H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis

by Kevin Rau

Lance thought, So here we go, probably our biggest fight so far. I don't think I'll need to hold back on my normal punches.

  Stephanie took both of the boys’ forearms and flew up. They came down directly vertical by the door they wanted to use.

  Lance moved to grab the door handle, but Stephanie moved in his way. She made a face as if she had fangs and were biting, and her hands clawed at the air. Then, she pointed at the door. Lance thought, Ah, she can hear one of them thinking on the other side of the door. She nodded at him.

  Lance slowly took hold of the door handle, turned it and shoved it inward, hard. The thunking sound of the handle assembly ripping out echoed through the area. The door banged against the right hand wall. Ahead was a lit corridor. A mutant stood backlit in the corridor, leaning against the wall. He looked up in surprise.

  Rael stepped forward, whipped up the metal staff and jabbed the sharp end at the mutant’s head. The mutant dodged, and the pole caught him on the side of the head. Blood flew as the metal gashed his head.

  Lance stepped forward to grab him, but the mutant kicked at his torso. He was much faster than he appeared. The foot slammed into Lance’s gut and the hero flew back through the air. While Lance soared back, Rael slammed the staff down on the mutant’s arm. There was a loud crunch as the bones in his forearm snapped, and Lance crashed into the wall of the warehouse next door. The concrete crumbled behind him, and he slid to the ground. The kick barely hurt him.

  The mutant swung at Rael with his good arm. Rael blocked with the makeshift staff. Stephanie moved at the mutant from the side, her bright white costume distracted him, for Rael landed a direct stab at his head with the dull end of the pole. It cracked into the mutant's head with a sick crunching sound and the mutant collapsed to the floor.

  Rael whispered, “Oops, guess it works too well.”

  Lance caught back up with them and whispered, “Darn it, don't kill them.”

  Rael shrugged. “He’s not dead, I hear his heart beating.”

  Rael took the lead. Lance followed after him, with Stephanie following behind. It looked like they were in an office area. Doors led off into side rooms. They checked a few; they were offices that had been converted into bedrooms, with multiple beds per room.

  Rael walked down the primary corridor until it branched off to the right, as well as continue directly ahead. Stephanie pointed straight ahead. Lance thought, She's right; that must head toward the main warehouse. Stephanie nodded her agreement. Rael continued straight.

  They heard a piercing scream from ahead and broke into a run. Rael opened the door at the end of the hall; it opened into a large warehouse area. To the far left were metal racks made to hold pallets. They were empty at this time. To the near right sat some pallets with boxes on them. To the far right were several large cages built of metal bars bent and twisted together. Groups of people were in each of them, they looked very afraid. In a pair of cages just to the left, were the kidnapped mutants from the hospital. Most had on hospital garb, though a few wore bloody street clothes.

  These new mutants stood pressed against the bars, watching the events in the occupied section of the warehouse.

  The main attraction was in the center of the warehouse. A group of mutants stood around a pit, watching some event. Another scream came from the pit. The mutants ruggedly laughed and jostled each other as they watched. The one mutant that stood out was the huge four armed monster from the hospital. About a dozen mutants stood there, including the huge one. These mutants looked set in their lifestyle. Most wore black leather jackets, gloves and boots. All had a variety of tattoos, colored hair, and skull jewelry. It was clear they distanced themselves from normal society.

  Lance thought, Great, this is going to be nasty.

  Rael thought, This is going to be a fun fight. No way in hell am I going to hold back here.

  Stephanie thought, This is going to suck, that’s too many.

  They stood a good fifty feet away. Lance sprinted toward them, Rael caught up a moment later. Unfortunately, one of the mutants on the far side of the pit spotted them.

  Lance leapt at two of the closest. He held his arms out to each side in an attempt to catch them both during the jump and force them ahead with him. Rael sprinted off to the right; he kept up with Lance’s jump speed. Lance thought, Nice. His left arm caught around a mutant, but he ended up punching the right-hand one in the shoulder. The mutant spun wildly as the left hand mutant and Lance sailed past the rest of the mutants.

