Tearing apart another monster with the beams from my eyes, literally burning its head or whatever served as one, I looked around. Time slowed its pace. The entire cosmic space around me was littered with the corpses of creatures that would have fit perfectly in a horror movie. How many were there? About 52,312 bodies, if my absolute memory wasn't deceiving me.
A massive two-headed snake, thirty meters tall and fifty meters long, spewing some bright red liquid from both its mouths; a one-eyed orange humanoid with a muscular body like a bodybuilder, standing nearly three meters tall; a giant gray statue of a human but with wings and a weeping face; a dog whose size could rival a truck; all sorts of insects, only magnified ten times their normal scale. A colossal horde of different creatures, of various races and builds. Humanoids, beasts, and monsters. It was like a bizarre mishmash, some strange performance for kids. And it all started so ordinarily, without any extra fuss.
With thermal vision, I sliced through the innards of a sphere made of strange living material. Only one figure rushed toward me—a seemingly human one, except that a naked human wouldn't have pitch-black eyes and horns or be able to fly through space. Like a beast, it tried to ram me, but it met my beams of goodness, which incinerated the upper half of its body. There was no time to think about resolving things peacefully. That's when I noticed something odd, something I hadn't paid attention to at first. Though we were in space, the fact that its organs and blood were white surprised me. The subsequent wave of creatures from the two halves of the living planet confirmed my suspicions. They overwhelmed me, trying to crush me, but I turned out to be far stronger than they were.
They moved like marionettes, like mindless beasts. Attacking, trying to push me back, they all simply died under my eye lasers. Some lasted longer than others—mere seconds—but still melted or were sliced apart. Some vanished entirely, unprepared for such intense heat. Yet all these different aliens and creatures shared one thing: their organs—or whatever substituted for them in the usual sense—and their blood were white, a milky hue. It was as if someone had deliberately painted them that way. But watching the behavior of some creatures, who froze for seconds as if trying to break free from chains, I think I understood what was happening. My analytical mind, practically a computer, worked quickly and clearly. They were being controlled, and whoever was doing it was somewhere inside that writhing mass of living flesh, which was striving to return to its original state. Slowly, the two halves drew closer, aiming to merge once more. But I wouldn't let that happen—not knowing what would come of it.
Behind me was the Sun, serving as my battery, so the attack I was about to attempt was fairly safe. Well, safe if you ignored the endless waves of creatures. I could have tried to free them from their control, but I'd need some information for that. And to aggression aimed at killing me, there was only one response.
Come on, then. Kain, you've got this. My true name, given to myself—not the one I use now—helped me focus on my eyes. A bright red light began emanating from them, far surpassing my previous attacks. Now, concentrating the energy that fueled me and trying to manipulate it, I did something I'd long wanted to attempt. On Earth, finding a place for such experiments was impossible. Channeling most of the attack into what was considered narrow-beam thermal vision, I widened the radius, encompassing everything ahead, including the two halves that were nearly touching.
Attack.
Everything in my field of vision turned red, and the entire expanse of space ahead was engulfed by my wide-radius laser. Like scanning beams of a broad spectrum, it covered everything I needed it to. Like a wave of unbearable heat, it swept through space. I managed to hold it for about five seconds before feeling, for the first time in this life, on the verge of passing out—as if from hunger. An impressive sensation, one I hadn't felt in ages, but the effect matched it. The corpses left after the short battle, at speeds so fast the creatures couldn't react, and the new wave simply vanished from space. Not even ash remained—so intense was the heat of my lasers. And then…
The two massive halves of the living planetoid, against the backdrop of tiny me, melted and became shadows of their former selves. Molten, they slowly drifted away from the Sun and from me, trying to flee as far as possible. Pursue them? Of course.
A quick flight, free from Earth's shackles, and I was next to one of the halves, from which a sound emanated. I still couldn't see through the walls of this material, but I could hear through it easily.
- "Kahrani valdi, ladyut ta kovraal. Torat, kahrani valdi, ladyut ta kovraal. Oar zaranita Taoraniets."
