H.E.R.O. - Rise and Fall (20 page)

Sandra stopped by me and said, "That's the section.  Punch through between the beams - make an opening."

I punched a few times; concrete blocks on the other side of the beams flew off the wall as I did so.  Once I'd cleared enough room Sandra stuck her head in and looked through.

She said, "It's a corridor in the restricted section - I'll shrink you and put you two in there - head down to the right and get the main gate open for me."

Gravitix said, "Chrome - you lead, please.  You're bulletproof."

I replied, "Yup."

Sandra shrank us both and dropped us onto the other side of the wall.  We grew again almost instantly and heard machine gun fire start up on the other side of the wall.

I ran toward the end of the corridor.  A large man walked around a corner from a corridor to the left.  He wore a guard uniform, but it was apparent that he was a super just from his bulk.  Another two guards came out of a heavily barred office past him.  Those two were checking their machine guns at the moment.  The large man had a pistol, but he rushed me the moment he saw me.

I swung at him as I approached, but he caught my elbow in his and spun me around, trying to put me in the same move I'd put Diva in the day before.  I smashed my elbow back into him, and heard him grunt in pain from it.  His back slammed into the wall with a booming sound.

He yelled, "Got a brick here!"

Gravitix ran by me and I felt the gravity increase again.  I spared a look over to my left at the other guards - both instantly crumpled to the ground and lay still.  I began elbowing the large guard repeatedly while he attempted to get a hold of me.  I was familiar with wrestling moves from when I was younger, when my brothers decided I would be fun to pick on.  I learned how to avoid most holds and how to put them in a full nelson and to wrap my legs around theirs - as I had done with Diva yesterday.

Gravitix grabbed a gun from one of the normal guards and shot them both where they lay.  He looked through a massive gate at Sandra on the other side.

Finally the guard shoved me across the hall to separate me from him.  From his grunts and look of pain as I turned around it was apparent that his armor wasn't as good as my strength.

The gate opened as I reengaged the guard.  I tried to punch him again, but he grabbed my hand as I punched.  He flinched as my hand hit his palm.  We struggled for a few seconds, and then Sandra was beside him and tearing into him with her claws.  Her face was a mask of rage and hatred.  Her fangs were bared, and she looked ... evil.

Apparently her claws had no issues with his body armor, for he screamed in pain as her hands tore down his back and side.  It gave me time to punch him in the chin a few times and he fell unconscious.  I’d never seen so much blood come from a person as there was from this man’s side. 
Damn it, why are we trying to kill these guys?  Just knock them out and let's move on to saving the others.

Gravitix said, "There's another gate - this one doesn't have a normal lock, your claw won't work on this one.  There's a guard station on the inside, but I think I crushed the guards."

Sandra said, "Not a problem."  She touched the two of us again, shrunk us, and set us down on the other side of the bars.  We immediately grew again.

Machine gun fire started up behind her on the other side of the gate.  She spun with unreal speed and threw some of the sand.  It grew on the way and the marbles knocked the two guards off their feet.  From their reaction it must have been like a shotgun with much larger pellets.

Gravitix found the gate control quickly at another guard station and unlocked it as well.  I saw two guards in the hall ahead of us.  One was another brick, who apart from his size appeared normal.  The other was a woman with pink hair.  She had to be a super.

I led the rush at them, but as I ran at them I felt very tired and began slowing down.  I couldn't keep my eyes open.  It was so warm and quiet.  My eyes closed just as the man stepped toward me….

The next thing I knew I was crashing into the gate back by where we had been.  I opened my eyes to see Sandra leap at the brick guard.  The woman was lying on the ground, and Gravitix fired the machine gun into her at short range.

The brick crushed Sandra in a bear hug.  Then he shrank down to the size of a small doll and she stabbed him with her claws. 
This is all going wrong.  She's enjoying stabbing him.  There’s no way this can just be a rescue with that look on her face….

She screamed, "Kralgon!  Where's Kralgon?"

Someone yelled, "Shrinker?  Is that you?  Come on boss lady, get us out of here!"

"Tell me where Kralgon is first!"

