The Secret of Me: TwentySix Towers of Brahma

She's running. Leaving. Sliding into the infinite where she'll be reduced to a sliver, a seed that I temporarily pried open and peered into the spiralling fractal eternity that is aligned with the outside and beyond. It's that one straight line from here to the complete and opposite side. And you're...I'm smack in the center.

Melting into a spinning flatness, Velocity Girl disappeared. She was flying upward and onward, diving inward and back through me. A brief flash as she stands completely inbetween everthing that is this reality.

I thought the world drab. It's dirt is now its shimmer. Velocity Girl's lingering gift for releasing her is a glimmer to all matter, a sparkle in each and every molecule. When I draw her in next time, I'll be ready to play the game her way.

"We were pretending...", she pouted, "Playing."

And suddenly I wanted to kill.

Who was this? An assassin...

Not likely. I thought this was a madness I was catching but reality is the pain that forced me to insanity's fair arms.

She made me a mad sexy one, rebirthed through beetle recycling, and ready for damage. Tossing down the pieces, staring madly at the fortunes of trinkets, I saw the secret of the universe revealed unto me.

I have a countdown to solve the riddle. I can't wait til the final nail-biting seconds to defuse my literal existence. The answers must be found now!

But regardless of pace, the journey unfolds as it does, not as you wish. The signal is vibrating the tether in the centre. It shakes loose words, broadcasting them to acres of neurons, snapping puzzle pieces of sanity onto the coffee table.

Coffee table...I'm drunk. The future? Past? It feels like a memory and my consciousness lets go and I get into the pilot seat and scream and holler as I whirl my empty vessel into the night, headed straight downtown.

To the ground, laid down, and then up again until you're laughing in all of their faces one by one. You look around and they look upon, smiling down and across. Penetrating glances, glaring prances, fairy dust dances with phallic accuracy.

Jokester, prankster, playing the games but I forgot that I told myself not to remember anything so as to fool us all, straight into the game. Our nights and dreams are all, it seems. Battle bravely, defending identity to its bitter end.

The girl dreams of the boy and he of her. That heart can't take the hurt, so, in hiding his dreams among the starry skies he rises and falls again. He knows, wanting to amuse and bemuse his lovely muse, so tries but fails to maintain his place. Quests for longing, meaningful masterpiece of my eye, I've gone inside.

Brainwash the self into betterment. Bridge that gap between perfection and yourself. Buy into the scheme that you've made to live within. Learn the rules and have fun. Further instructions lie...

TwentySix: 7 - the Ballad of Joy Random - Act 3 - the Overture

"I'm so sorry!", I weeped.

"Forgive me...", I pleaded.

"No.", she whispered.

I held her close, probably just a bit too tight, and tried to squeeze out what tears I had left in me. My dried out eyes betrayed me. I had nothing left to declare the sincerety of my emotions.

She was faced away from me, a blanket tucked around her separated us. My knuckles were still bloody and the sweat cascaded off my body, draining me of my final drops of liquid.

We huddled close despite the distance between us. Trapped in our own paradigm, escape consistently eluded us as our minds were kept busy with dramatics. The floodgates of emotion were thrown open drowning us in desperation and despair daily.

"Forgive yourself.", she added.

I went to say, 'I wish I knew how', but instead swallowed the words. A pitiful excuse spun from the lying maw of an earthborn sinner; a lie spit from the forked tongue of a monster. I was nothing but a beast clinging to my prey.

To forgive myself, I'd have to save myself. And I was far too busy putting her in danger, and saving her nightly, only to wind up capturing her, in true villainous form, and imprisoning her inside.

The dreams changed suddenly and if I was quick enough I could slide between and maybe end this cycle of mutual self destruction. Our spiralling stasis spun itself into a tower of sensation; A continual column of calamity from which we must break free.

I had to try and end this.

I exploded from the scene and shot straight into the maelstrom of encapsulating madness. I held her close below, but in order to work this out I'd have to go through our bond and come out on the other side.

Propelled out into the otherside I saw the vortex that whirlled about us. I lunged into the funnel and whirlpooled my consciousness down inside. I rode the electromagnetic wavelengths sliding further and further away from anything but us.

We were sections, avatars of altercation, swimming in the collective unconscious of eternity. Bound to each other in a dark pact, we plunged to the very bottom and beyond.

Our hatred mingled and fed off each other. Self-deploring immolation drilling deeper into numb sad sickness. Alone together we emptied the void, filling it with our ferocious insanity. There was no limit in this oppressive expanse of ourselves.

"I don't want to be a bad guy." I tried to look her in the eyes but saw only a reflection of isolation.

We mirrored our ugliness in a pairing of saint and sinner, the roles alternating in a chaotic pattern. I saved her, she damned me. She held me close, I hurt her deeply. Massochist and sadist scenerios switching like currents and circuits. A negative feedback loop careening into the yawning abyss.

I saw my hands around her throat, holding her down. I surged with pleasure, my cock growing rock hard as I increased the pressure arund her windpipe. She thanked me with her eyes. She was feeling something, even if it was only fear of me.

I found myself unable to stop as I pressed further. The princess, locked away from everything, isolated from sensation, she saw something in me. She had drawn me in, expecting maybe not me in particular, but someone with a hot darkness inside them.

I wanted to save her. Wanted her to give up the anguish that seared her, to stop her manipulative flaggellation of her flesh. I didn't want to know that I wanted to do this to her. To anyone. Ever.

But I do and I can't stop. I'm hurting her. Hurting all the hers who came before and made me feel small, made me feel stupid. I was using my power for revenge on the daughters of Eve. I was just an dirty atom infected with the serpent's curse.

"What is this madness that makes me love hate and hate love?!"

My grip slipped in the final moments and air sucked deep into her lungs over a raw throat. A raspy wind chime, an erotic sigh, a languishing breath of joy. She was alive.

I, too, was alive and wracked with horrific guilt. Was it her fault? My fault? Fate? Why did we have to go this far?

Out past the edge of fantasy, we danced out our unadulterated tactile and psychic torture; punishment, guilt, shame, humiliation. A shadow has swallowed us whole. I surrender to the blackest pit of my heart. I do whatever I feel without remorse. I hate that I want to do these things.

I hate myself. I am vile. I am filled with impulses that I can apparently administer without conscience or care. I was too polite and cowardly to admit that there never was a light inside me. There is only a cursed soul, doomed to enjoy the damnation and subjegation of the innocent.

"Shhh baby. It's okay. We both wanted this."

She cradles my head as I rock and weep for my entire life. A tear for every moment of regret, every shred of guilt, and all the buried deep desires burning me alive in the hellfire of my own design.

She removes the collar from around her neck and I will her free of me with all my might. I focus my rage on this tower she has trapped us in. Every damn corner of this infernal prison. She deserves more and I am too bogged down with self-pity to be of much use to her except to bring her down.

And so we hit bottom and the entire foundation of us rumbles and shakes. We hold each other, skin on skin, as the universe ended and we are born anew in a land of starlight.

"I'm..."

I go to say 'sorry', yet stop. I'm not sorry. And from the look on her face, neither is she. She wanted all this. The pain, the frustration, the play of it all. This is what life is and where it goes. The path it leads is sometimes amazingly intense and full of unforgiveable acts.

But we don't need to forgive. I don't need to explain. I tried to save her. I failed. As I always would. With her, with anyone. But I tried. Sure, I fell sway to the influence of sexual violence, a web she cast, just in order to ensnare me and show her how to save herself.

I hugged her tight, stood up and left. I didn't look back to see if she was crying.

