Heroes

Chapter 4: Names

Percy

How on Earth could I be friends with these people? Their costumes were weirder than the twin giants I fought in Rome! At least the Twins had been clear about why they were trying to kill me.

After the big guy with the big hammer attacked me, I got curious. Why did they want me? And what was this 'suspicious' activity they mentioned? Not that my activities weren't suspicious, but I didn't think the government knew about my Pegasus, or hellhound, or sword, or Tyson, or Grover, or my powers....
Now that I think about it, why haven't they found me before?

All these questions were floating in my head as I looked at the line of 4 remaining adversaries.
I supposed I still had a lot of adrenaline from the fight because they seemed to shy away from my glare. Hmmm.... I miss fighting. Then I remembered the war with Gaea.
Never mind.

Suddenly wanting to be done with this, I demanded, "Who's next?"

An unspoken communication seemed to ripple through the group. I followed the movement of their eyes and the shift of their bodies. I noticed the guy with the bow tense ever so slightly. At the same time I saw the Redhead in the Catsuit go into a crouch.

I suddenly and randomly chucked my sword to my right. It tumbled into the grass. An awkward silence ensued.

It got the desired effect. My opponents glanced at the sword for a second before turning to me, looking quizzical.

"Wha-"
They guy with the bow seemed first to realize it was a distraction. He fired off three arrows, lightning-fast, in quick succession.
But my ruse had given me time to prepare for this point-blank attack. I ducked down to avoid the arrows and I suddenly realized why the Redhead had crouched down. Her stilettoed foot (seriously, it takes skill to fight in those) whipped around in her crouch position, looking to sweep my legs out from under me.
Unfortunately, it happened too fast for me to straighten up after the arrows-- and then jump over her foot. Which, of course, was their point.

My instincts took over. Instead of jumping up, I sprung forward -right at the Redhead.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and went into a somersault over her head. My momentum caused her to flip with me, and she went sprawling into Robin Hood.

Two swift hits from the pommel of Riptide, which had returned to my pocket by now, and the duo was done.
They had amazing timing though, and I think they would have been much harder to beat had they not been so bewildered by me.

And bewildered was a perfect word to describe the faces of their remaining teammates. I was a little surprised that they didn't try to help their friends earlier, but I'm guessing they didn't want to interrupt the tag-team.

I was now left with 2, erm, eccentric men. One man was dressed in a very tight-looking, probably bulletproof, patriotic suit. It was mostly blue with red and white stripes around parts of the midsection and legs. The top extended up into a partial mask, what's it called? A cowl? Anyway, it was blue of course. He also carried a round shield that had the colors of an American flag, but in the shape of a target.

Wow, someone is waaay too excited for the Fourth of July.

The other man looked like a robot.
No seriously, he was in a full- body suit of armor that was painted red and yellow. It covered everything, including his face, so I wasn't completely sure it was a he until it spoke.

"We don't need to fight y'know."

I quirked my eyebrow in disbelief, "I'm not the one attacking, here!"
The American flag man spoke up, "But you are the one resisting us. We don't want to hurt you if we don't have to."

"Don't worry, you still haven't landed a blow," I taunted. I really wasn't arrogant, but these mortals were predictable, and so far distracting them was working.

I was successful.

The robot-man's (I really needed to learn their names) hands started to glow and I remembered the blue energy pulse that was shot at me earlier. I realized that he was powering up to shoot me.
Well that was rude.
They apparently didn't learn from their friend's mistakes, because they tried to double-team me again. RobotMan shot his energy beams and AmericanDude threw his shield. All of them were aimed at my head. I did a Matrix style backbend to avoid it all, but before I could recover, the Robot was flying towards me to punch my face.

I grabbed his punch (forcing me back a bit) and he shuttered to a stop.

I love godly strength, don't you? He tried to punch me with his other hand, but I deftly parried his blow.

"What are you?!" he shouted angrily.
I grinned. In response, I tightened my grip on his fist and threw him into the air. I knew he'd recover soon and be back, but right now the symbol of American pride was trying to chop my head off.

The costumed man was really good at hand-to-hand combat and we were momentarily locked in an intense fist fight.
I dodged, blocked, punched, and kicked, but he matched every strike. I could tell his fighting style was similar to Ares, with a little bit of Frank. So, I assumed he had a military background.
I was glad that I was a god now, because I sucked at hand to hand combat as a human. I also would have gotten tired much quicker.

I could tell he wasn't wearing down like a normal person would, so I increased my flurry of attacks and switched to offense. 30 seconds and a few punches later, my arms were starting to ache and AmericanMan was out cold. The ground was starting to be littered with the unconscious bodies of weirdly dressed government agents.

I scanned my surroundings and found a red blur rushing towards me from the South. Getting Riptide out of my pocket, I waited until he was nearly on top of me before I struck. I crouched down and uncapped Riptide in one swift movement. He was going too fast to change course and kept going straight over my head. I carefully jabbed Riptide upward as he passed. My blade tore through the metal and left a ragged slash all the way from his shoulder to his left toe.

Instead of pulling out of his trajectory, he seemed to lose control. He spiraled into the ground and created a deep trench of dirt. I winced. I ran over to the prone figure, not sure of how well his armor protected him. I pulled off his mask and affirmed that he was unconscious.

Then I got to work.









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