A boy stands on the ledge of a skyscraper. There's eight hundred feet of open air between him and the street below. People are hanging out of windows just a few floors down, shouting up at him, but he pays no mind. All there is in the world is him. Him and the ledge. He takes in one last breath-- deep, full. And he steps off.
People scream from their offices as he falls past them. A few reach out. Wind rushes in his ears as he picks up speed. Faster and faster the ground approaches. Shapes come into view: cars are stopped in the road, and crowds of people are pouring out to watch. They're all roars and screams; some pointing, others filming. Its fascinating to watch them react from all the way up here for what little time he had. It took the average adult about eight seconds to fall eight hundred feet. He'd be approaching a hundred and ten miles an hour by the time he reached the bottom.
Seconds could pass by so slowly sometimes. His senses flared, taking in information at incredible speeds. His heart thumped against his chest. Pulse was racing. Adrenaline kicked through his system: blood flowed faster into his muscles, his pupils dilated, and he could feel each tick of his blood sugar level rising.
'Wonder what they'd do if I let myself splat against the concrete?' A grin crept across his face. Falling faster, now.
'Might even survive. Might just pull myself outta the crater, like I'm Wile-E-frickin'-Coyote.'He could see it now. That single, fraction of a moment where the whole crowd goes quiet. Nobody's moving, they're all holding a collective breath. A wave of confusion turns to panic. Its a win-win, really: he's either a smear on the pavement or he gets to watch the circus. Imagine the blood vessel that Leech would pop when he found out! The man'd probably go feral in his ravings- blood running down his brow, all that foam on his lips and spittle flying everywhere. That alone would be worth the price of admission.
A fun fantasy to fill the dead air time, but it couldn't last. Superboy had work to do.
Unseen hands grasped every inch of his body, arresting its momentum. His stomach turned upside down. He stopped mid-air less than a foot over a sea of bobbing heads. Their panic turned to excited yells. Fingers brushed against him as people leapt up, climbed atop one another and even some poor guy's car just to get a chance to touch him. Superboy glided forward, letting his hands run along under him. He must've gotten a hundred high fives before he broke off, gaining altitude.
People ran underneath him, trying to keep up. They'd chase him right into oncoming traffic if he let them. Had to shake 'em.
With one last wave to his
adoring fans, he hit the throttle, and shot off like a rocket. Up, up and away. Metropolis flew by him, a blur of steel and glass and colorful advertisements. People crossing sidewalks below him were small as ants from this high up, yet he could see every detail: a woman's locket, aged enough to belong to her mother before her; two men walking side by side, hands grazing each other too often for it to be an accident.
He could hear the whole world beneath him, too. Conversations flew by like they were standing just beside him. Cars honked so loud it sounded like it came from inside his skull. An old man was lying to his grandson about his time in the war so he sounded more exciting. Some kids were arguing about a three-way tie in rock, paper, scissors. A couple were considering divorce.
A million lives played out in front of him. A million snapshots of individual existences, giving him just a little peek into so many souls. Truth be told he could spend the whole day up here, witness to lives he could only understand in the abstract. What was it like to struggle to pay bills? To skip school with your best friend and do nothing at all with the time? How'd it feel to embrace someone you loved after a day apart?
Superboy could fly to the moon any day he pleased, but this-
His head swivels toward something on the other side of town. An alarm, followed by screams and shouting. A well timed distraction if there'd ever been one.
"...Now that sounds like a job for Superboy."
Hob's Bay ♦ Metropolis, Delaware
A barrage of bullets peppered Superboy's chest. Robbed of their lethality by the telekinetic field surrounding his body, they barely registered as an annoyance. He approached the shooter with a sway to his hips and a jump in his step.
"...But I got a hot date later." A blur, faster than lightning, and the gun was flying through the air in pieces. Another hand went for the man's collar, slower this time.
Camera drones rotated around the bank lobby. They were filming the whole event in a higher resolution than the human eye could perceive. Footage was being uploaded to CADMUS's servers for editing less than a fraction of a second behind real time. Superboy pressed his face against he would-be robber in his grip, a shit-eating grin on his face; the other man glanced between his captor and the drone, less than pleased to be on TV.
"You guys really oughta know by now: Metropolis? Its my town, n' I don't tolerate this sorta wanton violence here."With a twist of his wrist, Superboy sent the gunman flying head-over-heels through the glass pane the bank tellers were cowering behind. His momentum kept him tumbling until he crashed into the far wall. There was no getting back up after that.
Two of his compatriots wheeled their rifles around, hoping their combined firepower would slow their metahuman attacker down. They didn't have a snowballs chance in hell. The first of the pair found himself wrapped into a human ball, tossed through the front door and into the side of their getaway car. The second's head took a dive into an indoor potted plant.
Superboy danced to an unheard beat. It was quick work disabling the rest of the crew, as most were either attempting to flee or ready to surrender. Much of his attention was on working the crowd that'd formed outside the bank, and giving his best side to the cameras. By now he had this routine down to a science: disable the threats, give some stupid, cheesy lines, and pose for a few photos in-between. This had been the last four months of his life- this, and media touring on his 'off days'. Truth be told he was bored to tears. The cops could've stopped a crime like this. Somebody might've gotten shot in the process, sure, but Supes wasn't exactly
collateral damage free. It all just felt so...
Pointless?
The crew was rounded up and restrained on the steps of the bank. A crowd of passersby, former hostages and reporters had gathered around. They asked questions he'd memorized the answers to. Ran up to pose with him for pictures. He did his best to ignore the few who looked shaken by the event- shit was too real for the cameras. Maybe for him, too.
"Now, now folks, I told these guys I had a date later..." An idea tingled at the back of his mind. His heart started to beat faster as an idea turned to a certainty.
"...And I don't want anybody callin' me a liar. So, who here's free?"Oh man, his manager was going to kill him later.