It had been a wonderfully dramatic moment demonstrating the determination of three individuals to do whatever was necessary to become stronger. To subject themselves to a stringent and focused existence and hide themselves away from the world for as long as necessary to reach the peak of power. One day, they would emerge from their self-imposed isolation more powerful than their enemies could possibly imagine.
That perfect dream lasted for about three hours. After three hours of sitting in the dark underground lab that Lightforge had built for himself, Sunbird was getting bored. She wanted to start climbing the walls or hitting things, but she had just enough self control to at least attempt something else first.
She decided to distract herself by planning out how they were going to power level themselves in the shortest possible amount of time. Despite her assertions to the others, she wasn’t confident about their odds. All of the runs that she’d told the others about had been performed with extensive assistance, and not just XP buffs.
Anyone even attempting something like this would have detailed wikis and in-depth breakdowns of all the most efficient ways to gain experience. She’d seen everything from XP per hour tables to guides that literally dictated every single footstep in order to wring every ounce of efficiency out of the process as possible.
Their situation was as far from ideal as she could even imagine. In all likelihood, her estimates were probably hopelessly optimistic. But if she turned out to be wrong, then it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.
As she mentally planned out their route she called over to Lightforge and asked, “You said that your item lasts for three hours, right?”
“Yeah. I know it’s not a lot of time.”
“Don’t worry about it. But we’ll have pretty tight windows for clearing some of the missions in other areas of town. Especially the high-level ones, which are pretty far away.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“What’s confusing about it? Missions on the other end of town will be hard to clear within the time limit starting from here.”
“Oh… oops.”
She fought the urge to keep her eye from twitching. It wasn’t a particularly successful endeavor, which led to a faint spasm in her eye that was somehow more unsettling than simply letting it twitch the way that it was trying to.
She took a long, slow breath just like she’d been taught to help her calm down. Then she took three more to actually calm down. Very slowly she looked the gadgeteer dead in the eye and asked a very simple question.
“What did you forget to tell me?”
“Well… here’s the thing. The normalized zone from the item doesn’t cover the entire city.”
“Ah. I guess that’s understandable. Everything has limits, after all. So how much area do we have to work with? We might have to relocate every once in a while depending on what we have available.”
“It covers a 200m radius.”
Sunbird actually closed her eyes this time to take her deep, slow breaths. She got through one and a half before the underground lab filled with golden light. It wasn’t really an attack or a coherent blast, it was just an eruption of energy from every inch of her body.
Lightforge found himself unharmed but flung against the back wall of the lab, cowering from the roar of fury that followed the flash of light.
Requirements Met! Hidden Skill Obtained!
* Blaster: Lightpulse Wave
* Release a brief wave of energy in all directions
* Wave has greatly reduced damaged
* Wave has greatly increased knockback
Any other time, the notification would have been a cause for celebration. Now it was just one more sign of how short her temper was at the moment. She glared down at Lightforge and spoke through clenched teeth.
“You made a big show of welding the door shut behind us. Locking us inside, only to emerge when we’ve hit the highest levels of power. And you did that while knowing that we would only have access to one section of the lowest level area in the game? An area that we’re already over-levelled for? Does that about sum it up?”
It should have been comical to see the enormous man cowering in front of her, but her fury was potent enough to stamp out any such inclinations. His salvation came when Gray Guardian stepped between them. With their hidden features and an unfailingly calm tone of voice, it was difficult to maintain big emotions around them at the best of times.
“Sunbird,” they said, “Take a breath. It was an oversight, that’s all. I was there the first time and I didn’t think of it either.”
Sunbird could feel the rage leech away with each considered word. She snorted and tried to keep up what had been a raging wildfire.
“So you’re both at fault! How am I supposed to make a plan if you don’t tell me things?”
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“We never asked you to do the planning alone.”
The last of the fire went out.
“I know,” she mumbled, “but I’m the one who knows about all those speedruns. I just figured that it made sense.”
“I suppose so. But we’ve all played this game before, even if we don’t know everything that you do. We’ll figure this out together.”
Sunbird wasn’t sure when she’d started nodding along with the healer’s words, but she found herself doing it subconsciously. She took her deepest breath yet and slowly nodded.
“Right. Sorry about that. I’m just on edge about everything that’s going on. Let’s figure out how we’re going to handle this.”
She nodded and sunk to the ground, her legs suddenly weak after the anger vanished. To her shame and relief, her friends didn’t give her a hard time about the explosion. They all had bad days, and this was a stressful situation. Given the amount of time that they would be spending together, they would have to learn to deal with one another without erupting like that.
