Super Jaded (15/23)

Chapter 15: Beatdown

As soon as we had gotten home, Nina made a B-line for the bedroom. I wanted to ask what the deal was with her, but I just figured she needed some time to herself. Maybe she was just embarrassed about almost killing someone? I guess I couldn’t blame her for taking some time to herself. After all, I could use a bit of a break myself.

Oh god, I hadn’t been online in over three days! My mother was probably worried sick about me! But then, I found a smile come to my face as I imagined mom’s reaction to who I had become. Her little Fern, not so little anymore!

There was just one little problem: I had no computer, nor a phone. Those had all been abandoned alongside the apartment when we fled America. At first, I thought it was for the best, but now I was definitely going through internet withdrawal. I deserved to know what was going on in the world, damnit!

I flew over to the nearest library. If any place had free internet access in this ancient town, it would be there. There were still payphones littered about, I certainly wasn’t on the lookout for an internet cafe or anything.

Opening the large double doors like a curtain of beads, light creeped into the mostly empty place. Outside of a single man glaring half-consciously at the only active computer in the center of the grand room, the library appeared to be completely void of a human presence.

I also quickly found out that this place was void of a maintenance presence, as the only computer out of the twelve available ones that worked was the one that the semi-conscious man was using.

I looked over his shoulder. YouTube autoplay had clearly veered him way off-course with weird conspiracy videos. Or maybe he had done that to himself, kinda hard to say. But while the scene was already quite unusual by itself, the actual content of the video he was watching stole all the focus I could have given to anything else.

SUPERGIRL KILLS MAYOR, RAMPAGE. WORKING FOR ILLUMINATI (SATANIC SYMBOLS!?)

The title was the typical farcical garbage I would have expected from the depths of the video-sharing site, but the actual content on screen was rather damming, to say the least.

It was footage from the street near the mayor’s office where me and Nina once lived. While I didn’t much care for the news organization that was capturing the footage live, what I saw was hard to fabricate.

My breath became caught in my throat as the horrific events unfolded. There was Nina, using her heat vision to demolish an entire building floor by floor. My jaw was quivering uncontrollably as it cut to a rather shoddy vertical video of Nina tearing through a helicopter in the sky. The guy in the video was talking about what this meant for the world, but even my super-hearing couldn’t pick up on what he was saying.

All the sound in the world was white noise to me.

The content kept piling on. Whatever footage this guy could find, it was compiled into this video. Buildings collapsing as she slammed through them at mach speed, the fresh corpses of FBI agents being filmed by renegade news outlets, showing their bodies had been sliced in half at every angle. Even though I was the strongest human in the world, I felt just like I did when I was trapped on that plane at 16. Scared. Vulnerable. Unable to assure anyone that the populace would be safe.

Only this time, Nina wasn’t the one to inspire hope in me. She was the direct cause of the turmoil.

The guy in the video went on to talk about how this was all part of a big conspiracy, but I had already fled the library by then. I wasn’t sure what I would say when I saw my girlfriend, or if she would even be my girlfriend after we were through.

I knew she had been Jaded by the world, but this was a step too far. Innocent men, women and children had died that day. When did Nina become so… careless?

As I flew back to the house, I hesitated right before I opened the door. My hand was inches away from the handle, yet I couldn’t bring myself to grip and open it.

At that moment, the last thing I wanted to do was face the murderer that was my girlfriend. I wished desperately to return to the fantasy land that was our perfect supergirl relationship, but knew my better judgement wouldn’t let me.

I balled my trembling hand into a fist. I couldn’t do it. My mind had been split in two, the rift allowing self-doubt to fill into both halves.

But just as I thought about fleeing to the mountains and never returning, Nina opened the door.

“Hey Fern. Sorry about… well… almost killing that guy. I really don’t know what came over me. I promise it won’t happen again.”

She was lying through her teeth, but god I wanted her to be telling the truth. I wanted all that footage I had just seen to have been revealed to be expertly crafted CGI by some loser on the internet trying to generate clicks, but I knew it wasn’t. My composure was faltering and Nina was beginning to take notice.

“F-Fern? A-are you alright? Do you want me to—”

She tried to grab my hand, but I yanked it away from her. Nina’s worried face worsened.

“Don’t touch me! I-I know what you did. I saw the footage. I saw you… murder all those people!”

Those were not easy sentences for me to say, but now they were out there. Each one plastering more panic, confusion and dread onto Nina’s face.

“Fern, I-… I don’t know what you saw, but—”

“STOP LYING TO ME, NINA!” I shouted, my enhanced voice creating a pseudo-crater around me as all the snow was brushed away.

She shriveled up like a scared child. Being a full head taller than her probably didn’t help ease my tone.

Tears were welling down her face, as they were mine. This was a truly awful scenario. There was no catharsis to be found. Just two frightened women with more power than they knew what to do with confronting each other about uncomfortable truths.

I almost didn’t blame Nina for getting slightly angry in response.

“Listen, Fern! I didn’t have a choice, okay!?” She floated upwards slightly so that our eyes were level. “It was either them, or you! A-and now I have you! A-and now I’ll never lose you again!”

I took a step back. She wasn’t denying it anymore. Worse, she was trying to justify what she had done.

“I don’t even know who you are anymore, Nina,” I said through tears and shaky breath. I took a few more steps backwards, each footfall only increased her desperation.

“No! No! No! Please don’t leave! You’re all I have left! I did… I did all this for you! I made you strong! I made it so you’d never have to be afraid ever again! I made it so we’d never have to face any harassment! I-I fixed my greatest weakness!” Her hands were outstretched, begging for any sort of comfort from me.

