Looking at the offered job, it was surprisingly easy. I would be paid to draw the League’s attention at a specific time, somewhere in the city. The job did not describe how, but it was suggested that I could simply commit a crime, obviously using powers, which would be considered sufficient. The pay would not be high but at the end of the day, I was an unknown so a job like that was a lucky break.
If I looked at it from a rational point of view, I would probably just be one of multiple Powered paid to cause havoc some time that day, distracting the League and binding ressources so whoever paid for it all could sneak in something else.
I was happy to accept the job as it was easily in my activity window and I even had something in mind that I wanted to do. There was quite a bit of interesting research done at one of the University’s laboratories, fundamental research on gravity, its propagation and theories on its forming. Sadly, the research was part of a government project and classified so the only thing Galatea or I could find online were outlines. I would just have to make a personal visit and look at it up close and in person. I could either simply take their hard-drives or link Galatea into their closed network to find what I wanted.
Over the next days, I tried to incorporate other, simple things into my suit. I was spinning my mental wheels when it came to serious improvements but something simple like a taser in the forearms with the prongs in the palm of my hand? That I could do. I even souped up the taser, getting it into the ‘serious ouch’ territory and allowing it to fry everything electronic I wanted to fry. In addition, I re-worked the algorithm governing my Plasma-Cannon so I could unleash a focused, short-range stream of plasma so it could function as a classic plasma-torch.
On the day of my University Campus Visit, the news were already breaking with lots of Powered Shenanigans. I was obviously not the only one hired. Even on the day before, someone with super-strength had tried to rob a bank. I felt sorry for the fool, banks had so little cash on hand, it barely was worth it. Now, robbing a casino or maybe an armoured truck, that I could imagine but a classic bank robbery? So not worth it.
I had already seen reports of some guy able to climb vertical glass walls, defacing buildings with graffiti, before leading the responding heroes on a merry chase as the bastard was slippery as an eel. I suspected he had some speedster and improved jumping-power as well. Not much for combat but as a get-away power? A lot better than anything I had.
As I was moving through the forest, Galatea told me of more incidents, another break-in, this one into a large jewelry store and some kind of assault on one of the older power-plants that she assigned to a radical eco-terror group. The store annoyed me, it was only a few cross-streets from the campus so there was a chance that the response-time to me would be shorter than expected. I was quite happy to fight for some time but I wanted to get my personal objective done before anyone showed up. Maybe the power-plant attack would help, it was an old, gas-burning plant, at the other end of the city.
I made my way through the city, sticking to dark alleys, sometimes even the sewers, trying to keep myself from being seen. It was not yet time for my crime so I wanted to keep under the radar.
As I walked by the back-door of some strange club, I almost had to laugh. Two frat-boys came stumbled out, roaring drunk and tried to rob me. They were so intoxicated, they did not realize that they were not talking to a slightly large coloured man, but an average woman. Wearing a high-tech power-suit. At first, I thought they were making jokes but after a few moments, I realized that they were serious. Feeling generous, I did not back-hand each of them into the next wall but simply tased their asses, causing them to do a happy dance and break down. Walking away, I asked myself just why in the world someone would want to get so intoxicated that they lost all recognition of reality. Oh, well, men…
When I got to campus, I quickly found the physics lab and broke one of the outer doors before quickly moving through the building towards the lab I was interested in. When I got closer to the classified labs, blast-doors were closing and I had to either break through them by force or cut them apart with my Plasma-Cannon. They did not stop me, but they were slowing me down.
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I was happy that there was no alarm blaring, just flashing red lights, but I would bet quite a lot of money that there were alarms going off at the police-station and the League. It was a simple race between my speed in getting into the university’s system and their reaction-time.
What surprised me was that I saw a few people in now locked-down laboratories, using the tools and machines in there, even at this time of the night. But it made sense, if you paid a few million bucks for a piece of equipment, you wanted it to be used as much as possible.
I made my way to the lab, breaking the door and saw a plethora of equipment and computers. There was no way to take all they had here, so I turned to one of the active computers and plugged in a transceiver and Galatea started her incursion. There were firewalls in place but they were just standard fare, they mainly relied on the fact that the hacking had to be carried out on site to keep the data safe.
Galatea kept silent, fully focusing on her work and I had to wait as she copied tons of data from the network she was plugged into and stored it onto the drives in my armour. I watched the drones keeping an eye on things outside, making sure that nobody sneaked up on us.
It took a few minutes, but then she was done. I had no idea if I had what I came for, it was time to go. Galatea scanned the drones and told me that a few streets down another fight took place and that someone was just coming up to the building.
Hurrying outside, I got ready to fight.
As I stepped outside, a Red-Blue dressed hero stopped me.
“Stand down, or I will be forced to put you down.” He shouted at me.
I did not react and started to aim my cannon at him. He took the action for what it was and waved a hand and multiple Icicles manifested and shot at me. Relying on my armour, I ignored them and shot back. Just before my bolt managed to hit, I was hit with the Icicles. I felt the impact but the armour easily took the attack. I could shrug off his attacks all day, if I wanted to. On the other hand, my attack struck a manifested piece of ice and shattered it into a million pieces, scattering them into the air as glittering dust. We exchanged a few more attacks, when I realised that thin crystals were building up on my armour.
When I tried moving, I was held back for a short moment, until my servos shattered the ice and allowed me to move again. Now, I tried to dodge his attacks as I was unable to take them. I had to either get up close and personal or shoot to kill. Neither appealed to me, I started to retreat. I had done my job and drawn a hero here, I could leave.
He chased and threw more ice at me, annoying the hell out of me. I was quite happy, when his attacks got less and less, until Galatea shouted for me to dodge. Jumping aside, I managed to avoid most of a huge icicle but part of it still got me. I was not braced, so I was simply tossed aside by the force of the attack and landed in an alley. Just as I got back to my feet, the alley was illuminated by a fiery explosion at its other end and a slightly bedraggled, smoking figure tumbled in. Well, I should say smoking hot, for it was Anath.
“We truly need to stop meeting like that…” I said with a slight chuckle.
She turned and saw me, my armour covered with specks of ice and some dust.
“You… Do you want to take on a flame-manifestor?” she asked, her tone light.
“I’d swap my Cryokinetic against your Pyro, deal?” I offered.
“Deal!” With that, she was off like a shot, charging toward the direction I’d come from.
I moved further down the alley and saw my new opponent. He was wearing the red-blue as well and his hands burned in orange fire. As he saw me, he looked confused for a second, before starting to throw his attacks at me. I was not sure how his power worked, his projectiles looked just like disembodied flames, knotted into a ball and when they hit, they burned for a short time before going out. They were slightly hot, my sensors measured them at roughly four hundred degrees but they did not manage to transfer heat very well, if they did not stick to their target. One of their properties made them similar to napalm in that they stuck to concrete and possibly other things, like human flesh, but they simply pearled off my armour.
I shot back and he managed to dodge the first two hits by diving out of the alley so I pursued and got him back in my sights. Further back, I heard the cracking sound of ice breaking and guessed that Anath had started combat against my former foe. As soon as I had him back in my sights, I started shooting and it turned into target shooting as he dodged and I got closer and closer until I got the needed hit, sending him flying and ending his dodges.
A few shots later and I left, watching through a camera-feed as the cryo was beaten by Anath. She simply smacked through the shields he manifested and dodged his shots. She truly was a lot more agile than I was. As soon as she got hold of him, it was over and the cryo was knocked out.