Super Sales on Super Heroes: Book 2

by William D. Arand

  “You do not have the number of warriors needed to defeat them. You offer something that you don’t have.”

  “Don’t worry about that part. I’ll need a yes or a no, and your signature. Wait, do you even have a written language?” Felix asked, halfway to pulling out a sheet of folded paper he’d prepped in advance.

  Hern had the look of someone listening to a crazy person.

  “Right, no written language. A thumbprint worked for Erica so, let’s try that. How do you feel about a blood-oath?” Felix asked.

  “Fine. And what is this blood-oath needed from me and mine? Would you have me become your property to simply avoid becoming their property?” Hern asked.

  “Honestly, it’s simply a straight alliance with nothing promised other than mutual defense and cooperation. By my honor, that is all,” Felix said.

  “And you’d put your own blood-oath mark on it?” Hern asked.

  That’s new.

  “I would be willing—”

  Hern pulled a small knife from his belt and cut it across the ball of his thumb. He then promptly pressed his thumb to the paper, while holding the knife out hilt-first to Felix.

  Taking the knife, Felix eyed it for a second, then repeated the same action Hern had.

  “Michael, I took the liberty of getting you a battalion worth of Security. The attached mechanized unit was activated as well. I need you to take the field and protect our new allies,” Felix said, looking to the local force commander.

  “Understood. ROE?” Michael asked.

  “One warning, then engage until they break. Don’t chase. No limit on amount of force inside of conventional means,” Felix said. “Dismissed.”

  Michael saluted, out of habit or reflex Felix wasn’t sure, and went off towards the portal gate.

  Hern looked between Felix and Michael, and then decided to follow the soldier.

  Felix couldn’t blame him, he was no warrior.

  The sound of booted feet announced an arrival from the portalway. Expecting the Security forces, Felix was surprised to find thirty Andreas dressed in full combat gear marching swiftly in his direction.

  An additional one dressed in corporate clothing walked along to one side of them, holding a messenger bag under an arm.

  They even had their own rankings and insignia on the collars.

  Coming to a stop in front of him, the lead Andrea looked up at him.

  “Adriana, reporting. Adriana Prime is with Andrea Prime in the ANet,” said the Beastkin.

  Right. Adriana. I need to change her hair color or something. Wait, would she even want to?

  “You’re in a defensive role. We’ll be rolling into a hot area. Victoria and Miu have both been activated as well. Coordinate with them for anything you need or want. Any questions?” Felix asked.

  The Adriana looked backwards towards the Beastkin arranged behind her, and back to Felix.

  “None.”

  “Great. As you will, then.”

  Every Adriana pulled up a shortened rifle to their shoulder, one Felix couldn’t identify, and racked it in unison.

  There wasn’t much to do until the mechanized units got here and loaded them all up.

  Somehow he’d convinced the Adrianas, Miu, and Victoria that he should be allowed to view the scene from the turret of the personnel carrier.

  Surveying the field, Felix found it was more or less what he expected. Hern’s people were living in buildings of wood, hide, and a few of stone.

  “They don’t even have a wall,” Felix said.

  “I don’t think a wall would have helped. If anything it would have drained resources,” Miu said. She was standing atop the personnel carrier just behind Felix.

  “Fair. Still… I can’t help but worry. What if this lack of foresight continues,” Felix said.

  “Then you’d correct that,” Victoria said, sitting on the edge of the personnel carrier on the other side. “Simple enough, really.”

  Michael had been working this whole time, setting up a number of heavy machine gun positions. They were traditional hard points with overlapping fields of fire.

  Each had been stagger stepped to provide coverage for the other, creating a funneling effect as well.

  It’d be a field of death.

  “You realize how silly this is,” Adriana said from inside. “I’ve been watching the feed from a UAV and this is nothing more than a berserker’s brawl. You’re putting up weaponry better used against a traditional army.”

  “I plan on making an impression. Michael has experience with heavy weapons, this is what he knows. Though I figure if he was in cavalry, he’d be asking for helicopters. Or tanks if he had been in an armored division. For here, this works perfectly. Massed enemies. Charging,” Felix said.

  “A bloodbath,” Miu said.

  “Speaking of. I need you to go ahead and work through their officers, leaders, or whoever they look to for direction. Wipe ’em out. Do a great job and I’ll let you off your leash in public with a mask from Lily,” Felix offered.

  He felt a little bad about making such a strange offer, but he’d use whatever carrot he could.

  “Done. Can I start now?” Miu asked, her voice cracking on the last word.

  “No. But you can go get ready if you w—”

  Miu vanished before he even finished talking.

  “She’s going to kill anyone who opens their mouth to give an order,” Victoria said softly.

  “Probably. But that’s what she’s good for.”

  “I’d say the lead elements will be here in under ten minutes,” Adriana called up. “Still only seeing melee combatants with simple weapons. They’ve finished up with the other tribe, and are sending everyone over this way. They’re not even stopping to pillage, loot, or anything. Surprising given their mentality.”

  Felix laid his hands flat against the metal, and rested his chin on them.

  Hurry up and wait.

