Several Months Earlier…
"I got invited to join the Sub Enforcers."
"Neat." The campfire burned harshly as Kevin tossed some firewood into it.
"Neat?" Ashley frowned and shot a look at her boyfriend. "That's all you have to say? I have freaking superpowers; I am one of the only people at our school to have them. I was the only one in my family born with them, and I was just invited to join the Sub Enforcers, one of the greatest teams in Oleander! This practically gives me a guaranteed spot on any other hero team once I turn eighteen. Just neat? That's seriously it?"
"Okay." Kevin shrugged. "It's really neat. Is that better?"
"No!" Ashley sighed and folded her arms. Metal twisted and formed over her shoulder, taking the shape of a small cat. "Why did I even agree to come out here? I should be training right now."
"Yeah. Why did you come?" Kevin stared down at the fire, his lips forming a thin line. There weren't many spots left in Oleander that had a forest feel to them. It was a big city, one built on top of the ruins of fallen lands. Parts of it were abandoned due to a villain attack that the Cleanup crew couldn't fix. They were in one such part of the city. Trees had grown back, and grass was taking over the buildings as nature ate away the ruined part of the street. "I didn't ask for you to come. You invited yourself."
"Because we haven't gotten to spend any time with each other!"
"Yeah. You've been too busy dealing with your new powers."
"Oh, don't act like you've been any better! You've been busy dealing with tryouts!" Ashley hissed back.
Kevin stared down at the fire softly. "Well, we have time now, don't we?"
Ashley was about to say something but stopped when they heard a noise echo down one of the alleyways. Footsteps came toward them, and the branch of a tree was moved away as a group of men seemed to step out of the alleyways. Ashley felt herself grow rigid, and Kevin stood up but froze suddenly when he saw the handgun that one of the men had strapped to his waist.
All of them had the letters 'BT' woven into their suits. Bad Timer grunts had appeared. "Well, well, well." One of the men said, letting out a soft whistle as he saw them. "What do we got here? This is our turf, yet a couple of kids think they can come in and throw a party."
"Some party. There's just the two of us." Ashley snorted. "You guys aren't very smart, are you?"
"What was that?" One of the grunts growled out.
"I called you stupid. Are you deaf also?" The girl asked, frowning.
"Don't-" Kevin grabbed her arm, but she slapped his hand away and stepped forward with a confident look in her eye.
The men looked down at the teen girl and frowned. There were eight of them in total. They likely noticed the smoke from the fire. Kevin almost cursed himself for putting Ashley in danger. "Why don't you guys buzz off?" Ashley said, casually rolling her eyes.
The man smiled, then drew his knife, flicking it at her, but she didn't back down. "Do you really want to do this-"
The man was cut off as a glob of metal suddenly blasted out of thin air, forming from nothing. It wrapped around his head and solidified, causing him to scream and crash to the floor below. The others all stepped back in shock and stared at Ashley as a dress made out of liquid metal flowed over her.
"Yeah. I think I want to do this."
That had been several months ago…
It was hard to think that time could change so fast, yet here they were in the present. Only a month or two later, he had to be saved from the Bad Timer crew again, this time though it was Hope coming to his rescue. That had been the day the girl got her powers. He vowed he wouldn't have to be saved ever again. Sadly, his promise didn't mean squat in the current world, as it took less than a month before he had to be saved yet again from both the Bad Timers and the Wandering Coin by Cinder and her team.
He had tried to fight Demonica but didn't even make the woman budge. A single attack had taken him out, and he had been stuck on his back all alone, forced to sit there while his girlfriend showed up in her costume and judged him for buying drugs.
Though she wasn't his girlfriend at the time, she had made that clear. Constantly flirting with that Kyle kid as a way to taunt him. Going behind his back constantly. Not spending time with him. Though all that was topped by her current actions.
Now here he was. Not only was his ex-girlfriend trying to practically kill him, but he was also fighting that nerd, Moore. He was all alone. His consequences had caught up to him quickly.
Kevin grunted as ice sprung up from the ground and wrapped around one of his arms, keeping it held in place. Snowdawn was on his knees and panting, basically out of juice. The boy was just working as support. Kevin tore his limb off, freeing himself of the ice, and swung his other arm down in the direction of Snowdawn, the limb expanding and growing out. Oxide jumped in front of the boy and swung a sword she created up, slicing Kevin's limb off.
