Killing Olympia

Wasteland stopped moving, his body so close to mine my skin was already blistering from the toxins. Half my face stung. My lungs ached. I could feel my flesh starting to pull itself back together as I flew backward and skidded to a stop on the dirt behind me. I spat blood but didn't take my eyes off him. The house was smoldering, but a house fire wasn't all that scary compared to the sludge pile of waste standing on the back porch. I snapped my fingers to my right, getting Limelight's attention. I jerked my chin to the surrounding houses. I didn't have to tell him twice. He took off silently through the sky, now evacuating people from their homes. Wispy apparitions helped his cause.

I just wish I could make copies of myself too, because I'd beat Wasteland onto his knees from so many angles I might just get arrested for elderly abuse. I thought you were dead. Or locked up. He was standing right there, fumes that reeked of burning asphalt gushing out from his mouth, his flesh an oozing, oily mess that left his bones naked and blistered. I tensed my jaw. I tried not to breathe in too deeply. I could hold my breath for about a handful of minutes before I had to tap out. Lucas didn't do a lot of good to me, but he did make sure I knew when to keep my mouth shut. This was one of those times, even if I wanted to so badly take a deep breath of the gusty wind.

Irina, now on her feet, her smashed up face healing slowly, put her hand out in front of her. She stood in front of me, shaky on her legs. I watched her stagger. I watched her swallow hard. I'd never met anyone who could control blood before. Bad shit. Good thing I wasn't fully human, or it would've been curtains for me hours ago. That just made me wonder if Irina was actually the reason nobody ever came around. What bodies are you hiding in your closet? Gods, I could still taste her in my mouth. If I could, I'd pull out my tongue and grow a brand new one.

"Dad," she wheezed, her torn-up lips squelching as they healed. "Breath. It's me. It's alright."

Wasteland's hand raised, his finger pointing at me, flesh dripping off the bone. "She hurt you."

And I'll cripple her next time if she so much as looks me in the eyes again.

I haven't had to dig through my own bad decisions for an entire year just for someone else to taint my saliva before I could even ask Bianca to be… Whatever. Focus, Rylee. I flexed my fingers, straightening, watching.

Well, not so much as watching, but staring death at Wasteland. Just…how?

You're telling me fucking nobody noticed he wasn't in his cell? Or dead?

If I could go back in time, I'd want to have a one-on-one with the Olympians about some of their bullshit decisions. I'm not smart in any way. I made a bad deal with a supervillain and got stumped when I got duped by her.

But they were pretty much the reason I kept finding myself in these kinds of situations.

"She…hurt…you," Wasteland moaned. He stepped onto the grass. Dirt and bristle smoldered and burned. Smoke rose into the sky, black and putrid. Soil crunched under my boots as I backed up. "She made you bleed."

"It's fine, I promise," she said, both hands out in front of her. "Breath, remember? Slowly. I'm alright."

Irina glanced over her shoulder at me. I wasn't looking at her. If her little pep talk didn't work…

"Dad," she said softly. Irina stepped closer. The world was moving slowly. I could almost feel every second slide over my skin as harshly as Wasteland's fumes were in my throat. "Please." Her voice shook in her mouth. She swallowed hard and forced herself to smile, split-open lips forgotten. "I'm fine, see? I just tripped. Clumsy, right?"

Wasteland stood there, a smoldering pile of blistered flesh, his hollow eyes staring at me.

My heart was lodged firmly into my throat, because Lower Olympus didn't deserve another disaster. A few moments later, Limelight landed softly beside me. He gave me a quick nod. Good. Only us now. Nobody else in the area would get hurt if this went badly. Gods, I couldn't even move. No idea what kind of senile this old man even was. One jerk, one flinch, and he'd be roaring and sending himself charging toward me. Lower Olympus has one too many scars on her. Wasteland would snuff any chances, however small, of this place ever being able to heal again.

It would probably be the final straw for people believing in me, too. I'd fucked up before, but this…

"John?" Irina whispered. Wasteland's head turned to gape at her. The skin on his skull was too ruined, too soupy and sinewy to even look like a real face. His eyes were dark pits, his mouth the same story. "It's alright, OK?"

"There are too many spirits here," Limelight muttered, so silent the words barely came out.

"What?" I asked quietly.