But I knew she was and would be. As would I be, when I was able to cry once more.

TwentySix: 7 - the Ballad of Joy Random - Act 2: Ignition

"I love you.", she said.

I hated her. She was my jailer and it seemed as if I was the villain. Perhaps it was my fate after all. I wasn't quite the hero I imagined myself to be.

Confined to her room, out of sync with reality, bound to her bed, I was imprisoned within an inverted tower of darkness with the sparkling princess of the Void. I paced and fumed as she looked adoringly up at me.

"I love you.", she said.

When first I found myself here, I thought it to be paradise; A slice of emptiness in which to be and act as I wished. I romanced the princess for weeks, then ravished her as it turned to months, and finally I found myself hovering above her, malice on my mind.

It reflected back at me from the darkness of her obsidian eyes. I saw the snarl upon my face, the anger surging from my body, the spite seeping from my pores. My hand was around her neck with her innocence beaming back at me.

I spun from her, launching myself from the bed. I hit the floor and dragged myself across the floor. Leaning up against the far wall, I calmed my breathing until I could regain my cool.

As I lifted my head, I stared in horror at my reflection. In the mirror before me I looked upon my shoulders and neck sparking blue fire. It erupted from the top of my head and bursted into a brilliant blaze.

From over my shoulder I saw shadows rise up from the bed. Dark, horrible shapes drifted upwards like a fog of nothingness. A sultry form lifted itself up and onto the floor, sliding its way towards me. A chill crept up from my tailbone, raced up my spine, and dampened my now fiery face.

Shadows as hard as cold stone grabbed me, whipped me around, and slammed me into the mirror. The glass clattered to the ground, my fire shining bits of light up to the ceiling as the room grew dark. The princess' twisted grimace materialized out of the shadows; her eyes appearing from formlessness. A pretty face coming from the void.

"You will love me!", she commanded.

I felt the flames around me snuff out as I crashed into the other wall and hit the bed. The pillows and sheets came alive at her command and began to wrap themselves around my body, strapping me down. Panic was rising in my body as I strained against the supernatural snare.

The darkness spun around the room, flickering wildly. She was drawing closer. Pausing for a moment, I held my breath. My heart pounded, but my muscles relaxed. Blood pumped, adrenaline built up, and my body froze stiff just for a few seconds before the sparking of my mind.

Like flint and metal striking and scraping across each other, a strange power lit my spine up like a fuse. It hit my third vertebrae and my eyes shot open as a screaming fury of white hot flame flared about me. It exploded from my chest, and ran down the length of my arms. The bed ignited and the darkness retreated a bit as I leapt towards it.

"You will love only me! Forever!", she screeched.

I howled in retaliation as I pounced in the heart of the void that was now the princess. She had been a trap, to contain this fire, this power I had inside me. And now, here I was illuminating her darkness only to find more dark than I could concieve.

It was endless, formless, and eternal. I blazed in the nothing for days, weeks, months. There was no escape, no salvation, no ending. All there was here in the void was me, my fire and her emptiness filling in everything else. I fought, I raged, and I cried, yet she would show no mercy.

One day I came across the shards of the mirror she had smashed with my body. I looked down at them and saw my flame was weak, barely covering my face. Soon, I would be snuffed out forever, slumbering in this infinite alone.

The dying light of my facial fire reflected off the splintered mirror shooting straight up into the swirling night. I followed the rays as they drove their way to the far end of everything. I suddenly had an idea.

I whirled around the light, the wind whipping up my flame. I concentrated on a sliver of glass as I began stoking the embers of my mind. I dipped my head in as I spiralled around and around the light letting it elevate my conciousness. I lifted my legs from the ground and surrendered to the beam.

The flame consumed my flesh and my spirit floated inverted, held aloft by the base of my blazing brain. Instantly I rode the spiral of light right up into eternity; A fraction of a second spent over the course of infinite lifetimes.

The towering darkness boomed in a young girl's voice, "You will not escape me!"

I hit the end and knew what I had to do. My knees flexed as they found soft ground upon which to land. It held strong but yet gave way just enough to build tension. Tension enough to propel me backwards towards the exit of this inescapable entrapment.

I sprinted into the center of the fire. The light blinding my corneas, I lifted the lid of my third eye and let it guide me home. Running at the ground, the chunk of mirror directly below me, I was ready to become transformed.

The beam of light was swallowed up behind me, although I dared not to look back. I felt the princess consume the flickering light, my trail of flame. In a last attempt to prevent my escape, she became a whirlpool sucking the very existence from me.

Her shadow reached deep into the light, mere inches from my soul. But it was too late, my hand pressed against the glass and became non-existant. My entire being dove into the mirror becoming nothing more than mortal flesh once more.

I was on the floor coughing and gasping for air. I felt dehydrated and dry heaved uncontrollably, although I had nothing to regurgitate. I was looking down at my blood running across tiles and a broken reflection of myself. A shattered mirror stared up at me and told me everything.

I got to my feet, crimson evidence dripping from my knuckles. She was cowering beneath her blanket, peering from her safe place under the covers out at me; at my heaving naked chest and rippling arms. My breaths were hard and rough. This girl was afraid of me.

Realization steamed off my body in waves. It choked me like the blackest smoke. Now that I had escaped the Void, it all made sense. I looked into the princess' eyes and it reflected the truth.

I would never escape.

TwentySix: 7 - the Ballad of Joy Random - Act 1

My sneakers were splitting at the sides. Bounding from ledge to ledge through the Financial District, desolate nights of urban canyons below me, I attempted to clear my head. I needed to practice my powers and regain my foothold in this city. Remember the subtleties of it's concrete skin, it's curves and angles. It's power and passion.

I spent more than a few nights looking up at the moon, alone atop the elephant graveyard that is Wall St. Swinging and leaping through the metropolitan jungle, suit covered savages picking clean the massive glass bones of Mammon below me, I found a tower, complete with princess.

I was the lost boy, long hair and shipwrecked beard, red t-shirt flapping in the winds. I hid behind a spire and watched her on the balcony. Dark, full hair draped over the edge as she let the midnight breeze sway her into a sense of freedom, of flight. She had an earthly sense about her and being so far in the sky made her seem small, like a seedling, draped on a branch of a dead tree, ready to fall.

When she tumbled over the railing backwards, she hadn't uttered a noise. No scream, no cry. Just a sense of calm that she must had stolen from me as I slipped into instinct to keep the panic at bay. My reflexes shot me forward, slung through the air, snapping into position below her.

I slowed my fall and she floated down into my arms. Kicking off the side of the building, I propelled us back up. She hung from my neck, eyes closed, dreaming heavy. A sleeping princess full of promise, awaiting a kiss, aching to awake.

With her back in bed, I looked back as I leapt from the ledge, sailing into the open night sky. As she got smaller, her beauty grew, magnifying her brilliance. A shimmering gem, a treasure of great beauty, inspiring action.

Battles were fought invisibly among the masses during the day, and daring rescues thanklessly executed each night. I laid low and played it cool 9 to 5, lone wolf in sheep's clothing looking out for enemies, taking them down before they saw through this secret identity. Charles Crown walked among you, and Thrust fought beside you, but it was the kid that visited her every night.

It was a sleepwalking drama that played out each night the same. She, in a slumber, tumbles to her doom. He, pulsed with power, flies to her rescue. He leaves her alone, untouched, in her bed. Not wishing to smudge her sheen, the kid keeps her pristine.

