Saving Supervillains 1 Chapters 25 (Patreon)

Stella dropped me off several miles outside the city, where a plain of tall grass butted up against a forest. “Do I get to fight something?” She asked.

We were well outside the boundaries where humanity ventured.

In the age of superpowers, humans with abilities congregated together, keeping each other safe. Monsters comparable to S grade heroes were far too common outside the city, and there were plenty stronger than that.

What were once small towns and rural areas were abandoned; they didn’t have the ability to defend themselves.

As a result, humanity collapsed back into cities, leaving at least a thousand miles between them of vast untamed wilderness.

Spreading out my power, I searched for signs of organic energy.

I spotted a decently large mass and, confirming it was a monster with my sense of ki, I pointed in the direction. “Quarter mile that way. Why don’t you fly ahead while I talk to Melody? This is both a trip for training and demonstration.”

Melody watched me as Stella flew away. “You could spot it from this far away?”

“Yes. I could sense it.” I explained.

“Could you pick me out in the city?” Melody asked, more curious than anything.

“Maybe. It would be far harder, and I’d have to know your body intimately.”

Melody cocked an eyebrow with a wry grin.

It was true; I did know her body quite intimately.

“Different. I can sense energy.” It was time to stop beating around the bush.

“Energy?” Melody frowned in confusion at the vague term.

“Chemical energy, kinetic energy, and more.” I lifted her off the ground. “Gravity, like your power, too.”

She nodded slowly as I put her back down. “And you are at the S grade with your power. I’ve heard how you fought Rocksolid. You didn’t hurt him, though.” She probed me with that statement.

“Why should I hurt him? He was an obstacle, not a target.”

Melody laughed. “Very few people would brush aside someone like Rocksolid. I can’t believe you say it so casually.”

“He was a tough one to hold back.” I agreed. “But I was also doing several things at once.”

“Invisibility.” Melody stated, not asking.

I kicked a rock in our path just before the ground shook. Stella was engaging the monster. “Light is another form of energy.” I let it pass around my hand, turning it invisible except for a small shimmer where the light warped.

“Could you mimic Venus’ power set?”

Lifting my hand into the air, I started gathering particles of light and trapping them in a small sphere. “Easily. I can do much more, though.”

“One last question.” Melody chewed her lip, looking at me. She quickly looked away before sighing. “Can you make me stronger? Not temporarily, but permanently?”

Trees cracked in the distance as Stella fought, and I realized Stella’s strength intimidated Melody.

“I don’t know. The only power I’ve played with was Stella’s.” I’d also never given it any thought, not planning on being around anybody as close as I was with her and Stella.

I glanced in Stella’s direction as a massive boar-looking monster flew up into the air, squealing for its life.

Melody asked a question I’d been wondering as well. “Do you think her strength has anything to do with you touching her power?”

“I don’t know.” I said honestly. “I tried to give myself power once, and it didn’t quite work. It just gave me some basic enhancements. There’s a risk if I play with your power.”

Melody spread her arms wide in a very trusting gesture. “Please?”

I waited to make sure she was committed before pushing power into her like I would if I were trying to super charge Stella. Melody pulsed with ki.

“Oh. I can feel that.” She said, making a fist. “I feel much stronger.”

I shook my head, worried she was going to be disappointed. “It’s temporary.” Even now, as I stopped holding it, I could see the ki was flowing out. It hadn’t been grounded in her power.

What was different between her and Stella was a mechanism that their power ran on. Despite how much power I put into Melody, it would only be temporary unless I changed the channels within that mechanism.

“There’s something I could try, but it might hurt. Do you still want me to do it?” I asked.

She nodded even as she scrunched up her face, spreading her arms to the max.

I wrapped her in kinetic force to hold her before I pushed.

Melody strained in my power and screamed.

I stopped immediately. “Nevermind.”

“Do you think it’ll help?” Melody watched my eyes intently.

“Maybe? There’s a decent chance it helps. But I could also damage your power.”

