Thursday, July 3rd, 2025. 9:07am

Every night it’s the same. As I sleep I always dream the same thing. There she is in my arms again and the battle wages around me from all sides. I’m stuck and I know it. The guys are fast, really fast, and one is as strong as a pissed off rhino. I can hear the news and police choppers circling overhead and see the crowd of people gathering beyond the barricades.

Dust and rubble lie strewn about and we’ve wrecked about six cars already. She’s crying in my arms and holding for dear life. I have to hand it to her; she’s a strong one. Celia, that’s her name, knows I’m trying to help her. She knows I’m doing my best to get us out of harms way.

One of them, in a leather jacket, swings and I lower my shoulder and roll into it, I have no choice, there’s nowhere to go. The blow lands and solidly connects. I feel my shoulder pop as the tendons stretch and I think I feel my shoulder crack. I don’t have time to focus on the pain before Rhino crushes my spine with a thunderous punch fueled by enough quantum to have killed an army of baseline officers.

A wad of blood rushes up into my mouth, but I refuse to spit it out. I have to admit, I have nothing left. I’m out of ideas and the pain is almost too much for me to bear. The world around me is spinning and I know I’m dizzy while everything is fading out into blackness. I hit one knee. That’s it, I’m done. Cant… take… anymore…

No!

Get up. Get up Sebastian, and you get up now.

It’s all still black, I’m falling or, at least it feels like it, you know? I think of the little girl in my arms; I can feel the tears from her eyes smeared on my cheek and neck. Her fearful whimpers and sobbing are like bolts of thunder on a quiet night. Despite all that goes on around us I can hear her and only her.

She has a family, a mother that loves her and loved ones that’ll miss her. She’s so young and with her whole life ahead of her. I have to keep her safe, that’s what I do.

I am called Bastion. I’m not invincible, but damn near close. When people need a wall to hide behind, or when the center will not hold, they call me to be their fortification from the evils of this world.

Clouded vision becomes clearer and the third guy, a lanky moron with a Mohawk and nipple rings, about shits himself when I stand back up and look him in the eyes. He’s jittery as he throws his punch. I lower my head and take the whole shot to the top of my shaved skull.

Top of the head is the hardest part of the body. Did you know that? Bare-knuckle fighters used to use their heads as shields back in the day. No, bull shit. So when Mohawk’s hand shatters into more pieces than I’ll ever care to count its grim satisfaction.

The punk wails in pain, holding his limp wrist. Good. Asshole had it coming.

And this is where it gets cloudy. It’s like the world slows to a crawl or something and nothing focuses right. Voices are all distorted, some people are moving really slowly while others seem just halted in place.

I know Jacket and Rhino aren’t to pleased about their friend’s hand. Rhino is behind me, so I can’t see his expression but I hear him say something in disgust. Jacket looks to Mohawk for a second, grimaces and just hauls off and lobs one at me.

It’s a clumsy blow, even in my weakened state I know it won’t be too difficult to either sway or roll with. I clutch Celia a bit tighter, making sure she’s secure ad I pivot my foot for the sprint I’m about to make. With only two of them now, I can get out of this mess. No problem.

Stay strong Celia, I’m going to get you out of this. Get you home to your momma.

I sway to the left and that’s when Rhino clubs me from the behind. I had to unroot myself to prepare for the sprint and the force knocks me forward right into Jacket.

I hear a strange sound, like a cap in a cap gun being popped. I feel something warm all over me and my vision is stained red.

I know the truth, I just don’t want to believe it.

Thursday, July 3rd, 2025. 9:10am

As always I wake up sweating and feeling helpless. Kind of funny, huh? That a guy like me would feel helpless? I can dead lift, without calling on juice, more than just about any nova on the planet. I'm damn near invulnerable, and pretty much unstoppable when I need to be.

Big whoop. Tell that to Celia Markle's family.

