Heroes of Tomorrow!

"I'm not dead....although I wish I was.", Vinny replied. "I was blessed by a gypsy with an immortal life. I was seventy at the time so fifteen years ago. Being impervious to harm isn’t all that useful when you have pre-existing conditions. I can’t die, I just fall into unconsciousness.”

“That’s……”, Nathan started to say before Jane cut him off.

“Horrible, I know.”, Jane interrupted. “So Nathan, how did you get your odd gift?”

"Not as cool as getting blessed by a gypsy, I was running an op while in Russia when they blew up a rector that was under about a mile of rock and I..."

Just as he was about to go into the finer points of going through a Philadelphia experiment the wall blew in as a monster ripped its way in and ripped apart the store owner and tried to make its way to the group.

The monster was a hybrid metal humanoid that stood at about 9 feet. It appeared to be made of reinforced airplane parts. It's upper torso looked like an airplane jet, with huge spinning metal blades. It had two long, solid arms. It's right arm ended in an iron fist, with huge fingers. It's left hand looked like a small jet engine. Its sentient eyes glowed bright red.

Its hardened metallic arms, easily went through the concrete, grabbing the shop owner. With its right hand, the monster grabbed the shop keepers whole body, holding him up in the air. It then pointed its left arm at the shop keepers back. With what sounded like an airplane taking off, the monsters left arm glowed red and a vortex of wind shot out, blasting the mans insides into a red mist. The machine dropped the man to the floor. The man had a two foot hole where his internal organs used to be.

It turned to the group of random semi-heroes.

"What the hell is th-" Jack shouted but was deafened by the metallic roar that emanated out of the machine.

It bashed its huge body inside the building, with slabs of concrete falling right off of it.

Nathan Hale whipped out his P90 and opened fire. The bullets bounced off the machines armor plating in a shower of sparks.

The machine roared again and the massive turbine in the middle of its body started glowing.

"Get to the cars!" Vinny shouted, "Hurry befo-"
The machine let out a blast of wind from its torso, throwing Vinny through the window outside to where the cars were parked.

"Vinny!" Jane shouted.

"Oh shit!" Jack responded, grabbing Nathan's trenchcoat. "Let's move, move, MOVE!"

Phill had been waiting a few hours now. The only thing that happened so far was the man destroying the car. He caught the name "Mikhael" as the man went inside with the others.

"Wow..... not as exciting as I thought it would be." Phill said. *Yawn*

Then he heard someone scream "What the hell is th-" Which was cut off by the sound of an engine. Phill then noticed a hole in the building. "I must have missed something..." he aid hurriedly as he jumped off the building to give the mysterious people some aid.

As he ran toward the door from which they entered, everyone came running out. No one payed any attention to him as they were running for their lives.

Then a huge robot-looking creature burst through the wall next to him.

Phill instantly took to flight, and called upon his power of fire. His fists burst into flames and he came crashing down onto the robot.

He knocked the robot off balance, but the pile of metal recovered quickly. Phill just stood there examining what damage he had done. He realized that all he had done with that little move was leave two little black marks on the creature chest.

Someone behind him screamed, "What the hell are you doing!!!!!! Get the hell out of there!!!!"

Not thinking twice, Phill jumped into the vehicle, still throwing some fire at the robot as he entered.

Vinny spat on the ground and lay there for a moment trying to realize what exactly just happened. Something hit him. He was outside. His chest hurt.

Everyone was running outside towards him. Something was going on….but what?

After that, something crashed through the rest of the building, causing it to collapse into a pitiful heap. Vinny jumped up, sat back down to rest from the effort, was helped up by Jane and got into his car.

Nathan jumped in the passenger seat and started a constantly changing array of guns out of the window till the car started pulling away. The monster than proceed to bound after them, slaughtering dozens of civilians as it followed them.

"Any one have any idea how to loose this thing."

"Do you have a phone?", Vinny asked. "I might be able to call a few of the old League of Superheroes."

The League of Superheroes, in its day was among the greatest super team ever to exist. It was founded by Captain Valliant, and consisted of The Nocturnal Man, The Inhabitant, Exodus, and Lady Isabelle of Florence.

Vinny though for a moment. “Never mind. The only good one of the team was The Inhabitant, and he died when a building collapsed on him. The others are either dead or in a coma.”

