Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) (37 page)

“Annie, how long has it been since you rested? Don’t you need to rebuild your powers every so often?”

“I’ll make do,” she said. Arguing, I knew, would have been pointless. I scooped her up in my arms and took off after Hotshot. This had gone far enough.

CHILDREN OF THE LION

It wasn’t quite six a.m. yet, but in a city like Siegel the park was, at that precise hour of the morning, the worst public place Gunk could have gone. While most of the city was slithering out of bed, having coffee or getting ready for the drive to work, Lee Park was rife with early-morning joggers, cyclists and roller-skaters getting their daily workout amongst the trees and statuary. At the just-post-dawn hour there was nowhere in the city with more places to hide and more people to blend in with.

I don’t know what happened before we got there, but when I pointed out the area I could feel Lionheart and the Gunk’s Rushes coming from, the park was in total chaos. People were off their bikes, skaters were trying to pull themselves to their feet and runners were trying to get the hell out of Dodge. What’s worse, neither the Cape nor the Mask were anywhere in sight.

“Think they’ve been here?” Hotshot asked. We landed under a tree and I put Annie down.

“Safe bet,” I said. “Let’s see -- I
know
I ‘felt’ both their Rushes around here somewhere...”

“Hey! Hey, you’re Hotshot, right?”

We turned to see a jogger in red high-tops rushing towards us. He was a big man, with a beard and sunglasses. “Yeah!” he said. “You were Lionheart’s old partner, right?”

“So?”

“I just saw your friend fighting that slime-monster guy... whadda they call him... the Gunk? They’re over there!” He pointed to a bank of trees nearby, too thick to see into.

Hotshot was about to say something to the guy, but I interrupted, stepping on a fallen branch and swiveling it up into my hand.

“Not
twice
,” I said, twirling the branch. “I don’t know what’s worse, your stupidity or your low opinion of
me.
” I borrowed a jolt of power from Hotshot, charged up the branch and blasted the jogger dead center in the chest. He screamed and threw back his arms, flailing about. His shirt and chest did the computer-screen ripple effect and chunks of orange flesh began to drip away.

“How did you expect to fool
me?
” I asked, using Annie’s strength to deliver a blow to the head. “Now where’s Lionheart?”

The ground beneath Gunk broke apart and a red-clad hand grabbed his slimy orange foot. Lionheart burst through the soil, executed a graceful arc in the air and smashed the Gunk into the ground, finally knocking him out cold. He landed and began brushing dirt from his uniform.

“This is really beginning to inconvenience me,” he said. “First ten years as a zombie and now my uniform is an absolute
mess.”

“How did he drive you underground?” I asked.

“He’s an immortal, he was bound to pick up gardening skills
somewhere
.” He smiled at Hotshot and I realized the two of them hadn’t really had a proper reunion in all the insanity. “I see you got them together again,” he said.

Hotshot’s lip trembled and his voice cracked. “Not
all
of them,” he said.

I felt a tug on my arm and Annie pulled me away. “Come on. I think we should leave them alone.”

“I guess so.” As we moved away I put my arm around her shoulders. She made no move to remove it. “How are
you
holding up?” I asked.

“Okay, I guess. It’s a lot to take in just a day or two. First you’re a killer, then you’re a rabbit, then my baby brother has powers and -- Todd. God, what he did to First Light--”

Her lip quivered and she sniffed. A tear rolled down her flushed cheek and I simply didn’t know whether it was for First Light or Dr. Noble. She’d honestly loved him and the realization of who he was would be difficult to bear. I was still trying to decide what, if anything, I should say when I felt a tingle of Rushes in the distance.

“Aw no, don’t we
ever
get a break?” I grumbled.

“What?” Annie asked, but I was already heading back towards Lionheart and Hotshot.

“Guys! Heads up! Playtime isn’t over yet!”

Over the trees came the last stragglers of Gunk’s brainwashing -- Flambeaux, Mental Maid, Justice Giant and the gooified Deep Six and Nightshadow. Except for Flambeaux, none of them could fly, so I wasn’t particularly surprised to see Dr. Noble, wide-eyed and soaked, bringing up the rear, using his telekinesis to keep them aloft.

