He dreamt…
There was a hole in the sky, a portal to another world.
There was a city on fire; the Guardians of the Globe, Earth's greatest defenders lay defeated, beaten, broken, and scattered throughout the city. Omni-man, the world's greatest Hero was off-world trying to stop a continent-sized asteroid near the Planet Mars.
Many other heroes scattered throughout the ruins of Shanghai, some trying to help civilians, others injured and many more died.
Screams and panic filled the air as a thin translucent bipedal human line floated above the clouds. The being was pale, tall thin, and featureless. The sky lit up with a thousand stars, tiny shining orbs of extra-dimensional energy twinkling above the clouds as the pale being raised his hands.
The City was on fire but he didn't care, people were screaming but he didn't hear them.
He lets himself go.
He sees himself. His hoody was torn and burned with patches of blood. A piece of his shoe was missing he notes, but he didn't care. A half-shattered kabuki mask hides half of his face, he is bleeding but doesn't feel it, the pain, or anything else at this moment. His eyes are bright and filled with excitement, it was glowing a bright blue and he feels it as much as if not greater than the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
He feels it. A thrill greater than any drug known to man. Fear. Happiness. Euphoria. Challenge. Power. Freedom.
He laughs. He wonders if this is how they felt, always so powerful, always saving the world, always the Hero.
He outstretches his hand, heart pounding in his chest. The wind rushes past him, a blur of freedom. His body feels weightless as he hovers above the city. A surge explodes through him and out of him like lightning coursing through his veins. His mind floods with warmth, clarity, and exhilaration. It's as if every nerve is alive, humming with energy.
He could feel all the intricate wavelengths that make up the world, energy waves, particles, frequencies, and everything else too, he could feel matter, he could feel electrons, neutrons and so, so much more. He didn't even have the words to describe it, his 6th grade science class didn't cover this shit.
He feels his reach expand, blanketing over the whole city and it doesn't stop. Blood drips down his nose but he ignores it and with a thought the entire city joins him in the sky; buildings, trains, containers, ships, cars, entire city blocks, a lake, and even parts of the sea and a mountain too, everything and anything he touches bends to his will. Even gravity.
A grin spreads across his face, uncontrollable, as the dopamine pours in, amplifying every moment, every second of this pure, unfiltered joy.
He feels invincible.
The pale being sends his orbs and the city becomes his shield, space bends to his will as more energy orbs stilled in the air before they could touch him, all of them held in place as space contorted and began bending to his will. With a thought, they were sent back to the pale being at four times the speed of sound.
He watched himself laugh again, louder, happier, freer, and the world moved. A city formed what could only be described as a second moon in the sky as all the mass crashed against the pale being. He willed the mass to condense in an attempt to crush the pale being.
With a thought, he changed the atmosphere, and a lightning storm gathered around him. He charged himself with lightning, photons, and everything else he could reach.
He was stronger now, so much more. His smile widened as the pale being broke out the condensed mass in an explosion that repainted the atmosphere orange, yellow, and gold.
He remembers this moment. He was eight; this was his debut, and this was the incident that changed it all.
Even in a dream this moment still haunted him.
"MAAAAAAATTT!"
…
"Mat!"
He woke to loud knocks on his door. "Oi, open the goddamn door, it's almost noon already. Matt! I know you're in there. Open up!"
"Fuck Danny! I'm tryna sleep, what do you want old man?!" Mathew Bale forced himself off the couch with a yawn. He lived in a small one-room apartment studio, it wasn't much but it was home.
The banging on his door increased.
Mathew quickly rushed to the door and forced it open ready to confront the fool who disturbed his slumber, he was more than willing to blast the fool to kingdom come. Mathew however had to stop himself when he met the scowling face of his Landlord.
A cranky old man named Daniel Flint. Mr. Flint was a short round man with a rather nasty scar over his right eye and half his body was covered in tattoos. Mr. Flint was surprisingly well dressed at the moment Mathew noted.
"Morning sunshine. Thanks to your lazy ass I'm already running late." Mr. Flint checked his watch just to be sure.
"Ah huh, and you dragged your old rotting ass all the way to my flat to tell me that?" Mathew grumbled, not that he'd want to go back to sleep right now. He'd rather be awake than have that dream again. His nose twitched suddenly when he caught the scent of something funny. "Wait… is that? Is that Creed Aventus I smell? That's some expensive shit and that get-up too. Looking pretty good for a walking corps."
"Like I give a shit what you think."
