Corpies (Super Powereds Spinoff Book 1) (61 page)

“Let’s just say that after I lifted the whole mech, Hexcellent upstaged me.” Titan grabbed the same leg once again, this time digging his hands in and climbing up toward the knee joint. The lasers from the mech’s underside fired at him, but this did little more than singe his clothes. He really needed to ask for a raise; the suit costs were piling up.

“Oh, you want to complain? I just went from being a top-level summoner to some asshole on a bird,” Birdsman added. “At least you got to do something cool. I’m flying around dodging shots.”

“You know, this isn’t quite what I pictured the conversations of Heroes to be like,” Hexcellent admitted.

“We only sound like this when we’re winning,” Jeremiah assured her. “Which, by the way, we are. The tracker is implanted and my team is tracing the signal. Everyone inside the mech, evacuate. As soon as I get confirmation that we’ve found the location, Aether and I will be out of here too. Think you and your upgraded rabbit can handle things from there?”

Titan smashed his hand through the knee joint, causing the mech to wobble as it fired wave after wave of lasers and bullets at the Heroes keeping it distracted. When the machine tipped, he got a clear view to the other side, where Hopcules was flexing his claws and testing his wings. Hexcellent’s words crackled over the comms a moment later, all traces of fear gone from her voice.

“You’re damn right we can. Nobody puts my bunny back in the box.”

116.

               “Evacuation at eighty percent.” Dispatch’s reports were helpful, but it was visibly obvious that the mech wasn’t clear yet. Colorful costumed forms could be seen leaping from the holes in its body, some breaking into flight while others vanished in midair or landed heavily on the ground.

Hexcellent stood on her rabbit’s shoulder, waiting for the cue to strike as Hopcules dodged the occasional blast. The distraction team had done a great job: the damage to the surrounding area was almost minimal, and the smaller robots were being picked off or contained by the other Heroes. It was hard to call anything in a day like this a win, but knowing how much worse things could have been, Hexcellent felt proud about what they’d accomplished.

That pride was all the more magnified knowing that she’d been able to help. It was almost over; it had only been a taste of the life in the first place. Just one last course to go and she was determined to enjoy it. While Hexcellent didn’t lick her lips in anticipation, it took effort. Part of her wanted to be sad at the ending in sight, at wondering when she would ever be able to summon her oldest friend again, but she pushed those thoughts away. There would be a lifetime of worry and mourning for lost chances when the day was won. Until then, she still had a job to do. For at least the next few minutes, she was a Hero. She was damn sure going to act like it.

 “Evacuation at ninety-two percent,” Dispatch said.

“The last of them should be out in the next thirty seconds,” Jeremiah reported from within the beast. “As soon as they’re clear, you need to take this thing apart. I’m not sure if the central system has a way to tell if it’s being tracked, but at this point, we’d be idiots to assume otherwise. We have to scrap this tin can and then book it to the signal source before it has a chance to run.”

“We’ve got teleporters on standby to get us close, and I’m ready to haul the team if it’s a place they’ve never been,” Gale told him.

“Evacuation complete, save for Aether and Jeremiah,” Dispatch announced. “Also, Modus Operandi has confirmed that the signal has been traced to a location approximately thirty miles northeast of Brewster.”

“Then that means we are out of here!” Jeremiah exclaimed. Seconds later, Hexcellent saw him and Aether drop from the middle of the mech’s base, lasers passing through them ineffectually as they headed toward the ground.

“Hexcellent, you are clear for full engagement,” Dispatch said. “There are zero known civilians in the area, so please emphasize expediency over caution.”

“Dispatch, that was an order you really didn’t have to bother giving her,” Titan chuckled. “But good luck, Hexcellent. Everyone will be down here helping out, so tear it apart.”

“We’ll do our best.” She stared at the mech, fending off so many other Heroes that it didn’t even have time to worry about the giant rabbit standing on the sidelines. Maybe it thought they’d been scared away by almost getting shot in the head. Well, they had been scared, but it sure as shit wasn’t away.