"Just stop it, Kevin! I don't want to hurt you!" The girl yelled. Her face was covered by her glass mask, hiding the scars she had gotten as well as the pain that was in her eyes. "Please. I still care about you, you idiot."
"Yeah? Well, you have a pretty funny way of showing that!" Kevin's limbs grew back, and he created a tail that flicked back and forth. He was covered in thick, muscle-looking armor that made him look a lot like Mars King. "Do you think that I want to be doing this? That this is the side that I wanted to pick! That I wanted my life to end up like this! I wish that I had never even met you! Supers keep getting in the way of my life! Supers shouldn't exist on this planet!"
"Dude! You're a Super now!" Snowdawn called out.
"I don't want to be!" Kevin's arms expanded out, becoming the size of cars, and he rammed them down into the ground hard enough to break it and fire out shards of sandy ice in all directions. Oxide blocked it with her metal by forming a barrier, and she threw herself in front of Snowdawn, keeping him safe. "I've become a freak!" Kevin screamed. "Just look at me! I'm as bad as that Bad Timer monster! I even look like him!"
Oxide fought through the sand, her metal forming a large shield on one of her arms as well as a sword in her other hand. She stabbed the blade forward and rammed it into the man's stomach, and her metal began to grow over him. Kevin's body started to freeze in place as she trapped him, but he grew a second arm out of his back and ripped his own head off, throwing it into the air.
His body crumbled to dust as her metal washed over it, and his severed head grew a pair of muscle wings and flew up, regrowing its body slowly. Snowdawn tried to blast it down from the sky, but he was moving sluggishly and having a hard time doing anything. "I- I kind of hit my limits a while ago." The boy chuckled. "I got one more trick in the chamber, though. If we can get him on the ground, I think I can set up a way for us to win this."
Oxide nodded. Large metal wings grew out of her costume, and she took to the air. "In that case, you can leave it to me! I'll ground him for you, Snowdawn!" She formed a lance made of metal and stabbed it up at Kevin as his body fully regrew.
"See!" Kevin screamed out, catching his ex-girlfriend's attack. "You are trying to kill me!"
"I'm trying to stop you so we can find a way to fix you!" Oxide screamed back.
"There is no fixing me!" Kevin screamed. "Not anymore! Look at me!" He rammed his other fist directly into Oxide's face and sent her crashing to the ground. She broke her fall with her wings and steadied herself, flying back up toward him and forming a massive battle axe, which she swung out with a yell. Kevin counted by causing his hand to become as big as his body and used it as a shield, blocking the axe strike. "I'm a monster now. That's it."
"Why did you become this!" Oxide demanded. She forced all her strength forward, digging the blade into Kevin's arm. "Why did you choose this path!"
"Choose? You think this is what I wanted?" The boy spat out. "I had no choice! It was this or die! I picked death, and they still turned me into this! Talk about a fixed choice! I looked Wish in her eyes and told her to kill me, and she just laughed and turned me into a blob! Over and over, again and again, I was torn apart and twisted, my cells forced to shape as they pumped me full of whatever they could! I screamed, and I begged, I pleaded for you or some hero to come and save me! To get me out of this hell, but no one showed up! Now I'm this monster! I'm a Super!"
Oxide weaved through the air and dodged his rapid strikes. Kevin attacked like a mad animal, throwing attack after attack as they danced in the air. Oxide flew away and hovered a bit in the air away from him, breathing heavily. "Then why are you on their side? Why are you listening to them?" She asked. "If you hate it so much, why are you doing this?"
Kevin closed his eyes and sighed. "I don't have a choice."
"Yes, you do-"
"I don't! I don't! I don't!" He glared at her, and his flesh expanded and broke away. "Wish turned me into her monster. I've seen what she can do. She's in me. Her form exists inside of all of us. Casey and Hannah have already given up just as I had. There were others. People who somehow got powers from her. They tried to rebel. They got fates worse than death. Haven't you wondered why there've been more giant monsters recently? Those are the lucky ones. She can make life hell on Earth. She's done it to me before. Made my skin inside out, put my nerves over my flesh, and caused my organs to shrink or expand. She does stuff like that for fun. She doesn't even need to touch me or the others. At any moment, she could do whatever she wanted to me. She's always listening and sees it all! I don't even get to die! They bring me back! Over and over, again and again! I'd rather be their pet than experience that hell ever again! As long as she exists, the moment we rebel, we're punished."
