Super Sales on Super Heroes 6 -Ch2-

Chapter 2 - Defection -

Standing out in front of Felix were two women. Both were pretty, though one far more so then the other. The one of the left looked like some type of goat-woman with brown hair that was curly. The one on the right looked like an Elf with wings and blonde hair.

When Felix glanced around as he approached, he found that the “pretty” wasn’t reserved to these two women, either. Everyone around was pretty, or freakishly beautiful. To the point that Felix felt strange.

That he should keep his eyes on the ground rather than look at anyone at all.

In looking around, he found himself looking at the green-eyed, blonde-haired, beauty that was Faith. His personal Dryad and confidant as well as body-guard and combatant.

“Goodness, I seem to be almost out of my own weight-class here,” Faith murmured, catching his eyes with her own. She smiled at him. “I can just barely hold my own. They’re all so pretty. I’d hate to find a Dryad from here. They’d be like looking into the sun.”

Nodding his head, Felix looked back to the two women they were heading to. The idea of meeting a Dryad from this world sounded like a really bad idea.

Because if Faith was here without changes, that meant Dryads were here.

“Hello,” said the Elf-like woman. “My name’s Lucia. A pleasure to meet you. This is Nikki.”

She’d finished her statement by motioning to the goat-woman beside her.

“You… you said you’re here because of Steve?” asked Nikki, her slotted eyes looking hopeful and wide at Felix.

“Ah… yeah. Yes. My name is Felix. Felix Campbell. This is Faith Campbell, my wife. We’ve been sent here by Ryker. He tasked us with reaching out and getting things moving.

“I’m here to pick up Nia and take her to Steve. It’s time for us to show him that we’ve kept our end of the promise to him,” Felix said with a smile. Doing his best to sound as if he knew exactly what was going on, even when he felt like he knew nothing. He laughed, made a shake of his head, and waved a hand in front of himself. “I’ll be honest, sometimes Ryker just gives me tasks with the barest of information. That’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge. Sorry.”

“But… but you’re here to take Nia to Steve. Right?” Lucia pressed, her black eyes boring into him. “That means he’ll be coming home. That’s what Runner told us. What he promised us.”

“I believe that’s the goal, yes,” Felix confirmed with a nod of his head. A very large, pretty, and impressively built cat-woman sauntered past. She was armored and armed in a way that made her look similar to a feudal knight. She seemed interested in him for a moment, then dismissed him. Moving off with a large crate held on her shoulder. A woman with antler’s followed along behind her.

Lucia nodded, frowned, and chewed at her lower lip. Then she sighed and turned to look off to one side. Then behind herself.

Distantly, Felix could see a massive wooden manor that was made out of logs. It felt oddly out of place here.

“Nia’s coming. Jaina went to go get her,” Nikki offered with a small nod of her head. The smile on her face was nervous and hopeful. He could tell both women were incredibly anxious about the situation.

Not that he could blame them at all.

If the tables were turned, Felix would have a major issue with this.

Even as it is… I’m having troubles with this.

My original world is a corpse. Or close to it.

My new world is in the middle of a super powered crisis.

Now I’m being pulled into a conflict between the gods. I don’t… I don’t belong in this at all. These people are no different than I am, but perhaps even further removed than I.

“I… I know I’m nobody to you,” Felix mumbled, his smile slipping. “I’m nobody and I honestly have my own hopes pegged on Ryker and Runner in a way. But so far… so far they’ve done me right whenever they could. I can’t imagine them wanting to do something subversive. At all.

“If… if you want one of you can come with us. Though it might alter you. Traveling worlds can change who you are as a person. Humans like me are pretty basic and tend to move from world to world alright though.”

Lucia and Nikki both turned to look at one another. They didn’t say anything but then turned and looked to Felix. His statement had clearly spurred them on to actually doing something.

“Dog?” Lucia asked without looking away from Felix.

“Dog,” agreed Nikki with a long sigh. “I’ll… go find her.”

“Dog?” asked Felix, feeling odd.

“She’s Steve’s bodyguard. In a way,” Lucia answered a bit oddly. “She’s been a bit… off… without him around. Dog only listens to him really.”

Felix nodded his head slowly and started looking around again.

There were no sounds or noises here that he’d grown used to. No electrical noises, no cars, planes, or dogs barking.

There was only the quiet murmur of farm-hands doing work or talking to one-another, and the sound of a light breeze whispering over the fields.

“This is a peaceful place,” Felix whispered, his eyes wandering around. He could distantly see the wall he’d noted. It encompassed the whole of this place.

“It has no earth goddess. No Gaia,” Faith stated with an odd tone. “But it is indeed peaceful. Though… it feels as if it’s recovering from a wound. An open wound that festered for a long while.”

“It was called the Creep,” Lucia offered, catching the two of them off-guard. “A blight upon the world itself. Indiscriminate death and mayhem. Essentialy… essentially it was a displaced soul that refused to leave.

“A magical fog that created monsters from its depths. Ones that killed anything they could reach, which also became monsters.”

Interesting.

I wonder if that’s something I could get a sample of. If I could use something like that, it could become an interesting alternative to mines.

