We Could Be Heroes 2

by Harmon Cooper

“Yes, this is one thing I hate about going to a different country. We are all the same world, yet mental messaging doesn’t always work if you aren’t in your home country. I get why it’s like that, but it can be a hassle.”

  “Are you injured or anything?” Ozella asked. “I can call Dinah.”

  “I’m fine. Also, were you able to get any information about the man with arms that morph into blades?”

  “Yes,” Ozella said. “I’m glad you asked. Maybe I could try to write it down. Do you think that’s okay? I don’t want to forget it.”

  “Sure, do it.”

  Ozella brought her red leather backpack around and opened it, taking her notebook out. Still lying on her back, she began scribbling down some information. “He’s pretty unique, I’ll give him that. He’s an exemplar, a Type II, Class B. But I’m sure you already figured that out. His astrological sign is River, if you’re into astrology.”

  “What’s his name?” Helena said, trying to get to the point.

  “Essem Magar.”

  “That’s a name. Okay, any more for his arms and the giant blades. Did you get any other information that could help us?”

  “Not unless you want to know about his sexual preferences or trigger points, maybe some family relations.”

  “Ozella, look at me,” Helena said as she turned to the group’s statkeeper, her eye starting to twist into a red bull’s-eye. “I want you to use your power to get answers that actually help us. I want you to stop getting information that you would have gotten before you became an exemplar. You are an exemplar now, and all of this extra information isn’t useful to us. We need to know things like weaknesses, training, exemplar power, that type of thing.”

  “I never…” Ozella nodded, her eyes lighting up. “I think I can do that. I definitely think I can do that.”

  “I know you can,” Helena told her. “You have the most unique power of anyone in this group, including Sam’s.”

  “His power is cool too.”

  “But you can not only gather information, you also have a way to work offensively through Dinah. Just think about it for a moment, Ozella. You can gather any information you want as long as you know the right questions to ask. You can heal other people through Dinah without using your power-up. Without using your power-up, you can also use Dinah to force injury onto someone. Using your power-up turns her alive, an actual human shield, just like the name you have chosen for yourself, oddly enough.”

  “I could totally make this work,” Ozella said. “I am seeing how I can do this now. It will work.”

  “That’s what we’ll need from you going forward,” Helena told her, smiling. “We need actual information on our enemies and the people we are tracking. Forget about all the social stuff you were collecting before. Make sense?”

  “It does,” Ozella said.

  “Good,” Helena said, releasing her hypnosis power. “Are you cold?”

  “I’m freezing,” said Ozella as she tried to scoot the ends of her skirt down. “It’s so cold out here.”

  “Okay, come closer to me then. We’ll have to huddle together for warmth until we get there.”

  And that was exactly what they did, spooning on top of the railcar barreling south on a train full of vampiric children and twisted ass villains inside, Helena and Ozella doing what they had to do to stay warm. Eventually, the train slowed, Helena telling Ozella that it was now or never if they wanted to get off the railcar.

  “We’d better go before Mia checks the place… ” she said, assuming this was what they’d use the winged woman for.

  As soon as it came to a halt Helena hopped down, looking up at Ozella and nodding for her to hurry.

  Nope, Ozella wasn’t as agile as Helena, and she hit the ground hard, stumbling forward and scraping her knees against the gravel next to the railroad track.

  “Come on,” Helena said, helping her to her feet.

  “I think I hurt myself…” Ozella said.

  “Hop on my back then,” Helena told her as she got in front of Ozella, giving the team’s statkeeper a piggyback ride.

  “Sorry for being so clumsy all the time.”

  “It’s fine,” Helena whispered as she took off.

  Ozella was a little bloody from hitting the ground, but Helena didn’t care, the lean combat dancer quickly moving into cover behind a building.

  Not a moment too soon either.

  As soon as she got clear of the train, she heard a voice call out, that voice quickly joined by a couple of other voices, the hiss of the train, and what Helena assumed was Mia flapping her wings.

  Helena looked across from her to see a high wall between the station and the street. She wondered for a moment how they would get over it.

  “Ozella, call Dinah and have her heal you first. We’ll go from there.”

  “Okay,” Ozella whispered as Helena set her down. Dinah appeared in her ghost form, immediately going to town on Ozella, her wound healing up right away.

  As she did this, Helena moved to the other side of the building to look at the wall again, and from there, to the corner that the wall eventually made as it cut toward the track.

  It had been a while since Helena had attempted scaling a wall, but she knew that she would be able to do it. It wasn’t too high, and she would definitely be able to get her hands to the top, and pull herself up from there.

  But Ozella…

  “This is how this is going to happen,” she told Ozella quickly. “We are going to go to the corner of that wall over there,” Helena said, pointing to the spot.

  It was dark out now, a light on the other side of the courtyard barely reaching the space between them and the wall.

  “I can get to the top,” Helena said. “Definitely. But I don’t know if you’ll be able to. So here’s what we’ll do: Dinah and I will hoist you up, and then you have to pull yourself up. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I definitely can do that,” Ozella said.

  “Good, and then I will jump to the top.”

