Silver Moon Stories

Chapter 1 The Maw
The sky above was robin’s egg blue. Not a cloud to be found. The tech center had been bustling with worker drones going about their simple, plain, boring lives. What a contrast the steel and concrete buildings were to the peaceful and alluring horizon. Once this had been a place where business happened, impervious to the beauty of nature, except for the park that was the feature around which all the buildings were organized. Not that long ago it has seen families enjoying the brisk spring day with picnics and games of Frisbee with the dog or siblings What a happy place that park used to be or so she imagined.
It had been a nice day. Until the phone call. That peaceful park was now destroyed. Water pipes erupted from below the ruined streets. There were scorch marks running the length of that park from the laser cannon or whatever that guy had been wielding. It had been a day that she was going to relax and enjoy. Maybe she could have come to a park like this. But now she going to have to do her least favorite thing in the world. She was going to have to eat.
The Maw looked around the shattered buildings and wondered if it ever ended. The fighting, the destruction, the vicious and wanton extinguishing of other peoples lives. She felt like she was standing on a mass grave and the destroyed buildings were a giant’s bones sticking up out of the earth. All except one. The last building standing had an unusual hue to it. A sort of dull brown copper metallic sheen that glinted oddly in the sunlight.
This was the building the bad guy had run to at the end of the fight, or at least that is what she had been told. The Maw hadn’t here when it all went down. She wasn’t consider to be first responder material. That was just fine by her. She’d rather be auxiliary anyway. All they ever called her out for was things like this. It almost made her wish that she didn’t have powers. Almost.
“You morons will never get into this building! This whole building is made from a special polymer designed to resist and absorb the most powerful forces produced in the world! Not even a nuclear bomb would damage it!” came the voice from behind the door.
The voice sounded masculine and unhinged. Someone had also been watching way too many cartoons. The Maw imagined the words could’ve been substituted for any generic villain monologue and no one would blink an eye at the difference.
“Okay, The Maw, you’re up! Get chomping!” said Captain Cable.
The Maw, rolled her eyes and sighed discontentedly. She hadn’t come up with the name. This was going to be another of those missions. The Maw was good at one thing and one thing only, eating. Not that it was something anyone expected from a five-foot tall, one hundred pounds soaking wet, woman. But that was the super power that Mina was born with. More of a curse really but you didn’t pick your path. You merely walk it.
About one hundred years ago, the human race, homo sapiens had its first off shoot in ninety thousand years, homo sapiens superus. Although the debate rages as to whether to recognize the subspecies or not, regardless of the time, around the same time as World War I, humans with unexplainable powers start to emerge.
At first, the reports of people doing extraordinary things were chalked up to the fog of war. Men being hit by a hail of bullets or a grenade landing at their feet and walking away unscathed, mostly the human mind could make excuses that seemed reasonable. People had chalked that up to luck or tricks of the film editors. But when the first woman picked up a car, over her head, and threw it a hundred yards without breaking a sweat, the everyday masses began to suspect something was going on.
The government had known for many years before that first public display of the existence of people with extraordinary gifts. At first, they had been known as the Gifted, but the public didn’t like that name, so the dialogue had changed to Hero. Again, too many people could be Heroes without special powers, so they searched for a way to describe how these people had powers beyond what the average person had. The final debate came down between Hyperheroes and Superheroes. Even though the alliteration was fun, Superheroes or just Supers stuck.
“Hey, The Maw! What are you waiting for! Starting eating now!” Captain Cable shouted, clearly not for the first time.
Even amongst Supers, some were simply more Super than the rest.

The Maw walked over to the door and looked between it and Captain Cable. His size made Mina look like a small child in comparison. Standing at just over 7 feet tall he dwarfed even the other Supers waiting on The Maw. His massive right-hand waving towards the door. It looked like he could play baseball with meteorites. Probably did too.
She surveyed the rest of the team briefly. Captain Cable himself was in what she thought of as the rookie uniform. Tight fitting outfit. Too tight really, as the old saying goes, the tights were so tight you could tell what religion he was. He also had a cape. A honest to goodness goddamn cape. He’d learn or he’d die about how next to no heroes wore capes.
Next, was Robed Justice. He was the closest thing Mina had to a friend in the world of Supers, he was her mentor. Five years ago, she had met him as a part of the special mentor program which, other than graduating from the heroes college program, was the only way a great many of the “lesser” Supers had of getting on to any team. His shadow powers had scared the crap out of her but what was juxtaposed with kind and gentle soul and a love of playing jazz. He had become something of a parent to her during a difficult time. He was dressed in his black cloak, which is not the same as a cape. And nothing else was visible beneath its voluminous folds.
Finally, Marbruja was there. She had a look on her face like someone had just put something malodorous under her nose. So like just any other time when The Maw was around. Her costume was a study in opposites. Loose and flexible but form fitting and tight where needed. She looked a lot like a pin up from the 1950’s in a witches outfit. She had the figure to pull it off too.