“Round two, mother fucker.”

Hopcules barreled forward, and as it did, the costumed warriors parted to let it pass, already waiting for the impending charge. The newly-grown claws hit first, stabbing into the mech’s armored torso with some difficulty. It was a sturdy bastard, Hexcellent had to admit that much, but the holes Eli disintegrated had weakened the structural integrity by a fair bit. Hopcules jerked upward and managed to shred through a chunk of the torso, exposing the gears and circuitry within.

An arm came whirling around, ready to try and put a hole in the mech’s attacker, but this time she and Hopcules were ready for it. Twisting his head, Hopcules opened his mouth wide and bit down on the metal appendage with his mighty buck teeth. Before the mech could struggle free, the smell of melting metal lit the air as Hopcules finally was able to put his fire breath to use. Half of the arm clattered to the concrete, torn off by the combination of heat and strong jaws.

The mech tried to retreat, but Hopcules wasn’t having any of that. Using the claws embedded in its torso, the giant rabbit lifted the mech upward until it was horizontal in the sky. Its arms whipped about, trying to line up a shot while the remaining legs kicked about futilely. Still, Hexcellent waited to give the order. If she wanted this to work, they had to wait for the perfect moment.

For a long, beautiful instant, the mech hung there, suspended by Hopcules’s powerful arms. Then, at last, she saw it start to slide down the rabbit’s claws at the same time she felt his shoulders begin to shake. The mech was turning up its weight again, trying to make them let go. She almost felt sorry for the mechanical monster; if only it had worked in a few wrestling games instead of all RTS, it might have seen what she was going for.

“Time for the Back-Breaker, bitch-bot!” Hexcellent yelled, and on cue, Hopcules slammed the mech downward. Not to the ground, where it would have cracked and dented but perhaps still survived, but directly on top of the rabbit’s planted knee, where an armored spike happened to be pointing up to the sky. The mech came slamming down, one clawed paw on either side of the knee, pushing with all their might. If it had still been lighter, it might have endured; however, turning up the weight of its body cut both ways.

The mech cracked in half, its weakened torso unable to withstand the combination of weight and muscle that split it down the center of its chest. As soon as its pieces hit the ground, the other Heroes were ready, smashing through the remains or turning them to scraps from afar with ranged powers. No one was taking any chances of this thing getting back up. Hopcules even stomped on the remaining legs, turning them into little more than gleaming silver shards.

“You know, there are a lot of things I don’t like about this job. Moments like this are not among them,” Jeremiah commented.

“No shit. I need a cigarette after watching that,” Aether added.

“You did good, Hexcellent,” Titan told her. “A hell of a job. Now we’ve got to go make the most of what you did and finish things off. Are you going to be okay on your own from here?”

Hexcellent stood atop her giant rabbit summon and looked down of the smoldering wreckage of a monster that she’d bested, yet who hours ago had seemed completely unstoppable.

“I’ll be fine, Titan. I just killed a giant robot; right now I am outright fan-fucking-tastic.”

From her perch so high up, it was hard to make out Titan as he grouped up with the others, but Hexcellent was almost positive she caught sight of a smile on his face just before his voice came through the comms.

“You’re damn right you are.”

117.

               Northeast of Brewster was a whole lot of nothing, at least as far as Titan was concerned. Some folks enjoyed the loping hills and quasi-mountains, good for hiking and camping and not much else. Despite his rough and tumble appearance, though, Owen Daniels had always preferred life in a city to the more outdoorsy world. Visiting his wife’s family in the south had been his only real exposure to the country, and when he’d fled to start his bar, he’d at least picked a place somewhat near civilization. Their enemy’s location didn’t surprise him or any of the others. An operation of such vast size, the base had to be hidden out in nowhere; otherwise they’d have found it and put this whole thing to bed ages ago.

