H.E.R.O. - Horde (19 page)

They immediately grabbed everyone near the door and punched them, stabbed them with a makeshift weapon they'd brought in, or snapped their necks.  One grabbed Aimee as she stared in shock at them.

I sprinted back to her, shoved one of them back and almost reached her when the brute snapped her neck.  I screamed in rage as she went limp, her neck twisting horribly to the side.

I grabbed the one that had killed her by the shoulder and punched him in the jaw with my other fist.  He barely moved his chin.  I felt a vice-like hand crush my left shoulder, felt something slam into my back and stared at my own heart as it erupted from my chest on the end of a metal street sign pole.

I grabbed at the pole as the creature twisted it inside me.  It was as though I gave almost no resistance to his massive strength.  With a great cough of blood, I felt my life slip away....

Chapter 16 - War

Razorwing's Viewpoint

Wednesday passed quickly, I'd continued my research on the internet, trying to see if there was a pattern as to mutant activity.  I already knew that most of them ... us ... tended to hang out at a group of clubs dedicated to Goth activities and heavy metal.

It amused me that once becoming a mutant there was a strong pull to stay away from normal society - I felt it myself now that I looked like a charcoal colored demon right out of a fantasy book.  So in that effort to stay away - and for some to be different - they went to places where they could be the same as others like them.  In other words, they broke out of one societal norm only to join another.

There was a definite network of Goth activity on the web; what I had difficulty doing was sorting out how the mutants fit in, or if there were some kind of secret communication between them.

I didn't actually care if they had some kind of societal structure; I was more interested in hunting down possible leads into Gene Front.  This nebulous group of hackers seemed to be against any human research into mutants.

I did stumble into a few chat rooms that seemed like they were mutant operated - one of which I had to connect a live video feed to prove I was a mutant before they would let me in.  Fortunately my extreme appearance made that fast.

There was a definite feeling in the mutant community that they - we - deserved the benefits of being a mutant in exchange for the downsides.  Our benefits seemed to be great strength, on the order of half a ton for the weakest among us, up to five tons normally.  There were exceptions to that 'rule' however.  We were, after all, mutants.  The very definition of being different.

Other benefits included extreme agility, the ability to regenerate wounds extremely fast, and heightened senses.  I suppose I could include weaponry that often could tear through steel - or the nigh impenetrable skin of a brick - quite easily.

Physical oddities, such as my tail, skin color, horns and wings were other common traits.  Wings were not so common, perhaps.  Tentacles did appear to be relatively common, or at least not uncommon.

Wednesday evening - I walked past the foyer with my tablet in hand when there was a knock at the door. 
That's odd; the outer gate should be locked
.  I stepped over and opened the door.  A pair of women stood in front of me.  Each had a suitcase on the ground next to them.  Both stared at me, slack-jawed.

Maris, my wonderful young factotum, housekeeper, cook and general confidant, came running into the foyer from the kitchen area.  She skidded to a stop when she saw me in front of the open door.  Her mouth hung open as her head turned back and forth between them and me.

Then I remembered her saying something about some kind of party or get together she'd planned.  I hadn't thought I'd be at home at the time, so it hadn't stuck in my mind.

I said, "Greetings, ladies.  Please enter.  The living room is to your left."

I motioned to my right, turned and walked into the back of the house to use my study.  I heard her cajole the women into entering.  They whispered questions about me, not realizing that my hearing was so sensitive, or that the hard flooring in the mansion helped to carry sound.

I sent Maris a text stating that I would be out well into the night again, changed into my black costume and grabbed my white tabard with a griffon and my name embroidered on it as I walked to the garage.  Maris had made the tabard - she took my love for medieval things and helped make my vigilante persona stand out.  I'd have worn a helm or something, but with my other physical traits being so obvious I passed on it.

The thought reminded me of last week, when I'd snuck up on Maris while she worked in the kitchen.  I'd frightened her and she hit me with a frying pan in the head.  It hadn't hurt, and had led to having her whack me half a dozen times in the head harder and harder until she couldn't swing it any harder.  My head definitely didn't require additional armor.

