King of superheroes, p.4
King of Superheroes, page 4
“Breathe.” A tall woman with thin blonde dreadlocks and sharp eyebrows suddenly placed her hand flush against my chest and then looked me deep in the eyes. “Everything is okay, Mark.”
I noticed how she had little rings and other embellishments in her hair, and her eyes were a deep blue like the ocean. She also had warm, freckled skin and perfectly white teeth, and I felt a sudden rush of calm wash over me like a wave.
“Whoa…” I muttered as I felt the tension in my shoulders relax. “Okay.”
“Mani here can control your emotions.” Somnia smiled knowingly at the woman with the dreadlocks and caramel-colored skin. “She’s a very talented Dreamer.”
“Yeah, I’ll say…” I said in a breathy voice.
“Start from the beginning,” the man with the mass of black hair spoke again.
I did as I was told and reeled off my experience from the moment I activated, right up until the point I’d apparently used telekinesis to yank down the theater curtains and then been hauled backstage.
“Do you think…” Somnia muttered as she looked at the black-haired man.
“It’s a possibility,” he replied to her, but he kept his dark eyes fixed on me with growing curiosity. “A strong one, I should think.”
“What is?” I asked, and even though I was confused and a little rattled, my question came out calmly, as if I were asking the time.
Mani really was talented at manipulating emotions around her, and I smiled dopily at the woman with the blonde braids.
“Come,” the dark-eyed man commanded me before he turned to the rest of the superheroes. “Continue with the ceremony. I believe we still had a number of fledglings to place.”
The pro superheroes all nodded sagely and filtered out of the door until I was just left with the man with the dark hair.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked in a quiet voice.
Since Mani had walked out of the door, all of the panic and anxiety that her powers had suppressed were crawling back up my chest and sitting in my throat like a piece of food I’d swallowed wrong, and I gulped nervously and kept my hands clasped together.
“Come,” the man said again, and he just motioned for me to follow him.
I did as told, and he led us through the bowels of the academy, through nondescript corridors with strip lights and beige walls, until eventually we came to an elevator that only had one button on the panel.
P for Penthouse.
I was silent on the ride up, and it took a hell of a lot longer than it did to get to the fledgling dorms. The elevator doors eventually slid open with a soft sigh, and the dark-haired man extended a hand for me to enter.
I walked past him into the penthouse and couldn’t help but stare in shock. It was fancier than any hotel I’d ever been in, and where the fledgling dorms were clean, comfortable, but definitely utilitarian, the top floor of the academy was where the money was spent.
It was an explosion of expensive materials like silk and softened leather, crystal sconces that scattered the place in soft, golden rainbows, and more floor-to-ceiling windows that made it look like I was standing on the helm of a cruise ship in the Caribbean.
“Whoa…” I couldn’t help but mutter as I inspected my surroundings.
“Would you care for a drink?” the man asked softly.
“Sure.” I nodded slowly. “Whatever you’re having.”
“Whiskey it is, then,” he said with a half-smile, and after a moment he handed me a thick crystal tumbler filled with a measure of rich amber liquor.
I took a sip and ignored the cough in my throat as the heat of the whiskey burned away the anxious feeling.
“Oh, that’s really good.” I swirled the whiskey around and took another sip.
“I should think so,” the dark-haired man said with a quiet laugh. “It’s Macallan twenty-five.”
I watched as he took a long pull from his own crystal glass and motioned for me to sit on one of the plush leather couches, which I did. Then he sat on the other end, put one of his legs up on the knee of the other, and surveyed me with his piercingly dark eyes.
“My name is Mori,” he eventually said and took another sip of his liquor.
“Mark,” I said automatically. “But you knew that.”
“Yes, I did.” Mori smiled again, and though he had an air of almost creepy calmness, the grin was genuine, so I started to feel a little bit more at ease.
Though that could’ve had more to do with the whiskey worth thousands of dollars.
“Sorry,” I said again and then motioned helplessly with my free hand. “For everything.”
“Nothing to apologize for,” Mori said. “No one was hurt, and if anything, you may have presented yourself as something far more valuable than just another fire Conduit.”
“Do you really think I have multiple powers?” I asked in a hushed voice.
I’d never heard of such a thing happening before, and the idea was daunting.
“I do.” Mori nodded. “But there are tests to be done, to prove the authenticity of my theory.”
“What kind of tests?” I felt my grip tighten around the crystal tumbler.
“Unpleasant ones,” Mori admitted with an easy shrug of his shoulders. “But worth it to discover your locked potential.”
“Which is what, exactly?” I asked.
Mori waved a carefree hand and set his drink down on one of the marble coasters that were scattered on top of the huge coffee table in the middle of the room.
“I see no reason to fill your head with ‘what if’s,” Mori said in an emotionless voice. “I deal only in absolutes. Will you take the tests?”
I studied the man with the dark hair for a long moment.
He was an older gentleman, at least in his sixties despite how thick and dark his hair still was. I could tell because he had a wrinkled forehead and deep crow’s feet around his eyes, and his lips were thin and almost the exact same shade as his skin. His hollow cheeks were completely cleanshaven, and he was dressed in a sharp three-piece suit, all black, with a silver pocket watch in the waistcoat and chunky silver cufflinks that glinted every time he moved his arms.
