Note: First of our double chapter release day! XD

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-SIX

A New Mystery Unfolds, Part 1

To say that Superion’s arrival at the scene was enough to put a stop to the prison break might have been a little too much as there were bad guys among the inmates who were certainly at a power level to contend with America’s number one hero. Still, the aura of power emanating from this blonde, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered man in the white armor underneath his stylish red toga was so palpable that those villains who could have put up a fight against him visibly hesitated as Superion’s feet touched the ground.

“Hey, everyone!” He smiled at the crowd as if they weren’t the hardened criminals trying to escape the worst prison on Earth. “Sorry it took me a while to get here… there was a flood in Cairo and that earthquake in New Mexico that…” he sighed. “Well, you all know how busy it gets this close to the Winter Solstice.”

He had such a mild-mannered atmosphere about him that more than a few convicts were nodding sympathetically at Superion’s worries.

“Hey, it’s Thunder!” Superion caught sight of his cousin in the middle of an encirclement of villains and waved to her like she wasn’t in any danger. “Hey, cuz! Been a while!”

Thunder rolled her eyes at Superion in the same way she often did when Sam did something foolish. “You’re late,” she said exasperatedly.

“A hero’s never late.” Superion flashed pearly-white teeth at her. “We arrive precisely when we mean to.”

“Superion~~n!”

Purple flames exploded to life on the ground beneath Superion’s feet. They rose over him like a blossoming flower and engulfed his body whole. For anyone else, that might have been a fatal blow, but for the omega-level hero who wielded dominion over the sky, it was a simple matter of snapping his fingers and the air around him vanished, taking with it the roaring purple flames that didn’t even get the chance to singe his toga.

“My ‘Armor of the Praetor’ is a legendary-rated Mr. Moonday original,” Superion explained to the flabbergasted Helfire. “Expensive as Hades but worth the price, don’t you think?”

A cool breeze surged toward Helfire, forcing the villain to cover his eyes with his arm. When he uncovered them again, Superion was already standing in front of him.

“I thought you already learned your lesson from Weather Witch, Helfire.” Superion sighed. “Doesn’t matter if they originate from the underworld. It’s the air that gives fire life.”

A swirling ball of elemental energy came to life above Superion’s right palm.

“Superion, you bast—”

Superion shoved the energy ball into Helfire’s chest, and the concentrated power of a hurricane exploded out of it, causing cuts born from countless wind blades to form all over the villain’s body before twisting him around like he’d been caught on a windmill’s blade. Helfire was blown away, sent hurtling over the other prisoners’ heads, and crashing into the thick exterior walls of the Crucible’s top platform.

“My cousin might be a little shy about summoning a full-blown storm inside this prison”—Superion raised his right hand high—“but I have no problem leveling this place with all of you in it.”

Amazingly, nearly all the air in the wide room was being sucked into Superion’s raised hand, giving life to the swirling ball of elemental energy growing over his palm while making it hard for everyone else to breathe.

“Holy Zeus,” Sam gasped. “That thing’s at least ten times the size as the last one!”

The sky that had cleared when Superion arrived grew suddenly dark once more. Storm clouds hovered over the Crucible’s volcano, creating a chill in the air that made nearly everyone present shiver reflexively.

“I’m a fair guy so I’ll let you all choose…” With his free hand, Superion raised two fingers. “One, you all surrender now, and we’ll call it a day…” He dropped one finger. “Or two, you all try to put up a fight and I let my ‘Super Spirit Bomb’ break you all into submission.”

It wasn’t just the villains. Even the heroes and members of the Crucible’s security team paled at hearing Superion’s threat because anyone who’d watched him on TV knew how wild America’s number one hero could get in a fight. He and his cousin were the same in that regard. They all eyed the massive orb of elemental energy with wary eyes. Well, everyone except for Sam who looked like he was a kid inside a toy store during Christmas.

“Hey, nice Draconian Ball reference!” he blurted out.

Just like that, the tension permeating the air died down, and all gazes fell on Sam, the Superion fanboy. Thunder even rolled her eyes at him just like she had done with Superion.

“Not the time, Herculean,” she sighed.

“Herculean?” Superion raised a thick eyebrow at Sam. He scrutinized Sam for about a second longer before a welcoming smile flashed on his face. “Oh, hey, Thunder’s told me a lot about you in her emails.”

“Really?” Sam glanced from Superion to Thunder—who was sighing even more heavily—and then back to Superion. “What’d she—”

“Seriously not the time, boys,” Thunder said, sounding exasperated.

“Um, yeah, sorry, I, uh, didn’t mean to interrupt…” Sam glanced sideways at the villain closest to him—the polymorph Cheetor. “Dude, you guys should choose option one. Seriously. I don’t want to see you all broken up like Helfire…”

Not that the convicts needed reminding. Watching Helfire go ‘splat’ on the prison walls like a fly that had been swatted away was a hard visual to forget. Still, there were a few ruffians—particularly the villains who’d climbed up from the 3rd sub-level like Spider-Servant, Master Machismo, Red Dead Redeemer, and Dullahan—who refused to surrender to Superion’s ultimatum. So, a new fight ensued, one that was quickly nipped in the bud, not by Superion himself, but by the other heroes who didn’t want to risk Superion’s power laying waste to what remained of the Crucible’s administrative floor.

