A Former Superhero Chapter 3: Planet Gaxi Supply Run

Jeremiah is now entering Planet Gaxi’s atmosphere and sees the grand futuristic city that is the capital of the planet with the palace that looks like a gigantic spire smack dab in the middle of the capital. The familiar scenery reminds him of his old friends, Tech Boy and Tech Girl and he flashbacks to their untimely demises.

In the first flashback, Jeremiah, his coworker Nic, and Tech Boy with black hair and brown eyes were in a secret room in Superhero Stadium. Tech Boy was hunched down on the floor facing them holding his head in agony. In his usually brown eyes, a platinum chip was rotating in them. He says, “Kill me before he takes over again.”

Jeremiah looks at him hesitant to attack, Nic is not. He electrocutes him to death per his request.

Then, he ends up at a different moment in time. Tech Girl, Tech Boy’s identical twin, is shooting at a black figure with a square head and with several bandages wrapped around his head. Her blasts had little effect and he charges at her to slice her in half. She tries to avoid it, but fails. The flashbacks end as Jeremiah is snapped back to reality, “Please identify yourself.”

He opens the communications channel and responds, “Jeremiah Ellison, former Superhero and friend of the late prince and princess, Tech Boy and Tech Girl.”

“Please proceed to landing dock 3 and standby.”

“Roger.”

Jeremiah follows the instructions provided by the person on the other side of the comm and lands on landing dock 3 at the palace. The cockpit opens and as Jeremiah hops out with the Space Core 2.0 in hand, up walks a tall man with a shaved black head of hair, slightly pale skin from working in the lab too much, and almond eyes along with two bodyguards.

Jeremiah says, “Galaxian.”

The tall man known as Galaxian simply says, “Jeremiah, what a surprise. What may I owe the honor of your visit to?”

His tone of voice was so calm that it was obvious he did not mean those words. Understandable, since the two don’t get along. Galaxian is the uncle of Tech Boy and Tech Girl who took over Planet Gaxi’s operations after their deaths. However, Galaxian has shown no interest in helping Jeremiah what-so-ever thus far and probably only aids him due to his connections with Tech Boy and Tech Girl. Jeremiah holds out the Space Core 2.0 and says, “I need equipment capable of scanning this thing. I don’t have a clue what it is and that is why I need the extra equipment.”

Galaxian holds out his hand and utters, “I will happily deliver that to the lab for you if you will just hand it over.”

Jeremiah puts it under his arm and says coldly, “No thanks. I’ll take it there myself. Besides, I’ll have to go there anyway to grab my equipment.”

Galaxian simply says, “Suit yourself. Take as long as you need.”

He then turns back around and walks back into the palace with his two bodyguards. Jeremiah walks in himself and heads over to the lab.

One of the guards ask Galaxian, “Sir, will this cause any issues with the plan?”

“No, in fact it’s quite the opposite. It provides us a new opportunity to improve the plan.”

Jeremiah arrives at the lab and sees Bob. “Hey, Bob. Nice to see you again.”

Bob turns his head and sees him. He shakes his hand and says, “Jeremiah, how has it been?”

“Well, I’m now working two jobs so that’s something.”

Jeremiah’s phone starts ringing. He reaches into his pocket and grabs it and answers, “Hello, this is Jeremiah speaking...Yeah, I’m sorry Alucard but I can’t come into work at the moment...No, I don’t need you to come over here and punch a bunch of people in the face...I’m simply getting some equipment for my other job. I’m hoping it won’t take too long but bureaucracy is a pain in the arse...Thanks for that. Goodbye.”

Jeremiah hangs up. “Once I’m done here, I apparently got to go and help clean up a huge mess. It can’t be that bad.”

Meanwhile, Alucard is fighting a leviathan in the Pub’s toilet. Back where Jeremiah was, he says to Bob, “Anyway, I need you to take a look at this.”

He hands him the Space Core 2.0 and says, “Essentially, I need the equipment in order to properly scan that ASAP. (He pulls out a list and hands it to Bob.) Here’s a list of stuff that I figure should help, but feel free to add anything you feel I’ll need.”

“Got it. If you give me an hour or so, I can get the equipment ready for you.”

Jeremiah gives him a thumbs up and says, “Got it.”

