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

by Petit, Blake M.

  Reporters’ hands began popping up like targets in a shooting gallery, but Morrie just laughed and shook his head.

  “I could just tell you what they found,” he said, “but I’d rather show you. Come on down, big guy!”

  As everybody looked up, the cameraman tilted his lens just in time to see a figure leap from the roof of Simon Tower. There was an instant murmur among the reporters, and as the figure got closer they began to murmur louder, realizing who it was. One man could even be heard to shout “Oh my God!” over the microphone.

  Even I had to admit it, it looked impressive. The long-lost hero of Siegel was fluttering to the ground (buoyed up, no doubt, by Dr. Noble’s telekinetic powers), landing by his fellow heroes, making a triumphant return. If I wasn’t so disgusted by his presence I may have cheered.

  “That’s not Lionheart, you idiots!” I shouted.

  “Awful cynical, aren’t you Josh?” Justice Giant asked.

  “Awfully gullible, aren’t you?” I muttered, then I chided myself for it. He wasn’t really gullible -- just susceptible.

  The stunned murmurs among the reporters rapidly gave way to cheers and applause. It was Lionheart’s face the Gunk was using, but it wasn’t his smile. Lionheart’s smile was warm, gentle and inspirational. The Gunk, even wearing Lionheart’s face, couldn’t manage a smile that was anything but harsh and merciless.

  “Rotten bastard,” I couldn’t stop myself from grumbling.

  On TV the Gunk-as-Lionheart quieted down the screaming press and fired off another of his soulless grins. “Thank you,” he said, “Thank you. It’s good to be back.”

  “Jesus, he’s not even using the accent!” I shouted.

  “Keep quiet!” the Giant barked. “I’m listening to this.”

  “Where have you been?” squealed one of the reporters in a very unprofessional tone of voice.

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “Not now. Trust me, it’s for your own protection. Suffice it to say I have eliminated a very real threat, and I have now returned to the city I love.”

  There was another chorus of applause and I snorted. “Knows how to play the crowd, doesn’t he?” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Justice Giant in a dreamlike tone of sincere hero worship.

  Hands began to reach into the air and the Gunk indicated one of them.

  “What happened to Carnival?”

  “That particular threat is long since dealt with,” he said.

  “Are you going to re-form the LightCorps?”

  “I have every intention of reestablishing contact with my old comrades-in-arms,” he said. “Whether anything comes of that will be entirely up to them.”

  I bristled at the thought of him getting a hold of Lightning, the Defender or the Tin Man again. The only reason he’d want to contact those retired heroes would be to eliminate the people who could pick his story apart.

  “What about Copycat?” shouted one of the reporters. “Do you have any comment on him?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Do you have any comment on him?”

  “Ah yes,” he said, “the ghost who’s been wearing my emblem. I am up to date on current events. Copycat was recently captured by my old friend Hotshot. I trust he has been dealt with accordingly.”

  “Or shortly will be,” Noble chuckled. Gunk shot him a look, but by and large I think the comment went fairly unnoticed.

  “Okay, okay, ladies and gentlemen,” Morrie said, taking back the podium. “We’re all glad to have Lionheart back, but the man does need his rest. I’ll be sending out a press release later with all the specifics. But suffice it to say, your hero has returned! And with him, I’ve got another announcement to make!”

  With that, the video screen behind him flashed to reveal another version of Lionheart… a smaller, plastic version.

  “As you know, out of deference to our fallen hero, we’ve never used Lionheart in our official ‘Heroes of Siegel’ line of merchandise before. Now that he’s returned, though, he’s signed an exclusive arrangement to license his likeness and trademark to Abadie Enterprises!”

  “NO!” I lurched against my dampeners, smashing them pointlessly into the cell wall. Justice Giant raised an eyebrow at me

  “Lighten up, man.”

