Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) (22 page)

I started grabbing shards, charging them up and firing them at Hotshot. He dodged them with little problem, but took cover behind a bronze memorial to Lionheart as my blasts got closer.

I’d fired off maybe a half a dozen of these chilled glass plates when I picked up one that was particularly heavy and thick. A quick glance revealed it wasn’t a piece of glass at all, but rather a shard of Carnival’s helmet that somehow broke off in the crash. It wasn’t metal, like I’d thought, but some sort of super-dense crystal. I tucked the shard into an empty smoke-bomb compartment and returned to firing glass at Hotshot.

A particularly large shard broke in my hand before I got a chance to charge it up. Hotshot was finally returning fire.

“I will not be denied!” I roared. Then, after a quick glance to make sure I was in view of the cameras, I lunged forward, kicking in the flight powers, zipping in under the fire and delivering a body-slam to the gut.

“Go crawling back underground smokey!” he shouted, kicking me in the jaw and sending me flying.

“Smokey?” I whispered again.

“Just
take the cue
,” he hissed back. He was right, this battle had gone on long enough.

I reached into my pouches and discreetly pulled out a few more smoke bombs, smashing them to the ground. Fingers of mist swirled up to grasp me and I started to emit a corny, B-movie style moan. “Oooooooooooh...”

“Gotcha,” Hotshot said. He whipped out a gray canister about the size of a aerosol can. “Little care package I borrowed from the Spectacle Six,” he said. “Pleasant dreams.”

He hit a red switch on the canister and a vacuum kicked in, sucking up the smoke. “No!” I screamed, trying to sound as horrified as possible.
“I WILL NOT BE DENIED! I WILL EXACT MY REVENGE!”

The crappy dialogue taken care of, I dove directly into the stream of smoke. I concentrated all my mass inwards and began to shrink down. Hiding in the smoke, I’d made it down to about an inch of height before I flew into a hidden chamber in the canister. At the bottom were a couple of seats with tiny safety harnesses. I sat down in one and strapped myself in. In the other, Particle was waiting with a grin.

“Nice finale,” he said.

“Why thankee, kind sir.”

We waited in the canister as Hotshot dealt with the cops, repeatedly assuring them that he would be taking “that dangerous revenant Copycat” to a spectral containment facility maintained by V3OL, resident genius of the Spectacle Six. Finally, all the explanation taken care of, they left the police to clean up and took to the air.

“Hey, can I come out now?” I asked.

“Of course not!” Hotshot called. “How’s it going to look if people see you flying around Siegel City with me after I’ve caught you?”

I looked over at Particle, who just nodded. We sat there a few more minutes, experiencing a turbulent flight, before we finally felt a harsh thud.

“Are we on the roof?” I called. “Can we come out yet?”

“About time,” I said, unstraping my harness and scrambling out the exit. I leapt into the air and I grew back to full-size, executing a perfect 10-point landing in a kung-fu stance intended to display for Hotshot how incredibly intimidating I could be despite the fact that I looked like a total dork in that pose.

“What the hell is
this
?” I shouted.

“Tradition,” Particle said.

Hotshot grinned. “Whenever someone gets their own character we always have a little celebration at the end of their first campaign.”

“It was
my
idea to surprise you,” Annie said, stepping forward and kissing my cheek. “Congratulations, Josh.”

“Aw... I don’t know what to say.”

“Try ‘Thank-you’,” Ted said, giving me a hug (with the requirement of pounding me fraternally on the back -- the only way that males are allowed to hug one another unless at least one of them has a fatal disease). I made the rounds, accepting congratulations from Particle, DoubleGum Man, Five-Share, Animan, V3OL, Five-Share, Spectrum, the Arachnid, Fire-Share, Nightshadow, Five-Share, the Justice Giant and Solemna, the Goop, Five-Share, Fourtifier, LifeSpeed, Flux, and Five-Share. There was cake and snacks and Miss Sinistah kissed me on the cheek at least twice more, the second one turning me to jelly and making me wonder where the Gunk was once my head cleared. Not that I was complaining -- the last thing I needed was him pulping my brain.

“Yeah?” she said in that teasing voice she used sometimes (particularly, I suspected, when she knew it would drive me the craziest). “Maybe that’s what I’m going for.”

I couldn’t believe my ears -- nor could I keep the smile from spreading across my face. “Now why would you want to do something like that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I’m just starting to see things a little clearer.”

“Maybe,” I said, suddenly aware of how close our faces were. And that she was slowly closing the gap.

“Stay
away
from her, puke!”

We broke apart and looked towards the door -- along with literally everybody else in the lounge. I chided myself for my foolishness. How could I possibly have only noticed the
Gunk’s
absence from the party?

But the crowd was complete now. Dr. Noble was there.

BIG MISTAKE

“Well hi there, Todd,” I said. “Somehow it just didn’t seem like a party without you.”

“Todd, nobody asked you to come here,” Annie said. The wonderful, magical smile she’d worn only seconds ago was gone, and I was seeing red.

“Are you
sure
?” I asked, pleading with my eyes for her to let me flatten this slug.

“I’m sure,” she said. “Please, he’s
my
problem. Let me deal with him.”

I stared at her for a moment, not wanting to leave her alone with the beast. But she
needed
to do it.
That
I understood.

I looked at Noble. “Hurt her,” I said. “Give me an excuse.”

