Theatre of Heels, Chapter 1 Coming to You Live!
Chapter 1
Coming to You Live!
“Hey, everyone! It’s me, Erica!”
She flashed an excited smile at her cellphone’s camera. Erica quickly checked that her face and head were covered by her purple world-war-one pilot’s cap and goggles that she hurriedly donned before exiting her car. With her disguise securely in place, she checked the live feed icon on her cell. She already had twenty-two viewers on her feed.
“Sorry for the shaky view, guys, but you are never going to guess what I ran into on my way to school,” she squealed.
“On today of all days, I ran into an honest to goodness superhero battle!”
Several wow and thumbs-up emojis zoomed past her screen. Someone wrote messages like “No way!”
“Cool!”
“See for yourself,” she exclaimed as she panned her camera around.
A car ignited like a firebomb in the background. Ka-boom!
“Holy Cow!”
More appropriate emojis flashed by, as well as a message, “What the hell are you doing? Get out of there!”
She glanced at the message, saw it was from PedalMetalCruiser, and winced offscreen. His message quickly disappeared before a swarm of other exclamations. Her views had tripled in a matter of seconds. Considering what she was showing them, Erica couldn’t blame them.
As people ran past her screaming, Erica skirted closer to the action panning her camera out to capture the dramatic view. Hovering in the sky, surrounded by a crackling sphere of energy, was the volatile super-criminal Skullord Chaos.
Streams of red energy pulsed from his outstretched hands and the crown of his head, which was a skull.
On the ground, working to close in on the dangerous villain, was a quartet of costume individuals.
Erica narrated offscreen. “As you guys can see, the big four of the Capes Corps had turned up to put Skullord Chaos in his place. Oh my Gosh! Lookout Spearhawk!”
Skullord Chaos lashed out with blasts of pure energy. Spearhawk, the team’s resident acrobatic, tumbled out of harm’s way effortlessly. He deftly rolled to his feet and hurled his magic spear at the villain. His weapon bounced ineffectually off Skullord’s energy shield, an instant before the spear teleported back into Spearhawk’s hand.
Sleek, a beautiful cybernetic woman in a streamlined black costume, took a defensive position before Spearhawk. She glared up at their foe with the human side of her face.
“Uh oh, Skullord,” Erica commented. “You do not attack Sleek’s man! She’s going to make you pay for that!”
Sleek aimed her fist at Skullord, and a cybernetic panel opened on the top of her forearm. A small energy cannon popped up out of the portal with its barrel glowing. The arm-cannon convulsed, blasting out a salvo of destructive blue energy. Erica had to blink and avert her gaze as the blast slammed into the force field and splashed harmlessly off its surface.
Erica gave a slow whistle. “Dude, he’s tough.”
“My turn, you insignificant worms,” called Skullord as his hands glowed brightly with raw power. He made a sweeping gesture at Sleek and Spearhawk as he expelled a powerful surge of energy at them.
An instant before he could strike, the pair disappeared in a blur with a fierce wind.
“Oh, my God! Where’d they go?”
Erica panned her phone’s camera around and found Sleek and Spearhawk collapsed on the ground several dozen yards away, in the company of a third figure. He was by far the thinnest in the trio, adorned in a runner leotard suit, complete with high-end sneakers and goggles. He was practically sprawled across the other two.
“Guys, did you see that?” Erica asked her audience, which had grown tenfold. “Sprinter had just tackled Sleek and Spearhawk out of harm’s way. How cool is that?”
A multitude of thumbs-ups and heart flashed across her feed.
For his efforts, Sleek roughly shoved Sprinter off of her. The super speedster flew up ten feet before landed agilely on the ground. He sighed as Sleek nimbly pushed herself to her feet. Spearhawk smoothly kip-up to his feet.
Standing just over nine feet tall, Block, the stone-skinned leader of the Capes Corps, lumbered past his fellow heroes heedless of the carnage.
Erica could hear his gravelly voice over the distance, “Sprinter, go get something to distract Skullord! You two on me!”
Sprinter nodded his bolted down the street towards Erica. For the briefest instant, the speeding hero slowed down enough to make eye contact with Erica. He grinned and winked at her before his body blurred and tore down the street, creating a torrential vacuum of wind yanking paper and debris in his wake.
“Wow!” She breathed.
More hearts and an occasional angry-face emoji flashed across her feed.
She panned back around, focusing on Block as he stooped down and grabbed a nearby truck. The truck’s frame crunched in his massive grip as he effortlessly hefted it off the ground and, in one fluid motion, hurled it at Skullord.
The villain cackled as he made a dismissive gesture with his hand, creating a lance of destructive energy. He sliced the oncoming truck in half. Both pieces flew past him on opposite sides of his forcefield.
He regarded block with a skeletal grin. Skullord’s voice crackled as he called down, “My turn!”
