Issue 7: "Building On Fire"

The newly rebuilt Powers Towers glistened in the blue San Francisco sky. Construction was officially completed only fourteen months after the Apokolips Crisis, a true testament to the noble San Franciscan spirit. Had the building stood in ruins, then the demons really had won.

And Steel knew that was not an option. Too many people had fallen, heroes had died, and sacrifices had been made. Now was a time to celebrate life. Victory.

Hank Heywood had personally overseen that every beam, brick, and bolt was perfect. In his mind were the schematics of the original tower. He had memorised it. Redesigned it. It was better than before. Better. Stronger. Faster. He smiled, whistling the Andy Griffith theme song.

He was content. He was home again. His team was reunited... Sort of.

Their home was complete... Now it was time to rebuild the family.

Looker sat across from the Blue Beetle neither of them wanting to speak first. Booster and Oberon watched them from the other side of the room as Skeets floated nearby. They had been there for half an hour. The first ten minutes in complete silence. The next ten minutes was a sighing contest, and the last ten a stare down. Finally, Ted spoke. "So..."

Looker rolled her eyes and yawned before replying, "So..."

This went on for about another five minutes until...

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Awk-ward." Oberon blurted out as Looker stormed away. Looker shoved him into Booster on her way out. Ted sat at the table shaking his head in disbelief. Booster and Oberon walked over and sat down.

"So, um...how are things going with Looker?" Booster asked between bites of an apple. "I mean, how bad could it be? You only started dating like two months ago.Even for a screw up like you with no ga-"

"Booster, listen closely because I’m only gonna say this one more time; YOU WERE GONE FOR A YEAR!!!!! NOT A WEEK, NOT A MONTH, A FRIGGIN YEAR!" Ted shouted at him across the table. Oberon jumped, startled in his chair and fell off of it. After picking himself up and dusting off, he raised his nose in the air and turned on one heel taking his leave.

"Oh, now look what you did." Booster said looking at Ted as though he were actually concerned with Oberon feeling left out.

"Booster..." Ted stared at him blankly for a minute before dropping his head in his hands.

"What is it buddy? You want me to talk to her? I have a way with the ladies, ya’ know. Yep, Booster's got it going on. Look at this new costume. You think I look this good on accident?" Booster said pointing at his hair. "What's her problem anyways?"

"Oh, you know she's a little perturbed seeing is how she wasted an entire year of her life on a wild goose chase helping idiot A search for idiot B when idiot B was only missing because he was being punished for altering the fabric of time and altering the entire fate of mankind as we know it, same old story." Ted calmly laid it out for him.

"Women… go figure.” He replied chuckling beneath his breath, “Are you sure it was a year? Bec-“

Blue Beetle’s composure shattered into a million pieces as he jumped towards Booster, “IT WAS A YEAR!” Booster quickly dodged Kord who fell to the ground.

“You should see yourself, you look ridiculous. Maybe it only seems like a year because you missed me so much.”

Ted stood up with his fists clenched tightly. Booster watched him slowly count to ten. He then took a deep breath and turned and walked away. Booster sat quietly for a moment before standing and turning to Skeets. "Think it was something I said?"

“No, Sir!” sparked the floating robot.

“Huh. Come on, let’s go for a fly.”

“Yes, Sir!”

“What about this?” Suggested Aubrey, as she held a white top in front of her body.

“It’s nice, Aub.”

“You’re not looking, Emily.”

Emily Briggs, Looker, turned away from the mirror she had been looking at herself in for the past five minutes, and then smiled. “Yeah, that’ll make your boobs look big.”

Aubrey Spears looked at what she was holding and sighed, “Yeah, thanks for that.”

“I’m sorry Aub. It’s this whole Ted thing, it’s really pissing me off…”

“What happened? You seem to be having like… the world’s greatest tiff… but no one knows what it’s about…”

“It’s a long story,” sighed Looker.

SUDDENLY, JUST THEN, AT THAT VERY MOMENT! A giant meteor burst through Earth's atmosphere.

Plummeting so quickly toward the Earth that it seemed to defy the laws of physics, gravity, or any of the other laws that are normally involved in giant meteors bursting through the Earth's atmosphere, it left a trail of black smoke behind it that exploded into a brilliant black cloud of black as it was brought to a sudden halt.

The dust slowly began to spread and blanketed the crowd of people cowering in fear below it in a thick coat of soot.

