CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR

Heroes of the Crucible

Seconds ticked by while Mr. Crimson’s words reverberated inside Sam’s head. But, strangely enough, he didn’t lunge at Crow-Man like the villain wanted him to.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Mr. Crimson raised a long, thin eyebrow at Sam. “I told you to kill Crow-Man.”

“But I don’t want to,” Sam replied.

Mr. Crimson’s evil grin faltered slightly. “You… don’t want to?”

Indeed, Sam felt no compulsion to follow Mr. Crimson’s orders. His mind was still his own, and that made the hero wonder how that was possible.

There are no parasites detected in your blood for [Regeneration (Δ)] to flush out.

“Seriously?” Confusion flitted across Sam’s face. It was an emotion that Mr. Crimson mirrored exactly when he screamed for Sam to “Kill Crow-Man now, Herculean!”

“I. Don’t. Want. To,” Sam reiterated.

“H-how are you resisting me?” Mr. Crimson licked at the blood that still smeared his lips. “My parasites are—”

“Not in me,” Sam interrupted. He shrugged afterward. “All this time in prison might have cost you your mojo, dude.”

“My p-parasites aren’t in you?” Disbelief flashed on Mr. Crimson’s face. “B-but I bit you!”

Sam would have loved to take credit for the frustration Mr. Crimson was feeling, but he didn’t know how he’d escaped the villain’s clutches either.

“You should have known better than to let my knife pierce your hand, Crimson.” Crow-Man walked over to stand next to Sam. “The blade was laced with the same narcotics that brought the big guy down.”

He pointed a thumb back at the unconscious Disaster Joe.

“No,” Mr. Crimson shook his head in denial. “This is impossible.”

“Looks like it’s very possible though,” Sam chimed in. He glanced sideways at Crow-Man. “What kind of narcotics are we talking about here?”

“It’s a special blend I mixed by combining a low-grade hallucinogen extracted from a satyr’s saliva with a sedative derived from a bog wright’s ashes,” Crow-Man explained.

“You… you drugged me?!” Mr. Crimson raised his hand to his brow. He looked like he was about to barf. “W-what have you done to m-me…?”

“That headache you’re feeling is the drug worming its way into your brain, “Crow-Man added. “Your gift doesn’t work right now.”

As understanding filled his face, Mr. Crimson’s eyes widened in fear. A second later and Crow-Man’s right fist struck the villain hard on the jaw.

“All the crimes you’ve committed”—Crow-Man’s left fist collided with Mr. Crimson’s nose next—“and all the innocents you’ve murdered…”

While Mr. Crimson was distracted by his bloody nose, Crow-Man’s gloved hands wrapped around the back of the villain’s neck.

“You deserve more than the beating you’re getting now!” Crow-Man growled.

He pulled the villain’s head down and then drove his knee into Mr. Crimson’s face once, twice, and then a third time before Sam pulled Crow-Man’s right arm back.

“Stop!” Sam yelled.

Crow-Man turned his savage glare on him, but Sam didn’t back down. He could see the hatred in his friend’s eyes and knew it was his job to bring Crow-Man back to sanity.

“That’s enough, Crow,” Sam insisted.

Crow-Man’s gaze drifted from Sam’s worried look to Mr. Crimson’s bruised and bloodied face, and then back to Sam whose eyes glittered with hope, and only then did the fire in Crow-Man’s eyes die down. They were replaced by an expression of resignation from one who knew he’d gone a little too far.

“Yeah, it’s enough.” He let go of Mr. Crimson’s neck, and the villain crumpled to the floor. “Sorry… and thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sam sighed. “I get it…”

Sam’s thoughts drifted off to yesterday’s battle at the Golden Gate Bridge where he and Apex clobbered each other until they were both bloodied and near death. He recalled the rage he’d felt for his cousin, a man who’d slaughtered his mother’s family for the sake of being the sole inheritor of Hercules’s legendary strength. As he remembered that feeling of wanting revenge, Sam knew he couldn’t blame Crow-Man for beating Mr. Crimson the way he did. They might be heroes, but they were also humans with complicated emotions, and these emotions weren’t always geared toward the greater good.

Speaking of Apex, remembering his cousin reminded Sam of his reason for visiting the Crucible, leading him to ask Crow-Man why he was also at the prison.

“The Trickster asked to see me,” Crow-Man revealed.

“The T-trickster?” Sam’s brow creased. “Why would he want to see you?”

On the very day all Hades breaks loose too, Chiron added. It was Sam’s thought as well, although he didn’t say it out loud.

“Besides trying to get me killed, you mean?” Crow-Man was in the middle of stabbing the unconscious Mr. Crimson with a syringe he’d pulled out of one of his belt’s many pouches. “Believe it or not, the crazy fool had intel for me.”

“What sort of intel?” Sam pressed.

Crow-Man hesitated for a second or two longer before admitting that the Trickster had given him a “Prophecy…”

“Huh?” Sam didn’t understand what Crow-Man meant as he knew for a fact that the Trickster possessed no prophetic powers. “I’m sorry. I must not have heard you right, because it almost sounded like you mean to say ‘prophecy’ which would be a funny joke if it weren’t so…”

Sam’s banter died down as soon as he noticed Crow-Man’s scowl. Sam had recently deduced that this was how he looked when Crow-Man was being dead serious, which was ninety percent of the time since they’d known each other.

“B-but Farsight’s the only remaining seer in the U.S. so how did the Trickster—”

“Crow~~w!” A sluggish Disaster Joe was slowly rising to his feet. “You think—your little knives—can beat—Joe?!”

