The sirens were the first thing she noticed.
Even as she opened her eyes, she did not comprehend what it was she
saw, more a mix and jumble of abstract concepts and ideas than
coherent information through her retinas.
As the obscure cocktail of colors coalesced into something more
legible, Catherine Denise began to realize just how much of a
shit-show she’d found herself in.
“Oh… Oh my God…”
To begin with, she was now outdoors. She hadn’t been outdoors
earlier. And she hadn’t moved; she could tell that much. So
Catherine could only come to one conclusion:
The building she had been within was gone.
And it was Catherine’s fault.
***
“Caldera… Caldera!”
Catherine was jolted from her trance. Three phenomenally-costumed
women were glaring at her expectantly.
“My… whoops. Sorry.” Catherine
scratched her head. “Still... not used to that name yet.”
“Well you better get used to it
soon. We can’t have any hangups with this job.” Across from the
dimly-lit, steel table, was a woman wearing all black, blazer,
slacks, tie, down to her sunglasses and a hairclip that barely
managed to tame the furious black brambles escaping from the back of
her head. Her skin too was a deep umber, and her lips were painted
only three and a half shades darker. Anyone who saw her would’ve
thought she might’ve been a businessperson; in part, they would be
right, though none would expect that mogul and rare gemstone
collector Natasha Firefly was secretly Nightfly,
expert martial-artist and weapons guru in addition to being a master
of stealth. Catherine thought her outfit was a bit conspicuous
personally, but she knew better than to argue with the boss. After
all, Nightfly was the one who approached Caldera in the first place
for this job.
“I knew it was dangerous bringing
a kid into this.”
Catherine chagrined, arcing her eyes a few degrees to the left. There
sat a woman who seemed the polar opposite to Nightfly’s understated
cool: this one’s outfit was a skin-tight jumpsuit; identical in
form to that of a special operations soldier with scant other
articles to accompany it; compartments for provisions, close-combat
weapons, ammo, pistols. The only difference was also a striking one:
rather than the mottled greens and browns of camo or Black Ops
midnight, her suit was a blistering white, a color that only became
more apt when one took note of the few feathers peeking out from the
gashes torn through the back of the shirt.
These feathers that were only the
forward to a massive pair of ten-foot feathered wings graciously
curled inward and stowed for comfort at the moment. Her body was
slender and lithe, clearly built for speed, speed that would
certainly be needed when it fell to Angel Evans – aka, Seraph
– to ferry her teammates to
safety when the time for extraction came. But contrary to her
cherubic title, Seraph was no saint if her rap sheet had anything to
do with it. And her hardened glare toward Catherine was all the more
intimidating coming from someone who otherwise exhibited such outward
beauty.
Catherine wanted to open her mouth to respond, but was beaten to the
punch by a crass, wheezing guffaw.
“Awww c’mon… Heh… give the
kid
a shot!” Trencher’s
inflections dipped and rose at unintuitive places, giving her speech
a warbling effect. “It… worked out
for
me!”
Trencher was the only one among the
group whom Catherine didn’t know her real name. Her overalls were
dusty brown and disheveled, her boots were covered in mud, her hair
was filled with flack and dirt pellets, and her eyes were manic, even
in periods of calm. The most striking thing about her outfit,
however, were her gauntlets. On each hand, Trencher wore a drill-like
glove composed of thousands of needles, all arranged at a single
point. These gloves connected to wires that ran down her arms and
back to the biometrically-engineered energy source she wore on her
back.
The loose cannon of the group, Trencher was also, typically, their
way in. Her self-designed, ramshackle cyborg mechanics veiled a
complex technological super-suit, one that allowed her to dig through
the earth as seamlessly as Aqualass could swim through the sea. This
made Trencher the scout and infiltration expert, though was notedly
more difficult to discern than any of the rest.
“If nothing else… I’ll bet she
makes quite the light show when she goes ka-boom…”
Trencher winked and clicked her tongue at Catherine, who bristled at
the realization that Trencher was in fact not being her advocate,
unless advocating for the pretty lights she made when her powers
unleashed counted.
Catherine looked at her hands, fingerless gloves revealing her
unscathed pads. Unexpectedly, a tiny spark squirted out, becoming a
brief flash of firelight that dissipated as quickly as it came.
