LBV Episode 1.1

The room had a feel of a windowless two car garage converted into a private rec room. A mini-fridge sat quietly humming to itself off to one side of the nice entertainment system under the large plasma TV. Several posters of women in a bikinis at the beach or on top of classic cars hung on the beige painted walls. A neatly organized electronics work bench was ready for use along the opposite wall from the TV next to an industrial strength coat rack. The dark brown carpeting was decent and clean thanks to the small robot vacuum that skittered across the floor. The whole thing felt like a guy’s rec room that his wife allowed him. His well-kept man cave.

Except for a few things.

One of the most instantly notable differences was the high tech conference table in the dead center of the room surrounded by five well-padded comfortable looking chairs. Another odd thing was the number of doors entering the room, there were four identical solid looking wood doors on one of the walls instead of the one that would seem more normal.  And the most subtle difference was how quiet it was. Other than the quiet whirring of the vacuum’s wheels and the hum of the fridge it was dead silent. In a normal garage/rec room you should have been able to hear an occasional bird or the sound of traffic rolling by outside.

After finishing a final sweep of the room the vacuum robot docked at its charging station made a few beeps and shut down. The room was once again silent and still except for the humming of the mini-fridge and the air circulating from the ceiling vents which became apparent after the humming of the carpet robot stopped.

An indeterminate amount of time later one of the doors opened up and a fit looking light haired man in his late thirties dressed in a dark blue polo shirt and jeans walked in. He put the gold pommeled short sword he was carrying down, leaning it against the entertainment center. He grabbed the remote, settled back in one of the chairs around the table and proceeded to watch a football game. A little while later a different door opened up and another man walked in, a fit black man, he was dressed much more casually with an old faded Led Zeppelin t-shirt on and a pair of beat up jeans. His dark hair sat under a plain black ball cap. He called out to the man in the chair.

“Ted you’re here early. The meeting is not for another twenty minutes.”

Ted grinned from his chair, “I wanted to watch the game. I like this TV better than the one I have back in my house. Hey Mike, can you beer me? I pre-stocked the fridge yesterday.”

“No problem.” Mike headed over to the mini fridge and grabbed a pair of brown glass bottles, throwing one underhanded to his seated friend. He looked at the plain label. “Ooh, I don’t recognize these, Special Stock #32. Is this a new brew you found?”

“Even better,” He chuckled popping the top and taking a drink “This was brewed specially for me from some contacts in Germany as a thank you for helping them out. I have the full run, only 10 kegs. They thought I’d like dark beer.”

Mike snorted almost choking on the beer as he tried not to laugh and drink at the same time. “Dark beer, really? Did they actually say that when they gave it to you?”

“They didn’t but I can read between the lines when the brew they made just for me is darker than a Guinness. Somewhere there is someone having a good laugh thinking I wouldn’t figure it out.”

Mike shook his head as he took another pull on his beer and dropped into another of the chairs to watch the game. “Who’s winning?”

“The Giants right now, but the Titans are going to win this one.”

“Ahh, but I read that the Giants are favored by 2 touchdowns.”

“True, but the Titans biggest fan is Makalu. And he wants the Titans to go to the playoffs. I happen to hear through the grapevine that he is going to do his best to make sure that happens.”

“This is going to be a really good game then.”

Both the men sat back in their chairs and watched the game with rapt attention occasionally commenting on a good hit or pass.

One of the two remaining un-used doors opened and a thin balding man in glasses hustled in.  “Sorry I’m late; I had to take care of some last minute work stuff. You know how it is.”

Mike and Ted both nodded knowingly.

“Ooh it that beer?”

Still staring at the TV Ted gestured to the mini-fridge, “Help yourself Carl. It is a limited run just for the four of us. Once it is gone it is gone.”

“Thanks,” Carl grabbed a bottle and downed it in a single pull without coming up for air. He burped loudly and smacked his lips appreciatively and obnoxiously. “It’s good. Too bad it is a limited run. I don’t get much chance to get out of the lab to find anything worth drinking. And I definitely don’t trust anything they have been brewing in there. Even if they call it beer.”

He grabbed a second beer and looked around the room. “No Dave?”

“Nope, but you know how he is, he likes to work up to the last possible minute more than you do.” Mike remarked.