As he grew quickly back to his ten-foot height, Disaster Joe took one step, and then a second—but he would miss that third step thanks to the familiar-looking cylindrical-headed hammer that rammed into his right cheek at the exact moment he raised his foot.

“Onus?!” Sam blurted.

A bewildered Sam looked on as his hammer—which was coated in a softly glowing blue aura that he had never seen before—struck the left side of Disaster Joe’s face, flew past the villain’s head, and then made a U-turn so it could smash into Disaster Joe’s right cheek too.

“Hades’ balls!” Joe attempted to swat at Onus as it flew past him, but the hammer dodged his massive hand easily enough.

Sam watched all this happen with a slightly hanging jaw. “I didn’t know it could do that…”

It depends on who’s using it, I say, Chiron chuckled.

The flying hammer that had just dodged Disaster Joe flew past the staggered villain to land in the outstretched hand of a woman with pixie-cut, raven hair and eyes the color of fresh leaves. She wore a fancy gray suit that marked her as one of the Wardens, although Sam knew her by her former hero moniker of “War Maiden!”

“I didn’t give you this hammer”—Warden Bethany Carlyle let Onus go and yet the glowing hammer remained floating in the air beside her—“so you could leave it lying in the rubble, you know.”

Bethany swung her right arm at Disaster Joe, and Onus, which glowed with the same bluish light as the aura coating her hand, flew toward the villain like an arrow in flight. It struck Disaster Joe in the gut, causing him to bend over in pain.

Chiron whistled. Woman’s got talent. It’s a shame she traded in her armor for a suit.

Bethany raised her glowing hand high, and as she swung it down, Onus, which had flown upward in mimicry of her movements, smacked onto the back of Disaster Joe’s bowed head and sent him crashing into the parquet floor with a resounding crack.

“And all I’ve seen you do with that hammer is swing it around at close-quarters,” Crow-Man commented.

“Um, I throw it too,” Sam protested. “It just doesn’t come back to my hand like that.”

With Disaster Joe soundly beaten, the hammer easily flew back into Bethany’s waiting hand like it wasn’t the great burden it had been for her before she’d given it to Sam.

Sam clapped enthusiastically. “Seriously, beta-level telekinetic powers are awesome.”

Bethany flashed Sam a tired smile before she used telekinesis to deposit Onus straight into Sam’s free hand. “Try not to lose it again.”

“Um, I don’t know if I can keep that promise…” Sam’s gaze drifted left and then right, taking in the sights of the ongoing chaos surrounding them and the growing number of villains climbing out of the hole near the center of this wide circular room. “…it’s going to be a long day…”

“I’m not so sure about that.” Crow-Man drew Sam’s gaze to the people who’d climbed up to the 1st sub-level with him. “We don’t all go to the same gym, but the heroes who’ve stumbled into this mess—”

While Crow-Man spoke, the Villain Helfire snuck up behind Thunder and unleashed a burst of purple flames aimed at her back. These purple flames never reached her though because they were blocked by the wall of ice summoned by the hero now protecting Thunder’s back. He was tall and slender and wore a light gray trench coat over his white suit. His hair was fluffy and white like whipped cream coating an oval pretty-boy face with slanted eyes, a small pointy nose, and thin blue lips that leaked cold vapors into the air.

“—this insanely challenging mess that none of us could have handled alone,” Crow-Man continued, “aren’t the kind of heroes who back away from the hard fight…”

From the corner of his eye, Sam noticed a familiar blue-haired young woman drag the unconscious body of a Crucible security guard away from the purple flames that were beginning to burn across the floor.

“We’re heroes of a similar type—people who dig their heels in the harder things get,” as he said this, Crow-Man threw his knives at the villain who’d tried to flank Bethany, allowing her the time to concentrate on the prisoners rushing toward them. “Heroes who go above and beyond the call of duty to hold the line while giving no thought to our own safety.”

More villains charged toward them but Bethany flung her glowing hands forward and unleashed a powerful telekinetic wave that blew most of them back. The one guy who endured her TK blast—this villain whose body was formed from molten rock—was felled with a blow to the head by Sam’s hammer.

“So, you’re saying what exactly?” Sam asked as he glanced over his shoulder. “That we’re the perfect collection of random heroes for this particular disaster? Like we were somehow brought together by—”

“Fate?” It was a rare occurrence, but Crow-Man was smiling beneath his cowl. “Exactly. What else would you call it?”

Krak-ka-boom!

The peal of lightning frightened most people, but it was a sound that now served to lift Sam’s spirits because it announced the arrival of Thunder appearing at his side while looking like the real-life painting of a goddess of war. Strands of golden hair clung to her blushing cheeks while sparks lit up the blue irises of her almond-shaped eyes—eyes that were gazing at Sam in an endearing way that made his heart flutter.

“You’re wounded,” she noticed.

“It’s nothing…” Sam’s hand flew to the bite on his neck, but it was already healing. “You look like you’ve had it worse.”

Her sleeveless, form-fitting, white suit was smudged with dirt while blood was smeared over the gold of her bangles and sandals. She looked worn out, although the smile on her lips told a different story.

She’s enjoying this, Sam realized. “There’s blood on your—”

“Not mine,” Thunder answered before high-fiving Crow-Man. “What brought you to this mess?”

“The Trickster,” Crow-Man grunted, while Sam said, “Fate, he says…”

Both answers caused one of Thunder’s eyebrows to rise. “Okay… Does someone care to elaborate?”