literature

A Superhero Story Chapter 22 - Eye of the Tiger

Deviation Actions

opaldreamer's avatar
By
Published:
1.4K Views

Literature Text

Kethri walked into the kitchen from down in the basement, where she had been hunkered down all day, to find that everyone was gathered around the kitchen table, looking grim with drinks in their hands. Even Cael was there, although he looked decidedly less sad. She froze, not knowing what to do.

Amato noticed her standing awkwardly off to the side and went over. “What’s going on?” Kethri asked softly, trying not to disrupt the atmosphere.

“It’s Kayden’s birthday today,” Amato answered, just as quietly. Kethri nodded. Remembering Amari’s brother would definitely cause the deflation in energy that she felt. She turned to leave, feeling like an intruder since she had never known Kayden, but Amato took her hand, pulled her to the table, and poured her a glass of scotch.

Amari stood up. “To Kayden.” She toasted and everyone followed suit. It was a simple ritual, just something that allowed them to take a moment to remember him. Kethri drank, not sure she liked the burn as it went down but surprisingly liking the taste.

There was another moment of silence and then Antain looked over at Kethri and asked, “So, what were you doing downstairs all day?” And the mood was broken and everything seemed to relax.

Kethri looked over at Adamar, who nodded. “Actually,” she responded, “It would be easier to show you.”

“Show us what?” Ruaia walked through the door from the living room. Kethri just looked over, smiled, and led the way outside and down underground.

All week, Kethri and Adamar had locked themselves in the bunker on the bottom floor, not letting anyone in. During the time, Kethri would flit back and forth between there and Amato while Adamar went between the bunker and his lab. Neither of them surfaced from underground for anything other than food and sleep. It was only now that, finally, they were allowing other people to see what they were doing.

"Kethri, where are we going?" Azaria asked as the blonde floated down the stairs in front of everyone. Kethri looked back at Azaria, flashing an ‘oh you'll find out’ smile over her shoulder and continued forward, all the way down to the bottom floor.

"Tada!" Kethri said as they walked into the bunker. "Adamar helped me. Whaddya think?"
Everyone took a moment to look around. A large black symbol had been painted onto a white floor and a round table had been set up as a high tech computer projection system. There were chairs around it and screens everywhere. "It's definitely interesting," Azaria said. "What's it for?"

"For us of course!" Kethri said gleefully.

"Us?" Amari asked.

"Yeah. Since we're going to be superheroing together, we might as well establish ourselves as an actual group," Kethri explained. "And every good group needs headquarters. This is going to be ours."

"Do we have a say in this?" Cael asked, trying to hide that inside he was screaming in excitement.

"No," Kethri said simply. "It's already happened. You can't stop what's already happened. We've been fighting as a group. Now we're just a little more official. We can call ourselves Impetus.”

“Impetus?” Azaria asked.

“It means force,” Kethri explained. “Adamar came up with it actually.”

“Force...like a force to be reckoned with?” Antain asked.

“No, like a force for change,” Amari said.

“Or,”Adamar cut in, “it could simply mean a force for good. It’s a little ambiguous, but then again most superhero group names are. Leaves it up for interpretation.”

“Ambiguous and esoteric,” Kethri chimed in.

“Works for me. I like ambiguous,” Cael said flopping down in one of the chairs.

“You’re ambiguous…” Amari muttered under her breath. She moved around the table eyeing the symbol on the floor. “Soooo… what’s this circle-y symbol thing?"

"So that we can have a signature that we're identified as,” Kethri said proudly. “That was actually my idea. I picked a letter from my home planet. It translates roughly into ‘hero’ or ‘champion.’ It looks cool and is pretty easy to draw. We can leave it with any bad guys we capture for the police so that we can get it out into the public. This is going to be so cool! I even made badges for us to put on our outfits." She held up several that had the circular symbol on them. It looked like someone had started drawing the Star Trek insignia, gotten lazy, and just circled it.

“Sure,” Azaria added, “And then the police can put it on our record. When one of you is caught - not if, when - they’ll know everything that they can charge you for.”

“Then we just won’t get caught! Besides, we’ll be superheros! People like superheros!” Kethri was probably a little more excited about this than she should have been. "We'll be like the Avengers! Except not, because no one can be as cool as the Avengers. No one.”

Azaria rolled her eyes. She could see by looking around the room that she was literally the only one with reservations about this. Kethri looked positively beside herself.

“Alright.” Azaria said. “We’ll do this whole superhero thing on one condition.”

