Hero Force United Boxed Set 1

by Baron Sord

  That worked.

  She smirked to herself.

  If Brock ever hit her again… Oh, ho, ho! Watch out! He was in for a rude awakening. The rudest.

  At least there was that.

  She stole a last glance at Doug’s muscles.

  He didn’t notice her looking, but he did shift in his seat, and his abs flexed delectably.

  Put on a shirt! she wanted to scream.

  She didn’t.

  K-Cray wanted to tear her cape off Doug’s waist and see how he reacted.

  And what was underneath.

  She’d already seen it once, but she kind of wanted a second look.

  K-Cray purred in Kristy’s ear, When was the last time you had good driving sex, K?

  Could they do it with her driving?

  Or did it have to be the other way around?

  With him driving and her riding?

  She hadn’t ever tried the other way…

  Would it even work?

  Could she ride and drive at the same time?

  She sure wanted to find out!

  Kristy bit her lower lip, trying not to think about it.

  Felt herself getting hot.

  Followed by squirming in her seat.

  She flicked another glance at Doug.

  He moved his arm and all his muscles danced.

  Why did muscled men have to be so infuriatingly sexy?!

  Stupid muscles!

  Ugh!

  She locked her eyes on the road and squeezed the steering wheel hard. Drove like she was running away from something.

  Something like stupid muscles!

  And good driving sex!

  Uuuuggggghhhh!

  No!

  No backsliding!

  K-Cray needed to shut the eff up!

  Kristy didn’t care how hot Doug was!

  She was never ever doing him!

  Or dating him!

  Or driving sexing him!

  Or anything-ing him!

  She was done with men like him!

  Forever!

  Done, done, done!

  —: o o o :—

  It never once occurred to Kristy Crawford that she had entered into her fight with Borky Brock as hastily — if not more so — than Doug Moore had entered into his fight with Rhino in that alley. Much like with Brock and Kristy, Rhino had struck Doug first.

  The only person who had made Kristy attack Brock was K-Cray.

  Kristy could’ve walked away.

  But no, tempers.

  Because an eye for an eye was the going price, if you asked K-Cray. Plus, she and Brock had history! Doug didn’t even know those guys!

  If you asked Doug, this was known as a double standard.

  But nobody was asking Doug because life wasn’t fair.

  Nor was it easy.

  Though sometimes,

  if you tried real hard,

  you just might get,

  the girl of your dreams.

  —: Chapter 10 :—

  For several blocks, I tried not to say anything as LL blasted through a number of yellow and recently red lights like she was trying to escape a crime scene.

  Oh, wait.

  We were.

  My crime scene.

  Best to put distance between us and the alley as quickly as possible. Then again, running reds was the fastest way to attract attention from the cops.

  I said, “Maybe you should slow down, Elles.”

  “Who?” she barked, her eyes intent on the road ahead. Our car sped down the onramp to the 5 freeway going north.

  “Lady Liberty? LL? Like the name Elle, but two L’s, like Elles? You never told me your name, remember?”

  “No, I didn’t,” she grumbled without looking at me.

  She didn’t say anything after that. The look on her face suggested she might have no intention of ever speaking to me again.

  But I hardly noticed that.

  Why?

  I don’t know if you’ve ever ridden in a car next to a supermodel stripper who was wearing a tight costume that showed everything or not, but I hadn’t before this moment. To say the experience was overwhelming was an understatement. It took everything in my power not to stare at her boobs. I mean beauty. Stare at her beauty. Her intoxicating scent wasn’t helping either. I swear it kept whispering in my ear like a siren song, Look at those boobs, Doug. They are so perfectly round and proud. And those nipples? I bet they’re standing at attention right now. Just take a peek. One little peek at those two perfect peaks. Go on. You know you want to…

  Somehow, I managed to keep my eyes forward and pinned on the road.

  She grunted, “Where do you live anyway?”

  “Bankers Hill.”

  “Bankers Hill?!” she sneered.

  “Yeah.”

  “By Balboa Park?” She laughed.

  “That’s where it’s always been,” I said, not sure what she was getting at.

  She snorted, “What, are you rich?”

  “Don’t you know it’s not polite to ask?” I was joking, but everyone knew Bankers Hill was filled with multi-million dollar homes.

  “Fine,” she snorted. “Don’t tell me.” Once again, she stared straight ahead like I wasn’t there.

  “I thought you said earlier you were never talking to me again.”

  “I’m not,” she scowled. Although she still wore her blue masquerade mask, I could see her face crinkle as she suddenly burst into loud laughter.

  I laughed too and we laughed together for a long time. Eventually our laughter faded into a long and mutual moaning sigh.

  She shook her head, “Seriously, Doug, what the hell happened back there?”

  “Which time?” I grinned.

  “This is totally crazy, right?”

  “Sure seems like it. Hey, do you mind if I turn on the radio? See if the news stations are talking about what happened?”

  “Go for it,” she said.

  I would’ve used my Robot phone to check the internet, but it was a cooling puddle of metal back at the convention center. Short of asking to borrow LL’s phone — which would likely get my fingers bitten off — the radio was my only option for news.

