PROMPT Fiction Contest: Third-Place Entry -- by Starmaster "Fear Revisited"

This is the third place finalist in the PROMPT fiction contest, submitted by Starmaster (14716)

    The League War hadn’t been as enjoyable as others, but that stemmed from issues outside the battle rounds. Chase was still missing. Starmaster itched to be back on the Earth, searching for her until she was found. She had been taken on his watch. It took a fair amount of restraint for him not to get on a shuttle and head back instead of sitting and watching the awards ceremony. But his league deserved his presence. He glanced down the row of seats beside him and looked at the assembled Star Force team.          Chained Angel sat next to him, her eyes meeting his own. She offered Starmaster a polite smile, as if aware of his inner turmoil. Catalyst sat on the opposite side of her, next to their newest addition, Silver Paladin. The two of them spoke in hushed tones to one another, planning strategies for next League War.
    On down the line, the rest of the members sat but two. One was habitually late. The other had quit the team after the last battle round.
    El Rey quitting the Star Force so abruptly troubled Starmaster as well. As a telepath, he could have known the man’s reasons, but Starmaster’s moral code kept him from digging in the young hero’s mind for answers. Accepting the mysterious turn was all that could be done.
    A muscular, red posterior shuffled in front of Starmaster’s face. “Yo, Angel, scoot your ass down.”
Starmaster leaned back, fearing his college friend would crop-dust him out of amusement. “Nice to see you could finally make it.”
    The other nine members of the league shuffled down a seat to make room for Wyldfyre to take a seat next to the team leader. He plopped into the seat between Starmaster and Chained Angel and wiggled for more space, pressing her sizable white wing out of his way. “Get us a gold next time and I’ll be here on time.”
    “Hands off, Wyld,” Chained Angel whispered.
    “Shut it and preen yourself. Can’t you see they're talking up there?” Wyldfyre retorted.
    Starmaster grinned a bit beneath his mask, not in the mood to fully appreciate his friend’s antics.             “We’ve already been called up for our bronze medals. I’ve got yours.”
    He handed Wyldfyre a medallion hanging at the end of an orange ribbon.
    “Then if we got our prize…” Wyldfyre lifted the award up and scowled with disdain, “why don’t we just leave.”
    Starmaster couldn’t help but consider the option. What would it matter for them to stay? He began to sit up but stopped himself when catching sight of the heroes stepping up to the presenter to receive their boon. “The winners deserve full seats in the audience. Some of the matches were hard fought and deserve our praise and respect.”
    “Wake me when you’re ready to go then.” Wyldfyre slumped back in his seat, tilted his head back, and closed his eyes.
    If you snore, I’m going to smother you with my cape. Starmaster whispered into his friend’s mind.
    A shocked outcry broke throughout the large stadium. Several dozen heroes looked up through the glass ceiling to the BADGE orbital space station and pointed. Bright orange light sizzled around it, followed by a blast of white incandescence.
    The announcer, who had been speaking at the podium, tried to calm the crowd until he loudly uttered “WHAT IS THAT?”
    Orange mist descended all around the collected heroes from the ceiling.
    In less than the blink of an eye, everything and everyone on the station faded from sight and was replaced by a new environment.
    As a teleporter, Starmaster had trained himself to be accustomed to such rapid shifts, not being disorientated as many would be. The place where he found himself was the absolute last place he wanted to be.
    Shizue was beside him. His combat suit had been replaced by the clothing he wore in North Onnatangu in the palace when he and Chase infiltrated the palace several weeks ago.
    “This can’t be real,” Starmaster said to Shizue, a noble, but not Noble, woman from the streets of the dictatorially ruled country. She had housed Chase and Starmaster as they investigated the possibility of ruby shards being kept in the country.
    General Paneki, or Krampus as Starmaster had soon discovered the first time he experienced this moment, stood up from the ground. “You’re clever, human. Befriending these dregs of society, I didn’t expect that.”
    Starmaster strained to telekinetically grab all the children and Shizue into his protective shield, but his powers wouldn’t manifest. “What are you doing? Why have you brought me back here, Krampus?”
    That was what he thought to say, but his words came out just as they had before. “I know that sensation, but it cannot be. You shouldn’t be here.”
    He was reliving the event he had experienced in North Onnatangu. And just like before, he was unable to stop what occurred.
    Once again, Starmaster watched as the man who the country thought to be General Kaukatsu revealed its true form as Skelanimal.
    Once again, Starmaster tried to evade the rapidly growing villain while calling for help from Chase. He brought up his telekinetic barrier, just as he had before, and Skelanimal smashed through it and knocked Starmaster through a wall.
    Once again, he experienced the moment where he hid from battle as the Skelanimal fought the countries military as the enlarged monster tore the building apart. Shizue encased Skelanimal in a barrier of bricks, but he tore through them and focused on the tiny woman.
    His powers weakened to the point of uselessness, he could only watch and fear the outcome of his lack of strength.
    When the blow came down to smash Shizue, the scene changed again.
    He and and two other people were tied to posts, one on each side of him. And old man and a woman.
No. Not this. Starmaster tried to teleport away through the Mindscape, his corner of the astral plane. As it happened the first time, none of his powers responded to his commands. His powers had been negated by a bit of technology.
    He could only watch and listen as the foul dictator of the country paraded before his court of peers. The evil man destroyed the other two Morphon-enhanced individuals before turning his attention to the cameras of his press.
