Simon and Revenant had taken their former seats, Simon frantically taking notes while the Rev mostly just shouted encouragement.

  “Go kid! That’s more than one-hundred tons!” and away from the microphone “Simon, is it just me, or is that a record?”

  “For an Omni It is, and we’re not done” Simon said, never looking away from his datapad. “Much as the public would like to believe that our strongmen could lift literal mountains the strongest Brick in history topped out at a little over 300 tons and his mutation, sadly, included a deadly heart defect.”

  “Oh shit. Who was it?”

  “Again, sadly, nobody you’d ever know. Thomas Hendricks was his name, he applied in 1967, directly, no heroic identity, just a claim of being the world’s strongest man. He was taking this very test; bench press, arms isolated, when he started complaining about chest pains.”

  “During testing? Really? That’s fucked up. Then what happened?”

  “He died, idiot.” rang out a third voice. The pair turned around as the door finished sliding open, whisper-quiet. “Hendricks had no business here. He was a fat slob whose altered state included a slowed metabolism.”

  “Scion.” Simon acknowledged the Nine’s field commander’s presence. “How are you feeling? According to the physiological sensors in my tablet here you’re still down about three liters of water weight. You really should be resting.”

  Blond brows knitting, oddly young face twisting into a mask of irritation the Scion looked down on Simon both figuratively and literally. “I can’t lie down any more. I can’t drink any more. That guy, the one who looked like a dragon, Nephilim; we should probably recommend euthanasia.”

  “Uh, what?” The Revenant’s, eyes shot wide open. “Death penalty? I thought there were no casualties.”

  “Please, Sal. Don’t be ignorant. That thing isn’t even human any more, if it ever was. We euthanize Kaiju and, with strength of at least upsilon, fangs that can penetrate bulletproof skin and venom that’d kill any un-altered living thing on the planet, it’s just too dangerous.”

  All went silent in the room for a moment. Sal was especially shocked by this barbaric sentiment. It was Simon who broke the silence. “Well, luckily, it isn’t up to you. As field leader you could have, of course, decided to finish your opponent off, citing the danger of them reviving before they could be secured. But he’s secured now and, so, subject to the Board.”

  Scion grit his teeth. “You’re not in charge here.”

  “I don’t need to be,” said Simon. “The Board of Zorman Corporation listens to me. I’m their prized employee, not just a mascot.”

  “You’re out of line!”

  “And you’re out of your mind. Severely dehydrated, not thinking clearly, letting your inner demons set your itinerary.”

  The pair had a brief staredown until a familiar, immature voice came over the loudspeaker. “Hey, uh, can I stop now? This was easy at first but my hands are going numb!” Johnny, AKA Megadude, was still under the press, bearing in excess of one-hunded tons.

  Simon didn’t break eye contact, instead gesturing towards Sal, who sprang to the microphone. “Yeah, bud. Hold up!” a few button presses and the handle lifted away from Megadude, who shook his hands out, trying to restore feeling.

  “I know why you’re here,” said Simon. “As you’ve always been, you are transparent in my view. Somehow, some way, you learned of Johnny and now you feel threatened. You need to stand down.”

  “You don’t know me.” growled the Scion.

  Simon pushed his glasses up his nose and tried to stand tall before the towering superhuman icon. “First among heroes, they call you, supposedly the most powerful; but I see more. Normally, you’d remain stoic in the face of a superior but you’re hurting, you just lost a fight–”

  “I lost nothing. The fight wasn’t over and I didn’t need help.”

  “--and you’re insecure. There is no need. You are still the field commander. At best Johnny will be a houseguest and you’ll be his chief educator. Like a father figure or big brother.” Simon watched the Scion seethe. It was entertaining. Still, he had to de-escalate the situation; it was his job. “Stan. You’re in your 80’s. You haven’t got a family. Don’t you want–”

  “You want me to train my replacement? Is that it?” Simon fell silent but stared intently as opposed to the Revenant who recoiled at the paranoid accusation. “That punk kid can’t fill my shoes, Simon, you know that. You just want someone you can manipulate so you can consolidate your own power.”

  “I only have soft power here, Stan. The Zorman family, local, state and federal government all see that I am an enormous asset to the company and the country. I have no idea why you would resent me for this.”

  “Because you don’t fool me! We’ve been doing this bullshit since the 1960’s; you’re here, undermining me, reminding me that a supervillain has infiltrated my domain. More than thirty years I’ve put up with this bullshit.”

