Izzy the front door clerk now looked like a curvy super-model with angelic wings and a halo. Adelyunn figured that was the avatar that John had offered to purchase for her if she helped him win the last game. She politely said hello to Adelynn and lead Adelynn and Starla into a waiting room. John came out to greet Adelynn and stopped to look at Starla.
“Hi, you must be the friend.” Said John holding out his hand.
Starla returned the handshake. “Yep, You must be the partner.”
“That I am!” said John. The hand shake didn’t seem to end as they sized each other up. “Eh, whatever.” Said John loosening up first. “I need to speak with her about her case. You’ll have to stay out here.”
“I figured as much.” Said Starla. “I’ll just have a seat.”
John took Adelynn back with him into his office and stood in front of a large table where all sorts of documents and files were laid out. “The good news is that we have more than enough evidence of an employee performing gross negligence while acting within the scope of his employment and being able to exploit a problem they were cited and fined for multiple times.”
“Really?” said Adelynn. “Elaborate?”
“The employee in question, Rufus Girft, has had his license to operate manual machinery revoked by the state and the feds after an incident where he tried to show the new guy ‘somethin’ cool’, and disabled the auto-drive after the 2060 deadline. He didn’t cause any bodily harm in that case, but he did damage a bridge that needed to be repaired. After his rehabilitation program was completed, the company left him on the payroll as the warehouse manager, since training a new one would cost extra, but he was not to operate anything heavier than a skateboard.”
“Why would they keep him on after the first incident?” asked Adelynn.
“Ellen thinks she found a connection between Mr. Girft and a member of the company’s human resources team, but it’s tenuous at best. She’s exploring other avenues to see if he is someone’s frat buddy or something.” Replied John. “At any rate, he was a huge liability and they accepted that risk. Honestly, the situation couldn’t be more perfect to litigate over, except that my partner was involved.” He turned to look at her. “If this case came to us and didn’t involve one of us, we’d be sitting pretty for a long time. I haven’t lost sight that it was my best friend and partner who was injured and nearly—” he couldn’t say it, not in front of Adelynn.
“John.” Said Adelynn. “Thank you. I’m okay. I stared death in the face and lived.”
“You’re stronger than I am.” He said. “I’ve been worried sick about you, but you seem to be okay mentally.”
“I had some help, but really, I’m alright. I should see how the healing goes at the hospital later.” She said aloud. “Anyway, what are we looking at for damages?”
John handed her a sheet tallying up the cost of the transport vehicle, her expected medical expenses, her losses from six months of not being able to work, what they’d ask for regarding pain and suffering and punitive damages. Adelynn sucked her breath in at the nine-digit number. “You really think we can get this?”
“A few years ago, another firm managed to nail a Fortune 100 company with something similar and the damages were well over a billion dollars. Of course, there were special circumstances.”
Adelynn recalled what John was talking about. Wiwwit Inc. hired a law firm to represent them and gave them free reign on how to proceed, which included all sorts of incredibly unprofessional and barely legal practices. Once all that came out, both the judge and the jury in that case were incredibly pissed at the council and simply declared pie in the sky numbers. Wiwwit Inc. no longer existed.
Meanwhile, out in the waiting room Michi had snuck over to Izzy. “Hey.”
“What?” she asked.
“Is that who I think it is?” said Michi.
Izzy looked up at Starla, who had a window open and was looking at some news feed. “Beats me. Who do you think it is?” asked Izzy.
“It’s got to be Starla Starfall, right?” said Michi.
“Who?” said Izzy.
“Look!” said Michi thrusting a window in her hands. It showed ‘The 10 greatest acts of destruction in SuperS!!!’ and number one was a blonde lady in a holographic outfit wearing a silly little eye mask to ‘hide her identity’.
“Maybe.” Said Izzy. “Go ask her.”
“Think she plays Supers?”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “You’re the only one I know who plays SuperS since it lets you be the magical anime girl of your dreams.”
Michi made a face of non-appreciation and approached Starla. “Excuse me.” Said Michi. “Are you Starla the Destroyer?”
Starla paused the video she was watching and looked at the pink anime girl. “Yup.”
Michi wasn’t sure what to do next. ‘SuperS’ as it was known, or its official name ‘SuperStrong SSS’, was a Headspace game where players adopted the personas of super-heroes or super-villains or normies (for whatever reason) and lived in various developed cities to commit or stop crimes or have those things perpetrated upon them. The developers of SuperS and Mythticle were the same people, so a player could literally take their character from one to the other, although some things were underpowered in the different games. Flight and energy attacks in SuperS weren’t that big of a deal when a warrior in magic armor could shrug it off and cut them with a magic weapon. Magic wasn’t very popular in SuperS either since it was slower than just blasting with a weapon or energy attack.
