Chapter 05

“How many times do I have to apologize?” I asked for the fifteenth time.

“As many as it takes to pay for the security team.” Mastermind finally answered.

“Do I want to know?” I inquired.

Mastermind turned his head slowly and seemed to be reminiscing about throwing me into a plethora of traps from the golden days. After a few minutes of him staring through me, he let out a long sigh.

“No, you probably don’t.” he said through gritted teeth.

“Well no harm done, guess I’m gonna head out.” I said with probably to much enthusiasm.

“It’s like two in the afternoon.” David chimed in.

“Well he did say one job to see if we liked it.” Richard noted.

“Well, before any of you leave. Let’s meet in the conference room.”

A small groan escaped my throat before I could stifle it.

“Have somewhere else to be?” Mastermind gave me an eye.

“Got a hot date?” David gibed

“Fine! Fine. We can go sit in the conference room.”

Mastermind and Prometheus started walking toward the stairs leading to the room they had emerged from after getting us back here.

Walking into the door lead into a small room that contained eight sets of three monitors, with a number from one to eight above each set. Each set showed the view from the front of the trucks in the middle and the right and left on each respective screen. The monitors all being along the wall opposite the windows overlooking the bay doors.

“I thought there were only two trucks?” Richard queried.

“No, I said I purchased two trucks of my own design, the rest look like regular semitrucks, but have the same remote capabilities as the two you saw.” Mastermind almost sounded like a teacher trying to explain quadratic formulas for the twentieth year in a row.

He motioned to the round table in the center of the room and sat in the evilest villain chair I have ever seen. We all sat in normal office chairs.

“Did you spend all the chair budget on yours?” I quipped.

“No, on a security team.”

He didn’t even skip a beat. My respect for him grew ever so slightly at the fast response.

“Did you plan that?” I asked

“I figured the joke would be made at some point.”

There went my respect, prepared jokes are the worst.

We sat there in an uncomfortable silence that felt like it would go on forever. No one moved, or adjusted their chairs, or anything except making eye contact.

“So?” Mastermind asked.

“So, what? You brought us up here.” I stated.

“He meant about the job.” Richard chided me.

“Right.” I realized as I started to think, “I won’t transport anything illegal which is what I assume you were doing while we were away.” I stated

“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Mastermind probed.

“Since our hero names will be attached to this, yes I would like to know.” I responded.

“I guess it is only fair. Yes, I am shipping blue astral in our normal trucks, but not in the one’s that have your images on them.” He paused so the news could sink in, “I didn’t want you to know because of plausible deniability.”

-NOTICE: YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD OF RECENT OR ONGOING CRIMES

-IF YOU DECIDE NOT TO TELL ANYONE YOU WILL BE CONSIDERED AN ACCOMPLICE AND AS SUCH WILL GAIN VILLAIN POINTS.

“Did you guys get that too?” Richard asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.

A nod from David and myself was all he got.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you, but I have plans to meet with a couple legislators, who owe me favors, to see about getting the laws changed.”

“What would that do? It’s still wrong.” I asked with more anger in my voice then I meant.

“I know it feels that way, but if it is legal to ship you would get less villain points than if it was illegal.”

“Will you stop lecturing me!” I yelled. “I should tell the police or heroes what you are doing here!”

“I apologize, I don’t mean to lecture you. Also, you have every right to turn us in.” he stopped and looked me directly in the eye before continuing, “I would like to pose a question to you. How long has it been since you used your powers for an actual purpose other than running home after work?”

Mastermind turned his head to look at Richard, then David.

“Or grading papers or crushing cars in a junk yard.”

David looked away in embarrassment. I had no idea what to say to any of that. David had been using his amazing powers to crush old cars. That was his job? First off, we protected this city for around a decade. Why did we get pushed out? Why do we have to hide who we are?

“I won’t tell anyone, but I will need a few days to think things over.” I finally stated.

-YOU ARE AN ACCOMPLICE TO DRUG TRAFFICKING.

-+50 Villainous Points

A slow nod came from my fellow ex-heroes.

“Very well. Take as much time as you need.”

I extended my hand to the Mastermind. He shook it, then David’s, then Richard’s. We parted ways after I put on my civilian clothes and stuffed my new uniform in my bag, walked past Mr. Chippy Chop, or whatever his real name is, and didn’t even make a joke to Justin as I walked out of the door.

As I aimlessly wandered the streets of Axiscore deep in thought, I soon realized the sun had gone down and the noise picked up. There was something so surreal about the city at night, the neon shown a plethora of colors, people off work heading home or to their favorite bar to relieve stress. People living their own lives, doing their own things, fighting their own battles. It’s nice to slow down every once in a while.

After walking around for another couple of hours, with the night now in full swing, my head started to pound. I was on the ground when it finally went away. Then I heard the noise increase and the ground started to shake. Having the suit on and using my powers fully earlier in the day, allowed my battle instincts to kick in, and in the blink of an eye I was in my gear ready for a fight.

Then I noticed two things, a bunch of lights and the sounds of screaming. Not hesitating for a moment, I sped towards the commotion.

-YOU HAVE ENTERED A ZONED EVENT: RIOT IN AXISCORE.

