Prometheus Busted — Part 1 (CBT)

Oh hey, my first CBT story! This here is an idea I've been entertaining for a while now and I've already started work on developing it, including discussing ideas with a friend of mine. I've always enjoyed the concept of superheroes in kinky peril (and sometimes, enjoying said peril), and I'm happy to bring this idea to life with this story here. It's going to be a multi-parter and while I don't know what the over-arching plot will be just yet, I do have an idea of how the first few chapters will go and I plan to get them posted as soon as I write them. (I may also include tickling in some of the later chapters, hint hint ;D)

The setting of this story is shared with one of my mainstream writing and worldbuilding projects, which I'll discuss more of elsewhere on the Internet in due course, but aside from a cameo from one of the characters from said project towards the end of this chapter, this is a separate story which is meant to be more fetish-fuel-focused. I may however have some of the characters which may be introduced in this story make cameos in the main project when I get around to writing it, though, who knows?

Enjoy, everyone!

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Prometheus Busted — Part 1

By Skaea

Contains: F/M, M/M, and */M ballbusting, femdom, peril, violence/gore, and graphic castration.

Word Count: 6,925

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Chapter 1: That Fateful Morning

It was the dawn of a bright new day in the shining city of Monumentropolis. Rising from the east coast of the United States, the beautiful skyline was a bastion of hope in a country torn by greed, bigotry, and cruelty. High above the rest of the buildings, the iconic Monolith Tower seemed to spear the heavens with its golden steeple, a beacon of liberty signaling a haven for the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Here, the phrase “ordinary life” was both a common refrain and an oxymoron. Beneath its glittering exterior, the city seemed to be a magnet for every global threat imaginable in this existence. Aside from rampant crime, there were giant monsters, aliens, and even supernatural dangers from other dimensions invading almost every other hour. Nobody knew why this was the case; some had speculated that the Monolith Tower was to blame, but evidence pointed to trouble plaguing the city even before it had been constructed during the Roaring Twenties. Just how Monumentropolis had not collapsed in on itself and become lost to history would have been a mystery to all if not for one critical factor.

In a stroke of true kismet, good luck had balanced bad. Every single citizen who dwelled here, from the lowliest of the homeless to the mayor himself, somehow developed at least some modicum of supernatural talent, usually enough to put an end to the public menaces that showed up every day. How this happened was just as much of a mystery as why terrible things always seemed to gravitate towards the city itself, but nobody seemed to question it. Mysterious disappearances, mystical artifacts, magical visitors from other worlds, strange but attractive new transfer students… Literally anything could happen to anyone here, and nobody could predict who would be the next one to ascend to heroism or when that ascent would be.

Whatever the case, no matter who you are, or where you came from, in Monumentropolis, you’ll become the hero of your own saga — or the villain of someone else’s. Many, many stories have been told in this wonderous city since time immemorial, and many more will be for eons to come. This is but one of these stories.

**********

Tristan "Prometheus" Petropoulos (as portrayed by Michael Bailey Gates)

“I fucking hate my life.”

Tristan Petropoulos hung his head and uttered those words as he glanced up at the fifty-foot hole smashed in the side of the once-beautiful Cathedral of St. Kane. This was the third time this month that the historic structure had been partly demolished, and it had been among one of the growing number of casualties of the ever-climbing crime rate haunting the city lately. It was a mystery as to why this was happening, even in a place like this where everyone expected the impossible. With the population at an all-time high, it had been expected that the increased amount of protagonists would ensure stability, but nope. There were fewer people than average compared to last year gaining abilities to speak of, and that left the existing heroes dealing with the increasing jeopardy hopelessly swamped.

The percentage who had failed to develop powers up to this point, alas, included poor Tristan himself. His father was originally from Greece, supposedly descended from a great line of heroes which ran all the way back to Heracles himself, while his beautiful mother’s ancestors — who may or may not have had Fair Folk blood in their pedigree — had moved to America from Ireland to flee the infamous potato famine. By all rights, this should have made him a paragon of fitness, strength, and godly power. He had certainly looked the part back in college — swathed in muscle with a thick waist and meaty limbs with massive hands and feet, his wrestler’s body contrasted quite sharply with a boyish face straight from a Roman sculpture, with perfect cheekbones, shoulder-length reddish brown hair, and stunning green eyes. Despite his beautiful visage and perfect tan, he wasn’t built for presentation, not like the bodybuilders who the girls always fawned over, but for raw strength and power — a must for the university wrestling team’s MVP.

