Superheroes Online Boxed Set

by Dante Steel

  “Of course!” Yuna protested.

  “Fine. Let’s say you’re telling the truth. How were we supposed to know where you had gone? Ever since we got to that Viking town, you started to close up. You kept to yourself.”

  “I was trying to give you all space to recover,” Yuna protested.

  “But you can’t get mad at us for not having even an idea of where to look for you outside of the lab,” Elena pointed out. “Gary made a wall of soil to help slow down the werewolves as we made our escape. You made your own wall, too.”

  Yuna’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose I did,” she admitted. “I had not thought of it like that. I was working so hard, and my fear and worries… I should not have lashed out. Forgive me.”

  “We’re all here together now,” Gary said firmly. “That’s what matters. Now, we need to figure out what to do.”

  “There is the virus,” Yuna said.

  He shook his head. “It’s far too risky.”

  Nicoletta rubbed her throat. “I agree. Maybe we should save that as a last resort.”

  Elena and Olivia nodded their agreement.

  “So be it,” Yuna said.

  “Is there a second lab?” Gary asked.

  “No, but perhaps I can speak to Haru about that. I am not certain that returning to the first is a good idea.”

  "Especially since we might've led Smaug to it," Elena said glumly.

  “That would be my fault,” Gary said. “I, uh, should probably admit that I tried to turn on the computer. Well, I touched a few of the mice, but nothing happened.”

  “The screens were black?” Yuna asked.

  “Yes. Why? Is that a bad thing?”

  “The screensavers should have been on.” Yuna’s worry returned.

  “Do you think the fucker made his way inside before Gary?” Olivia asked.

  “I would not have thought that possible,” Yuna said.

  “You’ve been watching us all along. You talked about video game footage,” Nicoletta said slowly.

  Elena snapped her metal fingers. “It’s possible Smaug’s been tapping into that. He could have seen you enter and exit.”

  “He should not be able to see me,” Yuna protested. “We tried to put safeguards inside the game so that I would be invisible to anyone outside of this issue. NPCs can see me. You all can see me. But Samuel was not meant to be here, so he should not have.”

  “He knew about you,” Gary said.

  Her already pale face paled further.

  “Let’s focus on figuring out a plan,” Olivia said.

  “I hate to say it,” Gary started.

  “Say it,” Elena said.

  “We need our skills to be enhanced. We’re getting our asses handed to us and not just by Smaug. By the shifters, too.”

  “You think we need to become superheroes again,” Nicoletta said.

  “You are already superheroes in my book,” Yuna said, smiling weakly.

  “Looks like we’ve got a game to play,” Olivia said.

  “Fun, fun,” Elena muttered.

  Gary sighed. “It is what it is. We need to be stronger.”

  “Or you need me to be the one to take down Samuel August,” Yuna said grimly.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gary gaped at Yuna. “No. We need you. You’re too important.”

  “I am more than just your ticket out of here,” Yuna protested.

  “You are,” Elena agreed. “You’re a walking, talking strategy guide. What’s the quickest, easiest way to become heroes in Shifter War?”

  “It better not be running around and completing a bunch of silly side quests,” Nicoletta muttered. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste.”

  “More like no time to waste,” Gary corrected.

  Yuna grinned. “Samuel August altering things to suit his purposes in the previous issues had me thinking. I will be honest. When I first reached the lab, I did not immediately set about working on a way to get us home. Because I feared he was here, given the Wild West town of Night Falls and its curse, I was afraid we might have to actually play the game, that we would come to this very point.”

  Gary furrowed his brows in confusion, but then snapped his fingers, grinning. “You hacked the game yourself!”

  “I did. I made it easier for us to become heroes, megaheroes, and superheroes. I don’t abide cheaters, but in this case, with the stakes being life or death for so many of us…” Yuna shrugged. “I did what I must.”

  Olivia hugged her. “You’re already a superhero in my book,” she squealed. “So what do we gotta do?”

  “To become heroes, we need to head north of the Iceland village. There, we will find the berserkers.”

