Hero Force United Boxed Set 1

by Baron Sord

  The entire fire was now out, but I was burning hot.

  My skin felt ready to tear open from the excess energy. I was about to lift my arms for another energy release when I spotted a fire truck bouncing up the dirt trail a hundred yards away.

  I ducked down immediately.

  The fire crew jumped off and began systematically unloading hoses and locking them together as the captain eyed the burnt hillside, which was still smoking in several places. There wasn’t any fire left, but they would have flare-ups to watch for.

  I could’ve handled them myself, but I needed to leave.

  Except, shit. My clothes lay in the dirt near the fire crew. I couldn’t run to get them without being seen. Kind of hard to miss the naked guy running at you with ashes up to his knees. Can you say arsonist?

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait for the firefighters to leave. My skin was itching like crazy from the heat energy. I needed to get rid of it more than I needed my clothes, but I needed to dump it someplace no one would see.

  I scanned the mansions in the neighborhood below, looking for options. The nice thing about rich houses in San Diego was they all had big swimming pools.

  Crouching low, I picked my way down the hillside toward the house with the biggest pool, ducking behind as many smoldering black bushes as possible along the way. It didn’t take long for me to disappear behind a ridge that blocked my view of the firefighters.

  At the bottom of the ridge, I hopped a stucco wall and dashed across a huge and grassy backyard. It had a grotto, a gazebo, and a putting green. I was surprised it didn’t have its own 6-hole golf course. Place was huge.

  As was the blue pool.

  I dove in the deep end and let go of my stored heat, causing a huge volume of water to vaporize instantly. This created an immense bubble the size of a van that exploded around me and blasted upward in a volcanic column of super-heated vapor. The force of the blast also kicked a huge volume of liquid water out of the pool and onto the deck, causing a tremendous splash.

  Despite the fog of lingering steam, I could see I was standing in the deep end of the pool, but the water only went up to my waist. At least half the pool water was gone, some converted to steam, but most having sloshed out onto the deck where it drained into the lawn or water-falled back over the stone coping and splattered loudly into the bowl where I still stood.

  Damn.

  That was one big blast.

  Oops.

  Hopefully the force of it hadn’t cracked the pool.

  How much did it cost to fix a cracked pool?

  My guess was more money than I’d make in a month. It was a huge pool. Oh well. The owner should be thanking me for saving their house from burning down because of the wildfire.

  Cracked pool courtesy of—

  Wildfire!

  I was quickly learning this superhero thing never went as smoothly as it did in the comics.

  With a smirk on my face, I jumped out of the pool and landed gracefully on the edge of the deck. Talk about vertical leap. Whether it was jumping 10 feet out of a pool or 30 feet over the El Cajon Blvd sign, I was ready for the NBA. I could play for the Miami Heat. Their logo was a flaming basketball.

  Wildfire!

  A shrill voice ripped through the steaming fog:

  “ARE YOU CRAZY?! LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY POOL!” The voice was female and had the sort of indignant rage that only a cranky cockatoo could produce. The woman was a shadowy silhouette hidden by the steam clouds, her shape less birdlike and more cowlike.

  Two squat male silhouettes shadowed the steam behind her, both of them carrying brooms or sticks. Make that a hunting rifle and a shotgun.

  “That’s him!” Golf Pants yelled as he emerged from the fog. “The one who started the fire!”

  Blue Swimsuit yelled. “Get inside, Mrs. Bovil! Before he tries to set you on fire too!”

  Set her on fire? These two were looney. I turned and ran across the massive lawn.

  Heard a shotgun cocking.

  BLAM!

  “My birds of paradise!” Mrs. Bovil shouted.

  To my right, a large bush topped with those bird-headed, orange-crowned, and blue-beaked flowers disappeared in a spray of green debris.

  I didn’t stop to mourn the loss.

  Completely naked — save for my ninja mask, which was somewhat intact — I went right over the stucco wall and into the next yard. From there, I made my way to Arnold’s Prius. Streaked the entire neighborhood on my way there. Luckily, most everyone who lived around here was at work or school.

