Reluctant Heroes
The next day I woke up on the lawn outside. Didn't even know I passed out here. Elicia's right next to me, still snoozing away. I shake her a lil' and she mumbles something before rubbing her eyes. I helped her up and led her back inside the house. Man, my head hurts. I still have something planned for all of us. We need to get the hang of this so-called " gift " we've been given. And I know just the place to practice. Since it's Saturday it shouldn't be too hard to get a hold of everyone. Elicia's taking a nap on the couch right now. God, I feel like I'm having a hangover or somethin'. Who to call first? I'd love to bother Tess right now. Her it is, then. I dialed her number and waited for her to pick up. The frickin' ringing keeps echoing in my eardrums. I'm about to give up when someone finally answers the phone. "Hello? Who is this?"It's Tess' mother. Her little girl must still be sleepin'. "Excuse me. This is Tess' friend, Daniel, speaking. I was wondering-ugh-if I could talk to your daughter right now.""Well, she just woke up right now. You okay? You sound exhausted.""Yeah. Justtt... a rough night sleep.""I could tell. You were out in front with that girl of yours.""You saw that? Did you see us go anywhere earlier?""No. What are you talking about?""Nothin', nothin'. Can you please just get Tess on the phone?"I'm left waiting for a few seconds before I hear someone else talking to me. "What isss it, ya blighter?""Listen. Get over here in an hour or two. All of us will be going somewhere.""What do you mean ' all of us '?""I mean all of us. Now get to it.""Fine, fine. I'll head over as soon as I can."When she hung up I dialed Chris and Kassy's number. Chris picks up after the first ring. Good. I hate waiting. "Y'ello?""Hey man. You gotta ride that can fit six people? ""Yeah. My mom's SUV. Why?""Bring it over here. I'm takin' you guys somewhere to practice.""Practice? What are you-... Oh. I'll see if I can.""Cool. See you two soon."Briggs also agreed to come with us once he's finished getting ready. I put down the phone and as soon as I took a step my legs go numb and I felt the stinging sensation of rising vomit in the back of my throat. I tried to grab the counter and fell down in a heap. "Daniel? Hey, you okay?" Uh-huh, darling. Just fine... Okay. Help me up now."She got up and walked over to me slowly. Her eyes are bloodshot and I probably don't look much better myself. Elicia ended up just kneeling next to me, yawning for a good ten seconds. I just wanna fall asleep again. Elicia asked me, "Where are we going? ""We are going somewhere... out of the way to learn how to... harness our powers.""Powers?""Yeah. Can't you feel 'em? It's like something's balled up inside of me now and it wants to get out.""I don't quite feel like that. I did feel like I was being electrocuted for a moment.""And I felt like I was being burned alive."* * *Everyone got here a lot quicker than I expected. In about an hour and a half Kassy and Chris came with their SUV while the others were waiting out front. Chris looked a bit upset, so I asked him what's up. He tells me, "I hate driving this thing. Makes me feel like a soccer mom." Well now you are a soccer mom. For superheroes!" Tess joked. I don't know why but I didn't like it when she said "superheroes." That suggests that we're some kinda real-life Justice League or something. I just want to learn how to control my powers so I don't hurt anybody on accident. I gave Chris directions to the lot that we're traveling to while he's driving. Remember the lot that where I... persuaded a guy to talk? Yeah. That's where we're going. It's perfect. I'm pretty sure only a handful of people know where that place is, and even then no one ever returns there. It's supposedly scheduled to be demolished anyways, to be replaced for a mall, so if we cause damage no one will care. Funny since no one's set foot on the property in five months, but there's still unfinished scaffolding and unused construction vehicles. It takes about another ten minutes to get to our destination, but we're finally there. When I get out I can't help but get nervous. Can we even control our powers, or will they just run wild? I guess we'll find out right now. "Alright guys. You may be wondering why I've assembled you all here today.""Daniel can you hurry up? I wanna take a nap," Tess pipes up."Must you ruin the moment?... Thank you. Okay then, everyone, try to concentrate and send out your second form. Tess, help the others if you need to because I know you can already do this."They did as they were told and brought out their armor. Now