Catherine began to sweat, looking around and thanking the stars none
of her crew seemed to have noticed the accidental discharge.
Catherine Denise was the final member of their quartet. A shrinking
violet with few achievements to her name, she threw herself into her
studies, in this case studying genetic cell growth and opportunities
for increased ATP generation.
Studying:
the one trait Catherine was good at. The only
thing
she ever wanted
to do before…
That fateful night.
Her thesis experiment. Gone wrong.
Two weeks in the hospital later, Catherine realized two things: 1)
her medical bills would drown her for the rest of her life; 2) when
she tensed her muscles, she had the power to produce extremely potent
explosions. The longer between releases… the bigger the bang.
As a former college student with no prospects, no savings, no family,
and now no future, Catherine realized if she wanted any semblance of
a good life, she had no other choice but to turn to less than savory
methods of making a living. While at first resistant to the use of
her powers against others, as time went on and she realized the
dog-eat-dog nature of the world, Catherine’s inhibitions would
loosen. This was a society where the strong controlled the weak. Not
everybody blessed with power had choice… or the desire… to be as
honorable as Hyperveil, Meteoroid, Aqualass… or Imperia.
Catherine
steeled herself, looking up at her group. If she wanted to live a
life she truly wanted, she would need to burn her old self away, down
to a crisp. Gone were the days of that tweedy young girl clutching
her books with pale skin and unkempt, midnight-black hair. Using her
skills in chemical engineering and design, she was able to concoct a
suit of her own. One that was fashionable, black and red in a
swirling dance, ceramic red mask to shield her face and conceal her
identity. And emblazoned in the chest? An emblem of pure
fire.
Her old self needed to be buried.
Catherine
needed to drown it in those ashes. And from their smoldering embers…
Only
then could the pyrotechnic genius
Caldera rise.
The
steel in her eyes was enough to attract the approval of Nightfly, the
reluctant acceptance of Seraph… even the attention of Trencher, who
was currently picking at a piece of food between her sharpened teeth
using one of her drill needles.
“Enough
planning. I’m ready,” said Caldera. “Now, are we going to do
this, or what?”
Nightfly grinned. “Good.”
Stretching
a bit, Nightfly pulled out a rolled up sheet of paper and flattened
it on the table. Above the complex structural design plans was the
caption Aster City
Stock Exchange.
“If we can pull this off, none of you will have to work another day
in our lives.”
***
“Oh… Oh God, oh God…”
Catherine struggled to sit up. Each
move was an ordeal; her ripped suit now chafed as it let the grit and
dust in. “Stupid… stupid…”
The red and black colors seemed like such a good idea when she was
designing it in her friend’s basement.
Standing to her feet, Caldera stumbled, shrapnel and fiberglass from
the blast crunching beneath her black boots. She didn’t know if the
pit in her stomach was from executing the largest blast she’d ever
done… or from seeing the remaining bodies that littered the
complex.
“No…”
Caldera turned left to right. Some were sprawled across the still
intact walls, strewn over their jagged apexes like palisades. Others
were in pieces, blood vaporized by the force of the explosion. A
scant few were still alive, but nearly two dozen men and women had
surely died by Caldera’s hand.
“N-no!”
Caldera covered her mouth as she shook.
Crack!
Caldera jumped, realizing it was only her mask, the seam splitting
and falling to the ground, revealing the visage of Catherine beneath.
“I… I need to get out of here.”
Caldera looked every which way. Trencher should’ve dug a tunnel…
but wherever it was, it was covered in rubble. And the sirens were
getting louder. Police were coming.
“C’mon… come on!”
Caldera threw herself to her knees, further shredding their latex as
she dug through the debris by hand.
“How about this?!” Caldera
placed her hands on the jagged pile, and clenched.
Nothing but sparks.
“You can do it!” Caldera
screamed, trying over and over and over again
to simply blast the boulders out of the way.
Each time… nothing.
“Please! You have… to…”
A shadow, a narrow beam of darkness planted square in Caldera’s
chest. She rose her gaze upwards, to the edge of the crater where the
meager sunlight managed to sneak in.
