Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) (35 page)

In my head, in
everyone’s
head, an English horn began to play, courtesy of the Conductor. First it blared out in a single, proud fanfare, and then it was joined by a chorus of brass, strings and finally percussion. It was like having John Williams in Simon Tower.

Throughout all this, nobody moved, nobody breathed, nobody said a word. Finally, it was Doctor Noble who found the words to express exactly what he was feeling.

“Oh
shit,
” he said.

GIANT-SIZED FINAL ISSUE

THE BATTLE OF SIMON TOWER

When the real Lionheart reappeared, nobody could even think of reacting. Once it sunk in it was like a cherry bomb exploding in an anthill. People jumped and screamed -- some in shock, some in joy -- and everything collapsed into total chaos. Half the people who’d been fighting us up to that point clutched their heads like a goddess was trying to burst out, fell to their knees and fought no more.

Gunk/Lionheart’s face contorted into a maw of rage and venom. His eyes were glowing like a Jack O’Lantern, and he was sputtering so badly he couldn’t even give his peons the command to attack.

“Get -- stop -- don’t --” he hissed.

Of course, they got the message anyway. About half a dozen guys, including the ones holding me down, swarmed on Lionheart like maggots on roadkill. I dove out of the way of the rumble and began bashing the center bar of my power dampeners on the corner of the dais, trying to break them off.

“Josh! I’m coming!”

I looked up just in time to see Annie’s fist charge in towards my head. I flinched a bit, but the arc of her hand brought it down directly between my hands, smashing the center bar and the energy source for the dampeners. Suddenly I felt Rushes coming in at me from every direction -- the manacles still dangled from each wrist, but they no longer bound me and they no longer worked. Annie gave me her most incredible grin and said, “So, was it good for you, too?”

I spent a moment contemplating various responses, trying to find one that wouldn’t make me sound like a total geek. Finally I gave up and settled on,
“
Gosh,
you’re swell.” She giggled and we both looked back to the dais. “Come on,” I said, “we’ve got to help Lionheart.”

“Wait, Josh, things just got a
lot
more complicated in the last two minutes. How do you know
that’s
the real Lionheart?”

“Same way I knew the other one
wasn’t
,” I said. I reached out with Noble’s telekinesis and wrenched the Arachnid off Lionheart, who took advantage of the hole in the mob to spin DeVinity into Spectrum.

The Gunk started screaming orders, but most of them were drowned out when Noble, squealing like a kid trying to hog all the good toys, yelped, “Stop using
my
powers!”

He threw himself at me and I almost dove away, but I caught a glimpse of Fourtifier out the corner of my eye (he had just entered the fight between Condor and Whipstar and seemed to be trying to determine which he should be hitting). Pulling the rock-man’s powers, I turned myself to stone and allowed Noble to smash into me at top speed. He slumped off and I was about to follow up with a burst of flame, but I couldn’t seem to summon any up. Flambeaux wasn’t at the battle site. Instead I stretched my arms out like DoubleGum Man (dropping the inert dampeners in the process) and slingshot him into the ceiling.

There was a thud behind me and I turned to see Ted, backing towards me, clubbing Silverfish over the head with a flag he’d retrieved from the dais.

“Josh,” he said, “am I going totally insane here?”

“Not at all,” I replied, delivering a blow to the Arrow Ace, who was still looking a little dazed from the pummeling Annie had given him earlier. “You really
are
fighting alongside a bevy of retired heroes while two different versions of a man who died ten years ago duke it out.”

On the dais, the two Lionhearts were facing off, one with a warm, friendly smile, the other with cold, Halloween fury in his eyes. “I’ve been taking your marching orders for quite some time, Gunk. Or Carnival. Or whatever it is you’re calling yourself these days. I rather think it’s time to stop marching.”

As he talked and approached his imposter, I tried to contain a belly laugh. Hearing the real Lionheart speaking in his crisp, British accent while the Gunk could have spilled out of Anytown, U.S.A. just made the whole thing seem ridiculous somehow.

I felt a new Rush approaching and the doors to the auditorium exploded in a curtain of fire. Three forms barged in, one in the air -- Flambeaux. On the ground were two new goop-men, one clad in the shredded remains of a diving suit.

“Deep Six and Nightshadow!” I shouted. “He sent Flambeaux to the morgue to thaw them out!”

“
Nightshadow?”
Ted yelled.

“Who did you
think
was playing the role of Gunk’s corpse?”

“Josh!” A heavy mass slammed into me and I, in turn, slammed into the ground just as a screaming white blast seared the air.

“Look out, old chum, Gunk’s still got Mental Maid firing at you with the Soul Ray.”

When I rolled over I didn’t recognized my rescuer at first -- he was a big, furry creature with fangs, a squat nose and heavy, leathery flaps on his arms. Then it hit me -- Animan was using a bat totem.

“Thanks for the save.”

“No problem, friend of friends! Just remember, I can’t watch your back
all
the time!” He then took to the air after Flambeaux and I frowned at Ted.

