Super Sales on Super Heroes: Book 2

by William D. Arand

  A man stood on a raised dais and was standing in front of a podium. Felix assumed the man was giving a very good sermon since he was being drowned out by applause.

  Finally noticing the look of horror on the man’s face, Felix realized it wasn’t applause.

  It was a grinding, shuddering rumble that was increasing in volume every second. To the point that it was simply too loud for the microphone on the camera to pick up anything else.

  Light began to shine from a symbol on the wall. One that was smaller than the others. It was dull at first, then it exploded into a blazing beam of scorching whiteness.

  The video cut out after that.

  “Was that a bomb?” Felix asked, moving to open the second video.

  “No. It wasn’t. In fact… the next two videos are the same, though one is from outside of a museum. A museum of religion,” Kit said.

  “Alright. I’m not sure what’s happening here. When did this happen exactly?” Felix asked.

  “A minute or two after the recordings blanked out.”

  That means that whatever my friend did here… affected Earth. But in what way?

  “Ok. I’m up to speed. But… what does it mean? Did anything happen afterward? I mean, did they just go back to normal?”

  “Yes… and yet no. A few religious leaders… exploded. A number of people simply died. Stranger still, some recovered from terminal illnesses and diseases. Some that they simply shouldn’t have been able to,” Kit said.

  “I… I don’t even know what to say to this. It doesn’t make any sense,” Felix murmured. He really didn’t either. None of it registered with him as anything that connected with what he knew.

  “Maybe it’d help if I told you that every single spiritualist, from the weakest clairvoyant, to the strongest necromancer… passed out. When they woke up, they were all changed. By and large, most of them are incredibly stronger than they were previously. Especially those devoted to religions or cults.

  “You know how Witches and Warlocks were believed to simply be a lower form of Magic or Wizardry?”

  “Yeah. Their magic was very similar, but it couldn’t put out enough power to be useful.”

  He’d actually looked into it at one point. Most of them used fairly mundane relics and simple beliefs to fuel their spells. Once he’d realized that it would only do enough to get him in trouble, Felix had dropped the study fairly quickly.

  “Every Witch and Warlock in our employ reported in. They experienced a massive upsurge in power.”

  “They did?”

  “Orders of magnitude greater. They also reported something else.”

  Felix was in a bit of a hurry and didn’t really have time to play this game, but he imagined Kit was enjoying herself.

  “Oh? And what’s that,” Felix said amiably.

  “Sorry, I know this bugs you. It’s just so exciting. They all reported that… that something reached out to them. Reached out to them and they suddenly felt complete. Whole. The spiritualists said something similar.”

  Something reached out to them?

  “This is a guess but… you said that they were gods that you saw? Gods and goddesses?”

  “Yeah. Apparently the enemy prayed and—oh. You think…?”

  “What I think is that in the tales passed down, priests were magicians of their own caliber. Before the non-human races appeared.”

  Frowning Felix looked up and out onto the bloody grasslands. His history was shaky at best.

  “Quite a few people thought it was the end of the world back then. I mean, the non-human races just appeared one day, and by all accounts, magic was at an all time low.

  “And now… we opened a portal to another world and all of the… the religions… woke up,” Kit said.

  “That seems pretty far fetched,” Felix said.

  “I would agree. Except that we actually have a priest or two in our ranks. They also reported similar events to the Witches and Warlocks,” Kit said. “And apparently, they got a more direct message.”

  “And that was?”

  “’We have returned.’”

  “That sounds ominous,” Felix said, feeling like he’d done something incredibly stupid.

  “That it does. Way to go there, Pandora. Let’s pray hope is still in the box. I can’t imagine gods from thousands of years ago being up on today’s morality and society. I’ve already notified Lily and she’s working to get whatever info we can. She still has contacts in the magical community after all.”

  Felix pressed his hands to his face.

  Everything kept getting more and more complicated.

  “I’ve got Jessica on the line,” Andrea said, looking up from her terminal.

  Felix closed his eyes and rubbed at them with his palms. It’d been a few weeks since the battle on Legion world. Election day was literally around the corner now.

  Tomorrow, even.

  Felix was feeling tired and run down at this point. He was quite glad for the governor race to be over soon. Win or lose.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “She said she linked up with Erica. They have some others from other stations they want to bring in. She’d like to schedule a meeting with you to go over it,” Andrea said.

  “Uh huh. And pump me for a story as well. Her career has really skyrocketed since we’ve been feeding her and Erica stories,” Felix muttered. Opening his eyes he blinked a few times, trying to get everything to come into focus.

  “They’re pretty,” Andrea said suddenly.

  “That they are. And I’m already with a lovely wolf Beastkin and her sister. Go ahead and schedule the meeting for today. I wanted to drop those stories off with her to sink the other candidates tonight anyways. I’ll pack things up and head over that way. I need to stop by Felicia’s lab first and see how things are rolling. She promised me a peek at the new Fist,” Felix said, standing up.

