Killing Olympia

Wasteland? I breathed out. Stepped back. And ran both my hands through my hair, staring at him for so long he shifted on his feet. Wasteland. I laughed dryly. Where was the punchline? I mean, come on, I might not be all that smart, but I wasn't stupid. Wasteland was dead. The Olympians took care of him… Just like how they took care of Lucian and Blight and Bloodforge, right? The Rangers fought him more times than the Olympians ever did. Those guys were continental cowboys, Capes that went around taking down threats across the country and not just here. There was the Overwatch League, which got wiped out trying to stop his warpath through the South. The Boy Scouts and later the Girl Scouts—they only ever found their bones rotting in his wake, smoldering in waste.

That Wasteland used to keep me up at night. The actor that played him on a few of the shows I used to watch got so much hate that they canned the show for his own safety. Wasteland was a soft spot, because it took the Capes back then so long to stop him. Unlike a few of the other villains from the Golden Age who were still—and I'm saying this with a massive grain of salt, knowing my luck—rotting in prisons somewhere, he couldn't be held captive. How could he when his body bled nuclear waste? Who could get close without turning into a walking tumor that had its skin sloughing off its bones in real time? Oh, MAN. I turned around and massaged my face.

Fighting Lucian was one of the worst things I've ever gotten myself into. I sometimes woke up in cold sweats from that night in the sewers. All that blood. All those simmering hatred, guts and grudges and a lust for one of us to end the other. At the end of the day, he'd nearly killed me. He had killed me. I was down for the count. Out.

Wasteland would outright kill me. I've got no way to put this other than ha.

It took dad and Titan a week to stop him, and even then…

Wait a minute. They never did tell us how they managed to get him into captivity. Some kind of special facility, and then the news went dead on the story the day the Olympians came back and had a parade in the city.

I remembered standing on the curb, just like everyone else, gaping as they strode down the avenues in the Upper West, waving, capes billowing, dad leading the way, Titan behind him and Cleopatra taking up the rear with Void and Heka. I'd tried to shout and get dad's attention, but that was as good as asking my old man for a hug, too.

Half the Olympians had grinned and waved and taken pictures with whoever asked.

The other half had been subdued. Silent. No waving, no smiles—they folded their arms and vanished when Void swept them up in a blanket of darkness. Dad had rattled off a joke about them having a really urgent curfew.

And just like that, the news never said a single thing about Wasteland or the Olympians.

The fight had taken place down near L.A. Or what used to be L.A.. San Angeles, now.

According to online chatter, you could sometimes still find molten pools of waste on the outskirts of the city. But whatever pictures got taken were wiped clean off the internet soon after, accounts deleted without a trace.

Before I got my superpowers, online conspiracy forums were my jam. I'd wreck my sleep schedule arguing with strangers about the coolest Capes in different States and the all-time top ten rankings. Wasteland talk was a no. For some reason. The one time I asked why, I got sent a middle finger and got my account banned off the board.

"Olympia?" Limelight asked.

"Give me a sec," I said, walking away a little. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. I flew into the sky and landed on the shell of a rusting water tank. I paced. My heart thumped against my chest. My phone rang and rang and I quietly cursed until the other side picked up. "'patra, hey, I know this might be a bad time, but—"

"Rylee," Cleopatra said, her voice hushed. "I'm not in a place where I can speak freely right now."

"I just need to know something," I said. "It's about your fight with Wasteland."

Silence answered me.

"Hello?"

"Why?" she asked.

"Long story," I said. "Didn't you guys kill him? Or capture him?"

"I can't talk right now. Don't engage him. If you're hunting rumors, disregard them."

"But—"

"I'll be home in a few days. We'll talk then."

The line went dead. I listened to the tone for several seconds, staring at my phone. I hadn't known her for long, but she wasn't the kind of person to get…scared, was she? She always had that narrow-eyed, clenched-jaw attitude toward anything, as if God had told her when she'd die, and everything else was just a formality to her.

But her voice had sounded clipped, almost tight. Cleopatra might've just been afraid.

The sky would turn blood red next if she really was afraid, if that was even possible.

I prayed it wasn't.

I called Kincaid. He picked up immediately.

"Kid," he said. "Talk to me."

"Is Wasteland dead?"

He answered me the same way: silence, long and unwarranted. My gut turned.

"No," he said. "He isn't."