Oxide stared at her former boyfriend as he ranted. His eyes were mad and wide, and he couldn't stop shaking. "Does she really have that much control over you? Or do you just want to say that she does?"
"Do you think I'm lying!" Kevin roared.
"I think you want to believe that you have no choice." Her metal surged forward, forming a hammer. "If she truly was always listening and if she could change you at a moment's notice, I'd think she'd have done it. Right now, she's in the middle of fighting Cinder and the others. Money Tree told me how you helped him out in his fight. I don't think she can pay attention to you guys while she's in a fight."
"So what! As soon as she wins, she'll see us again! And even if she loses, that won't matter! You can kill her a hundred times! She'll use us to respawn, or she'll wait for them to build her a new body! There is no escape for me." Kevin blocked Oxide's strike, but the hammer began to push him down through the air.
"You're wrong." Oxide took a deep breath. "I've seen Poseidon fight. I believe that she and Cinder can put an end to Wish for good. They're what a hero should be." She surged forward as fast as she could, catching Kevin off guard. He tried to block her strike, but she caused her hammer to expand as much as she could and rammed it down onto his head. "I have faith in them! I believe that they can stop her! So have faith in the heroes! Have faith in me! You've been saved by them before, Kevin! You should know more than anyone that a hero will stop at nothing to help a person in need! I'm going to save you!"
Kevin felt himself slam down into the ground. He rolled across it and tried to stand up, but stopped when he saw Snowdawn.
"It's over." The boy spoke. Kevin howled and launched at him, but Snowdawn lifted his arm and activated his power. "You lost Kevin." His ice expanded, and he got colder. It was so cold that everything stopped. All the fighting stopped. Everything became frozen. Time no longer moved. "I win."
His power. His ultimate trump card. The ability he had unlocked through his training with Poseidon. It was this ability. This was his Inversion. Cold beyond cold. Absolute zero. Frozen time.
***
A few days ago…
Poseidon snapped her fingers as her eyes lit up. "I got it."
"What?"
She raised her fist up, and suddenly, it began to glow, and the space around it started to bend and twist. "As the Lord of the Sea and Depths, I have control over water and the crushing depths. Using Inverse on my depths, I can cause gravity to fall under my control." She pulled her fist back, and the gravity grew more tense. "All I have to do is put your life in deep danger! Get it? Deep? Cause the ocean? Making puns is fun."
"Whoa, whoa, I don't think I like this plan," Armin said, stumbling back. He shot a look towards Oxide and Rowan, who both just gave him awkward shrugs.
"Too bad! Punching you really hard now!" Poseidon yelled, throwing out a mean right hook as hard as she could, aiming directly for Snowdawn's face.
In a panic, he threw his arms up, trying to block the punch. Then it all stopped. For just a single heartbeat, everything froze…
Snowdawn stood there a little stunned as he stared ahead of him. He had been in the middle of training with Poseidon, directly after his loss at the hands of Wish. Poseidon wasn't the only one who was frozen. Metal Ronin, Kyle, and Oxide all stood on the sidelines, not moving. The world seemed to have lost all color to it, everything being a weird black and white. He felt a chill go through his body, and he looked down at his shaking hands, finding ice was coating them.
"W- What the heck?" He moved, or at least tried to. His legs and arms felt like they were struggling to go through jelly, and as he stepped out of the way of Poseidon's fist, the place he had been standing at froze over, and in his place an ice statue remained. It was in the exact same pose and spot he had been in when he activated this new power. "Where am I! Did I do this?" He looked around with wide, shock-filled eyes. "No way right!"
Time-based powers weren't a new thing. Villains like Golden God could cause things to age in rapid motion, and the hero Lady Time was said to have an ability that could freeze and distort time. Still, something like this wasn't common.
No way he actually froze time.
Right?
Instantly he heard a loud crack, and suddenly color came back to the world. He felt his body rapidly heat up, and he almost began to burn as the ice on him instantly started to melt due to the rapid change in temperature.
Poseidon rammed herself forward, and the girl's fist easily shattered the ice statue to bits, obliterating it in one attack. "Oh my God!" She yelled with wide eyes.