With a fart and a belch and a moment to expel a few rogue boogers from my nose I get up to stretch my legs. Didn't take me long to guess I'd passed out under the pier, again. Brushing the sand off my ass I look around for my breakfast and sure enough resting beside me is a half full bottle of whiskey. A lot people just don't get why I drink so much, yeah it messes up the head and makes me a little stupid but after I'm good n' drunk enough passing out generally keeps the dream away. It's hard resting easy when you repeat your failures every night. People don't understand because people don't know. They can all talk a good talk and spit the shit at you that sounds all really good and empathic but they're talking out their ass because they're not me. They never went through what I went through. I had the dream... next time I guess I finish the bottle.

"Let go of your chain", "live up to your potential", "you're a god". Fucking idiot people. Bat shit crazy is what they are. I'm just a guy who has super powers, big whoop. Maybe the "Gods" need the extra adulation to make for something their lacking, like sanity, but me, I'm just a dude who wants a cheese omelet and some fuckin' hash browns.

An bacon...

Fuck it, I'm hungry.

Tearing out from under the pier at two hundred miles per hour is never a good idea. You blow sand around on the beach, scare the hell out of people, and generally cause complete chaos. So when I blast out of there at a speed that pretty much tells physics what it ca do with its self there usually isn't any better thing in the world to see. A trench of sand blows up from my rear trajectory sending a wake of gritty 'fuck yous' to all those lazy slobs who have no business wearing speedos in the first place.

Flying this fast and this low to the ground is usually never a good idea, doing it drunk is universally described as an even worse idea. So yeah, I flail around a bit and try to fly straight but shit people, at two hundred miles an hour this shit ain't easy, especially when you're trying to take a sip from the bottle. As a tsunami of sand pretty much drenches everyone on the Pacific Coast I feel my morning constitutional is at an end. I break left and flail my way to Downtown, grazing a para sailor we share a few choice words and I rip through a flock of birds while taking another sip of the potion.

You know... maybe I should walk...

Thursday, July 3rd, 2025. 9:36am


Setting down on Ocean Avenue I stagger a few blocks. I know I'm staggering, shit, I'm still drunk what do people expect? Speaking of people, every self righteous bastard seems out today. Passing a few store fronts I get wind of "what an asshole", "has been washout" and an assortment of other insults. That's why I like this town, people don't fuck around and let you know what's on their mind, straight up. It's New York with a tan.

Digging out the ol' wallet I think it's time to scrape up some grub money. I perch the bottle atop the ATM and give the ol' debit a slide and wait for the thing to gimme the PIN option.

"Even the bums have bank accounts here dad. Los Angeles is messed up." A kid says to his father while I'm punching in my PIN; he and his dad snicker as they walk behind me. Very funny, eat shit kid. People amaze me, you know? They know damn well I can throw a train car through the middle of their perfect four million dollar mansion... so why do they push me?

Insufficient Funds

Oh hell no. Bullshit. Smacking in my PIN all over I go through the process again. Even technology hates me. Twenty fuckin dollars, c'mon give it up, I'm hungry.

$6.81

So yeah, this pisses me off and I'm sitting there for a moment, thinking to myself... I could rip this right out of the wall, take it with me, and there ain't a shit anyone could do about it. As my forehead rests on the machine and I look at the screen that idea really does sound like a good one. An ATM today, a bank tomorrow. Yeah, real good idea, except it's not. I don't hate the people, or their banks, or their comments. I hate me. I want to fix all this but I know it's pointless. This word can't be helped, it doesn't want to be saved. I tried and I failed.

"Move your ass Stone, it dispenses money, not liquor. Or are you looking to see if you can afford your dignity back?" Some guy waiting to use the machine starts laughing like he's a real witty guy. It never occurs to them that I fuck their world up with a single thought. Shit, these guns on my shoulders can disable a man with the flick of my wrist... so why do they push me?

Do I make him a paraplegic? No. Once again I turn the other cheek and just walk away muttering an apology about holding him up. I apologize a lot these days it seems, guess I'm just born to lose. Looks like breakfast is a no go so I stroll my drunk ass down Ocean Ave north a ways hitting the bottle as I go, heading for San Vincente Blvd. I'm not sure why, ain't like I can eat. I just kinda feel like walking now, suddenly it seems there is a ton of things on my mind and the Pacific Ocean is a nice thing to look out at when you have time to walk and think.