“This is the closest point I had,” Relocate informed them. A teleporter who worked out of Port Valins, he had luckily done an internship in Brewster and had been able to see much of the town. There was no reason for him to have gone so far out in the boonies, though; even a teleporter’s encouragement to travel had limits. A few freelance teleporters had been nearby, but they weren’t likely to get the team any closer. Besides, Titan never liked taking those types to sensitive areas. DVA-certified transportation resources or not, he preferred to stick with Heroes when things were getting serious.

“We appreciate your help,” Jeremiah told Relocate. “It’s a few more miles from here, something Gale can easily handle. I’m sure you need to get back to the rescue efforts.”

“The requests are already flooding in.” Relocate tapped his right ear where Dispatch was no doubt alerting him to the dozens of civilians in need of saving. The robot threat might be suppressed, but the damage they had done had left countless people trapped or in danger. Every Hero that could be spared was pitching in to help, along with emergency services and dozens of PEERS teams. “If you need to make a quick getaway, I can meet you here. Otherwise, there might be a wait for me to get back.”

“This isn’t a team that plans on running,” Gale told him.

“I didn’t expect as much, but it seemed polite to offer.” Relocate took one last look at his surroundings, refreshing his memory to make the trip back easier, and vanished in a shimmer of static.

“Gale, if you could follow my heading,” Jeremiah said, stepping to the front. “There might be defenses out here: the nearer we get to the signal source the greater chance of that, so everyone be on guard. Aether, be ready to shift Gale and Deadlift if we come under fire.”

“What about you?” Aether didn’t bother asking about Titan, because the answer was obvious: he didn’t need to be intangible. The very best those robots had thrown at him didn’t leave as much as a mark on anything other than his suit. The bots were strong, but Titan had fought stronger.

“I’ll be fine,” Jeremiah assured her. “Worry about these two. Although, Gale, do your powers work when you’re intangible?”

“Never had occasion to find out,” Gale said. “Guess today’s a good chance to learn.”

Deadlift let out a soft groan. “Let’s not tempt fate. Hopefully we’ll make it to the signal without needing to take evasive actions.”

“Hope in one hand, spit in the other. . .” Jeremiah didn’t bother finishing the saying, instead listening attentively to a voice coming through his comm.

As he sat silent, Gale took the opportunity to whip up a whirlwind, raising them all from the ground. Jeremiah was in the front, since he’d be pointing the way, with Deadlift and Gale on either side of Aether so she could reach them. Titan was in the rear, a hardy shield in case something tried to come at them from behind.

“That way,” Jeremiah said finally, gesturing out toward a hill overgrown with lush green trees. “Based on the topography my people are looking at, we’ll pass over two hills and a small lake before we get to the right area.”

With no more than the point of a finger they were off, tearing through the sky at breakneck speeds. Though she was doing a good job staying controlled, Titan could nearly feel the rage coming from Gale. He liked Brewster, but to him it was just a city. To her, however, it was a place of incredible importance. It was where her team had been based for decades, where the legacy of Elemental Fury took root. More than that, she’d lived there for years; she knew the city and the people in it intimately. This attack hadn’t just been horrific for her on a human level, it had hit her personally. When they found whoever was responsible for it, Titan knew he was going to have to move fast. If the culprit wasn’t captured quickly, Gale might do something she would ultimately live to regret. Killing was never easy, and if it was done without need she’d be weighed down by that sin for the rest of her life.

The ground below them flew by. In no time they were zipping past the lake Jeremiah had described. He motioned for Gale to begin their descent. Near as Titan could tell, there was nothing that marked the area they were heading for as noteworthy, just a small ravine and more hills full of trees. Of course, if the base could be seen from the sky, they wouldn’t have needed to use such extreme tracking methods in the first place. Slowly, following Jeremiah’s directions, Gale brought them down, past the lip of the ravine, deeper into the crevice where the late-afternoon sun could scarcely reach. At last, Titan felt the familiar sensation of earth beneath his feet.