Super intuitive Lucidity’s hoverboards may have been, OSHA compliant they were not. Last time I used one had been in an elevator shaft filled with white mist that obscured a terrifyingly large spider’s web. This time I was floating out from the fifth floor of a building with a lot more visibility, though the trade off was really just one problem for another.

Looking down, I could see that the cordon had already been fully established. Most of the people down there weren’t moving, though a fair number were pointing up at either me, or the snow cloud on top of the building. Looking down also made my knees start shaking, so I crouched to feel a little bit safer. Gripping the hoverboard with my hands helped. I could use my power to cheat at flying if needed.

Given that the people in uniform below were beginning to point things at me, things that looked like weapons, I started getting nervous. So I started booking it up to where Graceland’s resident demon lord was. The lack of gunfire from below was a relief I didn’t think I would get.

The people below looked like policemen at first glance, but wouldn’t hold up under close inspection. There were three groups of Supervillains under the employ of the Entrepreneurs, the Racketeers, who assaulted the SRT, the Handiemen, and the Collectors. Aside from them, there was also a group of non-powered people who enacted the will of the Boss more quietly than their superpowered counterparts. A literal private army that were mostly referred to as the PA.

It didn’t take much to figure out what that stood for.

The snowcloud billowed again before I could crest the roof, blowing snow in my face and throwing me off balance. For a dangerous moment the hoverboard wobbled, threatening to slide out from under me as I feel to certain death. But it passed, and I made it onto the roof.

This was the first time I’d seen Orcus or Snowflake in action. I didn’t really see Snowflake so much as caught glimpses of the heroine in the swirling snow, which was constantly fed by white flakes that inexplicably appeared a few metres above the top of the swirling mass. She had a barrier made of packed snow that floated in front of one outstretched hand and followed it around, and in her other hand an icicle was forming, growing longer each time I caught a glimpse.

Orcus on the other hand was an imposing grey threat that darted from place to place, striking down cement barriers as they rose, and chasing villains through the resulting rubble. He managed to catch one of them and slammed them through the floor, leaving a human sized hole behind. It didn’t put that particular villain down for good, however, and they were soon back in the fight.

I identified the three villains I could see as I touched down, trying to figure out a good place to enter the melee. The first villain to catch my eye was one Orcus was fighting. He repeatedly ran into Snowflake’s personal biome with Orcus in pursuit, then a little disk would be thrown out of the snowcloud. A man with two bandoliers of utility equipment as well as two criss-crossing utility belts appeared where they landed, leaving Orcus behind. That was Gizumo, a member of the Rising Sun. The only thing the guy did to conceal his identity was put on thick eyeshadow and a hood.

Gizumo was an adept with broad specialisations, but never achieved anything all that impressive by most adept standards. He had tripwires, remote control cars, remote control darts, stun grenades, breaching equipment, zipwires, the list went on. His most impressive trick was the teleportation. Sure, sometimes he was able to come up with something game changing. The problem was that they were one trick things.

The villain that kept throwing Snowflake’s snow everywhere was called Headache. Her costume was made of leathers coloured black and white, with rough gradients between the two patches of colours. She had a white face mask that had a red skull spray painted onto it. Headache’s power let her shoot beams from her eyes that left small orbs where they hit. After five seconds the orbs would explode in a concussive blast.

Finally, the villain that kept erecting concrete walls in front of Orcus as well as the one that had been slammed through the floor was a woman that went by the name of Hully. She was by far the least armoured person present. While Headache had biker leathers, Gizumo had a self made suit reinforced with countless gadgets and other smaller inventions, and Orcus was wearing metal armour. Hully’s clothes meant she could’ve been mistaken for a woman prepared for a night of fun and several clubs.

She wore a light, form fitting, long sleeved red dress that had frills around her neck and wrists, and stopped well above the knees, leaving her with a full range of movement. Black stockings covered what the dress failed to, and lead down to shoes that almost looked like stilettos with the heel snapped off. The only indicator she wasn’t going clubbing was the old fashioned flight helmet with goggles.

