7 Super Strength

When you hear the term 'super strength', it's easy to think of the power being basic and easy to overcome by the cavalcade of seemingly reality-bending abilities that other powered people have access to.

But when you're standing in front of an angry amped up gangster with glowing eyes and muscles bulging so hard it looks like they're about to pop, you start to get more of an appreciation for the ability.

Superhuman strength was terrifying, and it could squish me like an insect.

Phet took a slow step forward, walking through the remains of the wall as if it weren't even there.

At that point in time, I wished I had some sort of super speed or flight, but all I had was my gauntlet, and while two of them might have been able to produce enough thrust to launch me up into the air, just one wasn't close to being powerful enough. Even with the upgrades that I had given it.

No, I'd made my bed, and now I had to deal with the consequences.

I swallowed hard and brought my gauntlet up to bear. There was still a chance that I could get a lucky shot off, maybe do enough damage to scarper into the shadows and use the darkness as a cloak to get away.

Hitting the control system of his drug injection device wouldn't be enough now, not when he'd amped up enough to probably cave my chest in with a poke.

It'd have to be a direct headshot, that's the only way I'd be able to disrupt him enough to break out of the situation that I'd landed myself in.

Phet took another slow step forward. He knew how screwed I was, and he was relishing the panic on my face. If I tried to get away he could just turn his superspeed up to the max and bash my head off a wall before I even knew what was happening. He could take his time now he thought I wasn't a threat.

I braced my shooting arm with my other hand. The recoil had been bad enough with the full-powered wide beam attack, an overcharged shot like this would be much worse.

I let out a hissing breath and flexed my fingers, the energy from the baton surged at my command, pooling in the power banks until the gauntlet began to vibrate and emit a high pitched whine.

The materials I had been using were never rated for such a high charge to be run through them. If I held onto this much power for too long it'd backfire.

So, I let the shot fly free.

While the stream of energy that had released from my gauntlet before had been thin, though visible, this one was a torrent of high powered electricity flying free through the air. It was as if I'd launched a lightning bolt from my palm.

My arm felt like it had been ripped from its socket, and my gauntlet sparked uselessly as pieces of fried circuitry and half-melted metal came free from the casing. My only two weapons had been obliterated, all of a sudden I was about as defenceless as just about any other kid.

Fortunately, my overcharged bolt of power had struck Phet directly in the forehead.

The blast flung him back through the air, straight through the hole that he had made in the ruined wall and back into the gloom of one of this area's many abandoned theatres.

Had I done it? Had I actually managed to defeat Phet on my own with nothing but a taser and a power gauntlet?

Two green orbs flickered into being in the depths of the theatre, floating menacingly in the gloom.

I hadn't managed to do anything of the sort. If anything, all I'd done was make him even angrier.

There were rumours that, if he got to a certain point in a fight, Phet would start manifesting other abilities thanks to the cocktails that he injected himself with. It wasn't just a matter of super strength, super healing and super speed. He could generate entirely new abilities, analogous to other people's Powers, just by exposure to his drug cocktails.

It turned out that the rumours were true.

His glowing green eyes flared open, and with an even more animalistic roar, he unleashed a devastating beam attack.

Sickly green light burst free from his eyes, seemingly erasing anything it touched from existence entirely.

The light beams streaked through the air, but his aim was well off. It seemed that my final attack had done more to him than I originally thought. That or, while he was firing off the attack, he simply couldn't see.

The beam gouged through the side of the abandoned theatre and lanced through the air, bathing the area in its green glow.

I counted that as a bit of a win. Surely some hero from back at the PHA would have been able to see that energy blast? Surely they would at least send someone out here to figure out what the hell was going on.

As the beam petered out I realised that I couldn't bet on it. Phet was still here, and if he killed me before help came along… well… I'd be dead, which wasn't exactly on the top of my list of experiences for the night.

"I'm going to kill you now," Phet growled, his voice so deep it barely registered as human. "I'm going to grab you by your stupid bloody head, and pour molten plasma down your stupid bloody throat until there's nothing left."

He emerged from the gloom and stepped out onto the street. I tensed up, anticipating a hit that never came.

"You know, I really wouldn't advise that if I were you," came a girl's voice, she couldn't have been much older or younger than me, from behind me, followed by a growl that was much louder and much deeper than the one that Phet had produced.