Hero

by Perry Moore

  "Do you see him?" Snaggletooth asked in a high-pitched voice, panic setting in. His hands shook on the steering wheel and his claws dug into the hard plastic.

  "Shut up, asshole, she's looking!" Ssnake craned his neck out of joint and stretched his head out the driver's side window for a better look. "He was right behind us. He can't be that far."

  "Oh man, he's gonna kill me, he's gonna kill me, he's gonna kill me!" Snaggletooth slammed both paws on the gas.

  "Wait, I think I see something." Transvision Vamp made her way to the back of the bus.

  "What is it, what do you see?" Snaggletooth couldn't seem to get a grip.

  "Will you calm down and keep your eyes on the road!" Ssnake brought his head back in the window.

  "Screw you, I'm driving as fast as this piece of shit will go. I'm not getting caught by that guy, you don't know what he did to Frank. He caught him robbing that nursing home . . . before the police got there. ..." Snaggletooth wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

  "That's urban legend." Ssnake tried to talk him down.

  "Maybe." Snaggletooth inhaled deeply through his nose, shook his head, and pressed his knees together. "All I know is I plan on keeping both balls and using 'em until I'm an old man."

  "Will you both shut up!" Transvision Vamp wiped a smear of lipstick off her front teeth and put her hands on the frame of the back window. "I think I can see the trail he left. Ssnake, hang me out the window so I can get a better look."

  I struggled to move in my seat but couldn't. With these guys in the back of the bus not paying attention to us, if I could get up, I knew I could take the driver, I just knew it. An old man in the seat behind me began to hyperventilate. I managed to lift my arm up, reach back, and place my hand on his shoulder. I felt my hand burn as his wheezes subsided.

  But my toes started to twitch.

  Phantom Girl, Karate Kid, Dream Girl ... I had to calm down. I could do this.

  My leg muscles tensed, but I couldn't fire off the right signals in my brain to make them work.

  Ultra Boy, Element Lad, Colossal Boy ... I yanked my butt off the seat like I was pulling myself off flypaper and stood in the middle of the aisle.

  Transvision Vamp and Ssnake were leaning out the window in the back, and Snaggletooth's attention was fixed on the road ahead of him. I struggled to put one foot in front of the other as I made my way up the aisle toward the driver's seat.

  The lady in the muumuu covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a scream, and her eyes bulged as she shook her head at me. I kept going.

  Matter Eater Lad. . . Light Lass . . .

  I was just a few feet behind Snaggletooth now. I looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror, and I could see the panic in his eyes as he blazed the bus forward. With a little luck, he wouldn't look up in the mirror and see me. A few more seconds and I'd be on top of him.

  "I found the trail!" Transvision Vamp shouted from outside the speeding bus.

  "Oh God, where does it lead to?" Snaggletooth stammered, his eyes still on the road in front of him.

  Star Boy . . . Shadow Lass ... I took another step forward and raised my arms to strike.

  Then something caught my attention through the front windshield.

  "Hold on, I'm following it now!" Vamp shouted, the urgency increasing in her voice.

  "Shit shit shit shit shit shit." Snaggletooth smacked the wheel in a vain effort to make the bus go faster.

  I squinted and looked carefully through the windshield. A pair of eyes, a piercing gaze, stared into the bus from the darkness outside, like someone was hanging from the top of the bus. The eyes darted around, surveyed the scene as fast as possible.

  Then the piercing eyes locked on to mine and I froze, standing there in the middle of the aisle, my arms raised ready to strike.

  "I said, where does the goddamn trail lead-—?" Snaggletooth shouted.

  Transvision Vamp shouted frantically from the back of the bus. "The roof, he's on the roof!"

  Snaggletooth turned his head around to look up at the roof. And he saw me.

  I let out a small gasp of air, and I could hear him growl as his muscles tightened, ready to pounce. Snaggletooth sprung at me off his hind legs, claws aimed at my eyes.

  Suddenly the front windshield burst into a thousand jagged fragments, and a man dressed in black swung himself into the bus. With lightning speed he leaped forward and tack¬led Snaggletooth before he could sink his claws into my pupils.

