Supers - Ex Heroes 3

by Jamie Hawke

  Instead of answering, Twitch moved the map, scanned with her screens again, and then pointed to one of the nearby areas with more buildings than the rest. “If she’s not in the asylum or past the no man’s land, but here, with the guards.”

  “Meaning…?” Charm asked.

  “It means if she’s there,” Gale interjected, “she’s either buying favors in that special way, or has killed them and is making a move on this place.”

  “Knowing Muerta, I’d say the latter,” Andromida said, standing rigid. “And if she’s about to do anything that helps her, then that means hurting the rest of the world.”

  “We’d better go stop her then,” Twitch replied, and swiped away her screens, pointing the way. A glance at Andromida showed none of that polite, flirtatious woman I’d seen for a short while back on the ship. This was her in full revenge mode, and if I had anything to say on the matter, she was about to have it.

  Chapter 21

  It took us at least half an hour to work our way around to get a good vantage point of the location where Twitch’s map showed the main guard house was situated. It was several stories tall and large enough to fit a couple of those transport ships within. Lines of concertina wire and spikes in the ground showed there must’ve been attempts to reach this part of the planet in the past, along with several turret stations along the walls.

  We stayed out of sight long enough for me and Twitch to use our coding to dismantle them, then worked our way over to a section of the wall that was out of sight of the guards, where Twitch made a hole for us to walk through. Once we were within sight, we weren’t supposed to use our powers, but to not do so here just seemed like a waste of our time.

  “It’s too quiet,” Twitch pointed out sounding worried, but Andromida wasn’t slowing down for anyone. She met the first guard house with a crunch of metal as doors burst inward, prepared to tear through anyone in her path.

  Gunshots rang out immediately and I groaned, certain she had just called the entire guard down on us. Stepping in behind her though with my tempest ready, energy flowing in a ball between my hands, I froze at the sight of Ranger there, grinning, a small ragtag army dressed in bright yellow prison suits lined up around him.

  “I broke out a couple friends, figured they wouldn’t want to miss the party,” Ranger said.

  At his side and standing taller than him was a woman who had half her face covered in metal. But it wasn’t ordinary metal, it had intricate designs on it, including a rose. The eye of the mask glowed gold to match how Ranger’s had been before having his powers sapped.

  “I thought their powers didn’t work here,” I said.

  “Most won’t,” Muerta answered. “Some, however, are inevitably part of us. Shooting fireballs? No. Super strength, or… some aspects of my powers? They could never leave me.”

  “Makes for a bit of fun on your Abaddon show,” a large man next to her said. He was wearing guard clothes but didn’t seem to fit the part. A scar ran across his neck, and one of his eyes was missing. “And it’s why I’ve survived this long.”

  They had broken free and managed to bring in at least one champion from the chaos zones. Wonderful.

  “Our fight isn’t with you all,” Twitch said, pulling out her blaster, but hand ready for her screens if needed. “We’ve come for Ranger, and will take Muerta. The rest of you are free to leave.”

  There was a long silence followed by laughter, and then they started shooting. Twitch was quick to throw up shields, but shots from Muerta were coming fast and accurate. Each shot ate a little further through our shields, gradually tearing them down. Another shot would’ve killed me, but Andromida was there, metal tearing out from the sides of the building and taking the bastards with it, throwing Muerta and Ranger towards us.

  In spite of Ranger’s shout of fear, Muerta was grinning. She rolled across the ground and came up next to Charm, winking as she breathed out what looked like black smoke.

  “Fuck,” Charm said, dropping back and then scrambling away as it grew and followed her, becoming less like smoke and more like living darkness. An illusion on my part sent a mirror image of itself back, creating a loop pattern that neither its maker nor I had expected.

  Muerta turned to assess me, looking impressed. “Maybe you’re on the wrong side. Intelligent, quick on your toes—doesn’t sound like the Citadel style. You belong with me, taking over Orion, turning them in a new direction.” She reached out a hand. “What’ya say?”

  I thrust out with my tempest power, lightning catching and engulfing her, throwing her back to the far wall where she spun and landed in a fury.

