Disclaimer: The name Ken McKay belongs to Robert Frezza. The name Kane Fletcher belongs to Johanna Linsay. The name John Hawk belongs to Simon Green. The character of Roger McClintock and the Bronze Battalion belong to David Weber and John Ringo. All Sailor Moon references and characters belong to Naoko Takeuchi, TOEI, Kodansha & Pioneer.
"Damien, please!" she shouted. "No more! I surrender."
Kane joined the party, placing a hand each on Ken and Hawk. "Whatever you do, Hawk, don't drop the kid."
"Would you all stop calling me a-" That was all Damien got out before the world folded over on itself, shook everything up like snow in a snow globe and then threw the party down like water balloons. Naturally, Damien landed on his broken hand. It wasn't pain so much as the Gates of Hell opening and plunging Damien's hand into a pit of burning brimstone. Everything went black.
"...do anything until he wakes up." Until who wakes up? Me? Am I sleeping? Damien's left hand twinged, the pain almost making him blackout again.
"I know that. So, wake him up." Fuck! The hell happened to my... hand...
"If I wake him up, he'll kick my ass." ...hand. Mrs. Flannigan broke my hand on her face.
"Pansy." So, that must mean-
"What did you-"
"No fucking way!" The others fell mute. Damien was lying on the floor of a long windowless room. Shadeless lights hung down the center of the ceiling made the white-walled room glow almost painfully bright. He struggled into a sitting position, cradling his hand to his chest and shaking off the last of the fatigue.
"Looks like Sleeping Beauty is awake," said Hawk from the opposite end of the room. "Now, we just got to wait for Princess." He nodded toward the still unconscious Roger who was also lying on the floor.
Damien did his best to glare at everyone in the room, including the snoozing Roger. "Do I really have to repeat myself again?" he asked with a dead calm.
"No, you don't," said Hawk taking out a pack of cigarettes and offering one to Damien. Damien shook his head. Hawk shrugged and lit up. "To answer one of your easier questions, yes, we're all friends, but no we didn't used to be. Our gangs really are at odds, but we try to minimize the damage they cause to each other. Axe is a little harder to control than the girly gangs of my friends. Axe is a nationwide-"
"I know what Axe is and you're avoiding the real question."
Hawk took a long drag off his cigarette. "Right. Get to the point?" Damien nodded once. "Two years ago, the Smoking Guns, the Rodents and the Bronze Battalion decided to have a strongest takes all rumble. One of my guys heard about it and I didn't see anything but one big rival coming at my boys once the battle was over. So, we planned to launch a surprise ambush toward the end of the battle, catch everyone unaware.
"But it didn't turn out as I'd hoped. My boys got itchy for some fighting and I couldn't hold them back. So, Axe was officially in the dominance battle for one measly school in the Greater Metro area. Sometime during the fight, which I'll point out was not on school grounds, a group of teachers showed up, lead by none other than sweet little Ms. Artisa. She walks up bold as brass and demands that we drop our weapons and surrender ourselves to the proper authority. No sooner do the words leave her mouth when someone, I don't remember who anymore, tries to hit her with bat or something, but the hit doesn't connect. The bat explodes. It just explodes without touching her."
"Ken, get your butt back here," shouted Kane. "Roger's awake!"
Perfect timing. Ken pushed his way over to Roger's side. He placed a hand on Roger's chest and one on Roger's forehead. "You might feel some pressure. Yadda yadda yadda... This might sting a little," Ken muttered. His hands were enveloped in a green light. The light flowed into Roger's body, making his veins shine and his face contort into a mask of agony, but Roger bit back on the scream dying to rip itself from his throat. After a full two minutes, the light died and Ken released Roger.
Damien couldn't stop a comment from slipping. "It seems to be the only thing I can say anymore, but what the Hell is going on?"
Roger sat up, visibly shaking off the effects of the green light. "I really hate that." Then, he looked at Damien. "Long story short and in layman terms, Damien Hellspawn, we're superheroes."
Superheroes... Ri-ight. "Don't fuck with me."
"I'm not. 'Superhero' is the best term to describe what we are. During that first fight with Artisa something happened to each of us, a barrier in our souls shattered and gave us access to specific powers. We've decided to use these powers to protect the world from things like Artisa."
"Powers and things? Real informative there, Rex."
Roger closed his eyes for a second then pointed to the end of the room Hawk had previously been standing. Damien looked, and then wished he hadn't. At the end, there were people, many mutilated people. There was a small girl with an arm hanging off and an old woman who was missing half of her face and a man who was so bloated he'd turned blue and his eyes were pools of blood. So, many more. They were standing still, silently. Damien closed his eyes, shuttering.
"This is one of my powers," said Roger, as if there weren't a whole lot of dead people standing in the same room. "I have control over the dead. Any dead, but I specialize in souls and ghosts. With this power, I sealed that auditorium off from the rest of the school. I used the souls those who suffered violent death to surround the room and keep everything out out and everything in in. This type of soul is very jealous of the living. That is why Kane fought so hard to keep you awake. If you had lost your hold on your body-if you had fainted-those souls would have pulled your soul from your body to join them. You would have died."
"Why use such a dangerous technique?" Damien kept his eyes closed. He did not want to know if the dead continued to quietly watch him.
"The only other choice is to hope no one wanders in on our fight and to hope that our fight stays contained within the confines of the battleground. Hope is not something I'm willing to trust so strongly." Damien nodded. It all made sense as long as he could ignore his sense of reality. "Now, Ken here is capable of fixing that mangled hand of yours, if you allow him to."
The subject change was a little too difficult for Damien's confused mind to follow. "Uh... Fix my hand?"
Ken held out his hand. "Yeah, fix your hand. Just like I just fixed Roger's cracked skull, broken rib, fractured collarbone and various spots of internal bleeding. It will hurt like hell and damnation but you can punch anyone you like with it when I'm done."
"I could punch you."
Ken winced. "Sure, anywhere but in the face. I can't heal myself and Hawk still has the hardest punch I've ever felt."
He could continue to deny reality and let the little punk fill him full of that sick green light or he could... He could what? Walk away? Not likely. Damien placed his hand in Ken's. What was it about holding the hand of another guy that just made you want to hit something real hard?