H.E.R.O. - Horde (3 page)

The hero said, "KerBANG ... and he's down!"

He reached down for the spider queen's hand.  She looked surprised as she took it and he lifted her to her feet.  Her face was bloody from the many hits to the jaw and nose she'd taken.  Zonk immediately let go of her hand and rushed toward the super-dodger, but then curved to the right to grab a hordie beating up a mutant on the floor.

He picked the guy up by his right arm as he punched down at the mutant, stopping his attack.  Zonk then lifted the man up by the hold on his biceps.  He jerked the hordie over his head and then swung him down and kicked him in the back with a resounding thud.  His hold on the arm kept the man from flying away.

Zonk said, "BOOMaroom ... and the man's out!"

I realized how strange it was.  No one else was talking in the large room.  The band had stopped playing - they weren't even in the room any more.

Then I noticed more color near the door and saw that Rayna had entered at some point and was facing a horde guy.  Zonk’s colorful costume and antics had distracted me enough not to see my human enter.  She was so tiny compared to these other bipeds - although Zonk was much larger than even they were.

She was obviously a far higher level fighter than the horde guy was.  He was also much slower.  Unfortunately, her hits weren't doing a lot of damage to him, and at best, she kept sweeping him to the ground.

Fluff’s big pink spheroid body floated near her.  He was trying to get a hold on the guy's arm, but it was so thick that his claws weren't wide enough to easily grab around one.

I leaped off the duct, snapped my wings and glided toward her.  She easily dodged the hordie's swing.  I rubbed my front hands against my furred neck a few times to build up a little static electricity (and psyche myself up), and then breathed a bolt of electricity at him.

He hadn't been looking up, and my attack hit him on the head.  His muscles tightened up and he was stunned for a few seconds.  Fluff floated in and chomped on the guy's shoulder.  His teeth didn't go in far, but I knew that Fluff's toxin would work quickly from what Rayna had mentioned in the past.

I angled upward and landed on a large hanging light to continue watching from above.  The front door banged open and two more heroes rushed in.  One wore an all-black costume with a white tiger paw on the chest, the other was huge - another brick.  This human was even bigger than Zonk, and he also wore a colorful yellow costume with red diamond or triangle shapes on it.  The black-clad one held a staff of some type.  It didn’t look like any of the staves in my games; it was a plain black bar with an odd square-shaped end on one side, and a rounded end on the other.

The colorful one loudly said, “Hey!  Zonk’s here!”

The one in black said, “Yeah, your costumes will work together well, Spartan.”

Then the human in black sped past Rayna as she began fighting another guy and said, "Hi Rayna."

Zonk rushed over to help another mutant who hadn’t been faring well against a pair of horde guys.  The hero in black rushed to help the other mutant who still fended off four orcs.

Once Rayna and Fluff had fully engaged her next horde guy and had him fully distracted I flew over, fluffed up the fur on my long neck again and blast lightning at that guy from above as well.  It had a similar effect as the last time.  His muscles locked up and he froze in place for a few seconds.  Fluff floated in, grabbed his wrist and bit him on the arm, drooling horribly on the guy’s arm while Rayna punched him in the face.

I continued flying past them and almost clipped my wing on a chain from the ceiling that held a light.  I snapped my wing in and back out again quickly, flapped my wing arms a few times and flew back up to a safe perch over the room.

The sound of Zonk’s voice carried over the room, with occasional “POW!” and “BAM!” words to accent each loud, thudding strike he landed on the hordies.  The few times one of the horde hit him it dented his skin in somewhat, but he never reacted as though it hurt him in the least.

The other colorful brick – Spartan – rushed to the other side of the room and had a similarly easy time with a few of the horde.  I realized that his skin didn’t move when they hit him, but hitting an unmoving object didn’t appear to bother the horde.  His punches had the same effect on the alien mutants as Zonk’s – they flew around the room at high speed, crashing into walls and floors.  They were tough enough to take numerous hits, however – obviously, they had a few levels under their belts.