Years prior however, the developers had a cross-over event. Players from Mythticle got to go try to be the most heroic hero or most devious villains they could be. Since ‘magic’ was considered weaker in SuperS it became the most common weakness of the heroes.
Then Starla the Destroyer happened.
Starla the Destroyer became the most feared villainess that SuperS had ever seen. She fought the mightiest heroes and blasted them out of the sky, rained down meteors that levelled city blocks, and generally laughed about everything that came her way. The Mythticle players had this power due to balance issues in SuperS. With the ‘weaker’ magic of SuperS, magic points regenerated at an absurd speed and the Mythticle players found themselves with a mana pool ten times large than they would have had at home.
The event lasted two weeks and the magic using community from Mythticle wanted to make sure they were never forgotten. Starla the Destroyer and several other powerful magic users in Mythticle banded together to make a group called The Magi. The Magi spent a week in North City converting the homes and buildings along the city’s edge into an enormous magical summoning circle. Once they’d spent a week building ley lines and charging enormous mana batteries, Starla unleashed Meteor on the small metropolis. The meteor that arrived at the end of her casting eclipsed the sun, broke the heavens and shattered the sky. Not even Starla expected a meteor nearly a mile wide. The super meteor utterly obliterated North City, reducing it to a crater and the surrounding countryside to a burning memorial made with twisted steel and melted glass.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Starla and The Magi were banned from SuperS for the remaining duration of the event.
The damage had already been done though and with only ten hours remaining of the event, the punishment didn’t have any teeth. The developers never really punished The Magi for their role in the destruction of North City and when the time for the SuperS to cross over into Mythticle came, many of the magic wielding SuperS heroes joined forces with the more normal SuperS Heroes and stormed the gates, only to find themselves in Tharnhaven. There they only found the normal NPCs and low-level players starting out and the fantastically large red-light district. Some of the larger buildings were attacked, but their owners fought back with magic swords and magic armor that protected them from most attacks. The Starlight Sanctuary was attacked, but a Ra Blast or Mega Flare would usually solve that issue. Even after some patching to try to balance the power levels of the two games for ‘future cross-over events’ (That had yet to happen), the players of SuperS consider the Mythticle players to be overpowered.
“So, did you want something?” asked Starla. “Oh, an autograph?”
“No.” said Michi. “You’re not really her, right? She was a monster.”
Starla shrugged. “Did North City ever rebuild? I bet it’s still a crater, right?”
“No, it has a memorial in the center of the crater, but it’s never been redeveloped.”
“Cool.” Said Starla. “That ritual would have taken way longer than a year to get done in Mythticle, even with the twenty or so players we had. Did you see the look on XxCrazyStrongxX’s face when he tried to catch that with his bare hands?” Starla chuckled. “And everyone else trying to hold up a city destroying rock?” She laughed a bit harder.
“Oh dear.” Said Michi with the color draining from her face. “Oh dear, it really is you.”
The door behind Michi opened and John and Adelynn stepped out. Michi was backing away slowly as Starla stood up. “There you are. Everything good?”
“Yep. Why is Michi terrified of you?” asked Adelynn.
“It’s a somewhat long story.” Said Starla. “About how a group of mages terrorized the superhero community.”
“Oh, I remember that!” said John. “It was on the news even. I had players from the SuperS game contact me to try to sue the developers or get the wizard players arrested or something. I had to point out that it was both in the scope of the event and within the scope of the game itself and also ‘not real’ which limits damages to whatever they paid for in the game if they had some in game property destroyed.”
Starla shrugged. “We told at least a few of the developers what we were doing and they didn’t stop us, so it was kind of a green light to do whatever. I think they didn’t know what was possible.”
“Ohhh, you’re THAT Starla.” Said John. “At least Michi thinks so.”
“What’d she do?” asked Adelynn.
“Levelled an in-game city with a meteor.” Said Michi.
Adelynn laughed. “I can assure you that she is very probably THAT Starla, although I only vaguely remember that event. I think we were embroiled in the Kurtis case at the time and I was trying to figure out how their vague contract kept them liable for what they’d done.”
John shrugged. “Gamers are a bit high strung sometimes.” He said. “Do you want to go out for a night cap?” he said to everyone.
“Sure, if it’s just to chat about whatever.” Said Adelynn.
“Classy joint?” said Starla.
“I know a few.” Said John.
