New Markets - 02 (40 page)

He just sat down in the car when I charged into it.  I grabbed it below the doors and flipped the entire vehicle over.  He slipped out as the car rolled, and quickly got to his feet.  I didn't see the bag, though he still held his gun.  It looked a lot like a normal water pistol.  People began running away after seeing the car flip and skid a short distance away.  A pair of cars hit other vehicles nearby as they swerved out of the way.

He laughed, "Now you just pissed me off."

I leapt at him to perform a side kick, but his eyes glowed, he put his palm up toward me and the rain coalesced into a solid wall of water before I reached him.  It felt solid when I hit it.

I dropped to the ground and looked at the wall.  It was made of pure water, apparently from the rain, but gathered together and hard to see through now.  It certainly felt harder than water.

I called out, "So what's your name, Pond Man?"

"Very humorous, hero.  I like to call myself Water Miser."

I needed more reach on this guy.  My trapezius muscles split, and the finger claws stabbed out of my shoulders.  In a moment the pair of black ten foot tentacles reached out from me. 
I was actually thinking more along the lines of my staff, but these'll do.

He said, "Oh, you're one of those freaks.  You make the rest of us supers look bad."

I replied, "You're doing the crime thing, not me."  I dove to the right, when I passed his water wall my tentacles stabbed over to him.  One missed, but the other stabbed into his thigh.  I yanked hard and he flew off his feet and skidded toward me.

He yelled in pain. 

I said, "You should know something about mutants, we like blood."

He replied, "You want blood?"  He clenched his teeth and his free fist, and suddenly every raindrop in the area made a tiny explosion when it hit me, the blacktop, and all the cars in the area.

I was like I was hit with dozens of tiny bullets all at once.  The clamor in the area was intense.  Glass shattered, tiny holes blast into the car hoods and rooftops gave the sound of metal popping.

I let go of him and dove back under the cover of the nearest building.  I landed on one knee and used my left fist to hold myself up against the ground.  The swarm of tiny explosions stopped. 

He laughed.  "You can't win against me in the rain."

Man, this hurt.  I hadn't suffered as many large hits as I had a few hours ago, but the sheer quantity of smaller blasts had a lot of power.

Then I saw Hellshock park on the sidewalk behind a car.  He hopped off his bike and moved up behind Water Miser.  The villain hadn't seen the hero while focusing on me.

I grinned, and then leapt at Water Miser.  He put up his palm again, and the wall of water flowed together in a heartbeat to block me.

Rather than run into it, that odd jolt sensation hit me and I was suddenly on the other side of the wall.  I slammed my fist into his chest, knocking him toward Hellshock. 
Damn, should have used the claws.

Water Miser skidded on his back until he was only fifteen feet from Hellshock.  He saw the hero, and while still on the ground brought up a new water shield between them.

Hellshock put his hands two feet apart, palms facing each other and a ball of lighting grew between them.  Occasional jolts of electricity arced down his costume or through the rain coming down.

I laughed harshly - the pain kept it from being purely humorous - and ran at Water Miser again.  He dropped the gun and clenched his other hand into a fist, and the water began blasting me to the ground again.  I so wanted to kill this guy.

Then Hellshock's lightning ball flew at Water Miser.  It went right through the water shield, though the shield lit up for a moment with electricity, and then smashed into Water Miser.  The water shield disappeared with a splash of water on the ground, and the explosions stopped.

Water Miser shook off the effects of the electricity, raised a hand again, and my left tentacle snapped forward and stabbed him in the hand.  He screamed.

Then a line of lightning leapt from the hand of Hellshock.  Some of the electricity flowed through Water Miser's hand and the tentacle into me.  The claw jerked back out of the villain.

Water Miser fell to the ground twitching.  I bared my teeth at the downed villain.  My tentacles shot forward again and stabbed into his torso, then dragged him over to me.  I grabbed him around the neck with my claw.

I almost stabbed my claws into his neck, but I saw the nurse, Kim, from Iron Cross in my mind.  She repeated what she’d said to me days ago, “You might be more dangerous to others than you think you are.”  She protected me when she didn’t have to.

I let go of his neck and forced my tentacle spikes to pull out of him.  I couldn’t let Kim down.

Hellshock walked over to me and reached out a hand.  I grabbed it with my clawed hand and stood up slowly.  I continued looking at Water Miser. 
Thanks Kim.

The hero said, "Well done."

"Thanks, you too.  Water and electricity, heh."

Hellshock stepped over to Water Miser and locked his hands behind his back with straps, then did the same with his ankles.  Then he grabbed the villain by the shirt, lifted him off the ground and dragged him out of the rain.  Once in a dry spot he glanced around, and then put his hand on Water Miser and shocked him directly until the villain fell unconscious.

I thought of holding Stephanie for a bit.  I hoped she was doing okay in class today.  My fingers changed back to normal and the tentacles retracted into my shoulders.

