Struggling Aftermath

Okay...I got a new review...so now I'm going to commence in putting on chapter 4 here...and my apologies after having this fic put off after a year...due to lack of reviews and writer's block. But now I'll see if i can make up for lost time by having Joey go through a series of dangers as Dr. Minami and Senator Tramp use him as a tool to discredit the teen and...well...you'll soon see…

With that said…HEROMAN…ATTACK!


Previously…

After a few blocks of traveling both friends parted ways as Joey heads home so that he would go on with his part-time job, but as he passes by a vacant parking lot, the jockeys were there and started to taunt Joey on being a "weakling" now that he doesn't have Heroman by his side, though he chose to ignore them as he knows that they are just trying to get him to lose his cool, and he went on his way pretending not to notice them.

"Hey...check it out! It's Heroman's sidekick...Baby Kangaroo!"

"Hey, pipsqueak...just got out of the hospital? I hope the adult diapers fit you well!"

"I bet he is being masturbated by slut nurses!"

"Hah! He's only tough when Heroman's with him...now he's just a wuss without his "giant toy"!"

"Having a nice bump, Heroboy?"

"I bet somebody's going to kidnap him..."

"So who's going to protect you now, chump?"

"I bet he's going to cry over his dead parents!"

As Joey walked on, the jockeys, seeing that the teen boy didn't notice them, put on their ski masks and boarded their van and stealthily approached the boy and grabbed him via a sack and pulled him onboard, and with no one else noticing, Joey is kidnapped and the incident went unnoticed.

-x-

Inside the van, Joey struggles to break free from his abductors' clutches but the sheer number of the masked bullies makes it impossible for the beleaguered teen to get out given that he is inside the sack, and one of the bullies injected a tranquilizer to immobilize him which slowly worked, and Joey weakened until he is sedated, and now the bullies are calmed down after seeing that the teen is in their grasps and are now on their way to Dr. Minami's new secret hideout with the intention of doing something bad to the teen.

"The brat's sedated!"

"Whoa! He's still struggling!"

"Hold him!"

"Hey...he's weakening..."

"It's working..."

"Alright..."

"Sleep tight..."

"Glad he didn't kick my face...if he did...I'd kill him..."

The van then continued to move the streets unnoticed while Joey's friend, Psy, has no idea what has befallen his classmate and would soon notice it once the next day commences and yet this would go on unnoticed as the next turn of events would soon materialize within the next couple of days, where Joey's abduction is just the start of his sufferings and where his struggles is about to begin.

-x-

The next day, both Psy and Lina noticed that Joey didn't attend classes and wondered what has happened to him and Lina started to get worried as she recalled that he was assaulted a few months back and Psy himself felt that something is not right yet he is unwilling to jump to conclusions so he tells Lina that after classes they are going to pay a visit to Joey's house.

"I'm worried...Joey hasn't come here yet..."

"Me too...I wonder if he's sick..."

"What do we do?"

"After classes, we pay a visit to his home..."

"Right..."

"I hope he's only down with a cold...but if he gets attacked again..."

"Psy!"

"I know...I know..."

Later within the day classes ended and the two friends leave Center City High to head for Joey's house to see if their friend is there, and are bracing themselves for anything in case Joey is not there, and hope that his grandmother is there to tell them if Joey came home last night or not, and in case he didn't, then they would make their next move should what they think is indeed something to make them worry.

-x-

At a secret laboratory, location unknown, the scene shows Joey strapped to a medical bed, and there Dr. Minami extracted a blood sample from the boy as he remained sedated and unconscious and Minami has his cohorts, Amanomich and Stallion, take the blood sample and get a work on it as Nick de Carlo shows up, revealed that he too is under Senator Tramp's employ and is also conspiring to discredit Joey and is leading the bullies in abducting Joey.

Veronica came and tells them that Minami's "newest projects" are nearly ready, and the scientist grinned as he is now on the verge of unleashing his vengeance at Joey and is now rubbing his hands as he will finally get "what is coming" and is delighted that, though Heroman is no more, he would settle to see the boy suffer and is hoping that Senator Tramp would keep his word once he becomes Vice President, and once the "plan" is unleashed, it would lead Tramp to presidency and use that position to pardon the scientist.

-x-

At Joey's house, both Lina and Psy were alarmed and filled with worry after learning from Joey's grandmother that Joey hasn't come home since last night, and are told that she has no idea where Joey went, so the two teens left and went home, assuming that he would come back tonight and hope they would expect a call from him.

But in the next two days, Psy and Lina noticed that Joey hasn't arrived at school and they decided to inform Professor Danton and Vera of the situation, which the two teachers became worried as well, and the four of them waited for classes to end and then went to the police station to have the sheriff aid them in finding Joey.

"Hmm...so Joey hasn't been home yet..."

"And if keeps getting absent like this..."

"We're worried, professor...Ms. Collins..."

"Joey's been though a lot...and I fear that the attackers might did this again..."

"Now, now..."

"Calm down, you two..."

"But..."

"But...but..."

"After classes, we go to the police station and report this..."

"It's better than becoming a nervous wreck..."

"Okay..."

"Yes, sir...yes, ma'am..."

As the police went to work, Psy recalled that Joey works at Hilly's Cafe and he and Lina went there to see if Joey is there, and when they arrived, they are surprised to see that Joey hasn't been there for two days, and both Hilly and Stan became worried too as they realized that Joey is missing and they all came to suspect that the attackers of Joey may be the ones behind it.