it's my turn. Focus... focus on flames... and there. I switched back and forth a few times to get the hang of it. Pretty quick once you get used to it. I couldn't help but notice that they were missing something. When I look at my holsters they actually have stuff in 'em. I have the revolver from my dreams, the MP412 REX and a sawed off, flip cock Model 1887 shotgun. I love this damn thing. Ol' Western stuff is simply the greatest. That's not the point right now. Everyone else should be able to make weapons appear too, although I'm not sure if that's really a good thing. "You guys ain't concentrating enough. Clear your minds for a moment. You can do it." They all close their eyes and objects start forming on their backs and holsters. After a second I can see what has just popped into existence. Briggs has a giant mechanical hammer, a flail, and a throwing knife bandolier. Tess has a massive sniper rifle and a tiny Chiappa Rhino revolver, which totally aren't opposites, and Chris has a... UTS-15, I think, and a Dan Wesson PPC revolver. Kassy has a javelin that can actually be compressed into a small cylinder with a click of a button. When it's extended it's at least six feet tall with a hooked blade at the end. She also has a red-dot sighted crossbow strapped to her leg with the same bandolier as Briggs. Finally, to wrap up these descriptions, Elicia has a sword with two blue plates attached to both flats of the blade and yet another bandolier of throwing knives across her chest. Jesus, I haven't seen this many sharp things since I fought a guy who filed his teeth into fangs. Chris, Tess, and I wore Kevlar vests with T-shirts underneath, brown military cargo pants and combat boots, and bladed gaunlets. Chris had adorned a breathing mask while Tess had herself a black hood, a bandana to conceal her face, and a targeting device over her right eye. I myself had a helmet which, when I took it off, looked like a mix between a Helghast and a Nanosuit helmet. Elicia and her team were fully decked out in skintight metal armor fashioned to look like the knights of old, light but strong with a navy blue rubber material between the joints, not from any era, almost like a relic from both the past and future. They even had LEDs over their eye slits. Kassy's helm was Roman while Briggs had a Great Helm from fourteenth century England. Elicia's helmet was unique, shielding her entire face with a mouthplate reminiscent of Optimus Prime. "What are we supposed to do with these?" Briggs asks as he pointed to his weapons apprehensively."We use 'em on people, I guess." I don't really have an answer."Why? That doesn't make sense.""Maybe it does. He gave us tools, so now we have to decide what to do. But for now, I want to see if I can do cool shit."The building where I perform my interrogations is off to my right. It's a pretty good distance away. Let's see how far this shotgun can reach. I aim at the wall that's facing me and fire. Surprisingly dust kicks up all the way over there, but the spread is enormous. I should probably only use this up close. Then again it is a shotgun. Where else is it useful? When I test out the revolver it feels so natural. I love this thing already. It even has ornate engravings on it. I look back at the group and see them all inspecting every inch of their new possessions. "You guys ready to try those out?" They all look a little hesitant. Eventually they come around to the idea of practicing, so we begin our session. Chris, Tess and I start shooting our guns, probably the easiest part of all this. Chris has to take longer to adjust, on account of him never even laying a hand on a gun, but Tess is managing just fine. Then we move on to melee weapons. Tess has a tomahawk and Chris has a machete. Sadly I have nothing, because apparently I'm not special. We do all have some kinda weird gadget on our left arm. There's a little button on it. The hell does it do? When I press it some internal gears start grinding and chains moving around when I hear a click and the handle of a scythe flies out into my palm out of a little slot near my hand. It looks like the scythe has a chain attached to the bottom of the handle. How far does this extend? I swing it without keeping hold of the scythe or the chain and watch as it flies around. Everyone ducks when it passes their heads and I press the button again to bring it back. "Hehe. My bad." This thing must be like ten feet long. I launch it again and swing it a few more times. I'm barely using it but I already feel comfortable with it. That's a bit odd. I'm not exactly a quick learner. You know, I wanna