CW: If you have a pregnancy phobia, there is mention of infants.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧ 

“Excuse me?” Elias shouted to the wind, eyebrows raised high. “Nobody I know asks such a stupid question, so who is asking, exactly?”

“Perhaps I’ll introduce myself if you answer my question, Elias?”

Elias felt like he’d been hit by a truck the moment his name was brought into play, and he nearly dropped the takeout bag. How the hell did this creep know his name? Because even if he had stalked him to the Hunan House, Auntie Li only referred to him by his nickname.

Could just be a good guess, Elias thought. He bounced the bag up higher over his stomach and continued on, determined to lose the mystery man.

“Nope,” Elias shouted, hoping the increased volume would alert any lurking residents to his current distress. “Not sure how you know that, but you can politely fuck off. I don’t waste time with weird assholes like you.”

The man’s strange, distorted voice had been so close to his ear before that Elias wondered just how the hell the mystery man was doing it to begin with. Even if the man had gone invisible and stood right beside Elias, he still would’ve had to have pulled Elias’ hood down to be able to speak directly into his ear.

Does he have some kind of control over the way sound travels?

The moment Elias thought as such, he realized far too late just who his stalker was. And he’d just called him an “asshole!” He’d called the number one supervillain himself an asshole and told him to “fuck off!”

“If that’s how you want to play it, human, so be it.”

There was no time for an apology, though, and breaking into a run wouldn’t save him from the oncoming strike, either. Elias had taken a chance glance to his left, looking up high. And that’s when he saw him, the man who first earned the title of supervillain—

Waves.

The villain was floating above the rooftop of one of the other apartment buildings, mask turned down to watch him. Elias had looked just in time to see Waves throw his arm to the side, sending some invisible blast rippling Elias’ way. 

But that’s when the strangest thing happened.

An electric current ran through Elias—much like a static shock, but it didn’t harm him in the slightest—and Elias heard whatever waves the villain sent his way make contact with something, but he didn’t feel any sort of hit himself.

He was, however, sent flying up into the air. No, he wasn’t simply flung backwards from the aftershock of the impact—he was floating! 

As for Adino’s takeout bag, well, that had unfortunately been actually sent flying. Elias had thrown it up behind him when he was knocked into the air. The bag probably laid in ruins below him as Elias flailed around, turned as if he was laying back on a bed and staring at the ceiling. Except the “ceiling” was the clear night sky, in this case.

Elias had bit down on his tongue when he’d been tossed up, but that was the least of his concerns. There was an oily rainbow array above him; it was concave and reminiscent of a soap bubble—if those bubbles could also allow literal streams of blue electricity to bounce over them without popping. If Elias had to take a guess, he was hovering inside of the clear-circle-with-an-electrifying-rainbow-effect.

He’d been too choked up by his own fear and shock to scream before, but when a literal jolt of surprise shivered through him next, he did yelp. His right hand tickled, so he ceased his floundering and brought it up to his face for proper inspection, letting himself just hang out since he had no control over the situation regardless.

“Well, well,” Waves said, and his hollow laugh echoed around the bubble Elias was trapped in. “How curious.”

Little blue sparks jumped on and off Elias’ fingers, tickling his skin. He was so mesmerized by the cool trick that he stopped paying attention to whatever Waves was doing now. Although, he did notice that he was being slowly lowered back to the ground, at least.

“You are one lucky mother,” Waves chuckled, and the deep tone of it gave Elias goosebumps. “Those abominations may protect you now, but that luck will run out eventually. I will surely be seeing you again, E-li-as.”

The electricity faded as Waves floated off overhead and Elias touched base with the slightly frosted street below. But no matter how hard he willed the sparks to return, they just wouldn’t come. Even the static charge that had buzzed around him during his ascent dissipated, and Elias was left with a cold, numbing sensation. The winter air was biting, sure, but not nearly as cool as the sinking dread which took over every nerve in his body. He thought his babies were acting particularly volatile on his way to and from the Hunan House, but he would’ve never guessed Waves was the reason why.

He should’ve been screaming. He should’ve been running, demanding somebody, anybody in his goddamn piece-of-shit-for-a-neighborhood come help him, call for a hero or 911 at the very least.

But there was nobody. He was all alone, at nine pm on a Monday night, surrounded by mysteriously empty commercial buildings and two apartment complexes as well as the spilled remains of Adino’s “Hot and Sour” soup (and various other side dishes).

