Chapter 07

“I’m at full capacity.” I told the other members of my team.

I received confirmation of the same from everyone on the rooftop. At the same time, I noticed someone coming towards us, and fast. I was about to react when I realized. Holding my hand out to stop the others from attacking The Streak.

“What can I do for you Streak?”

“Hi Mr.… sorry Celerity.” Came the awkward start before he continued, “I would like to help, what can I do?”

“I mean this in the best way kid,” I felt bad for what I was about to do,” Stay out of the way.”

The excitement left his face quicker than even I could see.

“I didn’t mean to stop you from helping, but we are about to fight, and that can be…,” I stopped trying to think of the right word

“Intense?” The Author half asked, half suggested.

“Intense, exactly! I’m not saying you can’t help in general. I’m saying you can’t help us fight.”

“I could use your help here.” Mastermind stated.

His excitement came back a little less than he had before. The Streak nodded his agreement.

“Whatever I can help with.” He told the villain.

“Is everyone prepared?” Mastermind asked us.

After receiving nods from each of us a holographic layout of the area appeared before Mastermind. Looking at it, it continuously moved as the combatants below fought and the building and debris changed as it did on the ground too.

“Drones.” Mastermind answered my unasked question, “Now shouldn’t you guys go?”

Another nod from me and we all moved into action.

Lucky Break and Prometheus moved towards the closest group having around fifteen combatants going full force. As they arrived Lucky just barely dodged a super strength powered punch that managed to hit another person in the face, sending him flying back into a building. That is how fights with Lucky go, he just barely manages something that makes him be in a better position. Prometheus had fire shooting from both hands spinning at a normal pace setting multiple people’s clothes ablaze and causing others to flee the zone.

Orbital Force and The Author took the second closest group, and as it pains me to say were the first ones done. Orbital used his power to lift everyone off the ground in zero gravity, while the Author wrote furiously in his book. As soon as he closed the book, handcuffs appeared around the wrists of everyone who was fighting. This was their specialty after all so I can’t be to mad.

Hopper and I had the farthest group. When we arrived, Hopper opened two big portals one below everyone on the ground and one above them aligned perfectly with the one below it. As the low leveled heroes and villains fell through the portal beneath them, they reemerged falling from the portal floating in the air, one by one I grabbed them and tied them together on a nearby pole.

Each battle was over on a matter of minutes, and after we finished the ground shook from the high-level fighters. As we tried to maintain our balance a huge chunk of the street was ripped from the ground and thrown through the air colliding with a building.

“That building is a strong wind away from coming down.” Mastermind said over the comms.

As he finished speaking a torrent of air buffeted the same building from the other side.

“You just had to say something didn’t you.” I shot to him.

The building started to fall, before I knew it something raced by me.

“He’s gone!” Mastermind yelled.

“Dammit.” I raced off after The Streak before Mastermind could even finish. Right as I was about to catch up to him a part of the building fell off and collided with the ground between us. Not being able to change course quickly enough I just had to hope an opening would present itself.

Just before colliding with the building a familiar colored portal appeared. Not knowing where it would go but having complete trust with Hopper I ran through.

Emerging from the other side I quickly realized where I was, on top of the falling building! Trying to use my enhanced thinking power I tried to determine the fastest path to the stupid speedster. I felt there was only one sure-fire way to get to him, running around the outside of the building.

I ran down the building as it slowly fell, when it started to glow in the way that people and things do when Orbital Force was using his power. I had to be quick, he couldn’t hold a building this size for very long. Lucky for him quick is what I do.

Speeding up so my friend wouldn’t strain himself to long, I quickly changed direction. Darting left to reach the side quicker I swiftly found myself running towards the ground. The moment I changed from this side to the side closest to the ground, would require precise calculations or else I’d plummet to the ground. Lucky for me this isn’t the first time I ran along a falling object, and my brain was up to the task. That is until something collided with the building. The sudden impact threw off my calculations and my foot stepped off the side of the building. Plummeting toward the ground at a speed hardly anyone could see, I thought it was over. However, someone did see.

About one hundred feet from the ground a familiar blur started to circle directly below me. To me he looked so dumb, running in a circle on the ground at a normal pace, I almost busted out laughing as I fell to my death. To others though my fall slowed as The Streak ran fast enough to cause an updraft to catch me.

As my fall began to slow, the person running become more and more of a blur until all I saw was the streaking red and yellow colors where he was running. Being a pro, I couldn’t let anything, but my feet touch first. Moving my arms in a similar way to how he was running I righted myself before landing.