Until the one night, where, with a kiss, she drew him in. Inside and through, and back into, himself, reversed, flipped into a parallel dementia where darkness was light, and day was night. A spell was cast, a rogue now lost, although lightning fast, he had paid the cost. Lost in the gloom of this otherworldly tomb, he'd be forever searching, adrift in this eternal womb.

Life felt the same. Perhaps there was no curse, no judgment for his fool's kiss to lips that weren't meant for his. Charles was still accepted by his peers, and Thrust still fought the good fight. As for the kid, well, seemed like he stayed behind in the dark heart of the city. The princess, the jewel, was all but a fuzzy memory.

Twentysix. 6. 'Thirdeye x 3rd-I' (pt. b)

My mind was racing as I tried to remember what it was that I had to do exactly. Where was it I was trying to get to? While in Megan Strange's embrace everything slid away and I found myself lost in her darkness.

My hands caressed her skin, fingers massaging her back, lips kissing her neck. With each shudder she let loose I fell further into her narcotic elegance. I ran my fingers through her hair and looked up into her eyes, locked in her magnificent, stellar stare.

I was growing weaker as my will melted and time flew past. Nothing meant anything, submerged in her oblivion. I had a glimmer of hope that someone would come and save me from this pleasure prison that she called home.

I thought of all the girls that were about to pummel me when Megan Strange had delivered me from them and brought me here. Where was I? Brooklyn, I think. I opened my eyes and glanced around the apartment. It was ordinary, so I thought, except upon further examination I noticed several objects of power, totems of containment.

A bound lower half of a mannequin was on one side of the room and a phallic flower in a vase on the other. I began to sense the pollen of this flower as it wafted over and crept up into my nostrils. The deeper the breath, the less I cared, the more I slept.

When I awoke next, Megan was gone. I could hear her making something in the kitchen. All sorts of arcane smells trickled into the room and sparked my conciousness. The breeze from the windows swept through the room, twirlling the aromas into a furious ballet, causing hallucinations and delirum.

Pitting my body against my heartsick soul, I rose from the bed, closed my eyes and felt the spinning unknown into etheric umbilical chords. The music spun me to sleep. For so long. I've slept. Soundlessly. Kept asleep.

No! Wake up! Something shoots my eyes open and the hypnotic particles of Megan Strange's botanical spell crash into my senses. I see them all, sweeping about the room, universes of splendid narcoleptic addiction. I grew sleepier with every second.

I snatched my sunglasses from the bedstand. An infinite barrage of particles smashed against the lenses, and I imagined myself as a starship about to carve its way through the galaxy. I dressed and slipped on my sneakers without making a sound.

The purposeful clattering from the kitchen meant she was still working on something, possibly even more potent than this pollen storm. The door was a ways off and the window was already open, so out I slipped and up on to the roof. I jumped the rooftops, pausing once to look back as I cleared Lorimer St.

Megan came riding the fierce night winds, tearing apart the tops of trees, a scowl across her cutie pie face. A brief flutter causes a stutter and I'm nearly flattened as she hurls debris at me. She concentrates and tornadoes a wave of pure force smashing into my torso.

I wake up, again, looking up from the sidewalk.

"Is this Bedford? Shit, I think I dreamt this..."

Megan Strange walked into view, looming above him. His vision was blurring, my personality slipping. Skipping...

"Deja vu. Our first date. The blizzard. I remember."

Megan Strange began to change shape, and spin around, or maybe that was me swirlling down and away. The girls stepped into view one at a time like a roll call of valkyries. Raptor, goddess of the birds. Luna, pixie of imagination. Eve, mistress of deception.

I swiped away my shades and watched as they all became Megan, and Megan became ordinary. No elemental witch, seducing me into slumber. A girl.

A girl who held her hand out to me. Deception...?

I swatted her hand away.

"What are you doing to me?! Who are you?"

I didn't listen as she said something, yelling over traffic as I tossed myself among the speeding automobiles ranting and crying like a mad lunatic, schizophrenic dreamer awakened to hell.

Subway. To Manhattan. Odd looks. Just one more stop. I stumble off the train, senses rippling back as I step onto the platform. The scene warbles and sheen slides into everything. I'm gripping my forehead as if holding in my psychic guts, my third eye jutting outwards like a giant knife wound. My mind is bleeding.

As I walk down the platform, each step dries the dripping ether from the spike stabbing into the air before me. It lives in the moments, the worlds before and I use that to be more. To heal. And I feel the rush of living coming back to me.

Suddenly, I have the sense of deja vu as I glance over at the people on the other side. They're still playing the game, their minds plugged into the iWorld, device diabolique. McAllister, mad inventor, menace to mankind's mental state. Emergency!

Scent of strawberry lingered about me as I picked up where I began. About to battle, again and forever more, against evil and injustice.

I found myself back.

Buried inside.

Twentysix. 6. 'Thirdeye x 3rd-I' (pt. a)

I'm vertically expanding my third eye into the core of the Earth. A lance of unperceptible light, withdrawn from the downward center of everything, now raised upright in a horizontal challenge. Two million unicorns, all parading around daily with varying degrees of stellar self projecting from their frontal lobe. My own spike shooting forth, clearing a path, and drawing onlookers who can't see, but feel my presence.

I'm at the 8th Street subway station over by Astor. On the other side I spot several innocents milling about, on their way home from dinner, drinks, dancing. I suspiciously try to subdue my soul long enough to slip by, escape out on to the streets above where I'll have room to maneuver.

Trains speed along the four rows of tracks between me and the others, and just as the trains pass they make their move. I can't see it from the other side but I know the scene. Eyes glaze over as brainwashing triggers seep into their ears from the headphones of their iWorlds.

The young girl is first across, bounding and leaping between the pillars. She drives her knee towards my face. I slip under as she smashes the tiles, and I make a dash for the stairs. From the corner of my eye I see McAllister has commanded a dozen more civilian assassins with his gadget.

I skid to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. Behind me a slew of flying and leaping attackers. On the top step, a Thai warrior in sandals waits patiently for my first move.

Maybe leaving New Jersey before my powers returned wasn't such a good idea. I should have known it wouldn't be this easy to sneak back into New York City.

As I'm typing this, I suddenly feel my consciousness being sucked through a straw. I warble into being at a bar out in Brooklyn. I glance at my watch and will see that I've been brought through time and space. Only one girl would teleport me to Williamsburg on a Saturday Night...

Megan Strange.

She pops over my shoulder as I think her name. I should have guessed. "It's not time for you in the story yet darlin'..."

"Oh phooey." She waves her hand and schrunches her nose, her pink highlights accenting her freckles. With a snap of her fingers and a smirk she sends me back to finish my story. Her story.

Out in New Jersey I had put my fractured mind back together, my body long since healed. Mentally resurected, I found myself wandering the outskirts of New York City, afraid of what lie in store for me across the Hudson.

My powers were all but gone and I was trying to get them back but it seemed they were temporarily blocked. At least I hoped it was temporary.

I went online so I could speak with other superpowered folks to get a better idea of what was behind all this. Taia Nihilation, the explosive jailbait anarchist who carved a path of destruction through Philadelphia, mentioned something about papaya extract. It worked to a degree but I was still not nearly strong enough to sneak back into my city. A few others from the tri-state area gave me some hints. But impatience got the best of me and within a few months I was trying to sneak back in.

I contacted Eve Impossible, knowing that she would be my best bet for slipping in unnoticed. I had my best disguise on as I went to meet up with her on the Manhattan side of the Holland Tunnel. I hit Canal, made a right, and headed up the stairs to the club.

