A Hesitant Hero (Book 2): Some Kind of Hero

by S. J. Delos

  “Kaori, I didn’t imply you were promiscuous. I convinced Hannah it was a meaningless fling with an unfamiliar man. I even hinted that a large amount of alcohol might have been involved.”

  I shook my head. The laugh that followed was a hollow, distant sound. This couldn’t really be happening, could it? Maybe I was actually fighting Mistress Mirage and my mother was one of her very lifelike illusions.

  “Wow! So according to your version, I wasn’t just a slut, but a drunken slut who made the poor choice to not keep her legs together? Against that story, the truth actually sounds a million times better. At least there’s some dignity in having been in love, even if was with someone like Martin.”

  Her chin stuck out at that last bit. “I’m sorry if you’re insulted. I assumed, mistakenly it seems, that the truth would have been worse.”

  I sat down on the loveseat again. “Mother, the mistake is what you’re trying to do, not how you’re going about it. Look, Martin and I have a deal. Of sorts. Neither of us tries to have contact with Harmony. Or attempts to take custody of her. She gets the opportunity to grow up with a family that loves her. A Norm family. That’s all she should ever have to know.” I felt a sliver of hot wetness slip over the lower lid of my left eye and slide down my cheek. “She never has to be burdened with the knowledge she’s the offspring of two hated super-villains.” I wiped at the tear with the back of my hand, looking away.

  I thought I was going to faint when her hand touched my elbow. I turned to see an unusual expression on her face: concern.

  “I’m sorry, Kaori,” she said. “I’ve been … selfish. I don’t have much longer to live, and I just wanted to hold my granddaughter at least once before the end. I didn’t think about, didn’t understand, how hard giving her up must have been on you.” Her own eyes shone wetly. “It must be even harder, now that you’re a hero.”

  “How could it be worse?” I asked, my voice threatening to crack.

  Not that she was wrong. I had been fine with giving my daughter only the barest thoughts until Martin presented me with a folder containing photos, a location, and a name.

  Now I constantly found myself wondering all that heart-aching mommy shit. What was Harmony doing now? Has she been sick lately? Are her adopted parents being good to her? Not to mention the daily restraint required to not fly over her neighborhood to try to sneak a peek at her.

  My desire to hold my daughter in my arms was probably a thousand times stronger than my mother’s.

  “Kaori, how can you be so sure that her father … that he won’t decide to just take her for himself?”

  “Because he knows if he tried something like that, I would punch his throat through the back of his skull. I’ve made that much abundantly clear.”

  She sighed, staring at me for a long second before turning to look out the window. “I always dreamed that, one day, my children’s children would be running around this house. I wasn’t …. wasn’t much of a mother, I know. I’m still not sometimes, I guess. I just thought I could make some of that up by being a better grandmother.”

  I moved over to give her a hug, careful not to let my emotions make me squeeze too tightly. “You were the best mother you knew how to be. Good or bad? Well that’s subjective. We can’t change the past, and the only certainty we have about the future is that it’s short.” I let her go and stood up, looking down at her. “I wish you never knew Harmony existed.”

  A look of terrified revulsion passed over her pale face as her mouth dropped open. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “Because it’s not fair. To you, I mean. I basically dangled one of your heart’s desires in front of you, then asked that you forget about it. That was wrong. It would have honestly been better if you spent your remaining time enjoying the company of the family you can have contact with rather than chasing after the one you cannot. So, for everyone’s sanity, especially your own, let it go.”

  She continued to stare at me for a few moments, her eyes losing some of the light they’d so recently possessed. Then she nodded, turning her face return to looking out the front window. “I feel tired, Kaori. Perhaps you should go now.”

  Her change in demeanor was enough for me to guess some of the ground we so recently regained was gone. Two steps forward, one step back. I clasped my hands behind my back as I walked toward the door, stopping just inside the threshold to look back at her. I opened my mouth, but nothing that came to my mind seemed fitting to be uttered aloud.