  “Last I checked, Scion, you were the one who destroyed my life’s work, triggering a revenge response, true, but I only had to be corrected one time. You, meanwhile, have been brawling and causing untold property damage nearly every day since.”

  Coming in close, too close for the others to hear, Scion got mere inches from Simon’s face. “You have them fooled, but just remember; that material you have … it only takes you so far. Now back off or I tear off the bandage and we both see what the court of public opinion really thinks of us.”

  Simon’s eyes narrowed but he was aware that he was being watched by the third man in the room. Another beat and, finally, Simon broke the tension. “Well, since you have it all figured out I’ll just step aside.” Illustratively, Simon moved to a corner of the room, leaned back and crossed his arms.

  At no point looking away from Simon the Scion addressed Sal. “Revenant. Phase me through to the Test Chamber. See if this kid’s all he’s cracked up to be.”

  “Uh, sir? You sure about that? I mean … Johnny already went through the ambush test. We know he can handle himself.” Sal’s apprehension was clear. He’d never seen this side of the Scion; paranoid, angry, irrational.

  Finally breaking eye contact with Simon the Solar Scion switched his scowl over to Sal. Sal, Revenant, junior member of the Nine, newly insubordinate. “You gonna make me walk around, son?”

  Having come up in a world where hierarchy was everything the thought of the field leader’s disapproval was horrifying to Sal. “No! No, of course not. Here … let’s go through the glass; no chance of touching a live wire. Sal extended his hand.

  In answer Scion locked his icy stare on Sal, maintaining eye contact as he grabbed Sal by the wrist, not the hand. It was a small gesture but it still made clear; they weren’t on the same level. This was a power play by the biggest dog in the house. The pair drifted through the wall slowly, down to the floor of the chamber.

  Back up in the control room Simon was back at the microphone. “Johnny, I want you to meet the Solar Scion, sometimes called ‘The Son of the Sun’.”

  Touching down on the floor Sal disengaged from his boss, looked at Johnny and gave him a smile and a nod before departing again.

  “The Scion wants to examine you himself, personally, John. I hope you don’t mind.” Simon let a little concern enter into his tone and, on noticing that neither Johnny nor the Scion were looking at him, took the opportunity to wave Sal back with urgent gestures.

  “Hey, Simon, I see ya.” Sal said as he breached the glass again. “We’re okay, right? The boss is … really mad for some reason.”

  “Much as I hate to admit it; I have no idea if things are okay, Sal. I need you to gather everyone on duty right now and get outside the entrance to the test chamber. Don’t do anything, just be ready. Do you understand?”

  Simon’s urgent tone was disturbing; nothing shook the nerd normally, not even the Scion. He was outside the chain of command with access to virtually any official in the government and all but set the flow of new technology for the globe; trickling bits out year over year slowly or, as he described it, “as they’re ready for it”. Sal paused, looking deep into Simon’s eyes to get a sense of the man’s thinking and, finally; “Yeah, Simon. I’m on it. Maybe try to delay ‘em a little?”

  “Believe me, I’ll try.” Sal dropped through the floor, falling as fast as you’d expect a body should through air. Simon was immediately back at the mic. The Scion wasn’t saying much and Johnny looked very uncomfortable. “Okay, Scion; this is your show now. I’ll be leaving it to you. But, first, Johnny, I did want to ask; you know who this is, right?”

  Turning away to look at Simon, Johnny looked up at the control room. “Oh yeah! Uh, I’ve seen him on TV before. The news, right? And he had a cartoon. Oh! And I had a little man of him.”

  “Little. Man?” the Scion frowned, looking at the back of Johnny’s head.

  “Yeah!” and Johnny, Megadude, the obnoxious man-child turned back to find the Scion baring his teeth like an animal. “Made of … plastic?”

  With a loud crack the Scion unloaded on Megadude’s jaw. Johnny, not quite touching the floor, instead spiraled through the air, limp, allowing himself to embed into the wall, the reflexive armor columns shooting out around him. Scion followed him in, raining down blows, but these instead found Johnny’s forearms as the immature wannabe laughed. “Another ambush?”

  “Come into my house! Call me ‘little man’!” The Scion was incensed but also weakened by poison injected into his veins earlier that day. “I won’t let this fifth column of Simon’s grow! No more!”

