Honestly, I thought I had it stressful before. I had forgotten the very simple truth: rumors would only grow. Sure, at first, it was only the truly desperate. The people willing to drink snake oil to combat a lifetime of ill luck. Maybe the gullible and the trusting too.
Now I had to deal with the curious and the smartasses as well. Elves' learning curves about sarcasm needed a readjustment.
"They say you can do anything. Prove it."
"Congrats, you've volunteered at the nearest soup kitchen. Next."
The look on his face when his own body stood up and turned to leave. It kept me warm at night for the weeks to come.
"Could you like… turn me into a horse?"
My left eye twitched. "Are you sure? Because you would actually transform into an animal. There's a lot of things you're taking for granted right now. You wouldn't even be able to speak to other humans anymore. You realize that?"
"It's been my dream since I was a kid."
"Twenty-four hours, or until your life is in danger. Then we'll talk."
He offered a handshake. "Deal!"
I'm not a fucking demon. Then again, I thought as I stared at the draft horse trotting out of my living room, I might as well be.
Groaning, I put my head in my hands. Time dilation. Seriously. I could be playing with the firmament right now. Eating a cake the size of a building. Lazing about in a sunflower field. "What am I even doing with my life? I'm basically a god, and I'm spending all my time doing what others want."
I looked up at the clock – which, of course, had stopped working. My arms hung at my sides. One in the afternoon? I still had hours to go.
"Screw it, one more, then I'm taking a break." Someone will die. Maybe every single one from this point forth will be about life and death. "If I snap, then there's definitely going to be more deaths."
I pointedly refused the images of raining hellfire that poked around the back of my head. That? That would be a tame result, if I ever cut loose about my mounting frustration…
In a one hundred meters cubed box, of course. Slightly less impressive than the end of days.
I looked up, and a man blinked in confusion. His unshaven jaws clicked and made the snake tattoo on his cheek slither.
"So, what's your deal?"
Black swirled in the man's hand, and in the blink of an eye, cold metal pressed against my forehead. "Infinite supply of cocaine," he grinned crookedly.
"Why are you so proud of being held at gunpoint?"
He looked at his empty hand, the sniper's red dot on his chest, then started begging.
"Go turn yourself in at the closest police station. Explain why you should be sent to a rehabilitation center in a prison. Now kindly fuck off and rethink your life."
That's it. I am done for today. Better luck next time, folks!
It was with great pleasure that I slammed the big red button and let the alarms ring.
"Attention all petitioners," said a neutral feminine voice. "Requests will no longer be granted today. Please come back tomorrow. And stop trying to intimidate the reality warper into granting your crazy wishes. It does not work."
I had it installed by the gnomes three days ago, and God it felt good every time. Yesterday, I had used a crane to drop a ton of bricks on the button. It had been a sight for sore eyes.
Briefly, I debated visiting Miss Martinez.The against side won by a pretty large landslide. I might have loved Alvaro, but he was too much of a handful for me right now. What if I exploded at the little guy? I'd never forgive myself.
Instead, I let cold climb up my legs, my torso, my head. The floor rushed upward, past me. I fell. I fell until my shoes hit the pavement outside. I pulled up my canary yellow hoodie over my head, tilted it down. People crowded the street here and there. A good number waited at the dirty food shack on the corner, whilst the hot dog seller hollered his sales pitch.
On cue, my stomach growled.
Money changed hands, and soon enough I had a greasy, artery-clogging hot-dog in hand. No clean place to sit, unfortunately, so I just leaned against a wall, watching the people walking by.
We were on the edge of the alley itself. Where even the poor knew to take a turn unless they wanted to be swallowed by Gotham's darkest. Tourists with good senses gave it a wide berth. Across the street, the old theater laid in decrepitude, a monument to an old tragedy.
The alley buzzed with unusual activity. I'd noticed its eeriness on my first day, but it had changed, strangely. Crooks had so many more targets that they didn't know where to strike, and it led to an air of false safety. You could almost believe this wasn't the most dangerous part of the city.
