Super Jaded 2 - Chapter 3B (Patreon)

That's right! Some chapters will have 'B sides' that focus on additional elements. These are still full chapters, just with the potential to be shorter.

Chapter 3B: In Which Fern’s Mother Sees What Her Child Has Become.

Jet O’Hare had been an elusive individual, but I knew that no amount of riches or man-made ingenuity could spare him from justice. My justice. I remember watching the news day after day in horror with my mother, witnessing him dodge rightful lawsuit after rightful lawsuit. I don’t know why I was surprised that the justice system gave him break after break considering they were made for people like him to get away with murder.

So you can imagine how satisfying it was to have him torn up emotionally and crying like a child as my awesomely sexy body dropped down from the sky before him. On the television, photos of him always looked either smug or bored, as if the tiniest of consequences for his actions were merely the cost of doing business. Terrified dread was a new emotion from him, one I hated to admit I was enjoying to see so very, very much.

“Fern Chang,” I spoke, holding out my hand as if greeting him for an interview. He recoiled in terror, which just made me giggle. Back then, he seemed like such an impenetrable man, now he was almost pathetically vulnerable. He hadn’t even made it out of his soundproof bunker in time for me to corner him within its only exit. I truly believed it was dawning on him for the first time just how screwed he was. “Do you remember me, Mr. O’Hare?”

He nodded, but I knew it was for the wrong reason. His mind was awash with memories of seeing me on television or hearing about me in investor talks before I made a conscious effort to sit in on all of them.

“No, not that,” I answered for him. “I meant before I became the Unstoppable Goddess of Justice, back when I was just a regular human of justice. I know you were probably a busy man back then, but I’m surprised you forgot about the 12 year old protester who you sicced a cop on because you felt threatened by her waving a sign behind a barricade and yelling.”

His mind turned up blank. I would’ve been insulted if for some reason I had expected anything else from him.

“Well, let me refresh your memory since you seem to be rather forgetful.” I thrust my hand forward, mostly for effect since it looked cool, as I projected the memory of me getting tasered directly into his neurons. His pupils shrunk to pinpricks as the painful memory embedded itself deep into his psyche. I probably traumatized the bastard, but… maybe I could make an exception to my hatred of the “eye for an eye” mentality just this once.

“Damn, was I too late for the torturing part?” Nina asked as she flew down behind me. I had put the pedal to the metal a little faster than she had to ensure that Jet wouldn’t escape, and she had only now caught up with me.

“Dear, we’re not going to torture him. Once we’re done reforming the justice system, he’s going to face some serious jail time.”

“Hey, wait, I thought you were anti-prison?” Nina remarked. I smiled.

“Yes, but I don’t see a man like him learning to become an upstanding member of society. But I do think he could learn a thing or two from being locked away with zero influence.”

“H-hey now, l-let’s not be rash here,” O’Hare said, holding up his shaking hands in defense. “I’ve—I’ve had plenty of time to think over what I’ve done in this bunker and that memory you beamed into my mind has definitely shooken me to my core. I-I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you and your society. I know I profited off of raising the price of life-saving pharmaceuticals 300% in just a few years but I mean… I was pressured into it! My company was stagnating financially and pressure was being put on me after I inherited the position from my father! I’m—I’m not the man he was, I’m—

“Shut. Up,” I spoke. He did as he was told without argument. “Now, let me tell you what I heard: ‘Oh no! I have to actually make a tough decision for the first time in my cushy life! Instead of actually investing in some other product, I’m just gonna artificially raise the price of something and put millions of people in debt. I might not be able to buy another yacht otherwise!”

At that moment, his brain realized that I had made up my mind about his fate already. With no amount of sympathy cards left to play, he did what his kind always resorted to and began to bargain.

“Please! I’ll… I’ll tell you about the person who built this bunker for me! They’ve… they’ve got other rich people hidden from you, I’m sure of it!”

I raised an eyebrow, admittedly curious. “Oh really? And who exactly is this person? What’s their name?”

“Well… Um, u-uh…” he began, though found himself coming up short. He wasn’t just stalling for time, his mind really was turning up blanks as he attempted to recall any details of this person.

