Useless: Male Superhero in a Reverse World
Chapter 12

Dan patrolled his little section of the city late after work.  He had been practicing patrolling while listening to the police scanner.  What struck him was how boring it was.  While crime happened, Boston wasn’t exactly a war zone.  Crime happened fast as well, and he couldn’t be everywhere at once.  The modified suit he wore kept him comfortable in the cold night, not that it really mattered, he could have been on fire and not have minded it.

He practiced improving his hearing as well.  Dan found that if he concentrated fairly hard he could increase what his ears could take in.  Every few blocks he would close his eyes and try to sense any arguments or threats of violence.

The newbie superhero was just about to give up for the night when he faintly heard the words “Give me your wallet or I’ll cut you!” Followed by “I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t hurt me!”

He tilted his head and rotated slowly in the air to try to get a fix on where he heard it.  Once he was pretty sure, he zipped in the direction and scanned the dark side street.

He saw a young man standing in the street quivering while a woman was knocked out next to him and a large woman had a knife out threatening him.  The man shook as he handed the thug his wallet.

“Now, please let us go.”  He cried.

“No, I don’t think I will.  You’re going to take me on an ATM tour of the city.  If you don’t, I’ll make sure you get cut real good.”  

The mugger was about to grab the victim when a faint blue screen appeared between them.  

“What’s going on?”  She touched the force field, unable to get past it.  

Dan dropped down behind her. “You should really give that money back.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Emboss.  You’re going to let me put these cuffs on you while we wait for the police, or I’m going to force you.”

“Asshole!”  She stabbed and he used his new MMA training to disarm her and put her to the ground.  He had to be careful not to break the woman.  It took so little force to break a person when you had this amount of strength.  He succeeded after a little trial and error to put them on the struggling suspect.  The zip ties on the feet were much easier.

“What the fuck are you doing!  I’ll kill you!”  

“How are you going to do that with your arms tied behind your back?”

The woman reached behind her belt and pulled out a gun.  She pulled the trigger and sent rounds flying.  Two of the bullets bounced off Dan before he could wrench it out of her hand.

“Sir?” Dan called to the cowering victim.

“Y..yes?”

“I’m going to need you to call 911 and explain the situation.  I’m going to put the gun over here.  Don’t forget to tell the cops where I put it.  I’ll stick around for a little while until I hear the sirens.”

The man quickly dialed emergency and waited for the other end to pick up. “Yes hello, I’m at Terry Street and Grove Avenue. I've just been attacked by a woman with a knife and a gun.  My wife is bleeding badly.”

“She’s hurt?”  Dan interrupted.

“Yes she sliced her arm.”

Dan cursed. “I’m going to bring her to the nearest hospital.  I’ll be right back.”  In case the mugger wanted to crawl to the gun he added a final zip tie to bind her feet to her hands. 

“You're not going anywhere.”

The endless torrent of curse words was quite irritating.

He picked up the injured woman who looked very pale and bolted to the hospital.  He got to the emergency room desk and put the women in the nearest wheelchair.

The nurse at the desk screamed and two police officers drew their weapons.  Dan simply walked out with his hands up.  When they reached for him he simply went just a little faster than them.  In the entranceway, Dan flew back to the scene of the crime.

“She’s at the hospital, hopefully I got her there in time.”  Dan pointed in the general direction of the hospital.

“Thank you!”  The man wept and hugged Dan.  

Dan winced before backing away. “Look, just make sure you tell them what happened.”  He heard sirens approaching.  “I gotta run.”

As he flew off he could hear the man yelling to the cops crying. “He saved my wife. Emboss saved her!”

…

The next morning the Back Bay Blazers were arguing over cups of decaf coffee.  

“Cygnus, you can’t honestly think that what you did was fine.”  Red Berzerker pointed her hammer at the white haired superheroine.  Sally Comet stood beside Red and stared at Cygnus with an expressionless face.

“I didn’t lay a finger on him.  All I did was talk.”  Cygnus feigned innocence.

“He said you used your plasma beam in his apartment.”

“That was just me trying to get through to him.  He put up this wall between us and I just wanted us to talk it out.”

Sally shook her head. “With a plasma beam?  Cyggi, you used that power to bring down alien spaceships.”

“The apartment’s fine, Dan’s fine.  I don't see the problem.”  She sipped her coffee and walked to the window of the Blazer’s control room. “This coffee sucks.”

“You broke into his apartment, Cyggi.”  Red barked. 

“How else was I supposed to talk to him!”  Cygnus’s eyes flared white.  “He blocked my phone number and flew away every time I tried to approach him.  “He’s the reason why…”

“Why what?”

“That my boyfriend dumped me.  You wouldn’t know him.”

Sally shook her head. “Dick Hazel dumped you.  You shouldn’t have been dating him Cyggi, we all knew but ignored it.  This is the result. He’s a civilian and he manages our group.  How many mistakes can you pile up?”