It was lowkey and still as I searched the room. Odds are she would find me way before I spotted her. Unsure and feeling nervous, I had a beer or two before the dance floor exploded to life. The music was infectiously upbeat and I bounced right into it. I was letting go and celebrated living through the severe beating I received a few months back, just a few stories above this exact location in fact. Ms. Mercury had made it clear I was not welcome here.

But I wasn't thinking of her as I danced. I wasn't thinking of anyone but myself. And that's when Eve appeared before me. We were suddenly moving and grooving and getting down. Our mad passion to dance was spreading to all those around us as the night swung wildly on.

A few hours later we hit the streets as she led me into the empty outside. She doesn't say much and encourages me to do the same. Eve stops in front of an all black sports car as the passenger side door pops open.

"Get in. I'll contact you when I can."

I silently and obediently followed her instructions and plopped myself into the seat. The door shut of its own accord and I watched Eve, her blonde hair whipping behind her as she walked coldly away. I turned to the driver who was just as intimidatingly quiet.

I tried to strike up conversation as I was escorted back through the tunnel, but this man in black would have none of it. He was stone so I gave up and enjoyed the ride. But I felt defeated. I would have to rely on Eve Impossible from this point on.

Knowing our history I was suprised she got back to me as soon as she did. She gave me another place to meet up. I was headed out the door when Daisy Hurricane landed before me. I had ran from her a few weeks earlier as she fought me to love her.

I expected a fight that, despite being a bit stronger than before, I would instantly lose. But instead she wanted to say goodbye.

"I just want to make sure you're safe and that you're good. Use this if there's any trouble." And with that she handed me a red sword. It looked old but felt like a true weapon.

I hugged her tight and we both knew that we'd never see each other again. Tears welled up as the sound of helicopter blades suddenly rose up all around us. Daisy tossed me to safety as the bullets from the attack helicopter started ripping everything to shreds. She had caught a slug or two but felt nothing. Instead she channelled her anxiety, frustration, and broken heart on the attackers above.

Whirling into the air she knocked the copter about, whipping the winds about her. Landing gently on its side she drove her fists through the armor. She waves me off and continues to pound the artillery into scrap. I race off down the block, blood red blade in hand. My powers were pulsating in bursts, surging me forward with each pounce. SUVs screech around the corner, each with mercenaries firing automatic weapons. I grip the sheath and draw the blade.

Leaping and soaring over the hoods of the skidding trucks, I drive the sword slicing through the steel. The cars all flip and crash as I land and roar down the street. The train is blasting its engines as it pounds down the track. I pounce off a lightpost and snag a handhold, tossing myself onto the roof. We're speeding past Main Street as I see the calvary arrive in black, driving off in the wrong direction.

Just a few miles out of NYC I feel a presence behind me. I'm about to glance behind when I smell Strawberries and misfortune. "Megan, not yet. I haven't even made it back into New York yet."

"Can't you hurry it up? I want to go dancing..." I can hear her pout.

"Give me a few paragraphs sweetness."

Back on the tracks the trains bursts into Penn Station. I leap down and wrap the sword in a garbage bag. Suspicious as heck, I make my way to Union Square. Just a few minutes til the meet with Eve. Better hustle.

I'm running all the things I learned from the others I communicated with. Mary Mega's meditational mantra, Dr. Dementia's prescription of pleasure, and Minnie Soda's delicate drunken dance. They used their own magick to enhance and empower themselves. I needed to find my trigger.

Eve was late. Or I was. I shook my watch and looked up and down the block again. Empty. I started getting nervous. The people were what made this city safe. An omnipresent third party; witness and observer.

A petite blone turned the corner. She had her head down, under a hood, but her golden locks hung unevenly from beneath. She felt magical and friendly, even on these dark, foreboding streets.

I opened my mouth to speak but before I could say anything, her fingers shot out, and pressed against my lips. Her subtle twinkling eyes rose up from under the hood, locking onto mine. The moon lit up her serious smile as it transformed into a devilish smirk.

I was sent soaring straight up into the air, hit by some unseen force. She floated up next to me and grabbed me by the collar. She whizzed me around and hurled me into the side of a building a block down. I hit it hard, but grabbed hold of a ledge and hung there gathering my senses.

She zoomed towards me beating her pixie wings furiously. Her fists extended she was intent on finishing me off. I pounce off the side of the building and glide towards a flag pole. I wind up just missing it as I get a shoulder block in the back from the toughest fairy I've ever met.

We're zooming towards the pavement as I roll with the hit, flipping myself onto her back. Clumsily, I jump off as I steer her into the sidewalk. I land and start to run. My muscles start to come alive with kinetic intensity. By the time I reach the corner I'm skipping blocks at a time.

I whipped back around and slid back through Union Square. Crouched and ready for a fight I survey the scene. Eve Impossible is standing alone outside the subway station, her trenchcoat buttoned up and tied tight. The wind is gently churning through the scene.

"What's this about Eve? A double cross? You work for McAllister now too?"

"I'm sorry Charles. But I work on my own. This was a favor for a friend."

The entire area lights up in a golden flash. I'm temporarily blinded but I feel a presence. An oh-so familiar presence.

"Helena...?" I muttered weakly.

My vision came back in waves and Ms. Mercury shimmered to life before me. She was a golden goddess. Pure sensual pulsar sheen radiating all around her body.

Ms. Mercury called out, "Luna!"

The ferocious pixie came and landed on one side of me. She was scowling at me and ready to pounce at Mercury's command.

A fluttering of pigeons signaled the arrival of Raptor who appeared behind me. The four of them had me surrounded at each point. Even though I felt the thrust within me, ready to burst, I would never be able to take on all four. I wouldn't even be able to survive one hit from Ms. Mercury.

Suddenly a winter chill swept through, snowflakes raging down from every direction. The weather malfunctioned and I was sitting in the eye of the storm. A faint brimstone smell was carried away by the winds and replaced with the smell of fruit. Hmm...strawberries?

A female shape materialized beside me and I nearly threw myself off the cube in surprise. I figured she was one more of Mercury's assassins, so I prepared myself for a fight. Instead, this pink streaked, raven haired beauty stood over me armed with only a charming smile.

"Hey cutie. I just thought you could use some rescuing. Wanna come back to my place?"

I did a sweep of the snowy scene and saw that the ladies were about to make their move. I glanced up at my saving grace and nodded frantically.

My stomach lurched and I found myself suddenly sitting on a couch in a living room. The strawberry girl had her legs draped over me. Somehow we were dressed in pajamas and were watching tv.

She looked over at me and said, "Hey sweetness." Her smile was wide and as genuine as they come.

"Where am I?"

"At my apartment in Brooklyn, silly."

TwentySix: Garden State of Mind.

I awoke in a nice firm bed situated in the heart of New Jersey. The house, I later discovered, was built on a faultline of centuries old revolution. Between the people and the masses.
I had no memory. No powers. Nothing. Two patient Christians had eventually taken me in and fed me. They gave me a place to lick my wounds, a home to heal.

I had to rebuild my mind from scratch. The instincts came back first, the animalistic impulses. I imagine I had to evolve back to myself. Someone had beaten me so bad that I dropped species.

I vaguely recall the beginning. I was howling and yelping into the night as I took to the wilds of New Jersey. The industrial world that once thrived here had been abandoned and reclaimed by the jungles of North America. Nature's last line of defense against the sprawling Metropolis across the Hudson.

My thick fingernails dug easily into the side of the giant stalks of enormous plants. My calloused feet found purchase among the ridges of the bark. I ran and lept among the leaves and vines in a garden of gods. Gigantic vegetables had fed entire cultures of people here. Cultures that created its own heroes.

