Hero Force United Boxed Set 1

by Baron Sord

  Yeah, she had to have charm powers. Not even Stunning Stazia could make me this dumb with lust.

  LL smirked, “You must be the Masked Jumper. I saw you on a news video the other day.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  She grinned, “I knew it was you.”

  “Yup. I’m him. It’s good to see you, Elles.” I meant it.

  “Don’t call me that,” she scowled. “I hate that name.”

  “Gee, maybe if I knew your real name…”

  “Never gonna happen,” she smirked.

  I rolled my eyes. Same old LL.

  She said, “I thought you would’ve bothered me at work by now.”

  “Huh?” I frowned. “You mean here?”

  “I meant my other job.”

  “Oh. You mean Flashbacks. Yeah, no. Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re a man,” she said decisively.

  “I promised you I wouldn’t. Did you see me there?”

  “No, but you’re still a man.”

  “What part of, ‘I’ve never been into your work’ are you not hearing?” Note my subtle inclusion of the term into. If she knew how many times I had driven by Flashbacks, stopped, and considered going in, she might never talk to me again.

  Now it was her turn to roll her eyes.

  Wanting to change the subject, I said, “I was starting to think I’d never see you again.”

  She shrugged.

  Damn, she was so good looking it bordered on torture.

  “Would you stop staring?” she huffed. “I get enough of that at work.”

  “Did you ever think maybe the skin-tight superhero costume was the wrong outfit for avoiding staring?”

  “I’m not gonna wear a bed sheet or a tent. I need something I can move in. Besides, it’s good for exposure.”

  “Ha. Yeah.” I wanted to say she was definitely exposed in her costume, but I didn’t.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she glowered. “You’re just as bad every guy who comes into the club. Always effing staring.”

  “Look what you’re wearing!” I chuckled defensively. “It’s a colorful superhero costume!”

  “You’re not supposed to stare!”

  I groaned, “How does that make any sense?”

  “It makes perfect sense,” she barked.

  “Can we not argue?” I sighed. “What is it with you and arguing all the time? Can’t we have a civil conversation like friendly adults?”

  “You tell me.”

  I sighed, “Forget I mentioned it. More importantly, what are you doing here?”

  “Uh, hello? Four alarm fire?”

  “How did you know there was a fire? You live around here?”

  “No. Sort of. I… never mind.”

  “Let me guess. You hear people in distress. In your head.”

  Despite her blue masquerade mask, her frown was noticeable. She said, “Wait, do you hear people’s emotions in your head too?”

  “Yup. Pretty much 24/7,” I said. “Unless I’m exhausted. Or eat a lot of sugar or caffeine. But yeah. I hear their thoughts too.”

  She thought, I thought I was the only one who could do that.

  “Nope, I can too,” I responded.

  “Oh, wait. You can read my thoughts?”

  “Yours and everyone else’s.”

  “Makes sense,” she said.

  “So, what’s with the costume? Aren’t you worried about getting noticed?”

  She rolled her eyes, “I have bills to pay. Do you have any idea how much pizza and salad I’m eating? Ever since that green eclipse, it’s nuts. I mean, who knew salad dressing was so effing expensive?”

  “I know what you mean,” I grinned. “My grocery bill is insane. I can’t even pay it anymore unless I borrow money from my roommate.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. So, uh, what does your costume have to do with your bills?”

  “It’s my brand. It sells comic books.”

  “If that’s the case, how come I haven’t seen you on the news? If you’re going around looking like this, somebody has to have recorded video of you by now.”

  She nodded, “Somebody put up a couple videos on YouTube already.”

  “Really?” I had been too busy to check. “The same person uploaded both?”

  “There’s more than two. There’s a few. Different people put them up. People in LA. I think they think it’s a movie studio thing. A promotion for the next Marvel or DC movie. Like a publicity stunt, except it’s for Lady Liberty, which it’s not, obviously. Nobody thinks I’m real. Not even Jeff.”

  “Jeff Strickland from Crash Comics?”

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded. “Are there any videos of you on YourView?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t checked. I hate that platform.”

  “What?! YourView is way better than YouTube.”

  “Whatever,” she rolled her eyes. “Anyway, go to YouTube and search for Lady Liberty. I’m there.”

  “I’ll check YourView too.”

  She glanced at my outfit. “Maybe you should get a costume. Something other than a ninja mask.”

  Was she being sarcastic? It was hard to tell. I joked, “Maybe you can make me one. Something cool. I’m going by Wildfire now.”

  “Wildfire?”

  “Yeah,” I said proudly. “I was thinking something red and yellow? Or maybe red and orange? But it has to be fire resistant. Could you make something like that?”

  “Mmmm… No.”

  “You mean, no, I should go with different colors? Or no, you can’t work with fire resistant materials, or no, you don’t want to make me a costume?”

  “All of the above,” she giggled.

  I was about to say, if she had any suggestions for color designs, I was open to them. We were both superhero comic artists, so we could talk shop when it came to costume design, right? Then I took one look at her resting snoot face and thought to myself, Man, if she wasn’t such a bitch, we could at least be friends.

  “Nice,” she scowled.

