johnny ignored him and instead threw the briefcase into the air lazily, the package landing crudely on the table Welles was heading towards.  It had a horrible stench to it, one that Welles had grown familiar with after decades of his work.

“Open it,” Johnny edged on, flicking his head towards the briefcase.

Hand shaking, eyes stuck on Johnny, Welles leaned over and popped the case open.  There was a long moment of silence, Welles’ eyes piercing into Johnny, the case right below his line of sight.  Eventually he allowed a moment to look at the contents, and although he knew what was in there, he still leaped backwards.

Five heads, but not just any five heads.  The heads of the men who had taken part in the transaction.

“Jay Lawrence.  George ‘The Wheezer’ McGee.  Alfred Carson.  Liam Cotone.  And Harold Hardy,” Johnny recited dully, pulling up the cuffs of his trench coat.  “All employees of Welles Corp,” he explained.  “Did you forget to give someone the memo?” he asked, casually stepping closer to Welles.

“I was trying to…” Welles started, gritting his teeth.

“What?  Make it more real?” Johnny asked, watching Welles grow more pale, the anger in the man’s eyes growing.  “That’s the problem with you businessmen, you have no idea how these things work.  See, if I knew this was fake, and the chemicals didn’t matter, maybe I would’ve offed the brat,” he sighed, shaking his head.  “Oh and by the way,” he added on with a sigh, “If you want to hit that security switch, I want you to ask yourself a question.  How do you think I got in here?”

He stepped closer to the light, the closed trench-coat revealed to be covered in blood, seemingly fresh.  Noticing Welles’ slack jaw, he responded with, “Oh?  This?  That was from the big guy with the goatee.”

Johnny gazed up at the ceiling and laughed to himself.  “That was a botched operation if I’d ever heard one.  Everything else was clean though…It is eight guards right?”

“Seven,” Welles responded, backing away from the table, eyes searching for an escape.

“Oh, must’ve been the milk man or something,” Johnny shrugged, digging his hands into his pockets.  He looked around the room slowly, then casually flicked his head back towards the cowering billionaire.

“I know people, Irving,” Welles said in a bit of a frenzy.  “If you so much as sneeze on me they’ll…”

“I don’t think you understand what you created, Mr. Welles,” Johnny sighed, then added on darkly, “Let me show you.”

The light crawled up his body as he stepped forward, eventually revealing his skin, which was no longer a pale white but an oily black.  His eyes had become snake-like, a venomous yellow replacing the cold, steely eyes.  His long hair was missing, burned off by the chemicals.

Drumming on his front was one of his hands, black like the rest of his skin.  Crimson red, talon-like nails were jutting out of the ends of his fingers.

But what disturbed Welles more was Johnny’s disposition, that confident and twisted smile that betrayed the blank expression he had when they originally met.  There was a dangerous hunger in his eyes, and he had the means to quench his thirst for blood now.

“I’ve been playing the past week with my new abilities.  They’ve actually been quite useful,” he monologued, stooping over to lift up the table with the security button.  Without a second thought, he tossed it to the side and it crashed into a priceless mirror, both pieces of merchandise collapsing into hundreds of pieces.

“No, that’s not even close to what I can do now,” Johnny hissed, his mannerisms returning back to the icy mercenary Welles had met at an airport.

In that moment of calm, Welles pulled a gun from his bathrobe and fired off one shot before a black claw had pulled it out of his hand, and then suddenly he was on the floor, clutching his stomach.  It had all been so fast, as if Johnny had just warped across the room, his body a blur of motion.

“Thanks for the demonstration,” Johnny thanked, crushing the gun between his two hands and tossing it across the room as carelessly as a child treats a crumpled piece of paper.  Johnny stooped over and yanked Welles upward, then slammed his body through the tall window at the end of the room, the rainfall colliding with Welles almost blinding.

The aging arms‘ dealer looked downwards to see the waves violently crash against the rocks below his home.  Looking up in a panic, Welles felt himself sliding downwards.  His arms shot up and gripped onto Johnny’s arm.

“Oh God, d-don’t….Johnny, think of what I can give you!” he gasped, closing his eyes, his will growing, but his grip loosening with every painful second.    He could feel one of his slippers slide off his feet and into the ruthless waters below him, the waves thundering so loudly that he couldn’t even hear a splash.

“Ten million dollars!” he shouted, his body swaying back and forth precariously.  There was a long pause, followed by a response from Johnny.

“Ten million dollars,” the mercenary repeated slowly, “Is that right?”

“YES!  I can give it to you right now!” Welles responded in his panic, his heavy baritone of a voice rising drastically in pitch.

“Don’t insult me.”

He could no longer feel the claw grasping onto his robe; the only thing that was preventing him from death were his own bare, aging hands.

“UP FRONT!” Welles added, and at that point his hands slipped away, the darkness swallowing him.  He could feel a violent push on his body, and then an even more painful slash as the rocks beneath him dug into his flesh.

But then he felt his carpet.  Looking up, he saw a trail of blood going from his back to the glass shards left near the bottom of the shattered window.  Standing in the window was Johnny, claws clutching the edges.

“Up front you said?” Johnny asked curiously, “How much are we talking?”

“Do the job…” Welles wheezed, trying to get off the floor and onto his feet.  “And it’ll be one hundred million dollars.”