At that moment a low pitched humming filled the room. The sound amplified into a bass rumble then went up the register higher pitched and ended with a loud pop, similar to what you’d hear when you popped a piece of bubble wrap, if the bubble was the size of your head.

Standing in an empty part of the room stood a nine foot tall suit of power armor. The armor was colored in hues of blue and black steel. Its lines were heavy and sharp. If it could reasonably come to a point anywhere on the armor it did, from spined ridged gauntlets to a set of swept back demonic horns across the top of the technoskull shaped helmet. It felt very inspired by the villain in a popular fantasy trilogy that was released in the early 2000s. Except the villain didn’t have the small rocket packs attached to his forearms and glowing yellow eyes behind the slits of the visor which stared menacingly at the others in the room.

 

It called out in a deep harsh voice. “Tremble before the impeding might of your doom fools! For I Overwatch have arrived!”

The three men in the room looked with shock at the unexpected visitor before them.

 

 

They all started talking, yelling and hand waving all at once, in anger more than frustration.

Ted “This is completely against the rules!”

Mike “Do you have any idea what will happen if they track you here!?”

Carl “The rule is no spandex at these meetings! Not cool man, not cool! These rules exist for a reason!”

The armored figure held its gauntleted hands up placating, trying to calm the 3 angry men before it.  “Whoa, Guys come on,” its harsh voice still booming mightily in the confined area. “Oops, the voice, sorry about that. Let me fix it.”

There was an audible click and the voice that spoke was nothing like what was heard before. It sounded fairly normal and a bit frustrated. “If anyone managed to track my telebouncing they will think I teleported to the Canadian Rockies to a point two hundred feet below ground and then vanish. I made sure this would be untraceable. And besides I have a very good reason to be doing this.”

Mike frowned at the fearsome armored figure that loomed before him. “OK Dave, spill. What was so important?”

Overwatch aka Dave clapped his metal clad hands together and a bubble of energy began to form between them expanding in size as he moved them apart. He twitched his hands and the glowing crystals in the palms shut off leaving a pair of stacked cardboard boxes that steamed gently. “This is what was so important. Fresh deep dish Chicago style pizza strait from the windy city itself, stored safely in the stasis field generated by the suit.”

Carl inhaled deeply savoring the scent that floated through the room. “No way, is this from the one place...”

“On the corner, with the blue awning, next to the nail salon. Yes it is.” Dave finished for him. “The place this all began.”

The power suit walked forward and set the pizzas on the table. “Don’t wait for me, dig in. I need to take this off.” He walked over to the corner with the coat hanger and powered the suit down. Its chest plate clam shelling open revealing a thin pale man with a few days stubble wearing a wet look grey and blue bodysuit that had wires and other connections plugged into snap fittings at dozens of different places across it.

It took Dave a few minutes to extract himself from his suit properly and secure the fittings, giving his friends plenty of time to dive into the thick pizza, quickly eating with the occasional sounds of a bite that was too hot and mouth fanning motions.

Ted gestured to the fridge. “I have plenty of soda for you in there. All the good stuff, lots of different small operations that use real sugar. I know the suit drains you and lowers your glucose levels.”

With a thumbs up and a grin Dave walked over stretching and working out kinks as he went to help himself to his choice of beverage.

After the four of them had gotten fresh drinks and had mostly sated themselves on fresh pizza Ted stood up holding his beer high.

“As is tradition whenever we get together for our yearly meeting and project review we need to open with our toast.”

Every one stood up from their chairs brandishing their drink of choice, with various looks on their faces, from grins to stoic thought.

“To the League of Benevolent Villainy! Long may the world be fooled!”

“To Evil!” toasted Dave aka Overwatch

“To Evil!” toasted Mike aka The Crimson General

“To Evil!” toasted Carl aka Doctor Pandemonium

“To Evil!” toasted Ted aka Dark Talon

 

They all drank.

Emerald City Defenders Episode 1.1

It was an early spring day in the city of Seattle. A light drizzle fell from the bright overcast afternoon sky. The streets of down town were slick with the rain that had been falling since earlier this morning. Strangely the streets were devoid of traffic in the heart of the city and very few cars were parked on the curb, even less than you would expect even with the recent meter rate hike.