I can hear the engine of a car running loud as I'm crossing Montana Ave. A siren too, but that isn't to uncommon down by the beach. As the car plows into the intersection I don't even have time to think oh shit, car, this could hurt! before it steamrolls right into me. It fishtails the corner and the rear of it slams into me like a fifty-five mile per hour battering ram. A light post breaks my momentum but buckles like papier mache. The two patrol cars that shoot past me, and keep on pursuing the red Benz that hit me. Now people are running and screaming and seeking cover like it's Armageddon.

Oh hell no, not in my house. Bitch will pay.

Buckling under the impact I can hear the light post give way and topple. It makes that creaking noise metal makes and whines loudly as it falls into the people who, for some dumb-ass reason knew it was about to fall but stood there staring at me instead. Eventually they scatter like dykes flee a dick when it comes crashing down onto them. All except one idiot.

The kid, maybe eleven or something, just stands there. Why? Why do they always just stand there? I grip the lamp post and my quantum signature envelops it almost immediately. No one can see it, or feel it, but I know it's there. It's that tricky little bit of leakage that allows a guy like me to lift really heavy and fragile stuff but it never buckles under its own weight. Isn't science fun?

About two feet from the kid's head a nine-hundred-and-twenty-four pound blunt metal pole stops its decent and saves him from a pasty red funeral in a bucket. I set it down a few feet from him as his mother comes to snatch him away from the danger... yeah, where were you a second ago lady?

Coddling him and crying she asks him, in the span it takes for me to rise to my feet, thirty times if he's okay. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she screams at me and it takes no time for a few people to take her side and join in the screaming match completely ignoring the fact that some ass wipe just hit me, not the other way around. People are always braver when they attach themselves to another's problems because they know that if the fight goes belly-up they really had nothing to lose anyway.

My heroes.

"You're welcome." is all I say as I hunch down and brace my feet against cement of the curb like a I'm a fucking track star or something. The curb crunches and the square of sidewalk tile I'd pushed against shifts backwards nearly half its length. I can feel the surge kick through me as I tell my body it's time to go and just like that I'm off at two hundred and twenty miles per hour. There's no inertia, there's no acceleration accept zero to really fucking fast. The gust from my take off blows most of the gawkers and protesters to my heroism over and right on their ass. Good.

Ingrates. Stay safe kid, don't grow up to be worthless and ungrateful like mommy.

So here I am streaking down Montana avenue at two-twenty and only about three and a half feet off the ground. Go head, tell me I'm an idiot but you know you'd want to be me about now. Flying, dodging traffic, phenomenal cosmic power... yeah, it's a feeling I can't put into words. I stay in the center lane to avoid most of the traffic, swooping up once as some lady decides to yield to the police by using the turn lane.

As I blast past the two Po-Pos in their cruisers I can hear them and their radios. It's like this is the most excitement they've had all week. I don't catch wind of what's being said; you ever try listening in a conversation with two hundred mile gusts of air in your ears? Anyway, the driver of the Benz launches into another psychotic ninety degree left turn down 4th Street.

Now if you've never been to the Santa Monica area, after you pass Montana Ave. 4th Street's traffic is separated by a fifty four inch concrete divider. If you keep heading northwest along 4th Street you'll eventually get to Vincente Avenue which crosses over 4th Street after about five blocks or so.

The ninety degree turn allowed me to slow my speed and catch up to the Benz. I used to do this shit all the time with people, just match their speed, coast up next to their window and politely ask what the hell their malfunction was. I did this because once this lady was driving like a maniac, lo an' behold when I coasted up, she's in labor and needed a hospital. So flying up, tearing off the door and yanking the car to a stop is not always the best idea.

I over shoot the car a bit as I hook the turn, it's no big deal, but it reminds me I'm still drunk. Hope the cops don't stop me, I don't have a license. I end up on the passenger side instead of close to the driver, like I usually prefer. I think he pinched a loaf when he saw my head creep up in the window. Man, I love that.