“So spending all your free time at a whore house is just fine? Hmm? Both of you are such hypocrites.”  She pointed her finger at them. “Dan deserves a much better life than being a prostitute, and you’re just pushing him deeper into that cesspit.”

Sally blushed. “It’s his wish!  I’m not forcing him to do it.  Do you think I like what he does for a living?!”

Cygnus smirked. “Yeah, you’re a real help.  You could have been pulling him out of it.”

Red stormed up to Cygnus.  “That’s enough!  You can’t force people to do what you want!”

“Yeah! You just pay them!”

“Bitch!”  Red caused her warhammer to glow deep red.  Just at that moment Sister-in-Law called out. “Girls quit your cat fighting and have a look at this.  Your boy Danny had his first successful patrol.”

The news was showing a story about Dan’s alter ego Embos and how rumors about the world's first male superhero were becoming more frequent.  The local police and the USDSAP continued to deny the existence of male super-abled persons.

There was an interview with a tall thin man in front of his house surrounded by five women all close to him. “I don’t care what the government says.  I saw him fly. I saw him save my third wife’s life.”

The reporter continued to say that the suspect in the mugging in question received minimal injuries and weapons with her fingerprints were found at the scene.  They next interviewed an expert on supes who was an old asian lady with thick glasses. “Somebody must have trained him well, he seems to be conducting actions in accordance with standard operating procedures.  He immobilized rather than knocked out the perpetrator and he made sure the injured victim was sent to emergency services as soon as possible.  I give him a seven out of ten!  Not bad for a rookie.  But he should be working with others before going out on his own, he might end up in over his head.” 

The Blazers stood up.  “See, he’s doing fine.”  Red pointed to the screen and looked at Cygnus.

“The lady said that he needs help in the field.  We need to bring him onto the Blazers.”  Cygnus shot back.

Sally Comet shook her head in exasperation.  “Do you think Dan is going to join a team that has his stalker in it?”  

“I… am … not … a … stalker!”  Cygnus was now getting teary eyed.

Just then klaxons and rotating lights turned on in the control center.  The Blazers ran to the central station to see what the alert was.

Sister In Law read from the terminal. “Level three alien incursion.  Abductions in broad daylight.  Seven individuals captured thus far.  Here look.”  She pointed to the video feed. “Seems like someone is sending drones to pick up…men?”

Sally pointed to the feed. “Can you zoom in? It looks like someone is already taking care of it.  They’re making a mess, but they seem to be doing the job.”

Sister did a pinch zoom on the screen to show a man in a black body suit punching robots the size of a flying bus.

“Dan!”  Sally yelled.

“They seem to be operating in the north end right now, Little Italy.”  Sister in Law pointed to the other three. “I’ll stay here and coordinate with the military and emergency responders. You three try to bring down as many of these drones as possible over the water.  If you can get Emboss to back off we’ll have an easier time.”

The three other members of the Blazers all responded. “Roger!”

…

Subcommander Corobo watched from the deck of supercarrier 17 as it leisurely attacked Boston.  Corobo was a Gatanaxian through and through, efficient and ruthless.  The directorate of Gatanax had kept the spacefaring civilization alive for many centuries after achieving faster than light travel.  Gatanax suffered from the same gender imbalance as humans did.  In fact every civilization in the galaxy had this problem.  One of the means of the Gatanaxians surviving was the abduction of males of similar species in which to breed.  They would never take more than what would cause an interstellar political blow up, but they lost the trust of most other interstellar races.  Usually they preyed on species just before they became spacefaring and took all the men and pregnant women.  They left the female population to wither away in old age.  They returned in eighty years to assume control over an abandoned planet.

Corobo had set out for Terra just a few days prior and had just deployed the specimen collecting drones when red blips started to appear in the theater map of her control screen.

“Ensign Donadd,  what is the nature of the threat?”

A mousy green woman with antennae sounded off. “A being of extraordinary strength has brought down five retrieval drones.”

“How is she doing that?”

“Actually we highly suspect he’s male!  He punched three and managed to slice two as they passed by him.”  The ensign pushed her goggles back up her nose.

“Punched?”  The subcommander scoffed. “That’s impossible.”

“I have it confirmed on three monitor drones.” She pulled up the video of Dan cracking a fuel tank on the drone with a kick, sending it into the river as a fiery wreck. “I guess he kicked that one. Ma’am I suggest an immediate withdrawal to prevent further materiel loss.”

Subcommander Corobo groaned. “The admiral will want this one for breeding and weapons research.  This is now a military operation, it’s going to drive the price of the expedition way up.”  She brought up a control screen. “Deploy two military grade drones to intercept, incapacitate, and extract that specimen.”

“Yes Subcommander.”

