It was a morning in the middle of summer. Yet, the melting heat could not stop the tourists and workers from filling the entire plaza before HueCam Hall. Restaurants and boutiques were as crowded as they could be.
Outside those shops, people walked to and fro, taking photos or looking around. Many of them were on the giant viewing platform. Several cosplayers were posing on it or beside them, baiting tourists into taking selfies with them.
A shuttle bus just stopped along the edge of the plaza, letting out a swarm of people and taking in the next. A group of elementary students stood before the HueCam Hall. Their teacher pointed at the cylindrical glass building, which had six big letters, "HueCam," affixed to it.
A few floors below the letter signage, Strikelet stood alone, watching the plaza through the glass wall. Their face was behind a silvery helmet in the shape of a skull. Two dots of fierce, red light emitted from the skull's eye sockets, hiding Strikelet's own eyes behind. They wore a red sweater with a cuirass, vambraces, and metal epaulets(decorative shoulder armor with fringes) attached to it. The golden fringes hung still around their arms.
This costume was never taken off in public. People did not even know Strikelet's gender or ethnicity since they only spoke through their mask's voice filter. Despite the peculiar insecurity about their secret identity, Strikelet had been the most beloved hero since four years ago.
Right now, Strikelet's sharp sight was monitoring the plaza before their HueCam Hall. There was a tranquil contentment in this quietness. The pleasure of helping and protecting people came from inside. It warmed Strikelet's heart every time.
The door behind them opened.
"Strikelet, how are you doing?" Young Baco asked as he strolled into the meeting room. He pulled a mellow grin when Strikelet glanced back at him. Baco was wearing an oversized teal parka and holding a tray with two cups and a teapot.
Strikelet fully turned around and walked away from the glass wall. A mechanical voice came out of the bottom half of their skull helmet, "You should keep your mask on in here, Baco."
"Oh, I will. I will," he replied, sitting down on the couch and putting the tray on the table. With his white and thin hands hidden in the thick sleeves, Baco grabbed a cup and filled it with black tea.
"What brought you here?" Strikelet asked, sauntering toward.
After taking a sip, Baco held the cup through both sleeves. He glanced into it and then looked up again. "You know how I always want to make HueCam League feel like a family?"
Strikelet nodded as Baco continued, "I just don't think that will ever work. Tio never cares; CleanCut was just a jerk. It's… it's… I just can't." Baco stared into the translucent tea, where a leaf slowly twirled on top.
"It's alright. You don't need to rush this. People take time to open up to each other. I think what is important is that you're willing to do this." Strikelet paused, turning away, and went on, "I know most people don't particularly like to be lectured by the youngest member of the team, but I do wish you luck in convincing them." A joyful snort escaped their mouth and became robotic. "It's almost like CleanCut was the annoying cousin type, you know?"
Giving back a little chuckle, Baco replied, "Yeah, I think I had a friend like him in the orphanage." He giggled again and moved his eyes upward, off the cup.
Strikelet gazed at him. Instinctively, Baco shifted his eyes away from the scarlet radiance. They said, "I am really looking forward to your project."
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While the middle-aged and young heroes were chatting in HueCam Hall, the purplish portal emerged on the viewing platform.
The ellipse started as a tiny spot on the ground, then instantly filled the entire platform. Cosplayers, photographers, and tourists all fell into it as the ground transformed into an intangible plane of glowing purple. Before anyone on the plaza could react, the monster's legs crept out of its oval doorway.
The six sable tarsi(insect legs) reached out of the purplish hole and impaled the stone floor. They bolstered the violet body out of the portal, which was not much bigger. It was like six booms fishing a colossal ogre.
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The monster was like a flipped cockroach, with its six joints atop and elytra beneath. The thin, flexible neck extended from the torso, sending its cricket head into the sky.
Screaming, people fled, stepping on each other and being pushed to the ground. That group of students trembled between the monster and the hall. They were too scared to move but capable of hugging and holding each other.
As the elytra opened, a splash of green acid pumped out of the monster's anus. The acid was small when compared to its maker yet big enough to melt a group of kids into corpses.
They shut their eyes, and the glass wall shattered.
Power Activation: PUNCHING
Only a few drops of acid landed around them along the glass pieces. The rest was punched right back to its origin. Strikelet slowly drew back their fist in the students' gasp of surprise and the monster's screech of anger.
Following the shout, countless wolf-sized monsters of the same shape clambered their way out of the portal. They jabbed their two front tarsi into the ground and tugged themselves into this earth.
