Lionheart Chronicles, Issue #003

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Fraser Machin – – – – – Credits 0

“The whole talking in unison thing?” Lionheart said.  “It’s creepy.  Do you have to practice to do that or does it come natural?”
“Come with us,” the strange Tophat twins said, indicating that the hero should take the large exit doors that were flanked by the green-garbed minions.  But Lionheart had other ideas.  He wasn’t keen on forfeiting his arms, but neither did he think there was much future in hanging around being a dancing bear for these mooks.  He could see that above the arena, where the majority of the crowd were gathered looking down on the fight, there was a green “exit” sign.  Health and safety.  You’ve gotta love it.

With one spring Lionheart was over the guards and at the wall.  He went up the wall in two leaps, agile as a cat, and vaulted the bars into the crowd.  They screamed a lot.  Lionheart laughed, thinking that there was no way the surprised guards were going to shoot into their paying audience.  He was wrong.  Almost immediately, flashes of red light sizzled into the crowd and onlookers shrieked and cried in panic.  Lionheart pushed his way through them, making no real attempt to be gentle.  After all, just a moment before, these people had been demanding his death.

Two green guards appeared in front of him blocking his way to the fire exit.  “Stop in the name of the The Gentleman King,” said one.
“The who?” Lionheart asked, genuinely puzzled.  But the guards showed no interest in enlightening him further, instead firing their weapons at him.  One missed, but the other caught him on the arm.  The burn was painful, but not debilitating.  “You’re going to need something that packs a bit more punch,” Lionheart told him, before knocking him sideways with a casual backhand.  The other guard trembled for a moment, then fled.  Lionheart took a moment to glance back and could see the Tophat Twins had made it upstairs and were striding through the screaming crowd towards him purposefully.  He decided not to hang about – after all, he had no idea what their powers were.

“Stop, do not leave,” said a voice in his head.  Which immediately answered the question as to what their powers were.  Psionics.  Lionheart hated psionics.
“I don’t think so,” he said and tried to push the fire exit open.  He could not move.  Crap.
“For your impertinence and for disobeying the command of our master, the Gentleman King, you will be severely punished,” the mind-voice told him.
“Oh will I?” Lionheart asked, though he did it with his real voice not in his head.  He wasn’t going to play their games.  As he spoke the hero forced himself to turn around.  The command forbid him leaving.  So Lionheart decided to obey it.  Instead of fleeing, he marched straight towards the TopHat Twins.

Speed was the key.  Before the pair could formulate a new mental command, Lionheart was on them.  Guards shot at him, winging him several time with their lasers.  It was really, really irritating, but his tough skin held out against the worst of the damage.  Lionheart took his anger and frustration out on the two creepy idiots in the little hats.  The first went down under his claws, raked from chest to neck and spilling blood into the aisles.  It wouldn’t kill him, but he was going to need a lot of care for quite some time.  With one out of the way, the hero rose and faced the other, blood covering his hands and chest.   “Your turn,” he grinned.
The remaining TopHat Twin seemed to have lost his bluster entirely and turned to run.  Lionheart was having none of it.  He kicked the man’s legs away, sending him tumbling across the floor and marched after him, delivering punches and kicks in a devastating series of painful blows.

The hero stood over the unconscious body of his fallen enemy and roared.  The crowd had mostly escaped now and only a half-dozen green-garbed guards remained.  Lionheart had taken a lot of hits from those weapons and he was still hurt from the earlier fight.  He felt woozy, but he was running on pure adrenalin.  “Get out, now, or I will lose my good humour,” he told the guards flatly.  They saw murder in his eyes and they fled.  “Huh,” Lionheart muttered, “Who’d have thought?  Minions ain’t what they used to be.”  Now the area was clear he marched back down into the arena and entered the holding area.  Half-a-dozen tough-looking customers sat behind bars glaring at him.  He popped the locks.  “You’re free,” he told them.  “I’d get out quickly.  I have a feeling the Gentleman King, whoever he is, is going to find out what has happened here and I doubt he’ll like it much.  I expect he’ll send reinforcements and bigger guns in short order.”

Without waiting to find out how these prisoners took to their new found freedom Lionheart marched away.  The fire exit led out into a parking lot somewhere in the city center.  Apparently some kind of underground extension to a popular nightspot.  The fresh night air was bitter, but exhilarating.  He took a lungful and tried to ignore the growing pain of his extensive wounds.  Now, Lionheart thought.  Time to work out just where he was.  Who he was.  And what the Hell was going on.