Heroic

by H D Forth

  Suddenly the adrenaline-like feeling vanished. The heartbeat in my ears and most importantly the pain disappeared. Everything turned calm and objective. I lasted until the police came before I connected with the Nerve Module.

  I didn't care that I would be in pain. I would take it. I could feel the brick of the stone on my back, the slight wind on my face. All of it made it worth the pain.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  It was later the same day I spoke with Emmet on the phone, when I heard a woman yell out in something resembling fear.

  I only managed to catch my immediate reaction after a few seconds of mindlessly sprinting towards her voice. She was close and I could’ve easily blundered into her.

  More importantly, it could be a trap. I had learned a few things while doing my time as a hero.

  One, women aren't as dainty and innocent as I wanted to believe. The only people to ever physically overpower me was women. The only criminal to escape me was a woman. The only criminal to ever go for the nuts, was a woman. I should be able to curb my immediately reaction better.

  Two, I wasn’t immortal. Or is that invincible? I tend to get them confused. I’m not the one that is impervious to bullets. Supposedly I shouldn't age anymore, so I am technically… inv- immo- One of them. How wild is that?

  So with a little bit of distracting thoughts, and pulling on previous experience I was manage to pull my self down into a light jog. Slowing down before I reached the corner of the street, where the woman had been shouting. Carefully, I peaked around the street, looking for the issue.

  I almost dashed towards them, when I saw what was going on. A group of men had surrounded a woman. They were all to a person, bigger, and taller than her.

  One of them had grabbed what looked to be her backpack and had started rummaging through it. I looked around the street, but there were only the five men around her and the one with the backpack.

  Otherwise the street was completely empty. This was an odd occurrence. We were closer to the Tenner’s area that my apartment, but I had not close enough for the street to clear out this early. Or at least it shouldn't have.

  The orange light of the setting sun, lighted the street, as the red-orange ball settled its bottom on the horizon.

  Whoever designed this climate simulation system deserves an award, I thought, getting distracted and staring at the sunset for a moment. Then the girl started screaming.

  I looked over to see one of the men had pulled way. He pulled something out of his pocket. I zoomed in on his hand. It was a phone, then after a few more moments, drew out on of those flippy-uppy knives, the ones that can fold into the grip. I couldn't remember what they were called.

  I watched as he stuffed the phone back into his pocket, and pulled the blade out of the handle with a simple flair.

  I dashed towards them at full speed, before I even realized what I was doing. If this was a trap then they were doing a helluva job and I was going to award them., I wasn't going to stand by on the chance that the man who just drew a knife was doing it as a hoax.

  I shouldered my way through their small circle of buddies, grabbing the hand holding the knife. With a twist I forced his hand painfully away form the woman.

  I delivered a kick that send him sprawling backwards. Heavy fellow, I thought, turning to the woman.

  I knew her. She was the one from the alley. The one who kicked me in the- I jumped slamming my legs together catcher leg between mine. I was about to smile at her when she pulled out a gun and unloaded 3 shots into my knee.

  The car thief I had caught the other day wasn’t a good shot. He had no control over where his bullets went. The same could not be said for her. The lead bullets slammed into my knee, instantly breaking it apart.

  With a yowl I fell over. I didn't have the comfort of a human body and human shock to temporarily keep the pain at bay. 1 point human body, 0 points robot body.

  Then I heard the other men pull out their guns. I heard the click of safeties and some of them even pulled back the slide. Criminals 1, me 0.

  The woman was the first one to shoot me. She continued with my leg. She delivered each bullet slowly at first. Only once she’d emptied her gun. Another five bullets into my leg, did she speak.

  “We can’t let you get away can we now?”

  I immediately boosted my powers, energy rolling into my limbs. Heat started coming off me, shimmering in the air as the power core worked over time.

  I had to distract them. I couldn't allow them to all start shooting at me. I send out wave of Technopathic power with the simple command, ‘Give me more power’.

  The wave of energy hit their phones. Suddenly the phones processor, their ram, their hard drives, their screens, their damned WIFI receiver all cried out as one. ‘GIVE ME MORE POWER!’

  Unfortunately for the owners of the phone, there’s only so much taxing a battery can take. Their batteries immediately heated dangerously, causing expansions and ruptures as they blew their entire supply of power in any of a 100 different ways.

  I didn't wait to see how they would react. I jumped with one leg and hand, tackling the woman to the ground with my shoulder. I heard a vicious crunch as I smashed into her body, and she let out a cry of pain. I felt two more bullet slam into me as I skidded to a halt. I felt my own phone sizzle and pop in my pants, the battery’s acid melting my skin and sticking it to the metal of my leg.

  I pushed myself to my foot, not daring to put any weight on my shot up leg. I lashed out at the man closest. I hit his shoulder, feeling bones crunch and break under my fist as I send him flying more than 3 meters through the air before he hit the ground.

