Sunbird was, as a rule, unashamed of her actions. In her estimation, there was no point to it. She made her choices, and she would live with the consequences. Sometimes that meant that someone wound up with hurt feelings. Other times it meant that she shattered a friend’s window into a million pieces because she was in a hurry.
The current situation fell under the second category. She had come crashing through the front window of Lightforge’s shop at full speed and only barely managed to stop before crashing headlong into the man himself. By her standards, that made it an excellent effort.
Lightforge did not agree. He flinched back from the pending impact and then just stared towards the remains of his front window, slack jawed. He couldn’t believe the sight that was in front of him, and he really would have preferred to go back to the mundane work that he’d been focused on prior to this sudden intrusion. Unfortunately, that seemed highly unlikely.
Sunbird still hadn’t touched the ground, hovering excitedly right in front of his face. She stumbled with her words a few times as she tried to calm down enough to actually speak.
“Hi! Sorry about that, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Yeah… I could tell. Is something wrong?”
“Yes and no, but mostly maybe. Quick question: do you have any items for defending against lightning?”
“Lightning? No, I don’t. I actually don’t have any defensive items, come to think of it. I should probably make a list of these things.”
The thought struck him that he had, once upon a time, made a list of things that he wanted to make. He’d scrawled it on the shop’s windows. And not the ones that Sunbird had just shattered. But a few quick glances around the room told him that the list was long gone, erased in one of his fits of “creative genius.”
It was just one more thing that he needed to be doing. He sighed and shrugged, but his mind was coming up to speed with what she was asking. A defense against lightning? That could honestly mean a lot of different things. In a world with super powers, things didn’t always have to work the way they were expected to work.
“Hold on, what kind of lightning are you talking about? Blasts, tasers, what?”
“Summoned elemental familiar, actually. Do you have an idea?”
“Oh. Yeah, I just might. Why do you need it, anyway?”
“I have a stalker with a lightning wolf. I might have killed him the last time I saw him, so he’s a little upset.”
“Wonderful. Alright, let’s see what I can get ready in a hurry.”
----------------------------------------
When the villain touched down outside the shop, Lightforge was alone, tinkering with something on his workbench and ignoring the world around him. The debris from the broken windows lay undisturbed. He was staring down at his creation through a set of goggles that had nothing to do with crafting at the moment.
The villain stomped inside, wolf familiar at his side. They both growled to get the gadgeteer’s attention. He looked up for a moment, which was all the goggles needed.
Name: Boltfang
Status: Player
Level: 7-12
He’d made a few upgrades thanks to the materials that he’d gotten from Sam. While he still couldn’t see exact levels, it was enough to know that this guy had a higher level than him. Their stats wouldn’t be all that different between them, but any additional Skills that the villain had could make things complicated.
On the table in front of him, Lightforge finished the final touches on the device that he’d slapped together with hopes, dreams, and duct tape. He wiped his hands on his clothes and finally turned to give the newcomer his attention.
“Hello there! Welcome to the Gadget Forge, how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for someone. A woman.”
“Oh? Well, I’ve never tried to make a woman, but I might be up to the challenge for the right price. It would be a robot, you understand that, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You came into a gadgeteer’s shop and asked for a woman. I assume you mean a robot, right?”
“I don’t want a robot woman! A woman flew in here a few minutes ago. Where did she go?”
“Oh, so sorry for the confusion, but it’s understandable, isn’t it?”
“Where did she go?”
Lightforge sighed. He honestly wasn’t sure why he was stalling; all it did was make the villain more angry. It wouldn’t actually change his odds of the plan working, which he was fully aware of. He was nervous, but he couldn’t let that stop him. He took one deep breath and reached for the barely-finished device in front of him.
“Why do you need to find her?”
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“She killed me! Now tell me where she went, or else.”
The wolf padded forward, teeth bared and sparks of electricity arcing down the length of its body. The air around it crackled with power, and Lightforge swallowed hard. He forced his grin to stay in place as he slowly picked up his newest device.
It was a mess of wire and batteries that had all been taped to a glowing dagger made of light. With an exertion of will, the tangled mass shot forward and stabbed into the wolf’s shoulder. It howled in pain, but cut off as its body began to fluctuate and wriggle.
The wolf’s body glowed brightly and it howled. It tried to hurl lightning at its attacker, but the jagged bolts turned in midair and arced back to the device that had struck the creature. The device pulled more and more energy from the creature as it howled and thrashed about.
After a few moments, it was over. The wolf was still there, but it had lost both its glow and the ever present sparks of electricity had vanished. For the moment it was just an oddly colored wolf and nothing more. Its energy would regenerate in time, but for the moment it was as safe as it would ever be.
Lightforge smiled and recalled the dagger back to his hand. It snapped into his palm and he took a moment to check the device that he’d used. It really was exactly what it looked like, nothing but batteries and wires. The trick was that the batteries had all been empty, used up in previous experiments.
