Heroes Rising Fiction: Mythic Chase part 3

Part 3

“This is Quark, I have eyes on the hostages….yes, they have the whole town. That’s not saying much, this place is tiny…..I know, their lives matter.” Strange Quark clicked off the communicator and scanned the small town square with his three eyes. Flicking it back on he said, “I can sense thirty-eight civilians and ten enemies.”

Nova’s voice came through clearly, “Get those people to safety and bring in the enemies.”

“All by myself. Gee, I feel honored.” he snickered.

“You know we don’t have time to wait for other heroes!”

“You know I can do this alone, this is nothing more than a hostage situation. I’ll have those enemies going out of their heads in no time. They’ve never experienced the kind of strangeness I can give them.”

“Enough bluster, get this done!” Nova commanded.

“Gar’s right, you have no sense of humor.” Quark shut off the comm.

He stood inside an empty storefront looking at a small city park. They rounded the civilians up with a couple of people strutting by with rifles in their hands.

He noticed something out of the corner of his eye. “Okay, what are you doing?” Quark watched a police officer sneaking toward the town center. “Don’t play hero you idiot,” he muttered to himself. Just then one guard saw the cop. The officer pulled out his gun and fired another bullet deflected his bullet from one shooter on the roof, and then he went down. “They’re good shots...really good shots. No wonder the governor asked for BADGE assistance. Well, I guess that means I’m up. One more swig of sanity before I head out.” he grabbed a bottle and took a great gulp, set it down, and then walked right through the wall.

Strange Quarks body turned invisible as he altered the subatomic particles making up his form. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, especially Nova, but he was strutting as he considered how much fun this would be. In his mind he ran through all the ways he could embarrass these idiots.

A sharp pain struck him in the side and the world around him went gray, as though he couldn’t see color. An intense sense of panic and despair burned in him. He pulled the object out of his side and held an arrow, it vanished away like smoke.

“What the?”

Again, that same pain entered his head, and he wanted to scream. This was nothing like he had felt in his life. The agony couldn’t be described. Oddly, that powerful sense of hopelessness filled him. Somehow this was causing him pain, but it wasn’t physically harming him.

“LOOK! IT’SA CAPE!” One of the gun-toting people yelled and aimed.

Quark had enough sense left to use his supernatural ability to dodge the gunfire. They were incredible, but he was better. He moved with absolute perfection, shifting left and right, up and down, dodging incoming fire as he approached. With a well-placed punch, he sent the guard flying backward. Spinning around and coming down to one knee he dodged dozens of more shots from all over the rooftops. He grabbed the second guard and thrust him forward to take the bullets for him. They riddled the man in a matter of moments and his compatriots on the roofs stopped at the sight of killing their own.

Quark smiled at their momentary hesitation and thrust his hands out. A wave of subatomic energy burst forth and their guns evaporated.

Letting his guard down when he saw the police rushing in to arrest the remaining enemies, Quark looked up just in time to see a man on the rooftop, dressed in black, aiming with a golden bow. “How does he still have a weapon?” Strange Quark manipulated time and space to slow everyone down. He reached out to atomize the bow when the unthinkable happened, the arrow was let loose as though time were moving normally. It stabbed Quark in the chest and he went down. The subatomic blast hit the building the archer stood on and it crumbled.

“Get him on a stretcher!” An officer yelled as he approached Quark. “It will be okay. We have you, the hostages are safe.”

Quark never knew when he fell to the ground or when they put him on the stretcher. He reached over to the medic nearest him and weakly said, “BADGE...take me to BADGE.”