H.E.R.O. - Rise and Fall (19 page)

"Hi.  I'm Diva."

She quietly said, "Is that your actual costume?  Don't you have issues in a mini-dress?"

"Well, sometimes.  But I'd rather look good all the other times too, you know."

"Ah.  You ... still can, you know."

"I'm hoping to get into sports modeling too."

"Really?  That's an interesting side occupation."

Side occupation?  That's my main occupation!

I said, "So what's in store here?"

"Mingle with the crowd, shake hands, play with the kids.  They've got a wonderful center here for everything from reading events to painting, to the building center, to the rec center.  We want to promote people bringing their kids here, and hope for donations to help expand the center."

"Great, I can do that."

I saw a flash of color in the sky, and Psystar flew in with Lance. 
What was his super hero name again?  Hmm.

They flew down by Silverlash rather than by a news crew.  I thought that was a mistake.  Psystar came up and hugged Silverlash and I.  Spartan was very friendly, but he shook hands instead.  It was apparent from their talk that they'd met a few days ago, and that Silverlash hadn't been doing well at the time.  Fortunately Silverlash called him Spartan, so it saved me the trouble of asking for his name again.

Lance apparently enjoyed being around the kids, especially throwing out one-liners about how to eat right, get out side and play, and study hard. 

He seemed very cautious in his movements as well.  When I had the chance I stopped over by him.

I said, "Hi Spartan.  So ... how much can you lift?"

"I'm not sure.  If my adrenaline is going it's something like three hundred tons."

"Oh my god, really?  I must be a crappy brick then.  Everyone's way stronger than I am."

"In general I'm not nearly that strong, it's only with adrenaline.  Like I said, I'm not sure of my normal strength.  Why, how much can you lift?"

"Around thirty tons."

"But you can fly, too.  That's worth something."

"I suppose."

"Also, you look gorgeous.  Look at me, I'm ripped, but I'm so oversized now even for a guy that not many would call me 'hot' any more."

"You ... well, you look good.  Don't get down on yourself." 
Although I've got to agree with you.  Good idea not to wear bulky clothes over your frame or you'd look even more humongous.

"Oh, I'm not bummed about it at all.  I love being big.  Well, apart from breaking stuff.  I'm not a fan of that.  Have you been to Big & Strong yet?"

"What's that?"

"It's a store that caters to bricks.  They have items that are hard to break, furniture, utensils, clothes, shoes, and so on.  It's down by the river, just search for it on your phone for the address."

"I'll take a look, thanks."

He went back to working with the kids.  Apparently they loved climbing on him and comparing hand sizes.  He had these gigantic hands and feet that just dwarfed the children's.  They giggled as he acted like his hands were some kind of monster chasing after the children.

Psystar had to be the most huggy person I'd ever seen with all the kids.  They also loved grabbing her gold hair to feel and look at. 
Poor girl's going to have to wash her hair after this.

Silverlash appeared to be the most at ease with the media and the sponsors both.  She spoke clearly, was friendly with everyone, and just appeared comfortable at all times.  Her voice had an oddly pleasant quality to it as well.

While I gained some attention from the children, many of the fathers and male sponsors came over to see me.  It was a type of attention I loved, and happily smiled, shook hands, hugged some, and showed off my costume or posed when asked.

It was a great event.  I thought that I'd have to keep an eye out for other events Silverlash either setup or planned to attend.

Chapter 18 - Preparation

Chrome's Viewpoint

We went to a couple of stores that catered to Shrinker's tastes.  They mostly sold leather, lots of spikes, straps and odd jewelry.  Gravitix was soon dressed in leather pants and boots, had on an interesting t-shirt, and wore a black leather trench coat.

He'd claimed that he wanted something to both look cool in as well as prevent a clear view of his body in case there was a lot of gunfire.  He also picked up a bulletproof vest - it was interesting that the store carried some of those.

They attempted to convince me to 'gear up' there as well - but to be honest I couldn't care less about dressing in leathers.  If we were about to get shot at my clothes would be ripped up soon anyway.  Why pay for that?  I did pick up a pair of leather gloves, and short boots that actually fit my feet, however.  I believe my shoe size had increased by three or four sizes with the few inches I'd grown.