Caldera’s mouth fell open, and her heart pounded.
She fell back on her elbows,
crawling away, feeling the need to hide herself, to leave
this place, kicking up dirt as she tried. But unable to take her eyes
off of… her.
For there, what felt like miles
above at the lip of her crater, stood her.
Wearing a suit of pure latex, white
base with turquoise trim, standing in knee-high boots with utterly
precise poise, and a golden halo
of perfectly stylized hair that was unfazed by the deluge of dust
that threatened it with each passing moment. Her blue eyes were
perfectly set in the center of a white, form-fitting In the center of
her own bounteous chest, the letter “I”,
stylized with all the import of the world was emblazoned. A letter
every citizen knew meant that help was
on the way.
Above Caldera stood Aster City’s greatest hero.
And Caldera could only barely mouth the ghost of a sentence.
“Imp… Imperia…”
As if on cue, Imperia began to take long, measured, determined steps,
basking in her confidence as she gazed down with detached importance
at Caldera. Her oceanic gaze was petrifying.
The craggle of rock and metal tumbling against rock and metal,
foreseen by a newfound shower of dust from the mottled ceiling of
scaffolds.
“Hm?” Imperia looked up just in
time to see another boulder fall down on her.
“NO!” Caldera leapt up,
reaching for her hero, knowing that it would be her doom, that she’d
never make it, that even if she did…
But Imperia, ever the dramatist, was prepared. She reached her hand
up high, fingers outspread, waiting patiently for the rock to reach
its terminal velocity.
Her fingers met stone. And in only a moment, the rock diminished.
Ten feet, eight feet, four feet, six inches… a single inch. The
boulder was reduced from a boulder to a mere pebble, one that Imperia
crushed between her gloved hands into dust, drifting away on an
errant breeze.
Still very much alive, Imperia returned her attention to Caldera who
was now standing, arms outstretched, in awe of the most incredible
hero of all time.
“Are you the one who did this?”
Imperia’s relaxed demeanor changed as she scanned the scene, fresh
scent of death still heavy on the dusty fog. Her gaze narrowed, her
brow furrowed, and Caldera’s starstricken attitude became a morbid
fear as she locked eyes with her former hero. The time to fight or
fly had come. Her team was gone. And Caldera now stood face to face
with one of the greatest heroes in the world.
Her hero.
And she probably wanted to kill her.
Imperia took Caldera’s silence as an affirmation of guilt. There
would be no more words.
Imperia slid down the slight incline of the crater, dashing to
Caldera.
“Shit, shit-shit-shit!”
Caldera tried in vain to ignite, but she was all out of juice.
Nothing but paltry lighters exited her fingertips.
Imperia was halfway there. Caldera scanned the ground, grabbing a
broken piece of rebar. Brandishing her weapon, Caldera wound up and
swung, easily dodged by the skilled martial artist. Caldera prepared
another swing before being clocked by an uppercut to the jaw.
“OOMPHCH!” The bar flung
out Caldera’s hands as she went tumbling back, barely able to stay
on her feet. Imperia scanned the sky, grabbing the bar from midair
with expert flair. Safe in her hands, Imperia shrunk the bar down to
the size of a paperclip, snapping it in two as she glared at Caldera,
crouched, rubbing her jaw.
Caldera stumbled, aghast as her hero simply stood, watching Caldera
get her bearings. Without thinking, Caldera rammed herself forward,
getting a decent headbutt in Imperia’s midsection that knocked the
wind out of her.
“P’FHHH!!” Imperia
gasped before locking Caldera’s arms to her side and kneeing her in
the face. The stunned Caldera was even less prepared for yet another
kick, sending the burgeoning villain to the ground for good.
Caldera shifted and twitched. She
was hurting all over. Light had become mere jigsaw pieces in her
vision, impossible to tell where any of it was supposed to go. She
tried to squirm away like a caterpillar only for Imperia to plant her
turquoise boot square on her chest with a vicious stomp
that threatened to pierce
Caldera’s sternum with her heel.
“You thought you could escape
justice, could you?” Imperia chastised, triumphant, victorious,
arms akimbo. “Evil always does. But know this… where evil
flourishes, I will
always be there to stamp
it out.”