What was it that brought the giant meteor (whose existence escaped the ever watching eyes of some lonely scientists) to a stop? Was it a bird? Was it a plane? Was it Superman?

Of course not, that would be stupid, and stupid has no place in Powers Inc.

Those are three ridiculous answers because: A, bird could never stop a meteor (think about it the physics don’t add up); B, a plane would just explode in a mess of metal and glass not black smoke; and C, Superman... Well when Superman isn't busy being mysteriously missing or occupied with the Justice League way out in another galaxy, he's usually missing or conveniently out of town for events such as giant black death clouds exploding over San Francisco. No this... This was none of those things.

This was Power Girl.

The crowd moaned as they tried to dust themselves off and slowly dispersed to go about their normal lives. A gaggle of teenage boys stood around marvelling at Power Girl's amazing... 'Feats’... Before she flew off.

And they even looked to her to use her super-breath (power breath?) to blow away a good portion of the dust too. One fainted and above them, high in the sky, she sighs before going off to do something more superhero-ey.

As she flies she thinks to herself. 'What was it exactly?' 'What is it that keeps her doing this?' The people were more upset by their soiled clothes then they were happy that they didn’t just die in horrible fiery deaths and if she has to see one more picture from some over hormonal creep drawing her with her... Ahem... 'proportions' so contorted again she is going to scream. It's just too much sometimes. Don't these perverts know anything about anatomy? Basic Training 101, people!!

And that was when she saw it. The building she thought she would never see again. Last year, after all that happened in the crisis she was sure it was over. If it were any other day she would have rolled her eyes, shook her head and flew on.

But not today.

She had just destroyed an asteroid that was way too soft, in a part of the world that was way too much a coincidence, and the fact that there was no warning about it and it had seemingly materialized out of nowhere above the streets of San Francisco didn't help either. Had it did crash into the people they would have not even been hurt. It was basically a giant meteor sized Nerf ball, and a cheap one at that.

No, it was obvious.

This whole thing?

It reeked of tacky self promotion.

It reeked of cheap publicity stunts.

It even reeked of old man cologne and Tabasco sauce.

It reeked of Oberon.

Oberon sat alone in his room putting medicine on a scrape he had gotten falling out of the chair in the cafeteria. "Stupid Blue Beetle." He mumbled to himself as he applied a small adhesive bandage with Booster's likeness on it. Oberon had already been handed the short end of the stick once this week when Josiah left a gentlemen named Derek Oberan in charge instead of him. Who the hell did this Oberan think he was anyways? Surely it was a typographical error he thought, until he saw the letter was handwritten, then there could be no mistake.

Power Girl burst in through his window unannounced and interrupted Oberon's ponderings.

"K-Karen. It's so good to see you! How do you like the new buil-"

"Shove it Oberon!" she said, grabbing him by the collar on the frumpy shirt around his fat little neck. "What do you know about the sponge!?"

"Th-they stopped making them. There was a whole Sienfeld episode... Sponeworthy and all that…" Oberon said frantically giving a weak smile.

"OBERON!" Power Girl was running out of patience. "Start. Talking."

"Okay okay. See, I read this book about a group of superheroes and one of them (a bald guy by the way) brought all the heroes and the world together by presenting a common outside threat." Oberon explained. Power Girl tightened her grip and Oberon gave another weak smile. "Viva la Powers, Inc.?"

Karen sat him down. "Did you read the end?"

"Yeah..." Oberon's smile turned upside down. "Crap."

Power Girl took a deep breath and crouched down to look Oberon directly in the face. "Was the sponge thing the only common outside threat you cooked up?"

Oberon's forehead began to pour sweat, and his eye twitched ever so slightly. "Heh..."

Power Girl’s eyes widened. “What. Did. You. Do?!”

“Remember… The… Um… Giant swastika-toting robot you fought a while back?”

“Yeah, what about…” She hesitated. “You didn’t.”

“I kinda hired… A Nazi mad scientist… Paid him below the minimum wage and… He… Kind of…”

She span around as her eyes widened even more as a giant swastika-toting robot hurtled toward the building. “Oh, crap.”

She crashed through glass and metal, and hit the Überbot head on, but instead of it flying back, she did, hurtling through the Towers like a bolt of lightning, some kind of electric bolt zapping her full on. “Hrgh!”

Steel sprinted to the other side of the roof and looked down the building, and gasped. His building! Glass fell from the hole in the wall, and his internal sensors detected a person that matched his scans of Power Girl fly out the other side of the Tower.

