One More for the Road

“Come on, Tony. Just pin the little pipsqueak’s arm and let’s get going.”

“In a second, babe. I just wanna make this little putz suffer a little bit longer then we can get goin’.”

“Suffer? Judgin’ by the way he looks, I’d say that little bugger can’t even beat me in armwrestlin’.”

“Haw! I bet yer right, babe! Hey, little man, I’m bettin’ that you can’t even beat my old lady yer such a wimp!”

The big guy releases the bearded, smaller man’s hand and the woman slides in behind him and locks grips with him. Tony releases both of their hands and they start their match. Sweat is pouring down the brow of the man who is several inches shorter than even the biker chick. After a few seconds, she decides that enough is enough and pins his arms to the table with a loud thud. The bar roars in approval as the man grips his arm in pain.

“And this guy calls hisself the Mighty Herakles! Haw haw haw! That’s a good one! Can’t even beat a woman!”

From behind the bar, the owner of The Olympia, Mikos Metropolis, makes a special call as he watches the humiliation that is unfolding before him. Hopefully help will come in time to aid this man who had once been the best patron of the bar and restaurant. Nothing illegal has happened yet but one cannot take any chances but since Mikos has opened his establishment, he has seen his share of strange occurrences and he has developed a sixth sense when it comes to things like this. Better to nip the situation in the bud before things get out of hand. He nods his head as he listens to the voice on the other end of the line before hanging up.

Herakles continues to drown his sorrows with the best spirits that the tavern has to offer. His constitution, however, is nowhere near what it was and he is very tipsy in his actions, barely able to remain seated upright.

After about an hour, the front door to The Olympia opens and in strides a rather large woman. Very muscular with a short, black haircut wearing cutoff blue jeans and a shirt that is cut short revealing her very solid abdomen, there was no doubt that this was the Soviet Superwoman. She pauses for a second, steadying herself as she sees all the alcohol being consumed by the many patrons of the establishment. She starts talking into her Guardians’ communicator. “I have arrived at The Olympia, Poly, but I do not see Herakles yet.”

“Oh my gosh, he has to be there somewhere! The bartender contacted me and told me that he was there! This confirms what Thunder Woman had told me that Herakles had lost his powers and how she couldn’t get him to stop drinking and she was hoping that you might have some success at convincing him to stop since you’ve had a history… well, you know... Oh, sorry.”

“Da, Poly. It is true and there is nothing for you to be sorry for. I shall confront him if he is here and try my best to stop him from consuming more.”

“Do… or not do… there is no try!” Poly alters her voice to sound more cartoonish.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Something that FireBrandi has been trying to get me to do. Nevermind.”

“Very well. Sometimes your American mannerisms confuse me, Poly. SSW out.”

The bartender sees Olga and waves her over and points to the arm-wrestling tables where Herakles is sitting along with the blowhard. Olga moves swiftly towards the table as the man starts to berate the former godling.

“The Mighty Herakles!”

“Stop calling me the Mighty Herakles.”

“The Mighty Herakles!”

Herakles tries to stand up but is very slow in doing so and is very wobbly. Trying to accost the loud man with a wild swing that misses badly, he almost topples to the ground on his own. The man punches Herakles in the jaw with a strong punch and moves in quickly to finish him off. He starts to deliver the final blow when his fist is stopped in mid-swing by the Soviet Superwoman’s hand. She squeezes his hand slightly and a crunching sound is heard even above the din of the bar. The man grabs his hand with his free hand and looks into Olga’s eyes.

She glares at him very intently. “I would suggest that you leave immediately before something else is broken, comrade.”

The man’s eyes widen as he recognizes her and hurries very quickly out the door in a full sprint.

Olga helps Herakles walk over to a more private booth towards the back of the bar. She slowly sits him back down into his seat before taking a seat for herself on the opposite side.

“Just leave me alone. I don’t need your help. Give me another drink, barkeep.”

“Nyet. I am here to help break you out of this dangerous binge.”

Herakles looks at Olga’s face and studies it. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I could say the same for you, comrade.”

“Ha! What do you know about what’s happened to me. I used to be the Prince of Olympia, the god of strength, the son of the all-father Zeus. You know nothing of me or my situation. How could you know?”