  So instead, I merely said, “Good-bye, Mother. I’ll see you on Thursday.”

  She nodded her head, but didn’t turn around.

  The stab through my heart made tears well up in my eyes again. I cut through the kitchen, pausing to lightly run my fingers across the front of a photo of Tommy and me hanging on the wall. In it, I was spraying him with the garden hose while our mom looked on. There was a large smile on her face, rare even back then. I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand and headed out the back door.

  My father was sitting on the low brick wall running around the perimeter of the patio. He had built the thing by hand right after buying the house, working tirelessly in the evenings and on weekends until the job was done. As I descended the steps from the porch, he glanced over at me, standing up with a frown.

  “I’m sorry, Kaori. She’s not been herself the past few days. The doctor says it’s the new medicine. They say it gives her mood swings.”

  I shrugged. “Mood swings aren’t new for her, Father. The drugs aren’t responsible for that. I’ve long grown accustomed to this love/hate relationship of ours. But this obsession she has over Harmony has got to stop. Before something bad happens.”

  “I barely succeeded in talking her out of hiring a private investigator last week,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  He shrugged. It was the gesture of a man who’d spent his whole life fighting against someone he loved, but would rather continue fighting than see it end forever. “She wanted them to find out where she was living. Perhaps take some newer photos.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t do this right now. I’m beyond stretched with everything else going on around me.”

  “I will try to get her to understand, Kaori. Try to get her to be more accepting.”

  I stepped closer and wrapped my arms around him, feeling him stiffen under the awkward embrace. He was never comfortable with physical displays of affection. “Thank you. I promise I’ll try to think of something that might help.” Though I didn’t have the slightest clue what that would even look like.

  He remained perfectly still until I let go, then stepped back. “Good-bye, Kaori,” he said.

  I gave him a little smile before leaping into the sky. I didn’t look back as the ground fell away swiftly. A few seconds later, I was back among the clouds. Only then did I look down at my old neighborhood, deceptively peaceful, before flying off toward the skyline in the distance.

  CHAPTER 6:

  NO GOOD DEED

  I flew back toward the city slowly, replaying the heart-wrenching visit with my folks repeatedly in my head.

  I understood why my mother was doing what she was. I wasn’t completely unsympathetic to her desire. However, if my time with Martin made one thing extremely clear, it was that he never forgives someone who crossed him.

  Probably not even me.

  Oh sure, I might have cooperated with the EAPF in order to get paroled. But Martin obviously anticipated that possibility, making enough changes to his schemes to prevent my playing nice with the law from doing much more than minor cosmetic damage to his organization.

  If I were to try to take Harmony for myself? I don’t think even his professed love would protect me from his wrath.

  As I flew over the busy city streets, a glimmer of sunlight on metal caught my eye. I glanced down to see the shiny roof of an armored car sitting at the rear entrance of a local bank. It wouldn’t have been the least bit suspicious, except for the fact that the sides of the ve
hicle were completely devoid of any sort of identification or company markings.

  Oh, and the four guys in ski masks holding plasma rifles that guarded the ragged hole that used to be the bank’s back door.

  I stopped just around the corner out of sight. I really should call it in. That was protocol.

  However, all the shit I had been dealing with the previous twenty-four hours kept pushing against me from all angles, and pounding on some felonious morons seemed like the perfect therapy. A happy smile appeared on my face. The situation couldn’t have been more pleasant if it came wrapped with a bow.

  I rose high into the air to position myself directly over the armed quartet. They swept the business end of their weapons around, covering both entrances to the alley running behind the bank. Not once did any of them glance upward.

  I snorted softly. Amateurs.

  I dropped straight down to slam into the pavement a few feet behind them. The concrete cracked in a spider web pattern, and the resulting boom of the impact made all four of them jump. They spun around, rifles trained at the double-G on my chest. Good, if they were going to open fire, I preferred they target only me.