  They crashed to the floor. Lance rolled up, the mutant didn't move fast, so Lance grabbed his leg, swung him and threw him as hard as he could at the cages. A resounding clang rang when he crashed into it, and several bars dented in slightly. Several humans in the cage screamed. The mutant fell to the ground, barely moving.

  Rael surprised one with a hard metal staff swing to the head, and the mutant fell in a heap. He used the staff to block a clumsy claw swing at him by another mutant and moved past them. Two close mutants moved in at Rael.

  Stephanie stayed back a moment, Fear will make them run around, but we still need to take them down. Confusion might be better to spread, hopefully make them easier for the boys to knock out. She concentrated on spreading confusion, willing her skin to tingle. She wanted them to attack each other, mentally visualizing them all chaotically attacking their own friends.

  Lance looked back toward the larger group. Three more rushed at him. Two had claw hands; one had tentacles instead of arms. The mutant with tentacles had rough, bumpy skin. The most aggressive one was on the left. He took the lead, so Lance charged forward at him and swung a hard body punch. The mutant’s claws slashed into Lance’s chest, drawing blood, but the claws didn't dig deeply. Lance’s punch thudded loudly into the mutant’s chest, and he flew into the air and across the warehouse. He went into and through the concrete outer wall. Building material blast out into the parking lot and the mutant disappeared from sight.

  The group of mutants in the center watched the two fights in an attempt to decide which opponent would be easier to manhandle. They failed to see Stephanie float up behind them. Her pheromones spread over the group, and they found it hard to remember why they were there, or what was going on. One of the hungrier mutants mistook another near him for prey and leapt on him, clawing and biting at his former ally.

  Rael backed up slowly as he fended off the attacks of the two mutants with his staff. They were clumsy opponents. Not that they were not dextrous, but the mutants apparently had little to no combat training, and must have been using their enhanced speed and strength for any fighting to this point. He found an opening and slammed the staff down onto the knee of one of them. The mutant fell, his lower leg lay at an odd angle to the rest of the leg, and he screamed in pain.

  The second clawed mutant leapt onto Lance, while the one with tentacles watched. He bit into Lance’s shoulder; one hand raked Lance’s back. Lance swung his arm outward and flung him away into the metal racks on one side of the warehouse. A portion of the racking assembly fell apart as the mutant crashed through the support beams. The sound of snarling and growling filled the warehouse.

  Stephanie continued floating a few feet in the air; her eyes were barely open as she felt the waves of tingling sensation pulse over her body. She watched as two of the mutants fought each other. The thoughts from the group were jumbled as they couldn’t decide on an action to take, or which of the three fights to join in.

  Finally, the female shook off the effect. Shrinker grabbed the shoulders of the two mutants attacking one another. Her eyes glowed from within, and they shrunk to the size of action figures. She threw one of them toward Rael, the other toward Lance.

  Rael saw two more mutants walking toward him, and went on the offensive against the remaining mutant he faced. The mutant attempted to grab the staff several times, and finally succeeded. Rael moved quickly in toward him, felt an odd tingle surge throug
h his body, and suddenly found himself behind the mutant. He thought, What the hell was that? He spun and raked his claws at the mutant’s back, scoring a handful of deep gashes down the mutants back. The mutant fell and Rael thought, Damn, I might have cut his spinal column. Too bad, sucker. He grabbed the staff and rolled just as a mutant leapt over him.

  Rael’s staff made a continuous whooshing noise as he swung it around at high speed, only stopping when it banged against one of the mutants. Two currently faced him, one on either side. Interesting. We mutants obviously have very different traits. Some of these are far slower than I am. I’m guessing that huge four armed monster is a lot stronger. The mutant with the broken leg crawled toward Rael, bloodlust on his face.

  Lance was distracted watching the fast paced fight Rael put up with his group of mutants. He also saw that the huge monster stayed next to the female mutant, and their gaze was focused on him.

  He looked away too long, the tentacled mutant grabbed at Lance and wound his left tentacle around Lance’s right arm. Tiny protrusions in the tentacle dug into his skin, but failed to tear the skin apart. Lance yanked on the tentacle, pulling the mutant off his feet and close to Lance. The mutant bit at the arm he had wrapped up, but Lance’s left fist pounded into his jaw before he chomped on the arm. The mutant attempted to pull back, but the tentacle wound around Lance’s right arm too many times. Lance drove his fist into the mutant’s jaw several more times before he fell unconscious. The sounds of the blows echoed through the warehouse.