  Kicking with both legs, Johnny sent Scion up a hundred feet, following him up and scoring an easy right cross that threw the Scion off his game. It wasn’t anything that, under normal circumstances, would have an effect. Johnny was, in fact, treating their exchange as a light-contact play fight. Coming back down the other way, even Johnny, with his child-like mind could see that something was wrong. Instead of attacking again he grabbed the Scion by the shoulders. “Hey, you okay? We’re still sparring, right?”

  Johnny’s honest concern, somehow, aggravated the Scion even further. The last of his sense slipped away slowly as he lifted his hands, shaking, to grab Johnny’s face. Pupils contracted no one looking on from the outside or at him from the inside would have seen the legendary hero they thought they knew.

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  “Scion. Hey, what’s going on? You just got started but your blood pressure is impossibly high. Can you hear me? Stan!?” Simon’s instruments detected an energy surge; one Simon was very familiar with. “Johnny! Get away from him!”

  Flop-sweating, pale and frantic, language lost to him, the Scion gripped Johnny by the face, his head glowing and his features disappearing before screaming. The noise, inhuman, was the last of it as a blinding blast of photons struck johnny full in the fact, quickly burning away his skin, muscle and finally bleaching the bone as both men screamed.

  “Sal! Now, Sal! He’s lost it! Sal!”

  Simon’s words were too late. With a loud thoom there was a huge discharge of kinetic energy and the two separated, slamming into opposite sides of the room, a black cloud of shed carbon surrounding Johnny on the nearer side. Flying much further the Scion was almost able to stop himself before impacting. If anything, the love tap against the reactive wall woke him up. This was just in time for his team to come flooding in the door.

  “Son of a bitch. Grab him!” Primed for the worst, already concerned, the Grip, covered in ratchet straps to hold her ribs in position jumped in, grabbing the Scion by the shoulders. Ampere, the girl who saved the Scion that morning thumped in, powered armor making her a titan, the biggest of the group. Behind them came the Wildman; a seeming primitive with cat-like claws on the ends of his fingers. Finally, walking alongside Sal was Mission; fast, strong and able to recover from any injury.

  Mission was far too relaxed. Ignoring his commander’s confused scuffle with their allies he addressed Simon directly. “What’s the deal, man? First the boss is in bed for the day, now he’s in our gym acting like he’s on drugs.”

  “Scion has been poisoned, Mission. He’s erratic and, over my protestations, he’s killed an altered individual that we were testing using his Solar Glare!”

  Glancing back at the fracas, Mission could see Grip holding Scion’s arms behind him while Ampere’s massive battlesuit let her press him downward with one foot on the back of his knee and one hand on his head. Even in his weakened state, his cursing struggle was something to see. Still, if he were himself, he’d be free already. “So where’s the body, nerd-boy?” Mission was never one to trust Simon blindly.

  “All but decapitated against the wall … wait…” Simon noticed that the heartbeat his computer identified as Johnny had not only re-started but was beating ever-faster as if under stress. “He’s getting up. His cardiac arrest wasn’t fatal…” Simons’ voice was low, as if in shock. So much that this boy had done had caught him off-guard, he wasn’t sure what to believe.

  “Okay, okay, good. Glad the boss ain’t a murderer. Maybe get a medic down here for both guys, anh? Boss sure as shootin’ shouldn’t be gettin’ held down by these girls, that’s for sure. That is he’s stronger’n that…”

  Simon watched the heartbeat in silence, eyes flicking back and forth between that and the bar measuring the potential energy in the field that fueled Johnny’s powers. Many altered individuals, certainly any who flew without wings, had energy patterns of great power. Johnny’s was fluctuating and low. Finally, the strongman, Mission’s words managed to penetrate. “Simon? You copy, brother?”

  An abrupt klaxon filled the air and Simon’s eyes flicked back to Johnny’s readout and he saw it again; energy like a nuclear warhead about to explode, but this time inside the base. “Get down, now!”

  Kicking off the wall full-force Johnny sent columns shooting out of the wall, fully disengaging and shaking the Zorman building from sub-basement to top floor. Two people in the room had superhuman reflexes, Wildman and Mission, and both leapt into action. Mission charged at Johnny to try to stop him while Wildman tackled the Grip, only hoping that she’d disengage having heard Simon’s warning.

  Mission scarcely registered as Johnny and he hit head-on. Johnny not only perceived the world at a normal rate but was in a fugue state, seeing little to nothing. His head was covered in a bloody dermis, skin half regrown, acting on instinct. No one observing the impact at full speed would see anything but Mission disappearing instantly and an explosion in the ceiling above.

