Killing a Man

My muscular arms constricted Kate's slender body, the slow, rhythmic breathing of hers against my chest. Her heavenly pillows of breasts were pressing firmly against me. Her breasts were granite-hard due to the frigidity of the room, piercing sharply in the shape of miniature bullets into my ribcage. Her buttocks, a ripe peach round, filled my palms like the one and only piece of watermelon on a hot summer's day. Her pursed, clenched asshole was winking at me in the shape of every breath she breathed in.

"What was that?" Kate opened her eyes wide upon hearing the low beep in my earpiece.

"Duty awaits," I breathed, my voice trembling in a mixture of remorse and exhilaration. The thrill of the taboo never faded on my part—sex and combat, they were synonymous in my mind.

Kate gazed up at me, gray eyes wide in a question, full lips parted in a soft gasp. "But—"

"I know," I whispered, kissing the crown of her head. "But the world needs more saving than we need each other."

Zipping up the tight, white suit, the fabric sticking to my donkey dick, Kate was still a novelty. Tight, sweet pussy to slip in and out of at will when the burdens of the world receded in the distance. Her clones melted away as I retreated, the real Kate on the bed, flesh glowing in the dim light, asian skin flushed with desire. She trailed behind, a sulk on her face, a hand tracing lazy circles on her clit, plump, pink lips glistening with our play.

"Call me when you get a break?" she whispered hopefully.

"Always," I replied, half-smiling. There were two other girls to watch out for, after all. "But you know how it is."

And so, in the air, the wind of the night wrapped itself around my chocolate skin, and I soared up into the night air. Utah's lights faded in the distance, and the press of the earth upon my shoulders, a bitter counter to Kate's tenderness, was something that I could feel sharply.

"Zandale, there's a situation," Cecil's tone was a snake in the ear, frozen and persistent. "Angstrom Levy's at Invincible's home. He's putting his family in danger. Invincible needs your support."

My heart was racing faster than my flight. "Fuck," I cursed, the reality of the situation smashing into me like a ton of bricks. Levy was trouble—a man who was going to start the Invincible War if I let it.

I glided above the quiet suburban houses, the wind rushing across my cheek in a myriad of whispers in my ear. Houses loomed near, and next, I could spot the shape of the house that I was so familiar with from comics. Invincible's house. Its lights were extinguished, and my heart beat in my chest like a bass beat at a rap concert. This was no fantasy playthrough anymore-it was real.

I crashed in through the glass, breaking the stillness of the night. There, in front of me, stood Debbie, matted black locks and eyes wide and white in terror and blood. She held the purple-skinned baby, Oliver, cupped in the bend of her arm. Her breasts heaved and plunged in terror, the perfect orbs of tits bulging the material of the tattered shirt she wore. Oliver's small fists were balled, eyes screwed tight shut, as though he hoped it would pass away by sheer willpower.

"Where is he?" I asked, scanning the air before me for the lunatic.

"Levy's in the other room," the girl's words quivered, pointing toward the hallway. "He said that if I made a sound, he'd murder both of us."

I nodded, gritting my jaw in resolve. "Don't worry, I'll handle it," I assured her, super-strength running through my system like nitrous oxide.

In the next room, I found myself faced by Levy, the beady eyes glimmering with malicious purpose. "Too late, Bastion," he jeered, the words themselves a cracking lash in the tense atmosphere

But I wasn't going to let him get the better of me. Clenching my fist, the muscles in my 7-foot frame tensing in strength, I moved in on him. "You came after the wrong family," I snarled, charging at him.

Levy's eyes widened in surprise when he saw me coming, too late, though. In one swift, powerful blow, I drove my hand through the center of his chest, hearing the crunch of shattering ribs and brittle bone splintering under the superhuman grip of my hand. He gurgled, the copper flavor of his blood in the back of his throat as my fist drove up to the wrist. I was faster than Invincible, it turned out, and he realized it in that instant.

"You... you can't," he choked, his eyes protruding like a toad about to spawn.

But even before he could speak, I let it all out. One shot of my orange eye beams, and his head vanished. Just like that. Done, the madness, the room filled with nothing but the smell of burning oxygen and the copper flavor of death.

Debbie screamed, collapsing to the floor as the baby stayed silent in her arms. Reality caught up to the scenes of what had happened, her eyes frantically moving back and forth between the charred crater of the erstwhile-Levy and my undamaged self. The room was silent excepting the sobbing of Debbie.

"Why did you do that?" she choked. "We needed him alive! Mark is trapped!"

Shit, I hadn't thought that far ahead. But fuck, the guy had it coming. "I'll get him back," I tried to say, trying to sound bolder than I actually was. "I can do what he did."

I stiffened, something stirring deep inside of me—a new power. It was a beast, contained and now let loose. I could feel the fabric of reality taut and pulsating in my hand, the same as the chest of Levy before I had splattered his brains on the wall. I focused on the power, calling it to myself.