Melody grit her teeth, looking both vulnerable and determined. “I want to be strong enough so that if I were there with you when Omnigirl tried to take you, I could have put her in her place.”

My heart fluttered at her cause. It wasn’t her competing with Stella. She wanted to be able to back me up.

“I can try this, but there’s a risk. Are you sure? I’m not sure it’s worth it if you are just doing this to advance your modeling career.” I reminded her.

Melody grinned from ear to ear. “Maybe I enjoy being a hero more than I expected. Besides, if I can’t keep up with you and Stella, I know girls like Venus are going to press me out.”

I let go of her, not wanting that to be her reason. “That would never happen.”

“Miles, please. I want to do more, to be able to stand next to Stella or even your level of power.” She paused, and I could see the determination in her eyes.

After watching her resolve, I nodded. “Brace yourself.”

I didn’t hold back, shoving so much ki into her body that she fell to the ground clutching her chest as she screamed.

A little part of my heart bled, watching her in pain. I hated that I was the one causing her the pain, but I pushed through it, wanting the pain to be worth it.

As I pushed, I could feel when it clicked. Her power expanded, like a balloon filling with air, its walls thinned as it filled.

Remembering Stella’s crack in her power, I stopped before it went too far. “How does that feel?”

Melody stood up drunkenly and underestimated the force of her legs, launching herself five feet into the air.

“I feel off balance.” She admitted, a little giggle escaping her.

“Well, your power just grew. I think you are just adjusting.”

She put her arms down to her side to fly and rocketed straight up into the air with an astonished look on her face. “Oh, I’m definitely stronger.”

“Do a quick circuit. Test your powers. I want to see it.”

Melody nodded, flying in a figure eight around me while she shot off a few blasts and shifted gravity.

The whole time I watched, I waited to see if her power was going to shrink back to what it was as she used it. But it held steady.

“Come on down and land.” I motioned her down.

She landed next to me, less than gracefully, kicking up a cloud of dirt with an excited grin. “Can we do more?”

“No, at least not right now. Your power has expanded, but it’s stretching its limits. I have no idea how this is going to work. Maybe it’ll grow like an exercised muscle and I can try again, or maybe this is the limit.”

Melody nodded. “Either way, this is great. Thank you, Miles!” She wrapped a big hug around me. “Since no one is around here, I want to test myself and see you fight.”

Glancing around with both my eyes and power, I confirmed there was no one around. “Fine.”

I lifted myself off the ground and wrapped Melody up with me before exploding forward, snagging Stella along the way. I protected both of them and created a small pocket for the three of us.

If I was going to let loose and show the girls what I could do, I wanted to be further away from the city.

“Holy shit!” Stella squealed.

I broke the sound barrier with the two of them in tow.

“He’s going mach 6.” Melody’s mouth hung open.

Stella threw out her arms and shouted into the wind. “Zoom!”

Almost as soon as I started, I slowed down and landed, the city on the horizon. “That should be far enough.”

Melody looked at me with awe while Stella looked like she wanted to go for another ride.

“S Grade my ass.” Melody spat. “There needs to be a stronger tier for you. Mach 6!”

“Really? You think so?” Stella cracked her knuckles. “What do you say, Miles?” She jabbed several times in the air at me.

I wrapped her up in kinetic energy and pinned her in place. “Let’s see.”

Stella strained against my barrier, veins popping out on her neck as her eyes glowed blue.

My barrier held, but I also had her in a position with little leverage.

“I’m going to release you and put up a barrier like I did Rocksolid.” Letting her go, I did just that. “Punch it. I want to see how you compare.”

Stella wound up and crashed her fist into the barrier. It wobbled slightly, but that was it.

She furrowed her brow and took several steps back before throwing her whole weight into it.

“Not bad. That was pretty close to Rocksolid, and he has so much more mass behind him.”

But Stella wasn’t satisfied. “Boost me.”

Filling her body with as much ki as it could take, she wound up her arm and rocketed a punch into my barrier.