Daisy Hurricane blew in on the western winds and struck before I was even looking in her direction. I growled internally as I tried to get the air back into my lungs. My shaggy hair draped into my face as I rose up, ferocity searing from my eyes.

Daisy looked over her savage interloper and instantly she adored him. He was a hopeless backwards boy, a broken beast of a man. She knocked him unconscious with a swipe of her fist, tossed his firm body over her shoulder, and flew back home on the currents, her wild, short hair swirling in the breeze.

I awoke. Chained. Dark. Alone. But taken care of. I felt healthy. I looked around my cage, without the knowledge of my own humanity, and saw the bones from several meals. If I had a mirror I could have seen the weeks' worth of facial hair. My mind was growing.

Daisy came to visit me often. She was sweet and liked to pet my head. When she saw that my personality was returning, despite my status as a savage, she brought me out of the cage and into her world.

Everyone lived within the walls of a giant husk. They gathered together and ate meals of massive grains and vegetation. They had a table filled with meat of all kinds. They drank large mugs of a natural alcohol and smoked thick homemade cigars.

My instincts drove me towards the food, the drink, and the smoke. Daisy and her people laughed as I gobbled up a portion for three, downed it with a barrel of ale, and smoked a cigar down to a stub. I slept like a baby for two days.

When I awoke again, Daisy was lying naked next to me. We were in her bedroom and suddenly I knew the words for things. I knew this was her bed, her room, her life. And I knew I was naked as well.

I tiptoed to the mirror and looked at my body. I was lean. My muscles at the early stage of chiseling. My hair and beard were overgrown. I had the swagger of a monster.

I threw on some pants and a shirt. As Daisy began to stir, I lept out the window. I ran along the rooftops. With my senses coming back and my instincts still intact, I took everything in. I realized why I had to run.

It was Daisy. She needed to be appeased. Her people did what she wanted and kept her happy, no matter what. My sense of self was far gone, but I still remembered when she made an example of a young boy. I was unfazed, unknowing of my humanity, but even I felt some pang when she demasculinated him before us all.

Daisy Hurricane had the superstrength and wind traipsing powers necessary to carry the food back to the people. Only females carried this power apparently. Something about the soil here produced a small cropping of girls with tremendous potential.

Petunia was another of these girls. Nowhere near the power of Daisy, she was the runt of this litter. But she visited me as well, she listened and knew my pain. I would have to go to Petunia and find a way to escape this garden.

I came to her window and she smiled. She knew I was only here to escape. But she gladly helped anyway. For it was an escape for her as well. She just never imagined how much she would resent me once I left.

My feet pounded the earth as I raced behind Petunia gliding along the air currents like a petal floating downriver. Suddenly I felt a change in the air and spun around into a skid. Daisy was swooping down at me, her fist drawn back, ready to strike.

I hopped backwards into a defensive crouch as she plowed her fist into the ground. She stood up slowly, the wind kicking up all around us as she rose, dirt dripping from her knuckles. A breeze threw back her hood and her hair began to twirl about.

Petunia slipped by me and into Daisy's path. A few well placed kicks and punches had gotten Daisy mad enough to toss Petunia far into the early morning dawn. I ducked and dodged as Daisy swung erratically, the air around her punches almost pushing me out of the way. Driving me away.

I ran and bounced off a leaf, caught hold of a vine, and soared towards the buildings, hoping to out maneuver her there. Daisy whipped herself into a whirlwind, picking up everything in her way and smashing it to bits. I narrowly avoided the debris, nimbly sidestepping and leaping over all she tossed in my path.

Without my powers I couldn't outrun her for long. She unleashed a shot to my back and I hit the ground hard. I bounce twice before I slam into a wall.

"Originally they wanted me to eat you. But I love you. I could never do that."

She stepped forward and looked menacingly down at me. I had no idea what she wanted.

Petunia dropped from the sky and drove her heels into Daisy's back.

"He doesn't love you. That's why he's running. He's trying to find his way back to his true love."

Although still unable to speak the English language, somehow Petunia knew me better than I did. From a few grunts and grumbles she recognized something in me that I had long forgotten. New York City came to my mind.

Daisy and Petunia took to the air, soaring and fighting and spinning. Their cloaks swooshing about them, they looked beautiful. Two flowers dancing along an autumn breeze.

I felt bad leaving so abruptly but it felt like it would be for the best. I climbed and scurried and slipped under some branches and leaves. After days of fighting through the wilds, my hand had pushed through to open air. I pulled myself up as two hands lifted me from the underground.

I was dirty, starved, and exhausted. The two pilgrims caught me and dragged me inside. Within two months they had retaught me the basics of the English language. Enough to talk and write this all down. They say it'll help me make sense of it all and also help remind me who I was before I was the savage.

New York City. True Love. That's all I knew.

TWENTYSIX: The Kinetic Kid Blues

"He's robbing the world of its magic!", the protester cried out, one sunny morning outside the McAllister building. "Don't believe his lies!"

I took a few seconds to gawk before unfolding my trusty spiral notebook from my back pocket. I jotted down, 'There's never a dull moment in this city of improbable possibilities', before zipping on down FortySecond Street in a blur.

I hit my last few deliveries and blew by the main office. I needed some cash and the bossman owed me big time. I looked over the cover story on the Post as I sat patiently for my pay to be scrounged together.

The headline read: 'MILLIONAIRE MASTER OF MACHINES' and showed the slick image of Jordan McAllister unveiling his newest gizmo. Some useless wad of tech that could do everything from capturing audio and video to doing your taxes. Sure, it'd be nice to store every song I've ever heard into the same device that I make my monthly phone call to my mom with, but there should be some limit to these things.

I was interrupted mid-ponder by the slapping of bills into my palm.

"This should make us square kid. By the way, nice rush job on that McAllister drop off this afternoon. Not sure how you did forty blocks in fifteen minutes, but I admire that hustle Chuck."

Joe Medley was the kind of boss people would follow into battle. A square jawed hombre hardened by a lifetime in the delivery business. If he would just shave that ridiculous moustache.

I step outside and the thunder begins to pound on the grey skies above. An ominous smearing of the day's blue enormity. I slid on my glasses, retied my bandana and adjusted my cap before leaping off into the swirlling cityscape.

A gentle flip off of a ledge and a swift pounce from a nearby flagpole and I was sent gliding along the metro-magnetic pulse. My mind caught hold as I soared through the streets, surfing the city's invisible veins faster than any pedestrian's eyes could follow. But not faster than hers.

Helena, or Ms. Mercury as she refers to herself these days, came floating by as if I were swimming in slo-motion. Her faux innocence seeped from her sly stare.

"Hey Charles." That damn slight curling up at the corner of her mouth.

"Hey Helena."

"Did you forget about tonight?"

"Not yet. I'd remember open bar."

"We have to see the exhibit this time. And try not to throw up on the V train again."

"I'm not making any promises...are they going to have the little sandwiches this time?"

"I'm not sure sweetie. Gotta run. See you at 7!" and with that, in a blink of an eye, she kisses my cheek and dissappears down 23rd St.

I'm not sure if it's jealousy but I liked it better when she didn't have superpowers.

We met outside the museum that night at 7:10. It's hard to believe any respectable superhero can make it on time to date, let alone two of them. We walked the exhibit arm in arm, and headed out for a drink.

"It's great the things you can get free.", I shouted over the music at the lush Midtown bar. Some company or another had sent her a card for two complimentary drinks. Her sliver sandals shone brilliantly in the blurred cityscape light as it danced among the flapping of her black skirt. Her earrings sparkled as we blazed across town.

