Thunderclaps 2: Chapter 1 - Facts of Vengeance

“Hey there, Captain. You really do belong in the sky, you know that?”

(From History of the Justice Circus Ch. 1 by Kashima Kengo, Published in 1980)

1962, Super Offbeat’s first words to the first superhuman he met in Japan while visiting to protect human right’s activist Aaron

 

Someone was speaking somewhere.

“My name is Storyteller. My job is to tell your story. Now, let us begin.”

A beautiful woman’s body trembled in a dark room.

Long, delicate fingers touched her breasts and rubbed at her skin.

“Your body is a terribly sexual thing.”

A tremor ran through her breasts.

“Your body constantly desires sexual pleasure, even in defiance of your own will.”

The fingertips moved up to her throat. She gulped and a sigh of anguish escaped her lips.

“No matter how much your mind resists, your body will throb in its desire for pleasure and drive you mad in its longing for orgasm.”

The fingertips moved to her lower stomach and her hips moved back and forth all on their own.

“Speak your name.”

“…Lily.”

 

“3, 2, 1, and you’re live!”

After the on-site director’s cue, a young woman in a light yellowish-green suit appeared on the TV screen.

She gave a pleasant smile while the chyron below her identified her as Ozora Miki, an announcer for Peace TV.

The new announcer held up her microphone and began speaking with tension on her face. This was her first year with the company, her first news program, and her first live broadcast.

“We are here in front of Shibuya’s Cultural Hall where a large crowd has gathered.”

She turned toward the large hall towering behind her and walked toward it as she spoke. This area was always crowded even for Shibuya, but the young cameraman made sure to capture the especially large crowd entirely surrounding the Cultural Hall. The microphone picked up the mixture of all those people’s voices.

“These people are all here for the special event held here only once a year.”

Miki’s flowing words continued and she silently rejoiced at how well this was going.

(Good, I haven’t stumbled over any of the words. This is going great. If I can finish this report without screwing anything up, the path to a primetime slot might be open to me.)

Peace TV traditionally used their new announcers as reporters for their Midday News show that began at 11:30 AM in July. The chief of the announcing division and the producer of the news department had said it was only meant to let the viewers get to know them, but there was a tacit understanding that their performance here would affect the path their career took from there. Kayagi Nami was Peace TV’s star announcer known for her soothing presence and she had been quickly pushed into primetime after the positive feedback from viewers during Midday News. Each year, the new announcers would anxiously make their reports while also making an effort to make no mistakes.

Miki did her best to maintain a perfect smile while speaking the lines she had practiced in her head countless times now.

“The 18^th Annual Japanese International Film Festival is holding its first day here today. The opening film will be the Hollywood blockbuster Battle of the White House, so fans have gathered from all over in the hopes of getting even a glimpse of Brad Dan, the young superstar playing the president’s oldest son.”

(Good, good. Just like that, Miki. Now just interview two or three people from the crowd and you can head back to the studio.)

Next to the camera, the on-site director Tanaka Masao pointed to the outer edge of the crowd circling the building. Miki maintained her smile as she turned in that direction and saw a very conspicuous girl.

She wore a bustier and ultra-miniskirt made of shiny black plastic. She also wore a short-sleeved black leather jacket that only came halfway down her back. It was a bold outfit that left pretty much everything except her chest and hips exposed. When she turned around, she revealed an image of a tombstone on the back of the jacket.

Her young face suggested she was 17 or 18 and she was short. But the breasts and butt pushing out the plastic looked more impressive than the average adult woman, so she easily pulled off the sexy outfit.

(Why did Tanaka-san have to choose her?)
Miki silently complained about the director who obviously thought interviewing that sexy girl would be good for ratings, but she had to do as she was told.

(Is she not embarrassed walking around dressed like that?)
She also silently criticized the skimpily-dressed girl while putting a smile on her face, approaching her, and holding out her microphone.

“Hello. Are you a Brad Dan fan too?”
“What did you say?”
The sexy girl glared back so sharply Miki could have sworn it made a sound. This close up, she could tell the girl had the frightening look of a wolf, so a chill ran down her spine.

(Uh, oh. This may have been a mistake.)

Miki recalled the tragedies that had befallen some of the older announcers when they were in training. One filming crew had been doing a beach report for an early morning program when they ran into a biker gang, a fight broke out, and the announcer had to flee into the ocean while live on the air.

(What do I do if she attacks me?)

Miki was worried, but the girl’s frightening expression rapidly softened to something a lot cuter and more suited to her age.

“That’s right, I love Brad Dan. So…”

The girl put on a mischievous smile as she took a deep breath and released it all in a yell.

“I want him to fuck me!”

This was a live broadcast for the Midday News.

