Heroes From Lincoln chapter 2

The whooshing air made it nearly impossible to hear Dust Devil as they rode on Blue, a hound picked for its speed and calm.

             “Comand says it's some villain named Glory Days. Aperitly, there was a fight that broke out at some protest.” Dust Devil read of his hero Communicator, which was a gloried iPhone with a durable case.

             “Glory Days? Wasn’t he from Kansas? What are they doing here?” Blue leaped over a garbage truck in their way.

             “Command doesn’t know. They want this done cleanly so we can get answers.”

             “Anyone else en route?”

             “No, Double Think is off the clock, and Jocky is on route but will probably be ten or five minutes after us.”

             “Gotcha. We’re approaching the college. What’s our play rooky.”

             “I think that I’ve got more actual experience than you, but ok. You do crowd control, and I’ll delay him until you can help me out. What’s this guy’s deal.”

             “He’s muscle for hire mostly, but he’s very specific with what jobs he takes. He can reset his body to a state it has been in before. This includes any temp abilities he’s been given. It does not affect his memories or mental state. You take him out in one hit, or he will just keep resetting to a healthy state.” I wasn’t sure he could hear me over the wind, even with my raised voice.

             “That’s gonna be annoying to deal with.” I could barely hear him.

             “Not really. If he’s still the way I remember him, he’s overly cocky, but he might have some new tricks.” I leaned into the next turn and reached out with my arm to make sure that DD didn’t fall off. We neared the college, and a police barricade had been put up. Blue leaped over the barrier and gradually slowed. There were cheers coming from the crowd behind the barrier.

             “OK, he should be in front of the north wall opposite the parking lot. Most of the student protesters have evacuated, but the main building is starting to catch fire.” I could see the growing smoke in the sky. “So, change of plans by HQ. You finish evac and confront GD while I take care of the fire.”

             “You sure won’t you turn to glass?” I looked at him as he pocketed his phone.

             “Not if I’m fast enough and take breaks.” He began to break apart into particles.

             “Alright, just be careful. We can always wait for the fire department.” I got no response as a small cloud of turning red sand floated in the air, increased to the size of a large van, and wafted toward the smoke.

             “My turn,” I reached into that space within my and brought forth Lady and Shaggy dog. They sprung from my chest and circled back to me. At the sound of my tongue clicking, they sat and watched my every movement. I took out the collapsible rescue jackets made for the dogs from my utility belt. They weren't the best material. They were prone to ripping if enough strain was put on them, but these were new and should be enough for the task at hand. I kicked my tongue. The two dogs sat in attention. I gave a short curt whistle and gesture to the main building. They shot toward it, nearly bulling me over.

I had spent three months learning how to train them and another three actually training the two. It was probably the most handy of the training methods I had taught the dogs, that and bomb detection. The ground shook, and a loud explosion defended me. I blinked and tried popping my ears back by swallowing my saliva. Shook my head and saw a new fire erupt.

I took out a collapsible baton from my utility belt and ran toward the source. The grounds were easy to navigate despite the destruction. I avoided scaling anything because it was unsafe to do so and because I had a bad knee. I turned the corner and saw him. He stood over the remnants of protest signs lay here and there, singed.

“FEMI NAZI, MAN HATING, LIBERALS,” he shouted that mouth full before throwing a fireball at one of the undamaged buildings. This had a lighter explosion and just caught the building aflame. He looked like a teen. He wore a short-sleeved button-up polo and short khakis. Not much of a costume. His face was babyish with barely any stubble to it. His youth was unnerving to me because he was five years older than me, but I knew it was a sore spot.

“Glory Days, long time no see. You’ve aged great,” It was true he wasn’t a minute older, literally.

He swung around, another fireball growing in his hand. “Huh, Ohhhh.  It’s you. You’ve gotten… Bigger.” He gestured at my gut.

“Yeeeeaah.” I tried my best not to try and cover it. We started circling each other and started the standard banter. “Did they let you out early? I thought you had to wait until you grew some hair on your chin.” I stopped as he threw a ball of fire at the place I was going to be.

