H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis

by Kevin Rau

Chapter 28 – In Search of Mutants

  Rael's Viewpoint

 

  Stephanie flew off with Tina. When we got in the car, I punched Lance on the shoulder. “Dude, we’re superheroes.”

  Lance looked at me, grinned and said, “Heck yeah!”

  “So, I’m thinking of going to the police station? Otherwise there’s the one mutant at Iron Cross that Captain McCain put in a basement lockup…”

  “Let’s try the police station.”

  “Works for me. Sucks that our best mode of transport is little Steph though. If you flew we could practically ride on your shoulders.”

  “Heh, I could grab you around the ribs and jump with you. Do you honestly think I’d drop you?”

  “Not really. Not exactly cool looking though.” I imagined for a moment Lance leaping around with me thrown over his shoulder. That is so not dignified.…

  “True.”

  “So … there are police stations all over Metrocity. Which do you think will hold the mutants?”

  “The jail has facilities, I’m sure of that – but I don’t think they’d put people they are holding temporarily into that.”

  “I know; I’ll call my dad. He should know. Lemme use your cell phone.” Lance handed me his phone, and I called my old man up. He actually answered – I never knew with him, he took a lot of trips. “Hi Dad, this is Rael.”

  “Hey kid. What’s new?” He sounded suspicious, I didn’t call him often.

  “Nothing much. I might have to give up competition martial arts though.” I smiled, my devious side had to make an appearance.

  “What? Why would you do that? You love martial arts.”

  “I figured I’d go hardcore. You know, get more into the down and dirty real fight scene. Competition is just too wimpy.”

  “Kid, don’t make some kind of rash decision after spending so many years training.”

  Lance looked at me with a horror-struck expression. He obviously couldn’t imagine feeding his mom a line just to get a reaction out of her.

  “Nope. Mind’s set, Dad. I already got into my first fight last night. Got my ass handed to me, but a couple of guys jumped me just before the fight, so I was slow in the big fight.”

  “Damn it, kid. What made you want to do something idiotic like this?”

  “Well, it might be these strange … superpowers I now have. Woohoo!”

  “You shit. Are you jerking your old man around? You know I have a bad heart.”

  “Yeah, right, Dad. You have a bad heart about as much as I do now.”

  “True, true. Okay, what’s my kid got going for him?” He sounded perked up now. Not like he hadn’t collaborated with Lance’s mom and Steph’s dad to ‘activate’ us years ago.

  “I’m faster and stronger, but not nearly as strong as the mammoth sitting next to me. My eyes look like a cat’s, hearing is sharper, and I can pop claws out of my hands.”

  “Oh, no, you’re a mutant too.”

  “What do you mean, ‘too?’ Why is that bad?”

  “Kid, I’m a mutant. I’ve learned how to change my body so I didn’t look unusual, but if you have claws now you have to stay away from people. You’ll get angry or hungry and want to bite them, or eat them.”

  “Yeah, that almost happened to me last night. I didn’t do it though. My hands can change back to normal. They aren’t stuck as claws.”

  “Whew. That relieves me. Listen, for a while, be extra careful near other people. Eat more than you think you need to, and more often. Don’t take a chance with this. I’ve fought enough other mutants to know that most sink into a hole and their mind never really comes back out.”

  “Yeah, I'm seeing that. I've already fought a mutant. He seemed like he had body armor on him, though, I don't.”

  “You probably aren't done changing yet, Rael. It takes a few days for our bodies to finish some of the changes. This is more like magic than science, or at the least it is like science fiction. Strange shit happens.”

  “Cool, I hope more changes do occur. Is there any way to facilitate them? Like force building of body armor by getting beat up? Or flight by jumping off buildings?”

  “I'm not sure, I don't know of any supers that tried something like that soon after changing. For the most part we were all in shock about it. There wasn't the larger community of supers out back when I changed.”

  “Okay, I'll start jumping off buildings then and hope for flight. What other travel powers are out there?”

  “Hmm. I've seen fliers, super fast runners, jumpers. I know of one teleporter. Shroud claims to travel through some kind of 'shadow plane.' I think he's full of shit about the other dimension thing, but he teleports. Wait, there's Muckman as well, he travels through the ground. Oh, and the swimmers.”

  “Muckman?”