The cameraman froze, the sound person froze, the on-site AD froze, and Director Tanaka froze. Back in the Midday News studio, the main newscasters froze. As did the cameraman, the sound person, the crane operator, the mixer, the lighting person, the switcher, the timekeeper, the director, the producer, and the VIP sponsor who just so happened to be watching the broadcast on TV.

But Ozora Miki froze more than any of them.

Her thoughts ground to a halt and she could not try to smooth things over with a comment or even pull the microphone away.

When the girl saw Miki freeze, she grinned and grabbed the microphone in her right hand.

“Don’t you want him to give you a good hard fucking!?”
Miki’s mouth flapped like a goldfish when the girl dropped a second F-bomb, but there was a shrill voice echoing in her mind.

(Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!)

Her dreams of being on the set of a primetime program were audibly shattering around her.

(It’s over. My life as an announcer is over before it even began!)

Instead of working on a popular program, she now imaged herself sitting at an announcing division desk over by the window and working on endless paperwork while waiting in vain for the producer to call for her.

The girl waved her hand in front of the death mask that was Miki’s face.

“Hey, you okay? Hey? Ah!”

The girl let out a tense cry and looked down. Miki did the same.

A shadow was cast on the asphalt, but it was not Miki’s own. This shadow was so large it swallowed up Miki and the girl’s shadows.

Just as she wondered what could be causing it, the air shook. A rumbling noise became a solid wall that crashed into Miki. She could have sworn the asphalt actually rocked below her feet.

She forgot to even scream as she blankly looked to the road around 100m away.

She saw something there that should not have existed in the middle of Shibuya. It was a distorted sphere of stone with a radius of at least 5m. Given the location, the dark gray mass of stone looked like a piece of avant-garde art, except it was covered in dark green moss and caked with brown dirt. It was like a natural stone from the mountains that had recently been pulled from the ground.

“Wh-where did that big boulder come from?”

“It fell from the sky. Duh.”

The foulmouthed girl had grabbed her arm at some point and her arm was touching the large breasts contained in the black plastic.

“From the sky?”
She noticed that the asphalt was indeed cracked below the stone, but then she realized it was even more strange for a giant boulder to fall from the sky.

The stone was located on the road in front of the Cultural Hall’s main entrance. That was where she had been standing with her microphone. She should have been squished flat below it. Director Tanaka and the rest of the staff who should have been nearby were running over to her from next to the boulder.

“How did we get over here?”

“I don’t think you have time to worry about that.” The girl sounded amused and pointed to the top of the boulder. “Look.”

When Miki did look to the top of the boulder again, she saw another strange sight. Four human heads had grown from the relatively flat top of the boulder. As if the solid rock surface was made of water, three men and a single woman’s head, face, and then chest emerged from the rock without any difficulty.

“Wh-what is that?”

“They’re Offbeats, of course.”

“Those are Offbeats!? I’ve never seen one in person before.”

“What kind of announcer are you? Do you live out in the middle of nowhere or something?”
Miki of course knew about Offbeats.

Everyone in this world did. They were in the news every single day. But just because traffic accidents happened on a daily basis did not mean everyone had witnessed one.

Still, anyone who worked in the media needed to know about Offbeats. Miki recalled what she had learned from the older announcers during her training.

The first thing anyone learned about Offbeats was always the same: the Super Debut on January 5, 1960. On that frigid winter day, terrorists launched a nuclear missile at the White House. But just before one of history’s greatest tragedies could occur, a man wearing a bright red cape had flown up into the blue sky.

The caped man had grabbed the missile with his bare hands – no equipment or machinery necessary – flown it outside of lunar orbit, and thrown it out into space.

The superhuman who had saved America had said he was no more than “some offbeat guy”, so the global media had started calling him Super Offbeat.

The world changed after that. The people who had been hiding their superhuman powers had started revealing those powers. Some were born espers and some had undergone a physical change due to something or another. Some were warriors with mechanized bodies and some were aliens visiting from another world. Surprisingly, there were even sorcerers who had inherited mystical knowledge from ancient times and those with the blood of legendary monsters and creatures in their veins.

To honor Super Offbeat as the first superbeing to reveal his powers to the world, they became known as Offbeats.

Many Offbeats used their special powers for criminal purposes. Those Offbeat criminals generally proudly showed off their powers and wore masks, costumes, and capes that help them stand out. However.

“Th-they’re naked!” screamed Miki.

The crowd around her were saying much the same thing.

Once the four people had fully emerged from the rock, they were revealed to be wearing no flashy costume and not even any underwear.

The three muscular men and the curvy woman stood firm on the very rock they had just passed through and gave the crowd a satisfied look. They seemed to be drinking in the shock their appearance has caused the crowd.

