H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis

by Kevin Rau

Shrinker sat in the warehouse, some dozen feet above the floor on the edge of metal racks meant to hold pallets and boxes. The warehouse stood empty of freight, having been unused for some time. It was alive with new activity, as her mutants finished their preparations.

  A pair of cages stood to her far right. New, unturned mutants waited in it. A group of her minions stood guard over them. Soon they would be free of the cages, once they’d tasted blood and their allegiance was solely to Shrinker. Most of them looked very human. A few wore normal street clothes, quite different from the leathers, skull and spike jewelry and heavy tattoos her mutants sported. The rest of the new mutants still wore the garb from the hospital.

  She hoped most would change more radically after the blood. Her people stopped several fights between some of them in the last few hours. They hadn’t eaten in some time, and were about ready to attack anything – or anyone – for food. They would soon be ready to be forced into a cage with a human, one at a time.

  The screech of metal brought her out of her reverie. She looked to her left, as Kralgon bent the last bars of the second “food cage” into place. The cages were a mishmash of bars bent and wrapped around each other rather than welded together. Kralgon’s bricklike strength came in useful for the building of the cages. She now had room to keep another score of captives if she didn’t mind them being crammed in close. She didn’t.

  Humans, Shrinker hated them. They were weak, fearful, and relied on others to fight for them. Once the heroes were eliminated, the humans with weapons would be of little danger to a force of mutants. Kralgon alone could destroy a garrison of army men. Perhaps she’d keep a few of the non-hero metahumans around as pets. Those who would call her Queen.

  One of the more average mutants moved around the cage, testing the bars. He failed to break or bend them. If a mutant capable of lifting several thousand pounds were unable to do it, she was sure a normal human would have no chance of escape. He looked back and caught her eye, then nodded. He said something to Kralgon, clapped him on the shoulder and they both laughed darkly.

  Several more mutants worked on the new cage top for the pit in the center of the warehouse. The feeding pit, as Shrinker dubbed it. Kralgon had built the crude cage top that they attached to the ground now, along with a heavy locking mechanism on the other side of the “door.” The new mutants needed to know they would be stuck in the pit with a "meat" human until they gave in to their blood thirst.

  She hopped off the shelf, and walked toward the van they acquired earlier. “Tim! Kralgon! Vox! With me! The rest of you finish the pit, watch the food and our recruits!”

  She wanted this done. Once the new mutants were usable, the entire group would be able to assault the jail and free every mutant there. Her group would grow into an unstoppable force. Not even the Goth mutants in Metrocity would be a concern to them.

  They climbed into their stolen van and drove toward their next location.

  Tim asked, “So, when do we hit the jail to free Zen and the others?”

  Shrinker replied, “Not for a few days. We need to blood the newbs, get them to change completely. Then, we need to make sure they are loyal to us so we don’t get backstabbed during our attack. That or have some of them run off. They still think they are human.”

  “You figure blooding them will make them loyal to us? Err, to you?”

  “Once they realize that they can’t go home, that they aren’t like the rest of the humans, yeah, I figure they’ll turn to our line of thinking.”

  “Most of ‘em won’t be into our metal music, or lifestyle, or anything yet though.”

  “I know. That’s a concern, at least for the short term. I think it’ll take a few … examples … to teach them that their old friends and so-called loved ones are afraid of them now.”

  “Huh. Well, that shouldn’t be hard. People look at most of us and look afraid mighty quick like.”

  Kralgon chuckled, the deep tones echoed through the van.

  Vox asked, “To the theater, right?”

  Shrinker said, “Yeah. As before, Kralgon, Tim and I will be outside. Kralgon, you destroy the electrical. Vox, you get a ticket to the biggest show and help usher people to the exit.”

  Vox nodded. She had already given him instructions on his part. He parked the van just out of the way, behind the theater. “I’ll text you in a few, once I find out which theater we’ll be coming out of.”

  Shrinker nodded. She thought it was a good choice. No telephones in the theater and cell phones ought to be turned off or silenced. With a good reason for people to rush into their trap few of the humans would take the time to make calls until they were outside … and it would be too late then.