"S'cuse me there playa," I place my hand on the door and let up on the flight allowing his speed to carry me along. He's a white guy that looks like he just got made over by Xzibit. His baseball cap is crooked, pants are too baggy, no belt, and a platinum medallion that reads: "C-Thug". Either way, home-skillet don't look like he owns this car. Now, you can say I'm profiling him if you like, but the screw driver in the ignition kinda gave it away. "You need to be pullin' this car over now, or I'ma whoop ya ass. Didn't you see me crossin' that street back there?"

I always seem to get a little 'urban', as my pops once put it, when ignorant criminals like this 'C-Thug' need to be taught a few things about common sense. When he pulls a pistol from where it's resting in his lap, points it, and hollers, "Fuck you, nigga!" and starts busting off caps at me I'm not surprised.

The first and the second round hit me. One on the chest and the other in my neck. I feel the impact and there is, as always, a thump sound as my densely knit muscles simply absorb the kinetics across my body, disperse the energy, and let the slug just fall away. It puts a nice bullet hole in my shirt but doesn't do much else. The third bullet leaves the chamber and connects right in my eye, shattering my 'keep the sun away 'cause I have a hangover' sunglasses.

Yes, even my eye is invulnerable, but let me set you straight... the shit still hurts. Like anything else flying into your eye you reflexively jerk and your eyes want to close and water up. No different here. I toss my head back on reflex and I feel my eye lids close over the bullet squeezing flat which only forces a little further into my eye.

The driver on the side of us hears the shots and slams his brakes. His window is rolled down and as I arc my head back it goes right through the open window, effectively clothes-lining myself with the windowframe at sixty miles per hour. I hang limp for just a second as 'C-Thug' speeds away. hanging a right onto Palisades Ave. while this guy continues to slow down, dragging my rather dazed ass along.

The slug falls to the pavement as I pry my neck from the collapsed dashboard and shattered windshield. The driver of the car sounds like he's about to have a heart attack as I pull myself free. He's going to sue me, I know it, and it becomes obvious when a so-called righteous citizen, some tubby bitch with a nasally voice thunders over while I'm getting my bearings.

"Oh my god, I totally saw that, this guy flew into your car. I'll totally testify if you need me to." The heifer starts getting in other people's business and, to be honest, I'm not even really giving two shits. File it next to my other lawsuits asshole, I'm immortal, all I gotta do is wait til he dies of something. Like McDonald's.

The guy raises his hand to the beached humpback in a rather vain attempt to shut her up. "A-are you okay Bastion?" he asks me, and you know what? It makes me feel a lot better. Except for the name. I fucking hate that goddamned name.

"Yeah, thanks." I say while standing up. The squad cars scream past with going loud. "S'cuse me, would ya?" I can help but smile a bit, this guy's totally cool about what just happened it seems. Okay, I take back the McDonald's thing...

"By all means." He raises an arm and gestures for me to get going, and he doesn't have to ask twice.

And then the world completely stops. Time halts and I'm standing there with one thought...

Did white boy call me what I think he did?

Yeah, cracka's gotta get what's comin' to him. The area whips up with a gust as I take off after 'C-Thug' and his white bread chicken shit wannabe gangsta ass. I arc the corner at a speed that throws up skirts in the breeze, which is nowhere near as awesome as it sounds because, statistically speaking, women don't wear ass floss anywhere near as much as the movies lead us poor men to believe. Reality is so cruel.

For the second time I shoot myself past the police and bee-line it right to the Benz. Bets are off 'C-Thug', you had your chance. Low to the ground, about even with the windows I fly up and sway to the passenger side just like I did before but I ain't stopping to talk this time. My fist slams upward, catching the chassis and crunching it up into the door. The impact lifts the car right up off the ground and sends it corkscrewing through the sky and into on coming traffic.

The cars coming towards us slam their brakes and throw their arms up to cover their face. Like that'll stop a car crushing you, good thinking. 'C-Thug' is screaming and it feels damn good to hear it. I catch the car several feet before it causes an accident; I don't want these people hurt, I just want to put 'C-Thug's' mind in such a state of fear that he withdraws so far into his own psyche that God won't even find him.

"Whatchu' call me? Huh?" I scream at him as I haul the car up into the sky with me. I've got it by the roof, and my hands have gripped it tight enough to crunch the door frame into the roof's chassis. I can hear the engine revving. He hasn't even taken his foot off the gas which means he's either holding the wheel and frozen rigid or he's dead and rigor mortis has kicked in.

