The Superiors: The Gift Chapter 3

Author’s note; This is the conclusion of this little adventure. I hope you all like it. After completing 2 chapters of this story, I suddenly realized I hadn’t shown what E-girl has been up to. And since her story is what got this universe rolling I should correct that ...

At the home of Debra Cain, A.K.A. “E-girl”

Debra:

It was almost one in the afternoon before I was able to make it home long enough to grab a bite to eat. But even before I could finish the next crisis hit as I heard over the radio ...

(Newscaster’s voice): “Amid all the chaos that has occured since the arrival of the aliens with their promises of power, here is just the latest: Reports are coming in of a massive explosion at the home of Baron Emil Richthofen, popularly known as ‘The Red Baron’. We’ll pass on more information as soon as it is available.”

I used a communication device to contact Commander Ares, and told him of the apparent explosion, and he asked me to check it out.

So I gave my mom a kiss and told her to keep indoors, and used my wind power to fly into the air, and using a portal provided by the Doctor, I popped over to Germany.

I flew over the spot where the Baron’s castle once stood, and then I contacted Commander Ares, telling him, “The castle is ... gone, Commander. Totally destroyed. No signs of any survivors.”

The Commander responded, “Copy that. Check in with the local authorities, and then port home.”

I flew to Berlin, where the authorities were using some experimental mech suits to try and deal with the ongoing chaos. It seemed to be working well, so I signaled to the Doctor I was ready to return the Compound or wherever the crisis was at its worst.

That turned out to be New York City, where the new hero Bzzzzappp (kinda a silly name, but then again its not like E-girl is much better) was doing her best to help out. As I came close, she waved at me, and shouted, “You’ll never believe who just was here. The Red Baron himself! He wanted me to join his team!”

“Wow. I was just at his castle, its been destroyed. I guess he survived.” I replied.

“Looks like.” she replied.

I contacted the Doctor, and told him about the appearance of the Red Baron. He replied, “Strange. The destruction of his home would have given him an excellent opportunity to let us all think he was dead, giving him enormous freedom of action. But he almost immediately shows up again? I will consider this. But for now, continue helping where you can.”

“Will do.” I replied, and jumped back into the fray.

About an hour later, things finally started slowing down. Fewer new cases were popping up, and those who had gained positive abilities were helping contain those who had selfish motives as well as those who had simply not thought through their wishes. They were aided by response teams from the Compound using a variety of devices and gadgets to help rein in the chaos. There were also some superiors who we had files on who were also helping, even though they had turned down opportunities to work with Commander Ares, most notably a so called “hero for hire” known as the Troubleshooter, and a kid on the west coast calling himself the Haymaker.

I made a mental note to make sure and ask Commander Ares to send them both a thank you note for their help or something, when this crisis was concluded.

Even if they didn’t want to join us officially, things would have been a lot worse without their help, or at least I think so.

My musings were interrupted by a message from the Doctor. “Come to the Compound. We have some ... interesting guests.”

So away I went.

And boy, he wasn’t kidding.

The Red Baron was there, and he wasnt alone. With him were Nightmare, Lord Dark Flame, The Caster, and Doctor Destructo.

Fortunately, besides the Compound’s security team, they were being covered by the Doctor, along with Bzzzzappp, Fluke and her partner Rich Girl, the “hero for hire” Troubleshooter, the Haymaker kid from the west coast, and front and center, Commander Ares himself.

The Doctor nodded as I arrived, and then said the Red Baron, “You were about to tell us why you’re here.”

“The being responsible for all the chaos tried to destroy me and my ... friends here. He did destroy my home. I believe the phrase ‘the enemy of my enemy is ... well maybe not my friend, but at least worth allying with.’ applies here” the Baron replied.

“Who is responsible for this ... insanity?” Commander Ares asked.

“Loki. Trickster god of Asgard. Although this requires much more power than I thought he had in him.”

“He’s been stealing the power of tricksters from all the other pantheons,” Fluke said, “Coyote told me, but we didn’t know why - until now.”

“There is something else, isnt there?” The Doctor asked the Baron.

“Very perceptive of you. Yes. I believe you have a young lady who recently was seemingly approached by me to join my little group?” The Baron replied, “Well in fact that was not me. It was Loki. The question is why?”

The Doctor looked thoughtful, and then said, “Because there is some aspect of her power that worries him.”

Then Commander Ares said, “All right. So what we need is a way to flush him out into the open long enough to test why he would be afraid of Bzzzzappp.”

“I believe I have an idea about that.” the Baron said, smiling, and he looked right at me as he spoke ...

*****

Twenty minutes later ...

Fluke:

To say I was nervous would have been putting it mildly. I mean, here I was, facing down the spaceship that we now knew was really something created by Loki, who had been stealing powers from other tricksters - like my patron Coyote.