Crow-Man, Thunder, Ice Brand, Miracle Girl, Bethany, and even Sam all moved to subdue those few villains who chose the tougher route while Superion yawned and kept his massive energy ball ready in case the other prisoners decided to change their minds. None of them had planned it. They just all instinctively felt the need to take action before it was too late. It might have taken longer than if Superion had done it himself, but eventually—after enough villains had been zapped by lightning bolts, encased in ice, beaten up by magical fists, whammied by telekinetic blasts, and put to sleep by throwing knives coated in special narcotics—the battle of the Crucible was won.

Sapped of their will to fight back, the remaining inmates were corralled into temporary holding cells on the second sub-level with their power-dampening collars reignited.

As for the heroes who’d help quash the prison break, they were invited by the Crucible’s interim chief into what was left of the chief’s office on the administrative floor to discuss the events that had transpired and what to do about the fallout.

“So, you’re both a warrior and a healer?” Superion asked, his brow arching slightly.

Sam nodded awkwardly. He couldn’t help but feel embarrassed in front of his idol who seemed surprisingly friendly despite being renowned as one of the greatest heroes on Earth.

“That’s awesome!” Superion patted Sam on the shoulder.

A sheepish grin flashed on Sam’s face. “You seriously think so?”

“Yeah. I mean, I wish I had a healing gift too… then I’d be able to save more people,” Superion sighed.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam could hear the frustration in Superion’s tone, which was a weird reflection of how he’d felt when he was still just a zeta, “I know the feeling… it never gets easy, huh?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Superion agreed. “But we keep trying despite the odds because that’s what heroes do, right?”

Sam hadn’t noticed it before since he’d only ever seen Superion on TV, but now that they were standing side by side close to the door of the chief’s room, he finally noticed that his idol—this larger-than-life being of immense power—wasn’t as physically large as Sam thought he’d be. Sure, Superion was broad-shouldered, but he lacked the size of Apex or even Dr. Hearthstone. He was more like Sam. They shared a lean build and average height which hid the great power they had within them.

“Y-yeah,” Sam grinned back. “By the way, you were awesome today… And that move, the Super Spirit—”

“It’s not really called that,” Superion admitted. “I just thought people would get the reference and back down faster.”

“I got the reference!” Sam said excitedly.

“And no one else did, which is just proof that you’re both huge nerds.” Thunder, who’d been standing next to her cousin, chuckled at Sam’s reddening cheeks. “Geez, you two are so alike it’s creeping me out.”

Superion glanced sideways at Thunder, then at Sam, and then back at Thunder. “I see you’re still a bully.”

“What?” Thunder raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m not a bully. I just like telling it how it is.”

“And hit people who don’t agree with you,” Superion added.

“Which she does a lot,” Sam chimed in. “And there’s this look she gives—”

“When she gets mad?” Superion supplied. “Yeah, I see that eye roll pretty often too.”

“Right?” Sam agreed.

They both got smacked in the shoulder with electrically-charged fists, causing them both to flinch away from Thunder.

“Still can’t take a joke,” Superion sighed.

“Even though she’s number one at teasing people,” Sam sighed too.

“Exactly!” Superion agreed.

“Do you two want to get hit again?” Thunder snapped.

Someone in the room cleared their throat, forcing the trio’s attention on the hero who’d been glowering at them throughout their banter.

“Are you three done fooling around?” Crow-Man growled.

“Sorry, Crow-Man,” Superion apologized. “I was just excited to hang out with Thunder again.”

Crow-Man was standing next to the hardwood table that dominated the other end of the office. The person sitting on the other side of the desk was none other than Warden Bethany Carlyle.

Bethany wasn’t the actual chief, but no one could find Chief Johnson, and so she was asked by the security team to step up until the U.S. Government or the Wardens sent in reinforcements.

“If you’re ready to listen”—Bethany smiled wanly at the gathering—“then I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news to share…”

“The truth is—”

Bethany stopped mid-sentence because she noticed the tiny floating orb around Ice Brand’s shoulder.

“Is that a recorder bot?” she asked hesitantly.

Ice Brand glanced to his left. “Oh, yes. Sorry, it’s mine.”

He plucked the orb from the air and pocketed it.

“I’m contractually obligated by Valhalla Max to record all my adventures for their premium program ‘Modern Einherjar’, and I forgot that my bot’s set to stream automatically.” He pulled out his smartphone and began to type something on it. “One sec… I’ll just let my fans know that the stream’s on a break so they won’t riot. They were all so excited to see Superion and Crow-Man and Thunder and—”

He glanced over his shoulder to look at Sam.

“You’re great too,” he added. “The world’s most-watched vigilante on my stream… it’s like Christmas came early.”

“And that’s one more reason why I didn’t sign with the Asgardian pantheon… they care too much about the views,” Thunder whispered into Sam’s ear.

“Ignore Jin Oppa. He’s harmless.” Miracle Girl stretched out in her chair. “Now, can someone care to explain why we all nearly died today?”

Bethany spared another second making sure Ice Brand wasn’t going to suddenly start recording again before beginning her tale. “This whole mess begins right around the time Crow-Man and I went to see the Trickster down on sub-level four... and it was the strangest visit I've ever been a part of.”