Super Sales on Super Heroes: Book 2

by William D. Arand

  Felix pivoted as he went, sighting his rifle at who’d called out.

  There were several people all clustered together. Pulling the trigger as he ran across the street, Felix managed a decent spray towards the group. Two dropped immediately and a third dove to one side.

  Felix felt his toes catch on something and he almost went sliding to the asphalt. Getting his feet back up under him with only a minor bobble Felix ducked into the destination alley.

  “Gonna need a rear action,” Felix said to Adriana. “I dropped two, and one got away. Might be friends coming.”

  “On it. Keep them moving. Tell Steve we need to break contact,” she said, pulling a grenade from her rigging and stopping in her tracks.

  “Steve, we need to break contact. Throw us down a different alley if possible, and then another. We can keep on a parallel track!” Felix shouted up to Steve.

  After that, the only thing Felix could hear was the sound of the faith battle fading away behind them. That and the stomp and crunch of booted feet echoing over and over.

  From the rear there was a single explosion. One that Felix assumed had to be a grenade.

  Turning down an alley to the left, Steve led on, moving according to the command he’d been given.

  A moment of fear slammed into Felix’s thoughts as he realized Adriana hadn’t caught up yet.

  Slowing down, he started to turn around.

  Right as Adriana caught up to him with a grin.

  “Darling, were you slowing down?” she asked excitedly. “For me? For an Other?”

  Picking up his speed again, Felix glanced over at her. “Other, Prime, either, you’re still Adriana. You’re worth no less than Prime, it’s just easier to bring you back,” Felix huffed out between heavy footfalls.

  “Nn… when I tell Prime she’s going to insist on rewarding you,” Adriana said, her cheeks coloring faintly.

  She can blush while she runs and isn’t even out of breath? Beastkin are crazy.

  He was so caught up in this brief exchange, he ran right into Julia and practically went up her back with the force of the impact.

  Tumbling to the ground, he ended up on top of her, her face pressed into the ground.

  “Damnit, Felix. I’m not your bed toy. Get off me,” Julia grumped, pushing him off her.

  “Sorry, Julia. I’m not cut out for this.”

  Getting up to his feet, Felix looked up to try and figure out why everyone had stopped.

  There, in the middle of what had once been a very large park, was a military encampment.

  Sprawling in every direction, it was a haphazard arrangement of thrown together buildings, lean-tos, and tents.

  There were people everywhere inside. Moving about on tasks, lazing around, or engaged in other diversions. Even from here Felix had the impression of it being a dirty hellhole of a place.

  Skipper’s flag hung limply in the wind at the center atop a larger building. There in the middle of it all was a series of put together buildings that had more permanence to them.

  “What the hell is it?” Katy asked.

  “Processing center,” Derek said. “It’s… it’s where Skipper sends people. To be recruited, killed, or… or simply become entertainment. I heard from a couple people about it. Those patrols we saw were out looking for people. If they found what they wanted, they headed back. They only knew about it because a few people managed to escape and talk about it. Apparently a lot of this place is underground. Dug out into maintenance tunnels below the park.”

  “Great. We’ll wait till nightfall and just go around it. With them being there, that means all eyes will be on them, and not us. We might just make it to the other side without a problem,” Felix said.

  Perfect.

  “Why can’t we help them? I bet if I used some of my powers I could get in, get out, and be done quickly. We could save them all,” Eva said.

  “To what end? It’s not like we can take them with us. We’d only be giving them a brief window to flee, and probably be recaptured,” Felix said, shaking his head.

  “So? That’d be better than the chance they have now, wouldn’t it?”

  “Eva. They’re not Legion. Legion first. We can’t—”

  “Why? Why is it always and ever Legion first? Don’t you care about them at all?”

  “No! I don’t. Not at all. They’re strangers to me, and this isn’t some made up fantasy story about how the heroes save the day! This is real life, and real life doesn’t work that way!” Felix said, his voice getting heated with the exchange.