A low continuous crashing sound interspersed with an occasional bellow-like high pitched keening noise echoed through the empty streets, seeming to come from everywhere at once. A series of explosions briefly overpowered the other noise and the ground shook underfoot.

A high pitch whistle started far in the cloud filled sky overhead. It sounded almost exactly like the falling sound made by a cartoon coyote when it fell from a cliff. It got louder as a black speck in the sky became visible and rapidly grew in size as it sped toward the empty street. The black speck resolved itself into a metallic armored humanoid figure with a midnight blue cape. The figure fell limply and crashed into the street below plowing a furrow in the wet concrete and asphalt coming to rest in a crater of debris half way through the sidewalk.

The shining dark steel power armored figure covered in a tangle of heavy cape, concrete and dirt laid motionless for ten or fifteen seconds before the first signs of life began to appear.

A dark blue light traced, slowly at first then pulsing with more speed, the seams of the armor highlighting the knight like form. From the segmented tank like breastplate to the square toed highly armored feet, all the way to the large angular shoulder pauldrons, to which the thick fabric like cape was attached. The armor gave a full body twitch sending a shower of road fragment flying as it rebooted. The shiny metallic head with the grooved half mask covering the lower portion of the face pivoted from left to right as its yellow pupils dilated, the camera like iris fading up from a pale to a bright yellow glow, in the eye sockets of its human like upper face. The gauntleted knightly styled hands flexed and made fists as mobility slowly returned.

It was just under a minute before the armor rose to its feet, the rubble cascading down to the pavement. A remarkable achievement when you looked back at the ten foot long four foot deep trench it created when it came crashing back to earth into account.

A deep rumbling bass voice rumbled from it as the technological knight surveyed his surroundings. “Thank goodness for redundant systems. I might have been stuck there for quite a while. And right now the city needs me.” He looked around. “Hmm, ten blocks. It seemed like I had gone quite a bit farther while I was traveling up.”

He held his arm out at an angle and made a clasping motion with is right hand, as if grabbing an invisible handle. For a brief moment nothing seemed to happen then a five long foot black blade appeared instantly in his hand. The blade seemed to be composed of the darkness of deep space; it looked un earthly the way light seemed to ignore it causing it to stand out in sharp contrast to the rest of its surroundings. As if to highlight its unreal nature small black spheres the diameter of nickels and dimes seemed to wink in and out of existence along the edges. They also clustered in a swirling mass congregated at the end near where the blade seemed to be gripped by the dark steel gauntlet. The blade appeared for only a second or two before it began to flicker becoming opaque and then winked out completely, causing the racing blue tracers on the armor to flicker and stall for a moment.

“The blow and the fall must have shorted out some of the circuitry. I don’t have time to wait. Hopefully the auto-repair systems can have it in working order by the time I get back to the beast. And if not I can always batter it with my fists. No one will say that Forever Knight didn’t give it his utmost.”

The Forever Knight turned on his heel his sensors orienting him to the source of the keening bellows and began to lope down the street, causing even more potholes for the cities already beleaguered road maintenance crew to take care of, in long bounding strides towards the source of Seattle’s most recent peril.

 

Another keening bellow ripped out of the creature and rattled through the city at a deafening volume. Setting off distant car alarms and causing all the remaining birds in a five mile radius to flee in terror.

The beast stood four stories tall and seemed to be a horrible amalgamation of crab and squid. Its spined, sickly olive green carapace had cream colored edges and highlights. The carapace was slick with ooze and slime that seeped out of the mottles and warty skin of its non-armored flesh. It perched upright on four armored tentacles that acted as legs. The tentacles were covered in giant plate sized suckers that tore up the street and storefronts as it moved through town. Additional tentacles sprouted in the gap between its shells and grasped cars, tossing them up into the air and to be neatly severed into chunks with oversized grasping pincers.

The gills spaced around the gap between the back and front carapaces fluttered as the beast made its keening cry, thrashing its multiple sets of tendril arms wildly at everything near it and including the annoying bothersome people attacking it. Its bulbous stalked eyeballs swiveled trying to focus independently on different targets.

Considering Forever Knight was gone the rest of the Emerald City Defenders weren’t doing too badly.
 