“GOOD GRIEF!” He leapt of the roof, not thinking about the consequences. Not thinking ‘hey, I’m made of metal, I’m pretty heavy, if I miss that huge Nazi robot I’m going to hit the ground below and be street pizza!’ He flew down, and hit the top of the robot, nearly sliding off the dome that contained the pilot. “GET AWAY FROM MY BUILDING!”

“Stirb! Stirb! Stirb!”

“Yeah, ‘Die! Die! Die!’ Right back ‘atcha!” Roared the hero, slamming his fists into the cranium of the machine, his fists cracking the intricate paintwork. Suddenly, the whole craft became electrified, causing Steel to plummet to the ground below, his systems seizing.

“Steel!” gasped Prysm, flying toward her older friend and shooting up the glass surface of the building and straight back to the roof, dropping him on his face whilst his systems rebooted. “I’ll get him, Hank!”

“Hey, NaziTron?”

"Ich bin der Überbot!"

“Überbot, NaziTron, same difference,” grinned Booster Gold, swinging back his arm and throwing the most powerful punch his power cells, intertwined with his muscles, could muster. It didn’t make a dent. “Uh… Skeets?”

“The Überbot! Most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the Third Reich!”

“The Third Reich?! But that was twent--” started Booster.

“Sixty!” Interrupted Skeets.

“But that was sixty years ago!”

“Sir, it would appear someone has refurbished the device and unleashed it upon the world once more!”

“Nah.. Y’think?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“’Course you do.” Booster groaned, turning to the massive device as it rammed it’s fist into his face, and propelled him across the city.

Skeets hovered for a moment, staring down the Nazi death machine. “Booster?”

“Bereitet euch darauf vor, den Zorn des Dritten Reichs zu spüren!”

“SKEETS, MOVE!” howled Blue Beetle, diving from the Bug and scuttling around on the head of the massive cyborg. “I need a run down on it’s capabilities, weapons, shielding, everything, and I need to know where to hit it so I can take it down!”

“Yessir!” buzzed Skeets.

"Die Weltuntergangsmaschine wird euch alle vernichten!"

“Translate please, Skeets!”

“‘The doomsday device will destroy you all!’”

Ted Kord bit his bottom lip, his BB Gun at hand. “Yeah. I thought so.” The device below his feet whirred and buzzed, and bucked backwards, sending Blue Beetle flying into the air, bereft of the ability to fly. “Team?” He hurtled toward the pavement, only to grab Skeet’s glistening golden body, his anti-gravity pads holding them both up without any negative effects. “Thanks, Skeets.”

“My pleasure, sir!”

“Now get us up there! I think our team is about to launch a counter attack…”

“Yessir!”

“No fair with the sneak attack!” smiled Prysm, throwing her fists into the Überbot’s chest plate as she flew into it, the metal buckling under her superheated fists, “how about you try that electricity bit again?”

The Überbot complied, but Prysm grit her teeth, and took the pain. Her alien body took the attack, and absorbed the energy into the kind of power she could channel. Her hair was on end, her body shaking, but she kept absorbing the blast. “Now… Eat… This…!” She unleashed all that power back into the massive robot, shorting out systems all over the German built device. It shuddered and shook, and then the foot rockets allowing it to fly cut out with a start. The metallic device spat and spluttered, then headed straight for the streets below. “Oh…. Crap…”

“Hrrnt!” Strained Power Girl, zipping below the Überbot and preventing it from colliding with the street. Her muscles bulged, her legs nearly buckled, but the massive robot stopped, and she eased it to the ground. “Beetle?” She asked, the hero hopping down off Skeets and landing beside her, “what now?”

“I think… That we need to get into the cockpit…”

“You think…”

“Yeah. I think there was someone piloting this embarrassing piece of machinery.”

“Hey,” smiled Booster, as he hovered down from the sky above, “at least it’s not a big floating blue dung beetle, eh Ted?”

“It’s a flying fascist, Booster. That’s kind of embarrassing in itself, ok? And leave the Bug alone.”

“Sorry,” replied Booster.

“Any idea on how to get inside?” inquired Power Girl, who was messing with Prysm’s smoking hair playfully. “(You did good kid.)”

“Thanks,” blushed the younger heroine.

“Skeets,” blurted out Booster, “Uh, he has the ability to crack any code or open any lock inside that little chassis of his… He can open it. Skeets?”

“Yessir!”