  Her morality and ideals were a positive in his life, but right now, they were sorely pressing him.

  This suicidal need to help others is inconvenient, to say the least!

  “Felix, we can hel—”

  “No. And that’s that. We rest here, stay till nightfall, and then move forward when it gets near one a.m. or so. The end. I’m sorry,” Felix said. “We have a lot of people counting on us getting back safe and sound. We owe these people nothing in comparison.”

  “Damn right,” Julia said, squatting down right there and pulling her pack off her shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” Steve said, looking at the camp. “If she could—”

  “Discussion is over. You bleeding hearts are going to get us all killed,” Felix muttered.

  Chapter 33 - The Price -

  Felix woke up gradually. His head felt full and empty at the same time.

  Not enough sleep. Need more sleep. Can barely think.

  Forcing his eyes open, Felix tried to focus on his surroundings.

  Right, the alley. Skipper’s fort. Is it time to go?

  Julia was on his left, Adriana on his right. Across the way the rest of the group lay curled up and sleeping. Derek should be around the corner on guard duty with instructions to get everyone up and moving when the only wristwatch between them all said one a.m.

  He wasn’t sure, but it felt like about the right time to get going.

  “Derek,” Felix whispered, getting up from the ground.

  There was no response.

  Moving as quietly as he could, since there was no reason to wake anyone yet, Felix crept towards where Derek should be.

  Turning the corner, he found Derek sitting right where he should be.

  Except he was sleeping. Chin down on his chest and snoring away.

  Grumbling to himself, Felix made his way over and shook Derek gently.

  “Hey, wake up. We should probably get going,” Felix said.

  Derek lifted his chin up. “Wuuuh?”

  Frowning, Felix leaned in close to Derek’s face.

  His eyes were dilated. Huge, even.

  “You alright?” Felix asked.

  “Feel shick. Think Evash drink ish bad,” Derek gurgled out. Then he promptly turned to one side and threw up.

  Eva?

  Spinning on his heel, Felix stalked back to where everyone was sleeping.

  Checking over each person, he felt his blood run cold when he realized there were two people missing.

  Steve and Eva were both gone.

  Goddamnit!

  Peering at the distant encampment, Felix had a pretty good idea of where those two had gone.

  Gritting his teeth in frustration and anger, he went back to Julia and Adriana, waking them.

  “Time to get up. We’ll need to be ready to move,” Felix whispered as he got them both to open their eyes.

  Once it was clear they were up and moving, Felix slunk to the other side of the alley and proceeded to do the same.

  When everyone was up and getting ready, Felix set about getting his kit together.

  “Eva’s missing,” Adriana said. There was no real question in her voice. In fact, Felix didn’t even detect the unspoken question of where they went.

  Felix nodded his head before realizing not everyone would be able to see it.

  “Yeah. Her and Steve. I imagine they’re in Skipper’s fort over there. Not much we can do about it either, excep
t be ready to go,” Felix said, cinching up a strap.

  “Huh. Let’s just go,” Julia said from his left. “They made their choice, they can catch up later, can’t they? She’s a powered after all. Right?”

  Not exactly wrong but… this is Eva.

  “We’re not leaving without her,” Adriana said from his other side. “We’ll wait for her here. I’m sure they’ll be back in no time at all.”

  And at that moment, it was obvious she’d jinxed it. The sound of a single gunshot rang throughout the fort.

  Followed by a whole lot of gunfire and a small detonation.

  Everyone looked to the camp as the sound of gunfire continued.

  Damnit. Damnit!

  “You’re all free to decide what you want to do. Stay here, fend for yourself, come with me, whatever. I’m going in for her,” Felix said. Chambering his rifle, Felix set off at a trot to the fort.

  Damn you, Eva. I’m going to flog you and give you to Victoria to train in a mountain range for a decade.

  Closing in on the fort, the sound of screaming, yelling, and people shouting could be heard through the din of the gun battle.