Beloved by the rest of his team and many of the female students besides, Tristan had won every competition honestly and through hard practice, both mentally and physically. An engineering student as well as a wrestler, he studied not only the best grappling techniques but also the ways the laws of physics worked to helped buildings stand and machines move. These same studies on force and motion had also helped him determine how to most efficiently bowl over and pin down the competition. From his perspective, he was king of his world, and nothing could ever challenge his rule.

Things were simpler back then. But that was before he moved to Monumentropolis and discovered the much darker microcosm within.

Before his advancements in life forced him to ground his expectations, Tristan had always dreamed of being a superhero. He had known about the more famous citizens Monumentropolis since childhood, and for the longest time he’d yearned to be a part of that clique. Who wouldn’t want to? Their fame had been earned hard and square, keeping the city forever safe from lasting harm, and the public celebrated them for that, as opposed to the many more scandalous bouts with fame experienced by the nameless hundreds in the acting and music industry. As long as Monumentropolis existed, every child’s greatest fantasy was not to be a pop idol, but to be a guardian of hope and liberty. Knowing his heritage, this was especially relevant for Tristan, who moved to the city as soon as he’d graduated in the hopes of finding a lucrative career in civil engineering.

His unreasonably auspicious hopes were swiftly dashed, however, upon learning about what being a citizen entailed. In a world where everyone was super, nobody would be. And in the face of constant imminent doom, you’d have to adapt or die. There was no third choice.

Tristan’s father had always told him that someday, his inner hero would find him. By all rights, he could have been one of the most celebrated figures in the city, with the raw strength, speed, or magic abilities to take on anyone who dared threaten his home, friends, and family. But the day when he’d develop them had never come. No amount of soul-searching, psychiatric consultation, or medical tests could ever hope to unlock anything truly amazing. Without an ability of his own, there was no way he could ever catch up.

In fact, the only place that could ever suit his ilk was the cleanup crew. Every day, workers of all shapes, sizes, and ages toiled to patch up whatever carnage had been left by the match of the day. Maintaining the infrastructure of the city was an essential job, sure, but nowhere near as glamorous as protecting it from outside threats. Tristan had hoped he’d at least be placed in a prominent foreman position due to his credentials, but there were no such jobs open at the moment — the best he could do was settle for a lowly worker position, hauling and placing materials at the risk of potentially fatal accidents… or collateral damage from the latest spectacle.

And just like that, Tristan’s dream of a beautiful future went down the shitter.

Where he had once looked towards the heroes of Monumentropolis with vertiable worship, now he only felt sadness, jealousy, anger, and a twinge of revulsion whenever he was forced to acknowledge their existence. He worked as hard as they did, but they had greater recognition, and less regard for the consequences. Millions’ worth of property damage would have to be compensated for from the very pockets of the citizens these heroes were protecting, and that left many either homeless or just barely scraping by. Tristan could barely pay for his tiny suburban apartment, and medical bills were out of the question if he got hurt in an accident. It was as though he had lost his big match against life, without taking a single blow.

His life fucking sucked, and he knew it.

Right now, a number of workers were already busy laying brick after brick, sorted and numbered by color and shape, painstakingly reassembling a wall that took only a few seconds to smash just the other day. Instead of choirs and exorcism incantations, the sounds of hammering, chiseling, and general chatter and orders filled the air in and around the cathedral, an ambience that Tristan had come to know all too well by this point.

It was not the life he could have lived had things turned out differently, but such was the harsh trial of reality.

A whole five minutes of scaling the scaffolding passed before he reached his designated location. Already, a large stack of numbered bricks was making its way via cranelift towards the designated platform, along with a large supply of mortar. Grumbling to himself, Tristan waited for the materials to arrive, and once they did, he started his daily routine, the same drudgery he had committed himself to over the past five months.

