Subtle pressure in the air lifted all at once as Rich felt the corrupt energy dissipate in the lonely quarry air. Gone was the big green monster. All that remained was a boy.
Future Hero walked away from the corpse. Looking at it filled him with revulsion, at Stinger, but also at himself. Heavy boots of the Endram Armor crushed rocks beneath his feet as Rich paced the perimeter of the quarry, completely at a loss for what to do. His heavy footfalls were the only sound to be heard, every step an accusation.
I let my anger get the best of me.
When the mutant got too close to Julie, he completely lost it. Even as the monster begged for mercy, Rich just beat him harder. Him. Not it.
I killed a boy.
To his shame, Rich realized he didn't recognize the poor little guy. Chubby, big-boned, and short, or maybe his height was normal for boys here, and Richard was the freak. Probably a student at his school, he supposed.
Realizing he was only delaying the inevitable, Future Hero went back to take a closer look. He deserved a decent burial, at least, let his family get some closure.
Kneeling, Rich reached out a hand to-
"He's breathing!" Rich exclaimed in shock.
Doubting his own senses, Rich lowered his ear to the boy's chest. Sure enough, it was rising and falling, with a steady heartbeat clearly audible. Joy and relief washed over him until he remembered the neck.
Future Hero broke the monster's neck with a devastating chop. Even if the boy were alive, he'd surely be paralyzed, right?
But no. Rich's hand drifted upward, gently examining where the blow had fallen. No mark. Everything felt solid, stable. Was it possible to kill the monster and free the human trapped inside? It looked that way.
Only then did Rich start crying. Feeling like a murderer, a monster worse than the creatures he fought, only to find out the kid was okay, pulled his emotions so tight they snapped back, and the pain crushed him into the dirt of the quarry.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Future Hero sobbed in his helmet until the goggles fogged up. He clutched the boy desperately, praying for absolution, but the body was still limp and unresponsive. No murmurs of forgiveness, no closure materialized.
Dread returned. The boy might still be in danger. "You need to get to a hospital!" He picked the body up as carefully as he could.
With not a moment to lose, Rich secured the boy in Future Roller and raced back to Plano faster than he'd ever driven in his life. It was a miracle he wasn't pulled over.
Future Hero got a few funny looks when he walked into the emergency room in full costume, but the triage nurse was instantly all-business once she saw the boy in his arms.
"Stinger?" she asked seriously.
Rich nodded. "I can't stay."
"Go get 'em, kid."
If only he could! Stinger usually lies low after a monster attack. It would be a while before he got a shot at the bastards again. Without another word, Rich left the hospital and actually made it back in time for his shift at Chili's.
Work was surreal, bringing clueless people their onion blossoms and fajitas while he knew a gang of monsters was on the loose. They kidnapped innocent people and turned them into weapons! He tried not to think about the other monsters he killed, but they were all there. Visions of every mutant he put down in a quarry flashed before his eyes while Rich was flirting with middle-aged women and pitching dessert.
I have to find them, he thought. Rich had to put a stop to this once and for all. Stinger had to have a base or something, a place where they created the mutants. When he found it, he'd destroy it. Nobody else would have to die, just fucking Stinger.
Needless to say, he didn't sleep very well that night.
***
To his shock, Rich learned from Becca that football practice was not cancelled the next day. The giant hole in the field had been filled in by a concerned parent with a contracting business and an earth mover, and every girl on the team was expected bright and early as if no mutant had attacked yesterday.
There was something off about this world, the way they were so cavalier about what were essentially terrorist attacks. Stinger was treated as a fact of life, something akin to a natural disaster. None of it made sense. Wasn't this the height of the War on Terror? Where the hell was the government? Why did Rich have to fight?
So little had been explained to him. Maybe it would never get explained. So, understanding or not, Rich prepared for the battle that was his duty. He waited until ten in the morning, thinking it impolite to call on Reka earlier than that, and paid his next-door neighbor a visit.
"Oh, hello, dear," Reka's husband, Brad, greeted him at the door. Seeing a guy with short hair and Navy tattoos wearing a frilly housewife apron wasn't normal, but in a reverse world, it was.
"Hello, Mr. Fekete," Rich said politely, putting on his best "boy next door" act. Not for the first time, he wondered how someone as intense as Reka ended up with a sweet man like that. "Is your wife around?"
"Oh my, yes. She's been down in her lab for days, on some new project of hers. Do remind her to eat, would you, darling? She forgets, sometimes."
He agreed instantly and headed downstairs as fast as his legs could carry him.
"Come back later," Reka said at his approach, not even bothering to turn around. "I'm on the verge of a breakthrough."
"Reka, we need to talk. Stinger's monsters are people!" he spat out the shocking truth.
"I know."
What? She knew? "And what are we going to do about it?" Rich demanded. This seemed like something pretty urgent to him.
Reka sighed, worked for another minute or two before reaching a logical stopping point that only made sense to her, and finally deigned to turn around and look Rich in the eye. "I'm close, Mr. Rice, very close. Pure energy? Corrupt energy? It's all really one thing: the emotive force. Emotive force warps reality, and one pole can cancel out the other. You remember when I had you strike one of those claws you got back with one of your silly little special moves, 'Future Punch', wasn't it? Well, the interaction was interesting as hell."
