Mort

The day started like any other. We all got up, they made their breakfast while I did my perimeter search. Then I helped with cleaning up afterwards, and we were just getting ready to go out and grind. The only thing that was strange was that I kept catching Teddy staring at me. It kind of weirded me out. Why was he staring? Did I have a gnome booger hanging out of my nose that I didn’t know about?

I should be used to people staring at me. After all, Wood stares at me all the time. But I think he expects me to grow a second head, or a third arm.

Or fangs.

Whatever.

Just as I was about to ask why Teddy was staring at me, I saw his eyes flicker white, and then he shook his head. Eyes flashing white usually meant that you were looking at your stats, or looking through your inventory.

Teddy looked straight at Ellie. “The population just went up by nine.”

Did Teddy keep his stats box up all the time? I mean, how else would he have even seen a population tick?

New quest! Came the irritatingly, enthusiastic voice of the radio announcer AI. Save the cheerleader!

I looked over at Teddy, and we both had the same lopsided grins on our faces.

“Save the cheerleader, save the world!” We crowed in unison.

Ellie looked from me to Teddy, and then over to Wood. “Please tell me you guys aren’t going to go all—”

Just then Oz came scrambling through the door with vampire speed. His face was alight with a mischievous glow. “Did you guys hear that Heroes reference?”

Teddy, Wood, and I all nodded and cried “Yes!” at the same time.

Ellie stood there, shaking her head, “This is the worst thing, ever…”

“Worse than giant spiders?” Wood asked as he passed by her to go out the door.

“Worse than zombies?” ask Teddy as he followed his brother out the door.

I looked up at her, “Worse than you killing Cheryl?”

Her eyes got very angry, very quickly. “Cheryl had turned into a freaking banshee, Mort! She was trying to kill us with her God awful singing.”

I pulled my frying pan out of my inventory and started for the door to follow my friends. “Keep telling yourself that, old-lady killer.”

“He kind of has a point.” I heard Oz say as I walked down the steps from the pizzeria.

“You don’t get to talk anymore,” Ellie snapped.

I looked back over my shoulder to see Oz’s expression turn completely aghast.

I snickered to myself as I rushed to catch up with my two other friends. It wasn’t like us to rush off like this, especially when we knew it was a trap. But, I know I really wanted to see what they were going to do with this whole Heroes thing.

I remembered when the show came out when we were little kids, and we just worshiped it. Not so much the second season, and definitely not the third.

And don’t even get me started on that reboot season. That was just…

Argh!

But the first season of heroes… that was perfect television. It was addictive, it took its time, it had the best villain.

Sylar.

Well, the origin of his name was a little lame. Interesting, but lame. But in that first season, that’s the only thing that was lame. Flying senators, an indestructible cheerleader, and of course, the whole Jessica/Nikki thing.

And don’t forget about Hiro. I mean, come on, he could time travel, he could space travel, he could stop time!

And the version of him is who said, “Save the cheer, save the world.”

It was epic.

“I admit,” Ellie said as she and Oz caught up, “Heroes was good.” We all shot her glares. “Really, really good.” She amended, reading the room. “But you guys can talk it into the ground.”

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“We barely ever talk about it,” I said, as we rounded the corner to downtown.

“Because I had an intervention for everybody,” Ellie said.

“Yeah,” Wood said, “she pretty much bitched at us until we stopped talking about it.”

Ellie turned her head and glared at Wood.

“And that’s probably why we’re going to stop talking about it now,” I said. “So she doesn’t go all crazy again.

“I did not go crazy…” she grumbled.

And just then we saw a girl, about our age, run across the street in front of us, probably about 100 feet away. She was running from one alley way into another.

She was going into the alley right next to the Shaw Building, the one with the giant cartoon rooster on painted on the front. I knew from experience that was a dead end, because it ended at the back end of the Oddfellow Apartment Building. There wasn’t much left of the apartment building now, except for the back wall. So, that alley was still a dead end.

“Was that girl wearing a cheerleader outfit?” Ellie asked.

I hadn’t really noticed.

“Yes,” said Oz. “Yes, she was.”

For some reason that earned him a glare from Ellie too. She was giving those things out freely tonight.

