by Kevin Rau
I opened my mustang's door, fortunately, the outer handle worked. The borrowed cell phone vibrated for a moment, and then a voice came from it.
“All points alert,” sounded out in an automated voice. Then Captain McCain's voice came over it. “Emergency at Iron Cross Hospital, level 4, mass attack by mutants, many injuries, need assistance, multiple murder in progress. All available heroes requested.”
A cold chill ran down my spine. Murder? I pulled out my keys, sat down quickly, started the engine, and slammed my foot on the pedal. My foot smashed through the floor of the mustang, it jolted forward and then stopped. Crap. I can't believe this. I sighed, then turned the ignition off and tried to open the door, but the handle was missing. “Damn it!” I shoved on the door, the hinges snapped off, and the door fell to the ground. I hopped out of the vehicle, set the door by it and looked around. Great, so now I’ve trashed my car. The door I could have replaced, but the gas pedal assembly and floor…. Come on, Lance, think about that later, there are people to save.
The hospital was about two miles in the direction away from home. I sprinted to the nearest street facing the way I needed to go and put my best strength into a running jump. My body practically shot into the air. Buildings dwindled under me as I gained altitude. I was easily hundreds of feet high in seconds, and still ascended. My forward momentum accelerated the speed of the jump. I moved fast, easily passing vehicles driving on the street below. I must be flying over sixty miles per hour doing this. Even with the speed, it took approximately two minutes of flight time to approach the hospital.
I should contact Rael and Steph for this, but they are probably either having sex or sleeping by now. Take even five minutes to get ready, another ten minutes to get to the scene and they'll be too late to do anything.
The wind rushed past my face and blew back my hair as I flew through the air. I could see the buildings of the surrounding region, and picked out the hospital fast approaching below. My momentum would carry me well past the hospital. I lost altitude slowly, but was still far too high to do anything about my flight.
The hospital sped past me on the left side, moving in the wrong direction. I couldn’t change direction; my jumping arc kept me moving forward. I guessed I'd land about half a mile past it. If I land and roll, this much momentum will make me roll a long distance, probably smashing into something. Here's to hoping the strength to jump distances like this includes the strength to land.
The ground rushed toward me. My heart pounded as I anticipated crashing and breaking both legs. I descended rapidly toward a small parking lot. As the blacktop approached, I prepared to absorb as much impact on my legs as possible. My feet hit the ground; it felt no different than sprint jumping fifteen feet prior to becoming a super. I easily absorbed the impact in the legs, but the speed carried me forward somewhat and I rolled on the ground once before recovering in a three point stance. Okay, when run jumping, land with a leg forward.…
I performed a fast injury check to ensure I took no damage from the fall, and then pumped my fist in the air and yelled, “Yeah!” I sprinted off toward the nearest street leading to the hospital from this direction. Oh yeah, this jumping thing will work.… Upon reaching it I lightly jumped while running, again launching into the air. Holding back on the strength put into the jump appeared to be the key to controlling the jump, for I only ascended one hundred feet or so. I crossed over some buildings, and descended toward a street connected to the hospital parking lot. Jumping certainly is an exhilarating experience! I can't wait to take a day and just jump around.
As I sprinted toward the building, I noted a large hole in the wall on the fourth floor. I leaped for that room's window, hoping to minimize damage that would need to be repaired. The power of my jump was too great. I crashed through the window on the fifth floor, above the room I'd desired to land in.
Fortunately, the bed was empty in the room. The window burst in and I crashed hard into the bed, flipping it over in the process. I thudded against the door, pushed the bed away from me and stood up. Again I felt no injuries. I was getting excited about this gig. I grabbed the handle on the door too hard when I opened it and ripped the hinges off the wall. Darn it all! Bad Lance!
I stepped out into the hall, looked back and forth to find the nearest stairway, and sprinted to it. Several nurses cowered against the wall as I ran toward them. I hopped half a flight of stairs of stairs at a time in my haste to reach the fourth level, but the door was locked. I ripped at the door handle; the entire locking mechanism ripped out of the wall, but the door opened.
Chaos reigned in the hall. I recognized Psycom from the news, an existing H.E.R.O. He wore his distinctive white and blue gradient costume, with a blue visor over his nose and eyes. He was a well known telepath and telekinetic.
He stood near the nurse’s station, a group of hospital personnel on the floor behind him. Two mutants stalked the area in front of him; he held another in the air with his telekinesis.
A jolt of lightning crashed into a mutant to my left. Hellshock, another H.E.R.O. was the originator. He was in costume as well, his dark red and black costume lit up by white lightning bolts here and there, as though it were a canvas from a storm. Two mutants rushed at him as I watched.
I heard the sound of melee from a room off to my right.
