The Night of Madness was the best thing that ever happened to me. My body had been changed, but I didn’t get just one superpower like those losers on TV. The way I saw it, being able to fly or breathe underwater, beat the crap out of others or run real fast was okay, but I had them all beat and that meant two things.

First, by getting multiple superpowers, I was remade better than them. Second, I wouldn’t have gotten two if I didn’t deserve them.

I could both store anything that touched my skin and walk-through walls. Those bozos who call themselves Paladins couldn’t touch me. Even the super strong ones couldn’t hurt me.

I’d already squared off against one who thought he was so much better than me and even though I was a third his size, not doing anything to him and not looking for trouble, he took a swing at me.

Who the hell did he think he was anyway? All high and mighty, yet working for the most corrupt government agency ever to exist. He probably would have kept my score for himself anyway.

The gold I’d absorbed had slowed me down almost to the point I took ten minutes to walk a city block. I had to weigh over a ton with the contents of the vault I’d just absorbed and I couldn’t slip back into the wall I’d just exited fast enough. As for my dumbass partner, she just watched it all happen.

The damned super strong fucker didn’t even give me warning. He just up and swung for my head. He had to know a punch like that would absolutely destroy a normal guy, the fucker. And that damned Control would have stuck up for him if he HAD hurt me, too. What about MY rights?

It’s them that’s the real criminals, not guys like me that’s just trying to make the most of my powers. As for Jackson, what a waste of fifty bucks she turned out to be.

There was one weakness to my power to move through shit. I can’t climb through it. I can walk through walls, but if the floor is higher on the inside than the ground outside the wall, I’m fucked until I can encounter a staircase. The soles of my feet hold me from sinking into the ground which means I have to shuffle them through walls at ground level. That’s why I prefer to walk through doors whenever possible.

So when the asshole super strong took a swing at my head, he happened to choose one of the only parts of me not containing densely packed gold particles and his fist went right through me. That miscalculation caused him to lose his balance and I was able to defend myself by pushing his head into the wall.

Sure, it killed him. My hand went through his head just like it would a wall. Bad day for him but he started it so he deserved it. He should have just minded his own fucking business. Now I’d be labeled a murderer by Control. As if I didn’t have enough problems.

The big question was what to do about Jackson. I still needed a driver for the flatbed truck she had scored to take me back to my place so I could unload the gold. I couldn’t drive it. I couldn’t even sit in it comfortably, filled as I was with gold.

That’s the rub. When I absorb the maximum amount of whatever heavy mineral, gold especially, I have to stand. If I fall down, I’m stuck on the ground unless I unload. Just too much weight on lesser muscles not strong enough to get me up again. If I’m sprawled out on the ground, I have all that weight pushing down on my chest and my lungs can’t take it. Been there, done that. Didn’t like it at all.

Hell, I can’t even wear fucking clothes half the time. Yet I couldn’t trust Jackson anymore either. She’d allowed herself to get caught. At the same time, surfing on the bed of the truck still seemed like the best way to make a break for it before other Paladins came looking for their buddy.

Jackson was looking at me like I’d grown an extra head. Instead of running up to me, congratulating me for saving her ass, she was looking at me, then the asshole who’d taken a swing at me, then back at me like it was me who’d done something wrong. Fucking bitch.

After everything I’d done for her too. I’d let her crash in my bed, eat my food and even gave her $50 up front for the ride I expected her to provide. Just because she had nice tits and a warm gash. I KNEW I shouldn’t have offered her such an easy gig with pay. I should have gotten Dave. Or waited for Tubs to get back. Lesson learned, I guess.

I made my way to the truck as quickly as I could. At about six inches every time I moved a foot forward. It was mind-numbingly slow and not really fair. I should have been given more super strength too so I could walk normally. Life ain’t fair sometimes.

I was plumb wore out by the time I got to the truck five minutes later and Jackson hadn’t even lowered the power lift attached to the back. Stupid hoe. She was still standing next to the truck in her ridiculous mini skirt and tube top, processing what had happened to the Paladin instead of being concerned with what was really important. Me.

I had to waste another few minutes trudging to the cab of the truck so I could kick her shin to really get her attention. Shouting at her wasn’t cutting it. I wished I’d thought to bring a load of styrene with me.