Being the least armoured and most fashionably dressed did not mean she was the least protected in Hully’s case. Her power allowed her to reshape and reinforce the things she touched. Hully could reinforce things to the extent where she’d taken bullets to the stylish dress she was wearing now. There were burnt patches but no holes, speaking volumes about her power.

It probably said more about Orcus’ super strength that he was demolishing Hully’s barriers with ease. I mean, he had moved a supposedly immovable object, but this amount of wall destruction was ridiculous.

Gizumo teleported outside of Snowflake’s snow cloud, appearing in a crouch and threw the teleportation device even further away. When he appeared on the disk again, Gizumo pulled a rod from one of his bandoliers and impaled it in the floor. Three walls of orange light appeared in a triangle, making a perimeter of the action as Orcus dashed after him. There was a flash as Orcus came into contact with the wall, and he crumpled against it.

At the same time two orange beams pierced through the edge of the snowstorm. Headache’s beams deposited two orbs of writhing green energy, which started giving off a whine as they formed. Those things didn’t explode with the power of a grenade, but they close enough to cause serious damage and right now there were two of them within arm’s reach of Orcus.

“Shit.” I started running towards the downed grey man. I only had five seconds and counting, which wasn’t enough to save him. I was going to try anyway, because if I could use my power to get him out of the way, he’d be far more useful than I’d ever be in a fight. So far in this clash between heroes and villains, I’d stood around and analysed. If I wanted to be a player, I’d need to start by doing something. Unfortunately the floor I was running on vanished before I got three steps.

My head dipped below the ground before I realised something was happening. The sudden sight of a fire sprinkler shooting up past me helped. One foot pushed uselessly on air while the other reached forward to find my next foothold. I glanced down in time to see a computer desk beneath me.

My first foot found good purchase on the desk, but momentum kept me going forwards and down. I kicked a screen with my back foot when I tried to bring it forward and tumbled to the ground. I rolled into a nearby cabinet and came to a harsh stop.

What had just happened replayed in my head before the pain started registering and I forced myself to my feet. The ceiling above me was undamaged, which didn’t make sense because I’d clearly just fallen through it. There was literally nothing wrong with the ceiling above me, except for the fact that there was no way I could have fallen through it. The building shook and I remembered the situation Orcus was in.

I couldn’t see Headache or Hully demolishing the floor beneath me, then reconstructing it after I’d fallen through, all in the space of five seconds. Maybe Gizumo had hit me with a gadget that had made me phase downwards for a second. No, he was busy dealing with Orcus when I’d fallen. It was more likely that there was a fourth villain.

As if on cue, a circle in the ceiling five or so metres away from me vanished, and a figure dropped down. He had a long black coat, a green and white mask covering the lower half of his face, as well as sunglasses over his eyes. He was asian, though I couldn’t tell exactly from where. His slick black hair was worn tied up in a ponytail, and an identifying scar ran diagonally across his forehead. He was sporting a straight sword that was longer than he was, and was currently impaled a good way into the floor. That was definitely Killer Kage.

“Judging from your appearance. You are the new hero, yes.” The ceiling reappeared above Killer Kage. A few snowflakes had drifted through before it closed, and slowly drifted to the ground around him.

I didn’t respond, save for stepping away from the cabinet and facing him at an angle. The sword wasn’t for show. Killer Kage was a villain from overseas that had come to join the Rising Sun after the group he’d been in before had collapsed. That had been in China. Before that Killer Kage had been operating in Japan, where he had been part of a violent gang that had no qualms about killing. He’d just been called Kage then.

When I was researching villains in the area, this guy had been an entire rabbit hole in and of himself. What I’d read had chilled me. My staff probably wouldn’t match up against his sword.

“One of two, if information is correct.” Killer Kage continued. “Little to no information on you. Less on other. You have power of strength, yes?”