“Try the subway.”, Jane said suddenly. “He won’t be able to make it through the gate.”

The car raced down the somewhat empty streets, with the...thing following close behind. Jane floored the gas pedal, but the car simply couldn't shake off its pursuer. Loud thuds could be heard as each footstep hit the ground.

"Nathan, Vinny...any ideas?", Jane asked. There wasn't an entrance to the subway on this block, and the thing would catch them if they turned around.

"It's gaining on us.", Nathan said, and then "It's...gone?"

Something heavy fell right in front of the car. "It's in front of us!", Jane shouted, turning the wheel sharply, but to no avail. The car was hit, and knocked into a vicious barrel roll.

The car eventually stopped rolling, and lay on its roof. Jane looked up with blurred eyes. There was a hole in the windshield; Vinny wasn't wearing his seat belt. She looked over at Nathan, who was bleeding from his nose, but no other injuries.

She checked herself. A few nicks and cuts, but she was alright. Maybe a concussion and her shirt was slightly torn, revealing a bit of cleavage. Overall, she felt horrible. She was alive and mostly unhurt though

She struggled against her seatbelt, but it was broken and jammed. She bit through it, and crawled through the shattered windshield, where she saw the creature pick Vinny up off the ground and inspect him.

“Put him down!”, Jane shouted, reaching her hand up in a vain attempt to stop the creature.

Nathan came too upside down suspended by his seat belt which he quickly cut away with a knife he had taken from his sleeve. He then fell on his head.

"No problems, just a gravity check, and its still working'

As he pulled himself out of the car window, he grabbed the bag he had left in it and tossed a gun at Jane, not caring if she grabbed it and started unloading into the beast which had given up trying to tear apart Vinny and had dropped him to the ground

Vinny fell heavily on the ground, a siren in his head blazing bloody murder. He went through the windshield, and bits of crushed glass irritated his eyes. His eyes watered, trying to remove the foreign particles, but nothing really happened.

The machine stood over Vinny, and looked down at him with mild interest. Before it could do anything else, it was hit by a tank shell and knocked into a building.

“Move it men!”, someone shouted, standing on a tank. “Surround and capture!”

Vinny looked up. It was Captain Valliant, except he was cryogenically frozen over fifty years ago. He wore a red beret, and carried boomerang in the shape of a ‘V’.

“When the Captain throws his mighty V,
Faster than the eye can see,
Those who wish him ill shall fall,
Faster than a cannonball!”, Vinny recited, remembering when he fought along Captain Valliant in Vietnam. Now that he thought about it, the catchphrase was rather dull.

“We need those people as hostages!”, Captain Valliant shouted, pointing at Vinny, Jane, and Nathan. “For the Glory of Russia!”

"What?", Vinny shouted. "You traitor! You Communist dog!"

"Vinny?", the Captain asked, jumping off the tank. "In Vietnam? During Project Varsae? The 'V's align!"

The Captain fell to the ground holding his head, while armoured men ran towards the overturned car.

Jane was pulled from the vehicle and carried away, while Nathan struggled and was knocked unconscious with the butt of a gun.

Vinny was easy to move, as he couldn't move.


Jane awoke several hours later in a cold, metal cell with The Saint. The cell directly across from her was empty, but she could hear Vinny complaining about something a few cells over.

"Ugh.....", The Saint said, putting his hand on the back of his head. When he drew it back, blood pooled in his palm. Jane's eyes widened, her nostrils flared, and her mouth watered.

"You alright?", he asked, and those were the last words he spoke before Jane was upon him. He didn't even have a chance to scream.


Jane wiped her mouth, and flicked off a chunk of The Saint off that had fallen on her arm. What used to be The Saint was now a mangled corpse of torn flesh and bone.

She had found a Beretta and no less than eight grand on his person. Jane gnawed on the metal bars until they bend and broke off, and was about to leave the building when she remembered Lucky Jack, Vinny, and Nathan. Those other people could probabily get themselves out.

"Uhh, where am I?" Jack's headache was killing him.

"We're in a prison." a familiar voice said.

"Wait, who are you? Where are you?" Jack's eyes adjusted to the darkness and he could make out a dusty and torn trenchcoat.

"I'm Nathan Hale. Remember? We were attacked by that robot and we tried to escape to the cars." Nathan was tapping his fingers on the metal cot. "Then some hired Russians captured us and the robot. They knocked us out with drugs, which would explain your headache."