On his coat tails was the LightCorps -- or most of them, anyway. Tin Man carried Defender and Oriole flew behind. I remembered seeing her carrying Condor out of Simon Tower, and I just hoped he’d be okay.

“I’m sick of being on defense,” I said. Stealing a Rush from Justice Giant, I pushed my body outwards, growing to a height of fifty feet. (To my relief, my clothes grew with me.) With one massive hand I plucked Noble from the air and reared back, planning to hurl him into the ground.

“Hit him, Double-Em!” he shouted, and I looked up just in time to see a white Soul Ray roasting the air. I couldn’t move fast enough to dodge it, so I dropped back down to normal size, falling past the beam and losing my grip on Noble in the process.

“I can’t believe you morons are
still
trying to toast me!” I shouted, flying through a spray of fire and hitting Flambeaux in the gut.

“Careful, lad,” Lionheart said, joining me in the sky. “These men aren’t in their right minds.”

“Not to sound cold-hearted,” I said, “but at this point I’m finding it particularly hard to give a damn.”

Deep Six and Nightshadow leapt at me, abandoning Noble’s telekinetic lift, and each grabbed onto an arm. I was dragged down to the ground by the added weight, then thrust outwards with a burst of my own, hurling them away. Annie caught Nightshadow, clocking him over the head hard enough to shove through the slime and concussing his brain. He collapsed.

“The girl’s got heart,” Defender said, landing on Deep Six’s back. In his years of combat, the Defender had learned nearly every form of combat known to man and developed a few of his own, but none of them had ever taught him to hit at superhuman strength. Cutting through the slime, trying to make contact with Deep Six’s skull through the broken, battered helmet, was as useful as trying to anesthetize a rock. Kick, twirl, slash with the sword, thrust with the shield -- for every one blow Deep Six landed the Defender landed six more, but they were beginning to wear him down.

“I’ve got him!” I shouted, leaping at the fight, but before I moved a foot Annie tackled me from behind. A split-second later a Soul Ray churned the Earth just about where I would have been at that point if she’d let me go.

“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t know if a telekinetic shield would be any good against one of those or not.”

“Hey, if I’d let you get hit Tom would never have forgiven me,” she said. I smiled and looked up, trying to figure out where Mental Maid was, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. I still felt that strange, vague Rush I’d always gotten from her, but it was bold and fuzzy, and I couldn’t tell where she really was.

The exercisers in the park were running around like survivors of a train wreck, half of them trying to get away, the other half trying to get a better look. One of them shouted out, “Dude, it’s the LightCorps!”

But I ignored the rest of the conversation, looking instead for the Defender. In the grass in front of me, the Defender and Deep Six’s wrestling match had ended. And not favorably. Deep Six simply wore him down until he worked in a gut blow that wasn’t deflected. From there it was a short matter to take him out.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, jumping Deep Six and ripping his helmet off like it was aluminum foil. I landed a blow right to his temple, dropping him for the duration of the fight.

“Two down,” I said.

“Two of yours, too!” boomed Justice Giant, and there was a “whump” sound as a black-draped figure fell to the ground next to me. I rushed over and pulled the cape back to find Hotshot barely conscious, his arm clearly twisted in a configuration God hadn’t intended. I spun around to charge the Giant, but Annie was already climbing up his body, delivering strategic blows to the knees, back and finally making it to his head. She kicked him hard in the back as she climbed and he wasted time swatting at that little spot you can never quite reach, never even realizing she was making for his neck. She wrapped her arms around his neck and began to squeeze, cutting off an artery to the brain. Justice Giant’s eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled forwards.

“The bystanders!” Tin Man swept in and grabbed Justice Giant by the back of the collar, trying to slow the descent enough for the idiot onlookers to get out of the way, but by the time the massive brute was at a ninety-degree angle to the ground, the fall began to speed up again.

“Christ,
no!
” Tin Man shouted. I flew up next to him and grabbed hold, helping him slow the fall. Annie, who was never trained to watch out for civilians the way someone in Cape did, was near panic.