“What kind of personality is
that
for a bat to have?” I said. “I mean...
chum
?”

My diatribe was interrupted in the next second by a horrified scream coming from the direction of the defense table. Sheila had been backed up against the table by the Jackal, who was crouched over her and fumbling with the front of his pants.

“He’s going to
rape
that girl!” Ted shouted. He ran a few feet with the flagpole, then jammed the tip against the floor, pole-vaulting over the unconscious form of Herr Nemesis, and pounded both feet into the Jackal’s back. He crumbled like a good pie crust and Ted was left standing, amazed.

“I did it! I stopped him! I saved somebody!” He laughed like a hyena, then jumped back into the fray. “Hey! Yo,
Squid
! Remember that day you cut in front of me in the cafeteria...”

I rushed over to Sheila, kicking the Jackal out of the way. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” she said, her handcuffs dangling. “But... I didn’t really need any help.”

“
What
? Then what was that scream all about?”

“Oh
that.
It was the Jackal after I kneed him in the crotch.”

I looked down at the fallen Mask’s face and, to be certain, the look of pain was far more intense than he would have felt being slammed in the back by a 150-pound band director.

“Do me a favor,” I said, “don’t tell the Conductor that. Now come on, I’ve got to get you out of here.”

“
Out
of here? Are you
nuts?
This is the best story
ever!”

I shot her a glare that would go down in the Dirty Looks Hall of Fame and she weakly grinned. “Kidding, kidding...”

“Come on...”

We were almost to the door when a shout stopped us. “Look out, Josh!” I spun around to look for the voice, only to see Lionheart running towards us. “Don’t head out that door! The Gunk went that way!”

“Oooh, good save. Hey, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you.”

“What?”

I drew my hand back and, combining the strength of virtually every super-being in the city, cold-cocked him. He slammed into the wall, orange gunk exploding from his form, and the Lionheart facade cracked a little.

“Your accent
still
sucks,” I said.

“Maybe... why don’t I try it with
your
tongue?” Gunk re-formed the Lionheart disguise except for his right arm, which was now a three-foot sword -- he was aiming at my head. I grabbed at him with Noble’s telekinesis and pounded at him, sending him breaking through the ground. Without stopping to think, I leapt after him.

THE PLOT

I landed in the hallway on the bottom level, near the morgue, next to the warehouse. Although I could feel the Rush, there were so many of them flying around at this point I didn’t notice the Gunk’s, specifically, until he grabbed me and began smashing me into the wall. The drywall outside of the Tower’s storage facility couldn’t hold up to the relentless onslaught of my face being pounded into it. Soon the wall cracked, then splintered, then burst apart. The Gunk’s momentum helped carry me through, and I broke into the room, crashing into a cardboard box. The box broke apart too, and I found myself suddenly cushioned. When I stood up, there was something red covering my face. I whipped it off and was about to throw it aside when a flash of gold caught my eye.

“The garbage Morrie showed off at the press conference. What
is
all this?” I said.

He laughed. “What do you think?”

I grabbed another box and ripped it open, and a dozen Lionheart lunchboxes spilled out. Another had fruit snacks in the shape of his symbol. Next was the back-to-school pen-and-pencil set. Breakfast cereal. Silicone “What Would Lionheart Do?” wristbands. I picked up a talking Lionheart action figure with light-up chest emblem, and turned to stare at the villain. “What the hell
is
all this?” I screamed.

He started laughing. “What does it look like? It’s the cornerstone of everything I’ve been working for. Well… the
economic
cornerstone at least. The lying and killing people parts are pretty important too.”

“Lionheart
never
allowed himself to be licensed like this. Even after he was gone, Hotshot--”

“Yes, yes, he managed to keep that short-sighted policy in place for ten years. I was there, remember?”

I picked up a Lionheart coffee mug. The handle came off in my hand and the cup shattered to the floor. “Even merchandise this crappy couldn’t have been made overnight.”

He smiled again. “When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you don’t need to do anything on the spur of the moment.”

“Why?” I felt outside of the room, looking for just the right Rush, and when I found it, I turned it on. “For God’s sake,
why
?”

“I’ve been alive for a long time, Josh. And there have always been people like us… people who are
different
. But we used to be
decent
about it. We hid. We stayed in the shadows. We became the stuff of myth and legend, and eventually, people forgot how to believe in us. And I
liked
it like that. The world was
peaceful
then.”

“So?”

“So, then came Hitler. And Roosevelt. And your ‘Good War’ and your ‘Greatest Generation’ and the costumed goons in the thrice-damned United Statesmen. A few of us got it into their heads to put on stupid clown suits and risk their lives to help the stupid, short-lived, short-sighted
normals
, and the next thing I knew, the world was full of them!”

“Full of
what
?”

His voice exploded: “SUPERHEROES!”

“Superheroes?”