…

Adrenaline coursed through Dan’s veins as he flew through the swarm of sleek alien robots.  They each had robotic arms that were not very strong, and they also had knockout gas and tasers.  To him, the tasers felt like mosquito bites and the knockout gas smelled like perfume.  He was proud that he figured out how to control the orientation of his forcefield to make it an incredibly sharp blade. He would place the field in the path of a drone and watch it slice in two.  He figured he could just have them crash into the force field, but he was afraid they could detect it and dodge it.

As the fighting continued, he would see that some of the drones attacked him while a small group would continue to search and abduct men from the streets, some of them crashing through glass storefronts and dragging out the men.    The drone would open up a compartment and simply toss the man inside before flying skyward.  He felt that trying to catch one or stop it would prevent him from getting as many robots out of the sky as possible.  He was unsure how he could break one without damaging the person held captive inside. Most of the drones he dealt with simply exploded when he hit them.

The swarm was getting thicker as time passed, with more drones descending through the clouds.  The air force deployed some fighters to intercept the drones but they couldn’t down nearly as many as Dan could.

He had just yeeted one drone into another, causing a double explosion when he felt a slender hand on his back.  He whirled around to see the smiling face of Sally Comet.

“Sally!  They’re taking the men.  We have to stop them!”

“We know Emboss.”  Dan was surprised she used his supe name. “We need you to back off to a safe distance and let the Back Bay Blazers handle this.”

“But?!”

“No, Emboss.  You’ve done a good job so far, but we know how to do this with minimal collateral damage.”  She held his hand as the pair floated above the city. “Trust me.”

Those two words caused Dan’s brain to freeze and listen.  After a second he nodded. “I’ll be at the end of pier four.  Come find me or give me a ring.  Good luck.  I’m your biggest fan.”  He zipped off.

“...thank you Dan.”  Sally whispered to herself.

He watched from the end of the pier at the swarm of combat above the center of Boston.  He could see how the Blazers were superior to him in this situation.  Sally could easily rip holes through the hulls of the drones with her laser eyes.  Cygnus’s plasma beam simply evaporated the robots.  She was careful to aim her beams when she could shoot in the direction of the Atlantic ocean in case she missed.  The most amazing was Red Berzerker.  She managed to launch herself up from the ground and bounce off the attackers and end up smashing at least three in one leap.  She would then end up hanging from a window or standing on a roof and do it all again.  He thought she must have dexterity and reflexes to match her incredible strength and durability.  

The waters where the Charles and the Mystic rivers merged was now smoking with burning fuel and hulks of drones that had not yet sunk. Dan waited patiently for a call.  When his phone rang he picked it up.

“Hey Sally? Your voice is pretty garbled, there must be a lot of interference from the attackers. Let me call you back.”  When he pressed the end call button he felt a massive bolt of energy hit and the pier exploded around him.  The super suit he wore was vaporized from the torso up.  He tried to see through the smoke but all he saw were two pairs of glowing red eyes.  He zipped up into the air to get a clear view.  Two massive gleaming metal oblong drones hovered in the air.  Each bristled with weaponry and powerful robotic arms.

“You ruined my suit!”  He flew down and landed a punch on the drone closest to him, causing it to dent but remain mostly unharmed. “Holy shit, these are tough.”

A crab-like arm started to come down on him and grasped him.  Dan struggled to free himself, and had some success.  Another arm came down on him and he found that he was at his limits.  He willed his forcefield into existence in the right orientation to slice off one of the arms from the drone, causing it to squeal robotically as one of its limbs fell into the main channel of Boston harbor.  

Just as he was able to extricate himself from the other claw, he felt the cold metal electrodes the size of coke cans touch his head and back.  He could feel the hair on his head start to stand on end from the electricity.  He convulsed under the electric current of the massive taser and passed out.

The Blazers got to the scene as one of the military grade drones stuffed Dan inside a compartment in its side and flew skyward. The remaining one with a missing arm pointed its particle beams at the superheroines and opened fire.

Cygnus yelled to the others.  “You take care of this one and I’ll try to get Dan out of the other one before it leaves.”

“Let me do it!” Sally yelled as her eyes burned gash after gash into the thick armor of the drone.

“There’s no time and the only one who can go through metal without blowing shit up is me. I’m going.”  Cygnus blurred as she broke the sound barrier flying up to the fleeing drone.

“Cyggi no!  Fuck you, you robot piece of shit!”  Sally and Red rained down blows and beam blasts on the remaining drone.  It took nearly thirty seconds of unconstrained violence to bring it down.  What was left was mostly slag.

Cygnus pushed herself hard to reach the escaping drone.  Blue sky gave way to the blackness of space.  When she got close enough she changed phases to pass through the hull of the drone.  She eventually found an open pocket of room that housed an access panel and unphased herself.  At that moment everything started to glow blue as the drone reached the speed of light.