"So what happened when the Olympians fought him?"

"Classified."

I scoffed. "I'm Olympia. What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means that…" He paused, then said, "Why're you asking?"

"I'm dealing with something. From what I'm hearing, he might not be dead, and he might be wandering around getting involved in things he definitely shouldn't be. He's a threat. Kill on sight, right? That's the code?"

"He's not in New Olympus. Whoever's going around calling themselves that name is lying."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"How sure are you?"

"Trust me, kid. I'm pretty sure." He sighed, whispered something I couldn't hear, then said, "If you're going to engage this person, keep me in the loop, that's all I'm asking. I'd bet my mother's life it's not him, and that old girl is going to outlive me at the rate this job is doing a number on my heart. Be smart. Figure out what's going on. Don't rush into anything you're not sure of either. If your instincts are telling you to fight, don't listen, alright?"

I stopped pacing and stood on the building's lip, looking down onto the street. The wind blew my hair into a mess, grazing the back of my ears. "It's starting to sound that you might not be very sure if he's not here, Kincaid."

"You want me to tell you that he is and send an eighteen-year old on a suicide mission?"

"You phrased my existence as some kind of cold war deterrent. I'm a weapon to you."

"You're an asset, like everyone in this building is," he said. "I'm sure of what I'm talking about. You have direct contact with Cleopatra, don't you? I'd like to talk. But she doesn't seem to reciprocate the feelings. Ask her."

I sighed from my nose, then massaged the back of my neck. "What happened in L.A.?"

"A lot," he said dryly. "I need to go, kid. Call if anything comes up."

He cuts. I let the phone rest against my ear. A bitter taste forms in the base of my throat. I slid my phone away and breathed out. Alright. Maybe I'm freaking out over nothing. Maybe some gangster trying to grab a hold of some street-cred is being stupid and wearing a name that might either get him killed or have people running. I was, unfortunately, stupid. And a superhero. If nobody went running into a burning building, then I wasn't around. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Rylee. If there's one thing you've learnt this year, it's to expect the unexpected.

I had thought Lucian was gone. I had thought Lucas was good for me.

I had thought last year was going to be my year.

The only thing last year had done was hurt.

But I didn't have a choice here. Besides…

Dennie would've loved this issue. He always made this seem a lot more fun than it should be, but I guess it wasn't my job to make normal people realize how terrible an actual fight could go down. That's the glamor for you.

And hey, if Lucian made dad bend the knee, then what's stopping me from taking on Wasteland? I could've done the same thing. Put up my hands and agreed to hand over Lower Olympus. Who knows, maybe this place would've been in a better state— I'm kidding. There was no fucking chance that would ever happen. Zeus was a lot of things, and afraid of death was definitely one of them. I've done that shit several times by now, and it got tasteless after the first three times, so what's a fourth? And like I told Blight: the world moved on without him.

And it would again with Wasteland.

It was about time I started to get my own nightmares to deal with, and not the leftovers from yesteryear.

I landed on the street next to Limelight, then said to the guy, "Sorry about that. Had to find something out. So where is he, anyway?" I looked around. "None of these buildings look like a hideout worthy of a guy like him."

"Olympia," Limelight said quietly beside me. I glanced at him. "Are you sure we should engage—"

"It'll be fine," I said, waving his concern off. "My fate isn't dying to a pile of sludge, right?"

"He killed countless people, superheroes in their droves."

"And none of them were quite like me." I looked at the guy. "Well?"

"I'll take you," he agreed. "But when you meet him, please tone down your ego. He's got a temper."

Ego? What ego?

I was bleeding confidence, baby. That's different.

Forget my dry mouth and racing heart. That was excitement. Adrenaline.

I spat sour saliva into a gutter as we walked. Limelight glanced at me. I flashed him a tight smile.

He didn't lead us far, but it felt like it took an hour to get here. My mind was moving faster than my body was. A smarter way to put it was that I perceived things slower. The walking. The stale, smoky wind. The feeling of my blood rushing through my veins as my heart punched against my ribs. Sound slid into my head, slow and weird, distorted by the echo it made against the broken facade of the buildings surrounding us. The world suddenly sped up when our guide stopped in front of a quiet little bungalow. I flinched, then looked at the house, cupping my ears so they didn't ring so loudly. Nothing special about it. Plastic bags for windows. A tiny American flat hanging limply from the door handle, greasy and torn up. It was in a row of similar homes, none of them abandoned, most of them with people sitting on the front steps, staring at me as they smoked blunts and shared foul-smelling liquor.