As the minutes turned into hours, Tristan toiled under the burning sun, ignoring the sting of sunburn or the sweat building over every inch of his tanned skin, making his dirty white T-shirt stick uncomfortably to his back. By mid-morning, when the foreman came by for inspection, he had already placed three loads of bricks without tiring and was waiting on the fourth one.

Upon arriving at his platform, the inspector took one look at his work, and shook his head. “Tristan, what in the — These bricks are facing the wrong way! You’re supposed to put them smooth side out!”

Tristan moaned in protest. “Sir, they’re probably going to be knocked back down in a day or two. What does appearance have to do with this?”

“It has everything to do with what this damn cathedral looks like! It’s been around for two centuries, and the last thing we need is the citizens complaining about an ugly blotch on its side! Fix it now, or it’s the boot with you. Understood?”

The inspector didn’t stick around to heckle him any further, thankfully, but his words still stung. All that hard work, and all he got was criticism and contempt. Why couldn’t the fact that he tried in the first place be recognized for once?

Cursing under his breath, Tristan started pulling the first brick off of its slot, the mortar gumming up his fingers in the process. Never in his life had he felt so utterly depressed and humiliated.

“Could this morning get any worse?” he muttered absently.

There was an unspoken rule among the citizens of Monumentropolis, one that Tristan had momentarily forgotten in his frustration. You never, ever ask if things can get any worse. Because they will.

There was the sound of an explosion a few blocks away, followed by distant screams of terror and a booming roar that made the loose bricks tremble. Great, more useless labor. But little was Tristan to know, even as he returned to his toil, that this was only the start of it.

Just a few minutes after the distant explosion, a blur of movement became visible on the rooftops, hurtling towards the construction site at breakneck speeds. The delicate figure, clad in orange and black, moved swiftly from roof to roof, until it alighted upon a scaffold just below his own. Tristan turned in surprise, for the figure had made very little noise even while landing. With a gasp, he laid eyes upon the pixie-cut black hair with orange streaks, the striped spandex uniform with white-furred cuffs over the athletic, feminine figure, and the feline ears and dual tails topping it off. A superheroine. If she was here, property was bound to be damaged in short order.

"Hey! You there!” he called down to her. “Get outta here before—”

“No time to argue! Run while you still can!” She briefly glanced up at him, revealing dark eyes covered by a black mask. In her hands, he could see what looked like a glittering, bejeweled chalice.

He was just about to ask where she had gotten said chalice when she leaped through the hole in the wall and vanished into the cavernous depths of the cathedral.

“Hmph,” he grumbled, turning back to the task at hand. “Hope she gets caught by the police before—”

It was as though a cloud moving at incredible speeds had blotted out the sun. The rest of the construction workers began to scream, but he paid them no heed until it was too late. Next thing he knew, something enormous had slammed into the side of the building, causing the scaffolding to shudder with terrifying force. With a startled yell, he threw out his hand and caught the nearest support post at the last moment, managing to avoid being thrown into the winds. Turning to see the source of the panic now sweeping through the construction crew, his eyes almost bulged out of his sockets and his mouth fell agape in a silent scream of terror.

An enormous, fire-breathing dragon, its serpentine length easily reaching a good 250 feet, was clawing its way into the hole in the cathedral. Tristan was so close to it that he could make out each of its glittering emerald scales, the size of a dinner plate at the minimum. As big as a jumbo jet with a leathery wingspan to match, its four muscular legs were equipped with curving claws as long as Tristan’s leg, and its horned, wedge-shaped head seemed to be split in half by a crooked crocodilian maw full of serrated fangs. It reared back its long neck into a swan-curve, and then threw its head forward, blasting a jet of white-hot napalm into the cathedral and melting a hole almost as big as the one Tristan and company had been repairing into the other side of the building! Screams still echoed through the morning air, but in the midst of all the chaos, he could now hear the chuppa chuppa chuppa of an attack helicopter closing in on the construction site.

As bitter as he felt towards his lot in life, Tristan was nevertheless paralyzed with awe and terror at the spectacle unfolding before him. There was some sense of primordial wonder about scenes like this, of monsters and mortals clashing in a spectacular display of power. This was probably the reason that people cared more for the movers and shakers in the superhero hall of fame than lower-class workers like him, but where would they be without these workers, the men and women who kept their source of glory running smoothly?