"Whenever someone is close to death," he whispered, "they see and hear those who've already passed. You alone have so many, but they're kept at bay by that creature. Sometimes they call it dementia, most times it's the mind and body slowly losing its grip on this plain of existence. The soul fractures as the body withers, and now…"

Wasteland tilted his head. "How do you know my name?"

The world stilled. Wind slowly blew through the yard.

Irina stared at the man in front of her, blinking slowly, swallowing even slower. She wore a smile, even as her voice shook as she said, "Come on, old man. Don't say that. It's me." Nothing. He stared at her, a fleshy mess that swayed on its feet, smoldering quietly in front of us in the shadow of the old bungalow. "Dad. It's Irina. It's—"

"Irina," he said slowly. It sounded like a question. I glanced at her. "You've…gotten so…big."

"I have," she said through her smile. Tears glistened in her eyes. She let them dance down her cheeks, but that didn't stop her from getting closer, even as her skin reddened. "And you promised you'd see me turn eighteen."

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"I…" He stepped back. Irina stopped getting closer. He put a hand to his head and looked around, then at his hands, at the flesh pouring off the bones and reforming around his wrists like strings of lacy skin. I slowly unclenched my hands, relaxing my fingers and my shoulders. The hardness in my jaw eased enough for me to breathe through the gap between my lips. The wind stank of…a person. An old man. It happened almost instantly, because there in front of Irina, was an old man, skin marked with dark spots, with wrinkles and age and shallow pits where his temples are. His bony knees buckled. I got to him before Irina could, a hand on his shoulder before he could hit the ground. He was naked, so I didn't bother looking at him until Irina scooped him into her bloody arms.

I let go of Wasteland's shoulder, and looked down as they both sunk onto the ground. Irina was crying, holding him so tightly to her chest that… that… A fucking supervillain. A fucking supervillain. I listened to her cry. I watched him, with however little strength, stroke his fingers through her hair. He was speaking gibberish. Nothing out of his mouth made sense. Irina cried into his neck. Wasteland didn't stop holding her as he looked into the sky above him, at the orange hues painting the clouds a burnt brown, at the streaks of purple stretching across the horizon. I stood there. Watching. I stood there. Listening. I stood there, chewing my tongue, looking at them.

You piece of shit, I thought. I swallowed bitter saliva. A supervillain could do it, but not you?

What made him so great? The fucking cape, was that it? The symbol on his chest?

"Olympia?" Limelight asked, suddenly beside me.

"I'm fine." My voice betrayed me. I cursed and looked up, then shut my eyes. The fucking day isn't even over yet. I massaged my face, because I was wearing my costume, I was outside, I had this stupid symbol on my chest right now, so I stuffed it deep down and forgot about it. That was for Rylee to deal with, not right now. I still had a job to do. I still had Kaiju to protect. And I needed this old man, this withered sack of dementia-riddled skin who killed so many Capes that I should do them a favor and end this right now, to get out there and say something. "I'm fine," I said again, breathing out. I looked down at Irina. "I didn't come here to fight him. I came here for…"

Wasteland's arms were wrapped around Irina, his head resting on her shoulder, eyes shut, face peaceful.

He was smiling softly, a tiny turn at the very corners of his lips.

His heart wasn't beating anymore. It stuttered to a halt a second ago.

"Fuck," I muttered, spitting out the word. Maybe it was… Fuck it, I don't know what it was, but I smashed my fist through the doorway's weak wood and walked onto the lawn, hands on my hips and staring up at the sky. I clenched my jaw. Nodded. Fuck. I felt like screaming. Instead, I breathed out through my teeth, my shoulders tense.

Limelight put his hand on my shoulder. "I think—"

"Get your hands off me."

He took his hand away, but didn't leave. My eyes stung as I looked at him. "I think, for everyone's sake and everyone's interest, he should be treated with respect." I spun on him. Limelight put up his hand. "To the people who lived here, he was their safety. When nobody else protected them, he was the one person that made sure nobody else got close. He was a deterrent. People turn to any sort of hope they can get, and the people in Lower Olympus rarely ever get that chance to cling to it." Irina was bawling. Wasteland was now on the ground. She was screaming for him to wake up, shaking his body, that smile still on his tight lips. Limelight and I watched her shrieks turn into begging, and finally into mournful, choking sobs. I hated it. "He can be a monument for change."