“What, did they erase your memory or something?” Nina remarked as I relayed his thoughts into her head.

“Ugh, no… maybe? They were very secretive about their appearance, but they said they worked for some institution that was made to study super-people like you, and that that’s why they knew exactly how to make this bunker so that you two wouldn’t be able to hear my voice when you went looking for it.” 

“Okay, well, how exactly does that description help us in any way?” I said, growing impatient.

“Ah! Well, you see, it’s because they lied to me! They said the door would only go off through voice activation of me or them. But I didn’t say anything! So they must’ve somehow bugged it to open right now, the traitor!”

Me and Nina looked at each other with less-than-satisfied reactions.

“Ooooor, far more likely, you were a frightened rich person who fell for a scam. That person wasn’t some government agent and they didn’t actually know how to make a bunker without a few bugs. Honestly? If you hadn’t screamed like a little girl getting pepper sprayed, I probably wouldn’t have been able to track you down.”

~

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Nina asked as the two of us flew into town, now donning appropriate clothes for the occasion—which was anything that wasn’t our nude bodies.

“Look, once mom sees who we caught, she’ll lighten up a bit. Me and her have… history with Jet O’Hare.” 

I remember the agony I had felt that day as I sat in the packed hospital, almost a little too well now that my mind was as advanced as it was. A broken rib and pepper sprayed eyes were tough to stomach for an adult or even a teen… but I was just twelve. It was hell. I cried yet my tears only seemed to hurt my eyes more. If I breathed too hard, my chest burned. My mother had work that day and yet she had dropped everything, refusing to leave my side throughout the whole visit.

That day, she swore up and down at O’Hare for doing this to her baby. Before the serum, I could still feel the bruise on my top right rib… though admittedly being assaulted in my own apartment and nearly killed did add a lot more pain that I’m fortunate the serum also cured.

I practically heard a new swear word every day as my mother shouted at the TV, this time for a far more personal reason. The cop who had assaulted me received nothing but top-notch treatment from O’Hare’s hired lawyers and appointed judges. He would only end up getting fired from his job, but not without paid leave. For potentially killing me, he was reprimanded with a glorified vacation from the force. He set up a GoFundMe which was astroturfed to hell by O’Hare’s charities.

If only I could’ve had the satisfaction to witness that cop’s reaction to my ascension, but alas… he was no longer with us. Once the world found out that the great Nina Eternal was in a secret lesbian relationship with me—while a good chunk of people reacted with the usual excitement or far louder rage—the cop’s body was found at the bank of a river, a few miles away from the bridge he had leapt from. If it was a slower news day, more people probably would’ve heard about it. Hell, I didn’t even find out on account of me getting assaulted at my house later that same day. 

I couldn’t have known what was going through his head that day, but perhaps he feared actual retribution. At the very least, on some level conscious or otherwise, he knew what he had done to me was wrong. I suppose that was the best I was going to get.

“Oh, dear! I-I didn’t know you’d be arriving so soon!” My mother spoke, snapping me from the tracks of my intrusive train of thoughts. “I would’ve cleaned up more, I-I would’ve…”

Since this was my childhood home, I had just waltzed in unconsciously as if I had owned the place. That had definitely startled my mother, who was now talking to me as if I were some empress she needed to impress. My mother was afraid of me. My own mother.

Only then did I realize that I hadn’t ducked my head while walking into the house, leaving a semicircle of open air where the top of the doorframe should’ve been.

“Oh my god, mom, I’m so sorry. Here, let me—“

“Just leave it alone, dear. It’s fine.”

“No, seriously, mom. It would take me just a few seconds to fix, I could—“

“Leave it,” she said sternly. That shut me up.

A tense silence between the two of us was quick to follow. It was quite the surreal staredown—my mother had only gotten shorter with age, yet she was locking uncompromised eyes with the Goliath that was her own daughter. A twisted cocktail of pain, fear and anger was present on her face, and while I usually respected the privacy of other’s minds, I took a peek behind the curtains and saw only a brain awash with conflicted feelings. She regretted yelling at me, but it was more so out of fear. To her, I seemed no different than the once-untouchable Jet O’Hare.