The Maw felt out of place amongst their numbers. Her “outfit” was black denim jeans, an old t-shirt her “The Maw” logo that looked a lot like the Rolling Stones logo, black biker boots, and an old well worn plain leather jacket. She had an unruly mop of long dark brown hair that looked like it had been brushed, because it hadn’t.
Sighing once more, she walked towards the immovable object. The Maw placed her hands on the door and concentrated. This was how her power worked. She just had to get into resonance with the structure of the door.
“Hurry up, The Maw!” shouted a different Super, she thought it sounded like Marbruja.
“You want to try this, Marisol?” Mina intentionally calling the other Super by her first name rather than her moniker.
“Maw, you aren’t supposed to use real names.” This sounded like the kind but chiding drawl of the elder statesman of the group, Robed Justice.
“Sorry, Robe. Sorry, Marbruja, I just trying to lock in the resonance and it takes time with substances as unique as this.” Mina apologized, but only half-heartedly. Except Captain Cable, they had all worked with Mina enough to know how her power worked. Especially, Robert or as the world knew him, Robed Justice.
Just then her power locked into the wavelength. Finally, about damn time, she thought to herself. This polymer was weird. She’d never encountered anything as remotely alien as this. She had been nervous that her power might not work. But again, just like all the times before, her gift had bested the material of the door.
The Maw could eat anything. She wasn’t sure if she could eat anything that was intangible but if she could touch it, she could eat it. Honestly, her own power repelled her at times. The Hunger, as she called her power, affected her hands and mouth. She dug into the material of the door, and it felt right away as if she had just stuck her hands into a big, sort of wet, cake, and that is exactly how it tasted too.
Everything had its own unique taste just like any food. Mina could taste it all and fortunately she had never grown a dislike for anything she could eat. But this was weird. Not only did it feel like cake but, with the first bite she realized that it tasted like cake too. Specifically chocolate marble cake. Well, at least this would make it easier to consume.
She wished that her power would simply let her dig through the material and throw it away. Mina had tried that a few times when her ability had first emerged in her teenage years. Whatever she had in her hands, the only way to get rid of it was to eat it. She had yet to discover a maximum volume for her power. Once she had been tasked with eating an entire car that had belonged to a villain that was deemed too dangerous to remain intact and resisted all other efforts to be destroyed. She remembered that the engine had weirdly tasted like oil and vinegar salad dressing,
The voice from within came again, “You waste your time, dolts! I’ve tested this door against everything known to man and nothing even managed to scratch it.”
Everything known to man, eh? I guess that makes me only known to woman then. Mina couldn’t help but smirk a bit at the cliche villain blustering. She swallowed the mouthful of door she had in her hand and turned to look at the other Supers.
“Why’d you stop? You are almost through!” Captain Cable hissed through clinched teeth.
“Right.” Turned to look directly at him, “I am almost through the door. But what is the plan? He will likely have some countermeasure that he will be able to shoot through the door. What then Cap’n?”
A sour look appeared on Captain Cable’s face. Oh ho, thought Mina, we haven’t thought that far ahead have we, Cap’n FNG? Thought that you’d have me just eat the door and he would surrender just like in all the movies? Damn newbie Super.
Both Robed Justice and Marbruja closed their eyes and Marbruja even shook her head and said, “Dios Mio, Cable. She’s right. What was the rest of the plan?’
“Umm, I knock the door over and we rush in?” Captain Cable said a little uncertainly.
“Cap’n,” Mina looked at Captain Cable in frustration, “The door will still be solid everywhere except where I ate. You’ll break before it did.”
“Why didn’t you just eat the hinges then?” Captain angrily retorted.
“I’d love to. Where are they, oh that’s right, they are on the other side of this very sturdy frigging door.” She waved her hand as Captain Cable had done just a few minutes before.
Captain Cable’s face started to flush with the realization that the plan error was solely on his shoulders. He turned away and walked off a few steps and started to shout at nothing.
“Robe,” Mina turned with a softer face to Robed Justice, “Where’d you get this very green kid and why is he on a blue level mission?”
“We can talk later. How soon will you be through to the other side of the door?” Robed said. His Louisiana drawl thicker with the hushed tones.
“Probably half a dozen mouthfuls. But when I grab the last mouthful he’s gonna shoot something through that hole. You know it too.”
“I do.” Robed Justice turned to Marbruja, “Do you think you can slip through a hole that size?”
“Si,Robe. It could be even smaller.” Marbruja said a smile on her face.
“How small?” Asked Robed Justice.
“To get through quickly? About 7 millimeters or just smaller than a standard pencil.” She made a circle with her thumb and forefinger.
Robed Justice turned back to The Maw, “Think you can make an opening that small?”
The Maw turned her sharp, toothy smile towards him. Mina’s teeth were brilliant white, they almost shone in the darkness. She’d never had so much as a cavity. “Yes. Yes, I do.”