As it turned out, batteries in this world wanted to be charged, and they would take any electricity that they had access to. In fact, the more that Lightforge played around with the batteries, the more uses he seemed to find for them. It had been all too easy to set the batteries to absorb the electricity from the wolf.
It wouldn’t have worked on an actual lightning bolt, and it would be a toss-up how well it could take an electrical blast from a power. But the wolf was basically just a pile of electricity that was standing still, the perfect target for such a device.
Lightforge smiled widely as the villain, Boltfang, took a step back and looked panicked. The wolf was barely standing up after so much of its power had been drained away, and the power dynamics of the situation had shifted in an instant. The villain’s face was pale as he sputtered a few words out.
“Wh-what did you do?”
“I drained the electricity from your pet. You really shouldn’t threaten a gadgeteer in his own shop; you never know what we have lying around. Now, let’s do things a different way.”
At that, Sunbird came out from the office with a broad grin on her face. She strode up to the villain, sparing only a dismissive glance for the wolf. It tried to growl and snap at her, but that only got it a point blank blast of golden energy that finished it off.
Yellow light flooded the space as she ramped up her power and prepared to continue blasting. The flickering energy made shadows dance across her face. Combined with her summary execution of the summoned familiar, it lent a distinctly menacing air to the heroine. She walked up to Boltfang, who didn’t even turn around. Instead he fell backward and rocketed out of the shop through the broken front doors.
Sunbird reacted almost instantly. She launched herself after him, releasing her stored energy blasts to accelerate her up to blinding speeds. She tackled the villain from behind and sent both of them crashing to the pavement less than a hundred feet from the shop. Sunbird whooped as she pinned the man to the ground and glared down at him.
“Alright, [BLEEP]hole, now we can have a proper conversation. You said before that you’re part of some group, so who are you? Some two bit gang?”
“Go to hell, [BLEEP].”
“How cute, you think you still have a say. I’ve already killed you once, remember?”
“You can kill me as often as you want, it won’t change anything. We will have you.”
“Uh huh, and who’s “we” in this situation? Some Alliance that you’ve begged your way into?”
“I will tell you nothing.”
“Alright, then I guess we do this the hard way.”
She left him on the ground and floated above him, eyes blazing. Lightforge came up beside them, hammer in hand and daring the villain to run with his eyes. He had no personal stake in this encounter, but Sunbird was his friend, so he wanted her to get answers.
Boltfang just snarled, and a high pitched whistle cut through the air. An eight foot long javelin shot through the gap between the standing heroes and struck the villain in the chest, skewering him to the ground. There was only a moment of shock before the villain’s body went limp and vanished.
Lightforge whipped around to see where the weapon had come from. He found himself looking at a woman on a rooftop at least two hundred feet away. She wore icy blue plate armor, but it was sleeveless to show off sharply muscled arms and she wore no mask or helmet. Short red hair moved in the breeze and matched her glowing eyes. But that wasn’t the most disturbing part about her. That honor went to something that only Lightforge could see.
Name: Spearpoint
Status: Player
Level: 12-20
She might be more than twice his level. In fact, based on her first throw, that seemed like almost a guarantee. Of course, that had also left her unarmed, which might give them a chance. That hope vanished when she twirled a hand in through the air and another javelin appeared in her awaiting hand.
Hyperspace Arsenal, power of choice for ranged weapon fighters. This was going to be bad.
The attack never came. Spearpoint twirled the weapon and laid it across her shoulders before hopping off the roof and falling to the ground below. She sauntered over to them completely at ease. She didn’t grin evilly or laugh at them, she just maintained her neutral expression.
“Boltfang’s gusto has always been laudable, but he always was a blunt instrument. Maybe the next one will be more clever.”
Lightforge’s mouth was dry, but he forced the next words out of his mouth.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Spearpoint, and I was that one’s superior. You may call us the Knights of Frost. We serve the true queen of this world and enact her will upon it.”
“True queen? What are you talking about?”
“You’ll learn that in time. For now, simply know that you’ve gained our attention. Both of you have, in fact. That one won’t bother you again, so go about your lives.”
“And then what? What do you want from us?”
“At the moment? Nothing. All you have is potential. Potential that would have been squandered if Boltfang was hounding you all the time. He was one of ours, so I took care of him. Now you’re on your own. Let’s see if you survive what comes next.”
She turned and walked away, leaving the heroes alone. Sunbird stayed silent as the other woman left. Once they were by themselves, she took a deep breath before she finally spoke.
“Well, that sucked.”
“Yeah, you could say that again.”
“Now what?”
“Well–”
An explosion rocked the street around them, with shouting following just behind. Normally they wouldn’t have even noticed; explosions were pretty common in a superpowered world. But this time was different. The explosions kept coming, and the yelling started up all around them, coming from all directions. Their faces drained of whatever color remained in them.
The tensions had finally boiled over. The war had begun.