Century City 3
An Older Unfinished Superhero Story from 2020; Final Part & Notes
3
Her appetite is voracious, several plates of waffles heavily adorned in butter, syrup, and bacon are in front of her, several plates empty except for the detritus of syrup and crumbs lay just beyond, as she chokes the whole assemblage down with a glass of milk. Simon and Alice stand nearby, watching her eat her first meal in days, Simon watching with an appraiser’s intent, while Alice watches more aghast at the amount of food being consumed, and the shuddering manner of the devouring.
“So…” Alice’s voice is quiet, almost a whisper to her brother as she nudges his ribs lightly with an elbow, “I guess I owe you twenty. She didn’t break anything when you told her.”
Simon grins, his voice only slightly quieter than normal as he hazards his sister a glance, “Well, nothing except her fast. Luckily for my bones, I suppose.”
The Big Ideas
The Multiverse:
So, first off, the idea was going to be that, like in many comic universes, the reality with Superheroes is the “Prime” universe, and others are reflections and iterations of that one. If that one is destroyed, the rest will be too.
The Nature of Superbeings
Super-powered beings are granted their powers by a largely inscrutable council that means to protect the Prime Universe but can’t themselves do it for dubious and mystical reasons (I hadn’t come up with that yet).
A Superhero or Villain derives their power level from the expectation and belief in their power of the general public, and so the Heroes and Villains of this world are a kind of secret Wrestling organization, and Hero/Villain rivalries are largely kayfabe. Heroes are Faces, and Villains are Heels.
This is why there is a rotating door on the Government run “Supervillain Prisons”, and why Heroes and Villains don’t kill one another. Usually. Sometimes you have a rogue element, or a particularly dangerous threat, but the Heroes can’t kill them because that would break the illusion of their mercy and heroism and could damage public perception.
Layla Lavery
So. Like I said, Heroes don’t usually die.
When they do, however, it tends to not last, and the hero is reborn or returns or what-have-you. A feel-good story for all, and a sign that you can’t keep a good hero down.
The truth, though, is that they do die, and alternate versions of them are taken from other worlds, their memories replaced with the Prime version, and returned to the world.
Simon used advanced technology and intercepted Layla, obsessed with how the Eidolon has come back from the dead before. He had been a part of the Secret Organization (name undetermined) and his obsessive nature had led to him becoming a real villain for them, but one they couldn’t outright take out for fear of him leaking what he knew to the public through external means.
His interception, however, caused a problem: she didn’t have her memories replaced, and instead a human from a world very much like ours suddenly gifted immense powers.
The Long Game
The Idea in the long term was going to be:
Book 1: Layla learns about her powers, this world, and what’s really going on (Lovecraftian nightmares from outside of reality invade regularly). Ends with her fighting off an invading alien force that reveals the Cosmic Threat has taken their homeworld.
Book 2: Layla’s adventures go into space, dealing with a kind of hypertech interstellar police force, a combination of Iron Man and Green Lantern, to go and try to liberate the world and push the invaders back. Her time with the space cops reveals the greater Powers that grant Supers their abilities. The story ends with them having to destroy the planet in order to keep it from infecting others, and to kill the thing that has infested it.
Book 3: Layla, assisted by Simon and the Space Cops, would go on a mission to find the source of Super-powers and confront it, all the while dealing with cosmic threats as well as Earth Supers who are trying to bring her “back to reality”. She would confront the Powers, and the nature of the Multiverse would be explained, with her coming to terms with her place in this universe and working with Simon to start empowering other Universes.