We Could Be Heroes

by Harmon Cooper

  “And how many of these Fang shipments have run through the Knight Corporation?” Zoe asked. “I know you said that it was one of your sub-companies that has been handling it, but do you know how many have actually come through?”

  “Yes,” Helena said, her hands coming behind her back as if she were standing to address the Board. “There have been five shipments thus far, and this will be the sixth one. I found a way for us to cancel future contracts with them while I seek to restructure the way that we make these contracts. And at the same time, I will prevent this from happening again by doing what we’re doing right now, by exposing them. Or, I should say, allowing Mister Fist and his crew to expose them.”

  Zoe nodded. “What you are saying is you can’t simply expose them through a contractual way, nor do you want to go against the contract because of legal ramifications, so you have made an adjustment to the way your contracts are created, and you’re waiting for Mister Fist to do his job, so then you can really bring the hammer down. Am I interpreting this right?”

  “You may have a future career on a board of directors,” Helena said, trying to make eye contact with Zoe even though Zoe wouldn’t make eye contact back.

  “So then we wait,” Sam said, his nose twitching as he tried to interpret any smells coming in their direction. They were downwind, a perfect location to be, and he hoped the breeze stayed running in this direction.

  “Yes, we wait, and it could be a long wait, so I hope you guys are ready for that,” said Helena as she sat on the ground, her back to one of the walls. “We’ll take shifts.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three: I Don’t Think They’re Human

  (Good things come to those who wait, or something like that.)

  A lot can happen in four hours, forty-five minutes and fifty-two seconds.

  For one, there were matters of nature to attend to, the urge to piss coming every now and then, even though our four would-be heroes didn’t really have anything to drink.

  That was another thing that happened in four hours, forty-five minutes and fifty-two seconds—the team started to get hungry, thirsty, and for Ozella, a little sleepy.

  She had actually gotten some rest the previous night, but not enough to really do anything, and they had been pretty active during the day thus far, so there was no chance to slip in a little nap.

  Lance came at some point with bottles of water and protein bars, asking again why they were staked out in an abandoned housing development, and getting the same CEO response from Helena, letting him know this information was above his paygrade.

  They had already found a place to go to the bathroom, down the stairs and off in a corner, Sam choosing a curious hole in the ground, the ladies picking a corner that had less of a chance of having a snake bite their asses.

  Then there was the art of getting out of an exemplar uniform to tinkle, which was actually easier with two people around.

  Sure, someone could unzip it themselves, but unless they were extremely flexible like Helena, it could prove troublesome getting to the zipper, and there was always that part on a person’s back, between their shoulder blades, where it got stuck.

  (All of this accentuated due to the piss-poor pissing spot.)

  But this was superhero work, dammit, all of them could feel that in one way or another, each finding different points to take pride in, their minds wandering in different directions.

  Ozella’s thoughts centered around her power, and making sense of her ability to write something and get an answer.

  It was like the answer was at the back of her psyche, and writing it simply ballooned it into existence, but she couldn’t help but feel that there was more to it, even if some of the experiments she had already tried had failed.

  When not running surveillance, Helena was dealing with work-related issues over mental message and fired off no less than thirty-seven messages to Bryan King over the course of the four hours, forty-five minutes and fifty-two seconds it took for some action to kick up.

  Her immediate suspension of new contracts pending contractual review had gone over very well, and Bryan was doing everything he could to manage the situation in her absence, something which she appreciated.

  During their wait, Sam’s mind jumped between preparing himself mentally, and checking out the others in their superhero outfits. The ladies looked sexy as hell in their get-ups, and watching them move around, stretch, or come up and down the stairs always caught Sam’s eyes. He wasn’t proud of this, but he had checked each of them out at least a dozen times over the last four hours, forty-five minutes and fifty-two seconds.

  So he was bored?

  Yeah, sure.

  Lo and behold, Zoe had noticed Sam’s roving eye several times, making it a point to push her chest out just a little more, or slowly bend over rather than crouching down if she wanted to grab something off the ground or stretch.

  The tiger girl was still on best behavior, still in her “I betrayed everyone” mode, but Zoe would be Zoe, and there wasn’t a lot anyone could do about it.

  The four also had several long conversations over the span of four hours, forty-five minutes and fifty-two seconds, all of them growing quiet whenever they sensed something was about to happen, or they heard a sound in the distance.

  It was a long time to wait, but their patience paid off when a portal opened up, and Mister Fist and his crew appeared.

  Mister Fist was not only a strongman in his solid form, he was able to turn into a thick mist, which helped William Bottorf the duplicator and all his baton-wielding clones better attack their opponents.

  Plume, the fire user, was all offense, her powers also playing off Mister Fist’s and helping back up William, who was a close-range attacker. Then there was the telepath, MindLenz, the woman in a featureless mask, who would have complemented any team.

  Sam appreciated their powers, and how they complemented each other in various ways.

  After they took a quick look around, Mister Fist’s lower half went to mist form, his torso floating above it as the mist spread out while Plume rose into the air.

  Sam wouldn’t have known that MindLenz was scanning the area looking for thoughts had he not felt a small vibration on his telepath band, signaling that it was on, and actively working.

