Meta (24 page)

  
"You're actually here. I thought you were too much of a coward to fight your own battles. That you'd rather have your little video game creatures do it for you," I say.

  
"Those are mighty strong words for someone who'd let an old man do his fighting for him," The Controller says.

  
"What are you talking about?" I say, trying my best to bluff.

  
"You know what I'm talking about. Your pal, Midnight. The one who's prowling around my apartment right now. Well, it's not actually my apartment any more. I think I'm going to let the lease expire," he says.

  
And with that I hear the muffled boom of a very large explosion a few blocks away. I look in The Controller's eyes, and I know he's not bluffing.

  
"You know, I've gotten very good at making these creations of mine. So good in fact, that I was able to make an absolute
perfect
replica of even myself. I had him standing at that window with binoculars, watching this whole fight. It was very convincing, if I do say so myself. I'm sure your friend Midnight would agree, if he were still around to do so."

  
Midnight. I'm temporarily dizzy with the mix of emotions that rush into my head, before they're overcome by the most primal one: rage. I rush at The Controller and begin pummeling him. My fists are flying so fast that they become a blur, even to me. And yet the whole time he just laughs. Even through the gurgle of blood filling his mouth, he laughs. And then he disappears.

  
Stupid. I should have known this would be another illusion. Another "creation" of his.

  
"Face me you bastard!" I scream. The scream bounces off the surrounding buildings and travels for blocks.

  
"Fine!" A yell comes from behind me. I turn to face it and it's The Controller a block away. Or at least it appears to be The Controller. In all likelihood, it's another copy, so I avoid the risk of expending even more energy fighting a shadow.

  
"This is the real me. You don't believe me though, do you?" he says. "That's fair. I wouldn't believe me either. But here's the thing; if me and you are going to have a fight, a real, no holds barred, knock'em down, drag'em out fight, then I need to know that it's going to be a fair one."

  
"A fair one? You use deception and murder rather than having the courage to even be in the same county while you're doing it. You're a coward," I yell down the street.

  
"A coward? Says the man hiding behind a mask and using technology from beyond this world? I'm not the coward. I'm not any different from you. You use your abilities, and I use mine. So if it's a fair fight you want, with me, the real me, you've got it. But unless you're going to take those bands off and stop using your powers, I don't know why you expect me to behave any differently," he says.

  
I've heard enough. Whether this is the real Controller or not, I'm going to bash his skull in. At least I'll feel better. I begin charging towards him. He doesn't move. Lying to me again, no doubt. This isn't the real him.

  
I'm halfway there, when he begins rising from the street and into the air. I begin to leap into the air myself after him when I stop. He's not flying away, he's flying into position.

  
Out of thin air, pieces start materializing. Large metallic plates. Pistons. Gatling guns. Then pieces that appear organic. Leathery lizard skin. Claws. Teeth.

  
Within seconds it's over and The Controller's creation is assembled, with him in the center of it, encased in steel. It stands over a hundred feet tall and is a monstrosity. Like Frankenstein's monster mixed with a tank. It stands upright on two robotic legs. One arm is a cannon, while the other is a claw with metal razor-sharp fingernails. Its head, if you could even call it that, is the worst part of it all. It's covered in skin that looks like it came from an alligator. Where its mouth should be there is a beak instead. From the eyes to the top of its head, is all metal. Its pupil-less eyes glow a bright, vivid red.

  
After all the parts are in place, it releases a blood-curdling scream. Half beast, half machine, it towers over me. The Gatling gun that is its left arm begins to whir and I realize that I'm standing on the wrong side of it. The bullets miss me by inches as I run down the street, trying to put some distance between me and it, but I can hear it lumbering after me, shaking the entire city with each step.

  
Rounding the corner, I hover into the air and wait for it. I've never had to fight anything this enormous, but I can't keep running.

  
As it rounds the corner, but before it's turned to face me, I take off heading straight for its head as fast as I can fly. It turns just in time to see me smash into it right between the eyes. This knocks the creature back, and it stumbles to regain its balance. That was close, but I need to hit it harder.

  
I turn in the air and head back towards it, this time from behind. I strain as I push myself to fly faster and faster. This time, I need to knock it over.

  
I can see its claw heading towards me in slow motion but even then, it's moving too quickly for me to react. It has me in its grip and begins digging its fingernails into my abdomen. Once again, I concentrate on cold and the claw begins freezing. It releases me before the claw fully turns to ice. He's learning. I fly straight up into the air to give myself space for another attack.

  
I hear the click of an engine behind me, followed by the sound of flames. It sounds like a space shuttle taking off, and it turns out that that's not too far from the truth as the beast begins its ascent towards me. Even the sky isn't safe from this thing, which I should have known. The Controller's creations are limited only by his own imagination, and the idea that this thing can fly isn't all that imaginative.

  
The Gatling gun whirs into action again and soon, I'm doing the best evasive maneuvers I can think of to avoid being caught by one of the projectiles. My maneuvers aren't evasive enough though. One of the bullets hits me. It must be the size of a fist. A very large man's fist. It hasn't pieced my skin, but it has knocked the wind out of my lungs.

  
I'm falling fast.

  
Hitting the ground hurts almost as much as the bullet. What's happening? I look at the metaband on my right arm and bring up the battery indicator. It's low. Very low. The lowest I've ever seen it.

  
Down the block, The Controller and his massive armor descend.

  
"Come on!" The Controller's amplified voice beckons through the mechanized suit. "If you're supposed to be the most powerful of the new wave of metas, this is going to get very boring for me, very quickly."