  “Nn!” Andrea said, her cheeks turning a faint red. “Adriana is happy… by the way. We joined briefly the other day. They’re happy being Adriana and our sister.”

  “Good. Off to see Felicia,” he said, leaving the ANet and entering the elevator.

  He’d taken to hiding here whenever he needed some time to himself. Few people would venture into the ANet floor willingly.

  Two Adrianas smiled at him as he passed by, watching him intently. Practically staring at him.

  They’re quite a bit more intense than the Andreas.

  A few minutes later and Felix couldn’t help but wonder if this had been a bad idea. Felicia had been excited to see him.

  Which made every inch of skin on his body crawl. She was never happy to see him.

  Unless she wanted something

  “Felix! Great timing. I wanted to talk to you,” Felicia said as she stumped over to him as he was cleared through security.

  “Oh? And what does my armorer need?” Felix asked, unable to help himself.

  “Eh? More people, honestly. But I wanted to talk to you about Legion’s Fist, and your points,” Felicia said. She smacked the back of her hand against his stomach and went in the opposite direction she came from. “This way. I want you to look at this.”

  Felix followed along. Unable to help himself he looked into every lab room, desk, and terminal he saw as he passed.

  Everyone was working on something. He could see prototypes, modeling, data points, even an entire meeting that looked like it was talking about testing protocol.

  “—ee if we can’t make upgrades simply based on your power! I mean, when we really dug into the original Fist we found a lot of things we’d never even considered. That’s why we tore it apart, put it back together, and then retired it,” Felicia said.

  “Huh. Yeah, that makes sense. I suppose we could see what the point cost is. No idea how much it’ll do or how far I can push it though. Some of that more subjective stuff gets weird,” Felix said.

  “Excuses already? You’re the naysayer today, are ya?” Felicia said.

  She slapped h
er hand into a panel next to a doorway. The door slid open and she made to enter immediately.

  “Come on then, come take a look at the Fist and let’s see what we can do,” Felicia said as she walked through the doorway.

  Felix followed along and stopped almost immediately just inside.

  It was bigger than the last one. At least double the size in fact. The weapons were similar, but sized up. There was even what looked to be a gigantic cannon sticking up over the shoulder and pointing skyward.

  How would you even use that?

  This new Fist was clearly designed for a battlefield, and not for a building.

  “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. This isn’t for going into buildings. Your normal armor is for that, and excels at it. Why create another tool that does the same thing?” Felicia said.

  Stopping in front of a console, she began typing something in.

  “White and I have been working pretty heavily on this one. We took a lot of his other work and built it in. Nanotech, rail guns, better energy sources, better alloys,” Felicia said.

  She typed something rapidly in and the Fist began moving.

  It was eerie how little noise it made as it lowered itself to the ground.

  The torso opened up, the lower half forming a stairwell, and the upper half moving out of the way. The cockpit inside looked as if the original one had been mirrored.

  He wasn’t quite sure how that’d work if he was supposed to control it as if it were his own limbs.

  “Similar helmet design to your armor. It feeds in, and responds, as if it were your body. We spent a lot of time getting it right,” Felicia said.

  “Am I that easy to read?” Felix grumped. Lately it felt like everyone knew what he was thinking as he thought it.

  Felicia stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him.

  “No. But we all talked to Kit about your thoughts once she got into your head. It’s… good to know you’re exactly what you say you are. Also easier to understand. Even if you are an ass.”

  Should have known. Not a problem, though. She’s not sharing anything I wouldn’t already tell them if they asked.

  “Good, I suppose. So… you want me to try to upgrade it?” Felix asked, starting to draw up what he wanted his popup to do.

  “Yep. I want you to more or less do what you did last time. We figured out a lot of things that would’ve taken us time to get to, and we would have, but time saved, ya know? So… more of the same,” Felicia said, facing him. She leaned up against the console and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Fine, fine. By the way, how are you and Ioana doing? I don’t get to see much of her. She’s always working,” Felix said.

  He focused on Legion’s Fist, trying to think back to what he did last time. He’d simply wanted it completed at the time. To be what it would be if they’d had the time to finish it.

  “We’re… we’re doing well. Too well. I keep expecting something to go wrong,” Felicia said after a moment.

  “That’s a silly way to look at it. Why predict a negative when you have no reason to? Focus on the now or lose it,” Felix said with a touch of anger in his voice.

  A number of people he’d met in his life had always focused on the problems. The concerns. The negative what ifs that could happen.

  They spent their lives worrying and complaining, instead of working to fix it.

  Ah, let’s do that then. Let’s apply that thought to this.

  Making that his driving thought, Felix wanted to see what the Legion’s Fist would be if Felicia and Mr. White had another year to work on it.

  To see the state of the mech at that point.

  Equipment(Legion’s Fist II): Build out extended by one year

  Warden Unit will be completed per specifications.

  Upgrade?(53,000)

  “Well. I got the answer. About fifty-three thousand points,” Felix said.

  “And what’d you do exactly?”

  “I wanted to see what’d it’d be like if you had another year to work on it.”

