H.E.R.O. - Horde (42 page)

"Not a problem.  I take it you want to be head up?"

I nodded.

He picked me up around my abdomen - I hadn't realized how big his hands were before.  His fingers touched each other when wrapped around my stomach.

He asked, "Ready?"

I nodded.

He tossed me up and I kicked in my flight, but immediately shot into the sky.  It took me a minute to fly back down, while at the same time not going so fast as to crash into the ground at such high speeds.  I felt like I was driving a car with a twitch response until I got the hang of it.

On the way down, I saw some kind of robot walking away from the club.  In its right hand, it carried an unconscious man.  It seemed unusual enough to check out, so I flew closer.  As I approached, I saw that the man was Rog.

I moved over in front of it and hovered.

I said, "Hey, where are you going with him?"

From the front, I saw that the robot wasn't even a real robot - it looked like something a person was meant to sit inside.  It was currently empty.

A pair of speakers attached near the top of the sitting area said, "Uh, I'm turning him in."

"I'm a hero; you can give him to me."

I knew that Agent Carson would want Rog taken away in a super paddy wagon, not dragged off.

"It's okay, I've got this."

"Who are you?  Where's the driver of that thing?"

"It's remote controlled.  Uh, I'm a new police robot sent to apprehend this guy."

I didn't see any badge or other insignia to let anyone know this thing was a police robot.  If anything it kind of looked hodge-podged together.

I said, "I don't believe you.  Give me Rog."

"No!  Just go back to your teammates and I'll take him in."

"I don't think so."

"Look, there's my police van over there."

I turned to look, but the only police vehicles were a block or two away - and those looked like normal police cruisers.  I turned back just in time to see the big robot fist hit me in the jaw.  My head snapped to the side and I flew across the street into the building nearby.  The wall caved in and I landed in the rubble.

The jerky motion caused the breaks in my legs to shift and I screamed from the pain. 
Man, I have horrible luck with robots!

I gritted my teeth and tried to crawl out of the rubble, but the pain made me want to curl into a ball and cry.

I heard a weird booming sound out in the street, and Psystar - the one without wings - suddenly appeared near the robot.  She hovered pretty close to it, and she turned just enough to show me that her eyes were glowing with a bright golden light.

She waved a couple of times as the robot stomped toward her and grabbed her with its free hand.  She must have been doing her mind thingie - she stayed hovering in the air while it moved.

Shit, she's not a brick! 
I grabbed the wall next to me and yanked myself out toward it as it threw her down.  My hard pull threw me into the air and I shot into the air again as if shot out of a gun.  I slammed into her and tore her from its grasp before she hit the ground, but again I moved too fast and we crashed through the wall of the building across the street almost immediately.

Apart from wanting to scream from the pain in my legs, the wall hadn't done any damage to me that I could tell.  Psystar lay still in my arms.  I put my hand on her chest, her heart thumped along just fine, so she was alive at least, but she was bleeding from the crash into the wall.

I looked back out through the hole, and the robot jogged further down the street until Spartan landed with a thump in front of it.  Even his large form looked small to the robot that was at least three normal men wide and about eight feet tall.

He was facing away from the robot when he landed, and turned around as it punched with the fist holding Rog.  His goggles glowed an interesting reddish orange in the dark street.  He was ready for the hit - I wished I'd have braced myself too - and took the hit in his chest.  He moved back a few feet from the punch, but otherwise didn't appear injured from it.

He grabbed the robot's arm around the elbow area - I saw the metal crumple under his hand.

The robot yelled extremely loudly, "Nooo!  He must pay for what he's done!"

Spartan shouted back, "He will pay!  Back off!"

With a really loud thud Big Man's thirteen foot tall form hit the street a short distance away and he ran over to the robot.  The robot punched Rog in the face with its free hand several times until Big Man reached it and grabbed the free arm.  The two yanked from opposite sites and ripped its arms right off the body.

A shadowy form blocked my view of the street as it appeared directly in front of me.  It was Black Tiger.  His claws were out - they'd sunk into the walls on each side of the opening.