I leapt at the closest mutant, the one rushing at Hellshock. The mutant didn't see me; I tackled him hard, and embedded him in the wall on the far side.
He stabbed at my chest with a long spike coming from his fist. Lightning burst through the hallway behind me into the other mutant rushing Hellshock. The mutant with me didn't have enough room to maneuver, and failed to do more than scratch my side. I shoved him the rest of the way through the wall, and the mutant stabbed me again, causing a shallow stab wound. I shoved the mutant's face through the flooring…hard. It's stabbing stopped in favor of pulling its head out of the floor. Oh, you can take a hit? Let’s up the amperage a notch and see if you can take that.… I waited for it to extricate its head, and then smashed it through the floor again near the previous hole. How do you like them apples? It slumped to the floor, and I checked to make sure he still breathed.
I grabbed the edge of the hole in the wall and yanked myself back through to the hallway in time to see Hellshock let loose a ball of lightning. Now there’s a cool power. The ball missed the mutant, instead scoring a large burn mark in the wall of the hallway. Okay, not so cool.
To his left I saw a pair of mutants enter a room. I rushed the door behind them. When I reached it, I slammed my palms hard into the door near the handle and the hinge area. The door exploded off its frame into the room. The door took one mutant in the back, flinging him across the bed. The bed itself banged across the room, ruining a large pincer swing the second mutant was in the midst of. Fortunately, it didn’t topple the bed over.
A woman lay on the bed unconscious, likely still in a drugged sleep. The second mutant lunged at the woman again. I barely grabbed and pulled the bed back toward me before the pincer swiped at her, and it snapped the security rail on the side of the bed in half. The first mutant swiped his horned elbow back at me, cutting into my chest. The second mutant again lunged at the woman. I barely reached my left arm across in time to prevent the strike, and the mutant grabbed my forearm with the pincer. The pincer protrusions dug into my skin like small blades. Why are these cutting me, yet concrete doesn't?
I grimaced in pain. Darn it all, knock it off! I said, "You guys suck, pick on someone who can fight back." I stomped down on the first mutant's calf, driving its knee into the floor. This forced the elbow horn out of my chest. The pincer mutant grabbed my arm with its other pincer, digging the blades on it into my bicep.
The mutant by my feet moved to stand up, and before he moved far, I kicked him hard. He flew across the room, spinning the bed sideways and knocking me over, with the pincer mutant on top of me now. The first mu
tant smashed through the outer concrete wall of the building and disappeared from sight. The sound of concrete cinder blocks crashing to the blacktop outside could be heard even from this height.
The pincer mutant head butted me, only to be slammed into the wall connecting to the hallway in return. It bit my left shoulder while it continued to squeeze the huge pincers on both places on my left arm. Blood ran from the arm, and then from the shoulder where it bit me. Darn, fighting this thing’s like fighting an animal.
My left arm still worked, I was able to pick up the mutant with my right hand and rushed the outer wall. I bashed the mutant into it, stunning it badly and causing more concrete blocks to fly out into the parking lot. I punched it hard several times in the head until it hung unconscious, and the wall behind it barely remained. I began to realize that mutants could take quite a beating before being knocked unconscious.
A scream came from the hall, and I rushed back to the doorway. At the end of the hallway, the mutants had taken down Psycom. Two mutants advanced toward the nurses and doctors huddling in the corner. I sprinted two steps and leaped horizontally toward them. Jumping don’t fail me now. I shouted, “Incoming” as I sped toward them. They stopped to look back in my direction, one of them lunged an arm that resembled a sword at me as I flew toward them. Good, keep your attention on me….
The sword entered my abdomen as my arms caught the two mutants. The three of us crashed through the wall, into the stairwell, and continued ahead to smash into the concrete outer wall. Head, meet concrete, sorry concrete. A chunk of the wall gave way, collapsing outward from the impact. We fell in a heap at the landing of the stairwell.
I shook my head to clear it. One mutant still moved, slowly. I backhanded its head into the wall, disintegrating more concrete, and knocking the mutant unconscious. I quickly elbow smashed the other mutant into the concrete floor of the stairwell, it didn’t move.
Two of the hospital personnel stood at the entry to the stairs above me as I climbed to my feet. Something impeded me; I looked down to see the sword sticking through my torso on the left side. Wow, I’ve been stabbed through. I winced, grabbed the arm and yanked it back out. Blood sprayed out from the wound, and ran down my side from the wound. It looked bad, but didn't hurt nearly as bad as it looked.
A loud crash sounded from above. I jogged up the stairs, and the people moved aside as I approached. Captain McCain lay in the hallway, a barely human looking mammoth mutant towered over him. It looked more like some kind of devil figure, with four arms, two of which had blades instead of hands. The head was horned; large fangs protruded out of the mouth. Spikes grew out of the elbows, knees and shoulders. They just get uglier and uglier, bigger too.
