I landed on the kitchen counter with too much inertia, rolled off and almost cleared the distance over the top of Ted’s couch. A block of kitchen knives clattered to the ground. My face hurt. Their furniture sported a new hole from my foot jutting through its back. Revenge was mine!

Nearby, there were six stands with gear that I’d barely paid attention to before. Now they were a treasure trove of possibly powered equipment. As with most treasure troves, nearly all the gear was utter crap that only looked pretty. But I recognized one piece, a wristband that should transform into fire arms.

It only worked if the user had two. Someone had split up the Hand Cannons of Big Blue Balls, a thief that had stolen money from practically every bank on the east coast over twenty years ago. He called himself Blaze Blue. The news had other ideas because of the large ass blue energy balls that came out of his cannons.

My legs wobbled but worked. Unclenching my gut muscles helped recover from the teleportation. Two people were in the other room arguing, loudly. Two end tables, seven coffee cups, a stack of newspapers, and one ugly green tie were all caught in my flailing rush across the room.

“Someone’s here!” the high-strung brown-haired man said.

“It’s not Alice. She’s in the box and not even here,” Emily said. She maintained the same dull tone no matter what she talked about.

“Are you sure? Maybe she ghosted out.”

“She’s not a ghost. She’s a figment. Ghosts walk through walls.”

They were really, really loud. Having a crazy lady bound in ‘the box’ must be playing on their nerves. They talked about ghosts, and figments, and figs while I studied the display case. They’d put it under glass, which was stupid without the set. Blue Ball’s weapons were useless without two.

“Flux. Copy this blue band,” I whispered

Want to know how the camera kept following me? Me too. Luckily, the stalker device quietly obeyed orders. We had to move quickly before Flux got distracted with the toaster in their open kitchen. It was very fancy and had the sweetest looking curves. I’m kidding. I couldn’t tell. I swear.

Flux scanned the device under the glass. Beams of light flickered up and down then repeated the action above my outstretched hands. It took four seconds to slip into the first wristband. Footsteps were loud in the other room and the other slammed a keyboard. I drove my elbow into the glass case to free the second band. Blue Blaze’s weapons wouldn’t work unless they were paired.

“Adam?”

I grabbed the band and slipped it on. They glowed brightly. Metal slid off the bottom in a small ring. I slipped my index and middle finger into them then curled open hands into fists. By the time I turned to face the dull sounding woman, both cannons were out and loaded. They encased my arms in plastic that bulged on one end like a lightbulb.

They were also heavy.

“Where did you get Blaze’s other ring?”

I shook my head. How did no one but me learn about Flux? These guys supposedly watched everything the machine did.

“Flux is strangely useful. But we’re off topic. Recently Ted made me hold up a store. Plus there was that time in Egypt… wait. Never mind.” Holding weapons made me nervous. “You get me Alice, or I see if this gun still fires big blue balls.”

My feet shuffled awkwardly. No grown man should talk about firing his big blue balls. Not to a girl. Emily stood there with her thick eyebrows lowered. Flux floated three inches away from the left cannon. His eye whirled and clicked. I shook the arm. The camera turned to me, clicked its mechanical eyeball then spun around.

“Hey, Adam,” Iggy said while shifting his gaze around the room. “Ted said you’d be back. I told him you’d be pissed. You look pissed. Are you? I told you, I voted against this whole thing.”

I had two giant projectile launching weapons over my hands. They were pointed at people. I’d be disappointed if I came off as happy. But still, the “he said” line threw me off.

“What?” I asked.

“TeleGraph, remember? He knows what you’ll do before you do,” she said.

My face tightened. “Ted was serious? I thought it was part of his act.”

“Hello? He can’t tell lies? He deflects when he doesn’t want to answer. Or gives a line that’s only partially on topic. If you didn’t notice, that’s on you.”

“Well that’s fucking great. So what am I going to do next?” I asked.

“You’re going to let me make a call to Ted.”