He leaves the room and considers calling Alucard to move the door somewhere nearby so he can help, but decides against it because leaving Galaxian alone with the Space Core 2.0 could prove disastrous. Suddenly, a guard walks up to Jeremiah.

“Jeremiah, Galaxian would like a word with you,” says the guard.

Jeremiah follows the guard down the hall. He leads him to a door which automatically opens revealing a small room housing Galaxian, his guards, and a control panel.

“Jeremiah, I’m glad you could make it.”

“Cut the crap Galaxian. What do you want?”

“I just want your assistance in an experiment of mine, that’s all,” replies Galaxian.

Jeremiah crosses his arms and retorts, “And what exactly is this experiment?”

“I just want to get some readings on your powers, that’s all. Surely, you can allow that.”

Jeremiah thinks about it for a moment and wonders if Galaxian is giving him the whole story. Despite this concern, he never considered the operation and mechanisms of his powers as top secret just so long as you were affiliated with the Superheroes in the past. While Galaxian himself was never involved with them, the organization was disbanded years ago and it’s public knowledge across the multiverse of what Jeremiah is capable of. Taking all this into consideration, he agrees to help since he has nothing to hide and it keeps Galaxian busy for the next hour.

Galaxian puts on a sinister smile and the tests begin. They start out very simple at first: speed, strength, accuracy, aerial maneuverability, etc. Then, the tests start getting more complicated such as: take out x enemies with y power, deliver an object to a goal without being detected, dodge every obstacle and destroy certain objects. After the final test, Jeremiah was exhausted. Galaxian says from above, “Excellent. The test results far exceeded my expectations. Well done.”

Jeremiah pants and says, “Does that mean you’re done with me?”

“Au contraire. We have one more thing we need you to do,” says Galaxian before panels in the ground open up and shackles come out from them and latch themselves onto Jeremiah. He suddenly felt very weak as a sort of table connected to a mechanical appendage comes out of the ceiling behind Jeremiah. Suddenly, the shackles lift Jeremiah up into the air and forcibly place him against the metal table. Clamps close around this wrists and ankles before the shackles detach themselves through special slots in the clamps. The floor engulfs them and closes itself.

“What are you doing? What did you do?” demands Jeremiah his tone much softer than before.

Galaxian responds, “A simple matter, really. I noticed that everyone who uses magic seems to believe that it is entirely separate from science. Yet, your Orb, a mystical artifact, seems to be the exception to this rule. Why is that? Why can we easily analyze your Orb through scientific methods yet according to most mages, you can’t do that with mysticism. It is a paradox I tell you.”

“And what does this paradox have to do with anything?” interrupts Jeremiah.

“I’m getting to that. Namely put, I want to use your Orb as the first in a line of new superweapons that will once again put Planet Gaxi as the conquering planet it once was. It will be very fitting when the same Orb that was used to defeat our last Queen is used to destroy all threats to our Empire.”

A giant mechanical claw appears out of nowhere and opens up in a very animated motion.

“Don’t bother trying to resist. I was aware about the resistance you built to Citanite over the years, which is why I developed those restraints out of a new type of refined Citanite called Hyper-Energy Citanite. This claw is also made out of spectral technology allowing it to phase through your body,without the need of surgery, to retrieve your Orb.”

In the other lab, alarms are going off. The Space Core 2.0 is glowing attached to some heavy machinery.

“Something is going wrong. We need to shut it down.”

“I’m trying, sir! But the process won’t stop.”

“I cut the power, but the process is still going. It’s self-sustaining.”

The claw reaches down inside Jeremiah’s chest in a fast motion and phases through it grabbing the Orb serving as Jeremiah’s heart and pulling it out causing Jeremiah to scream. The alarms continue sounding in the lab as a beam shoots out of the Space Core 2.0 opening a portal. The Orb is being pulled out of Jeremiah and is already partially visible on the outside, but the energy bounding it to him is making it ten times harder to pull out as it resists the claw’s motion. Jeremiah screams once more as two mysterious figures walk out of the portal.

“It can’t be,” says Bob.

The claw successfully extracts the Orb from Jeremiah’s chest breaking the energy as if it snapped a net. Jeremiah turned pale and his breath became raspy as he attempts to look at the man who did this to him his vision going hazy.