"ZAYN! What are you doing?" Stella shrieked.
"What I told you to do," I grumbled, putting just an enhanced amount of power behind my pedaling as the blob tried again to get me again.
"I’m coming. Stop with the heroics," Stella pleaded, swooping after me.
It only took me a moment to realize what she was doing.
Stella snatched me off the bike even as the bactimen lurched forward in a wave of green to catch me.
Her wings flapped hard, and the wave crested, accelerating.
It looked like a perfect surfing opportunity if it weren’t for the human digesting slime it was made of.
We blew past the two blocks, and the bactiman crashed into a high school.
Thankfully, it was the weekend, and with the lockdown, there were no weekend activities.
No one was rushing out of the school screaming.
Stella then shot straight up into the air, crushing me to her chest.
The bactiman shot up after me, growing and forming a humanoid shape as one of its hands stretched out for us.
It was moving more quickly than I’d expected, and the arm nearly reached us.
But two red beams appeared, lancing across the arm, cutting off that section.
It fell down to the ground.
Blue and pink flashed before us as Omnigirl peppered the colossal bactiman with laser eye beams. "Give him to me. You handle this."
Omnigirl might have been able to separate that arm and save us, but the arm turned into muck and just reabsorbed into the main body.
She wasn’t actually able to kill any of it.
Her lasers were barely scratching the thing as a whole.
Stella hesitated, but handed me off.
"Hey, handsome, how about a date when this is over?" Omnigirl winked at me as she held me to her chest.
And she was beautiful, the classic hero.
She had super strength, speed, flight and laser eye beams.
It also didn’t hurt that she had a shapely figure and a long mane of blonde hair that the wind caught perfectly.
Unfortunately, BSH supers were definitely not my type, but I figured it might help Stella move on and get over me.
I looked up at Omnigirl. "Sure. How about tomorrow?"
I didn’t plan to go through with it, but neither of them knew that.
My comms were still on, and Stella heard the whole thing.
Sure enough, Stella zoomed away, and she seemed pissed.
"Score. I recognize you," Omnigirl said as she held me.
"You’re the new manager. Too bad you got stuck with that villain."
She made a face at Stella, who was currently trying to save the city.
Any ounce of interest I had in her dried up at that moment.
It looked like her manager and her were two peas in a pod.
Suddenly, I really wanted out of her arms.
"Yup. Want to put me down on that building?" I pointed to a low, five-story building.
It would give me a great view of the fight.
She shot down and deposited me gently before flying back off to help with the massive bactiman.
"Stella, go for the limbs first. We need to keep it as contained as possible," I spoke into the comms.
Demoness was flying around the thing like an annoying fly, chipping off relatively small bits.
At her rate, it would take far too long to bring it down.
More heroes came flying in.
Those flying in on fire started pelting the massive monster with fireballs, while those who had come with other abilities started making a patchwork blockage around the high school grounds to hold the bactiman in.
A group of telekinetics rose up, blocking a stray punch that threatened a neighboring building.
Together, they blocked the arm, straining in the air as half a dozen spots rippled from the force they were trying to exert.
Thankfully, the bactiman pulled away from them, its arm splashing down on someone standing on the football field.
Whatever super that was, they took it in stride, barely even moving.
The colossal bactiman made the ground shake with an eerie screech as multiple arms blasted out of its back, catching some of the pyros that had been circling behind it.
It sucked them all into its chest.
"We’ve switched you to public comms," Kim’s voice rang out in my ear.
"Demoness, we have the thing trapped. Get those supers out of there."
"How?" Stella sounded panicked.
I tried to insert as much calm into my voice as I could.
"Dive into it. Make a breach with your power and collect the supers there.
You’ll all have to work together and fight your way out from the inside."
When I finished, Stella didn’t hesitate.
Folding her wings back, she dove straight for the bactiman.
Kim landed next to me on the building, but I didn’t take my eyes off Stella.
"Do you think that’s the wisest idea?" she said, covering her earpiece.
"She has no idea what she’s doing, but she thrives under pressure," I commented, also covering my comms device.
Kim eyed me for a moment before nodding and uncovering her comms. "Okay, everybody, when Demoness tries to push out, I need everyone helping."
Kim rolled a small ball of fire over her hand in some sort of mindless fidgeting as she watched.
I wondered if she was itching for a piece of the action.
"Got them!" Stella’s voice crackled in my ear.
"Pushing out." Her voice was strained.
I was tempted to reach out and help directly, wondering if I could pull her out without anybody noticing.
But then I realized Kim was next to me, and there was no chance.
I couldn’t believe I’d even considered it.
I focused back on Stella, needing to know she was okay.
As I watched, the little air bubble Stella had formed suddenly shrank, and I wasn’t the only one who saw it.
I took an involuntary step forward towards her.
"Demoness, what’s going on?"
"I can’t. Not without hurting the others. It’s pressing in too hard." Stella sounded on the verge of tears.
"Demoness, you can do this. Remember what we worked on."
"Zayn?" She sounded confused, and I understood why.
We hadn’t worked on anything, but I just needed the others to buy into it.
Reaching out, I packed a massive ball of ki, far more than she could take, and spiked it into her.
I’d never tried this before, but logically it made sense.
I could take ki away, so it seemed reasonable that I could also supercharge somebody.
I took the power inside of her and made it blaze to life with the excess ki.
Stella screamed over the mic, and the air bubble lurched inside the bactiman, breaking free.
A dozen fliers swooped in, grabbing the other heroes as Stella rose up in the air, eye level with the bactiman.
I knew the others wouldn’t see how massively more powerful she was, but I could.
Millions of her little suckers flew out, covering the colossal bactiman.
It began to crumble.
"Amazing," Kim breathed. "She really has the potential to be an S Class hero."
"Good."
"She has an amazing manager, too." Kim nudged me with a suggestive smile.
I knew that she wanted to poach me, and in the moment, I felt good enough to give it a thought. "She did all the hard work."
"You believed in her and used your knowledge of her to make the right call for her to save those other heroes.
While hero managers might not be on the front lines, they save just as many lives." Kim gave me a serious look.
I nodded absently, watching Stella in awe as she drained the bactiman dry.
A few more people landed on this building, some carried others of their own volition.
Omnigirl and her manager were among them.
"Wow, what a save," her manager said. "Great place to do it too, right in front of Fortress himself." She pointed down to a massive bronze bust in front of the high school.
"Wasn’t that built in his memory?"
Truly looking around for the first time, I recognized the area.
So much had been built over the damage that I hadn’t placed it at first.
The high school had been entirely redone.
My mood soured instantly as I glared down at the statue of Fortress.
"Zayn!" Stella flew down and landed next to me.
The bactiman had collapsed, destroyed by her ability.
"Yeah, I think Zayn deserves some credit. Great job, both of you," Kim tried to rally some applause from those on the rooftop.
"What do you say about joining the BSH?" she asked me in front of everyone.
She was a leader for a reason; she knew how to use what she had at her disposal, including a crowd to add pressure.
But after staring at Fortress and remembering what he had done, I wasn’t ever going to join the BSH.
How could I have ever thought about it?
No, Fortress, the one known as the world’s hero, was the entire reason that I couldn’t join the BSH.
The timely reminder saved me from making a terrible mistake.
"I’m glad the threat is over." There was no emotion in my voice.
"I’ll leave you to the rest of the cleanup." I turned, ready to head home.
Stella was so stunned that she just stood there, mouth agape, as I walked away.