Her Insatiable Dark Heroes

by Her Insatiable Dark Heroes (lit)

She slumped back a bit, and he knew she couldn’t take her gaze away from the screen. Neither could he. His brothers flew abreast at rocket speed, their outlines blurred on the screen. The tornado had developed into a distorted serpent, furious as it spun over the ground. Uprooted trees, enormous rocks and pieces from old structures orbited the eye in a bizarre chaotic frenzy.

  “Good resolution.” She trembled. “I can see everything so clearly. Too clearly.”

  He stroked her arms and shoulders, trying to comfort her. “Night vision advancements. Necessary for night patrol.”

  “What are they going to do, really?” Her voice cracked and she shrank into the bend of his body.

  “Use their flying speed to unwind the tornado’s spin.”

  She shuddered, and then flung her arm up to point at two more of the Super Brethren. “Who are they?”

  “The Tiger Twins.” Zion’s heart jumped into his throat, not with fear, but with hope. The twins possessed a ridiculously high level of super strength, especially when combined. Yet, would they arrive in time? Their flight was slow compared to his brothers’ speed. He mind-sent the message of their immanent arrival.

  “They’re getting close.” Wendy stilled, her body rigid, hands knotted together. “Please, oh, please,” she prayed.

  Zion silently joined in with his own prayer. His brothers linked arms, soaring into the whirling force of the tornado. Their flight slowed, reduced by the horrific winds they battled. Forming a wedge, they neared the top third of the tornado. Like the tip of an arrow they shot forward with their combined strength, opposite the giant’s spin.

  “They look like tiny birds. I can barely see them. On no!” she moaned. “They’re not moving.”

  Wendy was right. His brothers only held position against the leviathan’s whirl. Zion had no clue whether they could maintain that position long enough for the Gallant Brothers to join in with their power. He scanned the screen area, driven by the insane urge to look for help that clearly wasn’t visible.

  “There must be another way.” She gripped the arms of the chair, shoving herself forward to scrutinize the situation. “What if they circle at the bottom, change the direction and divert the tip?”

  “That’s been tried on other weather war twisters. It didn’t work. The top-heavy momentum carried those who fought it towards the targeted city.” Zion glanced at the message center. Nothing blinked. None of the other Super Brethren had contacted them. What the hell else did he expect in this catastrophic situation? Hell, hope beat inside his chest, even if it was worthless in this looming situation.

  “Damn it to hell, there must be something else.” Agitated, she wriggled on his lap.

  Zion felt her fierce determination to find another solution. That was Wendy. Whenever she set her mind on something, she persevered until she won or was utterly defeated.

  “That’s not working,” she sharply snapped, fear underlying her tone.

  No, it wasn’t. His brothers had begun to slip ever-so-slowly backwards.

  “Tell them to stop.” She paused, her thoughts traveling as fast as the tornado. “Tell them to spread out, to start circling where they can get their speed up, and then gradually work inward. Or has that been tried?”

  To Zion’s knowledge what she’d suggested hadn’t been tried, since they’d always been successful with this method—failing now because of the tornado’s beastly size. Hell’s only game, why not try? He focused, spearing the message into his brothers’ minds. Yet, with their total concentration on defeating the loosed weather demon, they might never receive his mind connect until it was too late.

  Still, moments later he heard one brother acknowledge the message. “Zent,” he triumphed.

  “Zent?” She trained one ear toward his mouth, but kept her gaze riveted on the screen.

  “He heard your idea.” Zion squeezed her arms, hope enlivening him.

  “Heard? You mean your mental connection?”

  “Yes, Wendy.”

  As they watched, his brothers unlocked their arms, allowing the ruthless spinning wind to fling them backwards. They spread out, soon circling the gargantuan twister from a large distance away. Little by little, his brothers gained their super speed, streaking faster and faster. Gradually they moved inward. Wendy bounced up and down on his lap with sheer excitement. So far, the effect on the tornado proved to be minimal. Still, by the Divine’s salvation, it was precious something.