“Oh, Ms Chaaaang! Guess who we found, an old friend of yours!” Nina exclaimed, unfortunately unaware that my arrival hadn’t set hers up for success.

I had a whole monologue planned about how long my mother had despised O’Hare, how many months she had spent cursing his name and bloodline. That was all basically pointless now, my attempt to break the awkwardness between me and my mother an abject failure. Now there was just a former billionaire laying in the middle of the foyer with a stop sign tied around his torso, bent into a shape that would better fit a pool noodle.

Nina was quick to join the silence and faded smiles once she noticed that the vibe in the room had irrevocably soured. However, O’Hare did not seem able to read the room.

“So, you dragged me all the way from my private bunker just to meet your mom?” he said, voice partially muffled as Nina had dropped him face-first into the shag carpet.

“Shut up,” Nina commanded. He cowered in fear as best he could.

“Seyots’aa’e… if it’s my forgiveness you want…” my mother began. I knew where this was going. Her mind literally said it before her mouth could and I wasn’t in the mood to hear the same lecture I had heard last time.

“Mom, for the thousandth time, the plane was going to crash into us! I could see the altitude decreasing! It was clearly an attack!”

She pursed her lips and calmly shut her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Dear, there were innocent people on that plane. If Nina could save us from a plane, then what made those people any different? Try to put yourself in their shoes!”

I sighed. “Mom, the past is the past! I— I didn’t know about the people on the plane. You can’t hold a grudge against your own daughter forever!”

That put my mother into a long pause. Nina and O’Hare immediately understood to sit this one out. This was a battle that neither super serums nor money could have any sway in.

“I am not holding a grudge against my daughter… I am holding a grudge against the poison that runs through her veins. The magic of the 21st century has made you strong physically, but it has made you weak morally.”

“Mom, me having this serum… It’s what will finally bring peace to this world. I have already ended so many conflicts overseas. I have restored land to their rightful people, ended the lives of the dictators who oppressed them! I’ve stripped the billionaire class of their wealth! Once I remove money from the equation entirely, I can ensure that no one starves! Humanity can live prosperous lives once more!”

My mother shook her head. “And yet you do all of these amazing feats not as an equal, but as a goddess who could end my life at any moment should I catch you on a bad day. That is not an idea of benevolence I can get behind. Rid yourself of this poison or allow the world to catch up.”

I scowled. “Y-you wouldn’t understand! I can’t just give everyone this power! You know what an asshole like him would do if he got his grubby little mitts on the serum!” I gestured towards O’Hare. Thankfully, he knew better than to pipe up with his own opinion on the matter.

“Believing yourself to be the only one capable of solving a problem is not the way I raised you, Fern. I told you that collective action was the most effective way for solving problems.”

“Mom, this is so much different! That’s a collective of average people! I’m… well, I’m so much more than that!” I didn’t want to say ‘superior’, but the disapproving look my mother gave me told me that she knew I was thinking it—and she wasn’t even the mind reader in the room.

“You are not multiple people. You are a single person with flaws and biases.”

She was right but… why did they matter? How could she be so cruel? My mother had raised me to be compassionate and to fight for the little guy, now she was telling me that it wasn’t enough? I was different from the kings and queens of old. I came from no generational wealth. I signed no social contract. I was Fern Chang, and I didn’t need a lecture from my mother anymore.

“Come on, Nina. We’re leaving. No use trying to change her mind on this. She must think she raised me wrong or something.”

My lovely girlfriend wordlessly complied, scooping up O’Hare by the waist and leaving out from where we came. My face did not betray any emotion while I was in my mother’s sightline, but once Nina and I were high in the sky, I let a single tear shed. Me and Nina had won. How could the second most important person in my life fail to see that?

But this was not the time to seem defeated. Nina looked up to me in a way. If I remained positive, I could prevent her mood swings from getting the better of her.

“So, that’s it then? You’re just going to dump me in some random jail for the rest of my life now?” Jet asked, rolling his eyes as he expected a yes. I would not give him such satisfaction.

“Oh no, I have much, much bigger plans for you, O’Hare…”

His face fell in fear. I smiled with devious excitement.