  A Skipper soldier stumbled out of a tent, and went down almost as suddenly as he appeared.

  Julia had appeared on his left in that moment. And not only had she joined him, but she’d taken the first shot.

  Reward that loyalty later. Heavily.

  “I told the others to go around,” Julia said. “Take Derek and clear the alley on the other side of the fort. Give us an exit route.”

  Drown her ass in rewards.

  Adriana snickered from his right, her easy gait, athletic grace, and feral beauty shinning through.

  “The one-time thug is earning her keep,” Adriana said. Felix saw the front of her rifle come up an inch or two. A burst of rounds exploded free of the muzzle.

  Off to one side, he saw two soldiers drop to the ground.

  “Don’t try to make a claim on my Felix though. I won’t kill you, but Miu might,” Adriana said.

  “Why does everyone treat this Miu as if they were a walking death machine?” Julia asked.

  “Because she is. Follow the sound of the battle and let’s keep out of sight when and as we can,” Felix said.

  Then they were in and amongst the tents.

  Shifting their speed to a swift walk, Felix kept tracking towards the sound of battle.

  As they got closer and closer, they started to see fallen bodies. At first there were wounds and corpses that looked like they’d been shattered or simply crushed.

  Super strength.

  As they got further from whatever had kicked this off, and closer to the battle, the wounds changed.

  Now the bodies had clear bullet wounds mixed in.

  Brass casings were everywhere in the grass. Glinting in the soft camp lights.

  “Up ahead,” Julia said.

  Focusing on what was directly ahead of them, Felix saw several soldiers taking cover behind crates.

  Lining his rifle on them, Felix pulled the trigger. Julia and Adriana did the same, and the enemy soldiers dropped in a hail of fire.

  Reaching the position the enemy had been holding, Julia made sure the enemies they’d shot were dead. A quick knife to the throat for each of them.

  Didn’t even bat an eye.

  Adriana set up on the cover, scanned the view, and hesitated.

  Looking out to the area in front of him, Felix paused.

  There were a number of Skipper soldiers throughout. All with their backs to them, staring down a concrete ramp that led downward into the ground.

  The gunfire was these soldiers simply firing blindly down into that ramp.

  Julia rested her weapon on the crate and took aim. “Light ’em up?” she asked.

  “Take left, work inward. Adriana, the right. I’ll start moving out from the center. On my first shot,” Felix said.

  Setting up carefully, he got in position and readied himself.

  Then he pulled the trigger on a woman straight out in front of him.

  Her clothes puffed out around her as the rounds struck her, and she dropped to the ground.

  Sighting up his next target, Felix pulled the trigger again.

  And again.

  And again.

  When it finally came time for him to change his magazine, there were only two targets left in his field of view.

  By the time he exchanged the empty with a fresh one, there was no one left to stand against them.

  “Move,” Adriana said. Standing up on top of the crates in front of them, she stepped over it and dropped to the other side.

  Before Felix could process it, she was off at a run.

  Julia slid over the crates leaving Felix alone behind cover.

  Right.

  Scrambling over the tops of the crates, Felix tried to catch up to the two women.

  They had to be quick. The goal was simple. Get Eva, get Steve, get the fuck out. Before the rest of the base could respond and lock them into place.

  “Friendly!” Adriana shouted down the ramp as she disappeared downward. “Friendly coming in!”

  Adriana rounded the corner and vanished around the bend. Julia was only a few steps behind her.

  When Felix managed to do the same he almost crashed into them.

  Eva was down on the ground on one knee, blood flowing out of what looked to be gunshot wounds. None of them looked fatal, but they looked freakishly painful.

  Steve was pressed up against a wall to one side, his rifle couched in his lap and wedged into his hip. He didn’t look very good either.

  “Grab ’em up, we’re out of here,” Felix said, turning in place and moving back up the ramp.

  There was a storm of gunfire that came down towards him. It felt like his leg exploded, and then went out from under him.

