Chapter 06

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” I yelled as I ran over to my old comrades.

Looking them over, it brought back old memories of fighting Mastermind and a handful of our other enemies. Hopper looked almost the same, with his mainly gray super suit accented with the same color blue as his portals. Right next to him was Lucky Break. He had changed a bit, seemingly taller with a green and gold color scheme, but his suit wasn’t the same, it looked like it recently got an update similar to Richard, David, and my own. The thing that shocked me most about him, was he wasn’t in a wheelchair.

“What? How are you standing?” I asked.

“Mastermind. Now what can we do to help?”

“Always business, aren’t you?” sighing I continued,” You’re right.”

“Welcome gentlemen, I hope my former villain status won’t affect our jobs here. I’m leading relief efforts, and we could use your help.” Mastermind said in a similar business tone to Lucky.

Looking back over the event I noticed that a lot of the fighters were stopping to look around.

“Looks like they weren’t expecting this.” I commented.

“No one was, not even us.” Hopper said.

“Right, I was told you all had a set plan to handle things like this. Author and Orbital Force are out there already and need the rest of you to do your jobs. So, get to it!”

“We’ll catch up later, gonna go and round up the last of the bystanders.” I raced off before I even finished. My “In the Zone” buff was still active, and I was ready to get to it.

As I started to round up more and more people, the fighting came back in full swing. I noticed Hopper’s portals every now and then grabbing debris and stray magic out of the air and putting it in some other dimension. The Author was busy writing away in his book, changing the laws of reality in a sixty-foot radius around him making magic vanish as it got near him. Orbital Force was lifting almost three quarters of a fallen building, trying to find anyone trapped underneath. Lucky Break was bending over to pick up someone who couldn’t stand, and barely dodged a melee combatant who was thrown right at him. Mastermind was currently giving orders to a bunch of low leveled supers telling them where to look and how to use their powers in an effective way for their jobs. Prometheus was currently fighting two people who had rushed the trucks for “easy” kills.

As I was gathering up another two people, I noticed an icon right next to my active buff.

-THE HONOR GUARD RETURNS

-WHILE ALL MEMBERS OF THE HONOR GUARD ARE PRESENT INCREASED EFFECTIVENESS IN POWER USE.

-ALSO RECEIVE A SMALL POWER BONUS FOR THE COMPETETIVE NATURE YOU ALL SHARE (+.5% POWER BONUS FOR EACH PERSON SAVED, MAX 50%)

As I put the most recent rescues down the man and woman both looked to me.

“Our daughter, she is in the building right there!” The man said pointing to a building close to a high-level fight. Just after he pointed it out, one person of the small group being attacked was thrown through the building.

“My… baby!” the woman barely got out between cries.

Looking the woman in the eyes, I grabbed both her arms and squeezed them to reassure her.

“I will get her back. What’s her name?”

“Hayden.” She seemed to believe me as she stopped crying.

“I’ll be right back.” I sped off toward the building as it started to shake. I activated the comms.

“Hopper, I need a way into the hole that was just made in the building northeast of the plaza.”

“Got it, but you’ll need some help getting to it.”

“You got it.” Orbital Force replied.

Running my full speed to the portal nearly three stories up suspended in the air, a ramp suddenly appeared out of debris leading directly up to it.

“I have too many portals open. I have to close that one before the other will appear. Whatever you do, don’t stop running.” Hopper said right before I entered. Steeling my resolve, I pushed harder. I was running for what felt like days, before the other portal opened about two-hundred feet from the hole in the building. Remembering the active buffs, I could double my max speed, and quickly did so.

I knew I couldn’t let the jump be the only thing I used. It’d slow me down. As I looked at the surroundings I saw if I used the combatants that were flying, I could hop from one to another to keep momentum, but even I don’t know what would happen to them as my speed connected with them.

Stepping from one person to another there was only a split second I could use them as a steppingstone before they were rocketed to the ground at my current speed. Huge craters started to from where they landed, but all the civilians on the ground were out of harm’s way.

I made it into the building and quickly realized it was collapsing, and at this speed I couldn’t communicate with any of my team. I had to move, and quick. Starting on the top floor I searched room by room finding no one. As I started to search the fourth floor from the top, my energy started to flash. I was running out of juice. I had to slow down even a little. Eight floors from the top I ran into a problem. The woman thrown into the building, and the person who threw her were in the middle of an all-out fight. Holes in the walls, floors, and ceiling, let me know that they didn’t care for casualties. That’s when I heard a scream. Four doors behind them was a small girl holding a blanket, and a unicorn plushy.

