Paragons 3

by Gideon Mills

  Hearing the news that we might have a plan, I left the gym area and headed over to Lola and McGarrett. I hoped he was doing well, and that Janet was too. These days it had to be rough for him, being a cop and a known associate of mine.

  The police officer looked up as I reached the two. Fleur was right behind me as well.

  “Fleur says you have a plan,” I said.

  McGarrett grunted. “Maybe.”

  He didn’t sound all that confident, but Lola had a look of excitement on her face. That was something and made me smile. “Lola?”

  “We do,” she said. “I mean, McGarrett informed us of some old subway tunnels that he used to patrol that are most likely unknown.”

  I liked the sound of that. The city had a vast amount of subway that was both in use and out of use. I remembered the subway from my last visit to Earth back during World War II. I made a trip to NYC then, and a few other major cities in the world at the time, London, Paris, Moscow. It had been interesting to see some of them.

  Maybe once this was all done with Hera, we all could go on a trip to see the cities. I wondered what they all looked like now. I had no doubt that they changed a lot. I could see it all happening from Mount Olympus but it just wasn’t the same as actually visiting the city. Being in a place firsthand was intense and let one truly feel the city or place.

  “Subways,” I said. “Probably dirty, smelly and filled with vermin. My type of place.”

  Just like the good old days when I was worshipped by more people and had my full power. The glory days in many ways, back in the height of the Roman and Greek times.

  “Only you would sound happy about that,” Fleur said. “That is the last place I want to be.”

  I put an arm around her and pulled her close. Her scent reached me, vanilla. It was an intense one. I put my hand on her face and brushed her red hair from her face. Her intense, passionate, green eyes looked up at mine.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said. “If there is anyone I know who can handle that place, it’s you.”

  “I never said I couldn’t handle it, but I’m not going to enjoy it.”

  I smirked. “You just might.”

  Lola groaned and so did McGarrett. While I knew at times my flirting left much to be desired, Fleur seemed to like it. That was all that mattered right now.

  “Anyway,” Lola said. “The two of you should be able to sneak into the subway and then to the site, but I think some help from your buddies would be nice.”

  I closed my eyes. It was my turn to groan since she was talking about the Third Street Dragons, and while they had been helpful since my first encounter with them, they have also led to some bad luck.

  For the most part, I wanted to avoid them, but I knew that would be impossible. I had to make the best of it, and I knew there was no way around getting help. As much as I wanted to use the police force to help, we couldn’t. McGarrett’s hands were tied with all the new laws and regulations.

  The city was the biggest area for the enforcement of all the laws that the government was putting into place. At least, on the internet, many of the people were bashing the government. Even all the news stations were at least showing both sides of the story, and I knew that was a rarity.

  “I’m ready when everyone else is,” I said.

  “Make the call,” Fleur said.

  39

  The Nasty Subway

  The call to the gang didn’t take long, and the leader was more than willing to help. His business was going through a transition and the chaos that was going on didn’t help him. The gang had both Paragons and regular humans in it. The Paragons were only the lowest of the low levels, but that didn’t mean they weren’t being chased by the government, and since they were part of a gang that made it worse.

  They were the bottom of society in many people’s eyes. Shit ran downhill and they were the shit. Many of the Paragons that had been captured or arrested in the last few weeks were in gangs and the like.

  That helped fuel the fire that Fenrir had started. Using that, he went around and touted how they were cleaning the streets of violent criminals, and the heroes did nothing. Not that any Paragons could help since it was now completely illegal to use superpowers in the city. If one used any powers in public, it made them America’s top most wanted.

  They would join Fleur and me on the list. I was proud to be on the top of the list, and so was Fleur. To her it brought shame to her father, and that was a laugh. I wasn’t sure how much it actually hurt the man, since I wasn’t sure he actually loved her. Maybe at one point he did, but no longer.

  A few hours after making the call, the Third Street Dragons met us at Penn Station. It had taken us that whole time to get there. Again, Fleur took many different detours to make it hard for her father and anyone else that might try to track us.

  Once we arrived, the Third Street Dragons shuffled us into another truck. “If I ever have to ride in one of these again after this,” Fleur said. “That will be too soon.”

  I was in agreement with her. While they had cleaned it up and it no longer had the foul odor, it still wasn’t my first choice. Hopefully, soon we would be able to work out in the open again. No longer relegated to hiding.

  That was going to be the only way we would be able to defeat my mother.

  The ride over, again, was tedious and uncomfortable but at least this time it wasn’t nearly as long. The truck would stop in a place that would let us enter the subway unseen by anyone, and with no cameras, which was a rarity these days.

  Once inside the actual subway, we were greeted with an odor that make my stomach curdle. A mix of decay, feces, urine, and rotting food. Not something that anyone can get used to, not even a God.

  “This is awful,” Fleur said.

  “I know.”

  We both did our best to breathe through our mouths, but that just made it linger there. Nothing was going to make this a pleasant experience. The best course of action was to get through this place fast, and to our destination.