“Nyet. I, too, have known the helplessness of losing powers. But it was only temporary. The real problem was that I began to drink heavily to escape from my problems. I had been trapped out of my home dimension never to return. I had seen my old lover brought back to life and serving my most hated enemy in revenge against me. There was an incident at Sajmište which changed my life profoundly.

“I allowed my doubts and fears to consume me and make me forget who I really was. I buried myself in alcohol to make the pain go away… But they never went away. When I would wake up the next morning, the pain and the problems were still there only now I had a hangover to go along with it.

“But you have to find yourself as I did. You have friends and family who love you and you must use that as an anchor to hold on to yourself. You must confront those inner demons and defeat them. All of these things I used to build up my resolve to help me overcome my shortcomings and doubts, to summon up my inner strength and remember who I really was, why I was given these abilities, and make myself a better person. I would face my problems and not run away from them. I did it and so can you. With all of your friends, we can face your problems together but you must want to be helped.”

Meanwhile at the other end of town, a lone man enters the condo entrance where Alexandra Xenos resides. His name is Mark and he is the cameraman for Alex or rather he was until she never showed up for work for several straight days. He has decided to check up on the rookie reporter for WAFS to make sure that she’s okay. He has heard rumors that were floating around the office about something happening to her but he has dismissed them as just that.

He approaches the entranceway for the front of the condo and as he turns the corner he sees that the front door is off of its hinges. The stairs leading up the front door have indentations on them as if someone pounded a huge pillar down on them.

Now he is definitely worried about her. He cautiously enters the front entrance and looks around the living area. “Alex? Are you in here?” He spies the refrigerator in the kitchen, its door completely off and lying next to it. A pair of handprints are depressed into each side of the door.

He carefully moves down the hallway towards her bedroom. Peering inside another crushed doorway he sees that her bed has collapsed as though something very heavy tried to sit on it. Her telephone on the nightstand is crushed beyond repair and lay in pieces scattered over the stand and the floor.

He quickly moves back towards the living room. “Alex? Are you alright? I thought that I would check up on you since no one has seen you since your last interview with Herakles.”

“Leave me alone. I don’t need your help.”

“Oh, come on, Alex. I can help you with whatever problem that you may have…” His voice trails off as he sees Alexandra sitting in the middle of the floor. A huge, muscular female body with the head of Alex placed upon its shoulders. She is wearing nothing but a white robe since nothing she owns will fit her. Beneath her appears to be the remains of a chair crushed beyond belief. The silence is deafening as Mark’s mouth is agape for what seems like a long time but in reality only a few seconds until he finally regains his senses. “What… has happened, Alex?”

“Well, when I went to help Herakles, I ran into some goddess named Apate who was upset that she couldn’t have him and tried to use me to get back at him. She somehow made me do what she wanted but then I snapped out of it then he ran into some kind of villain who was trying to steal his powers, then I had some kind of artifact and tried to stop her then there was an explosion and here I am looking like some kind of super bodybuilder who has no control over her body.”

She finally stops rambling and catches her breath waiting to see what kind of reaction that Mark would have. She looks up at him but sees none. He appears to be completely frozen and not even breathing at all! As she starts to question her sanity, a familiar figure appears out of the wall of her condo.

“I bid thee greetings, fair Alexandra. T’would seem that we meet again and with a male. My, thou art rather handsome… for a mortal.” The rather short, white-haired woman is still wearing her dress slit down to her naval and the back is opened halfway down to the waist with her bare legs having complete movement. The belt of skulls still hung loosely around her waist. Her bare legs accented by her fur-lined boots. Her black lipstick makes her smile look even more sinister against her pale skin.

“I hath watched thee from afar and observed thy plight. Out of the kindness of mine own heart, I shalt help thee in thy hour of need.”

“Apate! You’re the reason that I’m in this mess! Get out of here! I will not listen to your lies any longer!” Alex swings her fist at the goddess but it strikes nothing as it travels straight through her into the wall creating a large hole.

The Goddess of Discord lets forth a hearty laugh. “Dost thou think I wouldst leave myself vulnerable to thee? I think not! However, I shalt forgive thy transgression since thou canst control thine own actions. However, I hold the key to Herakles and thy plight. Swear allegiance to me and I shalt cure thee of thy ills. E’en now, he doth sit at that Olympic bar drowning his sorrows with the pathetic ales that are contained therein.”