Michi wasn’t interested, but Izzy was swayed by the offer of virtual booze and a classy atmosphere. Starla scrolled through her inventory for a bit and then pulled something out and gave it to Michi. It was a copy of the holographic, iridescent eye mask she wore during the SuperS event. She’d signed it before handing it over.
Michi just looked at the present and didn’t know what to think, but the destroyer of North City seemed like a fairly nice lady. Later that night Michi would check to see if the mask could be sold on the market, but it was labeled as ‘Unable to sell or trade’.
Twenty minutes later, Starla, now wearing a black evening dress and matching long gloves, stepped into the Club Zen’d. Adelynn was there and she’d changed into something more formal and looked up to see Starla in something that wasn’t somewhat gaudy and loud. Club Zen’d was a dark and warm club that served virtual drinks that changed some user settings to mimic inebriation. Of course, there were some drinks that acted more like hallucinogenic mushrooms than booze, usually by turning up the saturation on colors or adding a bit of twist to the virtual reality. The mood in the club was set by the music, which was typically EDjazz, but settled into a background jazz as the night grew longer.
Starla went and sat down with them and ordered a drink. Izzy showed up a few moments later and sat down next to John. Adelynn looked around the table and thought it must look like either John was a stud or a double date. That thought made her take another drink to wash it away.
Starla explained the SuperS crossover event that Michi was well aware of and started to go into a bit about how the magic circle around North City acted like a magic magnifying glass. Izzy was the only one who asked what a magnifying glass was, but she was the youngest there.
After everyone had a chance to tell stories or get drinks the group broke up with John and Izzy heading their separate ways. Adelynn looked at Starla from where she was sitting. “Black is nice on you.”
“Thanks.” Said Starla getting to her feet. “Want to head back to the campsite?”
“Trade this posh atmosphere for a hole in the dirt?” said Adelynn. “I can’t wait!”
Starla smiled and helped Adelynn up. “Fine, do you have a nice place to sleep in your Headspace room?”
Adelynn shook her head. “I never did much with it. I only recently got a newer Headspacer, remember?”
“Oh yeah. Well, we can sleep in my room if you want.”
“The one at the Starlight? We’re never going to get anywhere if we keep going back.” Said Adelynn.
“I mean the one in my Headspace room, we were there earlier today.”
“Oh, yeah I guess there was one there.” Adelynn thought for a moment. “I’m not really even tired.”
“We’ve been on the go for hours. I need to sleep at least.”
Adelynn sighed. “Alright. Let’s go to your place.” Starla and her left Club Zen’d and travelled to her Headspace chamber. The bed looked somewhat inviting, but Adelynn shrugged. “Look, I think I want to go check on my status at the hospital.”
Starla nodded. “Sure, here’s a key if you want to come back, otherwise I’ll see you in Mythticle tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
Adelynn returned to the hospital Headspace and checked in. She found her spot on the beach and pressed a button for the nurse. A picture of the nurse popped up and asked her what she needed.
“Uh. I just want to check on progress with my legs being regrown?” it sounded so strange to say out loud.
“One moment.” There was silence for a good long while and then “I’ve sent files to your location. You’re doing fine in the progress of your healing. Thank you for your patience.”
Adelynn saw a file folder appear on the table next to the lounge chair and sat down and opened it up. She wasn’t ready to see photos of her mangled legs and the daily progress that had been made to fix them. The first pictures turned her stomach and she quickly flipped past to see another picture with her feet and ankles in the correct location and hollow, plastic bone structures filling up the place where her legbones had once been. “Did they mean to send raw unfiltered images?” asked Adelynn. Every picture looked better and better. Some occasional notes showed up on the images, like ‘Poor bloodflow here, recommend re-route’ and ‘growth here is showing great progress’. The last picture had today’s date on it. Her legs were healing and she would someday be able to walk again, but she was probably going to have some incredibly nasty scarring.
“Crap.” She said. “I don’t know if I wanted to see those.” She thought they might be nightmare fuel. She tucked the folder away into her Headspace inventory and left the hospitals network. She found her way back to Starla’s room and knocked. There wasn’t any answer so she went in. Starla had climbed into the virtual bed and was snoring. Adelynn quietly got herself ready for bed and climbed in near her. The visions of her legs still danced in her head, but just when she thought she might need something to occupy her mind she felt Starla slap her side and grab for her. Starla pulled Adelynn close and held on. Adelynn was about to say something when she heard Starla snore again. She didn’t think she was awake. Adelynn squirmed a bit to get more comfortable and felt safer and the visions of her injuries did not resurface that night.