  “Berserkers are shifters?” Nicoletta asked.

  “In some incarnations, yes, bear shifters to be precise. Unfortunately, you will not be able to help us quite so much with this round.”

  The Hispanic’s full lips pouted. “They’re immune to fire?”

  “Yes, and metal,” Yuna said, eyeing Elena.

  “How exactly does that make things easier on us?” Elena complained.

  “We can split up, and you can be ready to track down our foe to become megaheroes. Do not worry. The towns based on Iceland and France are not far apart at all.”

  Gary wasn’t sure he liked the idea of splitting up, but they needed to get through everything as quickly as possible. “Is there a specific berserker we have to face?”

  Yuna nodded and smiled at him. “Indeed. We only need to kill the berserker shaman. He will be wearing a bear skull over his face while in human form, and while a bear, his face will be the only one that is white.

  “Simple enough.” Gary was only okay with the idea of two groups when he considered that the shaman would most likely be protected by the other berserkers. If Elena and Nicoletta could not fight them effectively, then they would need to be protected. Better for them to be working on the next.

  “What about megaheroes?” Elena asked. “Who will Nicoletta and I need to track?”

  “Have you heard of Giles Garnier?” Yuna asked.

  Gary shook his head, but Olivia nodded.

  “I learned about him in class,” she said. “Giles was a Frenchman, sixteenth century I think. He supposedly was a werewolf who killed and ate children.”

  “Yes.” Yuna beamed. “At first, you were supposed to kill every last werewolf enemy shifter in the game, but now, you only have to kill Giles Garnier. Remember, you two will track him for us, but you cannot kill him until we are all there so we can all acquire megahero status together. We will acquire extra skill points if we manage to burn him at a stake, but I assure you that will not be easy. It might be best to kill him however we can and move on.”

  “To becoming superheroes.” Gary held his breath.

  Yuna nodded grimly. “We only have to kill one for this one as well and only the most famous shapeshifter in all of Norse mythology.”

  “Loki,” Elena breathed. “A shapeshifter and a god. A cunning trickster. How exactly is that going to be easy?”

  “We will be able to,” Gary said firmly. “Which way to Iceland?”

  Just then, a howl broke out. Gary immediately grabbed Nicoletta and Elena and took to flying. His body was not quite as beaten up as it had been after the sabre-toothed tiger battle. He wasn't about to allow a little bit of fatigue to slow them down when they had a plan.

  Because the last step wasn’t just to become superheroes. It was to kill Samuel August once and for all.

  If that was even possible.

  Yuna and Olivia took flight and not a moment too soon. Down below, werewolves burst through to stand right where they had just been. They threw back their heads and howled, but Gary and the others were already flying away.

  The Japanese woman and Olivia moved to the front, and Gary followed behind.

  “Do you want me to go with you two?” he asked.

  Nicoletta coughed slightly. “Did you notice how Yuna reminded us that we ca
n’t kill that Frenchman without her being there?”

  Elena nodded.

  Gary groaned. “You two have to be there when we kill the shaman.”

  “Yep,” Nicoletta said.

  “An oversight on her part,” Elena said. “She’s under as much stress as we are, if not more.”

  “Definitely more,” Nicoletta said. “She’s trying so hard to help us and probably feels stretched in fifty different ways between keeping us alive, Smaug, and getting us home.”

  “That’s only three. Can’t you count?” Elena teased.

  “Only on days that end in ‘Y.’ Oh, and when I’m in the mood.”

  They all laughed, but it was slightly forced. The weight of time crushed them.

  Thankfully, Yuna was flying away from the Viking town, more toward the northwest. This town was massive, and in the land surrounding it, Gary spied volcanoes, fjords, glaciers, and geysers.

  He did not want to be near the volcanoes or geysers, not after Vampire War. Gary grinned when Yuna had them land on a steep cliff overlooking one of the fjords.

  “The berserkers shouldn’t be far from here,” Yuna said. “To head to the French village, go—”

  “We can’t go,” Nicoletta said.

