Author's Note

Another controversial chapter for y'all to enjoy.

Chapter 16: Terror on the Airline

Protectorate Sod flew above the plane, using her x-ray vision to confirm the situation below. There were three terrorists, two in the cabin and one in the cockpit, and they were all armed. On the upside, it didn’t seem like it was going to be a hard task.

“Three, Max,” she called down to her companion, who he was holding on to one of his arms as she flew them both closer to the plane.

“Right on, dude. This is gonna be a piece of cake.” King Max chuckled. “Like, let’s get those farmers.”

“Alright, ya know the drill.” Protectorate Sod flew alongside the plane and placed a hand on the door’s handle. “On my mark.”

She twisted the handle and yanked the door back. Immediately, the pressure inside the plane dropped and masks fell from above the passengers. The first terrorist turned just in time to receive a straight fist from King Max. The blow knocked him back into one of the seats and bounced him back into Max’s grasp. With a grin, the green haired man turned around and tossed him out of the plane, then faced the second terrorist.

He raised his gun to fire, but from behind him, twin lasers shot out and burned a hole straight through the man’s chest. His screams of pain soon turned into wet gurgles as his eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor.

The passengers cheered as Protectorate Sod flipped around and yanked the door shut, returning the air inside to normal.

“Everythin’s A-okay now, y’all don’t have to worry.” She raised her hands and put on a big smile on her face.

The passengers looked round at the two superheroes and put their hands together, filling the inside of the plane with their applause.

“It’s Protectorate Sod!” one man cried out.

“You saved us!” a woman gasped.

One of the passengers, a young girl, lifted her Protectorate Sod plushie. “You’re a hero, Protectorate Sod!”

Protectorate Sod raised her hands in a show of humility. “Aw, c’mon now. Y’all are the real heroes. Let’s hear it for King Max!”

“King Max!” the passengers cheered, clapping some more.

King Max smiled at the attention, but then directed his gaze toward the cockpit door.

“Protectorate Sod,” Max called. “The last one.”

The Stetson wearing superheroine came over to the cockpit door and kicked it open. Inside there were three people; one of them, the co-pilot, was dead and another was holding a gun to the head of the third, a green haired man who was sitting in the pilot’s seat.

“Woah, now. Hold your horses there, hoss.” She raised her palms to the sides of her face. “Ya don’t gotta do this. Just put the gun down. We can settle this differently.”

The man said something in Saddle Arabian and pressed the gun’s barrel against the pilot’s head.

“Yo, no habla sand people. Ya understand english?” Protectorate Sod readied herself to take him down. “Please surrender and we won’t have to kill ya.”

Max too, raised his hands. “Just calm down, dude. No sudden moves.”

The terrorist looked between them and the pilot, his hand visibly shaking.

“Pl-please help…!” the pilot whimpered. “I don’t want to die!”

“Don’t panic, sir. We’ll get’cha outta here. Ya got a name?”

“Ti-Timber. Timber S-Spruce…”

“Listen here, Timber Spruce. You’re gonna be alright, ya hear? We’ll diffuse this yet.” Protectorate Sod held up a hand.

“Please! I ha-haven’t even been a pilot all that long! This is my fi-first week! I quit my old camp counseling job just a few years ago to be a pilot. This isn’t what I imagined!”

And that’s important… why? Protectorate Sod blew up at her fringe, then resumed her wide smile. “Don’t panic. We’ll save y’all yet.”

The terrorist barked another string of Saddle Arabian and Protectorate Sod was unable to understand what he was saying. Here was where a superpower of linguistics would come in handy, but unfortunately, she didn’t have it.

“Don’t kill me, please! I have so much to do in life!” Timber Spruce begged his captor.

Protectorate Sod cleared her throat. “Sir, just calm down. Don’t antagonize the man. And as for you, my terrorist friend, last chance. If ya ain’t gonna put that gun down, we’re gonna have to resort to some violence.”

