CHAPTER FOUR

Save the Girl, Save the World, Part 2

Death by free-fall would have been a lame end for Sam if it wasn’t for the arm that wrapped around his waist. Seconds later, Thunder dropped him on the asphalt a good twenty yards away from where the terror was kneeling.

As Sam watched the horror struggling against the crackling energy crisscrossing its wounded body—its long, battered limbs flailing wildly while its sucker of a mouth dripped dark ichor down on the asphalt—he wondered what kind of unbearable pain it must have experienced to cause such devastation to this part of the city.

Because that’s what horrors were, monsters born from the unimaginable grief, pain, and suffering of a broken mind that belonged to a gifted who’d been blessed by the gods. Their shattered psyches gave form to horrors whose first instinct was to spread their pain to others.

“My Static Cage won’t hold it for long,” Thunder said.

Thunder wore a new costume; one Sam hadn’t seen before. It was a white, sleeveless one-piece suit with a high collar. She’d paired the suit with golden bangles on her arms and golden Amazonian sandals on her feet. Part of the suit had been ripped open around the waist, revealing a stomach with pale flesh and rock-hard abs. Several electric lines zipped across her well-toned arms and legs.

“Whoa,” Sam breathed.

Thunder glanced down at him with eyes alight with power and a smile playing on her lips.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” she teased. “It’s time for round two.”

Sam pointed out to her that he was dying. She told him he wasn’t.

“Your wounds are healing on their own,” she said matter-of-factly. “Haven’t you noticed?”

It was only then that Sam realized that the excruciating pain he’d been experiencing in his back and sides had leveled down to a dull throb. Blood caked his clothes, so it was a little hard to notice that his wounds had also closed up.

Sam brushed fingers against the newly formed scar tissue on his right side. “How in blazes...”

“Check your status,” Thunder encouraged. “Maybe you’ve awakened a new power.”

“Um, I don’t know how to do that,” Sam admitted.

Thunder rolled her eyes at him.

“I can’t help you anymore. The—” It seemed she was having a hard time saying the name of the system she’d passed onto him. “The thing won’t let anyone talk about it. Not even former trainees like myself.”

Sam was just about to say not even being able to say the name was a little over the top, but then he realized that such an amazing system would need exactly this level of security or everyone would know about it by now.

“You can’t even give me a hint?” he asked.

“You’ve played video games before, right?” she guessed. “It’s a similar concept.”

“Well, if it’s like an RPG game, then I should have an interface...only there isn’t any,” Sam mused.

Then he remembered the HP bar that had appeared in his mind’s eye. Inspiration struck. Sam shut his eyes and willed the system menu to appear before him. A second or two later, a glowing blue circle appeared floating in the air.

Sam reached out and pressed it with his index finger.

A radial menu appeared before him. It was quite similar in style to an old game he used to play. Several options were listed on it. Most were grayed out except for [STATUS], which was all Sam needed at the moment.

He launched the [STATUS] window and scrolled to the bottom where his power was listed.

ACTIVE: Healing Hand (ζ) PASSIVE: Regeneration (ζ)

“You’re right,” he said, dumbfounded.

Sam recalled the notification that had popped up right after he’d invested all his points in Constitution. He hadn’t had time to read it, but perhaps it had notified him of this new power.

There was a [?] mark next to [Regeneration (ζ)]. Sam clicked on it, and a smaller status window for this new power appeared.

POWER: Regeneration LEVEL: Zeta (ζ) DESCRIPTION This passive ability was brought to life by a hero’s choice to prioritize expanding his life force over all other considerations. The power will remain active for as long as the hero continues to draw breath. EFFECT 1: Any reduction to the hero’s health will regenerate over time. This includes external wounds, broken bones, and internal injuries. The speed of regeneration varies per type of injury. Regeneration’s capabilities will increase as power reaches a higher level. EFFECT 2: Accumulated fatigue will lessen over time. However, the hero must remain still for at least thirty seconds for fatigue to lessen. EFFECT 3: All poison and other debilitating powers’ effects are weakened and will disappear faster than normal. WARNING: Regeneration will halt while the hero accumulates damage. Continuous damage received may threaten the hero’s life. Also, using healing powers on others will temporarily halt self-regeneration.

Sam’s eyes got wider and wider the more he read about his new power. “Is this for real?” Despite being right in front of him, he couldn’t believe the floating notification window because conventional wisdom claimed gaining new powers was impossible.

“Sam,” Thunder called in an urgent tone, forcing his attention back onto her. She pointed forward, and Sam followed her line of sight to the terror, which had finally gotten back on its feet.

The terror’s gray-skinned, tall, emaciated form reminded Sam somewhat of an undressed store mannequin if such things could be possessed by demons. The face, though—nothing of the human it once was could be seen in that monstrous face, with its three pairs of eyes trained on Sam and Thunder.

“You need to heal up fast,” Thunder said. “I’ll need your support to slay this bastard because I’m not at a hundred percent myself.”

“Lucky for us that horror isn’t either,” Sam observed.

Dark ichor leaked out of the terror’s many wounds. Broken blades and arrow shafts poked out of its flesh.

Sam tried to stand, but his legs were still wobbly. All he could manage to do was take a knee.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take,” Sam admitted.

“Figure it out,” Thunder insisted. “Then follow me.”

They locked eyes once more and Sam could see hope reflected in her gaze, the hope that he had the potential to do the impossible.

Thunder raised her hand.

Lightning streaked down from the orange-tinged sky and exploded into her open palm. It reshaped itself into a lightning bolt—about five feet of pure energy shaped like a jagged lance, the kind Lord Zeus held in the paintings that depicted him laying waste to hordes of horrors.

“Okay...that’s cool,” Sam said.

“I’m an alpha-level hero, Sam,” Thunder said, hefting the lightning bolt over her shoulder. “Everything about me is cool.”

She was gone in a flash and streaking across the stretch of land between her and the alpha-level terror. Their opening clash sent a shockwave back to where Sam sat, causing goosebumps to rise over his skin.

In his mind, he wondered if Triple-A would help him become that strong.

Maybe if you trained for a hundred years… Nope, not even then…

“Is this a joke?” Sam frowned. “Who the hell are you?”