Hero Force United Boxed Set 1

by Baron Sord

  There was no more time to waste.

  Lady Liberty sprang into action.

  She wore no cape, only her costume and cat-eye masquerade mask. She raced across the top of this sixth level of containers. Jumped across a twenty-foot gap to the next stack. Ignored the 48 foot drop beneath her. Landed with grace and ease on the far side. Dropped down eight feet to the fifth level with catlike quiet. Continued her way around the blocky maze. She needed to get behind the position of the men and cars on the ground.

  The two lumbering Limo Men climbed back up the ladders to fetch Humongous. He couldn’t possibly climb down without their help. That put the three of them up top with Top Man and Bottom Man guarding the container with the girls. That left a mere six men on the ground, four of them armed with rifles. The truck driver and limo driver carried no rifles, but probably had pistols at the very least.

  Lady Liberty didn’t have any guns.

  Not a one.

  Six guns to none.

  If the men on the containers came down, it would be eleven guns to none.

  That was even odds, wasn’t it?

  When you were Lady Liberty, it was.

  She could handle the men long enough to sabotage their vehicles. She’d figure out what to do after, after.

  Running full out, she dropped and hopped across various stacked shipping containers as she circled around. Eventually, she dropped to the ground and put herself in position behind the two vehicles and six men. Lady Liberty couldn’t see Humungous and the four others from her position because a stacked wall of containers blocked her view. Good. That would give her a few moments to divide and conquer.

  First, hamstring the limo with the girls inside.

  Silent, she crept up behind one back tire.

  Readied herself.

  Once the action started, she knew it wouldn’t stop.

  She pulled out a utilitool from a hidden pouch.

  With her thumb, she flipped open a short, stout blade.

  Stabbed the tire’s sidewall.

  FISS!

  Jumped up and ninja-rolled over the roof of the limo. Landed. Stabbed the other rear tire.

  FISS!

  The two smaller men with the stubby submachine guns saw her first.

  “What the?!” one said.

  “Get her!” the other said.

  The two taller men came up behind the smaller, rifles out.

  Last, the truck driver and the limo driver rushed over, pistols in hand.

  That was when Lady Liberty finally saw their faces in the glow of the headlights from the limousine.

  Mutams.

  Monstrous mutant-animals.

  They infested all of Megapolis, a bane to the human population.

  The two smaller guards were raterriers, a mutant mix of rat and terrier dog.

  The two taller guards were raccoyotes, raccoon-coyotes, also mutants.

  The limo driver was a rabbex, a hopping-mad mutant rabbit-ibex hybrid.

  The truck driver was a wolferret, the notoriously fleet-of-foot wolf and ferret mix.

  All six were armed.

  Obviously, the shooting started.

  Lady Liberty was screwed.

  —: o o o :—

  “Mutams?!” I chuckled to myself from where I was reading Lady Liberty #1 on my bed in the guest house. “Love it!”

  The room was dark except for the lone lamp on the side table.

  Grinning, I stuck my nose back in the comic and continued reading.

  I couldn’t wait to see how Lady Liberty got herself out of this mess.

  —: o o o :—

  SPUKKA!

  SPUKKA!

  SPUKKA!

  The Mutams on the ground opened fire.

  Lady Liberty lunged to the side, drawing fire away from the limousine where the two girls were hidden inside.

  Bullets sparked across the asphalt as she ran.

  She jumped on top of the tall delivery truck in a single leap.

  The bullets followed, tearing through the sidewall and roof of the truck at an up angle. Some banged off the steel walls of the shipping containers behind her and the truck.

  Pang!

  Pang!

  Pang!

  She dropped to the ground and ran around the front of the truck.

  Came up behind the Mutams.

  Sprinted at them in a blur of speed lines.

  The twitchy rabbex limo driver hopped out of her way first, unable to get a bead on her with his pistol.

  The quick raterriers ducked and spun around with their guns blazing.

  Lady Liberty carried no guns, and would never shoot anyone, human or Mutam, even if she did. But she couldn’t stop these Mutams from shooting each other. Lady Liberty jumped high.

  SPUKKA!

