Vespidian Arc 3, Chapter 5

Fire Chief and I made our way out to the front entrance. All those people shuffling around many gave me a glance, but were not interested. Some guy took a picture of me while I was looking around. It was strange to not feel exposed and ridiculed from being watched. Ever since my transformation I had been extremely self conscious about how I looked. My eyes could see their emotions clear as day. After all fear and disgust were very easy to see. Now I did not know what to expect. It seems I had gotten used to being hated. My chest felt warm, it felt good to not be resented. Hooray for superficialism! I was not a walking magnet for revulsion. As though to squish what little happiness I had the thought that should anyone ever see what was under this mask there would be no smiles or laughter, only terror. It was human nature to reject something different from the norm. My mouth twitched. Think happy thoughts I reassured myself. People had gathered around me while I was zoning out and Fire Chief seemed a little agitated.

“Who is this? Is she a new hero? Care to answer Fire Chief?” Asked a reporter girl with brown frizzy hair. She had a gray trench coat and vaguely looked like a streaker. She was one of those nosy shrew types. I recognized her from channel ten news.

“This is Mecha Fairy. She is the newest member of my team. Now if you would excuse me we have work to do.” He said shooing the vultures away.

We just ignored them from then on and it seemed they were following us. I could guess why, they wanted a big scoop or something and a new hero was just that sort of thing. If they cornered me I would probably be interrogated so that they could find out what rank I am and what powers I have. Fire Chief tapped me on the shoulder and I glanced over.

“We should test out the jet pack.” He told me over the closed radio system built into our suits.

It made things a lot easier if you wanted to talk without yelling in an emergency and it ensured that everyone was up to date on one another. I nodded wearily. We were in an empty parking lot a few blocks away. It seemed like a good place. The jump jet was controlled by a sensor in my helmet's overlay. I could change directions mentally from the hud or manually by tilting my head and aligning my body. The whole suit shook when it fired up for the first time. Super heated air was used to generate lift and it certainly did that. I had been looking straight up when it came on so the throttle was on full. I shot into the sky screaming the whole way. A power line loomed ahead like a giant bug zapper! I barely had time to shift to the side and avoid it. At the least I thought I did, but a shock rampaged through the suit. My arms spread out like a sugar glider for stability and slowly the unwieldy navigation came under my control. Just when I thought I knew what I was doing the engine puttered and I dropped like a rock. I racked my brain screaming for it turn back on. The ground zoomed ever closer. It kicked back on ten feet from the ground. Traffic swerving just below. My neck almost snapped after that sudden stop. It hurt, but nothing too serious, I breathed a sigh of relief I had figured out hover mode.

“You alright?” Asked Fire Chief.

“I think I will live.” I groaned.

“You just shot up. If I had known you were going to gun it I would have held your leg to keep you down here.”

“My bad.”

“Don't worry about it. Where are you anyway?”

“By the Slums.”

“Just stay there and I will be right over. Do not go in the Slums”

“Ok. Why should I not go in there?”

“The Mad Dogs are very territorial and if they see a Super not in their gang they will attack without provocation.”

“Got it.”

The buildings looked a little less upscale than the inner part of the city. There were no skyscrapers and only one shopping mall, there was a movie theater though. I seem to have arrived at the market district. It was very close to the slums and was considered a sort of border area to the poorer section of the city. Downtown was just to the west. I had only been to the slums twice in my life and neither time had I gotten out of the car. Even then though it had been more than tens ago, before the melt down. The place was overrun by crime and it was slowly encroaching on the rest of the city. I could see the armed checkpoint that was the bulwark between the two sides. The way things were going there was talks of walling that section of the city in on itself. Traffic was covering the street and I would have smashed down right in the middle of it all had I not gotten it under control. I have certainly gone a ways from where I launched up.

I rose up above a Colonel Chicken joint, looking over the area. Fried chicken certainly did smell appetizing and I did have money now... I resisted the urge though. Maybe I can get Chief to buy me lunch. My antenna twitched taking in all the surrounding sounds. I could not hear Fire Chief anywhere so I aimlessly floated about getting an even better grasp of the controls. I could not lay on my back and gaze at the sky, but it was nice to just be outside once again. A distant crash drew my attention and I turned towards it. Smoke drifted up two blocks away in the slums. Curiosity got the better of me and I moved towards it. Down below the guards were looking up at me like I was crazy to go over there. That did not bode well. I began to consider turning back, but then I saw the source of the smoke. A car had smashed into a gas station and the pumps were starting to catch fire.

“Chief there is a car that is on fire. It is just over the line into the Slums.”

“Just wait for me to get there and don't do anything stupid.”

“But... a whole gas station is going to blow.”