Behind the huge mutant, two others stepped into the nearest room. One was a thin woman, she wore black leathers, chains and spikes, and had violet spiky hair. Another mutant with tentacles went with her. The huge mutant blocked the door behind them.
The woman took something tiny out of her pocket with one hand and flicked it toward me. The object grew into a small wrecking ball three feet in diameter. I grabbed it as it slammed into me, knocking me off balance for a few seconds.
During this time, Captain McCain rolled to his feet and punched the giant a few more times. The mutants chitinous armor made a crunching noise as the captain’s fist went through it. The giant stabbed the hero again with a lower arm sword and slammed him down to the floor with his two upper arms.
I dropped the wrecking ball and rushed at the giant while it stabbed the Captain twice more. It looked at me and roared with a fantastically large mouth. The roar sent a wall of vibration at me that knocked me off my feet, and gouged the walls and ceiling in the area. I felt momentarily stunned, and attempted to stand while it closed on me.
It drove a hand blade onto my left shoulder, slicing into the heavy muscle. I punched it in the chest and drove it several feet back. It closed again and stabbed at me with both blade hands. A lightning bolt struck the mutant from behind, locking up its muscles for a few seconds as all its muscles tightened.
I glanced down the hall. Captain McCain lay on the floor, bleeding. Guards appeared dead or dying all along it. The hospital staff behind me no longer had Psycom in front of them for protection. It was all up to Hellshock and me to stop this.
I gathered all my force into a mighty punch. I want to channel that strength like I did when McCain and I shook hands. Energy burst within me, my eyes glowed yellow and the arm glowed from within. My punch slammed into the mutant's chest, and a loud boom sounded through the corridor at the sound of the hit. The creature flew back through the wall, again through the outer wall of the hospital, and continued nearly horizontal until it was out of sight. A distant crashing of metal, glass and concrete falling to the parking lot could be heard.
Hellshock stepped into the room and looked out the hole in the outer wall. “It's running off. Their leader disappeared as well. I'm surprised he went that far. Knocking out a wall is one thing, but forcefully enough to throw him so far is awesome."
I dropped to one knee, and placed my right arm on my upper knee while I rested a moment. It was quiet in the hall. I looked at the Captain, who stared back at me. I glanced at my side; blood slowly streamed down from the sword wound. My shoulder continued to bleed slowly as well.
“Nice work, Lance.”
“Spartan. Sorry about that, he got away.”
“Some of them are hard to take down. I meant nice work on stopping him from mauling us here.”
Hellshock called back to us, “He's right. My lightning balls caused him little damage. This place isn’t safe for me to really summon up the size of lightning ball that would really hurt him. It’d either damage the hospital or hurt others. He probably could have done a lot more damage to us if he'd stayed longer.”
The Captain nodded and said, “Some mutants may have gotten the short end of the stick on looks, but occasionally gain the benefits of both a mutant and a brick. Like that one … he had armor, strength much like a brick, and yet had the extra arms, swords, and probably the stronger regeneration of a mutant.”
Footsteps echoed from down the hallway, and two more superheroes ran toward us. The woman I recognized as Brawny Sonic, a flying blaster who could emit beams of vibration from her hands. She wore an emerald outfit with baggy pants and an unusual, almost chitin-like top. She wore a deep red helm that covered her face from the nose up. The man was Elastiburn. He wore a camo-green loose fitting shirt and pants with metallic armored gauntlets and an old style helm that reminded me of a medieval knight's helm. I vowed to myself to be far more stylish than this guy was. Elastiburn said, “Where are the bad guys?”
Hellshock had returned to the hallway, “All over the place, they were all mutants. They were kidnapping other mutants, and killing new supers they could get to. Some got away.”
Elastiburn said, “What, one of you ugly mugs showed your face and they run off? You guys are all a mess, we'll collect them up for holding and get medical support for you.”
Elastiburn walked down toward the hospital staff, “They're all down or fled. Get some teams up here to see if anyone can be saved!” Hellshock headed over to the nearest guards that appeared alive to try to help them.
Soon, hospital emergency teams ran everywhere through the level. Several attempted to help me, but I waved them off until I was sure the people stuck in the beds and civilians were helped.
Captain McCain said, “You've got several stab wounds, let them look at you.”
“As do you, Captain. You're looking worse for wear than I feel, so don't make me knock you unconscious and have them check you first.”
“Stubborn, I like that. Assuming it's in the line of duty, at least. Don't worry about me, my wounds normally stop bleeding shortly after combat, and I begin healing.”
Hellshock stopped by, “Are you guys done lying around yet?”
I said, “I
figured I'd bleed out a little more, then determine something useful to attend to.” He laughed.