I ran toward her, having to run right into their fight. Seeing a fist flying toward my face from the woman, I spun grabbing the man and using him to absorb the blow instead of me. Letting him go the second her fist connected sent him flying back out of the building away from the girl. Sliding to grab her and lose very little momentum, I placed a hand behind her head to protect her neck before hitting the wall and running along it to the ceiling.

“Leaving the way, I came in. Need an exit strategy.” I asked the comm chat.

“I got ya!” came Lucky Break’s voice.

“Why do I feel like I won’t like this?”

“You gotta jump.”

“There it is. I have a child in my arms I can’t just jump.”

“Trust me.” He had nothing but confidence in his voice.

“Here we go.” I said, hoping I wasn’t taking this child and myself to our respective graves.

I clutched Hayden tightly and ran out of the building entering a free fall. I was one hundred percent sure I was about to die when trash can lids and sewer grates came flying toward me in a prefect pattern for me to run down. Nearing the bottom, I saw how Lucky’s plan worked. He was fighting someone who could control metal objects and was making a bridge for me to run down. He was lucky it worked, or this child and I would be dead. I guess that is his power.

Mentally shrugging I ran towards the man responsible for my bridge and gave him a swift kick in the stomach, which sent him flying backwards into a mattress store. Lucky for him, I guess.

“Thanks Lucky.” I said into the comms.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Looking down Hayden seemed to be perfectly fine, so I wouldn’t hold that “plan” against him.

“We are almost to your parents Hayden.” I told her.

She didn’t reply just snuggled in tighter. Speeding up enough to dodge stray attacks, I ran toward the drop off point when I heard a voice on the comms.

“They were taken to that park. That’s all the civilians so take her and get back, the fight is just getting started.” Since when did Mastermind have the Honor Guard comm channel?

Not stopping I ran right through the safe point and out of the zone.

-ZONE EVENT NOTICE

-ALL BYSTANDERS HAVE BEEN CLEARED

-TOP CONTRIBUTERS

-1. CELERITY: 189 SAVED

-2. THE STREAK: 126 SAVED

-3. THE PROTECTER: 98 SAVED

-4. ORBITAL FORCE: 86 SAVED

-5. DR. WIERD: 31 SAVED

-CONGRATULATIONS TOP CONTRIBUTERS! YOU WILL ALL RECEIVE A XP BONUS!

-WHILE ALL BYSTANDERS ARE SAFE, THE RIOT RAGES ON.

After I finished reading the notification, we arrived at the park and I ran around until I found Hayden’s parents.

“Here you go she was so sweet, but I didn’t have time to get her a bath or put her to bed.”

“Thank you so much Celerity!” came the mother’s voice just before she wrapped her arms around me for a hug. I hugged her back, only for a moment before I sped off. I had work to do.

As I got close to the event, a beep from my communicator sent a location to my heads-up display built into the eyes of my face mask. It showed the location of all the Honor Guard, the two former villains, and a blinking point that was labeled “rendezvous point.” I sped my way over to the blip that was on top of a building just inside the zone. As I got there, the others arrived too.

We stood there overlooking the chaos below. As we surveyed the all-out super brawl below, we noticed several things. First, there seemed to be four different fights going on simultaneously. Second, one fight was more intense than the others, while the three smaller fights were more fighters. The last thing we noticed was in the intense fight the city’s top three heroes were each fighting one person we hadn’t seen before.

“Who are they?” I voiced my question.

“They are what the Bridgers have been referring to as ‘admins’, whatever that means.” Mastermind answered.

“I have two major questions.” Hopper stated with a slight tinge of confusion.

“Please ask away.” Mastermind told him, in that teacher way he talks.

“Why are you here? And why are you three with him?”

“Well that’s because I…”

“Not now, just know he’s on our side this time.” I interrupted.

“I also have a plan.” Mastermind got all of our attention with that sentence. Not being stopped he continued, “We split into three teams of two to take down the three smaller fights, I will coordinate from here, then all converge on the heavy hitters and stop this riot.”

“What are the teams?” Orbital asked.

“Hopper and Celerity, Author and Orbital, Prometheus and Lucky Break.”

I thought for sure Lucky would have been furious, he balled his fist, and held it out to his left side, and without looking Prometheus bumped it with his own fist. Shrugging it off I focused up. Hopper’s power and my own could be used pretty well with each other. Author and Orbital had been the grouping they chose on our split operations, and Lucky seemed to be ok with Prometheus, so it should be fine.

We stood there waiting for all of our energies to be restored before steeling our resolve. We were no longer on the sidelines.

We were back.