  “Yay! Look!” She bounced higher as the three Gallant Brothers zoomed into flight positions, coordinating with his brothers.

  “Wendy, I have to see.” Zion strong-armed her waist and held her down. “Yes!” he celebrated, observing the screen and the numbers. “The tornado’s strength is declining. Slowly,” he cautioned.

  “Oh please, oh please, oh please. Let it work. Please.”

  Zion didn’t tell her that even if they stopped the tornado’s colossal destruction, sparing Chrontropolis, the effort might sap his brothers’ endurance to the point of serious injury. Or worse.

  “I think they’re winning.”

  The desperate hope in her voice ripped at him. At the same time, he soared with the hope she could come to love them all, accept her place with them and be truly happy. That is, if the latest attack of a power-crazed enemy didn’t take the lives of his brothers. Zion’s gut tightened painfully. There was nothing to do but what they’d always done—battle on and pray.

  “Aren’t they winning?” Her tiny voice tore at his heart.

  “They’re slowing it down.” One eye on the numbers, he added, “More now.”

  “Don’t you have some sort of new technology that would help?” Her forlorn tone gripped his insides more than he would have thought; even knowing he’d always cherished her. And lusted after her.

  “In development, kitten.” How he wanted that laser beam technology right now.

  “I shouldn’t care so much.” Her voice pouted, yet he knew she was on the brink of tears.

  Monitoring the data, Zion realized his brothers and the Gallants made constant and significant progress. Still, the tornado’s enormous force overwhelmed their efforts to annihilate it. “Damn bastards,” he burst out, literally seeing a dark abyss before his mind’s eye.

  “Bastards?” She trembled in his hold, soft and vulnerable.

  “They’re feeding that monster twister. Somehow.” Zion leaned forward, double checking the underlying stream of what he called minutia frequencies.

  “Feeding it energy?”

  “Yeah, the numbers tell the story.” Focusing his fury on finding any answer that would lessen the tornado’s energy, he mentally sorted through his previous studies on the tech equipment he did have ready.

  “How long before the Tiger Twins reach them?” Her plaintive tone and her limp quiet body had him pulling her closer.

  Zion frowned, not knowing how to tell her the Twins were still a long distance away, even with the tornado’s advancing speed. Yet, he’d found one option. It would take precious power away from their building’s protective shield and leave them open to attack or damage. However, if he fired a plasma ice burst into the eye of the serpent twister, it could dampen its tremendous power. Enough.

  “Never mind.”

  Making his decision, Zion rapidly tapped in the settings. Carefully, he aimed the pulse cannon. Saying nothing, Wendy watched alertly as the image of the cannon showed on the left side of the screen. After re-checking his calculations, and correcting the aim, Zion tightened his jaw. He thumb-pressed the firing button, then held his breath as the screen blip displayed the long flight path of the pulse. It minimally arced, then drilled inside the tornado. The plasma shot burst, spraying sub-zero particles in the heart of the twister.

  His data numbers showed an instant decrease in energy. “Yes!”

  “Yes,” Wendy echoed, once the six Superheroes circled faster, their speed flashing close to a blur.

  Quickly, it became obvious they had slowed the weather leviathan and were gaining in
their own power to destroy it. At what cost to his brothers Zion didn’t know. Forcing himself not to think about it, he tapped in corrections to their security shield, propping it up by stealing energy from lesser systems.

  “Amazing.” Hopefully, her slumped shoulders straightened. “What did you shoot into that whirling hell?”

  “Essentially, ice.”

  Internally, Zion debated whether he should raid the power supply of the Corrupt. He had no way of disguising that drain of energy, and if the Corrupt squads attacked he wasn’t certain he could mount a big enough defense of their home.

  Chapter Eight

  Zion and Wendy

  Wendy leaned forward, so intent, she seemed to hold her breath. “It’s working. The tornado is smaller.”

  Zion scanned his options for confiscating more energy. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Since the tornado is slower, it will take the Tiger Twins longer to reach them.” He didn’t tell her that wasn’t the only thing he’d meant.