  “Sounds like a no,” she said, opening her mouth to breathe more of that darkness my way. When nothing came, she cursed and threw herself into a roll in our direction, coming up amid lightning strikes from Gale that were taking out Muerta’s friends. Now she was close enough for her powers to work properly, but a fist caught her in the face and Charm appeared, having been cloaked, then came back in with three more strikes, the last drawing blood.

  Muerta growled, throwing off one of her minions as he tried to help her up, and then ran, darting out of there and into the next building over. We followed, taking down enemies left and right, only still alive because of Twitch and her shields. I felt my energy boost and shot her an appreciative glance, then was in and grabbing an attacker by the head, slamming him into the next guy so that their faces exploded on each other, and then shooting out three to my left before conjuring my tempest to blast another chain of them.

  Ranger charged in and he lunged for a rifle. But I got there first, slamming my knee into his face. He blocked the next one and then turned to Muerta where she now stood on the railing above, preparing for another strike.

  “Muerta, save me,” he said, and she turned to him with a scowl.

  “Have him,” Muerta said as a new wave of crazy warriors piled in to join her. “Just leave me out of it.”

  “Fuck you,” Andromida said, and she latched onto the railing, pulling herself up and after her arch enemy. But as she reached out to attack, her powers stopped working! She was too far from the supra tech we’d brought along to cancel out whatever this place used to stop the powers, and now she was falling. Muerta turned with a scoff and exited as her guards opened fire, giving her cover.

  Ranger shouted for her, reaching, as the evil woman’s guards ended his life, bullets tearing through his body. The rest of us huddled around Twitch and her shields, Gale thrusting wind to offset the bullets, and Shimmer using her illusions to cause us to appear five feet to our right. I tried a blast from my tempest, but once the lightning went outside of our supra tech sphere, it died off, not making contact with the enemy.

  I pulled out my blaster and shot instead, and with the combined confusion and shots returned, the men and women firing at us soon tucked tail and ran.

  More appeared, shooting at us from the right, then a couple from the left, and it became clear we were going to have to pick a direction and just go with it. We charged, throwing what we could at them, leveling the forces as best we could. A team of at least ten of them popped up out of the ground, close enough to our supra tech to be able to use their powers, and started attacking with powers that tossed us about, another clapping his hands in a way that was meant to collapse our lungs. One even turned into what looked like a were-bull and tried to tear me apart with his horns.

  We weren’t having any of it. You don’t get this close only to be defeated. I hit a group of them with terror wind while Charm cloaked and came back to tear one’s throat out. Shimmer terrified two with monsters raining down on them, only to vanish as she shot them from close to point-blank range.

  As creative as they were being, it was clear Muerta was sending her weaker supers against us. Either she underestimated us, or this was all some sort of test in her mind, a test to see if we were worthy opponents.

  By the time we made it out of the building, Muerta was floating off on some sort of standing device we assu
med the Wardens used for travel. She hovered out of range, more men and women taking offensive positions to move at her word.

  “Orion will regret the day they sent me here,” Muerta said, smiling wickedly. “They’ll regret ever double-crossing me, once they’re in my grasp. But you… you won’t live long enough to see that day. Enjoy your time in the afterlife, bitches.”

  A series of explosions went off and I realized we’d walked right into her trap. As we pulled back, getting tossed around a bit from the blasts and trying to recover each time before another hit, we saw her getting away, vanishing into the compound beyond—tall buildings surrounded by a gate. The asylum, I assumed.

  “She’s getting away!” Andromida shouted, charging forward again, and cursing as the powers cut out and threw her to the ground. She turned on Twitch now, shouting, “Where is it? Give me the device!”

  “We’re not going to charge in there, killing everyone and alerting the world to our powers!” Twitch gestured wildly to drones already moving in, lenses and scanners starting to capture the moment. “They’re going to televise this, don’t you see? This world isn’t ready—”

  “Fuck this world!” Andromida screamed. “I’ll have my revenge!”

  She grabbed Twitch by the neck, but I stepped in, breaking the group up and holding up my hands.

