Vespidian Arc 3, Chapter 8

Morning came with the systematic routine I had grown accustomed to. I awoke earlier than Sunshine who was still submerged in her bed. At first I was confused by the change of surroundings, but then the day before came back to me and I shed the suit like an old skin. My arms bristled and the weights moved up. I had increased the set amount after the revelations that my previous rate was not enough. Sure it was harder and I would be hating myself for a few hours, results were what mattered to me. Not only had the weight increased, the number of reps had been doubled and I pushed myself to the limits. The feeling of my muscles snapping and tearing was a good pain. It tore away all emotion and focused my will into a single purpose, more power. It hurt a lot but that was how building muscle always was, granted not to this extreme for most. A normal person would be crippled after this sort of thing.

There was something that I wanted to protect now, Sunshine. I had always been more motivated with a clear goal. Sure we had only met yesterday, sure she is bonkers, but hey she is a good person. Besides it was hard to find friends who like the weird shit that I did. I could guess by the team dynamic that I was supposed to be the tank and heavy hitter due to their powers. This meant I needed to be tougher and stronger, probably meaner too. My goal for now was to match the suit strength while not in it.

My vents gusted when I finished, doubling over, unable to move an inch. It was refreshing to feel so exhausted. I knew that it would not last though, the muscles were already grasping at one another, pulling themselves back together. Stronger than before. This was how it always went. It was routine now. Soon the pain would be gone and the world would cease to make sense. It seemed I could only keep my mind focused during such moments. Sub would always be there watching, eager to give me an antenna full of what she thought about things. Usually it was good ideas.

She was like the little angel and the devil on my shoulder whispering things to me. Sometimes though her thoughts were scary. Random ideas of eating animals alive or even hunting people who hurt us down and devouring them would surface. She was always hungry for meat. She did not think we could coexist with humans. I strongly disagreed and that usually led to fights. We segregated each other into separate parts of the mind when this happened. I would always retreat to reality and she would delve into the very depths of us, the tentacle forest. Now that I think about it the closest to our relationship would be well, married. It made a lot of sense. We were stuck with one another, bickered over the stupidest shit and some times I or Sub would have to sleep on the figurative couch after a fight. Inevitably we would get lonely without the other and seek the other out. In the end though when serious stuff happened we cast aside all of our foolishness and teamed up to conquer the problem. Not gonna lie, make up sex is pretty nice.

I trembled and rose putting myself into the suit. It sealed shut. The hissing sound woke Sunshine and she rolled rubbing her eyes. I stared down at her flushed face wondering why she smelled of arousal. Was she watching me working out and just pretending to sleep? I was zoned out so I did not even notice. That brought up a few questions, but I was in no mood to look at my new friend as a sexual object. Should I do that we would not be friends anymore and I might end up killing her in my fervor. Even if she did not die what I would do to her would scar anyone for life. I pat her on the head and sat down in front of the computer. My habit of checking Ichigo's page twice daily was still strong. A new picture was there with her little parasol and Gothic dress, wonderful silky black hair and doll like eyes. The fairy picture was still better, but it went into the Ichigo folder.

I might be in love or have a crush or something on Ichigo. After all both me and Sub wanted to fill that bitch with eggs. Even though we had never even made eggs before. It was a deep seeded desire, something akin to an instinct. I am not exactly sure of when it happened, but at some point I had grown something of an attraction to women. Not saying I want to grind our snatches together or anything. I found myself watching them more than usual. Drinking in their smells, delighting in their high voices and girlish manors. I blame all the hentai. It likely has to do more with the insane amounts of hormones pumping through my veins. About as far as it went was fantasizing about mounting Ichigo. I think I could be gay for her. Although, would it be considered homo if I have both types of organs? That is a very good question. It is a bit hard to wrap my head around it though.

Sub was being far more of a handful than usual. 'Come on you know you wanna try out that robo pussy Neon Nurse was bragging about!'

“If it was a vibe I might go for it. Focus Sub, focus we have important Super Hero shit to deal with.”

'What training? Alright fine but we doing S and M tonight.'

I rolled my eyes. “Fine but you are the S.”

'No, you are the S!'

“Alright ill be the Sadist.”

'…. alright you better make me squeal.'

I mentally pat her on the head. What can I say she likes the attention. “Oh, does my little Sub wanna be spoiled? Alright I will make your claws curl.”

