Chapter Two

I looked up from my phone map. The building was underwhelming. Not fit for someone advancing the human race. Or attempting to. It was one of those office buildings that housed several different businesses. It couldn’t have been more than four floors tall. 

I entered. The lobby was empty. I didn’t care if the cameras saw my face as I eyed the directory and found Major Maniac’s lab on the fourth floor. I entered the elevator and reached the designated floor. I walked through the hallway and found the office and entered. 

There was a waiting room for some odd reason. And no receptionist. I attempted to step into the lab itself when I physically bumped into a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes in a blue tank top that matched. The most distinct feature about her was her eyes. Each had a bent plus sign instead of pupils, splitting each into four quadrants. This was Stifle.

“Oh, hello,” she said. She turned back towards the lab. “Watts, were you expecting a visitor?”

“No,” a voice called out. Presumably Watts. Stifle led me out and closed the door. I was fine with following her out since it would be easier to divide and conquer rather than fight whomever else was in there. 

She sat with me in the lobby and smiled pleasantly. Poor fool had no idea what she was in for.

“So, what brings you to Watts’s lab?” she asked. I was debating on whether to answer or just kill her, but another problem entered the room before I could do either. 

“Marie, who are you talking to out here?” a man said in a thick Russian accent, entering the waiting room. He had a Russian winter hat with flaps, a black tank top, a thick brown mustache, and thicker eyebrows. This was Icebox. Why that name? There was a cybernetic ice cannon that substituted for his right hand. Impossible to hide. 

“I was getting to that,” Stifle told him. She turned back to me. Before she could ask anymore questions, I finally spoke up.

“How many of you are in there?”

Concerned looks came over their faces. They exchanged puzzled looks before looking back at me. Stifle stood up and next to Icebox. I stood as well, ready to fight, but all I could do was stand up. I was unable to lift my hands to send a spike through the two of them. Stifle stared at me without blinking. There was now a slight glint in her eyes. 

“Who are you and vhat do you vant with the doctor?” Icebox questioned. I gritted my teeth, trying to force myself to move, but my eyes stayed locked on Stifle. 

If I could force myself to look at something else, then perhaps… I thought to myself. The sensation felt like when one freezes up in a crucial decision-making moment. Icebox charged up an ice blast from his freeze gun.

“Vee vill not ask a second time.”

Since my right hand was over my right foot, I only saw one possible decision to make. I created an icicle from my palm and let it drop through my foot. The shock caused me to look down at my foot, meaning I lost eye contact with Stifle. I dodged Icebox’s blast and created another icicle, flicking it through his freeze gun. 

Luckily for me, Stifle wasn’t a fighter, so she was ducking behind Icebox. I could see her feet behind his and created an ice puddle beneath them. Icebox slipped and fell against the wall. And as Stifle slipped I created small black ice spikes where her chin landed. The impact didn’t immediately kill her, but the black ice did the rest as her face deteriorated from the creeping ice. She screamed the entire time she died. 

“Marie!” Icebox shouted. It was at this moment I heard banging coming from the lab. I needed to finish Icebox quickly. 

As the black ice crept up his freeze gun, I locked his feet in place by freezing those as well. He screamed out in pain and decided to try and use his freeze gun anyway. Idiot.

When the ice tried to escape his freeze gun, the black ice stopped it, causing the gun to backfire and explode, causing the black ice to spread shards all over his body. I finished him quickly by creating an icicle, dashing up to him, and jamming it through his temple. Blood spurted out and around the icicle as his body slumped to the ground. 

I burst through the lab door and was ready to fight an entire security team of weirdly-powered ingrates, but I only laid eyes on two: Noxia and Watts himself. 

Noxia, the doctor’s younger sister, was attempting to kick through the concrete wall since there were no windows as Watts cowered in the corner. It was kind of sad. But, I had a job to do. 

Noxia turned around and walked to the opposite side of the lab, away from her brother, trying to buy time for him to escape. 

“What do you want from us?!” Watts shrieked. A thought came to mind. One that would give me an advantage in the coming battles. 

“Give me the second serum,” I demanded. Noxia tried to deny me my request. 

“There’s no way we’re going to--”

I flicked a small black ice rock into her mouth as she spoke and it slowly began to creep around her tongue. 

“Do it or your sister dies. I’m the only one that can strip that black ice out of her mouth in time,” I threatened. “It’ll kill her if you leave it.”

Noxia shook her head and mumbled in disagreement, but Watts, shivering all over readied a shot of his version of the serum. He injected the liquid into my arm and showed me to the chamber. He then stepped behind a panel and pressed a few buttons and flipped a couple of switches. The chamber lit up but it didn’t hurt like the first time. In fact, it just felt like a light, heated breeze came over me. Perhaps Watts’s process was less painful overall. But, in the grand scheme, it didn’t matter.

When the chamber shut down, I shoved the door off the hinges with super strength, the door hitting the doctor and knocking him down. He stood up, fixing his glasses and pointing at Noxia. 

“Now, you must fix my sister,” he demanded. 

“Yeah…about that,” I began. Noxia’s eyes widened, tears streaming down as she mumble-screamed and slashed at me with her poisonous claws. I lifted my palm upward and the black ice expanding in her mouth shot out in spikes in several different directions. Holes formed in her cheek, eyes, nose, chin, and the top of her head, killing her instantly. 

Watts’s eyes now widened as he slowly backed away from me. 

“W-W-Why are you doing this?” 

“Don’t mind me, doc,” I said, crafting a sword made of black ice. “Just making the world a better place.”

I shoved the sword through his mouth and the tip of the blade came out the back of his head and jammed into the wall behind him. It was safe to say he was dead. I left the office behind as the ice crept around his dead body. 

I calmly took the elevator back down to the lobby and stepped outside to see trucks from the organization that created the Nobles (superheroes), the Alpha Corporation. And leading this pathetic attempt at a squadron was finally an actual superhero. Physically, one of the strongest: Metaman.