Ben lifted his head and saw that the man had turned around and was looking at him, patiently waiting for a response.
Shroud was pressing at him to talk, “Relax. Nothing this guy could do could possibly kill you. Besides, he's a hero, why would he even want to hurt you? I'll admit I'm not exactly on the same side of the coin as heroes but I respect the fact that they risk everything to help people. So say something to him... you're not getting star struck are you? This guy is a no-leaguer. I bet you could mop the floor with him in a second.”
'Just shut a second would you.' Ben sighed internally. He had been dragged around and smashed into a wall by a Moser, just minutes after finding out he was a super powered being in another reality. He needed a breather.
He really needed way more than a breather.
The man seemed to take Ben's silence as a signal to talk more, “I saw you taking care of the Moser by yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“I'm sorry.” The man sheepishly grinned and Ben noted that he had a giant handlebar mustache above his lips. It wasn't anything significant, but it somehow made the situation and person in front of him seem a lot more realistic all of a sudden.
Even heroes grow facial hair.
“... What?” Ben raised an eyebrow and then realized that the man couldn't see it underneath the Shroud Uniform.
“I was meant to deal with the Moser but I couldn't get there in time to help you. If you'd been an ordinary person that could have been fatal.”
“This isn't your comic books, heroes don't always get there on time Ben.”
“Right... don't worry about it. I knew I could deal with him myself.”
The mustached man fiddled with his tweed jacket, “That's a bold thing to say. I don't know how many people I've seen fight a Moser and come out with no injuries. I would have taken things a little slower than you, but I guess your way is a lot more effective.”
'A Moser? Why did he say 'A' Moser?'
“Because Moser wasn't the guys name. Moser was just the thing he was, they're not even human technically. It's a bit hard to explain but just trust me when I say there's more than one. It's something you would have found out in a few seconds either way.”
Ben's body stiffened, 'What? Why?'
“Well I didn't plan to tell you this until after this guy left but Moser's aren't individual workers, they get created and hired by the dozen. The police don't just come at a moments notice, they're expecting more of these guys to pop up around town. Usually its followed by either a lot of property damage or a lot of killing. It's not exactly easy to bring a dozen rock men into the station, so I was sort of going to tell you about this after so you could go after the remaining Mosers.”
'What?!' Ben looked back at the mustached man and frowned, the police down below had already brought out a police truck and Ben could feel the Shroud Uniform's tendril loosening in order to let them drag the tied up Moser off the ground and into the truck.
“Yeah so we'd better get moving if you want to get to them all.”
“So,” the moustached man looked at Ben calmly, “Are you going around the city looking for the Mosers? They're not exactly easy pickings. I can help if you can get me around.”
“He wants to know if you can teleport him. The fact that you can even teleport surprises him.”
'Is that a big thing? And, ah, can I even take him along? I just learnt how to teleport myself.'
“Same thing. Just imagine him coming with you, even if you don't know exactly what he looks like it'll work. Use the SU to find the next Moser.”
“Let's… let’s go.” Ben hesitated and looked at mustached man and then down at his Shroud Uniform.
It had already formed a clear picture of the next location and another backpack carrying rock man.
“Grab onto my arm.”
Ben didn’t need him to actually hold onto him when teleporting but it certainly helped calm his nerves and imagine the process happening. He teleported as soon as he felt the mans fingers push against him and they ended up in another street similar to the one the first Moser had been walking across. Except this time they ended up directly in front of the Moser. Ben heart a thump and looked to his side. The mustache man had fallen onto the ground after the teleport and was scrambling to stand up so Ben had the head start.
“SU restrain!”
He shouted out so that both the mustache man and the Moser could hear him and black streams had already begun to shed off of his body at the mere thought of restraining and and were flying towards the Moser. The streams of darkness bounded through the air like a wave and Ben's vision of the top of the Moser was quickly covered by them. Just like inside the room he could feel the Moser squiggling and struggling underneath the tendrils like he was holding the thing down with his palms. A pair of hands appeared beside him and the mustached man’s sleeves let off a stream of water that hit the Moser square in the legs. It looked like he had some sort of water gun device hidden inside his clothing. As soon as the water hit the ground and the Moser's legs it turned into ice that plastered it onto the ground.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Ben grinned as the Moser tried in vain to bash against the oncoming streams of darkness and water.
“Who the hell are you? Heroes? You stop this now and you don't get hurt, don't think we don't know that we'd be tracked down!”
Ben and the mustached man didn't respond to the enraged Moser, but Ben glanced nervously at his surroundings as the Moser shouted.
Shroud's voice suddenly came to life, “He's reacting weirdly. There are Mosers hiding in the buildings around us.”
Ben backed up and commanded the SU to stop shooting out the restraints, 'what do you mean there are more Mosers around us?'
He took a look a the surrounding area but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. By now the Moser had already been covered in enough black and ice threads that he wasn't going to escape any time soon. The mustached man saw Ben's strange actions and immediately a wary look crossed his face and he began to scan the nearby buildings.