Zonk had been ramping up how hard he hit them – the first few had to be fairly light hits, because now when he slammed one into the floor he embedded it in the concrete underneath the tiles.

I glanced back at my human.  She had moved over to another hordie.  The other two that Fluff had bitten lay unconscious.  I flew down to help her again.  The hordie caught sight of me flying in and threw a chair at me.  I tried banking off to the right, but it crashed into me.

I remember the sensation of falling … and then blackness.

Chapter 2 – Brutes

Black Tiger’s Viewpoint

Lance and I were hanging out in a parking lot in downtown Metrocity.  With the damage the alien pistols – and even worse the hits from the ship’s external lasers - had done to so many of the heroes in the city we thought it would be wise to spend the late night out on patrol.

Lance had actually called in and asked his boss at the club Score! for the night off due to the low number of heroes available.  I was surprised at how quiet it had been to this point.  I’d stuck the alien laser pistol in my belt until he got on my case about testing it first before trying to use it on some robber.

I’d agreed, and instead brought my tamping bar from the house to use as a staff instead.  It’d worked great against the mutants we fought just over a week ago, and I spent some of the time in the parking lot practicing with it.  I’d missed some sessions at the dojo recently, but had certainly gotten into so many real fights as to make up for the missing training.

However – I enjoyed the training.  There was something about working on your movements and routing that was calming.  It also felt like a little of the old routine was back in my life.

Lance sparred lightly with me.  For the most part, I used him as a moving combat dummy.  The bar never injured his super-hard skin or dense muscle structure, and it gave him something to practice against as well.  He had to bend it back into shape after one hard block against an overhand swing of mine, though.  We figured I could lift perhaps five tons right now.  That alone was strong enough to bend the bar – but Lance adding some force opposite mine was too much for the poor metal staff.

Not that I’d ever actually pull the staff out to fight a brick – it’s much more efficient for me to pop my finger claws and tentacles with claws out for that purpose.  At least those could tear through the armored skin of a brick.

Occasionally someone would walk by – most would hurry past, probably assuming that I was a villain fighting a hero, being as I wore an all black costume.  A few stopped and stared for a few minutes, and when it became clear that we weren’t actually trying to injure each other some people came up and asked for autographs.

Lance loved the attention.  He’d wanted to be a superhero for so long that the idea of having people like or love him really struck home for him.  I liked the fights, personally.  Sure, many of them got out of hand and I’d been shot by machine guns more in the last week than I’d care to remember.

However, I survived it all.  Now
that
I loved. 
Stopping crimes, kicking ass, and then getting paid for it on top of it all.  This is awesome.  The police hadn’t griped the couple of times I brought them some criminals in roughed up shape, either.  Lance had, though.  He had some kind of complex about being a good guy.  Yeah – I’m a good guy too.  Just not
that
good.

I figured it didn’t hurt to sign my name for a few people, either.  Being in H.E.R.O. – or the Homeland Extraordinary Response Organization – was a good thing.

Eventually both of our H.E.R.O. phones went off with a major event.  It was sent by Rayna rather than H.E.R.O. HQ – that was odd.  She mentioned some red skinned bulky mutants were attacking the humans and mutants at a Goth club downtown – and that only the red guys were bad (right now).

I got on my Ninja Supersport cycle, flicked on the red and blue lights and tore off down the street toward the location.  It was only a few miles away from where we’d been practicing.  Lance leaped off toward the rooftops rather than bounce around on street level.  He was a far speedier jumper than runner, and at 600 lbs. weighed too much for most motorcycles.

It took a minute or two at best to reach the building.  I parked the cycle in front of The Lady's Web.  Several people were lying on the ground injured.  I grabbed my phone and hit the need for several ambulances at my current coordinates before running in.  I’d have stopped to check on them, but if we didn’t take out the problem people, then even more people would be injured or dead before this was all said and done.

Lance thumped down a dozen feet from me.  It always mildly surprised me how softly he landed for being 6’8 and so heavy.  I slid the tamping bar out of its makeshift sheath and ran into the club with him.

