Four people were sitting together inside a building at the edge of the world. Lightforge and his friends were hiding from a group of villains using the edge of the map to try and escape notice. It had worked, but not as well as they had hoped. Circe had spotted them just outside of the building, looking for them.
While they were hiding and trying to make a plan, the villains outside weren’t just waiting. Their nominal leader was Razorhawk, a woman with a short fuse and a cruel streak a mile wide. She was standing with a short, stocky man who looked so solid that he might be mistaken for a boulder if he stood still. Neither was happy, but Razorhawk was absolutely livid.
“Where the [BLEEP] are they! I was assured that you could track anyone!”
The man continued observing the area around them, searching for something with his eyes as he responded.
“I can, and I did. But my ability relies on the world map, and the map gets fuzzy this close to the edge.”
“Oh, is that all? A little fuzziness and you’re completely at a loss? That sounds completely useless.”
“Our target is clever, and we got too late of a start. My ability is going to go on cooldown any minute now, and then we’ll be done.”
“You might be done, but I still have a job to do. Just leave already.”
In the blink of an eye, the man had moved in front of the other villain. Despite being more than a head shorter than her, he somehow managed to loom over her as if he were a towering giant. He glared up at her and his voice dropped to nearly a whisper.
“I don’t answer to you. I graciously offered to come to the back end of nowhere and help you, but remember your place. If you’re not careful, then next time I’ll be tracking you.”
“Suddenly, that doesn’t seem as intimidating as it once did.”
The punch was fast and sent Razorhawk crashing and rolling over backwards. She landed face down in the street and groaned in pain as the man went back to his investigation of the space. He ignored the rest of the villainous gang at his back; they didn’t matter to him in the slightest.
For their part, the other dozen criminals found themselves torn and uncertain. The tracker was much, much higher level than they were, but he seemed to have mainly support powers. With their numbers they would almost certainly be able to defeat him if it came to that, but they wouldn’t come out of it unscathed. It wasn’t a question of ‘if’ they would have casualties, but ‘how many?’
Since none of them were interested in becoming one of those, they held back as their leader was put in her place. A couple helped her to her feet, but that was as far as they were willing to go. They may be thugs and flunkies, but they weren’t stupid.
And, as it turned out, neither was Razorhawk. She struggled to her feet and the anger had bled out of her expression. She stood in silence for a few minutes until the tracker nodded to himself and spoke up.
“And that’s it. My ability just gave out completely. We’re closer here than we have been, but that’s all you’re getting. I had considered staying to assist further with your hunt, but I don’t think I will.”
“I understand. Thank you for coming to our aid.”
“Of course. You were smart and begged someone I respect to ask in your place. I wasn’t going to turn them down.”
He turned to walk away, and the rest of the gang was left on their own. The fire rekindled in Razorhawk’s eyes as she turned on her fellows and all but hissed at them.
“Search every inch of this area, all the way to the edge. I don’t care if you have to level everything in sight, search anywhere that could hide an ant. Now!”
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While the villains were arguing, much the same was happening among the people hiding inside the building. The only difference was in the volume of their voices. Lightforge was standing stubbornly against his friends as they fought back the urge to yell at him.
“You’re an idiot,” Circe hissed, “and you make terrible plans.”
Cannoneer nodded his agreement and said, “Circe’s right. There’s no way we’ll just let you kill yourself on our behalf.”
“Guys, stop. We don’t have any good options here. This hiding spot was a gamble, and we lost. Circe can go invisible and you two have way higher mobility than I do. It only makes sense for me to be the distraction. Besides, I’m the one they’re after.”
“This is a desperate plan when we don’t have to be. Circe could make all of us invisible, for example.”
“Low-level invisibility isn’t really a thing. It’s more of a perception filter, making people not notice you. But they’re actively searching for us, so that’s not strong enough without a distraction.”
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“See? This is our only shot. I’ll try to get away, but I have to be that distraction.”
“Fine,” Cannoneer said, “Then I’m staying too. I may be able to move fast, but it’s not subtle. I’m better off staying with you and causing problems.”
Lightforge wanted to protest, but that was the moment when they heard the shouting from outside as Razorhawk started shouting orders. Their time for planning and debate was over.
Just as the lead villain yelled “Now,” Cannoneer raised his weapon. Sunbird’s hands glowed brightly and she funneled energy into the weapon. Cannoneer pulled the trigger and the side of the building exploded outward.
Circe vanished from sight and Sunbird threw a single glance towards the others before launching herself through the new hole. Clouds of dust and debris hid her flight as the two remaining members stepped across the rubble and into the line of fire.
The villains were in disarray, clearly unprepared for a preemptive attack. Lightforge charged forward, his hammer swinging wide on the end of its chain. He felt it make contact and triggered Shatter Blow without bothering to check what he had hit. The small explosion rocked the victim of his attack and he left them behind, swinging again even as the hammerhead reformed on the end of its handle.