  I burst towards a pair standing together. They were frantically trying to take off their pants as they caught on fire. I made contact.

  I slammed a shoulder into each of their hip as my lunge quickly lost height, when I couldn't catch myself on another leg. They let out cries of pain as my metal shoulder cracked and broke their hips.

  I ripped the belt buckle off one of their pants and threw it at another man. It was a big fancy thing of shiny metal. Instead of hitting him and bouncing off, it lodged itself in his shoulder.

  I looked at the last man standing. He was still huddled over the backpack. He seemed unaffected by my technopathic attack. Must’ve already had a low battery.

  Instead he looked stunned at his groaning and wounded accomplishes.

  “Down.” I growled nearly feral in my voice. He slowly slipped his hand out of the backpack. Then he pushed it away with one foot, before sitting down on the ground, both hands still in the air.

  I mentally reached for my phone, before realizing that I had fried it along with all the others. I was just lucky that it hadn’t taken out my own robotic form along with the phones. Though as I checked my power, I saw that I was down to 5%.

  I limped over to the nearest building, leaning against it as I kept my eye on the only conscious man. The others all having passed out, or incoherent from the brutality of their injuries.

  Using my power, I swept through the nearest apartment looking for a phone. I was lucky someone was sitting at the window, probably observing what was going on through the blinds. I Connected with his phone.

  “I am appropriating this phone to call the police.” I called through its speakers. I noticed the phone moving slightly, but still remaining in range of my control. I also heard a man yelp as his phone spoke to him. Then I called the police. I gave them the registration number.

  “There are multiple wounded criminals, all of them guilty of armed assault. One of them is still conscious and unhurt.” I told the officer on the line.

  “5 minutes and we will have a few patrols with you.” She replied, sternly. I got the feeling that she didn't like some masked vigilante jumping around her town, attacking the criminals. It wasn't unreasonable, just stupid.

  It was a hard decision, but realizing that I still had to wait for at least another 5 minutes, then talk with the officers, before I could head back.
I decided to disconnect form the Nerve Core and connect directly to my frame.

  Suddenly the adrenaline-like feeling vanished. The heart beat in my ears and most importantly the pain, disappeared. Everything turned calm and objective. I lasted until the police came before I connected with the Nerve Core.

  I didn't care that I would be in pain. I would take it. I could feel the brick of the stone on my back, the slight wind on my face. All of it made it worth the pain.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Heroic Deed:

  Neutralized a gang of criminals.

  Rewards: 200 Tessian Points and 100 Credits received.

  The fight had affected me more than I could allow to show. It was more than the pain. More than the damage. This was the first time I had let loose. The first time I hadn't even tried to hold back, and I had dominated. There only feeling I had ever had, that came close was having sex.

  Still, despite being high on my own power, I was struggling to remain upright. The damage to my body, especially my leg was severe. That combined with the sudden lack of adrenaline and I was quickly getting weary.

  The man who had been rummaging through the backpack was looking at me funny. I saw that he seemed to get himself more and more worked up until suddenly he completely deflated.

  “Son of a bitch.” The man said, oddly he didn’t sound angry at all, he sounded stunned. “Leric, you clever bastard…”

  “Leric?” I asked, leaning forwards slightly. “Leric? Is that the one who’s leading the Tenners?”

  He laughed out loud, with just a slightly manic edge to it. “That he is.” He said, dropping his head into his hands and rubbed his face.

  ***

  Soon I started hearing the sirens of police and at least one ambulance. I talked shortly with the first officer to arrive on the scene. Though she didn't seem to like me much, she seemed to understand the situation well enough. She looked at the criminals I had fought with a scowl of consternation on her face.

  It may even be the reason that she doesn't like me much, I realized after I had said my goodbyes and started limping away.

  I immediately headed for HQ. I could hear the sound of metal grinding against metal as I walked. It wasn’t a loud sound, then again, I wasn't that far away from it.

  Combined with the grinding of metal against metal, the smells of engine grease and blood mixed together within my body. I was sure I made quite the spectacle as I limped down the street towards Head Quarters.

  Unfortunately, I was still pretty far away from HQ. I had at least a nice hour of walking ahead of me. Before I could make it anywhere near headquarters, I decided to call Kani, so she would hopefully be ready when I got there.

  Then I called Val, I thought it was only fair that I tell her what happened. She might also be able to further help me breakdown what to do in such a situation.

  I had been walking for almost 15 minutes. I had started grunting from the burst of pain as I walked. It turned out, if the Nerve Module registered damage for long enough, it would dim until it was further stirred. Apparently, metal pieces slowly grinding each other down counted as damage.

  A car driving towards me that in and of itself wasn't all that weird. It wasn't that late, maybe ten or eleven. It had barely been dark for more than an hour or two. It was when the car stopped just ahead of me that I got suspicious.