  SPUKKA!

  SPUKKA!

  The truck-driving wolferret dove and wove, desperately trying to avoid getting shot by the raterriers. When he hit the ground, his pistol went skidding under the truck.

  The two big raccoyotes, who were the slowest of the bunch, were accidentally cut down in a spray of lead by the submachine-gun wielding raterriers. Both big Mutams dropped to the asphalt, dead.

  When Lady Liberty landed, the blinding-fast wolferret looped its long body around her waist and tore away at her with savage claws. She hugged it, spun, and landed on top of it, bashing it’s head against the hard ground, knocking it unconscious.

  The hopping-mad rabbex forgot his gun and launched himself at her, head down, horns ready to ram.

  WHAM!

  Lady Liberty went flying in slow motion. Landed and rolled, grimacing and clutching her breastbone where the rabbex had hit.

  The rabbex leered at her, “Hitting women always makes me horny. Think I’ll do it again!” He grunted, lowered his horns, and charged.

  Lady Liberty threw her arm up defensively.

  The rabbex was gonna bowl her over. Speed lines rushed around his head, and his eerie sideways-pupiled eyes gleamed evilly as he bore down on her.

  At the last possible moment, Lady Liberty jumped up in a forward dive, spun in the air, and grabbed the rabbex’s horns as she passed over. She flipped around, landed astraddle on the rabbex’s back, and wrapped her legs around his neck. Holding his horns tight, she yanked his head back and smirked, “Haven’t you heard, Thumper? No man ever takes me for a ride. I’m always the one on top.”

  The rabbex bucked and jumped, trying to throw her.

  Lady Liberty was a slip of a woman, but Thumper’s rabbit genes meant he was no bigger than she. Their weights being nearly the same, and her strength being more than his, she was able to torque his head around and drag him to the ground. His twisted head hit snout-first.

  Thumper’s head may’ve been hard, but his nose wasn’t.

  BAM!

  The force of the blow shook him up long enough for Lady Liberty to whip out her compact jet-injector and dose the rabbex with fast acting animal tranquilizer.

  His eyes closed, his tongue lolled out, and he was down for the count.

  SPUKKA!

  SPUKKA!

  SPUKKA!

  The raterriers were firing again.

  Lady Liberty was on the move before the bullets gouged the asphalt. They also gouged the unconscious rabbex and wolferret, killing them both. Not her problem. Everybody knew how trigger-happy and ruthless raterriers were. You partnered up with them at your own risk.

  On top of the storage containers where the other girls were locked away, the two lumbering bodyguards were protecting the three-piece-suit-wearing Humongous, a hippopossumas. He was a mutant blend of hippopotamus and possum. His guards were heavily-muscled gatortoises, alligator-tortoises. Both pulled handguns out of their shells and held them at the ready.

  “Kill her!” Humongous roared from behind the two gatortoises.

  Top Man and Bottom Man, who were standing up top with Humongous, immediately went bounding down, skipping the ladders and jumping from metal roof to metal roof on clattering claws. Lik
e the dead truck driver on the ground, they too were wolferrets.

  Meanwhile, the frazzled raterriers were reloading their stubby submachine guns. Unlike the wolferrets, they weren’t big enough to be a danger to Lady Liberty in hand-to-hand combat, but their guns were.

  Lady Liberty flicked her Justice Whip at the first raterrier’s stub gun—

  Wah-SKACK!

  —and yanked it spinning out of his hands before he could slap a fresh magazine in the magazine well. The gun bounced onto a storage container’s roof on the third level with a metallic clang.

  Lady Liberty whipped again—

  Wah-SKACK!

  —disarming the second raterrier the same way, only to be tackled by the two wolferrets. The three of them rolled in a dogfight of tooth and claw. Only Lady Liberty’s incredible athleticism spared her from having her throat torn open, and her Justice Whip, which she looped around one of the wolferret’s snouts in a self-tightening knot powered by the whip’s ultra-strong electro-magnetics.

  “Chew on that, Wolfie,” she quipped as she rolled away and hopped to her feet.

  While Wolfie struggled to pull it off, he got his claws caught in the process.