  
I can't fight something this big. My training didn't prepare me for anything other than punching and kicking thugs. Not taking down monsters the size of skyscrapers. Even if my bands weren't almost completely depleted, I don't even know how to approach this thing.

  
Whatever my plan is going to be, I need to come up with it quickly. These metabands are critically low, and I don't know what happens when the battery gets down to zero.

  
I'm reminded of the battle between The Governor and Jones. The last large scale battle the world saw between two metas, before today. The day the entire world watched two metas die. One good, and one evil. They also saw something a meta had never done before: release pure energy from its metabands. It was the most extreme display of unadulterated power ever demonstrated by a meta. Jones used it to literally slice buildings in half, including the one my parents were in.

  
It's a long shot, but it's the only shot I have right now. The beast, that The Controller is inside of, once again begins lumbering towards me. I think back to how I froze the snake, using an ability I didn't know I had before. If I truly am one of the most powerful metas, then maybe there are other abilities I haven't tapped yet, and maybe the ability to focus energy out of these bands like Jones could is one of them. Maybe it's not, but it's worth a try. I'm dead either way if I don't.

  
The Controller is laughing. A loud, boisterous laughter through whatever machination inside that
thing
is amplifying his voice. He's marching this thing towards me. To finish me off.

  
I think back to the footage of Jones blasting through those buildings, his power seeming limitless. I close my eyes and focus on this image. With my eyes closed, I can hear a quiet, faint hum. I open my eyes and see that my metabands are glowing, ever so slightly. I concentrate harder and the glow intensifies. It's a yellowish glow, the color of the sun itself. The Controller's beast hesitates with its next step. Surely, he's seen the same footage I have a million times. He is obsessed with metas. He knows what this glowing leads to. It's flight or fight for him right now. Either turn and run to maybe face me another day, or come at me with everything he's got and hope to finish the job before I can fully unleash this new ability.

  
He chooses the latter.

  
This makes me very happy.

  
The beast begins to break into a runner's stride. Its gun whirring into action again. Its red, dead eyes locked onto me. It's close now, but I wait. I wait until it's almost on top of me, then I point both fists at it and think "release".

  
The blast is unlike anything I've ever seen in real life before. It bores a hole clean through the beast. Even though its face doesn't have the ability to convey emotion, it still seems surprised. You'd be surprised too, if something a hundredth your size just put a hole through your chest.

  
Inside the hole, I can see The Controller. He survived the blast, but is badly injured. With my last ounce of strength, I leap into the air, aiming for the crater I created inside the beast's chest. I aim perfectly, tackling The Controller as we both fall through the back of the creature and onto the pavement below.

  
Behind me, I can hear the beast fall forward onto the city street. Dead. Or whatever the equivalent is for these creations. Within a few seconds, it’s completely disappeared, leaving behind a large impact crater where it landed face first into the ground.

  
There's debris and smoke in the air all around me, and I've lost sight of The Controller. I begin to get back on my feet, when I feel a searing pain in my right side. Looking down at it, I see a huge gash through my uniform, and more crucially, skin. There's a good deal of blood, but I'll live. I must have caught it on the edge of the hole I burned through the metallic beast. Normally this wouldn't have even happened in the first place, or would have at least healed by now, but a glance at my metaband shows that my battery charge is completely gone. The bands are essentially in standby mode. Enough power to keep the uniform intact thankfully, but little else.

  
The pain in my side is quickly replaced by a new pain emanating from the back of my skull as I fall to my knees. The Controller stands over me with a pipe. Part of the wreckage we've both created, I'm sure. He raises it again to bash me. Right before it reaches my face, I catch it with my right hand and pull it away. Turns out there was more power left in these things than I gave them credit for. The Controller backs away, frightened, no doubt, that I'm not nearly as dead as he'd hoped. He paws at his own metaband. I can see one small, red light. The same as mine.

  
"Well, it would appear neither of us are in any condition to finish this little skirmish today are we?" he says.

  
"That's not surprising to hear from someone so worthless," I say, still lying on the ground.

  
"Ohhh. So tough! You sound like one of them already. No, unfortunately I have no interest in engaging in a slap fight with you, while we wait for some opportunistic meta to come in here to steal either of our glories. Until next time," The Controller says as he begins to turn to walk away from me. He doesn't notice that I've stopped listening to him, and that I'm looking through him, down the street. He doesn't notice the look of terror on my face, that I'm not even thinking about trying to conceal.

  
He doesn't notice Jones walking towards us.

  
The Controller is startled at first, as anyone would be when they think they're in an empty city and someone's snuck up behind them. Even more so, when that person is the strongest meta the world's ever known. Especially when they're supposed to be dead.

  
"J...J...Jones?" The Controller barely stutters out.

  
"You!" I scream out. I try to make my way to my feet, but they cannot cooperate and betray me. I fall back to the ground.

  
The man who killed my parents continues his slow, confident walk towards the two of us. His face is emotionless. His eyes vacant. He's wearing a dark blue, three-piece business suit. Polished leather dress shoes. His angular face is clean-shaven and not a brunette hair on his head is out of place. He looks more like a fashion magazine model than a war criminal.

  
There's nothing left in my metabands. Nothing left when I need it the absolute most. When I can right the wrong that he did. Or at the very least, avenge it.

  
"Controller," Jones says in a slow, even tone.

  
"I can't believe it's you! Oh my God! This is incredible! Everyone thought you were..," The Controller says before Jones finishes his sentence.

  
"Dead?" he says. "No. Not dead. More alive than ever. Better than alive. And I've been watching you."

  
"You have?" The Controller no longer sounds like a villain as much as he does a fanboy.