However, most exploded in a teal flash before their hind tarsi touched the ground. Within their skull helmet, Strikelet smiled at the greenish-blue drone above the plaza. That was Baco's masterpiece. With it, Baco could activate his ability "AIMING" anywhere he wanted.
Surviving through Young Baco's massacre, several small ones rushed toward the fleeing crowd. The fastest was the one that pounced toward a whimpering old man. The woman who tripped him screamed louder as she bumped into another man and fell.
While the one pouncing was still in the air, Strikelet lunged, jumped, and punched the giant monster in its closed elytra.
Power Activation: PUNCHING
They pierced through, bursting the monster into pieces. The splashing flesh, colorful fluid, and cuticle debris spattered. The small ones stopped and dropped like stringless dolls. The pouncing one fell directly onto the crying old man, turning the whimpering into sobbing.
Strikelet landed beneath the viewing platform. Behind him, the gigantic corpse descended into its oval doorway. Strikelet and Young Baco saved the day again. Well, at least that was supposed to be the case. The invasion from the other world should end when the biggest monster of the swarm is killed.
"Strikelet, is it?" the man asked as he elevated from the portal. His skin was paler than cocaine and glossy enough to glisten sharply under the sun. In contrast, his long hair, leaning on his naked shoulders, was darker than darkness itself. No texture or shape could be recognized but a clean silhouette that cut the hair from all its surroundings.
The pleated and flared sleeves were tied to the man's upper arms. Their hems were long enough to hide his hand, and their color matched the bloody red of his eyes.
Although pale, his leotard did not match the whiteness of his skin. It was another kind of pale—the type of bloated and deteriorated corpses that contained a greenish-black within. Waist down, a long, dark skirt curtained his legs.
The presence of this man alone had Strikelet stunned. They turned around, glaring at the man with their red spite glowing from the eyes. Standing on the rim of the purple ellipse, the pale man looked back and down at them with a patrician smirk.
Then, they struck.
Power Activation: PUNCHING
Power Activation: HALTING
In the blink of an eye, Strikelet was pinned in the air. Their fist was out, and their feet were off the ground. They stayed in the posture of punching forward, stationary, motionless, and unaffected by the rules of physics. They were neither floating nor levitating, just frozen in time like a paused video.
Before them stood the creepy, pale man. He continued smiling as he turned and sauntered toward the center of the portal. The paused hero just glided along, moving in the air like a flat image sliding through a screen.
Viewing the HueCam Hall with his hands at his back, the pale man suddenly noticed something was off. He stood in a shadow. The entire plaza was covered in a shadow, and the fleeing crowd was nowhere to be seen. Before he turned back, a mini tsunami already devoured him from atop.
The water flooded the whole plaza and faded into a thin haze, not leaving a trace on the floor. The portal had closed. Standing on the viewing platform were the first three seats of the HueCam League: Strikelet, R.O.S., and Sprinter.
On Strikelet's left was Sprinter, the user of "RUNNING," she lightly asked with little real worry in her voice, "Damn, who is this guy? How did he stop your punch?"
"Just shut up," a mechanical voice, along with heavy panting, came out of the silvery skull. While Sprinter was shocked by the aggression, R.O.S., on Strikelet's right, rolled his eyes with his arms crossed before his chest.
R.O.S. wore a sleeveless leather jacket with decorative chains tightly wrapped across his shoulders and loosely hung before his abdomen. His curvy, gray mullet ran down his neck, mimicking the form of a bursting wave. His shimmering ivory bracelet contrasted his dark-brown skin as it slowly rotated around his right wrist.
.
.
.
This costume was never updated again since that day in honor of R.O.S.'s two fallen friends. Outside R.O.S., no one witnessed the death of Strikelet and Sprinter. R.O.S. had never answered a single question about that day other than "The pale one is dead. No need to worry."
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Current HueCam Hall:
First Seat: Strikelet (Handant Smith). Death confirmed.
Second Seat: Rolling of Seas (Johnny Wetman). Disqualified due to mental incapability.
Third Seat: Sprinter (Lu Li Lin). Death confirmed.
Fourth Seat: [Classified]
Fifth Seat: [Classified]
Sixth Seat: [Classified]
Seventh Seat: [Classified]
Eighth Seat: CleanCut (N/A). Alive and Active.
Ninth Seat: [Classified]
Tenth Seat: Baco (Bandie Cowrun). Alive and Active.
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