I stopped myself from correcting him.

He started walking towards me, leaving his sword behind. I moved to maintain the distance. “I find mask of yours interesting. It looks dynamic, close to skin. Who made it?”

“I did.” I replied, not comfortable with the one ended dialogue.

“How did you get the black with that texture? I can not tell depth. It interests me.”

“That’s-” I bumped against another cabinet, and moved so that it was between Killer Kage and myself.

“For hero with strength, you have little confidence.” Killer Kage commented.

I wanted to give a quippy one liner like “I was leading you into a trap”, or “Ah, but I don’t have super strength” before throwing the cabinet at him. Instead of doing that and telegraphing my attack, I just pushed the cabinet and made the force a lot stronger. I wasn’t sure exactly how much stronger until I did it, but it was enough to send the thing flying.

The corner of the cabinet caught on the carpet, causing it to spin wildly. Though, the general direction of movement remained the same. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one the receiving end of a fast moving, spinning filing cabinet.

The cabinet vanished, leaving behind the paperwork inside which spread out in a menagerie of white paper. I assume the filing cabinet reappeared a second later on the other side of Killer Kage, where it crashed into something, given the crashing sound. The paper took its time drifting down to the floor, revealing Killer Kage in a similar position to what he was in before.

He stared at me. “Poor move.”

Killer Kage’s power let him make holes in things, which was how he’d pulled me down here and followed me down. I hadn’t been aware that he was able to make things into holes entirely, like he had with the cabinet. It was a simple if abstract power. There was a story, related to the former part of the villain’s name that played at the back of my mind, where he had thrown another villain in a hole made by his power, then let it fill back up.

The next thing I knew gravity had taken hold of me and was pulling me earthward. I locked my staff and held on for dear life as I fell half a meter and swung under the metal pole. Fortunately, I was able to bring my feet up before I hit the side of the new hole underneath me and managed to find solid ground once again. Then I ran at Killer Kage before he could say anything like I knew he wanted to.

The guy wanted to monologue, or at least talk, and who could blame him? He was clearly more experience and was facing off against me, a kid. If he wanted to stand around and talk, who was I to stop myself from taking advantage of that? I crossed the distance like I had with Blinker the day before and punched him.

I only decided to punch because the staff was locked. Unlocking something took a moment, so it was easier to just let go of it because my power only lasted as long as I touched something. I accomplished the same thing either way, and when I threw the punch I used my power to push Lucidity’s gloves forward a bit more.

Killer Kage wasn’t expecting such a sudden assault, but his experienced showed as he rolled with the punch. I didn’t even hit him in the chest like I’d been trying to. He dodged enough that my fist only caught his shoulder, and even that was a near thing.

His elbow came back around and struck me across the cheek, sending me down in a well executed counter. He had turned so I was struck towards the hole in the floor, and that meant I found myself falling. Instead of just eating dirt, I fell through empty space and impacted heavily on the floor below.

Groaning, I slowly picked myself up as the hole above me expanded to let a few chairs and desks down. Killer Kage looked down on me from above, standing on an island of concrete as he’d made the rest of the floor into a hole.

Strange, I would’ve thought the floor would fall if it didn’t have anything supporting it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’d been around a number of powers that futzed with physics now, on top of having one myself. My staff had fallen down as well, so I grabbed that while I could. I’d make him regret giving me my weapon back.

The staff vanished.

I looked up at Killer Kage. He wasn’t saying anything, but his body language told me he was feeling smug as all hell. He was clearly responsible for my weapon disappearing. I hadn’t even realised he could do that to something I was holding.

Fuck.

Killer Kage had me outmatched. My power could only be used at short range and he would just get rid of anything I was trying to use my power on. On top of that KK clearly had martial arts training, so close quarter combat would be suicide. Any straight engagement was not going to end in a good way for me. I wasn’t going to get anywhere punching him, I needed a weapon. There weren’t any obvious weapons around me. I’d have to improvise.

