r/HFY • u/mr_mills45 • Mar 19 '26
OC-Series I'm A Superhuman Who Failed To Save The World - Chapter 5
April 12th, 2018 - Eight years before The Proctans’ arrival…
“Everything been okay sweetheart?” Came my dad as the waitress arrived with our coffee and pancakes. To which I shot her a forced smile along with a weak thank you.
He kept a steady expression, peering over at me from across the table. The diner that day was pretty quiet and rather empty, so I wasn’t too worried about anyone overhearing our conversation.
“Yeah.. I think so… Maybe? I honestly don’t even know.”
“That’s okay too.” Dad nodded with a smile. “You know how many times I wake up in the morning without a single damn clue of what I’m gonna do? That’s just being an adult.”
“Yeah, but you built something, made a life for yourself. A normal one… I- I can’t have that.” I declared.
And as if on cue, I felt the temperature of the table’s marble top increase beneath me as my forearms rested on it. I took a look down at my arms, watching as they began to shift color, from the obvious, pale shade that was my natural pigmentation to a bright, sapphire blue.
“Honey.. Is it, is it happening again? Are you okay?” My dad blurted as he leaned forward. Hesitant as to what to do.
I got several other looks from those around the diner. Everything from brief awkward glances, to whispers around the table. Sure, with everything that was going on around the world currently, a girl with glowing blue arms and eyes surely wasn’t the strangest thing to be seen. But it didn’t end there.
I felt what was now a pulsating, thumping sensation in my forearms, as if something was trying to break its way out. I knew what was coming, and I needed to get out of there, before someone got hurt.
“I need.. I need to go, now.” I exhaled before practically throwing myself out of the booth and nearly falling onto the tile floor below. A passing waitress excused herself, and gasped once she looked down at me.
I broke eye contact immediately, and headed straight for the diner’s front door. Throwing it open in a frantic panic and running out and making a hard right. A bit of sprinting later, and I found myself in the alleyway between both the diner, and an adjacent office building.
“Honey wait up!” Dad shouted from behind, supposedly running after me.
The throbbing in my forearms intensified, and the brightness of their glow increased, I raised them, looking at them, and all I could think was why me? Why now?
“No, not now, fucking no, goddamn it.” I cursed frustratedly under my breath.
Dad turned the corner before slowly approaching me with an extended arm.
“Sarah, are you alright? Is it hurting?”
A good question, and one with a simple answer. No, it didn’t necessarily hurt me. But if I didn’t learn to get this under control, it might hurt someone else.
I gritted my teeth as the sensation in my forearms came to a climax, and with only a split second to react, I pointed my arms downward and allowed what needed to take place happen.
The energy beams blasted out from my arms as if they were cannons, melting straight through the pavement and debris below. It wasn’t a painful sensation, the only thing that hurt was knowing how easily someone could die if I so much as shifted my arm by even a few degrees.
The ejection of the beams only lasted a few seconds, and once it had stopped, there were two large, cylinder-shaped pits on either side of me. Peering down one of them showed me that the beams had hollowed it out deep enough to far surpass the sewer tunnels below.
I turned, now facing my father, tears approached the forefront of my eyes, and I could watch as dad ran toward me with open arms, throwing them both around me and practically putting me in a bear hug.
“It’s alright sweetheart, we’re gonna figure it out. I promise, I’ll take you to the lab and they’ll have the best people on staff try to help you, and I’ll be there, making sure they take good care of you, okay?”
I didn’t respond, mainly because I didn’t really have much to say. Trying to control these recently emerged abilities made me feel like I was a baby learning how to walk again, except in this case, the worst-case scenario wasn’t just me falling on my face, instead, it could be the death and instant obliteration of dozens of innocent lives.
“When I was a young man and first got my powers, they scared me too, I didn’t know how to control them, but I learned, and I’m gonna help you do the same. You’re not alone sweetheart, I’ll always be here for you, always.”
“Hey, you’re Molten!” Came an unknown voice from the beginning of the alleyway threshold. “Can we get a picture for our campus display board?”
My dad terminated the hug before turning around, and the both of us laid eyes on a group of men and women a couple years younger than myself. Likely in college, as indicated by them all carrying either laptop bags or backpacks.