    “Now, ladies and gentlemen of the world, I present to you the true villains of Earth, BADGE. Tonight, during our simple little banquet, they sent in spies to undermine us. We have done nothing to undermine them. This is why we need to defend ourselves, so you need to bow to our wisdom. Tonight, before your eyes, I will execute one of BADGE’s own. With this act, I declare war on BADGE and all heroes.” He turned, held the gun up, and took aim at Starmaster’s chest.
    “HEY, I’M NOT WITH BADGE. I’M WITH A LEAGUE, BUT NOT BADGE!” Starmaster shouted out from his past. His fear at the hands of a madman brought lies out of him. He lied with each word, afraid of the consequences of being identified as a spy from BADGE, afraid of the pain caused by the unknown weapon, and terrified of dying. He was supposed to be a hero, not the fuse that started a war between this country and the world.
    The beam spat out of the weapon. Starmaster closed his eyes as it struck him in the center of the chest. He braced himself against the pain of being utterly destroyed.
    Pain never came. He opened his eyes and time had jumped ahead. He now stood freed of the post, but still without powers due to the power-negating collar.
    The children of the city, under the leadership of Shizue had come to save him. Save him, the person who was supposed to be the professional. The young urchins he had tried to train to better use their powers while he hid in their home now found themselves fighting the assembled generals and personnel of the despotic government.
    A young girl was shot in the leg. All Starmaster could do was lift a chair and swing it wildly, hoping to distract the man. Reliving the event, outside of his-in-the moment of experiencing it, Starmaster found himself picking up another chair and hurling it a different general. That is how I will be remembered. They will call me not Barrelrider, but Chairflinger. All his training with his powers and in a fight, he ended up as useful as an angry neo-nazi on the stage with Geraldo Rivera.
    His body turned to a side and Starmaster wished his powers had been to stop time. “No. Not this. I can’t watch this again.”
    The Supreme Leader Shoju took the weapon he once trained at Starmaster and fired a young lad who valiantly fought five guards who surrounded his guardian Shizue. Within a couple of seconds, the boy vanished into nothingness.
    Shizue shouted out. “NO!”
    Starmaster’s ability to sense minds around him flared to life. He became aware of every conscious mind around him in the building. He perceived each one as a flare of light, a tiny, brilliant star on the Mindscape.
    The light of the small boy faded and disappeared.
    No. No-no-no. Starmaster froze in the instant, his body unable to move. Another light winked out, and then another. He could only watch as each person within his ability to sense ended, until only two lights remained. Two lights that shifted into photo-negative blackness in the dull gray of the Mindscape.
    “You’re a failure, hero,” Krampus, again disguised as General Paneki said as he closed in on Starmaster’s immobile body. His eyes glowed with a red flame.
    “He knows that. Every light will fade out until only our darkness remains.” General Kaukatsu stepped out from behind an overturned table. He carried Chase’s dead body in his arms.
    Chase. I'm so sorry. So, so sorry. I failed you, too.Starmaster struggled to move. This isn’t what happened. This can’t be real.
    Skelanimal dropped Chase’s body to the ground. It hit with a soft thump and laid there, unmoving. He stepped over it and turned his head to the still disguised Krampus. “May I?”
    “You may,” Krampus’s cheeks swelled as he broke into a fang-filled smile. “Consider it my gift.”
    Skelanimal turned back, giving his own toothy grin to Starmaster. The villain’s breath reeked of rot and death. He drew back his bone-covered fist and struck the immobile man with the force of a freight train. “Thank you so much.”
    Everything went black.
*****
    Starmaster floated in darkness. He tried to right himself but as his position changed, no observable difference could be noted.
    He sought out other people. The Mindscape was as empty as the space around him.
    “Hello…”
    No response came.
    A with nothing to observe or distract him, he faced the nothingness. The nightmare he dared never consider laid bare before him. Only darkness remained. The fear within him reached near critical mass.
    “Why am I all that is left? I don’t deserve this.”
    All he ever wanted was to do right. To bring light to drive back the darkness. He failed.
    Closing his eyes, not that it mattered with the nothingness around him, he tried to summon the memory of light. A thought drifted in with the remembrance. He opened his eyes and smiled.
    The League Wars arena appeared before him. Heroes laid on the ground, hovered in the air, and some even laid fetal on their benches with their thumbs in their mouths.
    Wyldfyre crouched on the floor in a ball beside him. “Wha…What just happened?”
    “I’m not sure, but I think it happened to everyone.” Starmaster reached down to help his fried up.
    “I was naked in art class and everyone was laughing at my--,” Wyldfyre said, before catching himself. “Mole. They were laughing at my mole. And then Director Nova told me to wake up.”
    “He did the same for me.” Starmaster recalled seeing Director Nova appearing in the light he tried to summon in his memory, commanding him to awaken. He reached into the Mindscape and became aware of volumes of relief washing out from the lights cast by every person aboard the Stellar Arena. Relief, and afterimages of Director Nova having somehow spoken to each of them. “Everyone here faced something and survived it. Thanks to Director Nova, I think. We need to find its source and stop it before it happens again.”
    Whatever caused the massive outbreak of fear, Starmaster had plans to bring it a universe of fear back to its doorstep and return the favor. With an overwhelming sense of gratitude, he knew that he wasn’t alone in that desire.

ID: 14716