One Punch Man: Attitude Adjustment
Ch.8: Cold Shoulders
The Bulldog spent most of the afternoon driving through the vast streets of City-T. It stopped at a dozen deserted locations, each one a likely place to find a hidden criminal operation. Kathy's team searched neighborhoods that were abandoned after monster attacks and factories that had been closed down but with facilities that were still operational. After hours of investigating, nothing was found.
Even though coming up short again and again was starting to get frustrating, the team kept going with their search. Meanwhile, a far less noteworthy act of heroism was taking place. Two little girls were crying as they looked up at their cat, which was stuck up a very tall tree.
"Come on little buddy." A man said after climbing the tree and picking up the cat. "Here you go." The man said as he gave the cat back to the girls.
"Yay! Thanks Mr. Olympics!" The girl holding the cat said cheerfully.
"Actually, it's Mr. Olympian!" The man said boastfully.
The man was fairly tall, with an athletic build. He was wearing a wrestling singlet covered in a stars and stripes pattern. He also wore the proper boots and headgear that was used in Olympic competitions. His short, brown hair was slicked backed with plenty of hair gel and he smiled like a man in love with his own reflection.
"And remember, make sure you let everyone know who helped..." Mr. Olympian said, flexing like he was waiting for a photo to be taken until he realized the girl were already gone. "Why does that always happen?" He said with a very disappointed sigh. "Oh well, my good deeds done for the day. Time to go home and make a delicious protein shake."
As Mr. Olympian made his way home, he made sure to smile and pose to anyone that so much as glanced in his direction. He always thought he looked like a god among men, but most people just thought he looked like an idiot. Eventually, the street he was walking down was empty until a woman's voice with a thick, Austrian accent broke the silence.
"Pardon me young man." A woman said at the end the street, the top half of her face covered by a parka hood. "You are a hero, yes?"
"Of course miss. They call me the Great, Mighty and Majestic Mr. Olympian!" He answered with glee, always happy to announce himself. "I'm Class C, Rank 29 but don't be surprised if you here about my promotion soon."
"That's so good to hear, I don't think anyone else could help me right now." The woman said, a slight smirk on her lips as she watched the Hero approach.
"Have no fear miss, I'm here to...help?" Mr. Olympian said as he stopped walking and noticed something odd about the older looking woman in front of him. "Miss, are you feeling alright? You look a little, well...blue." He said as noticed the woman's blue skin.
"I feel just wonderful darling, especially now that you're here" The woman said mischievously.
"Okay...so what do you need help with?" Mr. Olympian asked, clearly confused.
"Actually, I don't need any help at all." The woman said as she took off her hood, revealing her bald head and the silver goggles she was wearing. "But you will."
The woman quickly reached into her parka and pulled out a short, futuristic looking rifle. It was sleek, silver and had a glowing blue power source in the center of it. Mr. Olympian only had time to realize he was in danger before a bright flash of blue energy burst out from the gun.
"Can we please take a break?" Jeremy said with a bored yawn as they all kept moving in the Bulldog.
"We have been at this for a while." Mia said as she looked at Kathy.
"We've got just a few more spots left on the list, the next one is a power station that's been deserted for the last couple of years." Kathy replied, her eyes on the road until she glanced at Mia and could see that she was starting to get tired. "How about you big guy? Need to stop and refill that flask?" She asked Randal sarcastically.
"Still got a few sips, and if we've got work to do we might as well buckle down and get it done." Randal replied.
"That's just what I wanted to hear." Kathy said with a smile. "We'll finish the list, and even if we don't find anything today my family just give us some more likely options."
Despite Mia sighing and Jeremy rolling his eyes, Kathy happily kept driving to the next location until a sudden report coming from one of the monitors on the dashboard came through. It was report about a Hero being attacked at a street only half an hour away from where they were at the moment. What stuck in the report the most was that the Hero that was attacked was apparently found frozen.
"Hmm...didn't the association mention something about someone who likes to freeze things?" Kathy said, trying to remember what made that sound so familiar.
