As they took the trolley back to Helena’s district, Sam noticed an advertisement on the wall listing the next Mister Fist public appearance.
He smirked. What were the odds that Mister Fist was actually Bill, the Heroes Anonymous sponsor? And thinking this made him realize that this Centralian exemplar who was already on their ass would be on their ass even more if he didn’t attend an H-Anon meeting.
“Shit,” Sam whispered as they came to their stop.
“What is it?” Ozella asked.
“Helena, Zoe and I need to attend one of the meetings tonight, you know which meeting.”
“Can people who aren’t legally required to attend also go to these meetings?”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said, “but Mister Fist knows who you are anyway so, sure, I guess you could come with us too.”
“How exciting,” Ozella said, clearly not aware of what she was getting herself into.
The trolley completely stopped, and they got off, Sam narrowly avoiding a woman pushing a stroller. Her baby burped, and a fireball flew out of its mouth, striking a trash can.
“Sorry, sorry,” the mother said, quickly going over to the fire and beating it out with a cloth she had in the back of her stroller. “We just found out she’s an exemplar.”
“I wouldn’t be too excited about the meeting if I were you,” Sam told Ozella as they stepped around the woman and the flaming trash can. The station attendant was already running over, fire extinguisher in hand. “It’s pretty redundant, and it’s not going to make you feel any better especially knowing that Bill is Mister Fist. Actually, it’s quite belittling. A constant reminder that you aren’t special.”
“Well, in that case, I can focus on the people attending and figure out why they are there. I’m sure that’s interesting.”
“Everyone’s there for some ridiculous reason, myself included up until my power activated,” Sam said, pointing at his nose. He was mouth-breathing as usual, doing his damnedest to protect himself from his own ability.
“I know, but I’m sure some of the reasons are still interesting.”
“I guess you could call them that,” Sam told her. “Most are sad, though. Just people wanting to be something they aren’t, and all of us forced to sit around and wallow in this shared feeling. But suit yourself. It’ll be easier to go to the location Donovan gave if all of us are together.”
“And we can bring our uniforms in my backpack.”
“Yep, good call.”
***
“I am not a super powered individual. I am not an exemplar. I have never had a superpower. I am not a hero, nor will I ever be a hero. I am not a superhero, I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered, I am a non-exemplar. There is nothing about me that is extraordinary. I am not a hero, I am not a superhero. I am half-powered. I will always be half-powered. I am a non-exemplar.”
Sam was glad to get those words out of his mouth for a final time; the last hour of his life was something he wouldn’t be able to ever get back.
Who wouldn’t be ready to stop saying that shit? The motto didn’t apply to him, and it definitely didn’t apply to the three ladies sitting to his left.
No, they were no longer regular people, they were exemplars.
Well, not officially, but that wasn’t going to stop them from kicking some ass tonight.
The thankless work that heroes did…
No one would congratulate them in the days to come for saving the Southern Alliance from a vampire infestation. If they were careful, no one would even know that they had done it, which was funny to think.
Saving the world, or at least a country, without any fanfare.
But Sam was fine with this, as long as the job got done.
As they shuffled out of their seats, Bill giving them an especially stern look, Sam was fine with secretly being a hero.
Someone had to do it.
The four were just reaching the back of the room when Bill called out to them.
“I hope the four of you are planning to take the night off,” he said, just as the last Heroes Anonymous attendee stepped out of the room.
“Well you aren’t out there saving anyone, so someone has to,” Zoe said with a shrug.
“We’re watching you,” Bill reminded her.
“I would be watching us too,” Zoe said. “We look so good in our uniforms.”
“I’ll handle this from here,” Helena said, stepping forward. “We have no plans for the evening, and will likely end up visiting a cosplay café followed by a spa. We’re obeying your wishes, and if you want to discuss your expectations of us any further, I can put you in touch with my lawyer, who will revisit the rights of a private Centralian citizen with you.”
“No need for that kind of talk,” Bill told her. “I was just checking in on you four, even though you shouldn’t be attending these meetings,” he said, pointing a finger at Ozella. “Not technically, anyways. If I had my way, though, you’d be front and center at every meeting.”
“I just thought it would be interesting,” she said, her voice growing quiet.
“Bye-ee,” Zoe said, locking arms with Ozella and spinning the shy statkeeper around.
Zoe barged to the door, followed by Helena, and it was only when the three were out of the room that Bill spoke to Sam. “Wait a minute, what happened to her tiger face?”
“She can turn it off and on,” Sam said, also turning away.
“She can?”
“What kind of beast morpher would she be if she couldn’t?”
And with those words, Sam left, feeling pretty damn smug about the way he had talked to the dude that claimed to be a non-exemplar, but was actually Mister Fist.
He met the three women outside, tiny snow flurries blowing in the air.
“This is unexpected,” Sam said, the light from the street lamps making the snow flurries look more powerful than they actually were.
“It should clear up in an hour or so,” Helena said. “Well, are we all ready to go?”
“Let’s take care of this the only way we know how,” said Zoe.
Her face began to morph back, tiger ears sprouting from the top of her head, whiskers appearing, her tail pressing out of the top of her tights.