  Lady Liberty turned to face the other wolferret, her hands up and ready to fight.

  They circled.

  His tail whipped and his fangs dripped with Mutam menace, “Lady Liberty in the flesh. I’ve been dying to take a bite out of you for years.” He snarled and bared his white fangs, lapping them lustily with his drooling dog tongue, “I lay ten to one you taste as good as you look.”

  She smirked, “I find taking a bite out of crime tastes much better!” Grunting, she shot forward with a wicked fist, pounding him in the snout at the same moment her instep connected a swift kick to the two furry ferrets dangling between his legs.

  He fell back and landed with a low groan, clutching his battered balls.

  The other wolferret was still struggling with the ever-tightening Justice Whip.

  The two gunless raterriers were scurrying away into the maze of shipping containers.

  Lady Liberty reached up and tapped the comm button on her masquerade mask. It had a direct link to Megapolis PD. Lady Liberty was on good terms with them. She informed dispatch of the escaping raterriers and called for backup.

  She turned her focus to Humongous.

  He was parked up on the third level of shipping containers, hiding behind his gatortoise bodyguards. The only way down was a 24 foot drop over the side, or down the ladders.

  Lady Liberty knocked the first one down on the ground level. Jumped up on top of the first container and knocked the second ladder over the side. Did the same to the third ladder. Jumped up to the fourth level.

  “Gorgus,” she said to the hippopossumas, her hands on her feminine hips in a heroic pose. “I thought I smelled river sewage.”

  “My reputation precedes me,” he snorted, glaring his beady eyes at her from where he hid behind his massive gatortoise bodyguards.

  They whipped their alligator tails in agitation. Compared to Lady Liberty, they were huge, but they were slow because of their thick shells. Bulletproof and the perfect Mutam-shields in a firefight, but no match for Lady Liberty’s speed. If they rushed her, she’d simply jump out of the way. They knew it and stood their ground, pistols in hand.

  Behind those three, the shipping container with the captive girls was open. Lady Liberty saw the girls up close for the first time. A mix of human girls and Mutam cubs of several different species.

  Lady Liberty scowled, “Trafficking your own kind now too, Gorgus?”

  “It pays the bills,” he chortled.

  She glared at him, “When did you start selling out your own people?”

  He snorted, “When your people paid a high enough price.”

  She cringed, not wanting to think about what that meant. Said, “This ends now, Gorgus. I’m putting you out of business.”

  “You and what army?” Gorgus snarled.

  The two huge gatortoises lumbered toward Lady Liberty, their reptilian eyes glinting with red menace.

  Just then, a fleet of Megapolis PD hovercars with flashing blue lights skimmed into view, passing across the top of the tallest wall of shipping containers to touch down on the open asphalt below.

  “That army,” Lady Liberty smirked and hooked a thumb over her shoulder.

  —: o o o :—

  I laughed to myself, “I think comic book Lady Liberty just became my new Waifu.”

  Then I continued reading.

  —: o o o :—

  Two hours later, Lady Liberty’s alter ego Lynda Lynch rode the high-speed elevator up to the 150th floor penthouse in the Skyspyre building where she lived in the crowded center of Megapolis. The Skyspyre was merely one of hundreds of mega-scrapers spiking the city’s sprawling skyline.

  Lynda had already changed out of her Lady Liberty costume in the secret subterranean garage in the sub-sub-sub basement of the Skyspyre where she kept her collection of vehicles. Supercars, superbikes, and a recently acquired military-grade hovercar, the Takata Tempestus R7. Top speed: 440mph.

  Hovercars were only owned by law enforcement, the military, and the mega-rich. Lynda was a little bit of the first, and a whole lot of the third.

  It hurt Lynda’s heart that Mutams like Gorgus were now trafficking Mutam cubs. It was bad enough the humans of Megapolis already treated Mutams like fourth-class citizens. It was worse that Mutams were now exploiting their own children just to turn a megacredit.

  It was only partially the Mutams’ fault. They made money where they could, which was crime more often than not. If a Mutam wanted to get ahead in life, crime was the only way out of the mutanimal slums.