  The Man in Black, who had just saved my life, rose before Snaggletooth could catch his breath and began to land a flurry of staccato kicks in Snaggletooth's gut. Snaggletooth wheezed for air. The bus swerved back and forth, and the passengers screamed as we were thrown from side to side.

  Ssnake slithered between my legs, his body gyrating forward in a swift, liquid line to the front of the bus. He popped up and resumed human form in the empty driver's seat and grabbed the steering wheel, which had begun to drift dangerously out of control. The bus smacked into a small Honda and sent it spinning into the guardrail.

  The Man in Black delivered a devastating final kick to Snaggletooth's chin, knocking him up into the air. He landed face-first on the floor, and chipped off the end of his fang.

  I stood up, wanting to help. A laser beam of light whizzed in front of me and blew a hole through a succession of seats. It stopped me in my tracks, and the passengers dove in all directions. I followed the beam back to Vamp's smoking eyes. She fired repeatedly at the Man in Black, who flipped from seat to seat, dodging the blasts. He bounced up the seats, making his way closer and closer to Vamp. She backed up against the wall, her eyes glowing green with panic. Ssnake was too busy driving to help; Snaggletooth was out cold on the floor; and she was about three seconds away from a hand-to-hand encounter with the most brutal vigilante on the planet. In desperation, she let loose a torrent of eye blasts at the passengers.

  The lady in the muumuu shrieked and tried to wedge herself under her seat, and I dove to the other side of the bus. The mother grabbed her little girl and started to stand. The blasts ripped through their seats.

  The young mother's face went white, and the little girl screamed. I saw that the mother suddenly had a chunk missing from her side. She clutched the wound, which was gushing thick, dark blood, like motor oil pouring out of a leaky engine. The Man in Black turned around to help, but I was already on it. I had her flat on the floor, my hands pressing firmly on the wound, my palms smoldering as they began to cauterize the gash. Blood spurted on my face. This was worse than anything I'd ever been able to heal, and I could feel the effort sapping my energy. A wave of nausea bubbled up in my stomach, and I fought the urge to barf. The little girl crawled under the seat and whimpered.

  The Man in Black grabbed the oversize hairbrush off the floor and disappeared into the shadows under his cape and reemerged right in front of the screaming Vamp. Before she could react, he swiped the sharp bristles across her open eyes, blinding her in an instant. A scaly green leg wriggled past us on the floor and knocked the Man in Black's feet out from under him. Ssnake's elongated hand followed and kept the Man in Black busy, while Vamp wiped madly at her eyes, struggling to regain her sight.

  I looked at Ssnake, trying with his appendages to drive the bus and fight the Man in Black at the same time. I saw him mouth "Screw it" to himself, and he took his remaining hand off the wheel and wriggled it back to Snaggletooth and smacked him hard in the face to wake up.

  Snaggletooth opened his eyes and jumped up as the Man in Black took Ssnake's hand and foot and tied them in a knot. He threw the knotted limbs around Snaggletooth as the beast leaped for him.

  "Snaggletooth, no!" Ssnake screamed, but it was too late. The Man in Black ducked, and Snaggletooth sailed above him out the back window, yanking Ssnake out of the driver's seat by his knotted limbs and carrying him with him. Ssnake's free hand caught the back of the bus, and the two villains flew up into the air, attached to the bus like a kid's balloon that had been tied there af
ter a carnival.

  A dark cape flashed past me, and before I could blink, the Man in Black was back in the driver's seat fighting with the gears to regain control of the swerving bus. He looked up into the mirror and his piercing eyes bounced from me to the young mother. I met his eyes and nodded urgently, like I was doing the best I could. My hands burned and I felt like I could drop from exhaustion at any moment, but I couldn't seem to make them any hotter. I was already reaching my limit.

  "We have to get her to a hospital!" All that first-aid training really paid off.

  The Man in Black pointed forward to the bridge in front of us, and beyond that to the city. We'd be there in just a few min¬utes if I could keep her alive until then, stretch my powers just a little further. The Man in Black leaned forward, determined, and pushed the bus to go faster.