  It took me a minute to tune into KFMB, an AM station running local news. The newscaster mentioned it a minute later:

  “And in local San Diego news, reports are coming in of an unexplained mass fainting spell at the convention center downtown. According to KFMB’s own Luciana Hernandez, who was on location covering the world famous San Diego Comic Con, over 100,000 attendees apparently passed out at the same time, only to wake up shortly after with no recollection of what happened. Other than minor injuries, no one was seriously harmed.”

  LL asked, “Did we hallucinate the whole thing?”

  I said, “What? The green eclipse? Or everything else?”

  “All of it.”

  The newscaster continued, “…a late model sedan had its doors ripped off and suffered a gas tank fire at the scene. A witness in a nearby office building saw smoke emanating from the convention center and called 911. Firefighters arrived to discover the fire was already out. No witnesses at the convention center reported seeing the blaze.”

  Wide eyed, I stared at LL.

  She stared back.

  “Watch out!” I shouted.

  She suddenly swerved, narrowly missing a random broken couch lying in the middle of the freeway. It must have fallen off the back of a truck recently.

  “Sorry,” she sighed.

  “It’s okay.” I took a deep breath, trying to relax. “We really have super powers, don’t we?”

  “Sure seems like it.”

  “And it sounds like the eclipse only hit the convention center. That’s not an eclipse.”

  “It had to be a UFO,” she said with certainty.

  “You might be right. Whatever the case, I’m sure we’ll find out eventually. The good news is your secret identity is still intact. Mine on the other hand…”

  How many peop
le had recorded me or my face since leaving the convention center wearing only LL’s cape-kilt? At least one person had recorded my face coming out of the alley. If another person had seen smoke from the car fire from a nearby office building, perhaps a third person had recorded video from afar of Lady Liberty and me doing the impossible.

  I cringed.

  I didn’t want the world knocking at my front door because I could shoot fire from my hands or lift half a car. Yes, I liked the idea of having super powers, and was all about helping people, but I had no interest in being famous. Okay, maybe comic-book-penciller famous, but not YouTube-millions-of-views famous.

  LL looked angry about something.

  I said, “Are you worried about being famous too?”

  She grumbled, “Jeff told you, didn’t he?”

  “This is my exit.”

  “Huh?”

  I pointed out the windshield. “6th Avenue. This is my exit.”

  “Oh.” Still irritated, she signaled and exited the freeway.

  “Turn right at the end of the offramp. On 6th.”

  She did and drove north. On our left, we passed block after block of pricey condos and apartment buildings. To our right, a palm-tree-lined street ran along the west edge of Balboa Park.

  The sprawling park was where The Realm of Andor people met to practice medieval fighting near Morley Field. Andor was a group of LARPers who focused on combat. Surprisingly, quite a few of them were women.

  The combat wasn’t the same as SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) fighting with real armor and weapons. Andor armor and weapons were more like cosplay than SCA.

  But it was damn fun.

  I wasn’t a full-time member of Andor, but I had gone often enough to be an honorary member. I would’ve gone more often, but maintaining the gear, which frequently broke during combat, was almost a full time job.

  I wondered if LARPing was something LL might like to do? As unlikely as that sounded, she was wearing a cosplay costume, so I had to ask.

  “Hey, Elles, do you ever go LARPing?”

  “What?” she grumbled.

  “LARPing?”

  “I have no idea what that is.”

  “You don’t know what LARPing is?”

  She barked, “Do I look like I should?”

  “Umm… you’re wearing a superhero costume, which is cosplay, which is one step away from LARPing.”

  Flustered, she shook her hand in the air. “I don’t know what larping is, okay? Anyway, you didn’t answer my question,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  “Which question?”

  She groaned, “Jeff? Did he tell you?”

  “Err… tell me what?”

  “Please, Doug. Stop dicking around.”

  “Yeah. Jeff told me.” I sighed and ran my hand through my hair.

  “I knew it. What’d he say?”

  “He said you work at Flashbacks.”

  LL grimaced. “Stupid Jeff. I told him not to tell anybody.”

  “It was an accident. I kept asking him questions about you and he let it slip.” Now I really sounded like a stalker.

  “Why were you asking so many questions about me?”

  “Because I’m a stalker.” I offered a sarcastic smile.

  She smirked at me, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Look, don’t worry. I won’t bother you at work. I promise. I’ve never been to a strip joint.”

  “Yeah, right,” she snorted.

  “That’s what Jeff said! Why doesn’t anybody believe I haven’t gone to a strip joint?!”

  She smirked at me.

  “I haven’t! So relax. I don’t plan on going to one anytime soon. And if I ever do, I’ll make sure not to go to yours, alright?”

  “You do that.”

  “You mean don’t do that.”

  “Whatever,” she grumbled.

  “Relax, Elles. I promise I won’t bother you.”

  “Would you stop calling me that?”

  “What else am I going to call you? I don’t know your name, remember?”

  “Let’s keep it that way.”

  I could hear the imaginary door slam in my face.