  “Yeah, he's a little unhinged. His body transformed into a big mass of earth or mud. He can go through it now, but mentally he lost it somewhere along the line. You might see him sometime, I think he operates out of, or near Metrocity now.”

  He continued, “So what super name have you chosen, or are you still thinking on it?”

  “I'm going with Black Tiger. I'm wearing my brand new costume – thanks for giving the info to Lance's mom, by the way. It's black, has a gray tiger paw on the chest, black leather type boots. Shirt's a t-shirt style. I've got fingerless gloves on; fingers would just tear when I pop my claws.”

  “Huh. Here I thought you'd go with some kind of martial arts outfit as a costume if you ever changed.”

  “I thought about it, but this can be worn under clothing.”

  “Smart thinking, kid. Hey, how are Lance and Stephanie doing these days? You still hanging out with them?”

  “Yeah, they changed too. Spartan and Psystar are the nicknames. Stephanie flew off to the hospital to check on a kid she took there for help. Lance is sitting next to me right now. We're going to try to get into the police station to interrogate some mutants that attacked last night.”

  “Good kid. Take the initiative and you can do some great things.”

  “What I actually called you about is to ask which police facility they are likely to hold mutants at temporarily until charged?”

  “Hmm, in Metrocity. I know the main jail has facilities, not sure about the smaller police stations though. The H.E.R.O. regional headquarters is there too, that might have something. Tell you what, I'll call Ron, he's an old police buddy of mine. He might be willing to make a call to find out, and maybe even smooth your way in. Make sure you go in costume. Police don't appreciate civilians trying to stick their noses into things. Are you joining the H.E.R.O. program?”

  “Yeah, we've already spoken with Captain McCain here. It sounded like he wanted new people to join. We go in tomorrow for the official paperwork and sign up. We do have temporary H.E.R.O. cards now though.”

  “Nicely done. I'll make that call and call you back when I can.” He hung up.

  I looked at Lance, “Let’s go to Iron Cross Hospital then. We know one mutant at the least was being kept downstairs. They might keep more there just to have them sedated for a while.”

  Lance nodded in agreement, “I like it. We need to get motorcycles or something. Driving around in your beater isn’t very heroic. I trashed my mustang last night. Put my foot right through the floor.”

  “Dude, that sucks. I agree on the cycles though.”

  I drove us to Iron Cross Hospital. After an uneventful fifteen minutes, we arrived.

  I walked through the emergency room; they had already replaced the glass. Fast work. I figured I'd try the bold route, and immediately headed to the emergency room back area where I first met Kim. People watched us as we marched through the area.

  We entered the back room, surprisingly Kim was there. She glanced up from working on someone's arm as we entered and blinked a few times, staring at us. I headed over. She doesn't know my super na
me yet, better mention that immediately.

  I said, “Hi Kim, it's Black Tiger, remember?”

  She replied, “Of course. Do you have someone injured you are bringing in?”

  “No, we're heading down to speak to the mutant that beat me down last night, or any of the others if they are being kept here. We need to move on the kidnappings.”

  She called over to Jenny, another nurse, who came over. Kim’s eyes watched us as she spoke,“Jenny, would you take over here? I'll bring the heroes downstairs.”

  Jenny said, “Sure thing. Hi guys.”

  Lance held out his hand, ever the gentleman. He shook hands with Jenny. I noticed he didn't actually close his hand on hers, although she had an absolutely tiny hand compared to his. Holy shit, he's got big paws now, they grew.

  I put my hand up with the fingers spread and said, “Spartan, put up your hand against mine.” He did it. His hand dwarfed mine. Even his fingers were thick and long. I used to have about a ten inch spread from thumb tip to pinky tip with my fingers spread well out. He had to have a fifteen inch spread … per hand.

  I said, “Wow, your hands are huge.”

  Lance said, “Nah, you’re just my little shadow. That’s why you have black on.”

  Kim laughed at his joke, “Shall we?” She held her arm toward the area with the elevator we needed.

  I said, “Sure, thanks for joining us, Kim.”

  She said, “You didn't really think that mask would make you unrecognizable, did you? You didn't change your hair or skin color, and the cat eyes are a real giveaway.”

  “Not really to someone who knows me. But I'd like to keep most observers from linking my identities. Wow, what an odd thing to have to say.”

  Lance said, “Yeah. I'm loving it though.”