  Sam and the ladies were keeping low now, Zoe hiding in a dark corner, Ozella next to Sam, her knees to her chest, Helena crouching, watching the exemplar team.

  “What are they doing?” Ozella whispered to Sam.

  One look out the open window and Sam saw that Mister Fist and his partners were gone and a mist had descended upon the area.

  “Same thing we’re doing,” Sam whispered back, hoping like hell that Mister Fist and Co. didn’t plan to hide out in the mixed residential area. He held his breath for a moment, waiting to get some type of confirmation from either Zoe or Helena that the true exemplar team was hiding somewhere else.

  An answer finally came when Zoe finally nodded toward the top of one of the warehouses, her enhanced eyesight allowing her to see through the mist.

  “The duplicator, the telepath, and the fire lady; they’re all over there right now.”

  She dropped down next to Sam, her tail lifting in the air. Zoe was closer to him than she’d been at any point over the last few days, and he definitely felt a spark between them, but ignored it, his focus again returning to Helena, who was mostly hidden by shadow, only her head peering out.

  “Zoe,” she whispered, waving the tiger girl over.

  Zoe approached Helena, and they spoke for a second, too quiet for Sam and Ozella to hear.

  With a nod, Zoe silently made her way toward an open space, looking over to the residential building next to theirs. She took a running leap, and landed on the other side, almost silently except for the creak of a board.

  “What’s going on?” Sam whispered to Helena.

  “I noticed something in the mist,” said Helena. “She’s getting a closer look.”

  “This is crazy,” Sam sa
id, turning to Ozella for confirmation. The stat keeper nodded nervously, biting her lip until Dinah appeared, the nude ghost woman floating just a few inches off the ground, a faint smile on her face.

  Sam waved at Dinah, and she responded by lifting her own hand, offering him a short little wave as well.

  Zoe reappeared, a panicked look on her face.

  “It’s an ambush,” she said.

  “An ambush?” Sam whispered back.

  “There are dozens of them, all wearing black, and…”

  “What?” Sam asked, again peering into the mist.

  Zoe swallowed hard. “I don’t think they’re human.”

  ***

  Helena pointed at the mist, and Sam suddenly saw figures wearing all black moving through it.

  He was standing now, looking over the exposed window frame at the fight about to take place.

  If it was an ambush, it was a poor ambush, because all that mist was an actual person, and as William Bottorf’s clones started to appear, it became obvious that the men dressed in black were…

  Ninjas? Sam thought, knowing all too well what a ninja dressed like.

  Black outfits and black masks, and these guys were definitely doing some form of fighting that required years of training, easily taking out William’s clones. Yep, definitely ninjas, and if what Zoe said was right, they weren’t human ninjas.

  Which Sam didn’t quite understand, nor did he know how to interpret.

  Everything started to make sense when one of the ninjas leaped onto one of William’s clones, the ninja’s mouth cracking back, fangs growing from his jaw as he sank his teeth into the clone.

  “Vampiric ninjas? Are you kidding me?”

  He had read enough comics to know that ninjas were hard enough to handle, but adding vampirism to the mix only added insult to injury, with the threat that you would not only have your ass handed to you, but would also either be drained of all your blood after, or turned into one of the bloodsuckers.

  The vampire ninjas outnumbered the exemplars, the beings unaffected by MindLenz’s telepathic skills, and not really giving two shits if Plume’s flames raged off their bodies.

  Not all telepaths were created equal, and some had limited telepathic skills that didn’t involve telekinesis, including MindLenz, who was now being protected by an increasing number of clones, the crazy-ass baton-wielding replicas taking out as many of the vampires as they could, and mostly failing, their only strength being that Bottorf could keep making new ones.

  “We have to do something!” Zoe said, pacing back and forth.

  Mister Fist appeared in the middle of the mist, where he grabbed one of the vampiric ninjas and threw him toward the residential area.

  The man came through one of the open windows, and he pulled his body in the rest of the way, where he found Zoe and Helena waiting for him.

  The ninja hissed, baring his fangs, saliva dripping off them as his face morphed, his jaw growing in size, his eyebrows lifting, the mask covering his skin stretching, tearing at the edges.

  Loosening up her hands, Zoe approached the man with her claws drawn, swiping the man down as he let out a bark.

  Dinah jumped onto him and tried to force injury on the ninja, but failed. It was Ozella who took him down in the end, blasting the vampiric ninja with her wrist guard, his body sizzling out.

  “Are we supposed to drive a stake into him or something?” Sam asked, looking around frantically as more of the ninjas started to bark outside the window.

  “Apparently this works too…” Ozella said, still shaken up, not able to lower her weapon yet.

  “Or he’s just out for a little while…” Zoe’s nostrils flared. “Care to give him a sniff?”

  “Do it quickly,” said Helena, as she brought her hand to her wrist guard, seconds away from activating her shield, “we’ve got company.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four: Vampiric Ninjas?

  (Just another day at the office…)

  “Get ready to do something crazy,” Sam said as soon as the scent hit his sniffer.

  The guy lying on the ground before him was an exemplar who had been turned into a vampire, and he wasn’t dead yet.