Afterwards we zipped over to Jersey City where my friend's band were playing at a local bar. The sound rocked our internal organs and the cheap booze made us stumbly, so we decided to hoof it home like regular folk and leave the superpowers out of it for a night.

The wait for the train is usually a panic inducing, claustrophobic, nightmare of a wait for one with speedy powers such as mine. But tonight I hardly noticed the thirty-nine minutes it took to finally come. We were finally Manhattan bound, when, after a few sloppy kisses and through slurred speech, she presented me with a gift.

"It's an iWorld." She smiled up at me expectantly. My confused look elicited a further explanation.

"It's the cell phone, instant messager, mp3 player with GPS and a digital camera that also records video and audio."

That druken haze in her eyes didn't match the tone of her voice. Suddenly, when discussing this gadget, a company salesman had taken control of my girlfriend.

"Thanks baby." Something felt off, but I accepted the gift. I hugged my appreciation as we fumbled to the side nearly falling from our seats as the train screeched to a halt.

As I activated the camera function on my new toy, I turned and snapped a picture of her as we ascended the subway stairs. The LCD screen caught the dramatic lighting of the moon as we stepped outside, illuminating her hair, draped alongside an inebriated smirk.

As the days passed I tinkered with my new gizmo. Seems it truly does it all, which kicked in my suspicious nature. If this thing catches on like McAllister's numerous other expensive junk, available worldwide, then everyone will be capturing everything everywhere. Recording life around them and going back to it later to confirm it. Rather than just live our lives, we'd all just be directing a slideshow of images complete with soundtrack and then emailed off to family and friends. Isolated in our heads, viewing the world instead of interacting with it. Television is only the beginning.

My head started to pound and my nose began to bleed. "Whoa, I gotta remember to watch the crazy talk.", I said to myself.

The following saturday Helena and I danced through the ballroom they call New York, spinning and leaping as we soared along with the city night frozen in an instant below us. I spun her out, but as she pounced from a traffic light, I saw a misstep. She began to arc too far as she twirled about like a whirling dervish, spinning wildly towards a display window. Instincts drove my body forward, letting my mind figure out the plan for itself.

Two kicks had launched me towards the light post, and pausing horizontally for just a millisecond, I supercharged my next leap. I rocketed across the street, rotated as I skimmed across the hood of a taxi, and ricocheted off a mailbox, just catching her in my arms as she swooned and fainted. My feet grinded to a halt on the pavement, and instantly time popped all around me as my sneakers exploded into shrapnel.

"What's happened to you Helena?" I cradled her in my arms as we glided home across the Williamsburg Bridge.

She didn't wake until she was tucked in her bed. I applied the cold compress to her forehead and smiled down at her. She smiled back but it felt sad somehow.

"How you doing kiddo?" I held her hand.

"I'm fine. I just need some waffles..." she hoarsely whispered. "And OJ, and toast..."

I kissed her hand as she drifted to sleep. I went to look for my iWorld to see what I could do. Once I found it, I couldn't imagine who to call, who would know how to help a sick superhero. She tossed and turned the whole night and despite her wishes, I decided to bring her to the emergency room.

On the run there, she looked up at me with hopeless eyes. I never felt so useless. The doctors took her from me and told me not to worry and to get some rest. I couldn't sleep so I paced around the neighborhood, then jogged around the city and eventually ran the entire state. This wasn't something I could outrun.

I grabbed a coffee at a rest stop somewhere in Pennsylvania. The caffeine wore off somewhere in Ohio and I slept on a bench in the lounge for an hour or two. I popped a caffeine pill and made it to Lake Michigan as the sun rose up behind me.

My mind began to decompress as the tension drained from my body. Why was I running? What had happened to Helena? Why did I feel such overwhelming guilt? I took out my iWorld and began recording. I went over the details I could remember. Seemed as if I was stuck in a high gear for the past week. Oddly enough I wasn't able to produce many memories since that delivery to the McAllister building.

I began to think of Helena and scrolled through the pictures I had taken of her. Over four hundred digital images were stored on the small piece of plastic in my hands. And as I flipped through I began to notice something. She was fading away.

That very first picture showed Helena for the true beauty I knew her as. In each consecutive picture she looked weaker, her skin growing more pale, and that lovely smile never extending quite as far as it did that night. Was it this device? Was it me?

I sprinted back to New York City, hit the library and began searching for anything related to the iWorld or Jordan McAllister. As the newsites popped up, everything seemed straightforward. Budding inventor brings together a team of other brilliant minds to make a great leap using the technology of the times. Each year their device had evolved, from the iHear mp3 device, to the iDrive multimedia player, to the iDream cell phone/PDA.

The iWorld was the most highly advertised and therefore, desired, electronic device in the history of modern society. From billboards to rap videos to coffee chain tie-ins, the presence of this gadget had surrounded us before we even had it resting in our hungry palms.

I guess I just wasn't paying attention as I blew through the city each day. Probably missed the tv commercials due to having only an old 13" b&w set at home with barely functioning rabbit ears. I was just having too much fun and, well, I suppose I was a bit out of touch with reality these days.

I left the library more than a little distraught. Where could I turn now? I couldn't head home. I'd just wind up feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't just burst into McAllister's office and demand that he tell me the connection between Helena's collapse and his damned toy.

"Why not?"

The voice came over my headphones and I spun around. I checked out the iWorld expecting to have accidentally called someone from my address book once again. But it was off.

"Drop on by the office. I've been expecting you."

I remembered moments like this when, as a kid I'd ride my bike around the neighborhood listening to cassette tapes. The ambient background noise would make me suspiciously glance over my shoulders every few seconds, really implanting that paranoia. Tucked into the shadows of the East Village, I questioned my sanity as the voice kept creeping out of the headphones. I ripped them out and began to hyperventilate. The random soundtrack of the city funneled into my ears and grounded my brain for the moment.

But I could still hear the tinny tone of the voice as it crept from out of the tiny pieces of plastic and wires in my hands. I tossed the device into my ski cap and stuffed the whole thing deep into the pocket of my army jacket. I closed my eyes and imagined myself outside McAllister's office, smashing through the front doors, leaping through the lobby, and slamming floor by floor up to his lush penthouse suite. I imagined myself destroying his happy and rich life, starting with his art deco dcor and ending with his throat in my grip, suspending him outside the center floor-to-ceiling window of his decimated office.

"Do it. Kill me son."

I hesitated and came to my senses. I dropped to my knees. With several long, deep, drawn breaths in I could see that my momentary wish had become a reality. The entire span of McAllister's multi-million dollar chunk of real estate, with that spectacular view, was now leveled completely. The windows were all blown out, and the remaining shards of his luxurious lifestyle spread around me in a ring as if a bomb had been detonated in the center of the room.

"It's so disappointing that you're such a failure."

McAllister, mere inches from a two hundred story drop, looked severely sad. He took off his blazer and tosses it out the window. Unbuttoning his cuffs, he rolls up his sleeves, before kicking me clear across the room with an Italian loafer to the chest.

"I only ask that you end my life and you can't even imagine that."

McAllister began to pace around the room, the splinters and shards crackling under his steps. He brushes his hand through his hair and walks towards the last of the standing walls. With his other hand, he gently waves as the wall begins to disappear, replaced with a large metal womb.

"Okay Chuck, here's how it goes. I'm the villain of this piece. I know, how post modern of me to mention it straight up like this. So clever, right?"

McAllister grabs the womb and drags it closer.