If he really didn’t know what I was planning, then this entire situation would tilt sideways fast. There were a few ways to screw with future prediction powers. The best one involved blowing something up.

I started up and counted. The guns did have a recharge time. Or at least the real set did. I smiled then fired one of the cannons into the wall. Emily didn’t bat an eyelash. Their bedroom door was now bigger. Maybe they’d enjoy the extra ventilation.

“All right. You do that, Door mouse. Anything funny and I’m going to shoot the March Hare over here.”

“What?” the shaggy-haired man said. Maybe the names confused him.

The second gun glowed a happy blue. I pulled the trigger while smiling. The gun whirred, sparked, then shot out a huge cannon blast of energy into their computer room. The loss of machinery made me happy.

“That’s coming out of your salary,” Emily said calmly.

“Oh you’re still paying me? Is there back pay? How about trauma fees? Ted’s kidnapped me, what, five times now? Did I tell you about the time he cut my brain out? Remember that? Were you there watching? I mean, it went back in like two minutes later,” I rambled.

That event had been a few years ago. TeleGraph and I had met before the fake volcanic lair. There were lots of villains and heroes who’d run into me without taking note. I was Red Shirt number one. A victim in their fucking plays.

“Then Alice? Where is she?” I’d lost focus on the whole purpose of this assault. The other weapon shook. I almost pulled the trigger while pointing at Emily’s face. It would have been another name on the list but for a moment, the madness of villains existed only a step away.

All the repressed issues hit at once. Being jerked around time after time. Having one of the few people I felt any attachment to being held hostage. Looking back, it’s a wonder I didn’t lose my shit sooner. Rationally, it made sense. They were bystanders to Ted. He was at the controls of everything going on.

“Whoa. Whoa. We’re just the IT people. Don’t shoot us.”

My teeth chattered and chest heaved. Each breath required an active thought process. I hurt. Not from recently stabbing myself and being healed, but a betrayal. That’s what it was. It was like being carried away from Ted’s volcano lair again.

“Find me Alice. In that Ghost Buster, thing,” I demanded while shaking. The guns were really heavy.

“She’s not here,” Emily said.

“Let me guess. She’s with Ted? In a box?”

She tightened her arms and shifted a foot.

“Fine. Go call him,” I said, with all the civility an angry man holding guns could muster.

Emily grumbled under her breath then stalked across the room. Some poor remote got the brunt of her anger. She mashed buttons, the room moved. I kept my weapons leveled, confident that two blasts would clear through nearly everything. Blaze Blue and his Big Blue Balls had taken out shielded bank doors.

Emily stood off to one side of the room, between me and the remaining side of their room. My earlier blast had destroyed the pristine side which belonged to the curly haired Hare.

My mind kept scattering. I rubbed at my eye socket with the barrel covered arm. The limb jerked unsteadily. Lungs screamed for air and I sent another command to suck in air. That brought more shakes. The weapons were unsteady.

I was a jaded bastard. This entire situation should have been another Sunday, or Tuesday. My body refused to agree.

A projection screen lowered. Lights came up. Video popped on with a ‘please wait connecting’ message. Sound rung. Flux happily mimicked the tone, for the first time making a real noise. Speakers in the room rang again. Flux rang after again. They echoed each other making my head hurt even more.

The wrist wrapped cannon swung in his direction. Flux stared down its barrel. He shut up. I calmly blinked then took steadying breaths. My efforts didn’t help.

“Well?” I asked.

“He needs a moment to get signal.”

“Well while he’s taking a shit, can one of you explain what the hell happened? How, why—” I faltered then stomped a foot to keep myself awake. “Just fucking explain.”

“What part?” Emily asked with a blank face.

“Look, I just got out of a crazy Wonderland. A Wonderland. Like the children’s tale. Only half the time they’re full of psychotic creatures, like roses that want to drown in my blood. Did you see that video? Did Flux give you that?”

