It was evening in Chancery Hills, and the streets should have been growing dark, lit only by the streetlamps. Instead, the streets were lit by explosions and beams of energy that shot back and forth between alleys and from behind cars. People were fighting in the streets, and the ring of metal on metal could be heard even over the din of explosions and crashes.
This was a situation that Lightforge had wanted to avoid. He had a handful of useful gadgets on him, most notably the battery grenades that he’d been able to make and his goggles that would give him an idea of who different people were. But he’d been hoping for more; a lot more. He’d wanted to have an arsenal of weapons and equipment available to him and his friends before this ever happened.
But that wasn’t going to be the case. The fighting had already started, and there was no way to go back in time and get more work done.
Actually, he wasn’t sure about that. He didn’t know of any time travel powers, but he was no expert. Maybe he could ask the others? They seemed to know more about the game than he did, so maybe they would know. Then again, the mechanics of how time travel powers would work made his head hurt. Maybe he’d skip that particular line of inquiry.
He and Sunbird were crouched behind his workbench, anxiously waiting to hear back from the others. He took a few deep breaths and pulled up his status screen to try and distract himself.
Name: Lightforge
Alignment: Neutral
Level: 8
Power Set 1: Hard Light Construct
Power Set 2: Gadgeteer
Stats:
Health Points (HP): 638/638
Ability Points (AP): 483/483
Strength: 19
Agility: 14
Intelligence: 21
Aura: 22
By all rights, he shouldn’t be nervous. He was certainly on the high end for this area, level-wise. The majority of the people fighting on the street would be below level six, so he would be in a strong position against them. But that only counted in a one on one fight. From the sounds outside, that wouldn’t be happening often if at all.
A notification bell rang in his head.
"Pinned down 3 blocks from the shop. Help?" -Gray Guardian
Lightforge noted the location and looked to Sunbird.
"Any word from Cannoneer?"
"Barely, the [BLEEPER]. He just said he’s busy.”
“He must have been caught in the fighting. Gray’s asking for help, so we need to go.”
“Right. Any word from Circe?”
“No. Maybe if we’re lucky she’ll show up and help, but I’m not counting on it.”
“Sounds good to me. Let’s go.”
They rose and walked out of the shop, eyes scanning the area vigilantly as they walked. After a moment Sunbird took to the air, moving slowly cautiously. There were sounds of battle close to them, but none of them seemed to be headed in their direction. They moved as quickly as they dared, closing in on the location that Gray Guardian had sent them.
They made it halfway there when someone shouted from the shadows and leapt out at them. Three figures dropped from above and tried to pile on top of Lightforge, who swung his hammer at them as they fell. He caught one in midair and another was shot down by Sunbird, but the third crashed into Lightforge and they both went tumbling to the ground. The unknown figure thrashed and clawed at him, sharpened nails leaving dark red gashes in his skin that quickly began to turn green as something festered in the wounds.
Lightforge’s dagger appeared in his hand and he drove it home in the assailant’s back before heaving and throwing them off of him. His lungs were burning and the tears in his skin felt like someone was pouring salt over them. It was definitely some kind of poison, and his HP was slowly draining away. It was slow; the effect would almost certainly time out before he was in any real danger. Probably.
All the same, he would feel a lot better once they had found their healer. He tried to call the police on the trio, but apparently they weren’t wounded enough for that. Now it was time to make a decision. They could stick around and fight it out while Gray Guardian was hiding somewhere, or they could take the quicker option.
The pair turned and ran away, each one tossing a grenade over their shoulder as they went. The attackers were clearly confused as they stumbled to their feet and watched them running away, to the point that they didn’t even notice the little objects that had been thrown at them.
The XP notification was all the evidence that Lightforge needed. Apparently his grenades were even more powerful than he’d hoped, and those had been the cheap battery kind. He smiled as they ran through the streets, no longer so concerned with being jumped. They were high level for this area, and it was about time they started to act like it.
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Gray Guardian was hiding in a dumpster just off the street. All things considered, they looked downright cozy with their large robe curled up around them as they tried to be small and inconspicuous. Lightforge helped them out of the dumpster while Sunbird couldn’t stop grinning and snickering.
“Hiding in the trash? What does that say about you, Gray?”
“That I like living. Things are getting crazy out here.”
“Oh, come on. We got jumped by some idiots on the way here, but that’s it.”
“That’s because we’re on the edges of it. Where’s Cannoneer?”
“No clue. Just said he was busy.”
Gray Guardian shook their head and brushed themselves off as they took stock of the area around them.
“He’s probably in the thick of it. We should get over there and– Lightforge, are you poisoned?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Low level stuff, I’ll be fine.”
“Not the point. Resist.”
An extra box popped up in the corner of Lightforge’s vision signaling the buff that had been placed on him. The burning in his wounds subsided and he nodded in satisfaction as the poison came to an end.