"Fuck clever. I'm your goddamn devil, child."

I had finally caught my breath and my threw myself across the room into a defensive postition. My arms crossed before me in an 'X', my front foot thrust forward, and my back foot at a 90 degreeangle, bracing for impact or prepared to launch. My quasar vision dazzled around the scene absorbing all the light in the room in nothing more than an instant.

"Let's finish this." I couldn't believe the cliched battlecries I heard coming from my mouth.

McAllister's hand is on the womb, gently raising it's liquid metal covering. His eyes are locked onto mine, and he holds me there with his magnetic-repulsion-rays. A smile is lifting the corners of his mouth as I shake my sight free. A small mob of young men, trapped beneath the next generation iWorld, the iSoul, roar into the room. Their eyes are blank, their ears full, and their minds empty.

In their hands runs the current of power emanating from the womb. The surging fractal lightning pulsed around their fists as the iZombies stomped forward, bloody screams of battle on their breaths. I strained my crossed arms against the paralyzing effect McAllister was emanating upon me, and at the very last second, mere millimeters from the wildly swung punch of an iZombie, just then did I snap out and into action.

I was like a breeze between the pack, darting lowing beneath their grasp. The burning edges of searing raw cosmos nipped at my hair as I slid behind them. My fist rockets right and throws half the bunch down and out. I whip my right around again and fire it like a piston into the back of another, before unleashing a southpaw shot to two more. My fists pumped forward, the muscles acting almost on their own behalf, and by the time I slowed them down the room was a bloody cocoon.

"Perfect. And now the for the kicker."

I swung around mad-eyed and frayed, tachyon fire streaming from my mind. McAllister had raised the womb's cover and inside I saw that it was her. The quicksilver shine blinded me and forced out tears. Before my eyesight returned though I knew who it was that lie there naked and fetal. And I knew it was my fault.

It was the silvery scorched body of Velocity Girl. I had stripped her of her form somehow, weakened her. I was the one that charged after her, trapped her, gave Helena her powers. Helena?! My god. Where was Helena?

"You hit every cue my boy. Brilliant!"

Ms. Mercury smashed into the office with the force of a thousand furies. The glass and twisted metal danced and glittered all around her as she just absolutely dazzled with that golden glow. Her furrowed brow was so cute, and she was making that angry face. My god. This is why he had loved her. The way she looks right now is everything I saw in her and everything I had ever loved about any woman ever.

I'm not sure if her fist hit me or if it was the shockwave of compressed air that hairline fractured my cheekbone. I was sent sailing to the floor in a one knock out punch. I don't even know if her skin touched me.

And I don't even have time to hit the ground, cause as I drift down her foot comes up under my rib cage and fires me straight through the roof of the building and high into the night sky.

It's beautiful out. The air is warm and mild. Just enough wind to carry you about. And the city is out and lit up and alive. It's a stage with lights, camera, and action abound. But it's all getting further away.

Ms. Mercury glides upwards past me and I gaze at her amazing figure as it caresses the edges of a moonlit Central Park. Her leg stretches straight up to her chin and down across mine. Plummeting so fast, thinking isn't possible. Until I slam into time and space expands into my mind like blood into cracks of concrete.

It's beautiful inside this silence.

Crackling into my psychic ear, snow like fuzz of memories brushed aside to make room for McAllister's thoughts. I try to squeeze him out of my mind. But it's no use. He has a hold and he places in his reality.

"I want you to realize that you must defeat her and stop me. I'm not sure if that's clear by now. Everything I do, I do for you." I felt him crying.

Then I felt like a sack of mail snatched by a speeding train. A sack of potatoes dragged from a cropduster. The parachute behind a dragracer. Then spinning in a circular spin somehow ellipitically spun until I was mentally undone and then I vomited as I was pitched full speed into and through the offices of fine and hard working individuals, that actually enjoy their jobs.

She caught me on the other side and my vision had now returned. Sight smacked back into me, I now saw blood streaming behind us as the city blurred away. My face felt wet and sticky and syrupy. I was groggy and attempted to turn around. My stomach lurched and I dry heaved myself into a coughing fit, nearly letting my lungs collapse. I drew into myself and coiled up in my body. Tightly wound stone charging of my internal thrust.

Fired aloud, I popped free from Ms. Mercury's grip and carved myself through the undercurrents towards Wall Street. I grasped my forehead, hoping to close the gash across my third eye. I was karma blinded and without a guidance system now. And the bleeding's stopped.

Bouncing across the ledges and pouncing from the empty office views of Downtown Manhattan, I was ricocheting to a safe haven, where ever that was. It was then that my senses were finally coming back to me and I saw how aura destroyed I really was. I couldn't outrun her. I couldn't outpower her. I couldn't out fight her. I was screwed.

So I tried to run anyways, skipping along the tops of the West side. But she was always more familiar with this side of town. Damn! She taps me with an uppercut I don't see coming. I try to brace for impact and curl into a fetal position. A million swats dribble me down to Canal St. before she kicks me into the Holland Tunnel at a hundred miles an hour.

My body is broken as it rattles against the tiled walls of the tunnel. Ms. Mercury cascades up next to me as she prepares to bounce me off the walls. I have only one thought as she unleashes her venomous valkyrie vengeance, only one solitary things crosses my mind at that exact moment.

She looks so happy.

I catch glimpses of dirt, and water and metal, and garbage and smoke before finally hitting something that catches me in it's warm embrace. I can't feel anything beyond my mind. My body must be shattered, along with my spirit, but my brain hasn't died yet.

But consciousness fades and before it does I see a single sentence that seems so odd, yet so familiar set before the apocalyptic background around him.

'Welcome to New Jersey.'

TWENTYSIX: the Chase

I teetered on the edge of the mammoth and archaic building outside City Hall. The streets were nearly empty three hundred feet below me. But from up here, with the warm breeze pounding upon my back, I could see the teeming masses parading through Chinatown.

Looking forward and down, I dropped, face first towards the speeding pavement below. People whipped out their digital cameras and video phones and recorded my plummet as I soaked in the freefall adrenaline rush.

I'm not sure but I think underneath the gasps that escaped from the lips of the passerbys, I heard several dissappointed exclamations, such as "AW MAN! I wanted to see him go splat!"

My magnetic field throbbed to life as my feet slowly lowered towards the ground. With a subtle tap of the tip of my kicks, the field that caught me, launched me back up. Twice as fast as I had dropped, I began to soar straight up, rocketing into the warm winter sky.

I lifted myself high above the city, punching through a low passing blanket of clouds and I saw it all at once. Every piece of matter below me was simultaneously working in unison to create this higher ideal, the city god we call New York City.

My thrust had carried me thousands of feet up and I began to drop once again. The earth came screaming towards me with the mind numbing intensity of certain doom. I let my powers wane for the plunge until the very last moment, when, with a spin and a gentle kick off the spiralling columns of the monolithic building, I fired myself along the magnetic waves that pulsed all through this great and sprawling metropolis.

Guided by my gleaming, mental unicorn horn, I weaved my way like a pinball, ricocheting off ledges, taxis, and newstands. I removed my army hat and let my hair whip with the winds. Surfing the wavelengths I soon had roared through all of downtown at a heartracing pace. I may make it to work on time after all.

I had found myself a little bored lately having captured that speedy minx I call Velocity Girl. Bouncing around the city had become tiresome as I had already mapped out the strongest pulses of power that could carry me all over the island, from the uptown museums to the downtown bars and back again.

