Adamas Girl

I knew the city was under attack when the sky opened and stars fell through.

Morning never came because the sun was absent. Or more like, someone was blocking the light from the sun and casting the entire city in shadow. Still, people went to work as usual. My mom opened up the bakery first thing, telling me to check on my grandparents and make sure that they understood we were not in a biblical apocalypse. I stopped by the house on my way to school, listened to my grandma complain about my grandfather’s diet as she gave me lunch money, and slipped the old man some of our famous cinnamon rolls when she wasn’t looking. She did mention something about Jesus coming to pick up his people, but other than that, my grandparents were too busy fussing to be bothered by the weird weather.

I was set on having a normal day, as normal as possible with a solar eclipse happening anyway, when the meteor shower started. And I don’t mean the beautiful streaks of light from a romantic evening. I mean, giant balls of blue fire smacking into buildings, blowing up palm trees and punching holes into the sides of distant mountains. The car in front of me fell into a giant hole and I slammed onto the brakes, rushing out onto the street like everybody else. The stars kept coming, raining hellfire onto Candescent City as frightened bystanders watched, as people walking their dogs ran for shelter and school buses swerved to avoid falling into craters and killing screaming kids. I took a deep breath, kneading my forehead as people ran past me in full panic, holding their wailing babies and steering their distracted pets.

The stars swirled into a circle of light, surrounding a solitary figure standing in the sky. I knew who he was before he even opened his mouth to ask for me. A menace that cared nothing for the chaos he brought, frequently created natural disasters for fun, and had a massive fanbase spreading edits of him in his skintight black suit across TikTok. The incredibly popular and insufferable supervillain plaguing my California hometown- Pulgrave. I had no idea why he was so hellbent on destroying this city, but he loved to create large-scale messes for me to clean up. All so that he could yet again ask me to be his girlfriend. As if between back to back AP classes, Key Club and helping my mom at the bakery I had time for that.

I mumbled curses as I got back into my car and pulled my own suit out- a purple and silver ensemble my best friend made with her cosplay expertise. The material was both stretchy and form-fitting, settling over my curves with an opalescent sheen. The mask was my design- meant to imitate cuts of diamond in bright silver lines. I slipped it on, thankful I had braided my hair down the night before. I adjusted the winged eyes so that I could see clearly, then pulled mauve claw-tipped gloves over my dark brown skin. When I was ready, I came out of the car and tapped the left part of my chest, right where my heart would be if I had one. The crystal replacement glowed bright purple, encasing me in its indestructible halo as my powers sparked to life. I was off the ground and flying up to meet the sky terrorist a second later, placing a hand on my hip as I looked at him.

Pulgrave did fill out his black suit nicely. For a famed miscreant, he was sculpted with lean muscle that the latex did nothing to hide. His theme was stars, so while most of the suit was black, the material on the underside of his arms and legs was bluish white. A tiny, neutron star glowed at the center of his chest, matching the twin white orbs on his mask. He crossed his bulging arms over the symbol and tilted his head, chuckling as I blinked back to awareness.

“Did I distract you?” He asked, knowing damn well that he did.

“No more than usual,” I replied, sucking my teeth. “How long are you gonna keep doing this? I’m not going to date you.”

Pulgrave let out a full laugh at that, throwing his head back and everything. “You’re a little full of it, you know? Maybe I had a different reason for calling you this time.”

I frowned. “And what is it?”

“I just wanted to see you,” he said, and the words were like a sucker punch to my gut. I licked my lips, breathing harshly through the mask.

“I told you to stop doing this. I can’t be with you, how many times do you want me to repeat myself?”

“That time,” he pointed out calmly, “you said can’t instead of won’t. Which one is it?”

“I won’t date you,” I clarified. “You destroy the town just so you can talk to me for five minutes. And I don’t think there’s anything less attractive than a man who doesn’t understand the word no.”

He placed a hand over his heart and groaned. “Ouch. Okay, I hear you on that one. But let me make my case one more time and see if I can change your mind.”

“Good luck,” I snorted, rolling my eyes.

“This is not the first time we’ve met. I’m not talking about the other times we’ve fought. Can you remember a time before you were Adamas Girl? Do you even know how you got your powers?”

I blinked at him. “Why are you wasting my time with this? Of course I remember my own childhood, what are you even talking about?”

“I don’t mean your childhood- that part should be intact. I’m talking about when you were in middle school, the first time you met the ʻuhane ʻino.”

“The what?” I asked.