  In fact, the man had recently been turned, within the last seven days or so, and from what Sam could sense, he was from the Western Province, and his power was related to ice, which explained why a layer of silvery ice was starting to come around his fingers, moving up his arms, toward his chest.

  Helena stepped forward. “Born ready.”

  “I think you need to stab him in the chest,” Sam said, seriousness to his voice that he had rarely heard before.

  “Got it,” Helena said, not second-guessing his suggestion at all as she pressed the button on her wrist guard, a long blade forming. The energy blade was about a foot in length, starting at a point just over her knuckles, radiating a green light as she quickly approached the vampiric ninja and drove the blade into his chest.

  The man shrieked as his form began to boil.

  “We should have gotten more energy blades,” Zoe said, her claws tensing.

  A new ninja jumped into the upstairs room, lunging for her, snarling. Zoe leaped back and ducked as the female ninja tried to take her out. Zoe’s claws came up as spheres of energy formed in her assailant’s palms.

  “I’ve got this!” Ozella shouted, jumping in front of Zoe just in time to take the brunt of the blast, her body slamming into the ground. Dinah went to Ozella immediately.

  Zoe made an attempt to get around the female vampire, distracting her as Helena ran up from the other side, her blade at the ready.

  One more swipe from Zoe got the woman’s attention again, giving Helena time to slam her fist into the woman’s back, the blade sprouting from the female vampire’s chest, her body immediately boiling and sizzling as blood spritzed the air.

  “There’s more!” Sam said, aiming his wrist guard at a vampire who was scurrying sideways along the wall.

  Sam wasn’t the best shot, but he did manage to blow the guy’s leg off, leaving the bastard hissing and twitching while Zoe and Helena engaged him, Zoe again providing a distraction while Helena went in for the kill.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asked Ozella as he gently helped her up, Dinah still sucking on her arm.

  “I have to be helpful,” Ozella told him, her eyes softening behind her mask.

  “Just try not to get killed,” Sam said, his hands on her cheeks now. “You are an important part of this, and I can’t lose you. We can’t lose you.”

  “Oh, Sam…” Ozella’s eyes filled with fear as she pushed Sam aside, lifting her wrist guard just in time and firing off a shot that sent a vampiric ninja spinning backwards.

  Ozella’s shot radius was wider than Sam’s, so it didn’t cut anything, but it did give Zoe and Helena enough time to move on the vampire, this one faster than the previous three as he swiped his arms rapidly at Zoe, the tiger girl sidestepping just in time to avoid his attacks.

  Zoe dropped to the ground, lunged for the man’s feet and slammed him onto his back, leaping off him before he could get her with his own claws or his teeth.

  Just as he landed, Helena came up and over with a one-armed handstand, bringing her free bladed fist back, and driving in into his chest, landing on her feet again in a matter of seconds as the man’s body sizzled out.

  Sam took a peek at the other side, where the main battle was taking place.

  There was still a lot of mist, and every now and then Mister Fist would come up, swinging his big fists, Plume moving in and out of the smog, trailed by a lick of flames. William Bottorf’s clones were everywhere fighting vampire ninjas, and also protecting MindLenz, who had started using a wrist guard to blow enemies back when she could get a shot off.

  It came to Sam in that moment that the exemplar team was having their asses handed to them, that they hadn’t quite figured out the way to kill these things, and from the looks of it, they didn’t really have the tech to do it.

  Sure, William
and his clones could club their adversaries to death, and Plume could light their asses on fire, and Mister Fist himself could deliver a mean knuckle sandwich just before MindLenz blasted them, but that was about it.

  They were outnumbered, eight to one, the famous exemplar team in a bad place.

  A flash of gold behind Sam signaled Lance’s appearance, the teleporter carrying three boxes. “You know, I was just about to sit down for dinner,” he said before he looked around. Shock spread across his face. “What the hell is happening here?”

  “No questions,” Helena told him as she moved to the boxes, canceling her energy blade for a moment. “I ordered more,” she said hurriedly as she tossed Zoe one of the boxes.

  “Give me two,” said Zoe, “I’ll be more effective that way.”

  “It’s true,” said Ozella. “I’m not as fast as either of you.”

  “Same here,” said Sam.

  “Whatever you four are getting into, I want no part of it,” Lance said, golden sparkles starting to appear around him. “So just call me when you want me to take you home, okay? Byeeeeee.”

  “Is he really the only teleporter that you can find?” Zoe asked as she quickly went about equipping her bladed wrist guard.

  “You won’t be able to morph in that form,” Ozella reminded her, “without breaking the devices.”

  “Aware,” Zoe said as she finished clipping on the first wrist guard.

  A vampiric ninja flipped into the space, electricity crackling around his eyes as he fired off a blast of electricity in Zoe’s direction, striking her in the chest and sending her over the ledge into the ground floor below.

  “Zoe!” Sam shouted, charging the man with his wrist guard drawn and firing off a blast that cut deep into his side. Helena was there moments later, bringing an energy blade through the man’s chest, his eyes sparking as his skin boiled and life left his body.

  “I think she’s okay,” Ozella said, looking over the ledge. “Wait… No she’s not…”