  Truth didn’t match expectation though. As soon as the warriors saw Hern’s peaceful community, they started towards it at a sprint.

  “This should be short and ugly,” Felix said to no one in particular.

  Clearing the grasslands at a fast run, they ran onward towards Michael’s defenses.

  Later than Felix thought it’d happen, Michael apparently gave the word. The deep rapid chattering grunts of the machine gun positions opened up.

  Warriors in leather skins and naught but a hand-held weapon dropped as the scythe of bullets swept across the field.

  “Technically, this is a defensive action,” Felix shouted over the din of fire. “I’d say we’re well within our rights to protect our allies.”

  “I’ll make sure all the reports indicate that. Wouldn’t want this to be ruled a war crime in the history books,” Adriana called back.

  Well that’s rather dark, isn’t it.

  Then again, she’s not Andrea.

  A minute in, and the grass was only a foot high from the point that the machine gun line started.

  Nothing stood in that barren field.

  Man, tree, or bush.

  It’d all been cleared.

  “Is that it, Adriana?” Felix asked, looking down below him into the carrier.

  He saw an Andrea staring back up at him with her tablet in hand. She looked to the side, probably at the Adriana in front.

  “There’s a mass of them out of range on the other side. They’re all grouping up and… I don’t know. It looks as if they’re facing outward and talking to one another. Hard to tell from this angle.”

  “Probably Miu hunting them. I imagine she’s cornering anyone trying to issue orders,” Felix said.

  Straining to see into the distance, Felix didn’t manage to catch sight of anything.

  Almost too softly to hear, he picked up the faintest sound of chanting.

  Unbelievably though, it began to rise in volume. As if it were being shouted by far many more voices than were actually possible.

  “I think they’re chant
ing,” Adriana said. “It… sounds like praying, but I don’t know their language. But it has that same kind of quality to it.”

  “Why would they be praying?” Victoria asked.

  “Not sure. Maybe it’s part of their culture?” Felix asked. “Pretty loud though. It doesn’t… feel right.”

  A crack of lightning came down out of the air from a clear sky. It exploded when it hit the ground, and the ground rumbled.

  As the dirt cleared and Felix could see again, he was surprised to find a group of ten or eleven people standing side by side across the field from him.

  The radio in the personnel carrier crackled to life.

  “I can’t read them,” said the Fixer assigned to the mission. “And the brief snatches I get are strange. It’s all strange—”

  One of the people lifted an arm and a blue streak of light flashed out across the distance and hit the lead machine-gun nest.

  It exploded in a burst of white fire and rounds began cooking off.

  “Damnit. What is that?” Victoria asked, standing up.

  “—feels like something I’ve never felt before!”

  Felix thought about the possibility of changing the status of the person who’d just attacked. If he hypothetically owned them, what would their status be?

  Name: Abera

  Power: Mastery of Ice

  Alias: She of Frost; Ice Queen; War

  Secondary Power: Goddess

  Physical Status:

  Immortal

  Mental Status:

  Enraged

  Positive Statuses:

  None

  Negative Statuses:

  None

  Strength:

  4,200

  Upgrade?(40,200)

  Dexterity:

  3,900

  Upgrade?(30,900)

  Agility:

  5,100

  Upgrade?(50,100)

  Stamina:

  9,000

  Upgrade?(90,000)

  Wisdom:

  8,420

  Upgrade?(80,420)

  Intelligence:

  7,800

  Upgrade?(70,800)

  Luck:

  3,010

  Upgrade?(30,010)

  Primary Power:

  N/A

  Upgrade?(N/A)

  Secondary Power:

  N/A

  Upgrade?(N/A)

  “Holy shit it’s a god,” Felix said. “They’re all gods.”

  Abera, the Ice Queen, drew her arm back and threw another bolt of whatever it was. Another emplacement went up just like the first.

  How do you even fight a pantheon? And why is there a pantheon? What the actual f—wait. Wait wait. Don’t I have my own card? Maybe?

  If they’re listening?

  “Hey, I’m not sure if you’re listening,” Felix said aloud. “But if you want to collect on those two favors later, it probably won’t be possible if that Ice Queen over there tears my head off. And no. I don’t plan on withdrawing. I’ll be honoring my commitment to Hern.”

  “You’d force my hand then?” came a voice from nowhere and everywhere. It was masculine, and human sounding. There was an immense pressure in Felix’s head suddenly.

  Where Kit had been strong, she’d also been gentle.

  This presence was anything but. His mind was laid bare, stripped, and beaten.

  “You would. Annoying. And amusing. Right, then. You’ll not call on me in this fashion again. Ever. Or I’ll turn your head inside out,” said the voice.

  A shape appeared in front of the distant pantheon.

  A lone silhouette to battle a dozen.

  There was no sound.

  No movement on either side.

  Not even a discernible confrontation.

  The gods and goddesses lined up on the other side simply fell to their knees.

  Uh?

  Felix tried to do the same thing to this new arrival that he’d done to Abera. To see their status.

  To get anything at all.

  Don’t test me, Felix. Good try though.

  Do not interfere with the local beliefs. If anything, you’ll encourage them and their beliefs in their gods.