“An evil spirit came to you in a dream and asked if you wanted superpowers. Maybe struck a deal with you in exchange for saving someone. Does that ring a bell?”

“Are you talking about Adamantia?” I demanded. “You cannot be serious right now. The crystal fairy who helped me save my mother from heart disease, who gave me the power to defend the city from crooks like you, is evil? Do you really think I’d believe that coming from someone who created a deadly meteor shower on a whim?”

“No one is hurt,” he waved off. “And they aren’t meteors exactly. They’re fabricated stars that burn out after a few minutes.”

“You don’t know whether anyone is hurt. Did you see the school bus full of kids down there?” I asked. “Did you hear them screaming when you sent those stars down to kill them? People get injured every time you do this. They get scared and think the world is ending. My grandparents got into an accident trying to escape the tsunami last time. And you somehow think this is cute.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I had no idea your grandparents-”

I slammed forward and punched him, sending him flying back. “I don’t want to hear another word. This will be the last time you terrorize my city.”

He quickly readjusted with his gravity powers. “Alright, we can wrestle first if you want.”

Pulgrave disappeared from my sight and my heart dropped. A series of stars flew toward me and erupted against my halo shield. The force blew me backwards and I raised my arms against the blinding blue light. He blinked back into existence before raising an arm. At his command, I flew up, down, forward and back. He jerked me around so fast that I would’ve hurled if I had time to breathe. Then he drew me in to him, as I clutched my head, fighting the dizziness.

“Last chance to listen to reason,” he said, shifting me in his arms. “You deserve to know the truth, Serenity.”

“How do you know my name?” I hissed, placing a steadying hand against his chest.

“I told you that I know you. I promise I’m not lying,” Pulgrave said, covering my gloved hand with his. “Please listen to me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

I knocked my head into his with full force and he released me. Then I slammed my fist into his stomach, making him groan. When he keeled over from the pain, I spoke into the side of his black mask. “You can’t hurt me. My heart is made of stone, Space Boy. And so are my fists.”

He laughed through the pain. “I like that nickname. But you’re wrong about your heart- it’s not made of stone. You’ve just been brainwashed into thinking it’s not there.”

I tried to shove him away from me, but my limbs froze mid-air. My body weighed me down so much that I dropped at the speed of light. I fell from the sky so fast that the air slapped me all the way down. I slammed into the asphalt, cracking the surface of the street with my weight. My limbs were glued to the bottom of the crater as I screamed, fighting against the force of gravity. Pulgrave landed at my side a second later and crouched down next to me.

“Rocks are easy to manipulate because they’re heavy,” he said, leaning his masked face against his palm. “You’re not much of an opponent pinned to the ground.”

I yelled, struggling to get up again but he was telling the truth- his powers nullified mine. What was the point of having a rock-hard body if you couldn’t move it? All at once I stopped straining, closing my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see him as I spoke. “Fine, I’ll listen to you. But you have to let me up from here.”

“Oh no,” Pulgrave said, shaking his head. “I’m not that dumb, Kuʻuipo. I’ll tell you everything while I have you like this. And if you still want to fight me once you hear what I have to say, then I will never bother you again.”

I inhaled, clenching my purple fists against the black dirt. “Fine.”

…

Adamantia showed up at the worst possible time in my life. When I was in middle school, my mom had a heart attack and nearly died. She needed surgery, but the expenses were more than she had saved up. So, she basically started preparing to die. She told me how to run the bakery without her. She suggested that my grandparents could be my legal guardians. And she made me promise to get serious about school, because I needed a scholarship to go to college.

The dream came the night I cried myself to sleep. I was in a crystal city full of amethyst buildings and quartz houses, where the people were all made of glinting stone. The sky itself was a wide pane of blue glass with little dots of moonstone for clouds. I was lost, wandering around while all the crystal people stared. Eventually I curled up into a ball under the shade of an emerald tree, crying about my mom. That was when she approached me- a purple-skinned girl with silvery white hair and eyes. Her white dress flowed in the wind even though it was made of opal, and I remember thinking she was an angel.

“Are you lost?” She asked. Then she sat beside me and listened to my worries, smoothing my hair down with her delicate, amethyst fingers.

“You poor thing. I know what can save your mom,” she said. “I can give you some of my power.”

“What kind of power is it?”

“The power to be indestructible,” Adamantia grinned, showing me her rock-hard fists. “You’ll be able to punch through anything and nothing will be strong enough to hurt you. The only thing you have to give me is your heart.”