  Yuna blinked and then slumped her shoulders, the first time Gary had seen her with less than perfect posture. “You are right. How could I have forgotten? Allow me to apologize.”

  “No, no, it’s fine,” Elena said.

  “Stop kissing each other’s butts and let’s kill that shaman, yeah?” Olivia said.

  Yuna nodded and headed forward. The rocky cliff gave way to grass, and Gary soon smelled smoke.

  “They like to dance around fires,” Yuna murmured.

  Further ahead was a forest. It felt almost strange to walk by foot as they slowly moved forward. The smell of an animal cooking had Gary’s mouth watering. He couldn’t recall the last time he had eaten.

  Without warning, Yuna halted. Up ahead was a clearing. Twenty hulking men in furs that covered their groins and thick boots sat around the fire. Their muscular chests were bare and expansive enough to make any man feel inferior.

  “Your next Halloween costume,” Olivia murmured to Gary.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He scanned the men. Although many had on war paint that made them look more like bears than men, none had a skull on its face.

  “There.” Yuna nodded just off to the left. Standing against a tree, separate from the other berserkers, was the shaman.

  “If we can kill him from afar,” Gary murmured, “that would be ideal.”

  “Allow me,” Yuna begged in a desperate whisper. “I feel as if this has been my fault.”

  “Not at—fuck.”

  The berserker shaman was looking straight at Gary. How had he realized Gary was there? They were too far away to be overheard, especially since the other berserkers were talking and laughing!

  The berserker shaman pointed and grunted several times, perhaps speaking as the other berserkers jumped to their feet with weapons raised.

  Gary burst forward. The nearest berserker tried to slice Gary in half with his axe, but Gary telekinetically yanked it out of his hands.

  “Whoops. Sorry, pal. Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to run with scissors, er, weapons?”

  Gary ducked to avoid a punch and then had to jump to avoid being speared. He ran around the berserkers to the nearest tree and managed to break off a branch with his powers. It wasn’t super thick, but the place where it broke was sharp. His own spear. While the berserkers fought with all metal weapons, his spear was wooden.

  He stabbed a berserker, but he didn’t have enough force to pierce the man’s chest. He tried again, using his power, and the berserker was impaled this time, grunting like a bear before succumbing to death.

  Just then, chanting broke out. The berserkers began to dance and shift into their bears.

  “Elena!” Gary spotted her hanging back and had to kill two more berserkers to make his way over. He tossed her the spear. “Get to it!”

  She grinned and entered the fray.

  “Not fair,” Nicoletta complained. “Ooph!”

  He flew her up to sit on a high branch. “Where’s the shaman?” he asked her.

  She carefully stood and pointed northwest. “He’s trying to run away!”

  “Send up a fireball into the sky if you or Elena need help,” he shouted.

  Gary raced after the shaman. He hadn’t seen Olivia or Yuna once they had been spotted. They were just ahead of him.

  “We have to get the shaman back toward the others,” Olivia was saying.

  “I can help with that,” Gary said. He rushed past the two women, spotted the shaman, and lifted him into the air, flying him back toward the others.

  So maybe he banged the shaman into a few trees on the way back. Whoops.

  Once they arrived back in the clearing, Gary glanced at Yuna. “You wanted to do the honors?”

  “With pleasure.”

  She stepped forward as a massive bear sideswiped Gary. He went flying and slammed into a tree. Fuck, that hurt. Thankfully, he managed not to hit the back of his head against the trunk, but he had bitten his tongue. Dazed, he knew he was forgetting something. He struggled to stand. Through hazy vision, he saw the shaman race toward the fire and dance in it, chanting. Swiftly, he transformed into a bear twice the size of the other berserker bears. Foaming at the mouth, the white-faced shaman-bear rushed over and swatted the tree Nicoletta was in. The tree cracked, but thankfully, Nicoletta jumped to the next tree over.

  The berserkers still numbered a great deal. Elena was handling them well enough, but then, Olivia stepped up.

  “Time for a bath,” she declared, and she sent them all flying back toward the sea nestled between the two cliffs of the fjord.

