Fall of the Goddesses: Aftermath
Prologue
“I got a little gift for you.”
“Oh really,” James said, eyebrow raised.
Despite it being his 20th birthday, the surprise was real. Seeing as Jane, his twin sister, shared the same birthday, it had always felt weird to them to be getting someone a gift on their own birthday, so they’d come to a quiet agreement that they’d forget getting each other gifts.
“I know, but when you see it you’ll understand.”
Jane then reached down and pulled out a small box that she then handed over to him. James felt like teasing her a bit more, but his curiosity ultimately won out and he quickly opened the box. Inside was an ID card with his photo on it.
“Surprise! You are now officially our guy in the chair.”
James looked at the ID card in front of him. He’d known that this was practically guaranteed, seeing as two of the of the Femme Fatales were his sister and his childhood best friend, but still, he’d worked hard to earn this position despite that. “I was beginning to get a little worried,” he joked. “I started thinking Ball Buster was going to put a stop to it.”
“Oh she tried, but we outvoted her,” Alicia itted.
James looked at the two of them. His sister Jane Panning, aka FIre. She stood at a decent 5′6″, the exact same height as him, though while he had his light brown hair cut short, her hair cascaded down her back in waves. The color seemed to constantly be changing, from red to yellow to orange. In motion it gave the impression that her hair was on fire, a perfect match to her pyromancy.
In contrast Alicia’s was an inch taller than either of them and also chose to cut her hair short. It was also completely white, which made it like Jane’s in that it was a match to her cryomancy. Naturally she had taken the codename Ice.
The only really annoying part of them was their looks. Not that looking like models with a fit body, a toned ass and large breasts that somehow defy the force of gravity is a bad thing, it’s just that James knew because of their nature as supers they didn’t have to do anything to keep that body in its current shape. He on the other hand had to spend countless hours in the gym to keep his body as lean and fit as he had it.
Not that it was their fault, being born with super powers. They’d all been born to heroes, the only difference was that he had been born a man.
Since ancient times the world has been governed by 7 goddesses. These women contain immense power over their domain and while it doesn’t happen often, when all 7 can agree on something, their combined might can rewrite the rules of the world. And that is what happened. One day so long ago no one else even knows when it happened, the goddesses agreed that men could not be trusted with powers. Ever since that day no man could ever get super powers. The only exception was Omega and he was an alien. Even then despite being an alien and literally marrying one the goddesses, his son Pluto ended up being just an ordinary human. So what chance did James have.
Not that any of this was relevant at the moment. What was relevant was the fact that there was at least some opposition to him taking this job. “You sure this is okay? I mean, if Ball Buster really doesn’t want to work with me...”
“Please, her problem isn’t you. She just hates men in general. Honestly I sometimes think that the only reason I put up with her is because we lesbians really need to stick together.”
“And it’s not because you secretly think she’s super hot,” James retorted back.
“Hey, should I be getting jealous?” Alicia asked Jane in mock anger. “I don’t know? I mean, I do like them tall, muscular and blue haired,” Jane said with a serious expression.
“You do I’m your wife right?” she replied before Jane broke down in giggles.
That was true of course. Alicia and Jane had been married for two years now. James was happy for them of course, though deep down there may have been a little bit of sadness over it. Growing up he hadn’t had too many friends, seeing as he was the son of a superheroine and the brother of a powered girl. This meant that he’d really been isolated from others out of fear of ordinary people getting hurt if he was targeted to use as leverage against his family.
Alicia had been different though. Since she was also powered, she was one of the only people his own age he was allowed to play with. Naturally he’d ended up developing a bit of a crush on her. She’d turned him down when he’d finally gotten the nerve to ask him out. She was kind about it, but it still hurt, even more when he found out that she’d turned him down because she was in love with his sister.
But that was a long time ago, he’d had plenty of time to get over it and move on. Now he was simply happy that two of them had found happiness. It felt good to just chat with them like this, just losing track of time.
Of course, eventually time catches up with us.
For him it happened when he looked at his watch. “Oh crap, I’m late. I need to go.”
Jane sighed. “Going to see mom. You’re a grown man now, you don’t need to live with her anymore.”
“I know.”
“And I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to give up on her.”
James began to rub the bridge of his nose as a familiar headache began to overtake him. They’d had this argument before. “I’m not giving up on her.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m all she has left,” James replied as he stood up and headed off. A look of guilt ed before Jane’s face as she debated following after him. In the end she settled back into her seat before signalling the waiter for the bill.
James got home just in time to dodge a bottle being thrown at him. “You’re late!” his mom yelled at him, slurring her words as she did so. “Just lost track of time,” he tried to explain.
“Of course, you were just having SOOO much fun without me. You probably were planning to leave me, just like HE did!”
James sighed as his mother began crying again. She was always like this. No matter how hard he tried to get her to try and fix herself, she’d ultimately have another relapse and fall into a drunken stupor. The sad part was that he could understand why.
Pamela Panning, or as she was better known as, Penny Pan. She had the standard super set of flight, strength and agility, but added to that was a power that would seem to be a blessing but had turned into a curse. She aged at half the rate of an ordinary person. This meant that when she was 20 she had the physical age of a 10 year old. Hence her name, Penny Pan the eternal child.
That might seem like a great thing. Who wouldn’t want to stay youthful for longer. But try imagining being part of a kid super team only to see them all grow up and graduate to a proper full team while you stay right where you are. Officially it’s because they want to have a veteran presence to help keep an eye on the younger generation. In reality it’s because they don’t want the PR nightmare of having someone that looks like a child fighting alongside the adults.
