THE LOOPER: LADY SUNBURST Part 1

In this world full of superheroes and villains, a city could have several heroes walking amongst the others. Some of them walked in the open with their superhero costumes on, and some were less open with their identity as superheroes and disguised themselves as normal people. Lady Sunburst was one of the said superheroes who preferred that her identity be hidden. She was a hero, but she had many enemies, not only supervillains, but there were some from the common folk. She was a well-known one but quite unpopular with the masses because of how she fought. Lady Sunburst was considered quite powerful on the power scale. She could fly as fast as a jet, but her main power was harnessing the power of the sun and converting the energy into an energy ball to attack or a shield to protect. Her energy ball was so hot that it could melt almost anything. Sometimes, she couldn’t control the range of destruction she caused when fighting the supervillain.

Despite a law that put superheroes not liable for damages they caused when they were trying to save the city from a supervillain’s threat, some still hold a grudge for the hero who just went away after their fight ended. But what could she do? She wasn’t the Bat who was super rich that could hand out some compensation to the masses after he finished his fight; being a superhero doesn't mean she was rich. Most of them work as superheroes voluntarily. It was their noblesse oblige to protect. If they were greedy for wealth, they were no different than supervillains, and so they said.

So, where would she get the money to compensate those accidental bystanders? A superhero’s source of income was from their non-superhero job or looting the supervillain’s base. According to the Hero Act law, superheroes could grab whatever they got from the Villain’s lair as long as it wasn’t dangerous stuff that needed to be instantly disposed of. And unfortunately, Lady Sunburst’s power was so unsuitable for this looting business as the aftermath of her fight usually left everything melted into a hot liquid metal. And thus, despite being one of the stronger heroes, she was still doing a second job to make ends meet. When she wasn’t doing her hero duty, she was Stella Burns, a journalist who worked for the city’s local news office, New Metro.

As Stella, she was less standout. She wore glasses to look more nerdy. Her breast was only 34C, not too big but also not too small, perfect size for a superhero, so her movement was not hindered, but for Stella, it just cemented her status as an average plain jane A disguise that always worked wonders for her. Nobody would connect her to Lady Sunburst.

Stella was doing some coverage on a recent traffic accident when she suddenly felt a disturbance in energy in the air near her.

Is it caused by a superhero? Or a supervillain doing some shenanigans in their lair? Stella wondered. A good perk of working as a journalist was that she could excuse herself easily in the name of chasing some first-hand hot news.

The ‘journalist’ ran toward an alleyway where nobody could see her, and Lady Sunburst came out from the same alleyway. She was no longer a geeky glasses-wearing girl, but a blonde, cape-wearing superhero ready for action.

Lady Sunburst flew toward the direction from which the disturbance of energy was coming. She was very sensitive to energy, whether it was magical energy or heat energy. She looked down from the skies like an eagle, scanning every spot until her eyes stopped at a small apartment building. In her eyes, she saw a trace of weird energy coming from one of the rooms of the apartment.

Is someone undergoing their power awakening? The place didn't seem like a villain's lair to her, so she narrowed the possibilities to other outcomes; someone just newly awakened their superpower. Someone could awaken their superpower for all sorts of reasons. Bitten by a mutant beast, nuclear radiation, alien genetics, finding a magical object, and many others.

Lady Sunburst descended from the skies and approached the building. It is a hero's duty to guide those newly awakened to not stray to the wrong path and become a supervillain.

Should I make them my sidekick this time? I hope their power is better suited to loot things from the villain's lair than mine. Some heroes didn’t work alone; they had a few sidekicks on their side to handle the small things, like the henchmen some villains had, while the hero handled the big, bad evil. Lady Sunburst never had one despite being one of the quite well-known heroes because of how secretive she was, but she was really considering it lately after she accidentally melted hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of valuables with her energy blast. She was still regretting that event until now.

“Now, how should I make the entrance? Barge in through the window? Or knocking like normal people?” She contemplated her choice.

Impactful first impression is a must when you are about to recruit someone to be your sidekick. An impactful impression won’t necessarily be a good impression, but one that gives someone a reason to agree to work with you. Lady Sunburst recalled what The Bat, the superhero with a dozen sidekicks, often said.

Lady Sunburst made her choice and made her heroic entrance by breaking the window of the apartment.

“Lady Sunburst!? Why are you here?” said a young man with a fearful tone as Lady Sunburst barged into his room from outside.

“Yes, it is me, Lady Sunburst. Sorry for barging in unannounced, but I noticed a surge of extraordinary energy coming from your place. So, here I am. Checking up on you to see if everything is fine.” Lady Sunburst stopped floating and walked closer to the young man.

The hero stopped in front of the boy and said, “So, boy, you better tell me about you and what you do. I hope you aren’t a villain doing some crazy experiment.”

Lady Sunburst opened her palm, and fiery energy gathered into a ball. It was her signature energy ball of heat that could reach a plasma temperature when released.

“No, stop, don’t release that thing here, I will explain, but please, put off that dangerous thing,” begged the man in panic.

The energy ball dispersed into thin air. Lady Sunburst smiled at the boy and said, “Just kidding, I will not use the energy ball against you. It would make me a villain if I threw those things deliberately at any person. The law protects you with a presumption of innocence until you commit your first villainous crime.”

The lanky boy let out a relieved breath as if he was out of great danger.

“Don’t feel relieved yet, boy, you owe me a story. Tell me the truth. Despite the presumption of innocence protecting you, a hero has a right to interrogate someone whom they suspect poses a great danger to the city. The previous energy spike is already enough for me to exercise my right to question you,” Lady Sunburst explained.