  “Hey, fellas,” I said as I grabbed the nearest thug by his body harness and yanked him off his feet, holding him over my head. “Is this the end of the ATM line?”

  The other three recovered from my arrival a lot faster than expected, lowering their heads to sight down their guns. Up close, I realized that the masks concealing their features were more high-tech than they seemed from above. Circles of green light flicked into life around the black lenses at the same time a corresponding light glowed on the top of each rifle.

  “Okay, guys,” I said holding up my other hand. “Let’s think about this for just a moment, okay?” I extended a finger to touch right under my chin. “You recognize me, right? I’m Kayo, from The Good Guys?”

  The three of them looked at each other for a moment, but remained silent.

  “Out-of-towners, huh? Well, okay. Let’s have a quick lesson.” I waggled the thug dangling from my hand. “As you can see, I’m kind of strong. I can also fly.” Bringing my hand down, I pointed at their weapons. “I can also take a point-blank hit with an ionic cannon without so much as a scratch.”

  Their response to the last bit of information was to flick a switch on the sides of their weapons. The green lights turned red.

  “Hold,” came a mechanized voice from behind me.

  I turned around to see a fifth criminal, this one wrapped from head to toe in a sleek, silver and black metal suit, standing just outside the destroyed back doors. The new arrival balanced a large metal crate on one shoulder. The yellow stenciling on the side read, “Property of the U.S. Treasury.”

  At first, I assumed the outfit was just some type of reinforced uniform being worn by someone with super strength. It looked too slim to be power armor. However, when the thief placed the box into the back of the awaiting vehicle, I detected the barest hint of servos and stabilizers working in tandem. The armored criminal closed the doors, then walked around the car, stopping about five feet from my position.

  “A bank robbery?” I asked before casually throwing the lackey in my hand across the alley. He hit the brick wall on the far side and dropped to the ground. “Really? I mean, you’re wearing what might be the most sophisticated piece of tech I’ve ever seen, and you’re using it to rob a bank. Where did you learn to be a bad guy? From a comic book?”

  The faceplate of the armor slid open, revealing the face of a woman in her early thirties peering at me. Her mouth curled up into a little smirk, and she winked one of her bright green eyes.

  “Why not?” she asked coyly. “Certainly captured your attention, didn’t it?”

  I stood there a moment, still processing the surprise that the person inside that high-tech tin can wasn’t a guy.

  Controlling a suit of mechanized armor isn’t as simple as climbing inside to go on a nuclear-fueled rampage. Forget what you know about Iron Man. Most powered exo-suits are large, bulky, and around seven feet tall. After all, those mechanical components required for operation take up serious space.

  Then there is the matter of actually being able to drive the thing.

  Piloting something that looks like it came out of an anime cartoon with anything resembling grace takes years of training. Otherwise, the whole contraption moves like a crippled elephant on ice skates.

  Of course, there are some suits that are more streamlined and agile. These are only slightly bigger than the wearer, with excellent fluidity of motion. Hell, there are some of them that can even fly. However, driving a piece of hardware like that required an Enhancement, like Class Two Technopathy, to control it properly.

  Until that moment, only the hero Mechanix owned armor that was anywhere close to what’s in the comics.

  Not to mention, I never heard of a female technopath before.

  “Who are you?” I asked, finally getting my head back in the game.

  “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “You know, I heard you were notorious for having a smart mouth and an endless supply of quips. I guess the stories were all wrong. You can call me Mechanika.” The omni-plex shield slid back into place as she looked to the crooks still standing upright. “You three, take Sleeping Beauty over there and take off.” Her mirror-polished visor turned back to me. “I’ll handle Kayo.”

  The three men immediately set about following their orders. Two of them slung their weapons across their backs, then ran over to their fallen comrade. The third jumped into the driver’s side of the armored car, starting the engine.

  I momentarily considered flipping the vehicle onto its side, but before I could move toward it, the chick in the power armor launched herself at me.

