Chapter 03-03

“Come my young ward! There is evil to thwart!” Alex said as they exited the coffee shop. Obsidian rolled her eyes but followed none the less.

“Don’t say thwart. It’s such a dumb word.” She said with a loud intentionally audible sigh.

“This is how heroes speak.” Alex said puffing out his chest making sure to speak loud and clear, “I should be getting heroic points for talking this way but it’s not working.”

“Not all of them, and besides in that new get up you look like an antihero at best.” Obsidian said coving a chuckle, “Maybe it’s more about intent than action.”

“Ouch.” He said simply and deflated just a bit.

Winter’s Garden was a fairly large city. It’s biggest draw for most people who decided to live or work there was that it had a set of docks, that connected with the main Hyper-rail system and the other transport systems that ran farther north. Trucks and powered up land trains moved materials down form the mountains for distribution throughout the world.

Most people that went up into the mountains to work either moved there for life or they would stay up there working for long seasons of mining. They wanted to do everything in their power to maximize their potential income for themselves and their families. All of this turned Winter’s Garden into a hub for all who may or may not be on the up and up after the other two winter cities came under complete control of the Heroes.

“Can you tell me more about the Hero exodus that you were talking about?” Alex asked as they walked towards downtown.

“Well,” Obsidian blew out a loud breath through her nose, “It was about eight months ago give or take. The villains, Gold tooths mostly, were sick of not having a foot hold in the Winter cities. They came in one day and started to cause some major trouble in the streets. After a few days they delivered a message that stated that things would only get worse if the heroes didn’t pack up and get out. On the second day after the message they began hunting down every hero that they could find and ganging up on them. It was a villainous alliance the likes of which I had never seen before. After a couple of days of Heroes being found dead in the streets they just silently vanished in the night until there were no more left to fight. I managed to get by being from a Villainous family.” She explained solemnly.

“How?” Alex asked.

“My father told them that I would one day see the error in my ways. He said that I was young and naive.” She said with a chuckle.

“I see.” Alex said.

“Yeah. It is what it is.” Obsidian said as her head drooped just a little.

“I might not be the best guy, I may never be the perfect hero, I can almost guarantee that, but I’ll help you fight to avoid becoming a villain.” Alex said.

“That is a wonderful sentiment, but only time will tell.” She said with a somewhat forced smile.

Alex did not have time to respond. As an explosion rocked the street the steel skeletal remains of what was once a truck crashed down in front of them. About a block away a man wearing an extremely reflective suit stood with a nasty grin on his lips. He had fiery red hair and his green eyes glowed as he reached out his hand and fired off a second beam of energy that sliced through a building. He was attacking a museum.

“You ready for this?” Alex asked as her started moving towards the potential villain but glanced over towards Obsidian.

“Let’s get hard!” She said slamming her fists together.

“Don’t say that!” Alex said stopping dead in his tracks to look at her.

“Fair enough, just trying it out.” She said shaking her head. She smiled and turned towards the villain activating her abilities.

“What is this? Heroes?!” The shiny man yelled when he spotted Alex and Obsidian moving towards him where he stood.

“We’re here to stop you!” Alex yelled.

The man turned and held out each of his hands. Powerful lasers burst out from each of his palms. Alex had to kick off of the ground and dodge to the left with his flight ability to avoid being hit by the beam. He could very much feel the increase in strength in his flight power from adding the power point. Obsidian rolled to the right, but she was still glanced with the beam. Smoke billowed from her skin as she came to a stop in a kneel.

“Are you alright?” Alex yelled towards her keeping his eye on the shiny man.

“I’m fine.” She grunted from the ground. She pushed herself up to her feet.

“It’s been some time since I’ve seen someone take a shot from Laser-man without dying instantly!” the man yelled still grinning with a fair amount of insanity.

“Really? Your name is Laser-man!” Alex said. He and Obsidian immediately busted out laughing. Alex laughed so hard that he had to float down to the ground and could hardly see through the tears.

“I will show you to laugh at me!” Laser-man yelled in fury. He began to fire off beams of powerful energy very rapidly hardly having to take a rest between shots. By alternating his hands Alex noticed that he was firing almost continuously.

Alex flew as fast as he could to duck and weave through the incoming attacks. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t get any closer to the villain. The more that he closed the distance the closer Laser-man came to landing a hit on Alex.

Obsidian moved out of the way as fast as she could, but she didn’t have a movement power and considering the speed of the energy beams she was very slow. She used her power to glance the blows off and send them into the ground, but even that was draining her quickly.

A man appeared from the shadows. He wore a bandana wrapped around his eyes with holes cut so that he could see. Otherwise he wore normal street clothes with a grey shoulder bag resting against his side.

“Laser-man adjust your laser’s power to six thousand megawatts. Her ability will not be able to absorb or redirect that much power.” The unknown man called out.