Johnny started to laugh.  Nothing manic, just a calm, comfortable laugh that follows a quiet, unmemorable joke.

“All you care about is cash and your own hide.  I doubt the Nightmare has caused this much damage to your company but I’ll take care of your pest problem regardless because hey, I like the power,” Johnny mused.  He turned towards the window then paused, digging under his jacket for something.  “Almost forgot.”

A bullet ripped across the room and tore straight through the old man’s knee, sending him crashing to the floor.

“I suggest you call for your son,” Johnny sighed, putting his gun back into its holster, watching more blood stain the priceless carpet.  “The only reason he’s still breathing was in case tonight went down the way it did.”

“You leave my son out of this!” Welles barked.

“You’re in no place to make demands right now, Welles,” Johnny smirked, turning towards the window and grabbing the frame.  Without the slightest turn of the head or roll of the eyes, Johnny added on, “Have the one hundred million ready.”

Then he leaped out the window and vanished.

The very second Johnny left the doors burst open and in burst young Matthew Welles who slammed an emergency button on his way in with his fist.  The handsome teenager ran to Welles’ side and looked into his icy, blue eyes, the same as his son’s.

“Father…I…I heard something so I ran to the door!  I’m sorry I didn’t come in sooner, I–what happened?” Matthew asked, his eyes wide open in a panic.

“Some nut…thank you for alerting the authorities, son,” Welles said softly, “Something about a job interview that didn’t go well for him.  Never saw the guy before in life,” he explained in a bit of a cheerful, upbeat manner.  “Don’t you worry.  I’m still giving that speech to the committee tomorrow.  We’re tearing down that slum territory if it’s the last thing I do.  Prometheon doesn’t need anymore of that garbage.”

Within minutes, Welles was being sent off to the best hospital money could afford and police were left behind in Welles Manor for Matthew’s safety.  He had school the next day.

But Matthew couldn’t sleep for a second.  He had lied to his father.  He was waiting outside his door since Johnny had entered and he heard the entire conversation.

Maybe he had misunderstood.  His father had never really explained the nature of his business to his son after all….

Unmasked Act IV: The Golden Age

One by one, operatives dropped out over the next few weeks.  With some, there was an argument.  With others there was an apology.  Some just didn’t show up one work night.  The Freedom Fighters had fallen from over fifty individual units to just one active member in a matter of weeks.

Katrina tried to tell herself that it was just none of the other recruits had the heart for the mission, but she was only lying to herself.  Every night, people were dying, and she couldn’t deny that some of the corpses had it coming.  Murderers, homicidal maniacs, rapists, drug lords, and even men running child slavery rinks.  Every morning she woke up to see the death count rising, and some of the names made her breathe a sigh of relief.

Despite all this, despite her arm only partially recovered, she still got into her Nightmare costume every night.  It reminded her of the old days, when it was just her and the night sky.  Except back then it wasn’t as depressing.  She dropped into crime scenes only to find it taken care of in increasingly gruesome ways.

What really got her though was that the public liked Ultraman.  Prometheon had been plagued with crime since its inception, and admittedly, Ultraman was the first man to present a solid, fail-proof plan.  There was less pain and the streets were safer than ever before.  The Freedom Fighters were old news at this point.

But what about justice?  What about fair trial with an impartial jury?  Innocent before proven guilty?  The ideals of their culture were being destroyed bit by bit every night, and she couldn’t help but be reminded of when she was a little girl on the sofa watching news reports about Ultraman, thinking of how she wanted to grow up to be just like him.

It made her wonder if anyone had ever felt that way about her, tracking every appearance of her, cutting out newspaper bins, and putting up posters.  But at that point she was taking it too personally and she knew that.  Matthew was right about her.  She would never admit it to him, but he was right.

Maybe he was right about everything.  The rest of the team seemed to agree.  Beyond her father, the only one she could really talk to was Dark Horse, but he wasn’t up for much conversation in a body cast, and Luke, but he wasn’t speaking much to her beyond healing sessions.

There was only one solution.  She needed to talk to Ultraman.

She rode her motorcycle out to the docks at Prometheon Harbor and stepped out, dressed in a trenchcoat, her hair wrapped into a pony tail.  She looked out at the still waters and then into the sky.  Perfect.  Having used one of her connections in the city, she had a spotlight set up with a big steel U hanging over the light.

Within minutes she had the signal shining into the sky.  She leaned against the warm steel, smiling up at the sky.  Tonight she was going to figure everything about.

“He’s not going to come,” a gravely voice said from behind her.  She turned around to see an elderly man in a black coat emerge from the shadows with a cane.  It was her father.

“Dad?  What are you doing out here?” she asked, watching her father edge towards her.

“I followed you here, I’m sorry,” he replied. “I’ve been seeing you at the house less and less every day, even though I know you aren’t on active duty with the Fighters.  And then there’s your arm…”

“Dad, I’m fine,” Katrina said, a little annoyed.  She looked back up into the sky, eying the giant U piercing the sky.  She felt a rough hand gently place itself on her shoulder.

“Please turn the signal off.  Even from miles away, he can tell it’s you and he doesn’t want to talk to you.  He wants you to suffer,” Kyle explained.