He said, "Damn, my girls keep getting hurt.  Are you okay?"

As he asked he leaned in, the talons faded away to look like normal fingers again, and he put his fingers against Psystar's neck.

I said, "I think I broke my legs when I hit that tree thing."

"Zonk said you were going at least Mach 1 when you hit it.  He didn't know exactly how fast, but according to him you just appeared when you hit it, so you moved more than twenty or thirty stories a second he figured, and probably a lot more than that."

"I'm sure that's pretty cool, but my legs hurt like hell."

He looked at his arms.  "Umm, I could carry you, and you carry 'star?"

"Nah, you carry her, if you toss me in the air I'll be okay ... this time."

"Any particular type of throw?"

"Pick me up around the waist and throw me up."

"Got it."

I carefully moved my friend to the side so Black Tiger could get her up next and waited for my handsome hero to pick me up.  His hands were much smaller than Spartan's, but were softer.  He easily lifted me up by the center, moved me outside the wall and asked if I were ready.  When I nodded, he tossed me up and I shot into the sky yet again.

Damn, I'd like to know why I feel so hyper and my flight is so fast.
  It took me half a minute to curve around and fly back down - with the slight movements I tended to make with my legs I was crying by the time I hovered near Black Tiger again.

The clown hero - Zonk - had arrived by the other two, and between them they'd torn the legs off the robot, and dismantled the hand holding Rog.  Black Tiger held Psystar - he looked kind of like a villain holding a hero, being as he was dressed all in black and she in white and gold.

I flew over by the bricks to get a better look at Rog.  His chest moved a little as he breathed, so he was alive at least - Rayna knelt next to him.

I glanced back at the robot. 
Boy, the guy who owns that is going to be pissed off....

About a block away, a whole herd of police cars filled the street.  Several cars pulled closer as it became clear that the fights in the streets had ended.

A few bright flashes of light behind me caught my eye.  I flew back so I could see inside the club.  The guy who had been blasting lightning had light arcs of lightning jumping around here and there on his body.  When I got close enough I recognized the jaw line, body shape and backside when he turned away from me - it was Hellshock.

Super paddy wagons drove up, and I began helping some of the others bring the red brick-like men to the vans.  The others would pick up the unconscious men and hand them to me, and I'd fly them to the big bricks in H.E.R.O. police uniforms by the vans.  They ensured the men were locked down tight and put them in the vans.

We continued that until the non-super agents arrived and questioned us....

Chapter 33 - Shocked

Black Tiger's Viewpoint

I called Hellshock before going to Blacklight to let the people at the Goth club know about the possible danger to their club near Bang Time.

I'd gotten a strong sense that a group of the Goths tended to work together in some fashion when we'd been at Blacklight the other night.

I'd walked into the club and found the Lady Celeste - who looked an awful lot like a vampire.  I was certain that was on purpose.  Lady Nocturne was pretty, but the two pair of giant spider legs and her haughty expression made her look less beautiful and more dangerous.  The third woman - a pink-haired cutie - I thought was a bodyguard of some type, she stood behind the others a bit, but appeared ready to act if needed.  A tall dark-skinned man with long claws gave the same impression to me.

I didn't even remember how much of the warning I'd gotten out, for the big reptilian looking guy had walked into the room, followed by a woman who looked a lot like Steph.  She had long golden hair, although she had gold wings as well.  They were bat-like in style, a lot like Razorwing's but for the coloration.

She was unbelievably gorgeous, and when she got close enough she smelled fantastic.  She could have been Steph's sister she looked so similar in many respects.  Her scent was different, but just as alluring as my girl's was.

I couldn't stop staring at her as she walked up, and when I finally pulled my eyes off the strange dress made of jewelry that she wore and saw her amethyst eyes I pretty much went blank.

I snapped to myself when something hit my jaw like a few tons of bricks.  I had no idea where I was, but the room was in the midst of a big ass fight with a shitload of the red bricks.

