A manhole cover down the street rattled, and just a bit of gunk spilled out onto the asphalt.
"Hero, how are things going down there? I have a manhole cover spilling up onto the street."
"Busy," Stella’s voice crackled. "There’s a lot of them down here."
The manhole continued to dance in its socket as green goop splashed out.
"Stella, I think they are pushing out onto the street."
"Yeah, the bactimen are trying to run from me now." She sounded annoyed.
Pulling out the tablet, I tapped on it a few times until our two earpieces came up on the GPS.
Unfortunately, hers was bouncing all over the place; the concrete above her was messing with the signal.
"Stella, how far down the sewer have you gone?"
"Uhh." She paused. "Unsure."
The manhole cover down the street waffled one more time before it blew straight up into the air.
A fountain of green gunk erupted onto the street.
"Stella, get out of the sewers now.
We have a problem on the street.
That takes first priority," I commanded her.
"Yes, Master."
I would have grumbled at the term, but it sounded almost automatic in nature.
I didn’t think she was messing with me, but I also didn’t love that it was apparently so comfortable for her to use.
A cover shot into the air as Stella blasted out, catching it.
"I see you. Oh god."
I turned away from Stella to see a five-story bactiman rising amid the large corporate buildings.
The mass was continuing to grow as more green gunk spilled out of the sewer.
And being one of the few people around, it looked like I had the giant bactiman’s attention.
But that was fine; it posed no real threat to me except exposure.
"Zayn!" Stella screamed as she threw herself through the air and crashed into the massive bactiman with a big wet plop.
With her momentum, she splashed into its chest.
The bactiman paused, looking down at the center of its chest like some big dumb oaf.
Stella screamed silently amid the green gunk as she spread out her body and started to drain the bactiman.
It wobbled on its feet, and big chunks sloughed off its extended arms.
The bactiman pulled its hands up to its face, confused as it watched itself slowly losing more mass and shrinking.
Then it looked down at the only thing that had changed, seeing Stella inside of it.
A grumpy look crossed its face before it punched itself in the gut.
It managed to hit Stella, launching her out the other side.
Stella bounced off the pavement as she slid to a stop, sputtering out green goo.
In a not so graceful manner, she got up to her feet and looked around, panicked until she spotted me.
"Good! You’re okay!" She blurred over to my side, grabbing me and carrying me another block away from the bactiman. "I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you."
I was mostly just shocked at how deeply concerned she was for my safety.
Really, it posed me no harm, but she didn’t know that.
I ignored her fuss. "Thanks, now get back in there.
It’s still growing.
But if you take it down, you’ll take out a large quantity of bactimen in one go."
She gave me a hesitant pause, like she didn’t want to leave me.
"That’s an order," I added.
"Yes, Master." She zoomed off.
Damn it.
The term was catching on.
As she headed towards the bactiman, I replayed what she had seen of my abilities so far.
She’d seen me touch her power and felt me use a small amount of kinetic energy to pry her off me, but she’d never seen the extent of my power.
And it didn’t seem like she’d pieced together how much it could truly do.
I smiled, happy I could potentially downplay my abilities if she let anything slip.
I focused back on the situation and typed out a message on my tablet to the BSH. "Demon engaged with six-story bactiman. Requesting additional scouting of the nearby sewers. Demon is handling the situation, but the threat is still growing."
Immediately, there was a return ping from Kim. "Great work. Analyst team, full resources to Zayn. Demon appears to be EXTREMELY effective at destroying the bactimen."
"One hundred percent effective," a name I didn’t recognize chimed in.
"Overwatch is five minutes out."
Putting the tablet down, I focused back on Stella.
She was flying around the large bactiman, landing on it only for a chunk to fall off around where she landed.
I touched my earpiece. "Stella, you are doing great.
The whole BSH is impressed with your work."
She didn’t respond, but there was a renewed vigor as she kept darting around the green gunky figure.
I kept watching, and it didn’t take long before the bactiman realized swatting at her wasn’t doing any good.
Turning, it punched its gunky arm right through a nearby office building.
Office supplies started to flow out of the building through the arm, and I watched as it digested everything and added to its mass.
"Stella, you need to sever that arm if you can."
I knew it would start adding more mass soon, possibly growing faster than Stella could drain it.
I wasn’t sure how long she could go, but I imagined at some point she’d get tired.
There had to be a better way for her to drain the monster.
I paused.
An idea came to me.
I knew she would hate it, but I was fairly certain it would work.
When we’d first met, she could have drained this thing dry.
"Stella, do you trust me?" I asked her.
"With everything I have," she responded without a moment’s hesitation.
"I need you to use as much of your abilities as you can.
Wear out your superpower."
"But—" she protested only for a second before landing before the bactiman back on the street. "Okay.
But I need you after this; I don’t want to go back to what I was."
"I’m here."
Stella screamed into the air, and I could feel the power rippling off of her as she tried to exert as much of her power as she could.
But it wasn’t enough.
Her tank was still full; she had an astounding amount of power in her.
"Stella, get clear of the bactiman. I’m going to do something, and you are going to feel weak for a moment," I told her.
I needed the super I had met at the manor.
The one nearly depleted of power, making her ability so hungry that it would feast on anything and everything within reach.
And if we were going to do this, it needed to be before the other supers arrived.
So I focused on her and did something I hadn’t done in a very long time.
It was the part of my ability that I knew would get me locked up in some government lab if it ever became known.
Pushing on the power inside of Stella, I removed it, effectively stripping her of her superpower until she could recover.
"Zayn." She grunted as she bent over.
Her skin was already changing back to the pale gray it had been on the bathroom floor.
But as I’d hoped, tendrils of suckers were rising off her skin, questing for power to drain.
Thankfully, there was a massive source right next to her.
I watched as the suckers were like a mass of flies, swarming the massive bactiman.
Each and every one of those little suckers caused a hundred pounds of gunk to fall to the ground, pushing into the massive bactiman and taking more of it down with them.
Stella was curled up on the pavement.
"Stella, talk to me. Are you okay?"
"What did you do?"
"We needed your ability to go haywire again.
I’m sorry, Stella. I’ll help you when this is over."
She just moaned into her earpiece.
The massive bactiman fell apart while she lay on the ground.
Her ability was going wild, draining the thing for everything it was worth.
The bactimen crumbled, green gunk spilling out like waves lapping at the shore.
But even the massive bactiman was only enough for Stella to stabilize, not return to a healthy state.
The amount of ki she could hold was greater than anything I’d ever seen before.
As soon as the bactiman had collapsed entirely, I was running to Stella, picking her up despite dozens of suckers latching onto me.
I let them feed.
She blinked in my arms, her skin restoring and her eyes fluttering open. "I don’t feel so good."
"Shh. You’ll be fine in just a minute." I hoped that was true, letting her take what she needed to fill back up.