H.E.R.O. - Horde (41 page)

I made a list of things to buy and spent the afternoon shopping for a mini-skirt, boots, a bunch of jewelry for the fingers, wrists, neck and ears, and a wig to cover my short bluish-purple hair.  I found a nice studded leather belt and arm band that worked with the theme as well.

I called a number of record and CD shops until I found one that sold their t-shirts, and stopped to buy a too-small shirt, which I then cut in half, and a few extra cuts on the front and back for interest.

Psystar had mentioned as well that the band seemed to hate Goth types, so just for the heck of it I bought a small purse and a stuffed doll of a vampire, and then bought some large needles to stick into it.  If these people really hated the Goths, I figured I had better look like I do too.  I attached the doll to the outside of the purse.

After I was fully geared up, I went home to put on makeup, paint my nails and make sure the wig looked perfect.

I left by 8:30 P.M., flew about half a mile away from the place and landed in an alley.  Then I walked to the club.  I passed a few groups of people on the way there, and Psystar was right, not many eyes met mine.

The club was reasonably busy, so I stood at the bar and had a large drink.  I realized that I didn’t even know what I was looking for in there.  Someone was doing something to make men turn into red bricks – only they weren’t bricks, they were weaker?

I played with the doll while I looked around the room, stabbing the vampire in the head a number of times.  I caught an interesting mix of looks from people around the room.

Some women looked at me in obvious jealousy.  I was perfectly happy with that, the thought made me smile that I wasn’t so overly muscled to cause that effect.

Men seemed to have several expressions.  Some outright stared at me lustfully.  I didn’t maintain much eye contact with them; I wasn’t looking to be hit on.  Others looked at me with quite a bit of dislike.  I was surprised at that, although a few of them might have had the cat-like eyes of a mutant like those of Rael.  Some others seemed to notice the doll and smiled – I wondered if they disliked the Goths.

A waitress stepped up to me and held out a drink to me.  She didn’t look overly happy about it.  She nodded at a table and said the man there wanted to buy me a drink.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be stuck at a table if bad things started to happen, but the guy was in a great spot.  His table was centrally located and would let me quickly get in on any action in the room without running across the entire thing.

I smiled and walked over to him, but as I was passing by the table next to his one of the men grabbed my butt under the skirt.  I raised my eyebrows and looked at the man.  It wasn’t that I was pissed off, but I was rather surprised that someone would actually do that.  Then I saw the number of shot glasses on that table and figured he was getting a lot of liquid courage.

In a second, the man who I was walking toward leaped past me and grabbed the groper by the wrist.

He growled at the guy, “Step off my lady, asshole!”

The man groping my backside grimaced and grabbed at my drink buyer's hand, but my new friend let go quickly.

He said, “Stupid brutes come to places like this.  Sorry about that, beautiful.”

I grinned at him and sat down at his table.

I said, “Thanks for the drink and the seat, you got a great spot.”

“Yeah, I love the band.  It’s worth getting a good spot.”

He said, "I'm Rog."

"I'm Di....  Just Dee."

Pieces of paper were on the table in front of him.

I asked, “What are those?”

“Lyrics and notes.  I write some of the songs for the band.”

“Get out of here – seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so awesome!  I wish I could do something like that.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a model, or at least I’m trying to get into it.  It’s tough to break in.”

“Yeah, song writing is the same way.”

“So how do you come up with your ideas?”

“Oh, I watch people, check the news, and most of all follow my emotions.  You’ve got to really feel strongly about what you do for it to come across.”

“I suppose.  Having a band actually play the music you made must feel good.”

“It does, they just started playing a couple of the songs.”

“Really?  So we’ll get to hear them tonight?”

“Yeah, especially this new guitar heavy tune I made.  Oh, man, when Andre cranks it out on that guitar it just makes me want to go to war.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah, I mean I get massively hyped up.”

“Oh my god, I can’t wait to hear it then.”

“I love your little doll – mind if I use that as the idea behind a song?  It could make for a cool video too.”

