My Story, By Willie Willson

Artist statement:

When I set out to do this project, my goal was to write a story that fulfilled all of my own expectations.  I read a lot of books, and some recurring themes in stories have started to get old, so I wanted to write a story that went against these stereotypes.  I wanted to create a story that would surprise the reader with it's frankness.  I hope that when people read this they feel the same way I did when I created it.  I hope they feel like they have no idea where the story is going to go because the possibilities are endless, and nothing is out of the question.

1

Hello, my name’s Adam Daniels, and this is the beginning of my story.  I led a pretty normal childhood, up to a point.  Then I realized I was a little bit special.  This fateful occasion was one morning, when I was about twelve, and had just watched Star Wars.  I had just witnessed Yoda lift Luke’s ship right out of a swamp, so of course I was trying to use the force to see if I was a Jedi too.  I was a weird kid.  Imagine how ecstatic I was when I discovered that I could actually move certain things with my mind.  After a while I discovered that I wasn’t actually a Jedi, but a Super who could control metal.

What exactly is a Super, well first I’ll give a little background information.  The first recorded super was in 1953, who went by the name of Sally Wershire.  She discovered she could fly when she tried to jump over a fence, and almost immediately hit a tree.  That didn’t stop her from becoming incredibly famous, as the first human being who could actually fly.  From that point onward, the human race was on the lookout for other individuals who possessed the same type of talents.

Well, twelve year old me liked having a trump card over everyone “normal” in the world, so I kept these new powers pretty quiet throughout my early life.  I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out exactly what I could do, and it wasn’t until I was fifteen that I got a really clear view of my powers.  I had complete control of every piece of metal within a ten foot radius of myself.  When I say complete, I mean absolute.  I could control individual molecules of iron, steel, titanium, within that radius.  It’s true that the more delicate the work I have to do gets, the harder it was, but I could manage.  

As soon as I turned 18, I left my house to go to “college”.  In actuality I rented an apartment by a junkyard, and spent the next four years of my life exercising and refining my powers.  I had no true physical powers, so I did some remodeling of my body.  I reinforced all of my bones with titanium, and integrated spring steel into my muscle fibers and my skin cells.  The end result was that I came out of those four years an expert in my power, with an incredibly tough body, and a sharp mind.

Now seems like a good time to explain how the world works these days.  We have the Hero’s, all the goody goody little kids that always wanted to be superman.  We have the Villains, mostly psychotic and power crazy, and then we have a third subgroup of supers that try to ignore their powers and lead a normal life.  When I was 22, finished with my training, I was looking into which group to join.  Neither group really appealed to me, so I went to a coffee shop to list the pros and cons of each, and hopefully decide.

While I was at this shop, I looked outside and saw a couple of other supers fighting it out in the distance.  They were having a merry time, knocking each other through buildings, shooting energy blasts at each other, and in general causing havoc.  At that point I realized something quite ingenious. I wouldn’t join either of the groups.  I would sell my abilities to the highest bidder for protecting against these supers, and hopefully have a few good fights in the process.

2

I was working security at my third or fourth gig when my entire world changed forever.  I was downtown, sitting indoors, wearing a security uniform to blend in with the normal people around me, when two supers started fighting and heading my way.  All I could see at first were two shapes surrounded by dust, then there was a blast of energy and they became clear to my eyes.  They were two of the highest ranked supers from both sides, Block, and the Mind.  Block stood at least 7’2”, and appeared to be a solid 400 pounds of muscle.  His powers are pretty simple, but nevertheless incredibly effective.  He was incredibly durable and strong.  I thing the heaviest object he ever lifted was a couple trains, at once, and that was after those trains had crashed into him going full speed.  The Mind was a normal 5’10”, since his powers didn’t affect his physical body, but he was equally deadly.  He was the strongest telekinetic known to date, he could move things with his mind.  They were both wearing their costumes. Mr. Blocks was a variation of the standard army uniform, sleeveless camouflage top with pants, Mind was just wearing a neatly pressed suit, and of course they both had masks on.

Their fight appeared to be evenly matched, with Mind stopping Block’s fists with his powers, and Block being unaffected by everything Mind threw at him. Neither of them were slowing down, and they were coming to my building, so I decided to get involved.  At times like these I’m glad I took the time to remodel those titanium crowbars into arm braces, so I can carry around a little bit of metal with me everywhere I go.  For the moment though, I just walked up to the two fighting supers and starter to yell at them.  

“Hey, calm down before you break my building!”