“I am almost there just wait for me.”

I was sorely out of my element here and not even close to being mentally equipped to deal with this situation. Then I saw something that made my blood run cold. Someone was still trapped inside of that car. Did I consider myself a hero? No. Sure I talked all that shit about being a hero, but what choice do I have? I did not even consider myself to be a very good person. This however was something different. This was not about being good or bad, this was knowing I could have saved somebody and did not. Could I live with that? Knowing that I left someone to die. Chief was saying to wait, but... if I do that thing is going to blow. That was a very hard question and I had no time to even contemplate it. The jet had already roared to life and I was careening like a comet towards that car.

Sub may or may not have had this one. I was not entirely sure what the hell I just did. The whole thing played out in little snippets. I crashed into the car, lifted it over my head and hurled it away. It smashed into the side of a building across the street and crumpled up. Oops. Shit! The pumps were hissing and I kicked off of the ground, taking back to the air. No sooner had I turned my back and started gunning the engine did the whole place go up. The explosion shocked me out of the sky and I crashed into the pavement. I defensively balled up to protect myself. That was going to be felt in the morning, well maybe late afternoon.

There was blood everywhere and it was red. The smell dragged up memories and I could taste the savory fluid wetting my lips. It took a long moment before I was able to move again. The urge to lick it all up was crushed beneath my will. That was close, way too close for comfort. Sub help me on this shit will you! Say something... she was being uncharacteristically silent. Damn it I guess I am on my own for now. I ripped the crashed car apart like tissue paper and pulled the man out. He was not looking good at all. The impact had damaged him when I threw it. Luckily it had shielded him from the fall and flames, but his limbs were mangled and he was missing a hand. He might live, but it was some serious shit.

Did I do the right thing by trying to save him? Look what I did. Jesus fucking Christ! I don't even know what to do. I am such an idiot, why did I try to save him? I laid him down, did not even want to touch him, I might hurt him even more. Super strength my ass this shit is a liability. He was trembling with shallow eyes. His business suit was marred and stained red. My white suit was now black from the burns and crimson with blood. I would have to wash this thing off long and hard even then I don't think I could get it all out.

“Chief.” My voice quivered. “I may have killed somebody.”

“Damn it.” Growled his low voice. “Just calm down I will be there in a minute. Medavac is on the way as well. What happened?”

“The car. There was a guy in it...” I trailed off a little. “I got him out but then the gas station exploded. I threw the car too hard and he is a mess.”

“I told you not to do anything until I got there.” He said in a calm voice.

“But. He was going to die in there!”

“It happens. We can't save everyone.”

“But I was here. If I knew what I was doing then this would not have happened.”

“Stop. Vesper just stop that. This is your first day out and you have no training for this. It is not your fault. You tried to save him. He would have died if you did nothing, but you selflessly threw yourself in there to save him, even though it could have killed you. Stop beating yourself up over this.”

I sat clutching my head. This felt like some sort of nightmare. His words did make sense and they were reassuring. Despite them I was starting to doubt myself, could I really do this? Did I even want to be a hero? I don't know.

'Look.' Said Sub I could feel her lounging about in there. Now where the fuck have you been! 'We can do this. Then again there is no choice here. If we want to not live in a cage we must act good. We have to be a so called Hero. It won't be that hard just follow the rules. This slob was lucky we even tried to save his ass. Now look he is not even dead yet so stop crying.'

“You think it will be alright?” I asked.

“I know.” Said Fire Chief standing over me. Sub stayed silent. He lifted me up and looked over the scene. “Could be worse. If he had been in there he would have been incinerated.”

“But look what I did to him.”

“He will likely have to be rehabilitated for over a year, but he will live. Medavac we got a survivor over here!”

A shadow drifted over us and I gazed up at the sleek ship overhead. It had a blunted front section and twin rotating turbines the size of a small car to the sides. There was a roaring engine on the back. Flaps opened and closed to direct the low flying hovercraft. The whole thing was painted white with red crosses at varying spots. Blacked out glass covered the cockpit. Slowly the drop ship lowered and a team of paramedics clad in heavy body armor rushed out. They looked like some sort of swat team.

“Clear out! We have sixty seconds before Mad Dogs converge on location!” Yelled one of the men.

“Go, go, go!” Roared back Fire Chief, grabbing me by the arm and dragged me inside the ship.

The hatch closed behind us and the ship lifted off with a jolt. I stumbled among the paramedics, trying not to get in the way. They stuffed syringes into the man and held gauze over his wounds to stop the bleeding. It was a mess and their whites were now red from the splashes and sprays. The turbulence did not help at all. I felt like I was going to be sea sick, how the hell do these guys have such steady hands? Something smashed into the side of the ship and a face imprint stuck through the metal. What the fuck was that?! Alarms started going off and I managed to get to the viewport to see what was going on out there. The... the wing. There was something on the wing!