And he lived in the penthouse and drank expensive whiskey as casually as if it were a soda.
He definitely had me curious. I wonder what kind of power he possessed.
“Yeah. I’ll take the tests.”
My life had been turned on its head within the last twenty-four hours, and quite honestly, I was morbidly intrigued to see what exactly Mori believed me to be. Needless to say, I was different from the other fledglings, and I wanted to know why.
I wanted to know just as much as he did, and I could tell because of the way his already dark eyes hardened with anticipation the moment I agreed to his test.
“All four pillars will come for you.” Mori’s voice was sharp and emotionless, and he leaned forward to fix me with an intense stare. “You must control them. If things go wrong, I will be here. But I do not intend on holding your hand through this.”
“Prove my worth, I get it.” I rolled my neck and just nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”
“Good,” Mori said, and then he slammed the heel of his hand square into my chest.
The breath was knocked immediately out of my lungs, and my body was flung back against the soft leather of the couch. I slumped into the cushions, and then suddenly, I pulled myself away.
Except I’d pulled myself away from my body.
Mori had sat back in the same casual position as before and picked up his whiskey tumbler, and he seemed to still be within his own body.
I wasn’t, though.
I glanced down and saw my current form was wispy, like smoke, and I was quite literally a ghost of what I was five seconds ago. I stared through my torso to where I could see my slumped, lifeless body on the couch, and then I looked up at Mori with fear making a phantom heart beat erratically inside an equally phantom chest.
“What’ve you done to me?” I asked, and even my voice was only half there, like an echo.
Mori, still in his corporeal form, simply smiled up at me and tipped the rim of his glass in my direction.
“You are of the astral plane now, my boy.” He swirled the last dregs of his whiskey around and then finished his drink. “A far easier way for the pillars to test you. You mustn’t rely on your meat suit, you see. Your powers are all inside of you, inside of your soul, inside of your mind.”
“Okay…” I whispered, and my voice dissipated into the air almost as soon as I’d uttered the word.
It was an incredibly jarring, incredibly strange feeling. Nothing seemed tangible, and I had to focus on Mori’s words in order to even recognize the sensation of my Conduit power. I could feel the tension in my fingertips, like the dull continuous drone of a hornet on a hot summer’s day, but I couldn’t quite harness it.
I was aware of its presence, but it was quite literally just outside my grasp.
“Focus…” Mori said quietly, without looking at me.
I ground my nonexistent teeth and frowned with nonexistent eyebrows, and even those small, emotional, corporeal instincts helped me hone in on the buzz inside of my fingertips.
It was my mind that controlled the swirling rage of fire, not my body, and I let out a breath from lungs that didn’t need to breathe as I squeezed the astral version of my hands.
I watched where the tendons should’ve been and focused my eyes, forced myself to will the fire into existence, and I let out a shuddering groan as finally, finally, my ghostly hands were surrounded by flame.
“Ohhh, god…” I breathed, like I’d just run a marathon and could finally stop moving my legs. Then I laughed as I flexed my spectral hands and watched the undulating ball of flames swirl and dance through the air.
“Light the candle,” Mori said softly and nodded to the coffee table.
A tall white cylinder of wax was waiting for me, with a completely fresh and unburned wick, and I suddenly balked.
I had to transfer my fire from the astral plane, through myself, and onto something physical.
It took all of my concentration to keep the roiling ball of fire in my hands as it was, and now I had to move my astral projection toward the coffee table to get in reach of the candle.
“Don’t think so literally,” Mori said with a half-smile.
“I thought you said you weren’t gonna hold my hand through this,” I said with a grunt.
Mori let out a short laugh, just one puff of breath, but it was enough to tell me I was doing a good job.
I focused on the spot of energy in my hands and let my subconscious take over the rest. I floated, a little too high at first, and then back down, until eventually I hovered in the air above the coffee table.
I curled my ghostly fingers in an arc and practiced moving my Conduit ability before I begrudgingly started to focus the fire against the very real, very physical candle in front of Mori.
A moment seemed like forever, and I let out another grunt as I tried to force the flames to catch on the wick.
“Focus…” Mori muttered again, but I could see in my periphery how he’d started to lean forward with anticipation.
“I am focusing,” I said through gritted teeth that didn’t really need to be clenched together, and with another relatively useless huff, I extended my fingers even further so the echo of my hand eventually became fire itself.
I had complete control now, and all I had to do was stroke the air above the candle wick before it eventually crackled and caught.
I let go of my pyromancer ability with an exhausted sigh, but I could feel the spectral way my disembodied lips turned up into a satisfied smile.
“Good,” Mori said. “Now the Corps pillar.”
A sudden brick wall appeared in the air in front of me, and I lost sight of Mori. I physically tried to move my head, but as I turned in the air, more red bricks materialized around me, until eventually I was completely enclosed inside four walls.
“Mori!” I yelled out his name in a sudden panic.