try somethin'... I walk over to the interrogation building and aim the whatchamacallit and hope this works. How about we call it a Scythe Shot. Sounds dorky, but dorky stuff is always cool. There's a trigger in the grip. When I pull it the blade splits in half. If I use this for a grapple it should hold my weight. I fire and it crashes through one of the interrogation building's window. I don't do anything until the chains are taut. Okay, aaand it's good. I press the button one more time and I'm sent flying through the air as the chain retracts. I can't help but yell at the top of my lungs along the way. It wasn't until I reached the building that I was able to cool down from this miniature adrenaline rush. Goddamn that was cool! I climb through the windowsill and look down on the others. "You guys should try that! So much fun!" When Chris and Tess repeat my feat they have the same giddy face that I have. "Hehe!" Chris laughs woozily. "Too bad you three can't do that, huh? Hahaha!""Shut up Chris!" Kassy yells back.She tosses one of the knives at us and barely misses my ear. "Hey! Aim at him for fuck's sake, not me! And you shouldn't even be throwing daggers at us in the first place!" Then I hear beeping behind me. I turn around and see the dagger lodged in the wall behind me. There's a tiny LED that's blinking orange. It's getting faster. I swear to God... "I think we should jump out now. ""Why would we do that?" Tess asks me, a look of confusion on her face."Call it a hunch. Just jump out the window. Now!"We leapt out and escaped the explosion behind us. When we land none of us get hurt, surprisingly. We fell like three stories. You'd expect at least a busted knee or something, but no. Not that I'm complaining or anything. "Well, that wasn't fun," I groan as I get up. "Maybe you should be sure of what you're throwing before you toss it at someone, Kassy. It might, oh I don't know, be a FUCKING GRENADE!""I'm sorry! How was I supposed to know it would blow up!?" Kassy screams back. I guess she has me there. Still, I can't help but feel uneasy. First the twins hit me with a car, then the sister nearly blows me up. It's like they're frickin' bad-luck magnets for me. "Daniel did you do something on your way down?" Briggs asks."I don't think so. Why?""Little smoke particles started surrounding you, that's why."Now that he mentioned it, I did feel a bit lighter on the way down.There has to be some way to make that happen again. I go crazy thinking of something while everybody else is exercising. I try falling from heights, running really quickly, anything to make the smoke appear again. I'm not even paying attention to anyone else at this point. I hear them shouting excitedly but I can't focus on that. Come on. Think of somethin'!... Maybe if I focus on a far-enough spot without moving. Sounds far-fetched, but it's worth a shot. Come on... I can already smell smoke... Aaand... Bam! I'm in the spot that I chose, five yards from my original position without ever moving my feet. I can hear everyone else gasping behind me. I still don't know what I did. "Hey, guys. Uh, what happened?""You mean you don't know?""No. That's why I'm asking.""Dude... you turned into smoke and... reformed over there.""You mean we can... teleport? Sweet!," Chris jeered. "Man, today is just awesome, isn't it?"After Chris and Tess learned how to teleport we end up showing off to the Order crew. I couldn't help but notice how I was the slowest one out of the bunch, even with the recharge time between teleports. Tess can teleport way faster than me, and Chris can go farther than we can. You know, I don't like the word teleport. How about I call it a Smoke Dash? That sounds okay for now. I still have no idea how Tess is faster than us, though. She's carrying the biggest gun out of all of us, a damn Barrett M82a1 sniper rifle. When I saw that she had that I had to resist the urge to laugh. The thing is twice as tall as her. It's frickin' ridiculous. But that's beside the point. Now it's the Order guys' turns to show us what they got. We all know that they have explosive daggers, but what else do they have? They begin their demonstration by assuming a runner's stance. "What are you doing?""Hold on. Just watch," Elicia said.Right after she spoke they all took off. And by took off I mean they ran almost faster than my eye could perceive with streaks of neon blue trailing behind them. "Cool isn't it?" I jumped and twist around to see Elicia with a smug look on her face. "Was that... what I thought it was?" I stuttered."If you thought it was super-speed, then yes. If not then I don't know