  Vox walked around to the entrance, joked with the cashier about what the popular mid-day showing was today, and bought his ticket. As always, his leathers, chains and green spiked hairdo elicited staring from the ‘normals.’

  He sat at the back of the theater. Even in the dark room his eyesight was near perfect. He counted the potential victims – fifteen, and sent a text to Shrinker with the number and location of the room’s emergency exit.

  Shrinker moved the van after receiving the text message, located the wiring coming into the building, and sent Kralgon to rip it apart just before Vox’s time.

  Vox snuck out fifteen minutes into the start of the movie. When the power cut out, he hit the fire alarm and ran back into the room. The emergency lights went on, and the movie screen black. He shouted, “Everyone to the exit at the front, quickly! That’s the fire alarm!”

  People whispered, but at his shout they jumped up and moved to the front of the room. Vox blocked the way of the few people that planned to exit via the normal entrance. He pointed to the far door. They glanced at his appearance, and rather than move past him, they turned and fled to the emergency exit.

  Kralgon jogged back to the van. Shrinker had parked it at an angle so it blocked anyone from exiting and moving to the right of the door once outside the entrance. Her team waited for the humans to emerge. The hearing of each of them was good enough to hear the music on the movie stop, listen to the fire alarm, and hear the hubbub of the people coming toward the door. She stood immediately outside the door. Tim stood to her left, by the van. Kralgon stood to her right by the outer wall of the theater.

  The door opened and the first pair of humans rushed out. Blocked by the mutants standing in front of them, they stopped for a moment out of confusion. Shrinker quickly grabbed the pair by their arms. Her eyes glowed green from behind the iris, and the people shrunk to a half foot in height. She quickly dropped them into the duffel bag at her side and grabbed the next pair exiting the building.

  A few made it past her as she shrunk the next pair. The couple broke into a run as they saw the tattooed monsters standing outside the door. Tim used his long tentacles to lift them off the ground and pull them back to him. Kralgon blocked the rest from going far, slamming his lower right sword-arm into the wall to distract and confuse the people.

  As they screamed, others attempted to move back into the theater, but Vox pushed them forward. He appeared human, but his strength was still ten or more times that of a human.

  Within a minute, Shrinker had a duffel bag jammed with terrified, tiny humans. People streamed out of the other exits nearby, their exit delayed without having someone to rush them out.

  Shrinker and her crew quickly loaded into the van, Kralgon’s weight causing it to tilt as he entered and sat down. Vox stepped on the gas, drove onto the grass, and bounced over the curb onto the street. Shrinker began taking the humans out one by one and ridding them of tiny bags, purses, and any cell phones or electronics she could find. One was already on the phone when she picked him up. She snarled at them, her fangs were huge to the tiny people.

  She said, “If any of you try making another call. I’ll eat you.” She didn’t feel the need to elaborate on their future role as main
course.

  Vox said, “Damn it … hero.” He stared at the far left corner of the intersection ahead of them.

  Shrinker glanced toward the left where Vox stared. Pedestrians had stopped on the sidewalks in the area and stared at the hero ahead. Hellshock had just dismounted his cycle and stood near the curb. Lightning crackled along his forearms, he thrust his hands forward and a pair of blasts shot out and melted the left pair of tires on the van. Vox lost control of the van, snapping the steering wheel as he yanked it too hard.

  The van smashed into the back of a parked car. Vox and Shrinker flew through the windshield. Shrinker protected the bag of food as she landed on another car. Vox hit the street and bounced a few times. Kralgon barely moved in his seat, though the driver seat broke from the force of his left hand and his weight. His massive strength allowed him to stay in place. Tim wrapped his tentacles around the seats and also stayed in the van.

  Kralgon growled. “I’ve had enough of this asshole; he hit me in the hospital too.”

  He spun and kicked out the back doors of the van. One bounced and narrowly missed hitting pedestrians nearby.