Then we saw four goblins, the big kind that were bigger than humans, run after her across the street and into the alley.

The dead end alley.

We all started running toward the alley, our weapons out and ready to clobber.

When we got around the corner and into the alley we saw the girl standing there, with her hands over her mouth, breathing fast. The goblin guys were closing in on her. We were still running forward toward them when there was a sudden blue light coming from the girl’s hand, and it whipped out and lopped off one of the goblin’s arms.

What the…

By then I was practically on top of one of them, my frying pan out. But I was a little distracted by what had just happened, and didn’t realize that the goblin had brought back his giant club, and swatted me away without even realizing I was there.

I flew back up into the air and landed right on my back, in the alley.

It wasn’t hard enough to rattle me too much, but it did make me feel kind of stupid. I leaned up and looked forward just in time to see the cheerleader literally cut that big old goblin in half with her blue magic whip thing. The other two of the four goblins were already missing arms and one was missing its head.

A second later and they were all lying on the ground, dead.

Motherfucking shit balls!

I got to my feet just in time to hear a clatter of feet stop running from right behind us. I turned as, my friends turned, and saw 12 more goblins, their weapons out, standing right behind us.

Oh shit!

Well, at least we were going to get some fighting in tonight.

But, it turned out I was wrong.

A gaggle of ninja-quality cheerleaders ran into the alley on quiet feet, and before we could even try to fight, they slaughtered the 12 goblins with inexplicable ease.

“Wow,” I said. I’d never seen anything quite like that. Not even in the movies.

“So much for a cheerleader needing saving,” Ellie said, her hands on her hips.

The cheerleader behind us gave a little laugh, and I turned my head just in time to see her smile and say, “Yeah, we’re usually the ones doing the saving.”

At the very same time the shadows behind her seemed to fall apart, and a giant spider— this time, definitely not the Minecraft kind. We’re talking big, brown and black striped, with gooey fangs and more gooey eyes than you could count—fell out of the darkness and grabbed hold of the cheerleader.

Everything happened so fast, I really didn’t get a chance to even try to help.

There were just suddenly two arrows sticking out of the giant spider’s head. It spasmed, letting the cheerleader go, and then a third arrow went right in the middle of the thing’s ugly face. It dropped to the ground, its huge legs jerking for a few moments, and then it stopped.

I looked over to Teddy with awe. I’d never seen him shoot quite that well. And that fast. Obviously, I hadn’t been paying enough attention.

I would have to pull up my stats box later and check out his levels. That is, after I got the shock and awe dust blinked out of my eyes.

“That was totally awesome,” I told him.

“I’m good at what I do,” he said, and then looked down at me with a grin.

The really annoying radio announcer AI voice chose that moment chime in.

Quest ended!

By then, the other cheerleaders had moved past us, further into the alley, and had gathered around the one that had almost been a giant spider snack. She was back up on her feet.

The girls all blinked at us.

“What was that?” One of them said

New achievement!

“The AI sent us on a quest to save one of you guys.”

Thanks for the spoiler! The AI said in a pissy tone. But yes, you were supposed to save a cheerleader, and one of you did. And one of you slowed down one of her attackers by getting hit by his big-assed club. Congratulations to both of you.

The rest of you guys are big fat losers. You didn’t help at all.

Now, for the short chunky hunk of pottery, you get an assortment of Fiesta ware. It’s been added into your inventory already, and you can use it whenever you want. That is, if you ever get a chance to use it.

“That was harsh,” Ellie said.

And as for the thief that never steals anything, but likes to play around with archery. Great job! Look up to get your prize!

We all looked up at the same moment, and saw this piece of paper floating down from the sky. Teddy reached up and grabbed hold of it, looking it over. We all gathered around him.

“What does it say?” Oz asked.

“It says, ‘You saved the cheerleader. Put this in your inventory, because you’re gonna need it someday.’”

Everyone got a weird look on their faces.

Teddy had won the quest, and all he got was a piece of paper?

Teddy shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well.” And like magic the piece of paper disappeared. He had put it into his inventory.

And that was the moment the 8 ninja cheerleaders all turned toward us and pulled out their weapons again.

I put up my hands, trying to look innocent and non-threatening.

“Well, well, well… came a voice from behind us. “Who do we have here?”