I had my makeshift staff with me; I didn't remember when I'd grabbed that.  I caught sight of Steph's gold hair just off to my right, I kicked the red dude off me so he flew up and smashed into the rafters.

I kipped up while swinging the tamping bar and nailed a red man in the head as he tried to approach Steph.  A big red hand grabbed my right shoulder.  I spun as I bent over to break free and brought the staff up under his chin.  The ringing metal and sound of bones crunching made me grin.

The red horde were all over the room - we were in a club of some sort.  It was one I'd never been in before.  A bright flash of light and the loud crackle of electricity came from further in the room and I saw who I thought was Hellshock in street clothes blasting off a pair of huge arcs of lightning from each hand.  I hadn't seen him toss off continuous arcs that large before.  The room smelled sharply of ozone.  The red men that he'd hit dropped quickly.

I realized that the red men nearest Steph weren't attacking her, they were just gathering.  I smelled the sweetest fragrance, now that I thought about it, and just wanted to be near her.  I couldn't see enough of her behind all the red men, and began moving up to the group of them to work my way closer to her.

Another fist smashed against my jaw and sent me flying across the room, through some tables and against a wall.  My tamping bar bounced a few times nearby, ringing as the metal struck objects.  One of my tentacles reached out and grabbed it just before the red man reached me.

I spun low and kicked his feet out from under him, continued spinning as I got a good hold of the staff and cracked it on his head with a double-handed swing like a big baseball bat.

He spun a complete circle in the air before falling senseless.  The bastard bent the end of my tamping bar with his head....

I leaped back over to one of those who weren't mesmerized by Steph's pheromones, and then realized it wasn't Steph - she had big ass gold wings on her ... and she was wearing jewelry instead of a costume.  That had to be the mutant woman.

Another red dude leaped at me.  I teleported behind him, spun and tripped him with the staff before continuing the spin on it and cracking him on the skull.

I was momentarily blinded by Hellshock's lightning as he hit the horde of red men around Steph's look-alike.  With the group being all packed together his lightning arced through the entire group, hitting the gorgeous woman as well.  He poured out such a large, continuous stream of lightning that I couldn't see for seconds.  My nose burned from the ozone in the air.

When the spots finally cleared from my vision, I looked around the room for danger.  The red men were down, as was the woman and a few other mutants.

A group of Goths stepped into the entrance.  The man in the center had night black skin and white hair, with solid white eyes - a lot like Razorwing's yellow eyes.

He held a hand up and said, "We aren't here to fight you, we are here for our own."

I raised an eyebrow. 
What the hell?

He walked to Steph's doppleganger and picked her up as some of the others picked up some mutants lying on the ground here and there.

He stepped toward me and said, "I thought you were supposed to protect her."

That surprised me, "I was?  Do I even know her?"

"Rapture?  She said she was bringing you to protect her."

"Dude, I don't even know how I got her."

He had a sudden look of revelation, "Ah, my apologies.  She brought you - you didn't come on your own."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Listen ... I hope you weren't injured too badly, though I'm sure you'll heal like the rest of us.  I'll get on her case about it."

"She ought to wake up in a minute or two, why not just ask her then?"

"Because the fight outside is over, the police are arriving, and we aren't sticking around."

"What were your people doing here in the first place?"

"We were here to find the person doing this."  He tapped the leg of one of the red bricks.  "Also, our people were to try to keep the red horde in this building as much as possible.  I saw your people take out the group of them that escaped, as well as the giant tree-man."

Tree-man?  This should be interesting to hear about.

The other mutants gathered around the man.

He said, "Thank you for warning the Ladies at Blacklight.  We appreciate it."

Then clouds of blackness swirled out from him.  I stepped back, not wanting to be touched by the stuff, and in a few seconds, the mutants were gone.

A loud crash came from outside.

I looked at Hellshock and said, "Yo, dude.  You have the room locked down in case any wake up?"  He wore a t-shirt of the Raving Lunatics - it at least explained that we were at Bang Time.