Super No More

The first thing that the woman did upon awakening was to brush any lingering dirt and dust off her body before swiftly climbing out of the several metre-deep dirt holes that she had created when I had lost my temper.

She considered that her present situation would be a whole lot better to deal with if she had clothes on. And equipment, she would be able to signal a team to come and pick her up or communicate with the immediate supervisor about her present situation and provide a sit-rep report.

Or the super ability of self-immolation while having complete fire resistance, then she could just burn herself clean. She wondered if she could breathe out fire and opened her mouth while concentrating on the rising heat from her stomach.

She might set fire to some surrounding trees and start a raging forest fire that would decimate this entire landscape, but it would be a small price to pay for an easy cleaning solution.

‘Dammit. I’m so weak!’

The woman remembered that she should have more power than this. Something else was stuck in her head. A reminder about a mission.

Nope, it was gone.

She had woken up, remembered something that had caused me to lose my sanity for a brief time and then a voice talked about a mission. Then blankness.

The fact was still clear in her mind though that she had been or was originally a warden, a protector. There had been an escape from a prisoner under my control, he or she needed to be found and punished.

she could remember that much at least. The woman knew that she had superpowers and she had used them to deal with unruly elements who also possessed them as part of her daily job. She thought.

‘Gah, why does my head not think clearly!’ She said aloud.

After finishing off brushing the rubble from my arms and through her hair she decided to act and bent her muscular legs, jumping as high as possible into the air.

Hup!

Leaping into the air and rising just above the treeline meant that I had a better view of my location. More. Trees.

Hup!

‘Let’s try that again. This time in a different direction.’

Hup!

‘Oh, wow a mountain range.’

Hup!

‘Is that a forest fire?’

Hup!

‘That’s the setting sun.’

Hup!

‘An ocean of trees.’

The woman decided to stop leaping into the air to take stock of her surroundings. She knew now that she had been dropped into a forest near a mountain range.

Her powers had been severely drained through her arrival in this place. It would be pretty funny to find someone who was wearing clothes so that she could take them off them.

‘I need your clothes, your boots, and your hair band.’

Sigh

That wasn’t going to happen though, was it? Firstly, she wasn’t going to force someone to strip their clothes off just so she would have something to wear for the sake of modesty. The weather and temperate didn’t have any effect on my body. Limited powers but still far beyond human standards. That still didn’t make being naked any fun.

The woman was was sure that if anyone saw her, they would think that she was suffering from clinical lycanthropy. Naked in the wilderness, check. Screaming aloud, check. Excessive physical movement, check. Crawling on all fours and trying to hunt down deer and other small animals. Nope.

Best to claim that she was abandoned as a young girl in the woods and raised by wolves. Or that she was on an extreme survival course where they dropped you naked into a forest range to survive for several days.

It must be a real thing, right?

If she was stuck here for a while with no idea of her bearings though she was going to have to eat at some point. Not because she needed to physically consume any form of sustenance to recharge my biological batteries but just to have something different to do. Eating food would give her a chance to have a different activity to refresh her mind and take her out of the situation for a brief time.

Most people would think that it was the harsh environment that caused damage to people who were stuck in a complete wilderness. In my opinion, it was the lack of structure and drive that caused mental damage and in turn, led people to just give up.

Given that the woman had no idea where she was and no visible threats towards her person unless the world happened to be hiding dangerous creatures then her current limited power set would work out just fine. But wow, she was going to get bored if her main source of entertainment turned out to be knocking down trees and jumping into the air.

Make a shelter, and hunt for food. Create a base camp. She felt that it would certainly give her focus, but time wasn’t on her side. How long had she been unconscious here before finally waking up?

If the other one she was meant to be tracking and capturing woke up before her and decided to dump her naked ass in this mountainous forest region, then he had a sick sense of humour.

He didn’t kill her in a weakened state because he was likely worried about being alone and wanted the thrill of being chased by another of the same kind as him. He would have stolen my underwear and all of her clothes. Just to mess with her emotional and mental state, he had been designated a supervillain after all.

There shouldn’t be any way that his power set was more than hers at this point. Technological boost? She shouldn’t think so, his understanding of mechanical things was worse than hers.

From his personnel file, he could learn quickly but he didn’t have the necessary background to create something from nothing. The woman was quite sure that wasn’t one of his powers.

