H.E.R.O. - Horde (43 page)

He laughed, "Oh, yeah.  With the power flowing through me right now I've got it."

"Great.  I'm heading outside."

I ran outside and looked around.  A huge man with bark-like skin and sharp branches sticking out of him lay in the street not far away, as did a group of the red men.

Off to the right a group of heroes stood around some large metal pieces on the ground.  I jogged over toward them when I saw the holes in the walls of buildings on both sides of this street.  A hole to the right caught my attention, and I saw Diva lying on a pile of rubble.  Psystar's bright gold hair lay across her lap.

I ran up to the hole and surprised her; she'd been focused on the guys who apparently just dismantled a robot.  I spoke with Diva - she wore a torn up half-top that might have originally been a t-shirt of the band.  She also had on a mini-skirt and high heels.

The bluish-purple haired beauty had somehow broken her legs - I didn't get how that could happen to a brick.  She'd gotten torn up pretty badly in the last week, though, so she had pretty bad fortune as far as injuries went.

I picked her up and tossed her into the air to begin flying around and then picked up Psystar.  I wondered what she'd done to be knocked out this time.

Diva hovered over near the robot, where a man lay on the ground.  I walked over to the three bricks and the ruined robot while Diva flew back to the club.

A few flashes of light let me know that Hellshock had spotted one of the red dudes waking up and put him out again with a line of lightning.

Big Man was cool to see up close when in his large form.  He was thirteen feet tall, and as I'd seen on the bridge the other day, he became massively strong - even compared to other bricks - when that large.

They all watched me walk up with Psystar in my arms.

Spartan said, "Hey, Black Tiger.  Is she okay this time?"

Big Man laughed and said, "This time?"

I nodded, "She gets KO'd a lot."

"That doesn't sound very wise."

"Bad luck on her part I guess - sometimes she pushes herself past her limits."

Spartan nodded, "I think we got the guy doing it all right here, but I'm not sure who was behind the robot."

Big Man said, "They can bring him back to the techs to find more about how it was being controlled and perhaps by whom."

Zonk said, "Too bad you guys ripped its arms off before I got here; I was going to hit it with the Zonk Bonk."

I asked, "Is that a signature move or something."

"Hellz yeah it is.  Kinda need to see it though."

"Maybe we'll get to fight together soon then."

"Yeah - ya know ... I've never seen you guys at the carnival, you should come."

"I'll try, maybe when 'star's up and about."

Spartan asked, "Where did you disappear to this afternoon?"

I replied, "I don't know - I went to warn the mutants that their club could get hit and to shut it down for the night, but all I remember is getting punched back there from one of the red guys.  Did you see the chick with the gold hair and wings?"

"I remember seeing gold wings for a moment, but we were dealing with the dudes that ran out from the club."

"Hmph, not a biggie I guess."

The police vehicle closed in on the area and the heroes began moving the horde of red men into the vehicles.  Big Man loaded up the robot parts in a police SUV.

Agent Carrigan of H.E.R.O. showed up and questioned us on the details of the situation.

There were so many red guys that it took several packed super paddy wagons to haul them all away.  The SUV with the robot parts had already headed off.

Psystar woke up near the end of the questioning.

I helped her stand on her own and said, "Welcome back, dreamer."

She replied, "Ha, yeah.  I still have a headache, thanks."

"Something knock you out with a mental attack?"

"No, I detected thoughts from the robot and saw a mindview.  I tried, but I couldn't enter it.  I'd planned on hopping in and throwing them into their fear pool."

"Okay ... you somehow got a mindview off a robot?  Was there a guy in it?"

Spartan said, "Actually, it was more of an exoskeleton, like something made to help a person carry heavy things around in."

"Wow, that's cool - so was the guy on the ground the pilot?"

"No, it was holding him in its hand."

"So how did 'star get a second mindview, then?'

She shrugged, "Maybe I picked up someone farther away than I thought.  I'm still amped up from Andre."

"Who's Andre?"

"The guitarist of the band - he's a super that amps up your powers."