Curly’s eyes were huge. He stood well away from me. The black-haired girl kept her arms defensively crossed and forehead lowered.

“So, no then? That’s a no right?” I waved the gun. Curly shook his head. My ramble continued. “I find out I’ve been brought there repeatedly. Because a girl, Alice, the other Alice, the figments, whatever. They’re killing some other dimensional slithering horror that’s trying to be a babysitter. Because some other scarier lady put them there. Because I’m immortal and she can’t kill me. Instead, instead she, the girl”—there might have been foam coming out of my mouth at this stage—“wants to go out with me. Or maybe just have my babies. Or pelvis on a wall. I don’t know. She scares me. She couldn’t kill me and cares. I’m pretty sure the other scarier lady, who’s fucking name I don’t know, is related somehow. I’m pretty sure there’s a third Alice out there somewhere. And I’m pretty sure she’s going to kill both of you.”

I huffed for air. The guns were shaking. Flux hovered frozen. My captive audience stood there doing absolutely nothing worthwhile. They didn’t even look impressed at my long-winded rant.

“Unless you let her out, and I can try to explain this whole thing to her. Calmly. Before worse happens.” My voice lifted in a questioning tone. It could have been at the idea of calmly explaining anything to Alice. It could have been the idea of worse happening.

I’ll let you decide.

“Nope. I’m not going to answer that one. You’ll have to ask Ted,” Emily responded.

“I’ve got the guns here.”

“And if you use them, then it’ll only spike your powers and bring in a class three or four event. We’re already at a two after the teleportation. Maybe a three if you were in another dimension and not just somewhere else on the globe.”

I blinked, repeatedly. My mouth hung open a little bit. One arm lifted the gun uselessly. She had a point. Doing more damage to this place would raise the chances of another hero getting involved. There might be one on the way already.

The ‘please wait connecting’ message vanished and video played. I dropped the worry then focused on the screen. It was not Ted.

The Wonder Twins stood coolly in the projection. Their faces and other features larger than ever. They wore matching business suits with pinstripe bottoms. Out of costume they were easier to differentiate. One girl had shorter hair with more of a curl, the other a small triangle of moles near on neck.

I waved an arm, ignoring the large blue rounded stub my arm had been encased in. “Are they partners too? I thought there were only three of you.”

“That was sort of a lie,” the brown-haired man answered.

“No. Ted may not hear tone, but he can misdirect like a master. There are three voting members with other employees, contractors technically,” Emily responded then rolled her eyes and sighed. “Four. With you there are four voting members.”

“Right. Adam, you own a stake too. Profits are split based on site attraction. But it’s hard to attract people when our computers are blown up. Man.”

“They’re backed up,” Emily responded.

“Not everything.”

They babbled back and forth. I wanted to hear what the girls on the screen had to say. Emily kept right on going by saying, “No one cares about your porn collection.”

“I care—” he protested.

“Both of you shut the hell up.” I said, waving an arm cannon. “Or I’ll let Flux have his way with your toaster.”

Emily’s eyebrow raised. It was the second time she’d displayed an emotion other than bored. Maybe, counting was hard right now. The Wonder Twins smiled in unison. They rose opposite arms in smart salutes.

“Mister Millard? Or do you prefer Adam?” one of the twins said.

“I think he prefers Adam. Mister Millard is so dull,” the other responded.

My vision blurred briefly. One leg weakened making me reach out for the couch. I needed names to keep my thoughts straight. “Okay. Chest one and chest two. What are your names?”

“Chest one? I’m Allie,” the one with moles said.

“I’m not second to her. But I’m Joanne,” the one with shorter hair said.

Focusing proved to be a problem. The longer this conversation went on, the more I wanted to pull the trigger on these cannons ‘til they emptied. I briefly wondered if the first two shots had ventured into far away buildings. Collateral damage wasn’t a concern originally and now it mattered.