  No one to witness The Masked Streaker.

  At the Prius, I grabbed the keys off the back tire and jumped in. Took the empty Starbucks cup from the cup holder and put the cup over my junk before driving home. Good thing I had bought a Grande.

  What I should’ve done was brought an extra set of clothes.

  Next time.

  I was figuring this out as I went.

  But I knew one thing already:

  Wildfire!

  Damn right.

  —: Chapter 22 :—

  “Oh man, this tastes better than pussy,” Arnold moaned around a mouthful of chimichanga burrito like it was the greatest burrito he’d ever eaten.

  I smirked, “Do you even know what pussy tastes like?” I was pretty sure he didn’t.

  He smiled from ear to ear, his mouth covered in red salsa, and said, “No, but if it tastes like this, it’s gotta be the bomb.”

  I laughed and handed him a napkin, “Here. Wipe the pussy off your face.”

  Chuckling, he wiped away the salsa.

  There was a mountain of various burritos, tortilla chips, and different salsas on the coffee table in the main house living room.

  We were both chowing down.

  KOSD-6 news played on the big plasma TV.

  Tanner Landry chattered away, “Hollis Yates, a Santee resident, was left paralyzed after being attacked in an Egger Highlands parking lot Wednesday. Prior to the incident, an unidentified man pulled a young boy out of harm’s way. After, in an astonishing display of strength, surveillance camera video shows the unidentified man pulling the back gate off of Mr. Yates’ pickup truck.”

  On screen, pixelated and faraway camera footage showed everything.

  A wave of nausea washed over me and I forgot all about the wad of delicious fish burrito in my mouth.

  “Oh, shit!” Arnold blurted when he saw Bitch Boots deck me in the video. “That guy got dropped!” Arnold didn’t realize I was the dropped guy.

  I grimaced with disgust. Wait till he saw what happened next. I had intentionally forgotten to tell him all about it.

  In the video, I punched Bitch Boots in the back and he crumpled.

  “Payback’s a bitch!” Arnold cheered. “Talk about a solid right! That guy has a cannon for an arm.” He turned to me, eyes agleam. “Did you see that?”

  “Oh, I saw it all right.”

  The video cut to EMTs strapping Bitch Boots, aka Hollis Yates, to a stabilizing board, then lifting him onto a stretcher and wheeling him into the back of the ambulance.

  Seeing him paralyzed and strapped down brought it all home.

  I had done that.

  Tanner Landry said, “In what one surgeon described as a one-in-a-million shot, the attacker shattered the bones in the spinal column of Hollis Yates, severely damaging the nerves of his spinal cord. Despite being rushed to nearby Chula Vista Medical Center, there was little surgeons could do. Mr. Yates was told by doctors that he will likely never walk again.”

  At least Bitch Boots wasn’t dead. That was something.

  Landry continued, “Although Mr. Yates was the victim, he has a criminal record and will be charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault for initiating the altercation. The San Diego District Attorney’s office also issued a warrant for the arrest of the unknown attacker.”

  My only saving grace was that I had not been wearing my ninja mask. I had unintentionally left it on the dash in Arnold’s Prius. O
therwise Tanner might be blaming The Masked Jumper for paralyzing Bitch Boots.

  A video clip played, showing Max Garrison, the San Diego district attorney. He wore a politician’s business suit. His slicked back hair had as much if not more attitude than his suit.

  Garrison stood outside the Hall of Justice downtown (that was the actual name). Speaking to a KOSD-6 reporter, Garrison said, “A crime is a crime. You can be a good guy one minute and a bad guy the next. I’m sure the Ortega family is grateful the assailant came to their aid, but I’m equally confident Mr. Yates would like the use of his legs. This is a brutal crime. To let it go unpunished would be a miscarriage of justice.”

  The camera cut back to Tanner Landry in the studio. “San Diego Police ask anyone having any information about the unknown attacker to please come forward.”

  A graphic filled the screen. It showed the direct phone number for the Southern Division of the San Diego Police Department, and below that, the San Diego District Attorney’s office.