 AI-leen hovered in the air firing beams of energy at the vulnerable flesh between the creatures two half shells and trying to blind the beast with flashing lights. All the while calling out tactical advice to her teammates using bright hard light billboards she formed near them

Necessity on the other hand used device after device on the creature, everything from ice grenades thrown at its gill/mouths, to a pudding that exploded when a certain amount of pressure was placed on it, to rocket propelled net launchers fired at its supporting leg tentacles, all the while circling overhead thanks to her dual turbofan back pack.

Harmonic bravely stood, arms outstretched, in the center of the street and used his power to combine the ambient noise to augment his voice, and act as a background band. He sang almost continuously at a deafening volume trying to use the wall of sound he generated to keep the ocean born menace from advancing any further into the city proper. Harmonic did his best not to flinch at the debris that the creature threw his way all the while singing his own versions of the most vocally intense songs he had memorized; from Ronnie James Deo’s Number of the Beast, to Down with the Sickness from Disturbed and even Rainbow’s Man from the Silver Mountain.

Expresso meanwhile zipped back and forth using his super speed to protect Harmonic from everything thrown his way; even snatching pebbles and rocks out of the air with his bare hands seconds before they would hit his companion. To the remaining people hiding in the surrounding buildings it looked like a pale brown blur zigzagged tornado-like keeping a center of calm free of chaos in the raging battle.

Necessity broadcast on the frequency that AI-leen monitored for skirmishes; “This isn’t working. We are at best holding it at bay. Definitely not driving it back to the sound.” She lobbed another ice grenade at the thing, missed, and watched it fall to the ground forming a thick sheet of ice in front of the beast causing the suckers on the lower legs to only lose adhesion to for a few brief moments.

An electronically generated female voice replied almost instantly in the com built into her light brown leather aviator’s cap. “I agree. At best even with Forever Knights help we would need something unexpected to get it off guard and gain positive momentum in this battle. I am running multiple calculations and scenarios with the collective in Redmond as we speak. Also please note Harmonic may not last much longer than seven minutes at his current level.”

Necessity turned down the exterior sound dampener for a few moments to listen to Harmonic’s voice. She heard the strains of Van Halen’s Welcome to the Jungle. “Oh no. Welcome to the Jungle... That means he is two or three songs tops away from Ave Maria. He has been practicing on his strength and in a normal fight I wouldn’t be concerned. But I have never heard him hold this volume level for so long. I might be worried for him, but it is kinda inspiring.” She said with concern in her voice. “Plus the Crab-topus doesn’t even seem to be tiring.”

“Crab-topus..?” The mechanical voice seemed curious.

“I’m an inventor.” She paused lobbing another rocket net at the creature. “I made things up. Why not words?”

Forever Knight chose that moment to rejoin the fray. The power armored warrior charged out of an alleyway behind the beast the blue tracers of his armor pulsing strongly. His metal clad legs pumped like pistons and his cape flapped behind him as he chopped into a supporting leg. The black energy blade flickered slightly as it scored a line in a segmented armored tentacle. The Crab-topus gave it’s keening cry once again and flicked out a tentacle/leg at Forever Knight who dodged it and swiped at it with his sword, cutting a few of few feet off of the end of it.

This duel between the Emerald City Defenders and the Crab-topus went on for a few more minutes and one song with neither side giving ground. When the game changer that AI-leen was needing happened.

 

An explosion, so loud it was heard even over the wall of sound that Harmonic was generating, erupted from the docks on the south side of the city. Necessity looked over her shoulder in that direction but didn’t see any sign of flames, just a large cloud of smoke and dust.

Using the built in magnificators in her goggles she couldn’t immediately see anything amiss other than the cloud. Not that she gave it a lot of attention, being that she was still concerned with not being a meal of the raging Crab-topus in front of her. But glancing back and forth repeatedly, as she dodged, she soon spied something unexpected. The black smoke cloud seemed to be heading their direction, weaving down the streets and around buildings. As the smoke go closer she could see that a large figure moved in front of it. A figure that was nearly the same size as the creature that they were currently facing.

“AI-leen! We have trouble! I think there might be another one of them and it is doing something different! And I think it is heading this way! I think it might be a Class 5!”

A pulse of flickering light and data streamed out of AI-leen towards their new adversary. In a calm voice she relayed her findings to Necessity and Forever Knight’s internal coms.