  Wildman grabbed Grip’s near wrist just as she loosened her hold on the still struggling Scion and Ampere staggered away from their motion, arms wide so her suit would catch both of them. Still drugged, body and mind rebelling from his poisoning, the Scion never knew what hit him as the reactive wall shattered. Left, right, over and over, Johnny beat him into the floor, three-dozen unanswered blows rendering the Solar Scion unconscious before Megadude, wailing like a baby stung by a wasp, started grabbing detached titanium-steel columns and breaking them across the Scion’s prone body.

  “Stop him!” Simon shouted, desperate. “His brain’s cooked! He’ll kill him!” and the on-duty members of the Nine started recovering from the shock of this sudden violence. “Johnny! Can you hear me, son!?” Simon implored as the Wildman jumped on his back, trying to twist him off-balance, get him lower so that the others could get ahold of him. “It’s Simon! You have to stop!”

  “His face isn’t gone, Simon! What the hell, man!?” yelled Mission, having dislodged himself from the ceiling. Hitting highway speeds he leapt, tackling Johnny’s legs, upending both he and the Wildman, causing all three to crash down.

  “It was gone! It was just a skull, not even any eyes! I have it on camera!”

  “Look, his burns are almost gone, bud!” shouted Wildman. “I don’t think he was bald before, either.”

  The Grip was third in the pile on top of Johnny. “He’s rigid, harder than steel. That’s … that’s not a dirty joke. He wasn’t like this when I touched him before. He’s on some kind of other level.”

  Finally Ampere stepped up, the massive capacitors in her power armor charging up. “Look out; I’m about to dump a power plant into this motherfucker and be done with it.”

  “No! Johnny’s a good boy! When we sparred he stopped right away after winning, Amp.” said the Grip. “If getting injured by energy made him this way you might just make it even worse. We have to stop his fighting, not try to kill him!”

  “Johnny, I know you can hear me now.” Simon saw the energy level ebb back to normal levels, the readout of his heart slowing. “You have to stop fighting the Nine. Let them help you.”

  No response. One by one, however, first Wildman, then Grip and finally Mission stood up and off of Johnny, never taking their eyes off him. He was hiding his face in his arms, sobbing.

  “And now … he has hair?” said the Wildman, questioning.

  Grip, herself, was gobsmacked. She knelt beside him, pulling his fingers aside just enough to see his face. “He looks exactly the same as when we met now. No hair out of place. What is that? It’s not healing. Not regeneration…”

  “It’s fuckin’ weird is what it is.” Mission barked. “Look, Simon, I get you like this kid or whatever but we gotta get him in a cell, man. I mean, holy shit, look at what he did to the most powerful man on the planet.”

  Looking down at the Scion; patches of hair missing, jaw dislocated, face and neck purple with one eye rapidly swelling shut and blood coming from everywhere above the neck. Simon got a good close-up of his injuries. “He focused on Scion’s face. Because … that’s where the blast came from. The Solar Glare…”

  Without further discussion Mission and Ampere grabbed Johnny up, hands and feet, and carried him out of the test chamber. Grip close behind. Only Sal remained, looking up at Simon. “What do we do!? He’s hurt so bad.”

  “Just … go on, Sal. Zorman medics are coming down from the corporate levels. You’re not doing any good here. Make sure Johnny doesn’t hurt anybody else … or himself.”

  Again, wordlessly, the last conscious member of the Nine exited the chamber and Simon watched his former enemy and the man who insisted now on being his rival, lay bleeding on the floor of the broken test chamber.

  “It’s funny, really, Stan. You’re right, I do hate you; because of you I had to start my technology company over. Because you were brawling, no care for any normal human being, for anybody else in the world, just … fighting.”

  “But the thing is … this isn’t my revenge. I was honestly trying to stop this very thing from happening, or something like it. My revenge … is being more important, of higher status and, in the corporate and government worlds, than you could ever be. I knew I’d outlast you but … if you were to die today, because you were too stupid to admit you were sick and not thinking clearly, I think I’d be sad.”

  “Because I didn’t engineer your downfall, and you think I did. That. Just. Won’t. Do…”

  —--

  Eight hours later, poor Johnny the Megadude was in a cell, despondent, and Simon decided to check in on the Solar Scion. Sal, the Revenant, was with him. Scion’s room, very much a hospital Intensive Care Unit, was massive and had far more amenities than what any normal person could expect when hurt. Still, he looked miserable as they entered.