  Spare those who surrender.

  This situation is handled and done. Do not do anything like this again.

  If you do, I’ll destroy you myself, and turn your soul into toilet paper.

  As if they’d never even been there, the pantheon simply wasn’t there anymore. They were gone.

  The shadow silhouette disappeared as well.

  Chapter 23 - The Return -

  “Adriana,” Felix said, not wanting to lose the chance his nameless benefactor had given them. Ducking down into the carrier he met the lead Adriana’s gaze.

  “Get out in the far field and get over to the other camp. Let’s curtail any pillaging and looting before they get a chance. I need it done at a run, so take whatever mechanized units you need. Questions?” Felix asked.

  Adriana shook her head, getting up from her seat.

  “Oh, and Adriana… what do you think about changing your hair color permanently? Something to distinguish you from Andrea. I promise to treat the two of you the same, and you can always recombine later on, but it might be good to have at least one unique feature,” Felix said. His words had started to ramble a bit at the end. He wasn’t sure if he was making a situation out of something that wasn’t there.

  Adriana stared at him for a moment, then gave him a smile.

  “Nn. I think that… I think that’d be a good thing. Though I think we’ll choose brunette. We are, and are not, Andrea. I’ll discuss it with my Prime when I rejoin her,” said the Beastkin.

  “Good. As much as I love staring at you in that harness, you need to go get going,” Felix said, gesturing at the door.

  “Oh? I’ll let my Prime know that, too. Maybe she’ll wear it for you tonight.”

  Adriana slipped by him without another word, leaving him alone in the carrier.

  Huh. Those are two very separate personalities… long-term troubles maybe. As long as I treat them the same, I suppose, it isn’t my problem.

  Standing up, Felix found Victoria waiting. She opened her mouth and before she could get started, Felix held up a hand.

  “We’re staying here in the carrier. Adriana is going to go hit the other camp and curtail the pillaging, raping, and killing. I can’t imagine yonder warrior tribe taking their loss easily. They’ll take it out on the other one,” Felix said. Then he shook his head. “No. We’ll end this one here and now. We take the other tribe into the alliance, force them to work together with Hern, and banish the third. That doesn’t break any of the decrees that were set down.”

  “Decrees?” Victoria asked.

  Felix felt his stomach lurch. He didn’t really want to think about it if he didn’t have to.

  “Did you see a silhouette on the field? Right before that enemy conga line of gods vanished?” Felix asked, his voice soft.

  “Yeah. I did. It just… appeared. They all… knelt before it, it looked like.”

  “Yeah. They did. That silhouette is someone… or something… I owe some favors to for a change in my own powers I wanted. I kinda forced it to intercede here. It left me with a few commands I am quite loath to break,” Felix explained.

  Victoria nodded her head, looking out to the field again. “It sounds like the world is a scarier place than I thought it was,” Victoria said.

  Felix heard a chime in his ear signaling an incoming call.

  I had no idea we got reception on another planet. They must have put up some temporary signal relays or something.

  Reaching up to his ear, Felix tapped the button.

  “This is Felix,” he said.

  “What the heck just happened?” Kit asked him, sounding completely out of breath.

  “Huh?” Felix muttered. “What do you mean? Weren’t you watching the feed? That was the whole reason we outfitted so many people with cameras. You wanted them specifically for HR.�
�

  “I was watching! We even tried to record it. Every single camera has a blank spot. I could see when those people appeared, one started attacking, then the recording goes white,” Kit said, her tone curt. “Every. Single. Camera.”

  “And… did it come back on?” Felix asked. He had a sneaking suspicion but he didn’t want to believe it.

  “The cameras? They did, yes. They all turned back on as if there wasn’t even a problem. The people were gone and the field was empty,” Kit said. He could hear the loud thump of her sitting down heavily in a chair.

  “Well. Something did happen. It might be good if we waited for me to make it back to HQ to talk about it though. It might even be best to let you read it from my head and a few others. It’s… it’s honestly hard to explain.”

  Kit sighed from her end of the line. “I imagine so. Because that’s not all that happened.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m sending you a few clips of video. These happened minutes ago but are all over already. Watch them but don’t hang up. Your wrist terminal should be able to display them fine.”

  “Alright, alright. Send it my way then,” Felix said. Turning over his wrist, he opened up the display, flipped it to his email, and waited.

  Crap. Need to call Miu off before she murders her way all the way down to the peasants.

  Typing off a quick command into an email, he sent it Miu’s way. She was well outside of radio range he was betting. With any luck, the notification would catch her interest if the signal relay could get it out to her.

  Several video clips fed into his inbox. Opening the first one he cleared his throat. “So what is it I’m looking at here? While it loads, that is. Any type of—”

  “Just watch,” Kit said.

  “Fine, fine.”

  Biting down his impatience, Felix managed to wait quietly.

  The video blipped once, then turned on.

  It was a church service.

  He couldn’t recognize the religious iconography in the video on the walls. There was no point in guessing at the religion for Felix. He’d never had a mind for worship so there simply was no base knowledge for him to work off of.