“The figure approaching us is a non-organic biped. I can state with one hundred percent certainty that it is not another Crab-topus. Wither or not it is a Class 5 cannot be determined at this time. Due to it returning conflicting sensor readings I cannot give you a definitive answer on what it actually is. Some of the signal appears to be blocked by strong shielding while other portions pass through it as if it did not have any shielding at all. It is most perplexing.” The whole time she was giving her data to her companions AI-leen continued to weave and dodge firing the occasional hampering pulse at the legs or eyes of the Crab-topus in front of her. “Something else of note; It is emitting a strange and powerful sonic signature. I believe you will be able to hear it above Harmonics aural assault in less than ten seconds, which indicates its sonic level.”

Five blocks away the noise could be heard. It sounded like all the monster trucks in a monster truck show revving and idling their engines in synchronization.

Four blocks away the bipedal figure was close enough to make out. It was a three and a half story tall metal robot. It seemed to be built out of rusty scrap metal, organic looking alien tech and junked cars. There was no visual cohesion to the thing at all.

Bent bondo colored auto hoods and fenders covered the entirety of the left arm, which ended in an over-sized claw that looked like it came from a piece of construction equipment. While the right arm was made out of black and purple techno-organic sinew coiled around and underneath bright orange semitransparent carapace that ended in a segmented four fingered hand. The main torso was a mishmash of battleship plating, more chunks of the alien carapace and what looked like the grill of a fifties pickup truck, with the head lights still attached and on at full brightness. The legs that propelled this scrap pile nightmare weren’t much better. Some effort was made to color coordinate with the car parts on the thighs. But that color happened to be the baby blue of the reshaped fenders riveted on top of the grey battleship plating. It turned out that the cloud of black smoke that followed it was actually being generated by the stacks of mismatched exhaust pipes jutting from the back and shoulders. What really set it off was the head. Perched on a neck of black and purple sinew was a nineteen fifty eight Cadillac Fleetwood painted in a glossy candy apple red, complete with whitewall tires, also with its headlights on. A figure with dark sunglasses and a wild mop of yellow hair could be seen in the driver’s seat.

Necessity gasped. “It’s a MEGAS!”

Dodging another swiping arm Forever Knight enquired “AI-leen?”

“MEGAS: Mechanically Engineered Gigantic Android Soldier. This one appears to be crafted out of Vrall tech and more mundane materials. It might be able to take the Crab-topus, even with its poor craftsmanship, especially if…”

Before she could finish she was interrupted by a high pitch whine of a microphone becoming active. “Hey Defenders!” An enthusiastic male voice exclaimed at incredible volume from the MEGAS. “I’m Dale! And this here beast is The Mighty Metal Mechanoid! I figured you could use a hand! It’s time to Rock!” The word rock was said in a poor, but enthusiastic, imitation of the metal falsetto which many singers have used over the years.

The right arm of the giant robot flew up above its "head" and flashed the universal symbol for heavy metal with its four fingered hand. The rock devil horns. Then music kicked in at a tremendous volume, which it so happened to be the opening notes of Painkiller by Judas Priest, and the engines revved up sounding like the accelerators of a dozen monster trucks hitting the floor at the same time. Harmonic's rendition of Bodies and the new sound assault from the MEGAS proved too much for the glass in two block radius. Every pane of glass simultaneously shattered as the battle was joined by the new combatant.

Forever Knight dodged out of the way from the two titans as the sea behemoth was tackled from behind by the metal monster.

“How did this even happen?” He sighed into his helmet.

 

 

 

Second String Heroes Episode 1.1

It was the time of day in the Northwest when the spring sun transitioned from late afternoon into evening. Everything was brightly lit, almost blindingly so. With the golden sun illuminating the tops of the evergreens and the quirky rows of houses in the northern part of the city. Cars were parked along the street with more arriving and leaving from moment to moment as people got home from work and went on their late day errands. Bicycles and people walking passed each other on the sidewalk, most waving or nodding hello in a friendly way.

 

 

 

*bing bong*

 

*knock, knock, knock*

 

More insistent, *Knock, Knock, Knock*

 

An older woman’s quavery voice comes distantly through the old wooden door. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” A brief while later she speaks again through the door “Who is it?”

