Hero Stalker

Part Five

Next thing I knew, I was lying in a puddle, my heart beating irregularly, energy racing up and down my spine. The blue liquid shone and sank into my skin. I stared at my limbs in shock.

Harpy had been knocked down, too. His machine was smoking and whining, throwing off sparks in all direction. The electric cord lay by my head, broken in half and smoking. “You!” He rolled to his feet and stalked towards me. I scrambled back against the wall.

The warehouse doors banged open and all hell broke loose.

A tall white women in a violet leotard backflipped into the room, her long black curls spinning gracefully around her head. She kicked the gun out of one henchman’s hands, hit the ground as the other one fired over her head, and swept the shooter’s legs out from underneath him with her foot.

A grizzled older white man in grey and blue sprinted into the room, moving faster than a racecar. His fingertips transformed into foot-long black blades that sliced the top of the machine off, sending it flying at Harpy’s head. The supervillain’s jetpack shot him up and through the roof, but not before the man pulled something out of his utility belt and flung it at him. He then walked over and knocked the still-standing henchman unconscious with a single blow to the chin.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Femme Fatale pulled a long silver needle out of the other henchman’s throat and held it up in her elegant, black-gloved fingers. “I had him mesmerized. He was about to tell us everything.”

“You know that don’t stand up in a court of law. And it’s a wasted day if I can’t use my haymaker.” Slasher spat on the ground. Underneath the blue scrap of fabric that served as his mask, alert grey eyes darted back and forth. “Shame you wouldn’t let me apprehend the tin man.”

“He’s got a lair somewhere. Tag and track. Unless you want a repeat of Captain Corruption.”

“Christ, no. The puns alone would kill me.” A half second later, Slasher was standing above me. I scrambled to my feet. A wave of nausea swept over me. “Hello, hostage. You got lucky. Your friend called Psi-Crimes right in the nick of time.”

Annabelle was safe. I exhaled. “Thank you, thank you so much.” Could I ask for an autograph? Or would that be too much, after they’d just saved my life? A wave of giddy energy swept through me. A nervous giggle escaped my lips. I’m alive, I’m alive—and I look crazy in front of the Centurions. Small price to pay. I’m alive.

Femme Fatale walked over and pointed at my shirt. “Look at that burn pattern. The cord must have electrocuted her.”

“Electrocuted?” I squeaked out.

“Slasher, radio for the ambulance.” She shook her head. Drops of water went flying from her hair. It sprung back into perfect silky ringlets.

“She looks fine.” Slasher was inspecting Harpy’s machine. Thoughtfully, he extended a single blade and cut the front off the boombox-shaped part.

“She could be going into shock. Ambulance. And the PCD. Fine, I’ll do it.”

“I’m not going into shock,” I said, but I didn’t think they were paying me any attention.

Whoosh! A woman dropped through the hole in the ceiling, her cape billowing out behind her. Her mask had a red bird beak covering her nose and wings flying back out of the sides, encircling her wet copper-colored hair. Like most Centurions, she had a two-tone costume: a white bodysuit with red boots, gloves, mask, belt, and cape. Peregrine.

“What did I miss?” Peregrine said. “New supervillain? What were his powers?”

“Nothing, according to this heap of junk.” Slasher lifted a black device the size of a cellphone. “No radiation signatures but ours. Course, the damn thing insists there’s two of me here, so what does it know?”

“He said he was psi-positive,” I insisted, weakly. But then the EMTs rushed onto the scene and strapped an oxygen mask over my face before I could say anything more.

It didn’t really matter. They’d find him. The Centurions always got their man.

At least, as far as I knew then.