Page 107 of Not All Himbos Wear Capes
I need to help him!
Kai had blessedly gone quiet, staring at the scene above us with her mouth hanging open. Finally understanding the severity of the situation, she quickly released me and backed away with a fierce expression that erased her lingering fear.
“Go do your hero thing, bestie.” She gave me a sassy salute. “Wipe the ravine floor with that asshole villain.”
She thinksI’mthe hero…
Well. Why the fuck not?
Not wasting another second, I shot into the air, positioning myself in Vortexio’s blind spot while I determined how to attack. More wind might knock Butch off balance and it would be pointless to throw fire into the middle of opposing cyclones. I couldn’t just stand by while he took the brunt of this, but there were no other supes nearby to pull power from.
Or so I thought.
Razor-sharp ice formed on my fingertips the exact moment I spotted my mother standing on the opposite cliff. For a second, I panicked, thinking she was here for Butch, but quickly realized her fury was aimed at Vortexio alone.
Sucks to be him.
Glacial Girl couldn’t fly, but a frozen tidal wave rose beneath her feet, lifting her up to meet her old enemy on equal ground.
“This isn’t your fight, Signe!” Vortexio shouted over the howling wind. “After I teach my son a lesson, you and I can settle the score over Gemstonia’s death.”
The look on my mother’s face was murderous. “I didn’t kill your pretty little pawn, Harold—unlike howyousnuck into myhometo finish off my husband!”
Say what now?
After a stunned silence, Vortexio laughed. “Not my handiwork, but good to hear Ender won’t be joining us. I’ve been waiting decades to destroy you on my own.”
Every supe knew of the legendary face-offs where Vortexio and Smoldering Siren battled Apocalypto Man and Glacial Girl. But my father was dead—with Harold Holt apparently framed for his murder—and Butch’s mother was notably absent.
Although she could show up at any moment.
Vortexio probably thought the odds were in his favor, which only proved thathewas the one who didn’t understand the game.
He may have eliminated Siren’sinventus,but it was done as an afterthought, without due diligence of what that bond meant. I now had pure ice running through my veins—courtesy of an extremely pissed off supervillain—which meant myinventusdid, too.
Three against one, fucker.
Wrongfully assuming my mother was the biggest threat, Vortexio sent a punishing gale in her direction. The blast met a substantial wall of ice, knocking him backward several feet, and causing the cyclone he’d been holding Butch back with to falter.
A costly mistake.
I wasn’t sure if theinventusbond came with shared intuition, but Butch and I both took the opening to release a volley of ice arrows, relentlessly slicing through flesh and bone as Vortexio bellowed in pain.
“You don’t deserve to call yourself a hero or a Holt,” Vortexio bellowed, whirling on his only son. “I provided you with opportunities others could only dream of, and Biggs Enterprises gave you the adoration of an entire city as Captain Masculine. Yet you repay our generosity by traitorously joining the most disgraceful clan possible?”
Howdarehe talk to Butch that way?!
Enraged on his behalf, I prepared to fire again, but when I glanced at Butch, I was surprised to find a resigned sort of calm on his handsome face. “At least the Suarez clan takes care of their own.” His quiet voice was somehow louder than the wind. “That’s more than you ever did for me.”
Vortexio’s eyes narrowed, but before he could retort, Glacial Girl burst through her barrier with an inhuman growl that echoed off the surrounding cliffs. Turning her hands into daggers, she launched herself at her longtime foe, and sliced an icy blade across his throat.
“You fucked with my family, Harold,” she hissed in his ear as he choked on blood. “And coincidentally, I’ve also been waiting for the chance to destroyyou,one-on-one.”
With their powers focused on maiming and killing the other, the two legendary supes plummeted toward the roaring river below. They hit the water hard—still violently battling for the upper hand, turning the inky surface choppy as they continued their fight beneath the waves.
Vortexio managed to come up for air, gasping in a single breath before being yanked underwater again. With a deafening crack, the entire length of the river was suddenly encased in solid ice, trapping him underneath to drown.
Along with Glacial Girl.