"Yeah, I think her name is Bella Zerra. Some kind of crazy scientist lady. Apparently, she's part of Spade's gang." Randal said, his ears perked by the report as soon as they heard it.
"That's what I thought." Kathy said with a determined expression. "New plan, we check this out and see if we can find anything that will lead us to little Ms. Frosty."
"What do we do if we find her?" Mia asked.
"Take her down, take her in. Make her tell us where to find the boss." Randal suggested like someone who done that sort of thing before.
"And how exactly would you make her talk?" Kathy asked, very curious to know how Randal would answer.
"She likes the cold right? I say we tie her up and toss her in a sauna for a while." Randal replied, chuckling at his own joke.
"Yeah...that just might work." Kathy said, her eyes focused on the road as she wondered just how far someone with Randal's past would go.
When the Bulldog arrived at the scene of the attack, police cars and an ambulance had already arrived. The team of Heroes left the vehicle and were soon greeted by one of the officers on the scene.
"Thanks for coming, we just finished thawing out the victim." The officer said as he pointed at the ambulance.
"C-C-C-Cold...S-S-So...C-C-Cold..." Mr. Olympian said, his whole body shivering badly as he sat in the back of the ambulance with multiple blankets wrapped around him.
"I'll talk to him. You guys takes a look around." Kathy said before she walked over to the ambulance. "Hi there cutey, glad to see you're okay. Any chance you can help out a fellow Hero and tell me what happened?" Kathy asked in a flirtatious way, mostly because she thought it would help Mr. Olympian talk but also because she thought he was decent looking.
"Sh-she c-c-called me over...th-thought she n-n-needed help..." Mr. Olympian said, his teeth chattering as he tried to speak. "N-Next th-thing I know...M-M-My feet are getting fr-fr-frozen...and then m-my legs...th-th-then everything g-goes dark..." He explained with eyes that showed how terrified Mr. Olympian was. "D-D-Don't w-wanna talk about it anymore..."
"That's okay big guy, you go home and have some hot chocolate." Kathy said, patting his shoulder as a way of saying thanks for the information.
While Kathy was asking for more information from the police, the others examined the crime scene. Small bits off ice littered the street but there was no sign of the woman that made them. Mia carefully checked everything around her while Jeremy just knelt down and started looking at the ice one chunk at a time. Randal only had to look for a moment to know what this was all about, but that didn't stop what he knew from weighing on his mind.
"Do you have any ideas?" Mia asked as she noticed Randal lost in thought.
"Yeah, seems like good old-fashioned payback." Randal said as he looked around the street. "We hit them, they hit us back."
"If that's the case, why did they leave the Olympic guy alive?" Jeremy asked.
"Maybe they didn't mean to, some guys are tougher then they look." Randal said as he pointed at Mr. Olympian. "I knew a guy who survived getting locked in a meat freezer for a week."
"Why did he get locked in a meat freezer?" Mia asked in a very concerned way.
"You're better off not knowing." Randal said, still looking around for something. "If this Spade guy is as cocky as I think he is, he probably left some kid of...calling card." Randal said as he looked up.
Everyone else looked up and noticed the same thing, just below the roof of a three-story building was a wall covered with ice. The ice seemed to be shaped like the spade on a typical playing card.
As the Heroes kept investigating the crime scene, Spade was busy putting the next stage on his together. To do this, he had to visit Dr. Nova who took him to the part of the facility where monsters were being held in the sturdiest cages money could buy. Spade felt like a kid in a candy store as he looked at all the promising options. Some were big, but looked slow and stupid and some looked small but also looked like they could tear out a mans throat in the blink of an eye.
"Hmm...what about this one?" Spade said as he looked at a centaur with a sledgehammer and construction hat on.
"Strong enough and still has enough intelligence to use tools, but I doubt you'll get much from him other than brute force." Dr. Nova said as her eyes studied the specimen.
"Hmm...what's the threat level?" Spade asked before sipping from the glass of whiskey in his hand.