“Superheroes! Self-righteous fools in their garish costumes parading around what used to be
different
! What used to be
special
! Things were fine before that. No fighting, no warring amongst each other, none of these humans assailing us, wanting our favors, wanting us to take up their fights—I had
peace
, boy! But now, there is no peace. There will
never
be peace again, and it’s all because of the stupid, stupid
superheroes
.”

“You think there was
peace
when there were no heroes?” I said. “I only
read
history books and I know that’s not true. I thought you
lived
through it.”

“War for
humans
, fighting for
humans
,” he said. “I got to
rest
.”

“So who said you had to get back into the game?” I asked. “You could have stayed in your cave or whatever you were doing. No one made you jump into the fray.”

“No. He
did
.” He picked up a water bottle in the shape of Lionheart’s head and crushed it in his fist. “A few dozen villagers as servants, that’s all I wanted. Maybe a world leader or two to pull strings for me. I have to blow out the energy after a few months to keep my cohesion anyway. Lionheart brought me into the fray, boy, and now I’ll finally get peace again.”

I didn’t comprehend how he could pull this off, but I would keep him talking as long as possible. He didn’t realize yet that I was drawing on Mental Maid’s powers from elsewhere in the complex to make him ramble about his plans like a Bond villain, but as long as I could keep him going, I would keep listening.

“Even after Lionheart was gone, even after I got
rid
of him, he was
still
the fuel for this city. He’s
still
the one everyone wants to look up to, wants to be like, wants to see racing in to save the day. Getting rid of him didn’t
end
him, any more than it did John Lennon or Martin Luther King. So if I can’t end his influence by eliminating him…” he squeezed his hand tighter and ground the plastic water bottle into dust. “I have to
destroy
him.”

“By putting his picture on a lot of crappy toys?” I said. I started to chuckle, and he started to frown.

“What are you laughing at?”

“How somebody so
old
could be so
stupid
,” I said. “You think superheroes are about fighting and wars and t-shirts? You don’t know
anything
. You were already inhuman when superheroes –
real
superheroes – were invented. You don’t have the slightest idea what they really mean.” I picked up one of the Lionheart action figures and pointed it at him. “People like Lionheart aren’t here to beat each other up or sell a bunch of dolls. They aren’t even here to get cats out of trees or kids out of burning buildings.”

“They--”

“That’s what they
do
. That’s not what they’re
for
. Superheroes are a
goal
. They’re an
ideal
. They do amazing things to remind us that things can be better, that
we
can be better. Just like every hero in history, from Joan of Arc to Jesus Christ. They’re all here for the same reason. They’re all here to remind us that we can be
better than you.
” The little lion emblem in my hand flashed, and my grip tightened. “You almost made me forget that. But not all the t-shirts in the world can make people forget what Lionheart did.”

“Oh, lovely. Truly a lovely sentiment. But I won’t make people forget Lionheart’s legacy by selling them cheap toys.”

The toy in my hand began to vibrate, began to hum. With the number of heroes in the Tower who were lending me varying degrees of invulnerability, I was pretty tough, but the doll exploding in my grasp still stung so badly I thought it would take my head off. The blast hurled me through the mountains of cardboard, and I wound up crashing through a huge carton of the action figures. As they rained down on me, the Gunk stepped forward, smiling.

“I’m going to make them forget Lionheart’s legacy by
killing
them with cheap toys. Officially endorsed death machines, each one with the Lionheart seal of approval. Once Lionheart is the most hated man in America, I spread out. I’ll destroy every hero and villain in the city, then the country, and then…” he exhaled, a deep sigh of anticipation. “Then I’ll finally have peace again.”

The emblems on the dolls around me all began to flash in perfect synchronization. And with each flash, my blood boiled hotter. I charged in, punching upwards this time, and he burst back up into the higher levels of the complex.

I rocketed upwards through the new hole he’d created, back into the chaos of the upper battle. It only took me a second to find him, arm again turned into a glittering silver blade, but he was faster than me. This time, he was aiming for Sheila, aiming at her throat.

“
Leave her alone!”
I roared. I was about to grab some telekinesis from Noble to deflect it, but as it turns out, I didn’t need to. In mid-swing the Gunk was picked up off his feet and hurled through the ceiling. Where he stood seconds before was the
real
Lionheart, dusting off his hands.

“That’s three you owe me, little guy,” he said.

“You
remember
the first one?” I said, amazed, thinking of the flames licking at the tub, the water heating up around me and the sense of relief when I saw that beautiful, golden emblem.

He smiled and tapped that same emblem on his chest. “You never forget,” he said. “Nice outfit, by the way. Denim was a bit of a fashion risk, though, don’t you think?”

“These are my emergency back-up super-pants.”

He laughed at that. “Say, my memories of, oh, the last ten years or so are a bit muddled, including the layout of this place. Can you tell me exactly where I threw that git?”

“Well, if you threw him hard enough, he could have made it into the Tower proper... which means -- oh no.”

“What?”

“We’ve got to stop him before he gets outside. Sheila--”