The
utter humiliation of not only getting defeated by her favorite
hero,
but being dominated so completely,
was enough to send Caldera completely over the edge.
“I’m…
I’m sorry!
I’m sorry,
i-it was an accident! An accident! They left
me!
J-just please,
just let me go! Please! Imperia, please…”
Imperia watched as this girl begged for her life with an unchained
desperation, and her stomp lightened, even as the ever present din of
quickly encroaching police cars grew louder. She carefully removed
her boot from Caldera’s chest, and squatted, making sure that she
wouldn’t take this opportunity to run away.
“What’s
your name?” Imperia asked.
The sniveling girl opened her mouth to say something, before stopping
herself. Winced a bit and then said, quietly, “Caldera.”
Imperia smirked. Playing it close to the chest.
“Well…
Caldera. Do you hear that?” Imperia pointed up vaguely.
Caldera nodded. Sirens.
“I
have a feeling… you’re new to this whole… superpower thing?”
Caldera nodded again. Her voice cracked as she said, “I… I didn’t
think anyone would get hurt.”
Imperia
smiled oddly. “Well, with this many casualties, that’s not going
to matter to the police… who’s they?”
Caldera looked down at her legs. She couldn’t talk.
“Caldera.”
Imperia could barely say it without bursting into a chuckle. “You’re
the only one here. Whatever happens… they’ll pin this on you.”
Caldera could not cease her shaking. A cold fell over her as she
forced herself to gaze into Imperia’s blue eyes once more. They
were mystifying.
“But
there is another way.”
Caldera perked up, allowing herself the freedom to hope once again.
The freedom to return from all of this. “There is?”
Imperia
reached out her hand. “I can’t let you go. But if you come with
me… I can let you join a very very
secret
group of people like you. Think of it like rehab. A rehab full of
villains who lost their way, and needed a bit of help finding it
again. There, you can learn to channel your powers in a positive way,
and use them for good, noble
purposes.
“But
if you don’t…”
Imperia
clenched her hand. “Then I’ll be forced to hand you over to the
criminal justice system. Do you even know
how
many hedge fund managers you just iced out? They tend to be pretty
hard on that sort of thing.”
Caldera weighed her options all while Imperia grinned jovially. The
fog of death continued to close in on the two as Caldera still tried
to consider her choice.
“I
don’t… I… I…”
“They’re
going to kill you,
Caldera. Capital punishment. And I don’t know how much your ragtag
team of misfits means to you since you got ditched… but I know
they’ll put you through the wringer
getting
their names to kill them too. Think about it. I’m your only
way out.
Now, are you going to join me? Or not?” Imperia’s face hardened
as she jutted her hand even closer into Caldera’s bubble.
Caldera
ruminated on her words. It was a cryptic offer… but then again,
this was Imperia.
If there was any hero who was honor and duty personified, it’d be
her. Whatever this rehab program had in store for her, how bad could
it really be?
The screeching of police tires was already drifting into their orbit.
There was no time to think.
“O-okay.”
Caldera grabbed Imperia’s hand. At any other time in her life,
Caldera would’ve been honored to be breathing the same air as her.
And now she was going to live
with
her! Caldera could only hope she’d be spirited to Imperia’s
legendary Fortress of Isolation to undergo training to use her powers
to their fullest.
Imperia gripped Caldera’s hand tight and curled her lips into a sly
smile. “Good choice.”
Then, Caldera began to shrink.
The jarring feeling of being reduced in size, and so fast, nearly
made Caldera throw up. Her hand remained engulfed in the shiny latex
of Imperia’s glove so she hung there, scarcely three inches tall.
“Don’t
look at me,” Imperia mouthed, dangling the diminutive Caldera
between her thumb and forefinger, lifting her to her face. “You’re
the one who took so long to make a decision.”
Then Imperia hooked her free thumb beneath the hem of her suit’s
collar as well as the stylish black body-sleeve beneath. The elastic
top of the form-fitting outfit threatened to escape from Imperia’s
grip or die trying with each passing second, so she knew she had to
act fast, dropping Caldera within, landing her just between Imperia’s
massive breasts before shutting the entrance, leaving Caldera
floundering helplessly in a dank, sweaty prison of flesh and musky
odor.
