I remember the first time I took a life.
I was eight and I'd just watched Steelheart kill my father. He had been cruel about it, ruthless; thrusting his right hand through my father's chest until it emerged from his back in a grotesque, macabre display.
For a moment silence descended upon the lobby of the bank we were in, the only sound the dripping of blood from Steelheart's glove to the marble tiles below. As I watched my father's eyes glazed over and he'd fallen limp, the only thing keeping his body aloft was the arm reminiscent of a steel girder that pierced through him.
Steelheart held him there for a few more moments before with a gut wrenching rip he'd torn his arm out of my father's body taking with it his entire left side and most of his stomach. As the body fell to the floor, innards spilling out and gore splattering the ground around it, the screaming began.
The few survivors that had managed to survive both Deathpoint and the bullets of the authorities that had attempted to bring down Steelheart tried to flee running towards either the bank's entrance or deeper into its depths. However Steelheart didn't give them the chance to escape; beams of energy, a sickly, sulfuric yellow in color shot from his hand collapsing the ceiling above both exits. A few were crushed under the rubble but the rest of us, around twenty in total, were now trapped in a room littered with skeletons and corpses.
For a moment Steelheart floated there, a few inches from the ground, and I noted in the back of my mind that not once had his feet touched the ground the entire time he'd been in the bank. "Kneel," Steelheart commanded, his voice deep, and powerful like rumbling thunder.
Some rushed to do as he commanded, bowing their heads or prostrating on the floor in a desperate primal desire to survive against this thing that wasn't, couldn't, be human. No one argued, no one disobeyed, all bowed before the force of nature before them. All except for me.
I'd watched - still curled in the same chair I'd been sitting in when my father had been talking to the banker - as the events had played out. Deathpoint's arrival, his display of power turning all those he pointed at to dust leaving only their skeletons and jewelry behind. Steelheart's arrival and order 'Give me your loyalty or die,' the arrival of government forces that had quickly been massacred by Steelheart, and my father shooting Deathpoint as he'd prepared to use his power on Steelheart's exposed back leaving a single slight cut across the Epic's face.
Steelheart had killed him in retaliation and I knew unlike all those who bowed that he intended to kill us as well. He wasn't very well known but I'd heard of him, he was supposed to be invulnerable, unkillable, and we'd just seen him get wounded.
He was going to kill us to preserve his secret and to my childish mind, if I was going to die then I should make Steelheart regret killing my father before I passed on. So I ran at the Epic who floated a few inches above the ground, looking down on those who knelt before him.
I crashed into his legs with all the force my eight year old body could muster and began to pound away with my toddler fists. Tears of grief and fear fell from my eyes carving trails through my dust covered face. "Give him back," I sobbed as I fruitlessly rained my tiny blows on the Epic's legs. "Go away and give Dad back."
A shadow was all the warning I had before Steelheart's hands wrapped around my neck and lifted me into the air holding me aloft by my throat. "Did I kill your father?" Steelheart asked condescendingly clearly knowing both the answer and who I was referring to.
"Yes," I growled at him with as much fury, anger, and hatred as my little body possessed.
"I"ve killed a lot of fathers," Steelheart said, his voice calm as if we were just two old friends discussing the weather, "and mothers, sons, daughters. It is my right."
As he drew back his hand preparing to end my life the same way he had my father's I looked up and through a hole in the roof I saw it. Calamity.
No one was quite sure what it was, some said a star, others a comet. All that was really known was that it had appeared just over a year ago a sudden bright red celestial body sitting among the stars, shining both day and night. Then almost a year to the day after it first appeared they came. With strange powers and abilities, rulers of man, Epics.
Calamity dominated my view with it's crimson glow and everything around me seemed to fall away. All that remained was me and the red star shining down from the heavens, so close I swore it was as if I could reach out and touch it. It was captivating, I don't know how much time passed but it felt like hours when it was probably only seconds.
A sudden tingling sensation snapped me out of my trance and I screamed as I felt something within me shift, change as if I was transforming into something, someone, else. It was like millions of tiny insects, the worst creepiest crawlies one could imagine were under my skin burrowing around inside my body. It continued on and on before ending just as suddenly as it had begun leaving me gasping in the air as I looked at Steelheart whose eyes widened as he looked at me.
"You felt it," he said, the arm that had been meant to take my life falling to his right side. "Calamity, it called to you."
