If Only I Were a Superhuman

"His upper thoracic spine is severely dislocated. There's extensive purplish-blue bruising across his flank, and he's vomiting dark red blood—in all likelihood, his internal organs have ruptured, and he's bleeding out internally. Injuries like this wouldn't be survivable even in a hospital." Seeing Starlight still trying to resuscitate the dying victim, Qi Li walked over and quietly cautioned her. He might not know the first thing about saving lives, but he was exceptionally good at taking them. A few cursory glances told him the man on the ground was beyond help. Starlight paused briefly. "As long as he's breathing, there's a chance he'll live." Qi Li shook his head. People died fast or died slow. This man fell into the latter category. He reminded her, "Have you forgotten the company's parting instructions?" Without turning around, Starlight raised hands already glowing with radiant golden energy. "Don't tell me you're Vought's good little lapdog, coming to stand in my way?" Qi Li gave a casual shrug. "Why bother with useless gestures? You're only inviting trouble." Even so, he made no move to stop her. Regardless of anything else, having one more genuinely good person around was never a bad thing. Qi Li scanned the rest of the victims. With Starlight cauterizing their bleeds and the on-site doctor providing emergency care, their conditions had barely stabilized, though complications could strike at any second. It wasn't that he hadn't considered carrying them to the hospital one by one at high speed. Yet in a world where superpowers flew everywhere, reality ignored physics sometimes—and followed them with merciless precision at others. If Qi Li carried them and accelerated even a fraction too fast, the bodies of these critically injured victims, already hovering on the brink of collapse, would never withstand the forces. They would likely perish mid-flight. Those with minor injuries didn't need an airborne taxi; those with critical injuries couldn't survive one. So Qi Li simply stood aside, watching Starlight make her futile efforts to save the man. Before long, ambulances arrived one after another. Starlight quickly stepped aside. A paramedic knelt down to examine the man she had been trying to revive, only to shake his head at her a moment later. A white sheet was drawn over the body. Starlight rose slowly to her feet. After a heavy silence, she said to Qi Li beside her, "If you want to laugh, go ahead." Qi Li didn't say a word. He merely stepped aside and gestured outward with an open hand. Starlight looked over in confusion. And then... *Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap...* A storm of passionate applause erupted. "Way to go, Starlight!" "Starlight, you did everything humanly possible!" "Our real superhero!" "..." In that moment, Starlight felt a profound, heartfelt joy she hadn't experienced in ages. It was vastly more genuine and intense than taking a stage to the deafening roar of adoring crowds, or participating in the staged crime busts orchestrated by Vought's scripts. Standing nearby, Qi Li couldn't help muttering internally. People always said you took on the color of your company. Why did he feel that hanging around Starlight was nudging him toward becoming a bona fide do-gooder? Why wasn't Starlight being influenced by him instead? Could it be that the light of righteousness was simply too dazzling? Or was he, deep down, actually a good person who had been hardened by reality? Qi Li shook his head. When a good person committed a single misstep, they were condemned by thousands; when a villain did one good deed, they were showered with lavish praise. Being a true do-gooder was hard. Being a genuine superhero was harder still. He was a superhero, yes. But only a competent one. Like scoring a passing grade of sixty on a hundred-point test. He would never follow Starlight's playbook. Clearly, he had to keep his guard up around her! *** High up in the sky. When Qi Li took Starlight by the waist to resume their aerial patrol over the city, her proactive enthusiasm had visibly surged. Soon, an update crackled in from Crime Analytics: "Queens, 63rd Road—active shooting. A couple currently in a domestic dispute is locked in a fierce shootout inside their home. Bronze! Starlight! This is the perfect moment to ignite trending topics—far more crucial for coverage than that highway crash rescue earlier..." Starlight couldn't help cutting in: "We just saved over thirty people back there! That's over thirty families! How is that not more important?" The Vought handler was visibly taken aback for a beat, then offered a placating chuckle. "Spot on, absolutely spot on—you performed a magnificent, heroic deed. But in the news cycle, that boils down to a few cold, dry statistics." With those last words, the handler lowered their pitch, accelerated their delivery, and pressed on without a pause: "Right now, this 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' desperately needs our hottest male-female dynamic duo to step in and reconcile them. Believe me, audiences eat this up. The moment you get them to kiss and make up—maybe even drop their weapons and share a passionate embrace on camera—you'll dominate the front page of every major outlet..." Qi Li interjected, "Cut the chatter. Address?" "Oh, right, right..." The handler hastily rattled off the location. Qi Li banked sharply, accelerating toward their destination. En route, Starlight parted her lips several times before finally asking, "Bronze, across all your past rescues... were there ever scripts?" Qi Li cast her a sideways glance and replied casually, "Of course." Starlight looked completely shocked. "You had them too? Which—" Without waiting for her to finish, Qi Li stated bluntly, "The more thrilling and dramatic a rescue looks, the faker it is." In real life, coincidences rarely lined up to let camera crews capture the perfect cinematic angle and lighting. During the month-long promotional buildup before he joined the Super Seven, Qi Li had received his fair share of Vought scripts. New York didn't just spawn perfectly tailored crimes for him every minute of the day. Whether it was the perpetrators, the