“At least I’m not some washup. You couldn’t make it big.” His body reset. I presumed that he had reached the time limit of the power boost, so he just reset the clock.

“So, Cover Fire gave you a power boost. You really needed one last time. How easy it was to kick your little ass.” I turned my circle pattern into a spiral and started nearing him.

“Oh, I got a lot more boosts than just Cover Fire,” At that, he did the worst thing he could possibly do. He started flying.

“Shit”

“Shit’s right.” It wasn’t exactly a flight on a second glance. He pushed off the ground and shot up six feet, but then he stuck there in the air. Flight powers were usually in constant motion, and rarely did they hold to a position. As soon as he was that high in the air, he charged up another fireball and chucked it at me. I dove forward, narrowly dodging the inferno. I could feel a lurching feeling in my chest. The dogs wanted out. But I had to be smart. I needed one that was calm, had high mobility, and wouldn’t be scared by fire. I jumped to my feet and ran for cover. “Running so soon. Must be getting cowardly in your old age.” I found a concrete planter and ducked behind it. The dogs could feel the adrenaline, so it was hard to pick. It felt like trying to pet just one dog out of twenty who were all jumping up onto you. GD bulleted over my head, rendering my cover moot. “Peak-a-boo.”  I throw my baton right in between his eyes. “MOTHER FUCKER!” His next fireball poofed, and he started to fall. Both of his hands shot to the spot where he had been hit. Then he reset a bit of solid air and broke his shortfall.

I found her. Daisy burst from my chest and lurched straight toward GD. In response, he threw up another solid air wall in front of him. Daisy slammed against the newly created wall and fell back to the ground. GD reset again and kicked off the quick evaporated and launched into the air, stuck in place where he was. I whistled at Daisy, and she ran right to me. As she started to run past me, I grabbed onto the main spectral blue fur around her neck and used the momentum to fling my body onto her back. She darted to the left, and a fireball only just missed us. I guided Daisy to make a large circle and go up to the west building, which had the least fire. As she went about, I watched GD closely. He kept on resetting to two different saves, as Double Think had termed it. One saved with the solid air, and the other had the flight and Cover Fire’s power. Then I noticed whenever he did the quick switch, it was because the flight wasn’t a true flight. He only launched a certain distance at a high speed and then locked it into place. Like the motion of a Billard ball but vertically.

What good that observation was, I didn’t know, but every detail mattered. “All you are are agents of the deep state here to silence me.” Daisy dodged and weaved in between the explosions of fire. I pulled out a small black ball from a patch on my belt. It was about three pounds. I hefted it and threw it right into GD’s gut. A gasp of air escaped him, and he started falling again.

             “Big talk from someone whose balls haven’t dropped.” That was it. The flight broke whenever he was hit. I didn’t need skill for this fight, just numbers. I must have looked like a geyser of wolves as seven of my spectral pack leaped from me in all directions. I gave a series of clicks and whistles, and they all scattered.

             “Whoa, that’s a lot of fucking dogs.” He lurched back, did his quick reset launch thing, and launched himself up, sticking him in place twelve feet above the ground. He barely finished his action before one of the dogs, Fighto, leaped into the air and only barely missed his leg. “Unfortunately, you brought dogs to a firefight.” He conjured up a fireball and flung it at a grouping of two dogs, and they burst into blue gas, which returned toward me. I gave another whistle, and this time, Fighto leaped high enough to bite into his wrist. The flight broke. He reset to a point in time when he had lost his arm. The stump pissed out blood right into Fighto’s face, and as a reaction, Fighto twisted his body away from the source. I remembered that fight. It had been a nasty one.  He reset again and made an air wall, but the fall knocked the air out of him, and he took a second too long. Hazel was able to find purchase on the solid air platform, and she went to bite into his newly reconstituted arm. But he was faster than Hazel. He reset, and the platform began to break apart, and he launched him through the air away from the center of the slowly closing circle.

             “Whose the coward now?” I yelled after him as he started to flee the scene. I clicked my tongue three times and pointed to their target. The pack began the chase for their target, but Daisy held back at the small tug I gave to her fur to signal that she had heeled.