It bent, straining almost to the point of breaking, before it bounced back.

“Damnit.” Stella cursed. “You try Melody.”

Melody stepped up to bat, her hands glowing a dark orange before she blasted the wall.

There was a momentary temptation to control the beams, but I resisted that and instead changed the wall to block electromagnetic energy as well as the physical.

Her power put a dent in it, but no more.

“At least make it seem like you had to try, Miles.” Melody sighed. “If we can’t penetrate your power, how about we do a little two on one? For practice.”

I almost laughed, wondering if they were that annoyed at me for being more powerful that they needed to team up on me. After all, in today’s world, a woman losing in super powers to a man was a little embarrassing.

Stella bobbed her head excitedly. “Let’s do it.”

“Fine. And I won’t even take away your powers.”

The look on both of their faces told me they had forgotten about that ability.

Loosening gravity’s hold on me, I floated up. I was ready to show off a little.

The wind picked up as I let kinetic energy swirl around me. Debris kicked up off the ground, spinning around me.

Air took on a prickly static charge as it arced randomly between small flecks of metal that had come up into the air with the swirling kinetic energy.

“That looks badass.” Stella watched me. “But let’s see you fight!” She shot off the ground.

At the same time, Melody tried to increase the surrounding gravity.

“That’s not going to work, Mel.” I slipped loose of her power and pushed it to affect Stella as she stalled mid-air.

A bolt of lightning appeared from nowhere, striking Stella and sending her flying away.

I lifted my hand and bolts of lightning rained down around me, sending up more dirt that caught in my swirl of kinetic energy.

More and more electricity filled the air, and I pointed a finger at Melody.

Her eyes went wide as she shot into the sky, trying to escape the blast.

I let it go wide, destroying several trees with the blast. I winced; it might have been a little strong for her.

“Time out!” Melody yelled. “I don’t want to die.”

“Come on. I’m not even trying yet.” I unleashed a hundred fold gravity all around me, slamming Melody back into the ground.

Stella was stumbling to her feet, picking herself back up even under the strain of the gravity. “Come on, Master. That didn’t even hurt.”

Her blast had been significantly weaker than the one that missed Melody.

“Let’s kick it up a notch.” I lifted myself higher into the sky and really let loose enough to show them what I could do.

The swirling air around me caught fire while the electricity arced.

Smiling, I split off the storm into half a dozen whirling tornados of lighting and fire.

Melody watched with horror as she lay rooted to the ground.

I let lighting crash down on my body, grounding it into my storms. “Catch!”

Throwing one of the storms at Stella, she met the challenge head on, throwing a powerful punch before the storm even got to her.

The blast from the punch dissipated the storm for a moment before I wrapped her up in it. “Come on, fight Stella.”

“Miles!” Melody screamed. “You are going to hurt her, or me.”

But I was watching closely. I wasn’t hurting Stella. She was getting a smidge roughed up, but nothing dangerous.

But then the trees cracked behind me and an enormous creature far bigger than the bear we’d seen on our first mission came through. It was some sort of weird mix of a bear and an owl. A round, feathered face sat atop a large grizzly body.

I took the storm away from Stella and changed my focus.

This monster was packed full of ki, far stronger than even an S grade hero.

“Melody. I wanted to show you what I could do. So I’ll show you on this one.”

Dispersing the storms, I raised my right hand as a black bead formed. I packed everything I could into it. Chain reactions started to happen, and little jagged black cracks broke from it.

The power contained in this bead acted as if it was tugging on the very fabric of reality.

“Melody, this is what I let loose that first time I used my powers. I used it on someone who had killed my best friend.”

Both she and Stella looked at the black bead that just felt… evil. There was something about not letting light escape a space that gave humans the creeps.

I pointed it at the massive monster, careful with my aim. Thankfully, the girls were behind me.

Next, I just opened a small hole in the side of the bead for energy to escape.

It was just the barest of pin pricks.

The roar of the energy as it escaped deafened me. Far above us, the clouds parted, and the ground rumbled.