  We could make it—we were almost at the top of the bridge, the city hospital just seconds away once we were on the other side.

  Suddenly a blast of energy ripped through the floorboards; crackling and spitting sparks, it began to slice the bus in two from rear to front. Transvision Vamp, undeterred by the blood dripping from her eyelids, was back in business, her eyes aim¬ing a blast down the center of the aisle.

  The Man in Black looked up at me in the mirror, his eyes pleading.

  I looked down at my hands, blood from the wound seeping up between my fingertips. The young mother's eyes were rolling back into her head, so I pressed harder. The extra effort made me feel like my head was going to explode. The crack in the aisle from the Vamp's eye blast was getting closer and closer to us.

  "Help me!" I shouted.

  The Man in Black's eyes look down in resignation for a split second before he bounded out of his seat and threw himself back at Vamp. He backhanded her before she could finish ripping the bus in two, but not before Ssnake and Snaggletooth had pulled themselves back on board. Ssnake spit a glob of venom at the Man in Black, who leaped above it. The venom landed in a splat on the floor, and partially on top of the old man's steel-tipped shoe. It burned and dissolved the matter underneath it like acid. The old man screamed; his shoe hissed with smoke.

  I reached over to him, one hand still firmly attached to the young mother, and I covered his burning foot with my palm. I clenched my teeth in pain as my hand burned.

  Snaggletooth took a swipe at the Man in Black, and the vigilante flipped up into the air, landing far up the aisle. The puddle of Ssnake's spit had burned another hole through the floorboard. Snaggletooth lurched forward, and one of his legs dropped through the hole. He screamed in pain as his femur snapped. I squeezed the old man's foot tighter, determined not to let his foot dissolve.

  "Ssnake, get us off this thing!" Vamp rubbed her chin.

  "I'm trying!" He caught a deep punch to the kidney from the Man in Black.

  The Vamp rubbed her temples and aimed her vision at the apex of the bridge the bus had begun to climb. In an instant, she sent a shock blast that rippled fissures into the pavement. The bridge began to crumble.

  We all looked forward in horror as the bus sped toward a gaping hole in the bridge.

  The Man in Black swiftly struck Vamp in the windpipe with the side of his hand and jumped back into the driver's seat. He navigated the bus through the holes in the bridge like we were speeding through an obstacle course in a minefield.

  I struggled to hold on to both the young mother's bleeding side and the old man's dissolving foot. Below me, the middle of the bus was splitting in two, and it slowly began to stretch me apart like saltwater taffy. In a few seconds I was going to lose one of them, or drop in through the split in the floor, or both. I thought about what my dad would do in this situation, but I couldn't think fast enough. I didn't know how much longer I could hold on. I looked up at the Man in Black's eyes in the rearview mirror. I couldn't see an expression under his cowl, but I knew his eyes were telling me to hold on, the holes in the pavement ahead of us didn't matter, we were almost there, I could do it.

  Beneath me the two halves of the bus parted.

  "Look!" The little girl pointed out the window. At first they looked like a flock of giant birds.

  Suddenly, a rainbow of colors lit up the night outside of the bus. Sparks of light reflected off the little girl's face, and a fireworks display of bright colors exploded around us.

  The birds swooped down closer, and I realized they weren't birds at all.

  It was the League.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  UBERMAN DOVE DOWN from the stars ready for battle, his body aimed, his muscles poised and rippling under his costume. His cape and long hair moved in silky waves behind him as he flew.

  The Spectrum, who was the League's most easily recognizable hero next to Uberman, emitted a tangible rainbow bridge of color from his fingertips that let the bus glide smoothly over the last deadly holes in the bridge.

  Then Uberman landed on the front of the bus with a grace¬ful plink, lifted us, and suddenly we were airborne. The passen¬gers on the bus cheered. The Man in Black, now useless in the driver's seat, looked at me through the rearview mirror. I caught myself looking up at Uberman with sheer awe.

  The Man in Black sprang from the driver's seat and went after the villains in the back. Ssnake was the only one who looked like he could put up a decent fight at this point; Snaggletooth and Vamp were down for the count. When he reached them, the Man in Black hesitated for a moment before he threw a punch and looked back in my direction, just enough time for Ssnake to wrap his protective arms around his partners and pry open an emergency window exit.

