The Hanged Man

A prisoner with black tattoos and a body that hinted at a physical superpower stood in front of the crowd, facing the line of guards. He yelled at the head Warden who stood behind the line, in obvious fear and cowering with the remote in his hands. His arms were clearly shaking.

“Give me the remote.”

His voice cut through the noise.

“You want to live, I know, but you guys don’t know how to kill. ”

The Warden began shaking his head, but he glanced at the clock in the wall, time ticking by closer and closer to midnight, and back at the metal remote in his hands. It felt cold in his touch, too cold.

The tattooed man raised his hands and pointed at the crowd behind him.

“These are dangerous men, you know this. They will kill you and take the remote anyway. Give it to me, and tell people I took it by force… give it to me and I’ll do what you should’ve done ten minutes ago.”

The Warden looked back and forth between the remote in his hands and the prisoner in front of the guards. They began to glance toward the Warden, seeking his decision on what he would do. After a moment of hesitation, the Warden began to step forward, one by one. Each step felt like sludge to him, but eventually, he made it to the guards.

Slowly, hesitantly, his arms shaking, the warden reached out with the remote to the prisoner in front of him. In an instant, before he could think any further about his decision, the huge, tattooed prisoner snatched the remote away from his hands. The crowd, guard included, surged away from him as if he had a virus.

After staring at the remote for a couple of seconds, the prisoner held up the gray metal into the air. 

“This decision will save your lives. We may be prisoners, we may be villains, but we are no worse than the scum of humanity thats stands in the other boat. Do not have a guilty conscience. It is either us or them, and we with superpowers are obviously better than the ones  without.”

And with these words, the prisoner pushed the red button on the remote.

As the first explosion rocked the river, I glanced at the resulting explosion. I felt… relief in my heart. Not because of the fact that my plan had worked, I knew this was how the people would react. It was, of course, a chance of which boat would explode first, but this was all a game of probability. These people were sheep, and the fact that it was more likely the prisoners pressed the remote was obvious.

The explosion itself was beautiful , beautiful enough that I continued to stare at the remains of the explosion for quite a while. The bombs had gone off spectacularly and as chunks of the ferry blasted into the air, it was like an intricate firework, one from the future that has actual tangible parts to it. 

It was time for stage 2.

I glanced at my watch and began to look around with my gift to identify where the person, more importantly, the super I was waiting for. Nebula. She had to be taught a lesson about humanity, and this one would be quite the first.

After a while, I spotted her flying body in the air. I knew she would be here, as this time was her usual route between her home and workplace and closest to her route. In the 10 minutes that had passed, the UHA had likely posted a warning to all supers a Villain attack was occurring and she had probably rushed over.