H.E.R.O. - Horde Read Online Free PDF Page A

soon as their hands touched a blast of colorful particles exploded from them, as if they had fireworks between them.
    Spartan jerked his hand back, but Zonk only cracked up laughing in a deep voice.
    The clown hero said, "Haha!  Gotchya!  Sorry about that, man ... couldn't help myself."
    He then reached out again and they shook hands without any odd explosions.
    Zonk continued, "Hero-man, I love the costume.  It's like clown-lite.  And I love the huge feet!  You want a job at the carnival?"
    Spartan gave him a slightly sour look.  "No thanks.  I'm Spartan, by the way."
    "No, seriously.  I'm offering.  We could use another brick clown."
    "Wha...?  No, no thanks.  I have a second job."
    "Too bad!  Well, keep it in mind!  Hey, guy in black!  I'm Zonk."
    He held his hand out.  For a moment I wondered at other bricks, all of whom seemed to have an aversion to shaking hands with non-bricks.  I reached out and took his, but he slid the palm back out of mine and slightly up.  He then made an exploding motion with his fingers and small fireworks went off from the hand.
    "Miniboom!  Nice to meet you."
    I smiled and said, "You too.  I'm Black Tiger."
    I looked at the Goth guy, figuring he'd be the next to get an explosive greeting, but he'd disappeared.  I glanced around and didn't see him anywhere in the club.  There were a few other mutants getting up here and there.  Even if hurt fairly bad most would be healing it up quickly.
    I heard police vehicles pull up outside the building; they shut off their sirens as they stopped outside.  I looked around to ensure none of the odd looking dudes were up, but they were all out cold.
    Rayna joined our circle and grinned up at all of us, "Hi guys."
    Zonk said, "Hey there, pretty lady."
    He closed a fist and acted as if he pulled something out of it - a bright red rose made of his firework particles.  Somehow, it stayed in the rose shape until he presented it to her, and then slowly went into tiny fireworks from the bottom up.
    I heard an "Oooooo" from Rayna's left, and saw her brown and white floating sphere creature staring at the rose with his mouth in a big "O" shape.  He was obviously extremely impressed by it.
    Rayna said, "How are you, Zonk?  It's been a while."
    "The Zonkster's been busy between the carnival and doing good guy stuff.  How about the little lady in pink and white?"
    "I've been busy.  Some strange intrigue going on, but this isn't a good place to talk about that sort of thing."
    Zonk deepened his voice and said, "BOOM!  BOOM!"  It echoed through the large, nearly empty room.  "I dunno, Rayna, sound works pretty good in here."
    "I know, that's the point.  Too many ears."
    "Oh."  Zonk glanced at Gruff, reached into one of the pouches around each thigh and pulled out a balloon.  In moments, he'd blown it into a long shape, shaped it into a squirrel, tied off the end and held it toward Gruff.  The eye beast again made the "O" look with his giant eye wide open.  The other four eyes all looked at Rayna for a moment.  She motioned toward it and the creature reached forward and took the bottom of the balloon animal.  He looked like it was the best day ever to have a blown up squirrel.
    He floated around to show Fluff, who grinned evilly with his own giant mouth and began floating up toward Gruff.  Rayna put her hand on top of Fluff's body and rubbed his mohawk - but also kept it there to prevent him from moving toward his smaller cousin.  Cousin?  Brother?  What the hell are these things?
    The third eye creature slowly appeared.  He was a few feet ahead and above Gruff, and all five of his eyes stared at the giant balloon animal.  It was far larger than his softball-sized spheroid body.
    Zonk looked back and me and asked, "Hey, didn't you have some weird things sticking out of your shoulders?"  He made an odd T-Rex type motion with his arms against his body and wiggled his hands above his shoulders.
    I replied, "My tentacles?  They go