So there I was, in a high-vis jumpsuit staring down a gigantic, slimy nightmare that looked and smelt vile enough to have slid out, not only from under the bed but from the rancid chamber pot of the big bad Beelzebub himself.
       The thing is, I was not 'someone its own size' at five-foot-two and no superhero. I was still a destructive force, with the potential to cause more harm than good. But compared to my enemy, I was barely a key-chain figurine, a second-generation import from 'the Far East,' no matter how politely or well I spoke the Queen's English.
       "For f**k's sake!" I huffed my displeasure and shook my ponytail at the skid marks on the path I had just cleared. "Looks like I'm going to have to get my hands dirty."
       Let me rewind a little. I told you I was not a hero; I was, in fact, a supervillain on community service. The humongous bogey had arrived midway through litter-picking duty, and it had become toxic waste disposal on a whole other scale. Although my mother had always taught me to make the best of the worst situation. And she had to, as a cleaner.
       My probation tag beeped; it was my handy three-in-one prisoner pager. The scrolling message read: 'Community Service can now be credited in both hours and the number of lives you protect.' A screen saver with my vital statistics popped up, followed by another bleep and the ticker tape missive: 'You may use your special powers.' Catheters that connected the tag to my veins no longer delivered suppressants. In that moment, despite my diminutive stature, I liked to think of myself as Godzilla version 2.0 returned to champion the people, entrusted to fight and ward off a worser evil.
       Instead of a dastardly weapon, I wielded a flimsy claw for collecting dishevelled newspapers covered in pee, puke, or worse, and yes, that was just the journalism. Of course, I possessed superior strength as standard, so I hurled the litter picker at breakneck speed, hoping to skewer the mutation evolved from polluted sewer slime. It was evidence of how spoiled man-made soup could get; we weren't meant to be the cooks. The gargantuan blob reformed what I assumed to be its head and spat the picker back out, sending it whizzing past my cheek.
       "Blowing me kisses, are we?" I said, pouting back. After being stuck in the clink, this was the most action I'd enjoyed in a while. My guilty number was 4,000 or thereabouts, and I was not proud of it. Maybe I had been, but that was before my rehabilitation. The probation cuff dug into my wrist as if to chastise me, and the digital display flashed, confirming my lethal tally of kills and definitely not lovers. The bracelet tech counted my death toll and also my saves - an accurate record of both crime and sentence. It was more of a health tracker than a chain of trophy teeth.
       Here's the rub. My powers absorbed collateral damage, or more precisely, innocent lives that were typically reported as 'lost' as opposed to taken. The greater the number of incidental fatalities, the more invincible I became. My career as a soldier had put me into countless war zones, surrounded by tragedy. I had more than ample provisions. Like most of my incarcerated colleagues, I had started out fighting for my version of justice. In the beginning, I took care to deflect stray bullets and debris to protect civilians. I had a code that broke when I did. The dossiers of completed missions began to pile up and spill over.
       Military life was a constant bombardment of ammo flashes and stutters. Eyes were either open wide or screwed closed. Given my talents, promotion was inevitable. I was deployed so many times that I believed Death and I were on speaking terms. Hubris and trauma soon took over, and the less damage I controlled, the more efficient my missions became. I rationalised shortcuts: 'l didn't mean to,' became 'a means to an end' until only 'mean' remained. Family homes with paper-thin walls caught in the crossfire and served as fuel for my final blows. It cost so much to punish the guilty few.
       Eight years later and I now wore a completely different type of uniform. State penitentiary. The popular and well-presented city plaza was now empty and covered in the detritus of fallen market stalls. A greasy tentacle slapped its weight against the organic grocery stall, the last one left standing, and perhaps a nod to our paltry efforts to 'Save the planet.' I darted aside to avoid the collapsing frame before it crashed on top of me. Fruit and vegetables tipped out like jelly tots onto the square palm of the city centre. The big bad bully that had come to play did not have a sweet tooth, nor was she vegan.
       My formidable adversary mounted any cars in its way and any remaining occupants by crushing the chassis until the doors popped open, squashing them like bugs into the tarmac. It slopped over the bloody remains and absorbed the nutrients into its expanding mass. I appraised the school bus lying on its side, suffocating beneath the landslide of a compromised building. It was a fully occupied 48-seater, complete with the muffled screams of children. For a second, I calculated how strong an attack I could launch if I didn't intervene. Don't act so surprised; I told you I was a villain.
       "Make good decisions," I said aloud to convince myself as I prised the lid off the vehicle. It was ambiguous advice given by an optimistic counsellor. I watched as the kids spilled out like baked beans and ran home for teatime. My unconventional watch registered and ticked off their numbers.
       "Thank you, lady!" one boy said, giving a brief wave before returning to his exit scramble from the chaos. He must have had some upbringing to override the panic of flight mode for such a simple but powerful thing; gratitude. I pushed away the memories of my own mother.