"What? Joey's missing?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes...he's been absent for almost a week now... "

"And we're really worried about him..."

"This is bad...after saving the world...then being attacked by masked bullies...and now this..."

"I'm going to miss my coffee is Joey hasn't been found..."

"?"

"!"

"Stan!"

"Just kidding..."

"We need to find him...we can't just rely on the police..."

"Psy is right...what if..."

Even the customers who overheard the conversation became worried as well as they knew Joey being a kind-hearted boy who never earned enemies and they too are volunteering to go and help find the missing boy, which Psy and Lina thanked them for their help, and soon the search for Joey has been commenced and this slowly turned citywide as more and more people from Joey's neighborhood join in to help find the teen boy.

-x-

In the next few days, the police declared that Joey is missing and are now convinced that he has been abducted, and soon every police car and investigators work around the clock to go find Joey, hoping that he wouldn't be found as a lifeless corpse dumped at a place where he would be least found. This is the last thing they expect, feeling upset that the boy who saved Earth would be targeted by individuals who are rather jealous at Joey for being a "hero."

Even at school, even Joey's classmates are worried, while Nick and the school bullies are pleased at how the turn of events go, while keeping quiet about it so as not to give themselves away, and there the bullies and Nick are at picnic area with no one else watching, and there Nick checks his watch, as he realized that by tomorrow it is election day and sensed that Senator Tramp is going to aim for the vice-presidency, and there the plan is underway.

-x-

In the next several days, election is in full swing, with Tramp leading the tally of votes and inspite of this, most of the attention is on Joey, who remained missing, and it has been a month and a half and Joey's absence is beginning to affect his records, and if he is not back within the end of the month he would be ineligible to advance to the next year level, and both Psy and Lina are not happy with this.

"This is bad..."

"Yeah...Joey will be forced to repeat a year if he hasn't been found..."

"I wonder who would take Joey...?"

"I'm starting to wonder if there are really bullies here in school..."

"I doubt it...no one has been harassing Joey since he came back..."

"You're right..."

"We best pray that Joey's safe...and found..."

"Yeah..."

-x-

By next month, Tramp won the vice presidency and is sworn in to office, and he is pleased that one of his first plans have been fulfilled and now he is awaiting Minami's plan to begin the next phase, and is hoping it would do good as he couldn't wait assume the presidency position and use it to pardon Minami and his cohorts. As he waved to the crowd, he glances at the president, who is talking with Hughes, discussing about Joey's disappearance, and mentally hoped that Minami's plans of eliminating the president would be fool-proof.

"I got the first part of what I wanted...now I wait for Minami to make his move...and make that brat Joey suffer...then make the move that would propel me to the presidency...!"

-x-

The scene shifts to a forest, and it is shown that Joey is there, slowly waking up and the first thing he noticed are several needle marks on his arms, which is shown in flashback scenes that Amanorich and Stallion have been injecting sedatives and liquid food to keep the boy sedated and keeping him from hunger, and there the boy wondered where he is, unaware that he is far from Center City.

"Where...where am I...?"

As he moved around, he was still disoriented yet he kept on going, and slowly notices that he is at an uphill forest and tries to carefully navigate himself so he won't fall, and shouts around to see if he could get help, but there were no responses, and he realized that he is alone and he had to move and try to find a way back to a city, not knowing that he is in Colorado, particularly at Elk Mountains, and as he slowly walked down, he noticed the birds are flying away, which made him wonder what is happening.

"The birds are flying away...? Why...? And where is this place...?"

As Joey wondered what is going on, he noticed that something is coming, and when he turned around, he is taken by surprise when an individual charged towards him, ramming him by his right ribcage and the impact is enough to send him rolling down the hills, and though Joey managed to grab a grass and halted his fall, he is grimacing in pain as he felt his ribcage throbbing in extreme pain.

It would soon show, in an x-ray scene, that his right ribcage has been fractured, and the scene shifts to the attacker, where he appeared to be human-looking but is clad in a battle armor where he resembled a humanoid gorilla, and there he slowly approached the injured Joey and grabbed him by his shirt and began to speak in a robotic, yet rather childish manner.

"Hello, Joey Jones...nice to bump in to you..."

"Arrghh...wh-who are...y-you...?"

"I come to beat you up."

"Eh?"

"Orders are orders..."

"N-no..."

"I am Zeroid...of the Cybernoid Five..."

"What...?"

"And I'll be the first to break you apart!"

The mechanical being, calling himself "Zeroid", began to punch Joey on his injured ribcage before throwing him further down the hills before the boy collided with a tree, and this further injured him as Zeroid carefully navigates his way down, intending to cause more harm to Joey as it is slowly revealed that he is a new creation of Dr. Minami, and Veronica is there to see it, informing Minami that Zeroid is now currently attacking Joey.

To Be Continued...


Hope the long wait is worth it...and though this chapter focused heavily on Joey being missing and the elections, the REAL struggle has been commenced as Joey is taken to Colorado and being at a Elk Mountains and all alone, he is now defenseless and at the mercy of Minami's new creation, a mechanical being that seemingly rivals Heroman and the teen boy has to do something to outwit his attacker.

Joey is now in a fix, as he is now badly injured and with Heroman no more, he'll have to rely on his gut instinct to outrun and outwit his mechanical opponent. Can he survive it in the midst of being on a mountain?


Preview:

Joey tries to outwit his attacker while navigating his way to get out of Elk Mountains and get help...while something BAD is about to happen at Center City...which will further put more pressure on Joey's friends...