“What’s that?” Kethri asked.

“We train. No more blundering around looking like idiots.”

“Fair enough. Lets get started.” Kethri said, grabbing Amato and waltzing out the door.

. . . . .

“Hold your core Kethri.” Amari said, as Kethri found herself face first on the matt again. Since the reveal of the bunker, Azaria had declared that they would have to spend some time training if they were going to continue parading around as superheroes. Amari was teaching Kethri how to grapple. It wasn’t going to well.

“No fair,” Kethri groaned “You’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve only been doing it for five minutes.”

“That’s why I’m teaching you. Come on, get up. Let’s go again,” Kethri scrambled to her feet. Before Amari could take her stance, she sent a gust of wind at her, knocking her to the ground.

“Hey now! We agreed on no powers for this,” Amari protested. Kethri stuck her tongue out.

“Improvise, adapt, and overcome sweetheart,” She sassed.

“Oh really?” Amari cocked an eyebrow. She glanced over at a stack of bricks she had brought down to work with. “Well two can play that game.” She jumped to her feet, dodging another gust of wind from Kethri, and sprinted for the bricks. Once there, she threw several of them at Kethri, who made a small tornado in front of her to block them. The bricks broke up into small pieces and went flying through the room, embedding several inches in the walls. Both girls looked at each other.

“You know, something like that could be handy if we were fighting a whole bunch of bad guys.” Kethri said.

“Very handy, if you manage not to hit your teammates in the process.” Cael said coming up to them. He dropped a piece of brick into Amari’s hands. “That hurt ya know.”

“Well you should have ducked.”

“It’s a sorta new thing. We’re still working out the kinks.” Kethri tried to explain. “You’ll probably be behind us, anyway. I’ll just shoot them forwards.” Cael walked away, shaking his head.

“You know Kethri, we could probably come up some moves that use both our powers. We could even do stuff with Ruaia.”

Kethri’s eyes darkened at the mention of her name. “I don’t want to work with her.” She said coldly. Amari raised an eyebrow.

“What’s your beef with her?” She asked.

“It’s a long story.” Kethri sighed, trying to relax. “Let’s just get back to training.”

“Alright.” Amari said, dropping the topic for now, but making a mental note to bring it up again later.

They spent the next hour going over hand to hand combat before Azaria came over with a metal suitcase. “Alright, I think that’s enough of that.” She looked over the two girls, who were both sweating. “Go grab some water and then meet me at the shooting range.”

“Shooting range?” Kethri asked.

Amari shrugged as she watched Azaria walk away. “I guess, living in a house of assassins, you had to learn at some point.” She grabbed a water bottle and took the stairs down two levels to the weapons level.

Kethri followed suit, but a little more cautiously. It’s not that she really had anything against guns, she had just never fired one herself. What if she shot herself in the foot? Seemed like something she would do. The gun would probably weigh more than she did, but that was true of most things.

They grabbed a set of earplugs and shooting glasses before heading into the range. Inside Cael and Antain were already set up and shooting at targets on the other side of the room. Kethri watched them for a moment. They make it look so easy, she thought.

“See? I’m closer to the center than you!” Antain said, reeling in his target and pointing to the holes in it.

“No, stupid,” Cael retorted, pointing to his own holes. “I may not have been in the center like you were, but all of my hits were still criticals. A bullet to the head, even if it doesn’t have a ring around it, is still a headshot and probably critical.”

“I bet I could do better than that.” Amari said, looking at the targets.

“Oh yeah?” Antain said, raising an eyebrow. “Wanna put your money where your mouth is?”

“Ten bucks says I can get it centered in a critical hit zone.” She said, holding her hand in front of her. Antain and Cael thought about it for a moment.

“Alright. I’ll bite.” Antain said shaking her hand.

“This should be good.” Cael snickered. Amari picked up a spare gun and went to one of the unused targets. She squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she raised the gun, aimed and fired. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The shots rang out in quick succession. Amari pressed a button to bring the target up the range to her.

“See.” She said holding the piece of paper out to Antain. There were six bullet holes dead center on the chest all clumped together in a space about the size of a quarter. Both Antain and Cael’s mouths dropped to the floor.

“Where…how…” Antain spluttered.

“I pay attention more than you think. Now I believe you owe me ten bucks.” She said, holding her hand out. Antain rolled his eyes and forked over the money.