“Alright, I will explain, so give me a room to breathe. You can sit anywhere, but don’t be too close. I’m an awkward boy with some anxiety issues.” The boy tried to push the superhero away, but the difference in their power was a lot. She might not look like it, but as a hero, she trained a lot to be able to stand her ground in her fight with a supervillain. A push from a lanky boy like him didn't even push her back even an inch.

“Please…” The boy pleaded.

“Good,” Lady Sunburst stepped back and sat on the sofa not far from there. She looked at the boy attentively, waiting for him to start his story.

The boy cleared his throat. He was anxious, but this was his golden chance; he never expected that he would meet with Lady Sunburst.

“My name is Harvey. Harvey Heard. I’m just a student. A smart one I think. Uhm…well, the energy you felt before was not coming from me, technically, it is caused by me, but it comes from my invention here.”

The boy scrambled to his desk and assembled something. He soon completed the device and wore it on his head.

“What are you wearing? A silly headgear?” Lady Sunburst was unable to contain her chuckles when she saw the boy was wearing a silly-looking top hat, but she soon was able to contain her laughter as she realized how rude she was, “Sorry, I don't mean that, you can continue. That must be no ordinary, silly-looking hat, right?”

“Yes, it might look silly, and it still needs some tweaking before I can harness its power in full capacity, but I think this is my magnum opus. It cost me all of my fortune to assemble it. The hat consisted of a lot of tools cobbled together. Mainly a calculation device, with this hatgear I can see the strings and numbers.”

“Great, a math geek,” Lady Sunburst said in sarcasm. “So, you spent your whole fortune to see the string and number in the air? I think you can use your money more wisely, boy. But that still does not explain the spike in energy. Hey, what are you doing?”

The guy made a motion with his hand as if he were weaving something. “At first, I also didn't understand what those strings and numbers were, but I seem to be able to make contact with them and rearrange them. When I rearrange and rewrite some of those numbers and strings in a particular way, it causes a spike in energy. Actually, it did not only cause a change in the energy, but more. I realize what I'm dealing with. All things in this world consist of strings and numbers like a code. And what I see with this headgear is the matrix. Those numbers and strings were the foundation of the matrix of reality. The spike of energy appears because these strings and numbers exert their energy to affect the real physical world. If I can understand and harness this power more proficiently, I can become unstoppable. I can create and mold anything. I can produce any event like it’s a simulation. Realities will bend to my whims. I didn’t have a chance to explore it because I was too afraid that I was playing with something I shouldn’t do, and then you came barging in, and I realized that I have the best test subject.”

Lady Sunburst realized what the man was doing and sprung in action, “Stop whatever you are doing, or I will shoot you with my energy ball.”

Knowing the man didn’t stop despite her threat, she no longer hesitated and shot her ball of heat at Harvey

“Too late.” Harvey finished manipulating the number before the energy ball hit her. The room was empty aside from him. No Lady Sunburst in sight.

He fell to the floor on his butt. It was close, but he succeeded. He just needed to wait to see if his hypothesis was correct.

Stella blinked. She felt unease as if something had happened to her just a few seconds ago. Her attention was distracted as she noticed a strange disturbance of energy in the air. The journalist ran toward an empty alleyway before coming out as Lady Sunburst.

Lady Sunburst flew toward the direction from which the disturbance of energy was coming. She scanned the area from the skies like an eagle until her eyes stopped at a small apartment building. In her eyes, she saw a trace of weird energy coming from one of the rooms of the apartment.

Is someone undergoing their power awakening? The place didn't seem like a villain's lair to her, so she narrowed the possibilities to other outcomes; someone just newly awakened their superpower.

Lady Sunburst descended from the skies and approached the building. It is a hero's duty to guide those newly awakened to not stray to the wrong path and become a supervillain.

Should I make them my sidekick this time? I hope their power is better suited to loot things from the villain's lair than mine.

“Now, how should I make my entrance? Barge in through the window? Or knocking like normal people?” She contemplated her choice.

Impactful first impression is a must when you are about to recruit someone to be your sidekick. An impactful impression won’t necessarily be a good impression but one who give someone a reason to agree to work with you. Lady Sunburst recalled what The Bat, the superhero with a dozen sidekicks, often said.

Lady Sunburst made her heroic entrance by breaking the window of the apartment.

The hero looked at the boy with a weird hat on his head, and felt some weird Deja Vu. It was as if she had done this before, but this should be her first time meeting with the boy.

“Sorry for barging in unannounced. I am Lady Sunburst. I noticed a surge of extraordinary energy coming from your place. So, here I am. Checking up on you to see if everything is fine.” Lady Sunburst told the young man.

The man didn’t seem to care about what Lady Sunburst said; he was absorbed in his own world. “I have sent her back to the point before she came to my place, but because she noticed the energy fluctuation, she came here again. It seems that it is a fixed point that can’t be avoided because of how this thing works, and she took notice of the energy, but it seems she doesn’t remember our previous meeting, which means I’m on the right track with that number, I can treat the matrix as simulation with unlimited possibility as long as I got the combination right. I just need to tweak it more. Maybe this one…” Harvey mumbled to himself.

Lady Sunburst’s expression wasn’t the best one as she felt ignored by the boy, “Hey, kid, do you hear me?”

“I will pay more attention to you later in the next iteration. Let’s see whether I could make you knock like a normal person instead of breaking my window,” Harvey replied before he finished arranging the matrix of numbers and made Lady Sunburst vanish from the room once more.

Continued in next part >>>

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