"Change?" I asked him. "Wasteland murdered millions of people just from fallout."

So what if he had a daughter? That didn't make him a fucking savior all of a sudden.

"Your father was a conqueror," Limelight said. I froze. "How many planets did he raze? How many species no longer exist because of his hands? And what changed for him, you? Your mother? How is Zeus any different?"

"You're comparing Zeus to Wasteland? Are you insane?"

"You'd be insane not to see the similarities."

I grabbed his t-shirt. "They aren't the same," I said through my teeth. "Zeus saved people."

"Wasteland saved her," Limelight said. "And how many more can she save, too?"

"My job isn't to fucking answer that."

"A superhero's job is to make sure of exactly that," he said flatly. I stared into his eyes. His smoky irises almost seemed to be staring right through me. "Rylee," he said. An icy droplet of sweat ran between my shoulder blades. Irina was cradling her father now, hunched over his corpse. "You can't see them, but each one of Zeus' sins has fallen unto you. Their spirits speak to me. But they scream at you. And for some reason, you defend him." The breaths coming out of my mouth are weak, tight and hot. Slowly, I let go of his t-shirt. Limelight doesn't step back. He tilts his head a little, eyebrows creasing. "Has it ever occurred to you that your father fought out of pure guilt?"

I stepped back, and quietly answered, "What about it? He still saved people."

"In his tumor-riddled mind," Limelight said, turning to look at Wasteland and Irina, the house's shadow now falling over us both, "he had no other thought in himself other than to do a solitary good, however small, because at the end of his life, he realized his only way to apologize to the universe was to love his world."

"I'm supposed to believe a supervillain who murdered so many good people had a change of heart?"

"Why did your father die saving this planet when he ultimately disliked everything about it?"

"Zeus didn't hate Earth."

"The spirits tell me otherwise."

"Yeah, well, maybe the spirits are fucking lying to you," I snapped.

He stared at me for a moment, then smiled. "We both don't believe that. He loved your mother. It's as simple as that. Whether or not that was truly the case, we'll never know, but…why else would he risk his own life against the one other man who could kill him? Not for glory. Not for the statue. Out of shame for what he's done, out of the love he had for another." He put his hand back on my shoulder. This time, I didn't shrug him off. "Wasteland was a murderer, and so was Zeus. And so are you." He turned his head to look at the pair of them. "But to someone, you're a hero. By all means, Irina could have very likely been just as bad as him, instead, that's just not her fate."

I quietly snorted. "Lemme guess, the spirits told you that?"

"No," Limelight said softly. "My intuition. Nobody actively chooses to be evil."

"You'd be surprised."

"Nature, nurture, those are the reasons, but deep down, nobody likes that feeling. It taints the soul. It makes you guilty, it makes you sick, and that's because it's only natural to feel bad. At the end of the day, it's very human."

"If you know my name," I muttered, "then you already know I'm not fully human."

"Yes, but…" He poked my ribs. "You caught Wasteland before he fell."

"What did you want me to do? Watch an old timer break his arm?"

Limelight smiled and shrugged. "That's human."

"It's common sense."

"You're soft."

"Fuck you," I said. He smiled. I…screw you, ghost-boy. I sighed. "Whatever. Can you take it from here? I've got a thing I need to do tonight, and you're seemingly a lot better than I am at this whole speaking thing, too."

He nodded. "Irina will be inconsolable, and will need somebody here with her. I'll make sure the others understand the greater threat of what's to come. The Kaiju will be able to bury him more effectively. Unfortunately, they've gotten good at burying their dead, lest their graves get desecrated. With Irina's ability, she'll be able to heal many people. We can form a temporary truce." I nodded and hovered off the ground. Limelight put his hand on my back, pausing me. I looked down at him. "Olympia," he said softly. The wind made his hair dance. "It'll be alright."

I tried not to clench my jaw. "Gut-feeling or spirits?"

Limelight smiled. "A trust in your ability."

Irina looked at me, her face a mess of tears, blood, and snot coming out of her nose. I still didn't like what she did, and I don't think it would take a face like that to change my mind—but I lowered my shoulders, and left.

Fast enough for the wind to steal the tears in my eyes. I took the long route home.

At least that way, I wouldn't have to see dad's statue.