A dog barked in the distance before it suddenly whined and got quiet.

"This is it?" I asked, taking my hands off my ears.

"We can't all live like the Blackwoods," he muttered.

"I'll stay outside," Limelight muttered, looking around. He didn't explain why. He simply wandered off down the street. The people sitting on their house steps stared at him like he was something worth stealing from.

"Your friend is going to want to carry a knife with him," the guy next to me muttered.

"He'll be fine," I said. I think.

I stepped forward. He put his hand on my shoulder. I shrugged him off as he said, "Whatever you're going to do to him, don't, please—we've not got much, but we've got a reason to stay here safely. Without him…"

"Got it," I said, turning around. Don't put my hands on the walking nuclear hazard.

I pushed open the rickety, hip-tall metal fence and walked up the pathway. Overgrown grass and weeds crunched under my boots until I got to the door. I tried to strain my ears and listen to anything going on inside. It smelt fine. Normal. A little bit of booze, maybe a couple of cigarettes. Meth, too, if I wasn't wrong. No idea if that was coming from the other houses or from this specific one. I swallowed and raised my fist, knocking against it.

Shuffling came from inside, followed by the sound of bolts sliding aside.

When I looked over my shoulder, the guy was long gone.

Hell, most of the street had cleared.

The door creaked open. The foul smell of unwashed sheets, blood, and something terrible in the bathroom rushed down my throat. A girl was standing in the doorway, and she was gorgeous. The kind that used to make me question what the weird feeling in my stomach was whenever I walked past them in the mall. She was taller than me, with a veil of black hair running toward her slim waist. Her crop top was short, her fishnet stockings had holes in them. A cigarette hung from her lips, leaving black lipstick on the filter when she took it out. She had a piercing in her cheek and several on her ear, and looked at me like I might just be the weirdest thing she's ever seen recently.

"Who're you?" I asked. The sound of canned laughter came from behind her.

She closed the door a little more, eyes narrowing at me. "Who're you?"

"Olympia," I said, as my costume wasn't an answer enough.

"Cool. The feds are here." She shut the door. The locks went back in place.

I blinked, then slammed my fist against the door again. "I need to talk to whoever's in there."

"No the fuck you don't," she shouted back.

"I'll tear down this door if I've got to."

"Fascist!" she yelled.

That's the second time in the past month.

"You're hiding someone important."

She didn't respond for a while, then she appeared at the window to my right. "Get off my property."

"This is urgent," I said. "Is Wasteland in there or not?"

"Pig," she spat. "Leave."

I put my hand on the door. "I'm coming in here, and you can't stop me."

"Try it and this city's gonna bury you right beside your daddy."

"Irina?" a hoarse voice whispered. She vanished from the window. "Who's there?"

The sound of a droning generator behind the house turning on drowned out her answer. I stepped back and waited, then hated that I even had to do this. I pressed my hand against the door. The hinges splintered, cracked, and wood spat onto the ground as it swung open. Muggy darkness engulfed me. A shag carpet littered with old cans and cigarette butts reeked of mildew. A TV set rolled through old sitcoms, lighting up the grungy living room. Food spoiled in the open fridge. The microwave reeked of old tuna. I held my breath and slowly ventured deeper inside the house, my shadow long against the floor as I left daylight behind me. The house wasn't big. The mess made it smaller. Cramped. A fire hazard begging to happen. Then I hear vomiting coming from a room down the hallway.

"See?" a voice said—Irina's. "The more that comes out, the less of it is still inside you."

More vomiting. The splatter of it hitting the floor.

I slowly pushed open the door.

And found Wasteland right there in front of me. The real Wasteland. The same guy who was meant to be dead, who was meant to be in a hole so deep the devil had a better chance of finding him than anyone else would.

He was a withered shell lying on a soiled bed, vomiting blood and thick, black bile into an over-filled bucket.

Irina's head swiveled around. She cursed and sprung onto her feet, knocking over the bucket.

Then she spread her hand at me.

Nothing happened.

Until blood trickled onto my lip from my nose. I frowned, then wiped it off.

Before my eyes rolled into the back of my head and the ground rushed up to catch me.