“Don’t watch me,” she told Sam.
“My bad,” he started to say as Lance appeared, the teleporter now in a golden sweater with an embroidered cursive letter L on his chest.
“Let me guess, going to get into trouble?” he asked.
“We’ll let you know once we get there,” Helena said.
Lance confirmed the drop off location, and once he did, an explosion of golden sparkles covered the team. Seconds later, they were standing in front of a cosplay café.
“See?” Helena said to Sam. “I wasn’t lying to Mister Fist.”
“I’ll see you kiddos later,” Lance said as he vanished, Ozella smiling at the place where he’d just been standing.
“He’s not so bad,” she said as they entered the cosplay café, Helena taking charge as usual.
“We want to cosplay as exemplars, and we have our own uniforms,” she told the woman behind the counter, who was dressed in a gothic loli outfit, her blue hair in a side ponytail.
“We don’t really do that here… Yes, that’s fine. Please follow me.”
Now under Helena’s control, the woman led them to a couple of dressing rooms, Sam, Zoe, and Helena changing first. Sam suited up, strapping both wrist guards to his arms, admiring his uniform in the mirror for a moment as he adjusted the mask covering his face, and brought the hood up. He also had a telepath band, but as before, it wasn’t currently activated.
“What about our clothing?” he called over the door to Ozella.
“We will have Lance pick it up and take it back to my home,” Helena answered from her dressing room.
“He’s not going to like that,” Zoe added, making Ozella laugh as she took Sam’s dressing room next to change from one schoolgirl uniform to another.
“You are evil,” Zoe told her as they stepped back outside, Helena and Sam with two wrist guards strapped to their arms, Zoe and Ozella with one each. Zoe also had her cherry bombs with her, which were stored in little pouches on her belt.
“It’s this way,” Helena said as they moved toward the shipping facility that Donovan had told her about.
It wasn’t very hard to find, especially because it had been built directly next to a train track.
What they weren’t expecting to find was a train already there, a bell sounding a warning that it would be leaving soon.
“We need to hurry,” Zoe said as she took off toward the facility.
And even though Sam was hot on her tail, literally, he made the epic mistake of not staying back and using his power, or at least using his nostrils as they approached the place.
But by the time they reached the place, it was too late.
An explosion collapsed one of the outer facing walls of the facility, the debris flying into the air, knocking Sam and Ozella to the ground.
Helena just barely managed to sideways cartwheel out of the way in time, Zoe going on all fours as she raced past the blast point.
Trying to catch his breath, panic rising in his chest, Sam quickly patted down his body to make sure all his extremities were there. After an initial check, he turned to Ozella to find her passed out, a large gash cascading down the side of her face.
Sam crawled to her, reaching Ozella seconds later and bringing her face into his hands. “Ozella...” he said, lightly tapping on her cheek, oblivious to what was happening around them.
“Sam?” she whispered, and as the words left her lips Dinah appeared, the blue ghost woman launching into action.
And not a moment too soon.
Emerging from the blast point was a chiseled man with arms that had morphed into four-foot-long blades. He had closely shaved black hair and he wore a bandanna over his face, his eyes narrowing in on Sam as he moved to attack him.
But whoever this exemplar was, he wouldn’t make it to Sam.
Dinah was on him in a heartbeat, filling the man with enough painful energy to bring him to his knees in a matter of moments.
Now getting to his feet, Sam activated his energy blade as he staggered toward the man, ready to finish what Dinah had started.
A blast of kinetic energy caused a small explosion of dust to his right. Zoe raced away and circled back around, Sam getting a glimpse of Donovan.
The man with the red mohawk was in his element, toying with Zoe as he kept her at bay with his power, the tiger girl doing her best to avoid his attacks, always rolling, jumping or pivoting just in time.
Sam saw Zoe slip her hand into one of her pockets to go for one of her cherry bombs, but Donovan protected himself from the explosion with a kinetic shield.
Sam was lucky Dinah was still working on the man with the blades-for-arms.
His momentary hesitation should have given the man the opportunity needed to bring Sam down, but he was unable to move with the blue ghost latched on, giving Sam just a few seconds to get his bearings.
That was, until he saw a huge pair of wings in the air above him, wings attached to the body of a woman that he recognized as Mia. Scaly metal skin, orange eyes, dozens of razor-sharp teeth, Mia spotted Sam and made a beeline toward him, Sam not able to get out of the way in time.
Her claws digging into his shoulders, she lifted him into the air, Sam getting a bird’s-eye view of the battle as he struggled to break free, his stomach doing all sorts of somersaults.
And sure, he should have blasted her with his energy weapon, but there was too much going on at the time for him to put the pieces of that puzzle together.
No, Sam was now afraid for his life, realizing that getting dropped from this high would most definitely kill him. And it was then that he caught sight of Helena taking on the big gray vampire, flipping around the man and trying to land an attack with her energy blade that would do some damage.
But it was useless, as was Sam trying to get out of his current position. Try as he might, there was no way he could pry himself free from Mia’s grip, her claws now digging into his shoulders, tearing into the muscles.