A familiar word flashed in the voice, which was struggling to catch its breath and coughing between words. I didn't understand the language, but I caught the word "Taoraniets." It was odd that I understood that but nothing else. Breaking through the walls of viscous material, drawing closer to the voice repeating the same words, I couldn't help but marvel at the structure of it all. Rooms with drawings on the walls that moved on their own, corridors with floors that were melted but slowly regenerating, massive cages that likely once held large creatures, and the bones of beings either killed by my attack or dead on their own.
Flying through the barriers of living walls that couldn't hold me back, I finally reached where I needed to be. The creature—more like a humanoid—didn't even have time to turn before I grabbed it by the neck with my left hand. What even counts as a neck for these aliens?
A human might believe it if they peered through its skin and insides, seeing that these creatures had no organs at all. I didn't see what I was used to; its entire body was filled with a bright white liquid. It was like a concentrate of what remained of those who'd died out there in space. Slow and viscous, it flowed through the body, seemingly responsible for all its vital functions.
"Shall we talk?" I asked in the language of the Taor race, which I somehow knew after the ship activated, and I couldn't help but smile. It was choking, meaning air wasn't foreign to this race. The fact that I could speak and sound carried also convinced me that air—though unsuitable for humans due to its mix of unlivable gases—was necessary for this alien. Hilariously, it bulged its white eyes at me when I spoke, slowing down from a speed at which it wouldn't have heard me. White again—both its eyes were completely filled with white light. Do they have some fetish for this color?
"Taoraniets? How are you…?" It asked a question, which was a mistake. I'm the one asking questions here. Gently, so as not to break its neck, I squeezed to make it understand its place. "We destroyed your empire."
It didn't seem to get it. My eyes glowed red, and that seemed to snap it back to reality.
"Who are you?" I asked the question that generally interested me. A scout with such an armada and a living planet-ship couldn't be a low-ranking being in their hierarchy.
"I…" It didn't finish before its head exploded in a burst of white light, splattering the viscous liquid across the walls. I didn't even catch what happened—it was that fast. Not always maintaining focus to keep the world at normal speed, I ran into this. Its entire body turned into liquid on the walls, and it seemed to be dead. Probably. It didn't touch me since I vaporized anything that might have with my laser—except my left hand. That nasty slime wouldn't wipe off, oddly enough. Shaking it at full speed, it barely came off, vanishing from friction. Disgusting.
Looking around the room we were in, I couldn't make sense of anything. I wasn't too bothered by this guy's death; I just wanted to understand how things worked here to figure something out. Same as before: living floor, walls, and ceiling. No screens, no tech for transmitting information. If it was a scout and had been saying something before I got here, there had to be something it used for communication. My eyes couldn't penetrate this living material, so that left only the barbaric method. Raising my fist to punch the wall, I didn't get the chance before everything started trembling. The walls and surroundings shook like waves, and I thought I heard something exploding through them. In the blink of an eye, before I could escape the self-destructing ship after its commander's death, blue fire engulfed me.
Explosion.
---
Sitting on a rooftop against the backdrop of a setting sun, I stared at my hand, unable to believe my eyes. Slowly but surely, the old skin flaked off as ash, carried away by the wind, revealing new, healthy skin beneath the wound. I was starting to understand how these creatures defeated my entire race and empire. If only their blood or something like it could breach my defenses, what would happen if I got close and took a hit from one? Or if they made a weapon from this white substance?
That was the only damage I took from the blue fire explosions that annihilated the entire ship. Both halves were erased from the universe, and flying out of the ash they turned into, I couldn't help but be surprised by my injury. Just for a moment, my defenses faltered, exposing my left hand, which suffered a moderate burn. Just a burn that would've taken months to heal in the past, but what an effect it had now.
It was like a punch to the gut, shattering my belief in my invincibility. It felt like someone grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. Propping up my ego, basking in the Sun and the ocean depths, had given me a false sense that nothing could touch me. Like I was a god. Realizing something could harm me, and that underestimating my enemy had cost me even minor damage, was all the better for me. Clenching my healed fist, I looked to the sky. Time to shed this sense of exceptionalism.
Somewhere out there was an armada of these beings, and just one scout managed to injure me. Well, not the scout itself, but the ship's destruction… still. What would happen if there were two enemies like that? Five? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? An entire empire fell to this white foe, and I'm just one person. A way out. Where's the way out of this? How do I survive against such an enemy?