“H-how do you know that?” she asked suspiciously, looking at her father who began to look very sullen.

“Kat, I’m sorry I never told you this but I used to work with Ultraman.  Now please turn the signal off.”

She looked at her father for a few long moments, her right arm moving backward and deactivating the signal with one strong push that would have been made easier with two arms.

“Let’s talk,” he said, guiding her towards the end of the dock.  “Back in the old days, I can remember dreaming about an international Freedom Fighters, something that could expand our mission.  As you can guess, it failed.”

“Why did it fail?” she asked, their steps causing the wooden planks of the dock to creak uncomfortably.

“Too many people died, or couldn’t keep up with the scale of the job anymore, like myself,” he answered, his voice heavy.

Seeing her father outside in the moonlight, she never realized how old he looked.  His face had nearly nothing in common with the poster of the Nightmare in her room, the light highlighting the scars and wrinkles.  His hair was a snowy white, glasses and mustache showing what the years had done to him.

“Regardless, we still managed to set up a few bases across the country.  We met a lot of good people during those days, but none of them measured up to Ultraman, an idealist boyscout of a man with powers I couldn’t even begin to comprehend.  Sometimes, I don’t even think he understood how powerful he was….” He paused, closing his eyes.  “But he did know.  Every fight.  But we’ll get to that later.”  He glanced at his daughter, seeing her worried expression, and laughed.

“The last thing you’ll ever want to deal with Katrina is an old superhero from the Golden Age,” he chuckled.  “There’s just too many stories to tell.”  He watched a buoy in the distance bob up and down with the waves.  “Let’s take a seat.”

They both took a seat together, holding each other’s hands, the fresh scent of the sea keeping them occupied for a few quiet moments.

“Ultraman was a global unit, unlike most of the Freedom Fighters.  He was always traveling the world, trying to solve problems.  But when he could, he worked with us and in later years, he worked with me.  As much as I denied it back then, I was getting older…slower.  It was only a matter of time before someone killed me and I probably wouldn’t be here sitting on this dock with you if it wasn’t for Ultraman.”

“So you were like the World’s Finest?” Katrina asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Don’t even start with me, kiddo,” Kyle responded with a small smile, but it faded back into that reminiscent gaze.  He looked back out to the sea and continued, “We worked together for months, but one night it ended.”

“Ended?”

“We were fighting a pair of criminals on a rooftop.  Whether they robbed the bank or wanted to take over the world, I couldn’t tell you. There was no build-up though.  It was just me, Ultraman, and two men whom we’ve never seen before with guns.”  He took a deep breath and watched his feet dangled off the wood above the sea.  “We were fighting and I suddenly heard a scream.  He punched one of the men off the roof.  I cuffed the other thug and let the police handle it.”

“Was it an accident?” Katrina asked.  She already knew the answer, but she needed to know what Ultraman was really like.

“The punch was from halfway across the rooftop.  Maybe if he was on the edge, it’d be an accident, but no, it was on purpose. And regardless he could’ve used that super-flight of his to catch the man.  So of course we had a talk, and he told me that he had been fighting the war on crime for two decades and had seen no progress until that no-name thug fell off the roof.  I told him that we had saved thousands of lives because of what we do, that we’ve given the city hope.

He told me that I live too much off of ideals, that we’d save even more lives if we have a final solution to our problems, and then he told me that he had powers.  He could fly, lift entire buildings, use his heat vision, freeze vision, create tornadoes with mere gusts of breath, what have you.  He could help people and he felt that my rules restricted him, that I was jealous of him, that I wanted no man to be stronger than the Nightmare.”

Katrina watched her father remember the story, she could see the pain he was going through with every sentence.  Occasionally he’d stop, close his eyes, and hold his forehead.  She now understood why he never told her his stories.

“I told him he needed to calm down, to stop being so bullheaded as usual.  That’s when he punched me.   I can still remember flying across the roof and slamming into that wall.  I looked up at him and he was smiling,” He looked down into the waters again and added darkly, “He wasn’t even trying.”

“…what did you do?” she asked.  She could see it all happen vividly.  Ultraman had nearly done the same to her.

“I told him he should go and so he did.  He left the very next day to explore the world, to find a place where he could use the full extent of his powers.  And he got bored with that, so he came back here.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he told me.  While you were out one night, he came to the house to ask how I was holding up,” Kyle sighed, a dark humor rising in his voice. “I told him, ‘With a cane.’”  He looked over at Katrina for the first time in minutes and tried getting up, receiving some help from his daughter.  “There’s something Ultraman gave me the first time we worked together.”  He held out his cane and took off the head of it.

Blue light started to shine out of the wooden stick, a brilliant blue light that illuminated everything around them for a few feet.  “Incase he ever went rogue.”

Katrina placed her gloved hand into the cane and pulled out a blue crystal.  She had never seen anything like it.
“…what is this…?”

“It’s a fragment from his planet.  The radiation that emits from it saps him of his powers.  If over-exposed, it could kill him.”  He screwed the head back onto the cane, then looked at his daughter who dropped the crystal into her coat pocket, the light vanishing immediately.  “Personally, I don’t think you should be on the field against him.  He has strengths like none you’ve ever, or will ever, see.  But I’d be a hypocrite if I told you to give up, wouldn’t I?”