  “Whoa, whoa.” I wasn’t sure if she’d attack, but stood my ground. “We’ll get her, believe me. But not like this.”

  Her eyes met mine. The rage in them hadn’t faded, but it was at least contained. “When?”

  “We’re not leaving this place until we do,” I promised. “But it’s got to be without announcing to the world that there are super beings. It just… it wouldn’t do.”

  When enough time had passed that we seemed to be in the clear, Twitch said, “Fall back. We’re going to need a strategy here.”

  The others started to move, and I held out my arm to escort Andromida. Her nostrils flared, chest heaving, but she took it. “You let me down, I’ll fucking eat your heart out.”

  “Literally?” I asked. “I mean, you wouldn’t actually do that, right?”

  “You wouldn’t actually let me down, so we’ll never have to find out.”

  “True,” I said.

  We moved back into the darkness, explosions and shooting behind us. Whatever was happening here, it was larger than us. Still, we’d taken Ranger out once and for all, and I had no doubt this Muerta lady and her followers would be next. After that, maybe Orion Corp. itself, if it was behind all this.

  Meanwhile, Charm saw us like that and grinned, taking my other arm. “I like this look on you, Mr. Breaker. A gentlemen leading his ladies off to war.”

  I laughed. “Is that what gentlemen do?”

  “In our world, yes,” Andromida said, finally letting an emotion other than anger and hatred crack through. She sighed, leaning into me and wrapping her arm around my waist.

  Charm did the same, and I couldn’t help but laugh when Andromida yelped at Charm, slapping her ass.

  Twitch motioned us to get down, as she pulled out her screen and started to move lights around like she was plotting out a chess match, while Shimmer cast an illusion over us and Gale stood at the defensive in case there was a problem.

  “Still need to get me that red dress,” Charm said, watching it all. “No matter what happens here, Andromida gets her revenge, I get my red dress.”

  “Now’s an odd time to bring it up,” I pointed out. “But I promise, before this is all over… or maybe right after, I will.”

  She planted a big kiss on my cheek, then pulled me in tight and kissed me passionately enough to remind me that I had no choice but to follow up on my word.

  The first step, though, would be ensuring we lived through this and came out the other side still in one piece.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Jamie Hawke

  After working on Marvel properties and traveling the world, Jamie Hawke decided to settle down and write fun, quirky, and sexy pulp science fiction and superhero books. Are they all harem? Oh yeah. Oh yeahhhh.

  It all started when Jamie was eleven, creating nude superhero comics with his best friend. What perverts! But hey, they were fun and provided good fodder for jokes up into their adult years. Now the stories have evolved, but they capture that same level of fun. Hopefully you will enjoy them as much as the author loved writing them!

  Author Ramblings

  In a sense, this kind of concluded the first arc for the Supers: Ex Heroes books, huh? Ranger was the big bad introduced in book one, and now he’s been defeated. Of course, there are always others working, either behind the scenes or higher up, and once they are gone there are other issues to deal with in the world. In this case, we have the sexy but deadly Muerta. Now, instead of just an army of supers to go up against, there’s a corporation and supra tech—and who knows what else they’ll be faced with.

  It should be an exciting ride! I’m also thinking of showing Muerta on the Book Four cover which would be awesome, because I have cool ideas of how she should look. We’ll see what the artist can do.

  As for the rest of it, did you see the other connections/cross references made between this book and others? Of course there was the obvious, with the Blue Lady (Andromida) first being in Ex Heroes Book One, then in Ex Gods Book Two, and now here again. But there were more, little things.

  Oh, and what about this whacky world they went to at the end? Does it interest you at all? Are you into the idea of Harley Quinn and Tank Girl, crazy-ass ladies who kick a lot of butt? Because if so… I have something in store for you! Be sure to follow me on Facebook or my newsletter so you don’t miss it. Coming soon!

  Until then, enjoy the reading. I have some other fun ideas, a couple of books I’m thinking of doing before Ex Heroes Book Four, but don’t worry—I won’t make you wait too long.

  Thank you again for your support! You’re amazing, and I’m able to live this author life because of you. I’ll never forget it!