"Aw man, what's going to happen to us?" Jack said, sitting up.

"Well, if they wanted to kill us, they would have already. I think our powers make us useful to them. They may try to bargain with us, interrogate us, or ...." Nathan grew silent.

"Or what? Or what?!" Jack said just as a faint buzzing sound echoed down the hallway. It sounded like a buzz-saw.

"They experiment on us." Nathan said somberly.

"We have to get out of here man." Jack said, as he paced the cell.

"It's no use. There's Russian shock troopers all over this compound. Plus that V guy is with Vinny somewhere. I doubt we're getting out anytime soon."

"Sooner than you think." A cold but soft voice said from the hall.

Jane was standing in front of the bars of the cell. Her mouth and dress were stained with fresh blood which was a stunning contrast to the innocence in her eyes and posture.

"How did you escape?!" Jack said incredulously. Jane freaked him out.

"Like this," Jane said, opening her jaw impossibly wide. She easily crunched through the solid metal bars. Cracking her neck back, she spit out the crumpled steel into a corner.

"Here," Jane said, tossing a Beretta to Nathan. "I got it off of a ... a guard."

Nathan eyed her suspiciously. Jane cast her eyes downward.

"Well, we should get out of here then. Form up on me."

"Wait!" Jane suddenly shouted. "Not without Vinny!"

Nathan walked out of the cell slowly with the gun drawn and then let him self drop to the floor, as Jack moved to help him back up Nathan started speaking very low.

"Watch yourself around that bitch, she just killed the saint, the pimp gangsta lord."

"Wait, how the hell do you know that" he whispered back as he pulled Nathan to his feet.

"This is his gun, and the fact that his ghost is trying to tell me to 'Bust a cap in her ass', I thought he was telling me to get it on for a minutes till he started trying to strangle her"

"We need to get out of here, I am not sure if following the homicidal bitch who ate the saint alive is a good Idea"

"Wait, she ate him"

"Yep, what do you want to do"

"Vinny.", Captain Valliant whispered, standing below him. Vinny was suspended from his ankles over a deep pool of water. "Vinny, I....need your help."

"No! I don't need your help.", Captain Valliant interrupted himself. "Vinny! You could have saved me! Just reached out and grabbed my cape! It's your fault I fell!"

"It's not your fault though...if I hadn't tried to grab my boomerang...", he interrupted himself again. "Vinny...I'm sorry...."

"...that I have to do this!", he shouted, pressing a button. Vinny was dunked into the water and held there for a long while, before he was pulled back out gasping and sputtering.

"Help me Vinny...", the Captain whispered, weeping.

Mikhael felt hung over. He woke up slowly, and looked around.

He was in a cell?

It didn't matter. No cell could contain him, but there was the matter of the guard at the nearby door...

He saw his opportunity when the guard turned around to make sure that Mikhael was still there.. A combat knife was in a sheath on the man's vest.

Mikhael dematerialized the knife, and it appeared in his hands. Faster than the guard could blink, Mikhael had already unsheathed the knife and was behind him, with the knife slicing across the guard's throat.

He checked around, making sure there were no witnesses, and there were none.

There was, however, a large door leading down a hallway. He checked over the guard's belongings, taking his sidearm and his Security Card. Mikhael cleaned the knife on the guard's clothes, and began walking down the hallway.

"I don't think we stand much of a chance without her." Jack whispered to Nathan as they walked down the prison corridors.
"We don't stand much of a chance with her! The Saint won't shutup until she's dead."

Suddenly rounding a corridor, a lone guard bumped into Jane. He only had enough time to garble something unintelligible in Russian before Jane literally bit his head off.

"If you want to try and kill her, go ahead." Jack said sarcastically, picking up the guards' bloody sub machine gun.

Jane stopped moving. "Vinny is close by. I know it." She suddenly turned left into another corridor. At the end was a reinforced steel door and a retina scanner.

"Think you can bite through that, freaky chick?" Jack said, nervously scanning behind them.

"Better than that." Jane said as she started to cough. The cough turned into a guttural sound as her jaw expanded and she threw up a a small pool of blood and body parts. Picking up an intact eyeball from the puddle, she placed it against the scanner where a reassuring green light blinked and the door slid away.

"You know, besides from a few minor personality quirks, you are my absolute dream girl." Jack said sarcastically as he stepped over the mess into the new corridor.