Unfortunately, to the menaces that happened upon the city on a daily basis, these very people were nothing but collateral and cannon fodder. Of course, Tristan wouldn’t come to terms with this grim thought until much, much later. Right now, though, the stark terror racing through every nerve in his body left no room whatsoever for philosophical musing, leaving him virtually helpless and much too close.

The sound of gunfire alerted the beast to a new opponent, the bullets glancing and sparking off its armored hide. Roaring in sheer anger, the dragon whirled to face the helicopter, its huge taloned forelimb unwittingly swatting the platform Tristan was standing on off into the horizon! His vision faded into some kind of hazy blur, time seeming to slow down as his feet left the solid surface. Sailing through the air, plummeting like some priceless Ming vase that a cat had knocked off someone’s table, he felt a strange sense of disappointment as he fell. He had come so far, climbed his way to the top of his life, but the peak that he had yet to scale was the Mt. Everest to his simple little hill! And now here he was, just another casualty in the game of good vs. evil.

There was a searing, stabbing pain in his gut and lower back, like someone had plunged a knife into each side of his body. He looked up weakly to find that instead of colliding messily with the ground, he had landed on a lower part of the building with a shelf of exposed concrete. Unfortunately, said shelf had sported several pieces of exposed rebar — including the three-foot-long metal shaft now protruding through his stomach.

Through the blur of pain blotting out his mind, he could hear the sirens of paramedics already racing towards the grotesque scene. They’d probably be too late — he’d be dead by then, lying there in a pool of his own blood, and his family would have to mourn the loss of a bright young man who had failed them in every way possible. But there was worse to come.

The dragon lunged at the helicopter, slamming its powerful jaws into the cockpit and crushing it and the screaming pilot inside to a grisly pulp of scrap and gore! With a snarl of fury, it hurled the chopper into another building, the resultant explosion sending a column of smoke high into the sky. The bladed tip of the beast’s thrashing, spiked tail dislodged several loose bricks from the repair site as it took off, its huge wings whipping up hurricane-force winds which blew the falling bricks like cannon shot towards where the impaled construction worker was lying.

Time seemed to slow down even further than it had during the fall as the bricks hurtled towards him. Even on the verge of death, he instinctively raised his arms to protect his head…

WHACK! CRUNCH!! SPL-GLOOOSH!!!

There was a jolt of pure, searing agony, as though a miniature sun had suddenly formed inside his pants. Then another. And another! One by one, the bricks had slammed into the massive bulge which he had tried so desperately to protect with both thick worker’s jeans and a steel cup. But alas, this protection had proved useless against the sharp-edged chunks of hardened clay plowing into his crotch at over a hundred miles an hour!

For one brief moment, his mouth opened wide in a silent scream of absolute anguish, almost in tune to the ground-shuddering roar of the departing monster.

And then, just like that, everything was gone.

**********

Tristan lay on a flat, soft, cushiony surface. For a brief moment, his eyes remained closed tight, as though fearing that the first thing they’d see upon opening up was the dreary, ethereal fields of Asphodel. Then his lids slowly relented, to find a bright light poking rudely at his vision. Maybe he was in Heaven after all?

Nope. As the background noise started filtering in, he slowly realized that he was lying on a hospital bed. He was clad in the usual thin patient’s robe, but underneath that he could feel bandages wrapped around his stomach, and a slight tingling in his mangled, useless crotch.

How was it even possible that he’d survived that morning? He’d been run right through with a rusty metal pole, and had his loins pulverized by a load of bricks hurtling into them with enough force to make a steam engine proud. And yet here he was, his heart beating, his lungs breathing, his mind racing.

His wondrous thoughts were interrupted by a nurse walking into his ward. She wasn’t like the beautiful ones seen in the movies, just an ordinary, normally-dressed brunette, her dark hair tied in a neat bun. Ordinary… just like him.

Nurse Nina Curandera was used to the sight of horrific injuries. Like Tristan, she too had to deal with the many, many victims of collateral damage during epic battles, but these cases were much more personal. She didn’t harbor the same grudge as Tristan — she just wanted to make sure that her patients lived to see another victory. And she cared for everyone, great or small. She wasn’t the all-knowing nurse that superheroes could depend on for help, but as someone going through her own dramas at the Gray-Carter Municipal Hospital, she knew her way around people, both inside and out. And she knew heroes by extension.