Wind roared around him, pushing away the cloud of dust and clearing the air. Razorhawk was in the center of the windstorm, half transformed into some kind of enormous bird. She had her eyes locked on the fleeing Sunbird and the wind was from her preparation to take off in pursuit.
That wasn’t going to happen. Lightforge leaped across the open space, using his platforms to launch him in a high arc over the villain. Another platform appeared above him, which he pushed off of to shoot himself towards the ground.
He crashed down on top of her as she took off, his hammer leading the way. They both crashed to the ground and Lightforge wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip away. He kept his weight sitting on top of her and brought the hammer down on top of her as quickly as he could move it. If he could hold her for a few more seconds, the cooldown on Shatter Blow would run out and he could deal a lot of damage.
He didn’t get the chance. Someone tackled him from the side, ripping the hammer from his hands as they took him down. His shield flashed as it warded off a flurry of blows while he conjured a dagger into his hand. He stabbed wildly with the knife as he tried to force the attacker off of him with his shield.
Fire and lightning exploded around him, sending pain coursing through him in waves. Something sharp jabbed into his side just before an explosion shattered the air beside him. He and his attackers were thrown apart, allowing him to scramble to his feet.
Cannoneer ran up beside Lightforge, pulling the Gadgeteer to his feet. The bazooka was unleashing explosives as quickly as Cannoneer could pull the trigger. The stream of bombs paused for a moment before the weapon began spewing lightning that arced through all of the enemies in front of the pair.
“How’s your HP?” Cannoneer asked.
“Down to about a third. You?”
“Little over half. You have that bubble shield, right?”
“Why? What’s your plan?”
“Just hold them off for ten seconds and jump as high as you can.”
There were just so many questions brought on by those instructions, but there wasn’t any time to argue. Enemies were swarming around them, attacking from all directions. Lightforge had an idea of what his friend was planning, but all he could do was hope that he was wrong.
He laid into the enemies around him with his hammer while keeping them back from Cannoneer. Only a few wanted to fight up close; the rest seemed content to stand back and blast away at them with ranged powers. There wasn’t much that he could do about that.
He couldn’t keep track of how much time had passed, but it felt like each moment was lasting an eternity. With his health draining lower and lower, he finally heard his cue.
“Now!”
Lightforge summoned a platform beneath his feet and used it to hurl himself as high into the air as he could. He shot well above the heads of the attacking villains, and the attacks around him stopped as his enemies failed to track his sudden movement.
At the top of his jump he curled into a ball and removed the limiter on his shield emitter. A nigh-indestructible barrier of translucent energy appeared around him, but he wasn’t exactly running on a full tank. He would be lucky if it lasted more than a second or two.
Just as the shield snapped into existence, he caught sight of Cannoneer. The weapon specialist was standing with a wild grin, holding a bazooka that was glowing from at least a dozen seams up and down its length. That was new, and a small part of his mind wanted to analyze what was going on. It was probably for the best that he didn’t have the time to do so.
The bazooka shattered to pieces as it launched its payload, an explosive larger than any that Lightforge had seen before. And it was fast. He didn’t even have time to blink before the head-sized bomb hit the side of his shield. Everything flashed white.
He came to his senses a moment later as wind whipped at his face. The world around him had become an insane blur of twisting color as he tumbled through the sky like a drunken missile. He had no idea if his shield had run out or if the blast had simply shattered the oh-so-indestructible barrier that he had trusted so completely. He suspected that it was the latter.
Lightforge could not fly. He didn’t have that power, and he couldn’t emulate it with his powers. And he hadn’t reached the point of creating a gadget that would cover the gap. He was moving completely at the whims of physics. The landing would probably kill him, but the fight would definitely have killed him. It seemed like a fair tradeoff.
He tried to right himself but quickly found that he couldn’t do anything to stabilize himself. The spinning was slowing down, but not quickly enough. At this rate he would crash long before he even knew which way was up. He was starting to regret his inability to fly. Maybe he should do something about that? Not now.
He did the only thing that he could think of and summoned a platform directly in what he hoped was his path. The good news was that he was right. That was also the bad news, as he slammed into it at his not-inconsiderable speed, knocking the air from his lungs. The platform didn’t last, quickly shattering under the force of the impact, but his insane flight speed was finally blunted.
It hadn’t happened a moment too soon. With his rotation stopped he could see that he was just above the nearby roofs and would have hit them within a few more moments. Between his platforms as the spikes that he could summon on his shoes, he made his way down to street level in between two buildings.
His flight had been short, but fast. He was at least a few blocks from where the fight had happened. He would have to hurry to keep Cannoneer’s sacrifice from being in vain. All he could do at the moment was be grateful and keep moving. He had to figure out some kind of plan, and that wasn’t going to happen here. He needed a place to stop and think.