“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.)

Jasper Dunglewidth. My parents named me Jasper Dunglewidth... how about that? Weird, right? But it fits me. It fits me, because it doesn't fit and I don't really fit either.

Growing up (Midwest/US in the 70s) I was pretty normal. Maybe average is a better term for what I was. Got good-enough grades, good-enough looking, was a good-enough friend to my small group, and generally - try as I might to buck the trend - just did the good-enough version of whatever it was that I was into at the time. Eventually, that middle-ness was so all-consuming that my entire personhood fell into the steepest middle part of the personhood bell curve. Mediocrity wasn't so much my identity as it just so pervaded my constitution that it was impossible to note much of anything. Maybe that in itself is notable?

Anyway, things progressed along that un-notable timeline for years. Dating was a fruitless chore (probably more so for those poor women), most friends paired off and launched their adult lives, college wasn't on my radar for reasons that should be clear by now, and retail work was the sort of gooey center I just fell into. Haven't really budged since. Been with S-Mart now for something like 15 years at this point. About 5 years ago (so maybe 1990, roughly), things started getting interesting. Even weird maybe, but in the flatline pulse that is my life, weirdly interesting registers as a staggeringly sharp and lonely peak.

So, near as I can tell, it really started when my store (S-Mart #1179) switched from credit card imprinters to these fancy new point-of-sale (POS [hehe]) machines. The tech team they sent in (talkin' up an "interconnected" & "cashless" future), gave all us floor staff a pretty painful 3-day "how-to" demo for how we were supposed to use everything. OK, fine I thought... I'll figure it out well-enough. Well... I surprised myself.

They nerds said they'd never seen anything like it. Calls to corporate were made, corporate called more nerds, additional backup-nerds deployed to our location to figure out what was going so wrong. From what they told me, it seemed that one terminal was somehow completely overloading the machines they had in the back to the point that they in turn crashed and took all the data they had in them. I suggested that the stuff wasn't ready for prime-time, but it didn't seem like they were receptive to that conclusion. The nerd brigade ran diagnostics, checked power feeds, ran tests galore... all of which passed with flying colors. Thinking it might be user error, they has us one-by-one, run through a mock transaction just like they showed us. The system worked flawlessly for Dianne, Craig, Tony, etc.. Everything was smooth sailing until it was my turn.

The green screen blinked to life, I entered my associate ID, scanned my first item, and *POP*, "hmm... that didn't sound right". Next thing I know, smoke was billowing out of the control room they'd set up in the back and a few minutes later a fire crew was on site putting out an electrical fire. Did some damage to the new Winter wear shipment I'd just inventoried too. Long story short, they never really figured out what I did wrong, but it was decided that I shouldn't mess with the new, expensive tech anymore. Worked out for me as it turns out, they made me a shift supervisor (in no small part due to my years of faithful service, I'm sure). Fail up as they say... All that was my first brush with, and indication that technology and I didn't get along. I know that's a midwestern trope, but how many of those people literally start fires when they interact with a computer?

Fast forward a couple years, and weird shit just starts stacking up. All somehow involving tech stuff. A new projection TV one of my few remaining friends brought me over to show off started mysteriously going on the fritz, CD players would comically skip when I came around and worst of all, I was seemingly individually banned from having a working cell phone experience (shame, I was actually excited about that one). At the time, I mostly shrugged it off as familiarly bad coincidence, but I also started connecting the dots.

Zoom ahead to present day and I think I've figured it out. Well... no, that's an overreach. I have a working theory, but i have no idea how rooted in reality it is (scientific or otherwise). Either way, here it is: I've done some reading on "solid-state" electronics (i.e. the type used in the devices I've had my troubling relationship with) and have come to some basic conclusions.
First, these machines work by talking in a very simple language. That language is called binary. Binary code is comprised of 2 numbers; basically a numeric representation of an on state and an off state. Following so far? Me neither, really. Anyway, here's my kind of existentially soul-crushing second conclusion: I am constitutionally incompatible with binary machines on account of my all-consuming middle-state-ness. I know, I know... I sound like the kid who just ate too many shrooms and started thinking about the meaning of life, but bear with me, this is the only workable theory I've got. Maybe its the way I physically interact with the world, but maybe its something deeper, something less kinetic. I've begun to see myself as exuding a sort of middle-state energy that radiates off of me like a fucked up piece of kryptonite or something.