Azaria cleared her throat to draw attention to her. “If you three are done showing off, I need Cael to show Kethri how to shoot.” She’d never say it out loud, but she was pretty sure he was a better shot than her. “Also, Amari. I feel like I need some of that money as repayment for teaching you how to shoot. If I’d never done that, you’d never have won that bet.”

“I’m sure I could have found some other way to swindle Antain out of his money. How ‘bout I just go get us cake instead?” Amari suggested.

“Deal.” Azaria smiled.

Kethri walked over to the case Azaria had carried in, which was now open and missing a gun, one of four six-shooter pistols. She picked one up. They weren’t all that difficult, in theory, and she knew the theory.

Cael walked her up to a target and showed her how to hold the gun properly and how to operate it. “Just hold it up like this and try to find the place on the target you want to hit. Make sure you have both hands on the gun and both eyes open. When you think you’re ready, fire.” He demonstrated by firing off all six rounds, like Amari had.

“Okay...” Kethri said. She lined up the gun like Cael had showed her and pulled the trigger.

The recoil was more powerful than she had expected from such a little gun. She might have been as strong as normal people on Earth, but the laws of motion were against her. She flew backwards, dropping the gun, and slamming into Amari, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

“Alright,” Kethri groaned, sitting up. “I think I need to try that again.

“I’ll say,” Amari said. “But can you get off me first?” Kethri stumbled to her feet. Amari followed, rubbing her butt where it had hit the ground.

“Honestly, I did not expect that.” Cael shook his head, picking the gun back off the floor and handing it back to Kethri. He pulled forward the target. “Govno,” he marveled. Whether it was a lucky shot or raw talent, she had hit the target in the center circle of the chest. Not completely dead center, but close enough.

“Madre de dios,” Azaria said, coming over to see what all the fuss was about.
They set the target back up and Kethri tried again, this time bracing herself better. She didn’t get as close as her first shot again, but she still continued to hit the target each time.

“Color me impressed,” Antain said as they looked at the results.

They went to set back up when the doorbell rang. Everybody took that like a lunch break and followed Azaria to the door.

Ruaia was in the kitchen waiting for them when they got in. “Hey. I promise I’m not intruding,” she explained. “Guy at the door let me in.”

“Probably my dad,” Amari answered. “Sit down. We were just about to have lunch.”

“Really?” Azaria raised her eyebrows. “And here I thought we were training.”

“Shut up. I’m hungry.” Amari disappeared into the cupboard. “And I thought that you said that we could take five.”

“I said nothing of the sort. You all decided on your own to follow me up here.” But Kethri, Antain, and Cael were already in the cupboard with Amari, picking out lunch. Azaria sighed. “Well, are you hungry?” She asked Ruaia. “Might as well get something to eat while these idiots stuff their faces.”

“It’s not stuffing.” Amari said poking her head out of the cupboard, holding a pop tart in her mouth.

“Right…” Azaria shook her head at Ruaia, smiling. “Some people.”

Ruaia laughed. “Right.”

“Food?”

“Sure.”

Azaria went into the cupboard, which had been turned into a circus, and picked out a few easy things before disappearing back out into the kitchen. No need to stay in that mess longer than necessary. The others piled out soon after, carrying armfuls of stuff. Kethri disappeared into the fridge while Amari yelled at her to grab this and that. Antain and Cael shouted at each other over a bag of potato chips. When they started throwing them at each other, Azaria decided to take action.

“You wanna find somewhere quieter to be?” She could hardly hear herself over the commotion in the kitchen. “We can eat in peace, and I have a few questions to ask you.”

Ruaia nodded, deciding to not ruin her voice, and Azaria led the way into the bunker, down to the shooting range. The cement walls did nicely to block any and all noise.

“Ever shot a gun before?” Azaria asked as they sat down.

Ruaia shrugged. “No. I’d be willing to learn, though.”

Azaria hid a smile as she opened the pistol box and handed one to Ruaia. “Let’s see what you got.” She demonstrated with one gun, firing six bullets into the heart of her target before gesturing to Ruaia to go.

“So what kind of training do you actually have?” Azaria asked.

“Just some basic military tactics.” She said, taking aim on her target.

“And yet you’ve never used a gun?” Azaria asked, raising an eyebrow,

“Never needed one before. Being able to shoot fire out of your hands kinda makes guns useless. But it’s still nice to learn how to use it, just incase.”

Azaria shrugged, her respect for Ruaia lifting a little as they went back to shooting.

. . . . .

