Super Jaded (20/23)

Chapter 20: Weakness

I had been called to a government lab, one I had never seen before in the underground corridors of Washington DC. Of course, all they had to do was give me the coordinates and I was there before they had even hung up the call.

I wasn’t particularly excited to see anyone from the FBI, CIA or any other three-letter American organization, but what they had said over the phone intrigued me enough to be present before all of them without a second thought.

I guess Nina wasn’t technically lying about that power-negation device.

Before me was a device straight out of science fiction. In a hangar of fairly realistic military-grade weapons, this one stood out like a sore thumb. And there were already ten identical ones lined up next to it.

It looked like some sort of laser turret canon from Star Wars. Blinking, square lights blinked randomly as it let everyone within a mile radius know that it was switched on.

“What is this thing?” I asked the far shorter scientist next to me despite already figuring out the answer. He had been not-so-subtly staring at every part of my body and I thought it would be rather amusing to break his creepy concentration. It was.

He sputtered like an old engine, suddenly unsure of what year it was as he desperately tried to save face in front of a tall, muscular and beautiful woman billions of times stronger than him.

The edges of my lips curled upwards as he cleared his throat and straightened his tie. Another scientist approached me from across the room, walking as fast as he could without physically breaking into a run.

“Ms. Chang, this device is a—”

“No no,” I interrupted, leaning forward and wagging my finger. My seven foot frame cast a shadow over the second scientist. “I want to hear the explanation from this man instead, since his eyes seem so eager to tell me something.”

My head turned slowly and gracefully, a wicked expression feeding off the fear of the man. These men were war profiteers. The lowest of the low. I was going to enjoy every second of torturing them with my tension-filled words.

“W-well, M-Ms. Chang… you see—”

“Oh please, why so formal Gregory?” I taunted through my teeth as I recalled the scientist’s name from a cursory glance at his badge earlier.  “Call me Fern.”

My contradictory logic stunted him and I basked in his confusion. The ability for me to generate fear and arousal within any fucking loser I wanted was becoming my favorite new power. I was already beautiful beyond belief before my ascension, this was just unfair.

“W-well, M-Ms. Fern you see, this device is… well, it’s supposed to…”

“Let me guess, you’re going to use it to zap Nina of her powers then kill her?”

The other scientist who I had ignored previously spoke up. “Technically yes, but it’s more—”

“I don’t remember ever asking you a single question,” I drove a sideways glance into his soul, shutting him up immediately. His body became more immobile than a cardboard cutout. “Gregory, did I ever ask this man anything?”

God, I loved fucking with these guys.

“N-n-no, Ms. Fern. You didn’t.”

“That’s what I thought. Now here’s what’s going to happen: I thought I already made it very clear that Nina will not be killed, no matter what. If this device can truly zap away powers, I will use it only to weaken her enough so that she may be properly contained.”

I floated into the air and panned my vision over everyone in the facility. It was time to test out a new power I had recently discovered. Squinting my eyes, I projected my voice into the very thoughts of the personnel around me.

“If she dies on my watch, you all die on my watch.”

Everyone was now as still as cardboard.

With that, I charged up my laser vision to a mild 50 percent. Checking beforehand to make sure the area was clear of people, I fired a stream of heat from my perfect eyes far wider and more powerful than Nina’s that decimated the other ten facsimiles of the draining device. Everyone panicked. A small fire was quickly extinguished.

“Just in case you guys get any ideas on who else to try that out on.”

Any excuse to destroy military equipment was a good one.

I then floated back down only to lift the only remaining device into my bulging bicep. Walking casually to the exit, I only broke my focused gaze to shoot bedroom eyes at Gregory. He fainted on the spot.

The door wasn’t large enough to fit the device, but that was an easy fix with a simple kick.

I was initially going to just take the device home for safe keeping, but then, something out of the ordinary picked up on my super-hearing. While I had managed to hone it and drone out the familiar sounds of everyday life, every once in a while eccentricities would slip by.

Nina was one of such eccentricities. Despite being halfway across the Atlantic ocean, I immediately recognized her unique flying sound. It was subtler than a helicopter, crisper than an airline. A sound only possible through the air resistance generated from the sexiest woman on earth.

I looked at the device in my hands longingly. Maybe the two of us could just live a simple life in the mountains? With her depowered, she’d be a threat to no one. Maybe then I could…?