  “Looks like they’re making good progress.”

  Zion collected a large breath, coded in the last commands, and then began siphoning off a trickle of energy from the main collector used by the Corrupt in Chrontropolis. Hell had no end, he decided. He might have brought more trouble to their door than they could handle, though the loss of energy shouldn’t be discovered for several hours.

  “Smaller and smaller,” she reported, her tone cheering on his brothers.

  “Wendy.” He roughened his voice. “We could be attacked by the Corrupt. You must do exactly what I tell you.”

  “Attacked?”

  “Once they know the tornado is stopped, we’re vulnerable here.”

  “What about Zavier, Zent and Zotorro?”

  “They won’t be targeted because the other Super Brethren will come to their aid. The HawkWing Brothers are on their way also.”

  “Then you better hope all that ‘sharing’ of my body hasn’t used up my flame.”

  Her tone felt like a dragonhorse’s kick to the side of his head. Zion figured that along with saving them all, he’d better learn how to deal with her as his woman. Fast. Their woman. He struggled in uncharted waters.

  In truth, he didn’t know what was worse, the current terrible crisis or dealing with his Wendy.

  She launched forward, her voluptuous butt landing back on his lap. Looking up at the screen, Zion knew he was saved. Temporarily.

  “They’ve arrived.” She bounced again and he was torn between superb pleasure and the pain of having to ignore it. “The Tiger Twins. Yahoo! Up your wazoo, bad guys!”

  Shooting through the air like human bullets, the Tiger Twins separated and streaked into position. Their added strength increased the circling speed of the Superheroes to phenomenal. Zion wanted to cheer himself. Together, they whipped faster and faster, suspending the tornado’s spin. A key tipping point.

  “They’re winning,” he announced, keeping one eye on their security shield and on the energy he’d purloined.

  “That is so cool.” She jumped up several more times, adding to his cock’s pleasure and his misery. His body wanted her again. “It looks like a dying smoke serpent.”

  “It does.” Entranced, he watched the smoke serpent writhe and distort, fighting its own death. Lurching over the unused farm fields, highlighted by the sky’s dusk illumination, the tornado continued diminishing toward its demise. Soon it could only suck up decaying stalks and loose dirt. Ultimately, the remnants dispersed like an oily, eerie black fog.

  His exhausted brothers fell back to Earth, only cushioning the hit of their bodies at the last moment. Near exhaustion, the Gallant Brothers joined them on the ground while the Tiger Twins hovered above, guarding them.

  “My God, how bad are they?”

  “It’s a good sign they broke their fall.”

  “Damn it. What aren’t you saying?”

  “I don’t know, Wendy. I don’t know how damaged they are. They probably don’t know. Right now, what matters is protecting you. And protecting our home.” Zion set the main screen to monitor their perimeter. So far, none of his warning buttons glowed. A small blessing. Another blessing, the tornado had cleared the surrounding sky, letting more of the sunset’s radiance through, even though their night optical equipment was superior for viewing the approach of enemies.

  “No.” Twisting around, she tried to peer into his face.

  “I told you. They will be taken care of. My responsibility is here.”

  After a few moments of silence, she asked, “How can I help?”

  Zion hid his rush of relieved breath. “Keep an eye on my warning panel.” He nodded towards the prominent display. “If anything lights up, let me know. It’s better if I stay focused on the screen.”

  She swiveled on his lap, pinning the panel with her gaze.

  Still, he heard the smothered roar of the engines before she spoke.

  “Two green lights. What does that mean?”

  “Big bad bird attack.” Zion opened up the energy spigot, drawing every watt of power he could from the Corrupt’s hub and transferring it to their protection shield.

  “Big bad bird? Oh, the whirl-copters of the Corrupt.”

  When she turned to face him, he started inside. She was visibly pale, her eyes huge turquoise pools of absolute fear. He’d forgotten how often the copters had been used to terrify the citizens of Chrontropolis. Before the weather wars and afterwards. He and his brothers sabotaged them whenever possible, cannibalizing the parts, but the fleet was large and they were kept in hangars with fortress-like security. With the day-to-day protection of the citizens, there was never enough time to mount a full-fledged attack on the hangars.