  Kim looked up at Lance and said, “You know, umm ... I forgot your name from last night already. Sorry.”

  “Spartan.”

  “I'd normally say that having hands that large is a sign of gigantism, but your head isn't oversized. You do have pretty big feet though.”

  “Darn glad of that too. You try to land on little feet after jumping a mile or two.”

  “A … mile? Jumping? Wow. I like your costume, Spartan. You went a little ... dark with yours, didn't you, umm, Black Tiger was it?”

  “Right. I definitely have the darker personality of our group. I mentioned to someone earlier today that I'd rather have all the criminals watching Spartan here than myself. Let me sneak up on them and waylay them. Bullets hurt me.”

  “I remember. There are still some of the mutants in the lower area. There are either police or H.E.R.O. people down there though – I won't leave the elevator.”

  She walked us to the elevator and pushed the down button.

  She looked at my hands and said, “Your claws are gone.”

  “Yeah, I discovered I can change my hands back and forth.”

  “Very nice. I'm glad to see you gained more control. Have you had any more problems with, umm, biting anyone?”

  “Not yet, though I've haven't been so close to anyone else but Spartan and Psystar – she was the golden haired girl here yesterday.”

  “She didn't smell normal to either of us, though. Good aroma, not bad, like a wonderful exotic flower or something, so maybe that's something to do with it.”

  “She's lucky like that, apparently it's an ability of hers. Super smell good power.”

  Kim chuckled. “Certainly not the worst power to have.”

  I said, “Hell no. Still pretty distracting to me though. It should be interesting being close to her with her new costume on.”

  “So those are real costumes? Not just painted spandex or something?”

  “Right. Supposedly they self repair to some degree. I should tear mine.”

  “Neat. What does hers look like?”

  “Hmm, upper chest, shoulders, arms down to the mid forearm are bare. The costume is all white, except for a gold belt that she color matched to her gold hair. Tight white short shorts. Top starts at the top of the bust and goes around the side to the lower back. There are three wide oval slits in the shirt from the belly button up to the bottom of the bust. Boots are mid calf with small heels, also white. The face mask is like mine, but white. Overall, sexy and stylish.”

  Kim said, “It sounds like it's, ah, missing a lot. Very revealing?”

  I said, “Well, there's a lot of skin showing, but considering that Spartan and I are also wearing body fitting costumes, it's not much different there. Neither of us look sexy though.”

  Her eyes ran up and down our bodies, “I wouldn't say that. Spartan looks very colorful, but it's very obvious what role he's in. That's always nice. Kind of like seeing a police officer, you know that you can get help from one for certain things. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'd try going to you for help, Black Tiger, if I didn't already know you. I honestly wouldn't know if you were a hero or not, and in some circumstances from the side or behind, I might not recognize that you were even wearing a costume.”

  I said, “Dude, Spartan, why didn't you mention any of that when I was designing the costume?”

  Lance looked down at me. “You wouldn't have listened to me. You like dark things, and you're like a cat. You do what the heck you want to, when you want.”

  Man, two more inches sure make a difference when the big guy is standing next to me. I wonder if Steph feels like this looking up at me. Wait, I wonder what she thinks looking way up at Lance? She's what, seventeen inches shorter than he is now? Holy shit. Not to mention the massive difference in body width.

  I said, “Yeah, yeah, you're right. Spartan, we need to have you step on a scale while you are here, see how much your new size and ultra hard muscles weigh now.”

  Kim said, “Dense muscles. So much so that we typically can’t operate on a brick. You probably weigh over 500 lbs.”

  “Interesting idea, the hospital must have a bigger scale. Perhaps the costume designer would be willing to cut you a deal to change your color scheme. It seemed very easy for her to change.”

  “True enough. I like the idea of looking pretty normal though too. I could throw on a jacket, or just another shirt over this one, take off the mask, and most people wouldn't know I was wearing a costume unless they stared at the tighter than normal pants. Black makes that harder though.”

  The elevator dinged at the high security level we were here after. Here goes.

  I said, “Thanks, Kim. Nice seeing you again.”

  “You too ... Black Tiger.” She grinned.

  “Spartan, you do the talking at first, you look more hero-like than I do for now.”

  He nodded, “Sounds good.”

  The doors opened, and a pair of police officers looked at us from just outside the elevator.

  Chapter 29 – Senility at Such a Young Age

  Lance's Viewpoint