"Based on our data, I would put him on the higher end of the Tiger category." Dr. Nova answered.
"I don't think that's going to cut it. If these buggers were tough enough to beat Jackson and his boys we're going to need something a little...more." Spade said with a disappointed look on his face.
"Well I have more with similar strength, perhaps you could take three others and ambush the Heroes with a team of your own." Dr. Nova suggested, but her tone showed how much she didn't care for the idea of giving away perfectly good test subjects.
"That could work, but I don't wanna waste too many pets if I don;t have to." Spade said, thinking over the best option as he finished his drink. "I want something tough enough to take them on, but I don't want to use the best we got. Those need to be saved for when we start dealing with those pretentious twats in S-Class."
"In that case, I know exactly what you're looking for." Dr. Nova said as she led Spade towards a large, bullet-proof glass cage that held a very unique specimen.
"I assure you it's far more than meets the eye, three teams were sent to track it down and only half of them came back alive." Dr. Nova said with a pleased smile.
"Really?" Spade said with a smirk as he looked over the creature. "In that case, let's take it for a spin."
Hours after the investigation was done, the team decided to stop and rest for a little while. Randal knew about a food truck that an old friend of his had been running for years. The truck looked run down and the stains covering the inside and the owners apron didn't make it look like the most appetizing place. Despite this, as they dug into their food everyone but Randal was surprised as they tasted the best street food they ever had.
"Oh my god...this burger is perfect." Jeremy said with his mouthful of food. "I think I'm gonna order a couple more."
"I want to take a box of these veggie patties home." Mia said happily before biting into her vegetarian burger.
"No does simple better than Sammy." Randal said as he started cutting into his steak.
"You're not kidding, this puts some of the chefs my family hired to shame." Kathy said with a half eaten burrito in her hand. "But now that our belly's are full, we need to figure out where to go from here."
"Well I don't think driving from place to place is going to get us anywhere. There's too many options just in T-City and if Spade's smart, he'll know how to keep his place hidden." Randal commented.
"Then what can we do? Just wait and see if somebody else gets frozen?" Jeremy asked sarcastically.
"We might have to, but if we're lucky Spade isn't done letting his goons run wild." Randal said before taking another bite of his steak.
Once they were done with dinner, Kathy decided to call it a night. She didn't want to admit it, but all of their searching just felt like failing to find a needle in a haystack. After being taken home, Randal decided to stay up for a little while and pour some drinks. He didn't listen to music, or turn on the T.V like he usually would when he wanted to relax. He just sat on his couch, deep in thought.
The way Mr. Olympian was attacked felt too familiar. Randal wondered how long Bella took to track him down, how much time she spent learning his routine and planning out the perfect time to jump out and attack. Maybe it was just something done on a whim, like when the old bosses used to point at someone that crossed them and told Randal to "go nuts". He hoped that the liquor would help clear his mind, but all it was did was make his self pity even worse. After the fifth glass, all he could think about was whether or not he really deserved to be a Hero. He might have not been the worst, but Randal knew that didn't make him innocent. After the ninth, he laid his head back on the couch and hoped that all the memories would be gone by the morning.
He woke up to the sound of his phone ringing again, it wasn't too early in the morning like last time but the hangover Randal was feeling did not make him happy to get up. He lazily got off the couch and looked at the phone to see Kathy's name in the caller I.D.
"Get ready, we're on our way now!" Kathy said as she was driving.
"Let me guess, someone else got hit?" Randal asked with a yawn.
"No, but Below Zero is hitting the T-City museum right now!" Kathy answered.
Hearing that made Randal get in gear, he threw some cold water in his face to feel more awake before taking his jacket and running out of the door. After waiting for a couple minuets, the Bulldog pulled up and Randal jumped in so they could keep heading towards the museum. Meanwhile, people were running out of the building as fast as they could as Bella Zerra and her gang of parka wearing thugs were doing whatever they want inside.
"How does this look Ma'am?" One of Bella's henchmen said as he showed her an expensive medieval painting.