As I left for the garage, I knew I didn't have to tell Maris to clean up after the party.  She did a much better job than I did at keeping my mansion pristine.  I was thankful that I hadn't killed her on the night of my change; I had no idea what I'd do without her.

I was fortunate that I'd found her a year ago, before I changed into this dark form.  I didn't imagine that she'd have come back to Metrocity with me from Haiti even with her family dead with the way I looked now.  Living in a dusty street or not, having a demon ask you to move away with them just didn't appeal to most people.

Tonight I took a beat up car out to a location partially inside the city.  I took a different vehicle nearly every time to throw off any possibility of recognizing the vehicles where I left them, and I’d sent Maris to buy junkers to ensure that no one would steal them.

Once I parked in an abandoned lot with buildings on three sides, I exited the car, slid my rolled-up tabard into the back of its belt, and flew up above the buildings.  I intended to check on several of the Goth clubs that had come up in my research.  The first one, the Lady’s Web was owned by someone nicknamed Lady Nocturne by those in the chat rooms.

The name didn’t strike me as overly odd – many of the mutants had a habit of using a pseudonym, I used one myself for that matter.  I landed on a building across the street, but the scene wasn’t what I’d expected.

A bouncer stood outside the club, but a sign on the door behind him stated that the club was closed for repairs until Friday.  I glided down into a nearby out-of-sight alley and walked up to the front door.

The bouncer nodded to me as I approached – most of the places I’d found mutants occupying seemed to treat me as part of the crowd instantly due to my appearance.

As I closed on the entrance he said, “Sorry, man, club’s closed tonight.”

I asked, “Why?”

“We got attacked last night, repairs are being done.”

That explains the two repair vehicles nearby, then.

“I didn’t see anything in the paper about it, who did it?”

“You won’t see it in the paper, for the most part they don’t want to hear about mutant affairs, and we don’t want them to know.  Not sure who, they looked like bricks, but they all had red skin and fangs.  Something like a dozen hit us and killed some people.”

Best to act pissed about someone attacking our community, I suppose….

“What the hell?  Any of ours?”

“Kurt, the other bouncer was killed outside.  None of us died, though.  Surprisingly, a bunch of heroes showed up and fought the horde of dudes.  I figured they’d let us fend for ourselves.”

“Yeah, me too.  Well, I guess I’ll head to Blacklight then.”

“Lady Nocturne’s there tonight.”

“Oh yeah?  Anything special going on?”

“Not that I know of, since the Web’s closed for a few days it sounded like she’d be hanging out with Lady Celeste.”

“Cool, I’ll head there.  Sorry about the damage here, that sucks.”

“Yeah.  Keep your ears open for info on these red guys.  Lady Nocturne wants to know where they came from and who is behind them.”

I nodded.  “Will do.”

I stepped back, flapped hard and took flight.  It was fortunate that I’d researched the places ahead of time to know which direction to fly.  I wanted the bouncer thinking I’d been to this Blacklight club before.

It didn’t take long to find the place; I was able to spot the neon sign easily from a hundred feet in the air.  A line was in front of the building.  I landed on the far corner of a building top and walked to the closer end to watch for a few minutes.

The bouncer at the door turned away people who hadn’t dressed at least in a dark manner.  I figured it wouldn’t hurt to sit up top and watch for a while. 

It was a good vantage point, and if I saw the guy wearing the glasses with a built-in computer screen I’d have someone to follow and try to figure out how they played into the attack on Fargene a few days ago.  While at first I’d expected some mutants to sneak into the facility, I now believed that the security codes they purchased were computer codes, and that they may have done something to cause the building to go haywire by kicking off an experiment remotely.  Alternately they may have hacked a system and changed something to cause such a thing as well.

When the large group of red skinned guys came barreling down the side alley and smashed through an exit I knew all hell was about to break loose.