A man with a large beard who resembled an ancient Greek philosopher crossed his arms in front of his muscular chest and spoke loud with his impressive male symbol dangling between his legs.

“Good day, ignorant fools who nap atop an impure civilization. Allow us to interrupt before you pitiful people are brainwashed by the worthless entertainment you call films. We are the environmental protection group Natural Law!”

Miki had never heard that name before. There were plenty of ecological groups with Offbeat members. There were the Watchers of Earth, who were highly praised for their honest and benevolent activities, and there was Nature’s Nemesis, a fanatical terror group, but Natural Law must have been a new one.

“Hey, Ozora. Don’t just stand there!”

Director Tanaka grabbed Miki’s shoulder and approached with the frightening look unique to a TV director during a live broadcast.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It might be a heavy burden for a newcomer like you, but we need to cover these weirdos.”

“Eh? But this is a live broadcast. Can we really film them when they’re naked?”

“The studio says they can blur it out, so hurry up and get talking!”

“Okay, I’ll do my best!”

She held the microphone to her chest and spoke with the tense expression she had been trained to use for major incidents.

“Umm, uh, we have big news. An Offbeat group calling themselves the environmental protection group Natural Law has suddenly appeared in front of the Japanese International Film Festival. What could they be trying to accomplish here?”
(Okay, this is working. I can make up for that unpleasantness earlier. My dreams aren’t over yet. Oh, they’re looking this way.)

The naked bearded man must have noticed the TV camera because he turned toward Miki, uncrossed his arms, and held his thick right hand out.

The earth shook.

Or she thought, but it was actually only her that shook. The asphalt cracked around her feet and a 2m piece of the ground suddenly rose up.

“Wahhh! What is going on!?”
The round piece of asphalt and the dirt below it floated up from the ground with the screaming announcer on top.

“Watch out!”

The black bustier girl made a swift jump onto the asphalt as it seemingly slid through the air. She wrapped her arms around Miki’s hips.

By the time the bustier girl tried to jump down while carrying Miki, they had already landed on the boulder on which Natural Law stood. Miki’s legs gave out when she was taken in front of those four naked superhumans. Which unfortunately placed an exposed manhood right in front of her face. She had only ever had sex with one man during college and the member in front of her now looked to be twice as thick and long as her ex’s.

“Ah…ahhhhhh!”

She backed away from the extra-large male symbol as it nearly bumped into her nose, but the naked bearded man grabbed her shoulder. His deep and powerful voice rang out across Shibuya.

“You are a TV reporter, are you not? Are you live?”
“Y-yes. I-I am Ozora Miki, an announcer for P-Peace TV. We are currently live for the Midday News.”

“You, girl. What is your name?”

The bustier girl sent a powerful look the bearded man’s way.

“Nanjou Shino. I just happened to be nearby when you carried her here. What are you going to do with us?”

The man seemed to lose all interest in Shino and pulled Miki to her feet with a single hand.

“A live broadcast is perfect. Broadcast our words to the entire nation.”

“Eh? I-I don’t really have the authority to…”

She twisted her head around to look at the on-site staff. Director Tanaka would be hearing this conversation through her mic and his voice reached her through her earpiece.

“Do it, Ozora. Interview that butt-naked bastard. It’ll be our exclusive scoop.”

Was she imagining how delighted he sounded?

(This industry might be even crazier than I thought.)

She felt a little worried about her future as she held the mic out toward the naked man. Her left hand wandered in a subconscious search for Shino’s hand and the girl gave it a squeeze. Shino silently stared at Miki.

The bearded man pushed out his thick chest and accentuated the thing at his crotch while speaking loudly and boldly.

“My name is Stonemason. I am Chairman of Natural Law. And these are my exemplary companions.”

Stonemason gestured toward the slender and bald man standing to his right.

“Rapid Fire.”

The bald man showed off yellow teeth in a very unhealthy-looking smile and held his right hand out toward Miki. Red flames burst from the entire surface of his hand and spiraled around Miki and Shino. A few strands of their hair were scorched by the heat of the ring of fire around them.

“Hot! P-please stop that.”

Stonemason did not react at all to Miki’s cry. He continued in a calm voice.

“Water Wraith.”

The woman to his left, who had an excellent figure but the pale skin of a corpse, opened her mouth wide. Water sprayed from her throat with the intensity of a fire engine’s hose, extinguishing the fire surrounding the announcer and girl. Miki breathed a sigh of relief.

“Barnstorm.”

This time, Miki and Shino’s hair was whipped up by a gust of wind, as were their skirts. The girl in the ultra-miniskirt and Miki in her ordinary skirt both had their white panties revealed.