“Thanks for that. Do you know where the fighting’s happening?”
“Further into the Hills. I don’t know how, but a bunch of villain gangs encircled the area while heroes were starting to turn in for the night.”
“Sounds like a nightmare. Should we get involved?”
“[BLEEP] that! Let’s get out of here and lay low.”
“And what if Cannoneer’s in that mess?”
“He can hide too.”
The retort didn’t have any heat behind it. The three of them shared looks and they all felt reality start to settle in. They knew what choice they would end up making; the only question was how long they would stand around debating it. The longer they argued, the worse it might turn out to be when they got there.
Eventually Lightforge shook his head and checked his gear. He had his hammer, shield, and more than a dozen grenades just sitting at the ready. His goggles were on his head, ready to give him a solid read on the situation. He checked everything an extra time just to be sure and then nodded.
“We need to get over there and help. People are dying tonight, and we need to stop it before it goes too far.”
“That’s ominous,” Gray Guardian said, “Do you know something we don’t?”
“Not really. Just that whoever survives the night has a good chance at leveling. That gives them an advantage when the fighting starts back up. Which means more XP for them.”
“Ah. You mean that this battle might crown the kings of this area going forward.”
“Yup. And if it’s a group of villains, we might find ourselves hunted for sport.”
“Wonderful. So I guess we should make sure the heroes come out on top?”
“Honestly, I think I’d be happy with a draw. Keep the power balanced and everyone will think twice about keeping this thing going for long.”
Sunbird’s body flashed as she began to overflow with the energy that constantly suffused her. She was staring in the direction of the sound of battle raging in the distance.
“Yeah, that’s nice and all, but let’s focus on what matters. We have a friend over there, and he’s probably in trouble. We’ll deal with the politics or whatever later. Let’s just get in there and save his [BLEEP] before he gets himself killed.”
They all agreed and set off down the street, running towards a nightmare that they couldn’t quite imagine yet.
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Unlike his friends, Cannoneer had no issue trying to imagine what the fighting looked like. He was, as they expected, right in the middle of the battle. At that precise moment he was trying to catch his breath while crouched in the shattered window of a store. It was poor cover, but it was the best that he’d been able to find. His mind was racing as he tried to sort through what was going on.
It was extremely charitable to call this a “battle.” It was more of a street fight on steroids. There were no command structures on either side, no one carefully observing and deciding on tactics. Or maybe there was on the villain side, but definitely not for the heroes. They’d been caught completely unaware and were desperately trying to survive the next five minutes.
The lack of uniforms or any other indicator only made things worse. He’d already seen at least one pair of heroes he recognized fighting each other simply because they were strangers. He’d been able to clear that one up, but it would keep happening.
A spray of acid hit the wall in front of him, a few bright orange droplets bouncing over the meager protection and sizzling softly as they struck around him. Well, apparently it was time to keep moving. He took one more deep breath and stood.
The acid spitter was faced away from him now, and he launched a grenade at their back before twirling his weapon around to face the ground behind him. The first explosion brought all eyes towards him, but the second was already sending him rocketing away from the storefront and into the air above the street.
That wasn’t a safer place to be. Gunshots rang out and bolts of energy fired out from at least three places in pursuit of him. He heaved his bazooka around and fired another concussive charge which made him lurch to the side. The first volley missed, but the next was already on its way.
More explosions had him ricocheting through the air like a pinball. Flying via explosion wasn’t exactly the smoothest of rides, but it had the advantage of being incredibly difficult to predict. With just a little luck he would be able to avoid everything pointed in his direction.
He didn’t have any luck. A boulder crashed into him and sent him slamming into the pavement. Only after impact did he realize that he wasn’t even lucky enough for it to be an actual rock. It was a person with the ability to turn themselves into stone. That was just so, so much worse.
The stone man held him down with one arm as they brought the other up with the clear intention of turning his head into paste. Finally he caught a lucky break as a stream of water came from somewhere unseen and crashed into the man, heaving against him and diverting his attention.
Cannoneer got a face full of water, but he was still alive, so he wasn’t going to complain. That impulse changed a little when the rock man stood and flew away. That was an incredibly dangerous combination of powers, and it made Cannoneer question just how badly he wanted to continue fighting.
That thought was forced from his mind when his savior rushed up to him and pulled him to his feet. It was a woman in flowing white and blue robes, and her eyes were darting around as she helped him up.
“Come on, hurry up. That [BLEEP] won’t be gone for long. We’re setting up a defensive perimeter around that building behind me.”
She motioned to a random building, but Cannoneer could see the heads poking out of it as the defenders inside traded shots with the enemies that had them surrounded. He nodded and followed the woman to the makeshift base. This was a bad situation, but maybe things would start looking up a little bit with a little organization.
Either way, there was a lot of work to do.