The two smiled.

“Do whatever it takes, Katrina.”
…

There was a knock on the door, answered by Kyle.

“Hello, Matthew,” Kyle greeted warmly, given the young man a firm handshake. “What brings you here?” he asked.

“Business.  Business that I’d like to discuss with a closed door,” he said with a serious look.  Kyle nodded and they both stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind them.

“You were saying, Matthew?” Kyle asked.

“I went to Freedom Fighter Headquarters and found the Nightmare suit left in her locker.  And well…” Matthew looked up the clock which read 11:58PM.  “It’s business hours, so I wanted to see if she was here.”

“Yes,” Kyle said softly, casting a sad look down the hallway, through the kitchen, and to Katrina’s bedroom.

“Is she…uh…taking it well?” Matthew asked.

“I’ve been trying to give her some privacy so I’m not sure.”

“May I speak to her?” Matthew asked.  He got his response with a simple nod.  “Thank you,” he smiled, hanging his long-coat onto the coatrack.

As he stepped across the room, he could hear quiet sobs coming from Katrina’s room.  When he finally reached the door, he stopped, his knuckle within an inch of making a knock.  After years of training, he was positive she’d had been able to hear the whole conversation he had with her father, but there was still time to back out.  This was one conversation he never wanted to have with her.

He knocked.

“Hi, Matthew…” he could hear from the other side.  He opened the door, a strip of light shining into her otherwise dark bedroom.  She was sitting on her bed, legs dangling off the side, her back to him.  He could see a box of tissues at her side, and a cat’s tail poking out from under her arm.

“Hey…” Matthew said weakly, forcing a smile.

“Hold on, let me get a light,” Katrina said, almost emotionlessly.  She tugged on a chain from the lamp next to her bed, giving a soft glow to the room.  Matthew then closed the door behind him and took a seat next to Katrina.  She was wearing her pink pajamas,  a matching set with the button-up shirt.

“I saw your costume in the headquarters.  I’m sorry,” he responded, placing a hand on top of hers.

“I tried…” she said without looking at him, focusing on her purring cat, Ariadne.  “I was out nearly every night, but I just…I had to give up.  Attempted crime rate is falling, as well as the rate of successes which is just a little bit above zero.”

“…a little?” Matthew asked, leaning forward.   “I thought everything was taken care of.”

“There’s this one thief.  He’s been hitting a lot of labs.  I think it might be a case of corporate espionage. He’s pretty good, because Ultraman hasn’t been able to stop him, or even detected him from what I can tell.”

There was a long, heavy pause between them, ending with her beginning to sob again.  At this point her cat jumped out of her lap and to the floor.  Matthew had seen Katrina cry before, but never like this.

He looked around at the floor and saw her almost her entire comic book collection sprawled out over the floor.  He picked up one of the copies and saw a line that read, “But you have to do it by the book!  Show him our way works!”  He looked over at Katrina who by that time had managed to partially come down.

“…Matthew, I’ve made a deal,” she said slowly.  “I paid someone fifty thousand dollars,” she added on.

“…what did you do?” Matthew asked.

“Tomorrow, someone’s going to take Ultraman down and he’s going to be locked up behind bars for what he’s done.  Please don’t interfere,” Katrina explained in a painful monotone, tears ceasing to fall from her eyes.  Matthew got up slowly, ready to walk out when he heard a shaking voice that sounded more like a child’s than the Nightmare’s ask, “Don’t go.”

He sat down beside her and she immediately fell into his arms.

“Hold me.”

Unmasked Act III: Monitor Duty

Monitor duty.

Katrina only got monitor duty when she forgot to check her schedule for the week.    In most cases she would pull some kind of deal with another team member and then the next night she was on the streets fighting the war on crime like always.  In most cases however, she didn’t have a broken arm.

So there she sulked in the cramped room.  All around her were various screens displaying the actions of her comrades as they surveyed the city, jumped from rooftop to rooftop, or stopped situations.  Her father helped fund the effort to plant spy cameras all around town so the Freedom Fighters had each other’s backs.

Through her headset she could hear the voices of the young vigilantes, reporting in.  Unfortunately, no one was reporting in much.  The past three nights had been very quiet nights, due in no small part to the new vigilante in town who was “cleaning up” the mess in Prometheon in blood.
“Kat,” she heard through her headset, specifically from Channel 5, which was dedicated to Matthew and herself. “Check Prometheon TV.  We have a situation.”

Silently, Katrina turned to one of the monitors and flicked a few switches.  The screen changed from that of police investigating a murder scene (one that was most definitely the works of Ultraman, the burn marks on the wall giving it away) to Prometheon New, but she didn’t see the usual nighttime city skyline in the background with a news anchor smiling behind a desk.

The background had been partially torn off the wall, exposing an ugly, pale blue wall that seemed to have encountered hundreds of nails in the old days.  The desk remained the same, but the current anchor duo, James Lewis and Paula Leslie, were bound and gagged, wide-eyed, helpless eyes staring into the camera for help.

Above them was a white banner that read in bloody, red letters, “WELCOME BACK STEVE NORTON.”

“Matthew, get to the News Tower on the double,” Katrina ordered straight into her microphone.
“We’re already on it,” Matthew responded.