I pulled out my phone and called Rayna.  I whispered, “Come on, come on, come on” while waiting for her to pick up.

Finally she did.  “Hello?”

“Rayna, this is Razorwing.  I don’t have much time to explain, but a shitload of big red guys just busted into the club called Blacklight down on 7
^th
street.  It’s a Goth club.  When I say a shitload I mean a lot, a veritable damn horde of them.  Get some heroes down here; I’m going to fly down to try to help.

“Blacklight, got it.  A bunch of red guys attacked another Goth place last night too.”

“I heard.  Come quickly – there are normal people here too.”

I hung up, leaped off the rooftop as I put the phone away, and snapped my wings out to stop the fall just before the ground.  The alley was now clear of the big guys, so I followed them in the side door of the building.  Apparently, one of them had knocked the door completely off its hinges and flung it into the club.

The red guys spread out into the club.  The main room wasn’t as large as I expected it to be from the size of the building, and appeared to be a large L shape.  People were fleeing toward the other two exits of the room.

Bodies already littered the floor – the horde of attackers had overwhelmed those nearest the door.  I snapped my wings forward to stab two of the large men near me.  I’d expected my wing talons to stab right through them, but they merely gave each of them a gash and knocked them down.  Both climbed back to their feet, and along with a third came back toward me.

The far right exit was swarmed with a large group of red men; a dark skinned guy blocked the doorway, preventing them from passing him.  The left door still had a fair sized group of people attempted to cram their way through it, their disorderly process actually slowed them down as too many people attempted to go through the room’s exit at one time.

A pair of guys brawled with the red men in front of the crowd.  That surprised me; I’d expected mutants to call it every man for himself.

Then the three red guys were up by me and I had to focus on them.  The one in the center led the charge while I used my wing to trip the one on my right.

He tried to punch at me.  I blocked it and was able to discern that he was weaker than I was by perhaps fifty percent.  The hit against my forearm didn’t hurt, so at least they didn’t have something as nasty as the huge mutant I’d faced a few days ago.

The one slightly to my left swung a chair at me – I pulled my left wing in to block that.  The chair shattered into quite a few pieces from the strength he put behind the swing.

I punched the center one hard and shifted my wing to block the left one as I saw a few people run from behind the bar along the wall behind me and to my left toward the exit I had entered through.

I focused on holding the left hand one back and away from the people escaping while they moved behind me.  It became a chaotic melee with the three as they tried and failed to grab and snap my wing arms to punch me.  Neither of those seemed to do much to me, but while most of my punches had some impact behind them, the red men were inordinately tough.

They all growled the same thing over and over through the fight, “Hate Goth.”

One of my punches had a great stunning affect on one when I was able to get in a solid swing.  Having three of them on me kept me from being able to do that on most of my punches.

As I fought with the three, I observed the oddities about them.  They all had very similar appearances.  They all said the same byline.  Their clothing was similarly stretched.  The red men were definitely sent here by someone to attack the place. 

The question became, “Who hates the Goth crowd?”  Especially when one wonders who would send a large pack of murderous lunatics into a mutant den.

We continued to struggle ineffectively until a blue-tinged bubble surrounded one of the guys.  I recognized the effect from Rampart, one of the heroes involved in our takedown of the alien pirates a few days prior.

As I shifted while fighting the remaining two, I saw that Rampart maintained a position with his back against the wall near the exit.  With only two on me it was far easier to kick one across the room and focus just on the remaining brute.  I had him down by the time the other one returned, and after a brief exchange of punches, he was on the floor by his friend.

I looked at Rampart, “Go ahead and release that one.”

I moved up to the bubble as it crackled and faded away.  As with the other two, he was relatively unable to injure me, and while it took me a number of swings to land a good hit I was finally able to knock him out as well.

A flash of pink and white out of the corner of my eye informed me that Rayna had entered the room.  Right behind her was the duo of Black Tiger and Spartan.  I wondered if they sat on a rooftop somewhere together awaiting events on their H.E.R.O. systems.