On Madison Street, (at a different location than where Torey Krug had battled)

Niklas Hjalmarsson was trying his best not to get pissed off. However it was impossible when Zac Rinaldo was chirping him nonstop and wouldn’t shut up. The Flyer pest was rounding the Blackhawk’s Swedish defensemen, egging him on.

“Come on, Hjalmy baby, come at me. You know you want to!”

“Shut up, Rinaldo!” Niklas snapped. He clenched his fist, feeling the anger rising inside of him. If it got to that special point, well...he wasn’t just a beast on the ice. What’s this guy’s problem? Does he want me to snap?

Niklas saw part of his skin flash blue in color. He glanced up to see Rinaldo smirking at him. He had seen! He knew! He was drawing out Niklas’ inner beast, but why?

“Maybe next time I’m on the ice, I’ll corner everyone’s favorite little blond goal scorer and ram his face into the boards that maybe, just maybe, he’ll stop doing a mullet,” Rinaldo sneered. “Oh, but who am I kidding, he’d probably still do it, maybe it’ll just strike fear into the hearts of Hawks fans, heh-heh. You’re looking quite blue Hjalmy, maybe you should just snap already!?” A long snake-like tongue flicked out of his mouth.

Niklas blinked. His soft bluish-gray eyes hardened and flashed a sapphire blue color. Instantly his skin morphed into blue-tinted feline fur. His clothes, a yellow home-Swedish team jersey and jean shorts, remained on him. However, he slowly rotated around to where Rinaldo was. He stepped toward him and released a deafening growl.

“I told you to shut up!” Niklas roared, his voice deeper in pitch.

Rinaldo smirked. He cracked his neck and transformed into a reptilian-looking creature. Just like Niklas, his clothes, an orange home Flyer jersey and black pants, remained on as well. He swiped at Niklas with a scaly, green clawed hand. Niklas met it with his furry blue hand. They locked hands and claws and pushed against one another, stomping on the street and leaving small potholes here or there.

Niklas shoved against him and pushed him under the monorail track over them. Rinaldo kept his balance though, lashing his lizard-like tail behind him. The Blackhawk bared his fangs at the lizard, who flashed his tongue again. Nikolas growled and jumped up and then wrapped his legs around Rinaldo’s stomach. With great strength he tore his hands and claws free, did a backbend and launched the villain into the air and sent him slamming into the metal fence lining one of the guest parking lots for the United Center.

Rinaldo crashed, face-first and moaned. The fence rattled noisily at his collision. The reptilian man recovered quickly though. He spun around and faced Niklas who was back up on his feet. “What are you?”

“I’m a beast!” Niklas snarled.

Rinaldo rolled his eyes and spat on the ground. “You may be able to take a beating on the ice, but here….the turf is different.”

“And yet, I’m kicking your scaly green ass right now.”

“Not for long!” Rinaldo charged at Niklas, who jumped up and grabbed onto the bottom of the tracks and swung out, propelling himself over the villain and landed on the ground on his feet with ease, almost like he were part-cat and part-monkey.

Rinaldo skidded to a halt and swung around, just as Niklas charged at him and pounded a fist into the villain’s face. The villain staggered backward before he lashed his tail out and wrapped it around Niklas’ neck.

Niklas clawed at the scaly tail but as soon as blood was drawn, it was instantly healed. He just had to get the appendage off of him though. With a furious grunt, he slashed the tail off and pushed the remaining part, still around him neck to the ground. He faced the villain now, cracking his knuckles.

Rinaldo threw his head back and cackled. “Fool!” The stump where his tail was quickly regenerated itself and lashed against the ground in fury. Thunderous thumps came from the contact with the ground.

Niklas bounded forward at him on all fours like an animal and rammed his head into Rinaldo’s stomach, but the villain anchored himself and was barely moved. He grabbed the hero’s furry face and flung him to the side.

Niklas slammed into the fence on the other side of their battle area. He collapsed on the ground but recovered quickly and jumped back to his feet. “Sooner or later this is gonna have to end!”

“Yeah, with you getting beat by a lizard!!” Rinaldo snarled, whipping his tail around and whacking Niklas across the head with it a few times.