 

“Poppy’s Pizza delivery ma’am.  You placed an order. For a...” The pizza delivery driver pauses a moment while he checks the receipt “A large extra cheese with pepperoni and mushrooms with the cheese glazed crust.”

 

“Oh you were so fast! I don’t have my money ready. Give me just a moment to go get it.”

He fakes a smile. “Well ma’am, under 30 minutes or it’s free.  I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

Standing in the late sun on the front porch the delivery driver begins to fidget impatiently, playing with the zipper on his black and blue armored leather motorcycle jacket. Tugging on the black bandana tied loosely around his neck. Removing and readjusting the bright red mesh baseball cap with the Poppy’s pizza logo on it, which happened to be a pizza with a slice out of it wearing a chef’s hat. Trying to polish the scuffs out of his over buckled mid-calf square toed boots on his blue jeans.

 

Off in the distance from the direction of downtown the sound of an explosion rumbled, momentarily startling the singing birds into silence. The driver glances back over his shoulder south towards the city’s downtown, becoming visibly more impatient at each passing moment.

He mutters under his breath as another rumble this time followed by a drawn out crashing sound erupts from downtown,” Come on, come on.”

 

The front door cracks open revealing the little old lady standing there with a tired old flower patterned purse.

 

“How much was it sweetie? My memory is not what it used to be.”

 

“Twelve eighty two with tax and delivery fee.” Holding out the receipt.

 

She cracked open her purse digs around and pulls out her wallet. Each motion taken with the infinite care of the elderly. After what feels like an eternity she pulls out 12 dollars in singles. “I have exact change in here, just let me find it.”

 

The explosions and rumblings are now joined by crashes. All of which seem to be increasing in pace and ferocity.

 

“50, 55, ooh a dime, 65, 68. Oh dear I don’t seem to have any more change.” She reaches back into her wallet and pulls out an additional 1 dollar bill. “Here you go young man. Keep the change.”

 

Calling “Thankyouverymuchma’amhaveaniceday.” over his shoulder as he stuffed the money in his company branded zippered change bag, he bolts for his car. The delivery driver pauses a moment to chuck the hat and the warming bag onto the back seat of his third hand blue, white and primer grey Ford Focus and guns it toward downtown Seattle.

 

 

5 minutes, 2 run red lights and a near miss with a taxicab later Crusader arrived at the scene of the battle and got out of his beat up car. He adjusted the black bandana that covered his lower face, tugged the chainmail coif into place over his mussed black hair, tucked it into his black and blue jacket and checked the seating of his enchanted sword in its belted scabbard.

 

He looked out over the street where his teammates were fighting for a moment, bolts of electricity, purple hued magic and the occasional chunk of shattered concrete flying through the air.

 

Crusader popped his knuckles and spoke “It’s time to get..” just as he was knocked down by a flying newspaper box.

 

 

Glancing over in the middle of the brawl Grande smiled slightly as Crusader’s car pulled up

And just as quickly frowned as he saw him crumple from the impact of the wayward newspaper box.

He looked over up and to his right. “Betony!” he shouted at the attractive young blond-haired woman hovering nearby “Crusader took a hit.” He pointed quickly at the prone figure. “Use your magic to help that Estúpido up, we weill probably need him!”

 Betony looked at where Grande was pointing and gave a pained sigh of a teenager who was told to clean her room or take out the trash. Chanting a quick spell under her breath she fired off a bolt of bright purple energy at the huge 4 legged robot that was advancing in her direction. As it staggered back into a near-by car she glided over to her prone companion, her long blond hair and white flowing gown streaming out behind her.

 

 “This fight is taking way too long. I still have to study for the biology test I have to take tomorrow.” She muttered to herself as she came to rest on the ground. Her sandaled feet landing in the grit and debris thrown up by the fight, next to the groggy hero.

 

Pulling out a curved bronze dagger with a handle made of a pair of twined snakes and taking a pinch of herbs from a leather belt pouch Betony began to chant in a language that was old when man first came to the British Isles. A pale purple cloud formed in front of her quickly enveloping Crusader who started to twitch slightly and groggily sat up.