Licking my fingers, I washed out the last of the used oil taste in my mouth with a cheap off-brand coke. No napkins to clean my hands though. Wait, the fuck was I on about? There. Napkins out of thin air.
Bone thin fingers snatched my wrist. In shock, I turned and came face-to-face with a dark-skinned woman with tear tracks on her face.
"Plea-"
Unrecognizable.
"Yes?"
The desperate look faded into some confused sadness. "No, I, never mind, I thought you were someone else."
The imprint of her hand seeped cold long after she'd apologized and disappeared in the crowded street. Absurdly, I almost called out to her. Like I would have granted her request without even hearing it. I couldn't tell you why I didn't. Apparently, my bleeding heart could be fed up too.
Damn it, should have helped her.
Same old, same old. Was I ever going to get rid of the feeling?
***
Red light twirled at the tip of my fingers, dancing about a small, insect-like humanoid. Almost there. So, they feed by making the earth more fertile and crops more fruitful. What's the dangers of that? Do they starve once things go well? Or what about winter? Okay, maybe they just feed on sunlight like plants. Or both, just in case. How do they reproduce? Let's say when spring sunlight hits morning dew. What else? Being captured. Or killed. Easy. Incorruptible. Intangible, leaving only a sensation of a gentle spring morning. Name? Hmm, harvest sprite? Yeah. Oh, there's the manor. Alright. Back to the pocket dimension with you. I'll create a swarm later.
The sprite faded in a burst of warm colors just as the car slowed down.
"Thanks for your patronage," the robot said as it opened the taxi door for me.
I gave him a blank look. "I literally created you out of thin air for the sole purpose of driving me to this place."
Yellow buttons flashed on the side of its head. It put a hand to its torso and bowed. "Indeed. It has been an honour to have existed."
"Riiight, you're creeping me out a bit." Both robot and taxi evaporated in a puff of logic.
I turned away from the now empty spot before the gothic gates and looked up the driveway. It sort of snaked through a small hill, a vein of black cutting through green flesh to feed a heart like I'd never seen in person before.
Wayne Manor. Younger than I had figured from the pristine red walls and the white domes. Perhaps burned down before like in some other universes. The gargoyles looking down at the visitors from atop the front door was such a typical Batman touch that I couldn't hold back a laugh.
"Drama queen," I said with absolute hypocrisy.
Once I had gotten past the entrance and the judgemental statue in the driveway, I rang. The most stereotypically british butler answered the door. Balding, with a thin moustache, and a gaze that made you feel like you were a misbehaving grandchild.
"Yes? To what do we owe the pleasure, sir? I don't have the memory of booking an appointment today, nor to have answered the bell at the barrier."
"Oh, the barrier was unlocked." I shrugged with an uneasy smile.
One perfectly trimmed eyebrow rose up to meet my bullshit. "The barrier is never unlocked, sir. Master Wayne enjoys his privacy too much to take the risk of paparazzi on the property."
Yeah. Half the reason I didn't want to do this near the gates were the chance, however slim, that someone might be watching outside my range. Wait, I could have just cloaked us! Damn it!
"Is Bruce Wayne here?" I rubbed the back of my head nervously. "I wanted to apologize."
"Whatever may you have to apologize for, young sir?"
Briefly, the desire to turn invisible and erase all memories of this meeting crossed my mind. It was so much worse when I said it out loud. "I may have forced him to look at his dead parents."
Even quintessential britishness could not mask the absolute disdain that emanated from Alfred Pennyworth. In fact, if he had but slightly less decorum, he would have told me the shitstains on Gotham's sidewalks were too good for my shoes.
"I also dared him to ask they be brought back from the dead?"
"Is that so?" he said calmly, with the undertone of 'it is only my self control that allows you to leave this place alive.'
