2.3

Part 3

I'd been right.

Getting up had been pretty easy. Most of the ladders inside were still in good shape, and the ship's doors were open, or in some cases outright missing. Made sense enough. Who was going to steal a dead ship nobody wanted?

The wait had been longer than I anticipated. For a good twenty minutes or so I was just alone with my thoughts waiting for the show to begin. Sitting on the edge of a steel hulk among countless others, legs hanging in the breeze wearing a half-finished discount hero uniform.

It still was crazy to me. Everyone played capes and robbers as a kid. Dreamed of being a hero. Picked out their favorites of the list of big name celebrities plastered across the media.

Then as you got older you started to realize the reality to that fantasy. Mostly when those heroes you loved started to die.

Vigilant, Crossguard Wonder, Fleur, even the BMX Bandit; all gone and dead to the hands of Allfather, his minions, Behemoth and a nameless idiot with a gun. And those were just some of the local heroes.

Dozens had died trying to protect my family. Died in vain, leaving just me and Todd to fend for ourselves. If Todd didn't live with his mother, I'd have been alone. No, scratch that, if I hadn't been visiting him I'd be dead alongside them, one more casualty among millions.

Even the Triumvirate used to be bigger, before the Slaughterhouse Nine proved even indestructible demigods could bleed if they faced a big enough monster. And the media still blew them up like they were invincible.

So what were the odds for someone as weak as me?

Did I really want to do this?

I just sat there with that thought bouncing through my head. Listening to the low repetitive moans of steel against the rocking waves. Watching the still floating or partially submerged ships move under their forces.

Then, in the darkness, lost in my thoughts. I saw a glow in the distance.

Thoughts draining from my mind I watched as the sky slowly changed. The endless black of the open night slowly shifting to the darkest shades of blue; Palling and paling as it traveled down to the edge where the sky met the ocean where I could see the slightest hints of yellow light creeping up from the ocean front.

And that gold started to grow. Slowly at first. So slowly it was hard to notice really. The sky was slowly brightening, shifting to lighter and lighter shades as the yellow light creeped along the horizon like a wave. A bar of orange stretching from one end of the bay to the next, slowly thickening as the light beneath slowly and surely build up.

The few clouds in the air gained contrast, shifting from their light, indistinct shades to great purple mountains in the sky. Dark and foreboding, yet somehow not frightening. Almost like they were standing to watch as well, equally entranced by the sight before us.

Pink bled into the air, slowly, mixing in from the rising sun and paling sky, as the bars of light continued to separate and grow. A golden wall sitting on an orange wave rising further and further up. Faint lines cutting through it like sandbars on the coast.

The ocean itself had transformed. Its endless depths turned reflective, a near metallic blue lit to brightly to see through, each ripple turned distinct even in the far distance.

Gray and white began to bleed in above the clouds, and for a few minutes it seemed almost like the day had arrived without the sun.

But that was only a false dawn. A trick of the light reflected off clouds so high I couldn't even notice them, and with agonizing slowness color slowly seeped back into the thick orange bands, deepening to almost gray.

All except one cloud, hovering just over the horizon, lit like a streamer of molten gold in the sky.

Then another echo appeared on a cloud higher, slowly brightening in intensity, until finally...

The sun rose.

It began as a flicker between pockets of cloud. A star escaped from the night sky, but it grew. Bright, so impossibly bright. In only a handful of second it was so bright that to look at it was like letting a flicker of fire shoot right into my eyes.

I flinched, but somehow managed to resist completely closing my eyes. Squinting against the unexpected assault. Watching as its corona grew. A ring of deep golden light build up all around it.

"Never have I seen something so... grossly incandescent," I said through a smile as I managed to tear my eyes away, unwilling to strain them any longer.

After all... I'd need them in good shape if I was going to take this hero thing seriously.