The Worst Superpower #180

"Difficult to destroy, maybe, but not indestructible," Grayson said, shaking his head as he turned toward the altar. "It's basic math, you see. Everything runs on energy," he added, shaking his head as he once again squashed the priest's body.

"If you had enough energy to make an object indestructible or restore it forever at your disposal..." he went on as he gave the priest a condescending smile, not too different from the one the man gave him.

"Then you'd be the one talking down to me..." Grayson said as he got on the same eye level as the priest, waiting for his head to reform before gripping it with his right hand.

"In other words, I just have to keep breaking you or the altar until it runs out of energy to destroy it, and by extension you..." Grayson added, his tone growing colder with every word.

He slowly tightened my grip on the priest's and squeezed his head until it burst like a watermelon, spraying blood all over his face, body, and the walls.

"Besides, being unable to die isn't all that it's cracked up to be..." Grayson said as he retrieved a handkerchief from his inventory and wiped his hand, waiting for the priest to reform.

"Humans aren't built to live forever, you know? Your body might survive, but what about your mind?" Grayson said as he jabbed his hand in the priest's abdomen, causing the latter's eyes to widen as he stared into his.

"How long do you reckon that fragile, mortal psyche of yours would go on before shattering to pieces...?" He added, tilting his head as he injected energy into the priest's body, channeling it through the latter's organs and muscles.

"There's nothing you can do to me that the demons have--" The Priest's said as he scoffed at Grayson's words, only to freeze as the energy began breaking down his muscles and organs cell by cell.

"I did say I'd make you wish you stayed in hell, didn't I?" Grayson said, his expression turning blank as he watched blood start seeping out of the priest's skin and every orifice in his body as he silently screamed in agony.

"Now let's see how long you'd last..."

...

Several hours later

'Not too long, by the looks of things...' I mused, resisting the urge to scratch my head to maintain the psychotic act I'd been putting on for the past thirty minutes.

I basically put the priest through Richard's unique training method, and I didn't get to complete it before he broke down into a shivering mess, pissing and shitting himself, much to my disgust.

I was merely bluffing because I had no idea if the priest was really unkillable or not. Comic book logic worked in strange ways, and it wouldn't be too far-fetched for him to be really immortal.

Either way, there was only one guaranteed method to ensure victory, bullying him back to hell through mental and physical torture, which seemed to work, despite my doubts.

I mean, the guy was in hell, for fuck's sake. Who would have thought he'd be such a wimp? Not me. I was ready to spend the rest of my day torturing him until he decided to fuck back off to where he came from.

Of course, I was willing to do it for the public good. Not because I had a lot of pent-up frustration and anger that I needed to vent, and the priest just happened to be the ideal target.

Who am I kidding? Certainly, that was part of the reason, but I'm not going to torture people merely to express my anger and irritation at having to leave Mark's killers running free unless the situation called for it.

And call it did, in this case. I get to vent my frustration and traumatize someone so evil, his soul went to hell when he died, where he made friends with the demons torturing him. It's a win-win situation, I tell you.

Well, for me and everyone other than the father jagoff here, but you get the idea.

"Those demon pals of yours must not be a creative bunch...." I said, kneeling before the priest as I looked him in the eyes, watching as the blood slowly crawled back into his body.

"You... what kind of hero... are you...?" The priest said, clearly struggling to form a coherent sentence as he slowly raised his eyes to meet mine, his body shivering.

"You tell me. I've got blood all over me. I spent the last three hours, thirty-three minutes, and nine seconds torturing you..." I said with a chuckle as I shook my head at the priest's words.

"Look reeeealy close, and tell me; what kind of a hero am I...?" I asked, grinning as I performed my best Harley impression while activating Menacing Presence, which seemed to do the trick as the priest's expression immediately worsened.

"You're no hero... you're a psychopath..." The priest said, his already pale countenance turning as white as paper as he tried to crawl back and failed as his back was already against the wall.

"Says the evil cult leader possessing the body of a mentally ill man who thinks he's Zeus..." I said, rolling my eyes as I approached the priest, whose shock only grew at my words.

"Oh...? Didn't I mention it?" I questioned as I put on a thoughtful expression while stroking my chin. "Did you think no one would know about you, father Joseph Blackfire," I mockingly added, emphasizing his name as I spoke it.

"Well, it's no wonder you came back from hell. I wouldn't rest in peace if Batman made my own cult stooges beat me to death with a few words either..." I concluded, letting out a loud, which seemed to be the straw to split the camel back.

"S-stay away from me... yo-you demon..." The priest shrieked in horror as he clawed at the ground, frantically trying to escape me. But the wall behind wasn't going anywhere.

"You e-evil demon... I'll take you to hell with me...!" The priest screamed, his expression haunted as he burst into black flames that flew toward the altar at the center of the room.

I watched the latter start cracking with a black light shining through the cracks, to which I could only sigh as I scratched my head. "Whoops... looks like I pushed him too far..." I mused, going still as I tried to find a solution to what might possibly be the magical equivalent of a nuke.

I shrugged after a second and walked to the altar, touching with my right hand and putting it in my inventory, which fortunately worked as I detected no more energy signatures in the room or the asylum, for that matter.

"Wel.. that was... something... and surprisingly, no catastrophic ending just yet..." I muttered, my tone unsure as I looked around, expecting something to show out of nowhere and ruin my day.

"Boy, am I happy to be wrong for once..." I said after a few particularly long minutes of waiting for something to happen. Fortunately, my paranoia proved unnecessary this time.

I shrugged as I began wiping the demonic shit off the walls and cleansing the room with my energy, before making my way out of the room and back to the asylum through the elevator shaft.

Quickly heading to the front yard, I halted as I exited the reception hall and noticed a green-skinned girl in tightfitting, white and red spandex hovering over the police officers, busily loading up inmates and tending to Arkham's staff.

She noticed my presence. Our eyes met briefly before she promptly turned away from me, her green countenance paling, to which I could only sigh and scratch my head.

"Of all the people... it had to be the mind-reading alien..." I muttered deliberately loudly, and my words seemed to reach the girl as her expression shifted again.

She likely had an idea about what I did to Deacon Blackfire, but I honestly didn't care. He was more of a malicious ghost than a human, and there were no rules to protect such entities. Not on earth, anyway.

Besides, there's so much fucked up shit going on around the world that I doubt anyone would raise an eyebrow over some evil cult leader's/vengeful ghost-demon hybrid getting a taste of his own medicine.

I'd be worried, however, if she had video evidence (which she didn't), as I could water it down and gaslight everyone into not overthinking it otherwise.

After all, hearing about something and seeing it firsthand are two completely different things. What I did would look downright evil to anyone in their right mind if they were there, regardless of the circumstances or my intentions.

Thus my lack of worry, as only Miss Martian knew what happened in great detail, and her opinion was the least and last of my concerns.

Some heroes might hear about it and get all pissy, but I honestly couldn't give a fuck. I doubt many had a good impression of me since the justice department people were using me to discredit superheroism.

There's also the fact I almost killed The Flash and Hawkgirl after beating up Brimstone, but you get the idea already. They might not like me, but there's absolutely nothing they could do about it unless I gave them an excuse.

I would be untouchable to them, provided I didn't slip up and royally fuck up, which I had no intention of doing.

So yeah, still no catastrophic twist so far.

...

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