“Ah, you’re awake,” she said. “Thank goodness, we were so worried. Your company would’ve surely sued the mayor if you didn’t make it.”

“Oh, good.”

She appraised him briefly, her expression grim. “Judging from the force of impact your loins took during the… accident… it’s amazing you even survived. Your pelvis and part of your lower vertebral column were completely shattered after the first brick.” She paused, shuddering ever so slightly. “And then there was your impalement, which pretty much explains itself. Either of those alone would have killed you within minutes. The odds of you surviving both at once are unbelievably slim.”

Tristan paled. “So, does… Does that mean I’m not one of those ordinary people, then?”

“We’re still testing your blood sample for anything significant. But whatever the case, you’ll need a few more days to recover.”

He paused, looking down at his bandaged chest. “How long was I…”

Nina's expression was apprehensive. “Three days. You lost a lot of blood, and we had to give you multiple transfusions to keep you alive. But you’ll probably never have children. I… I’m so sorry.”

The corners of Tristan’s eyes began to tear up as he took this in. He hadn’t thought about finding love or raising a family until now — so embroiled had he been in his own bitterness that he had virtually ignored anyone’s attempts to woo him no matter how hard they tried. But now, sackless, dickless, emasculated… There was no way anyone would look at his lack of a package and ask him to have his way with them. Chaste though he was, he felt an ache of grief and loss regardless at this painful truth.

“I’ll… I’ll leave you to compose your thoughts for a while,” said the nurse. “There’s some food next to you if you’re hungry. But more importantly, you need rest. A lot of it. Hopefully you’ll be compensated for your injury, but nobody’s making any promises…”

He nodded absentmindedly, unable to think clearly. While compensation was a good possibility, it was equally likely that the company would simply fire him for his incompetence. They wouldn’t be wrong, either — he hadn’t run for it like he should’ve when the dragon attacked, and look what happened.

Not finding anything else to say, the nurse turned and exited the ward. Once again, Tristan was alone.

The hours ticked by as he lay there, unable to do much except turn the TV suspended from the ceiling on and off and on again, changing the channels every once in awhile. Reports were coming in from many of the news stations that the dragon, who had erupted from the city bank, was tearing its way through the city, decimating military vehicles and municipal property as it went. Already a squadron of heroes was being sent out to deal with it… He switched off the TV at that point. He didn’t care anymore what these heroes and villains and monsters did. There was only one outcome: a huge gory mess for him to clean up after.

Yes indeed, his life really fucking sucked.

There was only one thing left for him to do. After making sure there wasn’t anyone spying on him through any of the curtains or the window above him, he slipped his hand into his robe and felt around for what was left of his junk. He was quite sure that it was not going to feel pretty, but he had to know. His fingertips inched downward until they reached the area in question, and felt a soft but dense, spongy mass which felt strangely warm. A surge of lust seemed to tickle its way up his spine at that moment, and overcome with arousal, he instinctively gripped his whole hand around the meaty shaft and started pumping himself vigorously.

His… shaft?!

His hand immediately withdrew. A bead of sweat slithered down from his forehead, the mixed messages sending his brain reeling. That shouldn’t have been possible. The nurse had said that his pelvis had been shattered, so if the impact was that powerful, then there should’ve been nothing left of his once proud cock and balls but a fond memory.

He stuck his hand down there again. Again, his fingertip met the soft, tender head of his cock. Then, slowly, it slid down the length of the shaft, and then started caressing the thin, baggy skin  of his ballsack. And to his immense shock, he could feel the dense, firm, and completely intact testicles stored within.

There was a long moment of utter disbelief. Could it really be true? Could there have been some way for his sex life to have survived, even after such horrific trauma as what had happened that morning?

There was only one way to find out.

Carefully unbuttoning his hospital gown, he slipped his blanket off of him and then undressed, revealing for the first time his bandaged torso — as well as a package that was both truly impressive and miraculously unharmed. His cock was a good ten inches long and an inch in diameter, but it was of little consequence. What he really wanted to test his hypothesis on was the goods beneath it… in the form of a pendulous scrotum containing testicles the size of chicken’s eggs. Three days had been plenty of time for them to reappear on his person, so if his hunch was correct, what he was planning would only hurt for a few seconds… right?