Trees for miles had their leaves stripped, and those closer were ripped up by their roots.

All of it happened almost instantly as a beam of impossibly dense and mixed energy ripped out of the small pin prick.

It expanded quickly, with so much force that the ground split in two beneath us.

The wind changed directions, and it was like the end of the world had come.

The beam of energy caught the monster, and it disappeared inside, swallowed up by the energy. Not even an iota of the monster remained.

It was so momentous that it felt like the second during which it had happened had lasted much longer. If somebody watching had blinked, they would have missed it.

All that was left was a wide path about half a mile wide and tens of miles long. The path was entirely clear with a large rounded trench, like a titan had just come by and drawn a line in the dirt.

I turned back towards Stella and Melody slowly, a little worried about what I’d find on their faces.

They were both staring in shock, but not disgust. I took that as a win.

“Master?” Stella’s voice sounded distant as my ears rang.

“Yeah?”

“Is there a grade above S?”

I shrugged. “Not that I’d ever heard.”

“You should have a grade above S.” Melody nodded emphatically. “S is nowhere near close enough to describe this level of destruction. It’s… it’s as much damage as the Leviathan did at Coast City.”

“Titan grade.” Stella nodded rapidly. “Yeah. I bet you could take on a titan.”

After I cooled down from the moment, I had a sinking feeling that I had just drawn the attention of Point City’s BSH. Even with as far out of the city as I’d flown us, that had likely still been felt back in Point City.

“We need to get out of here. The analysts at the spine might look this way after that power spike.”

“Oh, shit.” Stella said, jumping to her feet, “What do we do?”

I lifted them both up and brought them to my side with my power before making light wrap around all three of us. “There. Hidden. Let’s head back.”

But as I picked the three of us up and flew back to the city, loud sirens were blaring from the city.

“What’s that?” Melody asked as I slowed down to enter the city. Breaking the sound barrier in the city would draw more attention than I wanted.

“Don’t you recognize it? That’s the titan warning.” I said, having a very bad feeling. “We need to get to the Bureau.”

I flew us all there in a rush, remaining invisible.

People were scrambling throughout the city, trying to seek shelter.

I stopped a block away from the Bureau and uncloaked us in an alley. “Fly us in.”

Stella didn’t need to be told twice. She grabbed me and lifted us both into the air as Melody followed.

“I hope that showed my trust in you, Melody. I won’t hide from you anymore, but I need to know that you can accept this, that you can accept who I am.”

She shook her head. “I almost wish you didn’t show me that. What a power like that could do in the wrong hands…” Her voice trailed off as she looked at me in a new light.

There was a reason that I kept my power a secret.

Stella landed me on the front steps, and we hurried inside. A manager was trying to organize the chaos, getting heroes into large groups.

“Both of you organize here.” I swiped our comms back on. “Let me go see what’s happening.”

Hurrying down the hall into The Spine, I found the place was an organized scramble.

“I want eyes on it now. How the hell did a titan get that close to the city before we saw it!” Kim was shouting over the analysts, holding tight to a rail.

Beatrix pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Thirty seconds before the satellite is in place.”

Kim impatiently drummed her fingers on the railing before she noticed me and jerked her head for me to join her. “This is a clusterfuck.”

“Think it’s the Roc with how close it got undetected?” It was the only thing that made sense to me.

Other managers were pouring into the spine. Everybody was waiting for orders.

“We should have picked up the Roc half a day away. This thing is almost on top of the city. What I’m worried about is a new titan.” She cleared her throat loudly at Beatrix, who was scrambling.

Up on the main screen, a wide swath had been carved through the land.

As soon as I saw it, my heart dropped through my gut. I’d almost hoped we had a titan descending on us. But that wasn’t damage from a titan; that was from my blast.

Stella had joked that I should be called titan class, but this was a little too real.

AN - Tomorrow you are getting 3 Chapters, because how I cut them for the book is almost too cruel of a cliff hanger for 27.