Laser-man’s face adopted an even nastier smile. He stopped firing the random energy attacks and instead turned towards Obsidian. With his palm outstretched towards her energy began to build up. Small beams of light sucked inwards towards a ball of energy that was forming.

Alex looked down towards Obsidian who looked up at him. She nodded slightly. She had seen his struggle to get near him and was willing to do her part to end the fight. She took a half step back planting her foot.

Heat radiated off the ball of energy as it grew in size. Alex angled himself and at the instant the beam began to form he poured on the speed. He rocketed towards Laser-man who noticed he was incoming. He began to turn the beam towards Alex, but it was too late. He was already close enough. Alex’s fist flew in like a blur with a little bit of super strength energy and smashed into Laser-man’s face.

The beam of energy died at the moment of contact. Laser-man stumbled back and grabbed his face whining loudly like a child. He dropped to his knees as blood began to wash down his face and drip off of his chin.

“You broke my nose!” He yelled through his hands.

“Um, yeah.” Alex said with a curt nod.

Laser-man moved his hand to look down at all of his blood. He sneezed sending a spray of blood all over the ground in front of where he knelt.

“Gross!” Alex yelled jumping back out of the spray, “Stop right there!” He pointed to the other man who was attempting to slip into the shadow.

“I’m cool.” The man said holding up his hands.

“Who are you?” Alex asked. He walked over to the man and gripped the back of his neck to lead him to where Laser-man was waiting. The man made a whining fearful sound.

“I’m The Scanner.” He said through the sound.

“The Scanner?” Alex asked for clarification.

“Yeah, I have a high scan ability.” He looked at the ground.

“Are you his sidekick?” Alex pointed to Laser-man.

“Yes.” The Scanner said shamefully.

“So, are we done with this fight?” Alex asked. Then it hit him, there hadn’t been any snarky remarks, “If either of you move, I might get my first villain points.”

-+1 Villainous Point (1)

-Threat

Alex searched for Obsidian for a moment, but she wasn’t hard to find. A car had been impacted by her body when she had been hit by the laser. The shell of the car had conformed to her body. Alex flew over and knelt down beside her.

Steam rose up off of her body, but she looked to be intact. Her suit was going to need repairs and it looked like she was out cold.

“You alright kid?” Alex asked tapping her cheeks.

“Did we win?” She moaned as she started to come to.

“You could say that.” Alex laughed. He held out his hand to help her up off the ground.

“I had to use all of my energy to keep from, you know, dying.” She said shaking her head. It took a moment for her to find her balance. Alex stabilized her until she could walk.

“Alright, what’s the deal here?” Alex asked the two villains who were kneeling in the middle of the destroyed street.

“There is a diamond in that museum that he can use to reactivate Odin’s Lance.” The scanner admitted indicating Laser-man.

“Shut your mouth!” Laser-man shouted.

To understand Odin’s Lance, one had to understand one of the fundamental features of My Supers Online. It was a time of difficulty for the admins. The systems that govern balance within My Supers is very particular about keeping that balance. If players who are heroes begin to outnumber villains and the power starts to shift there will be less for the heroes to do. This makes the game boring. So, the system will create powerful villains to tip the scales and it works the other way.

A hero came to power roughly five years ago who was seemingly unstoppable. The system being the way that it was created a villain who became known as Odin. He was a mastermind who orchestrated a villainous uprising and constructed a powerful weapon’s platform in orbit that housed a very powerful laser, Odin’s Lance. During their final fight Odin’s Lance was used and it carved a canyon in the eastern continent, Brovanin, that was wider and nearly as long as the Grand Canyon on Earth. The Hero was hard defeated, or killed, in the battle. He never logged back onto the game and no one knew who he was outside of the game.

To Alex’s knowledge Odin’s Lance had been taken out of the game two patches ago.

“I think you are barking up the wrong tree. That thing fell out of the sky months ago.” Alex said with a smirk.

“Exactly.” Laser-man said with a smile.

“It’s still usable on the surface?” Alex asked the smirk falling away.

“Very much so.” Laser-man said with a nod.

“Where is it?” Alex asked grabbing Laser-man’s collar.

“I’ll never tell.” Laser-man laughed.

“Alight, fine. I was going to let you idiots go, but now we have to make other arraignments.” Alex growled throwing the man down.

“What did you have in mind?” Obsidian asked cocking her head to give Alex a sideways look.

-You’ve Complete a Villain Encounter!

-You’re First Villainous Encounter!

-Laser-Man and The Scanner

-Defeated ‘The Scanner’

-600xp (600xp Each)

-Defeated ‘Laser-man’

-1200xp (1200xp Each)

- +12 Hero Points (You’re a Hero!)

- +20 Hero Tier (-49 Until Next Tier)