“Sure, sadly my voodoo powers don’t seem to work too well with it.”

“Maybe you just need the right emotion flowing.  Try stabbing the vamp during Andre’s tune – I’ll tell you which it is.”

“Awesome.”  I grinned at him. 
I think this guy's got a bit of a sicko in him.

As we sat and waited for the band to come, he showed me some of the lyrics he was working on.  He sounded a bit angry, but it was interesting to see an artist at work.

He had an interesting hand-drawn picture under the notes.

I asked, “What’s that?”

“Something worth trying.  It’s a half-giant, half-tree.  Kind of a perfect anti-vampire, right?  Wood to stab through the heart and super strong, plus lots of spikes on it.”

His picture looked like a big warrior man with bulging muscles, covered in bark-like skin and with twig spikes all over.

“I guess.  Is it supposed to have leaves?”

"No, he just has bark skin."

It didn't make any sense to me, so he went back to talking about lyrics and such on his songs.  While I watched, he roughed out a song about using a voodoo doll of a vampire.

The room progressively became more crowded as it neared 9 P.M.  The band showed up shortly beforehand to set up their equipment and test.  Many people in the room had Raving Lunatics shirts.  I had no idea they were so popular.

They played song after song - it wasn't good dancing music so I mainly sat at the table and bobbed my head like most of the others.  A group stood up by the stage and did a lot of jumping and slamming back and forth against each other. 
Bet you guys would love if I jumped in there with you.  People would be flying to the left and right from hip bumps!

Rog really got into the music.  He knew all the words, and seemed to get more focused and angry as the songs passed.  Quite a few others were as well.  Some people - primarily around the outer edges - didn't seem to be into it as much.  I wondered if these were the people we were supposed to watch for.

Around 10 P.M., they started another song and Rog tapped my wrist and said, "This is it!  During his guitar solo, try stabbing the vampire doll!  Get into it!"

I didn't understand why he wanted me to do it, but I figured I'd play along.

I wasn't prepared for the awesome buildup during the song, though.  When the lead guitarist began his solo, I felt it right through me.  My back actually tingled.

Rog banged his head slightly along with the music, but he stared at a guy sitting at a nearby table, one of the ones who had hadn't been into the music as much.

Then all hell broke loose.  I felt this strange surge of something in me.  A man at a table on the far left suddenly sprouted strange black wings of a cloudy substance.  Closer to the band from him another man stood up when his arm became a giant sword with wicked spikes coming off it.  To the far right a flash of light came from a man's eyes as lightning began arcing from them and his arms.

I heard a crash from the table just behind us.  Rog was already staring that way, and a man was growing into the huge tree monster man from his picture.  Rog's eyes were now glowing.  He waved his hands to the sides and several tables of men rushed outside.

The big monster thing behind me roared and I leaped up.  I instantly crashed through the roof, all sound stopped and I was flying up into the sky really fast.

I swung around in a big, slow arc to head back down to the club.  I didn't understand why my flight kicked in like that, but I really felt energized.

I heard and felt an odd boom as I slowed down to approach the ground.  Landing was much easier than normal, and I barely bounced.  A bunch of big red guys rushed down the street away from the club, and heroes in colorful costumes jumped off the nearby buildings to cut them off.

I ran back into the club where a bunch of men attacked the ten-foot tall monster tree man.  It backhanded one of them, impaling him with several spikes on the back of the hand as it threw him across the room and through the outer wall.

The band only now stopped the song, although for some reason the guitarist kept going - he was really into the solo he was cranking out.

As I ran up to the big creature two of the mutants attacking it struck the beast with their sword and claws.  They didn't appear to have much, if any affect on it.

I grabbed two large spikey branches sticking out of the thing's back to hold it back, but it simply reached back and grabbed me.  A moment later, it slammed me against the floor with unreal force.  I was completely indented into the flooring, with the thing's palm partway into the floor as well.  I couldn't push it off me, but it let go to swipe at another person after a moment.