A dozen worries ran through my mind. What if they were stalling for time to capture me again? I’d escaped once and didn’t look forward to doing it again. What if Ted put off answering the phone to ensure some hero would notice the damage? I half expected someone in tights to float outside of the window. Strangely the two shots didn’t get that far. Most of the damage had been contained by objects in the other room.

My body went cold. That meant their walls were tougher then I’d thought. Almost like this place was a fortress or hide out rather than some casual home. I looked around again to find other objects were out of place.

“What?” Emily asked.

“This place is a fortress.” I muttered then rubbed my face again.

“Fat lot of good that did,” she responded.

“Sorry, honey. We told you it wouldn’t be safe forever. Especially not from Adam. No one ever listens to us. I mean, you’ve seen his travel markers. The boy gets around more than we ever could,” Allie said.

“Sluts.” Emily’s nose flared and she rolled her eyes again. She was really, really good at rolling her eyes.

“It’s rather stupid to expect him to be happy about this. But just because we’re comfortable with our bodies doesn’t mean we’re automatically wrong,” her sister, Joanne, responded. “We’re more than a pair of tits you know.”

I managed to focus on their eyes but neither one noticed. They were almost as bad as their weird otherworldly monster counterparts. The projection didn’t show enough detail and there was a haze to the screen. Maybe they were the same.

“Contrariwise,” I muttered quietly. The other versions of them muddled my thoughts. My response had been half aimed at Allie’s statement implying I “got around.” I coughed to clear my throat then asked, much louder, “Where’s Ted?”

They gave fresh smiles. Maybe they scowled. I couldn’t tell. Their faces managed to give both impressions and it hurt my head. Everything hurt my head. The realization hit me that I’d need to call Jade.

What really confused me, was the general indifference both curly and Emily had after the explosions. Once I was on the call to the twins, they both walked around calmly. Only curly showed any real fear when the weapons swung in his direction. Emily was making a damn sandwich. The brown-haired guy stood in the other room chewing on his palm and scraping together pieces of destroyed computers.

My eyes had closed at some point. I snorted awake, still on my feet, and staring toward the projector. “Ted,” I weakly demanded. “Where the fuck is Ted?”

Ted was already there. His eyebrows tightly knit and forehead sloped. He gazed slightly off center toward the screen.

“Mister Millard? Are you all right?” Ted asked the screen.

That made me laugh. Ted had the audacity to ask if I was okay, while my hands were encased in Blaze Blue’s destructive weapons. Maybe he couldn’t see the wreckage I’d turned their computer room into. It would probably show up in the quarterly report. They could put it in my file.

“I’m very disappointed, TedleGraph. I didn’t think I could be disappointed anymore. I thought turning twenty-one was the worst moment in my life. Oh god, that was a birthday. I had four strippers all made of flesh eating ooze.” My head shook. “But here we are, with you making me part of your sick plot. And getting a sweetly insane girl like Alice involved.”

Ted’s face wrinkled and he sighed heavily. “Mister Millard, I didn’t make you part of my game. You made me part of yours. This is entirely your fault. Don’t you remember?”

The statement made my stomach clench and shoulder blades tighten. This was it. This would be the moment that I always suspected was coming. The big reveal. I prepped my stomach and wondered if this was what every other grand reveal was like. Did everyone have this sinking feeling?

“I remember a lot of things, Ted. You’ll have to be more specific.”

“You were there when my daughter died,” he said.

There it was. The bombshell that would fuck up my day even further. I needed more information. “Who?” I asked.

Ted wound himself up quickly. Playing a villain clearly impacted his mind. He slipped into the monolog faster than most people. My finger twitched on the gun.

“You don’t remember, do you? Pathetic. My little girl died in your arms and you’ve never once had the decency to apologize for your part in it. Then my wife left me for a stronger man. One who could do something. You’re going to help me demonstrate just how wrong that idea was. I’ll beat you, and I’ll beat Golden Sun. If you don’t play along, then I’m afraid I’ll press the flush button on Alice’s figment.”

