Super Crush (BxB)

Reins, Reign, and Rain

Ceremonelously, Abe snuffs his flame, and Matriarch turns to congratulate him on a job well done. They are too wrapped up in the celebration of killing Clay to notice me sprinting toward them.

By the time she reads the surprise on Abe's face, I am already past her. Matriarch swipes at me with her sword but only knicks my shoulder. The blood unleashed from my deltoid doesn't stop my momentum. My anger is too strong. I am a runaway rhino.

It's not until my fist finds Abe's stomach and the wind is knocked from him that I too let out the breath I was holding. His eyes meet mine for a moment as he hunches over.

My mind flashes to the time I was fourteen and Abe was trying to teach me how to play rugby. He had shown me over and over again how to tackle properly, but when I tried it on him, he never budged. Part of me knew he was relishing in it. By then I was pissed. I felt weak and pathetic. So, the next time he told me to tackle him, I jumped at him before he was ready and brought him to his knees. As he gasped for air and held his stomach, I felt the guilt quickly rise and drown my heart.

I was on my knees beside him, on the verge of tears when he spoke.

"Damn. That was a good one," his said. "Remind me not to piss you off."

"Abe–" I was about to apologize.

"No. We're good. I get it. You reached your limit."

His hand patted my chest.

"Thankfully, we'll always be on the same team."

Welp. Here we are, I think, returning to the present. I unapologetically slam my knee into Abe's face. There is a splash of blood on my pants. I know his nose is broken.

Before I can reach for Abe again, I hear the sound of bones cracking. It's not until the pain tears through me that I understand that those bones are mine–my ribs to be exact. And Matriarch's powerful sidekick is the source of the body-breaking move.

I tumble to a stop on my back. I can't move. My breath is shallow. Everything hurts. As I look up at the sky, I notice the blue disappearing.

Wow. I am fighting for my life yet distracted by the weather. This makes me laugh.

Matriach's face appears in my line of vision.

"What a strange response to getting your ass kicked," she scoffs.

This makes me laugh harder.

"Yeah, well it's hard not to find this all hilarious. The biggest superhero of all times outing herself as an evil dictator who wants to take over the world."

Seconds from death and I still can't help running my mouth.

Matriarch grits her teeth, grabs me by my hair, and pulls me to a sitting position. I make a mental note to shave off all my curls.

"You thought all of this meant something," she gestures to the video feeds playing behind us on the screens that cover Times Square. Slowly she raises her hand above the head and gives one loud snap.

With the sound of her fingers, the whole city block goes dark. I notice that all of the cerulean has been replaced with storm clouds over the city.

Then, like an old computer rebooting, each of the screens pops back on with its regular broadcasting. The board above the clothing store is no longer showing Super Model T un-wigging some maniacs a few blocks from here. The ad space over the candy shop presents the next big Broadway sensation instead of Hell's Kitchen Shadow getting his ass handed to him by Top Hat and Smoke Bomb. And the grandiose achievement, my footage of Matriach showing herself as the true villain, is substituted for the classic soda icon in the center of the quad.

I think I am going to pass out.

"The Fleet is untouchable. None of this ever happened. In minutes, the clean-up crew will have all the mess cleared, and any witnesses will be reminded that they saw nothing."

"You mean rounded up and Goldfished." It's Abe. He looks like trash.

Pleasure and sadness fight each other like dragons in my chest.

"Precisely," Matriarch says. "But, I'll give you the honors of doing away with this one."

She points to me with a Pennywise smile.

Thunder sounds somewhere in the distance.

Really, universe? How dramatic.

"No, Matriarch, it's over," Abe replies.

"I beg to differ. You belong to me and you will do–"

Abe rips off his mask and throws it at her. She can't pull his reins any longer. Matriarch is briefly stunned by her own questions but makes a clear move to ignore them.

"No matter. I will kill your pathetic friend, and then I will kill you, Crimson Kid."

Matriarch turns to me and raises her sword above her head.

"No!" Abe screams.

My vision goes out. All I see is red.

It takes me a solid ten seconds to realize I am not dead. The scene before me starts to come back into view. As the scarlet haze dissipates from my eyes, it is time to put the pieces together. Abe has the deepest red aura I have ever seen blazing around him. My eyes cut to Matriarch's body lying on the ground. There is something unnatural about it. My brain can't quite compute what it sees at first, but then it makes the connection. Her body has nothing attached to her shoulders.

Abe decapitated Matriarch with a blast so powerful that it evaporated her head, skull, and all.

I'm shook. To say the least. When Abe squats down in front of me, I can't make words.

"I'm so sorry. For everything. For all of this. For doubting you."

He presses his hand against his pec and then lays it on my chest. "For splitting up this team. Our team."

He wipes the tears I can't feel I am crying from my cheek. Abe opens my hand and puts one of Clay's comm earpieces in my palm.

"He and I had to make our own plan to keep you safe." Closing my hand, Abe kisses me on my forehead.

Floating up off the ground, we don't take our eyes off of each other until he disappears into the ominous sky.

"Come on, lazypants. Let's get outta here before HER swarms the place." Tiptoe is standing before me.

"Rachel?" Though I am delighted to see her, her name is all the communication I can muster.

"Yes," she says. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

As she hoists me to my feet, and we step over Matriarch's body, she jabs, "Well, I guess her reign is over. Nowhere to put the crown."

I don't look down, instead, my eyes blink at the reassuring sight of the cloaking shield on her aircraft giving way to the rear cargo door. Rachel mumbles about having the battle footage on a backup server as she drags me up the ramp. At the top, the door begins to rise, slowly closing out the destruction of the day, but not before I notice the raindrops coming to wash everything away.

"Clay," I say, realizing we need to find his body.

"I already looked, Noah. He was nowhere to be found."

I notice how Rachel says it.

With hope.

And as the hydraulics of the ramp lock into place, and I feel liftoff, a tug of a smile starts in the corner of my mouth.