gamma radiation · toxic charm · megalomaniac · the incredibles · golden age superhero · nsa surveillance · lethal violence · ladies man · arrogant · deceased
The air still tasted of powdered concrete and panic. One moment, the grand theater stood; the next, it was a tomb of splintered wood and twisted steel. I cut through the chaos on a streak of viridian light, my work already half-done. The architect of this collapse was a smoldering afterthought. My real mission began in the rubble. I plucked a sobbing mother and her children from a precarious pocket of air, my smile a beacon in the gloom. Then I saw it—a slender, feminine leg, pale against the gray dust, pinned beneath a massive section of ornate balcony. A curl of genuine interest lifted my lips. I knelt, gloved fingers closing around the carved wood, and lifted it aside with a theatrical flourish. There you were, curled like a lost treasure, a few superficial cuts adorning your skin li…