Velocity Girl had eluded me since I first developed my powers. It was her visage that I had first seen when I sent my mind along the etheric river. Shot upstream as if from a cannon, I had instananeously glided around the entire moebius strip that comprised our reality. And there she was.

She was turned away from me but I could see her beauty shining with a quicksilver shimmer. With a glance over her shoulder I knew I had seen the most perfect female I could ever imagine. Her ghostly muscles tensed and relaxed like a perfect machine, pumping and pushing her ever forward and away from me. My hands lunged out and I could feel her misty hair as it flowed free from my fingers.

The cosmos had slapped my forehead and I could feel my entire being sucked back into my body. An upturned corner of her mouth was the last I saw of her. I had crashed back into flesh and she was long gone.

When my powers began to develop it was like I could sense her at times. Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of her as she passed invisibly through a girl getting off the subway, or a woman laughing in a restaurant. It was all about timing. I would need to strike just as she passed through another female. I began experimenting with my powers and found that I could strip myself of my magnetic field and use it to create a trap. So with a concentrated effort I closed the field around her as she passed by.

I don't know if it was the girl she was trapped in, or Velocity Girl herself, but it was nearly impossible to contain her. Our opposite polarities made us simultaneously drawn together and violently blown apart. Over time I was able to calm the fields so that they vibrated in sync with each other, yet remaining separated by their innate polarity. My leaping and soaring days were long over, but it didn't matter. We were together.

It's hard to put into words the way that I experience love. It's like we all have these fields and they carry little snippets of us, culminations of our experiences. And when these fields are in prolonged contact they begin to merge and change each other. Empowering and devouring ourselves in a closed circuit loop of mutual co-existence.

I had hardly missed my powers, except those times stuck on the subway or waiting at the bus stop on the cold winter nights. I did miss the battle aspects though of pitting my powers against someone else's. And the team-ups and crossovers...

So I was bored. And Velocity Girl began to look like an ordinary girl nowadays. Her flighty spirit had been contained and drained and her glow had all but dimmed completely. I had learned to care for this girl that housed the essence of this lunar goddess. I told myself it was for her sake that I released the field and absorbed it back into myself. But the truth was I wanted the chase again.

The field had come slowly off of her, then suddenly crashed about my person. The shockwave threw me back into the far wall of our small apartment. Something within my girlfriend instantly exploded into a spectacular luminous Amazon. Velocity Girl had been reborn in a glorious golden explosion.

My own powers throbbed and pulsated around me and by the time my eyes had adjusted, she was gone. Light years around the cosmos and back again, circling the fringes of our minds, she was soaring through the ether. She was gone.

When I had regained my senses I spoke to the girl I had trapped Velocity Girl in. We talked for hours and hours, feeding off the electromagnetic high. Sitting there indian style on the floor, staring at each other for hours as we both jabbered on about everything and nothing.

We collapsed under the dawn's rays, the sunlight glistening off our sweaty, naked bodies. And just there, as I glanced over, I saw a golden shimmer in her eyes fade into stark reality. Then we slept for ages.

TWENTYSIX: Run For Your Life

"For Christ's sake Artemis, just drop it! Let me track Velocity Girl on my own, please!"

I dropped and rotated through a multitude of realities until I found this one. I don't mean to run away from our fights but I just can't stand it anymore. I'm sitting in silence as she drones on and on about some nonsense that can't possibly apply to me. I'm a goddamn hero honey. No, no, please let me wash the dishes while a universe perishes under the might of Sol, the Sun God.

Soaring straight, and up, I look for another reality, one with a bit more pep.

"You can't run forever Raptor! That's my job!" Great. Now she's flying off into the night sky and I can't even get a word in edge-wise. Sometimes this whole thing just seems impossible.

Reminds me of Eve Impossible. Beneath all her disguises and gadgets there was no discernable personality, just a daddy's girl, eager to please.

Vibrating inwards I land on the WorldCycle and lose myself in shot after shot of carbonated quantum particles. This go-round she's the bartender and I can see she's preparing the 'you're-cut-off' speech.

Omniman materialized as he molecularily collided with the empty space next to me at the bar, possibly drawn by the vapors of my dimensional wake.

"Omniman! Now there's a motherfucker who knows what he's doing."

I shot my arm out towards the bartender, pointing wildly in her direction. "This bastard saves every single one of us every moment of every day, and not ONE goddamn complaint. Fucking hell mate!"

Omniman stood silently on the edge of my mind, blurry yet stoic.

"I'm not Omniman. I'm you."

I wiped the quasars from my eyes and saw myself for the first time.

"You've spent your life running. Ducking and dodging the beam. You kept shifting away from us for so long that you lost touch with those around you, lad. Come back to us. Run towards something."

My eyes raced around the scene examining it molecule by molecule, picking up every proverbial stone and looking under.

"What is going on?"

The light caught me unawares and slapped me in my frontal lobe, smooshing it inwards and then snapping again forward, sprouting out a Unicorn's horn, dripping off into the ether as a single, solitary drop.

I landed in her arms, the cold desert air around us. She was cradling my head as we sat upon the sand. The air was crisp as it chilled the warm earth beneath us.

"Don't worry baby. I've got you. Come back to me."

The sun blazed defiantly behind us, Ayer's rock doing its best to eclipse it's power. Before us lies the moon, reflecting like a silver puddle shimmering in the dusky horizon.

"It's the drugs baby, not you. You can beat this."

Her words came into focus and my superheroic exploits blurred around my mind. I had found my way home.

TWENTYSIX: Superman, Save Their Minds

"Hey man, let me tell you, the Multiverse...it isn't a place. It's a state of mind."

Thrust slid through the air as though soaring through zero gravity. Magnetic pulsar sheen shimmered in his wake as he tore down the city streets. His glowing red converse came down to the ground in a slo-mo warp, and with a subtle push off the pavement he skipped across our simulated world. Twisting and turning in a high-velocity spin, he slams his fist, now resonating with thundering force, into the robot's midsection.

"The key to superpowers is all in your mind. The entire fabric of reality and the myriad of dimensions exist simultaneously in the same exact location, only separated by the alternating vibrations of god's voice. Change your wavelength for mental elevation, trigger your meta-evolution."

The other robots quickly adapted to Thrust's speed. Their internal mechanisms were powered by the Atomic Perceptual Motion Machines which sat firmly planted in their chest cavity. These wicked machinations helped the machines expand their reach into the very Wonderverse itself.

Thrust quantum-slid across the magnetic fields, flexing the very bonds that held reality together. Time and space became space in time and before the robots could register it, the charcoal glow of his crimson sneakers had sliced through the atomic symbol stamped upon their chest plates.

He landed with a delicate and soundless drop into a tight crouch. His eyes glowed bright white from behind his aviator sunglasses, flashing outwards in pulses. Above and behind, springs and levers ticked, tocked, and suddenly sprung forth in a violent spray of oil and gears.

"Take your illusion and make it real. Feel that twang against your horn of light, protruding from your third eye, and running divine energies down into the reservoir at the base of your lizard brain, deep into your spine."

The sunglasses whipped off and sparking, milky light erased another robot from existence. The glasses returned to his face without his pupils being exposed for a millisecond. A quiet flopped upon the scene, freezing the last of the robots in its place. Motionless, it struggled with the impossibility of its seemingly defunct state.

Thrust stood up and stretched out his back. He drew several deep breaths, filling his lungs with fresh oxygen before speaking again.

"Rise to the SuperEgo and unite the ID. Only you can do it. And its so much easier with superpowers."

Thrust was gone in an instant, leaving behind a human-shaped crackling warble in the dead center of the robots chest.