Looking around, he saw a tray on the desk next to his bed with some standard hospital fare, including some gelatin, a plate of pasta, and a glass of water. Attached to the glass was a note saying “For Mr. Petropoulos”. No doubt someone had left the meal there when the paramedics had detected signs of life beginning to well up within him earlier — the pasta was still warm. Grabbing the tray, he ate as quickly as he could, then set the tray aside. The fork, however, he wiped clean with the napkin he had on hand, and even swiped a bit of rubbing alcohol from the desk to make sure there wasn’t any sauce or germs on it. He had already had one reason to stay the night here, and he could do without blood poisoning.

After checking once more to make sure nobody was coming, Tristan spread his legs slightly, lifting his cock out of the way so that his large balls were lying flat on the cushion, totally unobstructed. Then, slowly, deliberately, he positioned the fork so that the very tips of its tines were just touching his juicy-looking right nut.

He took a deep breath. It was now or never. Lifting the fork up to shoulder-height, he aimed it at the testicle below, and then brought it down with all the force he could muster.

SQUELLCCHH!!!

His world exploded into raw, undistilled agony. If he hadn’t squeezed his eyes shut from the sheer pain, he’d have noticed that the tines of the fork had pierced right through the skin of his scrotum and the thick wall of his testicle in one go! His mouth opened wide, as though he was screaming at the top of his lungs, but he only managed to emit a strained wheeze. Cringing and squirming in his bed, he could literally feel the torturous sting of the cold metal and the rubbing alcohol in direct contact with the highly sensitive tissues within, and he would swear that if he had struck just a little harder, the fork tines, now buried up to their hilts, would have poked out of the back side of his poor man-egg!

In the midst of all that, however, there was another, even more remarkable sensation. The flesh of his nut around each hole seemed to be squeezing against the fork tines, as though trying to force them out! That made even less sense. As far as he was concerned, his testicles contained no muscles whatsoever, nor could he feel any contraction around the puncture wounds.

Could it be? Could it really be…?

Only one way to find out.

Gritting his teeth, pinching the sides of his wounded nut between the fingers of his other hand, he did the most insane thing yet: he tugged the fork out of his scrotum with a single, agonizing yank. The sheer anguish made him almost throw up — despite his carefully planned direction of extraction, he could’ve sworn that the tips of the fork tines had tugged painfully at the tubules inside his testicle on the way out.

Finally opening his streaming, tearing eyes, Tristan lifted his head and looked down at his handiwork. A mixture of blood and spunk was already staining the bed cushion a frightening maroon, now gushing in earnest from the small but very deep puncture wounds. The tip of his dick, which was now rock-hard despite all that agony, was oozing with precum, spraying a little of it onto his solid abs and bushy brown pubic hair.

His expression changed from pain to wide-eyed shock as he took in what happened next. The wounds in his scrotum seemed to be closing up, all on their own. He could practically feel the holes beginning to shrink and narrow as the tissues began to grow unobstructed, sealing off the blood supply to the injuries and reconstituting his biomass at an accelerated rate.

A range of emotions exploded in his mind all at once. Relief, alarm, anger, disgust, despair… and for some weird reason, excitement. He had spent the last half a year, ever since he’d moved to Monumentropolis, rallying against the upper-class heroes along with many other lower-class workers, protesting for equal rights and raising the call to bring them down to his own level. But right here, right now, fate had bestowed upon him the cruelest twist of irony yet — the revelation that he had a superhuman ability. Healing any wound, no matter how severe… It was not surprising that it had taken a near-death experience for this trait to manifest. But why now, not during all those times when he’d skinned his knees or gotten papercuts as a child? Did it have to be incited only by a life-threatening incident? Could it only work when he was seriously harmed? Could it have saved him from death itself?

The sound of a clipboard hitting the floor interrupted his reverie. He looked up, and instantly drew the blanket over his crotch. There was the nurse from earlier, staring at him with an expression which, in a cartoon, would have entailed her jaw hitting the floor.

