Amid the tumult ...
Zjahn fought to keep control of everything. The illusion of Phaross still hovered above, but he had not made the image say anything for long seconds, meanwhile, the man lay there dying due to his own incompetence. Betty knelt beside the man, ineffectually attempting to stop the bleeding, while dozens of other people rushed, screaming for the doors. He had to do something!
"Pah! Your champion is a coward!" Zjahn's fingers gripped a nearby wall as he forced Phaross to speak. "Let it be known that his day is over! I shall return and, when I do, I will kill Psycona!"
Zjahn made the image rise up, back through the shattered skylight and, once outside, he allowed the illusion to fade away. That, at least, allowed him to return a greater swathe of his power to other tasks. Maintaining his human image, for one. It had only happened for a fraction of a second, he doubted anyone saw, but the illusion of the human body he cast about him and flickered.
With that illusion strengthened, he turned his attention to that oaf of a man, the man that, by rights, had no business surviving. Not with the thoughts Zjahn had read in his mind. But it was not Zjahn's place to pass judgement. He was a Peacemaker, a superhero, not a lawmaker. Not a judge.
A thought took less time than any doubt and he formed a psychic barrier against the severed artery in Wade's throat. A patch, nothing more, but enough to stave off the man's death for a little while longer. A death that he may well have caused.
As emergency medical practitioners and police officers burst into the room, Zjahn waited until they had the situation under control before allowing the psychic barrier to fall from the man's injury. The blood began to pour once more, but, from the thoughts of the medical personnel, they believed they could transport him to surgery in time.
He watched as they rushed Wade past him, on a gurney, and could do nothing but berate himself. He could only imagine he had miscalculated. That the complexity of his plan, the strength required, had proven greater than expected. He would not make the same mistake twice.
A bloodied hand clutched at his arm and he turned his head to the woman. She appeared in shock. Shaking, pale, cold. He could not read her mind. Whether she still had feelings for Tompkins, or whether she cared equally for anyone hurt by such things. If she could only read Zjahn's mind, she could learn who had brought the man she knew so close to death.
And Zjahn could not shake the memory that, in that moment as Phaross descended, the man had glared at Zjahn and Betty and, in that self-same moment, Zjahn had wished him dead.
-+-
Later, Betty Burns' apartment ...
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't wash the blood from her hands. She scrubbed and scrubbed, used an entire bottle of soap, had taken a shower, a bath. Nothing worked. The blood remained, ingrained within the lines and whorls of her skin. Or, at least, it felt like it did. In truth, she suspected that she imagined it.
In all her years as a reporter, she had seen more than her fair share of blood, of death, but never with anyone she knew. Wade was a dick, he really was, but he didn't deserve that. No-one did, and now, despite the fact that her hands still shook, she had to do her job. An eyewitness to tragic events. To the arrival of a new, cruel, super-villain. Phaross. Like the lighthouse? Her mind had already started to work out the sequence of events.
Yet, she sat in front of her laptop, the page empty but for her byline. The cursor blinking, taunting her to write something, but nothing came. In her mind, she had the entire article mapped out. Putting it down in words was proving far more difficult.
None of it made any sense. But, then again, little that super-villains did made any sense. They came, got beaten by the capes and sent to prison, or run away with their tails between their legs, only to return with ever more wild and crazy schemes and always, always, bringing death and destruction in their wake.
The supers were as bad. The capes. The heroes. Few of them ever cared about those affected by the destruction their fights left behind. Principle, sure, but Betty felt certain that man never slept. He fixed things when he could. Helped families whose lives had fallen to ruin. Consoled the bereaved and the injured. Few were like Principle and even Betty, with her cynical view of, well, everything, had to admit the white and gold uniformed super really was the nicest guy that ever existed.
Usually, supers left the cleaning up of their messes to others. Like Thomas Miller in Bohemia City. Billionaire philanthropist that put his money where his mouth was. Saying that, there were areas of Bohemia City even the immense Miller International corporation didn't bother to help, like Hatchet Row, or whatever they called that rat-infested slum these days. Faraday City had its share of deprived areas, but nothing like the Row.
Supers. Were they truly the good guys, or only less bad than the guys they fought? That sounded good. Maybe for an article in the future. With a better title, obviously, but the premise had promise. And, right there, Betty knew she needed to walk away from the laptop for a few moments. Making sad little rhymes like that could only lead to writing divorce notices in the lower left corner of page nine million.
She needed a drink. She needed to talk to someone. She needed sex. Maybe not in that order, and maybe one of them, at least, was inappropriate right now. A glance to the door of her apartment had her shaking her head. Instead, she headed to the kitchen, took the vodka from the freezer and poured herself a drink. Then she added more vodka to the tumbler. And a little more. With the bottle in one hand, the tumbler in the other, she moved to the window, glancing at the door again.