"Yeah. As you can guess, I am not proud. I am very much ashamed. I brought apology pie?" My offering appeared before I could even smack myself for such a stupid thing to say. "Not that I think pie can make up for... Urgh. I'm sorry, okay? He was trying to help me and I was too stressed out to listen to half he was saying. I blew up at a clumsy wording. He didn't deserve that!"
Alfred stared me down for a long time.
"Be that as it may, but Master Bruce is currently outside of Gotham. "
"And I don't suppose you could tell me when he'll be back?"
"Your supposition is quite astute, young sir. I shall mention you when he returns."
"...Thanks," I said, pulling my hoodie down and turning back. "Have a nice day, Alfred."
Good health. Good fortune.
***
Gotham was a hell hole, no one would ever contest that, not even the most purebred gothamite in the US, but it at least had the decency to disguise it under a veneer of luxury. The further on the edge one went, the greener it grew, the shinier it glowed. In the late afternoon, the business districts was an open air museum of marble lit like fires.
Knew there was a reason people stayed in this place. Though, how they stand to let Arkham be such a failed prison, I can't even fathom.
Statues of severe looking men holding various items such as scales, swords, scrolls and bags of gold all turned their nose up at me, as I wandered past one of Gotham's biggest tribunals. I wondered if any of them rolled in their graves at the mockery of a justice system that ruled this town. What would they think of the revolving doors and the constant terrorist plots?
I paused, letting through a lawyer in full black ponchos. No cigar for guessing why they all looked like they ate sour lemons on a regular basis. As I made to continue my walk, a screeching noise suddenly filled in the street.
Three police cars, blaring sirens and red and blue lights, hurled through the busy streets at speed that sent updrafts on the sidewalks.
Unease churned in my stomach. I'm not a superhero. I've already decided when I slammed my door in Batman's face. Besides, he can deal with it, whatever 'it' turns out to be… Except he's out of town.
It took a minute, then I gave in. Sighing, I fished my phone out of my pocket and searched for a news website. The first one I clicked had a livestream going on.
"-police and hostage takers have reached a stalemate," Vicky Vale explained in the foreground of what looked like a police shootout. "Demands have been made that the rumored metahuman commonly known as Miracle Man be summoned in front of the Gotham National Bank. If the man in question has not been found in ten minutes, then one child will be killed every fifteen minutes until he is."
"This is exactly why I fail at this omnipotence shit," I grumbled.
Fine. Let's teleport over there then.
My surroundings stubbornly remained exactly like before.
"… Fuck," I said softly. "Forgot about that. I guess I could just fly that way."
Innate sense of direction. Flight.
I took off.
So far, Vicky Vale's report gave me no real hint about the criminals' identities, or goals. Though that one I could guess. The camera focused mostly on a greying blonde man with a ponytail and long scar going from lips to left ear. He was waving his gun the most, whilst two accomplices roughed up their own hostages.
Eight minutes left, still good. Now I just need to decide how to turn this around in time for supper. Thank God for my new sense of direction.
Before, I might have gotten lost in a mall, of all things. But now, I was honing in on my target like a heat-seeking missile. Or a particularly fat pigeon on a breadcrumb. In any case, I could have hardly missed the commotion, the street dark with people and the flashing lights of the police cars surrounding a major building's entrance.
Undetectable.
I touched down just behind a police car. The officer was fortunately too distracted by the situation to notice until I had walked past him and headed towards the guy in charge
Recognizable. Detectable. Camera blur.
"I'm here." I waved at the police and the kidnappers. "What the fuck?"
That mustache didn't lie. I was in front of the one and only Commissioner Gordon. Nice. And the man looked only a little skeptical of my hoodie. Double nice.
"Miracle Man, I presume?"
"Honestly, I'm going to find a much better alias some day, but I've yet to decide on one that does not sound terminally arrogant."
He raised one bushy eyebrow.
"Right, sorry, sir. Not the best time?"