Some kind of fire broke through my tactile telekinesis and protective aura, making me feel vulnerable again. A great lesson. I wasn't particularly afraid of any of it—not the enemies, the wounds, or death. But living a dream life with these powers, I wanted to find a way out of a hopeless situation. A hundred years? Even if a thousand passed, I couldn't see a way to defeat an enemy that toppled the Taor Empire. The ship said it was the only scout in our sector of space, whatever that meant. Just a scout.
"Braaaandon! Where are youuu?" Tori, looking for me near the house, wouldn't think I was on the roof. Jumping down behind the house, I shouted. Picking up a stick from the ground, I held it up, pretending to be some kind of swordsman.
"Behind the house!" Walking slowly through the house, I reached the entrance. The stick was taken and tossed away. Shame.
"Oh, good. Let's go watch that movie you wanted to see. It's playing now…"
She hugged me and led me to the couch where Kyle was already sitting. Fine, I'll leave the heavy thoughts for tomorrow. After a battle where I protected the whole planet, I deserved a rest.
---
"Report, Miles." Entering the emergency headquarters conference room, Lieutenant General John Stone frowned, seeing his subordinate. After an operation where they punished those who ordered it, she'd taken a hit to the arm. A minor injury, no bone damage, but the caring man sent her to rest, hoping she'd slow down a bit after what happened. That kid playing superhero had too much influence on her. The higher-ups had their own opinions, which she relayed down the chain, and her closeness to this powerhouse of the U.S. military not aligning with the top brass could become a problem later. But he'd protect her, even if she kept looking for trouble. Sighing, he pushed thoughts of her aside and focused on why he was here.
"Yes, sir." Miles was a good but overly diligent subordinate from the development division. A former sapper and solid fighter from his troops, he'd gone deep into science, which came in handy. The search for a weapon against that kid was still ongoing worldwide, and if Miles' passion led to a breakthrough, his thinking would be rewarded. "At around 14:21 Washington time, an observatory on the West Coast spotted flares on the Sun. Writing it off as normal, many of our guys stopped watching, but not my right hand." He gestured to a girl who shyly lowered her eyes and adjusted her glasses. A short blonde with some extra weight. John vaguely remembered her, he thought. Carolina Born, a quiet but sharp girl from Miles' team. If her info proved valuable, he'd reward her.
"Ahem." Miles sipped water and pointed at the screens showing images. "At first, Carolina didn't know what she was seeing, but then she had a crazy idea it might be our Superman."
"So he can fly in space?" It was a theory, and scientifically it shouldn't be true, but it explained how he appeared across the planet unnoticed.
"Correct, sir, but that's not the main thing. Look." The image switched, revealing something horrific. A wave of blue light appeared behind the Sun. It seemed ready to swallow it, its very essence inspiring dread.
"What in God's name is that?" John was stunned, unable to shake the thought that humanity faced extinction. A flying kid about to blow up the Sun? Nonsense. But John believed anything that seemed absurd could happen in this mad world.
"We don't know, sir. But Carolina caught it—it lasted barely five seconds before vanishing."
"No magnetic storms to fry all the world's electronics or firestorms?" John knew the questions were absurd, but it was his job to ask the absurd and solve it.
"No, sir." Miles couldn't hide a smirk. "All quiet. But that's not the main thing, sir."
"What else?"
"Carolina, please. It's your achievement." Gently taking her hand like a flower, Miles brought her forward as she started to panic. With his support, she steadied herself.
"Yes, sir." She nodded to John and switched to the next photo, shocking everyone in the room. "It's him, sir. Superman. He accidentally got caught on screen, and I snapped the shot. The resolution's not great, but…"
"It's just **." John couldn't hold his tongue, seeing the so-called "God among men," as religious fanatics dubbed him, for the first time. The god wore baggy blue jeans and a black hoodie. Sneakers on his feet, hood up. "He's hurt?" John, noticing a detail he'd missed at first, couldn't hide his surprise. The guy who flew, lifted a cruise liner on his back, and shut down a nuclear reactor, among other feats, was cradling one hand as if soothing it.
"Yes, sir." Carolina nodded seriously, also shocked the first time she saw it. "Our analysts think he fought someone behind the Sun and won. But unknown enemies managed to injure our Superman." He ignored her "our" remark. His focus was on the hand injury. It looked burned, despite the poor image quality, the difference between healthy and wounded skin clear.