"The League of Superheroes no longer exists, Mattias.", Vinny said, still not free from the water torture chamber. "The blood is rushing to my head....can I be let down?"

Captain Valliant pressed a button, and the rope holding Vinny up dropped. Vinny fell heavily on the ground, where soldiers moved in and tied him up.

"That's not necessary!", the Captain said, then changing his mind shouted, "Tie him tighter!"

"Mattias...what happened to you?", Vinny asked. "What happened after your comm tech died?"

"The Inhabitant? He was murdered. Our communications building was bombed.", Captain Valliant replied. "The Nocturnal Man and Exodus went after the group responsible, but they were never heard from again."

Captain Valliant paused. "Project Varsae, the pinnacle moment in the Vietnam war. We found nuclear reactors along the Ho Chi Mihn Trail, and Lady Isabelle of Florence and I went to deactivate them. You should know what happens next, Vinny. The 23rd Allied division, your unit, assisted in their capture."

"You fell in the reactor core….”, Vinny whispered. "Your boomerang was shot out of your hand and into the core, and you fell in after it."

"You pushed me! You could have saved me!", the Captain shouted, then cooling down a bit, said, “I fell….”

“She never gave up on me though. She pulled me from the core and froze me so that I could be fixed. She died from radiation poisoning, but was frozen so she could be preserved.”, the Captain finished with tears in his eyes. With a final motion, he gestured to the back of the room, where the Lady was suspended in a tank of ice.

"I'm sorry Mattias....", Vinny said, but the Captain took no heed. He sat limply on the ground crying into his hands.

"Dream girl?", Jane asked. "My mouth isn't the only place where I have teeth."

Nathan moved first, sliding along the wall, followed by Jack then Jane.

"Who are you following?", Jane asked. "I think we've been here before."

Nathan moved away for a little while, and started talking to someone who Jane couldn't see.

There was a low crackle, and the intercom sprang to live with white noise. Eventually a voice voice came through the static.

"Kshzzzzzt...I see you.", came a dull whisper and static prevailed once more.

"What was that?", Jane asked.

"It was probabily nothing. There are security cameras all around us.", Nathan replied. "Someone is playing a joke on us."

Jack bent down to fix his shoe, and a metallic arm burst through the wall right above him. If he had been standing a few seconds longer he would have been killed. The arm reached around and found Jane, and pulled her through the hole.

Mikhael found a T-junction in the hallway, and was trying to decide whether to continue forward or veer left when he heard a loud crashing noise coming from the latter of the two.

He quickly turned the corner, intent on finding who or what was ruining his day, and promptly kill it.

What he found were 2 surprised-looking men and a gigantic hole in the wall.

Judging that these men weren't guards from the lack of a uniform, Mikhael tried to collect himself for a moment, and then asked "Are either of you two gentlemen aware of what the HELL is going on here?"

“So what are we going to do now, Captain?”, Vinny asked, tied up on the ground.

“I’m going to let you go.”, Valliant replied, moving over and cutting the ropes with his boomerang. “Now go before I change my mind…”

“Thank you.”, Vinny whispered, and tried to run away but only managed a slow wobble.

The Captain stood still for a moment, started fidgeting from one foot to the other, and finally shouted, “He’s escaping! Shoot him!”

And they tried, but Vinny ducked behind a nearby console station.

"You. You have been drugged? Now you have given me my chance. Your powers are no longer YOUR powers. All I am leaving you with is the power to create and manipulate flames."

Phill awoke with a shudder.

"What the hell just happened....."

He felt woozy and disoriented.

"Why am I in a cell? Anyways, this will be a piece of cake."

Phill tried to turn into his demon form for some extra strength, but nothing happened. He tried everything he knew he could do. Then he remembered his dream.

"He took everything back. I was vulnerable and he took EVERYTHING!!!!!"

Phill screamed for what seemed like forever, but was only a couple of minutes.

"Wait. I still have my fire......"

Phill instantly melted the bars of his cell. He looked around only to find already broken cells.

"I must have woken up a bit late. I should probably try to find everyone."

Phill left the holding room, walking past multiple mutilated bodies. Then he saw two men staring at a hole in the wall.

He walked up to them casually and asked "What happened?"

Bullets pinged off the metal surfaces around him, and he got hit in the right leg by a ricochet. Vinny winced at the pain, but kept a straight face.