We returned to Sandra's loft and picked up some binoculars.  She showed us a rough layout of the Jail.  I was surprised she had this much detail - she appeared to have a rough plan, although most of it involved charging in.  She firmly believed that if we could get to the cells and release a few more mutants that it would be become downright easy at that point.

I noticed that she put on several pouches.  When she checked one it appeared to be filled with small rocks, the other was filled with an odd colored sand.

I asked, "What's the sand?"

She smiled, "Sand?  These are marbles.  I shrunk thousands of them in the last week to be prepared.  Did you think I planned to do hand to hand melee with everyone there?  I'm going to throw these, and with my strength and agility it'll cause a mess.  The rocks are boulders that are all shrunk down."

She continued, "I've got my wrecking balls here, some sewer caps.  Ah, and here are a bunch of gas canisters to cloud up the area.  These two are fun - they are big containers filled with gasoline.  Can't forget the dynamite I acquired.  Hmm - here, you hold some of the dynamite, Gravitix.  It'll give you something exciting to play with if you get bored with gravity effects."  She handed him some sticks and a few lighters.

Gravitix stared at the map for a while and said, "Why do you want to enter through the front, why don't we go through the outer wall right into the section where the supers are being held?"

Sandra said, "That's a good idea.  Before Chrome was here I didn't have enough strength to go through the wall.  I'm pretty sure those walls will be reinforced, though."

"So let's go through the nearest wall into a section that wouldn't be.  It'll save us a lot of time - not to mention avoid getting shot as much."

Sandra nodded, "Yeah, let's do that.  Now listen to me, they'll have some supers who guard this section.  Not all supers join H.E.R.O., they are often desired for guards because of our powers.  You'll have to attack any of them hard.  For that matter, I think we have to assume that everyone near that section is a super and hit them hard enough to take them out."

I said, "I had problems just with Psycom, how are we going to take out a bunch of them?"

"I don't think they have a lot, but even three or four will be a serious pain.  We'll want to gang up on them.  Gravitix can make them weightless, for one.  They'll be bouncing all over the halls just from trying to walk or run.  Also, if someone who is weightless punches one of us they'll do less damage and make themselves fly back, right?"

Gravitix nodded.

I noticed that she slid on a bulletproof vest before she put her leather jacket back on as well.

I asked, "Do you get hurt bad when shot?"

"It depends on the type of gun and bullet.  A machine gun can cause some damage - not that I can't take a bunch of hits, but I'd rather
not
take them in the first place."

Gravitix said, "I'll be dropping my high gravity zone around me at times, let's go outside and see how that affects you guys before I do it in combat.  I don't want to hurt either of you."

I gave him a look of disbelief.  If a brick's punch barely dented in my skin I didn't imagine that this would do anything to me. 
Might as well make him feel good about it, I suppose.

We all studied the map one last time after choosing our planned entry point, and then left the building.

In a nearby parking lot Gravitix had us both stand about forty feet from him.  He suggested we slowly walk in toward him to see what occurred.

I said, "I'll go first.  If I can't handle it then Sandra definitely shouldn't follow."

Sandra shrugged, "Works for me."

Gravitix clenched his hands and nodded to us.  His eyes began glowing with a noticeable backlight.  I couldn't see any odd effects in the empty lot.  I shrugged and walked toward him. At about thirty feet I felt a change, but apart from my footsteps thudding even louder on the blacktop there wasn't a difference.

Gravitix held up his palm and waved Sandra back, and then grit his teeth.  His eyes glowed even brighter and my sweats fell to the ground.  I picked them up and tied them tighter, then gave him a look.

I continued to walk toward him. 

I shrugged, "Sorry Grav, I can tell there's a difference, but I don't feel any noticeable change to my weight."  Then a footstep cracked the blacktop, as did my next.  I realized both my t-shirt and sweatpants were pulling toward the ground as if far, far heavier than normal.  I stretched out my arms and jumped up hard just for the hell of it. 

I went up about fifteen feet, but my upward momentum quickly changed and I came back down to the ground fast.  The blacktop cracked in a five foot area just from me landing on it.  Then I finished walking up to him and smiled.