They were so startled that they just stopped fighting to stare at me for a second, then completely ignored me and continued to fight.  I shrugged, and used my power to melt the titanium I kept around my left arm into a spear, then caused it to accelerate to 900 mph towards Mr. Block.  I don’t have control over the spear after it leaves my sphere of influence, so I only did this when I was sure I wouldn’t hit anything important.  It actually managed to knock him back a few feet, and again both of the supers stared at me.  No one was supposed to be able to do that.  But then no one had ever met me.

I smiled, then used my power to melt the other arm brace down into a sword, held in my right hand.  Your probably thinking, why would you use a sword?  This sword was rather special.  It had taken me a while to perfect, but eventually I figured out that since I had complete molecular control over metals, I could create something with an edge a single molecule wide.  This required a lot of concentration, and while I did it I couldn’t use my power for anything else, but with that sword I could cut through literally anything.

Block didn’t know this so he just smiled wickedly at me, stepped forward, and aimed a punch directly at my face, hoping to finish me off quickly and get back to his fight.  All of his strength made him cocky, which in turn mad me angry.  I dodged under his punch, then cut of his arm at the elbow.  It took him a full second to realize what I had done, to realize that someone had actually hurt him, then he started screaming. I never liked screaming, so I cut his head off.  

The Mind was dumbfounded that anyone could have taken Block out that easily, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to take a crack at me.  Villains always were crazy.  He started throwing telekinetic blasts of power at me, which I kept dodging.  His complete confidence in his power made him easily predictable, and eventually I was able to get him within my radius of power.  I stopped maintaining my swords edge so I would have enough concentration to pull of this next trick, and then I tore all of the iron from Minds body.  As he toppled to the ground, I started to walk to talk to my employer, and tell him to get ready for the news crews.

3

Later that day, after endless attempts of the paparazzi to get an interview with me and a couple of hearings about “manslaughter”, I was sitting in my apartment eating Cheerios when I heard a knock on the door.  I peeked through the doorknob and saw another rather famous super.  He called himself Bolt, and he was one of the only supers around who could shoot lightning out of his hands.  He was a teammate of Mr. Blocks, and was known for being an honor obsessed idiot.  Seeing him in my hallway, I realized he was probably here for revenge, so I shrugged, and reached to unlock the door. As I did this, I used my power to activate my “home defense system”.  Basically I keep a bucket of metal dust in a corner, then when I need it I can control it however I want.

On this occasion I spread the dust out around me in a circle, too thin to actually see.  It would appear to Bolt that I was unarmed, when in actuality I basically had a circle of death ready and waiting for him.  

I stepped out into the hallway with Bolt, and as he opened his mouth to probably give a speech I spoke up,

“Hey, so can we take this outside?  I don’t want to have to find a new apartment.”

I guess buildings tended to break around him too, because he was very understanding of that sentiment.  I walked down the hallway and got in the elevator, holding the door open for him.  He got in, and we got to spend the next minute or so awkwardly listening to elevator music.  Yay.  When we got to the bottom floor, I got out of the elevator and walked outside, with Bolt right behind me.  All the way I made sure to keep the cloud of metal particles floating around me.  

We walked outside and started towards a section of grass outside the back of my building.  When we got there, I turned to look at Bolt clearly for the first time.  He was average height, stood with the posture of a victim of religious schooling, and the air crackled around him with electricity. 

“Is it true that you decapitated Mr. Block?”

Wow, this one doesn’t mince words.

“Yeah, after he tried to punch me to Mars.”

“You interrupted a fight between honorable foes and used trickery to overcome an obviously superior foe.  I’m here to avenge him, prepare yourself for death.”

With that he lifted his hands, and proceeded to attempt to electrocute me.  Only problem was that the air was so full of metal particles the electricity just ended up dissipating almost immediately.  Oh man, his face was priceless, I wish I had brought my cheerios with me, just to rub it in.  

Bolt was still a hero though, so of course he attempted the exact same thing, just with more power.  The blast of electricity that he unleashed could have powered New York for a month.  If it hit me I would be dead.  But I simply molded a few of the particles in the air around me into a lightning rod, which took care of that.  At this point, I started to get angry.  This guy just came in to my house and tried to kill me, all for just protecting myself.  I don’t let stuff like that slide, so I retaliated.  Violently.

I moved all of the particles in the air around me into a circular motion, each one moving at several hundred miles per hour.  The effect was a circle of destruction that ate up anything it came in contact with.  Then I walked forward.  Bolt attempted to blast his way through the spinning mass, but it wasn’t having any effect.  It did, however, help with the one problem with this use of my power.  It told me where he was.  I just sprinted at him, using my metal enhanced muscles to reach speeds of 50 mph.  I literally ran through him, the cloud following me turning him into a fine spray of red.  It sounded remarkably like a blender.  I had to make sure to stop before running into anything I didn’t want to destroy, then I walked back into my building to shower, and think about what I should do next.