There was a cat girl flailing about in the wind. She looked like a Nekomar from the game, but way more frenzied. Her long black fur and bronzed skin glistened in the sun. She was wearing a G-string and nipple tassels, six of them. She was sparkling... was that glitter? The feline terror had almost talon like claws and was gouging a hole in the engine. She ripped through metal with glee and started making a beeline for the window. Scary kitty! That is a bad kitty, don't you fucking do it!

“We got a fucking problem here! There is some crazy bitch on the wing!” I screamed.

The ship suddenly turned sideways and she grappled on for dear life. Slowly it rolled upside down and I watched as the beast lost her grip and plummeted towards the ground. Did she just die? I peered closer and saw that she had landed on a roof and was scampering back towards the slums. After a few moments the ship leveled out again and I lay on the floor. Fire Chief was standing over the cockpit chair. I uneasily got to my feet and stood beside him.

“What the fuck was that about?”

“That was one of Glitter Kitten's strippers.” Said Fire Chief looking at me.

“A stripper?”

“Yeah. Glitter Kitten runs the Slums. She is one of the worst monsters around here. Drugs, prostitution, you name it they peddle in it. Normally they are nocturnal and sleep during the day, but that explosion seemed to have pissed off a lot of them. We are just lucky Glitter Kitten did not show up.”

“Why?”

“She is a rank 6 and would have ripped us out of the sky.”

“Fuck me. That is one scary cat. Why is it called Mad Dogs if the leader is a cat?”

“When it was started the original leader was a werewolf. They called him Butch. He was killed during the fighting to retake the slums, we lost and created a neutral zone to keep them back.”

“We lost?”

“Yeah unfortunately their numbers were too great and if we killed off the sane leadership it would descend into anarchy and the whole city would be in danger. We found that out after Butch got taken down. In a way we are lucky Glitter Kitten is relatively peaceful.”

“Why is that?”

“She keeps all the others in line. It is the only reason they have not escalated into a full scale war. Before she took over they would actively recruit by kidnapping people and having radioactive animals bite them. They also breed quickly, since they have litters. Glitter Kitten is a first generation since the meltdown ten years ago.”

“Wait she is only ten years old?”

“No, that was when she got exposed. She is twenty six now. She has had four litters already.”

“How do you know that?”

“Social media, she was bragging about it and showing off her kittens.”

“They have internet down there?”

“She does. I can't say the same for most of the Slums.”

“Show me some pictures. I want to see. Are they cute?”

He tapped his helmet and after a few moments pictures appeared in my overlay. There was Glitter Kitten. How to describe her? Adorable, if I could slap a collar around her neck and tie a bow on her head I would keep her as my pet. She had short tabby hair, emerald cat eyes and huge pointed ears. Her little nose had whiskers and she had a long, short furred tail. She had six tits, each smaller than the last, but over all they were on the smaller side. The top was likely a B cup. She wore a rather revealing outfit, it was a feral leopard print bikini. At the least that is what she was wearing in that picture, I don't think that is actually her battle gear. The only thing that I do know though is that I want to dress her up in outfits. Glitter Kitten would look amazing in dresses. Catgirl maid would be awesome. She was only about five foot tall, which I guess is average, but my sense of average is a bit out of sorts as of late.

Oh, my god. Her kittens are so soft and fluffy! I just want to hug them. I want one... wonder if I could adopt one? I might end up kidnapping one of them. What the hell am I thinking this is a vicious hardcore criminal! The vengeance of a mother cat is well known. I once saw a house cat fend off a pack of rottweilers when they were going after her kittens. That was just a house cat imagine what a feline drug lord could do. I mean look at that picture she is grinning and doing a peace sign next to mountain of white powder... yeah that is definitely not flour. How the hell do you even get that much drugs?

I kept scrolling through her account. Glitter Kitten seems to be a doting parent and totes her children around bragging a lot. It looks like she has twenty or so of them. Damn slut learn to keep your legs shut. I wonder how much it costs to feed all those children? It is weird I almost feel that I could connect with her. She just has that real vibe. She has a shit ton of friends on here and her random banter seems playful. She types out Nyah and Meow, laughter is even Nyahahaha, does she talk like that? I might not be able to contain myself if I heard her. Is this kitten trying to steal my heart of something? If she was not a merciless, dope dealing, murderer I could probably be friends with her.