The way he said “we’re” was painful.  She never worked without Matthew and the way he casually told her that made her feel…replaced.  And alone.  But this wasn’t a good time to start taking her job too personally.    Her eyes went back to the screen which is when the man of the hour stepped into view. And he looked like Hell.

Almost two years ago a raving, handsome journalist was dragged into the doors of Verrückt Asylum and those years had done their number on him, his body thin from malnutrition, his skin a ghostly kind of pale.  His hair had severely thinned and whitened as well, but there was a new energy to the man.  That smirk that he used with every sentence he spat out was still there, the corners of his mouth sharper than ever, and that familiar gleam in his eyes was still there.

Norton had tried to ruin the Nightmare, and he almost succeeded.  Night by night, his mind was invaded by the super criminal from ages past; Fear.  Through use of fear gas, Katrina had been framed for murder but she eventually got the confessional straight from Norton’s mouth.  She also unloaded all the remaining fear gas left into the egomaniac, and he was never cured.

It seemed that the years of fear and paranoia seemed to remove him from fear and master it, because the confidence on the screen was nothing short of a master showman and he was only a week out of the asylum.

What surprised her the most though was his wardrobe, a plaid jacket and bright red pants, a black tie dangling from his neck, not pulled up all the way to his neck.

“HELLO PROMETHEON!” he shouted, pumping his arms into the air. “It’s been a very long time, hasn’t it?  For those who don’t know I’m the best damned thing this city has ever seen; Steve Norton.” He stared at the camera before him for a few moments and crossed his arms, some of the manic joy fading from his incessant grin. “Darling, we talked about this.  After I finish my line, you hit the button and we go to the next slide on the teleprompter.  Get with the program, Seanna!”

“But sir, I–” a nervous voice shuddered from behind the camera, the soft voice quavering with fright.
“Yes, we went over this, and I spent at least one hour writing all my material for tonight’s big show,” he said, rubbing one of his hands against the other.  “I mean, really?  You can’t hit a damned button?” he asked, then throw himself backward laughing a high pitched, gleeful laughter akin to a child.

With shocking speed, he pulled a gun and fired a bullet, followed by a scream, but it was cut-off.  Norton’s eyes scrolled to his left to some off-screen person. “Hillary, be a lamb and move the teleprompter to the next slide,” he asked with his shining grin.  Of all the things he had maintained over his years behind bars, he still had a damn good smile.

“Sir, Seanna WAS operating the teleprompter…” a low voice spoke, her voice timid, wavering with fright.
“Maybe I just have bad eyesight.  Give it a shot, please?” he asked, waggling his gun from side to side.  His eyes started following her movements across the room until he found himself looking back at the teleprompter.  “Ok, so the next line is…right!  Jeez!  I almost forgot!” he cried out, firing another bullet and killing young Hillary.  Norton then paraded to center stage and took a seat on the desk between the two cowering anchors.

“Anyways….” he started, rolling his eyes from side to side, “About a year and half ago I was…fired from Prometheon TV and then committed!” he clasped both of his hands together and smiled from ear to ear.  “And I was replaced by these numbskulls and I’m sorry I was gone so long.  These people…don’t know how to do news, y’know?  In my day, we really dug in deep!  We didn’t disguise ourselves like Ms. Boobjob over here,” he added, pointing at Paula, scrolling his eyes around the room.  “And hey, I’m not hating, they’re very nice.” He looked at her for a few seconds, his smile managing to become even wider and even sharper, then added, “Veeery nice!”

His head whipped back to the camera, his hair doing a flip from the momentum. “And why was I locked up in the first place?  Because I did a piece on why being a superhero is stupid.  Yeah!  I know!” he laughed again, then added in a softer tone as he shook his head, “Nutty world we live in.”

“But hey, things happened.  I got caught with a recorded confessional…and that was my mistake the whole time!  I realized…why should I be so private?  I’m a news anchor for God’s sake!  I know how to put on a show so I’m going to make one!  Tonight, I’m going to make an example of the mess that is my old studio. I’m going to kill James Lewis and Paula Leslie!”  He looked over at Paula and patted her on the shoulder, “Nothing personal babe.”  He then looked over to James.  “‘Cept you…I never liked you.”

Then a window behind the news anchors’ desk suddenly burst open and a masked man entered the room.  Katrina leaned back into her chair and let out a sigh of relief.  Matthew.  She looked up at him on camera, clinging to the side of the window calmly.

“Matthew,” she said into her microphone, “Norton’s vain and he likes to talk.  Attack his ego and power on through.”
“Gotcha,” Matthew replied softly, stepping into the set’s lights and addressing the madman more audibly.  “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

“Ah, so we have a superhero in our midst.  I’m honored!” Norton exclaimed, bowing to his waist, pointing his gun at James’s head, which was dripping with sweat. Norton looked up with a venomous smile. “Pull a fast one and I blow his head off, ‘kay?”

Matthew didn’t respond, merely holding his body still.