I said, "That seemed to limit my jump, but nothing else.  Come on in, Sandra."

She nodded and walked toward us.  At the thirty feet mark her spry steps changed to what looked like a normal walk for an average person.  I'd never seen her walk like this.

She looked surprised, "I can really feel this.  Man, I feel … heavy.  Let me try to jump.  "

She crouched and then leapt up.  She got up perhaps two feet before falling extremely fast to the ground.  She looked stunned at the result.

Sandra said, "I think this will work great - especially in an area with hallways and corridors.  Who cares about looking around a corner - throw that on for a moment and drop anyone hiding."

Gravitix relaxed and I noticed Sandra stand up straighter.  She ran her hand through her hair to return it to its normal unruly state.

“It’s even harder to breathe when you do that.”

Gravitix said, "Let's do this."

Sandra shrunk me to half height and Gravitix drove us near the Jail on the side closest to where we'd be breaking through the outer wall.

On the drive Sandra said, "How about I shrink the two of you and run in.  When I get close I'll throw you, Chrome, and let you grow back to normal size to crash into the wall.  Then you can smash through."

I said, "That's fine by me.  It should be interesting." 
I can't wait to free these people from such horrible treatment.  No one deserves to be locked up....

Sandra said, "Oh, one last thing.  If we see a huge mutant with four arms and horns on his head - free him before anyone else.  His name is Kralgon - he's a great friend, and will be able to help us a ton in there."

Gravitix replied, "Will do."

Chapter 19 - Rescue

Chrome's Viewpoint

We stood barely in sight of the Jail from some buildings about five hundred feet away from it.  The rest of the space was used up by roads, open space and parking lots.  The Jail had a large wall surrounding it with towers for guard to overlook both the inside and outside of the walls.  A guard was posted on each tower with a rifle.  The front entrance to the facility lay on the west side, and we were on the north side, toward the eastern part of the wall.

Sandra said, "You guys ready?  Grav – you might want to hold your breath so you don’t get sick, it’ll be under ten seconds, and I’ll be running with you in my hand." 

We nodded.  She shrunk us down and held each of us in a hand.  Then she began to sprint toward the outer wall.  It took her only about seven seconds to cross the five hundred feet or so between the buildings and the prison wall. 

She threw me as she got close, and I rolled into a ball and closed my eyes.  I smashed into the wall and fell bouncing onto the ground.  Most of the concrete blocks had cracked in the area, but the wall hadn't caved in.

I quickly stood up and punched the wall.  Sandra was already at my side by that point.  It took me about five good punches to knock through the wall - it turned out the wall was about five feet deep.  The sound alone had to have alerted the entire facility it was such a loud pounding.

A guard on the tower to our left took one shot before we made it through the wall.  He was good – it rang off my shoulder.  Gravitix sprinted through toward a building.

As he ran he said, "If your map is good, we should be good right about here."  More shots rang out, ringing off the blacktop on the ground.  Another shot rang off my back.  It didn’t even feel like a tap on the shoulder.  Even with me running the slowest, we still put up a pace several times that of a normal person.

I charged at the wall, putting my legs into a shoulder block in the wall.  I recalled Gatecrasher saying something once on the news that he did that at a scene.

I went right through the wall, leaving about a five foot by two foot hole in the wall behind me.  It looked like some kind of office - not what we were expecting, but our path was set at this point.  Concrete blocks were strewn about the room.  I stumbled and fell as I followed the blocks into the room.

Sandra was through the wall right on my tail - I think she actually pushed off my back and kicked open the office door just ahead of me.  Gravitix followed somewhat slower.  While his agility wasn't on par with Sandra's, he was much more agile than I was.

I scrambled to my feet yet again; sirens began blaring in the halls.  She pointed to the left and I led the way.  The corridor went for about twenty feet and turned right.  There was a door to our left.  I ignored both and ran into the wall straight on.  That wall didn't break through.  The concrete on this side fell apart, but I saw foot wide beams running horizontally through the wall.  They appeared to be a very thick metal.  I ripped a few more blocks out of the way to get a good look in the wall.