Niklas fought it off and grabbed it, yanking it off of the villain once more. But yet again, it grew back. It was enough time though for the Blackhawk defenseman to dart forward and spring up onto Rinaldo’s back. He landed and anchored himself on, gripping on with his feet.

Rinaldo swatted at him, but Niklas dug his claws in. The villain stumbled around, desperate to get the hero off of him. However, as he tried, he found that Niklas’ claws in his scaly skin was starting to hurt him. He dropped down on his hands and then lunged backward with a sudden backward thrust and managed to have Niklas thrown off of him.

Once more the hero was slammed against the chain-length fence. And still he got up and shook himself off with a growl.

“This ends now, Niklas Hjalmarsson!” Rinaldo spat.

“I couldn’t agree more!” Niklas exclaimed.

They both roared and charged forward. Niklas leapt up and grabbed the bottom of the track again, while Rinaldo scurried up the concrete and onto the tracks. There hadn’t been any monorail trains that had come through yet, but Niklas knew Chicago sent them through on the hour. Time was flying and he had no idea what time it was but he had to guess that one would be on its way. If he could distract Rinaldo long enough and last that long...he might be able to win this battle!

As the thought crossed his mind, Rinaldo’s scaly tail wrapped around his neck again and slammed him into the side of the tracks. He braced for the impact and could feel a sharp pain enter his shoulder, but it was quickly gone.

Niklas grabbed the tail and propelled himself up and out of the danger of getting slammed again. He slashed the tail apart, removed the rest of it once more and landed on the tracks, growling with anger. “Stop trying the tail constriction move! I’m not a mouse, it won’t work!”

They scaled the highway-like tracks, over the ground of Madison Street and the parking lots of the United Center, scurrying, flipping (well mainly just Niklas with his acrobatic skills) and darting about. Both were flexible and balanced and they occasionally clashed with one another.

Soon, Niklas felt the sensation of a train car on its way toward them through his feet. He dodged a punch from Rinaldo and launched himself over the villain, turning him around, so his back was on the direction of the train car. Then he kept the villain distracted. Luckily Rinaldo didn’t seem to have the enhanced sense of hearing like Niklas did.

The train appeared behind the villain and barrelled toward them. Niklas sprang from the tracks and landed on the ground with a thud. He spun around to look up, just as the train plowed into Rinaldo, who screamed in shock and agony. He was crushed under the train and his loud roar faded away into an echo. Niklas breathed a sigh of relief and felt his anger and adrenaline fade away.

As it did, the blue fur dissipated on him and he walked off down Madison, heading back to the United Center, which was a mile away. He was about to go in, when his sensitive hearing picked up a foreign sound. It sounded like someone’s muffled screaming. He spun around and looked for the location of the screaming, spotting an awkward cloaking of darkness in Lot C.

Niklas darted into the lot, across from the arena and headed to the darkness. Now, closer, he could pinpoint exactly who’s muffled voice it was. “Don’t worry Vladdy, Niklas Hjalmarsson is here to help you out!”

The hero stepped into the patch of darkness, quickly losing his eyesight. but he felt his way around and found Vlad, who was attached to the pole by the darkness bindings from JVR. Niklas felt the bondage with his hands.

“I gotta get Jamie for this, hang in there, alright. I’ll be back for you.”

Vlad seemed to muffle a response.

Niklas left him, emerging from the dark patch. To the normal human eye, JVR had done well to disguise it, but Niklas Hjalmarsson wasn’t normal. He was a mutant and had uncanny senses and strength. He darted into the arena and found just about everyone else on the ice.

Tyler Seguin and Patrick Kane had a grip on Brandon Saad, who was alive once more and seemed to be all recovered and healed from his battle. Jonathan Toews was pacing about like a nervous wreck. Patrick got up and walked over to him, giving him a concerned look. The blond gave the brunette a quick peck on the lips to which the brunette smiled and broke his nervous facade.

Torey Krug, Reilly Smith, Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan Mackinnon, Jordie Benn, Jamie Benn, Brent Seabrook, John Tavares, Ben Smith, Nikita Nesterov, everyone but Val Nichushkin, Nikita Zadorov, Vladislav Namestnikov, Antti Niemi, Patrice Bergeron, and Corey Crawford were there. Jamie was talking to Jordie, his brother.