“I shalt ne’er join you, Apate! Ack! What’s happening with my speech?”

“Thou art slowly starting to speak like a true Olympian. The irony in this I find most delicious. But know this, Alexandra! I can restore Herakles to his former glory, mortal. If not for him, think of thyself. Thou dost not wish to remain like… this.”

“I need not thy help… your help. Arrggh!” With that, Alex rushes out of her condo and into the streets, speeding as quickly as her powerful legs can carry her, towards The Olympia bar.

Back at the condo, laughter is heard inside. “And the wheels hath started to turn in a fashion that only I desire.” Apate vanishes leaving the now-unfrozen cameraman to himself with a very puzzled look on his face.

Back at The Olympia, Herakles stares at the mug of ale thinking to himself. An image starts to form inside the glass and where the foam once was now had an image of Apate smiling back at him.

“Hail, Herakles, former god of strength! ‘Tis sad that thou art but a shadow of thy former self. Swear fidelity to me and I shalt rectify thy situation and restore thy vitality.”

“Nay, witch! Thou shalt not spin thy web of lies to me no more!” Herakles throws the mug towards the wall splashing some of the patrons nearby. Olga looks at him as though he were talking to her.

“Herakles. There is nothing that I have said that is not true. You must not drink to excess as I once did.”

He grabs another pitcher and starts drinking straight from it before finally collapsing to the floor unconscious. Olga’s eyes are open wide in shock as she stares at the former god sprawled in an unseemly manner.

A slight laugh is heard behind the Soviet Superwoman’s shoulder. She turns and sees a white-haired woman wearing a very provocative outfit, sexy but menacing at the same time. “This is most serious. If you had something to do with this…” She grabs the woman near her shoulder as if to shake her.

“I wouldst attend to thy friend if I were you, mortal, lest he pass on to the other realm. Mayhap the healers at yon building might be able to save him...” Her mouth turns up into a slight grin as she watches the superheroine pick him up and carries him to the nearby hospital. She looks back at the woman and scowls at her before flying him to the emergency room. “…but I doubt it.”

Sometime later at the hospital, Olga sits in a chair by the bedside of the former Scion of Olympia while several machines monitor his progress. “He looks so small and fragile with all of those tubes trying to keep him hydrated. I hope that I have not wasted my words on him. I will need to find out who that woman was also. I felt a chill running down my spine after meeting her.”

Alexandra finally reaches the hospital room herself with a worried look on her face. “Oh, Herakles, what has happened to you?”

“You must be that reporter…” Olga looks at the powerful build of Alex who is much taller and powerful looking than even she.

“Alexandra. But you can call me Alex. How is he doing?”

“He is stable but I am afraid that he has alcohol poisoning.”

“To think, that it would take but the simplest of agreements to make him better.”

They both turn to see a beautiful white-haired woman in a nurse’s outfit. In spite of the uniform, she looks very out of place. Only then do they look at her face and see the visage of the goddess Apate.

“The offer doth stand, mortal. Tis in my power to revive him. But until thou dost agree, Herakles shalt be nothing more than a shell.”

“I shalt never submit to thee… to you, Apate!” Alex charges at the goddess but phases completely through her body almost colliding with stricken hero’s bed.

“Tsk, tsk. Have a care, mortal. We must not allow our actions to endanger the one we seek to protect. I am only here to strike a bargain. I see now that I must take my leave until a later time when thou art more rational.” The goddess fades from view before either woman can react leaving them alone with the unconscious god lying in the bed.

The enormity of the situation finally dawns on Alexandra Xenos as she slumps down on both of her knees at the foot of the bed and starts crying while Olga touches her shoulder with a hand.

***

I finally completed my next chapter of Herakles. It's been a while to get this chapter finished. This has been very emotional for me to write since one of my best buddies died from alcoholism five years ago. This contains a speech that I should've given to my friend, Tom.

The Soviet Superwoman, Olga Yezhov, is the property of and used with permission. Thank you, my friend, for allowing the use of her. It wouldn't have worked as well with any other character.

Polygirl belongs to and used with permission.

FireBrandi is mentioned and is the property of .

Thunder Woman is mentioned and belongs to .

All other characters are my intellectual property.

Events of this story take place within the city limits of .

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