"Yes," I choked out my arms wrapping around his wrist as I clawed for air.
"What did it say," Steelheart demanded drawing me closer so we were eye to eye with each other. "What do you feel? What is your power?"
That was when I struck; reaching out I grabbed Steelheart's face with my hands. For a moment he didn't react probably from a mix of surprise, shock, and simple disbelief that me, an eight year old whose neck he could snap with the slightest squeeze of his hand dared to grab him, a living demigod with my bare hands. But that split second was all the time I needed.
After looking at Calamity I had felt something inside of Steelheart, and now that I was touching him directly the faint 'thing' I'd been sensing as he held me aloft was now identifiable. It wasn't one single energy source but rather multiple ones, five in total. One felt of freedom, of air and wind. Another of metal, harsh and unyielding. Two of them were similar but different at the same time, I sensed strength from one and from the other I could feel strength too but the later also felt of protection, and sureness. The fifth one felt similar to electricity but different at the same time, dangerous but controlled and not as wild.
I didn't know what possessed me but I desired those powers that I could feel dwelling within the man who held me aloft so with no fear of failure I willed the things I could feel into me. My hands tingled in response as if an electric current was being run through them, it wasn't painful but it felt weird nonetheless.
For a moment nothing happened but then as I watched Steelheart's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed to the floor, touching the ground for the first time since he'd entered the building. This also had the side effect of freeing me his loose grip causing me to fall onto my butt besides the downed Epic.
For the second time since the chaos had started, silence descended on the bank, all those who'd been kneeling raising their heads to look in disbelief at the body of the one who'd been lording over them just moments ago. Slowly one by one they began to rise and make their way forward before they knelt next to the downed man.
I paid them no mind, instead I looked at my hands before closing my eyes. I could no longer feel the presences that had been inside Steelheart only moments ago. Instead I could feel them dwelling within me. Reaching out I mentally grabbed ahold of the one that felt like air, light and free. Opening my eyes I watched in shock as a light breeze blew around me lifting dust and dirt into the air and sending loose papers fluttering around. It was like I was in the center of a small twister it blew around me and I could see it ruffling the hair of those who knelt around Steelheart although the wind didn't affect me in the slightest.
I was terrified but feeling the power flowing through me also brought with it a strange confidence, one I'd never felt before. It made me feel stronger, better, and slowly I willed the wind to lift me off the ground. The air obeyed my command and as I stood up I began to hover a few inches above the ground.
That was when a rock beamed me in the face.
It didn't hurt, there was pressure but it was as if I'd been hit by a small pillow. Turning I faced the crowd that had surrounded Steelheart and was shocked to see anger on their faces. A slightly portly man, red faced and balding in an ill fitting suit was the one who'd thrown the stone. I opened my mouth to speak when another piece of rubble hit me, then another. The crowd began to pummel me with pieces of debris and rubble as they began to yell at me.
"Monster!"
"Demon!"
"Go away!"
"We don't want you monsters!"
"We don't need you!"
I opened my mouth to speak, my hands held out placatingly when the man who'd thrown the first stone rushed me. He crashed into me and for a moment I hung there in the air an immovable object. The man pushed against me futilely but I knew instinctively that he would be unable to move me unless I allowed it. However that was before the surprise registered and when it did I lost ahold of my connection to the wind I'd been using to stay afloat, which let the man pull me to the ground with a heavy thud.
It didn't hurt me but the crowd cheered on encouragingly all of them rushing forward as a single mass with animalistic grins across their faces. I lay on the ground curling into a ball as I began to cry tears of fear, the sense of entitlement I'd felt only moments ago having fallen away.
The mob clawed at me their fingernails ripping my clothes, and their blows raining down upon my body. But no matter how much they tried to injure me they couldn't, their nails couldn't pierce my skin, their blows connected but didn't deal damage. However while they couldn't injure me physically they were doing so quite well mentally.
They crowded around me, trying to rip me apart and it terrified me. As they grabbed my limbs pulling me so my body lay spread eagle I let out a scream and began to thrash about. My strength did not match my youth and when I hit someone I could not only feel but hear bones break. Some were sent flying across the room, where they hit stone pillars or the bank's walls. Others retreated backwards to get away from my swinging limbs, but a few lay on the ground unmoving, their bodies unnaturally still as pools of red began to grow around them.
In moments I was free but victory was not assured. I was outnumbered and to the crazed crowd their injuries only served to make them angrier. After all they were getting their asses handed to them by a kid.