I was sore all over as I crawled out from the hole my body had created.  A blinding light burst to my left and the guitarist dropped from a massive bolt of lightning.  Red-skinned bricks about my height ran around the room, attacking anyone near them.

A red brick grabbed my shoulder, yanked me up and wrapped his arm around my neck.  He seemed to be trying to snap my neck.  I grabbed the wrist around my neck, yanked it off and spun-threw him across the room.

The big tree thing smashed and stabbed the men fighting it at will, while their claws and weapons were useless against it.  They tried to attack it at the same time and still didn't have much luck at injuring it.  It swung its massive fist at another one when I got in the way to block for him.

I put my arms up to block the punch, but they barely even slowed down the punch, and a pair of spikes stabbed me in the right shoulder and abdomen.  It again drove me into the ground, but it hurt a lot more this time with the stabby sticks.  Fortunately, it immediately pulled the fist back, and they came out as it swung at another person.

I sat up, tested my right arm motion and saw Psystar walk into the room nearly nude.  She wore only jewelry with a few bits of cloth.  Then I realized that she had big gold wings - I'd have to ask her about those later....

Black Tiger ran at her side holding a staff - he immediately hit the red brick nearest her.  A man flew between us and I looked back at the tree thing.

I jogged across the room, turned and did a running leap at the monster.  I'd intended to do Gatecrasher's suggestion of using my feet first, but I sped up so fast I didn't have time to turn.  I crashed into the creature's torso and it flew backward through the front wall and onto the street.

It grabbed me and slammed my body against the blacktop street.  It buried me in the ground again.

The three guy bricks - Spartan, another dressed as a clown, and a third with a dark blue uniform with lime green stripes going down it all tried to grab the tree thing, but the creature must have been really strong, it threw Spartan and the guy in blue back into the buildings on each side of the street.

I crawled out of the hole - at least being slammed into the ground hurt a lot less than being stabbed by it.  The clown hero blocked some of the tree things punches; he must have been a lot stronger than I was - I saw his arms get squished at odd angles each time.  It was as if his body was rubber.

Spartan leaped forward again and punched the thing in the knee - his eyes were glowing now, and his fist made a loud thudding noise as it hit.

Spartan yelled, "Big Man, get a hold of it!"

The hero in blue - I thought his name was Big Man - doubled in height and rushed in again.  Gatecrasher's thought crossed my mind again.  I flew a lot faster than normal for some reason now, it would let me hit really hard.

I leaped up and soared into the sky, for a time I was still able to see the three of them attempting to hold down the monster.

When I got above the tallest skyscraper, I curved around and flew back down as fast as I could.  It felt like an unreal rush while flying this fast.  I dive-bombed feet first back down to where they fought the thing.

The three men seemed to be fighting it in the same spot, and I flew down as fast as I could at it.  Two of them were still holding it when I slammed into it with a resounding boom.

I felt both of my legs snap.  I cried out in pain and slid off the tree man.  At least I thought I stunned it when I hit.

I fell onto the blacktop and glanced around.  Through the large hole in the front of the club, I saw the man shooting blinding bolts of lightning at red men running amuck.  He looked a lot like Hellshock, but he was dressed like everyone else at the club. 

Psystar walked past me, her eyes glowed gold as she stared at the bark man.  She didn't have wings this time.  I thought for sure I saw her in the club as well with a bunch of red guys around her.

The tree thing stopped moving for a while, and finally stayed still.  My legs felt like they were on fire, I was sure I'd broken something.

I rolled over onto my knees, but the pain became unbearable and I rolled back over and looked around some more.  Tiriffa ran up to the large tree man.  She had her computer thingie in her hand.

Spartan knelt down next to me.  He asked, "Diva, are you all right?"

Through my clenched teeth I said, "I think I broke my legs."

"Dang, I'm sorry - that was an awesome hit you did, though.  You can't see the injury to him from here, but you really hurt him.  Can I help you?"

"Can you throw me up in the air?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I can either float in the air or lie on the ground - I'd rather float."