The hardest part was, you thought, picking what kind of soup. A cold soup, obviously. You were going to be standing at the impact site, and there wasn't a bowl big enough to carry all of that soup. Or at least, none you had in your cupboard. It was going to be hot enough as it was, you didn't need soup burns on top of it.
You had tried to get someone to listen to you. To maybe take you closer, so there was less atmosphere compression. You'd heard that was an issue, that the atmosphere in front of the meteor would compress and the heat and friction was what caused other meteors to flash through the sky. Something like that.
Skyman would have been perfect to bring you up. He could create atmospheric bubbles. And fly. Perfect for creating oxygen voids to knock out villains. He'd used it on you, back in high school, enough to give you a reputation for low blood pressure, but never enough to get caught. It had been funny, to bully Soupy.
But Skyman wouldn't listen. He didn't even pick up his phone. You'd gotten his number at the field trip to Hero Quarters, and you'd been put in a group together. The whole group had been instructed to share numbers, so no one would get lost. You'd gotten lost anyways. You'd never used the number, until last week when the meteor was first detected.
You could see him, kinda. He was up there, doing his best to slow the meteor. Him and the others And it was working well enough that you could see the meteor approach, rather than just a flash and instant death. That would be Inertia, probably. She could slow an object, but it would keep it's momentum. Useful for pulling civilians out of the way of a bullet. Less useful when the Earth itself couldn't be moved.
At least the atmosphere had some time to move away. It was starting to get hot, but you weren't roasted.
It had been a stupid idea, probably. To do this. To stand and stare at certain death. But you thought, hey. At least if I stand at the impact site, I'll die first. You would probably rather do that, having tried, than not try and deal with the predicted century of winter. You've never done well with the cold.
The meteor was closer now. Close enough that Magma was the first to spot you. She was trying to melt the meteor, but wasn't having much luck. Something that an entire atmosphere couldn't vaporize wasn't going to be overly fussed about a little stream of fire.
She was shouting at you. You couldn't hear, probably because of the atmospheric compression. You could guess what she was saying though, and you didn't know why she thought that moving now would help. At all. Even if you ran, you wouldn't make it.
Closer and closer. The bowl was pointless, maybe. Again, you didn't own a bowl big enough to contain the entire meteor. But at the end of this, the least you deserved was a bowl of soup.
Which brought you again to what kind. Gazpacho? Or maybe borscht? You've never tried a fruit soup, although you've heard they were very good. But, hm, you weren't sure you were feeling like a dessert. Something savoury. The place near your house made a delicious naengmyeon. Hopefully you'd be able catch the noodles alright.
A streak of light to your left caught your eye. You recognized that blue of colour. It was heading directly at you. Hurriedly, you turned the ground in front of The Zap into avocado soup. Hopefully the creaminess would slow him down.
It was starting to get very very hot, even with Inertia slowing things down. You tried turning the atmosphere into cold peach soup, which worked? Somehow? It was cooler now at least. More sticky though.
Almost in range. Two hundred meters, you just needed it to get to two hundred meters away.
Or a bit closer. You did want to be able to catch your noodles.
At fifty meters, the meteor vanished with a GLOOP.
Starman, Inertia, Magma and the others weren't able to stop in time, but their crash landings were cushioned by the noodles and the beef. They went to the hospital, but none of them died.
You ended up with a nice bowl of naengmyeon and accolades. Every country wanted to give you a medal. You travelled for a while, and tried as much soup as you could, so you could make your favourites again later. Hilariously, and somewhat uselessly, you were given a soup bowl large enough to bathe in by three different countries. You weren't sure what you'd use it for, now that the meteor was gone. Maybe you could donate it to a soup kitchen.
Maybe you could start a soup kitchen.
Starman never apologized. It was likely he didn't remember you. But that was alright. You would forever treasure the look on his face when the meteor exploded into broth and noodles. And also the photo that some idiot war journalist had taken of you, holding out your soup bowl, while all the other heroes face planted around you. They'd given you a framed copy.