  In a neckbrace, normal-looking save for the metal banding, black and blue, still missing hair, and his jaw wired shut, the Scion lay there recovering. His eyes were more clear than before but that was the only obvious improvement to his state.

  “Holy shit, boss, you look like shit.” blurted Sal.

  Surprisingly, the Scion actually chuckled. “Thanks” he managed to push through his teeth, unable to open his mouth.

  “Ah, look at you, able to laugh when jokingly insulted by a subordinate. Am I to understand that the poison has finally run its course?” Simon looked down at the Nine’s field commander with much less kindness than the junior member.

  “What do you want? An apology?” mumbled the Scion. “I was poisoned. Basically drugged.”

  “You basically killed a man today. I’ve never seen anyone able to simply die and return in mere moments before. By all rights Johnny, Megadude, Progenitor, whomever he is, should be buried in the ground.”

  “Oh no. How horrible.” The Scion’s sarcasm was clear.

  “You can’t blame him for defending himself, Stan. That energy blast of yours … it turns the air into plasma. He wasn’t even really fighting you.”

  “Yes, you’re right, he was toying with me. Even in my weakened state, that means he’s too powerful to just be walking around.” Scion focused his one good eye on Simon before switching over to Sal.

  “Uh, yeah … boss, he’s in a cell.” said Revenant. “You should’ve seen the Pattern Disruptor flicker when he went in. The look on his face when the force field went up. Like … he couldn’t even talk.”

  “Well, that’s good. Keep him contained until I recover.”

  “Stan. You can’t possibly be suggesting that Johnny is to blame for all this.”

  “He broke my jaw, Simon. That’s supposed to be impossible.”

  “Yes, and he could’ve done worse. The thing is … when other people touched him, people who hadn’t hurt him, grabbed him and reasoned with him, he stopped. You were unconscious, but he was crying.”

  “So he’s unstable. Some sort of nancy-boy, a maniac crossdresser maybe?”

  Simon glared down at the Scion. “All you had to do was take a half a day off and none of this happens. Just admit that you’re sick and lie the fuck down.” The cursing caught both Scion and Sal off-guard. “Now look at you; you tried to kill an innocent man and nearly paid with your life.”

  Sal took two steps back, looking at Simon, shocked. The Scion disengaged, looking up to the ceiling. Shaking his head, Simon exited the room, taking the first elevator down. He was more bothered by the whole incident than he thought he was.

  All at once the world went black. Two seconds later; emergency lighting came on in the elevator. “Another surprise? This is unheard of. Usually I can see everything coming from a mile away…”

  “Johnny.” he muttered. This had to be related. With an agility he’d never admit he had to anyone else Simon jumped, kicked off the wall, and shoved aside the trap door in the ceiling of the elevator, finishing with a roll to his feet. He’d done it all without making a sound. In the elevator shaft there were no lights, yet he could see perfectly, with or without his glasses.

  Bounding to the ladder set in the wall of the shaft Simon slid down, gripping the sides of the ladder with his hands and feet, all the way down, stopping his momentum using only his grip, at the building’s sub-basement.

  Hooking his fingers in the outer door that would normally open only with an elevator present, Simon flung them aside in a way nobody who looked like him should be able to. All cameras down due to lack of power, cameras he controlled anyway, with or without a device like his datapad, nobody knew just how powerful Simon, in fact, was. He smiled in self-satisfaction at that fact. It lasted only a moment, however, as he smelled the industrial stink of burnt circuits.

  “Here’s the detention center.” he muttered under his breath. “Johnny?” Simon’s voice echoed oddly. Without the Pattern Disruptors running in the holding cells his voice carried unnaturally. “Johnny?” Repeating himself felt ridiculous, so he stopped, rounding the corner at that moment anyway to see Johnny’s cell.

  It had power. This was, in fact, the last part of the building that could lose power. The control panel next to the cell shot sparks in rhythm with the system’s repeated attempts to restore itself. Simon moved to the wall across the hall and around the corner to find an access panel and hit the breaker for that singular cell. Instantly, power to the whole building was restored.

  Walking back to where Johnny should have been Simon looked down at where he last saw the man. Johnny faced the wall, refusing to speak, hiding … like a child. Looking around, there was no sign that Johnny had used his immense power to escape. He was simply gone. This was good, he thought; this bought them time. “But where did you go? And how…?” Simon turned back, summoning the elevator again. It came quickly. None of it made sense; not even how the power shorted. Something else was at play here and, if it took a century, he’d find out what.