The place was a wreck.  Tables and chairs were strewn about all over the place on their sides or upside down.  The tile floor was all wet – mostly from spilled drinks, but also from some blood.

A big dude with reddish skin lay just to the right of the entrance.  He reminded me of a brick, but he was more bulky and less ripped in musculature.  He also had a protruding lower jaw and fangs sticking up.  His shirt was torn at the shoulder, and it looked like a huge mouth with fangs had bitten him.

Spartan called out, “Hey!  Zonk’s here!”

I spotted the flash of color.  Metrocity’s resident superhero clown was at the farther end of the giant room, near the stage.  I heard him yell “KaBLAM!” as he punched a red dude.

I said, “Yeah, your costumes will work together well, Spartan.”

There were numerous other men with the same reddish skin and brutish looks spread out around the room.  The largest group was between Zonk and us – all of them were fighting one guy.  He had to be a mutant because of the speed, but he was entirely on defense due to the four attackers.  He wasn't well trained in martial arts or he'd easily have been getting attacks off with his speed.

I sprinted toward him, passing Rayna as she took on a red brick of her own.  Her giant pink ball creature floated near her and aided in her attack.

I called out, "Hi Rayna."

She responded, “Hey!”

She stayed focused on her opponent rather than chat. 
Good fighter, I like that.
  Spartan ran off to the left to work on the red brutes on that side of the room.

I noticed the sound of the punches coming from Zonk – he wasn’t holding back much.  That opened up full power for me….

I swept my metal staff under the legs of the nearest one.  As he began falling, I spun the staff hard and hit him as hard as I could with a downward swing.  There was a resounding crack as I broke a few ribs, followed by the crash as he destroyed the tiles under him.

The one to my left stopped in mid swing and stared at me.  I spun the bar around and gave him the dull end of the tamping bar in the forehead.  The resounding vibration of the bar was annoying, but the guy flew head over heels into a table.

The mutant they had been attacking stopped playing defense, kicked both knees of one of the red guys and then stabbed him in the eye with a claw.

From another part of the room Zonk shouted, "KaPOW!"

The other one reached for him, but he easily moved just out of reach.  I spun the staff and banged it down on the guy’s hand.  I was rewarded with the sound of bones crunching and a howl of pain from my opponent.

Even though I’d smashed down the first guy, he got back up – albeit slowly.  He rose up on one knee; I spun the staff and gave him an uppercut to the bottom of the jaw.  He flew through the air to crash amongst some tables a short distance away.

The one stood there stupidly holding his hand, and my fellow mutant was going to town slashing at the guy.  His claws weren’t having the normal effect I’d expect of a mutant.  This red dude’s skin was resisting it quite a bit.  Fortunately, the red guy couldn’t hit the mutant for the life of him.

I did catch an occasional "Kill mutant" line from him, however.

The one I’d hit on the forehead stumbled back toward us – they apparently didn’t know when to stay down.  I charged the stumbler, stabbing the tentacles from my trapezius muscles into each side of his chest.  As with the other mutant, mine didn’t go in all the way.  I kept up my forward momentum and slammed the guy again in the forehead one more time.  This time he fell to the ground, hopefully unconscious.

Zonk yelled, "BAM!  Who's your clown?!"  Zonk and Spartan's punches were easy to hear throughout the large room as they thudded into the armored red men.

It took me a few seconds to beat down the one clutching his own hand, and together the other mutant and I took down the other that he’d been trying to slash apart.  The red guy had slash marks all over his neck, face and torso at that point.

The Goth mutant said, "Thanks.  I've never had something so hard for my claws to rip through."

I nodded, "Yeah - they aren't normal, that's for sure."

"Are you a hero?"

"Yeah, why?"

He waved his hand up and down at me, "All black.  If it weren't obvious that it were a skin tight costume I wouldn't know."

"I get that a lot."

"You're a mutant as well."

"And?"

"I simply find it interesting.  I didn't know there were mutants in H.E.R.O."

"Not many are.  I might be the only one in Metrocity."

Spartan walked up to us.  "You guys okay?"

I nodded, and then I noticed blood on his right hand and forearm.