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Once they were all settled and able to talk calmly, it didn’t take long to come to a solution. And it brought Sunbird only a little extra satisfaction to see Lightforge’s face when they came to their decision.
He grumbled and groaned as he worked his way around the lab, examining the walls and inspecting them for what they needed. He found it in one damp corner.
He sighed as he summoned a hammer and chisel into his hands and set into the wall, slowly breaking away pieces to dig at the concrete. It wasn’t his weapon, but the glowing hammer and chisel were both comically large even in his hands. It was, unfortunately, the only way.
Sunbird was fully capable of blasting holes in the world around them, but that wasn’t an option in this case. Combat damage would simply repair itself over time. Adding something permanent required specialized tools and intention. The cartoonish hammer and chisel were the same tools that Lightforge had used to create the initial space for the underground lab.
This time was considerably less work than that time had been. In less than a half hour he struck the chisel and it vanished, falling away into what was now a dark hole through the wall.
What should have been a rough-hewn tunnel of dirt and concrete was instead a slender hallway of industrial cement that looked cheap but well made. The transition occurred wherever Lightforge had removed enough material to create a standing space.
A few more minutes of effort finished the short tunnel and Lightforge found himself looking down into a sewer tunnel that twisted away in both directions. He nodded absently to himself and turned to his next task: a door.
He sniffed the air a few times and decided that it was going to be a thick door.
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Despite agreeing to the plan, Lightforge wasn’t particularly happy once he’d finished his part. He kept grumbling under his breath and wandered away into a different part of the lab, insisting that the others leave him alone until the emitter was finished charging.
Sunbird and Gray Guardian spent several hours making plans until he returned, mood calmed and ready to work with the others again. It was going smoothly, except for the frequent, not-so-subtle glances that Lightforge and Sunbird kept throwing toward the healer. After enduring them for nearly an hour, they had to ask.
“What’s with the looks? I keep wondering if I have something on my face.”
“Well…” Sunbird said, “We were just wondering when it’s going to be your turn?”
“Turn to what?”
“First Sunbird exploded at me,” Lightforge said, “And then I got annoyed and stormed off. So it seems like it’s your turn next.”
“You expect me to have an emotional breakdown just because you both did?”
“It would be nice to know that it wasn’t just us being childish.”
“Too bad. You were both being childish. In fact, you’re also being childish right now. So please, let’s just get back to planning.”
“Come on!” Sunbird said, “You can’t still want to do that. This whole training arc of ours is going to be three hours of action once every three days. We’re going to have planning time falling out of our ears before too long. Let’s do something else!”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! Lightforge, what games do you have around here?”
“Games? I don’t have anything like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is a lab, not a lounge.”
“Boring! Maybe you could make a run to your base and pick some up?”
“No luck, I don’t have any… oh sh-[BLEEP].”
“What? What happened?”
The big man sunk to the ground and put his head in his hands before responding.
“I totally forgot that I stashed some villains in my base. They helped me get away when I had to raid it for some parts, but I never checked to see if they left or just stayed inside.”
“You were using your house as a makeshift prison? Bold.”
“It wasn’t like that; I was helping them out. Ugh, do you think I should go check? I would feel pretty bad about trapping them there for weeks on end.”
“They probably left when you did,” Gray said, “There really isn’t a good reason to stay if you were obviously abandoning the place.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Sunbird was just staring at him and said, “You know, for a smart guy gadgeteer, you’re a bit of an airhead, aren’t you?”
“Wha? What do you mean?”
“You forget about the limitations of your own item. You didn’t think to even check on the guys inside your own base. You’re just a bit forgetful of the details, that’s all.”
“If I had to guess,” Gray added, “I would say that he always has half his brain working on his next invention. No leftover space for the little things.”
“Like Sherlock? It is a fittingly dumb weakness to saddle him with.”
“True. Maybe this will be a good chance for him to work on it?”
“Doubtful. He’s barely even listening as we speak.”
It was true. Lightforge wasn’t interested in rising to their little barbs. He’d started to tune them out in favor of mentally analyzing his next project. He was conscious of the moment when they turned their attention back to him directly and actively worked to keep up his act of being lost in thought.
He left them staring in silence for nearly a full minute before calmly looking at them and saying, “Sorry, I was doing some work. What boring thing were you talking about?”
They rolled their eyes at him and they started to settle into a comfortable routine amongst themselves. If nothing else, it was true that they were going to be spending an awful lot of time together. It was best to find a way to endure it with a smile.