The man who'd first tackled me stood at the front of the mob, clutching his left arm which was bent at an unnatural angle. He glared at me and in his emerald eyes I saw pure unfiltered hatred. "GET HIM!" The man shouted and once more the mob rushed forward.
As they charged me time seemed to slow down and the whispers that had been at the back of my mind exploded to the forefront. I hadn't started this, in fact I had done nothing to warrant their hatred. All I'd done was stop Steelheart from killing them all but they were trying to kill me instead when all I'd wanted to do was help.
'See,' a voice whispered, dark and soft as velvet. 'See how they turn on you, fight you; try to kill you. They don't deserve your help, they deserve your vengeance. How many tried to stop Steelheart, how many tried to stop Deathpoint.'
"None," I whispered, watching with dead eyes as the mob rushed me. They were moving at a snail's pace but for some reason that felt right. After all, they weren't like me, they didn't have my powers. "Only my father tried to do anything."
'Yesss,' the voice hissed in agreement, 'only your father tried to do anything and look where that got him, dead on the floor, killed by one of his so called heroes.'
"There are no heroes," I whispered, the voice hissing it's agreement. "There are only people working towards their own goals and desires."
'And what do you desire?' The voice asked.
I didn't answer. I desired to break them, to destroy them. The desire, no the need, was so strong I couldn't think of anything else but bringing as much death and destruction as I could. Even my fear and raw terror of death fell away in the face of such emotion. It was overwhelming and I could do nothing but give in to those feelings as I felt within me, the power of steel awaken.
It wasn't like how it'd felt when I'd glazed over it only moments before. Then it had been harsh and unyielding but firm under my command but now the power seemed to be building within me out of my control.
I tried to stop it, but it kept building and as it increased in power so did the pain, reminding me of how I'd felt just after I'd looked upon Calamity. Then just as I was on the verge of passing out the power exploded outwards.
As I collapsed to my knees a wave of grey spread out from where I knelt turning everything to a shiny silver, the color of steel. Skeletons, walls, Steelheart's prone, motionless form, and the mob itself, their angry faces transforming to looks of fear before they became permanently frozen in solid gleaming, silver. Their mouths perfectly preserving their last screams and cries of mercy.
As my vision darkened I looked out a broken window and watched the wave spread, emergency service personnel right outside the banks were turned to steel as well but it left the living further away untouched. However the wave did not stop, instead it soldiered on. Everything, cement, asphalt, roads, and rubber, toys, cars all of it was transformed. I could in the distance make out Lake Michigan and as my sight vanished the last thing I saw were the rolling waves freeze, transforming into solid metal.
Author's Note:
So I recently started rereading this series and I started wondering how things would have played out differently if David got Epic powers back when he was a child. This fanfic is my take on that and for anime fans out there David's power is essentially All For One from My Hero Academia. It's not only going to be his Epic name but also the name for his power. As for the story so far well David became an Epic and stole Steelheart's power, he was then attacked by the survivors of the bank massacre and due to his fear and panic his steel transfersion ability awoke (I'll explain more about this in the following chapters) turning the people in his immediate area to steel as well as all of Chicago and part of Lake Michigan (just like in the book).
I doubt I'm going to do a ten year timeskip but this story will essentially follow David as he grows in power and strength eventually taking over Chicago. However with Steelheart gone a new Epic will need to rule in the meantime and I have quite the oc planned so look forward to that.
For those of you who've never read the series give it a try it's called The Reckoner's and it's a trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. The three books are Steelheart, Firefight, and Calamity respectively and is essentially a world full of superpowered beings that rule as kings being hunted down and killed by those without powers. It's good, bloody, violent, and has a romance with a ton of twists and turns so make sure to check it out.
As always make sure to leave a comment and review as they are some of the only things keeping me writing. Also for those of you with a P-atreon account please pm me as I really want to get one set up to help pay for college. Anyway thanks for reading and as always this is the high Epic who lords over hell signing off,
- D'yavol Lucifer 3:)
*IMPORTANT NOTICE*
All the coverart for my stories are ones I found online. I am really interested in using fanart provided by you the readers to replace them. If you're interested draw something up and pm me so I can send you the details on where to send it or pm me and I'll give you some details so you can draw one. As I say in my bio if I use it I may add you as an oc in one of my stories! Isn't that exciting!