  I sat hunched over with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, trying to pull my own hair out.

  Arnold muttered, “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  With grim sarcasm, I said, “What tipped you off? Ripping the truck gate off with my bare hands or paralyzing a man for life with one punch?”

  Arnold stared at me vacantly, almost like he didn’t believe what I was saying. He looked quietly away and picked up the remote. He rewound the news on the DVR.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I need to see that again,” Arnold muttered.

  “I don’t. It’s horrifying. Once was bad enough.” I shot to my feet. “I don’t want to watch this.”

  “Sit down,” Arnold commanded.

  I sighed and sat down.

  To my surprise, Arnold didn’t rewatch me hitting Bitch Boots in the back. He rewatched what happened before that. “He sucker punched you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he attacked that woman.”

  “And almost killed her kid.”

  “You were protecting them.” Arnold’s voice was quiet and calm.

  “But I didn’t need to punch the guy. You heard the district attorney. I could’ve easily pulled that asshole off and wrestled him to the ground instead.” My guilt was eating me alive from the inside out. First I had killed Ice Statue. Now this.

  “So what?” Arnold said. “It’s not your fault he punched you or hit that woman. If he hadn’t started it, you wouldn’t have hit him. Simple as that.”

  “Yeah, but I broke his truck. He had every right to be pissed. Then I broke his back.”

  “Are you insane?! That guy is an asshole! He deserved it!”

  “That’s not how the DA sees it. Or the police.”

  “Fuck the DA. And fuck the police.”

  I smirked, “Okay, NWA.”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “Yeah, what about the warrant for my arrest?”

  He waved a hand. “The video is too pixelated. I can’t even tell it’s you. It could be anybody.”

  “Yeah, but it was me,” I sighed.

  “I’m telling you, Doug. Do not worry about it. This wasn’t your fault.”

  I grimaced, not wanting to argue further.

  “Put it out of your mind, Doug. You’ll be glad you did.”

  I didn’t bother to say that would be impossible.

  “This one’ll stump you, folks,” Tanner Landry tooted snootily on the TV, sounding like the bastion of banality that he was. “In yet another instance of internet misinformation, here at News Six we just found an alarming video. Remember that brush fire near Rancho Jamacha we reported at the top of the hour?”

  “That was terrifying,” Colette Spears offered.

  Tanner nodded at his cohost, “It certainly was.”

  “Any word yet on who set the fire?” Colette asked Tanner.

  “Not yet. But we just discovered an anonymous video on the internet claiming to show who did.”

  “Really?” Colette said with genuine surprise.

  “Uh huh,” Tanner nodded. “Now folks, I have to warn you, this is the video exactly as it appears online. You will note that it runs backward.”

  “Backward?” Colette asked, her brows knit.

  “Backward,” Tanner affirmed. “The unknown uploader apparently reversed the video before uploading it, claiming it captures the arsonist setting the fire. We’ll play it for you backward first, then we’ll play it forward.”

  The clip was shot from far away and from a down angle That meant it had been shot from up on the hillside. Had that flash of light I had seen been the camera of whoever had recorded this?

  Probably.

  I should’ve gone up to check, but I had been too busy tending to the wildfire.

  Wildfire.

  Note how I said it with a disappointed down note.

  The good news was, as the clip played, you couldn’t make out my face at all. It was way too small. But you could see I was naked and wearing a black mask.

  Someone had pixelated out my hip area.

  Probably KOSD-6.

  The backward-playing clip showed me seemingly making black and charred bush stumps burst into flame with my bare hands as I grabbed one after another, all while walking strangely backward from one to the next. To my eye, the motion was obviously reversed.

  “Holy shit!” Arnold gasped. “This is you too?”

  “Yup,” I grinned at him. Putting out that brush fire was something I felt decidedly good about.

  Wildfire!

  “Doug!” Arnold marveled. “You’re a secret celebrity! Two news stories about you in the same hour! We need a press release or something!” He laughed, “You’re getting more famous by the minute!”