Then they stepped out of the lounge. They must have been right outside the door, because I could still hear them talking. I turned and walked away.

“You’re a strong man, Josh,” Ted said. “I think almost anyone else would have thrown a punch there. You’re calm, you’re reserved--”

I grabbed the nearest pool cue out of Nightshadow’s hand and broke it over my leg.

“You’re venting,” Ted continued.

Nightshadow was about to say something, but after glancing at my face he turned away, grabbed another cue and began chalking it up at a considerable distance from me. In fact, except for Ted and Animan, everyone was pretty much keeping their distance. I think they understood.

“You know, that lounge equipment didn’t do anything to you,” Animan said as I put my fist through a steel garbage can. I didn’t know whose strength I was using, and I didn’t care. I’d never felt such an urge to commit a violent act in my life.

“I need to break
something
worthless!” I shouted, “and Noble’s in the hall!” I picked up a beer bottle and ground it to powder in my hand. Alcohol was running down my sleeve. I didn’t care.

“How dare he... how
dare
he take away her smile?” I raised my fist, poised to bring it down on the pool table, when a black-gloved hand wrapped around my wrist.

“Watch it, pal,” Hotshot said. “I’m kind of partial to this table.”

“Did you
see?
” I hissed at him. “Did you
see
what he does to her? How he makes her feel?”

“I know, buddy,” Hotshot said. “We all feel the same way about Doc Noble.”

“The
scale
of those feelings may vary,” Animan said, twirling the broken pool cue.

“You have to calm down,” Hotshot said. “In a place like this, with power like yours, anger is more than just self-destructive, it could be c
atastrophic.
”

“
I DON’T CARE!”
I shouted. “Why do I have to play the nice guy here? Why
can’t
I get mad for
once?
Don’t you think he
deserves
it?”

“He
deserves
to have a volcano dropped on him,” Ted said, “but that doesn’t mean you can
do
it.”

“
Somebody
has to. Before he hurts her again. Before--”

“It’s just words, Josh,” Hotshot said. “That’s all he has in him, that’s all he has going for him. But as long as it’s just words, there’s
nothing you can do.
If she’s going to listen to him, you have to
let
her.”

“I
KNOW
THAT! Why do you think I’m so upset?” I charged the door, pointing towards it and hissing under my breath. “And don’t pretend words don’t hurt, Hotshot. Don’t you even
try.
But I swear to you, if he does anything else, if he so much as lays a
finger
on her--”

“Did you hear that?” Ted asked.

“
WHAT?”

We fell silent and I was close enough to the door to hear them talking again. And what I heard was Annie’s voice. And what she said was this:

“Todd, let go. Todd -- Todd, that
hurts
. Todd--”

LifeSpeed himself couldn’t have stopped me in time.

I ripped the door from its hinges on my way through. They had progressed maybe five feet down the hall. Noble had one beefy paw clamped around her arm, the other with a single finger extended in her face. He turned and looked at me and probably would have said something of great import and intelligence if my fist hadn’t chosen that precise moment to impact his face. I felt his nose crunch and blood flowed onto my glove. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything so satisfying.

“You libble PUNG!” he hissed through a stream of red. He rocketed his fist at my head but I easily caught the blow, flipping him not just over my back but straight through the wall and into the lounge.

I jumped through the hole he made, amidst a hail of plaster and dust, and looked around to see where he’d landed. He actually hit the pool table Hotshot had saved a few minutes ago, splitting it in two.

By now the others were trying to hold me back, although whether it was for Noble’s good or my own I wasn’t sure. Nightshadow was the first to reach me, but I hurled him into the wall using the very techniques he had taught me. I swatted the Arachnid aside and rolled past Flux before Fourtifier, Justice Giant, DoubleGum Man, Merlin Junior and at least half of Five-Share managed to pile onto me, dragging me to a halt. I was still struggling against them. If I had been thinking clearly, I probably could have figured out a way to slip away with some combination of powers or another. That’s an enormous “if.”

“Josh,
calm down
!” Hotshot shouted. “Todd, what just happened?”

“The libble sigo jus’ unloabed on me!” he said, wiping his nose. “He oughtta be pud away!”

“You piece of filth!” I shouted. “He was hurting her, I
saw-
-”

“He’s nuds! I woulden’ lay a figger on her!”

“No?” Annie stepped through the hole in the wall and held out her arm. “What do you call
these
, Todd?”

Around her upper arm were a series of deep, finger-shaped red marks. One of them was already beginning to purple. And considering her invulnerability -- how tough she was -- to think of how much pressure he must have applied... I again tried to break free, but the others held me in place. I don’t exactly think all of them
wanted
to, though.

“
How?
” I asked, my voice quivering. “How can someone claim to care about her and then do
that
? ANSWER ME, NOBLE!”

“Why do you eben
care
?” he blurbled.

“
BECAUSE I’M IN LOVE WITH HER, YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH!”

Noble ripped his shoulder from Hotshot’s grasp and left, though the door. Before he was gone, though, he made it a point to shoot me an enraged, murderous gaze, which I gladly returned.

With him gone my blind fury subsided. “You can let me go, I’m all right now,” I gasped. Arms of rock and taffy and flesh relaxed and I was free to move again. Everyone was staring at me -- some in horror, some in admiration, most in simple amazement.