No. She murdered hundereds, possibly thousands. Keep it together Fern. You may still have a big dumb lesbian crush on her that’s only rekindled through her absence, but she’s gone a step too far. Sure, you understand why she did what she did under the circumstances, but those innocents are never going to get their lives back.

You’ve already beat her ass once, you’ve just got to do it again.

Too bad my inner voice failed to account for the mystery present Nina decided to bring to the party.

A fucking nuclear bomb.

I had seen her before she had seen me. The thick fog was a problem I simply didn’t have to deal with. My eyes zoomed in far greater than any optical lens possibly could. Getting a good look at her gorgeous face and naked body, all I saw was rage.

God, spending time without me had completely broken her. As cliche as it sounded, she had gone full supervillain.

Then she paused, catching a glimpse of me as I approached. She didn’t look any happier to see me. But I didn’t care. I just needed her to get in position, but that bomb complicated things.

“Nina! Stop this at once!” I shouted, hoping fruitlessly to appeal to whatever semblance of humanity could still be within my once-girlfriend.

Hearing my voice twisted her face up, but she turned her gaze away from me, saying nothing.

“Look, Nina, I’ve just found a device that could…” I paused. Only halfway through that sentence did I realize how awful that sounded. But it was too late.

“...drain my powers.” Nina said, dejectedly, finishing the sentence for me. “Why? So you can throw me in a prison for the rest of my life?”

“No, well…” I sputtered. Now I was the one tripping up on my words. “Nina, please, think rationally about this. What will nuking millions of people achieve? There are people down there who haven’t done anything to deserve such a cruel fate!”

That got Nina to look at me. She just shook her head in disappointment. “Fern, you should know by now that I never cared about anyone other than you.”

With that, she dropped the Nuke.

Panic overwhelmed my body. My first instinct was to watch like a tense moviegoer. To act like how I had always acted for the past 24 years of my life. But I remembered that I could make a difference. I shook myself from shock and flew downwards to catch the bomb.

My brain quickly pieced together the optimal strategy. The only thing that could detonate the uranium would be a hard strike to the colored tip of the bomb. All I had to do was keep the ground or, more dangerously, Nina from striking it.

Easier said than done.

As soon as I caught the massive piece of metal, Nina came flying at me, trying to punch the bomb. I played keep-away for a while, my advanced senses working overtime to predict where she’d try to strike next. Since we were both in the air, she had so many more approaching options than I had even considered.

Desiring to end the altercation quickly, I freed up one of my hands and predicted where she’d strike next. Nina flew at mach speeds, but I caught her with a chokehold.

With two world-ending devices in each hand, I was having one hell of a day.

Unable to escape my superior grasp, Nina charged up her laser vision and attempted to activate the bomb manually. Panicking, I threw it into the air upwards, narrowly dodging her twin beams, but only exacerbating the situation further. Now, I had to play hot potato with a device of mutually assured destruction.

Seeing Nina charge up her laser eyes once more, I weighed my options and decided that now would be a good time to knock her out cold. With the bomb reaching the height of its arch, I begun to wail punches into my ex-girlfriend’s face again and again. It was just like Norway all over again, except this time I wasn’t going to spare her.

However, the descending bomb distracted me briefly, long enough for Nina to play dirty. With her free hand, she shoved two superpowered fingers straight through my pants and panties, knowing exactly where to strike my G-spot. I inhaled sharply and loosened up, freeing Nina from my grasp as her bruised body free-fell.

The physical pain was minimal, but the emotional pain bruised me.

That fucking bitch.

I only had a few seconds to choose between Nina and a Nuke, which was harder than it should have been. I obviously chose the Nuke, but after that dirty trick of hers, turning all of those loving nights of us exploring each other’s bodies against me, I wanted nothing more than to fucking kill her in that moment.

Luckily for me, I’d get that chance. As soon as I caught the uranium bomb with only inches of leeway, Nina rather predictably got right back up and tried once more to attack the bomb. But I wasn’t holding back any more.

Catching her arm, I twisted it so hard that it broke. An exacerbated gasp of pain escaped her lungs, but she was going to need all the air she could get from this point. I rested the Nuke on the sidewalk and took to the skies, dragging Nina along by her broken arm.

Fuck the weakening device, Nina had just activated the only weakness that mattered, me.

She once told me she could only survive in space for a few minutes.

I could survive in space for hours.