FYI, styrene is what Styrofoam is made of. Trial and error had resulted in me filling up with the stuff whenever I needed to be solid. I’d unload, go to work and fill up with the good stuff. If I’d brought an extra load of styrene with me, I could have dumped the gold, taken on the styrene and been good to go. Even if I’d had to then load the flatbed by hand. The only styrene I knew of in this part of town right now, was in the vault where I’d unloaded it to get the gold.

I could have unloaded it in this alley but I didn’t much like the idea of making a withdrawal from the vault while wearing my birthday suit. It was bad enough that it’d be on the surveillance video in the vault but I had no intention of hauling my ass to the security office to deal with the footage while I was this heavy.

I had a nearly full tank of gold now and only my hands and head were not solid, so I had to knee Jackson a few times in the thigh to get her attention again. What I mean to say is that the bruises she’d have on her thigh tomorrow were technically her own fault too.

“Earth to Jackson, come in, whore,” I shouted at her and popped her another good one with my knee. You have to admit I’m pretty impressive. I DID have to take my entire weight on one foot to use my opposing knee. I appreciated the fact that I might have bruised the bone with that last knee thrust but if I was going to risk falling down, I had to make it count. At least it worked. Jackson fell instead. And I didn’t have to use my hands to get her attention. Being empty of gold, my hands were my backup weapons, like I just said with the Paladin.

“You killed him!” Jackson screeched from the ground.

“I’ll do the same to you if you don’t get your shit together, get up in the truck and drop that fucking liftgate!” I stormed at her, reaching out as if I was going to wrap my hands around her neck. That threat seemed to do the trick. She scrambled up into the truck’s cab and reached for the knob that operated the liftgate.

“What are you going to do next, you stupid cunt?” I asked, getting myself under control with sheer willpower alone. I felt I should ensure she was back in the game. I’m glad I did ask. Only one of her two brain cells was firing right.

“I’m going to drive back to Palisades?” she asked.

“Shit. No. Before that. Wait till I’m on the liftgate and raise it first. Then wait till I’m in position. I’ll tell you when you can roll. Got it?” I replied in exasperation. The dumb bimbo just wasn’t cut out for this shit. Dammit I hate learning the hard way!

I knew I probably wouldn’t really kill her after we got out of this but it’d be her fault if she didn’t stop pissing me off. She should try phasing through shit when she weighs a ton. Hard fucking work! But she was obviously too dumb to get superpowers like mine anyway or she would have on the Night of Madness.

Fucking cannon fodder is all she was good for. Good looking cannon fodder but still. Cunts like her are a dime a dozen. I mean really. Here’s me doing all the work and getting no respect and hardly any cooperation in return. I felt like making her give up the fifty too, once we got back.

If I let her live. I couldn’t be seen as a pansy after all and she wasn’t high profile like a Paladin. If I could live with killing him in self-defense, I could off the bitch without a second thought. Her tits and gash aren’t THAT special. Tubs would probably laugh himself to death if I DIDN’T teach the selfish bitch some manners.

She nearly pushed my last button while I was still standing on the liftgate. She was so nervous, and in a hurry to leave, she crunched the truck into gear and I nearly fell off the damned thing. I wasn’t even high enough up to the bed that I could step off yet. It was like she was begging to get herself dead or something. Not that it’d be me that did it if I fell and was crushed under the weight of the gold in my system.

Next job would be with Tubs for sure. I should have waited. A few goddamned hours was all it would have been too, until Tubs got back from visiting his mom. But I couldn’t just ignore the gold in the transit hub’s vault. Way too damned easy a target. And it had to be done before they moved it again.

“You mean you didn’t go to the security room BEFORE you went to the vault? Damn man, rookie mistake!” Tubs laughed.

“Yeah well you make it sound logical now, but you weren’t there,” I defended myself. “Anyway, did your mom come through?” I asked. I wasn’t referring to her health.

Tub’s mom was his most important source for information. She worked as a dispatcher at the armored truck company dispatch office in DC and she was the one who’d bragged about the big shipment of gold. Thirty tons of the stuff. No one was going to miss a measly ton, give or take, I’d decided.

“Ever tried diamonds?” he asked with a grin. He knew I could absorb anything and unload it just the way I found it. Diamonds in, diamonds out. None the worse for wear, as it were.

“If diamond is a mineral, you know it,” I gloated. Tubs was fast and strong, but I was the magic behind our business venture.

Generally, I got it and he fenced it. Diamonds was a pretty good one. Lightweight, I could haul much more of them than gold and they wouldn’t slow me down. Not like a freaking ton of gold. Why we hadn’t already specialized in diamonds I didn’t know. Tubs should have thought of that ages ago.