  Shrinker screamed, “Kralgon, kill the large one! You three, help on the turncoat!” Unfortunately for her, the three stumbled about. Stephanie’s confusion controlled them for the moment.

  Lance thought, Apparently ol’ four arm is named Kralgon. Who names their kid that? He said, “You could just give up now, you know.”

  Kralgon laughed, a deep toned rough laugh. “I shall rend you limb from limb, fool! Then you make good food.”

  Lance replied, “Well, that doesn’t sound very appealing. Is your name really Kralgon? I mean, really? Did your mom name you that?”

  Kralgon snarled and said, “I renamed myself when I became more than human.”

  “Holy cow, you named yourself that? Don’t you have any friends to tell you how dumb it sounds? I mean, you sound like a cleaning product or something.”

  “Your throat will make a nice gargling sound, after I cut your head off, hero.”

  Lance thought, Oh, well, insults aside, this just got serious.

  Kralgon took a solid stance, all four arms at his sides and legs apart, and then took a deep breath. Lance leapt off to the side; he recognized the same stance Kralgon had used in the hospital before destroying the hallway with that roar. Kralgon turned his head to lead Lance slightly and let loose the roar. The concrete floor ripped up as the condensed shockwave tore through the air. It hit Lance and blew him back off his feet. It rippled through his body with jarring force, threw Lance about thirty feet away, and Lance had moments of his vision being unclear as he bounced to a stop on the concrete floor.

  Rael spun around, fending off claws and bites. The mutants rarely kicked, the few times they did, he easily swept their remaining foot out from under them to knock them over.

  Something stabbed at his ankle, and he saw a tiny mutant biting him. He squashed the mutant with the staff, but one of those behind him scored a set of claws down his shoulder blade. The shoulder burned from the tear, he growled in response.

  Shrinker stared at her underlings, and realized another party was here. She looked around and spotted Stephanie floating in the air. Shrinker leapt at her, clawing her deeply in the heroine's shoulders and arms. They floated backwards while Shrinker hung onto Stephanie and moved in for a bite. Stephanie lost her focus, breaking the tingling sensation flowing through her. She elbowed Shrinker in the jaw, causing her to drop back to the ground.

  Rael spun, and again a momentary flash of blackness and he stood behind a mutant. He continued to spin with the bar and clubbed the mutant from the back of the head, then again with the opposite side of the staff against his tailbone. They don't have a clue why I'm shifting around like this any more than I do, so I doubt one of them is doing it.

  Lance shook his head in an attempt to clear his vision as he climbed to his feet. He had difficulty obtaining solid footing, with his inner ear shaken from the vibration. Kralgon ripped the cage top off the floor pit, leaped and swung it down at Lance. Lance's fugue cleared in time to see Kralgon descending toward him. He threw his left arm up and blocked the cage top just in time. It smashed into his arm with jarring force, driving him to one knee, which in turn cracked the concrete underfoot. The bars that struck Lance's arm bent outward.

  Lance grabbed a bar with his right hand and tried to force it upward. This mutant is unbelievably strong; no wonder he could stab through me at the hospital. Lance dropped down and swung his foot at Kralgon in a leg sweep. The mutant lost his footing and fell backward, releasing the cage top.

  Shrinker rolled and grabbed one of the bars used to construct the cages, and leaped back at Stephanie, swinging the bar. Stephanie attempted to dodge sideways, but her floating speed didn’t allow the same movements as when she was on the ground. The bar slammed into her side, she flew back and slammed into the metal racking system with her lower back. The impact stunned the heroine, and made her short of breath, it gave Shrinker time to run and leap at her again. Shrinker succeeded at grabbing Stephanie’s right shoulder and the left side of her abdomen, and dug her claws into Stephanie's body. The mutant went to bite Stephanie’s shoulder and neck, and Stephanie barely grabbed Shrinker's head in time to prevent the bite. Shrinker was significantly stronger than Stephanie; it took all her strength to fend the mutant’s head off, while Shrinker’s claws continued to dig into Stephanie’s shoulder and side. Blood flowed freely from the heroine’s wounds.