With that out of the way I could finally deal with serious stuff, like training. Speaking of training Chief had never mentioned a time. I contacted him over the suit system to figure it out. He said we would start when the others got up. So I sat out in the living room waiting for the others to drag themselves out of bed. Sunshine was first since I had woken her. She sat drooping beside me still half asleep apparently we were up a few hours earlier than normal. Slackers. Normally I would not give a shit about what other people do. Go ahead slob it up and waste your life. I am no one to judge. The only thing is if I start something I find it very difficult to not do the best damned job I can on it. If this team is going to be successful there will be none of this sleeping in until ten nonsense. Even though I could have been lazy as hell in that containment room I still woke up at seven in the morning everyday and worked out. Neon Nurse trying to go Dr. Feelgood on me had something to do with that as well. Seven ten was when she got up so I had to make sure to be ready.

Another idle half hour passed and it was nine, not a sign of the others. I wanted to get this shit over with. My abdomen was getting all bloated and hot. It does that sometimes. The constriction of the suit was making it rather uncomfortable too, kinda like tight pants after you just ate a big meal and they did not fit right anymore. These little piss ants were taking forever. Sub came up with a delightful idea, to wake them up. It took only a few moments and I was up the stairs rapping on their door.

“Oi scrubs wake the fuck up, we got shit to do!” I shouted through the door. Rustling and groaning rose from the other side. Sounded like they were rousted from their slumber.

“Who the fuck is that?”

“Shit we got that new bitch. Why is she up so damned early.”

“Early? Usually I am up at eight. Hey did one of you guys turn my alarm off?”

“Yeah that was me. It was loud man.”

Looks like they up. “You got five minutes before I come in there.”

I heard mumbled complaints and made my way back down to the couch. Sunshine was drooling and passed out again. It would be a little mean to wake her so I just let her lay across my lap for a while. The news was dismal and boring as usual, complaining about Supers and the militarized police forces that had to deal with them. Mr. President was going on about something with his honeyed words and bald faced lies. Sure the bastard had a way with words, but if you paint a piece of shit gold it is still a piece of shit underneath. The media is so tilted to the left they keep going on about gun and Super control. It is idiotic since the places with the most so called gun violence as the places with the strictest gun laws. After all an armed society is a polite society. They were toting around how they just struck a deal with Iran, who is one of the major sponsors of our enemies.

I knew better and so did anybody with half a brain. Though that was not so many these days. The schools were dumbing people down and not even teaching anything useful these days. Have you seen Common Core?! What the hell kind of math question takes ten steps to solve a basic subtraction problem? I mean there was not even home economics or shop class in high school. My generation can't even write in cursive. I can because I taught myself, but they do not teach it in school. How the fuck are we supposed to write checks and sign contracts? How are we supposed to read old documents? Our history is being scrubbed clean and people are ignoring it. Don't learn from the past and you will repeat it. There was even some professor who was saying that the Holocaust was a hoax.

The news was covering up the failed foreign policies and how the soldiers could not fight the terrorists because there might be some collateral damages. It is fucking war, people die, innocent people get caught up in it. Yes it is sad, but it is a fact of life. They kept going on about how we should empathize with them. They are so poor over there in their desert. If they did not have oil no one would give a fuck about those desolate wastelands. Islam is the religion of peace... yeah that is why they are slaughtering the Jews, Christians, even other Muslims and trying to destroy Israel. Stoning gays and women in the streets. They are so pitiable... fuck that. Political correctness bullshit. These people are cold blooded killers.

The more that I watched the bigger the knot in my stomach grew. Are these politicians retarded? Why the fuck should they dictate what the soldiers on the front lines can and can't do? It might just be because I had been reading a bit of the Art of War, but if you want to win you let the commanders in the field do their damned jobs. They have their arms tied behind their backs and are expected to beat a cowardly enemy that uses schools and hospitals as their bases. They rape women and children. Murder and despoil, pillage and burn their own people. It is enough to make my blood boil. Terrorist have no human rights, the Geneva convention even said so. It don't make no damned sense why we are empathizing with those who are actively trying to kill us.

Yet our boys out there can't do their job and kill those sick bastards because of some fat cat politicians sympathizing with those psychos. Our Commander in Chief is such a little bitch that he has been actively advocating for our enemy. How is that not treason? We are at war so why exactly is it that they have their own unions and say in our politics? I mean those people blow themselves up and scream to their god while doing it. Clearly they want to die so why not put them out of their misery so that they can't take others with them? What was that phrase? Oh yeah, kill them all and let god sort them out. They should just carpet bomb the whole place with nukes. Well maybe not nukes we don't want more Super Terrorists running around. We already have our hands full with Abdul-Qahhar the cloning suicide bomber. What pisses me off the most is that we had that bastard in prison but the President used a pardon to get him out. Treason, all that I have to say about that. Sometimes I think we need a new revolution here and wipe clean the slate to destroy the corruption. Muck out the filth and grime that has built up in the government. The country is falling apart and those who could stop it are greasing the wheels. One would think that people would want their country to do well instead of undermining it.