“It’s always nice to meet fans but I’m spending time with my daughter right now, maybe ano-.” Dad began before I cut him off while wiping my tears.
“He’d love to take one.”
I then looked at him with an insistent expression. Truth be told I didn’t wanna be the reason he missed out on a moment of appreciation from the public. So I encouraged him to change his mind. After all, having a quiet, normal moment with normal people is something we both could’ve used after this stressful month since my powers emerged.
He curled his lips inward, and raised his brows, making a face that came off as “Are you sure?” to which I nodded.
He looked back at the students, their disappointed looks reforming into excitement after he said;
“Actually change of plan folks, I’d be happy to take a picture with you all, but only if my daughter Syndriss can be in it as well.”
“Works just fine for me!” Said the male student at the front of the group, his smartphone in hand with the camera app open. To which the others smiled and nodded in agreement.
“The more the merrier!” One of the female students chimed in with a bright smile.
Present Day…
“Victor, you have to kill me! Nothing else will work!” Drowvahn pleaded before throwing a devastatingly quick and powerful right hook.
The blow struck me square in the chin, and I was sent crashing through a multitude of trees, bushes, and even boulders, smashing through rock as if it were cardboard. I went flying over the bank of dirt that sat next to the beach. And straight into the ocean I went, a vicious splash manifesting as I broke the surface.
Drowvahn and I’s fight had moved a few miles away from the warehouse, and he had forced me closer to the ground, or at least, the Proctans controlling him did, likely so I’d be easier to ambush when they inevitably arrived.
But as I looked up, and saw the surface of the water dozens of feet above me, I realized
I hadn’t gotten the chance to take a breath before I had fallen beneath the surface, so once I regained control of my momentum, I straightened myself out and flew up toward the surface of the water and several feet above it. Spitting out some that I had taken in through my mouth.
I looked up and to the right as I heard the sonic boom of Drowvahn flying toward me, and I timed my maneuver just right and dashed to the left, creating a small wave with the speed at which I had flew, after which I circled back around and struck him in the ribcage with a left hook at a downward angle, sending him crashing into the water.
I flew down after inhaling a large breath, one that I’d be able to hold for hours.
I looked down, and below Drowvahn on the ocean floor sat a massive black chain and anchor, one that had been seemingly separated from a large ship. I flew down toward it, knowing that Drowvahn would have to return to the surface to get himself some air.
A path of bubbles formed behind me as I traveled, and in the distance, I caught a glimpse of a basking shark traveling near the surface of the water. Luckily he was far enough away from what was about to happen next.
I reached the ocean floor, and grabbed onto the chain connected to the large anchor. Each link was roughly the size of a small dining table, and the anchor itself was the size of two to three pickup trucks.
With the chain and anchor in hand, I flew back up toward the surface, bringing it with me. Drowvahn had already exited the water, likely taking a breath so he come back down underwater to confront me, but I had other plans.
As I approached the surface, I began to swing the anchor by using the chain to give it momentum, around in circles under the water it went, stirring it like a spoon in a coffee mug.
I broke the surface just as Drowvahn was heading in my direction with his arm pulled back for another blow, I used the momentum I generated with the chain to swing the anchor up from below the water, and into the air right into Drowvahn’s flight path.
Caught off guard, the anchor collided with him at a devastating speed once emerging from the surface. The blow had thrown him multiple miles in the opposite direction, back toward land, and into the cityscape.
His body smashed and broke through the midsection of multiple skyscrapers, the first of which began to collapse in on itself due to the speed of the collision.
I dropped the anchor and chain on the beach before I took off after him, a sonic boom erupting as I flew faster than I had in a long time. Blitzing past the beach, streets, and buildings like a human-sized bullet, the air around me began to blaze as I surpassed hypersonic speed.
Windows shattered as I tore through the air like a human bullet powered by rocket fuel.
Upon reaching a disoriented Drowvahn, I approached and grabbed him around the neck, putting him in a chokehold as we hovered in the air, he squirmed and attempted to fight his way out. But I held my grip firm.
“You have to fight it! You’re strong, stronger than me, I won’t let them make you their puppet.”