  “Huh. That’s definitely one way to look at it. Change that though. What would it look like if we upgraded it to the next version,” Felicia suggested.

  Nodding his head, Felix altered his desire.

  Equipment(Legion’s Fist II): Build out changed by one iteration.

  Warden Unit will modified by one development cycle.

  Upgrade?(112,500)

  “Damn. Jumped up to one-hundred and twelve. Give or take.”

  “Ok, go up another version.”

  Felix frowned and decided he’d humor her.

  Don’t exactly have that kind of point value, you know.

  Equipment(Legion’s Fist II): Build out changed by two iterations.

  Warden Unit will modified by two development cycles.

  Upgrade?(359,250)

  “Three hundred and sixty. Roughly,” Felix said, shaking his head. That was a massive point investment.

  “See, that’s a big point jump though. It isn’t a straight multiplication. Which means the development on that one is much bigger. Ok, do that one,” Felicia said, nodding her head.

  “Hah. And where do you think I’ll get those points? It’s not like th—”

  “Ah. That’s right, I haven’t told you. I’ve been converting some of my budget into gold. Right now I have enough for about a million points. This is what I want first,” Felicia said, waving her hand in the air. “Your point budget right now is at about one hundred, I’ll take up two-hundred and sixty of that on my own.”

  … Damn. I never even thought about doing that. That’s not a bad idea. Have departments turn their budget to gold to convert to points instead of straight funding.

  “I also told everyone else what I was doing the other day with my budget. I expect they’ll probably be doing the same.”

  “I would be, too” Felix admitted.

  “Alright. Do you have the gold handy or do we have to do some transfers?” Felix asked.

  Felicia looked back to the console and poked a button.

  “Oi, bring in two hundred and sixty thousand points worth of gold,” Felicia said, and then looked back to Felix with a wide grin. “I can’t wait to see what we would have made in the future. This’ll jump us ahead by years I bet.”

  Felix began turning gold into dirt as soon as the lab assistants started to cart it in. As soon as it was altered, the dirt was carted right back out.

  By the time three minutes had passed, Felix mutated enough gold to make economists twitch.

  And when it was all done, he only took a moment to pull up a window and make the upgrade.

  Legion’s Fist began to rapidly change in front of them.

  The design went from sleek lines to hard edges. Weapons melted and reformed themselves into vaguely similar designs, but clearly different.

  Overall, it was a similar design, but was clearly a different machine.

  “Yes, yes!” Felicia shouted, clapping her hands together. “I can’t wait to start poking around in it. Shit in my beer, is that a portal device on this thing?”

  Chapter 24 - Shakedown -

  Shaking his head, he couldn’t help but feel some mild amusement at Felicia’s excitement over the Fist.

  Felix’s wrist terminal made a deep chiming noise.

  One he hadn’t heard since he selected it as an option. It was a sound he knew intimately and had hoped to never hear it.

  Ignoring Felicia’s antics, he brought his wrist terminal up and tapped the flashing red indicator. It was an email from Dimitry, and it had only one word in the subject line, the body of it was empty.

  Hannibal.

  Taking a shuddering breath, he did his best to control himself.

  He needed to clear his head, to think, to be ready.

  Hannibal meant that Skipper was on the move. On the move and moving towards Tilen.

  Ok. First things first. Don’t panic.

  Emergency recall protocol. That’
s first.

  Even if this is false, we can use it as just another drill.

  Opening up a quick window with his power, Felix changed the status of Emergency Recall from deactivated to activated.

  Felicia’s wrist terminal chimed three times in succession.

  “What just happened?” she asked suddenly, looking at the recall notification.

  “Skipper’s on the move, I don’t know exactly in what way yet, but she’s on the move. For Tilen. I need to get to the ANet,” Felix said.

  Spinning on his heel he took off at a trot for the elevators.

  Next is confirmation and response.

  Pressing a finger to his earpiece call button, he held it down for five seconds.

  There was a notification chime that came over the PA system.

  “Emergency Recall is active. This is not a drill,” Felix said as he stepped into the elevators. “Code is Hannibal. I repeat, Hannibal. Response is Alpha-Alpha-One at this time.”

  The lights dimmed as power conservation went into effect. Red, blue, and green running lights went up along the walls in the labs as the building operators began activating the appropriate programs and systems.

  The elevator clanged as it went into a safety mode.

  Felix pressed his ring into the security panel made specifically for the Legion rings, and pressed the button for the ANet with his other hand.

  Lurching into motion, the elevator flew towards the designated floor, moving well past normal safety considerations.

  Feeling the pressure in his stomach, then his knees when it came to a rapid stop, Felix groaned.

  When the doors opened, he was greeted with the barrels of guns, and two angry looking dark-haired Adrianas.

  “Felix!” the one on the left said.

  “Get in,” said the one on the right, lowering her weapon and pulling him out of the elevator. “The Primes are waiting for you and they’ve received notification from Kit, Lily, and Victoria. They’re on their way. Miu and Ioana are on mission.”