  The Man in Black didn't try to stop them, and suddenly he was beside me. I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck. He grabbed my hand, hard, like you would discipline a child.

  I'd been so busy staring at Uberman that I'd taken my hand off the young mother's wound. The Man in Black looked deep in my eyes. I was so mortified that I'd let my attention wander, I wanted him to pull off his cowl and say something. Instead he placed my hand back on the mother's side. She was now unconscious. My powers had been more effective than I'd expected, but as soon as I'd taken my hand off, the wound had begun to gush again. Now I kept my hand firmly on it. I couldn't look the Man in Black in the eye after that.

  Ssnake enveloped his partners in one single swipe, bundled them to his chest, and spread out his back, king cobra—style, like a parachute. The bottom half of his body morphed into a coil, and he bounced from the bus like a loaded spring. The Man in Black came within a millimeter of snatching Snaggletooth's paw as they floated away and disappeared into the darkness.

  Another slight jolt to the bus, and we looked down through the gaping split in the floor and saw the river below us as we flew through the air. The lady in the muumuu held her hand to her chest and crouched down by the wall, like she was afraid she might fall through. Then we saw Warrior Woman piecing the floor back together like a zipper, one chunk at a time, and all the passengers began to applaud.

  Uberman opened the door politely.

  "You're safe now, folks, back on good ol' terra firma."

  There was a flash of silver, and suddenly Silver Bullet stood above me.

  "I'll take it from here, young man." He scooped the bleeding young mother into his arms and whisked her off, presumably to the nearest hospital.

  In the seat next to us, her little girl pulled on one of the tangles in her hair. Tears began to well in her eyes.

  "Where's he taking my mama?"

  "Wait," I called out. "You forgot about her—"

  Another whirr of light, this time golden, and suddenly Golden Boy, Silver Bullet's longtime sidekick, appeared in front of me.

  "We never forget," he said without an expression. In a flash he'd cradled the little girl and was off, kicking up some dirt and grime from the floorboard in my face. As I rubbed a tiny piece of gravel out of the corner of my eye, I wondered if he'd done it on purpose.

  I stood and dusted myself off and saw that the lady in the muumuu was already deep in the thrall of Ube
rman, who was unwedging her from one of the seats.

  On the street outside, reporters, cameramen, and adoring fans swarmed the League. The lights lit up Uberman, Warrior Woman, the Spectrum—aka Dr. Roy G. Biv—and then the sea of media parted to make room for the longstanding leader of the League.

  Justice raised his hands high, a command to listen, and the crowd obeyed.

  "Nothing to see here, folks. Just doing our jobs."

  He spoke plainly in the voice of the common man, but with just enough grave authority to give his words weight.

  Justice had been the League's leader ever since I was alive, but the guy was in better shape than I'd ever be. He had to be only a few years younger than my dad, and I wondered about the secret to his longevity in a business that seemed to spit out a new, rabidly popular teen superhero group every year or two.

  The mob of reporters was shouting questions on top of each other. It was bedlam.

  "We'll comment on all that and we'll answer all your questions at the proper time. Right now you'll have to please let us go about our job protecting you, the people."

  Justice was a real pro with the press. His voice remained calm and reassuring. Despite the pandemonium, he never got testy, never raised his voice. I thought I heard a few reporters shout out some questions about his feelings on "the death," but I couldn't figure out what that was all about, since as far as I could (tell there were no casualties on the bus.

  Then I remembered the young mother and my heart sank. I couldn't believe how dumb I'd been to take my hand off her, even for a second. If she died, it would be my fault.

  I saw Uberman over by the police barricade lines as he signed autographs for throngs of women who screamed for his attention. He was in the process of asking a woman with fake lips how to spell her name.

  "Is that 'Bambi' with one T or two?"

  I looked down at my hands and saw them shaking with leftover energy. My heart was still pounding, the adrenaline still pumping through my veins, and I wanted to run a few laps around the block to burn it off. There were no reporters around me, so I actually dropped to the ground to do push-ups.