“Samurai is downstairs.” Killer Kage crouched on his island. “In a very important meeting. I understand your employment makes you against that, but my job is to stop you.”

My power would theoretically throw around tables and other heavy objects like they were paper. The problem with that was that the bigger objects, like a table, would get caught on almost everything when I swung it. I needed something smaller that I could swing easily. I didn’t need it to weigh much.

“Want you to understand there is no hard feelings in this fight, young hero.” Killer Kage continued. “No stakes. No killing.”

I remembered how he had dodged the cabinet I’d thrown at him earlier. Except he hadn’t dodged it entirely. When the cabinet vanished, or just became a complete hole, the things inside had stayed. I could use that. That meant all I really needed was something with more things inside. I started looking around.

“You are inexperienced, to turn your back on an enemy.”

I had the frame of mind to think. “Oh shi-” before Killer Kage struck me from behind. It propelled me forward, but I didn’t fall. I turned to face the villain, swiping something, anything, from the nearby desk.

“You’re right.” I told him, realising I’d grabbed a keyboard. It would have to do.

“You’re unprepared. Untrained. Who is mad enough to send someone like you here?”

I paused. He raised a valid point. On the other hand this whole thing was foreseen by Metafore, who only saw things when they were on a truly grand scale, so the Sentinels had gathered every available resource. I just happened to be one of them.

“That’d be everyone.” I said, realising I wasn’t that good at the whole witty banter thing. Maybe it was his imperfect english, it was throwing me for a loop.

“The Regulation is vast and foolish.” Killer Kage agreed. He started striding towards me. He did not look friendly.

I brandished the keyboard only to find it was still connected to an outlet. I used my power to yank it out but put too much force into it, and the entire desk slid towards me. Unexpected side effects aside, I had broken the keyboard’s wire and could now swing it around freely. I refocused on Killer Kage and paused when a phone started ringing.

We both paused and cautiously looked for the source. I stepped away before glancing anywhere, and checked my phone by patting the pocket where it was. It wasn’t mine. I couldn’t see any other Vphones around.

“Is that yours?” I asked.

Killer Kage reached into one of his pockets to find nothing, then he checked another pocket and found his phone. He unlocked it and checked his messages. I decided to attack when he was reading it. Dirty, I know, but I wasn’t about to win any other way.

“Ah. You have rei-.”

I sprinted forwards and swung the keyboard sideways. I don’t know why I decided to, but I put the force I’d used on the filing cabinet into the keyboard. The next moment I was reminded of a basic physics lesson: Force equals mass times acceleration.

Simply put, the keyboard was a hell of a lot smaller and lighter than the big metal cabinet I’d pushed earlier. Therefore when I put the same force into it, it accelerated faster to compensate for the lower mass. My fingers were painfully and suddenly forced out of the way as the plastic board ripped itself out of my grip, and shattered against the arm Killer Kage had raised to defend himself.

Killer Kage’s arm snapped. I could hear the sound of bone breaking amongst that of the snapping plastic. The supervillain staggered away, yelling in agony while his arm bent at a weird angle. I hissed in pain and pulled my fingers towards my chest. The skin had been torn deep enough to bleed in several places. I needed to figure out a way to stop doing that, it fucking hurt.

The floor I stood on once again vanished, and this time I was too distracted to do anything about it. I crashed onto the carpet and groaned. I was still in the fight though, so I forced myself to my feet as the staff Killer Kage had vanished fell to the ground next to me.

The ceiling I’d fallen through was back, Killer Kage had done that to put distance between us. Floor intact or no, I heard a yell of pain from above. That might have been him resetting his bone, considering the circumstances. He was probably a little pissed off. I clutched at the staff and instantly felt better as the metal rod blossomed back into my awareness.