  “Lionheart would never allow this,” I hissed. On TV, the video screen moved on to show a line of Lionheart clothing, cereal, and other chintzy crap. The camera cut to a reporter who began blubbering about how the great, the heroic Lionheart had returned, seemingly from beyond the veil of death itself, to continue his neverending battle for truth, justice and--

  “Turn it off,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Turn off the TV. Or put it back where it was -- I don’t feel like watching those morons gush about how great it is to have Lionheart back.”

  “Man, you have got to lighten up, you know that?” Still he did move the TV back and closed the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  And those thoughts were enraged.

  For ten minutes, anyway. That’s how long it was before the door opened again. This time, it was Dr. Noble and Hotshot. The latter looked exhausted, the former ecstatic.

  “I wanted to be here, Josh,” Hotshot said through weary, haggard eyes “You need a friend at your side.”

  “Come on Copycat,” Noble said through a truly nauseating grin. “It’s time for your trial.”

  “Lay on, MacDuff,” I said. Then, smiling, I leaned in towards Noble and whispered,”I know what you did to Photon Man.”

  He looked a little taken aback by that, then chuckled. “You’re bluffing,” he whispered back so that Hotshot couldn’t hear.

  “Am I?”

  He was visibly shaken by that, but then he shook his head. “Who gives a crap?” Then he raised his voice again. “You’ll get soul-blasted in an hour anyway.”

  “Go ahead. Hold your kangaroo court. It won’t matter. Your buddy screwed up big time.”

  “And how’s that butt-munch?”

  “He picked Lionheart’s rep to destroy. I don’t care if I have to come back as a real ghost. Didn’t you know that’s what a revenant was? A ghost who rises from the grave for vengeance.”

  “You going somewhere with this, Corwood? I’m a busy man.”

  I leaned in very, very close. And again, I smiled.

  “I’ll stop you,” I said.

  And as they led me away, for the first time, Noble looked scared.

  And it felt good.

  ISSUE THIRTEEN

  ESCAPE FROM SIMON TOWER

  My cocky attitude began to diminish as we approached the auditorium. Sure, Noble still had that uneasy look on his face, but there was a furrow just fighting to show up on my brow as the three of us walked in silence, Noble on my left, Hotshot on the right. Finally, we could see the auditorium door. The walk suddenly became slower.

  “Don’t worry, Josh,” Hotshot said. “I’m gonna get you out of this.”

  “Yeah, right,” Noble snorted. “Enjoy your last minutes on Earth, Joshie-boy.”

  “Hey Todd,” Hotshot said, “who designed those power dampeners?”

  “Particle, I think. Why?”

  “And if they were suddenly -- I don’t know -- turned into energy, Josh’s powers would kick back in instantly, wouldn’t they?”

  “I guess...” Noble mumbled apprehensively. Where the hell was Hotshot going with this?

  “So if I were to, say, charge those manacles up, Josh would be able to use your teke-field to protect his hands before they blew, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I suppose so--”

  “Good. Got all that, Josh?”

  I smiled. “I think so.”

  “Good.” Hotshot’s arm darted out and snatched the center bar of the dampeners, charging them up. I immediately felt power Rushing in from both sides, including Doc Noble’s teke-field, which I used to sheath my hands, arms and the front of my head and torso.

  “What the hell is this?” Noble shouted.

 
“What’s it look like?” I asked, waving the glowing dampeners in Noble’s face.

  “Ah! Get away from me, you psychopath!”

  “Gosh, Todd, what’s wrong?” I asked in a voice like a three-year-old. He ran back down the hall and I chased him, twirling around the manacles. “What’s wrong, Todd? Todd, can’t we be frien--”

  That’s as far as I got before the dampeners exploded. I felt a clenching around my wrists and a considerable bolt of wind hit me in the face. There was no shrapnel to contend with, though -- when an explosion is caused by the violent disillusion of the ionic bonds of the source explosive, there really isn’t any debris to worry about.

  Noble babbled for a moment, then spun in midair and shot down the hall. “Ah, that felt good,” I said, turning to Hotshot. “Now you -- what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He assumed a face like a character from a bad gangster film and said, “I’m breakin’ youse outta heah.”