In any other circumstance, Nina would have screamed, “FUCKING PERVERT!” and plunged her fist into the offender’s groin as hard as she could. But upon seeing her stark naked patient on the bed, the bloodied fork on the tray, the pool of sickly red soaking into the bed cushion, and the rapidly closing holes in Tristan’s nutsack, she had put two and two together in abject horror.

“Sorry,” Tristan said meekly. “I wanted to, um, try something.”

Without missing a beat, Nina reached into her pocket and fished out a small card, which she then handed to her charge with a serious expression. “Call this number, immediately,” she said. “I’ll get you a phone tout de suite. If you aren’t registered by tonight, well… A genital piercing will be the least of your problems, I can assure you.”

**********

Mayor Alejandro Norman considered himself a “people person”. Like all the other prominent figures in his wonderful home, he was beloved by the populace and advocated for equal rights for everyone, rich or poor, cultured or streetwise. It was not without reason that he felt this way — his alter-ego, the metal-clad Ironback, was hailed as a protector of the common man, extending his hamhock-thick, steel-crushing arm with the most gentle care to even those whom all else would have scorned.

Ironback knew all too well about the harm that heroism could potentially bring to bystanders, witnesses, or even people who just happened to be too close. This made the matter brought to him by the latest visitor to his office at the top of the Monolith Tower a serious one, even if he was quite sure that his son Baltimore would laugh so hard at the tale he was going to tell his family when he got home that he’d have hiccups for a week.

“So, tell me… Is it true that you didn’t file in for registration until today?” he asked, eyeing the redheaded twenty-five-year-old now sitting in front of him.

Tristan nodded silently.

“And is it true that you’re descended from demigod stock?”

Tristan looked down at his crotch; now dressed in a cream-colored polo and his dingy jeans, he’d had to stuff a napkin down his pants in case it absorbed the remaining blood, even though he was quite sure that his wounds had healed within just a few minutes.

“My father says he was descended from Hercules himself,” the younger man replied. “Or Heracles, if you will. And my mom’s great, great grandmother came from a human/fae couple. Neither of them were born with powers, though.”

“What about magical artifacts? Or pacts with paranormal entities? Or prominent positions exposing them to unusual situations?”

Tristan thought for a moment. “My dad owns a knife fashioned from one of the feathers of the Stymphalian Birds, and my grandmother tried to teach magic to my mom when she was little. They haven’t talked much about what adventures they had when they were younger, though.”

“Huh. Sounds like 50’s pulp adventure/fantasy, or urban fantasy from the 90’s… Hm. But they’ve retired since then, right?”

Tristan nodded again.

Mayor Norman rubbed his large square chin in thought. “Usually, when two people with superhuman abilities really love each other, all that fuss over sitting in a tree and marriage and the baby carriage leads to offspring who go on adventures of their own. If the powers aren’t genetically inherited, at least something unusual will happen to them. Especially if they’re born with strange-looking hair, like my son was.”

Tristan ran a finger through his own unkempt locks. “But I’m not a main character. I’m just a guy who happens to have healing powers, which I didn’t discover until three days ago.”

“I’m aware of that. The hospital staff told me what happened, along with your little mishap while recovering. At least you can still get laid, amigo,” he added with a wry smirk.

The youth grimaced. “I should be so lucky.”

“So if you had all the hallmarks of someone who could develop abilities, then why didn’t you register upon moving to Monumentropolis? Immigrants are required by law to mark down any abnormal or extraordinary pedigree or family history in their application profile. And they normally start their adventures even before reaching puberty.”

“Look, I didn’t know until today that I could heal!” Tristan looked slightly incensed and alarmed. “It’s not everyday that you get swatted aside like a fly by a monster a bazillion times bigger than you are!”

Mayor Norman nodded patiently. “As noted previously, we are sorry for your misadventure. But rest assured that we had no responsibility—”

“No responsibility?!” Tristan threw his hands in the air. “Look, I don’t know about you, but if you’d gotten there and whooped that dragon’s scaly tush sooner, I wouldn’t have had three feet of steel reamed up my asshole like a goddamn dildo!”

“Technically, you were impaled through your lower left torso.”

