The Superhero's Son Omnibus Volume 3

Chapter Three-1

Chapter Three

Regina and I were walking through the hallways of the mansion that Vision was using as its current headquarters. According to Regina, this mansion was owned by multimillionaire business mogul Joseph Hanson, who apparently was a Visionist convert who was letting his fellow Visionists stay here in order to avoid the authorities. In fact, Regina told me that this mansion was one of Hanson’s seven summer homes, located in the wilderness away from all major cities and most minor ones. The closest town was about fifty miles away, so the possibility of police or anyone from the government stumbling upon us here was miniscule.

It looked like the kind of mansion you’d expect a rich guy to own. The floor was made of sparkling clean marble, covered in lush red carpeting, while the walls and ceiling had fancy wood paneling that looked more expensive than a used car. Abstract paintings dotted the walls at five foot intervals, the kind of paintings that looked less like art and more like someone just splashed paint over a white canvas and somehow managed to con a rich guy into spending a small fortune on it.

But I didn’t really focus on any of it, because I was looking at the suit I wore. It was, according to Regina, my superhero costume; a full-body suit that was completely black, with red, glowing lines running down it. There was also a glowing red lightning bolt symbol on my chest, kind of like Harry Potter’s lightning scar, except a lot cooler. The suit fit me perfectly and was usually stored inside the watch on my wrist, which Regina told me was called a ‘suit-up watch.’ All I had to do was press a button and, presto, the suit vanished inside the watch. I didn’t know how such a small device could hold even an expertly folded suit like mine, but I was sure that there was an app for that somewhere.

Not only that, but I could feel my powers at last, too. I didn’t need to practice them or anything; they felt as natural as my hair color. That’s how I knew that Regina had been correct about me and her being superheroes. I just wished that I could remember what kind of adventures we’d been on together in the past, what kind of supervillains and crooks we’d fought together. I was sure it must have been exciting, but Regina had insisted that we had no time to reminisce and that it would all come back to me soon enough anyway.

Speaking of Regina as a superhero, damn did she look fine in her costume. She looked kind of like a magician, with a cape and a top hat and a small domino mask over her eyes. She even had a wand, which she held like a sword and I had no doubt she could use it like one if she wanted. She had changed into her costume while I had been changing into mine in the bathroom next to my room; she said she had a suit-up watch of her own, but I didn’t see it on her wrist, so I wasn’t sure where she kept her costume when she wasn’t wearing it.

Regardless, we were going to the mansion’s dining room, which, according to Regina, was where the meeting was supposed to take place. She said she didn’t know how many other people were going to be there, but that it was most likely going to be everyone else here. She said the meeting was going to be conducted by Thaumaturge, but she still didn’t know the exact contents of the meeting.

We hadn’t seen anyone else on our way to the meeting, but I assumed that was because we were going to be a little late. I had taken a little too much time showering, mostly because I was oddly grimy and had needed to get all of the dirt out of my hair. Regina told me that that was because I had slipped and fallen into the mud, but what was weird was that I had found some dried blood in my hair, and it didn’t seem to be mine, either. I hadn’t mentioned that to Regina, because I still remembered her sudden change in attitude earlier and wasn’t so sure I was ready to share that kind of information with her yet.

All of a sudden, one of the doors in the hall burst open and a guy in green and yellow spandex that looked similar to my costume stumbled out of the room. He looked like he was in a hurry; in fact, he was in such a hurry that he almost ran into me, but I stepped out of the way just in time to avoid having him run into me.

“Whoa!” said the guy, coming to a stop before he slammed into the wall. “That was close.”

“Hopper, what are you doing?” said Regina in annoyance. “You almost ran into Bolt.”

“Huh?” said Hopper, turning to face us. He brushed aside some of his dreads to look at me closer. “Hey, it is Bolt. I thought you were still unconscious from the, uh, accident.”

I shook my head. “Not anymore. My memory is still shot, but I’m still doing pretty good besides that. My memory will come back soon enough.”

“Good to hear,” said Hopper. “After all, you’re the most powerful among us, so we really need you to be on your best if we’re going to succeed.”

“Uh, sure,” I said. “Sorry, but I don’t really remember you. ‘Cause of my amnesia, you know.”

“Bolt, this is Hopper,” said Regina, gesturing at him. “His real name is Dwayne Masters. He can open portals that allow him to travel from one point of the planet to another.”

“Yeah,” said Hopper. “I’m not going to use it here, though, because then I’d kill us all and you really wouldn’t like that.”

“I wouldn't,” I said. “So how long have we known each other again?”

“Years, man!” said Hopper, throwing his arms into the air. “Don’t you remember back in elementary school? We met when we were ten.”

I was about to say that no, I didn’t remember Hopper at all, until I suddenly had a flashback to when I was ten. It was my first day of elementary school and, like my flashback to when I first met Regina, I was the new kid and didn’t have any friends. I was in the cafeteria, looking for some place to sit, but all of the other kids had formed little cliques and they all glared at me whenever I asked to sit with them. I ended up sitting at a table with Hopper, plus another girl who I didn’t recognize, because apparently Hopper didn’t have any friends and neither did the girl (whose face was blurry to me for some reason).

