Judge, Jury, and Executioner

"Please spare him." Behind him, Lightflare limped on his good foot, still wincing as his injured leg flopped about.

He floated into the air, Metal Shadow still in his grasp. Sound waves of tire screeches, marching boots, and door slams traveled from the surface past the walls to his ears. It seemed their backup had arrived.

"Let this be a reminder to those who oppose me," he said. "For the sake of misunderstanding what I am capable of, I will let these transgressions go unchecked today. But the next time anyone in your organization moves against me, they must do so with the understanding that I will retaliate with full force." His eyes glowed with a righteous intensity. "Kneel, mortal."

As he hovered near the speedster, Lightflare slowly dropped to his knees, biting back his pain.

Satisfied, Jalen dropped the Metal Shadow, whose body flopped to the ground and froze still. Hands folded behind his back, he watched Lightflare continued to grovel on the floor like the terrified human he was. The pounding of boots bearing down the corridor leading into the room drew his attention. Declan and his men were long gone, so it was about time Jalen made his exit.

It occurred to him that as he tore through the barricaded door and faced the approaching agents, he was properly announcing himself to the world. As expected, a torrent of gunfire rained down on him, some bullets even dispersing that blue smoke that weakened him earlier. Still, he stood straight in a powerful stance, utterly unconcerned by their attacks.

When they tired from wasting their ammunition, he spoke. "Kneel, knowing that you are weak and insignificant to me. Prostrate yourselves with the understanding that I hold the power to strip your lives from you."

Dressed in heavy body armor with hi-tech helmets shielding their faces, he could still sense the fear sipping to their hearts and the terror plaguing their movements as the realization of their fragility set in. One after the other, they discarded their weapons and dropped to their knees. The agents that defied his orders, standing upright, he struck down with his beams and moved on.

To fit inside the rough, bare stone-walled tunnels, he had to assume his human form. That hardly mattered, however, as he ascended into the cathedral's altar, which was fraught with tension. He faced a line of armored agents, arranged in an arch, with their guns glowing blue and pointed directly at him.

Mason, the HAVEN agent who interrogated him, stood before the agents, his expression appearing almost neutral. However, the arch of his brows foretold the man's true mood.

Mason raised his hand, signaling his agents to lower their guns. "Do you understand the ramifications of killing a superhero? Members of The Radiant Assembly, for that matter?"

He shrugged. "Why don't you save this speech for Killer Cell?"

Mason gritted his teeth for barely a moment before letting out a calming breath. "You may think you are invincible, but I assure you, you are far from it. We have dealt with countless cocky bastards like you before and will continue to do so in the future." Surprisingly, Mason stepped forward, closer to him. "Sooner rather than later, you'll get careless. They always do. While we engineer ways to put you six feet under."

"Interesting. Then I await that day eagerly. Just keep in mind that it takes two sides to fight a war. I will be hitting back just as hard." As the agents who bowed their heads before him poured into the cathedral from the tunnel behind, he transformed before Mason's eyes, assuming his god form. Then he flew through a tall stained glass window, vanishing into the night sky as shards of colorful glass rained down.

❊ ❊ ❊

It was the day after his showdown with Metal Shadow and Lightflare. A few hours after sundown, he hovered a hundred meters above a typical rundown apartment complex in Southside Haven, listening attentively with his enhanced hearing. Many people conversed about topics he wasn't interested in, so he filtered the irrelevant noise out. It was the heated conversation between a mother and her two middle-aged sons that was his reason for coming here. After all, in the spirit of retribution, it was only right he paid back in full force the actions of her sons, who attempted to rob him under the guise of selling their mother's car.

"You boys need to start taking responsibility," the mother said. "I will not be here forever, slaving seventy hours a week just to keep a roof over the heads of my deadbeat, irresponsible sons!"

"Ma, you need to give us more time," Matt said.

"Yeah, we have this fishing business that ought to take off," Tim added. "As Matt said, we need time."

"Time!" the mother exclaimed. "Stop spewing bullshit. I could give y'all till judgment day and the only shit you'll accomplish is overdose on more drugs."

"Ma, you've got the wrong—"

"Shush! Till the end of the month's all y'all got. If I don't see any legitimate, I repeat, legitimate income coming in, I'm booting y'all out."

After that, the sons, particularly Matt, cursed their mother under their breath. Thirty minutes later, when their mother entered the bathroom to shower, Matt stole her car keys, and they rushed out of the apartment with ski masks and gloves in their clutches. On their way down the complex, they discussed which stores were safest to hit.

When they appeared in the parking lot, Jalen made his move. He swooped in a downward arch and snatched both brothers before climbing higher. They screamed and tousled, no doubt alerting their neighbors. But it was all for naught as the buildings below quickly distanced into an indistinguishable mix of varying light sources.

