SUPERWORLD

Aditya XIV

The bullet spinning in Aditya's face, mid-air, was of no concern to him, he was too focused on the face of the angel that had just appeared before him from behind a kitsune mask.

I told her that knowing her last name would come in handy! She's here! She's really here!!!

Another shot rang out, forcing Aditya out of his bliss and back to reality. He caught this one too, again, purely on reflex. He dropped them both to the ground harmlessly. Five more shots in rapid succession. He plucked them out of the air, easy as breathing, and dropped them all to the ground. Aditya felt a foreign sense of pure joy and harmony throughout his mind, body, soul...and something else he couldn't put his finger on. In any case, he felt like, at that moment, he could do anything.

"Marco, do you still need that shot?" He asked the muscular boy on his left.

Aditya flexed the muscle that wasn't there, feeling the strange extension of himself fully for the first time. Weak, underdeveloped, but stronger than anything he'd ever known or seen. He grabbed The Man in Black with his mind, pinning the monster's arms to his sides and lifting him into the air.

The Man in Black was strong and was able to struggle fiercely, frighteningly well against the muscle that wasn't there and it took everything Aditya had just to hold him. Aditya felt his mind burning, his eyes, ears, and nose leaking. He didn't care. He squeezed the beast he held tighter and heard a bone pop even as the beast wriggled with vicious strength. The suited goon didn't scream, didn't cry out, his face was like stone and Aditya didn't care.

"You're going to die now." Aditya said as his vision blurred red at the edges.

"If only."

A golden ball flew into Aditya's field of vision and exploded on impact, hitting the assassin in the face. Aditya felt the force knock The Man in Black loose from his grip, but it didn't matter, and Aditya blacked out happily, knowing they had won.

...bloody hell...

Aditya awoke with the worst headache of his life. He tried to open his eyes, but the dim light of the room he found himself in felt like boiling water had been poured into his brain.

"You awake, guy?" The voice of Eric rang in Aditya's ears.

"Good God, man! Lower your bloody voice, eh?"

"I whispered, but ok." Eric replied.

"Where are we?" Aditya asked, eyes still clamped shut. Eric sighed and the sound of a swivel chair turning made Aditya wish for death.

"I always knew that fucker was gonna come for me. I figured it'd be a clever idea to make some safe houses here and there. This one is in a literal hole in the wall I found while exploring the subway system. Kinda like my Batcave. I would've brought you guys here sooner, but I figured he found some and didn't want to risk it. Good thing he's dead now, though"

"The Man in Black is dead? How'd we get off the roof? Where's Makoto?!" Aditya fired off these questions in rapid succession despite his pain.

"What is this? You had brain hemorrhaging and when ya wake up ya wanna play twenty fuckin' questions? Yeah, he's dead. Marco blew half his face off, which really makes me wonder what those balls are made of. You know Dallas Preston?" Eric's speech was one long run-on sentence.

"...no?" Aditya answered.

"Oh. Well, he's a conspiracy wacko who hates immigrants. Him and his buddy stole two news 'copters, picked us up with some weirdo scientists, and blended in with the rest of the news 'copters that came to watch the show to escape."

"News helicopters?!" Aditya sat up and the sensation of the blood shifting in his head almost made him pass out again.

"Easy! What did I say about brain hemorrhaging?! Not gonna have you go fuckin' up my perfect record." Eric chastised his patient.

The young doctor eased Aditya back down and adjusted something on one of the machines he was hooked up to.

"Yeah, news helicopters. We've been on every channel in the world for the last eighteen hours. They saw what you and Marco did, people are starting to take Dallas' superhuman theories seriously. Jae managed to get back to Park and Priya in the van, after he kicked the shit outta, like, five-hundred SWAT guys and cops, and I radioed the van from the helicopter to tell 'em to come here."

Aditya sat stunned and silenced.

The world has changed in the little while I've been asleep, I'm the one who caused it.

"W-what about Makoto?"

"She's here," Eric smirked, "sleeping. And thank god for that, she would not stop crying until I got ya tah stop bleeding and then she and Mary stayed up all night to gab about you. Everyone had a hard time gettin' some sleep, the way those two hens were cluckin'. And to be fair, if I needed tah sleep, I would've shot them both dead, but, y'know..." Eric shrugged.

"...yeah...sure." Aditya agreed, unsure of what the doctor was babbling about.

At least he's not being a bastard anymore...

"Aaaany way, to hide from the cluckin' hens, I plugged your old man's drive into the computer system I got set up down here, way better than a laptop. Most of the files are generic MJ-12 crap, y'know, orders to kill people we can no longer save and failed mutagenic experiments, but," Eric produced a laptop displaying a video, the thumbnail was Aditya's father, "buried waaay down deep in the depressing shit, there was something for you."

Father...!

"So, yeah, good job helping us all not die. I'll leave you to watch this, got a feeling it's somethin' that'll get uncomfortable real fast." And Eric sped away.

Aditya pushed play on the video immediately.

"Aditya," The video began and the boy was instantly reduced to tears at the sound of his father's voice, "if you're watching this, I am dead. Don't blame yourself, your mother, or anyone except me. Years ago, before you were born, I became ambassador to the United States." Aditya's father sighed

It's ok...

"The president offered me a position in a group he said would bring me untold wealth and status, all I had to do was betray my country. I'm ashamed to say I took that and sold India's secrets so this group could infiltrate our government. I was wrong, I traded a priceless thing, my honor, for a paltry sum. I am making you this video on your fourteenth birthday because, as I've seen you grow, I realize I don't want my example to you to be a traitor and a coward. So, though I know it will cost me my life, I'm going to fight back against the group called 'The Majestic Twelve'."

I never thought you were a coward...not once.

"But I can't just leave you alone with no defense. You have Heinrich and Kamaljit, yes, but you also have yourself. And not just the power I hid from you for so long...I suppose I should apologize for that too." His father began to cry.

Aditya did too.

"Aditya, I have many regrets, that's why I'm doing this. What I was going to say, what I always should have said, your mind is special. You're a bloody genius." He laughed.

Thank you, papa

"And a mind like that needs special care. I searched all of MJ-12's files and I think I found it, the man who will teach you, who will nurture the greatness I know is in you. His name and coordinates are in the same file as this video. Go to him, beta, and become the man I never was. Take care of your mother. I love you, my son." The video ended.

Goodbye, papa.

Aditya, finally having been able to say goodbye to his father, closed the laptop.