Dealing

The cop slammed a hand on the shoulder of the suspect.

"You're under arrest!"

"What? For what?"

"Drug dealing. You were doing it just now, I heard you!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You just offered that woman heroin!"

The suspect laughed.

"You find this amusing?"

"Oh, no, I wasn't offering her heroin! No no, I was offering her a heroine, with an E. See, I have some heroines here!"

The suspect reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny person, who then shot up and punched the police officer.

The suspect was arrested for false advertising.

Mental Strength

Glory had The Mindfirst dead to rights, given she pulled him out of the giant robot that had destroyed several city blocks.

But then they were both suddenly in a spotlight, onboard of some sort of spaceship. As Glory looked around, Mindfirst was still ranting.

"You can't do this to me! I'm the smartest man in the universe!"

"Good."

Glory felt the word, rather than hearing it, before Mindfirst lifted into the air and the aliens swamped into him.

He wasn't the smartest man in the universe, but he did have a bulletproof ego, which was more important to survive.

The End Of Glory

Glory was one of the most powerful superheroes on the planet, but she knew her limits. There were beings from the cosmos that could snap her like a twig, with just a thought.

So she had her friends, her allies, she called on them when she needed help.

But she didn't waste their time. She knew what she could handle, and would handle it solo.

She was always worried that one day, she'd underestimate a threat and not call on them.

The idea that she'd end when she called for help and no-one came hadn't occured to her at all.

John_Smith 2.0

It had taken decades to program, but John_Smith 2.0 was the end of money. Instead of relying on dumb pieces of metal, coin, or plastic to represent the concept of a unit of value, the computer network instead constantly calculated value and more importantly complex multi-stage bartering, wherein everyone traded at once, and society was improved, each to their ability and value, they could get what they wanted.

This worked well for a decade, until an all powerful being who could do anything with near zero energy entered the market and ruined it all for everyone via superhero causes hyperinflation.

Runaway Cascade

Quite some time after it was all over, Glory came to see me

"Framework, did you actually know it would work?"

I looked up from my work on my pulse gauntlet.

"Probably, what are you referring to?"

"When we fought Endtime, we won because you overloaded his portal machine while he was in mid-transit. Did you know it would work?"

"Of course, I spoke to my timelooped future self that morning, remember, they told me it would. Why?"

"Because your timelooped future self just told me he told you to run away."

"He lied to prevent a paradox", I lied.

Tropical Punch

Glory was ill at ease looking through records and working with the Custodians of Earth's AI, much preferring to get out there and punch criminals.

But too many of her familiar enemies had a connection to a finance company based in an otherwise empty island land.

It took hours of work, but eventually Glory and the AI found the woman behind what turned out to be a ponzi scheme ripping off supervillians.

Glory found it distressing that it was best to leave it running and hope it took down more people when it collapsed.

It wasn't quite the same punch.

The Doctor We Need

Dr. Chaotico turned on his viewscreen and hacked into the Custodians of Earth's base computer.

"Tremble fools, for-"

"Oh thank goodness!"

Dr. Chaotico paused, not expecting one of Earth's heroes to be glad to see him.

"You may pretend to-"

"Look, Doctor, you're on your Moon base, yes?"

"I... I do not have a-"

"Traxodians have encased Earth in a Bubble Universe Sphere, we need you to use your Anti-matter cannon to destroy it."

"Even if I had such a device, why would I help you?"

"Because if Earth is shunted to a bubble universe, you can't conquer it."

"Firing!"

The Strongest Protocol

The four of them were training in Custodian HQ's hololevel when a shadowy figure appeared.

"Let us determine who among you Custodians is the strongest, fight for my-"

Sea Gal was the first to move, lifting a finger to point at Hexionia. Glory and Mainframe quickly followed suit.

"No, you're supposed to fight!" the figure whined.

"Why? We all know she's the strongest." replied Glory.

After a few moments, the figure vanished.

"That Protocol was a good idea, but shouldn't we make it the true strongest one, not just random?" asked Mainframe.

This led to an unpleasant argument, at first.

Lastline Defense

The All-Consumer had already devoured every planet beyond Venus, it would be here at Earth within the hour. I was the only Custodian not busy with crowd control, so I was sent to Fate's Garden to find out why Lastline hadn't broadcast his usual last second plan.

I found him standing over a burnt body. Without turning around, he explained he would usually find the best possible future and bring back someone from that future timeline and ask them how things were solved. This time however...

I approached, and while the skin was black, I still recognized my own features.

The Simple Plan

The plan was, for him, quite simple. Usually, in an attempt to ensure the various Superheros couldn't stop him, he'd have dozens of false flags and hidden back ups and back ups for the back ups.

But this time, he didn't need all that. He just had to steal one specific item, then recite one incantation, and he'd have power beyond his wildest dreams.

It wasn't even a heavily guarded item, just a goblet in a third rate museum.

Still, best to make it look like he was stealing something else.