Tim appeared to be passed out, his head flopping about, while Matt continued to scream at the top of his lungs. Jalen grinned, letting the man wail till fatigue coupled with the biting cold of the air sweeping in from the ocean quieted him.

"Done?" he said when Matt fell quiet. "You can shout some more. I'll wait."

"What do you want?" Matt asked, his voice parched and tinged with fear.

"What do you think? I'm sure you understand that your line of work breeds enemies. I am one of them."

The man gulped, half his attention focused on the city that seemed so far below them. "Let my brother go. He had little say in any of this."

"I beg to differ."

Initially, he intended to carry their car away and dump it into the ocean. However, upon finding out the car belonged to their mother, that changed. What he planned to do now would instead be a blessing to their mother while being the worst thing to happen to the brothers, from their perspective at least.

"What drug is your favorite?" he asked. "If I sense any dishonesty, I'll simply let go of you and let gravity handle the rest."

Matt was short of breath. "H and Ice! Please let us go, man."

Arms wrapped around both men's waist, he squeezed a tad harder on Matt's head. "In names that I can understand."

"Okay! Okay, it's heroin and meth, I swear."

Now he gave them their punishments. Tiny whispers of his life force leaked and seeped into them. With that, he granted them a curse. Whenever their eyes fell on an illegal drug or their nose caught a whiff, they would throw up violently and defecate on themselves. Afterward, he reduced his altitude and tossed them into the first body of water he spotted, which was a murky lake. If they survived, then they could find their way home.

❊ ❊ ❊

Two days later, when the sun crept toward the ocean's embrace and workers were wrapping up for the day, Jalen sat on a tall stool on the far end of the counter in a diner.

"What can I get for ya, hon?" A female server with bad teeth asked.

"A sub. No mayo, no tomatoes," he replied.

She jotted the order down. "And to drink?"

"Just some soda would do. None of that zero sugar stuff."

She chuckled, then headed into the kitchen to relay the order.

Few people sat in the diner. However, he knew that was about to change. By the time he consumed half his sandwich, the restaurant had filled out. Still, his targets were yet to arrive, so he enjoyed his meal.

Thirty minutes later, a group of police officers walked in, with Sergeant MacKenzie—the man who spearheaded the illicit arrest of Jalen while leaving Matt and Tim to roam scot-free after they had assaulted him—at the helm. The four officers, like unchecked bullies, seized a booth from an elderly couple and plumped themselves down, hollering and joking loudly.

The last day, Jalen had spent dishing out his revenge on every officer that was present with MacKenzie that day, even the black cop whose jaw he shattered. However, he saved MacKenzie and his closest confidants for last, as they would receive his greatest gift.

"The darker one," one officer said, turning to MacKenzie. "What did you do with 'em when I left?"

Mackenzie exchanged a knowing look with another man to his right and they both laughed. "Beat him to within an inch of his life. What else was I supposed to do?"

They all broke into a bout of laughter.

"Knocked all his teeth in," the man beside MacKenzie added. "Now that mouth of his will be highly valued in prison."

Another round of laughter ensued.

When the server came by, Jalen paid his tab, then left.

Once outside, he transformed into Erebus and soared into the gloomy sky. It seemed rainfall was imminent. Still, he planned to speed that fate up for MacKenzie and the other officers. He found the river he had marked not too long ago. So, with his cosmic energy shaped into a giant bowl, he hoisted about 1000 gallons of water. He then made his way back to the diner while continuously infusing his life force into the water.

Once Jalen reached the diner, he hovered patiently. The sun had long since vanished over the ocean, by the time MacKenzie and the rest of the officers stepped out of the diner, headed for their cars. He performed a flyover above the restaurant, careful to keep his speed at subsonic levels, so as not to alert them. Just before he reached them, he dissolved the bowl construct so that all 1000 gallons of the life-force-infused water rained down on the unsuspecting men. With a glance behind him, he confirmed the maneuver to be a success. All the officers, as well as a few other bystanders, were fully drenched. Most of the people affected even lay on the tarmac because of the force and volume of the water that struck them. He may have used too much.

With his life force seeping into them, he bestowed a curse on the officers. Any time they inflicted pain on others that they knew in their hearts to be unwarranted, they would experience violent strokes equal to the force they used while also soiling themselves. For the other undeserving bystanders doused with the water, he blessed with long lives free from any disease. 

So that should have been the extent of his revenge. But as he floated in the air—his enhanced vision focusing on Mackenzie, who struggled to his feet—he knew it was only the beginning for the sergeant. After a confused and angry exchange with another officer, while gazing up at where the water came from, MacKenzie slid into his patrol car and pulled out of the parking lot, heading home for the day. Jalen followed.