People! Did this place have people? Living sentient people and not just creatures?

In that case, it was more likely he would look for a populated area and start playing his little games. she hated him for that, he deserved to be broken and sent for trial. It would depend on the level of power in this place.

The woman did not want to spend her time building a specialised prison for a superhuman with criminal issues. Chances are this planet would have a moon or two. That would make a decent start she considered. Once she had sufficient power she could always fly up there and dump them inside a crater reinforced with metal or a powerful enough substance to keep them locked away. Tearing myself out of her introspection and thoughts she leapt up into the air a few more times, just rising above the treeline.

Hup!

‘More trees.’ The woman said aloud.

Hup!

‘I need to stop talking to myself.’

A checklist of things to do would help.

‘Step 1. Find a shelter, step 2. Secure food and build a fire. Step 3. Smash down every single tree that she saw, becomes an eco-terrorist, and damages the gorgeous natural environment before finally locating civilization and being chased down by whatever law enforcement authorities exist here. And then negotiate with them to get the resources that she needed to capture the supervillain. It all sounded easy enough in her mind.

The woman stopped jumping up into the air above the treeline. If someone were to see her, they might be a bit surprised to see a naked person in the air. The issue was that although she’d been training in basic levels of reconnaissance, fitting into society, and adapting to a variety of different circumstances she still had no real idea how to build anything out in the wild.

She simply didn’t possess the training for it. Most prison officers or desk jockeys did either.

That would, however, be entirely dependent on what type of planet this came as an afterthought. A death world filled with predators and plants that had evolved to kill and eat anything else that moved was going to cause her some issues, current power or not. This planet didn’t seem to have anything dangerous just yet that I could see. Trees, mountains, the sun, rocks, dirt, water, small animals, birds, and small insects.

Class 2a at most. Humans were usually the most dangerous thing that a planet had on offer. Technology allowed them to dominate the lifeforms around them. As long as they actually applied themselves and worked out a solution, involving humans often became more dangerous. There was a reason that superhumans weren’t usually able to survive on a planet that contained a large number of humans. People fought back.

Working her way through the trees and avoiding knocking down any by accident I tried to remember any survival training skills that I had either taken or forgotten about. There must be a sure-fire way to find an exit in a forest aside from starting a fire and burning the whole thing to the ground. Hmm, did that power kick in yet? She tried staring at a nearby green-leafed tree.

Take my stare at the dead tree. Fire? Air atoms heat up along my path of vision. Energy drain attack!

Nothing. Absolutely nothing happened. The tree didn’t burst into flame or freeze or wither away. She felt slightly disappointed with the outcome, even laser eyes would have been appreciated. Her current power set was plain, simple and pretty generic.

‘You win this round random forest tree’.

She followed the first rule of being stuck in the wilderness. Take a moment to once again and calm down. Sitting down first to collect her random thoughts. Anxiety was not her friend here. she recognized a standard landmark as a few mountains when she jumped above the treeline.

That was an area to head for. Now, to think about how to track her movements. What would be a good way for her to follow the same path and remember what direction to head in?

Kicking down trees could help. She wouldn’t be able to control the direction of where the tree fell through. Also, if a large number of trees were knocked down in a forest without any equipment and a naked stranger was found at the site then plenty of questions would be involved. First local authorities and then the media leading up to military involvement.

That would be the tipping point for her given that hercurrent power level simply wasn’t strong enough to deal with staying off the radar of an army and all their equipment. They could have access to piloted mechs that were able to reach the stratosphere s far as she knew. The technology level of the current reigning civilisation was a complete unknown to her so she needed to err on the side of caution. Maybe.

‘Nah. I’m way overthinking this situation.’

Seeing some large orange mushrooms that were growing near the base of a nearby tree she stood up, grabbed a few, and stuffed them in her mouth. The woman thought that she might as well check my poison resistance at this point.

Om om

They tasted to her just like mushrooms would on any planet. Wet, damp, and slightly chewy with an earthy flavour. Grabbing some more she stuffed them into her mouth just to have something to eat while thinking. No fire meant that they didn’t taste like roasted meat which would have been a much-preferred choice.

