Close Nemesis

Interval: The Hero Complex Management Program

NYGYL:

The barred windows of the fort on Teglyo are the first thing I see as I awaken in my cosy bed. After gradually pulling away from the comfortable embrace of sleep, I sit up in my bed and look outside the window. Several levels below, I can see the asphalt platform several levels below.

Spaceplanes land there all the time, delivering supplies from the jungle of abundant reds, purples, and pinks. Teglyo's not really a tourist destination, so it's a pretty isolated planet. In fact, the local plant skinned Teglyon keep by themselves most of the time. Before I came to Teglyo, I had never seen a Teglyon in my life. I know that they're occasionally frequent on other planets, but they're still relatively rare.

I'm a former craykello superhero. Or at least, the Hero Complex Management Program thinks so due to my failed attempt at being a vigilante. I never even got a chance to become a hero like Rotcetorp.

I possess time manipulation powers, which have been commonly mistaken for speed powers. These powers only do one thing: allow me to slow down time so I can appear to run fast.

The downside about my powers is that I am very impatient, and as such, I annoy my roommates.

My roommates include Petara, the eight eyed three-legged Snugglian with green fur, Lerrattil, a member of the sharp fanged, skeletal Skullskelian species, and finally, there's Shenelda, a Namuhsolian female with turquoise eyes and two strands of royal purple hair on her forehead.

Me and my dormmates were arrested six months ago by Rotcetorp, the only superhero who willingly works for the Superhero Behaviour Management Program. The program works like this: superheroes who are misusing their powers because of their hero complex are found, captured, and brought to the fort, where they safely fight against each other in a plasma walled arena located at the bottom of the deep chasm surrounding the fort.

Sometimes in the monitored tournament battles, people die. I think that's the intention of Silveagak, the head of the superhero behaviour management program. Those who attempt to escape the fort are hunted down by Rotcetorp, who is one of the galaxy's two most powerful superheroes. The other is Oppugnant. I wouldn't mess with them. They are overpowered. If it wasn't for their fear that Rotcetorp would hunt them down and kill them, they could tear this place apart in a heartbeat.

The only way I can see myself escaping is if I'm dead. So, I guess I have to continue fighting, which is fine by me. I find fighting fun. It gives me a rush of adrenaline. Of course, that's if my species even has adrenaline. We have instincts, of course. We constantly had to defend ourselves against the aqua volcanoes on Wocian, which are essentially giant geysers. We also have sharp teeth. Since I'm a teenage craykello, my teeth do not have the marks of experience on them. My teeth may be sharper than the teeth of other species, but in comparison to my kind, my teeth are rather blunt.

I am very fond of craykello culture. It's remained a part of me, and I have not lost that, regardless of how long I've been trapped in this hellhole.

Okay, I'm exaggerating.  This place is actually quite nice. Apart from the death, destruction and what not that happens in the arena.

Life is good here.

However, I'm very impatient, still, I hate it when I'm not in the arena, fighting. I crave a glorious battle against the other superpowered prisoners here. Part of me doesn't want to ever leave, not that I'm able to, anyway.

Who would be dumb enough to escape one of the most heavily fortified places in the galaxy?

Today's breakfast is delivered to us in holocrete cloches: three platefuls of energy bars for my roommates, and a plateful of raw nerlant flesh for myself, due to the requirements of my carnivorous. Nerlants are these floating, grey skinned, table shaped creatures with four tentacles covered in small lights. They don't do much. They just float a few centimetres in the water every couple of days. I don't even know whether they're alive or not. They don't even have eyes.