  “You can jump that high?” Ozella asked.

  “No, but I’ll manage. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. Just trust me.”

  “I trust you,” Ozella told her.

  “Good, let’s go then.”

  Keeping to the shadows, Helena made her way to the wall, nodding for Dinah and Ozella to follow.

  “Power-up, on,” Ozella said, and Dinah’s form took shape. “You’re going to help me get to the top of the wall, okay?” she told the now tangible ghost woman, and in that moment, Helena remembered what Sam had told her, what he had sniffed out back at Ozella’s home.

  What a story.

  But it wasn’t her place to say anything to Ozella about it, so Helena merely got into position, cupping both hands together. Dinah did the same, and together, they lifted Ozella to the top, where she made her way over the wall’s edge, hanging on the other side for a moment before dropping down.

  “Go check on her,” Helena told Dinah, the nude woman simply shrugging and looking up at the wall.

  “Dammit,” Helena said. She was just about to call to Ozella to deactivate her power when she remembered that she needed to keep it down.

  Leaving Dinah behind, Helena took a few steps back and ran toward the wall, jumping to one side, then the other, then the first side again as she scaled her way up.

  She reached the ledge and gracefully flipped over to the other side, actually landing on her feet.

  It hurt her knees, more than any landing she’d done in as long as she could remember, but she maintained her balance as she watched Ozella stand, dusting herself off.

  “Call Dinah,” Helena said, starting to bend a little bit, her bones aching.

  “Power-up, off,” Ozella said. “Dinah.”

  Dinah’s blue ghost form rose from the ground.

  “Heal Helena,” Ozella told the ghost.

  Helena lifted her fist in Dinah’s direction, and Dinah pressed her lips to her knuckles. Soon the pain in her knee
s was gone, and just to make sure that they were both healed up, she nodded for Dinah to heal Ozella as well.

  “Just a little,” Ozella said as she lifted her hand to Dinah.

  “Good,” Helena said with a tight nod once Dinah finished. “Stay close.”

  She took Ozella’s hand, running with her across the street and getting into a shadow cast by the awning of a small shipping office. There were patches of ice on the ground, and she had to be extra careful not to step on one.

  Once Helena was sure that they were clear, she slipped around the corner, still holding Ozella’s hand as they moved further away from the station. After they made it a couple of blocks away from the station, Helena let go, slowing her pace some.

  “It looks so different than Centralia,” Ozella said, wide-eyed now as she took in the place. It wasn’t as well-lit as Centralia, but there were pockets of light that revealed an architecture unlike anything they had in their country.

  “It does, but not as much as you would think. Of course, the buildings aren’t as tall, and the rowhouses are decorated in ways that aren’t practical for Centralia. They are more square here, thicker to protect against the cold. There are more sculptures as well.”

  “I can tell,” Ozella said as they turned onto a narrow lane, the buildings close enough for banners to cross between them, remnants of a recent festival. A few snow flurries had started to fall, and Helena suspected that there would be snow on the ground by tomorrow.

  From the numerous times she had visited the Southern Alliance, she was well aware that it snowed frequently, even in the summer. During the day it would be warm enough, but at night it would still snow, the white stuff melting away by mid-morning.

  And the further south one went, the colder it got.

  This was where the rune schools were located. Not much was known about these locations, but there was some published knowledge about the four schools that practiced runic powers.

  And as they moved to the streets, Helena looking for the first person that she could spot, she figured she would tell Ozella about this at some point. It was definitely something that would interest her.

  They just needed to find someone…

  If everything went according to plan, it wouldn’t be much longer now before they had shelter. Helena would then go over Ozella’s unique power, increasing the statkeeper’s usefulness to the group while Sam and Zoe made their way to the city.

  Helena knew they’d get here eventually; there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that the two were capable of making it to Argoze.

  All in due time.

  Eventually, she spotted a tiny, twenty-four-hour restaurant on the first floor of a block of homes.

  A man stepped out and Helena approached immediately, positioning herself in front of Ozella so she could handle most of the talking.

  “Where are we?” she asked the man.

  “Armand Street,” he said, turning to her.

  Like most Southern Alliance men he had an odd haircut, the side shaved and the top long. He wore a sleeveless overcoat, his exposed arms covered in red tattoos.

  “Okay,” Helena said, activating her power. “I need you to arrange a teleporter to take me to the Hydroze residence near Gremmal’s Park.”

  “Certainly,” the man said.

  “Take off your mask,” Helena told Ozella. Helena did the same, pulling off her mask and handing it to Ozella.

  “One more thing,” she told the man. “Unlicensed teleporters only. You have something like that down here, correct?”

  “Yes, I will cancel the other one.”

  They heard a noise that sounded like a low hum.

  It grew louder and louder until the ground began to vibrate and a tall female appeared, levitating in the air with her legs crossed beneath her.

  “Thank you,” Helena told the man, again taking Ozella’s hand.

  “Where are we going?” Ozella asked, but by this point, their forms had started to fade away with the teleporter, reappearing on a well-manicured cobblestone street with statues lining its entrance.

  Once the teleporter was gone, Helena spoke.

