Sunbird’s wild laughter was ripped from her throat so quickly that she could barely hear it. She was high above the city streets, diving towards the ground with as much speed as she could muster. It was an exhilarating experience unlike anything that she’d ever done before coming to this world. The wind rushing in her ears, the city blurring from the speed of her approach.

It had taken one day for her to get addicted to the sensation.

As she passed the tops of the tallest buildings, she braced herself and pulled out of the suicidal dive. G forces took hold of her body like an enormous fist, driving the air from her lungs as she quickly turned to start flying parallel to the streets. Her vision shrunk as blackness filled the corners, but the tunnel vision only lasted for a few moments.

Then the crazy maneuver was over, and she gasped as air rushed back into her deprived lungs. She whooped and laughed as she shot through the air, weaving between buildings as adrenaline flooded her system. Intoxicating truly wasn’t a strong enough word to describe this feeling.

The speed of her dive was slowly dissipating but for a few precious moments, she knew what it would be like when she reached higher levels. The kind of speed and acceleration that was in store for her when she reached that point. Windows already shook in their casements if she drifted too close to them at this speed. She wondered if she’d one day be able to shatter them with speed alone. Maybe, but that would have to wait for another day.

With much of her speed still intact, she approached her secret training area. Without this discovery, she wouldn’t even be as strong as she was. It was insanely dangerous, but it had paid off so far.

With a momentary focus on will, she activated one of her skills, Charge Bolt.

Ability: Charge Bolt

* Focus our internal energy over time to produce an unparalleled blast of power

* Blast power increases by 10% per second (max 150% increase)

* Base power scales with INT

* Charge speed scales with Aura

* Flight Synergy

* Increased damage and knockback based on current flight speed

The blast was fully charged just as she crossed the boundary between Chancery Hills and Decker Row. Heroes didn’t cross the border, and most wouldn’t even approach it. But what if you could move so fast that none of the resident villains could hit you? That was the basic principle behind this method of gaining XP.

Her eyes locked onto a figure at the end of the next block. Some thug dressed in a black cloak that flapped in the wind, revealing the burnt orange interior. The head of a snake tattoo poked above his collar, and he looked like a nasty customer. Hopefully their power sets didn’t improve their durability.

Screaming down the street at high speed, she waited until a split second before passing the figure. She forced her hands forward and unleashed the built up energy that surrounded them like a miniature sun.

The resulting beam was thicker than her arm and sent the unsuspecting villain flying backward into the nearest wall. At least, she hoped they were a villain. The odds were good, given the current nature of Decker Row, but she'd been wrong before. Internally she sighed and wished she could see the colored auras that gave away other players' alignments. That feature was only meant for new players, and was limited to a 100 hour time limit. In a game that was plenty, but here? That was only a few days.

Now she was stuck figuring these things out the old fashioned way. And she would find out soon enough, but first she had to make her escape.

Her blast was big, loud, and ostentatious. It drew the attention of everyone on the street, and right at the moment when she’d burnt off the rest of her speed. She was still moving quickly, but no longer fast enough to make targeting her difficult. But there was a moment; one beautiful moment of complete and utter confusion.

For that one brief moment, the entire street was silent. All eyes turned towards her and she let a wicked grin slip onto her face. As she kept flying, she raised one hand in a salute to the group and cackled as everyone came out of their shock and began to move.

Hands shot to weapons or raised to point at her. The air thrummed with energy as powers were brought to bear and prepared to swat her out of the air. Sunbird thought she could hear the blood pumping through her veins, filling her with vigor as she turned skyward and touched an unassuming metal bracelet on her left wrist.

Just as attacks converged on her location, the world blurred around her. She shot into the air like a bullet, outrunning everything that had been thrown at her. She laughed and cheered as she hurtled straight up towards the clouds once more.

The rush of excitement only lasted for a few seconds. As quickly as she’d been flying, she came to a halt high above the city once again. She was comfortably out of reach of abilities coming from the ground. Or at least she hoped so.