"Oh, that is just lovely. Put it with the rest." Bella said as she sat on the head of a full T-Rex skeleton that was covered in a thin layer of ice.
Bella was very much enjoying herself as she watched her minions go to work. It had been a while since she stepped away from the cryo-lab to go out and have a little fun. The smile didn't leave her face as the front door burst open. Four Heroes walked into the museum, the same ones that Spade had told her about.
"Why hello there darlings, did you come to admire the history to?" Bella said in an elated mood, standing with her freeze-ray in her hands as she looked down at the new guests.
Bella's minions all rushed to see what happened at the front door, there was a dozen of them in total. Compared to the armed soldiers they had to face last time, the Heroes didn't see much of a threat. Randal, Mia and Jeremy stood ready to fight if needed and Kathy already had her Winchester rifle pointed at Bella Zerra's chest.
"Give up now and you won't have to get hurt." Kathy said in a no-nonsense way.
"Well we don't want to give up...but we also don't want to fight..." Bella said with a cocky smirk. "So, what can we possibly do instead?" She said while rolling down the sleeve of her lab-coat to reveal a familiar looking device on her wrist.
"Oh crap..." Randal mumbled as he remembered where he saw that high-tech bracelet before.
"So that's your plan? Just run away while some poor creature does your dirty work?" Mia asked with a disgusted look on her face.
"I am simply taking advantage of the resources given to me. Wouldn't you do the same?" Bella asked with an amused smile.
"So what do you got in mind then? Gonna bring out some big devil looking thing Or maybe you've got a real life unicorn waiting to kill us." Randal said to mock Bella.
"Nothing like that I'm afraid. But with any luck, you'll still be pleasantly surprised." Bella said, eagerly waiting for the monster to finishing arriving.
"Then where is it? I say just bring the monster out so we can move right along to killing it." Randal said, he was getting tired of Bella being so coy with them.
As they talked, Jeremy was looking all over just in case the monster was the type that could climb on walls or stick to the ceiling. As he looked, he noticed three different air vents. He also noticed a steady stream of sand flowing out of them.
"Umm...guys..." Jeremy said with a very concerned look. "That looks like a lot of dust." Jeremy said as he pointed at one of the vents.
"I...don't think that's dust." Randal replied as he noticed the sand start to move.
As the sand flowed onto the floor, it all started to converge and slide towards the center of the room. Kathy didn't want to wait and see what would happen, so she shot the sand as it started to form another pile. The sand scattered in every direction, only to move and come together even faster then before. Within seconds, all of the sand had come together to form a hill. Then it started to swirl like a twister, forming a torso with arms and a head in the eye of the storm. When it was done, a fifteen foot tall being of pure stand was in front of them. It had no face, but a mouth and most of the chest opened with an inhuman roar.
"Say hello to my Sand Golem!" Bella said ecstatically, the monster was the same height as the skeleton she stood on. "Remember to play nice children, toodles." Bella said, laughing as she slid down the back and tail of the T-Rex to land on the second floor balcony.
The henchmen ran up the two flights of stairs to join their boss on the second floor before they all ran into the museum to escape. The Heroes tried to follow but were stopped and had to step back from a giant fist of sand slamming into the floor.
"Any ideas guys?" Randal said.
"We need to get past this thing..." Kathy said to herself, her brow furrowed as she tried to think. "Jeremy! Chuck some paint, we'll move while it's putting itself back together."
Jeremy nodded in agreement and pulled out one of his paint cans/smoke-bombs. Just as the monster raised both arms to attack again, Jeremy tossed the can into the monsters chest, causing most of it to explode in a cloud of blue smoke.
"Let's go!" Kathy said as she led the charge to the stairs.
The sand was rapidly reforming as they ran for the second floor. As Randal and Kathy started climbing the stairs, Mia noticed a pile of sand forming between all of them. Her instinct kicked in and she grabbed Jeremy by the back of his hoodie and jumped back. This let both miss four tall, sharp spikes of solidified sand suddenly bursting up from the floor.