  How McGarrett made it through this place when he was a beat cop was beyond me. It looked like he might be the last cop to actually do his cop duty and come down here, but from what he said that might because it wasn’t important anymore with the building going down.

  With the possibility of the building being contaminated, the NYPD did not appear to want to risk its officers getting sick. Can’t say I blamed them. The last thing I’d want to do was come down here on a daily basis.

  It was dark, damp and smelly. And to make it worse, I was in my Greek God outfit, and Fleur was in her superhero costume as well. Hers provided her with some protection from this, albeit not that much. Mine did nothing at all. I was going to need to shower for a week straight after this was over.

  The slog through the place was terrible. I lost track of the number of times vermin ran in front of us. I didn’t bother trying to guess what they were. They were big, hairy and that was enough.

  “I hate this,” Fleur said.

  “You’re not alone,” I said. “A shame that Felicity and my dear sister can’t experience this.”

  “For real.”

  Most of the trek was made in silence. We had even gone to comm silence. Taking out the devices in case they could be hacked. We all mused that we were being over-cautious since Lola was the best in the business, but better safe than sorry. I silently thought it might be that Lola had not wanted to hear us walk through this place and hear us complain about it.

  Fleur had her phone out, which providing the only light and held the map we needed. My memory was not something I took great pride in. While it wasn’t terrible, directions in a place like this was something I didn’t want to rely on either of our memories for. A map was non-negotiable for me.

  “Almost there,” she said. She had been staring at the phone most of the way, and I didn’t blame her. It had to distract her from the surroundings.

  “Good.” We couldn’t get out of this place fast enough.

  �
�So,” Fleur said. “Lola told me just as we left that we might have to crawl up a tunnel that used to be a sewer.”

  I groaned. “Like I said, fun stuff.”

  Fleur chuckled. “So you say.”

  Fleur stopped and looked around, and sure enough there was a small tunnel that went up, that smelled even worse than anything else and that was saying something. I couldn’t believe that in this trip I would be doing something like this.

  I looked up to my old home, and cursed. “Hera,” I said. “Fuck you.”

  Fleur laughed. “Can she actually hear you?”

  “It depends,” I said.

  That gave Fleur a look of concern. “You’re serious.”

  “If we focus on a place or a person while at Mount Olympus, we can hear them. See them clearly.”

  With my vision I could see Fleur blush. “So you’re saying that one of your Gods might have seen us.”

  I shrugged. That was something I hadn’t thought about before, but sure it was a possibility, although I hoped that they would look away. I sure as hell didn’t want to see most of them fucking someone.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Let’s go crawl through some old shit.”

  40

  Old Shit

  The old sewer line was just large enough for me to fit in. Fleur had plenty of room behind me. Not like that mattered as I went up the tunnel, all the old crusty feces and everything else clung to me.

  This was going to be one of the worst experiences of my life. I’ve seen bodies mangled from war. Smelled them decay. Seen the ancient times and shit on the street, or in outhouses. This was worse than it all.

  As I did it, I thought that there was no way the guy in that movie escaped the prison crawling through this shit. I nearly puked a few times when some of the old crusty stuff got on my face or in my eyes.

  The climb only lasted a minute or two, but it was the longest minute of my entire existence.

  Climbing out of the tunnel, we found ourselves in the basement of the building. It had rubble all around it, and stank to high heaven, though I think that was me.

  Fleur exited a half minute behind me. She crinkled her nose, and covered her mouth as she looked at me. “You look disgusting,” she said, muffled by her hand.

  “You’re welcome,” I replied. She had some of the conk on her, but it wasn’t too bad. She still looked hotter than ever.

  While I was sure I looked like one of the monsters that I feared would be arriving soon to attack us. If we don’t find a way to stop my dear old mother.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  Fleur had been here many years ago, and could hopefully find the area that we needed.

  The building had come down, but only the top part of it. It wasn’t structurally sound at all, but the basement was intact, and so were a few of the lower levels. That was where we would most likely run into the guards that were waiting for us.

  “The office that Stan talked about was in the basement,” Fleur said.

  That was one of the only reasons that Fleur was up for this. If the video had been stored up on the top floor, there was little chance that it had survived, but Stan had a secret office in the basement with a vault where he stored his secrets that he didn’t want Fabian to have access to. Nor Fenrir. Stan was smart to keep his knowledge out of their hands. They would have used it for profit alone.

  The more I learned about the old man, the more I thought he was a good one. He might not be an actual soldier or warrior, but he had the spirit and wanted to help those around him. I respected him, and his knowledge. It’s hard to teach a God something and he had.

  “Lead on,” I said.

  She searched the area and found a shirt and handed it to me. “At least try to get some of that off,” she said.

  I did my best, but the shirt just wasn’t made for this task. Once I had the shit off my face, we went out to the hallway and Fleur took us to the office that Stan had told us about.

  So far we hadn’t seen a soul, nor heard one. “You think the reports are wrong about this place being watched?” Fleur asked.