victims, or the surrounding crowds, their authentic reactions and remarks rarely matched Vought's PR blueprint. When that happened, the solution was obvious: just like the aftermath of the raid on Shining Light that night, bring in a crew of paid actors. Qi Li carried no psychological burden over it. It harmed no one, created employment opportunities for plenty of people, and did no damage as an occasional stunt. While they spoke, Qi Li had already arrived above the scene. His boots touched the pavement. Looking at the two-story suburban home ahead, where periodic gunshots echoed from within, it was clear this "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" were going at each other with everything they had. Qi Li turned to Starlight. "Two lives are at stake. You handle the talking in a moment." Starlight glanced at him. "And you?" Qi Li gave a light shrug. "I'm better at taking people out, not talking them down." *** "One moment stopping thirteen vehicles and saving thirty-four lives at a catastrophic crash site; the next, stepping in to broker peace between a feuding couple mid-firefight. That is the unmatched response time of our superhero duo, Bronze and Starlight!" "Why did this passionate couple draw guns on each other, and why did they end up locked in a fiery embrace right before Bronze and Starlight? Let's take a look at the live footage." *"Woman: Oh my God! It's Bronze and Starlight! I'm such a huge fan!"* *"Man: Me too!"* *"Woman: I love you guys so much!"* *"Man: We even go to bed wearing your matching couple's pajamas!"* *"Starlight: Those aren't a couple's set—they're coordinated merchandise... But could the two of you make up?"* *"Both: If our idols are asking, of course we can!"* *"Starlight: Wishing you both happiness."* *"Both: Wishing you two happiness, too!!"* *"Starlight: ..."* *Click!* The television went black. Inside the safehouse, Butcher strolled over holding a drink, a gloating grin plastered across his face. "Oi, oi, oi! Heart hurts so much you wanna cry for daddy, eh?" Hughie turned his head away, deliberately ignoring him. Ever since Annie had teamed up with Bronze and skyrocketed in fame, Butcher hadn't missed a single chance to mock him. His threshold for the teasing had grown significantly higher. This time, however, Butcher didn't simply walk off once the reaction fell flat. He slung a heavy arm over Hughie's shoulder, his lips curling into his trademark roguish grin. "Don't you worry, mate. Daddy's gonna help you out!" Butcher hauled Hughie up by force and dragged him toward the exit. Trapped in the iron grip, Hughie could only stammer, "Wait! Where the hell are you taking me...?" *** Association of Collateral Damage Survivors. This was the sanctuary where unfortunate souls harmed in the wake of superhuman collateral damage gathered to vent their grievances. Among them sat a woman who had been rescued by Tek Knight, only for him to take her and thrust with such ferocious force that he fractured her spine, leaving her lower body paralyzed; a man whose eardrums had been ruptured by the ecstatic sonic screech of his superhuman girlfriend, leaving him dependent on hearing aids; and a young man whose superhuman girlfriend had playfully tugged his arm during a pout, ripping half of the limb clean off... Qi Li's acquaintance from Marketing, Seth, was also present. It was now his turn to speak. "There's this superhero... I won't say her name, but she can manipulate ice and snow." Butcher snapped his fingers with a smirk. "Ice Princess!" Seth froze, his expression tightening. "...I can't say her name. Regardless, she took a liking to me one day, and I didn't say no. Or rather, I felt immensely honored that she fancied me. That feeling was... so thrilling! Completely intoxicating!" A blissful, enraptured look crossed his face, but it darkened just as quickly. "Only, later on... while we were being intimate, she climaxed, and she... turned into solid ice! Just for a second, but I was... still inside her. A hundred and eighty below zero... So, as you can imagine, it snapped clean off." Hughie instantly drew in a sharp breath through his teeth. Even Butcher's eye twitched in sympathy. Seth continued, "And yet, I still miss her even now. I guess that's the price an ordinary mortal like me has to pay to be with a goddess like her. If only..." In that fleeting instant, the image of Bronze flashed through his mind. He remembered Bronze's vastly superior looks and physique; he remembered how young Bronze was, already raking in tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions; he remembered how even a corporate executive like Stillwell spoke to Bronze with gentle coddling; and he remembered the staggering list of female companions Bronze had mentioned. It all converged onto a single, undeniable fact: Bronze was a superhuman. Seth's face cycled through longing and yearning, before collapsing into sorrow and an exhausted sigh. "If only... I were a superhuman, too! None of this agony would have happened, and I wouldn't be stuck doing a job where women look right through me. I could have been a superhero. I could... But sadly, God never chose me." The moment the words left his mouth, several members in the support group nodded in resonant empathy. They had indeed suffered at the hands of superhumans, and they harbored genuine resentment toward them. Yet beneath that bitter exterior, in the deepest recesses of their hearts, they yearned desperately to become superhumans themselves. Butcher glanced at Hughie beside him, noticing a remarkably similar expression beginning to dawn on the young man's face. He realized he might have brought him to the wrong bloody place. *** While Butcher was silently kicking himself, his two teammates, Frenchie and Marvin, were putting their own sharp minds to work. Convinced that the secrets locked inside Kimiko held the key to deciphering Compound V, they were preparing to track down a telepath named Mesmer to uncover her true identity. Meanwhile. Qi Li, having just clocked out from his shift, received a private request. Stan Edgar dialed him directly: "Bronze, do you have a moment to handle someone for the company?" "More precisely, a superhuman."