Miki quickly pushed down her skirt as she saw a teenage-looking boy floating in the air behind the bearded man. The air roared around Barnstorm and formed a localized whirlwind that supported his naked body.

Once Stonemason had the boy stop the wind, Miki once more held her mic out toward the terrorist chairman.

“As you can see, we have been granted the powers of the four elements of nature. This is proof that nature has chosen us to speak on its behalf. It is our duty to destroy this filthy civilization built by sacrificing nature and to restore humanity to its proper primitive state.”

He was not saying much different from the right wing and left wing speeches made in front of the Hachiko statue. Normally, everyone ignored those speeches, but people paid attention when it came from the naked men and woman standing atop a giant boulder. No one approached, but they were watching from a distance.

Satisfied with the interest showed by the crowd, Stonemason prepared to continue his speech, but that was when Tanaka’s voice arrived over Miki’s earpiece.

“Ask him why they’re naked.”
“I-I can’t ask that,” she whispered back, but the director showed no mercy.

“Ask him. You’re speaking on the viewers’ behalf here.”

(Who out there wants to know that?)

She silently griped about the director and asked the question with her cheeks stiff.

“Um, Stonemason-san? Why are you not wearing any clothing in public?”

She was worried he would hit her, but the terrorist calmly responded.

“We live in harmony with nature, so we do not require products of your filthy civilization.”

“I see. That makes sense, I guess.”

“Now, to get back on track. To follow the guidance of nature, Natural Law has punished one of nature’s enemies who defends this civilization. Ignorant fools, watch as I present to you something far more wonderful than a film festival. And quake before the power granted us by nature!”

His muscular bare arm reached down into the rock. All the distant onlookers gulped. Miki held the mic tight with tension, but Director Tanaka kept telling her to speak and not to fall silent.

“Oh, um, what will Mr. Stonemason show to us here? His powerful arm is finally starting to pull back up.”

The man’s arm pulled something horrifying from within the boulder.

“Kyaaaaahhh!”

Miki screamed, entirely forgetting she was on a live broadcast.

Director Tanaka was accustomed to crime scenes and accidents, but even he froze. When he finally came back to his senses, he grabbed the camera and turned it away.

“Crap, we can’t show that on the air.”

“B-but we already did,” hesitantly replied the cameraman.

“What have you done?” spat out Shino, angrily gripping Miki’s left hand.

Stonemason triumphantly flexed his arms to show off his strength.

“Ignorant fools of the world, burn this imagine into those eyes that have so long been poisoned by this civilization! This is the fate of any scum who defy nature!”

He casually held a woman by the hair and her body swayed like a windchime. Her face had grown as white as paper, as if all blood had drained from it.

And in fact, her throat had a gaping wound but not a drop of blood flowed out. She was clearly dead and had been for some time.

“You monsters! That’s Lily Dynamo!” shouted Shino, her eyes wide.

Only then did Miki recognize the woman so cruelly made into an example here. The corpse with the slit throat was wearing a yellow bodysuit with transparent frills around the hips. There was a white lily flower drawn on the chest.

Miki had seen countless news stories about the woman in that adorable costume fighting crime. She had practiced providing commentary to footage of Lily Dynamo and other superheroes during her announcer training. In the footage, the 18-year-old woman in the yellow and white costume had shaken her frills while she easily punched a large and powerful man from his feet and deflected a hail of gunfire.

“But Lily Dynamo was so powerful. She could create an energy barrier around herself, making it impossible to hurt her. I mean…I mean…she was a superhero!”

According to UN statistics, the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Offbeats around the world lived in one of three ways. The first was to hide their Offbeat powers from the world and live as normal people.

The second was to use those powers for crime like the four here were doing.

The third was the most uncommon of the three. Those people chose to use their superhuman abilities to rescue people from criminals and disasters. Super Offbeat, the very first superhuman, had demonstrated that lifestyle to the world and the other Offbeats who accepted that same great duty and responsibility were known as superheroes out of respect and awe of him.

They were humanity’s greatest hope in a world full of criminals who could distort the laws of physics. Lily Dynamo was a young superhero who had begun working in the Chiba Prefecture two years ago and had captured many criminals.

For someone like Miki who had never actually met an Offbeat, Lily Dynamo being killed by villains was beyond unimaginable.

A dreadful smile appeared on Stonemason’s bearded face. There was no human warmth there – it felt more like a blizzard on a snowy mountain. It was the face of a man who worshiped nature over human beings.

“Nothing is impossible for the power of nature. This is the fate of those who defend your rotten civilization – those you call superheroes. And you ignorant fools will soon follow!”

The director’s voice finally shouted in Miki’s ear.

“Run! Ozora, you need to get out of there!”

But before she could do anything, Rapid Fire, Water Wraith, and Barnstorm jumped down from the boulder.