 

“Uggh, what hit me?” He glanced up at the frowning blond druidess who gestured to the dented Seattle Times newspaper box. “Oh... Thanks B.” He blinked hard and shook his head trying to clear it. “Wait isn’t it a Thursday? Didn’t you say something last week about you having cheer practice and a math test tomorrow?”

 

“Duh” her tones frustrated “but it is biology and stuff. But robodork and electrojerk decided to hit the bank. And Grande being a ‘Grande sized Moron’ thought it would be a good idea for us to try to stop them before they did too much damage to Third Avenue. But with him crashing into everything, it is not going to happen as easy as he thought. And that pretty much kills all my study time tonight.” She completed with an eye roll.

Betony and Crusader looked toward the melee in the center of downtown Seattle that was continuing to erupt in front of the US Bank. A vaguely Victorian styled eight legged brass and steel crab centaur robot with highly polished brass and steel accents was using oversized pneumatic fists to try to pummel a short shirtless dark skinned man in a bright red and white luchador mask with slightly too tight matching pants. The short luchador dodged most of the attacks and appeared to be cursing in Spanish.  Every time it struck out at him and missed knocking divots into the city street, a cloud of steam would billow out from the pipe organ shaped pipes on the back of its shell and shoulders. It was a wheezing clanking bubbling loud mechanical monstrosity surrounded by a cloud of white foul smelling water vapor and smoke.

 

In another nearby part of the melee a tall blond bipedal female wolf in what looked like a leather bikini faced off against at a laughing man in an executioners hood with a glowing axe made out of yellow electricity. She bounded off of buildings, light poles and parked cars while dodging his attacks. The hooded man’s muscularly rippling arms stuck out of hit loose sleeveless shirt and had tattoos of stylized lightning bolts zig zagging all down them.

 

“B, who are those two?” Crusader asked as he stood up.

 

Looking at her smartphone Betony did a quick internet search.

 

“The guy with the axe is the Electrocutioner. He shoots lightning and can make weapons and whips out of energy. Other than his powers he is physically normal though. And not surprisingly a total nut job. He is wanted for multiple robberies and is a person of interest in a few murders in Southern California,”

She did a quick scan again. “And that big loud dork is Abominatron: The Steam Powered Terror. Seriously. That is its complete name. It is pretty much what it looks like a tough huge smelly robot that punches and shocks things.”

 

They looked at each other at the same moment. “Shocks things?”

 

At that moment a handful of hidden hatches popped open and a dozen Tesla coils of various sizes sprouted from its arms and back and began to hum, rising in pitch quickly. Arcs of energy ran between them like Jacob’s ladders accelerating in speed. A bright blue bolt of electricity shot out of its clenched fists slamming into Grande, throwing him four or five blocks through several parked cars.

“And so fall all who oppose the might of Abominatron: The Steam Powered Terror!” A harsh artificial voice proclaims from a brass grilled speaker mounted in the creature’s armored chest. Its arms ratcheted back into place and the low electric hum began to build again, abet at a slower pace.

 

“Ca … Grande!” A concerned cry escaped from the blond wolf woman as she turned and bolted toward the downed luchador.

“And we lost Tasha.” Crusader drew his sword and looked toward the robot “Looks like it is my turn at bat.”

“And it looks like you and I will have to hold off the electric twins until they get back.”

 

Natasha bound down the street at top speed, the shaggy blond hair on her head and body streaming out behind her. She was in such a rush that she sometimes used her arms to propel herself forward faster occasionally dropping onto all fours. In her flight she bounded off of whatever gave her the clearest path the pile of twisted metal that now housed Grande, be it walls, streetlights or even the occasional car. Her worry and concern for Grande made her push herself even harder than what she normally would. As she ran the breeze of her swift passing caused her nose to twitch as it picked up the scent of her singed fur. A reminder of several of the Electrocutioner’s near misses.

 

She cringed at the scent “Uggh, I hate the way my burnt hair smells. Especially with my wolf nose.”

But even then as she ran down the street the scent faded as her burns and singed fur healed and grew back with unnatural swiftness to its normal state before she finished her flight.

