Free Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer Page B

more offensive, but the Olympians make up for it in quantity.
    I use my jetpack and strafe them, swooping through the masses, cutting a path, and drawing fire away from my teammates. It’s weird being part of a team and I’m trying to adjust to it.
    Athena and Aphrodite are struggling with Poseidon. The Sea Lord’s dense skin allows him to soak up their best attacks like a sponge. Super strength and high-pressure blasts of water keep them busy. Once Stacy killed his bug, it sent him into a berserker rage. She’s probably regretting that now.
    Hermes is holding her own against both Demeter and a squad of robots. Andydroid and the Cyber Dudes help me with the robots and the gun emplacements rising out of the ground. Landing, I feel the ground shake as a pair of Type D Warbots step out from the faux Greek columns surrounding the headquarters. The “Death Dealers” are coming up next. They’re going to need massed firepower to beat and we’re too spread out at the moment.
    If we don’t turn the tide soon, we might not even make it inside. This is the part where I usually run away – except I know that there’s nowhere to left to run. I toss the mini-gun to Andy and trigger my jetpack. Accelerating into the backside of Poseidon, I slam him into one of the sculptures, trigger a full electrical discharge, and give him a helmet-mounted force blaster noogie. The power levels in the suit immediately begin dropping at the continuous release of energy.
    It’s everything I’ve got and I know it might not be enough. Pulling him into a full-nelson, I trigger my flight system and drag him skyward. If he can survive the crushing depths of the ocean, a big drop shouldn’t kill him.
    I manage only about a few hundred feet before Poseidon breaks my hold and nearly dislocates a shoulder. He twists and wraps an arm around my neck. I’m staring into his enraged face as his other arm cocks back a fist. Oh shit!
    Activate sonic generator! Fire force blaster! Earmuffs clamp down a millisecond before the high decibel wail begins. It takes a second blast from the helmet gun before he lets go – my own version of “catch and release”. I’d like to say that his plunge into a Type D Warbot was completely planned and perfectly executed, but it wasn’t. It was luck, pure and simple. Either way, it’s what we need.
    I dive bomb the giant robot as Athena and Aphrodite hammer away at it. My weight hits its upper back, driving it down to the ground as its servos and stabilizers adjust to my sudden weight. I go right for the Poseidon-sized dent in the shoulder and start ripping armor plating away and firing into the inner workings. Sending my last two concussion grenades down the hole, I fly off and let the primary and secondary explosions rip it to pieces.
    My shields protest against the blasts of the remaining turrets and the other Warbot. I’m swatted back down to the ground and rise out of a freshly made crater, already checking my diagnostics and firing my Cyclops blaster. Hurling chunks of the destroyed robot at its companion, I play kickball with a Type B.
    That’s strange, Athena and Hermes are still standing, but the Warbot is attacking me. Must be a glitch in the threat selection programming .
    Faulty subroutines or not, it’s one of the last things standing between us and the exterior of the Olympian’s Headquarters. I reach for my sledgehammer and find it missing – lost during the fight somewhere. It doesn’t matter.
    Hermes zips up next to me and shoves the mini-gun in my hands. I feel her popping a fresh clip of twelve grenades into the launcher. Her face is bleeding and her voice is ragged, “Take it out and we’re in!”
    Backed by energy spears, force blasts, rockets, and a kitchen sink or two, I take flight and advance on the almost ten meter tall machine. Other than Ultraweapon’s suit, it’s the pinnacle of Promethia’s technology. It’s the next best thing to fighting Patterson himself and I’ve never been