“What the hell are you? You should be dead. I shot a hole through your chest. I know I did. I saw you die.” The Masked Jailer panicked, his eyes wide behind the thin holes in his skeletal mask. The jaw of the mask hanging loosely from his face, connected only by a few frayed fabrics that were barely holding together after receiving a mighty right hook from Luma.

“I’m just a regular human, no different from you. I’m not even that strong, although I think we both have to admit, that was a hell of a punch, right? Nearly knocked your bloody mask off.” Luma smirked, flexing her biceps before pulling her fist back, readying another punch, planning to knock the mask clean off this time.

“Wait, wait. I give up. I can’t kill a monster like you. You were dead for a split second. I saw it. What happened? Did you revive yourself? Are you a cyborg?” Masked Jailer threw his arms into the air, his back pressed against the remains of a brick wall that he had blasted Luma through only a few minutes ago.

“I’m just built different.” Luma said, before looking herself over. She stretched out the sleeve of her hero outfit, checking over the bright red attire. “I don’t look dead, do I? Huh, am I bleeding? Shit, can never tell in this suit, why did I go with red?” Luma muttered, before slamming her fist into the jaw of the villain, knocking his mask clean off, sending it bouncing along the ground.

After the punch connected, the villain’s head slumped down, knocked unconscious by the hit. Once she had confirmed he was out for the count, she dropped him to the floor, making a call to the police.

“Hey, it’s your favorite hero, Luma. Anyway, Chief, got another one for you. Masked Jailer, I think his name is. Kind of ironic that he’s going to jail, isn’t it? Guess he will be the unmasked Jailee? Oh, come on, that was a good one. What do you mean, you have to go? I don’t hear a villain attack.” Then the chief hung up on her. Luma staring at her phone with a pout before sliding it back into her suit.

“I save their city and they can’t even handle a good joke or two.” She crouched before the Masked Jailer, pressing a finger to his chin, staring at his face.

He wasn’t anyone special, just a brown-haired guy with a now fractured jaw and a few scratches on his face. She was always a little disappointed when she revealed a villain. She always expected some grand Scooby Doo level of reveal where it turns out the chief was the villain all along or something like that, but instead it’s just no names with anger issues. “Yawnzers. What a snooze fest. Boring guy, but what a pretty toy.” She picked up the weapon he had used to blast a hole through her stomach, looking over the intricate design. It looked like a rifle and a sci-fi blaster had a strange baby. Its metallic sides coated in glowing lights, that added an energy to the bullets that were fired. When she grasped it, the gun gave a pink hue, powering up.

“Pew, pew. Commander Luma here to save the world from aliens and all things evil.” She made a few sci-fi poses, crouching next to the knocked-out body as though she had defeated some powerful alien scumbag before pointing the gun in random directions, landing on a horrified civilian. “Pew?”

“DON’T SHOOT. PLEASES, I SAW NOTHING.” The woman screamed, trying to back away from the gun wielding hero.

“Oh, no, no. I just confiscated this weapon from the villain here. I’m Luma, you know, the Lumatic Luma? You have probably heard of me. I’m a pretty popular hero. Don’t worry, the gun’s not loaded. I think?” She whispered that last part, smacking the gun against the wall a few times, trying to confirm if it was on or off.

“You’re a hero? Really?” The woman had calmed down enough to stop backing away, but her legs were still shaking, uneasy around Luma.

“Yes, she’s a hero, unfortunately. Luma, can you take this seriously? You’re meant to clean up after you take down a villain. Not do, whatever the hell this is.” Melancholic Demise said, the gloomy hero dressed in his black and white outfit, always reminding Luma of a walking Yin and Yang symbol. His long dark hair creeping out of the back of his mask, reaching down to his lower back.

“I was just checking to make sure the weapon was off. Don’t get all up my ass about it.”

“Ugh. Who taught you to speak?”

“Clearly someone with more life in them than whatever crypt keeper or priest taught you.”

“Go to hell.”

“Make me.”

The two took the banter in different ways. Luma grinned the entire time, finding the exchange more than a little amusing. While Melancholic showed clear signs of frustration. Even with his mask on, his hands waved wildly around, following every comment with an upset action.

“Um, can I go?” The woman asked, drawing their attention back to the civilian.

“You never were told to stay here, so sure. Go enjoy your day, citizen.” Luma said, waving her off. When the woman left, she approached Melancholic, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Mind taking it from here, bud? My stomach’s killing me. Got a hole blasted through it, thought my inte-“

Melancholic covered the mouth of his mask, making a small, disgusted grunt. “Please stop talking.”

“Why? You don’t want to hear about how my-“

“STOP. I’ll handle the pickup. Just stop trying to disgust me with your injuries.”

“Great, thanks bud. I owe you one. I would honestly do it myself, but I can’t fly like the rest of your sky touchers and I’ve already got in my ten thousand steps today.”

“Sure, you would. What’s that make this? The tenth thing you owe me?”

“Friends don’t keep count of those things.”

“I don’t think I ever said we were friends.”

“Gloomy as always. Don’t be mad that you got stuck with your edgy teenager hero name. Some of us didn’t go through a phase.”

“It wasn’t a phase, it was a poke at how uncaring the world can be towards the demise of-“

“Bye Gloomy.” Luma had heard the speech at least fifty times by now, not willing to listen to it again. She heard Melancholic give his usual huff and puff before focusing on helping the police take the villain away. Providing backup in case the villain wakes.

Exhausted and with no spectacular flying abilities, Luma was forced to take the bus home, trying her best to not get blood on the seats as she sat down, making idle conversation with the old man next to her. Luma tried to help the old man with his crossword puzzle, despite getting all of her guesses wrong. Eventually he just shifted the crossword puzzle away from her, trying to avoid anymore incorrect guesses.

After an hour on the bus, she had arrived home, waving goodbye to the old man before heading up to her apartment. Sure, she could have just run home and used her advanced endurance and speed, but she was tired, and the bus was pretty cheap. She might not have any fancy superpowers, but she had above human capabilities, training with the heroes, despite her lack of powers.

When she got into her apartment, she collapsed onto the couch, groaning into a cushion. “I’m soooo tired. I can’t believe some no name like him killed me.” She rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “What’s that make it? My thirtieth death? Or has it been even more? I wonder how many deaths I can even have before I run out?”

It was a common misconception that powers and high-tech weapons didn’t work around her, considering that no matter what a villain did to her, she appeared to recover in an instant. In reality, she wasn’t invulnerable to their powers or weapons, she just was spared from the damage, having to sacrifice an alternative version of herself to spare her own life. Killing off a happy Luma in another timeline, all for the sake of self-preservation.

She didn’t know why she had this ability or what sort of lives the other versions of her led. All she knew was that she needed to keep sacrificing them to preserve herself. The villains in her timeline needed to be defeated, even if it meant she would eventually cease to exist in any universe.

“I wonder what she was like. The one that died today. I hope she wasn’t too nice.” Luma rested a hand on her stomach, feeling over the spot where the hole had been. She felt sick imagining what sort of person they could have been. Who says these other Luma’s were heroes? What if they were just normal people, no different from a civilian? What if the other hero Luma’s were also using this ability? Would she eventually be killed as a result? All those thoughts made her uneasy, so she turned on the tv, hoping to drown them out.

“Our deaths won’t be in vain. I promise you, when the heroes outnumber the villains, I’ll stop. Until then, I’ll try not to lose anymore of us.”

     

(If you enjoyed this feel free to check out my subreddit /r/Sadnesslaughs where I'll be posting more of my writing.)