Sean was fine. He seemed nice, despite that 'off' feeling she had about him. And also despite the fact that she was, after a fashion, investigating him. He seemed nice. And she realised she had thought that twice. But, he wasn't the kind of 'nice' that revved her motor. Whether she needed her motor revving or not, though, was the point she tried to make to herself. What had happened tonight had shocked her to her core.
The ice-cold chill of the bottle against her fingers kept her grounded. Painful, but sufferable. Not like the pain Wade must have suffered. She tipped a good mouthful of the vodka down her throat, almost emptying the tumbler, and stared out across the rooftops of the city. As she watched, she caught sight of a cape rippling in the night. Psycona. Even from down here, she recognised Faraday City's resident hero.
"And where the hell were you when we needed you?" She reached out, tapping the window pane with the bottom of the bottle of vodka, then leaned forward, shouting at a man that had already flown out of sight. "Where the hell were you?"
She slammed the remainder of the vodka down her throat and threw the tumbler to the other side of the room. It crashed against the door, splinters and shards blooming outward, doing nothing but remind her of what had happened earlier that night. Then she groaned, schlepping across the room to find the dustpan and brush. Clear up the mess that would, inevitably, lead to lacerations of her feet if she didn't.
Scraping the remnants of the tumbler onto the dustpan, she looked at the door, but no knock came. Sure, he was nice in a 'you're nice, but ...' kind of way, but if he had come to check up on her, right then, she would have devoured him. Lucky, lucky man. Lucky, lucky Betty. So lucky she came away from a super-villain encounter unharmed. Unlike Wade. Wade wasn't so lucky. Could well never be ever considered lucky again.
The glass tinkled into the trash can as she tipped the dustpan. She would have to take care and check again in the morning, but she felt certain she had got most of it. And still that cursor blinked at her. On the coffee table. Calling to her. She had a story to write, but she couldn't decide what story to write. Others would have the clinical side all perfectly researched and written. Dry facts detailing the events as they occurred. Betty was not a 'dry facts' kind of girl. She needed an angle. Light glinted on a piece of glass she had missed and, in an instant, she found herself sat with laptop on her, well, lap, fingers blazing across the keys.
"The Oakmont Hotel: Reporters, awards, super-villains and absent heroes."
Psycona should have been there!
-+-
Fifteen miles from Faraday City ...
Zjahn didn't even attempt to slow his descent. He slammed down upon the packed dirt, a shockwave of dust and air rolled away from him and he ripped the ridiculous cape from his shoulders. He could not understand why this bothered him as much as it did. People had gotten injured during his battles many times in the past. He had never cared one iota for any of them.
That wasn't his job. He didn't perform these duties because he cared for these humans. How could he? They were, unequivocally, human and beneath him. He performed his duties because he had the power to do so. It was an obligation. To ensure that no other people, no matter how offensive he found them, would ever suffer as his people had. A debt to a long-dead world that he could never repay.
Why, then, did he feel such turmoil? Why did the vision of that man continue to invade his thoughts? Betty, knelt beside him, tears creating trails down cheeks that, only seconds before had bulged due to the smile she had worn the entire night. A genuine smile. Or Zjahn liked to believe so. He could not read her mind, could not tell what she thought. What she thought of him. Why he could even begin to care, he could not understand.
"It was supposed to be simple!" His fist pounded into the dirt, the ground for miles in every direction rippling and rumbling. "I had the entire plan to perfection. Not one soul should have come to harm!"
Another first slammed into the dirt, sending a cloud jumping into the air about him. Zjahn had more power than arguably any super on this planet and he had made the gravest of mistakes. He had attempted to court adulation, and for what? It made little difference to his life. Yet, even now, he remembered how Principle had swept in to capture Bone Master, making Psycona look like a half-wit. In his own city, Psycona had faded into the background.
He fell to his knees, staring at his fingers. His real fingers and almost wept to see his beloved claws that he could never reveal to these people. He must put aside this foolish charade and never think of it again. Some may question why Phaross appeared on only one occasion, but that would pass. Zjahn had a duty to perform, Psycona had a duty. That duty did not include creating a super-villain.
"But why stop now when we have only begun our campaign?" That voice. Zjahn knew that voice. "Why stop when we are so close to making you the hero this world can worship admire?"
"No." Zjahn turned, the word falling from his mouth in a whisper.
"Yes! Together! Psycona and Phaross!" The illusion hovered above Zjahn, cape rippling in the wind, dust swirling about him. Phaross! "We will elevate you to the level of the gods!"