'C-Thug' screams something. Must be a prayer because he keeps repeating 'God' a lot.

"Naw bitch, that ain't what you said! Say it again punk ass. Call me a nigga again!" See this is mostly intimidation at this point. I really don't care that a white guy called me a 'nigga'. Shit, I'm mixed, my mom was white, so calling me a nigga is light compared to some the shit I heard growing up. I'm more pissed that he shot me than anything else, but hearing a white guy backpedal after he drops an N-bomb is always too much fun to pass up. They never use the word in the right context, even negatively, and just sound silly saying it.

"C'mon man! I was just playing, man. Holy shit put me down!" The drive train slows. Chances are he's kicking around up there trying to find a 'center of gravity' or something not realizing that my Q-sig ain't going to let him fall unless he really does something to jack up the equilibrium. He's upside down for crying out loud, where the hell does he think he's going to drive to?

"What's wrong Gangsta!" At the speed I'm flying the Santa Monica freeway comes up on us pretty quick. I soared in low and stopped just below the gap in the overpass that separates the lanes, and I can see the people driving below down on Olympic and Lincoln. "You was Johnny Bigdick a second ago bitch! Where's that thug fo' life 'tude now? Huh?"

Casually I keep flying straight up and into the gap between the I-10 traffic lanes and wedge the car tightly between them. Concrete crumbles and shaves away as metal crunches and compacts itself to refit into its home. 'C-Thug' is sitting on the ceiling of the car's roof inside looking down over a two hundred foot drop into the traffic below. Good thing I didn't rip the roof off like I thought about doing in the first place.

He's crying as I hover up to the and yank out what's left of the windshield and toss it to the street below. "Oh, so, 'C-Thug' is just another bitch in disguise, huh?"

"Dude, c'mon man, this shit ain't funny, dog!" The gun's being kicked around as he thrashes about trying to find some imaginary balance after his rather interesting ride. God I hate being called 'dog'.

"Dude? Dude? What happened to 'fuck you nigga'?" I'm crossing my arms and hovering still. The doors are sealed shut where it's wedged. The only way out for C-Thug is either through the front or the back of the car. An if the nigga's gon' leap he best hope an eruption's in his immediate future cuz only wings are gon' save his cracka ass from a very pasty escape plan. Damn it, I'm narrating in slang...

The obvious reason for my being pissed at him shines through his thick ass knuckle head. "Look, I'm sorry man, I shouldn't have said that, I have a lot of respect for black people..."

Here it comes.

"...I'm really sorry for, you know, what white people did to you an all..."

"Shut up," I squint and play like I'm reading his 'name tag'. "C-Thug."

"C-Cade man, my name's Cade. Shit man, I'm from Malibu, not Compton!"

"Aight... Cade." Who the fuck names their kid Cade? "The police are gon' come, get you out of here, and hopefully whoop your ass, so enjoy your stay." I'm about to soar off when he stops me. The water is gushing from his eyes at this point, it's kinda sad really.

"Stone! Stone! C'mon man, you can't leave me up here! I got rights n' shit!"

My stomach rumbles and I'm reminded that I'd rather be doing other shit than playing around with this asshole. "You got twenty bucks?" I ask. What? I was still hungry.

"Wha, what?" He asked me, which I sort of expected since most people aren't shaken down for cash at two hundred feet up. "Nigga I'm stealin' cars! What the fuck makes you think I got any money!"

"Cuz you from Malibu, and quit using that word. You ain't even using it in the right context." I reach into the car slap him in the head.

"Aight, aight... here..." A moment later the kid is handing me a wad of cash, must have been like three hundred bucks. I take a twenty and tuck it my pocket, handing him back the rest. "Now c'mon get me down!"

"Get you down? I just asked for a twenty, dog, I never said I'd get you down." I grin and fly off as he screams for me to get him back onto the ground. I hear the sirens and I know that the car isn't going anywhere anytime soon, it's wedged in pretty good. The city oughta have a hell of a time with that mess.

Fuck it, I'm hungry.