  Screaming, Felix went with the fall and did his best to roll down the ramp and back towards the turn.

  Concrete shattered around him as rounds impacted the ground and walls.

  Coming to a stop at the edge of the corner, Felix felt someone grab his leg and yank him back around the turn.

  Adriana squatted down over him and grabbed his leg. She deftly ripped his pant leg open, revealing flesh and blood.

  Sucking in a breath she pulled the fabric free and cleared the area two inches above the problem area.

  To Felix it didn’t look like one bullet wound, but several.

  Reaching for his belt she started to unfasten it.

  “I don’t think this is the time or place,” Felix said.

  Adriana gave him a ghost of a smile and looped the belt around his leg just above the bloody mess, and then yanked on it till it was tight.

  Shifting it around until the buckle was on the side of his leg rather than above the wound, she pulled on the tongue of it.

  She expertly tied it into itself and gave it a tug to test it.

  “Your leg is done. That’ll keep you up for around two hours but… we’re on a timer now,” Adriana said, her face turning a pale white. “Lose the leg if we wait too long, maybe bleed out if we remove it.”

  Eva was staring at him from a few feet away. Her regeneration power must have been active, because the wounds she had were closing up.

  “Felix, what are you doing here? Why?” she asked.

  “Because you fucked up and got caught. And if I didn’t come to get you,” Felix said, sitting up, “then I’d never forgive myself. I hope your goddamn bleeding heart morality doesn’t cost us all our lives though. Did you even manage to free them?”

  “No… they… someone shouted for the guards when they realized we were freeing them. One of the prisoners did. I don’t… why?” Eva asked, her voice tight.

  “Because people are the best and worst things about our world. Someone probably didn’t want to give up the power they had over other prisoners. This isn’t a fairy tale. Remember? It’s life. When we’re done here, I think maybe it’s time you got a real world education,” Fel
ix said. Levering himself up on one leg, he pressed his shoulder up to the wall.

  Julia slipped in under his arm and pulled his around her side. “Come on, let’s head back a bit. It’ll only take a genius to get a grenade launcher around the corner.”

  Adriana grabbed Steve by the back of his vest and began dragging him along behind her as she followed Julia and Felix.

  “Broken ribs,” Steve panted out. “Something…wrong. Hard to breathe,” he said in a strangled voice.

  “Stab wound?” Adriana asked, not bothering to check him.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe a punctured lung. You’ll be alright for now so long as you’re not bleeding into it. If you are, you’re probably already done,” she said clinically.

  “Great,” Steve wheezed.

  “I’m so sorry, Felix,” Eva said, wringing her hands together, getting in front of him.

  “Shut up and watch behind us. Use my rifle if you lost yours. Worry about your self-righteousness later,” Felix grumped.

  Looking crestfallen, Eva bobbed her head quickly. Taking his rifle she moved back behind them.

  “That was a bit cold, darling,” Adriana said after Eva got further away.

  “And the world is cold. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re probably going to die down here.”

  “Nn. All the more reason to be kind to her.”

  “Don’t be a dick-bag, boss,” Julia said, agreeing with Adriana.

  Sighing, Felix fell silent. He didn’t want to talk about it right now.

  Julia dropped him down into a chair next to an old laptop and a corpse. Taking her weapon in hand she started to move things around from the nearby areas to create some shelter and cover.

  Adriana laid Steve out next to Felix and then checked on his leg again.

  “That bad, huh?” Felix asked, watching Adriana’s face. She had a pretty solid poker face, but when you spent almost every day with the same people, you tended to learn their mannerisms.

  Her ears laid flat to her head and she froze, looking up at him.

  “Yes… darling. It is. We need to get you out of here.”

  Unable to keep himself from grimacing, Felix thought hard on the situation.

  There wasn’t much they could do. He didn’t think there’d be an exit out of the tunnels. They were pre-existing and he doubted Skipper’s people really wanted to provide a way in or out of the fort.