Niklas skidded onto the ice. “Vladdy’s in trouble!”

“Where is he?” Jonathan demanded.

“That troublesome kid of chaos!” Nathan teased, putting his hands on his hips. “Of course he’d be the one to get into trouble….probably pissed his opponent off with his mouth and arrogance!”

“Look who’s talking,” Gabriel remarked, shooting ice at Nathan’s feet.

“Hey, I had my fight under control!” Nathan snapped.

“Yeah “under control” meaning Bieksa wasn’t kicking your ass and you didn’t say, ‘Man, am I glad to see you, Landy. Thank God you two arrived when you did, Bieksa was gonna make me a spider sandwich!’ Yeah...” Gabriel snorted with laughter as he mimicked his teammate.

Nathan shot webbing from his hand at his friend. “Shut up.”

“Nesty helped!” Nesty exclaimed.

“Where is he?” Jonathan repeated, more urgently.

Niklas faced the leader of the heroes. “He’s in Lot C tied to a pole!”

“Typical Russian,” Nathan snorted, earning a punch from Nesty, who had his steel armor deactivated. (He wasn’t gonna hurt him, just send him a message.)

“Stupid Canadian spider no nothing,” Nesty grumbled.

Tyler snorted with laughter on the bench, unable to keep from breaking out in his giggly nature. “Easy there, Nathan, don’t piss off Nesty now.”

“I need Jamie’s green light constructs!” Niklas continued on, ignoring them all and pointing to the Dallas Stars’ captain.

Jamie stepped forward. “I’ll help!” He walked toward Niklas and they left the arena once more.

Jonathan looked at Patrick. “I sure hope Bergy, Crow, Nemo, Nichy and Zady are okay. This wasn’t my plan as a leader.”

“You’re a wonderful leader Jonny, both for the Blackhawks and for the Hockey Heroes. You’re doing a fabulous job and everyone will be fine,” Patrick remarked with a sweet smile.

“Thanks, Kaner, you’re a good friend.” Jonathan wrapped an arm around Patrick’s waist and pulled him close.


Meanwhile, Niklas led Jamie across Madison and over to the area of darkness. They entered and Jamie drew up a lantern from his ring. He held it out and now they could see the weakened Tampa Bay rookie in the black ropes, which churned around him.

“The darkness is weakening him, we need to get him out now!” Niklas exclaimed.

Jamie nodded. “Hold this.” He passed the Blackhawk the lantern and then padded up to Vlad, who was slumped over, weakly looking up at him. “I got you Vladdy.” Jamie put his ring on the darkness and blasted it with green energy.

At once the darkness dissipated and Vlad collapsed on the ground on his hands and knees. Jamie then made the lantern vanish as it wasn’t needed anymore. Jamie knelt down and put a hand on the Lightning forward.

“You okay there, Vladdy?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Niklas joined them and he and Jamie helped Vlad to his feet. The Russian forward waved them off though.

“I’m good, I swear when I run into the Umbrakinetiic jackass again, I’ll...I’ll...BLAST HIM WITH CHAOS!” Vlad snarled, clenching his fist and glowing a reddish-orange color. Rings began to form around him and Jamie and Niklas stepped back out of safety.

“Easy Vladdy, but good to know you’re okay and your powers are back!”

“Yeah, I’ll blast Riemsy into outer space next time!” Vlad vowed.

“Alright, but for now, cool down, no need to hurt any heroes okay?” Niklas chuckled.

Vlad nodded and the glowing and rings vanished. “Where’s everyone else?”

“In the UC, we’re waiting for Bergy, Crow, Nemo and the two Russian archers. Jonathan is going crazy over the wait,” Jamie replied.

“So far it seems that everyone’s okay and has survived their battles,” Niklas reported. “Can’t say the same about the villains though.”

They shared and laugh and walked back toward the building and entered it, joining with the others once more.

Notes

Hjalmarsson's a beast, because he is. I love him so much, he impenetrable...he takes such a beating and somehow manages to remain in the game and shake it off. How many pucks has he blocked or been in the way of this season? Geez.


Next up: Anyway...what's up with the archers?