He held up a small glowing orb that looked like something out of a video game. The glow-in-the-dark green reminded me of dried snot. There was a red button that might be this flush method he talked about. I switched back to the important issue.

“What was her name?” I asked.

“What?” Ted responded. His face tightened.

“Your daughter’s name. If she… if she died that close to me. I would have tried to remember her name. If she said it. I always—”

“You’ve no right to utter her name. She’s not just someone on a list. She’s not some person to slap onto a memorial! She was my daughter!”

“Emily, what was his daughter’s name?” I asked.

“That’s not—” Emily said.

Curly yelled from the other room. “For fuck’s sake. Tell him before he takes out more hard drives!”

They gave me a headache. Both were clearly mad. I asked again, “What was her name? I don’t mind blasting the room a few more times.”

“Don’t tell him,” Ted commanded.

“If you hurt my stuff, I’ll put a knife in your neck,” Emily said.

“You’ll try. I’m the man who can’t be killed. So, god help you if you fuck up. I’ll find you again. Then do this dance as many times as I need to. I’ll spend the next ten years eating bad tacos then hunting you down to shit the remains on your porch. Do you want demons? Because that’s how you get demons.”

The threat was hollow. Keeping any goals in mind for that long would probably be impossible. Jade might have a solution. Maybe we could take the company. She’d probably be game for that. It would have been a better threat, except the whole shit demon things. My mind spun off track as exhaustion sent me on a trip.

“You never listen. I told you to start asking people’s names. Do you even know mine, Mister Millard? Do you know more than Ted? Am I more than some guy in a suit?” Ted gestured with his hands at his chest.

I didn’t know his last name and he was more than some guy in a suit. He’d also disappointed me but maybe we’d both kind of fucked up that one from the start. Being thrown together because of super powered clashes set the wrong tone for relationships.

“Kylee! Kylee Rose. His youngest,” the brown-haired man shouted.

“God dammit, Iggy. You know it’s not our—”

“Three of my backups! I’m not risking the fourth!” the curly haired man said. I guess his name was Iggy. It didn’t matter, I’d already moved past their little conflict.

TeleGraph I’d met before, but Ted didn’t ring a bell. Unless it was from a long, long time ago. I mumbled under my breath through the list. It went on for three minutes before I landed on the girl’s name, Kylee. Everyone else sat there waiting for some revelation.

Then I had it. She’d be ten. Or that’s what Jade told me. The name didn’t line up with Ted’s but I often didn’t know last names. The connection would have been more obvious if I had known my would-be mentor’s full name. Jade ran background checks on everyone.

“Kylee Rose. Goddammit,” I mumbled.

My response trickled out automatically once I’d found the person. I just started talking, and god help me no one interrupted or asked what I was doing. “Her eyes were green. A deep, dark green. The last thing she talked about was a puppy she’d lost. She died while grabbing onto her necklace. I took it, intent upon mailing it to Jade. I lost the necklace to a robber two days later after being dropped in the Outback. Your daughter, she was a abductee during the Krill space fleet invasion.”

Silence owned the room. Ted’s large head on the projector faced the wrong way. He said in an equally halting tone, “Is he-”

I lost my shit. “No! You goddamn idiot! This isn’t sarcasm! You want sarcasm? I can do that. I can do it all day long. I’ll drown you in a fucking sea of sarcasm. You’re a brilliant man. You’re completely sane. You’ve got the wit and charm of a millionaire!”

“Your attitude is deplorable.” Ted’s eyes were bloodshot. He probably didn’t notice.

“You must have blinders on or a high horse or whatever to be telling people they’re deplorable!”

He started to say something else and I screamed over him.

“You’re a man who kidnaps people for a show. You cut into my skull! What was this whole mess? Some twisted revenge? Is this all a plot to make me feel like there’s a place for me in the world? Well congratulations! You’ve done the impossible! You gave me hope and fucking dashed it away!”