Vinny wondered where Jane was. She couldn’t be left alone too long, she might do something rash.

“I accidently killed The Saint.”, Jane said casually, stepping into his view and sitting down behind the console.

“How the hell are you here?”, Vinny shouted, standing up and realizing that he wasn’t being shot at any more. The robot had broken into the main facility and was attacking Captain Valliant and his troops.

The odd thing was that it now only had one hand.

“We should go.”, Jane said first. She helped him to his feet, and they limped towards some double doors nearby.

Jane helped move Vinny through the double doors and into the hall, where they were met with two choices, left and right. Vinny sat down for a moment and pulled the bullet off his leg.

Besides the fighting in the next room, there was silence. Except for a tapping sound. Tap-Tap-taptaptap.

“What’s that noise?”, Vinny asked, noticing that Jane was paler than usual. Tap-Tap-taptaptap.

“Vinny….save me.”, she whispered as a man turned the corner. He carried a crossbow tipped with silver in his hands. A silver ring on his middle finger glittered softly in the light. His greatcoat barely touched the ground, but through the folds of cloak golden armor could be seen.

“I have you now, Avnas.”, he announced to Jane, pulling the trigger. The bolt was nothing more than a silver streak. Jane closed her eyes.

Vinny grabbed Jane’s leg and pulled her off balance, as the bolt barely cut across her shoulder.

As the hunter reloaded, Vinny got to his feet in to be shot in the chest. The bolt splintered against Vinnys chest and fell uselessly against the ground.

“Barbatos?! I will destroy you!”, the hunter shouted, dropping the crossbow and pulling a knife. With motions that Vinny could hardly see, the knife sliced across his upper body no less than twenty-four times.

Vinny watched as his shirt fell in pieces off his body revealing a lightly muscled body. Small red lines trailed where the blade had touched his skin, with a red splotch where the bolt hit him. The hunter looked down at his short sword. Golden hilt, silver blade….a standard monster hunting weapon. Why didn’t it work against this monster?

“I liked that shirt…”, Vinny said with a scowl. The man was about to say something when Vinny launched him off the ground with an uppercut. Blood sprayed where the man’s nose broke. The knife was knocked several feet away.

“How dare you strike me?”, he shouted, getting back on his feet. “I am Kao of the Knights Templar!”

“And I’m about to kick your ass!”, Vinny shouted back, slamming his fist into Kao’s chest, only to hit armor.

Vinny hand stuck into it. Despite his best efforts, he could not dislodge his wrist from the man’s armor.

“Wax armor.”, Kao told Vinny. “Nothing that pierces it can escape.”

Vinny smiled. Kao’s eyes widened as he realized that he was at Vinny’s mercy. Vinny proceeded to bloody up his other hand with Kao’s face.

Vinny eventually dragged the man over to the knife and cut his hand out of the wax.

The man lay dizzy and disorientated on the ground while Vinny scraped the rest of the wax off his hand.

“Barbatos, you are indeed a worthy adversary.”, Kao said, getting to his feet and stumbling slightly. “I pray that we meet in battle again, only I will be victorious!”

He had walked over to Vinny during this conversation. Instead of saying anything, Vinny struck the man in the face one last time. He fell heavily on the ground.

"Are you alright?", he asked Jane.

"F..fine thanks.", she replied sheepishly.

Vinny was shaking visibly when he helped Jane to her feet.

“Vinny? What’s wron-“, Jane tried to ask but he collapsed. “Vinny!”

“My heart…”, Vinny winced, clutching his chest. “I’m…having a heart attack..”

Jane stood still for a few minutes while Vinny squirmed on the ground. She glanced at her nails, at the few new cuts on her body, and the small wound on her shoulder. She eventually wrapped Koa’s greatcoat around herself and rubbed her face into the soft, soft fur. Chinchilla? Maybe. Expensive? Heck yes.

After awhile Vinny stopped twitching and lay still. He wasn’t breathing. Jane looked around, and eventually found a rolling chair in an office. She heaved Vinny’s corpse into it and rested for a moment.

After her rest, she pushed the chair with Vinny in it around the building until Vinny started moving again.

“About time you woke back up. Seriously, too much effort and you pass out for long periods of time.”, Jane teased. “I’ve been lost for the last ten minutes. Where are we?”