“Tough guy, eh?  Well, let’s take advantage of the occasion and get the inside scoop on X.  For example, why the ridiculous getup?”
“Why yours?” X asked dryly.
“Oh, he has a sense of humor!” Norton hissed, straightening his posture. “How about why do you think it’s acceptable to enact your form of justice?”
“And I should answer that…because…?” X asked, standing as still as a statue.
“Because I’m the man with a gun,” Norton replied.
“Yeah, there’s at least 10 ways I can take you down right now.  If you wanted to pull something I could have you flat on the ground in moments.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that…” Norton started, his confident smirk turning into a scowl.
“Why?  You know what I think of you Norton?  You’re an egomaniac, but in the asylum you were just like everyone else.  You’re only back here because you’re upset that you’re not announcing the headlines.  It made you feel like God.  Am I right?” X asked with a biting sarcasm.

“YOU’RE TRYING TO STEAL MY SPOTLIGHT AREN’T YOU?!” Norton shrieked, pointing the gun at X’s head, gritting at the teeth, nearly frothing at the mouth.
“You’re just a mad dog now.  I’m just a little disappointed, golden boy,” X sighed, shrugging at the ex-journalist.  “But go ahead, shoot me.  But knowing you, you’ve never handled a gun before and you only made those shots earlier because they were painfully rehearsed, so if you want to take the shot, step closer.”

Norton did as such, grimacing as he did so, feet moving like lead.  As he moved closer to the light, his shadow expanded, becoming longer and longer, trailing behind him.

“See.  That was your first mistake, Norton,” X laughed, pointing behind Norton, who whipped his head backward immediately.  From his shadow, a cloaked figure was rising, shadows covering his eyes, only leaving a clean, freshly shaved, rounded, pale chin visible.  Before Norton could even bring the gun to Dark Horse’s head, the vigilante had grabbed his wrist.

“You’re really not good at this super-villainy, gig,” Dark Horse smirked, pulling the gun from the journalist as X grabbed Norton from behind, cuffing his hands.

“THIS IS HARASSMENT!  I DEMAND A LAYER!” Norton shrieked, his voice scratchy like a growling cat.  “SEE WORLD?!  THIS IS WHAT SUPERHEROES DO!  YOU CAN’T LET THIS HAPPEN, YOU CAN’T–”

One punch to the jaw, a bit of blood, and Norton shut up.

“Word of advice, Stevey?” Dark Horse said, leaning towards the madman. “If you want to get fans, I’d recommend not threatening to kill news anchors with at least fifty fan-sites.”  Dark Horse strolled over to the camera and sighed, “Sorry about tonight folks, we’ll take care of this.”

“Is that so?” a mysterious voice spoke.  The wall blasted open, tearing apart any remains of the city landscape background, two burly fists the only things that could be seen through the resulting dust cloud.

“Oh no.” Katrina leaned forward in her chair, watching the same man that broke her arm float into the room. With one breath, a powerful gust sent both X and Dark Claw (as well as the journalists) across the room, leaving Norton alone, hunched over, his eyes wildly looking around.

“What…Ultraman?” Norton asked, looking into the stoic face of the hero.  “I thought you…didn’t you…”

Ultraman grabbed the stuttering Norton by his collar, lifting him off the ground, his legs kicking back and forth feet above the ground.

“Steve Norton, words fail me,” Ultraman said bluntly, his dark eyes piercing Norton’s.  “But I’ll still try. You murdered two people on live television for your own self-gain.  Whatever you hoped to gain from tonight, I don’t know but quite frankly motivations are irrelevant, a sympathy cry to the jury.  Tonight, you are going to see real justice.  An eye for an eye…”

“Will make the world blind?” Norton asked, raising his eyebrow.  “I…don’t see where you’re going with this.”  He looked around at the room, the two heroes watching the situation unfold with heavy grimaces.  “Do you…?”  His eyes suddenly burst wide open, “Oh!  Back to the asylum!  Right!  Well, catch you all later next time!” he exclaimed with a wink to the camera.

Looking at a screen on the wall that was linked to the camera, he could see Ultraman’s arm rising, fist clenching.  “What?” Norton asked, looking up to see a fist heading straight for his head.  “Oh, sweet Jesus.”

The scene cut, replaced with static.   Katrina’s heart stopped.

“Matthew?” she shouted into her microphone.  “Matthew?!  Report!”

Nothing.

In a flash, Katrina was out the door and running down the hallway, barking an order at a passing ally to take command.  She heard something about her needing to stay at headquarters, but she ignored it.

Within fifteen panic-stricken minutes she was at Prometheon TV Tower, standing on a nearby building.  Below, ambulance sirens were wailing.

“Kat?”

Katrina turned around to see X a few yards away from her, his coat covered in blood.  Given his posture and overall lack of fatigue, it wasn’t his own.

“Matthew?  Oh Jesus, I was scared he’d–” she stopped, looking up at the man who had been like an older brother to her for years.  “Why didn’t you—”

“He dismantled our communicators with his heat vision,” X responded.  “For the love of God tell me the camera cut right before…” X paused, and looked up at Katrina who looked slightly confused.  “He punched Norton’s head clean off.”  He pulled his hat off, holding it with both of his hands.  “Dark Horse dismantled the camera last second…he’s in a body cast now for ‘obstructing justice.’  He might die.”

“No…”

“And I’m the messenger.  He says that if he sees another Freedom Fighter on the streets, it’ll be worse.”