Upstairs, the rest of the gang was chowing down on a feast of macaroni and cheese, raviolis, Cheetos, and other foods not normally eaten together. “Hey Amari, can you turn on the TV?” Antain mumbled through a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

“Sorry I don’t speak mouth-full-of-food…” she said. Antain swallowed his mouthful, rolling his eyes.

“Toss me the remote, twit.” Amari grinned and chucked the remote straight at his head. Antain held his hands up to catch the remote, but misjudged how fast Amari threw it and it smacked him hard in the forehead.

“Thanks...I totally needed that,” he said flatly.

“You’re welcome.” Amari smiled sweetly at him. He scowled and turned on the TV, flipping through channels. It was the middle of the day, so it was mostly soap operas and boring news.

“Wait, go back!” Amari said, snatching the remote from his fingers. She went back a couple channels, where the news was covering a speech by some politician who was running for Senate. It was kinda controversial, especially since he was so new, but it was still boring so no one actually cared.

“Why do you wanna watch this crap?” Cael asked from across the table, trying to reclaim the remote in the name of sanity.

“No, I know that girl.” Amari ducked around him, keeping the remote out of his grasp.

“What girl?” Amato asked.

“The one standing behind what-his-face.” They squinted at the screen.

“How the heck do you know anyone related to politics?” Cael asked.

“I pulled her out of a lake. She was just chillin’ at the bottom, came out completely dry.”

“What?!” Antain asked, interested now. “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

“Well, it was after that battle with Fisto, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone. By the time I saw you guys the next morning, I’d forgotten about it.” Amari went back to her raviolis, but she continued to watch the woman. Or girl. She looked about Amari’s age, and there’s really no easy term for that. Young adult? She looked kinda nervous, like she didn’t belong.

The guy actually talking definitely looked shifty. He was too charismatic. That never ended well. Like Hitler. And he looked like Prince Charming, with his fair face, brown hair perfectly in place and a perfect smile that could make just about any girl swoon. Only his dark eyes were strange, piercing.

The clip of the speech ended and it went back to the news reporters. They rambled on about the controversy surrounding it. Apparently, this guy had appeared out of nowhere a couple months ago and declared that he was going to run for senate. He already had quite a following. Everyone else at the table had gone back to their conversations, but Amari’s eyes were glued to the TV, hoping that they would say something about the girl. All they talked about was the speech. The guy had proposed a way that money spending in government could be rearranged so that people could go to state colleges for the cost of books for classes. The news lady was saying that, although it was a popular idea, the rearrangement would take away money from politician’s salaries, so she doubted it would pass. There was almost no doubt, however, that he would get elected into office. People loved him. Still, something about him just seemed...off to Amari. She didn’t like him for absolutely no explainable reason. She just didn’t.

The news lady stopped in the middle of a sentence, listening intently to her earpiece. “This just in,” she said finally. “We’ve just been informed that there is a man in a strange costume, calling himself Destro, and he is wreaking havoc in the streets of downtown.” The image on the screen cut to a video of a man wearing a fitted dark blue shirt and pants with a brown leather belt, matching boots and arm guards, and dark blue hood casting his entire face in shadow. But it was hard to focus on him when, all around him, cars were floating in the air, some with people still inside.

“No one is sure what his motives are yet, or why and how he is doing this, but police are on the scene and have barricaded the surrounding area,” the woman continued. “No news yet on whether there have been any casualties.”

Amari looked around at the shocked faces in front of her. Hers probably looked pretty similarly incredulous. “Go suit up,” she whispered. “I’ll get Az and Ruaia.”

. . . . .

Azaria put her gun down and pulled her ear plugs out. She glanced over at Ruaia’s target, seeing the quick progress the girl was making.

There was a thundering of footsteps on the stairs outside of bunker. Someone was shouting something, but they were still too far away for Azaria to make out what they were saying.

“What’s going on?” Ruaia asked, looking at the door. Azaria shrugged and was about to say something when Amari burst through the door.

“Code rubber duck!” she panted.

“Rubber duck?” Ruaia asked raising an eyebrow.

“What did you do this time?” Azaria asked, ignoring Ruaia’s question. “Amari, I swear to God, if you started a fire in the kitchen again-”

“No fire...floating cars…you gotta come quick.”

Azaria and Ruaia glanced at each other before running after her.
A group of young adults with superpowers team up to fight a villain from another world as well as other small villains.

~ First Chapter: 
opaldreamer.deviantart.com/art…
© 2015 - 2024 opaldreamer
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In