“You know I’m here,” Mori said, and his voice sounded as though he were right beside me, despite the bodily separation.
I pressed my ghostly hands up against the wall, and the brick sure felt real enough. I pushed harder, and a chunk of cement crumbled away, but it felt like it’d taken every single ounce of energy I had to offer.
“It’s too hard,” I said with a gasp.
“Try harder.” Mori’s voice became flat and emotionless again.
“I can’t do it,” I said as a claustrophobia I never realized I’d had started to take over.
“Yes, you can,” Mori said. “Only you can free yourself. Use your mind, not your body.”
“But the Corps pillar is all about the damn body!”
“But your affinity for its power lies within your mind, boy!” Mori reminded me. “Break free from it!”
I shoved against the brickwork that encased me again, and suddenly I remembered how I’d nearly ripped the front door of my apartment clean off its hinges.
I’d done it without even thinking about it, so I could do this, too, even if I couldn’t flex my literal muscles to do so. I just had to actually think about it this time around.
The moment the metaphorical light switch flicked on in my brain, the brickwork that had encased me suddenly exploded, and I shoved my way out of it.
“Good!” Mori said with a satisfied smile. “Good, Mark, that’s two pillars. Now the Tempest.”
“In this form?” I scoffed and suddenly found myself having fun with it. “Easy.”
I focused on the fact that my mind was outside of my body, I focused on how I could feel my extremities because I could remember what they felt like, but I reminded myself I absolutely held the ability to move myself around the air without the need for my human body to carry me.
I ended up flitting around Mori’s penthouse apartment like a bat at dusk.
“Okay, final pillar,” Mori said, and there was a touch of excitement in his usually stoic voice. “The Dreamer.”
“How will I know what the test is?” I asked breathlessly, but Mori didn’t answer.
Not with words, anyway.
He stared at me, with his dark eyes piercing and as deep as black holes. They sucked me in, and I suddenly realized what he wanted me to do.
He wanted me to try and read his mind. Like I had with my old boss.
I floated in the air until I was directly in front of him, almost nose to nose except my form wasn’t quite literal, and I stared directly into his jet-black irises.
I watched as his pupils moved with the light in the room, I watched as they flittered ever so slightly in place, and I watched the soft skin of his eyelids shudder with even the slightest movement. Eventually… I heard a voice.
I didn’t hear him necessarily, not as clear as if he were talking to me, but I knew he was there. And it wasn’t that he was inside my mind, it felt more as though I were inside his.
Go back… I focused my gaze even harder and stared even more intently at Mori’s black eyes. Back… Back… To yourself…
I felt a grin form on my formless face, and without a word I immediately dove through the air and forced my spectral projection back into my corporeal body.
I sucked in a huge lungful of air as if I’d been suffocated, and I could feel my heart beating erratically in my chest as though it had forgotten what to do.
“Mark!” Mori’s voice was loud and commanding, and his hand suddenly gripped onto my shoulder. “Breathe!”
I’d never really been one for anxiety before, but to suddenly be in control of my body again gave way to pure unadulterated panic, and I started to hyperventilate even as I gripped onto the sleeves of Mori’s fancy black suit.
“Breathe,” he commanded again, and I did as I was told.
I sucked in another breath of air through my nose, so much it completely filled up my lungs and puffed my chest out, and I slowly let it out again through my mouth.
“Holy shit,” I muttered in disbelief.
“You possess a power from all four pillars.” Mori nodded in approval. “I figured as much.”
“But what does that mean?” I demanded breathlessly. “I’ve never known anyone to have multiple powers, I thought that was the whole point of the pillars…”
“There is a term for one who can master them all,” Mori said as he studied me curiously. “Omega.”
“That’s what you think I am?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Mori said with a wry smile. “But the potential is certainly there. You won’t receive any special treatment here for having an aptitude for more than one pillar. If anything, you’ll need to prove yourself four times over. But if you can wholly grasp the understanding and knowledge to harness all four pillars, then…”
“That’s…” I shook my head and sighed deeply. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I will bring you back here,” Mori said, and raised a hand to signify his living quarters. “We will have much to discuss. Especially since the last known Omega was… Well. For another time, perhaps.”
“Tell me,” I said immediately, since my curiosity was piqued.
“Well… the last Omega ruled over the supers, like a king,” Mori explained in a slow, deliberate voice. “Which is entirely fair, given his status. But he turned quite insane with it, and the story trickled down from a fairy tale told to children of supers to keep them and their burgeoning powers in check, to now a myth.”
“Oh…” I muttered, and it was the only sound I could muster. “Do you… Do you think I’ll go mad?”
“Not at all, my boy.” Mori’s face split in two with a wide smile. “I will train you correctly.”
“Do you think the… The Antis will come back, if there’s an Omega? If that’s actually what I am…”
Mori hummed into his whiskey and then shrugged.
“It’s a strong possibility,” he eventually said. “Although our current roster of heroes put an end to their absurd ideals several years ago, I have no doubt there are still those that believe in the Antis’ way of thinking… And if you truly are an Omega, they will most definitely want to get their hands on you.”
