The Superhero's World

Chapter One-2

“But before we do that, I would first like to unveil the Justice Statue,” said Omega Man. “Having seen it ahead of time, I can assure all of you here that it is truly a magnificent statue, easily one of the best in the world. It was designed and crafted by a team of world-class sculptors under the supervision of our own Mr. Miner and the INJ’s Quakefoot, creating a Statue unlike anything that we’ve ever seen on Hero Island.”

“Just show it already!” someone suddenly shouted from the crowd, though I couldn’t see who it was from here.

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Omega Man. He stepped aside and then gestured at the giant veiled statue behind the stage. “Without further ado, I present to you all: the Justice Statue!”

The giant blue veil was suddenly pulled down by a team of Hero Island workers, who had been standing around the edges of the veil waiting for the signal. The veil fell down with a flourish, revealing the Justice Statue in its entirety. I had to twist around in my seat to look at it, as did my teammates.

The Justice Statue was truly immense. Like the plans I’d seen before, it depicted Omega Man and the Midnight Menace shaking hands; in fact, it was so realistic that it was almost like they’d blown up the actual Omega Man and Midnight Menace and put them inside stone. It was incredibly detailed, even showing the Midnight Menace’s shadows in a way that eerily resembled the real thing. I knew Mr. Miner had a talent for sculpting, but seeing this example of his work—even if he had collaborated with others—really blew my mind.

Suddenly, the sound of hundreds of pairs of hands clapping together at once pierced the air. Nearly every person in the outdoor area was clapping, the sound practically deafening even though there weren’t any walls for the sounds to bounce off of. Even the New Heroes and INJ leadership were clapping, though the Midnight Menace’s clapping looked a lot more reserved than the clapping from the others.

Nonetheless, I could tell that everyone approved highly of the Justice Statue. In fact, the mood of the entire crowd was lifting, even getting to the point where at least a few people whistled pretty loudly. The rising mood even began to infect me, making me think that maybe this ceremony wasn’t going to be so boring after all.

Then my earcom crackled and Valerie—the AI that had been Dad’s assistant before he passed and who was now essentially my assistant—said, her voice barely audible over the claps and cheers of the crowd, “Bolt? I have urgent news.”

“Urgent news?” I repeated as I stopped clapping and put one hand on my ear. “What is it? Can’t it wait until later? I’m busy.”

“No, it cannot,” Valerie said. “I know that you are in the middle of a major ceremony, but my sensors have picked up something coming fast, which you need to tell Omega Man about.”

“Tell Omega Man?” I said. “Why can’t you tell him yourself?”

“Omega Man does not have an earcom, unlike you,” said Valerie, “so I cannot contact him and warn him about what my sensors have picked up. But you can, and you must, because it is coming, and fast.”

“What’s coming?” I said. “A supervillain?”

“I’m not sure,” said Valerie. “Sensors indicate that something huge is coming directly toward Hero Island. Its trajectory indicates that it will probably land somewhere near the center of Hero Island, directly on top of the Justice Statue itself.”

I immediately looked up at the sky, but saw nothing except empty blueness and the bright, shining sun. “What is it? I don’t see it.”

“Again., I don’t know,” said Valerie. “All I know is that it appears to have been launched from orbit. I think it is likely that it is a missile of some sort.”

“A nuke?” I repeated in horror. “A nuke would completely level Hero Island and kill everyone on it.”

“It may be, but I have not detected any nuclear launches from Russia, China, North Korea, or any other country that has nuclear weapons,” said Valerie. “Regardless, I doubt it will be good. That is why I said you need to tell Omega Man, because he might be able to stop it whether it is a nuke or something else. And you’d better do it quickly, because it is getting closer and closer in every second and will likely be visible to the naked eye soon.”

“Right,” I said. “Thanks for telling me.”

As soon as I said that, I suddenly saw a tiny dot in the sky. At first, I thought it was just a bird or maybe a plane, but as it grew larger and larger, I realized that it was the missile that Valerie had just told me about. And even worse, no one seemed to have noticed it yet.

So I hopped up from my seat and ran over to Omega Man, who was busily clapping along with everyone else. In fact, he was clapping so much that he didn’t even notice me until I shouted his name and he looked down at me in surprise.

“Bolt?” said Omega Man. “What’s the matter? Did you see something?”

“Yes,” I said. I pointed up at the sky, directly at the missile falling toward us. “Valerie just told me about a missile coming straight for us. We don’t know what it is, but we can’t let it land.”

“A missile?” Omega Man repeated. He looked up at the sky as well, his eyes narrowing. “You’re right.”

The rest of the crowd must have started to notice it as well, because less and less people were clapping and more and more people were looking up or pointing at the incoming missile. More than a few looked ready to take flight to stop it, but I wasn’t sure how many of them had the super strength that would also be necessary to stop it.

“We need to stop it before it lands on Hero Island and explodes,” I said.

“Of course,” said Omega Man. “There’s no time to shoot it down, which would be unwise if it turned out to be a nuke. We’ll need to stop it ourselves.”

“Ourselves?” I said, looking at Omega Man in surprise. “You mean you and me working together to stop it?”

“Of course,” said Omega Man. He smiled. “What, afraid you can’t keep up with an old geezer like me?”

I just smirked back. “Nah. I was actually worried that you wouldn’t be able to keep up with me.”