"He's further down, in the brick section."

I headed back toward Sandra.

Another voice a few cells down said, "Yo, Shrinker - it's Tim!"

She stopped.  "Tim?  Give me your tentacle."

I caught up with her as a mutant with long tentacles instead of arms stretched one out of the cell to her.  Each cell had an inner cell separated by a ten foot outer cell, probably to keep them from being able to reach out and grab a guard.  The inmates were all in the inner cell.

Tim's tentacles stretched just past the ten foot marker.  Shrinker grabbed it, he shrunk down to doll size and walked out through the bars of the cell.  She re-grew him once he was in the main hallway.

Sandra said, "Tim, this is Gravitix and Chrome, our new friends.  Guys, this is Tim."

Tim said, "Yo, dudes.  Thanks for the rescue.  Hey, cool skin."

I nodded to him.

Tim said, "Kralgon's down here, I heard they keep him locked down due to his roar.  I've heard something's wrong with him, though."

We ran down the hall, past a bunch of cells with a variety of mutants.  The hall branched to the right and left.  To the left were cells with extremely thick bars.  To the right each cell had a different appearance, probably catering to the inhabitant.

We ran to the left and found a cell where a huge four-armed man was attached to some kind of heavy metal apparatus.  He couldn't move his arms or legs at all.  His lower two arms ended in daggers - it made for an odd look, the lower arms were shorter than his upper arms.  Something was wrapped around his lower face as well, keeping him from speaking.  The brick cells didn't have the split cell setup those in the earlier area had.

Sandra looked at me, "I'll shrink you and put you in there with him.  See if you can work with him to rip away the bars holding him down.”

I nodded.  She shrunk me quickly, set me down inside the cell and let me grow again.  I walked around to the front of him.  He was about a foot taller than me, and his skin appeared to have some kind of bug-like chitinous armor.

His mouth was indeed locked down by a heavy metal assembly. 
That's got to be uncomfortable. 
I looked into his eyes.  "You ready?"

He barely nodded.  I grabbed the restraint holding down his right arm with both of mine and began pulling.  He pushed as well, and soon we ripped that one off its base.

We did the same with his left arm, then the two lower arms, and then the rest of his body.  He was able to free his mouth once his main hands were free.

He growled, "Who are you?"

I replied, "I'm Chrome, one of Sandra's friends."

"Who's Sandra?"

"Uh, isn't she your friend?"

"I don't know, I don't remember anything but here and what seems to be a long time ago.  There's a big gap."

"Okay.  Well, come with us.  We're here to get you out."

Sandra motioned to the two of us.  We walked over and took each of our hands, shrunk us, brought us out and grew us.  She banged her knuckle on his chest.

"New friends here, Kralgon.  We're going to be unstoppable."

He said, "Thanks I guess.  Do I know you?"

Sandra stared at him a moment.  "What are you talking about?  We're best buds.  Tim too."  She pointed her thumb claw at Tim.

Tim said, "Yo Kralgon!  Good seein' ya."

He replied, "Yeah, you too I guess."

I said, "How do we know who is in here due to crimes and who they just brought in to get rid of?"

Sandra laughed, "Let's get them all out, mutants first though - I want my friends out before we get random criminals out.  Kralgon, just come and help us, we'll figure out your problem later.  Just help protect us and any of the mutants we get out of here." 
Break everyone out?  That's going to play havoc on the streets.

We ran back to what must have been the low-mid strength physical only section where the mutants were generally kept.  Shrinker could only reach one more - a mutant who also had a tentacle.  The rest we needed to rip the cell bars off.  The gates appeared to be controlled either by the office or by a card and a key code, which we didn't have.

While not as reinforced as the brick cell doors were, these were still built to withstand a massive amount of strength, and each one took a while to rip open much at all.  Due to the interlocking bars we couldn't rip one open from floor to ceiling, so we had to break a bar at the bottom and bend it up.

Sandra was thin enough to squeeze into each cell, grab each mutant and shrink them, and then crawl back out herself.  She had to take her jacket, vest and pouches off to fit, however.