Couldn’t it?

“Ah, they’re all here,” Lucia murmured, her words popping Felix out of his thoughts. Blinking several times he found a small girl heading his way and a young woman.

The girl looked to be four or five but Felix wasn’t sure. He was terrible with children’s ages. For all he knew she was seven. Though he couldn’t deny she was a cute kid.

She had long black hair and green eyes.

“Hello! I’m Nia!” announced the girl coming to a stop in front of him. “Nikki told me it’s time to go get daddy! Can we go? Right now?!”

“I… yes. Yes we can,” Felix got our with a chuckle. He found himself unable to look away from the child. Grinning, he was nodding his head. Then he looked to the other woman who’d joined them.

She was dressed in a metal chest-plate, leather armor, and wore two swords. Felix couldn’t deny she was attractive with short black hair and brown eyes that were flat.

Almost lifeless, in fact.

It reminded him of Miu in a way.

She stared at Felix and then dipped her head once to him.

“Then… yeah, off we go,” Felix murmured and gestured back the way they’d come.

“Thank you,” Lucia said as they began to walk away. “We… we need our Brute back.”

“Daddy is amazing. Nothing can stop him,” Nia chattered at Felix as they walked along. “He knocks down trees and makes them naked to build walls. He can do it with his bare hands if he wanted.

“There was this one time that—”

Felix disconnected his brain from what he was hearing. A skill he’d developed after one too many Legion meetings.

Walking on they went back to the portal and entered it.

He’d expected to find everyone waiting for him, but instead, all he found was Ryker standing there, along with Runner.

“Runner!” Nia shouted with a laugh. She ran forward toward him and held up his hands to him. “Hold me!”

Blinking, the black haired blue-eyed man stared at the child. Then grinned, reached down, and picked her up.

“Hello there! It’s time to get your dad. Are you ready?” Runner asked, smiling at the little girl. Then he glanced over to Felix and nodded at him.

“Yes! Let’s go!” Nia said, pointing ahead into the utter darkness of nothing.

“Thanks for picking her up, Felix,” Runner said with a shake of his head. “I’m working on Andrea. She wasn’t supposed to be… to be gone.”

Felix only nodded his head at that. He didn’t really want to talk about it.

If anything he was more nervous about where everyone went. He’d been expecting his companions to be here.

“Alright, off we go,” Ryker muttered and then lifted his hands up. He started to build out a magical pattern once again.

This time Felix found his eyes drawn to the darkness in the distance.

Strange lights fluttered through it. Shifting patterns of sparkles that nearly moved with life. One bright trail of lights was buzzing around the perimeter of their group. Circling wildly at high-speed.

There must have been some type of barrier as it didn’t come any closer. It finally came to a stop directly above Felix’s head.

Watching it for a second he looked down instead.

Infinite blackness stretched out under him.

Distantly, he could see what looked like fractured shadows.

Pale and faded images acting out what he felt looked eerily similar to what they themselves were doing. It were as if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

There was a clack followed by the world of darkness falling away and left them standing in the middle of what felt like a downtown shopping district.

“Oh! Oh my!” Nia said loudly, looking around. “There’s so many pretty things! Look at all the people!

“Hi! You’re really pretty! Hi, hi!”

Nia was waving at a young woman walking by that looked rather normal to Felix. She smiled awkwardly, waved back at Nia, and kept going. Though she did glance back at the small child once.

The smile was plastered firmly on her face.

“Ah, there they are,” Ryker said and pointed across the street. Sitting at a cafe was Kit, Lily, Goldie, and Miu at one table talking amongst themselves and drinking coffee.

Everyone crossed the street and started toward the cafe.

Next to their table was Vince and another man.

Felix was glad to see Vince looked perfectly fine. His dark brown hair was short and pulled back from his face. He looked away from the other man and his green eyes met Felix’s.

Without even talking to him he could gather from that look that Vince was feeling stressed. That for whatever reason, the man of infinite confidence was lacking it at the moment.

Before Felix realized it, Steve was on them.

He had brown hair with a great deal of grey in despite looking young. Wide brown eyes were fastened to Nia and Dog. He was practically stumbling over himself to get to them.

“Daddy!” Nia shouted with a laugh. She hopped down from Felix’s hip and rushed over to the other man.

Dropping down to his knees, Steve scooped up the little girl and held onto her.

Then he began to sob brokenly as he hugged her. His arms enveloping the small girl’s back.

A second woman appeared from nowhere, just above Steve, and dropped down to her knees as well. She quickly hugged Steve and Nia both.

Her long black hair swung around like a curtain and Felix couldn’t see her face.

It’d been surprising for someone to simply become visible like that. As if she’d been there the whole time but he couldn’t see her at all.

“Auntie Nancy!” Nia squealed with a laugh, one small arm looping around the woman’s neck.

Dog came over and stood over the small group, then bent down over Steve and pressed her forehead to the man’s head.

“My High-King,” whispered the woman. Her hands coming up to rest on his back.

“And voila,” Runner said, holding his hands up and looking to Ryker. “Promise kept, all is well. Regardless of how you worried and worried.”