  The confusion wore off the remaining mutants enough for them to stumble toward Rael and the two mutants on him. One of the two continued to crawl in an attempt to reach Rael, but he moved continuously, to allow himself to face primarily the one standing mutant.

  Their heads were only inches apart; Shrinker’s mindview of Stephanie was huge. Stephanie mentally grabbed the edges of the mindview and pulled herself in, flying at her best speed to the common place for the memory room. The door was open and visuals floated around the room.

  Stephanie summoned up the fire she had seen at the prison, intent on destroying Shrinker’s memories in the hopes of ending the fight. She focused and blasted the fire through several memories, then caught sight of a memory where Shrinker used her shrinking power on a mutant at the hospital. Wait, she’s a super. The memory of the change may be potent enough to take her out of the fight. She flew through the room, watching memories fly past her in search of the one. Stephanie knew that prior to that memory, Shrinker would have no mutations, and the memories ought to look different.

  Her arms bled, and she noticed that blood ran freely down her chest from her neck area. Finally, she came upon the memory, she had her tentacles grab it and fly back to the mindview entrance. She pulled back out through the mindview, and slammed the image of the memory over it.

  Stephanie had lost some strength while in Shrinker’s mind. Shrinker had closed on her upper shoulder and tore into it with her fangs when the memory took over her mind. Attaching the memory over the mindview locked Shrinker onto reliving the memory of her change, and she fell off Stephanie to the floor. She flopped and twisted around as though feeling that painful fire rip through her system again. Stephanie blinked a few times with the shock of how much injury she'd sustained, and passed out. Her body floated backward toward the office end of the warehouse.

  Lance saw Rael fighting off four mutants. They were practically a blur as the four performed a complex dance to dive in under his staff. Lance yelled, “Rael, jump up!” Then, he threw the cage top horizontally at Rael
and his attackers.

  None of them leaped up. Rael glanced toward Lance at the sound of his own name and saw the cage top flying through the air toward him. Suddenly, Rael was on Lance’s side of the cage as it smashed into two of the mutants with the force of a semi, throwing them across the warehouse and snapping bones where the cage top struck. Rael's opponent count cut in half, he went on the offensive. Howls of pain echoed through the huge chamber.

  Kralgon leaped at Lance. Lance met his upper hands, but Kralgon's lower blade arms stabbed into his left thigh and right side of his abdomen. The arm blades bit through Lance's body armor and dense muscles as though they were barely there. Kralgon pulled them out and stabbed again. Lance twisted his torso enough to avoid one of them, but Kralgon's left arm stabbed into the hero's abdomen again. The blade went deep into his torso. Kralgon laughed in anticipation of victory.

  Lance released his arms, grabbed the blade hand inside himself with both of his own and snapped the blade off. Lance was rewarded with a close up roar from Kralgon that stunned the hero, and then Kralgon punched him. He flew backward into one of their large vans, toppled it over onto its side and bounced past the van against the outer wall.

  Kralgon held up the lower arm stump, staring at the broken blade for a moment. He looked toward Lance and snarled, and then leaped over the van toward him. Lance swung a kick at Kralgon as he descended. He sliced his remaining blade into Lance's shoulder as Lance's leg connected. The mutant flew hard toward the cages, denting the bars severely inward on one of the human ‘food’ cages. Lance scrambled to his feet and jumped at the mutant before he pulled himself out of the bars. The hero's flying fist smashed into the mutant's chitinous chest armor just before their bodies crashed together. The bars dented in further. The screams of prisoners tore through the air.

  Kralgon pulled his head out from between two bars and appeared ready to roar at Lance again. Lance straightened his fingers and slammed them into the mutant's neck. Yay for martial arts training! Kralgon let out a muffled “guh” sound, but the horrible wave of vibration didn’t occur.

  Lance said, “How about a knuckle sandwich, fugly?” The hero slammed his right fist into the mutant's head several times until Kralgon's remaining blade pierced into his ribs. Lance stumbled backward off the blade.