“I don’t care how you or I phrase it, sir. My point is that you guys should really start looking at things from our perspective. I spent the last five months hauling stone and rubble, cleaning up after the carnage that you people started. I may have powers now, but that doesn’t change the fact that I know what it’s like to be under your heel all the time. All I’m asking for is to register as a person with an abnormal ability, and that’s it. I don’t want any of your costumes or good press. All I want is a better life. Both for myself, and those on my level.”

His rant finished, Tristan sank back into his chair and pouted.

There was an uncomfortable silence for several long minutes. Then Norman spoke, calmly and carefully.

“In that case, Mr. Petropoulos, I apologize most deeply for our failure to address the dragon incident more urgently. We weren’t aware of what was happening until after the fact. You must understand, though, that if it weren’t for that incident, you wouldn’t have known what your powers were—”

“So what? I don’t shoot lasers, or fly, or turn into metal. All I can do is heal faster than normal, and I can’t even hope to live a better life than the one I have now with such a stupid power. I’m not asking you to put spandex on me and call me some lame-ass moniker like ‘Band-Aid Man’ or ‘Ballsack Boy’ or what-the-fuck-ever. I just don’t want to have to live on the streets and eat from trashcans while you guys treat me and my fellow cleanup workers like crap!”

Norman recoiled slightly, and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Petropoulos, do you know what I do every day, both in this office and out?”

Tristan shook his head.

“I make a home for my people, and keep this city livable for them. It’s like what people like you are doing, just on a grander scale. I’m well aware that people like you are an integral part of what makes that possible — and I speak from experience that being a hero means you have to keep a careful eye on everyone, and not just your own goals. As the mayor of this city, I strive every single day to provide equal rights and fair income to people such as you, so that they can have a better future and a chance to go on adventures of their own. Never forget that I too started out small, as a builder like you, helping to piece together some of the structures that now adorn our skyline.”

“And your point?”

Norman gave him a skeptical look. “A hero persona is not just spandex and a nickname. It’s a means of channeling your passion for making the world a better place. There’s a saying around these parts: ‘Not all heroes wear capes.’ And folks like you are heroes, doing work every day that we superheroes are proud of. I just wish the rest of the electoral board would realize that. You do want to make life better for everyone on your level, don’t you, amigo?”

Tristan had to admit that the mayor wasn’t wrong. He still housed a selfish grudge towards people like him, stemming from envy and want of jobs that he could never have. But if his people really were important, at least to one person, wouldn’t that make all that toil worthwhile? And the fact that the mayor himself was the one inspiring him, as hard-pressed as he was to acknowledge it, was really something.

Finally, the younger man sighed. “So, am I still gonna get deported?”

“Well, based on what both you and the hospital staff told me, your powers manifesting so recently, as well as your hypothesis as to why this would be the case, is enough reason for me to give you the benefit of the doubt. It’d be worth being aware of our regulations for the future, but if you could just sign the registration paperwork and give it to any of my secretaries on the way out, that would be all I need.”

Tristan nodded, and then stood up. Before he turned to leave, however, Norman spoke up again.

“Oh, and by the way, I have a better moniker for you than ‘Band-Aid Man’ or ‘Ballsack Boy’.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you familiar with the myth of Prometheus? The titan who stole fire from the gods, and had his liver torn out by an eagle every day as punishment?”

“My dad has a mythology book in his library. I read about that myth a few times as a kid, but didn’t really think much of it.”

“Prometheus gave the gift of fire to mankind because he wanted to make life better for the mortal man. He saw how skewed the balance of power was before, and wanted to give humanity a better chance of surviving in the harsh ancient world, even if that choice would pain him for eons to come. Your speech about how you want to see life improve for folks like you made me think about that myth, and in light of that, it’s only fair for you to take his name once more. Besides, knowing your dad’s ancestry, it’d fit right in with the theme he had going for him.”

Tristan scratched his chin. “I’ll… I’ll think about it. But no spandex, ‘kay?”

“I think kevlar would suit Prometheus better myself, amigo.”

Tristan couldn’t help but smile at that. After thanking the mayor for his time and shaking his hand, he left the office with a lot of thoughts in his head. Among them was this:

Prometheus… I kinda like the sound of that.