She picked up a charred, blackened, shriveled old thing that Rich guessed must've been the claw he'd taken off the mutated mayor. "Open it up," Reka commanded.
At first, Rich was totally at a loss. Open? Open what? His hands roamed the ruined monster part, looking for some catch or hinge, like it was a box. Then...
Black skin peeled back, revealing the pristine hand of a human woman trapped inside. Rich let out an undignified yelp and dropped the offending member.
"Careful, damnit." Reka bent down and gingerly retrieved the human hand on the ground. "They're in there still. The mutation doesn't change the inner person. It's more like an overlay, a new layer of tissue over the old. For very big ones, you could probably destroy the outer shell without harming the person within."
That's exactly what happened! The boy's neck and the big green monster's neck must not have been in the same place!
"And if the mutant isn't a big one?" Rich asked hopefully.
Reka held her chin in thought. "I could probably tune your armor's output of energy. Take a look at this."
She led Rich over to a table where one finger of a monster's claw sat safely under glass. It wasn't charred like the other one. In fact, it looked like it'd been taken off the mayor only yesterday.
"This one is fresh. Now watch me zap it with modulated Pureheart Power." Reka brought out the metal rod that glowed with purple fire, lifted the glass, and ran the rod over the mutant finger.
ZAP! At first, it just looked like it was burning, but the longer it burned, the more Rich noticed that only the monster parts burned away. The claw shriveled to ash, leaving behind an untouched human finger.
Rich practically tackled Reka, crushing her in a hug. The woman squeaked like a gerbil. Reka was brilliant, but not large, more like elegant, some might say dainty. "This is just what I need, Mrs. Fekete!" he praised her with utmost respect. "I can save these people now!"
With great effort, the scientist was able to pry him off of her and extricate herself. "Maintain your sense of propriety, Mr. Rice!" she chastised him haughtily. "Boys should not be so free with physical affection!" Then her eyes softened a bit. "I am not yet ready to chance modifying the Endram Armor, but soon. Give me a few days. In the meantime, I can offer you an improved detector for corrupt energy."
She handed him something that looked like a transistor radio with a little screen resembling a sonar display. "This machine sends out a constant 'ping' of weak Pureheart Power, and the display shows any interaction with corrupt energy in a one-hundred-meter radius. Come, I'll show you how to orient yourself with it."
Reka took one of the fresh mutant fingers, hid it in her lab, and trained Richard on how to find it with the detector. Every time Rich found it, she changed the hiding space. Interpreting the display was fairly intuitive, and it didn't take long before he felt confident with it.
"With this, I can take the fight to Stinger! Thanks, Reka!"
He rushed out of the house without another word, on fire to find Stinger headquarters and end this once and for all. Sadly, an hour-long slow drive through Plano with the detector in his lap showed not one trace of corrupt energy. Did Stinger operate outside of city limits? Texas had a lot of land to hide in.
After a while, Rich gave up, went home, and made lunch.
Ugh, so frustrating...
***
With no leads, Rich decided visiting the boy in the hospital might be a productive use of his time. Stinger could've left traces, or, even better, he might remember who did it to him!
The next day, he spent the drive to the hospital rehearsing lies in his head. On impulse, he noticed a flower shop on the side of the road and pulled over. Rich bought a bouquet, thinking it would add credibility. It would be money wasted if the hospital said "family only", but that was a risk he was willing to take.
"Um, hello," Rich said awkwardly to the hospital receptionist when he walked into the same place Future Hero dropped off the victim just the other day. "There was a student at my high school who was injured in a Stinger attack and..."
"Oh my, you mean Bryce Wilcox!" The receptionist was a skinny, cheerful-looking young man. "He's awake, thank the goddess, and I'm sure Mr. Wilcox will be thrilled one of his little friends brought him flowers." She checked her computer. "Ah, your friend Bryce is in room 12 on the third floor. You can go right in, dear!"
Oh. How convenient. Rich had this whole scenario in his head to justify not knowing the name of the injured boy, but this was good, too. Under normal circumstances, gossipy, unprofessional hospital workers who casually revealed patient information to possible strangers would be a bad thing, but in this case, it worked in his favor.
Rich was so eager to get to this Bryce that he almost collided with Azure Abrams.
"Oh, hey Azure, you here to see Bryce?" he asked casually. She was wearing a white lab coat and was holding a syringe.
She hid her hands behind her back. "Rich, I didn't see you come in! No, sorry, I don't know any Bryce. Actually, I'm an intern! They've got this whole program that lets high school kids shadow doctors and see them at work, super interesting. Can't talk now, bye!"
The blue-haired girl delivered her words machine-gun style, then instantly reversed direction and speedwalked as fast as she reasonably could down a hospital hallway. Now what was that about?
Once Azure disappeared, Rich gently knocked on the hospital door. "Bryce?"
After a moment of silence, Rich prepared to knock again when Bryce answered. "Come in," he said in a rough voice.
Poor guy.
Bryce Wilcox was lying in bed with his eyes closed. "I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Rich asked softly.
The boy's big eyes fluttered open. Bryce stared at Rich for a moment with no apparent recognition.
"I brought you flowers," he said kindly, laying them on a bedside table.
Bryce's eyes, previously tired and half-lidded, sprang open, and he sat up at a speed Rich was afraid might hurt him. "Richard Rice?"
"Yeah. I came to visit you. Bryce, do you have any idea how you got here?"