“…he needs to be stopped,” Katrina muttered, turning back to the building.  “He can’t get away with this, he—”

“KAT!”  X shouted, pulling off his mask and tossing it into a muddy puddle at this feet.  “It’s over.”

“What?” Katrina asked, “Put your mask back on, are you crazy?!”  she shouted, looking at him like she’d never seen him before.

“Face it, we’re finished.  Even if we do fight, we don’t get anything done anyways.  Do you want us all to get killed?!” he shouted, spreading his arms.
“No, I—Matt, this isn’t right.  You know that.”
“Either way someone dies.  And I’d rather it be Norton’s head instead of Dark Horse’s,” Matthew uttered bitterly.

“Remember when the cops were after me?  Remember what you told me?” Katrina pleaded, raining beginning to pour from the sky, burying X’s mask in even more murky filth. “You told me to never give up.”
“That’s different!”
“It’s the same!” Katrina shot back, “Injustice is injustice…I…I looked up to Ultraman when I was a kid.  I believed in what he did.  What if the new generation grows up like that?”

“Oh I get it now…” Matthew started, stepping closer to her. “You’re scared your fantasies will never die.  Is that right?” He started.  Her lips opened but he interrupted her, “It’s always been about you!  About your fight!  That’s why you’re too stubborn to accept you’re useless for two measly weeks!  This isn’t about you, do you understand that?  It’s about all other fifty whatnot people on the team!  We could die, do you understand that?”

The two stared at each other for a moment, both maintaining their stern, challenging looks.  Eventually Matthew sighed and threw his jacket to the ground, a clap of lightning lighting up the area.  “The people like Ultraman.  They don’t like us.  I was listening to the press chat about it while I was waiting for an opportunity to get out of the area.  And you know why?  Because we have masks, and he doesn’t.  To the people, we’re just vigilante.”

“Ultraman is too.”

“That’s not what they think, and it’s about what they think that makes us what we are.  If we took off our masks…” he started, motioning towards Katrina’s mask, a finger sliding under the fabrics.  “If we shared our world with theirs…maybe it could work.”

“You know we can’t do that.  I’m Nightmare, not Katrina Gawain,” Katrina answered, moving away from her, shielding her body from the cape with her cape.

“And I’m Matthew Welles…not X.”

Matthew turned to the edge of the building and went to the ledge, looking out at the bright lights of the city. “I’m going to headquarters and I’m telling everyone what Ultraman told me.  Can we at least agree on that?”

“…yes,” Katrina replied begrudgingly.  “Matt…” she started slowly, looking at his hunched over figure as he scanned a way back to the base.  “I’m going to miss you.”

“…You can’t even begin to imagine…”

And he was off.

Unmasked Act II: Ultra

It was twelve years ago when Kyle Gawain entered his home’s living room to find its darkness lit up only by the television.  Time and time again he had caught his daughter Katrina wandering back into the living room after Kyle told her a story and sent her off to bed.  It still hadn’t occurred to her that watching television wasn’t exactly the most subtle way to avoid bedtime.  Except this time she wasn’t watching a movie or a cartoon, but a news report.  On the screen was a youthful news anchor rambling on and on about political relations and responses by the Prometheon City Police Department, things that he couldn’t even comprehend from time to time.  Behind the cushion he could hear the quiet sobs of his four year old daughter.  On the screen in a bright, golden font read “ULTRAMAN HAS LEFT EARTH.”  In the upper-right hand corner of the screen was an image of the black and silver wonder flying away from a crowd and into the heavens.

Kyle walked around the coach and saw his daughter in her white pajamas with little colorful trains.  She was clinging onto her teddybear, wiping her soft cheeks with her sleeve, sniffling every few seconds.  He sat next to her, watching the newscast in silence with her.

“Daddy?” Katrina asked, sniffling again.  She looked up at her daddy, her eyelids falling.  “Why is Ultraman leaving?” she asked.

“Because superheroes are people too, Katrina…like you and me,” Kyle responded warmly, placing one of his aged hands on her fragile shoulders.

“Does that mean I could be one one day?” she asked innocently, the grip on her teddy bear tightening as she waited for a response.

“…yes,” Kyle answered after a few careful moments of consideration.  “It’s not about how far you can throw a car or how fast you can fly…it’s about the heart,” he said, poking her in the chest.  She giggled, but then looked back at the television screen and her eyes began to water again.

“B-but…why did Ultraman leave?” she repeated.

“Because he couldn’t do it forever,” he said seriously, looking at the screen darkly.  “Kat, it’s past your bed time, you kn–”

“But I thought he could do everything!” Katrina shouted, standing up on the couch and throwing her arms up in the air defiantly, her teddy flailing from the hand which remained wrapped around its arm.

“No, not everything,” he added sadly, watching his daughter’s lips begin to tremble.  “I know.  I miss him too.”

…

When the Nightmare’s eyes opened, she found herself staring up at a blank, white ceiling.  Her armor was still on, aside from her right arm where she could feel a chill.  Groaning, she tried pushing herself upward but pain teared through her arm like an electric shock.

“Right…” she muttered, all the memories flooding back into her consciousness.

She fell back into her bed, assuming she was in Freedom Fighters Headquarters.  She allowed her head to fall to her right side to examine her arm, first noticing the area Ultraman had grabbed was pink, almost raw in its appearance.  The area had shrunk substantially, crushed by the titan’s grip, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was when she passed out.