  “I appreciate it, Mugsy, really, but isn’t this just going to make you a fugitive too?”

  “Hey, you only live once.”

  “Not in this profession.”

  “Let’s argue about that while we’re on the run,” he said. “That sort of blast is likely to bring company.”

  “Believe it!”

  LifeSpeed whirled around the corner, pounded a solid hit to my jaw and turned to Hotshot.

  “I can’t believe you’re helping this murderer escape!” he shouted.

  “Come on, LifeSpeed,” Hotshot said. “You should know better than that.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” I said. I reached out with LifeSpeed’s own powers and made a mental twist. He screamed, clutched his chest, and fell over.

  “What did you--”

  “Sped up his heart,” I said. “But just for a second. He’ll be okay. I did not like doing that, Hotshot.”

  “Come on.”

  We ran to the stairwell and began flying up to the top of the building. We were on the second subterranean level and there were 40 floors above ground for us to race up through. That gave us a little time to talk.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Because that’s not Lionheart!” he shouted.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but why do you believe me if nobody else does?”

  “We’ve got the Heart, remember? If that were Lionheart, neither of you would have been able to lift so much as a finger against the other.”

  “Well, at least you’re not as susceptible as some people.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a mind-controller! He’s already got a hold of Flambeaux, Deep Six, Mental Maid, Morrie -- hey, are we getting heavier?”

  We were. Our ascent was rapidly slowing down as our bodies dragged through the air. I looked down to see Flux zipping up the stairwell.

  “I didn’t want to believe it, Josh,” he called, “but an innocent man never rabbits.”

  “I’m not really rabbiting,” I said, “this is more like gerbiling.”

  Flux shot upwards and I only barely managed to dodge his rocketing fist. Hotshot, on the other hand, managed to catch that hand.

  “You won’t believe me,” he said, “but I’m really sorry about this.” He flipped the weightless Flux into a wall, hard. I don’t know if it was enough to render him unconscious, but it was certainly enough to break his concentration -- Hotshot and I both lost our “extra” weight at the instant of the collision and shot towards the ceiling like a pair of bottle rockets. We screeched to a halt so fast I thought we’d leave skid marks in the air.

  “In here!” he shouted, pointing at the second door from the top of the stairwell, the one that led to the top floor.

  “We’re not going to the roof?”

  “They’ve probably already got somebody waiting for us there.”

  “But -- the top floor? Where the gift shop and restaurant are?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “It’s the middle of the afternoon, all that stuff is still open!”

  “Witnesses. Let’s go.” He landed, opened the door and stepped through. I ducked in behind him. We darted through the hall into Simon’s Sky-High Café and ran into a murmur among the patrons. Hotshot immediately took on his “calm down the folks” stance.

  “It’s all right, everyone. Just a routine superhero inspection... nothing to worry about.”

  “Hey, isn’t that Copycat?” someone shouted, pointing at me.

  “Isn’t he a Mask?” screamed another incredibly helpful person.

  “Um... he used to be,” Hotshot said, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “He’s reformed now. I’m training him to be my sidekick.”

  “Your sidekick?” I whispered.

  “You wanna get out of here or not?”

  My limbs started going all rubbery on me and I felt a now-familiar “pulled taffy” sensation. “DoubleGum Man is coming.”

  “Astute, isn’t he?” The purple-clad rubber man began to flow out of a vent in the ceiling, wrapping me in one arm and Hotshot in another.

  “Oh come on,” I said, easily turning my own body to rubber and slipping out of his grasp. By now the people in the restaurant were freaking out, wondering why all these Capes were fighting each other -- a situation that was only made worse a few seconds later when V3OL burst in through an empty elevator shaft and fired an energy-web at me from his robotic arm.

  “Perpetrators located,” his voice buzzed. He fired again and again I managed to duck. I couldn’t copy powers from the robot, but I slithered in close and oozed all over his arm.