Gravitix and several mutants walked down to the open gates to be prepared for any guards.  As soon as a group approached, he hit the region with his gravity and the mutants moved out to attack the guards.  He appeared to be getting along quite well with the bloodthirsty mutants.

From their comments I wondered more and more if these people were actually persecuted.  Several began talking about rebuilding their mutant army and going on another human hunting spree.

The giant Kralgon and I were working on separate cells when several screams came from down the hallway.  I looked up to see the same midnight black mutant with wings from the Fang Cafe.

He had impaled Gravitix and a mutant each on a wingtip.  The third was flying through the air toward us as I watched, and his body hit Tim in the head.

Someone stood behind him, using the winged mutant as cover and shooting an even larger machine gun at us in the hall.  Two mutants were hit by massive rounds that tore four inch holes right through them.

The winged mutant wore a silver tabard with black embroidery on it, the word Razorwing at the bottom, and a picture of a griffon on it, like you would see a knight wear.

Something purple flew up over him, and that damn ditzy heroine named Diva bounced off the ceiling and continued at us.  Shrinker was just crawling out of a cell on the other side of the hallway, and Diva sped up and smashed right into her at full speed.

Kralgon turned and watched Diva.  As soon as she stopped he walked forward and roared at her.  It was an extremely loud sound that shook everything in the hall, cracked the stone floor and knocked the heroine back.  She stumbled, and likely due to wearing high heels, fell to the ground, obviously stunned.

Five of the mutants next to me ran at Razorwing, at least I assumed that was his name. 

Tim yelled, “ Kralgon, stab the hero while we take out this traitor mutant!”  He stretched out his tentacles and grabbed the nearby bars to pull himself up.

Kralgon walked over to Diva and grabbed her with his upper arms, and then began impaling her with his sword blades in her abdomen over and over.

I hated myself for what I looked like, but I couldn't let him do that to someone who meant well.  Even when the ditz attacked me she thought I was a robot attacking my home.

Sandra was unconscious from the hit to her head, although she probably had a few broken ribs from being slammed against the bars she was between at such high speed.

I sighed when I glanced back at Kralgon - he was enjoying tearing into the poor heroine. 
I'm going to pay for this, I just know I am.

I ran over to him, leapt onto his back and wrapped my legs each around his lower dagger arms.  I grabbed his upper arms in a full nelson.  He didn't expect it; he'd just glanced behind him and knew no heroes were right behind him.

I'd heard Sandra mention numerous times about the healing abilities of mutants, so I put my full strength into breaking his four arms and/or his neck.  The lower two gave a loud crack in a moment; my leg strength was far beyond those arms.  The upper two were stronger, and he began trying to smash me against the bars of the nearby cells in an attempt to pull me off.  I shifted my grip to use the horns on his head instead of his neck, since they provided such a handy holding spot.

I could tell I was much stronger than he was, and his hands didn't have the nasty claws like Sandra had, so at best he was able to try and squeeze my arms - which did very little damage to my metal arms.  We made quite a racket as he tore my shirt off while trying to grab at me and my metal back banging into the bars.

The group of mutants manhandled Razorwing to the ground and were trying to tear into him, but he must have been armored, because they were getting really pissed off about it.  The guard behind him played havoc with them every time she hit one with the cannon she was using.  Razorwing was spending all his energy keeping the mutants on him rather than allow them to get to the guard.  It was a pretty effective tactic with two arms, two wings, a tail, and occasional use of his legs to knock others back or hold them.

Kralgon tried grabbing my hair once - but when I began head butting him with my metal forehead he stopped quickly.  I found that the combination of wrapping my legs around his lower arms and hooking my feet under his butt made for a very solid holding spot.  He was becoming very frustrated at being unable to dislodge me from his back.

He roared numerous times until I began head butting him whenever he did it.  I’m fairly certain I made him bite his tongue at least once mid-roar.

The golden haired heroine - Psystar - appeared with a black clad hero and another very large brick wearing normal clothes.  The group quickly knocked out the mutants Razorwing was fighting, and made sure that Sandra was quite unconscious before coming over to me.