I looked around, this floor was different from the two above. In contrast to those, which had cubicles and order, this one was mostly empty space with beanbags and couches. The walls were painted green and red, and were covered in whiteboards. One wall had large bubble letters on it spelling out “Goaty”.

The problem with all this was that I wouldn’t be able to find much cover in this room. There were a few offices, but they had glass walls so hiding there wasn’t an option. I needed to leave. Killer Kage would likely want to get me back for the arm. Given that he had a sword, I didn’t want to wait around for that.

I cautiously moved to the exit. I made it without anything really happening. Where was Killer Kage? Had he retreated? Or was he waiting to ambush me? I was keeping my eyes on the ceiling, of course, as well as the floor, but I didn’t see any holes opening.

Blood was covering my fingers, and was making it difficult to focus on keeping an eye out. It was also getting in the way whenever I gripped the staff, which made tragic sense. My power didn’t work on living things, and I needed to touch something to use my power. If I was covered in blood, I’d be touching the blood and not the object, which really messed with my power. I really needed to figure out how to deal with the keyboard issue.

I ducked out of the office and into the fire escape. The door opposite me conveniently lead to the toilet, so I went in and leaned the staff against the sink. Washing my fingers stung, and I only remembered to look for a first aid kit after washing the blood off, so I ended up washing them twice.

Four bandaids later I’d stopped the blood flow and was ready to step back into action. I picked up the staff and stopped in horror before I opened the door. Black mass covering the door window. A closer inspection revealed the mass to be made up of small spiders, that were moving quite rapidly across the pane. Thankfully, they were on the other side of the glass, but that was still too close for comfort.

The spiders responded to my presence and they cleared away from the door with a synchronized haste. There was a beat where I could see the fire escape densely populated with tiny spiders. They must have been small, smaller than the fingernail on my thumb. Others were the size of a tarantula or larger, and there were multiple species of exotic and bombastically coloured spiders only found in Graceland. Specifically, in the presence of the most unnerving supervillain imaginable.

My vision of the infested stairwell was blocked when a black-grey helmet appeared in the window. It was a full head helmet, so I couldn’t see any of the features of the person beneath. Two purple lenses marked the eyes examining me. There were strands of silk attached to the helmet that drifted off and caught the light, telling of just how intimate this person was with their spiders. Spinnerette, the one with all the spiders. The one who had told me about JMcM.

Questions died in my throat as she stepped a short distance away from the door and reached towards it. I panicked and gripped the door, locking it. Spinnerette didn’t try to open the door, however. Instead, a gloved finger pressed against the window and moved across it in a pattern I couldn’t figure out. Then a swarm of smaller spiders walked across the glass and started glowing, not unlike how a firefly would.

I realised what she’d done. The glowing spiders were spelling out the word ‘Stay’, which was good because I had every intention to do so until Spinnerette left. That was a fight I’d like to avoid if at all possible. The villain lingered, studying me for a few more moments. She turned and left towards the lower floors, the majority of her spiders moving with her. The bioluminescent ones telling me to stay, as well as a few of the larger, more colourful spiders remained where they were.

Moments later a familiar cloaked figure staggered past, one arm wrapped in a splint and a silk sling. His other arm was holding the hilt of a sword. Killer Kage turned my way as he passed, paused, and leveled the hilt in my direction. I backed against the wall farthest from him. Something about him was putting my body into fight or flight mode, with an extreme emphasis on the latter.

A second after I hit the wall the point of a sword appeared in front of my face, close enough that I had to go cross eyed to look at it. The point went back for a dozen or so centimetres before vanishing into thin air, moving like smoke where the sword should’ve been.

“Next time.” The sword rotated so it was flat. “We will settle our score.” It vanished. I looked back to Killer Kage only to find him gone.

I breathed. Killer Kage and Spinnerette had both walked past in quick succession, and they hadn’t attacked each other. That meant the Associates and Rising Sun were working together. That, in turn, meant they would have majority control of territory and Metafore’s prediction was one step closer to coming true.