In the Company of Heroes
The Indre By, Copenhagen
In the 90th Year of the Outbreak
Sigrun “the Red Terror” Eide finished off another grossling with a single, precise stab through its brain, her third kill in under a second. Behind her, her right-hand warrior, Emil “Firework” Västerström was using his pyrokinetic powers to roast another handful or so attempting to rush them.
Whing! A nearby grossling’s head exploded. “Looks like the rest of the gang’s here,” Sigrun commented to Emil. “You might want to rein in the sparkles, for their sake.” Sigrun was invulnerable; the rest were not.
Emil concentrated on bringing his burn-BURN-burn-fire powers down to a safe level. As he did, the fountain of multicolored sparks concealing his head diminished until the became the customary sparkles glinting from his golden hair. “Is this okay?”
Sigrun shrugged. “It should be fine.”
Behind them, Mikkel “the Grave Dane” Madsen brought their Field Expeditionary Light INfantry OPerations Excursion DEvice to a halt. That he was at the controls meant that Lalli “Phantom Strike” Hotakainen wasn’t the one who’d sniped the last troll, but his cousin, “Super Tuuri” Hotakainen, or, as Emil liked to teasingly call her, “Mighty Mouse”.
Lalli was insanely fast and insanely stealthy; usually his kills were caught so off-guard as to bear bewilderment as their last expression. He was also a magnificent sniper.
Super Tuuri, as she insisted upon being addressed, had probability warping powers, as did her brother Onni, who never set foot away from home if he could help it, as he was also cursed with the ability to see the worst thing that could happen in any circumstance. Super Tuuri, however, could also fly, and shared her cousin’s aim.
Their final member, Reynir “the Helper” Árnason, was in the FELINOPEDE’s cabin with Mikkel, practically bouncing with his eagerness to get out there and help his friends. Mikkel’s chief power was to make anyone and everyone around him unnaturally glum, to the point of suicide in a few cases, but even at his most powerful, he couldn’t dampen Reynir’s spirits. It was commonly accepted by the team that Reynir getting depressed was one of the signs heralding the End of Everything.
Not that Everything didn’t seem to be Ending already. Ninety years ago, the Rash had swept across the world like a forest fire, the monsters it created hunting down those few who’d escaped it. This was when the first Heroes had arisen, a minuscule fraction of humanity that had the power to save what was left of it.
Even with the Heroes’ unceasing efforts, though, most of the world was in the grip of the grosslings. The Bastion of Amalienborg and the Forts of Kastellet and Kastrup were practically the only parts of Copenhagen held by humanity anymore, and even that spoke more of Danish stubbornness and valor than of grossling weakness.
The six of them had banded together at the behest of the Nordic Council, charged with defending (or hopefully Cleansing) the hard-pressed Danish holdouts in a show of Nordic solidarity, though not much of one. Sigrun had promptly christened the group “the Red Herring League”, as their purpose was much more distraction than anything else.
Super Tuuri whipped by, in search of more grosslings to snipe, and Emil waved as she passed. He both regretted and didn’t regret that he couldn’t fly, himself: no Hero who could fly was immune, and Emil liked to be as close as he could to his flames, as he kept them under better control that way.
“Don’t encourage Little Fuzzy-head, Burn-Boy,” Sigrun chided him gently. “So, lunch?” She gestured back at the FELINOPEDE, and they were off...