And do a false flag robbery across town.

And...

Unfortunate Reaction

Solstar found Glory sitting on the roof of the Custodian HQ, a piece of paper in her hands.

As he sat, she silently held the paper out to him. He took it and quickly read the hurried handwritten letter.

"This..."

"A fan letter. From a young techie who just developed a new kinetic energy feedback device. She wants to be a superhero just like me.

Maybe if I'd answered this, then Lowbridge would still be standing."

"Her reaction to your action isn't your fault."

"Except I would have maybe understood what she was before I attacked."

His silence spoke volumes.

Fix Everything

In some worlds, you can just wave a magic wand and fix everything.

In some worlds, you can just program nanobots and fix everything.

In some worlds, you can just ask God and they fix everything.

In some worlds, you can just ask godlike men and women in lycra and they fix everything.

But in this world, there are no wands, no nanobots, no Gods or even godlike beings. All we have are two hands and whatever is in our hearts and minds. We must do what we can with what we have.

And accept that fixing everything isn't possible.

The Last Round-Up

There was a fire over in the docks that had kept Glory busy, by the time she’d blown out most of the burning buildings and was confident the firefighters were able to handle it, the gunfight she’d heard on the comm was already over.

But when she’d landed to help with the clean-up, she froze as she saw the sole survivor, carefully going to each body and closing their eyes, muttering a soft utterance over each one.

“Gunslinger?”

It was less a question, more a shocked statement. The man, hair long since greyed, face wrinkled, slowly stood up and turned to face her.

“Ah yes, you’re the local flying brick type, yes? Glory, right?”

Glory planted her staff into the ground, trying (and failing) to keep herself calm.

“I am such a huge fan, Sir, as a kid I had my Gunslinger Deputy Badge and recited the pledge every night and it’s an honor!”

“I’m sure it is, but you do know all that was just PR, for the most part, right kid?”

“Oh, absolutely, I know that all too well these days, I spend most of my time doing photo ops and interviews and talk shows and I’m sorry, can I help you? Tracking down one last no good varmint, hey?”

“Sort of. You remember Calamity Joan?”

“Of course, one of your trusty partners who-“

“Was also my wife. Well, once I retired, we finally got hitched. Twenty years, wasn’t all perfect, but it was pretty darn good living. She died a couple months back.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. You’re tracking down her killer?”

The Gunslinger laughed, soft, dismissive, insulting.

“Nah, not unless you got a time machine. Hyper-radiation cancer, gets a lot of heroes from my time, hanging around too many atomic powered good and bad guys.”

The tone of his voice finally broke through Glory’s haze of fandom and hero worship.

“You know, the Custodians could use an old school hand to help train new-“

“Nah girl, that ain’t me. I need to join Joan.”

Glory picked up her staff slowly.

“You don’t have to do anything stupid here.”

The Gunslinger tilted his head. “What was the last line of the pledge?”

Glory dropped her head, as the Gunslinger went for his magically enhanced Big Iron. She spun the staff, deflecting the bullets back and dropping him.

“A true Gunslinger knows when to holster.”

The Good Superhero

Not even the most ardent supporter of prisoner's rights would have tried to stop her had Glory just let The Unnaturalist go. All that was stopping the supervillian from falling into the collapsing hole in the universe was Glory's grip. She'd come within a few seconds of destroying everything, and she would try again, and again, she was too far lost. For the good of everyone, Glory should just let her go.

But then she couldn't call herself good, so she began to pull her up.

Glory was annoyed she didn't do anything to cause her own death during it.

Bloodmage's Talk With Glory

I found him sitting on top of Everest. I brushed some snow off my jacket's shoulder as I sat down next to him. After a few moments of just the wind blowing, he finally spoke.

"So am I a supervillian now?"

I chose my next words very carefully.

"Not if you come back with me now."

He chuckled.

"Hence the soulbound cuffs?"

He reached up my sleeve and pulled them out, then concentrated and disintegrated them. I took the moment to drag my recently soulbounded fingernail across his throat.

"That made you a supervillian." I told him as he died.

For The Time Of No Hope

Being able to control time is not as cool as you think, at least the way I can.

Maybe other people who somehow gained a similar power can control it like they have a remote control built into their head. But me? I can see time, like it’s a river, no, a sea. Flowing, ever constant, over me, over all of us. I can no more hold it back an inch with my hands as I could the actual sea.

But they keep me here, in comfortable surroundings, as the last line of defence.

Because I could reverse it.

Permanently.

Metaphorigal

Everyone who comes into the team has a different way to comprehend the multiverse, when it spreads out infinitely all around them. The woman with the star covered skirt sees it as a never-ending series of paintings hanging on gallery walls. The man with the robotic arm sees globes of light, forever moving around each other. The tentacled psychic sees it as an ocean with islands every few feet.

All metaphors, all ways to stop their brains from melting as they look upon all possible creation, a trick to save themselves from reality.

Everyone has one.

Except the new girl…