  “Usually, when my family comes south, we visit with the Hydrozes. I became friends with their daughter, Juniper, over the course of my youth. And now the family is quite high up in the Southern Alliance government.”

  “You have such a crazy cool life,” Ozella said as they approached a towering gate.

  Helena shrugged. “I guess that’s one way to put it. But to be honest with you, sometimes I really just wanted a normal life, none of this crazy stuff. I know, I sound spoiled just saying that. But your life, just a simple life in the suburbs, would have been quite appealing to me.” But even Helena couldn’t keep her voice from wavering when she said this.

  “Maybe, maybe not. And what is a normal life, anyway?” Ozella asked. “What makes my life normal and anyone else’s abnormal?”

  “Beats me. I guess it really depends on the person that you ask, and their expectations.”

  “I think your life is cool.”

  “And I think your life is cool,” Helena told her.

  Ozella laughed. “No, you don’t. I grew up an only child, my parents working their butts off to afford to put me in the best schools possible. So I paid them back by studying and cooking for them. At least that’s how I looked at it. And I wouldn’t consider a youth spent studying one that was that much fun. And to think, with all that studying, I ended up working at a cosplay café.”

  “You shouldn’t beat yourself up like that,” Helena said as she knocked on a smaller entrance to the left of an enormous gate. The wall was much larger than the wall that they had just scaled, vines lining the top of the wall, covered in ice.

  The door opened outward as a man with dark eyes appeared.

  “It is late to be knocking,” he said, another man now visible over his shoulder.

  “I’m here to see Juniper,” said Helena.

  “She doesn’t have any visitors scheduled…”

  “Oh, I’m sure she can make time for me.”

  “Yes, yes, she can make time for you,” the man said, his expression softening. He wore a black suit with white gloves, and a red cravat that made it look like his neck was bleeding. “Right this way, Ms. Knight.”

  “Such a cool power,” Ozella said as they stepped in.

  “I’ve already told you that you have a way better power than me,” Helena told her. “Just trust me there. We’re gonna fix your power up tonight and get it working for us. You and me.”

  “Looking forward to it,” said Ozella. “Also, I hope that Sam and Zoe are safe.”

  “I will be dealing with that as well,” Helena assured her as they made their way through a garden clearly designed for winter, the space filled with shrubs, manicured conifers and a few ice sculptures. “Zoe and Sam are very resourceful, and I don’t doubt for a minute that they will be joining us shortly.”

  “I hope so,” Ozella said as they took a flight of stairs to a side entrance. They stepped into a room that led directly to one of the home’s many living rooms where they found a woman with her legs up on the couch, a book in her hands.

  “Juniper,” Helena said.

  “Helena?” Juniper asked, standing immediately. “I wasn’t expecting…”

  “Please sit, and there is no reason to ask questions,” Helena said, not feeling like explaining everything that had happened up to that point.

  She activated her power, and Juniper simply nodded along, doing as instructed. Helena did notice Juniper’s fingers twitched for a moment longer than a normal person’s would, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  “So nice to see you,” she finally said.

  “And you,” said Juniper, who had long auburn hair, her skin lightly tan. She wore flowing silk robes, the front modestly tied but doing little to hide her large breasts.

  Helena didn’t like doing this to her friend.

  And she had noticed more and more lately that she was falling b
ack on her power, rather than using her natural skill of persuasion. But who could blame her? While she was the type to get what she wanted by asking and explaining why she needed it, sometimes it was easier not to have to explain at all.

  “You shouldn’t hypnotize her,” Ozella started to say.

  “I’m aware,” Helena said, looking over to see the blonde-haired woman now standing with her red backpack in her hands.

  “It’s not right,” Ozella said.

  “I promise to tell her everything in the morning. Let’s just get some rest for tonight, and work on our little project. Deal?”

  “If you say so…”

  “Juniper, we are sorry to barge in on you like this, but we need a room for the night, maybe a few nights. Do you have one available?”

  “I can have the attendants see to one of the guesthouses in the back. It will only take ten or fifteen minutes or so,” Juniper said, smiling at Helena.

  She had developed early. Helena recalled it was right after her fat phase, that she had lost all this weight just to see her friend develop so readily, Helena actually a little jealous with the attention that Juniper got from her newfound bosom.

  But Helena started to develop not long after that, and she too got that attention, especially from some of her father’s friends. Nothing that a knee to the balls couldn’t help, and she only had to do that once or twice to get her point across.

  Helena smiled as she looked at Juniper, realizing that they had had quite a history together.

  She knew this, of course, but being in different countries made it hard to keep up. In fact, it had been at least a year since she had been down here, and the last time she saw her, Juniper had had her hair braided in the traditional Southern Alliance way.

  It was much shorter too.

  “Would you like anything while you wait?” Juniper asked. “Perhaps some tea, food.”

  “I would love something to eat,” Ozella said, licking her lips. “Tea too.”

  “Sure,” Helena said as Juniper led her and Ozella toward the kitchen. “We appreciate your hospitality.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Morning After

  (When in doubt, blame the concussion.)