  “Release me,” he said in the calm, stupid monotone voice Morrie thought sounded “cool” coming out of the talking action figure. I wrapped my arms around his more powerful right one and jerked it through the air so it bore down on DoubleGum man, who was paying no attention to us but rather trying to stuff himself down Hotshot’s throat and suffocate him.

  “I will not fire at my teammate, perpetrator, if that is your intention,” V3OL hummed.

  “Fine,” I said. “Hope you’ve got a spare arm.”

  With Hotshot’s power I charged up the metal appendage and fired it at DoubleGum Man. He screamed and his body contracted, snapping back to its ordinary configuration like one of those stretchy dolls -- which is exactly what he looked like when he fell over. V3OL stumbled around, his torso sparking and hissing from the socket his arm was intended to occupy. “I’m really sorry about that,” I said as he shut down. And I was, but I wasn’t too worried -- Particle would be able to fix him up.

  There was a rumbling sound and a huge chunk of floor fell away right in front of me. One of the few remaining patrons toppled backwards and would have fallen if I hadn’t flown in and pulled him away. Once he was safe I saw a pair of red-clad arms trying to find purchase amongst the rubble. They finally gripped something and began to pull.

  “Yo, ‘Shot!” I shouted. “More company!”

  “Funny,” Hotshot said. “You’d think Lionheart would just fly up through that hole.”

  “The hole he created,” I added.

  “The hole that could have killed an innocent man,” Hotshot pointed out.

  “Stop trying to cloud the issue,” the Gunk said, pulling himself to his Lionheart-clad feet. “I’m bringing you both in.”

  Hotshot and I glanced at each other, then back at the Gunk.

  “Like hell,” we both said. Hotshot whipped a pair of darts from his belt and fired them into Gunk’s chest while I grabbed a steak knife from one of the tables and took aim at his head. He walked straight into them, taking the blasts like they were nothing, as civilians scrambled around like ants whose hill had just been kicked over. Apparently when he regained control over his malleable body (I gave him that control, I cursed at myself), he also gained the ability to make himself even denser than Noble’s head.

  “Firing around all these innocent people? For shame,” he said. “You won’t escape. Your kind never do.”

  “Go
ahead, Gunk!” I shouted. “Play it up for the crowd!” I socked him in the gut, making my own body as dense as his. The result was that neither of us felt much of anything.

  He swatted me aside like a roach and charged Hotshot. “And you! You were in my LightCorps! You’re betraying everything we stood for.”

  “Lionheart never called it ‘his’,” Hotshot spat.

  I leapt to help, but by now the few people left in the restaurant were charging for the door in a wave, pushing me back. I leapt over their heads and saw Gunk blocking a punch from Hotshot, delivering one of his own to the hero’s jaw.

  “Tsk, tsk,” I said. “No manners at all!” I jackhammered his shoulders, knocking him away from Hotshot, and followed up with an aerial kick to the face.

  “Come on, Lionheart!” I shouted. “Why don’t you fly after me? Huh?”

  “I don’t need to fly to deal with the likes of you.” He jumped at me, catching me around the waist. “Let’s see how well you fly with a passenger!”

  “I’ve got a better idea!” Hotshot flew up and grabbed the Gunk’s ankles. “Josh! Make a wish!”

  Catching his meaning, the two of us drifted in different directions, pulling the Gunk between us. Visible strain appeared on his face as he fought to keep himself solid and finally, let go of me, swinging through the air. Hotshot hurled him at the wall and he crashed, breaking through into the gift shop which, by now, was as empty as the restaurant.

  I gave Hotshot a mid-air high-five and we both swept through the hole after him. We found him lying in a pulverized glass display case, picking shards out of his shredded (but non-bleeding) flesh.

  I charged him and started pounding. My fists struck like sledgehammers and, the more blows I landed, the more it seemed to affect him. It was like touching a flat LCD computer screen -- the colors were all distorted wherever I would make contact, and the distortion flowed out in ripples.