  “Hold up. Were you listening to my thoughts?”

  “I told you I could.”

  I smirked, “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that thoughts aren’t offensive? It’s only offensive when you say them out loud.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You thought it.”

  I smirked, “I was going to think something even more awful about you just now, but I decided not too.”

  “No, go ahead,” she grinned. “I’m more than happy to tell you you’re an ass to your face.”

  I sighed, “Are you always this defensive? I’m just trying to be friendly.”

  “Must you?”

  “What’s wrong with being friendly?”

  She huffed, “Fine. Be friendly. While you’re doing that, I’m gonna see what I can do about this fire.” She jumped over to the burning building, arcing high in the air before landing like a cat on the unburned portion of the U where I had just been.

  I jumped high and landed next to her. When I was sure the firefighters down below hadn’t noticed us, I muttered to her, “You know, I’m surprised we haven’t run into each other before now. I’ve been all over San Diego County ever since the Con. You know, helping people. Shouldn’t we have ended up at the same distress call at least once before now?”

  “I’m mostly up in the OC and LA.”

  “So you’ve been busy helping people too?”

  She nodded, “Almost every night. I keep skipping nights at work, I’m so busy. I’m losing tons of tip money because of it. But people need help. I don’t have a choice.”

  “I know what you mean. I used up all my work sick days already. And a few vacation days. Do you guys get sick days at Flashbacks?”

  “No,” she snorted.

  “Too bad. I was going to say, there’s nothing worse than sitting at my desk behind a computer knowing that somebody somewhere needs help and I’m not doing anything about it because I have to work. It fri
cking kills me I can’t quit my job and help people 24/7.”

  She suddenly turned to look right at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  Maybe there’s more to this Doug than I… Her thoughts grew quieter before trailing off into complete silence.

  “Than you what?” I pressed.

  She smirked.

  “Hold on, did you just block me out of your thoughts?”

  Her smirk widened into a smile.

  “Oh yeah?” I challenged. “I can block you out too!”

  “Good luck with that. I’ve got my powers and women’s intuition.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay, what am I thinking?”

  “You’re thinking you want to fuck me, Doug.”

  “No I’m not!”

  “Pfft.”

  “I’m not!” I had been thinking about kissing her.

  “It’s okay. I’m used to it. I mean, really really used to it,” she said with obvious disgust. “If you ever have a daughter, don’t let her be a stripper.”

  “So said every father ever.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Does your dad hate it?”

  She scowled hatefully, “Don’t ask.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. No, I should have said that. It was an innocent question. What was wrong with me asking a fricking innocent question? That was what friends did. Suddenly irritated, I smirked, “Do you have any friends?” I definitely shouldn’t have said that.

  “Screw you, Doug.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry,” I sighed and looked at the fire for a minute or two. “Hey, can you still punch through walls and stuff?”

  “Brick walls,” she said matter-of-factly, eyes locked on the fire.

  “And, uh… how’s the comic going?”

  “Great.” She was still staring at the fire and refusing to look at me. “Issue #2 is due out any day. We had to pay rush charges to get it printed on time, which were insane by the way.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. I knew from looking into it in the past that printing costs for comics were the biggest barrier to entry for most aspiring comic creators. Even with digital comics, print was still king. That meant you had to go with a publisher like Image or Crash if you didn’t want to go broke in the process of trying to get your artistic vision out to the fans.

  She continued, “I just finished drawing issue #3. Jeff still has to proofread it and send it to the printers first thing Monday morning, or else, more rush charges.”

  “Jeff helps with the comic?”

  “Yeah,” she nodded. “He proofs and pre-presses everything. Anyway, we’re supposed to premiere it at New York Comic Con in October.”

  “Wait, that’s a month from now. Shouldn’t issue #2 be out already?”

  “It comes out this Wednesday. On Saturday, we’re having a release party and signing here in town at Treasure Trove Comics & Gaming.”

  “I know that place.” It wasn’t my usual store because it was up in Encinitas, but I’d been there.

  “You should come out for the release party Saturday afternoon.”

  “If I have time,” I said. I hadn’t been to Villainous Lair — my usual haunt — since before San Diego Comic Con. They probably thought I’d died. Until getting my super-powers, I’d been a Wednesday regular. New comics day. Not anymore. Too many distress calls.

  She shrugged, “Whatevs. Anyway, we’re supposed to premiere issue #3 at New York Comic Con in October. Jeff wants to do a whole big thing.”

  “That sounds awesome.”

  “Are you going to that?” She didn’t look at me, but she did flick a half-glance at me for a half-nanosecond.

  “What, to New York Comic Con?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t afford to,” I sighed. “Food bills.”

  “I can relate.” She shifted uncomfortably. “And… uh… you? How’s the drawing going? Did you ever talk to Jeff about penciling?”

  “You remember that?” I was surprised she cared enough to remember.

  She rolled her eyes, “Please, Doug. I have a brain, you know. And who said anything about caring? Anyway, did you talk to Jeff or not?”

  “No, I never emailed him because I don’t have time. I’m too busy running all over San Diego being a real superhero to have any time for drawing them.”

  “Really?” She turned to face me and her cyan eyes searched mine.

