Over the team radio channel, Bullet muttered, “Give me the okay and I’ll turn the freak into Swiss cheese.”
Len jumped over a pile of snow, landing less than ten feet behind Master Martian. “You know the policy and you know why.”
In October of 1954, the Feds came to an unofficial agreement with the superheroes of the period, agreeing to leave them alone as long as the body count didn’t get too high. My grandfather had told me about the negotiations. As the highest-profile team of the day, the Heroes’ League had to be there. Continue reading Memories: Part 7→
Cassie caught my eye and grinned, “And I’d gotten so used to Nick having the ‘normal’ family.”
I raised my eyebrow, “Normal? Rachel’s currently flying around in space without a spacesuit. Plus, my grandparents were not normal at all at least on one side.”
“Yeah,” Cassie said, “but Daniel’s whole family is full of telepaths. Jaclyn’s older brothers have the same powers she does. Vaughn’s uncle was basically Lex Luthor and his grandfather was Red Lightning—“
Vaughn talked over her, “And Haley’s family owns a lot of pizza places. Some of them offer anchovies. Definite supervillain material there.” Continue reading Memories: Part 6→
The metallic thunk of something being placed on the stove came over the line. “How interesting is Anastasia? Is this the cousin that babysat us once?”
The trouble with old friends is that they might remember any random piece of your past. On the other hand, he’d at least be able to recognize her in Uncle Steve’s mind, “Yes. She’s the one who watched us um… eleven years ago or something? I’m pretty sure we were ten. Anyway, she might be very interesting. She’s the one who connected Uncle Steve with Armory.”
I turned around to find Vaughn in my latest version of the Storm King armor. Black with a storm cloud on his chest, it included flaps to catch the wind he generated. Yoselin wore her own armor, the red triangle, white star, and blue and white stripes might almost pass for a patriotic US costume if you didn’t think too hard about it. The backpack and streamlined half-cylinders running up and down her arms and legs hinted at a refined version of her father’s armor’s air manipulation tech.
Chris grinned, “Can’t argue with that. We’ve still got time to figure it all out and with any luck, we won’t get corrupted by ancient alien artifacts first.”
“Sadly, that means that we’ve got to leave this one alone for the time being,” I looked down at the tablet where it lay on the table. “I’ve got a feeling I’ll want to lock this one away.”
Yoselin nodded, “I do. This is bigger than Cuba and the United States. The Dominators and the Nine represent a threat to all nations and I don’t want to be at home wasting my time while you fight. I’ve known about them all of my life and this is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a lead on them. I want to follow it.”
Daniel and I looked at each other, making an instant telepathic connection. She means it, Daniel told me. I don’t know if she’s been modified by them in the past, but since I don’t see any hints of it, I’d be willing to take a chance on her.
Daniel nodded, “That’s what I was thinking too. It has to be them. The only question is whether someone hired them to do it or whether they’re doing it on their own. If no one’s hiring them, that’s worse.”
Yoselin turned around, “And why do you think that?”
I knew why, but he answered first, “Because if they did it themselves, they’ll care what happened, and I’m not sure we’re ready to go up against the Dominators. If the Nine hired them, the Nine might care, but they’ll have to hire the Dominators for them to care. We’ve gone up against the Nine successfully a couple of times now. We might be able to do it again.” Continue reading Rematch: Part 21→
Free for some value of free—which in this case meant not fighting someone that could potentially kill me with a punch or, more likely, kill Kid Biohack.
I took a moment to orient myself. There’s no point in getting out only to fly into the path of a Mack truck. I’d come out on the side of the arena where I thought I would, a side with no obvious doors or windows except, of course, for the hole my bots blew in what would have otherwise passed for a wall. Continue reading Rematch: Part 20→
My evasive maneuvers put me over lines of machines and mech parts and materials—steel for frames, plates of armor, boxes full of bolts. It reminded me of the secret factory that Chris inherited, and it didn’t surprise me at all. When he and Larry looked over my pseudo-frog suit, he’d told me everything.
After Armory stopped being a superhero, he’d gone to Man-machine for advice on how to make powered armor as a business and they’d stayed friends after that. Well, at least until Armory stiffed him on an object I called The Ball that he made for a group of supervillains called The Maniacs. Continue reading Rematch: Part 17→
Once I grabbed my luggage, we took the elevator downstairs and checked out of the hotel, talking and joking around like we’d known each other all of our lives. In the case of Cassie and Daniel, that was true, but over the last couple of days, we’d gotten to know Yoselin (or at least her persona) well enough to fake it.
She did add a certain energy to the group, laughing loudly, accompanying most of what she said with wide gestures. Plus, Cassie, who despite what she told everyone, spoke fluent Spanish or close enough that she could keep up with Yoselin, something that had to help with our cover. Continue reading Rematch: Part 14→
The Legion of Nothing: A Series of Online Superhero Novels (Updates Monday and Thursday)