"Not the best," he mumbled. "Batman is out of town on League's business and we have no idea if Robin is with him. The bank's exits are all sealed off. I can't get my men in without endangering the hostages. Those guys aren't bad, as far as non-supervillains go."
I gave them another look. Scruffy, Ratty and Pig-like. Typical assholes to me. "Really?"
"They've been making outlandish claims since we got here. The typical megalomania. 'You better be ready to bow, 'cause as soon as he gets here, we'll be making you.'" The airquotes transcended the need for movement there. Gordon sounded that annoyed.
Oh, kindred soul, where have you been whilst I was playing wishing well?
"I can deal with them," I assured him. "Bloodlessly."
"Hey!" came the criminals' shout. "What do you think you're talking about over there? You're dealing with us, Miracle Man!"
Gordon and I shared a look.
"There are cameras everywhere, kid." He nodded at a news copter.
"Do I have to repeat myself?! You're going to do everything we say, or this one" – whimpers left the boy's mouth under the barrel's pressure – "won't be alive for his afternoon snack."
Commissioner Gordon handed me the megaphone.
Clearing my throat, I addressed them. "… What do you want, exactly?"
"You're going to make us Kings of the World. And make it so you can't undo it."
"And give us all a harem," piped in the largest of the men, pulling a crying woman against his shoulder.
"And make us stronger than Superman," added the third, skinny one, whose gaze carefully examined the open skies for a sign of said alien.
I sighed.
"Is that all?"
"Eeeh," the brute rolled his shoulders, "we thought about asking for money, but we'll be kings so that's kinda in it."
Somewhere on my left, a female police officer was clearly snickering at their outrageous demands. How I wished I could just do the same. Who knew? If that woman were aware of my powers, maybe she'd ask the same things. Hadn't everyone made that kind of wish some day? To be all-powerful?
Not quite as fun as you'd think.
Steeling myself, I handed back the megaphones and crossed the police's barricade. "I can't do anything if you're out of reach. So, I'm going to have to get closer. Don't do anything stupid."
The trio exchanged looks of hesitation. Finally, the scruffy guy made the call. "Alright! But you're the only one that gets close. Anyone try something fun and they'll have blood on their hands!"
I almost snorted. That would have been a dangerous mistake. Luckily, they were all morons. "Fine by me."
Every step between me and the trio resonated in the tense silence. Police stared at me. Bystanders stared at me. The trio, the bunch of bastards, stared at me with an insatiable hunger in their eyes. They'd found a golden goose. They could almost touch it.
When my shoe hit the last step of the bank's entrance, their weapons vanished.
"I knew you'd-" the ringleader folded in half, his hostage now freed.
For a few seconds, things devolved into chaos. The dozen of victims dashed through their openings, adults lifting children in their arms and sprinting like hell. Three shouted sobbed 'thank you' as they whisked past me. Police voices echoed through the megaphones. The crowded blue parted to let the hostages through, then closed off protectively. Black-geared teams gave the signal for arrest.
"Please wait," I said, holding up a hand.
On the ground, Scruffy squirmed, unable to so much as lift a hand. His gaze was a hateful thing. Had we the same powers, that would be the moment I imploded. Sucked how things could turn out, eh?
"Tom?" he asked, scraping his chin on the pavement just to get a good look at his buddies. "Mike?! Tom?! What did you do? Where the fuck are they?"
I tilted my head towards a rat in a cage and a pig tied to a column, both screeching in terror.
"You-… you fucking bastard!" Scruffy screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Relax. It's not permanent. Yet." Flames would have frozen solid under the ice behind my words. "But it could be if you piss me off enough. You didn't actually expect a hostage situation to work, did you?"
A fat glob of spit fell on my right shoe.
Awesome.
The ringleader smiled with all his teeth. "We thought that might happen, you see? So we got someone else too. He's hiding outside the city. And if you don't start being cooperative right now, he'll blow up a school."
I felt my heart skip a beat. Fuck.