And then it happened. It materialised in the curve of my hand, a searing, orange whirling emptiness. "Fuck," I gasped, wide-eyed in amazement. It filled out, the boundaries indistinct, like a bad signal on the telly. It was more intense than anything I had ever gone through before.

"What's happening?" Debbie's whisper was a low murmur, but I couldn't look away from the expanding whirlpool.

"I'm going to go find Mark," I declared, stepping out into the roiling vacuum. Everywhere, things curled and bent, and world stacked on top of world, dimension on top of dimension, each one strangeness added to the one before it. I viewed worlds in which men were kept as pets by giant alien whores, and others in which the heavens were made of glowing rock. They had none the smell of fear and desperation that Mark was emitting, however.

Finally, I ended up in a desolate wasteland, the color of the sky a sallow greenish hue. And there he sat, Invincible, leaning forward, his suit a shadow of its former glory.

"Mark!" I called out, my voice carrying across the desolate wasteland. He looked up, eyes red and tired, but at the sight of me, the anger drained from his face, only to be filled by a mixture of relief and irritation.

"What happened to him?" he said, his voice containing a blend of accusation and resignation.

"He left me no choice," I tried to talk, the words heavy in my mouth like a lump of moist concrete.

Invincible looked at me, eyes piercing my own, searching to weigh the truth. Wind howled about us, a cry of lamentation at the war-scarred world we had left behind.

"Is he dead?" he cried out, his voice trembling with emotion.

I shook my head up and down somberly. "He's gone."

For a moment, the whole universe seemed to suspend its breath, waiting in anticipation of what Mark was going to do next. But Mark then punched the earth, and a shockwave shook the desolate wasteland. "You had no right!"

"I did what needed doing," I said, the burden of what had happened weighing heavily on my shoulders like a boulder. "He was holding your Mom and Brother hostage. I couldn't just stand by and do nothing."

Mark looked at me, eyes still burning with anger, but also a glimmer of understanding in them. He recognized the kind of monster Levy had showed himself to be: the kind of monster he had constructed. "Take me home," he growled, low and hard, and the fists at his sides remained curled up.

I swallowed hard, and the vortex increased in size to engulf us, the edges surging like rain in a downpour. It stabilized, and we were in the Grayson living room, the same place where it had begun. Mark's mother, Debbie, and younger brother, Oliver, sat there, staring at us in one frozen moment of shock.

The instant Mark saw them, he hurried to them, embracing both of them with a ferocity that belied his exhaustion. "Mom," he struggled to say, relief in every phrase.

"Mark," Debbie wept, clutching her son closer, the muscles in her arms tightening harder as her heart raced in her chest like a herd of mustangs in a stampede. She could sense the tightness in the muscles of his arms, the desperation in their embrace. Her face had seen better days, but she lived, lived thanks to Bastion Prime.

Cecil stood in the doorway, piercing eyes raking the room. Teleportation was swift, the outline of him a spectral presence before he coalesced as his usual strict self. Wearing the same blue suit, the tie perfectly knotted, every strand of hair in its place, he stood in the doorway, eyes fixed on the slouching figure of Levy in the corner, the grim look on his face.

"Mark," he instructed, speaking in a soft but firm directive. "Your mother needs medical attention. She will go to the Pentagon. She will receive the best medical treatment."

Mark nodded, easing the grip he had on Debbie and Oliver a bit. He realized that Cecil was correct—his mother's health came first. Taking one final, searching look at the two of them, he let them go, not looking away once as he edged backward.

She looked up at me, and tears of appreciation filled her eyes. "Thank you," she whispered, hardly loud enough to hear. "Thank you for rescuing us."

I nodded, the weight of the moment at last sinking in my chest. "This is what I do," I said, trying to sound casual. I had killed a man, and even though he was a misguided monster, it just wasn't something that should have happenned, it was like I stole something from Mark. A chance to end things his way.

I offered Mark a final back pat as I left, my gaze lingering a moment longer on the shuddering figure of Debbie. Her breasts was covered by the tattered remnants of her top, but I could see the nipples stiffened by fear and cold. She looked up at me in a mixture of horror and appreciation, eyes never leaving the departing back of me as I walked to the door.

The night air was a sheet of ink, the stars glinting at me like secrets waiting to be told. I leapt upward, cape rippling out behind me in a banner of protest. My nipples stiffened, as hard as stones, under the batter of the wind thrashing against the skin covered by my costume, and the material of the suit clung to me like a lover's touch. My body hummed, filled with the thrum of the recently discharged electricity of adrenaline, a spinning buzz that left me dizzy.

Sailing high above the deserted city streets, the skyscrapers below a silhouette of inky shapes in the night sky. My mind whirled at the possibilities of everything that I could do, the worlds that I could reach. This new gift was a potent intoxication—a burning strong whiskey that seared its way down but lingered in a honey-sweet afterglow.

Next, I was in the center of the Mojave Desert, the moon and the stars above my only illumination. I floated, the power surging through my veins, a heartbeat that wasn't my own, the beat of the universe itself. I looked at my hand, the one that had held the door to a thousand worlds, and I couldn't resist trying.