“Huh,” I said as I stared down at my body, checking for damage, “I should be dead right now.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for years, you insufferable idiot,” June yelled from where she stood behind a ray designed specifically to destroy half the world. She fired the laser at me again, hitting me directly in the chest.

The blast forced me into the mountain wall again, pushing me further into the hole I’d already created the first time I’d taken the full force of the blast. She raged at me between blasts:

“We,” blast, “are,” blast, “in a,” blast, “hyper realistic,” blast, “simulation,” double blast.

I held up my hands in a show of surrender. She hit me one more time before powering down the device and stepping from behind it. As I climbed out of the giant hole in the mountainside, she nonchalantly walked through the casualties from our battle.

Long ago, June had turned to crime. Her exploits had gained her the moniker “The Malevolence,” or just “Malevolence” if you were in a crunch. To me, however, she was June Wright, my little sister who had strayed from the path of justice our family had a long tradition of supporting. I was the fifth generation to proudly be called Captain Verity, and I had spent most of my time in the suit trying to bring my little sister to justice.

“Yes,” I grumbled as I stumbled out of the hole, “you keep saying that.”

“And I keep being right,” she yelled at me. “Look around John.” She pointed to the wanton destruction around us. “Tell me why we’re alive right now. TELL ME.”

“Well, I… well, maybe it’s the… hmm…” She was right. The power of the device she’d created should have cratered half the Earth in one blow. “I honestly don’t know, June,” I answered in defeat. “Maybe your weapon isn’t as strong as we thought it was?”

“Really?” She rubbed at her forehead and took in a deep, calming breath. “You really think that?”

“Well,” I winced at her hard stare, “no,” I lamely admitted.

“That’s right, no. The answer, John,” she began screaming at me again, “is no, and DO YOU KNOW WHY MY WEAPON DIDN’T WORK? DO YOU JOHN?!”

I slowly pulled my helmet off and let it fall to the ground beside me as I took in the scene before us. People were dead, hundreds of them. A whole forest had been leveled, and half the mountain behind me was gone, but we both were just barely hurt, and the Earth itself was fine. It should not have been fine.

“Because we’re in a hyper realistic simulation?” I weakly offered.

“BECAUSE WE’RE IN A HYPER REALISTIC SIMULATION,” she roared at me. Taking in another breath, she visibly calmed herself down. “God, when are you going to learn to actually listen to me? You never listen to me. It’s always, ‘Oh, but John is older so he knows more, and you should follow his lead,’ or ‘John is the oldest and will be a great Verity, and you’ll make a good sidekick just as long as you do what he tells you,’ or, ‘John knows what’s best.” She actually growled at me. “Well, look around, John, and tell me you know what’s going on.”

I slowly slid down to the ground and forced myself to think over the years to all the times June had tried to tell me we were in a simulation. When we were teenagers and our parents both died was the first time she’d tried to tell me. She’d given some valid reasons, but I was too caught up in grief and the determination to be the next Verity that I’d ignored her. I ignored her every time after that when she was my sidekick and she tried to show me our actual reality.

“I’m the reason you turned into a villain, aren’t I?” Thinking on it, it was clear now.

“Well, how else was I going to get you to listen to me? You sure weren’t listening to me when I was your sidekick,” she spat back at me.

We stared at each other for a long time in the silence of the destruction we’d caused, and then an idea hit me.

“June, how do you think we can get out of this?”

“God, FINALLY, he asks me MY opinion on things.” Looking up into the sky, she began screaming at the top of her lungs, “OKAY, WE GET IT NOW. WE’VE LEARNED OUR LESSON. LET US OUT OF HERE, PLEASE.”

I was going to ask what she was doing, but, before I could get the words out, the world around us vanished, and I felt a helmet being pulled of my head. Standing above me was the smiling face of my mom, and I could see my dad standing over June.

“What?” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. How were they alive? “How?”

“Now, John,” Mom said as she helped me up, “we told you and your sister that, if you couldn’t learn to get along with each other, we’d find a way to force you.”

Dad chuckled, “I told your mom it’d take you a couple of simulated decades, but she didn’t believe me.”

“Yes, I owe your dad a special dinner tonight,” she replied with a laugh.

June took in a deep breath against her rising anger. “How long were we out?”

Our mom checked her watch. “Only about 20 minutes.”

We lived a lifetime in 20 minutes. We stared angrily at our parents. This was the last straw. They had crossed a line. When they left the room, June caught my arm before I could follow and pulled me to her. In a lower voice she said, “How would you like to be my sidekick?”

I raised an eyebrow and nodded, “Start of our villain arc?”

She nodded. “Start of our villain arc.”

"Honey Trap?"

"Yes?"

"I'm starting to think you might be right."