"Sir?" John snapped out of it at Miles' voice and looked at Carolina, who fidgeted as if expecting a reprimand.
"Good work, Carolina. Stop by the secretariat tomorrow." John nodded to Miles, who smiled and sat. An enemy he might've fled from—though it wasn't certain—was the planet's strongest being, and all that was clear was he'd been hurt. But by whom? Aliens? And what weapon damaged the guy who extinguished a raging nuclear reactor in Japan?
John Stone's head spun from these revelations, and he could only sip water to calm his nerves. Seeing a god's wound was a slap that left everyone in the room dazed. The day was full of discoveries for the world.
---
"What's up, Aarvan?" Lazily picking at his teeth, the quartermaster of this part of the universe asked. His white teeth gleamed.
"Loss of contact with three minor scouts, my lord." The servant, kneeling before his higher-ranking kin, whispered, trying to seem smaller. The quartermaster's wrath was fearsome, and only his personal servant could risk upsetting the Baron with such news.
"What happened to them?" the quartermaster asked calmly, surprising the servant.
"Unknown, my lord. All they remembered was high temperatures and red light. You know how memory—M…—can't last long, and the analyzers only pulled that from their recollections."
"Yes, yes, the limits of that strange magic. I know, I know. Hmm…" The quartermaster mused, as if recalling something, making the servant tremble. Twisting his head, he couldn't place what nagged at him. High temperatures? No, nothing. "Whatever."
He waved the servant off, returning to his virtual life capsule. An event that should've happened due to his mistake didn't, and now one small Taor could sleep soundly. The war remained far from his home.
---
"Honey, listen to what old Joe told us at the fishing trip." Kyle, in high spirits after fishing, softly hugged Tori, who was frying fish. My hearing picked up everything. The day had been tense and full of revelations, and now, sprawled on the couch like a slug, I watched a Superman movie that had been popular worldwide for years, though it was old. Dumb plot, but good for a one-time watch I'd never forget.
"That drunk who's also Brightburn's best fisherman?"
"Yeah, that one." He chuckled at her take on old Joe. "Wasted, he sat with us and started telling weird stories—supposedly from a buddy who saw it all."
"Oh, sure, drunks are trustworthy." Tori snorted, and by the sound, flipped the fish. Man, it'd been a while since I had seafood.
"Forget that, not the point. Imagine, he says some guy got nabbed by a man with a fish head. Like Aquaman, but with a fish head and a cannibal. Wild."
"Oh, like that guy from the Invincible comics? There was this walking fish dude."
"No idea what comics you read as a kid, Tori, but I was into Captain America, not cannibal walking fish."
"Ugh, what cannibal? He was a hero in the comics… Whatever, forget it. What else does your reliable source say?" The irony in Tori's tone was deafening. Good thing Kyle had sharp ears.
"So, he says the guy's name was Michael, and drunk, he decided to swim alone in the river at night. Went missing. His drinking buddy claims he saw a creepy fish-headed man the next day at the same spot…"
"Oh, what doesn't a drunk hallucinate? Forgot how you saw our son flying off into the sky that time we got smashed on wine?" Oops, that's a slip. I tensed up, having been relaxed before.
"Yeah, that was definitely a hallucination—not like our son's Superman, for God's sake. He can't even lift my dumbbells. But Joe's words? You can trust him. He's a drunk, but never a liar."
"Fine, we'll believe your Joe. Now step back, I'm done with the fish. Time to eat." They dropped it, chatting about my math competition tomorrow. I exhaled, relieved that alcohol and dumbbells saved my normal, quiet life. Next time, I'd need to be more careful not to leave traces and ensure everyone's asleep when I head out.
"Braaaandon! Come eat fish!"
"Coming, Mom!" I shouted, turning off the TV. Huh, a fish-man? None of the creatures that died under my eye beams were like that, though there were house-sized flying fish in space. But no humanoid walking fish.
Maybe I should scan the whole city and under it for peace of mind? It'd take a day of slow searching, but I'd sleep easy knowing no authorities would poke around here. If I find a weird mutant, I'll handle it myself. Yeah, that's the plan. Stabbing the fish with a knife, I smiled. Maybe I'll find something interesting in this painfully dull town.