He looked at the sword wound from both sides and said, “Damn, that looks nasty. I’d hate to get hit with that without your armor. You do have armor, right?”
“Yeah, pistol shots don’t hurt me at least. The wounds still hurt though.”
Strangely enough, the bleeding from the stab wounds stopped by the time the doctors had attended to all the other injured. The gaping hole in my abdomen, and the slice out of my shoulder were still there, though.
I made them help the Captain first though. He gave me a dirty look.
A physician's assistant came over to me and introduced herself as Ana. She was average height, perhaps 5'5”, average build with a little extra weight, very cute lady. She had dark brown hair that went just past her shoulders, and light blue eyes. She was well tanned. Either she went to a salon or spent a lot of time outdoors. Ana had a friendly face, good for putting injured people at ease.
Ana was very kind, and led me to a room downstairs to get looked at. She cleaned the large stomach stab wound, and mentioned that if I get something stabbing into me in the future to pull it out. They didn't have tools to do surgery on bricks.
The wound had begun healing, just slowly. She attempted to stitch it closed, but several needles bent when pushed against the skin. Since they didn't bleed anymore, we gave up and hoped the wounds would re-seal themselves. She tried using some tape to close the wounds, but when I shifted even a little my muscles ripped the tape apart.
Ana said, “Are you trying to be difficult?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Either we lock you into a position where you can’t move for some time … at all. Otherwise, we just cover the wounds so nothing gets into them, and see what happens. I don’t like that option much though.”
“Just cover them. If I end up with scars I’ll know next time to do the next step.”
As she attempted to close the wound she'd asked, “This is a lot of damage to take, why do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Rush into danger? Is the pay that good?”
“I haven't been paid anything for saving anyone yet. Assuming I do, I have no idea how much I'd be getting. I'm doing it because I can.”
“Doesn't it hurt?”
“Quite a bit, actually.”
“Do you rob banks?”
“What? Why would you ask that?”
“With your strength and body armor, I'm assuming that you could. If you are going on the theory that just because you can do something means that you just do it, then why not?”
“That's just wrong. Put it this way, I have the power to do it now, and I would rather get hurt than see other people hurt. Sometimes, I don't even get hurt, so I'm able to just help people without the pain or damage to myself involved.” At least only minor damage on that bar scene. Hopefully I'll have some where I don't get injured....
“That's very good of you. What's your name again?”
“La ... Spartan.” I smiled at that. I need to get used to saying my super name.
Ana glanced up at me, raising her eyebrows, and then smiled.
I said, “Here's a question for you. How do I fill out the paperwork and such to pay for medical care?”
“You're in the H.E.R.O. program? Are you a new super?”
“I should be officially in Monday. And yeah.”
“Well, all of the hospitals work with the H.E.R.O. supers. They deal with all of it, from what I'm aware of. Something like a medical plan for a bunch of agents, like in sports, I guess. Most of you don't need too much in the way of care, as we are seeing here. In fact, most heroes don't bother coming in for care unless it is severe. Anyway, seeing firsthand what you did here tonight, I’d spend my time caring for you gratis; we’d just need to get the bandages and such.”
She continued, “If we can't speed the healing, and can't seal the wounds, would you at least like some pain meds?
“Sure.”
“I'll get you a few for now, and ask Doc. Antais to fill out a prescription for you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I don't get to work on supers, normally. I'm amazed that your skin feels so ... normal, yet is so strong.”
“It's not all happy times, these changes to the body. I've destroyed my nice car already because I wasn't watching my strength enough.”
“Wow, that's depressing. It’ll get expensive, too.”
“Yeah. Well, I think I'm going to go home and lie down to let this heal.”
“Thank you for helping everyone here tonight. Although, when we were checking rooms a lot of people had been kidnapped ... or lost.”
“Kidnapped?”
“That's what they were saying, there were a dozen or so mutants kidnapped. They killed some of those that looked like a 'normal' human. I feel sorry for all the guards they murdered too.”
“That's not random, something’s up. And I agree about the guards.” I sighed, I hated thinking about good people dying while trying to protect others.
“Good luck on finding out. Unfortunately it won't bring back the dead.”
“No, it won't. But I can try to stop them from doing something else dangerous.”
“Rest tonight; go after them tomorrow.”
I nodded, and then thanked Ana for her help. I mentioned that she ought to get some rest as well when she could, she looked tired.
I took some short, safer jumps to get home without incident. The wounds were annoying, but not debilitating. Wow, I've been stabbed completely through, and don't feel like I'm out of the game. Booyah!
When I went to shower before bed, I realized something interesting. I had a residue of dust and blood on me, but hadn't sweat at all. Come to think of it, I didn't recall feeling hot since being in the hospital the first time in the evening. Very interesting.
Chapter 19 – The Day After
Third Person Perspective