Honey Trap and I were staring at a hole we had accidentally blown into an abandoned building during one of our usual throwdowns. But instead of there being furniture or an empty room behind it, there was just a void filled with floating binary code. As the hole filled itself back in, Honey Trap rolled her eyes and said, "Goodness me, the great Stormrunner thinks I'm right. She has finally conceded to the notion she may have been wrong this whole time. What a day this is."

"I can do without the sarcasm, thank you." I took a seat on the curb and continued, "But what I don't get is why go to the trouble of making everything so...lifelike?"

Honey Trap took a seat next to me and pulled a notepad seemingly out of nowhere. "I had a lot of theories when I started questioning this. But after a while, I realized everything kept coming back to one thing." HT flipped the notepad to a page with only a single thing on it: the words 'July 2019' circled multiple times. "Try and remember something from that month. Anything."

I shrugged and did as she said. Immediately, I was doubled over from the stabbing pain that was shooting through my head. "FUCK ME! That was like a combined hangover from every drop of alcohol I've ever had in my life! What was that?!"

"That's what happened to me every time I tried to remember. I actually passed out from the pain a couple of times. Whatever's going on here has something to do with that period of time. Just wish we could figure out how to get out of this fucking place already."

As I slowly got to my feet, I responded, "Solution's obvious, isn't it? We just crash the simulation. If they're keeping me of all people trapped here, then this place is probably designed to feed off of my electricity. But I'm willing to bet it can't handle all of my power. You might want to get to a safe distance."

HT nodded and ran into a shop on the other side of the street. I closed my eyes and felt the storm inside my soul. I felt the power build up and up, reaching a crescendo of rain, wind, thunder, and most importantly, lightning. With a mighty cry, I fired a bolt that could have given power to the entire globe four times over.

Suddenly, I wasn't in a city anymore. I was in some kind of laboratory, strapped to a table with suction cupped-wires stuck to my head as a man frantically typed away at a destroyed computer terminal. I ripped them off and sat up with a growl. "You want me to call IT?"

The man shrieked and turned around, revealing himself to be wearing a demon mask with half of its face scarred. Honey Trap's ex-boyfriend, Baphomet. As Baphomet tried to back away, he said to me, "H--hey now, Stormy! Don't do anything you might regret!"

I cracked my knuckles in response and said, "What, like dick-punching the asshole who trapped me in a computer for a week and tricked me into thinking I'd been there for years? You're right, I would regret that." I glanced behind him and smiled. "After all, I wouldn't want to deprive her of the fun."

Baphomet glanced behind him in horror just in time for Honey Trap to spray him with her paralysis perfume, kick him in the back of the head and say, "That's for tricking me into thinking I was a villain."

I followed suit with the dick-punch I promised and looked at Honey Trap with a smile. "July 16th, 2019."

Honey Trap wrapped her arms around me and purred, "The day we got married," before yanking me in for a kiss.

"It's the woman in front of the ice cream shop. The dress. It changes colors in a pattern," Xharmonica panted, his hands on his kneepads.

"You're outta your mind. Just an excuse for losing, again." I said, the thrill of victory in our latest skirmish like a burst of helium carrying my mind skyward.

"But hear me out. It's not the only thing. I've found that no matter how long I talk to the butcher I can't get him to use the word 'machete.' He always defers to 'axe.' An axe is not a machete. Let's not talk about the performance of my Xrang, which seems to always be the same regardless of how poorly I throw it. How?"

"Weaksauce. I'm gonna put you away forever."

"Just listen! Ok, this is not crazy. How long have we known each other?"

"I don't know."

"Neither do I. We have these battles, and they're always new and interesting, but the outcome is always the same. One of us wins and we come back to do it tomorrow. And no matter what, when we try to kill each other, we can't."

"It's only a matter of time X, you're going down."

"That's just it. You haven't ever put me down, and the few times you were close, I always found some stupid way to come back. It just doesn't make any sense."

I had to admit that he was right deep inside, but I would never give him the credit. "Ok, X, if you really think this, then lay down-

System: scrub and prepare episode. Add teaser: "Loopshock and Xharmonica battle over the fourth powerstone in this episode of Pan's Last Great Hero."

System: ship to TV providers.

-------------------------

r/StoriesToThinkAbout

The more I think of this the more it seems like a really great book idea. Every fight, every trauma, every lost loved one, everything is a lie.

The only other person who could help you to escape the lie is a person who you have done near next to nothing but constantly fight and hurt each other, and yet if everything is a lie then shouldn’t they forgive and make-up easily to escape? People don’t work that way though these two would be constantly bickering about past grievances that have never truly mattered while they are trapped in a world of lies possibly being watched by outside eyes.

Instead of just making this a writing prompt I’d be really interested in hearing the OPs own story about this story.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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