I glanced around the cockpit. There was a pinup girl calendar to the side. That was one sexy bitch... Miss Universe? Wait isn't that a Government sponsored Super Hero? There was a Hawaii lady with a grass skirt bobbing on the dash board. I grinned looking at the chair. It was filled with a stocky suit that looked like some sort of space marine. His visor had the jaw bone of a skull on it. He gave me a two fingered salute and kept chewing on his cigar. Don't you know that shit is bad for you? Stop being such a badass Medavac. I know you are a veteran and shit but come on. During my stay in the lab I looked up a few of the other heroes and this guy was some real deal shit. Medavac was a marine, not just that he was a combat medic who had toured all over the world with the Shrieking Banshees team. Most of their missions and stuff was classified, but what was public was pretty hardcore.

The reason why he got out was because of a near botched mission in Iraq. His ship got shot down and he had to hold out alone until help could come. When help did arrive he had killed more than fifty men, but his legs had been sheared off by a truck mounted minigun. He came back to the states, met Neon Nurse and she gave him new legs. Been here for five years now and is a big fan of Neon Nurse. She might be the reason he did not just go right back out there... Wait a minute is Neon Nurse making a reverse harem and is she trying to forcibly recruit me into it? That would explain a lot. Damn you Neon Nurse beating me to the punch! You can't have all the hunky men, you robo skank. What is this a harem anime and she is the main character? I better rip down all the capture flags I see otherwise I will end up as her personal pet.

“That was a nice rescue there Medavac.”

“Don't mention it.” He had a gruff voice, like he smoked three packs a day. “Those girls were a little cranky. Happens every time shit goes down to interrupt their cat naps.”

“Cat nap?”

“Well yeah they are up all night. It gets real rowdy on the full moon.”

“What happens then?”

“Every full moon they get hot and bothered, happens like clockwork with their menstrual cycles. They run wild in the streets, the whole lot of them. Glitter Kitten is the worst though. If she catches some poor bastard she will ride him so hard his dick falls off. That is assuming she did not just rip him to shreds in a blind mating frenzy.”

“Well that certainly sounds like a busy night.”

“Usually it is not that bad, well not since Glitter Kitten had her first litter. Ever since then she went all mama cat and rarely rampages. She was a real handful five years ago. Ran wild every night terrorizing anyone and everyone. She was the meanest, smarmiest little cunt I had ever seen and I have seen a lot. Now though the only thing that will get out that old hellcat is if you fuck with her kittens. But sometimes they get real excited about something. We have to scramble all of the patrols and hold them back or else they break into the rest of the city.”

“It gets that bad?”

“Oh yeah. If something fucks with Glitter Kitten shit goes down. Want me to drop you off at the Station, Chief?” Said Medavac.

“Yeah that should be fine. You ready to meet the rest of the team? Mecha Fairy.”

I looked over my hands. Blood still sticky. “Can I at the least wash up or something?”

He turned slightly. “You will be fine. They will respect you more like that. Better than a sparkling little fairy.”

“Hey was that a jab at my name?”

“Maybe.”

“Dude what the fuck?” I slapped Chief's back letting a chuckle loose. Medavac started laughing up a storm.

“Good, glad you started laughing.” I could tell he was grinning under that mask. Wait did he do that to make me feel better?

“Hey Chief I have been wondering. Why are you so nice to me? Up until now everyone has either been cruel or if they were kind it was only because they wanted something from me. But it is different with you, as far as I can tell you do not really want anything from me.”

“Think of it as an apology.”

“Apology? For what?”

“When you went missing me and the rest of the team turned over just about every rock in the city looking for you but we never did.”

I grabbed his hand. “Don't you go there. That was not your fault. I mean there was nothing you could have done.”

Medavac cut in. “No. We should have been there. We were busy with the Atomic Raiders and ended up getting there late, but that just sounds like an excuse. What happened to you never should have happened and we are willing to take responsibility.”

“I can't let you do that. It is not your fault some psycho Russian bitch kidnapped me.”

“No.” Said Chief. “We should have been there before you even had a chance to bumble into that shit.”

“Stop it!” What the hell. They did nothing wrong. It was me, I fucked up. I should have minded my own business and stayed out of it. Damn it are those tears? Stop being so responsible I might break down. “Stop pitying me. It is not your fault so drop it. I don't want some friendship based off of shame and pity, come on man. What is done is done and there is no changing it. You want to really help me then get to know me and stop looking down on me.”

Medavac chuckled swirling the cigar. “Pay up.”

Fire Chief grumbled and handed over a hundred dollar bill. “Hey what the fuck was that about?”

“We made a bet on how you would respond about this.” Grinned that grizzled bastard. “He thought you would start crying and be a little girl about it. I thought you would be a big girl.”

For some reason I felt a whole lot better and smirked. If I was with these guys I think I was going to be alright. “Well you both failed. It was a bit of both. So I will be taking that.”