I did have a couple of things to comfort me. One was, that without the spell the Doctor used to keep Loki from finding me, I could tap into the raw chaotic trickster magic I could feel coming from that ship The other was that beside me was my girlfriend and sidekick in superheroing, Sarah, aka Rich Girl, in her power suit, which also had a little surprise courtesy of the Baron ...

I shouted up at the spaceship, saying “Loki! As one trickster to another, this has been one heck of a gag. But you’ve been outed, so time to step from behind the curtain and take a bow.”

A door in the ship opened, and out stepped Loki himself, dressed like a punk version of a Christmas elf.

“How did you ever guess? Even your sorcerer supreme shouldn’t have been able to pierce my disguise.” the trickster asked.

“You outed yourself trying to blow up the Red Baron. He survived, and told us it was you.” I replied.

Loki sighed, and said, “I should have expected that. But I had so assumed he and his friends would take advantage of the situation and create even more chaos. When he wouldn’t ... well, I lost my temper.”

‘Be that as it may, Loki, the point is the gag’s over. How about you hang it up, and go bug Asgard, or whatever it is you do when you’re not trying to make mortal lives miserable.” I replied.

“Well, things have calmed down a bit ... but how about I just take Coyote’s power from you and see how much more fun I can have instead?” Loki said, and then pointed a candy cane at me ...

And fired.

Fortunately, Sarah stepped in front of the bolt, and it bounced off her “Rich Girl” suit.

She then raised an arm of the suit, revealing a tank missile and pointed it at Loki, saying “You’re not hurting anybody else, Loki. Stand. Down.”

Loki said, “Mortal, this is god business. You have no place here, especially being so dependent on technology. Do you not realize how easily I can cause your systems to go haywire, shut down, or even turn on you?”

He then fired a blast at Sarah, but I was able to push her down and out of the way in time. Sara, meanwhile, managed to fire the missile not at Loki himself, but at the spaceship behind him.

Except it wasnt actually a missile. It was something a lot closer to a taser, with the “missile” part having a line going back to Sara’s suit, so when it hit the spaceship, a bolt of electricity went from the suit to the ship.

And that bolt had another surprise - Bzzzappp who had been able to “hide” in the current thanks in part to a spell created by the Red Baron.

The result was a huge explosion, and when the dust cleared the ship was gone, and it was revealed to be in fact a cart with two goats in front.

Despite the large electrical blast, they seemed unharmed, which made sense to me when I realized who they were, and who their regular owner was - Thor, god of lightning.

Which probably also explained why Loki, disguised as the Red Baron, had tried to get Bzzzappp off the playing field, so to speak. Her power would have seemed a little too close to Thor’s for his liking.

Loki growled “No!” but before he could bring up his candy cane wand to fire at Bzzappp, she showed something about lightning.

It’s really, really fast.

She bowled into him giving him a serious jolt that sent the smell of ozone into the air.

But Loki was far from done, and he managed to knock Bzzappp away, and prepared to fire at her.

But I looked up, and realized he was too late.

Because Ares had brought the other heroes, and the Red Baron had brought the villains.

I think everybody took a few shots at him. Even the villains gave him a pounding. But surprisingly, it was Haymaker, Troubleshooter, and Bzzaapp who did the most damage when Haymaker doused Loki with water, allowing Bzzapp and Troubleshooter to both hit him with more electricity, Bzzzapp using her power, while Troubleshooter hit him with what looked like a super-powered defibrillator. I let them have their fun while I went to check on Sara, who had punted herself out of the Rich Girl suit.

As a result, I almost missed the next part, but the loud shout from the sky allowed me to catch the moment ...

The trickster gods had arrived, and they were NOT happy ....

Not long after that, it was over. The trickster gods had taken their power back, and had left. Loki, looking fairly burnt, was turned over to Thor, who also collected his cart and his goats. The villains took off, except the Red Baron who actually THANKED me, Sara, and Bzzzappp for our help, and then vanished.

Haymaker and Troubleshooter both were given Compound communicators, and told that should they ever need help, we would be there for them, and they took off. The Doctor and the rest of the heroes went back to cleaning up the mess Loki had caused, and Sara and I went back to the Compound so she could fix her Rich Girl suit and then we joined in the cleanup efforts.

That night, I had a dream ....

I saw Coyote in his teepee on the asteroid with the giant tree at the center of the universe. There was a noise outside, and he went out, to discover the chest that had once held the remains of his fellow trickster god Anansi was full again, and a large man with a red beard was walking away towards a chariot that was pulled by two goats. Coyote looked at the chest, and said, “Well, it will be nice to have company, dont you think so, Loki?”

From within the chest came the sounds of cursing, which in my dream were replaced by beeps ...

I woke, smiled, and snuggled next to Sara and soon fell asleep again ...

End.