Spectacular World

The Castle

Dozens of cracks began to seep through the stone floor of the alleyway. A massive red fist tore through the debris as Kevin crawled his way out of the massive sinkhole that had swallowed an entire block. His robe was gone, leaving him in only his shorts, and his body was bulky and oversized, his muscles inflated.

He had tried to make his hands look mole-like and used them to dig his way out of the collapsed base. Now that he was back on the surface, the moon cast a silver light below. He stared at his pale hands, which were caked in dirt as well as blood, and for a moment, they shook. "Okay. We're out." There were hundreds of sirens and horns all around them. He had pulled his way into an alleyway hidden from sight; the roads were filled with emergency vehicles. "You can reform now."

His stomach began to grow larger as if it inflated, and he began to cough violently. Seconds later, his jaw practically unhinged, and he collapsed to his knees, literally spitting up Wish. Her body tumbled to the ground, all the goo that came from hiding inside of a person moving off of her as if it were alive.

"That golden guy got away." She muttered with a heavy frown. Not just that, he had managed to kill her. In an instant, another one of her bodies had been reduced to ash when everything collapsed. All caused by a brilliant blue light that had formed around him. If not for the cells she hid inside her homemade Supers, she would have actually been in trouble.

"It's not like you to let someone escape." Kevin's body slowly shrank back down to its standard size, and he sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Maybe it was for the best, though. I really didn't want to kill any of them." A loud buzz echoed through the alleyway, and Kevin pulled a heavily damaged phone from his pocket.

"Kevin." The voice of Aarush Brenner caused his nerves to ease a bit. The police officer was often kind. The man was walking through hell, all for the sake of his son. The heroes never beat Lucifer, but Sunshine was confident he could win. "I was told the base collapsed. Are you two, okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine, sir." He eyed the naked Wish up, who was sulking in a corner of the alleyway. "We weren't able to get the heroes, though. They collapsed the base and killed all our men."

"That's a shame, but what really matters is you two are safe."

"Yeah, we're safe." Kevin nodded. "We'll be heading back shortly now-"

"Actually, I'm afraid your job isn't done." Aarush cut him off. "I hate to ask this of you after you've already done so much, but we're still in need of your help. On our way to the Penny Base, we spotted the gate had been tampered with and were having a hard time getting in contact with anyone inside. The boss was afraid the heroes might be on to him, so we're taking him to another hideout. We'd like you to bring Wish to Penny and have her deal with any of the heroes that are inside. No survivors this time."

Kevin felt his heartbeat begin to increase gradually. Finally, he nodded. "Right. Yeah, I'll let her know." The line went dead, and he increased his grip, crushing the phone. He often found himself wondering how different everything would have been if he had tried out for baseball and made it onto the team, even if it hadn't been the most popular sport at the time.

For a moment, his eyes roamed over Wish. The girl was looking down at her hands. She didn't often get into fights. She was still new to combat, mostly. She learned fast, though. "He had attacked while not looking. Something like this, right?" Red chains suddenly stabbed out of her back, whipping at the walls of the alleyway and slicing them apart. Her giggling filled the air. "Cool, cool, cool, so cool. I see why he did it. It's like having extra limbs. I'll have to thank that guy when I next see him. What was his name?"

"Battery. His name is Battery. He's a member of Pantheon."

"Pantheon?" Wish folded her legs and rubbed at her chin, cocking her head to the side. "You talk about them a lot. Or rather, you talk about that girl in that team. You said she was strong, right? Who would win? Me or her?"