  Hellshock already summoned up a lightning ball. Larger and far more powerful than the blasts he used to melt the tires; these were his main form of attack. He used both hands to summon and aim it, and then launched it at Vox as the mutant crawled to his feet. It blast Vox back into the nearest vehicle and scored him with a massive burn mark on his side. He fell to the ground, twitching. Small arcs of electricity leapt over his body.

  Tim hopped out of the back of the van behind Kralgon, who already marched toward the hero. He wrapped a tentacle around a trash receptacle near him and threw it toward Hellshock.

  Hellshock saw that the two mutants on the left were down. He recognized Kralgon, and wasn’t sure he could take the monster down. He wondered where the kidnap victims were. They had to have a cage or something still inside the van with them. He knew he had to delay them long enough for more heroes to arrive so they could stop Kralgon together. He wished that new brick from their last encounter were here.

  Rather than waste time with the mammoth mutant, he decided to remove another from the equation. He had stopped where he did because of the power line running from the ground up along a pole. He grabbed it and forced the electricity out of its normal path into him, and then sent a continuous line of lightning at Tim.

  Tim hadn’t even been looking at Hellshock when the blast struck. He had turned and wrapped both tentacles around a car. He had planned on throwing it when the lightning struck.

  Power to the nearby building went out as it rerouted through Hellshock. In a one on one fight with a villain, he wouldn’t have done something to damage the area like this, but versus four mutants, the hero worried that he would be overwhelmed. The massive arc of electricity struck Tim, and the mutant flopped to the ground. Tiny arcs of electricity leapt over his body as he twitched.

  Kralgon stood only thirty feet away from Hellshock. Instead of continuing toward the hero, he opened his mouth wide and roared. Waves of force blasted out of his mouth, tearing up the pavement as they moved toward Hellshock.

  Hellshock hadn’t expected a ranged attack. The shockwave caught him unprepared, and he flew off his feet into his own motorcycle. Kralgon leapt over to him.

  Near the van, Shrinker yelled to Kralgon to throw him to her. Once she saw Hellshock’s attention move to Kralgon, she crawled out of the car’s windshield and move to the curb. She placed her hand on a telephone pole, and it quickly shrunk to the size of a bat in her hand. A flick of her wrist caused it to snap off near the base. Kralgon grinned, grabbed the hero by his leg, spun and threw him toward her.

  She swung her makeshift bat, and near the end of her swing the pole returned to its normal size, smashing into Hellshock mid-air. He flew back across the street into another car.

  A beat officer caught sight of the attack from down the street. After a rapid radio-in of the location and what occurred, he ran toward the mutants. He stopped nearby and shot rapidly at Kralgon. The bullets bounced off his chitinous armor plating. Kralgon glanced at his shoulder, and then at the officer and laughed. His ominous, booming laughter echoed in the streets.

  Kralgon walked toward where Hellshock slowly moved, when he heard Shrinker. “Get Tim, then get back to base! We aren’t here for fun!”

  Kralgon looked at her, then at Hellshock and sighed. He never got to have fun. They weren’t in any danger here. One weak super hero and a cop, big deal.

  Shrinker dropped the pole, stepped over to Vox, and then used her power on him, reducing him to toy size; she then fled into the nearest alley.

  Kralgon turned and marched at the officer. It wasn’t too much out of his way to squash this gnat.

  Hellshock crawled to a knee. He had a few broken bones, of that he was certain. He saw Kralgon turn toward the officer and began summoning a lightning ball. Electricity coursed down each arm into the spherical shape between his hands. It quickly grew to the size of a basketball, and he twisted his palms toward the mutant.

  The ball leapt toward Kralgon, striking him in the back. His muscles locked up for a number of seconds before he could move them again. He shook his body after the effect wore off and growled at Hellshock. He cursed, grabbed the car next to him and threw it at the hero.

  The car landed on Hellshock, smashed him to the ground as it bounced off him, and bounced twice more past him. Kralgon laughed and jogged over to Tim, who was unconscious. He grabbed him around the torso with his two right limbs, and then leapt up to the nearest building top.

  He had no problems leaping a fifty feet at a time, and quickly moved away from the trouble scene.

  Chapter 37 – In Search of Mutants

  Lance’s Perspective