It briefly occurred to me as I tasted the salt from my own blood in my mouth, that all this wasn't necessary and there were more important things to do...
I had come across Arachnos soldiers a number of times as a hero but only occasionally in my guise as a normal human. Typically, you'd only see Arachnos soldiers in large numbers during times of war or civil unrest and both of these were very rare. I must have 10 years old when Paragon had last plunged into these types of chaos. I'm 32 now and it was funny yet oddly melancholy to think about it but many of these faceless Arachnos soldiers were likely the same kids I grew up with. They were always masked of course but a part of me always wondered, better yet hoped that these faceless soldiers were in some part still the kids I played little league. That maybe there still lingered some of the innocence of those days long ago. If there was, true to their legendary training, they never showed it. Either you were an Arachnos soldier or you were not. Age, race, sex, didn't make one bit of difference. Once you became an Arachnos soldier, you were part of their family. Anyone else was simply an enemy or potential enemy. That made the world pretty simple for them.
I digress...
I was wearing my favorite pair of jeans...they were a bit too tight I might add. I'd put on a few pounds in the last year because quite frankly there hadn't been much going on these days in Paragon. Occasionally some super foe would rise up but because there were so many heroes these days, if a super villain actually surfaced somewhere, he, she, or it wouldn't last very long. Once the call went out, the sky was filled with every type of hero trying to get in on the action of taking down a mega villain. The problem for the heroes was that the Arachnos soldiers had pretty much put an end to regular run of the mill crime with alarming ferocity. We (my super hero brethren) had in the past kept order in the city when the cops couldn't. However, as much as people verbally and mostly privately derided the Arachnos political party and decried their lost of freedom, the streets had never been safer for the average citizen in Paragon. Nevertheless, I only mentioned my favorite jeans because I found myself flat on my ass and I could already feel moisture from the morning dew soaking through them.
Now I don't normally just sit on my rear end down on wet grass for no good purpose. In fact, I can't think of a previous time I've done so nor can I imagine a future scenario in which I would do so but if one gets punched hard enough in the right location somewhere above the neck, he's likely going to take a seat in the immediate vicinity (barring the stumbler who tends to take a few steps before collapsing typically face first) . I'm not a stumbler. When I get hit (and it has to be a good one), the legs immediately go and typically land butt first eyes wide with surprise. I'd like to say this by choice but it usually just happens that way. So when this Arachnos soldier landed a solid right hook on my left jaw about 2 inches below my ear, after I saw the momentary stars, my back side hit the turf like the proverbial ton of bricks.
Okay as I mentioned, I'm a hero. One of Paragon's finest if I to be honest and I go by the name of Plasmo. I've got this mutant energy thing going on. I can focus and manipulate energy at a sub atomic level. Don't ask me how I do it but trust me when I say it's some pretty cool stuff. I typically use it to help normal Joes, smack down a few of the bad guys, and impress a female here and there. Which leads me back to the Arachnos soldier who was glaring down at me.
Being a super hero with the mutant ability to focus and manipulate energy affords me many luxuries, one of which is that I don't typically get punched in the face by anyone...including Arachnos soldiers. As a group and compared to the normal everyday citizen, the Arachnos are some pretty bad asses. However, compared to me and most other heroes, they were more akin to unruly 12 year olds and we treated them as such. You wanna smack them but you just can't. I repeat, You wanna but you can't. In this case though, I wouldn't have mind hitting this asshole with a nice low level energy blast that would have resulted in him using his Arachnos medical plan to pay for his hospital visit. Unfortunately today I was a regular civilian. Blasting this soldier with some focused energy would have let everyone know that Robert Walker was indeed a superhero. These days, any event is captured on a cell phone or video camera (people seem to carry them everywhere) and then the race is on to see who can post it first. Robert Walker would then quickly become Robert Walker the mutant superhero with the ability to use blast people with energy. Even with that said, it was hard as hell to keep from zapping this glaring and now gloating Arachnos soldier.
Truth be known, it was probably my fault that I took a nice pop in the cheek by the soldier. In case you are wondering, my abilities do not protect me from physical assaults. I can protect myself from most energy attacks (a side effect of being able to manipulate energy) but you and I would feel that same punch the same way, namely with pain. However, unlike you, I'm just able to respond much better.
Long story short, I'd stepped on the right shiny black boot of this particular Arachnos soldier and before I could apologized, I'd hesitated and he smack me a good one. In my defense, when I left this morning heading across Atlas park to my favorite coffee joint on Central Ave, I had never expected to look up and see massive ships filling the sky. But me, good ol' Robert Walker, aka Plasmo had chosen that precise moment to look up and gape at what I would later find out to be the first wave of the Rikti invasion at the same moment an Arachnos soldier had crossed his path. Who would've thunk it?