             I fished my com out of my pocket and dialed up Jockey. The com rang as it waited.

             “This is Agent Jockey. How can I help you over.” The voice was hazy, probably due to the wind on their side.

             “Hey there, Jockey. Are you still en route to the college?” Daisy started whining as she watched the pack go on without her.

             “That’s right, Lone Wolf. Do you have an update over?”

             “Glory Days are on the run, and I’m giving chase; I would like to request you cut them off, um, over.” I gave a deep scratch in Daisy’s main to calm her down.

             “Sounds good. Where do you want me to head them off over?”

             “Right now, he’s moving toward Roper Park. I’ll try to keep him in that direction.” There was a longish pause. “Over.”

             “I can do that over and out.” And the com connection went dead. I switch over to send a Message to Dust Devil. I told him that GD was trying to escape and that he was supposed to concentrate on the fires.

             With that done, I patted Daisy’s side. “Ok, girl, let's do this.” She sped into action, leaping from rubble patch to oning, to roof, until we caught up with the pack. They were slowing him down. Jumping in his way, body-checking him, and attempting to bite him.

             “God damn dogs.” He spun around mid-air and allowed himself to fall as he released a blast, bursting one of the dogs as it dove in for a bite. I wanted him to get back in motion to the park. A fight here on the rooftops would result in collateral damage. If we were at Roper Park, which was just a glorified grass patch, we could avoid any of that. I gave a long, low whistle, and the dogs backed up. They moved to block his sides, so he had to go in the direction I had planned. If he ever slowed or decided to go vertical, I gave the signal for one of the dogs to intervene by attempting to attack. He did another turnaround and blasted Fighto, whose gas returned to me.

             We got closer and closer, and then I saw Jockey waiting on the ground. Jockey was sitting on a winged horse, and her costume resembled that of a horse jockey. She was watching the sky, waiting for us. It was time for the final push. I gave a high-pitched quick whistle, sending the entire pack back into attack mode. Glory Days had been waiting, too. He resettled and turned it into a form made entirely of glowing stone. He dropped to the ground like gravity had increased on him tenfold. The assault by the pack went straight over him, and he slammed into the road right before the park.

             “Damnit.” He reset again and started running through the park at an abnormal speed. Meanwhile, the pack had to jump from building to building until they were close enough to the ground. Jockey noticed the fuck up and picked up the slack. Her horse leaped into flight and quickly closed in despite his superhuman speed. She revealed her man catcher spear. She threw it expertly. The thing arched through the air until it collided with the back of his neck, knocking him to the ground and pinning him there. Daisy reached the ground, and I let out a sigh of relief.

-

             I watched the police shove Glory Days into the back of a squad van after reading him his rights. Jockey and I stood around the crater that he had left. We smiled and waved as people took pictures and taped us to capture some of the glory coming from us. “I thought he had a strength boost. How come he didn’t just pull himself off the ground?” I said under my breath with a practiced smile for the cameras.

             “He used it up.” She said it so matter-of-factly like it wasn’t the most astonishing thing in the world.

             “Used it up!” I broke into a face of astonishment.

             “Yep, some time ago.” She laughed despite herself.

             “This deserves celebration in the usual place.” I grabbed her by her upper arm and shook her. 

             “We already did that when you were gone.” The joy from earlier had sapped out of her.

             “We can still celebrate anyway. I’ll buy the drinks. We’ll invite the kid, too.” I brushed the comment aside, not wanting to dig into it.

             “He’s underage.” Her eyebrow raised in judgment of my action.

             “I can still buy soda, you narc,” I laughed, trying to bring back the joy she had earlier.

             “OK, but not too late. Ok, we aren’t as young as we used to be.” She started to walk back to her horse.

             “Six O’clock at my new place. I’ll send you the address. And could you invite Double? I don’t have any of their numbers.” I shouted after her.

             “I can do that, and I’ll be there.” She gave me a wave and flew off on her steed. I jumped back onto Daisy, the one dog I hadn’t recalled into myself. We rode off back to the college to give Dust Devil the good news.