A massive ball of energy swelled into the palms of his hands, an instant before it pulsed out in a tidal wave of destruction. Just behind Block, Spearhawk dove for cover as a jet of blue fire erupted from exhaust vents in Sleek’s back, hurling her skyward. Lacking the agility of his compatriots, Block could only stand there as the wave of devastating energy crashed into him.
Erica could only stare. “Are you guys getting this?”
Above them, Skullord cackled as he levitated closer. Energy flowed from his hands, skull, and force field as it poured into his attack beam, slamming the heroic powerhouse to the pavement. The road around Block and the deluge of power crackle and bubbled.
Spearhawk rolled to his feet, spun around, and carefully aimed his spear at the side of Skullord’s force field. He grunted as he hurled the missile with all his might.
Thunk!
“Wha!” Skullord Chaos glanced over as the very tip of Spearhawk’s magical weapon punctured the side of his forcefield. The air pop as Spearhawk himself suddenly appeared inside the sphere of Skullord’s force field.
In her excitement, Erica jumped up and down, screaming, “Spearhawk teleported inside!”
Spearhawk used the momentum from his teleport to close in the distance delivering a colossal punch to the villain’s unprotected skull.
Skullord’s energy salvo against Block cut off as he recoiled from the blow. On the ground, steam rose from Block’s stone-skin, which glowed like magma. The hulky figure grunted as he slowly gathered his feet beneath him.
A couple of stories up, Spearhawk pressed his advantage with a follow-up kick to Skullord’s sternum.
“Get off me!” Skullord snarled, sweeping his hand at Spearhawk. An energy wave flashed out, slamming Spearhawk back first to the ground.
Crash!
The street cracked from the force of Spearhawk’s impact. Spearhawk groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. His spear teleported to his side in a flash. A shadow fell over him, and the acrobatic hero looked up to see Skullord looming over him, wordlessly gathering power into his hand.
Skullord lashed out, but in a flash of chrome and blue jetpack fire, Sleek tackled Spearhawk out of harm’s way. She gingerly placed Spearhawk to the ground before spinning around and retaliated with her energy cannon. The energy bolt burst from the barrel but slammed harmlessly against Skullord’s renewed energy field.
“Oh, my God!” Erica gushed. “Sleek is the best!” She yelled across the field of battle, “Sleek, you’re my hero!”
Not sharing her opinion, Skullord looked up and spared Erica a withering glance. “Shut up!”
Erica shrunk in on herself. “I think I will shut up now,” she said off-camera.
PedalMetalCruiser commented, “You think! Get the hell out of there now!”
Skullord returned his attention to his enemies below him. “I’m going to reduce the pair of you to ash!”
“Hey, Boney!”
A gale of wind erupted on the street as Sprinter suddenly appeared. The super speedster held a canvas bag over his shoulder. He dropped them to the ground, a pile of dozens of baseballs spilled over the street.
Sprinter grinned at him. “Catch!”
Sprinter’s form blurred as he snatched up and threw the baseballs with the speed of a machine gun! The barrage of fastballs rebounded off the force field in rapid succession, battering Skullord back.
“Enough,” roared the villain, sweeping his arm back, blasting the last two missiles to dust. He followed up
with a beam directly at Sprinter, but the super-speeder was no longer there!
He appeared in flash half a block away. Cupping his hands, he called up, “You missed me, Bonehead!”
“Do you ever get tired of the juvenile skull puns?” Skullord demanded as he lashed out with another blast that ultimately missed.
“Depends,” Sprinter countered from his new position on the other side of him. “Do you ever get tired of hearing them?”
Skullord snapped, “Do you get tired of your friends?” He aimed his glowing hand at Sleek and Spearhawk.
Sprinter and Erica screamed simultaneously, “No!”
The asphalt directly in front of Sleek and Sprinter exploded as a wall of dirt and stone broke through its surface and formed a barrier in front of Skullord’s devastating blast.
Skullord stared at the sudden barricade, then glanced up the street. Block strode forward, holding an outstretched hand. The stone-hero snapped, “Don’t just stand in one place and wait for him to blast you. Attack!”
Suiting his words, he swept his other arm up. Another explosion of earth erupted from the street and impossibly took the form of a giant fist before slamming into the Skullord’s force field.
Sleek and Spearhawk darted out from their cover, taking opposite flanking positions, of Block’s attack.
Skullord roared as he swiped an arc of searing energy at the earthly fist, blasting it apart.
He glared around the four of them as they closed in. “Fine! I can’t get a bead on anyone of you without the rest running interference. What will you do if I change my aim to some civilians instead!”
Skullord looked up and made eye contact with her, “Like her!”
He aimed his hand at her, and Erica just had time to read one word that flash across her cellphone’s screen, “Run!” As a wave of pure heat washed over her.