I pressed a hand against my chest. “But I need this. I can’t give it to you.”

“I’ll give you a new one. And I’ll use the heart you give me to restore your mother. Your powers will only work if you have a heart of adamas. It’s the strongest crystal there is, and I’m willing to give it to you.”

When she put it that way, there was no way I could refuse. She took out my beating heart, and replaced it with a giant purple rock. I woke up with superpowers the next morning, and I became the defender of Candescent City.

According to Pulgrave, one part of this story was wrong. The part where I gave my heart to her and received the crystal one in return.

“So what happened?” I demanded. “How would you even know when you weren’t there?”

“I was your best friend. You told me everything back then, from the time your dad died to when your mom stayed in the hospital. I was the one who fought kids when they talked about you. You only got in trouble if I did first. I guess that’s never really changed, huh?

“But then you got these superpowers, and you forgot all about me. It was like I was totally erased from your life. And every time I would come near you as myself, your heart would start killing you. Adamantia tortured you every time you started to remember me. And that’s because she left a part of your deal out of your memory.

"I was able to track her down, because she’s actually a spirit from another dimension. I was able to use my powers to enter her world. She told me that if I came anywhere near you, she’d use the crystal she embedded in your heart to stop it from beating. She was a demon that used her power to save your mother at the cost of your own life.”

“That can’t be true,” I said. “Adamantia has been nothing but nice to me. She gave me the power to save my mother when she was going to die. I was willing to give her my heart in exchange.”

“But she did more than take your heart; she held it hostage. The reason she kept us separated is because she knew I loved you. If you felt anything too deeply, her hold on your heart would diminish, and she didn’t like that. She wouldn’t let you feel anything,” Pulgrave said, pulling the mask off to reveal his face. “But I’m not letting her have you anymore.”

As soon as I saw him, the memories flooded back. Playing no gravity in Hoku’s backyard as his mother yelled. Copying astronomy notes from Hoku’s notebook while he copied biology off of mine. Ditching the spring formal with Hoku to fly through the night sky. Pain pulsed in my chest as the crystal I thought was helping me slowed my heartbeat to a crawl. Even so, I smiled and reached a clawed hand up to hold his face. “I can’t believe you did this, Hoku.”

“Of course, I did,” Hoku said, leaning his dimpled cheek into my palm. His innocent face simply did not match the man he was growing into. I stared at him in complete awe.

“Thank you for freeing me,” I said, groaning as the pain in my chest tightened. Tears leaked out of my eyes, blurring his tan face into darkness as I succumbed to the death I saved my mother from.

…

The azure cut-glass sky above told me that I was in Adamantia’s world. When I looked down at my hands, they shimmered in near-translucent purple. My curled afro was out, and when I pulled my hair out to look- white had replaced the normal black. I stood up, smoothing down my opal dress as I walked up to the girl who stole my love from me.

“Adamantia,” I greeted, seeing her peach skin and long, blonde hair for the first time.

“Serenity, my girl,” she exclaimed, shaking her head. “I see that boy has finally killed you.”

I shook my head, smiling. “No, he just enlightened me to the situation. By the way, I wanted to talk about that.”

“What’s there to talk about?” She wondered, crossing her arms over her lavender dress.

“I want my heart back. My normal, human heart. I know you didn’t take it, but you did put the crystal inside. I’d like to return that to you now.”

“And what will you give me for taking it out?”

I crossed my arms, raising my eyebrows. “I don’t know, Adamantia. What is it that you want? I’m not giving you my mom or grandparent’s lives. And I’m not giving up Hoku either.”

She smiled, and I noticed how sinister the grin was for the first time. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

…

Candescent City had a lot to rebuild after the disaster, but Hoku’s family- the Kekoas- largely contributed to the efforts. He promised never to use his powers for villainous reasons again. Instead, he partnered with the local government to reconstruct roads, businesses and houses as a part of his community service. He became the city’s defender in my place, but he refused to give up the name Pulgrave. Turns out, the name intimidated supervillains so much that they never bothered coming to town.

Years later, after I had graduated from college and become a well-loved heart surgeon, Hoku and I had our first child- Shanti Kekoa-Jones. My mom lived to become a grandmother, stubbornly lasting well into old age. I had long since forgotten about Adamantia, about the mystery of her letting me go free without a catch. But then, at twelve-years-old my daughter woke up from a dream with a purple light in her chest, and I knew the price for my freedom had fallen to her. And so, the curse of Adamas Girl lived on in my family for generations.