“Oh God, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean--”

“S’not
your
fault, girl...” Tin Man groaned. His eyes were clenched shut behind his visor and his arms were trembling.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Damn suit’s been out of commission for ten years,” he said. “I didn’t have time to recharge the power cells fully... I’m gonna--”

Justice Giant slipped totally out of his grasp and the weight tugged at me, but I managed to set him down without hitting anybody, and just barely avoided being hit by a lancing Soul Ray. Annie cursed herself. “I thought I could help, Josh, I’m sorry. I’m running out of gas too -- if I don’t rest soon my powers are going to short out on me.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “How’s Tin Man?”

The armored Corpsman had rolled off Justice Giant when he hit the ground and was discarding his gauntlets and boot-jets. “It’s worthless, there’s no power in this thing at all. I’m a sitting duck.”

Just as he said it, branches that looked like they’d been ripped off trees by a charging rhino hailed down about us, driving themselves into the ground.

“My favorite kind of duck!” came Noble’s voice. I threw up a telekinetic shield around myself and was about to guard the exposed Tin Man, but Annie jumped in front of him. The first few tree limbs shattered against her skin, but they were starting to leave welts wherever they made contact.

“Annie, look out!” I was about to throw another teke shield up, covering the both of them, but I was forced to dodge another Soul Ray blast. I was about to jump out anyway, and Soul Ray be damned, but the matter was quickly settled. Two more snapped, broken branches ricocheted from Annie’s body.

The third hit her, and hit her
hard
, lodging itself in her shoulder. She screamed, clutched her shoulder and fell to the ground. She’d gone far too long without resting and her invulnerability was nil. With her down, the shower of branches stopped. I never noticed.

“
Annie!”
I was at her side in an instant, even before the Tin Man had time to kneel down.

“She was protecting
me
!” he shouted. “That bastard. You know, your friend Morrie had her in the wrong uniform -- girl had the heart of a Cape from the start.”

“Annie...” I moaned, unaware that there was another voice in my head saying the same thing. Tom was there in the blink of an eye.

“Weren’t you watching Animan, son?” Tin Man asked.

“She’s my
sister
!” Tom screamed. “Animan’s gonna be fine, he’s got that Conductor guy with him.”

I looked up at the sky through tear-stained eyes and saw Noble streaking away. “You got a medical kit in your armor?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Help her.” I took off so fast the grass probably burnt beneath me. No less than three Soul Rays ripped through the air around me, but I didn’t even try to dodge them -- I was aiming straight for Noble, adding up every jolt of speed and energy available to compound my acceleration. I hit Noble hard enough to powder bones in anyone who didn’t have a telekinetic shield. I’m pretty sure I at least cracked a few ribs, but the maniacal Noble just grunted and spun in the air to face me.

I hit him with a fire-blast that could have slagged iron. It barely singed his eyebrows, but the distraction was enough for me to grab his cape and charge it up with Hotshot’s power. It detonated a second later and he pitched through the air, narrowly missing a Soul Ray himself. He began to fall. I followed closely behind, avoiding the final, aerial battle between Lionheart and Flambeaux, but didn’t even try to catch him.

He hit hard on the concrete walking path in the middle of a pack of roller skaters who had stopped to watch the festivities. I landed nearby and moved to pick him up.

“Hey, back off, man!” One of the roller skaters moved herself between me and the fallen Noble. “I’ve seen you on the news, you’re that Copycat guy! After everything Noble’s done for this city, if you think we’re gonna let you lay a finger on him--”

“He’s a killer,” I said, very calmly. “He’s a murderer and he may have just killed again. I’m putting a stop to it. Now
get out of my way.
”

“No.” Noble pushed his way through the crowd, not looking nearly as beaten up as he should have. “Let him through.”

Even though I didn’t think before hitting him in the gut with everything I had, I was kind of surprised when my fist went through his stomach, gouging a hole into his chest cavity. I screamed even louder than any of the bystanders.

I screamed again when I tried to pull my hand out, only to find it held tight. That’s probably when I noticed that the fluid covering my hand wasn’t red, but orange.

The Gunk dropped his Noble face and smiled a big, gooey, orange smile. Then he nodded and I felt my free arm grabbed from the other side. It was Noble, looking a lot more battered than Gunk’s facade had. They were holding me, stunned, with my chest fully exposed.

That’s when Mental Maid dropped out of the trees, her arm aimed at me. It was still quivering tremendously, and fat tears gushed down her cheeks, but she didn’t say a word before she fired.