I obviously don't fully-grasp the science (obviously), but I do get constant reminders of how its manifesting in my life, physics be damned. I already told you about the run-of-the-mill encounters I've had personally, but what I haven't yet told you is how I'm thinking about using this blursed gift to do something good. To maybe even - through the focused application of my mediocrity - ascend past that mediocrity. How weird is that sentence?

So, what that's looking like these days: I happened to be in a bank a few months ago depositing that week's paycheck. My turn with the teller comes when I hear doors of the bank violently bang open and the high-pitched squeak of cross-trainers on tile floor. I turn around and see several ski mask-clad fellas yelling at customers to "get on the ground" and then turn their focus to the tellers to shout "empty your drawers". Saving for the brief moment I wondered if they got the ski masks from my store, I immediately comply in time to have the same thought about their fresh white cross-trainers as my face is pressed to the ground. From there, the robbery went kind of how you'd think robberies go. Luckily, I didn't see any weapons, and nobody got hurt, but the damndest thing happened on their way out. One of the trio was barking at his cell phone, talking about "getting Paul to meet them out front with the car", only its clearly not working and they eventually just run out of the bank and down the street on foot. Sadly, it would seem my "power" presumably messed with the bank's alarm, but in the end, the audible that the crew was forced to call led to their downfall with the cops picking them up about three blocks away. The news mentioned that they were found in a residential backyard all tucked in to a Fischer-Price plastic igloo which I found amusing on a personal level.

So that's where I'm at. I know I have this... thing. Is it a power? Like a super power? It feels like maybe the opposite, but its what I have. So far its been another disappointing development in a life marked by equally disappointing outcomes, but I'm starting to feel different this time.

"Hiya! Waaaaa! Ha! Ha! Tatatatataataatataaaaaa! Waaaaa! Hu! Aaaaah twaaaa!"

click

I immediately turned my head upon hearing the cocking of a gun. The Team Rob-It goon before me stood with shaking knees aiming it at my head. There were a lot of them and I had apparently too slow to kick his butt in time. He looked very scared. I dropped my Lazy Mantis stance and cautiously raised my arms Infront of me.

"Woooooah buddy, let's not do that. You must be new. Just let me kick your butt and we can call it a day."

Soon other voices sounded off from the Team Rob-It goons I had already beaten up. Some held their backs while other held their heads. All of them slowly walked towards their ally holding the gun.

"Eyyyy Carlos, Carlos, hey man you don't want to do that."

"Carlos, hey buddy, put the gun down."

"Carlos! Do not pull that trigger!"

Team Rob-It goon Carlos looked at his co-workers incredulously.

"Stay back all of you! What is wrong with you guys! He's beating us senseless, why not just shoot him?"

"Carlos, you need to think about this. His name is Backfire for a reason. Do you see flames coming out of his back?"

"N-no."

"Then what other reason could there be for him to be named Backfire?"

Team Rob-It goon Carlos seemed to slowly be piecing the details together. We were all interrupted by the roof of the vault we were in exploding open as the villain, Darth Pyrus, levitated down in all his flaming magnificence. He slowly waved a hand containing a charged fire ball across the goons and I.

"Ahaha! You team Rob-It fools shall leave empty handed or dead for I, Darth Pyrus, shall be the one taking this fortune!"

As his hand waved over me, the fireball in it prematurely exploded and sent him flying backwards into a wall. He was quick to recover and quickly flew back near the top of the room. He bore at first an expression of confusion before realization crossed his face.

"What th-? Oh snap, is Backfire down there somewhere!?" He asked as he squinted his eyes and scanned the area until finally finding me. "Ah crud, he is. I thought today was Tuesday, is it really the second Wednesday of the month already!?"

I stepped forward with my hand on my hips and pointed at him. "Yup! Wednesday baby! Contract says I'm allowed to do superhero business every 2nd Wednesday without lash back or interference from the government! You want some of this!?"