“That’s not—”

He got cut off again. I wasn’t in the mood for an English lesson. “I could. Literally. Not care less. About correct phrasing. Then, the whole villain thing. I was fooled by the news anchor role. But you’re both. You’re a villain and must have felt so goddamn clever. You’d hinted. You told me I should ask names. You meant yours, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

It was pathetic, you know? It was campy, obvious, and I’d completely missed the signs.

Something about roaring at the screen with two large weapons of destruction in either hand made me giddy. Immediately following that was a burning rush of adrenaline then a cold wash of fear. I was frightened of myself. If Ted had been here, I would have pulled the trigger. I would have made the choice to kill.

“Yes,” Ted said. His lips were tight and flat.

“Truth,” a voice in the background said. TS, the emotionless gray humanoid, stood behind Ted. He picked absently at dirt under his fingernails.

“Do we understand each other at last, Mister Millard?” Ted asked.

My ears rang. My heart beat loudly. Both arms were heavy and shoulders hurt from holding up these cannon covered limbs. And most of all, I was so tired of my life being one shit storm after another. The rage faded quickly.

“I couldn’t have possibly saved her,” I said slowly. My mouth felt detached and thoughts scattered.

“Truth,” TS said.

“I’m aware of Mister Millard’s inabilities and have gone to exceptional lengths to ensure he is no longer so worthless in the face of a real crisis.” He turned his gaze toward whatever camera sat in front of him. “Now you listen. I have to tell the truth, remember? I’ve studied you, Mister Millard. There’s no point in cursing you for your inadequacies. But the man who delayed in saving us”—Ted’s voice twisted with a theatrical scowl—“him I can punish. If it hurts you along the way, then I’ll feel that much better. Now, I believe the stakes are clear enough. Alice will be released once you’ve shown up, and Golden Sun has arrived for his reckoning. After that you’re free to go fornicate yourself into a black hole for all I care.”

“So, this is about revenge.”

“It’s about making a point,” he said.

“Mostly truth,” TS said.

“And making you grow up,” Ted added.

“Mostly truth,” TS repeated.

“And, of course it’s about revenge. I’m a firm believer in resolving many issues with one step,” Ted relented without missing a step. The fact that he’d managed to avoid lying by simple omission bothered me. How many of our conversations had the man managed to turn around?

“Truth.”

I asked, “What else then?”

“That those with power are murderers. Heroes are just as bad as villains. They steal people’s wives, they let their children die because there isn’t publicity in untold stories. They cause collateral damage. They’re arrogant. Good people pay for their failures. They fight where they shouldn’t. They know nothing. And if perhaps they kept the rule breakers better jailed, or outright killed, then there’d be less misfortunes.”

He ranted while my head shook. The alien invasion had been a bad month. After three or four years of living the super powered life—I almost understood what he was trying to say. Heroes and villains were flawed people. Villains rarely tried to minimize their damage. It was hard to sue a pseudonym. Heroes often failed to save everyone and had to play within legal bounds. Those were their actions, and said nothing of character.

But honestly, Ted sounded closer to ranting. He probably couldn’t figure out what part of his monolog was true and what was a lie.

I focused on my feet and tried to get my thoughts together. There weren’t very many routes through this. Ted spoke with such intense emotion that I wondered if he hadn’t somehow been broken by the experience. Why else would a man who’d seen the dark side of hero’s failures think acting like a bad guy, or a reporter, helped?

His logic was twisted. So was mine. What good had sanity done either one of us? I’d said it before and I’ll repeat it again—embracing the madness might be the only way to stay sane.

“I know, Ted, that sometimes when I talk you think it’s sarcastic. Right now, I’m being serious as goat shitting nukes. I get some of what you’re saying. I really do. But you’re also being a fucking idiot. I can’t tell if you want to beat Golden Sun because he stole your wife after you two fell out. Maybe you want to punish everyone involved in some bid for your last manhood. Maybe you’re playing a game and really chasing ratings.”