“Good job Streak, where’d you learn to do that?”

“I read about my favorite hero doing it in a comic book.”

“I’d like to meet the hero who came up with that.”

“Well, he’s not real, so that might be hard.”

Not getting what he meant I walked over to him and slapped the back of his head hard.

“What was that for? I just saved you!”

“I was only in danger because you ran off!” I got slightly to close to yelling as I finished talking.

“Anyway…” I started, “What happened?”

“Ghost threw an Admin into the building.”

“What’s an ‘Admin’?”

“Uh…. I’ll explain later.”

“Let’s get back to the group.”

Waiting for Streak to run first I followed closely behind. He stumbled as the Orbital let the building return to its normal gravity. It didn’t take long to get back to everyone. They all stood there with looks of disappointment on their faces. Streak knew it was for him and stopped in front of everyone.

“You are foolish, you could have been killed…” Mastermind started, and stopped just as suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“I got hero points…”

Not knowing what to say I changed the subject. Looking toward The Streak.

“What caused this event?”

“We can’t log off…” He responded almost sounding like he was trying not to worry.

“What do you mean?”

“Right.” He paused trying to remember something, “The bridge is closed.”

“Impossible. When the bridge closes you are all taken from here.” Mastermind stated.

“Exactly why everyone was worried. The Admins came to try and help, but it escalated out of control quickly.”

“Admins?” The Author asked.

The Streak was about to answer when Hopper beat him to it.

“People who help Bridgers with problems, while protecting them and the world from harmful people or problems that would affect their connection to our world.”

“Yeah close enough.” Streak confirmed.

“So, the Admins were here to help and the Bridgers attacked them?” I questioned.

“Pretty much.”

“So, the Bridgers are the instigators.” Prometheus stated. “Which means they are the enemies here.”

“Then we know who to fight.” Orbital Force chimed in.

“They are each at least level two-fifty.” Streak stated as if to say we stood no chance.

“State your name and power!” I yelled.

“Hopper level 241”

“Orbital Force level 244”

“The Author level 243”

“Lucky Break level 238”

“The Mastermind level 247”

“Prometheus level 245”

“Celerity level 246” I finished the group off before continuing, “How did we get this far? Not by backing down in the face of a greater threat.”

Streak looked around at our steeled resolve to fight, then nodded.

“The Streak level 66.” You could feel his resolve. Then his face took on a look of surprise, as I sent him a party invite.

“Really?”

I nodded my head. I didn’t need to tell him it was so I could keep a closer eye on him.

“Mastermind. The plan?” I asked him.

“Well the way I see it we have three options. The first being we let them fight until there is a winner. The second we join the fight and hope we choose the winning side. The third is we try to stop the fight.”

“Any thoughts?” I asked the others.

“Let them fight you got the people to safety.” Prometheus all but spat.

“What if the fight expands into the nearby streets?”

He didn’t answer, it seemed the villain side was still engraved deeply into him.

“We shouldn’t pick a side.” Came Orbital’s opinion.

“So, try to stop the fight it is then.” Mastermind finished the impromptu brainstorm.

“Well that sounds more difficult, can we just not?” asked Lucky

As long as we had fought together, it was almost exactly how I thought he would respond.

As we stood there looking at the scene of pure chaos before us, the admins had regrouped as well as the heroes, and there seemed to be a lull in the combat. The opposing forces just staring letting their energies refill, as that was the only reason, I could see, for them taking a break.

“Well better late than never.” Hopper said as he opened a portal above us and moved it down over our bodies. We appeared right between them standing exactly how we were before the portal.

“Why are you here?” said one of the top heroes. Ghost, I think.

“We are trying to stop this insane fight!” I yelled to him.

“This isn’t our fault! We can’t log off either!” came the voice of a female admin.

“But you know why we can’t! I just know it!” another hero, Druidia, yelled.

“We don’t know anything! We are trying to help!” a different admin spoke up, he sounded in need of medical attention.

“Washed up loser NPC’s like you guys shouldn’t be here.” Ghost said in a tone that indicated how pathetic he thought we were.

Before anyone could respond, Prometheus threw a huge glob of fire at him. It wasn’t inconspicuous or fast, but Ghost made no move as his two accomplices got out of the way. The ball detonated right on top of Ghost. The explosion settled down after a couple of seconds, and we waited to see what would happen. As the smoke cleared there he stood, not a scratch in him.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have done that.”