  “How many?”

  “Three. Probably more on the way.” Zion re-routed the building’s grid power into the field and into their four hidden pulse cannons. “Wendy, everything is going to go dark soon, including most of the screen.”

  “The security field around us?” The quaver in her voice cut at him.

  “Also the pulse cannons will be displayed.”

  “You’re going to shoot them out of the sky?”

  “If they attack, I’ll have to.” Zion opened up the cannon turrets, and then tapped in the code commands. The weapons tracked the movement of the copters.

  “Won’t that bring the entire fleet?”

  “Good opportunity to finally get rid of them,” he only half-joked.

  As he’d warned, everything went black, except the small area of the panel that controlled the pulse cannons and the energy field.

  “Shouldn’t I get off your lap? Out of the way?”

  “No. You’re going to tell me the strength of the field. And I’m going to focus on the weapons.”

  “Do you mean the fifty-eight-percent level?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that too low?”

  “Minimal, but it will hold off a couple of laser sprays. Each time the level changes, up or down, tell me, Wendy.”

  He felt her nod. “Yes.”

  Zion trained one of his red target beams on the lead copter as a warning. “I’m going to try ‘stealing’ from another power source. I’ve been draining one of the Corrupt’s hubs, but they’ll pull the switch soon.”

  “Wowza. I’m impressed. Sixty percent,” she reported. “Too bad you can’t drain all the power from the hangars where those things live. Along with the control towers.”

  “Wishes are for the stars we rarely see anymore. Yes, it would be a good future project to set up.” Zion hovered one finger over the button that would fire the pulse cannon. The copters weren’t backing off.

  “Sixty-two,” she reported. He felt her tension and knew she also watched the advancing blips of the copters. “Sixty-three.”

  With his other hand, his arm brushing along her side, Zion set up the cannons to shoot successively. If he had to take out the lead Corrupt copter, he’d be ready to fir
e on all them.

  “Sixty-four. What’s that amber blinking light mean?”

  “Someone wants to talk with us. Probably the patrol leader.”

  “They get you to talk, and then ambush.”

  “That’s the unfair game, kitten.” Zion snapped his finger down on the ‘fire’ button. A small red flash whizzed across the screen. The explosion of the copter’s engine penetrated the underground control room and sounded like an enormous thump.

  “You fired. Sixty-six.”

  “Yeah, hope the pilot is good enough to land without damage to Chrontropolis.” Zion plunged his fingers down on the panel, sending two more pulse cannon attacks. The remaining copters hadn’t slowed and now aimed their staccato pulse guns.

  “Oh donkey’s balls,” she uttered. Two giant thumps sounded.

  “Full screen,” Zion ordered, having hit voice control to active. “Wendy, every bit of power we’ve got goes into weapons now.”

  “Have you done this before?” She didn’t tremble, yet she remained still as a frightened child on his lap, watching the two copters flame from the rear and begin a slow twirling descent.

  “Four times. It doesn’t make the news hour.”

  Zion swiftly distributed the power supply into all their weapons, including one he hadn’t tested out sufficiently. Then he latched onto the only available source of energy large enough to help them. It was Bill Beau’s sea water conversion plant for his mansion and estate. Since the consequence was death, the Captain of the Corrupt rarely worried about losing his energy.

  So it had been in the past. Zion had changed the rules.

  He and his brothers had known this moment would arrive, a face-slapping challenge to the most powerful member of the Corrupt in the immediate area of Chrontropolis. Now, it was here.

  As if starved for days, his systems sucked up the new supply of energy. Knowing an electro-magnetic bomb would soon be sent inside the stream of power, Zion kept his hand poised, ready to end the connection.

  “Six more copters,” she reported the same way she’d spoken before.

  “We’re getting ready.” Zion didn’t glance at the screen as he gave the orders to his system. “Six incoming copters. Cannons, strike position. Now.”