My mental inventory was complete. Shooting Emily and Iggy wouldn’t get me Alice. These guns might. Alice was a hostage now. The pressing problem required settling accounts with Ted. I had decided back at that hotel to take a stand for myself. That meant firmly pushing back. I refused to be anyone’s pawn but my own. Or Alice’s, if she was into that sort of thing.

I continued, “I don’t care. I can’t. I won’t read the manifesto or the website rant that goes with this video. Instead, I’ll being seeing you as soon as I can manage it, Ted. And when I get there, I’m going to kick you in your nuts, free Alice, and then you can go fuck yourself in a black hole, or whatever.”

“Very well,” TeleGraph said. The line went dead.

At least we didn’t have to put up with each other’s rants. God, looking back on it now—I can see how my own monolog had been worse and more rambling. If he could read the future, then my best bet was calling in some old favors. Or pulling in suckers who deserved anything bad that happened to them. It would take me a day, maybe two to set up but thanks to Hero Watch’s teleportation account, there were a dozen ways to make this work.

You just had to know where to look, and very few people knew as much as I did. It was time to put the pieces together in my favor. Ted wanted drama for ratings. I knew who owned the most dramatic throne ever. There were all sorts of messed up plans forming in my head and none of it would work out the way I wanted.

But, by god I’d try, for Alice. She was the only person left who really needed me—and feel free to laugh at the irony of that statement. I would have, had my mind been, you know, remotely stable.

I held up a round object and gave the floating metal eyeball an order. “Flux, copy this.” Flux copied the polished dish. I shoved the original under my shirt to keep it around for more copies. I hoped it would stay with me so I could keep reusing it.

“What are you doing?” Emily asked.

“Leveraging company resources,” I responded.

“Like our teleportation mirror?”

Whatever I said must have been clever. I swear. It slipped by me with a blink that lasted forever. Hanging around with Ted’s cronies, or my business partners, wouldn’t do any good.

My arms shook to trigger the weapons’ collapse. The cannons folded down to much lighter versions. It was pointless to hold either employee hostage. Ted had made his case. They had their stance. Holding people against their will bothered me anyway.

“I’ll be keeping Blue Blaze’s ring,” I declared.

“Hey. If blue balls help you sleep at night, go for it.” Emily stayed flat lipped.

The duo argued but otherwise left me alone. Flux inched closer to the toaster. For my next trick, I ordered myself a teleportation from Mirror Mirror. Of course, I charged it to the Hero Watch account. The operator’s gruff voice went in one ear and out the other.

My body slacked, then teleportation once again pulled me away.

Character Dossier

Name: Golden Sun (Aaron Albright)

Gender: Male

Age: 47 Earth Standard Years

Generalized Ratings as follows

Strength: 9 (Insanely high)

Intelligence: 6 (Highly experienced)

Agility: 8 (Super Speed assisted)

Luck: 3 (Average)

Attitude: Helpful, upbeat, tired, retired, worried

Other items of note

Golden Sun keeps in touch with his mother. His father died at a young age. He is probably one of the most honest and upright souls ever to walk the planet.

Powers

His strength increases in direct sunlight. The more touching his skin the better his powers are. He can absorb and store a certain amount for burst actions. This has led many people to theorize that he’s not from earth or is part plant. Both notions are wrong.

His absorbed power comes out in the form of super speed and strength. He’s been reported to fly but no one has captured solid footage of this effect. His hands can also heat up to anywhere between a low warmth to scalding hot.

Fun Fact

Golden Sun attempted to open a massage clinic using his super powers. Due to his inability to keep a good secret identity—the clinic was rapidly overrun by people seeking happy endings. This confused the morally uptight Golden Sun and ended in him closing the location.

Despite his high intelligence on the battlefield, and dealing with political situations, he was not prepared for the general public treating him as a sexual object.