  I chuckled, “I guess so.”

  Tanner Landry said, “Now folks, we’re going to play the video forward. The way it actually happened. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Colette chortled, “I already don’t believe it. What is a naked man doing starting a brush fire?”

  “He wasn’t starting it,” Tanner corrected her.

  I thought with good cheer: Go, Tanner!

  He said, “According to the San Diego Fire Marshal, this man was putting it out. Just watch.”

  Now the video played forward and I was clearly extinguishing the flames by extracting the heat. The fire flowed into my hands or snaked around my legs and disappeared.

  “I can’t believe my eyes,” Colette gasped.

  “As far as we know,” Tanner said, “this is yet another amazing display of bizarre behavior from the man who we here at KOSD-6 believe is the very same unidentified San Diego man who also extinguished a car fire at San Diego Comic Con only a week ago.”

  Colette said, “They’re the same man?”

  “So it would seem,” Tanner said.

  “Does anybody know who he is?”

  “No one has come forward as of yet.”

  “I just can’t believe it,” Colette laughed. “I really thought that thing at Comic Con was a stunt. Then we had the Masked Jumper a few days ago. Now we have the Naked Human Fire Extinguisher?” Colette chortled. “Is there any chance they’re the same man? The Masked Jumper and the Naked Human Fire Extinguisher?”

  “NO!” Arnold shouted as he jumped to his feet and screamed at the screen. “No, no, NO! Not the NAKED HUMAN FIRE EXTINGUISHER! And not the Masked freaking Jumper! His name is Wildfire, you dimwit! He’s motherfucking WILDFIRE! I mean, he put out an actual wildfire today! How can you not make the connection? What is wrong with you people!” Arnold bent down, grabbed the wadded ball of aluminum foil that his burrito had been wrapped in, and threw it at his TV. It hit Colette Spears in the eye before bouncing off harmlessly. “I’d like to spear her, and that’s not a euphemism for sex. I mean spear her in the head with an actual spear so I can watch all the air leak out when her air-head deflates like a balloon.”

  “Wow, Arnold. I didn’t realize you hated her
so much.”

  “What’s not to hate about that blue-eyed gas bag? She was the one who named you the Masker Jumper! Now this? The Naked Human Fire Extinguisher?” Arnold snarled sourly. “She keeps coming up with the dumbest names! We need to do a press release, Doug. For real. Let the world know your name isn’t the Naked Freaking Fire Extinguisher! Or the Masked Freaking Jumper! I mean, what’ll she think of next? Backwards Man? Or how about Doctor Rewind! Jesus Christ!” Arnold threw his hands in the air like the world was coming to an end.

  All I could do was laugh.

  Scientific Fact #14: ignorant bullfrogs always laughed when the heat got hotter. Reason being, they never knew when the pot was about to boil over. If someone were to simply warn them that heat was hazardous to their health, they might jump out before it was too late.

  —: Chapter 23 :—

  The candle burned.

  Kristy held her palm over the flame.

  For a really long time.

  It didn’t hurt at all. It was warmish, but that was it.

  How’d Doug done it? How’d he eat the heat from that burning car and shoot it back out of his arms last week?

  Hmm.

  What if you needed more fire than one candle?

  Kristy tried every candle she had here in her apartment at the same time, which was a dozen. She tied them together with thread and stood them up on her dinner table and lit them.

  Held her hand over the flames.

  Nope, nothing. Not even hot.

  She wasn’t getting anywhere. No matter how hard she concentrated, she couldn’t eat any heat. Desperate, at one point she bit one of the candle flames. Only thing that did was put the flame out. It definitely didn’t burn her lips. The heat didn’t really bother her.

  What if the fire thing only happened when you were emotional?

  “Stupid flames!” she growled at the candles.

  Still nothing.

  She imagined Brock’s face burning in the middle.

  That made her mad for real.

  “Stupid Brock!”

  The flames flickered momentarily, then resumed a calm burn. They’d only flickered because of her breath when she’d shouted at them.

  That hadn’t worked either.

  Except now she was mad.