  Lynda knew most of the blame for these abductions lay at the feet of the city’s mega-rich thrill-seeking human elite. They were always to blame. Money had a tendency to warp the minds of whoever had the most of it, and it always turned their tastes to the extreme.

  That Lynda was mega-rich constantly knotted her conscience. Unlike most elites, she used her resources to help whoever and however she could, fighting crime as Lady Liberty, and as the city’s preeminent philanthropist Lynda Lynch, who was notorious for helping both humans and Mutams in need. She was also an award-winning and trend-setting fashion designer.

  The elevator doors opened and Lynda stepped into her Penthouse Design Studio.

  Morning sun painted everything gold.

  Lynda’s staff was already bustling about, preparing the dresses Lynda had designed for this year’s new collection, which she would debut at the upcoming Megapolis Fashion Week in a few days.

  “Good moooorning, Miss Lynch,” singsonged Clementine Divine. She was Lynda’s pandalpaca house manager, a fluffy and loving mix of panda and alpaca. “You look smashing this morning, Miss Lynch! Absolutely smashing!”

  Lynda sighed, “Clemmy, how many times must I ask you to call me Lynda?”

  Clementine flashed a sarcastic grin, “One more than you like, Miss Lynch. May I take your coat?”

  “Thank you, no. I prefer to hang it myself. You know that. We both know you have more important things to do than hang coats.” Lynda shrugged hers off, a striking double-breasted A-line number of her own design, and draped it over her arm.

  Clementine smiled, “You always have been the picture of independence, Miss Lynch. A regular role model for young women of every stripe!”

  Lynda flashed her a smirk.

  Clementine chuckled jovially to herself at their little in-joke.

  Clemmy wasn’t just any house manager. She was like a second mother to Lynda. Lynda had never known either of her parents. They had died on holiday when Lynda was a baby. Clementine and the rest of the Lynch Family staff had raised her ever since. Clemmy was the only staff member who knew Lynda’s secret alter ego was Lady Liberty. Clemmy also knew one other key secret about Lynda.

  A secret that was far darker.

  Lynda was not her mother’s daughter.

  Lyn
da’s father’d had a mistress.

  A Mutam mistress, a Liger mistress.

  Lynda’s mutant birth mother was half mutant lion, half mutant tiger.

  Sadly, Lynda’s birth mother had disappeared shortly after the death of Lynda’s father and human “mother.”

  If Clementine knew what’d happened to any of them, she’d never told Lynda. But she had told Lynda about the surgery. At birth, Lynda’s ears and tail had been surgically removed, per her father’s orders. He hadn’t wanted his only daughter growing up as a fourth-class citizen.

  Lynda’d taken anti-Mutam hormones ever since. The illegal black-market hormones repressed the growth of body fur and whiskers, but they didn’t suppress Lynda’s catlike reflexes, grace, speed, or night vision. Lucky for Lynda, neither lion nor tiger had the slit-irises of house cats. No hormone was capable of hiding that.

  Lynda wasn’t the only Mutam-human hybrid in Megapolis who took such hormones. Mumams, as they were called. Outcasts from both human and Mutam society. A small number of other rich Mumams like Lynda were rumored to exist. If they did, they took hormones too, and hid among humans like Lynda did. Lynda didn’t know any personally, but if they existed, she knew they hid their true identities as carefully as she. Their privileged lives depended on it. If anyone ever found out the truth and reported Lynda to the authorities, she’d be forced to forfeit her fortune. By law, a Mutam wasn’t entitled to human rights. Mutams had their own set of lesser rights, including reduced inheritance rights. At death, every Mutam’s assets were stripped by the government and transferred to the state. Worse, if Lynda’s secret ever came out, she would also face prison time for committing the felony of impersonating a human.

  Lynda’s secret Mutam heritage and her bitterness about Mutam inequality were the main reasons she employed Mutam staff alongside her human staff. Her own silent rebellion. It also made her the only “human” elite in all of Megapolis to do so. The snarky gossip about her at the balls and banquets and in the electric tabloids was endless.

  “Animal trainer.”

  “Beast lover.”