Germany ain't taking this shit, it took a while to get their shit together, but at the least they have the balls to fight off the Muslim invaders. It was really bad over there before General Panzer took over. There was a flood of so called refugees pouring into their country from the south. These were not people fleeing from the war, they were young men who clearly had agendas. They got free housing and gang raped women in the streets. All while plotting to destroy the country. The resulting backlash was rioting in the streets. Urban warfare for several years. The military got so fed up they took over the government that was trying to let the enemy pour in because they did not want to be considered racist.

Now Panzer and his teams of Supers have a firm hold over Germany. Don't get me wrong here as far as I know they are not Nazis. In fact they are patriotic as hell. This is simply the result of being repressed too long by a government that does not care about the well being of its people. They are not taking women and children out back and gunning them down. They are just trying to defend their country. They are fighting tooth and nail to send those bastards back where they came from. In case you can't tell I hate them, the religious whack jobs. Europe is just kinda fucked right now. Germany is the only one actually putting up a fight.

Not that America is that much better we have the drug cartels rushing over the southern border. They got their coyotes, mean bastards who bring people over the border for money then ransom their families to bring over drugs with them. A lot of the time they would just kill people out in the desert and leave the bodies to rot. The Diablo De Chillar was the worst one though. They more or less control Mexico and have either driven out or killed anybody who did not agree with them. They are ruthless and cut people up for no reason other than to strike terror. They have a rivalry with the South American cartels and feud regularly over rights to American drug trafficking lanes. Most of this you would not know because our media is so concerned about keeping everything so flowery, as though the world is not falling apart. They censor out all the bad stuff about the Diablo De Chillar, in fact they call them the Screaming Demons because it was racists to call them that, it was too profiled an image. Never mind the fact that L.A. has been overrun with crime. I mean they burned down the Hero League Headquarters there.

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Why the hell doesn't Captain Liberty do something? I mean shit the guy is Rank 10. Every Super in the world is piss scared of him and yet he does nothing. What is he, just sitting on a golden throne in D.C. or something? Molotov took over Russia and she is only Rank 8. I know that we are still getting over the stalemated cold war between the two, but still, take a hint. This is not good for me. I should just shove my head in the sand before I go postal. Not like I can do anything about this. I made fists while trying to think of happy thoughts. I held my head and turned off the news and all that was wrong with the world, back to the blissful ignorance of cartoons and animal planet. Nicky Mouse and the Freedom Team is on that should kill an hour or so. Yes, I just ran away from some problems, but what can I even do? That is like adult problems, like older adult problems.

Astro Glide emerged with a stretch and sat beside us. He wore his suit and cupped the helmet in the bow of his arm. His face was youthful and rather soft looking. Not exactly what I was expecting. He had a weak chin and thick eye brows. Black short cropped hair. Brown tired eyes. He looked over Sunshine and me.

“Seems you two hit it off.”

“Yeah. We cried in each others arms.” I said mildly.

He gave me a strange look. “You cried? Wait she cried? I have never seen that. I did not think she could be depressed.”

“We got it sorted out. Women cry a lot and usually not in front of men. Makes us feel weak.”

“Is that so? Well glad that it is better.”

I nodded in agreement. “So when are those two dweebs going to get up?”

“Another hour?” Yawned Astro Glide.

I set Sunshine to the side and stood. “Fuck that. I got shit to do today. I will drag their asses out here.”

I stormed up the stairs and burst into their room. The lights flipped on and they rolled over on the beds, covering up in the blankets. My eyes twitched and I raised a bed over my head dumping the contents onto the floor. Then I did the same to the other one. They squirmed like worms and my claws ripped the blankets away from them. They shuddered in their boxers, shrieking as I fanned the blankets to make it even colder in the room so that they could not go back to sleep.

“What the fuck you crazy bitch!” Shouted Gravity Squeeze. He did a hand motion and I felt my arms grow heavy. Something punched me in the stomach, though it did not get through.

“Get your lazy asses up!” I yelled and then took a step towards him.