The door soon opened, a teenager with spiky blonde hair and a goatee with a lab coat on entering the room.  “Ah, you’re awake,” he said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed.  “Feeling okay?”

“I feel like I got ran over by a truck to be honest, but I’m sure you did your best. Thanks, Luke,” Katrina said, looking at him warmly.  He had been part of the Freedom Fighters for only a few months, but he had immediately proved his worth as a healer.

“Given the damages I would give it about two weeks before your arm can be back to fully functioning, this includes daily heal sessions.  Unfortunately, there’s really only so much I can do.  Hypothetically I could heal it over night but that might disrupt the body systems and–”

“Luke,” Katrina interrupted, smirking.  “It’s fine.”

“Alright,” Luke replied, standing up from the hospital bed and surveying the room in a few seconds in silence. He dug his hands into the pockets of his coat.  “We were all worried about, specifically X.  That reminds me, he’d like to visit you.  That alright with you?” he asked, readjusting his glasses.  Katrina nodded.  “I’ll go get him.”

The very moment that Luke stepped out the door, X had entered the room, shutting the door behind him.  “We need to talk,” he said seriously, pulling his mask and fedora off, exposing a handsome, pale face drenched with sweat, his golden blond hair skewed by his mask.  He took the seat beside Katrina and looked her in the eyes.  “It’s your x-rays.”

“What’s wrong with them?” she asked as X, rather, her partner Matthew Welles–fiddled with the control panel alongside the hospital bed.

“A lot.”  A hatch opened near the top of a ceiling and a thin screen lowered from it, the image of Katrina’s arm’s bones displayed on it.

“Oh my God.”

As expected, the bones were cracked, bending inwards from the attack.  This is to be expected when attacked by a superhuman.  It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last, but that wasn’t what drew her attention.  Instead of the bones having their normal, smooth texture they instead had bumps in them, grooves that could easily hold human fingers.

“You said were attacked by Ultraman?” Matthew asked, his eyes not leaving hers.  She nodded.  “I wouldn’t bet it against it.”  He hit another button and the screen retracted back into the ceiling.  “What even happened back there?” he asked, getting off of his chair and pacing around the room, running his fingers through his hair.
“I was taking on the mob while you waited outside on watch incase anything went wrong, and it went pretty well until this…man…came in.  He was wearing a black and silver costume with a big “U” on the front.  He saved me from being attacked by one of the mobsters…but then he started killing all of them.  I tried to stop him but then…well..” Katrina looked at the raw flesh, then back up at Matthew who seemed to have chosen a spot for him to stand at. “That happened.”

“You’re not the only one,” Matthew said lowly.
“What?” Katrina asked, managing to sit up with help from her left arm.

“I said you’re not the only one.  No one solved any crimes tonight, but none of us were hurt, except well, you.”  Matthew looked over at Katrina who only gave him a somewhat confused look.  “People went to their assigned locations and either found the situation taken care or started their mission before a black and silver streak intervened and handled it for them.”

“Did anyone try to stop him or talk to him?” Katrina asked.

“A few spoke to him and he told all of them that their ‘mission’ was over and that they ‘can all go home.’” he recited, rubbing the back of his neck.  “But he attacked you, huh?”

“Yeah.  It hurt.  A lot.”  They both looked at each for a moment.

“I’m sorry.  I forgot,” he said, a little embarrassed.  “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, looking at her lap as she placed both of her feet on the tiled floor.  “Nothing that will keep me off the streets though, right?” she asked, looking up with a mischievous grin.

“Not today, we need you in here, Kat.”  Matthew went over to the bed and sat beside her. “He targeted you.  We can’t risk putting you out on the streets again.”  Katrina started to object, but Matthew immediately retorted, “How many times have you cheated death because you had two hands, Kat?” he asked, his tone a little colder than he wanted it to.  Katrina drooped her head a little and sighed. Matthew backpedaled, saying “Kat, I didn’t mean to–”
“No, Matthew.  You’re right.”
“You ever have a vacation before?” Matthew asked, getting back up to his feet, nearly jumping.
“No,” she replied flatly.  “I can’t.  I’m taking monitor duty.”  She looked up at him and then added, “Every shift until I can get back on the streets.  You’ll be working with Dark Claw.”
“The shadow guy?” Matthew asked.
“Yeah.  He’s been on the team for a few years and it’d do him good to get a break from training newbies.”
“Can do.”
“What time is it anyways?” Katrina asked, wishing she had put more of the budget into getting clocks for the headquarters.  Clocks were kind of important.
“It’s 7AM.  You were out for three hours.  Get some rest, Kat.”  Matthew slid his mask back on, followed by his fedora.  “‘Night,” he muttered while leaving the room, shutting off the lights and then closing the door behind him.

Katrina sighed and threw herself against the bed, an annoying crinkle coming from the pillow under her head.  It sounded like the Freedom Fighters were going to be up against something greater than ever before, but if she wanted to help out she was going to need her arm back.  



He only attacked me…no one else.  She let her eyelids shut.  She could hear footsteps in the hallways outside her.  He said I was ‘dressed’ as Nightmare.  Maybe he was upset that I took his identity but that would mean…

He knew dad.