The Saddle Arabian man looked between the heroes and the pilot again and to Protectorate Sod’s disappointment, he chose to pull the trigger. Timber Spruce’s head slumped forward as the bullet shattered the window, now sucking out the air violently. The terrorist didn’t get a second chance to do anything else before twin lasers cut him in half from the shoulder to his waist. Unfortunately, they also damaged the plane’s controls and alarm bells began to ring out around the whole plane.

“Unfortunate turn of events.” Protectorate Sod patted the dead pilot and then sighed. This was rather inconvenient for them now.

“What are we going to do now?” King Max ran to the controls to see if he could salvage anything. He ripped the pilot’s headset off his head and held the mic to his lips. “Mayday, like, does anyone read?” He put it down and shook his head. “It’s fried, man.”

“Well…” Protectorate Sod pursed her lips, then tipped her hat. “Good game, Max. Nothin’ more we can do for these folks. Guess we better just skedaddle.”

She pushed the door open back into the cabin and people were already screaming and running about the plane, not even bothering to stay in their seats with their belts on.

Farmin’ humans. Protectorate Sod shook her head. They really had no sense of self preservation.

“Protectorate Sod, what’s going on!” one woman wailed and pulled at her cheeks. “Are we all going to die?”

“Help us!” another one screeched.

“Nah, y’all gon’ be fine!” Protectorate Sod put on her best smile and walked down the aisle. “We’ll straighten things out yet.”

“Can’t you like, go out in front and push the plane up?” Max suggested. “Like, keep it from hitting the ground?”

The superheroine scoffed. “Max. Ah can’t hold this plane up. Ah’ve nothin’ to stand on. Besides, if Ah go out there and push, the plane’s just gonna fold around me like paper. There ain’t nothin’ more we can do for them.”

“Or go under the nose and hold it up!”

“Max, Max. That ain’t how it works. You’ve been buyin’ too much into those Vogel films of me. Ah can’t do that. That’ll just kill everyone in here. It’s better we don’t even try. We’re done here, Max.”

“Then just fly them down one at a time, or something. That can work, right?”

Protectorate Sod chuckled. “Come on. Even you know how much work that is. We can’t get all of ‘em. Time to give up.”

“Are you leaving us?” The little girl with the plushie asked. “Don’t leave us!”

“Nah, don’cha worry a thing, li’l one.” Protectorate Sod gave her a gentle fist bump on the shoulder. “Ah’ll just be seein’ a lil’ somethin’ around back. Everythin’s fine, everyone!”

King Max followed her, but he still wasn’t sure about any of this. They couldn’t just let a plane full of people die without even trying to save them. There had to be a way.

When Protectorate Sod reached the back of the plane, she leaned close to the rear door and punched it on the back of her hand. The door launched out into the air and disappeared behind the plane, once again depressurizing the cabin and forcing people to don their masks. The air stewardess assuring people had been thrown clear from where she was standing, toppling over the trolley and knocking bottles to the ground.

“What’s going on?! We’re going to die!” the woman of the young girl screamed.

“Max, come on!” the heroine called from the rear of the plane.

King Max watched the child with her mother and gritted his teeth together. Surely they couldn’t be this heartless. True, he had lost the will and the determination to be a great hero after being in the real world for so long, but this went beyond all that. They were going to let a plane full of people die. People who trusted them to rescue them. Max didn’t want it to end this way.

“You two, like, seatbelts off. Now. And come with me,” he said to the woman and her child.

They did as they were told quickly and he motioned for them to walk, gently pushing them from behind.

Protectorate Sod looked out from behind the corner as they approached and raised his hands. “Max, what are ya doing?”

“Come on, dude. Take these two. Just these two. Fly them down,” Max pleaded.

“What for?” She gripped the edge of her hat and frowned. “So they can tell the world we let all these people die? Nuh uh, leave ‘em.”

More people were unbuckling themselves and rushing down the aisle to them, reaching their arms out and begging Protectorate Sod to save them. King Max felt a sting in his chest. They trusted them to save them, but Protectorate Sod wasn’t going to have any of it.

“Y’all stay back! Stay the farm back!” She pushed past Max and her eyes were now globes of burning red. “Ah’ll laser y’all! Ah’ll laser every last farmin’ one of y’all! Y’all ain’t comin’ with us, ya hear?!”