  That was highly doubtful since her father knew that we would try anything to get to him. He had to fear this place and what it represented. While he had the massive new building, this one still sat here as a reminder of a failure of the company, and that was a failure on his part.

  He valued the company and everything about it. If it failed, he did. The same had to be true for this new anti-Paragon stance that he had.

  Fleur entered the office and stopped dead in her tracks.

  41

  Not Alone

  Standing there in front of us were Fenrir and one of his biggest bodyguards. They had a torch and were trying to get into the vault. This was something I hadn’t expected.

  The man turned around to face us, and he didn’t look happy. “I see you heard about this too,” Fenrir said. “I wonder what you think is in here?”

  The vile man rubbed his chin and glared at us. Every time I was in the same room with him, I felt dirty and wanted to wash. My skin still crawled from the talk we’d had. This man was the scum of the earth.

  “Nice to see you too, Father,” Fleur said. “What I think is in there is none of your business.”

  Fenrir laughed. “Well, why don’t you just wait right here and we’ll see what lies inside.”

  I had no intention of waiting around with him. There was no doubt in my mind that he had already alerted the authorities and they would be on their way.

  “Fleur?”

  She looked at me with a pained expression. While she often talked of how much she hated the man, it was clear to me that she still thought of him as her father, and that was a bond that was impossible to break.

  One I knew too well. Even a God like me has his daddy issues, and of course, mother ones too.

  “Get inside,” she said. “And be quick.”

  “As you wish,” I said.

  Fenrir glared at the two of us. The man started to pull up a weapon that was on his side. While I couldn’t make it out, there was no doubt that in my mind it was one of his anti-Paragon weapons.

  I didn’t let him even get it all the way up before I reached him and broke it in half. Fleur was next to me in a heartbeat and had her own father in a chokehold. She was being gentle with him and taking him out.

  The burly man with the plasma cutter spun to face me with the weapon in his hand. The intense heat hit me like a volcano. While I wouldn’t die from it, that didn’t mean I wanted to let hot plasma burn my clothes. I dodged to the left, and ducked down, with a sideswipe.

  Letting the man fall to the ground, I only caught the plasma cutter so he didn’t burn himself or bring the building down. With the gentlest touch I could, I knocked the man out.

  “Get in and now,” Fleur said.

  With a grin, I reached to the vault door: they had been halfway through, and that gave me a nice place to grip the door. Using that, I pulled and the metal groaned. It was in place, but not good enough to stop me. I pulled, and the metal gave way.

  A thunderous bang surrounded us as the door broke from the vault. With ease, I tossed the door to the side, and Fleur let her father go and entered the vault. It was the same size as the room.

  It was filled with many treasures. Stan had been a productive man in his time working with Fabian.

  “Take it all,” Fleur said.

  I picked it all up and piled it into the bags that we had brought. Our plan the whole time had been to empty the vault and go over it once we got back to the hideout. What I hadn’t expected was the vast number of CDs, VHS tapes, and the like in here. Not to mention the random prototype weapons. I wondered if Lola or Mako might be able to use those to help us out.

  With my godly speed, I collected all the stuff in the room. To a mere mortal it would be too much to carry, but I managed. The issue would be getting it all out of here.

  “This won’t fit in the tunnel,” I said.

  “You can
make a bigger one,” Fleur said.

  This was turning into some fun for me. Making my own tunnel to the subway sounded extremely fun. We left the room and Fenrir on the ground. Part of me wanted to crush his skull here and now, but that would add fuel to the fire.

  At the place we entered the tunnel, I set the bags down. “Don’t take too long,” Fleur said.

  She was right that time was very important. We had to get back to the Third Street Dragons and fast. I could already hear the sirens in the distance, not that Fleur could yet. We had some time.

  I took a deep breath in and pulled on the sewer that we’d crawled up in. The fastest and easiest way to make a tunnel for us was to use this one, but make it bigger.

  First pulling it to me to loosen it up. Then I pushed into back into the subway. The hole was already bigger, but not big enough.

  Kneeling down, I used my fist and strength to punch the hole bigger, and made my way through the hole.

  As I reached the bottom, the bags fell on my head, and Fleur was right behind them.

  I picked up the bags, and the two of us made our way to the waiting truck.

  42

  A Shower

  Back at the hideout, we had a lot to sort through. I let the other two start and instead went back to shower. I had to get this grime off of me. I couldn’t stand the way I smelled at the moment.

  In the hot shower, I let the water run over me. Fleur had some of the best soap in the world, and I used that. Scrubbing and scrubbing, I tried to get it off.

  The door to my shower opened, and Fleur was standing there. She had taken off her outfit, and her amazing body was on display. Her large, luscious breasts were there for me. Her pussy was out, and her toned abs.

  “Can I join you?”

  I nodded. “Anytime you want.”

  She giggled. I had thought for sure that she would be knee deep in the stuff we’d brought back, but I was happy she was with me instead.