Omega Man chuckled. “Then why don’t we get started?”

Then Omega Man launched into the air, flying so fast that he became a blur even I couldn’t follow. The air from his flight actually knocked me back, but I recovered quickly and zoomed after him into the sky, eventually catching up to him, but I had to push my limits to keep up with him. Soon, we were both flying side by side toward the massive missile in the sky.

And when I say ‘massive,’ I mean massive. From a distance, it had looked pretty small, but as we drew closer to it, the missile became ridiculously huge. I estimated that it was twice as big as the House and it was shaped like a spear, with a huge missile head that looked as big as a car. I had never seen a missile like this before, but I didn’t stop to analyze it. I just looked at Omega Man, who nodded at me once before returning his attention to the missile, which we were rapidly drawing closer to with each passing second.

We slammed into the missile; not enough to make it explode, but enough to severely slow down its trajectory. And good god did it take almost everything I had to do that; the missile was flying hard and fast, pushing against us, the flames from its rocket exploding behind it. Even Omega Man struggled to hold it back, and he was much stronger than me.

Still, we managed to keep it from getting closer to the Island below. I had no idea what we were going to do with the missile once we stopped it, but I could only assume that Omega Man had a plan. Maybe we would throw it into the sea or something.

But then a panel just behind the missile head slid open and a laser cannon rose from within and aimed at us. It immediately started firing yellow lasers at us, striking both of us and sending us flying away from the missile. The lasers hurt and even made me feel strangely weak, but I managed to regain my balance in time to see the missile rocket past us, still heading toward the crowd of superheroes on Hero Island below.

Shaking my head, I flew after the missile and was soon joined by Omega Man, who was now scowling. More lasers fired from the missile, forcing us to weave and dodge to avoid getting shot. But this also forced us to slow down, which made it impossible to reach the missile.

“Bolt!” Omega Man suddenly shouted, pointing at the laser cannons that had risen out of the missile. “Take out the laser cannons while I try to stop the missile! Use your lightning powers!”

“Sure!” I shouted back.

I increased my speed and shot toward the missile, with Omega Man shooting past me and going underneath the missile to intercept it. More lasers fired at me, but I fired several bolts of red lightning at the cannons, instantly causing them to explode, although I missed a few, which continued to shoot at me.

But their focus, at least, was entirely on me. Omega Man had gotten to the front of the missile again and was trying to stop it once more. This time, he was actually succeeding. The missile was visibly slowing down, but it was still falling and would likely reach the Island soon anyway unless we could actually stop it for good.

Omega Man must have come to the same realization as me, because he shouted, “Bolt, destroy the rocket!”

I nodded again, destroyed the few laser cannons I’d missed the first time, and then zoomed over to the missile itself, which I landed on even as it pushed against Omega Man. The heat of the rocket was almost too much even here, especially with the wind raging around me, but I looked for a fault line or crack I could take advantage of to break the rocket off from the rest of the missile. Of course, I was also deeply aware that if I hit the wrong spot, I could blow both me and Omega Man straight out of the sky with the missile.

I slammed my fist into a part of the missile that looked weak. Immediately, large cracks started running along the missile’s behind and the rocket even sputtered, but it was still connected to the missile and still pushing it toward the ever closer crowd below.

So I raised both of my fists and brought them down on the rocket as hard as I could. My fists smashed through metal, but it wasn’t just metal. There was some kind of weird blood and organic tissue underneath the plating as well, even appeared to be intertwined with the metal and wiring, but I didn’t get a good look at it because the rocket exploded off the end of the missile.

The explosion was enough to send me flying off the missile, hurtling uncontrollably through the air. But I managed to regain control of my flight quickly enough and stopped in midair, though I was covered in icky soot and a weird green liquid that looked kind of like blood but smelled like crap. Still, I didn’t seem to have suffered any major injuries, so I thought I was going to be okay.

Then I remembered that Omega Man was still trying to stop the missile and I looked down to see that, though the missile no longer had its rocket, it was still falling toward the earth and pushing Omega Man with it. But I could tell that it was already slowing down, thanks to Omega Man’s strength and its lack of a rocket, although he clearly couldn’t stop it on his own entirely.

So I shot down and joined Omega Man at the front of the missile. We used all our strength to stop it, but a quick glance over my shoulder told me that we were still getting closer and closer to the ground with every second.

But the rest of the superheroes were already scattering, leaving us a good space in which to land the missile. So, slowly but surely, Omega Man and I carefully lowered the missile down onto the ground, where it now lay very quietly. It didn’t even explode, though I didn’t relax right away.

Taking my hands off the missile, I wiped away the sweat that had accumulated on my hair as Omega Man said, “That was a close one.”

“I’ll say,” I said. I looked at the missile again. “But what is it? And is it … bleeding?”

That was the best way to describe it. The back part, where the rocket had been, was smoking and oozing that disgusting green blood that had gotten all over me. It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen, and I’d seen plenty of weird things in my time as a superhero.

Omega Man’s eyes widened. “Oh my god. I think I know what that is.”

“You do?” I said, looking up at him in surprise. “What is it?”

But Omega Man didn’t answer. He looked around at the crowd of assembled superheroes and shouted, “Everyone! Get as far away from this thing as you can, before it blows—”

Without warning, the missile suddenly exploded.