Running From Himself 3-7 (Patreon)

The world was a beautiful place, yeah.

And almost everything in the world had beauty in it.

Every creature and person on some level had something good about them, you know? Reggie wasn’t even the kind of guy to judge a book too much by their cover, especially because he’d been trying his best to be the kind of person that heroes were supposed to be.

But - “Goddamn, nigga, the fuck is wrong with your face?”

But ugly was ugly, and on his soul, this nigga was ugly as a motherfucker.

Steaming spit, so yellow it was damn near orange, dribbled from one man’s mouth and sizzled against tile as he kept wiping at his chin. His long sleeves had extended trails of cloth missing from them, the filthy once-white shirt halfway to a tee at this point as the acid kept eating away at them. Eyes bulged out from a jaundice-yellow face, thin strands of greasy hair trailing over a pimply forehead greasy with more acne than Reggie had ever seen — even as a teenager surrounded by other teenagers.

Jesus.

Standing right next to Senor Slobber was a skinny guy in a half-torn tank top, his gut poking out like he was a good couple months pregnant. Veins stood out in his arms, bulging pressurized ropes pushing against too-tight skin like a roadmap. On the other side was another guy in a leather vest, tan skin already red and even more red with visible heat around his burning forearms and palms.

Rojos.

It couldn’t be anybody else. The veins were always a good hint, but honestly — and Reggie hated the profiling — it was the fact that he was pretty sure they spoke more Spanish than they did English.

The skinny guy snapped his right arm and muscle fibers and tendons distended with a sickening stretch, the supe’s fist whippingoutward across thirty feet of empty space like a skin-colored bungee cord.

Reggie swayed to the right, the elongated fist whistling past his ear, the kinetic recoil generating a crack across the food court. Luffy?"¡Gargajo! ¡Atrás!" The rubber-armed guy yelled, snapping his elongated limb back toward his body with a loud CRACK.

Reggie stepped out from behind a Starbucks counter, right hand twitching as blue sparks danced across his knuckles.

"Gargajo?" Reggie sneered. "'The Loogie'? Nasty."

“Si, Goma!” Gargajo’s throat swelled again.

Reggie didn't give him the chance to vomit.

He slipped the distance, dropping his shoulder as he blurred in with a messy cross aimed directly at the slobbering supe’s distended throat. Ew. The impact was as slimy as he expected, his costume lacking the gloves he was used to. Ew. 

Even still, Loogie-Boy choked on the hit, a wet gasp leaving him as he stumbled back, the supe collapsing onto the acid-melted floor.

“Gargajo!” The rubber-armed supe anchored one hand to the end of an escalator and lashed out with the other, the limb flying right towards Reggie. In a blur, the speedster darted to the right and let it snap clean past him.

Spinning on his heel, he grabbed the distended wrist with both hands, planting his cleats into the tile. "Get over here!"

Reggie yanked, double-digit tons of force enough to snap the skinny supe off his feet, propelling him forward in a wild, tumbling trajectory. Guiding the momentum, he hurled the rubber-armed banger directly into the guy with the superheated hands.

They collided in a tangle of limbs and screams; hot-hands accidentally grabbing onto the skinny guy's shoulder, white-hot grip instantly melting through the tank top and searing fingerprints into the flesh.

Hot-hands jumped back up as the rubber-man screamed on the ground, cradling the burns on his chest. Reggie blurred forward, slipping a set of frantic swings from hot-hands as he stepped in tight, shoulders loose. “You!” His head darted back, avoiding a tight arc of flame. “Messing up my day right now!”

Rapid hooks slammed clean into hot-hand’s ribs, each one light enough to keep from tearing him apart but hard enough to make him regret every mistake he ever made. In a blur, Reggie grabbed the back of the guy's scarred leather jacket and shoved him hard, tripping the supe over a ruined kiosk.

The vomiting supe reared his head back again, chest heaving as he opened his mouth, a fresh wave of steaming acid rising in his throat.

Reggie danced around loogie after acidic loogie, body bursting from side to side against the machine-gun mouth aimed at him. Snapping forward, he spun his leg out in a high-speed arc that connected clean with the back of the vomiter's knees.