  One of the mutants remaining leaped at Rael. Rael dropped to the ground and kicked, he struck the mutant in the torso, tossing the mutant directly up. Another mutant used the opportunity to dive at the hero, and gashed Rael's leg with a claw. Rael rolled to his feet, saw the mutant falling back to them, and clubbed him with the staff as though it were a long metal bat. The mutant flew back toward the office area and smashed through the wall.

  Kralgon coughed and choked out, “I like my meat pre-cut, hero scum.” Kralgon climbed out of the bars, stabbing again with the third arm. Lance sidestepped off to the right, and the blade missed, but he grabbed the hero’s wrist with his left hand. The mutant twisted and swung Lance off his feet and around Kralgon, and Lance slammed into the cage with many tons of force. It hadn’t hurt Lance much, but the bars dented in a foot or more. As Lance fell to the ground, Kralgon grabbed the wrist with his other good hand, and whipped Lance up in the air and back down to slam into the concrete floor. The thick concrete floor snapped with a thunderous crack. Lance put a foot on the ground, twisted and tried to leap while still lying down. It worked; Kralgon bounced behind Lance for thirty feet or so before releasing him.

  Adrenaline surged through Lance as he bounced on the ground, and he slammed his fist down into the concrete to halt his sideways leap. It brought Lance to a sudden stop. Dang, this guy needs to go down soon. I’m worried about the others if I can’t stop him. His chitin’s good enough to stop most of the damage of my punches.

  Lance grabbed Kralgon’s left stump, the force of his fingers cracking the chitin on Kralgon’s arm, and then swung the huge mutant. Lance’s red goggles glowed slightly orange from the yellow light emitted from his eyes. Yellow fumes flowed off his costume. He threw Kralgon across the warehouse. The mutant smashed through the metal racking system and the outer wall. A ten foot section of the wall blew outward with the mutant.

  The explosive sounds nearby shook Stephanie out of her unconsciousness. She blinked and looked around. Shrinker stood up as she watched, looked around and spotted Stephanie floating in the air. They stared each other in the eye a moment.

  Stephanie said, “You like that memory, Shrinker? I’m sure I can dig out something far more amusing to me, or perhaps I should just clean out your memory and force you to be a hero.” She hoped she could back up the bravado, but wanted Shrinker to be unsure of what she could do in a fight.

  Shrinker snarled, “You couldn’t keep me down last time. You’re making a mess of my toy soldiers though. And I’ll make you pay for doing that to me.” She glanced over at the mutants lying on the warehouse floor.

  Shrinker leaped at Stephanie again, who in turn jabbed her knee into the air. A moment too late, for Shrinker grabbed her right thigh and dug her claws in. They flew at the concrete outer wall at high speed as Shrinker’s eyes glowed. Stephanie tried to project fear in a pheromone, and felt her skin tingle. Too late, the warehouse grew into a massive building a dozen times its former size. The claws slipped out of her leg as she shrank, and then Shrinker hit the wall at a few hundred miles per hour.

  The concrete exploded outward and Shrinker tumbled onto the ground outside. Her right arm and ribs had shattered from the impact, and the effects of the pheromone took effect. She looked around and saw two police vehicles approaching the area with their red and blues flashing. Another vehicle was nearby with a man running toward her with a heavy rifle. He shot once from the distance, and a sizable chunk of concrete flew from the ground where it hit. Obviously, these reinforcements knew to use heavy firepower now.

  Shrinker took a tiny object out of her pocket and flicked it toward Agent Carson, allowing it to grow back into a full size wrecking ball. It missed the Agent, but bounced and smashed into a police car, knocking it onto its side. Agent Carson remembered a spree of thefts some months ago of wrecking balls throughout the city, it must have been Shrinker behind them

  The mutant turned and fled from them. She’d noticed that Kralgon was missing from the warehouse after she recovered from the memory attack. While they still had numbers, it was obvious that just being mutants wasn’t enough. The hero mutant in black was too experienced at fighting. She would get her revenge on the heroes another day. Another shotgun blast caught her in the back as she ran, but it wasn’t enough to drop the mutant.