“What, do you want me to be happy for you?” I responded, angry that she was doubling down on her sins yet again. Tears were still pouring down my face, but now her betrayal was only manifesting as anger within me as my enhanced brain quickly pieced together the truth. “Y-you lied to me! You tried to fly me all the way out to a secluded area just so I wouldn’t find out about the murder spree you went on!? You lied about the FBI having some sort of super-weapon that weakened us! You did all that, and all you have to say for yourself is that you fixed your greatest weakness? Is that all I am to you anymore, Nina?”

Nina’s entire body was shaking now, her hyperventilating breaths conflicted between brutal anger and devastating sadness.

“What… did I do to deserve all this…? I just wanted to make things right only for everything to go to shit! Why does this world fucking hate me so much!?”

With that rhetorical question shouted into the sky, her eyes began to burn red with energy. I watched in horror as she unleashed a barrage of focused plasma upon the small town below. Building after building was torn to ash and dust, with the residents roasted within.

I shook the shock of my face and tackled Nina to the ground. Her laser vision struck me directly in the face, but it felt more like a concentrated stream of slightly-too-hot shower water than anything truly painful.

“Stop it, Nina! They didn’t do anything to deserve this!” I shouted, pinning her squirming body to the ground.

“Neither did I!” She shouted back, breaking her stream of heat to headbutt me directly in the face.

Even though such an action probably hurt her more than it hurt me, the desired effect was achieved, she managed to slip from my grasp and fly up into the sky.

I looked up to where my mind predicted she would be, but she wasn’t there. Had she fled? I certainly couldn’t see where she ran off to. My eyes darted in all directions, trying to catch a glimpse of any sort of detail that could clue me in to her whereabouts.

I may be three times stronger than her, but she had been a superhero for a lot longer. She knew all the tricks. But I had a feeling she was going to try and destroy more innocent lives, so I had to find her fast.

Fortunately for me, she came back for a proper fight. Unfortunately for me, she had known the perfect time as to when an enemy would let their guard down.

I felt a haymaker punch suddenly strike me on the side of the head. The resulting shockwave shook all the snow off the trees in a mile radius. I tried to turn my head to view her, but she remained within a blind spot, forcing me on the defensive.

She wailed upon me with punches at full force, always one attack ahead of me at any given time. I blocked low, and she greeted me with another unseen punch to my face. My hyperactive instincts then attempted to block high, and she rewarded me with a sharp knee to my side. I crumpled slightly from the attack and she saw it as the perfect window of opportunity to wail into me unobstructed. Blow after blow was registered into my face. I was like the punching bag she never had. But, even as her strikes were causing avalanches around the area, my body was getting used to them. The initial fear was wearing off, Nina was running out of tricks.

I tested this theory by feigning as if I was losing consciousness. Sure enough, she only continued to beat my face in. Then, right when she wasn’t expecting it… WHAM!

My far larger fist connected right into her face. While she could only pepper me with several blows, my singular punch sent her flying backwards several feet. Her body struck a large rock upright and I caught a glimpse of just how shocked her expression was. Nina clearly hadn’t felt pain like that in a while, especially if her bloody nostrils were any indication.

I don’t think I had ever seen her bleed.

But the fight wasn’t done for. She got back up and charged at me. I prepared for her attack, but she blindsided me with a handful of snow before tackling me into the sky. I wiped the snow out of my eyes only to be blinded once more with a window curtain. Nina had rammed us into someone’s house!

Deciding this was the end of her destruction, I took a deep breath and thought about floating in place. Sure enough, my power overrode hers and all movement between the two of us ceased.

It must’ve been quite the sight for the frightened family, two supergirls crashing into their house only to come to a complete stand-still in the center of the living room.

Nina continued her attempts at moving me, but I had steeled my composure. All her punches were absorbed by my rippling abs, only mildly flinching me with each cascading blow.

Trying my best to keep her away from civilians, I thrust my knee upwards and struck her in the jaw. Unfortunately, my efforts were somewhat in vain as she went soaring straight through the roof.

She was just going to try and destroy more and more property and civilians. I needed to take her out now before she did any more damage!

I took to the sky and struck her with a double-handed dunk before she could recover from my previous strike. Her body was sent twirling downwards towards the pristine, snow-laden pavement.

She cratered the ground, breaking through three layers of stone. I flew down to the middle of the impact site and delivered a brutal punch to her gut with gravity and the sheer weight of my body aiding the force of it.

Nina coughed up a fountain of blood, but I didn’t let up. Weak shaking arms tried to block her chest, ones even the slowest fighters could read around.

Punch after punch landed directly into her face. I didn’t let up, rage had overcome me, even as regretful tears poured down my face.

“Y-you…” she tried to say, I paused on the finishing blow.

“You...said…you were…eternally…grateful, Fern.”

Her body trembled as she forced the words out of a damaged windpipe. Her eyes were swollen shut, brain likely fading in and out of consciousness. One more punch and it would all be over.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Memories flooded back into my brain from the span of our relationship together. The rescues; the quiet yet charming dates; the lovely baths we shared as two humans who loved each other, content with the mere embrace of our naked bodies. Nina was right, I was eternally grateful. She had been the hero I had turned to again and again for guidance on how to do the right thing.

I flew away, leaving Nina alone in the crater.

We weren’t girlfriends anymore, or even allied for that matter. I didn’t even want to think about what that made us now. But I did know that it would be unfair of me to kill her after everything she had done for me, even if that was a bygone era of heroism for her.

It was time to become the hero the people needed. It would be an uphill battle for sure, but I was confident that I had the strength to accomplish anything.