She raised her left hand and regarded the bracelet carefully. It was still in pristine condition. She smiled wryly and began talking to the empty air around her.

“Well, [BLEEP]. I guess the team was right about you being useful. Usually I have to spend way more time dodging before I get away. I guess…”

She trailed off as something caught her eye from below. Something surrounded by a bright blue halo was ascending through the air from where she’d just come from. After a few moments, she realized that it was another flier. Someone from the scene was following her.

Huh. That was unexpected, but not necessarily a bad thing. She realized that a wild grin had found its way onto her face. She hadn’t had a midair fight so far; this was a good chance to test herself.

She was thinking about good opening banter when the figure got close enough to make out their face. It was a man with sharp features in a bright blue outfit. More importantly, there was murder in his eyes. Well, damn. This wasn’t going to be the fun kind of fight.

As he approached at top speed, his eyes glowed in a blue so bright that it was almost white. The halo of energy around him spread out around him, expanding outward to one side and forming into a shape. Within moments, a wolf with white and blue fur was sprinting through the air beside him, electricity crackling around it.

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Sunbird grimaced at the sight. It was a lightning elemental familiar, the kind that was specialized in short, high speed engagements. In other words, not a great matchup for her, especially since they had her outnumbered. The smart move was to escape.

“[BLEEP] that. Let’s have some fun.”

She coiled up in the air and shot forward, straight toward her opponent. If she was going to win this, then she needed to keep them both in front of her. Mobility was probably going to be the deciding factor in this fight.

She drew up energy from the well within herself, feeling it surge into her hands. While she hadn’t gotten to choose her powers, she wasn’t about to complain about them. Especially since she was learning new tricks all the time.

She brought both hands forward and shouted, “Scatter Shot!”

A sphere of golden energy shot forward towards the incoming enemies. It only traveled about fifteen feet before it split into five beams that spread out to cover a wider area. Her aim was perfect, sending the group of energy blasts slightly off center of its target.

The man and his familiar were both forced to dodge in the same direction. Sunbird broke in the opposite direction, creating space between them. Faintly she heard the man curse as he turned to follow her.

After flying for a few seconds, she turned hard and flew in a wide arc. With the G forces clawing at her, she forced her head to turn far enough to catch sight of her foe, who was mimicking her turn. She forced out her breath and made the turn tighter. Air she didn’t know she had was still forced out and the edges of her vision began to blur and darken.

Reflexively, she thought about her dad. He was an aviation history fanatic, and he would talk about the subject nonstop at the slightest chance. Most of the time she’d tuned him out, as he’d always had a tendency to ramble and repeat himself when he was excited. Thinking of him made her heart ache, and she wished that she’d spent more time actually listening to him. But not everything he’d taught her had gone to waste.

She was copying one of the earliest dogfighting strategies. Both planes would turn in circles around each other, and whichever one could turn more tightly would end up behind the other, ready to take the perfect shot. She was hoping that the principle would apply here.

She was almost right. As she turned through the air, she saw her target slowly come into view ahead of her. She grinned wickedly for a moment before the smile slipped from her face. Her target was flying alone. Where had–

Electricity arced through her, cutting off all thought. She sagged in the air and lost her momentum, coming out of the turn and tumbling away from the fight. This turned out to be a stroke of luck, as she saw the second bolt flash through the air behind her. It only missed due to her very sudden course change.

Her foe had caught on to what she’d been trying to do, and then he’d taken advantage of the fact that while he couldn’t turn as tightly as she could, his familiar could outperform both of the squishy humans. She’d been so focused on getting behind him that she hadn’t noticed the wolf coming around behind her.

After a few moments of freefall, she righted herself and reevaluated her strategy. Clearly she was going to have to be more careful about the wolf. Her fall had gained her some separation, so she would take advantage of it.

At least, that was her intention. Then she heard a deep, booming voice ring out from the direction of her enemy. He cried out, “Lightning Leap!”