Caldera watched as the last slivers of light were furiously executed,
leaving her alone on a compressed mattress of moundy, doughy flesh,
her constriction already kick-starting a claustrophobic panic. But
even as she tried to get her bearings, try to navigate somewhere in
this cramped domain, she found herself sliding more and more between
Imperia’s breasts, reaching for something, a handhold or anything,
but achieving nothing except being sucked further into the crannies
of Imperia’s perfectly proportioned body.
“L-let…
let me out of
here!”
Already, Caldera was regretting her choice.
“Let
me OUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTT….
***
Imperia wet her lips, staring down at her assets.
The tire screeches stopped. Car doors opened and shut, and red and
blue lights flashed through the blown out walls. Already, cops were
storming the scene, guns held out, barking orders to one another. As
the small army of law enforcement advanced, one woman among them was
instead taking careful, casual steps deeper into the crater, fiddling
with a lighter in one hand, crumpled cigarette in the other. She was
wearing a long trench coat, holding a notebook with a notebook
sticking out the breast pocket, its dusty brown only a few shades to
the left of the streaks of gray that seemed to tug at her brown hair.
Imperia noticed her arrival. The hero knew her well, and she waved
the newcomer over.
The Commissioner half-grinned, and trotted to the center of the
crater.
The two reached one another, both saying nothing, faces grim. The
Commissioner blew out a puff of smoke before grabbing her cigarette.
“Dammit. You beat me again.”
“Not
everybody can be as quick as me, Chief. You should know this by now.”
Imperia winked, then cringed as the Commissioner turned away,
unresponsive to her lazy attempt at humor. The police was divided
into three groups: one establishing a blockade, one working on
extracting survivors, one canvassing the area for evidence.
The Commissioner puffed out another cloud of smoke and sighed. “Well
since you’re so fast, I assume you were able to catch the bastards
who did this?”
Imperia’s eyes fell. “They got away.”
“Again?”
The Commissioner turned to Imperia, eyes flaring. “These sons of
bitches blow up goddamn First Avenue and you’re telling me not a
single one of them left any trace, nothing?”
“I
have reason to believe this wasn’t their intent. There’s no
motive I can detect. It might’ve been a more conventional heist,
maybe a malfunction of some --”
“CHIEF!”
Both
the Commissioner and Imperia turned. A man in a lab coat and khakis
was rushing forward, panting as he reached the two. “Forensics
found a tunnel leading underground. We wanted to get bomb squad to
look in it, but... it was unstable. Collapsed just from us lookin’
at it.
Wherever they went… we ain’t gonna be following them for a long
while.”
The Commissioner glared and then grunted. The man took this as a sign
of dismissal and turned off to rejoin with the investigators.
The
Commissioner took several long puffs of her cigarette side-eyeing
Imperia. “Our guys haven’t caught a villain in months. Weeks go
by, not a peep from Aquarius, Polymaiden… hell, even Nightfly. And
then this happens
and we don’t even have an ID?” The Commissioner flicked their
cigarette to the ground, grinding it into the dirt. “They’re
planning something,
no doubt. And here I thought working with you caped weirdos was
supposed to help us bring these bastards to justice.”
Imperia crossed her arms. “Perhaps evil is finally realizing it
cannot survive in a city where the strong are committed to protecting
the weak.” As she squeezed her breasts tight against her
latex-laden body, Imperia couldn’t help feel a mirthful smirk form
on her face.
The Commissioner wheezed out a chuckle. “Forgive me if I’m not
quite so optimistic. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my
years of protecting this city… evil will always crawl out from the
dirt. Sometimes even when you least expect it.” Then her face
became taciturn once again. “We’re gonna be keeping our ears to
the ground. You should too. If you find anything, you know where to
reach me.”
Imperia nodded, scratching her temple. “Right, Chief.” She turned
away and trudged back up the crater, brushing past several police
officers, each of which gave a respectful nod as she passed.
Imperia glanced as she exited from beneath the eaves of the blown-out
building. The cops were still working on establishing a perimeter,
but a crowd of hundreds of terrified bystanders were a perpetual
presence at the edge of the yellow tape and orange barriers, many of
whom were screaming the names of loved ones, asking for permission to
cross. The frustration and tension was mounting as officers were
working harder and harder to keep the crowds from rushing the barrier
and digging out the dead themselves, until…
“Wait,
is that…?”