  “Yup. Too busy.”

  “Wow, Doug. I’m surprised.”

  I snorted, “Surprised I care about helping people?”

  She shrugged, her cyan eyes glimmering in the firelight for a moment before she tore them away and looked back at the firefighters working down below.

  I sighed, “Are you sure you don’t want to be friends, Elles? Or whatever I’m supposed to call you? I mean, just friends? You and me?”

  She groaned, “I don’t need more friends, Doug. I need less.”

  “Wow. Do you hear yourself? You sound almost unbearably conceited.”

  She sighed, “I like my alone time, okay? Whenever I’m at work, I’m surrounded by men who paw me all night long. All they want to do is use me.”

  “I don’t want to use you,” I muttered.

  “You’re not paying me either,” she sneered.

  “Huh?”

  She groaned, “I let those men pay me to paw me. That’s why when I’m not dancing, or out helping people, I want to be alone so I can draw my comic and not be pawed, okay? I don’t plan on being a dancer forever. Is that okay with you?” She put her fists on her perfect hips.

  “Sorry.” I turned back to the fire. I wracked my brain for something to say that wouldn’t annoy her. “Hey, uh, can you do the fire thing?”

  “What fire thing?”

  “Remember at Comic Con? When I put the fire out?”

  “Yes. But, no, I can’t. How’d you do that? I could never figure it out.”

  I turned to her and forced a huge fake smile, “Did you just ask me a personal question?”

  “No,” she snorted and looked away but said nothing more.

  “I’ll tell you how I do the fire trick if you tell me your real name.”

  “No way,” she laughed. “It isn’t worth it.”

  “You aren’t making this easy, are you?”

  “Making what easy?”

  “What happened to your women’s intuition? I like you, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  She scowled, “Please don’t.” I’m not worth the ruh— “Just don’t, okay?”

  “Don’t what? Don’t like you?” I searched her cyan eyes, trying not to fall into them as the warm light of the building fire flickered off them like they were priceless blue jewels.

  “Stop looking at me, Doug!” Her scowl tarnished the glimmer in her cyan eyes. Irritated, she looked away.

  “Fine,” I sighed and turned back to the fire. I didn’t want to scare her off, but I was also worried I’d never see her again if I didn’t say something or somehow win her trust now. Well, at least not see her again for months at a stretch, and then only in highly public or publicized situations like comic conventions and building fires. Despite my attraction to women like Stunning Stazia, I felt a mental connection to Lady Liberty that I had never felt with anyone else, not even my close comics friends, or people like Arnold — whose interest in comics paled compared to mine — and certainly not with Stazia, who knew next to nothing about comics.

  At any rate, I had tried to connect more deeply with LL, but it hadn’t worked.

  She had made herself perfectly clear.

  KUH-KUH-KUH-KRACK!

  Suddenly, over on the far leg of the blazing warehouse’s U-shaped roof, another section collapsed and fell in with a bang. A shower of sparks billowed upward in the air.

  The fire crews rushed to get more hoselines onto it, but they appeared to be all out. I heard a bunch of hollering from below as the fire chief shouted on the radio to move another truck into position. More were ready and waiting on the street
.

  “I should do something about this,” I muttered to myself.

  “Like what?” LL asked.

  Feeling defeated on the topic of me and her ever being friends, I turned to her and said flatly, “See you around.” Then I jumped off the roof.

  “Where are you going?!” she demanded after I was high in the air.

  I landed on the far roof of the U and trotted over to the new hot spot that had burned through.

  LL gasped in a strained whisper, “Doug! Don’t go in there! It’s not safe!”

  I didn’t bother to acknowledge her as I dropped into Hell.

  —: Chapter 20 :—

  Kristy had to wonder, why’d she been such a bitch to Doug just now?

  Because she’d murdered her last boyfriend!

  That’s why!

  Ugh!

  Getting involved with Kristy K-Cray Crawford was an effing death sentence!

  Doug obviously liked her! He’d said so!

  The last thing she wanted was him getting involved with her and K-Cray killing him in a fit of rage!

  A minute ago, she’d almost told him she wasn’t worth the risk.

  She couldn’t tell him that!

  If she did, he’d ask questions!

  She’d have to explain dead effing Brock!

  She couldn’t tell anybody that!

  Not even Doug.

  Now he’d gone and jumped in the effing fire to make an effing point!

  Could he’ve been any more obvious?

  Why were the muscled men the most effing frustrating?!

  Ugh!

  She should just let him burn in there.

  That would make an effing point.

  —: Chapter 21 :—

  Inside the packing supply warehouse it was a literal inferno.

  Hundreds of rows of shelves lined with cardboard boxes burned bright. Tall flames licked the roof. This demon fire was building up steam, not losing it. The water coming in from the firefighters’ hoselines wasn’t cutting it.

  No sense letting the entire place burn down.

  I walked straight into the heart of the blaze.

  I had no idea how hot it was in here, but it wasn’t 6000 degrees F (3315 C) like an oxy torch. That said, it could easily be 1000-2000 F (537-1093 C) or more. Whatever the temperature, it didn’t bother me one bit.