“I’m still worried. This isn’t the right… line. It’s the right event, but wrong line. There’s people missing,” Ryker growled, glaring at Runner. “I need to—”

Felix couldn’t follow the conversation as he suddenly heard an entire stadium’s worth of conversations. Endless people talking, asking questions, screaming, crying, all at the same time.

Wincing, Felix looked every which way to try and figure out where it was all coming from. Except it felt as if it were all around him and at ever angle.

Reminiscent to when he’d forcefully ripped at the world not long ago he could see fractures in reality.

All of them spreading out.

From everywhere and everything were cracks and lines spreading out through reality. Flakes and sections falling away to shatter into nothing on the ground and revealing something else altogether behind it.

Another world entirely that looked as if it were at the same point in time and place.

A massive car sized section disintegrated into motes of dust and Felix could see into the other world. He saw himself standing next to a man wearing a mask. It was half black and half white.

Then a chunk inside of that world fell down and Felix saw the man with the black and white mask standing next to Edmund and Vince, but he himself was gone.

With a grimace, Felix closed his eyes and put his hands to his face. He was now terrified that he was going insane. That his attempt to save the Kit and Lily that weren’t his had damaged his own mind.

Broken him down to the point where he was hallucinating.

As suddenly as the noise started it ended.

“— don’t know how to even say thank you,” said a male voice.

“Oh that’s easy, just help us out when the time comes. Biancas ready to join us by the way. So it’s just Skipper and Zeus as the big players on that side,” Runner advised.

Felix opened his eyes and lets his hands fall away.

In front of him was Steve, Vince, Nia, Dog, and the woman Nia had called Auntie Nancy. There was nothing else out of the ordinary in any direction and all looked normal.

Oh shit.

Oh shit!?

I really am going crazy! Fuck!

Grasping his thoughts and wrestling them down Felix forced his breathing to remain normal. His thoughts to stay controlled and even.

If he really was going crazy he could talk to Ryker and Runner about it later. Bringing it up right now would only cause further problems. To push him further into a corner he didn’t want to get into.

Looking up, he caught Kit staring at him. Her eyes peering at him in the way she often had done when she was rifling through his thoughts and memories.

Damnit.

I swear I’m not crazy!

I’m not! This is just because-because whatever’s happening.

It’s not me.

It’s something happening to me.

Okay? It’s not me, it’s what’s… happening.

Or what I did.

Kit’s eyebrows rose up fractionally as if she heard his projected thoughts.

Then she gave him a warm smile. There was an odd prod inside of his mind. As if someone had stuck a finger down atop his thoughts and brought them to a standstill.

It was gentle, calm, and didn’t feel judgmental.

She watched him for a few more seconds as if to make sure he was alright, then looked back to the ongoing hallmark scene that was playing out before them. Felix could tell that this was a life-shifting event for all those involved.

While Kit’s forceful application of her power on his mind had calmed him, he still felt incredibly unsettled.

Jumbled up.

“Felix!” shouted a voice.

Looking over to the speaker, Felix found no one there.

“Felix?” asked a different speaker

Turning his head, he once more looked to where the voice came from. There was once again, no one there. Nothing had changed

Steve was hugging his family, Felix stood near Faith, and the others were having coffee while Ryker and Runner argued.

“Nnnnn, Felix! Let’s go get a cookie. I want-a-cookie!” demanded Andrea.

The sound of her voice stabbed through his thoughts and the fragile wall of his emotions.

“Nnnn, no! I bet… I bet they have stale bread. Stale bread, milk, sugar, baking powder, and an egg! We can totally make pancakes!” called what he’d swear was Second.

“Oh! Yes! Pancakes!” called Andrea Prime.

Panting, looking around wildly, Felix didn’t see Andrea. He could hear her, but he couldn’t see her. The only possibility was he really was losing his mind now.

Putting a hand to his brow he closed his eyes, turned his head away, and grit his teeth. All he could do was try to hold out till this was over. Then let Kit see if she could put him back together.

Her, Ryker, or Runner.

“Nnn? Felix? Are you okay? Do you not want pancakes?” asked Andrea.

Laughing softly, Felix felt his mouth turn up into a broken smile at the haunting words. Right now he would do just about anything for a pancake from Andrea.

“Sure I do,” he whispered. “I’d love one.”

“Goodie goodie! Second! Gooooooooo!” declared Prime. “Let’s see if I’ve got advil or something. You look like you have a headache.”

The sound of shoes slapping into pavement faded quickly away.

“Nn, nn, Felix, move your hand, let me check your forehead,” demanded what sounded like Third.

Letting his hand drop he opened his eyes. He half expected to find Andrea there.

He didn’t, of course.

Nor was there an Andrea running off to the cafe to find things to make pancakes.

I… okay.

I’ve lost it. This is… yeah. Yeah. This is like…schizophrenia, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay… right.

Kit?

Kit, please. I need—

The cracks in the world that Felix had seen only moments ago came back. They spread rapidly over everything and everyone.

From Runner to Nia everyone looked like stone that was cracked and broken. Lines like spidewebs spiraling out across every inch of them.

“Ha… hahaha… hahahahaha,” laughed Felix taking in a gasping breath.