I asked, "You always knock out villains?"

He nodded, "You pretty much have to.  Even with his hands behind his back there's no way to know if he could keep blasting things or bring up those walls of water."

"Good to know.  Nice seeing you using your arm fully again after our big fight the other day against the mutants."

He said, "Thanks.  It healed after a while.  You seem to take a lot of damage in every encounter."

"Yeah, seems like it.  Glad I heal fast."

"That's for sure; no way we'd be at this more than once a month or two if we didn't."

He tapped a few times on his phone.

"Hey, why don't we have all the heroes in the city showing up at each of these?"

"The range setting.  Put in your movement speed and the radius you want events for and it excludes the others - there's a default."

"Ah, that makes sense.  So Psystar could put the entire city with her flight."

He looked thoughtful a moment and then nodded, "Yeah."

I walked over to the car, flipped it back upright, and pulled it over to the side so traffic wouldn't be obstructed.  Then I reached in and grabbed the bag of jewelry and brought it back over by the villain.

A few minutes later the squad cars arrived.  Just after that Agent Carson arrived.  We went through the routine of describing what occurred to Agent Carson.  It appeared to be old hat to Hellshock.  He and Agent Carson prompted me several times for information on the earlier part of the crime before Hellshock had arrived on scene.

Once complete, Agent Carson went to liaise with the police.  I shook Hellshock’s hand.  I noticed he looked down at my hand before reaching out.

He commented, “Very cool, your claws retract?”

“Not so much retract as just mutate back into fingertips.”

“Nice, I thought the weaponry was a permanent fixture.”

“I’ve been told it has something to do with being able to exercise control over them early after the change.”

“Did you bring that up with all those mutants Shrinker captured and was going to force to kill people?”

“No, I was pretty beat up, and we had to get Spartan off to the hospital.”

“Hmm, someone should tell them.  How is he doing?  I’ve never seen a brick stabbed through so many times in one fight.”

“He was good yesterday.  We got attacked in the dead of night though – some kind of hit squad – they knocked us both out and brought us to some holding cell area.  I escaped a few hours ago, I’m about to continue to Iron Cross to see the F.B.I. agent we’re working with on it.  They are capturing supers for some reason.”

“Twice in one week?”

“Well, the mutant thing was for a different reason, I think.  Also, this group is better prepared.  They’ve got doctors on staff to keep people knocked out.  Well, had….”

“You heading back in soon to capture them?”

“I want to.  They’ve got the prisoners too, I need to free 'em.”

“We.  Give me a call on the H.E.R.O. when you go do it.  I’ll gladly help.”

“Cool, thanks.”

I saw a news van pull up nearby.  I looked at Hellshock, “Dude, you can handle the press.  I need to jet.  I don’t like the idea of my buddy being out there unconscious.”

“No problem.  Call when you head in.  I've got your back.”

I nodded and looked at my costume.  The smaller hits hadn't torn holes in it.  The two large hits I took still showed through, but were mostly done repairing themselves.  The blast spots certainly felt a lot better already.

I looked around to see how to get through the crowd.  Fortunately they huddled under the building overhangs to stay out of the rain, leaving the street open to head out without running through a crowd.

It didn’t take long to reach the hospital without incident this time.  I squeezed the water out of my long hair before I walked into the building.  Then I noticed how drenched I was overall, and figured I’d better dry off before wandering around a hospital.

I walked up to the front counter and showed my H.E.R.O. ID to the receptionist. 

She blinked, stared at me a few seconds and said, “Can I help you with something?”

“Is Kim working?  Nurse, curly brown hair, perhaps 35 or 40 years old?  She works in the emergency room, or did on Saturday evening.”

“Kim?  Do you need her up here?”

“Yeah, if you would.”

She picked up her phone and called someone and explained that a H.E.R.O. agent was here looking for her at the front desk.  My hearing was acute enough to hear the party on the other end say they just saw her and would send her up.

I mentioned to the receptionist that I’d wait off to the side since I was dripping.  She nodded.

It only took Kim a minute to appear from the left corridor.  She walked toward the front, and the receptionist pointed her toward me.

Kim looked over.  She looked surprised to see me again.  She smiled and walked over.  Kim looked much as she did the last time; curly brown hair was in the same style.  She had a very kind face.  She didn't look as tired this time, though.

I smiled myself, and held out my hand to her - she shook it.  Her eyes notably looked at my fingertips.  She remembered me well, then….

She said, “Black Tiger, right?”

I asked, “Hello again.  Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got some work to do with Agent Willman of the F.B.I. here.  He’s up on the super-holding floor we were on.  Would you mind guiding me there again?  Well, and getting a towel, I’d rather not leave pools of water all over the floors.”

She smiled.  “Sure, follow me.  You remembered me?”

As I walked alongside her I said, “I was just thinking about you before I arrived.  Something you said in the room upstairs before we went on your rounds….”