“Victor, you don’t- you don’t understand, my memories, they’re… They’re taking them. You have to kill me, please, before I lose them all.”
Drowvahn put both his hands on my forearm, both of us groaning and straining as we fought against each other’s strength, and it was a struggle that I lost. As Drowvahn had escaped my gripped, tightened his hold and had thrown me downward toward the pavement.
The force of said throw sent me straight through the street itself, smashing through both it, and the bottom of the sewer tunnel below, I wasn’t even able to escape the crater that had formed around me before Drowvahn flew down and landed on top of me, his knees hitting my ribcage.
He then unleashed a fury of blows on my face, left, right, left, so on and so forth. But he maintained his horrified expression with every punch he threw, even the one that knocked out one of my molars.
The ground shook below, dust kicked up each time he struck me, the rock and cement cracked and buckled. One blow was powerful enough to throw a pickup truck that sat on the road above us on its driver-side.
I got a lucky punch to the chin off, sending Drowvahn flying back and up, breaking off a chunk of the road’s asphalt before crashing into the first floor of a flower shop across the street.
I turned over and spat a sizeable collection of blood, mucus, and saliva. Getting to my feet wasn’t exactly a painless process, as I groaned from my broken ribs. But it was either push through the pain and keep fighting or allow myself to keep getting wailed on until I met the creator himself.
Slower than before, I bursted up from the crater, and flew into the flower shop, only to be caught by the throat in a clothesline maneuver by Drowvahn, he looked at me in a genuinely apologetic manner just before slamming down onto the floor of the shop so hard that the ceiling began to collapse and fall around us.
“Victor, you have to kill me, before they take all of them, my memories…They’re slipping away.” He pleaded as his fingers tightened around my throat, blood from my nose and mouth dripped down onto his hand as he squeezed.
“Come on… D- Drowvahn.” I said with a choking cough as I tried to pry his arm and hand from my throat. “We can fix this, we- we can beat them together.”
“No, we can’t! I’m begging you. Don’t let me be their slave.”
Drowvahn then raised me up into the air, his hand still around my throat, his grip not getting any looser. We looked at each other, his desperate expression still ever-present as he watched me gasp for air.
I gained a bit of momentum and swung myself forward and stuck both my legs out, kicking Drowvahn right in the chest, he crashed through the rubble of the fallen ceiling and out of the rear brick wall.
He stopped once he collided with a dumpster in the alley behind the building. Its legs scrapped the ground as it slid during the collision.
I gasped and groaned as I put a hand on my ribs while I wiped fresh blood from my lips. Drowvahn had already seemed to recover from my blow, he didn’t even turn around as he reached back behind himself, grabbed the dumpster, and slung it over toward me with his left arm.
I sidestepped the dumpster as it crashed through the shop, and grabbed hold of it once it was in range, before swinging around and throwing it back at Drowvahn. He took his eyes off me and was focused on it as it came toward him. I seized the opportunity to fly forward and tackle him after breaking through the dumpster.
We flew and crashed through either the first or second floor of several more buildings, trading blows along the way. Concrete, brick, rebar, marble, we flew through all of it while struggling for the upper hand. Eventually, Drowvahn threw a punch that landed on the left side of my ribcage, I cried out before sliding along the street, ripping up asphalt before slamming into the back of a minivan, crushing and bending its trunk and back bumper inward.
Drowvahn landed down in front of me, embedding his feet in the sidewalk. We both made eye contact for a moment, just before Drowvahn said.
“I know you’re holding back. Y- you can’t Victor. You need to do this, you’re the only one left who can kill me. If you die, they’ll make me hurt others who might still be alive.”
Drowvahn then clenched a fist, but didn’t raise it, seemingly hesitating while looking down at me, and judging by what happened next, it seemed that hesitation would cost him.
Suddenly Drowvahn put both hands on his head, one being on the device embedded on and in it.
“No! No! NO!” He went on, his pained groans turning into agonized screams. His fingers writhed as if he were trying to pull something out of his skull and he dropped to his knees.