4

In the shower, I concluded that at this point I was probably screwed.  I had already been directly responsible for three supers, and had effectively pissed off everyone that mattered.  This became even more apparent when I turned on the TV, and switched it to a news station.  It started out as the usual, some small woman describing the horror of some fast food chain, when it got interrupted by a screen with the letters M&L on it.  It then switched out to a camera, showing two incredibly imposing figures that are impossible to not recognize.They were Michael and Lucifer, and they took their names from the angels they each personify.

Michael was about 6 foot, and was one of the most beautiful people ever to walk the earth.  His skin shone healthily, and you could sense the vitality pouring off of him, making him seem that much more human.  He had huge golden wings, growing out of his back to drape majestically at his sides.  Lucifer was almost his complete opposite.  He was taller than Michael, close to 7 feet tall, and grotesquely muscular.  His skin was black and leathery, even cracked in some places.  Whereas Michaels face was beautifully angry, Lucifers was permanently twisted into a sadistic smile.  He also had wings, but these were demented.  They were jet black, twisted and broken, with too many shard edges and curves to be considered healthy.

As supers, they were even more terrible.  Both had super strength, could fly on their wings, and had durability, but their individual powers were even worse. Michael could control light, bend it, concentrate it into lasers, you name it he could accomplish it.  Lucifer had control over darkness.  It followed him wherever he went, always exuding dark emotions, oozing from him into the world.  They worked as the heads of their respective sides, Heroes and Villains, good and bad.  They were perpetually fighting each other, since they were the only ones who could hope to match the others skills.  Seeing them together meant trouble.

Michael stepped forward to speak first, with a voice that sounded of authority and calm self confidence.

“Hello, people of Earth.  My brother Lucifer and I would like to take this time to bring someone to your attention, someone who has succeeded in angering both my brother and I.  This someone is Adam Daniels. You may know him as the rogue super who has recently killed Bolt, Mr. Block, and the Incredible Mind. We have deemed him a danger to society, and have decided to take immediate action.”

Now Lucifer stepped forward to speak, and the sound that came forward was the equivalent of a machine gun firing forks at a chalk board.  His voice was full of barely suppressed rage, madness, and pain.

“We have decided that we will get involved in taking care of this little man, Adam.  If you know who, what, or where he is contact us immediately.  To Adam I would like to give a small warning.  We’re coming for you, and when we find you it won’t be pleasant.”

With that, the announcement shut off and returned to the news.  I sat back, stunned.  I had somehow attracted the attention of the worlds two most powerful and demented supers, I was officially rogue, and everyone now knew who I was.  At that moment I discovered what true panic was, and then my house exploded.

As I was flying through the air, I had time to ponder why building I stay around keep breaking, and then my fall ended with me crashing into a nice and comfy mini van roof.  I groggily pulled myself out of the van, and looked up.  There in the sky, were the two angels.  Sure didn’t take long for someone to rat me out.  Michael was burning, bright as a sun, and Lucifer was next to him, lurching sickeningly through the air on his disturbing wings.  

They landed thirty feet away from me, and that’s when I knew I was seriously outclassed.  As soon as Lucifer landed, he stood up and laughed maniacally, then charged.  I barely had time to sit up when he was on me, punching me repeatedly.  Each fist was wrapped in darkness, which added just that extra zing that they needed to wake me up.  I used my power to reach out to the minivan under me, and used it’s metal to create a suit of armor for me.  This new suit proved effective at taking most of the force out of Lucifers punches, which let me gather my ability one more time and create my sword.

With it’s edge as shard as I could make it, I swung at Lucifer, and succeeded in lopping off one of his wings.  He screeched in terror and anger, retreating now behind his brother.  Michael didn’t bother to use his hands, instead his eyes started to brighten with a light that I didn’t think could possibly be anything beneficial to my health.  I therefore stepped out of the back of the armor, but left it standing as a distraction.  Then I sprinted around a nearby car to wait and see what would happen.  

Michael’s eyes finally became as bright as two suns, and then the light coalesced into two laser beams that tore through my empty armor.  It melted the entire top half off, but when Michael stepped forward to see if he hit me I ran out again, aiming to cut him in half.  I swung, and managed to cut off both of his wings, and I was treated to another scream of anger and loss.

At this point I knew I was pushing my luck to stay around, so I fashioned my sword into a type of surfboard, stepped onto it, and made it fly into the air with me firmly attached to it.  Since I had removed their wings, Michael and Lucifer couldn’t follow me, and I could get away easily.  Flying away, into the night, I finally realized that I would never become a super anything.  Not a Hero, not a Villain.  I would become something new, something other.  At least I wouldn’t have to work security anymore.