Kathy turned when she heard the spikes come up, Randal and herself had made it to the stairs but Mia and Jeremy were still on the ground floor. As the monster reformed. it seemed to be focused on Mia and Jeremy, making both of them back up to a nearby wall.
"Just go, we'll keep it busy!" Mia said as she watched the sand monster get closer.
"We'll do what?!" Jeremy yelled, not happy with that plan at all.
"Fine..." Kathy said reluctantly, she hated the idea of leaving her friends to face a monster like that without her. "Let's go." She said to Randal as she lead him up the stairs.
Randal and Kathy rushed to the second floor and down the center hallway that Bella ran through. The path split between two different exhibits, so they decided to split up. After Kathy searched through the Jurassic Era and Randal made his way through an exhibition of human evolution, the two met again in a large exhibit that displayed life in the Ice Age.
"Beautiful isn't it?" Bella's voice echoed in the room, but she couldn't be seen. "Just think of it, everyday of your life surrounded by snow and ice. Waking up every morning to the chilling embrace of frigid winds." She said like someone talking about their greatest fantasy.
"We get it lady, you have a cold fetish." Randal said with no patience for these kind of games.
As they moved into the middle of the exhibit, Bella's henchmen made their move. They were hiding behind wax figures of cavemen and woolly mammoths that were surrounding the two Heroes. They all charged with sharpened ice climbing picks, but they didn't last long. Randal easily knocked out out three of them with a single punch and then threw another across the room. Kathy knocked one out with the butt of her rifle, then she ducked as another henchmen tried to swing at her head and countered with a hard kick to a place that can make even the strongest of men crumble to their knees.
As this very short fight went on, Bella was watching from the other end of the room with her freeze-ray at the ready. At first, she thought about freezing the bigger target first but then realized a brute like him would be easier to deal with. Kathy had just enough time to see the beam coming and try to move out of the way, but it was too late. Ice quickly covered her left arm and shoulder, making her drop to the ground from the sudden weight and the instant frostbitten pain.
Randal turned after Kathy hit the ground, seeing her arm frozen made him even more angry. He heard Bella snicker before moving further into the building, Randal was about to chase her but then realized he couldn't just leave Kathy while she was injured.
"Just go!" Kathy yelled out in pain as she started to push herself up.
Hearing that was all Randal needed to put his worries away. He ran after Bella in a full sprint, as he turned a corner he noticed going into a pair of doors to an exhibit of histories first example of great civilizations. Randal kept running and shoulder checked his way through the doors, only to fall on his back and slide across the room because the floor was covered in ice. Randal braced for impact with his shoulder as he slammed into a wall. After shaking off the hit, Randal looked ahead and saw Bella Zerra standing if front of him. She didn't seem to have any problem standing and walking around on the ice.
"It was "Ice", to meet you." Bella said, smirking at the pun she thought was hilarious before pulling the trigger on her freeze-ray.
Randal only had a few moments to decide what to, the ice would make it hard to move out of the way. But the trash bin beside him could mean that he did not have to. As Bella fired, Randal reached as far as he could to his right to grab the bin and use it as a shield. It worked for a few seconds, but Randal could feel the ice getting dangerously close to his hands. He decided to let the bin go and boot it towards Bella as hard as he could. Strength combined with a heavy layer of ice turned the trash bin into an icy cannon ball that Bella barely managed to dodge.
Seeing an opportunity, Randal slammed both fist onto the ice as had as he could. It was enough force to crack all the ice covering the floor. He stomped his foot, creating a footprint of shattered glass just like he was hoping for. Bella now realized that Randal was more capable then she first thought and decided to retreat.
As Randal tried to chase her down, Mia and Jeremy were struggling to survive against the Sand Golem in the lobby. They were in danger no matter where they stood. A giant fist, ax, hammer of spike would quickly form and try to kill them. Even when they did smash the sand constructs apart, the sand would just come together again. Constant moving and dodging was starting to wear them down, but they couldn't even stop as they tried to talk to each-other
"We can't keep this up!" Jeremy said right after diving over another spike.