And better yet, it must have shown on my face.
"Ah! Can't stop him, can you? Yeah, that's what I thought. It's not just good words in the street. We heard lots of stories about how you were a fraud too. How you pretended that distance mattered. But you're not the type that would let kids die, are you?" The man's laugh took on a hysterical taint. "Alright, start by making us kings!"
Yep. That was my future if I kept blindly forging ahead on this path I'd cleared. A long game of king of the hill, with me as the titular geological formation. A thousand dickheads all climbing on my back, stepping on my hands, digging their heels in my spine and screaming in my ears. Blackmail and threats. Ultimatums by the hundreds. Hostages and outrageous demands, miles torn from me if I gave an inch.
Whelp. Time to send some kings tumbling.
"...You stupid fucks don't have the first clue about what the word 'omnipotent' means, do you?"
"W-what? Hey, we're serious! We'll do it! All those little snots will burn. It'll be on you!"
"Go ahead."
Translucent ghosts that hovered above a field of freshly fallen snow would have choked to a second death at how milky white the bastard turned.
"That." He swallowed, his eyes darting around in delicious panic. "There's, there's no way! Everyone said you're a bleeding heart. That you listen even if it's dumb shit. That you help out for free all the time!"
"Yeah. Kinda. But I don't help assholes." I faked a casual shrug. The SWAT team seemed too far to make out our actual conversation. "Do it."
"You don't have the balls!"
And this time, I knelt next to the fallen kidnapper. I leaned over him, so that all he saw was my face, framed in shadows, and the glint of power in my eyes. "It has nothing to do with balls, moron. Once we're done with this conversation, I'll go to the site of the explosion. And resurrect every single victim."
Shudders wracked his entire body. "You, you can," he wheezed, "you can bring back the dead?"
"Oh yeah. Then, I'll restore the building." I counted on my fingers. One. "I'll erase every traumatic memory." Two. "I will fucking rewind time so that no one ever realizes that it happened." And three.
My hand lifted the bastard's chin. He had my full attention.
"Except you."
He gagged in fear.
"So that you and your little buddies realize just who you were trying to fuck over. Just so you know, that if someday, I remember your filthy face, and your boasting and your grating voice, I might just decide to pay you a visit in whatever hole they throw you into. And that you know, deep down, that nothing in the world could stop me from visiting upon you miseries the likes of which Hell would envy."
With that, I pulled myself to my full height, or taller still, tall and looming and radiating a freezing air to strip flesh from the bones. Scruffy's teeth were clattering so hard I swore I could see chips of them fly out of his mouth. Or maybe, I was the one doing that.
"Go ahead. Give the signal."
"He's… he's at Saint-Olga's, in the Narrows. He's watching the news broadcast."
My eyes narrowed. Thought that would pull my heartstrings more easily, huh?
"P-please," he begged, "we're sorry. Don't… don't hurt me."
He squealed when my shoe stomped right next to his head. The acrid smell of urine filled the air. I huffed in disgust and left him to stew in his own juices. Hopefully, the message had been delivered to the rest of the bright two-bits thugs that thought they could wish their way into power.
The SWAT team took that as their cue and picked up the ringleader immediately.
At the bottom of the stairs, I holstered up the rat's cage and shoved it at the man in a trenchcoat next to Gordon. "There you go, Commissioner. One of the masterminds. Oh, and can someone take care of the pig before he meets a butcher? But don't worry. They'll change back in, eh, give it three to four hours. Their pal is still paralyzed. For him, let's say two days."
The horrible confusion on the officers' faces slowly drained away. In its stead, wariness, and in a good dose too. The trenchcoat guy – Harvey Bullock! Knew I'd seen his face before – held the cage in between me and him like a shield.
Gordon was more measured. "Son, I'm not going to ask," – my breath hitched – "but thank you for your help."
"It was nothing," I dismissed, but with much less conviction than before. "It's just another Tuesday for me."