“Mosers are stupid but whoever hired them isn't. If the Moser knew someone was coming then that means they prepared a trap. And we just walked right into it.”
“Look out!” The mustached man shouted and Ben twitched and jumped back, landing almost two meters away just as the spot he was in was crushed underneath a two meter rock man.
“They know we're here,” The mustached man ran next to Ben and sprayed jets of water onto the oncoming Moser. Ben immediately felt a series of explosions as four more Mosers crashed into the ground around them, and the mustached man signaled at him hurriedly, “I can't handle them all!”
Ben raised his hands and chunks of concrete, rock and bitumen flew into the air and were immediately wrapped by tendrils of darkness and ice. Ben could feel the vibrations in the air around him as the Mosers simultaneously smashed their massive rock fists against the oncoming attacks.
“Don't stop.” Shroud's voice popped into Ben's head just as a Moser broke through the wall of darkness and ice and saw Ben, it's fist lifting up and throwing an assortment of stones and concrete chunks at him. Horror appeared on the mustached man's face as he was struck by an oncoming rock and he crumpled onto the floor. Ben leaned down to check on him but Shroud's voice insisted otherwise, “The missiles can't hurt you and they aren't strong enough to break the SU's material quickly. Worry about the hero’s wounds later. If any one of those Mosers gets through then he'll get crushed like a fly by their fists.”
Ben was conflicted, he could see his own contribution to the fight because the five Mosers were already beginning to lose their ability to move. The one that had broken through the initial wave of threads was already covered by the next round and was looking at Ben with a helpless gaze. But he could see the hero on the floor twitching from the corner of his eye and felt like he had to get him to the hospital. But if he hadn't spread enough of the tendrils then the Mosers could break through and kill the man before he could tell the Shroud Uniform to show him a hospital to teleport to. The struggles of the Mosers grew weaker as more and more tendrils tangled them and strangled their bodies. After a few seconds all five of them were pinned against the ground alongside the first Moser and looking at him with hate in their eyes. Ben looked down at his body in awe, strands of darkness still leaking off of it and heading towards the incapacitated Mosers. He was frightened by how much power he held in his hands, it was something he had never even dreamed of being able to do in his world. He cut off the stream of tendrils and they stayed on the Mosers, clinging like rope and tying them in triple layers as tightly as they could. He didn't know if the Mosers needed to breathe with their rock-like bodies but none of them looked like they were suffocating.
“I'd like to remind you about that hero on the floor while you're busy wanking yourself off for something so insignificant.”
Ben was startled out of his stupor and he saw the mustached man twitching on the floor. He was still alive, but blood was seeping onto the floor from a cut on his forehead. His eyes fell onto Ben's face and when they locked onto him he smiled. Ben tried to help the man wiggle off the various pieces of rubble that had been thrown onto him by the Mosers. When Ben looked again the cut on his head had healed almost perfectly and even the bruises had disappeared. The man who'd looked like a beaten mule only seconds before was now completely fine, no little cuts or major gashes to be seen.
Ben moved backwards to give the mustached man room to stand up, “Sorry.” He looked apologetically at the man, “I should have tried to stop all the rubble from reaching you. It's a good thing you're healthy... I mean, it's safe now. There shouldn't be any more of those Mosers, at least in this place.
'There aren't any Mosers here right?'
“All gone. I'm not even sure this was the main group of them though, I'm not sure what they're carrying but it seems pretty damn important to whoever they're working for. People don’t go throwing around Mosers like pennies.”
The man finished brushing the dirt and broken street off of his tweed jacket and let out a hearty laugh.
“Don't worry about it, don't worry about! It comes in the job description. Now, the police will arrive any minute.” He took a look at the black cocoons that kept the Mosers trapped, “Good work. No, solid work. I wonder what they were trying to do, it's not often that Mosers will be used to spring a trap like that. They're way too costly to maintain and not have them spread out doing different jobs. Oh, the press has already arrived.”
Ben's ears twitched as they heard the sound of people chattering and sirens in the distance. Onlookers were already gathering around them and some of them were carrying machines that looked a lot bigger and better than the phones the people from before had been carrying.
“Alright Ben that's enough heroics for one night, teleport back into the room.”
'What... don't we want them to know I helped so that I can be a hero?'
“The hero over here will tell them you exist, and that's all they need to know for now. If you become involved with them intimately then it raises a lot more questions than you want to answer right now. And besides, I always like to keep the element of surprise that leaves enemies guessing about me. Like how the Moser from before only let you near him because he thought you were a bystander trying to play hero.”
Ben could see Shroud from the corner of his eyes pointing downward and sighed. He felt a veil covering his breath as he teleported again and when he opened his eyes he was inside the stone room once again. But before he could do anything he fell to the ground. His pale face had taken on an unhealthier pallor and the Shroud Uniform was constricting around him. He felt as though he had been hit by a truck after going to the gym. He barely had time to make it to the stone slab and lie across it before his vision turned black and he lost consciousness.