"I know, but there has to be something we can do!" Mia replied after kicking a sand fist apart.
Both of them desperately tried to think of something as they kept moving around the sand. Eventually, Jeremy spotted sprinkler systems built into the roof and then saw a fire alarm switch behind the lobby's front desk.
"What about water?" Jeremy said as he pointed to the roof and then dodged another sand ax trying to cut him in half.
"Yes, go for it!" Mia replied, instantly knowing what Jeremy had in mind.
The fire alarm was across the room, but Jeremy was determined to reach it. His acrobatics and agility let him dodge one sand obstacle after another as he got closer and closer to his goal. Just before he reached the front desk, he was hit by a sand fist that pushed him straight up to slam hard into the roof. After that, the fist pulled back to the ground and formed a massive mouth that Jeremy was now falling into. All Jeremy could do is brace himself for whatever happened when the mouth caught him, but a sudden push changed his direction. Still in mid-air, he turned to see what pushed him and was horrified to see Mia right above the Sand Golem's mouth. Even as the monster was about to take her, Mia looked at Jeremy with a hopeful smile. The mouth of sand snapped shut, taking Mia with her so the Golem could suffocate her.
"No!" Jeremy yelled after he landed behind the front desk, watching Mia's limbs flail in the sand as she desperately tried to struggle.
Panic took him over in that moment, he couldn't leave Mia to die but he also knew just pulling her out probably wasn't going to work. He looked at the fire-alarm behind him and prayed he made the right choice as he reached out and pulled it.
Only one of Mia's hands could be seen as the sprinklers turned on, it was limp and didn't move even as the Golem cried out agony as the water rained down. The sand tried to scatter to any safe place it could find, but the monster couldn't get away in time. Mud covered the entire lobby floor and many parts of the walls, with Mia's still body laying in the middle of it.
"No, no, no!" Jeremy said as he ran over to Mia, panicking even more when he realized she wasn't breathing. "Come on, Come on!" Jeremy said as he used his hands to pump her chest.
Jeremy knew that he had to try mouth to mouth next. For a moment, he felt like an idiot because of nerves that had nothing to do Mia possibly dying right in front of him. After focusing, Jeremy started to lean down towards Mia. Their lips were just inches away before he was suddenly hit with a large amount of sand coughed into his face.
"Did-did it work?" Mia asked, still coughing as she tried to catch her breath.
"Yeah...sure did." Jeremy said awkwardly as he wiping the sand off of his face.
"I bet Kathy will be impressed when she see's this." Mia said, sitting up after she felt like could breath without any trouble.
"Honestly, I'm just glad that you're okay." Jeremy said with a big sigh of relief.
"So am I, thanks to my personal Hero." Mia replied, smiling sweetly.
Jeremy blushed when she said that and since he didn't have his painting mask on, she could see just how red his face was. She giggled, but wasn't sure what to say next. Before she could think of anything, she was distracted by the sound of Kathy's voice.
"Sorry if I'm interrupting..." Kathy said with a pained groan as she looked down and Mia and Jeremy from the second floor. "But I could really use some help here!"
Jeremy and Mia rushed to helped Kathy while Randal rushed through the building to catch Bella Zerra. She used her freeze-ray as she ran, but Randal dodged the few beams fired at him and learned enough from last time to jump over any frozen spots she made on the floor. Randal followed her around the corner to find the end of a hallway. There was also an open window with ice covering the bottom and sides of the frame. Randal looked out the window to see a slide made of ice that went down to the street. Randal saw Bella at the bottom and was about to keep chasing her but then had to jump back as her freeze ray covered the entire window in ice. He smashed the ice with a punch and looked out the window again, but Bella was already gone.
"Do you think Randal's gonna be able to catch her?" Jeremy asked as he and Mia helped Kathy down the stairs.
"God Dammit!" Randal's anger shouting echoed throughout the building, followed by the distant sound of someone putting their fist through a wall.
"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say no..." Kathy answered.