Beetle leaned over to Booster, “He can really do that?”

“Of course he can do that! He’s my robot you know! And the world’s most powerful and painstakingly handsome superhero only keeps around the most magnificent robots as his aid! What do think I am, some kind of D list hero who only shines when he’s teamed with a rag tag bunch of spandex wearing goons? Of course Skeets can do that!”

“Right.” Ted said rolling his eyes.

“What happened? What hit me?” Questioned Steel, appearing to the others gathered.

“We’re about to find out,” replied Beetle.

Skeets approached the cockpit, and a tiny ray of light hit the side of the entry to the device as Skeets went to work. “Open sesame!” buzzed the golden droid.

The door creaked open with a start, revealing a small man, balding and old, his skin thin and papery. “Viel zu lange habe ich mich in den Schatten dieser Welt versteckt und meine Rache geplant. Und als mir Oberon dann diesen kleinen Lohn für meine Arbeit anbot erkannte ich meine Chance! Ich entwarf den Plan, die zwei größten Weltvernichtungsprojekte, die von Hitlers Wissenschaftlern entwickelt worden waren, umzusetzen und auf die Menschheit loszulassen! Den Überbot, und nun... Die Saat des Teufels!"

“What did you just say?” hissed Steel, grabbing the old man by his collar. “What did you just say?”

Beetle rolled his eyes. “Skeets?”

“ ‘For too long have I hidden in the shadows of the world, planning my revenge, and with the less than minimum wage packet offered to me by Oberon, I saw my chance! I planned to unleash the two greatest doomsday projects developed by Hitler’s own scientists! THE ÜBERBOT, and now… THE DEVIL SPAWN!”

“Uh oh,” grimaced Power Girl, readying herself.

"Bereitet euch darauf vor, den Zorn des Dritten Reichs zu spüren!"

The Überbot shuddered once more, and it’s chest creaked open, and the Powers, Inc team gasped in horror--

“Uh,” began Prysm, “What is that?”

Blue Beetle clambered inside the small compartment where strangely formed bones resided within. “Devil spawn maybe?”

“Nien!” howled the scientist, “Nien!”

Steel chuckled. “Looks like the Devil Spawn is long dead! We can call STAR Labs to pick up the pieces.”

“Hey guys, you handled that pretty well!” Grinned Oberon, “Good job, we should make evening news with this for sure!”

“This is your fault, Oberon! You paid this Nazi to build this machine, and now--”

“What’s going on,” asked Derek Oberan, who appeared shortly behind the diminuitive Oberon.

“This guy--”

“Anything relating to Powers Industries or Powers, Incorporated does not involve Oberon, it involves me, as Josiah Powers placed me in command.”

“Really?” smiled Ted and cocking his head to his side, “then you’re in responsible for the hiring of all the employees? Even the… Freelance German cybernetic experts?”

“Yes, why, I am--”

Harry sat on his bed looking at his bare feet. The whole thing was a big joke to the rest of them. It was as if they had forgotten. He looked out the window hoping for something to change, anything. But nothing happened. For a while longer he gazed out before dropping his head back down at his feet.

They had hired him as a janitor as some kind of charity case when they heard he was living hand to mouth. Kord even offered to rebuild his suit from scratch if he knew how but what was the point? Inevitably he’d end up right back again in the same dark room. Powerless. Powerless in a place where everyone around him possessed unique gifts that could benefit mankind, he used to consider himself one of those people but he couldn’t even save her. She was all that mattered and he wasn’t fast enough. Wasn’t brave enough. Wasn’t bold enough.

“Harry.” The sweet sound of her voice echoed throughout the room. “You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself.”

“Carrie… I couldn’t save you…”

“I never died Harry, you know that.” His face fell back down to the floor, he didn’t deserve to look at her. She wasn’t dead. Somehow she had survived. Somewhere in Alaska her molecules finally pulled themselves together and she fought her way back to civilization. The fact that she was, in fact, alive, didn’t change matters. She might as well have been dead to him. Whatever superheroic fairy tale he had fooled himself into believing was his real life was gone and all he could see when he looked at her now was his own failure.

She was the embodiment of all the things he could never be. She was a real hero.

“Carrie…” He said again looking her in the face one last time, “I couldn’t-“

“You’re right, Harry, and I’m sick of going through this. I’m going to see an old friend in Las Vegas. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” And with that she vanished into thin air and he sank again. He had to do something. He had to escape.