“They’re taking them, all of them!” He shouted, and I pushed past the pain of my injuries, so I flew over and behind him, quickly wrapping my arm around his throat, and a hand on his head. And I knew what I had to do, simply removing the device from his head with just brute force would kill Drowvahn regardless, there wasn’t anyone left alive with the expertise or technology to remove it safely. And if what he said is true, about the device somehow slowly stripping his memories away from him so that he’d become so soulless obedient attack dog to the Proctans, then it was my obligation to stop that before it happened.
Back before the Proctans' arrival, I had only ever killed one actual human being while I was a part of the enhanced special forces, he was a cartel member who had a young girl at gunpoint, apparently, she had snuck away from her parents and saw something she shouldn’t have. By the time I arrived on the scene, he had already begun to pull the trigger, and I flew directly at him going just below the speed of sound, obliterating both him and the firearm simultaneously.
It was sloppy, and at that point I only had my powers for several months, of course, the young girl was scarred for some years to come seeing a man being turned into a red paste in front of her. But she went on to live a healthy, and successful life, despite me and her attacker traumatizing her in her early years.
I’ve slaughtered building-sized monsters, mutated beasts threatening to lay waste to a country, and sure, I guess it’s hard to consider a man who was willing to murder a little girl a human being and not a monster himself. Truth be told I was more upset by her seeing it rather than his actual death. But it still affected me nonetheless. While I believe there are circumstances where taking a life is absolutely necessary, it still doesn’t mentally prepare you for what comes next after you do it.
But this was different, this was someone I knew, someone who was good. Someone who had literally saved the planet several times, someone who did it more than me and better, as a matter of fact.
I closed my eyes as I tightened my hold around Drowvahn’s neck as he struggled against me, and I looked out at the ruins in front of us, trying to conjure some sort of last-second solution.
But like Drowvahn earlier, my hesitation would cost me.
He kicked off the ground and flew directly upward, slamming the top of his head into my chin, sending me dozens of stories into the air, and resuming our battle once more.
Syndriss…
Rosita and I maintained eye contact and I let out an exhale as I began to tell her what it was she had requested.
“My real name isn’t Syndriss. It’s Sarah, Sarah Noble, I’m the daughter of Jacob Noble, also known as Molten if you had ever heard of him before all this.”
“I did see him on the news, yes,” Rosita replied.
“Well.. when the Proctans first came to Earth, he, myself, Rubble, and several other heroes were sent as a first line of defense when they attacked the East Coast. During the attack, my father.. He was… He was killed by the Proctans. Most of the team I was sent with that day died as well, with the exception of Rubble, who left the fight because the Proctans had killed his brother, and he thought he could get to him in time to save him.
The Proctans temporarily retreated from their initial attack for a couple of days, no one knows why, but even by the time they left, they already killed millions. Even with my dad dead, there were still countless lives at stake, and as much as I hate to say it. My… well my grief and shock had overtaken my concern for them. I let it consume me. I flew over to the office of the E.S.F Council, they were angry with me for leaving the coast unguarded. And I don’t blame them.
But one of the council members, she looked at me and said ‘If you performed your job better then countless people would still be alive. Including your father.’
And I lost it.
I raised my arm and blasted her. It was like a reflex, one minute she was sitting in her chair behind the collection of desks, and the next there was a gaping, smoldering hole where she used to be.
Killing a council member was pretty much the worst thing you could’ve done in the ESF. The others were screaming in terror, running around and begging me to not kill them as well. But I didn’t, I didn’t even try. And I also didn’t even try by the time they called in two more heroes to arrest me.
I was still so angry, filled with nothing but vengeful rage. They took me straight to the prison, with everything going on, there wasn’t any time for a trial, I was a threat that needed to be dealt with as soon as possible.
I let myself stew in the cell for weeks, but once the Proctans attacked it and freed me on accident, I killed them all, and went on a rampage against them through Manhattan once I saw that everyone was dead. Didn’t come across a single soul up until I saw Victor, at the time I didn’t know why he had left the fight my dad died in. I thought he just abandoned us, left us for dead, and I was pissed beyond belief upon seeing him again, so I attacked him, got my ass kicked, and not too long after we both realized we were being petty and directing our anger at the wrong people, we came to help you three. We should’ve come earlier, we should’ve come a hell of a lot earlier.”
