Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

many Paragons bearing down on them, and calm right down. I mean; I would, wouldn't you?"
    "You've got a point, Lewis," said Douglas. He looked out over the House. "The people respect the Paragons. Always have. Certainly far more than they do the House security or even the peacekeepers.
    The Paragons have a reputation for solving problems, by whatever means necessary. And the Paragons have always been the people's heroes. I'll bet even militants will break down and disperse, rather than take up arms against their heroes. Lewis; do you know where most of the Paragons are, right now?"
    "Well, currently you'll find most of them in a bar called The Sangreal," said Lewis. "It's not far from here.
    And they'll know where to find the others. If you want them, most could be here inside of ten minutes.
    And all of them inside twenty. And they're probably not being watched like the troops, so the militants wouldn't know what was coming until the Paragons were right on top of them. After that, it should all get very calm in a hurry."
    "And we won't need the troops after all," said Douglas, leaning back in his Throne. "Nice one, Lewis.
    Good thinking." He looked out over the House. "How say you, honorable Members? Shall we call in the
    Paragons?"
    The House voted Aye, without a single dissenting voice, and the sense of relief in the air was so thick you could almost smell it.
    The King called The Sangreal personally. Most of the Paragons had been watching the news coverage too, and grasped the situation immediately. They grabbed their weapons, pulled on their armor, and charged out into the early evening air, glad of a bit of excitement at last. A lot of them had been drinking and carousing for some time, but none of them bothered to stop for Purges. They weren't expecting any real trouble. Not from a bunch of civilians. They spread the word on the Paragon comm channel, and soon they were all heading for Parliament, picking up stragglers along the way, storming down the streets on foot and on gravity sleds, their purple cloaks flapping bravely on the rising wind.
    The outer reaches of the mob spotted the approaching Paragons, and word spread quickly through the protesters. The shouting died away on all sides, replaced by an ominous quiet. The Paragons marched down the street in unison, the greatest gathering of heroes the city had ever seen, with a handful of gravity sleds flying overhead. They advanced confidently on the silently waiting demonstrators, and only slowed to a halt a few yards short, as they took in the mood of the situation. It wasn't what they'd expected. The civilians didn't looked scared, or cowed, by the presence of so many Paragons, as they should have been. They were just . . . waiting, to see what would happen. The Paragons looked at each other uncertainly, until finally Veronica Mae Savage pushed her way to the front. A murmur moved through the crowd. They recognized Veronica Mae. They knew her reputation. She stood before them, her hands on her weapons belt, her head held high, tam-o'-shanter perched at its usual bold angle.
    "All right, people," she said crisply, her voice carrying clearly on the quiet. "This has gone far enough.
    Time to break it up and go home, before someone gets hurt. If anyone has a genuine grievance, I guarantee, on behalf of the Paragons, that we will see you get a fair hearing. But this isn't the way, and you know it. So choose a street and start walking, or there'll be trouble. You don't want there to be trouble, do you?"
    Someone from deep inside the crowd fired a disrupter, and the energy beam blew her head right off her shoulders. The Paragons cried out in shock and outrage, and drew their weapons. They surged forward and slammed into the crowd, determined to reach whoever had fired the shot. Some of the militants fought back, and suddenly it seemed everyone was firing energy guns, and people were falling dead and injured to the ground. The crowd had become a mob, hysterical with fear and rage, and the Paragons only had thoughts of avenging their fallen; and as quickly as that it all went to Hell.
    In the House, the King and the MPs watched with horror as the mob turned on their supposedly beloved heroes, attacking the Paragons with everything from clubs to disrupters. The Paragons were fighting well and fiercely, tearing a bloody path through the mob, but they were vastly outnumbered.
    Already there were dead Paragons lying on the ground, their bodies being kicked and