Sam heard a whistle, and Mia stopped, hovering there for a moment as she looked down at the battle.
“No!” Sam cried as he saw Zoe fall face first onto the ground, victim of a couple of energy blasts. Ozella was still down, and it only took one swipe from the big vampire to take Helena out.
Mia began to lower back to the battle, and when she was about ten feet up, she let go of Sam’s shoulders, the ground rising to meet him almost instantly.
Snap!
One of Sam’s legs was definitely broken, that he could tell, and even though he was badly beaten, that wasn’t what had Sam afraid for his life or the lives of his friends.
It was what Donovan said next that sent a chill down his spine. “Put them in cages; we will feed them to the kids,” the wicked man said, just as Sam’s vision started to blur. “It will be nice for them to have a snack while they head South.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Actual Snacks
(Vigilante Justice discover the cheapest way to take a vacation.)
Sam didn’t remember being caged, but for some reason, probably the shift in gravity, he woke up as he was lifted by Mia to the top of the railcar.
His cage was dropped, and Mia left, returning with another cage, this one containing Helena, who was groaning.
Donovan stood off to the right, his hands crossed over his chest as he looked down at a trapdoor.
Once Mia deposited another cage on the rooftop, Donovan kicked open the trap door and threw Sam’s cage in, followed by Helena, and whoever else was behind them. Sam wasn’t able to bend enough to see, but he heard a grunt that sounded like Zoe.
And the landing.
Boy, was the landing hard.
It winded him, sure, and the sound of the cage hitting the wooden floor of the train cabin seriously ricocheted inside his skull, but that wasn’t what Sam was worried about now. He heard movement at the other side of the cabin, a hissing sound, his nostrils flaring and telling him exactly what he already knew.
Vampires.
Or better.
Vampire kids.
Another cage dropped down on top of his. He sensed Ozella’s cage on top of his, Helena’s cage off to his left, and Zoe’s on top of Helena’s.
They were very large cages, Sam crouching inside the metal entrapment, so he was able to catch a glimpse of Helena just as Donovan closed the rooftop opening.
“This is bad,” he whispered. “Helena?”
“Shit…” Helena whispered. “Shit…”
Sam peered off into the darkness, whispering words that he was afraid to let leave his lips. “Power-up, sight.”
The forms in the front of the train cabin were suddenly visible, Sam’s enhanced vision allowing him to see that there were eight or nine children crouched, their faces all sorts of distorted, the ravenous kids curious about what had been deposited in their train cabin, but still too cautious to approach.
It took him a moment to get used to the visual, but soon, he had control.
And just about that point, the train started up.
Sam knew that they only had a few moments to act.
In his delirium, he tried to point his wrist guard in the direction of the bloodsuckers. Of course, the weapons had been taken from them, telepath bands too, but he only came to this realization when one of the braver young vampires realized that they were the ones that were in control, that all they had to do was get Sam and his crew out of the cages.
This young, brash vampire crawled on all fours over to Sam, stopping just a few feet away from his cage.
“Ozella, Ozella,” Sam whispered, the train’s steady movement messing with his field of vision.
“My head,” Zoe said, the tiger girl finally coming awake. And as soon as she did, she rattled the hell out of her cage, toppling it onto the ground and temporarily scaring the brave young vampire away.
Sam couldn’t understand why they were so apprehensive, but he knew it wouldn’t last long, which was why he needed Ozella to wake up.
“Where the hell are we?” Zoe hissed.
“In a train full of vampires,” Helena said, her voice wavering some.
“Locked in cages with vampires?”
“The vampires aren’t in cages,” Sam said as the young vampiric boy approached again, this time baring his teeth, his fangs growing.
“I get that part. You know what I fucking mean,” his ex hissed.
There was an arc of light coming in from a slab in the ceiling, allowing Sam to see even more of the boy’s face. Scarred, twisted, huge fangs, this was going to be bad, very bad.
“Got it,” Zoe said. Sam heard the click of the lock.
“Power-up, off,” Sam whispered, his sense of smell returning to him. “Ozella, Ozella…” Ozella’s cage was still on top of his, her face pressed into the bars. Sam tapped the side of her cheek with the back of his hand, and Ozella’s eyes blinked open. “Call Dinah.”
“Power-up, on,” Ozella whispered, trusting Sam completely.
The vampiric children swarmed onto the cages just as Dinah appeared, punching the first one square in the jaw. Zoe scrambled over one of the cages, sending Ozella’s cage to the side as she tore into the vampire as well, her claws coming back and forth as she tried to avoid getting bit.
This caused them to back off for a moment, enough time for Zoe to turn and pop off Sam’s lock. “Get Ozella and Helena to the back of the train. Dinah?”
The nude woman looked to Zoe and nodded, punching a fist into her open palm.
One of the braver vampires, the brash one from before, came forward baring his teeth. Zoe prepared to launch an attack. Meanwhile Sam grabbed the two cages and pulled them to the back of the train, Helena and Ozella safe for the time being, if the word “safe” could apply to a terrible, shitty situation like this.
We Could Be Heroes 2 Page 19