So Penny soldiered on, trying to get along with the kids she related to less and less and then the unthinkable happened.
Around the time she was just turning 30, she’d gotten into a relationship with her handler. This wasn’t that unusual, high pressure situations tended to develop deep bonds after all. The problem was that she got pregnant. The tabloids didn’t note that she was 30 of course, they instead emphasized the scandal of a woman that was physically 15 getting pregnant, as if she was just some teenager when she was anything but. Her handler, not wanting to deal with the fallout, decided to just walk away and abandon her. And that was that. What was left of Penny finally broke. Shortly after giving birth she turned to alcohol and never stopped.
James and Jane got some help early on when it was discovered that Jane had been born with powers of her own. That got them through the early years, but Jane filed and was granted emancipation pretty much as soon as she was physically able to. James on the other hand was...not as important. They’d decided it was more important to keep Penny’s persona as a hero intact over getting her son out of a seriously fucked up situation. Never mind that Penny had long been retired and wasn’t even being considered for active duty anymore. Or that Jane would gladly taken James in to live with her, the powers that be had spoken.
So James had stayed with her and they’d since developed a terrible co-dependant relationship. James refused to give up on her, which prevented her from ever truly hitting rock bottom, which possibly may have been the only thing that could have helped her pull herself back up. Meanwhile she kept trying to chase him away, despite being terrified of losing him. It’s almost formed into a horrible toxic marriage, which most of the neighbors who don’t know who they are assume about them, since Penny has the body of a 25 year old, despite being 50.
And of course, thanks to her superhero dna, she still looks like a knockout, despite every attempt she’d made over the last two decades to wreck her body.
None of this is new to James of course, who simply closes the door behind him and starts trying to clean up the mess of the kitchen his mother had made. “What exactly were you doing in here?” he asked, looking at the remains of some brown goo in a bowl.
“I was making you cake. To surprise you.”
ittedly he was surprised, seeing as he didn’t the last time she’d ever actually cooked anything. “What went wrong?”
“The stupid microwave is what happened.”
James looked over to the microwave in question, seeing it dripping with the same goo in the bowl. Clearly it had never occurred to her that she might have needed to use the oven instead. “I’ll see what I can do,” he sighed again as he tried to see if there was anything he could salvage any of this.
It was at that moment that his mother screamed before falling over backwards on her chair. James ran over to her, scared that she somehow, despite her powers, had hurt herself. “Are you okay?”
She looked over at him, seemingly in shock, before suddenly running over to the refrigerator. James watched in confusion as she pulled every drink she had out of the fridge and put them down on the table. “Listen closely,” she told him. “I’m going to drink every sink drop of liquor on this table, then, if I’m still able to stand, I’m going to the nearest liquor store to knock out the shopkeeper before drinking every single thing in that shop too.”
“Mom,” James tried to onish her before she interrupted him.
“I’ll do it, unless you order me never to drink again.”
“What.”
“Exactly what I said, unless you tell me never to drink again, I’m going to drink myself to death right now.”
James growled in frustration. “Okay fine, Never drink again. There, are you happy now?”
Penny just looked into space, almost lost in her own world as a stupid grin began to form on her face. Suddenly she grabbed the bottles and began pouring them all down the sink, laughing like a maniac as she did.
James didn’t know whether he should stop her, or help her pour. He settled on just watching her in stunned silence.
Then his phone rang.
For a moment James debated just ignoring it, but something told him this could be important. Once he pulled out his phone and saw that caller ID was listing it as Fire, he knew he was right. His sister had two phones, one for personal calls and the other for anything involving her superheroine identity. This meant that if she was calling him on this line, then it meant something bad had happened.
“Go,” he answered succinctly.
“Is mom with you?”
“Yeah, she’s been acting real strange too.”
“I’m not surprised. Listen, something very bad has happened. We’re about to head over and pick both of you up, but before we do, I need you to specifically all three of us, me, Ice and Ball Buster to come and pick you both up.”
James knew enough to know that this was somehow tied to his mother demanding he order her not to drink anymore. “Okay what’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you that. Not on an open line. We’ll explain it once we get there but please, just trust me. We all need you to do this.”
James sighed before responding. “Okay...”
“Wait! Do it....now!”
James didn’t know what she was making him wait for, but he played along anyway. “Fire, Ice, Ball Buster. I’m ordering all of you to rendezvous at my location and collect me and Penny Pan immediately.”
“We’ll be right there,” Jane told him before immediately hanging up.
While all this was happening Pamela had finally finished pouring all the liquor down the drain and had collapsed onto a chair, a satisfied look on her face. “Do you want to explain to me what exactly is going on?” James asked her.
Pamela smiled back at him before responding. “Sure.”
The event would later be known as the Fall of the Goddesses. Though no one ever knew for certain who was responsible, what was known was that someone or some group of people managed to capture and corrupt the goddesses themselves. Once this was accomplished they brought them together and forced them to implement a new rule. This new rule meant that while women were still the only people who could have superpowers, every single one of them now had to be leashed to a man.
The rule worked like this. As soon as powers manifested in a woman she was bound by the rule. The rule stated that she would be forced to obey the order of the first man who gave her one. From then on that man would become her master. As to what that meant, well it was simple really:
She could not harm her master or by inaction, allow him to come to harm,
She must obey her Master, unless it conflicted with the earlier statement.
She could defend herself, unless it conflicted with the two earlier statements.
With that every Heroine and Villainess was suddenly no longer in complete control of themselves and the consequences of that would be felt by everyone...