Yet another reason for her to find the escaped prisoner, break his bones, and get him thrown in a prison or a hole that was covered by a gravity effect with knock-out gas at the bottom. Then leave him there to die from sheer boredom, or he could always fast-track himself to the afterlife of his choice through his means.

All of this depended on the woman finding her way out of the situation. For that she knew, they were the only two superhumans on the planet. The prisoner’s power set should be coming back at the same rate as mine, which meant that he had enhanced strength, endurance, and immunity to outside elements including poison.

She didn’t see him jumping out of a forest anytime soon though, he’d be smarter than that. Smarter than her at least, it was how he had escaped in the first place with his smooth tongue convincing at least one guard to loosen his restraints.

Getting back to getting out of this forested region. Heading towards the mountains was one option, the main priority was finding a place of civilization, whether that would be a single dwelling, city, or suburbs. She would prefer to wear some clothes.

Hypothermia wasn’t going to be an issue; nor was hunger, thirst, or sleep. Looking up at the sky it seemed like it was early morning judging from the sunshine that she had seen above the trees.

That would give her plenty of time to explore before it got dark and anything dangerous decided to come out of the caves and attack. Or the ground, or even the trees. The woman stared at another nearby, green-leafed tree.

‘I got my eyes on your tall tree. Don’t come to life at night to attack me.’

Being hyper-vigilant wasn’t the best idea as it put more stress on her mind and general well-being but in a survival situation, it was hard to relax. Once, she had a better grasp of the ecosystem of this planet it should work out quite well.

Firstly, let’s make a point of zero. This would be the starting point for my little journey through the wilderness. I lightly kicked down all the trees around me and watched them either crash to the ground or smash and get entangled in other trees.

This was going to make a loud noise in a relatively quiet area. I wished that I was in a video game setting where all of these trees could quickly be turned into a wooden shelter or equipment.

What was that game called again? DigMake? Popular with kids and some adults anyway. Life wasn’t a video game.

That would make this whole situation a whole lot easier to cope with. Grabbing the fallen trees she dragged them together to make a sort of shelter. Let’s see how heavy they are lifted.

Hup!

She put one hand onto a tree and tried to lift it. It soon dropped to the ground again. A single hand isn’t enough to grab a forest tree yet then. Not that strong yet. The fact that these trees weren’t overly large made a difference though, I was able to kick them down and a person’s legs were usually stronger than their arms.

The woman reached out with two arms holding on tight this time managing to lift a tree up above the ground from the end. My muscles didn’t ache from the exertion, so this wasn’t my limit yet.

‘How long will it take my strength to further increase?’ she said aloud.

Her voice echoed out into the emptiness of the forest. All wildlife had fled the area at a rapid pace in fear for their safety when the trees had begun to crash to the ground.

The woman dragged a few knocked-down trees together to make a clearing so that I now had a base camp. Now she was surrounded by a bunch of knocked-down trees and probably a lot of annoyed and scared wildlife that had just lost their habitats. She chose to sit down on the ground next to the trees turned logs and took a deep breath.

Were bears going to be a thing around here?

‘Giant carnivorous bears that regenerated wounds and also shot fire out of their mouths.’ she said aloud to herself.

That wasn’t a bear though. More like a freaking monster far beyond her immediate power set. An entire army to take it out or a few determined superhumans more powerful than her to deal with that situation. Especially if it also set the immediate forest on fire.

Her imagination was starting to make the woman a little hesitant and humans generally are pretty adaptable to a wide range of situations and environments. Unless someone created an island with monsters with sharp claws and teeth that ran out of control it was likely that the fire-breathing bears would have been killed or dumped on the island.

The woman looked back at the impact crater in the ground. She knew that losing her temper was not a good idea, thankfully this was an isolated location. No people or any other sentient life would be hurt.

The thought came into her head.

Robots and artificial intelligence. Was that going to be a thing here? Sufficiently advanced technology meant fighting powerful military forces.

Even gravity wave bombs were an issue in sufficient numbers. At least suppression-wise, smart folk could even drown any superhuman in a mass of dead bodies if they had access to smart cloning technology.

They would be a lot more useful with stronger and a wider spread of abilities. She first needed to check and have a fully complete grasp of her exact power selection.

Although it wasn’t always the abilities that made a person strong but what you were able to do with them.

Versatility was beaten into them back at the training academy back when she had been an initial recruit for the incarceration militia.