“Yeah …” I said, rubbing the back of my head, which started hurting again as I remembered the memory. “Yeah, I remember now. Sorry. Just my amnesia acting up again.”

Hopper—who had been frowning in worry just seconds ago—smiled at me in relief. “Good to hear, bro. I thought you might not remember. But of course, you’d never forget your best friend, right?”

I blinked. “We’re best friends?”

“Yeah, since we met in elementary school on the playground,” said Hopper. “Remember?”

“That’s weird,” I said, scratching the back of my head again. “I remember we met in the—”

Abruptly, I found myself watching a new memory. This one showed me, Hopper, and the girl (who I now knew was named Sarah) playing tag on the playground at our school. Apparently, I had just joined in and didn’t even know their names until the game ended, at which point I introduced myself to them and they to me and we swore to be best friends forever from that day forward, a promise we’d apparently kept.

“Bolt?” said Hopper. “You look out of it.”

I put a hand on my head, which was starting to ache. “It’s … it’s nothing. You’re right. We met on the playground.”

Even though I said those words, I didn’t believe them. I had just remembered that we had met in the cafeteria … didn’t I? Maybe it was the amnesia, playing with my memories and making me remember things the wrong way. That explanation felt hollow to me, though, but I didn’t know how else to explain it.

“Well, you’ll be better soon enough,” said Incantation, grabbing my hand and causing me to look at her. “Let’s keep going. The others are probably wondering where we are and Uncle doesn’t like it when we’re late.”

Incantation suddenly pulled me down the hall, causing me to stumble before I regained my balance and followed her. Hopper followed behind me, but when I glanced over my shoulder at him, I noticed that he had a very brief but serious look of worry on his face. And not because of me; it looked like he was worried about something going wrong, though maybe he was just worried that Thaumaturge was going to be upset at us for being late.

Soon, we arrived at the dining room, where the meeting was going to take place. It was a huge and opulent room, much like the rest of the mansion, with a crystal chandelier hanging above the long oak table. The table was set with a beautiful white tablecloth that looked more expensive than the table itself. The room smelled vaguely of bacon, eggs, and coffee, most likely because they’d just had breakfast, and it looked like the table had been cleared of dishes fairly recently based on the tiny impressions I saw in the tablecloth’s surface.

Seated at the table were four other people. There was an athletic-looking girl with a mechanical right arm whose name I couldn’t remember, with another, fatter girl with short green hair sitting next to her who wore weird thick framed glasses. Sitting opposite them was a tall, angry-looking man with skin so dark he looked black, his skin covered in what appeared to be tattoos, though none of the designs made any sense to me.

And sitting at the end of the table was a man in magician robes, who I instantly recognized as Thaumaturge. He had his fingers steepled together, his gray beard flowing down his chest. He looked like your stereotypical wizard, but I could tell he was not just dressing up as Gandalf. He was the real deal, and when he saw me, he smiled.

“Ah, Bolt,” said Thaumaturge. He sounded like a grandfather happy to see his grandson, though as far as I knew we weren’t related. “I see you have recovered from your fall. How is your memory?”

“Getting better,” I said as I took a seat with Incantation and Hopper at the other end of the table. “But it’s still kind of a blur and I don’t remember much.”

“Do you remember me?” said the athletic girl I’d noticed before, leaning forward to look at me better.

I stared at her blankly. “No, I don’t—”

Without warning, I saw another memory. This time, I was perhaps a couple of years older, starting my first year of junior high with Hopper and Sarah. We sat down in the cafeteria to eat with a nervous-looking girl who looked just like the athletic girl, except minus the mechanical arm, who introduced herself as Polly. She then bonded with us over the course of the school year, until she was an accepted part of our little gang. I even had a crush on her at one point before it went away and I met Incantation later on.

“You’re … Polly,” I said, pointing at the girl. “Right?”

“So glad you remembered,” said the girl with a smile. “Polly Jones is my normal name. My superhero name is Technical, because I am very good with technology. I even built my mechanical arm myself.”

The girl held her mechanical arm up, which functioned so naturally that it was like she’d been born with it.

“Cool,” I said. “But … I don’t remember how you got that mechanical arm. What happened to your normal one?”

Polly suddenly frowned. “It’s … not something I like to talk about. I already told you, anyway. You’ll remember it eventually.”

I hated it whenever someone said that, but at the same time, I couldn’t argue with the obvious fact that I’d lost a lot of my memory. I wished there was some way to speed up my memory recovery, but I guessed that it wasn’t important for me to remember how she had lost her arm right now. It must have been painful, though, however it happened.

Then I looked at the girl sitting next to Polly. She was hideous, probably the ugliest girl I’d ever seen. Her mouth was stuck in a perpetual scowl and when she looked at me, I didn’t see any joy, just anger and fear. It was kind of weird, because I hadn’t even said anything to her yet.