Valeria (G Dean Manuel)

By  G Dean Manuel

My name is Valeria. I was a warrior of Ancient Greece. To me was given many laurels from many important people: Senators, generals, kings, and queens. I had been lauded as a hero by the people. They held celebrations in my honor. Men sought my hand in marriage. I took many to my bed but let none of them bind with their ring. I was Valeria, blessed of the gods, and no man could tame me.

Then came my time, as it comes to all. I was called to my Goddess’ side for my eternal reward. As a hero I was blessed with many gifts. I ate of the fruit of the vine, sipped of ambrosia, and took my leisure upon many a man. I found out, though, a hero’s duty does not die with them.



I live in the world of man once more. The Goddess has given me a new body and it feels strange. The familiar scars that had crisscrossed my body like a road map are now gone. The muscles that had been forged like steel in battle and hardship are now soft with disuse. I have my suspicions that this body has yet to taste the pleasures of the flesh. I was not a whore by any means but I did not shy away from a man’s cock.

This is not my body.

It is the body of a girl named Jordan May. She is a chaste beauty, unmarried but with something called a promise ring? Betrothed is the best I can understand, though I am told it is not the same. It apparently carries with it some sort of carnal prohibition. I do not know that I can or will honor such a stricture. Second only to my prowess in battle were the tales of my legendary sexual appetite.

Jordan is not gone, though. She lives somewhere deep inside and this is still her body. I am an invader to this body. A villain named the Crucible destroyed her city. Reduced it to ash. Her life was wiped away. Everything she once knew. Friends, acquaintances, family. She retreated within herself. My Goddess took the opportunity and placed my spirit within her body. A mere babe of eighteen now housed the spirit of a long dead warrior.

I was given a task, returned to life with a purpose. The age of heroes was once more upon the world. I was to inspire others to deeds both noble and lofty. Acts of courage that would be immortalized in tale and song.

I don’t know that many will survive my encouragement.

******

The window blew apart and a great, shaggy body shot across the street like a bullet into a broken husk of a building. With a big boom that shook the foundations, the Woodsman crashed into the wall and slumped limply. Onlookers in the bar looked through the hole in astonishment. The Woodsman may have been a loud mouthed braggart but he had been one of the best fighters left in the city. The woman in the bar had laid him low with a single blow.

She was in her twenties, medium height and build. She had brown hair worn in  a simple top braid. The woman wore a leather battle skirt. It was odd but in a city that had seen the likes of heroes such as the Gladiator, not unheard of. She carried a wicked looking gladius strapped to her back and a ancient bronze shield strapped to her arm.

“I am Valeria!” she cried, raising her shield in the air. Valeria struck a heroic pose then leveled her gaze like an arrow at the remaining patrons. “I’ve come looking for heroes.”

Only silence met her statement.

“What? None of you have the stones to answer my call” She sneered at the assemblage.

“At the risk of being thrown into a building, I’m not so green to be cowed by someone with a decent right hook,” said a man in the crowd. He pulled back the hood of his jacket revealing a head of grey hair. Underneath he wore a form fitting black costume with neon green lightning creeping up its sides.

“And who are you, greybeard?”

“Once upon a time, I was the Green Bolt,” he said, drawing himself proudly when his name left his mouth.

“You take pride in that name, do you not, greybeard?” Valeria asked.

The Green Bolt nodded tersely. “I’ve been around long enough to remember when being a hero actually meant something.”

“Being a hero has always meant something, even if people have forgotten,” she said, pointedly looking at the others in the bar. “How about the rest of you? Has your courage fled you and left you deaf to the pleas of the helpless?”

“No,” said a shorter woman, pushing her way through the crowd. She was a shorter woman with deep chestnut hair. In her late twenties, she was not a model having more of a “mom” bod.  “I hear them. I hear them everyday. I can’t stop hearing them. They fill my head until I can’t do anything but drink to silence them.”

“Then maybe you should do something to make the pleas stop!” Valeria said fiercely.

The woman gave a short bark of laughter. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t punch things well. All I’m good at is listening. That is my power, I listen. I hear everything. I mean everything. I can hear what you really think of us.”

“That should be obvious. You are weak sheep. What else am I supposed to think?” Valeria paused, once again scanning the crowd. “What is your name?”

“Cheyenne. Once people called me the Listener.”

“Why don’t they anymore?”

“People don’t call us much of anything anymore. Except maybe phonies.” Several people among the onlookers nodded in agreement.

“Then prove them wrong!”

“By doing what exactly?” Cheyenne asked, “It isn’t like you’ve got an all-star cast. No Power Suit or Max Lighting. The Woodsman and the Green Bolt are the best we’ve got and you laid him out with one punch and he’s old. No offense.”

“None taken,” Green Bolt said.

“Are you dead man?” Valeria asked, fixing her stare upon the Green Bolt.

“No, ma’am,” he replied quickly.

“Then take offense! She decries your age as if it is the same as useless. In my first life I had seen ninety seasons pass before the Goddess called me to her side. I fucked, I feasted, I burned across the field of battle like Apollo’s own chariot!” the Greek warrior shouted.

“You look very fit for ninety,” Cheyenne said, her eyes narrowed.

“My Goddess gave me a new life and body. She sent me back to call you to arms! The world needs heroes now more than ever. Will you just stand there and ignore the call?”

“What am I supposed to do? Hear them to death?”

“To start with, I would quit mewling like a kitten,” Valeria said, moving eye to eye with the shorter woman. Cheyenne shrank. “The ability to hear everything is very useful. You could lead us to those who need help. You would provide tactical advantage to us in the coming war.”

“What war?” said a young man with black, rocky skin.

“Who are you?” asked Valeria.

“Obsidian.”

“Well, Obsidian, the war that you are already in. The one that you’ve buried your head in the ground and are currently ignoring.”

“Lady, I ain’t ignoring nothing. Just ain’t planning on getting myself killed.”

“You fear death,” Valeria said, snorting derisively, “to what depths man has fallen. How many times have you fallen already within your own mind?”

Obsidian looked at her confused but the Green Bolt said, “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.”

“What’s that?” Obsidian asked, bewildered.

“Julius Caesar, pick up a book,” the Green Bolt returned.

“It means that if you spend your life fearing death, you will die many times within your mind. But if you embrace the inevitable, you need only die once. What a glorious death it will be for such a man,” Valeria said.

“That’s great, lady, but what difference will I make?”

“You alone? Probably not much. You’ll save some people. Or maybe you’ll inspire someone else. And they will in turn inspire others. Until it isn’t one man standing against the oncoming storm but an army!”

“And what’s this army supposed to do?” Cheyenne asked, her curiousity piqued.

“Take back this world and prepare for what comes next.”

“What comes next?” asked Obsidian.

“I do not know. But there will be something, there always is.”

“Valeria,” the Green Bolt said, green electricity playing across his hands, “you are some sort of crazy.”

Valeria chuckled and nodded. “That is not the first time that has been said.”

“But,” Green Bolt continued, turning towards the crowd of onlookers, “You are my kind of crazy. I’m in.”

“Ah, hell, I’ve been wanting to hit something for a long time. I’m in,” Obsidian said. A general murmur of agreement went through the crowd of onlookers.

“Very good! All that wish to join, we will meet in a week’s time. At the Central Park,” she said, grinning widely. “Spread the message. Call to all that wish to fight for their city. Friends, love ones, any that you know. Tell them to come. It is once more the time for heroes!”

Valeria disappeared soon after. Once she was gone, the Woodsman made his way woozily across the street. He looked at the Green Bolt and asked, “What did I miss?”

“We’re an army now.”

The End