-YOU CAN STOP THE RIOTERS

-SAVE INNOCENT BYSTANDERS

-OR TAKE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN CARRY

-WARNING: YOUR ACTIONS WILL HAVE CONSEQUNCES

Speeding up to take stock of everything happening around me, there were supers, both heroic and villainous, attacking a small group of supers I couldn’t recall seeing before. There was magic, debris, and backlash from all powers destroying the city and endangering pedestrians.

I knew what I had to do, I couldn’t go toe to toe with those heroes, they had multiple powers plus there were just too many of them. I needed to start by saving people. I ran to the closest groups to the battle, noticing there were a few heroes who were moving faster than others but no where near my speed. I grabbed a couple that looked to be running away from the center of the conflict and ran them to the park I had passed a little while ago. It seemed like the best place far enough from the conflict, and very little crime happening in that part of town.

Two down, too many to go, running back toward the conflict I hit the emblem on my suit, I hadn’t done this in so long. It was the beacon the Honor Guard used for a warning system. It was designed by a scientist we worked closely with. It would cover any distance or even reach other dimensions. It would take a while for them to get here, but I couldn’t do this alone.

As I reached the riot zone again, I felt the emblem vibrate, then again, and again. I hit the emblem one more time to send my location out to all with a beacon. They are coming. They are really coming to help. Trying hard to remember how we handled these scenarios, it clicked, I’d be in charge of clearing pedestrians from danger zones by levels of danger, closest to the fight was first, then the nearby buildings from the top floor down, after that I’d sweep for any stragglers, then join in the fight.

I sped up grabbing as many people as I could with each trip. I slowed a little when I noticed another speedster doing the same thing as me only slower.

“What’s your name kid?” I asked the other speedster.

“Jeremy… I mean ‘The Streak’”, he replied.

“How many points do you have in speed?”

“Around fifty, I think.”

“That’s a good amount, are you helping save people?”

“Yes Mr. Celerity!”

“Just Celerity, start with the buildings closest to the battle, search top to bottom grab as many as you can and take them to the park of third and main, should be safe there. If you stay near the battle you will probably get hit by stray powers.”

“Yes sir, and can I say it’s an honor to…”

“Not now Streak, we can meet at the park when this is over and talk there.”

A firm nod was all I received as he raced toward a building close to the fight, and I sped back up. Dodging stray lightning and falling pieces of rubble. Then something happened that hadn’t in about a decade.

-YOUR SPECIAL ABILITY, “In the Zone”, HAS ACTIVATED.

-WITH A CLEAR GOAL IN MIND, YOU CAN FOCUS YOUR SPEED AND PUSH BEYOND YOUR LIMITS (+50% SPEED BOOST)

-FOR AS LONG AS YOU WORK TOWARD YOUR GOAL ALL ENERGY COSTS ARE HALVED

-WARNING: AFTER COMPLETION OF YOUR GOAL, ALL DETREMENTAL EFFECTS FROM POWER USAGE WILL BE DOUBLED.

I hadn’t felt like this since the bridge had been opened, being in the zone completely focused was the best feeling you can ever have. With the newfound buff I was running literal circles around the slow-motion fight scene, clearing out civilians with each pass. After a couple of circles, I noticed two familiar trucks at the edge of the zone, A truck with my image on it, and a truck with the whole Honor Guard on it. I found the streak and gave him my updated plan, simply get them to the trucks, they’ll get out safely.

-ZONE EVENT NOTICE

-HALF OF ALL BYSTANDERS HAVE BEEN CLEARED

-TOP CONTRIBUTERS

-1. CELERITY: 125 SAVED

-2. THE STREAK: 63 SAVED

-3. THE PROTECTER: 47 SAVED

-4. DR. WEIRD: 21 SAVED

-5 MASTERMIND: 18 SAVED

-KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK HEROES!

I started in on another round when my emblem buzzed again, and a party invite came into vision. Accepting it and speeding towards the group I wound up at the trucks, just as the Author, Orbital Force, Mastermind, and Prometheus came into view. I stopped not thinking the two villains would show up. I gave them both a nod.

“What’s the plan here?” asked Mastermind.

“I’ll fill them in, you two go and get started.” I told the group.

“I will catch up to your saves.” Came Orbital’s reply before he flew off to help.

“Get ready.” I told the two remaining party members as I grabbed their shoulders Speeding them up to my speed.

“This is weird.” Mastermind so helpfully let me know.

“Right, I sped us up because we don’t have time to do this in normal speed. Mastermind, you are the smartest one here, you focus on Coordinating efforts and come up with a strategy on how to deal with the mass fighting.”

“Right, and who drives the trucks?” Mastermind asked.

“They can be driven by normal people, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then have someone with experience do it, I met a speedster earlier and we will be bringing people here, have them load up on trucks and take them to the park off third and main.”

“And how will they be protected while the trucks are gone?” Prometheus chimed in.

“I think we can help with that.” Came a familiar voice. Turning toward the new speaker I was left with a smile on my face.

-ZONE EVENT NOTICE:

-THE HONOR GUARD HAS ARRIVED

-VILLIANS BEWARE THE HONOR GUARD HAS COMPLETED 2,500+ ZONE EVENTS AND MADE 15,000+ VILLIAN ARRESTS.