The Fall of Awesome

The Fall of Awesome By Andrew Pain


A Tale of Super City

Prelude

Rulerhad taken control of the city twenty minutes earlier. He knew Rulerwasn’t a great name but it was the first time he found he neededone. It seemed to fit.

Theannouncement was made in the usual way - blaring out of the largevideo screens and public address speakers all over Super City. Hethought the city kept them just to make it a little easier on thevillains, trying for their shot at glory.

Hehovered a couple hundred feet above ground level, clear of nearbybuildings. The new Harris Building was higher. And the Tower, ofcourse.

TheTower, home of the Super Squad. The primer super team of Super City.Led by the greatest and most powerful hero of them all, CaptainAwesome. Awesome always claimed to be from another star, but Rulerhad his doubts. Another member of the Super Squad, Incredi-Girl, wasfrom an alternate dimension version of Earth. When she was new tothis world she made a lot of mistakes, showed a lot of confusion.Awesome didn’t do either. Perhaps he was just better atacclimating.

Hoveringhere, within view of the Tower, was basically calling out the Squad.Being up in the sky meant Ruler would face the fliers first. The teamroster only had one truly grounded hero, Speed-girl. Ruler wonderedwho thought up these names. Freedom’s armor could fly, but facedflight restrictions inside city limits. His rocket boots cause toomuch damage, but he has taken off when the team needed the helpairborne.

Theother three members of the Super Squad appeared, as if on Ruler’smental cue. The Lightning Lord first, Incredi-Girl and CaptainAwesome slightly above and behind. Ruler glanced down to seeSpeed-girl clearing out the crowd below. Freedom was down there too,his orders to clear the area still audible at this height.

LightningLord was closing fast, Incredi-Girl not too far behind. Awesome hungback. He preferred one on one fights. Ruler didn’t care, the orderwas unimportant.

Alightning bolt struck Ruler’s Force Field. The Field was state ofthe art and converted the electricity to it’s own use, getting alittle stronger. The Lightning Lord wouldn’t know that and hit itagain. Ruler smiled.

TheLightning Lord used the Earth’s electromagnetic field to fly and togenerate the lightning bolts he threw around. Ruler pulled out asmall device and tossed it in the general direction of the hero.Attracted to the magnetic field he was using to fly, it curved tofollow his flight path and struck. Not very hard, that wasn’t thepoint. Once it had attached itself it activated a magnetic jarisolating the hero from the Earth’s magnetic field. He fell fromthe sky like a stone.

Rulerthrew a small anti-grav ball after him. It would slow his fall alittle. It wasn’t required that the Lightning Lord remain alive forthe last phase of the plan, but his death would be sub-optimal. Itwouldn’t do for him to remain conscious now.

Hehadn’t fallen far when Incredi-Girl came swooping in. She wasn’tequal to Awesome, but wasn’t a push-over either. Ruler pulled out asmall raygun, calibrated to a specific bean frequency. He pointed itat Incredi-Girl, already uncomfortably close, and fired.

Nothingseemed to happen, but her flight path changed slightly, then more so.Ruler smiled as he saw her eyes go wide and she started to tumblefrom the sky, arms pinwheeling. She got an anti-grav ball as well.Ruler would definitely need her again.

Heactivated another remote, triggering devices he had placed around thecity earlier. Freedom was moving to open ground, looking forsomewhere safe to take off. Awesome was working his way in, beingcautious. Ruler knew that was more out of concern he would be made tolook bad than actually being hurt. There wasn’t much that couldhurt Awesome, but hurting him wasn’t required.

Rulerpulled out a twisted wooden stick, pointed it at the hero, and spokea single word. Captain Awesome’s eyes closed, he fell into a deepsleep, then he fell out of the sky. Ruler watched him fall whileFreedom was still gaining altitude, then started down to meet therising hero.

Acouple energy bolts hit the force field, which ignored them. Freedomswitched to a sonic weapon, which the field absorbed but couldn’tconvert. Ruler began to get a ‘power drain’ warning on hisequipment monitor. Still, he went a little lower. The timing had tobe right.

Froma pouch on his belt he pulled out a small remote. With a push of thebutton, and a lot of past research and rewiring of the remote, theFreedom armor started to power down. The rocket boots cut off and hefell back to Earth with a satisfying thump. The armor could take thedamage.

OnlySpeed-girl left. Ruler was low enough she could throw things at him,which wasn’t the plan. So he went lower still, taking a corner fastenough to pull a light pole free. It fell into the street.


Thereshe was. Ruler knew she was a progressive power. Every time she ranshe got a little faster. She was already hard to see unless you hadsome distance which, right now, he didn’t. Ruler stayed in hovermode, one arm up in something that was supposed to look threatening.

Speed-girlgrabbed the end of the downed light pole. It was too heavy for her topick up all the way. She ran forward, planning to spin the pole likea hammer throw. When was the pole was mostly behind her Rulerdischarged the small capacitor he had slapped on as he pulled thelight pole from the ground. The charge arced down the pole, throughSpeed-girl, into the ground. She collapsed.

Therewas an uneasy rustling sound, civilians who were used to seeingbattles go the other way. They were probably wondering where theother super teams were, Team Justice and the Guardians. Ruler knew ofcourse, but he wasn’t going to share. There were still independentheroes around and some of those would be a problem if they showed up.He gathered up the five unconscious or, in Freedom’s case,immobilized heroes in a force-bubble for easy transport and flewtowards The Tower.