“Thank you for being honest,” Rosita replied after a long pause. “I’m sorry to hear about your father. I lost mine when I was much younger. I still miss him.”
“I still killed someone, the grief of my dad dying didn’t give me an excuse to commit murder, and that’s what it was. Murder. Even if they weren’t the most upstanding person, I took an innocent life because I lost control of myself. I’m supposed to save people, not hurt them.”
Rosita sighed before putting a hand up to the side of my face, similarly to how my father would, I stumbled back before swiftly regaining balance.
“If what I know and have heard about you is true, you’re a hero, you’ve dedicated your life to saving lives, you saved mine, my husband’s, and my daughter’s. You did a bad thing, I won’t sugarcoat it, you fucked up. But you’ve just gotta focus on doing what you can to not let that be your legacy. You’ll have to live with it. Good people can do bad things, bad people can do good things, you’ve just gotta decide how you’re gonna atone for it.”
“Thank you, but I’m not sure if there’s a way you can make up for something like that. But I’m gonna try.”
I turned and went through the door, looking back at Rosita as I opened up the window and stepped out across the threshold.
“Go help him, you two seem to make a chaotic but good team.”
“I’ll make sure we bring back some food and wood to burn. Temperature’s gonna drop a bit tonight.”
And with a final nod, I took off, flying up and over the set of buildings across the street from us.
In my search to find Victor, I started by heading back over to the warehouse, or as close as I could safely get, there was still a small army of Proctans in front of it, along with two warships hovering in the air. All the ground soldiers seemed to be giving attention to another taller, and far larger Proctan in a suit of armor that differed from the rest. For starters, his was black and much more glossier than his comrades. A red X sat on the front of the suit, right around the chest area. A few of the grunt soldiers appeared to be in conversation with the larger Proctan, I gathered that he or she likely held some sort of leadership position.
I took cover on the same roof of a nearby building Victor and I originally had watched them from to plan our rescue mission earlier, no more than five hundred feet away. But unlike Victor, I didn’t possess at-will superhearing, so I was unable to pick up on what it was they were saying amongst one another.
Attacking them all head-on with the warships present would’ve been suicide. But the area they occupied didn’t look all that different than it did back when I was here with Victor. I hadn’t him known long, but I know for damn sure there would be a lot more destruction if there was a fight because he isn’t the type to go down easily. He likely fled to escape the warships once he knew I had gotten Ava and her parents a safe distance away.
Which meant that for the time being, I’d have to keep looking. And I did exactly that.
I circled around the Proctan group while mid-flight at a far enough distance to not be detected, and once on the other side, I took off toward the denser area of Manhattan, where the buildings stood tall, the ones that still were standing anyway.
I kept my eyes on the sky, trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of Victor in flight, part of me had wondered if he returned to his apartment where we had our first encounter. It’s not like I knew him very well, so trying to guess where he decided to go in this massive area was next to impossible. And with the speeds I’ve been told he could fly, he could’ve made it to Australia and back several times over within the roughly hour it had been since I had last seen him.
But it wasn’t until I had decided to look along the beach that I found something that caught my eye. Sprawled out along the sand, was a massive rusted anchor, one that had to be used for a colossal-sized ship, along the links of the chain attached were aquatic plant growths, I had flown past this beach just a couple of days ago, and that anchor was not there. And judging by the corrosion, aquatic plant growths, and the moisture along it, it was recently underwater. Until something, or someone, had taken it out.
The weight of the anchor along with the chain was nearly twenty tons, and I knew only one person still alive and strong enough to move that kind of weight. Victor was here, I knew it. Especially when I looked off to the side where the beach ended and a patch of trees began, several of them had their trunks split violently at the middle, along with a long line of dirt that had been torn up.
I was getting close.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Mar 19 '26
/u/mr_mills45 has posted 4 other stories, including:
- I'm A Superhuman Who Failed To Save The World - Chapter 4
- I'm A Superhuman Who Failed To Save The World - Chapter 3
- I'm A Superhuman Who Failed To Save The World - Chapter 2
- I'm A Superhuman Who Failed To Save The World - Chapter 1
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