The wolf howled and vanished, becoming nothing more than a streak of blue lightning that flashed across the sky faster than thought. Out of instinct more than anything else, Sunbird shot toward the ground as the beast materialized right beside her and launched itself at her, jaws open wide.

She dove backwards just in time to avoid the jaws, but the wolf's claws shot out and caught her across the stomach. She shuddered as electricity flooded into her from the cuts, and she literally bit her tongue in order to stay focused on the fight.

She darted backwards, retreating over and over again from the snapping jaws and slicing claws of the familiar. But it was a familiar; as she turned and dodged, she saw her true enemy in the corner of her vision. He was trying to sneak up on her while the wolf kept her busy.

The beast lunged again, but this time she was ready for it. As its jaws opened wide she raised a hand and fired a blast of energy right down its throat. It wailed with pain and finally paused its assault. It moved away and she blasted it again, this time hitting it in the chest. While lightning elemental familiars were strong and fast, they had the durability of wet tissue paper. Now that she'd stopped its onslaught it was only a matter of seconds before she managed to dispel it.

The wolf's form glowed bright blue and Sunbird smiled. She turned to face the summoner, who was quickly approaching her at his top speed. But something was wrong; he was smiling. That wasn't good. Mentally she reviewed the abilities available to elemental familiars, and her eyes went wide.

"Oh [BLEEP]."

The explosion filled her ears as electricity coursed through her from head to toe. The wolf had known Retaliate, letting out a powerful blast upon its death. If she'd expected it, she might have been fast enough to avoid it, but only if she'd sped away immediately. Instead she had been caught in the center of the blast, and the pain was immediate and excruciating.

Her HP was down to about a quarter of her maximum. In the distance, she could hear her opponent whooping in triumph as he bore down on her. She could barely think straight, let alone figure out how to dodge. She took the only option available to her: she turned off her flight power.

It was different from when she got knocked around the sky. Even unconscious, her powers would keep her airborne so there wasn’t a risk of falling hundreds of feet. But fliers always had the option to willingly turn off their powers, as did everyone. The effect was noticeably different.

Instead of drunkenly twirling and spinning downward, she instantly began to plummet like a stone. She heard her enemy curse as he passed above her, undoubtedly furious that she had managed to avoid him yet again.

Ok, now it was time to leave. She hadn’t landed a single hit on the man himself and she was hurt. As she fell she took stock of the area below her. They had drifted away from Decker Row during the fight, and they weren’t too far from her base. She grinned; that was exactly what she’d been hoping for.

She kicked her powers back on and pulled up hard. She transitioned from falling to flying with relative grace before intentionally twisting and curling through the air. She liked to call it the ‘drunken fly’ maneuver, and it let her avoid attacks and take quick looks all around her.

Her stomach dropped as she saw her enemy lagging behind her, focusing energy around him. He was resummoning his familiar, and once it was back it would make short work of her. She abandoned her act and poured on the speed. There were only a few blocks to go, and her drop had brought her down to building level.

Ahead of her she saw the building where her portal was located. She was approaching it from the opposite side, which was exactly what she’d planned on. Flying at full speed, she braced herself and threw out a blast ahead of her. The energy shattered a window and she cut off her own flight just as she entered through the glass.

She found herself in an abandoned office space, rolling along the floor to slow herself down. Once she was sure she wouldn’t go shooting through the other side of the building, she popped back into the air and flew to where her portal was located. It was the right spot, but she was on the wrong side of the wall. She opened the gateway, but the wall in front of her remained the same.

She ignored that fact and simply walked through the wall. This was one of her favorite little tricks that she’d learned in the old days. The portal effect wasn’t just applied to the visual asset; it was stuck to the wall itself. The game didn’t actually care which side you came at it from.

She stumbled into her base and mentally cursed herself for folding up her bed that morning. She gave a half-hearted shrug and decided that it was a problem for the future. She collapsed onto the couch, determined to rest for a few minutes before getting up and pulling out the bed.

She knew it was a lie, but she also didn’t care.