In Sam’s eyes, Thunder was like a goddess of war descending upon the mortal realm to do battle with the second creepiest monster he’d ever laid his gaze on. Lightning flashed around them as she let loose thunderbolt after thunderbolt on the Terror. The monster countered her attacks with a ray of frost unleashed from its gaping sucker of a mouth.

Luckily, Thunder was as fast as a storm. Like a sonic boom, she moved this way and that, avoiding the Terror’s lone sharp-fingered hand, even as its arm lashed out in every direction. The other arm, with its bloody stump, lay limply at its side.

Sam squinted. “I can barely keep track of them with my eyes. How am I supposed to help?”

He continued to heal himself where she’d left him, a full twenty yards away from the fight. It wasn’t nearly far enough. His dark hair was whipped back by another shockwave.

“I’m a healer, not a fighter,” he reminded himself. Interestingly enough, this was the first time Sam had mentioned he was a healer without calling himself crappy, too. “What does she expect me to do?”

Sam heard a groan from close behind him, urging him to glance over his shoulder. A hero lay half-visible underneath an enormous pile of rubble. His hand, the one part of him that wasn’t under something, twitched to life.

A light bulb lit up inside Sam’s brain.

“I’m a healer,” he repeated. “And Thunder needs help…”

It usually took more than one alpha-level hero or a ten-man team of beta-level heroes to defeat a single alpha-level horror. Yet Thunder, who wasn’t even in her best form, was defying those odds with extreme prejudice. Although it helped that her adversary looked worse off than she did.

Sam rose to his feet and dash toward the hero underneath the pile of rubble.

“When did I become so eager to be a martyr?” he sighed. But he knelt at the hero’s side and then wrapped his hands over the twitching fingers.

“Healing Hand!” Sam chanted.

This time, Sam needed very little coaxing to urge his life force down into the tips of his fingers. It was like the power was just waiting to spill forth since there was a lot more of it now to give. In fact, the only side effects Sam experienced during the healing process was a throbbing headache. He could work around that.

In his mind’s eye, Sam saw the HP bar once again. He watched as it dropped to half before the hero’s grip on his hands tightened. Heat, much like what one could feel after stepping into a steam bath, spread out of the hand Sam held onto.

Then, with a mighty heave, the hero pulled himself out of the rubble. He was a tall Samoan man with a buzzcut and muscles so thick they were threatening to burst out of his all-black costume. On his chest was a symmetrically pleasing symbol of a burning hearth.

“Hephaestus’ flaming beard...you’re Dr. Hearthstone!” Sam exclaimed, sounding more like a fanboy instead of the hero who’d just healed this giant of a man.

A former heart surgeon, Dr. Hearthstone had been gifted with more than one power. He had gamma-level telekinetic control over the surrounding earth which he usually wrapped around himself like protective armor. His other power was beta-level internal heat generation, the kind that gave him an explosive boost of strength when exerting physical force.

Dr. Hearthstone placed his hands on his waist in that traditional superhero pose he was so famous for.

“That’s my name,” he said as he sent a smoldering gaze down at Sam, who was still kneeling on the ground. “And you are?”

“Sam Shepard, sir,” he said, glad he hadn’t stammered in front of this legend.

“I didn’t ask you for your civilian name, son.” Dr. Hearthstone’s smoldering gaze intensified. “What do they call you?”

The realization that Dr. Hearthstone was asking for Sam’s hero name hit him like a rock.

“They don’t call me anything. I’m new,” he lied.

Though, technically, it wasn’t a lie. Whoever Sam was before the system changed him had retired after he’d run away from the job. Sam didn’t want to be that person anymore. He wanted to be better.

Dr. Hearthstone spared him another long glance before the a flash of lightning pulled his attention to the ongoing battle between Thunder and the Terror.

“You have my thanks, Sam Shepard,” he said.

Then he was off, taking one long stride after the next to provide Thunder some much needed back up. Only, as cool as Dr. Hearthstone was, Sam was sure one beta-level hero wouldn’t be enough. Thunder would need more reinforcements to win the day.

Sam let himself regenerate the life force he just spent while searching the surrounding chaos. Past the fires and broken rubble, he spied someone with their back leaning against the undercarriage of an overturned SUV.

I’ve saved more lives tonight than I’ve ever done in my entire career, Sam thought to himself. A lopsided smile appeared on his face. I think I can do one more.