"You killed Snowdawn!" Metal Ronin screamed in a panic. All the heroes and Kyle stared at the destroyed ice statue in horror.
"Cinder is going to freak." Kyle gulped.
"Um guys…" Everyone jumped, and they turned, finding Armin standing a few feet away from them. The boy had a sour look on his face and also looked rather tired, breathing heavily. His clothes were soaked as loads of ice around him melted.
"You're alive!" Poseidon cheered out and grabbed him in a tight hug. "Wait? How did you get over here so quickly?" Poseidon asked, cocking her head to the side. "And what was with that ice statue?"
Armin grunted and pulled himself out of the girl's arms. "I really don't know." Armin frowned. "I was just standing there, and you came at me, and then... Well, everything sort of froze in place?"
Rowan frowned and moved to stand next to him. The boy lifted some strange-looking device and pointed it at him. It read out a series of numbers and beeped. "The energy Supers give off seems to have spiked around you but then dropped down." The boy said, letting out a hum.
"What does that mean?" Oxide asked, folding her arms.
"It means he used something really draining." Metal Ronin grunted.
"Oh, I think I get it." Kyle nodded. "You're saying Armin used a lot of mana up. Like in video games when a wizard or something casts a powerful spell. Whatever he did was really draining."
"That's a way to put it." Armin sighed and tried to push himself up to a standing position. "I feel like I just ran a hundred miles without a break. I'm not like Hope, I don't have inhuman stamina or anything like that." The boy grunted.
"Hope?" Oxide frowned for a moment. "Like Hope Lauren- Oh my God, is she a Super also!"
Armin winced. "Shouldn't have said that."
Poseidon let out a snort and folded her arms. "Okay, so you said everything stopped, right? And now you're really tired. In that case, you should try to do it again. Once you've inverted once, it should be easier the second time. The more you use a big draining move, the less it'll drain as your body gets used to it. Maybe one day you'll even be able to spam it."
"That makes sense." Armin nodded. "When Hope first started out, she struggled to fire out her blasts more than once a day, and now it seems like she spams them constantly."
"Fire? Hope's Cinder!" Ashley said in shock.
Armin pinched the bridge of his nose. "I really need to stop saying things around you." He went to say something else but stopped when he felt a wave of pain. In a flash, Poseidon's fist had rammed into his face. Armin let out a loud yelp and rolled across the ground, smashing back first into a wall of trash. The entire junkyard shook, and the boy looked up as Poseidon cracked her knuckles. "What was that for!"
Poseidon held a small smile on her face. "We're not done training. Pull off that move again." The girl's blue hair flashed as the Lord began to draw out more of her power, using the energy she got from the title she held. "Good luck!"
Armin barely scrambled to his feet as the pile of junk he had been near exploded and rained down from the strike Poseidon unleashed. He closed his eyes and tried to focus. Slowly, snow began to crawl up his body, but it barely formed before Poseidon's fist rammed into his gut again, shattering his weak fluffy armor and sending him crashing back.
"Armor that weak won't work on me! Give it everything you got! Stand up and pull out your full power, Snowdawn!" Poseidon ordered.
The girl was charging him again, and Armin barely struggled to a standing position. He focused his power and began to form his snow armor again. It wouldn't be enough, though. He knew that. Poseidon's strikes were too strong for him to block. So instead, he began to draw on the icy feeling he had felt. The world had been so cold, so much so that ice had no choice but to form. As his snow armor finished forming, he grabbed the pure essence of cold.
Poseidon's fist struck out just in time, but it smashed directly into the ice armor that formed over his snow. He felt his own body rapidly growing in strength, and he dug his heels into the ground withstanding the blow. He had formed his first ever true ice construct. A pure suit of ice armor.
Poseidon gave a large grin. "That's the way! More Snowdawn! Bring your full power out!"
"I'm going to give it everything I got!" He announced. All around him, the ground began to freeze and crack. Snow and ice sprung out as he forced everything to lower. He could feel it. His power. It began to bubble up and crawl its way out of him. He was trading places with it. Giving it control. It surged out and roared.
Then for the second time that day, everything stopped and became black and white.
He had frozen time once more.
***
Present Day…
"Thank you for helping me to reach this point, Poseidon. I couldn't have done it without you." Snowdawn sighed as his memory of that night faded and he found himself back on the battlefield facing a frozen-in-place Kevin.