  Shotgun blasts rang through the warehouse from the far end, near the offices. The mutants Lance had originally thrown, were back in the fight against Rael, though he had taken down the two that avoided the thrown cage top. There were too many for Rael to take one completely out of the fight without being swarmed by the others.

  Lance looked around, but Stephanie had disappeared. Officer Coyle slowly moved into the warehouse with a shotgun, unloading at one of the mutants from the farther end of the warehouse. She barely hesitated between shots, firing as rapidly as the gas powered shotgun would fire the slugs.

  Next to her stood Hellshock. Still injured from his earlier encounter with the mutants, he summoned electricity along his left arm and blast it at a mutant near the center pit.

  Two of the mutants were distracted by the shotgun blasts – one from being hit in the torso. Rael abandoned the staff, and tore into one of the remaining mutants by claw. His claws dug in several inches per strike. The three of them growled like feral animals, fangs bared on all three. Several times his closing move somehow shifted him behind the mutant, allowing him to swipe at the mutant and score deep wounds in its back.

  Their occasional sword and claw swipes had torn many gashes in his black costume. Blood flowed from the wounds on Rael’s body. All the mutants in Rael’s melee moved somewhat slower
now due to wounds.

  Hellshock continued electrifying mutants near Rael until the hero faced a single enemy mutant.

  Power rippled through Lance’s system like wildfire. A yellow aurora surrounded him, fumes came through his costume, and the bright light lit up the red goggles from the inside. He looked back at the terrified people and ran to the nearest cage of people intended for food. He grabbed two of the bars and ripped one off the cage. He quickly did the same with the cage next to it. Then he pointed toward the vehicle entrance and yelled, “Run to the garage door and get out of here!”

  Stephanie looked around the massive chamber in shock. Obviously, Shrinker had used the shrinking power on her. Her flight still worked, she hovered in the air near the hole in the wall Shrinker went through.

  The outer wall near the racking system burst in, and Kralgon re-entered the warehouse.

  Lance muttered to himself, “What, he couldn’t have used the hole I knocked him through?” Kralgon grabbed a metal bar from a pile apparently used for making cages and ran toward Lance, growling deeply as he ran. His face was contorted in rage.

  Lance waited for him, when he was nearby, the hero slammed his large palms together, causing his own shockwave in front of him. Kralgon stumbled and rolled at Lance. The bar swung in a low arc and smashed against the hero’s leg. It bent, but the hero’s leg barely moved. It didn’t have the mighty rending power the mutant’s blades had.

  He grabbed at Lance, and the hero’s left hand gripped the mutant’s right. The reddish glow from Lance’s goggles highlighted his face. They swung at each other with their free fists, and the mutant’s remaining blade stabbed Lance several times as they landed punches on each other, until Lance finally grabbed that arm and snapped that blade as well. Kralgon’s punches didn’t hurt much, but the blade did. Every punch Lance landed on the mutant’s armored skin shattered a section of armor and entered the giant’s body a few inches.

  Stephanie noticed Kralgon smash his way back into the building, and decided that Lance needed assistance more than chasing Shrinker was worth. She pumped her knee up and shot toward them. Lance’s shockwave stunned her for a few seconds as she closed on them, delaying her arrival, but she shook it off and flew behind Kralgon and grabbed his horn.

  Kralgon shook violently each time either of them landed a blow on the other. She immediately grabbed the edges of his mindview and flew in. She found the memory center easily, and summoned her ring of fire. She concentrated on making the fire into a blazing inferno around her, and then sent it in a shockwave through his memories. She continued to pour energy into the blast, and an ever-widening explosion tore through the chamber, devastating everything it touched. Stephanie spent a few seconds forcing more and more destruction of the memory chamber. Afterward, she barely had the energy to float back to the mindview opening to exit his mind.

  Lance saw spots in his vision. He realized he’d taken a massive amount of damage from the many blade strikes. His torso hurt all over, as well as locations on his legs. He felt soaked, and assumed it was from blood.

  He had seen something tiny and white, like a little faerie, fly behind Kralgon’s head as they traded blows. Since when do faeries exist? Blood began streaming from Kralgon’s nose, eyes and ears of its own accord. Finally he jerked and stopped stabbing at the hero.