Darth Pyrus' expression changed to that of indifference.

"Nope." He said as he flew back through the roof. Before I was able to resume my butt kicking, Darth Pyrus reached his arm back through the gaping hole he had left out of and shot a heatray from his fingertip that proceeded to melt the weapon that Team Rob-It goon Carlos held. His voice projected itself through the hole towards Carlos.

"Trust me! Did you a favor!"

(first time writing so please have some patience w me, and english is not my first language)
As long as I've remembered as i became a hero, people, villains and even other heroes feared me, but the thing is that i wasn't strong or invulnerable, but for some reason high tech weapons and other powers in my proximity didn't work, and i took advantage of that when fighting criminals and villains, cause they couldn't damage me, a powerful villain that had a really broken power? that didn'nt work when i was close.
And i also had my 'secondary' ability, it wasn't strong but it helped me, it was aerokinesis, i could control the wind and thanks to those 2 powers i was a powerhouse when it came to hand to hand combat, i could easily dodge punches and accelerate myself through the winds, and even launch people to sky, and thanks to my primary power, and thank god i could toggle it, villains who got launched to the sky couldn't use their powers to recover and had to rely on the physical prowness, which was something that most of them wasn't used to, and i trained a lot with my body to get used to it
But as i am using the wind to glide through the city, i saw the same guys trying that i used to confront through out my usual routine off guarding the city, but it was different, they started shooting at me, and it worked, it seems that they finally used their brains and were testing low-tech weapons against me, like that ones from hundreds of years ago, it was a smart move i admit, but as they shot at me i used the vibrations of air to dodge the bullets and get closer to them, it seemed that they were awaiting for me to approach since they had my archenemy close to them.

this was going to be a hard battle, since my ability couldn't affect his main power

The colors on the TV screen blurred and then went away altogether. The hi tech computer that took up a whole wall of the cave was suddenly flashing alarms with a blue screen of death popping up. The villain, Dr Dread, sighed.

"I see we have company." He said this with the resignation of a man who had done this too many times before.

I knew he knew I was there. I wasn't able to hide my presence. My own electromagnetic field wreeked havoc on any machinery in a 10 mile radius. I sighed too.

"Come on out Magneta." Dr Dread's voice echoed off the walls of the chamber. I smiled and moved a few feet to my left, pretending to be a happy hero.

"I don't know why you keep trying to do this. You know I show up every time, and every time you fail." A few henchmen started my way. They had already dropped their guns, as my electromagnetic field made their bullets useless against me.

I punched the first one in the face. He was new. Well, new enough that I didn't recognize him. The other sat down and put his hands behind his head. "Bob." I said with a nod. "How's the family?"

"They're doing fine ma'am. Can't complain." He nearly smiled.

"I keep hoping," Dr Dread said as he sat down as well, assuming the same position, "that you'll be out of state when I try to pull one of these jobs. You're seriously cutting into my bottom line." His face twisted.

We had done this dance a thousand times.

I whistled and a hawk came flying to my arm. I had to send messages this way. I had no other choice. It flew, swift as an arrow, toward the police station.

"You boys will understand if I tie you up real quick. I have other things to do today." They nodded, showing no resistance.

Once upon a time I had been normal. Or at least some version of it. Once upon a time, Dr Dread had actually tried to fight back. I didn't have super strength, just regular training with several of the other supers in the world. It made me fit and decent at fighting.

I walked away, sure that I didn't have anything to worry about. The hawk was fast, and the police would be there to collect the bad guys in a few minutes. I didn't like being there for that, as my presence also messed up their radios and guns. Not really helpful.

My apartment was empty except for a small couch, and a bed in the other room. I didn't have a TV. There wasn't much point. I had books, which was about the only semi-modern technology I could use. No cell phone, no house phone, no radio, no nothing. I couldn't even use a car.

I huffed and walked to the book shelf, pulling off a worn book I'd already read a dozen times. As I did so, I happened to look out the window. The two moons rising above the horizon made me sigh again.

I missed my own world. I missed my single moon. In my head, I damned for the millionth time the day I had went to work at the station housing the particle collider that had sent me to this world. So familiar, and yet so different from my own.

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