The heavy supe's legs flew out from under him, jaw snapping shut on impact as the thickest part of the sludge backfired down his own chest; already eating through his clothes. Both his hands went down to cover what nobody wanted to see and Reggie didn’t give him a chance to do anything else.The heel of his right cleat snapped out, a super-fast piston of a kick sending the loogie-man to dreamland.

No sooner did he finish the last — and first — supe off, a deafening shockwave rattled the glass of every storefront on the first floor.

Reggie snapped his head up.

Skin as gray as a gravestone rushed past on the second floor, a mountain of muscle charging through the mall and moving with all the force and speed of a runaway Mack truck. A localized, forcefield projected directly in front of him, doing its part to physically plow over massage chairs, planters, and an entire pretzel stand.

Before Reggie could rush up to stop the supe, another blur dropped from the roof.

“The hell are you doing?!” Nubia didn't bother with lightning. Yelling at the supe like he was just a rowdy kid, she brought a good thirty-something tons of raw V’d-up muscle down in a two-handed hammer strike directly against the brawler's shimmering forcefield.

The force of her hit exploded outward, localized pressure enough to blow the glass out of a nearby sunglass hut.

Nubia didn't even flinch against the backlash, the lightning-throwing supe grabbing the gray-skinned giant by his heavy jaw, volume cranked to maximum as she threw blow after blow into his face.

"I!” — Jab — “Am trying!” — Cross — To buy!” — Hook — “My kid!” — Cross — “A fucking present!"

With a final uppercut, the barrier shattered.

Nubia grunted, the woman thrown back with a blinding orange shockwave, skidding across the tile before she caught her balance. "Oh, you wanna hit?" Her voice echoed through the mall, rising up into the air as golden electricity began to arc across her hands. “I’ll give you a fucking hit!”

She didn't wait for him to get his bearings again as she launched herself forward, closing the distance. With another cross, she drove her glowing charged-up fist into his nose; the impact a sickening crunch that echoed over the alarms.The brawler stumbled, his momentum completely broken, as he swung wildly. Nubia ducked the haymaker, and rushed in again with another two-handed hammer into the supe’s dense gray jaw. 

The giant’s head snapped back, a sound like two boulders colliding echoing out.“Why won’t you?!” Roaring again, Nubia grabbed the supe by the head and spiked him. “Stay down!”Face-first.

Through the glass railing, and all the way down to the first floor where he crumpled into an unconscious heap in the center of the food court.

Silence rushed back into the mall, broken only by the whimpering of hidden shoppers and the hiss of melted tile.

Reggie stood over the unconscious fire-boy, breaths coming heavy as small arcs of electricity died out around his cleats. The burn on his chest throbbed but he’d dealt with way worse. "You good?" 

Nubia stood up, brushing some dirt off her sweatpants. Anger slowly draining from her stormy eyes, she looked down at the unconscious giant, then over at Reggie.

"Yeah." She let out a long breath, adjusting the Dodgers cap on her head. "I'm good."

A crowd of terrified shoppers peaked their heads out from behind the stores on the second floor, voices murmuring and halfway to cheers as dozens of smartphones came out, each one recording the aftermath.

“Mom!” Maya squeezed past a security gate, clutching the VoughtStation bag in one hand and the A-Train plushie in the other as she ran down the stopped escalator, pink sneakers slapping metal steps.

She hit the ground floor, brand-new smartphone held high.

"Momma!" Camera pointed at the wreckage, Maya rushed forward. "Zoom totally beat up the vomit guy!"

“Maya…” Reggie’s face met his palm, another groan slipping free that had nothing to do with pain. "It's Blushift, Maya. Please."

"Zoom is way cooler!" 

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

@VoughtFanatic99: Did anyone see the Roosevelt Field mall footage?! The new guy just wrecked the Rojo bangers! @PrincessSparkles (Reply): His name is Zoom! He told me! #Zoom #NotBlushift @SupeSpotter: Wait, is it Zoom? That's actually sick. #ZoomTrending @ToddTheBodd: Zoom? What kind of copyright-infringing bullshit is that? Vought legal is gonna have a field day.

@SupeTeaLive: BRO did anyone else catch the mall fight?! A-Train out here dodging acid vomit like it’s nothing! And the little girl just rebranded him live on stream lmaooo #Zoom

@VoughtCritic99: okay but the way Nubia just dropped from the ceiling and folded that gray dude??? Mother behavior fr. Also Zoom is a way better name.