"Really?  I wonder what that would do for me?"

"No idea.  It really extends my telepathy range and flight speed, though, it rocks.  Too bad he dislikes heroes."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah.  He's kind of a hater."

"Bummer.  So what knocked you out then?"

"I don't know.  I think the robot grabbed me, I got hit by something and then I believe I blacked out when I hit something else."

"You were lying in a pile of rubble with Diva...."

"She pulled me away from him, perhaps?"

"Could be."

"Where's the guy he was carrying?"

"Over there, they are bringing another super paddy wagon - the horde of red dudes filled the two they had."

"Wow.  I'm going to go make sure we got the right guy."

"Good idea, I'll go with."

We walked a short distance to where Big Man, Zonk, and Hellshock were watching over the giant tree-man and the dude they thought was behind everything.

Psystar waved her hands around a few times, and in a half-minute she said, "Yeah, that's the guy behind it all.  Wow, this is messed up."

I asked, "Why's that?"

"There's nothing about the person controlling the robot, but what happened is that this guy - Rog - hangs out a lot with the band.  He writes some of their songs.  The bunch really hate Goths - it's in a many of their songs.  Well, he happens to have the power to change people into those orc guys.  When Andre plays, he gets himself hyped up, and the guitar solo of the one song ends up kicking off his power to amp up others.  So he amps up the room, and Rog gets a massive power burst.  Rog starts the mutation - intentionally - in the guys around him, which has a side effect of locking off their memories and mutates the emotion center to just one of hate and anger."

She continued, "Without memories, they are stuck focusing just on hating Goths, so they rush off toward the nearest Goth club that Rog knew of each time  It took a little time for them to mutate physically, which is why no one in the clubs knew why the guys left, but he's getting so he can do it faster - thus the orcs here right now.  It's just a form of hate crime, caused at least in part by Andre happening to amp up Rog while he's in the right mood."

I said, "Wow, that's messed up."

Spartan said, "So these red brutes aren't bad guys?"

She said, "Right now they are dangerous due to the hate and anger, but they aren't behind anything."

My big friend nodded.  "Good.  I'm glad there wasn't such a large group of murderers running around."

We all nodded.

She looked around for a moment and her eyes locked onto Diva.

Psystar said, "You're in a lot of pain, Diva."

Diva nodded.

"Here, I'll help - but then you have to go home and sleep, okay?"

"Works for me.  Sorry about flying you into that wall, I didn't mean to."

"It's okay.  I'll heal."

Psystar flew right up to Diva, put her hands on the larger woman's cheeks and breathed at her face.  Diva's expression changed, and she began smiling.

Psystar said, "There - now get home and go to sleep so you heal that."

"Okay, thanks goldie."

"Sure thing."

Diva turned and flew up into the sky.  Psystar watched her fly off, shook her head, and then floated down to me again.

I said, "She okay?"

"She's in a lot of pain.  I think she got amped like I did, if so then she's flying probably five times her normal maximum speed, which seems to be around 500 miles per hour.  She did that and slammed into the tree-man over there at what - Mach 4 or so?"

Spartan said, "Is
that
what she did?  We were trying to hold it down so Big Man and I could super punch it, and all of a sudden she shows up out of nowhere, and it looked like it'd been hit really hard.  She actually kicked some major butt."

Zonk nodded in agreement.  "She did good."

Psystar said, "I'm going to go make sure she gets to sleep.  I'll knock her butt out if I need to."

I chuckled, "You bringin' a big bat?"

"Nah, I'm still amped up, I'll use my telepathy if need be."

"Cool.  How about we find time to get together tomorrow?  It's Saturday."

"I'll plan on it.  Maybe we can drag the big guy out with his lady friend too."

I looked at Spartan, "There you go, you need to call Anne."

Spartan looked at me and smiled.  "I work at night, though.  Speaking of, I need to head to work now - I'll catch you guys later.  Zonk, Big Man, good fighting with you guys.  Good to see you too Hellshock." 

