Adventures Of Oakheart, Issue #007

Issue #007 – – – – – controlled by Wayne Gildroy – – – – – Credits 84

“Well, that does it,” Oakheart thought.  Something came over him.  Perhaps it was the woman’s power, or perhaps it was just the idea that his actions had played at least a part in all this violence, but for a moment his normal calm and considered manner gave way.  He saw red.

The sight of a tree, uprooted and walking along the road, caused many of the rioters to gape in open-mouthed awe.  Even in a city like this, where the unusual was commonplace, a walking tree was a spectacle to behold.  Cops, gangers, members of the public, took a collective moment to halt their attempt to beat one another senseless in order to see the steady, purposeful stride of the oaken hero.

The old woman should have seen such a huge predator stalking towards her.  But she was so caught up in the wild expression of her powers that she initially did not.  By the time she absorbed that there was a tree marching her way it was much too late.  Oakheart snatched the woman off the ground and lifted her up into the air.  Instead of screaming, she gazed flatly at the hero and he could feel the low, terrible waves of her power washing over him.  Unlike the rage that she had been projecting earlier, she now switched tactics and Oakheart felt ripples of soothing calm trying to sweep into his mind.  “No,” He rumbled simply. With one massive swing of his branch-like arms, Oakheart smashed the old woman into the concrete sidewalk.  Then again.  And again.

Still caught up in a rage, Oakheart carried the woman along the road.  Pedestrians and police scattered out of his path as the hero marched back through the gated entrance and into the city park.  Behind him, people were screaming.  “That monster is killing that old woman!” somebody screamed.  Oakheart had made up his mind and was not going to be stopped now.  As he reached the treeline he hefted the body of the old woman, broken and buckled though it now was.  She groaned feebly, somehow clinging to consciousness despite two broken arms and a dislocated collar bone.  Oakheart smashed her through a few tree branches to shut her up.  Permanently.

Oakheart felt a sharp pain in his back, as though somebody had punched him.  He spun about but there was nobody there.  Instead, on the roadside, one of the cops stood with legs apart holding his pistol in a firm two-handed grip.  At his side, one of the young men who had been fighting the police had a gun out too.  Oakheart felt woozy, but realised things were going bad.  He began to back away, but was shot in the chest by the youth.

Another shriek from the roadside and the cop was trying to push away a hysterical young mother.  She held her little girl in her arms, a knife protruding from the child’s arm.  Oakheart vaguely remember that one of the gangers had been approaching the youngster with the knife.  The hero had a moment to wonder why he hadn’t stopped that?  Too busy concentrating on the perpetrator.  Except nobody but him knew the old woman was anything other than what she appeared.  And what she appeared now was a smashed and broken rag doll, buckled and twisted on the ground at his feet.

“Freeze monster,” Said a second cop.  And then there was a third and a fourth, but Oakheart couldn’t worry about that because his vision had grown frighteningly dim.  “Not bulletproof,” He croaked.  Nobody was listening.  He could hear footsteps around him.  Curled up on the floor, the world going dark, blood rushing from wounds in his tree-like body in a most unsettling way.  Oakheart’s last thought was: “How did this happen?”

Later:

The pain was a constant throb at the back of his mind.  Oakheart’s eyes opened and even though the light was dim, it still felt like daggers.  Something was very wrong.  Aside from the fact that he should be dead because he had been shot twice and that he was in a messed up world with almost no memories of how he got there – this was even more wrong than that.  He looked down at his body.

Human.  He was human.

His trunk was gone.  In it’s place a heavily-bandaged chest.  His arms weren’t branches anymore.  Just normal human arms.  His legs were just like any other adult males legs, if a little more muscular.  He appeared to be sitting in a small stone-walled cell with a tiny barred door keeping him here.  There was a young man sitting on a chair by the side of his bed.  “Where am I?” Oakheart rasped.
“Helix Penitentiary,” the youth replied.  “High security Meta wing.  Welcome to the The Keep.”