He did a sweeping motion and my legs were knocked out from under me. Interesting so basically if I stop his hands from moving he can't do shit. I lunged and held his hands to the floor. He kneed me in the groin... but that only hurt him. What the hell is he thinking? I am wearing a super suit. Sure getting hit in the cunt feels bad, but it is not nearly as bad as getting your jewels crushed. Not that he knows that there is nothing even there on me. I stared down at him growling lowly. It was a guttural sound that made his face turn white. His resistance died instantly and he just lay there. I lightly slapped his face to jog him out of it.

“Look scrub.” I said. “You are a hero right? Villains are not going to wait for you to get your beauty sleep. Now get dressed and come down in five minutes or I will be back. I am taking the blankets.”

I strolled out with all their blankets and pillows. Astro Glide was not very pleased when I got back down there. “You need to calm down.”

“I am rather calm at the moment. It is their own faults for being lazy.”

“I am glad that you are taking this serious, but I am the captain of this team.” He said poking me in the chest. I was very tempted to snap his arm in half. I resisted the urge though. “That means you do what I say.”

I crossed my arms and nodded. “Sure Captain. I just thought that there was room for improvement. You should consider instituting a mandatory wake up time unless there was a night shift. You should also begin a training regiment for the team. Disk Jockey is on the weak side and I doubt he could even keep up should we run into any drawn out fights.”

“Those are good suggestions, but we are still in training. Besides we are search and rescue. We save people.”

“So you are telling me what I just saw was acceptable? What if there was an emergency? People would be dead.”

“There is a siren that goes off if we are needed. They might be acting a little lazy however if that thing goes off everyone gets serious. We would get burnt out without some sort of downtime.”

I thought it over and became embarrassed. “Sorry, I am acting a little crazy aren't I? For the last while I have had nothing, but downtime so I am a bit itchy to do stuff.”

He pat me on the shoulder with a slight smile. “It is understandable. To be honest I have been on them to get up earlier for a while. It depends though and sometimes we get day long shifts looking over places or there are too many calls to deal with and we have to run all over the city. Sleep will become something that you get while you can.”

I nodded taking in his words. So they were not being lazy or goofing around just catching up on rest? Now I feel like an asshole. There was nothing to really do, but wait. So I sat down and pet Sunshine while she kept sleeping. This girl was seriously cute though. I would have to be careful not to let any of my baser needs get in the way. The TV flared and Nicky Mouse was dodging lasers. She bent over and crab walked under some barbed wire, but all that I saw was her getting railed by Molotov. She ruined this show for me. I rubbed my helmet trying to keep the horror of the octopus from resurfacing. I changed the channel to watch puppies and kittens rolling around in a room filled with fluff balls. Ahh my soul was saved.

Gravity Squeeze shambled out of the room with Disk Jockey on his heels. They were both suited up and I stood walking over to them. They seemed apprehensive by my advances and Squeeze took on a defensive stance. I raised my hands.

“What now? We got up.”

“I wanted to apologize.” I said extending a hand.

They looked between one another. Squeeze said. “You think sorry is going to make up for this?”

“Look I am sorry. Glide explained it to me and well my bad. I was just a little excited. I mean this is the first time I have been on a team.”

Sunshine stirred and flamboyantly made her way over with butterflies circling her. “Give her a break. She is actually very nice if you get to know her.”

“You think everybody is nice. Sunshine remember when you followed that guy because he had candy?” Scoff Squeeze.

“It was all my clever trap.” She smiled. “I knew he was a bad guy. I am not that foolish. White van, free candy painted on the side. Only little kids fall for that.”

“That is why you got caught and we had to bail you out?”

“That is what a team is for right? Besides how was I supposed to know he drugged the candy.”

“Why would you think he did not?”

She puffed up her face, flailing her little fists. So adorable, I just want to pull her cheeks. “What about you? Remember when you got caught in the Sparkle Kat Cafe and we had to get you out before Glitter Kitten raped you. You know the Slums are off limits yet you keep going down there for the strippers and hookers!”

Gravity Squeeze got all defensive. “I was under cover.”

“You have a tab! They know you by name!”

“So what I get lots of juicy details about their movements. When those girls are drunk they spill the beans on everything.”

“So you are telling me it has nothing to do with the six breasted strippers or getting some kitten pussy?” Said Astro Glide stepping into the conversation.

“I never said that.” Grinned Gravity Squeeze. “Have you seen Den Mother's tits?”

“Who is Den Mother?” I asked.