“It
is! It’s Imperia!”
“Imperia! I love you!”
“Imperia?
Where? Oh my goodness it is
her!”
“Imperia,
please!
My husband is in there! Can you go back and look for him?!”
“Imperia’s
here! Everybody, don’t worry! She’s going to keep us safe!”
The ethos of the crowd did a complete shift from nervous dread to
contented excitement the moment Imperia showed her face. Gulping,
Imperia put on a strong expression and sauntered out, waving and
commanding the crowd with expert precision.
“Everyone remain calm!”
she called out, cupping her hands around her mouth. Her voice BOOMED,
amplifying the soundwaves with her size-shifting capabilities. It did
the trick, forcing many of the front-row crowd members and even
several officers to put their hands to their temples.
“Thank
you!” she called normally. “I know you’re scared, but have no
fear! The ACPD is already well on the case!”
“We heard the villains
escaped!”
Imperia
smirked. “That is true.” A gasp from the crowd. Imperia
continued, “The villains escaped. But if there’s one thing
villains in this town have grown to fear… it’s me.”
A
feeling flashed in Imperia’s eyes, one too small for many to catch.
“Nothing in this city, nothing,
is capable of escaping my grasp. No matter how
small
it is.” Imperia scanned the ground, noticing a charred black metal
safe, thrown from the building in the explosion. In a bit of dramatic
improv, she sauntered forth and planted her boot on it, heroically
posing with her hands on her hips.
“There’s
a reason that every villain who’s attacked this city never
tried
again after they fought me. And that’s because I do not give up.
Not on justice… or on you, citizens of Aster City. So let this be a
lesson to any who would dare to do evil under my watch. You can run.
You can even hide!”
The
safe beneath Imperia’s boot began to dwindle, buckling slightly
beneath the sharpened heel of Imperia’s boot… Imperia began to
sweat, a nervous, excited sweat that leaked from each of her
erogenous zones. This was it, she thought. This feeling of why she
became a hero. Getting to see the people look up
to her. To truly see her as something more… something she was
always meant to be. It was exhilarating. Terrifying. And freeing, all
at the same time.
“But
I will find
you. And when I do…”
SNAP!
Metallic shards blasted out from beneath Imperia’s heel, the vault
now unable to handle Imperia’s crushing weight of her defined
calves. Imperia panted, waving her arms up high, certain that the
development of any perspiration was safely sequestered within the
suit, where they would do their job in further demoralizing her
latest passenger.
A hush fell over the crowd…
Clap... Clap... Clap...
A single individual began to clap, and like a virus it spread until
it became a rousing round of applause, cheers, and whistles. Even
many of the police officers couldn’t help but offer a cheer or two
of their own. One officer with a slight grin on his face slid over to
Imperia and whispered, “Appreciate the help there. Don’t know
what would’ve happened if the crowd got a bit too antsy.”
Imperia nodded, waving again, backing away, smiling, smirking, as she
used slipped a small item out from her pocket.
Darting into a back alley, Imperia glanced from side to side before
cupping her hands where a miniaturized blue and white motorbike lay
in her palm.
A
few moments later, the ferocious BRRRR-WHIRRRRRRR!!
of
the cycle darted from the back alley, weaving through approaching cop
cars and pedestrians alike with daredevil maneuvers, though its rider
was Imperia no longer. Gone was the gaudy skin-tight blue and white
bodysuit, in exchange for the understated thin black rider-suit she
wore beneath. Her mask too had been stowed, now replaced by a helmet
that carefully caressed her wreath of blond locks, masking her
identity.
The vehicle ba-bumped and hopped and skipped, in need of a tune-up,
sending Imperia bouncing off her cushiony seat with each imperfection
on the road. Her breasts too were driven up by the momentum,
sploshing down in their moist entrapment and surely delivering a
trickle of sweaty debris to join their new occupant with each tiny
movement.
This made Imperia smile.
Imperia revved the engine, anxious to return to her roost. Knowing
when she did… she was going to have a brand new toy to break in.