  Lance grabbed his shoulder with his left hand, and rained down a series of hard blows on the mutant’s face with his right. The booms and cracks from the impacts echoed through the warehouse. Lance felt certain he ruined Kralgon’s jaw, at least until it healed in a few days.

  Kralgon fell unconscious. Lance coughed, blood spattered his forearm as he instinctively covered his mouth. He couldn’t even quickly count how many times he’d been stabbed and slashed. He stood tiredly over Kralgon’s body for a moment.

  The tiny faerie floated in the air above him on her back. That’s an odd position to fly in, how do wings work upside down? He fell down to one knee and used his right arm to prop himself up, standing had become difficult. The floor had a pool of blood under the two of them. The sound of footsteps closed in on him, it was hard just to look up at those incoming.

  Rael and Officer Anne Coyle stood before Lance. The barrel of her shotgun had a trail of smoke leaking out of it. Rael knelt down and put his clawed hand on Lance’s shoulder.

  He asked, “You okay? You look like shit.” He made a whipping motion with his other claw, spraying blood on the floor.

  Lance coughed up blood again and croaked, “I feel great. I think we beat them.” His vision was unsteady, and he focused on breathing for a moment.

  Officer Coyle said, “Oh, wow. This is Psystar!” She brought her hand down, holding Stephanie in her palm. She was tiny, no more than six inches tall. She appeared unconscious.

  Rael said, “She needs to stop doing that.” He winced from his own gashes, and watched one on his forearm stop bleeding before his eyes, the worst of the wound sealed over. He noticed that it didn’t completely heal. Rael assumed that his body must be healing the worst damage all over before it completed the healing on particular wounds.

  Officer Coyle used her radio to announce that the hostile mutants were all down in the warehouse. Lance couldn’t make much sense of it; he had to focus on staying conscious too much.

  Then, Lance noticed that a blade still stuck out of his torso. Huh, look at that. He heard footsteps come from behind him. Guh, hero can’t be down at the end of the fight. We won, gotta look heroic or something. Lance forced his muscles to obey; he slowly stood up and turned around.

  Agent Carson, Kim Angel and her photographer, and two officers walked toward their group from the garage entrance. Lance felt blood seep down the suit, it was soaked, and thought it was an odd sensation. His yellow costume was stained a dark red over most of his torso.

  Rael walked around in front of Lance and stood looking at him. Rael felt a great amount of pain right now, but could tell that his friend was pushing himself just to stay upright. He looks hurt pretty badly. His costume has cuts and tears all over it. He said, “I’ll take my healing without armor if this is the alternative. You need medical help.”

  The photographer came around and took photos of the group standing there.

  Agent Carson said, “Nice work. Units are incoming to round them up, are you sure they are out?”

  Rael glanced back toward the area of mutants lying around on the floor. Hellshock walked around the area, shocking each of the mutants in turn.

  Rael said, “Let’s go make sure, though I think that Hellshock is keeping them down. Spartan, you stay here.” He waved his hand in Lance’s face and repeated, “Stay here. Damn shades, can’t see what he’s looking at.” He noted that the bright light coming from inside the goggles had faded as Anne and he approached Lance a minute ago.

  Lance coughed and said, “I’ll stay here and bleed.” I wonder if I should pull the blade out. It might be blocking me from bleeding out further though. It can stay there.

  Reporter Jessica Angel asked Lance a few questions; it was too hard to concentrate to understand her. He mumbled a few times in response, then his vision went black as he topped over backward. He bounced as he hit the floor; his armored body was as hard as the concrete it landed on.

  Her reporter looked at her, glanced at the camera and back at Spartan. Jessica shook her head and knelt by the hero. She held back her hair and listened near Spartan’s head. He still breathed slowly.

  She said, “He’s breathing, though we should get him an ambulance.”

  Agent Carson said, “Some are already on the way. I called them in figuring it’d be a big fight.” He looked at Rael, “Black Tiger, you’ve got a lot of injuries as well, do you need to sit?”

  Rael thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “No. It hurts, but I’m healing.”

  Chapter 40 – Aftermath

  Rael’s Viewpoint