Still, he would have saved me a lot of hassle if his mom hadn’t called and said she was sick the day I needed him for the gold job. He’d dropped everything and ran to his momma. For a stomach bug. Wasn’t even real food poisoning. But a hundred miles is still a hundred miles, so he stayed for dinner instead of zipping back to where he was really needed; leaving me to fend for myself.

He now knew he had to make up for the shit he put me through. Still, my score was mine and he knew it. He was probably trying to get me drunk so he could find out what I’d done with my gold. I can’t fault him for that. On the other hand, if he wanted to help out with a load of diamonds, THAT’S where he would get a legit cut.

We were having a few shots at my local club and Jackson was back up on stage where she belonged. After she got us back to Palisades, I felt much better. After dropping my loads, one under my bed where it belonged and one in a reluctant Jackson, I felt a whole lot better. I would never use her for work again but I let her get off with only refunding my fifty bucks. She didn’t like that either. I even had to explain why, to her. She knew better than to threaten me or anything but it turned out the stupid bitch did something worse.

I’d even thrown a dollar on stage as a goodwill gesture to Jackson when her betrayal became clear. Luckily Tubs was so quick.

Jackson had ratted me out to the fucking cops! It had to be her. After everything I’d done for her, too! If it hadn’t been for Tubs, I’d be dead or ... well, dead. As far as I knew, I could phase through anything, so cops couldn’t hold me. Fucking laser-eyed Paladin like Fuse would fry me like an egg though. Tubs saved my ass by whisking me out of there.

Once again, the only other Rogue who I knew for sure had multiple superpowers, had used his strength and speed to save my bacon. I just wished Tubs had given me a chance to unload a little styrene and teach that motherfucking laser bitch punk to come interrupt my down time. Just the way he looked at me was an insult. I probably should have been glad he didn’t have time to USE his laser vision but I was busy being pissed off.

As for Jackson, I ain’t stupid. Paladins don’t just wander into strip clubs while I’m there celebrating. Hell, I doubted Fuse walked into strip clubs, period. Them do-gooders probably spend all their spare time in church or soup kitchens or something. Don’t know, don’t care. I live and let live till I’m being hunted.

My initial instinct that Jackson was the one who tipped off the police was the only explanation that fit. There was no other logical possibility. She’d get hers if she showed her face around me again. And to think I’d shared jizz with her. Ungrateful bitch. I hope that Paladin zapped her good just for being such an ungrateful drama queen, when I got away.

Tubs took me a couple blocks away and stopped. I figured at least he’d take me somewhere safe but when we stopped, I saw it was on a sidewalk, not even at the Palisades.

“What the fuck, dude? Why’d you stop here? The club’s only around the corner,” I said in surprise.

It’s a downside of hitching a ride with Tubs. One moment we’re one place, the next we’re somewhere else. I don’t get to give directions en route. Tubs says time slows down for him and he says it’s like he’s just walking while everyone around him is frozen in time. If he happens to be carrying someone, that someone doesn’t get to share his point of view. We’re just one place one moment, somewhere else the next, like I said. But not usually just a few blocks from where we’re escaping from!

“There were no cops. Fuse was by himself but I wasn’t about to ask. Maybe he wasn’t even there for us at all?” Tubs suggested. “He just looked like he was interested in you, so I got us the hell out of there. You can thank me later,” he added as if he really thought I was happy about what he’d done.

“Nah, he was there for me, alright. I’m just getting too high profile here too, I think. If Fuse is after me, Control has figured out who I am. Man, you should have never ditched me to go see your mom, right when you was needed. Means we have to move out of this Podunk town too. Fuck!

Tubs and I had been together in six cities now, over a two-year period. It seemed like everything would go just fine until Tubs had some sort of emergency with his momma. Things were always getting fucked up when he was gone. It’s like we’ve got the luck of the Irish until he bails then he takes all the luck with him. If I could isolate his lucky gene and bottle it, I’d be the best in the business.

Insurance companies would be screwed. Well, the ones that insured high value shipments, anyway. Them, I liked screwing after what they did to my brother. Fletcher was a good kid. Like me, not out to hurt anyone. Then the Night of Madness came and he got the ability to read minds. It fucked him up. Said everyone was always yelling in his head. He couldn’t take it anymore and blew his brains out. Fucking insurance company wouldn’t even pay out on his policy. Said it was suicide. Fucking bitches.