IT’S MY BIRTHDAY! Hurrah! Have a short story 😀 A few years ago when I first met my friend Lilac, we started work on a trilogy of superhero books together, and I recently came across this very silly piece I wrote about one of our recurring villains, Gallen. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it!
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In retrospect this hadn’t been the soundest of plans.
That was becoming something of a recurring theme, actually. Gallen was only able to output so much electricity through each hand at a time, which meant he was constantly swapping which one was pressed to the electrical control box in front of him and which one was holding his phone. It did not help that his phone kept vibrating, positively blowing up with messages from his so-called colleagues.
He’d installed the IM app at MODOKA’s insistence, and added her and Wix, and clearly it had been a mistake. Fucking nitpickers, though at least he’d learned his lesson before he’d been stupid enough to add someone like Eyes.
Wix: omg what are you DOING???
Wix: modokas hella pissed!
Wix: S P A R K Y
M: GALLEN WE ARE ON THE SAME ELECTRICAL GRID
M: WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING
M: STOP
M: SPARKY I WILL DDOS YOUR SHITHOUSE BLOG I SWEAR TO GOD
…MODOKA was a shitty hacker, he’d probably be fine.
Gallen caught his phone in the wrong hand and swore loudly. The screen darkened immediately as the lightning crackled through it, channelling the electrical current as easily as his own body but without any of the resilience. Goddamnit, that was his sixth one this month.
Around him the local electrical grid finally gave up fighting the surges he was pushing through it, the streetlights failing and plunging the entire area into darkness. Gallen grinned, dropping the dead phone and pulling his hand away, shaking it to disperse the last sparks jumping between his fingertips. Fucking finally.
Police servers: out. Anti-supervillain tactical response system: useless. Police station: defenseless. Hell. Fucking. Yes.
He sprinted off down the street towards his destination, acutely aware of how little time he probably had before someone figured out what was going on. By the time he reached the fence outside of the specialist station he was only panting a little—nobody ever bothered to mention how much cardio was involved in supervillainy. He took a moment to try and get his breath back before grabbing onto the fence and hauling himself up on the chainlinks making the whole thing rattle loudly.
He slid back down at least four times, but eventually made it to the top, the tight circles of razor wire slicing into the flesh of his palms and fingers as he hauled himself over to grab onto the opposite side. He gripped tightly with clenched teeth and flipped himself over the top the way he’d seen someone else do when he was in scouts. The world spun in a stomach churning kind of way, and Gallen hit the concrete on his back with a heavy thud and a pained whimper. He lay there, winded and bleeding, and considered his life choices, hands burning where they were sliced to hell, the crowbar stuffed down the back of his jeans digging painfully into his back. He was probably leaving forensic evidence everywhere.
Hell, someone probably should write a handbook for this shit.
Gallen staggered to his feet and reached up, adjusting the embroidered balaclava that covered his face. He’d started with fabric paints, but they made it stiff and warped, especially over his nose, and then MODOKA had told him he looked stupid and made him this one. She could be such a creepy mother-hen sometimes. He looked down at his hands and grimaced. Not like his DNA wasn’t in the system already, but still.
The electrical locks on the back doors were shorted out entirely, and Gallen kicked them open, doors slamming under his heel, and he swung his crowbar up to rest on his shoulder with one hand. The other he held outstretched, lightning already sparking between his fingertips.
The first three cops he ran into went down like bowling pins under strikes of lightning, and Gallen strode past them with purpose, heading to the special weapons storage free of further challenge. Those locks were out too, and he took a small amount of glee in slamming the box lock unit off the wall with his crowbar, before pushing the door open with a bloodied hand, making it bounce on its hinges.
He went around the room like a manic whirlwind, crowbar swinging from his shoulders like a baseball bat. Any weapon that looked like it could be used against him was knocked to the ground and beaten into pieces with the carbon-coated steel. He’d make them totally fucking defenseless against him. Him! The only damn person in this fucking city who’d dare to even try a feat like this!
Uh.
He tried laughing maniacally as he brought the crowbar down over his head, but he really only got one good laugh out before he started coughing fiercely. Also, it echoed around the empty room and sounded really fucking stupid. Maybe it was something about the small space and the harsh fluorescent lighting. Yeah. Well. Breaking shit in silence was more badass anyway. He could totally rock that for this mission.
There was an impossibly loud cracking noise from behind him, a bullet whizzing past his shoulder. Gallen yelped, a high pitched noise, as he jumped around, facing the rank of cops in helmets, aiming weapons at him.
“Lightning!” yelled one of them, gun pointed directly at him. “Drop the weapon!”
Gallen scowled, cheeks heating under the balaclava, and he slammed his left foot into the floor to activate the mechanism on his shoe, spraying water all over the floor. He pointed his hand outward and down, fingers spread, arcing lightning into the water and it—
Grounded?
It grounded, they’d lined the floor with rubber, motherfucker—
Gallen dropped the crowbar and sprinted forward, bringing his hand up to strike the nearest cop in the chest with lightning as soon as he was in range. The cop yelled, un-electrocuted, but thrown back with kinetic force, knocking two more down with them, and Gallen body-slammed past them, sprinting back the way he’d come.
Gunfire sounded off behind him again, and he swore—why had he thought this was a good idea?
Even more cops were in between him and the way he’d come in, so Gallen redirected, launching a very thick bolt straight at the window next to him and launching himself through it towards the concrete outside. A bullet grazed his thigh on the way out, and he yelped again, this time in pain, hitting the ground and rolling with his momentum. He didn’t pause afterwards, pushing himself up on his jolted limbs and launching into a flat run. At least he was getting better at sprinting.
He hit the fence hard, clawing up with more desparation than skill, and only looked back once he reached the top, straddling the razor wire. His frustration boiled over, lancing out of him in a physical bolt of lightning from his chest that arced impressively towards the gaggle of cops running after him. They recoiled, and one of them raised a gun again, firing off a shot that went wide.
“AT LEAST SHOOT TO KILL YOU ASSHOLES!” screamed Gallen in a rage.
His voice cracked on “assholes”, sounding high pitched and young, and Gallen let himself drop to the ground on the other side, keeping his head down to swallow against the humiliation rising in his throat. Maybe next time he’d save everyone the trouble and just shoot himself.
Sparky: *is somehow under the impression that electrical services will fix a power outage in the middle of the night at breakneck speed*
Also Sparky: *forgets about the existence of both regular guns and backup generators*
Rory Banks 