Snowdawn shook, feeling a strong chill, and he took a step forward. He broke his way out of his ice armor, leaving behind a statue of himself where he had been standing and walked slowly toward Kevin. All color was gone, and only he moved. He had discovered this ability when Poseidon trained him. The ability to freeze everything, even time.
He could only do it for a second at most, and each time it ruined his ice armor. In here, nothing could move aside from himself. It was true absolute zero. The absence of all movement. He placed his palm on Kevin's stomach, and time began to move once more.
In an instant, Kevin saw the statue Snowdawn left behind. He tried to move, but his body didn't obey him. Ice covered him from head to toe, and he was frozen in place. It was over in a single instant. Faster than the bully could even process what was happening, he had lost.
Snowdawn collapsed onto his back, the last of his ice armors breaking away. "No more! I'm not doing that anymore! It pushes my power too far and totally fries it!" Even after practicing with Poseidon and working his butt off, the time-stop ability was way too draining for his own good. He'd need to work a lot more if he wanted to use it properly. "Still. I've totally caught up to Cinder with this power! Do you hear me, Cinder! I can stand as your equal! You're not leaving me behind ever again!"
Oxide landed on the ground and placed her hand on the ice that covered Kevin. His eyes stared directly into hers, and her metal began to grow around him, trapping him in a layer of solid iron. "We'll save you. I swear." The girl said softly. "I'm not going to give up on you. I won't ever leave you, Kevin. No matter what."
Oxide jumped a bit as Ocean Empress landed next to her. "You guys beat him on your own?"
"Yep!" Snowdawn announced. "What about everyone else?"
"Demonica got away." Money Tree also came down from the sky and landed. He rode on a large disk made up of small coins. "She saw all the bad guys losing and made a break for it at her top speed. She's hella fast! Only Battery or Cinder could catch up with her now. I think Red Ape and the others got away as well. At least I haven't been able to see them. As for the other two man-made Supers. We've dealt with them."
"Dealt with them..." Oxide turned and saw Casey and Hannah. A twisted knot found itself in the young hero's gut as she stared at the two man-made Supers. "Oh."
Both of them were on their backs, trapped in a sea of cash and coins, or ice, made by Ocean Empress. Casey sat there, unable to move, and sighed as he stared up at Metal Ronin, who looked down at him. "You weren't too bad with a sword." Metal Ronin hummed.
"I used to practice before I got cancer." The man hummed. "Everyday I would go to this local dojo and swing it."
"Oh..."
Casey snorted as the rest of his body began to gradually be covered up with the cash and coins. They blocked his eyes, and soon he'd be fully bound. He couldn't help but remember the day he met Wish. He had been in a hospital bed. He had been there for so long. In so much pain. All he had wanted was to die.
Her deal had been simple. Serve her, and he gets to live. His mother always told him to not make a deal with the devil, and he picked death.
Yet here he was, still.
"Don't fuck it up." Casey grunted out. The ice covered his mouth fully, and he fell into a deep sleep.
Hannah was in a similar position. "Geez! Even without that old guy, you two were still as strong as I remember."
Backup and Bad Wolf stared down at her as her form was quietly getting covered up. "Did you know your boss killed Old Dog?" Backup asked slowly.
"Yeah." Hannah shrugged. "I never really had a choice, though. Guess I won't be able to go to school anymore. That sucks. I won't be able to hang out with Ashley anymore."
"You were still going to school?"
"Yeah. I didn't really like being a nameless grunt." The ice covered her fully, and for a moment, she remembered how she had gotten into this position. She had been jumped on her way home and taken by Bad Timer grunts. They had taken her to a base, but thankfully they were stopped when a girl with white hair showed up and slaughtered them all. She had jumped at the chance to join Wish and gain powers. It was fun as long as you followed orders. "I guess it wasn't so bad."
Snowdawn dropped down to his knees and sighed. The only fight left was between Myth and Golden God, who were still exchanging a series of blows back and forth, neither able to make the other one budge. Myth was gradually losing, though it really didn't matter too much. Golden God was about to find himself being jumped by every other hero. Not even he'd be able to make it out of that in one piece.
"Are we really almost at the end?" He questioned.
"Almost." Ocean Empress floated up into the air on her board and stared out in the direction Fairy Queen had dragged Battery away. Blue lights shimmered in the air. "Almost..."