With the threat of being sliced into pieces by her eyes, all of them backed down and stopped screaming. That was exactly how Protectorate Sod liked it. It seemed Max was still too soft. He unnecessarily cared for the life of these lowly people.

Protectorate Sod stretched a hand out to him and sighed. “Alright, Max. Two options for ya. Let’s go. Or stay with them. Don’t die for them.”

“Protectorate Sod, don’t leave us!” The girl with the plushie began crying.

“How could you do this to us?!” someone in the back yelled.

The superheroine said nothing. Instead, she just nodded her head, her arm still outstretched. King Max looked between them and a pang of guilt gripped at the strings of his heart. He wanted to save them all, he really did, but he also didn’t want to die here, not when there was still so much he had to do. In truth, he was afraid. He was very afraid of what would happen if he did not take Protectorate Sod’s hand and he hated himself for that.

“I’m so sorry. Like, seriously, I’m sorry!” He tried to reason with the people, but it was really more for himself. “I’m sorry.”
“King Max, no!” The young girl grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave us!”

“Max,” Protectorate Sod called, her voice stern.

He looked between the leader of The Septet and the civilians once more, then he left his place beside them and took the superheroine’s hand.

“Ah’d knew you’d make the right choice.” She smiled at him.

And together, they hopped out of the plane door as people rushed for it, begging for them to save them, but their screams now fell on deaf ears as Protectorate Sod and King Max watched the plane slowly grow smaller and smaller, dipping down towards the sea below.

“I’m sorry…” King Max whispered to himself.

“Ain’t nothin’ for ya to be sorry for.” Protectorate Sod watched them go. “People die. Nothin’ lasts. Well, maybe ‘cept book and words. Then again, words aren’t always necessary. They do a whole lot more harm, don’t they?” She chuckled to herself.

King Max didn’t answer. All he could do was imagine the plane full of screaming people perishing because of their selfishness and fear, and it was all his fault.

“It has been an unfortunate moment that King Max and Ah were unable to rescue the hostages aboard the flight…” Protectorate Sod choked on her words as she stood before a sea of people, most of which were reporters. “By the time we had gotten there, there was nothin’ more we could do. The plane had already lost control and crashed into the sea. There was nothing more we could do, but hope that we could’ve been just a little faster… Ah deeply regret not bein’ able to save them. They were truly the real heroes…”

King Max stood beside his partner, watching the people. People looked up to Protectorate Sod. If only they really knew what she was like. But today had been his fault as well. He couldn’t stand up for himself, because there was nothing more he could do for them. He wasn’t blessed with Protectorate Sod’s powers. He couldn’t do what she could, but she would squander her abilities because it was too much of a hassle.

“But ya know what…” The superheroine looked up with crocodile tears in her eyes. “We could’ve avoided this. We could’ve. If superheroes had been in the military, our response time would’ve been so much faster. But our governments still want to decide whether it’s a good idea or not. Well, Ah pose this question to y’all. What’s more important? To be decidin’ law and order or to be out there, savin’ the lives of what matter? Y’all, the true heroes of our world.”

Nods and murmurs went along the crowds and a few shouts of agreements erupted from within them. Protectorate Sod smiled.

King Max watched her carefully, trying to gauge just how far she was willing to go to see this through. Sure, supes in the military would help combat the enemy threat, especially now that there were superterrorists too, but to use the plane crash as a means for it? This Max didn’t agree with. He knew Vogel would’ve been pleased with this outcome, no survivors of the crash or no. They too didn’t care for the lives of innocents. All they wanted was to further their agenda. Max had known that for many years now, but he had given up a long time ago. There was nothing he could do against them unless he wanted to be outed from The Septet and to lose everything he had.

All he could do now was smile and wave at the crowds as they cheered their names and he would have to live with the fact that he let a plane full of people die, just because he was afraid. He pictured an old friend in his head, someone he had not spoken to in a long time, someone he once held dear to his heart. Perhaps they would be able to help him process this through, but he wasn’t holding onto any hope it would justify letting all those people die.