He walked over to Rayna, who stood with Agent Carrigan.  My ears were so keen it was easy to hear her conversation even at a distance.  Apparently, she'd gone into the club under cover as well and couldn't believe that Diva had sat down right with the dude causing all the problems.

Spartan leaned down by Rayna and whispered an apology - again - for us getting into a fight with her eye creatures early in the week.  It looked like she forgave him pretty fast, because her expression was kind as she watched him walk off and leap onto a nearby building.

I looked back at Psystar, "Now if we just had the cure for the red dudes we'd be set."

She replied, "We do.  Qarath found one.  We ended up contacting the University's chemistry department for help on it - I brought Qarath there late in the afternoon.  A few professors and some grad students are working on it now.  Trevin's even helping; he's really good in the lab and also knows the genetics side."

"Awesome.  Any idea on a timeline?"

"Hopefully in a day or so.  They've got an alien with advanced technology and knowledge helping, after all."

"Is that going to stop them from being all rage filled too?"

"No, I need to figure something else out for that.  Speaking of, crap, I need to go lock down their emotions and free their memories now. 
Then
I'm going to spend the night with Diva to make sure she stays out of pain.  Poor girl."

"Yeah.  Promise you'll hang with me tomorrow?"

"Yup, I'll make time."

"Awesome."  I thought,
Love you.

She grinned and winked at me, glanced around at the other heroes and then flew off after the paddy wagons.

The rest of us said our goodbyes and headed off our own ways.

Chapter 34 - Spellbound

Razorwing's Viewpoint

A large group of mutants collected at Spellbound, the Goth club owned by Lady Rapture.  Some of them had picked up a bunch of t-shirts of the Raving Lunatics with the intent of sneaking into Bang Time to try to prevent any of the red bricks from leaving.

It was also clear that they intended to find the person responsible for either causing the change to people or the one dealing the drugs making the change.  They didn't appear to care much about the public welfare, but with two attacks directly against what they viewed as their own community they intended to do whatever was necessary to eliminate the problem.

They appeared to make a deal with someone named Borgz, and those going in were to allow him to take care of the final person.  Lady Celeste iterated to her people that she'd seen the man bloody and hanging from Borgz’ hand, and felt safe giving the person to him.

It would also prevent any of their people from being charged with murder, and they very much wanted to avoid any association of their loyal followers with the insanity of Shrinker and her type of mutant.

I wanted to join them, but Lady Celeste asked me to remain at Spellbound for protection.  I agreed, primarily because both of the other nights when people had died at the clubs that had been attacked, and I didn't want anyone injured.

Lady Rapture had shown up at her own club with Black Tiger at her side.  I thought that was odd, but once I found that she planned to go into the club to control as many of the red bricks as she could it made sense to me.  He had to have agreed to join her to protect her.  It also reinforced to me that she had some ability to mesmerize people near her.

It was a long hour or so until anything occurred.  The club was on a street corner, so I stood watch outside the building.  My acute hearing and ability to see like an eagle would allow me to detect the red men at some distance.

When the fight started, I heard the echoes from the club.  The booming punches of the bricks were audible even at this distance, and I saw Diva fly up into the air.

It was a challenge even for me to track her as she flew so fast into the sky and headed back down.  She did it twice, with the second time ending in a dive bomb I felt through the ground when she hit.

Unfortunately, Spellbound wasn't on the same street as Bang Time, or I'd have been able to watch everything occur.  Soon police vehicles streamed into the area.  They stayed at a distance, as they seemed to do during super fights.

Everything got quiet for a while and I waited for any sight of a horde of red men, but none came.  Eventually the police began moving closer to the scene.

Finally, the pink-haired woman with bright violet eyes and pointed ears I thought was a guard for Lady Celeste came out.

She said, "Razorwing, the others have returned.  Lady Celeste has asked for you to come to her."

I followed behind her and asked, "It went well?"

She simply nodded and walked to the entrance.  The bouncer opened the door for us as we entered the club.  We walked back through the club, which had a much more seductive feel to it than Blacklight had.