  Elena’s wooden spear was slick with blood. She gave a wild cry of her own as if she shared the berserker’s fury. Before she could stab the shaman-bear, the bear bit the spear without snapping it, yanked it out of her hands, and tossed it into the fire.

  The damn thing was smart.

  Gary glanced at Yuna. What was she waiting for? A glance her way revealed her hand was trembling. Her eyes were wide with fear.

  If she was trying to use her superpowers, nothing was happening.

  He cleared his throat. Despite the wild thrashing of the shaman-bear, she heard him or else she felt his gaze. She nodded.

  Without hesitating, Gary used his power to break off another tree branch, this one much thicker.

  “Olivia, distract it,” he shouted, grateful to see Elena had armed herself with another branch and was moving to stand before Yuna like a human shield.

  The flier looped and zoomed near the shaman-bear, careful to keep out of reach. When the shaman-bear’s back was to Gary, he telekinetically slammed the tree branch through the bear’s back and all the way down to the ground, impaling it, pinning it in place.

  The shaman-bear struggled to move. It wasn’t dead just yet, so Elena stepped forward and shoved her new wooden spear through his mouth.

  The shaman-bear immediately stopped struggling.

  Congratulations! You are now heroes!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  While the girls congratulated themselves on a job well done, Gary stepped around the dead bodies and spied the meat the berserkers had been cooking. The fight had caused the makeshift rotisserie to topple over onto its side, and the animal carcasses were cooked and ready to be eaten.

  “Let’s enjoy the fruit of our labors,” he said.

  They dug into the meat. Yuna even found some wicked strong ale that the berserkers had been drinking. They did not drink too much, wishing to not be drunk for the next part of their master plan.

  “Besides, we can drink it after Smaug is dead,” Olivia said.

  "We're going to carry around these?" Elena held up the animal hide waterskin.

  "You betcha," Olivia said eagerly. "They've been orphaned, the p
oor ales. We have to adopt them and give them a new home." She patted her flat stomach.

  They all burst out laughing, and Gary was beginning to feel better.

  Once they ate their fill and allocated their new experiences and skill points, Yuna led the way by air, this time heading slightly southeast. Again, they bypassed the village and hovered above a vineyard.

  “Giles Garnier killed his first victim in a vineyard,” Olivia said.

  “You know too much about this serial killer,” Gary said.

  “Kinda disturbing,” Nicoletta teased.

  “The human mind is fascinating,” Olivia said defensively.

  “Will it be easier to track him by flying around or by hunting him on the ground?” Elena asked.

  "On the ground, I do believe," Yuna said, "but only after we’ve seen some evidence that he’s been nearby. Until then, I suggest we fly around some."

  So they did, and they soon spotted small bodies with legs ripped off, bellies cut, flesh removed from arms and thighs. The sight disgusted Gary, and Nicoletta, on his right side, muttered that she felt sick to her stomach. He didn’t blame her.

  “Do you need to touch down?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Nicoletta said, but beneath her tanned skin tone, she looked a little green.

  As it turned out, Yuna landed a few moments later. “We need to be careful,” she said. “Giles Garnier is going to be harder to kill than the berserkers.”

  The strange silence all around them infuriated Gary. It was enough to make him go mad. Why hadn’t they included more small animals that weren’t shifters? More insects to make their music? His heart was thudding too loudly for him to be able to concentrate.

  Just then, Olivia let out a blood-curdling scream. Gary whirled around to see a man with long, straggly hair and dirty clothes biting and ripping off the flesh of Olivia’s arm.

  Gary went to use his power to slam the bastard back, but the bastard was already rushing and hiding within the vineyard, running away on all fours even though still in his human form.

  “Be careful,” Yuna warned as she dashed over to Olivia’s side to aid her.

  Gary hated to leave Olivia while she was injured, but they had to kill this bastard so they could kill that damned trickster so they might have a chance of killing that fucker. His to-kill list was too long yet for his liking, but that was going to change any minute now.