       No one is born into villainy. Towards the end of my military tour of duty, command headquarters had known that I was unstable but had delayed my retirement, one last operation for an exceptional maverick. What could go wrong?
       Under pressure from all sides, I blew up a bridge full of enemies and my platoon with it. I cannot remember if I had forgotten to check if the bridge was clear or if I had forgotten to care if that was the case. Perhaps it meant the same thing. 'Friendly fire' is such a misnomer.
       Even when I neutralised the primary target, I couldn't stop locking on and killing everything within my sight. Death was laughing, egging me on, giving me incendiary points to aim for: a fuel tank here, a landmine over there, an unexploded grenade clipped onto a dead hip. I soaked up the collateral damage; it boiled in my gut and flowed out of me as unrestrained hellfire. It was a massacre.
       They choppered my mother into the frontline to placate and reel me back in. With my eyes frenzied and unfocused, she reached for my hand. The floral scent of her soap enveloped me, a bubble in the war-torn desert, and silenced the berserker rush pulsing through me.
       A shot exploded and shattered the oasis.
       Their aim was off.
       Grief is usually such a personal napalm. But not in my case. The fall out of my bereavement left so many scorched marks within a terrible blast radius.
       Back in the present, inside the city square, somebody else craved my attention. The thing squelched and spat its displeasure at an uncertain distance behind me. I spun around just as the living fatberg hurled a cannonball of radioactive scum in my direction. I looked down at my hands, still holding the roof of the bus, which I flung at the oncoming danger. The impact of my oversized frisbee was two-fold; it sliced the projectile into useless halves and continued on, cutting deep into the belly of the beast itself. Once again, the gelatinous glob healed itself. But this time, it recoiled and seemed stunned for a moment longer. Foul ooze redirected to seal the fissure, to lick its split lip. Maybe I needed something bigger.
       I hefted the emptied coach onto one end and tossed it like a log at Hogmanay. It landed, boring a hole into its core like a long thumb pressed into dough. I let the sweat on my brow overflow and held my breath, worried that any relaxation might upset my victory. If I didn't move, maybe it wouldn't. But yet again, the grotesque batter twitched and reanimated, congealing over the 'Children on Board' sign stuck on the back of the bus.
       I sucked my teeth at this development, at the surrounding destruction, and foresaw a widespread disaster. If the children had stayed on board, this would already be over. I shook off my regret and old hunger and tried to remember another mantra from therapy.
       "Bodies are not to be bartered," I muttered, wiping my dripping forehead and smearing grime across it. It was just me and the abomination, both of us leeches of the state. I ripped out a pylon and swung it, the still-attached power lines flailing about like undone shoelaces. I thrashed, hoping to trip and electrocute the creature, but the sparks bounced off like harmless static on thick blubber, and the cables were as useless as cheese wire slicing fondue. Things did not look good. The lights all around us had cut out 'due to the emergency engineering work' I'd carried out on the grid. Nobody else was around. It was almost peaceful as both the sun and I lowered our gaze.
       My wristband vibrated, cheered me on. "Your sentence may be further reduced if you destroy the threat," it said. What did they think I was trying to do? Wrangling with the lumbering cesspit had taken its toll on me. I needed fresh ideas, not to mention breaths, and a way to clear the fug of fatigue. A neon energy drink scattered from a kiosk caught my eye. It was a shame that those juicy pouches rejuvenated my muscles and not my other powers. No, the source of those didn't come from any recyclable container. If only. I sapped, scrunched, and tossed the husk of a wrapper onto the ground. I was no different from my rival.
       And old habits die hard. Remember I'd pulled the plug on the evacuated area? Not everyone had left yet. The nearby hospital stood in grim silence. Exhausted backup generators juddered their last. Automatic doors jarred and clamped like the jaws of dying patients allowing life to escape. Souls that disconnected without a peep, witnessed by mute machines.
       I inhaled their sacrifice, tinged with the stale air from the wards. Currents zapped between my synapses. At first, I was not sure that the spirit charge was strong enough or that it was working, but there it was--and there she was--a cleansing aura that washed over me and imbued me with a tremendous surge of energy. Unlike all the others, Ma had never completely left me. White-hot laser beams potent enough to kill thousands of people shot out of my eyes and blasted the crap out of the unsightly monster, dissolving it into a cloud of acid rain.
       I had one immediate thought: Damn. It took forever for my eyelashes to grow back. Maybe I should have taken more satisfaction, but as any ex-offender will testify, redemption is not a straightforward transaction. It did not matter that my savior total was over 4,000; the number of lives preserved would never be equal to one taken. The digital tag pinged and revoked my privileges. I shrugged and shrank back into my barcoded overalls. What a mess I had made. I grabbed the discarded litter picker and went back to work.