 

 The body in the mangled pile of cars lay there unmoving, but not from lack of trying. Grande struggled futilely at the jagged and bent shards of metal pinning him in place. Anyone else would be in extreme pain or life threatening danger, but not Grande, he was just mad. “Estúpido robot. He’s not allowed to have electricity too, just punching. That is cheating. How would he like it if I deid that too. I need electricity gloves or something. Si, that would be muy cool. I wonder who I can get some from. It shouldn’t be too hard, right?” As he tried to break free by struggling again, the knifelike edges of the twisted metal pieces press tighter against his legs. Leading to an unfortunate situation.

 

*riiip*

 

“Oh, no,no,no,no, no. Not my last pair of hero pants. I’ll never be able to match some new ones to the mask!”

 

The wolf woman catapulted herself off of a lamp post and landed next to the pile junked cars with a heavy thump. Her sensitive ears could hear swearing in Spanish coming from the bottom of the pile which caused her to sigh in relief. With grunts of exertion she began to bend back some of the metal, and throw the glass and plastic out of the way to free her trapped comrade.  As she got closer to him she called into the rubble, “Hold on Grande I am coming.” Her voice was a surprisingly feminine growl.

“Tasha, eis that you? Help me out of theis mess. I need to show that Estúpido robot who is boss. He has to learn that you can’t zap Grande into a few cars and get away with eit.”

 

A few moments passed as she worked her way down, chunks of metal and other debris clattering to the ground all around her. “Carlos why do you go after the big ones? You are only invulnerable. Not super strong.” She chuckled, “One of these times you are going to be knocked so far and buried so deep we will have to call Molareon to help dig you out.”

“It’s a machismo thing. A chica like you wouldn’t understand.” Grande tried to move again as his teammate pulled at the metal trapping him. “And you’d better not call Molareon; I hate that mole guy heis eyes creep me out.” The sounds of more metal bending and rivets popping “Be careful with that stuff I already have some tears in my hero pants. I don’t want to be on TV in my briefs!”

More sounds of metal bending. “I still can’t believe you call them hero pants. Call them part of your costume or something. “

 

With a final heave Natasha tore apart the last barrier of metal parts and opened up a wide enough gap to for Grande to get loose from his automotive iron maiden. He is greeted by a sloppy werewolf tongue across his mask. Grande sputters “Loca mujer loba now eis not the time for that. We need to get back to the action.”

 

As they begin sprinting back to the brawl Grande looks over to Sun Wolf with a thoughtful expression. “Do you happen to know anywhere I can get electric gloves?”

It Begins... Again.

The B and C list heroes. The other guys. The ones not quite good enough for their own endorsement deal. The ones that people go “Who?” when they hear their chosen code name.

You know them. The guy who can just run pretty fast. The girl who can talk to fish, but not breathe underwater. The stretchy guy, you will always run into a stretchy guy somewhere.

The people and teams that patrol the mean streets of Century City, Bozeman, Cleveland, or El Paso.

These stories are about them.

Well maybe not those guys exactly, but somebody pretty close.

It all starts again.

The B and C list heroes. The other guys. The ones not quite good enough for their own endorsement deal. The ones that people go “Who?” when they hear their chosen code name.

 

You know them. The guy who can just run pretty fast. The girl who can talk to fish, but not breathe underwater. The stretchy guy, you will always run into a stretchy guy somewhere.

 

The people and teams that patrol the mean streets of Century City, Bozeman, Cleveland, or El Paso.

These stories are about them.

 

Well maybe not those guys exactly, but someone pretty close.

-----------------------------------------



Hello readers… All 2 of you. At least I think there are 2 of you left who check here occasionally…

 

After way too long of a time away I am picking this back up again. Life slowed back down and got closer to sane levels, and my imagination has being clamoring for an outlet for again. I have been rewriting, fleshing out and editing all of the old stuff on here to get my brain back into the swing of things. It feels like it is working.

 

So starting for the next few months I will be posting up chunks of the stories every Tuesday. It will be larger chunks than before, so they will get up faster. The larger chunks will probably continue up to January then posts of probably around 1/3rd of the size you will see will start appearing with all new material.

 

Also, I will be pulling the old unedited first drafts of everything before the new stuff goes up. That way everyone who is a new reader isn’t confused by the old clutter. I am archiving the good ones with the helpful comments though. Too much good info to get rid of.

 

So kick back and relax.

Tuesday everything starts all over again. Better than before.