“Den Mother is the third in command of the Mad Dogs. She is a Werewolf, roughly six hundred pounds of raging muscle. She is more or less the enforcer of the operations. If she is not doing sketchy stuff then she is hanging around the Sparkle Kat getting drunk and making sure no one is causing problems.”

“How big are her tits?”

Gravity Squeeze smirked and cupped his hands out from his chest. By his gesturing she had some triple Ds or bigger. I would have to do some research later... not that kind. In fact that would probably be a good idea in general. I don't know nearly enough about the local Villains in the area, besides the really famous groups. At the moment I only know the gangs and their leaders.

“Chief we are all up so where we going?” I asked over the com.

“Training course. Astro Glide will show you.” Replied his semi robotic voice.

“Alright on our way.”

Glide nodded and we followed along behind him. This place was seriously nice though. The walls were white and clean, floors sparkling, windows gleaming. It was all the work of little robots. I saw them scurrying around. They looked like disks and dodged their way between people, they fled when ever the presence of a person entered the area. Their home stations were at the bases of trashcans. The whole system was rather ingenious. Something tells me Neon Nurse made these things as well. I might just be paranoid though. The clear elevator descended and I absently watched the scurrying people below. There seemed to be a lot of red shirts running around, not very many of them in armor. It still showed just how much security this place had and was rather reassuring.

Down we went to basement level four. According to the buttons there were ten underground floors and five above ground floors. I have something of a habit to always check how many floors there were in a building. The doors opened to a wide cavernous room. A mock city street was built and arrayed across the area complete with light posts and telephone wires. Cars and vans were parked along the sides of the buildings. The whole place felt like a ghost town that had been frozen in time. Fire Chief motioned from his position at the entrance to the training city. We moved over standing beside him.

“Good, you finally came.” Said Chief gesturing out over the city. “The first test will be a game we like to call bug hunt. One of you will be the bug and the rest have to capture them. This way you can learn more in depth how your powers work together. The Bug wins if they manage to elude capture for ten minutes or they incapacitate their hunters.”

“You just trying to fuck with me?” I asked pointedly.

“No. It was called that when I did it ten years ago and before that it was a military exercise. Don't worry Astro Glide will be first to be the bug.”

“What constitutes as capture?” I asked.

“If the bug is restrained for longer than a minute or completely immobilized. Try not to hurt one another too badly.”

Glide nodded. “Alright try not to go overboard.”

He lifted off of the ground and darted away, leaving a wake of dust. He was fast. We sat waiting for a minute to give him time to find a good hiding spot. I tapped my feet stretching my arms and legs. Did some leg lunges. Squeeze and Disk were checking me out, not that I really minded. It was good to have attention that was not stemming off of being called a monster. Chief finally gave the signal and we were set loose. My antenna squirmed searching for his scent. I found it and started off after it. Sometimes I felt like I was some hunting hound.

“I will flush him out you guys bring him down.” I said breaking off into a run. They nodded, seems I have some seniority over the scrubs.

I scaled the side of a building in the matter of a few seconds and took a moment to orientate myself. I could smell him, he was nearby. My eyes scanned the rooftops and I gazed up at the lights near the ceiling. A black blur was floating there and it took a moment to realize the bastard had gotten himself so far up it would be impossible to reach without using my jet pack. It roared to life and I shot up towards him. He zoomed away and I followed banking to cut him off. Glide altered course in a moment and doubled back. My movements in comparison were clunky and unrefined as I struggled to change course. Something pink flared up and a giant butterfly materialized in front of him, forcing him to dive down lower to the ground. I followed closely behind. Squeeze looked like a maestro swishing his hands about. Trashcans and dumpsters lifted up, turning the clear air into an obstacle course.

Glide swerved and I managed to get a hold of his leg. Squeeze used his power to rip us out of the air and we crashed into the pavement. My heels dug in, skidding us to a stop. All four arms were wrapped around Glide so that he could not take off again. He squirmed for a little bit but gave in. “You win. I am surprised you are so fast with that jet pack.”

“Scared the shit out of me when I used it for the first time.” I laughed setting him down.

Sunshine excitedly bounded over. “Did you see? Pretty cool right, Onee-sama?”

I nodded patting her on the head. This, this girl, I just want to spoil her! Squeeze had that, it was all me look on his face and Disk did not really seem to have done anything. Not that he really could have since his power only affects technology. It made him only useful for certain situations.

“Since you caught me you are next.” Said Glide.

Ah shit.

_______

Well as you can see the world is a bit dark outside.