  She lowered her shoulder, slamming into my side. The blow sent me stumbling away into the side of a dumpster. The container dented beneath me, and the nauseating odor of old urine mixed with rotten food wafted up into the air around me.

  I stood up right before a metal-fisted haymaker slammed into the spot previously occupied by my head. Holy crap, this girl was playing for keeps. I took advantage of the opening to slam both of my palms as hard as I could against her chest plate.

  The power supply for most mechanized armor was either in the chest or in the back, due to the size requirements. A hard blow to either of those areas was usually enough to interrupt the energy flow, causing performance problems. Sometimes even a complete shut-down.

  The woman flew backward and landed on her feet, digging twin furrows into the pavement as she skidded to a stop. The glowing lights visible on her arms and legs didn’t even flicker.

  “Sorry, Kayo,” her digitized voice said. “I think you’ll find I’m not nearly as vulnerable as others you’ve faced.”

  I rushed at her, ducking beneath another punch that parted the air over my head. I lashed out with my left foot, kicking her in the side as if I were attempting the winning field goal. She crashed into the brick wall behind her, bounced off, and came back just as hard, this time landing a blow against my cheek.

  The impact spun me around, turning my back to her. Before I could recover my footing, another pair of heavy punches slammed into my spine. Once again, I found myself sailing through the air into that same damaged dumpster.

  I remained down for a moment, waiting. This time, when the follow-up punch at my skull came, I was already flying out of the way. Mechanika’s fist punched a hole clean through the thick green steel down to her shoulder.

  I completely my aerial loop just as she yanked her arm free. Landing behind her, I grabbed her other arm just below the shoulder and pulled, spinning her around to face me.

  Releasing my hold for a second, I reached down to snatch her wrist between my fingers. When she brought up her other arm in an attempt to hit me, I secured that one in a vise grip as well. I spread my arms apart, making her do likewise.

  “So, you’re going to handle me?” I asked, squeezing with both hands. I could feel m
y fingers denting the hardened surface beneath them. “I don’t recall anyone ever being so flippant about handling Crushette. Not a single, solitary opponent. Facing off against me was something to be done reluctantly.”

  “Maybe once upon a time,” she replied in an amused tone. “However, you’re not Crushette anymore. That fear your name used to instill in people is long gone.” She attempted to pull her arms free, the workings beneath the surface whining loudly in protest.

  “I might not be Crushette in name anymore, but I’m no less formidable.” I tightened my grip, causing the metal beneath my fingertips to crack open and spit purplish white sparks. “Going good didn’t rob me of my powers.”

  The faceplate slid up, and she smiled at me. It was as if she was in on a joke I was too dumb to get. I made up my mind right at that moment that I was going to rip that armor from her body in pieces. The see if I could hit her just hard enough to knock most of her teeth out.

  “It wasn’t your powers that made Crushette so scary,” she said as one of her hands formed a fist. “People were terrified of her because she was affiliated with Doctor Maniac and dangerously unpredictable.” A panel on the back of her arm a few inches from where I gripped her slid open. A thin rocket rose up from inside.

  “On the other hand,” she continued, turning her head to look at the mouth of the alley. The faceplate slid back down. “Kayo is a superhero, a job that comes with certain liabilities Crushette never dealt with.” The rear of the missile ignited in a burst of flame as it took off, zooming down the alley, across the street, and through the plate glass window of a building.

  I screamed at the top of my lungs as I let go of the villain to rush out of the alley. However, when there was no subsequent explosion, I turned back to the woman.

  “What was that,” I asked. “What the hell did you just do?”

  “Oh, that? That’s just your average antimatter bomb on a thirty-second delay. It’s not a big payload, so it shouldn’t vaporize more than a block. Or three.” She pointed in the direction of the bomb. “So, Kayo, you can either continue fighting with me or you can save the day. Tick tock, hero. What’s it going to be?”