And he was carrying Waves’ offspring.

Not a superhero’s, not a vigilante’s, not even a low-end villain’s.

Waves’ child. Twins. Two little future devils.

And he was absolutely fucking terrified out of his mind.

Elias hadn’t moved since he was returned to the ground (and the supervillain left, supposedly). In fact, he wasn’t even sure he was breathing sometimes. His whole body vibrated—like he’d just pulled an all-nighter—and the twins kicked like crazy within him, as if they were debating on bursting forth themselves, mother be damned. But they eventually quieted—after Elias finally lurched forward to empty whatever contents remained in his stomach from the day’s lunch.

After what felt like an eternity of kneeling over the sidewalk grate and spitting into the sewage below, Elias was finally able to force himself up onto his feet, despite his knocking knees. He worked through the numbness by picking up the spilled contents of what was good Chinese take-out. He didn’t want to be that person, but he hated to bring spoiled food back to Adino and disappoint him, so Elias decided he was going to return to the Hunan House.

His body ached from sitting out in the cold for so long in a light jacket and a hoodie underneath, but he was determined to replace the spoiled goods no matter how much it screamed at him. And the tiny bastards inside him could do with a little struggle after what just happened. They protected him, sure, but who was to say it wasn’t to spare themselves? Whatever the case, the freaks of nature were far too intelligible for not even being born yet, and Elias did not like it one bit.

I don’t give a fuck what Adino says, Elias thought as he hefted the remains of the take-out containers up, you guys are going straight to the orphanage once I’m free.

As if he summoned Adino by thinking of him, Elias then heard the little two-second clip from Slenderman Vs Mothman’s theme song emanate from his hoodie’s front pocket (under his jacket for extra protection, of course). Since he had the bag in his hands again, he pointedly chose to ignore the chime and headed for the Hunan House.

Elias hadn’t gotten very far from the restaurant, so he made it back to the entrance within the next five minutes or so. The bell hanging above the door rang out his not-so-grand entrance, too, and he wished he could remove the blasted thing. But alas, the Hunan House wasn’t his business, so he had to deal with it. At least he was still the only customer! Then again, that was unsurprising considering how vacant the whole area had been since his encounter with Waves.

“Eli,” Auntie Li exclaimed as she rounded the corner and caught sight of Elias. “Why you back here, baby? Did we forge—oh!”

The older Chinese lady picked up her skirts and rushed over to the front. She scurried around the counter to meet Elias in the lobby. “Baby! What happened to you?!”

“I’m sorry, Auntie,” Elias struggled to say. He felt like there was a frog in his throat, and his voice came out weak. “I…I dropped your hard work. Can I pay for a redo?”

“Baby, no, sit down and give that to auntie. Here,” Auntie Li—who was about three inches shorter than Elias and hunch-backed—placed her hand on his back and guided him over to one of the wooden table sets. “Your clothes look wet! And you’re shaking! Did you fall and hurt the baby?”

Elias didn’t have the energy to refuse her assistance, so he let her pull out a chair and sat down, the beat up bag in his lap. She took the waste from him and walked it over to the trash can (which had been left outside of the restaurant’s wooden trash can keeper).

“I’m going to place the order, okay baby?” Auntie Li said to Elias, already on her way back over to the counter. “Then you’re going to tell auntie what happened, got it?”

“...yes, I can do that.” Elias forced a smile and shifted in the wooden seat, his wet pants a little uncomfortable. 

Auntie Li shook her head at him and muttered under her breath, but otherwise she paid him no mind after. And that was when he remembered about his phone notification, so he unzipped his jacket and dug it free from his hoodie.

Dino: What’s taking so long? U meet an Aladdin or something?

If Elias wasn’t feeling like absolute shit, he would’ve laughed at Adino’s text message. But Waves was no Aladdin, so he was the opposite of giddy at the moment. He forced his frozen fingers to tap out a quick, “b a minute,” and then returned his phone to his pockets. He kept his hands in the hoodie pocket to help warm them up, rocking his phone back and forth.

Elias then watched Auntie Li bark out orders to her cooks in silence as he pondered just what the hell he was supposed to do now that he knew he was carrying Waves’ kids.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧ 

While you wait for the next episode, try checking out one of these entries below! (Links in author desc!)

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