what you were thinking." They kept running in all sort of directions. There were times where it looked like they were gonna collide with each other or anything in the environment, but they always narrowly avoided an impact. I was kinda hoping that one of 'em would smack into a wall. Sadly, life is full of disappointments. Now to move onto the Order crew's armaments. "Briggs, why don't you try your hammer first?" He accepts the request and steps forward. The head of the hammer looks like it can shift its pieces to do something. When he slams it on the ground nothing happens. "Hold on. I just need to get a better grip." Briggs tries again and sets it off this time. Cogs started turning within the hammer and its piston in the back starts slamming down, causing tremors that shook the earth under our feet. That's pretty cool. Then he whipped out his flail, twisted it's grip a hundred and eighty degrees, and threw it into the interrogation building. The muffled sound of an explosion rocked the entire structure. A melee weapon and a grenade. Interesting. Kassy steps up next to him and slams the javelin on the floor. When she does that the sky above her goes dark for a few seconds and a lightning bolt strikes the blade. The sky clears again and the javelin blade starts glowing blue. Then she aims it at a cement truck and discharges a bolt of her own, frying the vehicle's engine and setting it on fire. Next she raises her automatic crossbow and fires it at the cement truck. Every time she reloads the bolts change. The first time they were steel-tipped bolts, then electric stun bolts, and finally explosives. What's up with all of the explosives? It's crazy. Then there's Elicia. She doesn't have any other secondary weapons so she just goes right to her sword. It looks kinda weird with the two thin metal plates on both sides of the actual blade. She swipes her hand across the blade and the plates fall off. Before they hit the ground they disappear into white particles and the blade absorbs them, glowing blue and generating a faint humming noise like an electric generator. She swipes it in the air and unleashes a wave of energy towards the cement truck. The wave is so wide that I have to dip down just in time for it to pass over me and to see the wave's impact on the truck. It cuts cleanly through the metal like it was butter. Everything seems to be trying to kill me today. Wait a minute. How come they can do all this cool stuff and we just have bullets? "Hey, how did you learn how to do that? ""We were just messing with our stuffs while you guys were playing with your toys," Elicia answered. "Why don't you try messing with your handguns?"I guess it worth a shot. I glance at my revolver to see if there's anything unusual about it. Nothing. It just looks like a regular ol' gun. I'm considering taking it apart to see if I can find anything funny when I hear yet another explosion. I swear by the time we leave my eardrums are gonna be wrecked. I turn around and see Chris with a bewildered look on his face and a chunk of the condemned building missing. "How did you do that?" I ask."I just pulled back this part of the gun, saw it overheating, and I thought it was a good idea to shoot it. Apparently it was." He was pointing at the hammer. For some reason that seems kinda obvious. I mean it is the only part of the gun you can actually mess with without disassembling it."Okay. Tess, try it with yours."She moves away slightly and cocks back the hammer. The barrel starts glowing orange and steaming before Tess fires after a few seconds. Instead of one shot the gun unloads a three-round burst of red energy. So she has that and Chris has explosive rounds. "That's pretty cool. Now I'm gonna try out mine." I step forward and aim my Rex with one hand after prepping it, because I wanna feel like a badass while doing this, and shoot the gun. What happened next shocked the shit outta me. Instead of shooting any sort of bullet it fires a continuous beam of black energy, louder than the engines of a jet and emitting more heat than a thousand furnaces. My aim is wavering, the force of the blast crumbling my arm's joints, but I'm still holding on. When the revolver stops blasting, all that's left of the building is its smoldering foundation. Shit. "Guys, I, uh, think that's enough for today. Let's go before someone reports a terrorist bombing.""Yeah, uh, sounds like a plan," Briggs mumbled in awe.Now I'm left wondering as we all make a beeline to the SUV; If this is what we're capable of right now, imagine what we can do if we actually stick with it. Hehe. This is gonna be fun.