  If I ever thought I had a chance with LL, I had been fooling myself. She had everything going for her and I really didn’t have much at all. Except… except fricking super powers! Which she had too. Who else was she going to commiserate with about being a super freak? It was a foregone conclusion, if we didn’t keep our powers secret, we would both become notorious freaks in the worst sense of the word. Talk about having something in common you needed to commiserate about.

  Maybe she would warm to me eventually.

  Maybe.

  The look on her face said a permanent cooling trend had just set in.

  Think ice age.

  Oh well.

  At least I had super powers.

  —: Chapter 11 :—

  “This is it?” Lady Liberty asked doubtfully as we rolled to a stop on a curvy neighborhood street in Bankers Hill. “I don’t see a house. All I see are shrubs.”

  This was the secluded section with all the fancy mansions. Most were nestled away behind private gates, dense trees, and tall hedges.

  “It’s back there,” I said.

  “Where?”

  “Behind those hedges.”

  “You really live here?”

  I smirked, “Why would I have you drop me off at someone else’s house?”

  “Is it your house?”

  “Technically, no. It’s my friend Arnold’s. I live in the guest house in back.”

  She scowled at me, “Do you even live here? Or was this some big lie to impress me?”

  I scowled back, “Yes I live here. I wasn’t trying to impress you. Why, do men lie to you all the time or something?”

  Her scowl decayed into a grimace.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. I should go.” I opened the door, stood up, and suddenly remembered I was wearing her cape-kilt and nothing else. “Uhh… what about your cape?”

  “Keep it. I can make another one.”

  “You made it?”

  “Yes,” she grumbled. “I like to sew, okay?”

  “It looks like it was a lot of work. It’s really nice. Are you sure? I mean, I can run inside and get some clothes and bring it back. It’ll just take a minute.” I no longer had my keys, but I’d break a window to get inside if I had to. Anything to keep LL around a little bit longer.

  “Keep it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Just keep it. Anything else?”

  “Uhh…” My eyes landed on several copies of Lady Liberty #1 lying forgotten on the Audi’s back seat. “Oh, hey, can I grab one of those extra copies of your comic? I meant to get one at the show but…” I was too embarrassed to admit I was basically too broke to buy one then, and more broke now because what little cash I’d had in my wallet had burned away to nothing.

  She followed my gaze, twisted in her seat, and grabbed one. Handed it to me. She smiled, “Here. It’s on me.”

  “Thanks.”

  I waited for her to say something.

  She arched an eyebrow.

  Why did it feel like this was a permanent goodbye? Because it probably was. A hot stripper like her wasn’t going to warm to a software nerd like me, powers or no powers.

  I sighed, “Well, uh, if you ever need to find me, you know where I live.”

  “Do I?”

  “I told you I was telling the truth.”

  “You better be,” she grumbled, “because once I’m gone, you’re on your own. I’d hate for you to have to walk all the way back to Chula Vista or Santee or wherever you really live without any clothes.”

  “I live here,” I groaned. Yeah, I didn’t want her to go, but she clearly didn’t want to stay. “Okay, well, you know how to get out of here, right?”

  “Yes.”

  The second I closed my door, she turned the car around in the street and drove away.

 
; I just stood there watching.

  Fifty feet down the street, she stopped, put it in reverse, and backed up, her window rolled down. When her Audi came to a stop, the brakes squeaked briefly.

  She smirked, “You don’t live here, do you?”

  I laughed, “Yes, I live here.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes I’m sure. Bye.” I waved politely but sarcastically.

  “All right, but don’t get mad when I’m gone. I’m not coming back.”

  “That’s what you said the first time.”

  She rolled her eyes, “Okay, Captain Obvious.”

  I saluted her, “See you around, Lady Liberty.”

  “Nerd.” Smiling genuinely now, she shook her head and drove away slowly.

  Was there any chance I would see her again?

  Her Audi turned at the end of the street and disappeared.

  Probably not.

  I turned and walked toward the front gate of my — I should say Arnold’s family’s — house. He didn’t own it either. Technically, his parents did.

  A car tooted its horn behind me.

  On the street, a Mexican guy drove by in a gardener’s pickup truck with the window down. He was laughing at me because my ass was showing through a gap in LL’s cape. The guy sitting next to him in the passenger’s seat was also laughing.

  Whatever.

  I stuck the copy of Lady Liberty #1 through the bars on the gate and set it gently on the asphalt drive on the other side. Wrapped the cape more tightly around my waist and twisted the slit to the side so my crack wasn’t showing. Then I knotted it and jammed my wallet into the waistline of the flag.

  Time to jump the front gate.

  I reached up to grab the top with both hands and stopped short. A colorful flash to my right caught my eye.

  Yoga Angelina.

  She wore a different yoga outfit from this morning and was walking up the sidewalk with her Yorkshire Terrier on a leash. Yoga Angelina’s outfit wasn’t quite as tight as Lady Liberty’s ultra-tight costume, but it showed off her flat tan stomach, slender legs, sensuous hips, and ample chest. Unlike LL’s bodysuit, which covered everything from the neck down, Yoga Angelina’s top offered an enticing view of her tan cleavage.

  Sadly, Yoga Angelina now wore her privacy earbuds and ninja-blocking eye visor.