  I got ready to move, as the door on my side of the street opened. It wasn't until Val got out of the car that I let out a breath of relief.

  "Thank the gods, it's just you," I mumbled tiredly.

  "Hey," She said quietly like you did to a tired animal. She went over to me and helped me into the car, rubbing my back all the while. It was nice, and it was very much needed. "I'll get you to Kani as fast as possible." She said, getting into the car on the other side.

  The moment she sat down, the car started moving again. I barely noticed as I was already falling in and out of sleep from pure exhaustion. I felt Val’s hand on my arm, my shoulder and on my back at different periods of the trip. I didn't notice it moving ever. I can just distinctly remember her hand.

  She helped out of the car again. Why? Why did I have to get up? I didn't want to, that hurt. I mumbled some complaints, and she replied in a mild, yet strict tone.

  Then we were inside, in a spotless apartment, slash building. I looked around, recognizing the place. I pointed towards the sink, right next to the refrigerator. "Isn't that the place with the pussy" I exclaimed, suddenly remembering a particular afternoon. I heard someone let out a guffaw of laughter, from somewhere else in the building.

  "Monitor. Activate manual recording function, thirty seconds playback." Val said. I didn't understand what she meant, but my stomach said beep, so I laughed.

  Then I fell to one knee causing my world to explode into pain.

  I heard someone yelling in pain.

  ***

  Then later I heard saw someone standing over me. I could see that she had this fantastic blond hair, pulled into a beautiful ponytail. Unfortunately, I couldn't see her face as she had on this huge mask.

  In her other hands, she was holding something akin to a glowing stick. She was holding it to my stomach, I thought that maybe I should find it frightening.

  “Repair Mode - Do not worry.” I received a ping from the computer containing the message. “You are being repaired. As you are being repaired, the pain function has been turned off in the local area.”

  Huh, that was neat. Then a little later, I felt another ping from the computer. “Repair mode - Do not worry.” …

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Heroic Deed:

  Neutralized a gang of criminals.

  Rewards: 200 Tessian Points and 100 Credits received.

  The fight had affected me more than I could allow to show. It was more than the pain. More than the damage. This was the first time I had let loose. The first time I hadn't even tried to hold back, and I had dominated. There only feeling I had ever had, that came close was having sex.

  Still, despite being high on my own power, I was struggling to remain upright. The damage to my body, especially my leg was severe. That combined with the sudden lack of adrenaline and I was quickly getting weary.

  The man who had been rummaging through the backpack was looking at me funny. I saw that he seemed to get himself more and more worked up, until suddenly he completely deflated.

  “Son of a bitch.” The man said, oddly he didn’t sound angry at all, he sounded stunned. “Leric, you clever bastard…”

  “Leric?” I asked, leaning forwards slightly. “Leric? Is that the one who’s leading the Tenners?”

  He laughed out loud, with just a slight manic edge to it. “That he is.” He said, dropping his head into his hands and rubbed his face.

  ***

  Soon I started hearing the sirens of police and at least one ambulance. I talked shortly with the first officer to arrive on the scene. Though she didn't seem to like me much, she seemed to understand the situation well enough. She looked at the criminals I had fought with scowl of consternation on her face.

  It may even be the reason that she doesn't like me much, I realized after I had said my goodbyes and started limping away.

  I immediately headed for HQ. I could hear the sound of metal grinding against metal as I walked. It wasn’t a loud sound, then again, I wasn't that far away from it.

  Combined with the grinding of metal against metal, the smells of engine grease and blood mixed together within my body. I was certain I made quite the spectacle as I limped down the street towards Head Quarters.

  Unfortunately, I was still pretty far away from HQ. I had at least a nice hour long walk ahead of me. Before I could make it anywhere near headquarters, I decided to call Kani, so she would hopefully be ready when I got there.

  Then I called Val, I thought it was only fair that I tell her what happened. She might also be able to further help me breakdown what to do in such a situation.

  I had been walking for alm
ost 15 minutes. I had started grunting from the burst of pain as I walked. It turned out, if the Nerve Module registered damage for long enough, it would dim until it was further stirred. Apparently, metal pieces slowly grinding each other down counted as damage.

  A car driving towards me, that in and off itself wasn't all that weird. It wasn't that late, maybe 10 or 11. It had barely been dark for more than an hour or two. It was when the car stopped just ahead of me that I got suspicious.

  I got ready to move, as the door on my side of the street opened. It wasn't until Val got out of the car that I let out a breath of relief.

  “Thank the gods, its just you.” I mumbled tiredly.

  “Hey,” She said quietly, like you did to a tired animal. She went over to me and helped me into the car, rubbing my back all the while. It was nice, and it was very much needed. “I’ll get you to Kani fast as possible.” She said, getting into the car on the other side.