Mathew met Mr. Flint's glare with a quirked brow. The old man merely glanced at his watch as he spoke. "I don't have time for this. Listen, kid. Rents due, you got a week, pay up or pack up."
"I mean it this time! And I ain't old, I'm vintage bitch. Limited edition type shit." He said as he turned to leave.
Mr. Flint made sure to flip Mathew off on his way to the elevator.
Mathew rolled his eyes at the old man's antics and closed his door. He was too sleepy for this… without giving much thought to the old man's antics the young teen threw himself back on the couch, picked up his bong, and took a deep puff.
He didn't need a match.
Powers were a blessing like that. He held it in for a few breaths before releasing the smoke from his lungs, he breathed out slowly and steadily as he felt his body relax and his mind go numb with that soft ever ever-present dull humm.
He closed his eyes a few moments later. " Yeah..." He sighed, "I could get used to this."
Hopefully this time he'll have a better dream.
….
It was known as the Shanghai incident. That was where his story really began. That was when Gideon Bright died and Mathew Bale was born.
Some people say heroes are born, others say that heroes are made. In his case, it was neither. When he was seven his parents took him on a camping trip. They told him he went missing for a few days in that forest, where he was he didn't know and his parents refused to tell him.
The only memory he had of that time was a cave filled with glowing blue crystals, the funny part was that when they did find him in that cave, there were no crystals.
A few weeks after that he's powers 'awakened'; telekinesis they told him. The ability to move shit with your mind. It began slowly, little objects at first. Moving a spook would have given me a headache. Moving a chair would have knocked him out.
But it grew. The smaller objects increased in size and scope. Little objects grew bigger and the bigger objects got even bigger. He thought he was a superhero. His powers came with rules of course and he won the lottery with his parents cause they loved him enough not to sell his ass out to the government.
He was lucky to have them. If only he knew then how 'lucky' he was.
For a while it was OK. He followed his rules, when to school, did some stupid shit with his powers, had a few friends who were in the know and had a ton of wacky adventures in his town as a somewhat competent secret defender of his small town. They had no villains there, even so, petty crimes were enough for him to make him feel like a hero.
He idolized them on TV. He even dreamed of joining one of the many Greatest hero teams out there when he grew up.
When he was eight his parents won a luxury trip to Shanghai. He didn't know where his limits were, his powers kept growing even when he wasn't actively using them. On a random almost ordinary day out during their trip an interdimensional being known as the Pale Man attacked the city of Shanghai.
A dimensional rift tore the skies above Shanghai open.
And like always the heroes showed up to stop the Pale Man. They weren't enough, all he wanted to do was help.
He only wanted to be a hero, and he was, he was 'The boy who raised a city and scarred the moon.' The media later called him the Blue-Yonder, a wordplay on Boy Blue and Beyonder.
He saved the city and the world if the theories and data on the trans-dimensional being were correct. Unfortunately, like any child with too much power, he lost control, it cost him his parents and so many more, too many.
In the aftermath of his heroic act, the Global Defense Agency got their hands on him. His abilities were deemed too volatile, too unstable, and too intertwined with his mental and emotional state for their more extreme methods of control and study so they decided to 'help' him. They trained him and raised him to be a 'hero' as they called it.
They taught him control, they made him 'better'. They were able to control him for a time, give him missions, and build him up to be their personal nuke but that didn't last long. Thankfully the incident that gave him his freedom was classified from the public but somewhere out there a continent was missing a mountain range.
After several more classified incidents, an agreement was reached. They gave him freedom, a limited form of freedom. They kept him on a monthly allowance plus a bit extra when good old Uncle Sam called and gave him a place to live when he was fourteen- something they had no choice but to do because the alternative would have been an incident they could not keep under lock and key in a classified file somewhere. They gave him a caretaker and fitted him with an 'off switch' for his safety and the safety of those around him.
Thus, this was his life now. A hero to the public, a weapon to the government, and a fucked up super-powered kid with four years' worth of memories he'd rather forget.
And yet, despite his mistakes, despite the messed-up shit he's done, despite everything; he still wanted to be a hero. He still wanted to save people, he still wanted to fight villains and live the dream he once had. He wanted to be the best, most powerful, most badass, most awesome hero this world has ever seen or will ever see. He wanted to live a normal life too. He wanted it all, he wanted his cake and he wanted to eat it too.
He thought maybe, just maybe, he could be one, a real one.
'How fucked up was that?'
Chapter End -
Just a one-shot that popped into my head randomly after watching Invincible, might continue might not. Let me know if you want a few more chapters.