Aman smoothly turned a corner on his Tinker bike. Silent save for the humming of the electronic motors, it sounded remarkably like a sci-fi spaceship, of which he was proud. He'd put literal months into just the design of this vehicle, making it look specifically like what people of the 50s might have imagined a futuristic motorcycle to look like; it was sleek and had glowing neon blue lines on a black background, yet still retained that somewhat retro feel. His greatest creation, probably, and a lot of people on the Internet tended to agree.
The streets were empty tonight, although he suspected that would change soon enough in maybe fifteen minutes. The digital clock on the corner of his HUD had his 00:00, January 1st; the fireworks were still going on, but when that ended, people would start driving home. Police presence was mostly diverted to keep the attention the holiday crowds, so heroes - only himself and Mirror Man for tonight as far as he knew - were on the empty streets. Currently, he was cruising down Northbourne Avenue, the main north-south street that bisected North Canberra, generally just waiting for incoming calls.
"This is console to all personnel; Happy New Year."
Aman smiled under his visor. "Happy New Year, console."
Various greetings flooded through the police. Aman opened up the throttle a little bit, and the glowing lines brightened a little as he picked up speed and the wind began to whistle through the crevices of the bike and his power armor. Aman, as a Tinker, specialized in alloys; his motorcycle and armor were made from a . That was where he got his name from. He still kinda regretted that choice - he wished he'd rebranded to 'Electrum' or some other pretty cool name when he turned 18.
His radio crackled.
"Console to Charlie-Bravo One Seventeen. Commence radio check."
"Got you loud and clear, dispatch," Aman replied.
"We've received reports of explosions further north. Sending the location now. Can you get there immediately?"
"Roger that, console." A virtual map flashed in front of his eyes as the bike began rolling faster, well over double the speed limit on these roads. It was far north, towards Killshot's territory. Didn't necessarily mean it was Killshot's gang causing trouble, though - it could just be drunk partygoers in the region. Better to be safe than sorry, in any case, and despite Tinkertech-led improvements in personal protective equipment for emergency services, he didn't want to risk un-powered law enforcement in a possible Parahuman confrontation.
Killshot. The man - probably barely out of his teens - had gotten much bolder about two weeks ago, when he killed some of his own henchmen in an attempt to murder the vigilante Slipstick. This spoke to Aman of either a massive mistake that Killshot had made likely under the influence, or Killshot was revealing his true colors as a remorseless sociopath. He allowed his autopilot to take over the driving as he made sure his Tesla Rifle was on the correct, non-lethal settings. He also had a secondary weapon, which was totally a lightsaber but the Image Department made him call it a plasma blade because of possible copyright infringement.
Even with the speed he was going at, he'd have about five minutes until he reached his destination. He wondered how his lightsaber would compare to other lightsabers that Tinkers had built. After all, it was a piece of iconic pop culture - every Tinker tried building one. Apparently a rogue Tinker organization in North America sold 'Lightsabers', but they could technically be called villains so he doubted they care about petty things like copyrights. Then again, Toybox was notoriously naive when it came to actual combat, from what Aman had seen of them on the rare occasions they came to Endbringer fights, so he'd take their lightsaber specifications with a grain of salt.
A secret between many of the premier Tinkers in the world was that there was a website specifically dedicated to Tinkers. Designed by a Canadian software Tinker, the only way one could access it was to literally hack into it and claim one's right of passage. Of course, Aman was pretty sure that the website could easily eject him if it wanted to, considering that big-name Tinker villains had repeatedly tried and failed to breach the security system, and capes of the CUI couldn't get in either. The website only allowed heroic, rogue, or relatively less evil Tinkers to 'hack' it.
He typed using his eyes, and sent off a message to this hidden forum, asking who had the best melee weapon of all Tinkers (specifically lightsabers). He was sure Armsmaster from the Protectorate would write an essay nobody asked for about his in-development nanothorn machine or whatever he called it, and Dragon - who moderated this forum - would politely tell him to calm down and all the other Tinkers would jeer the two of them. That's how it usually went, anyway. Still, Alloy did get some genuinely good ideas from this forum from time to time; with Dragon policing the website (which probably protected itself somehow, as well) the Tinkers were comfortable sharing their ideas without fearing them falling into the wrong hands.
Enough of that. Aman shook his head. He had a job to do.
"Console to Charlie-Bravo One Twelve, there are reports of…"
Aman mentally tuned out the radio chatter as he rushed to his destination, but worry gripped his heart as more and more reports started coming in.
"Console to Charlie-Bravo One Thirteen, life-threatening injuries on…"
"One Twelve to Console, we're witnessing Parahuman conflict in…"
Aman looked sharply to his left as something crashed violently into something else, and screams pierced the air. He swung his bike around, coming closer to inspect the scene. Intel was vital for any operation, even - hopefully small enough to be - a skirmish, like this one. Killshot, riding on the back of a truck, driving in a convoy.
Aman scowled. Killshot, a literal human slingshot, could 'charge' objects and launch them at speed, though only in a single selected direction and there was a limit to both the weight of and the speed at which things were launched. Heavier objects took longer to 'charge', with the upper limit being about a large family vehicle, but that was usually more than enough to cause a lot of mayhem.
His gang was trailing him in convoys. At least one man on each truck was armed with an assault rifle - Aman didn't know what kind, he'd never been interested in firearms beyond the things he saw in science fiction - and the rest with melee weapons, usually bats or crowbars, occasionally wrapped with barbed wire. This was obviously an attempt on their part to aggressively expand their territory. They were fighting against a minor Vietnamese gang that occupied these suburbs, which were predominantly Asian immigrants.
The Vietnamese were both numerically inferior and lacking in firepower, and they cowered behind whatever cover they could find. If they were unlucky, they had someone's Nissan or Ford fly straight through their cover and into them.
Aman ground his teeth. Throwing himself into the middle of a firefight like this was never ideal, but it probably had to be done. He doubted the Vietnamese would attack him on sight, but Killshot's gang certainly would, trying to protect their head murderer from the law. Despite his Tinkertech, having an SUV thrown into him at a couple hundred kilometers an hour would not be pleasant. His faceplate expanded with a series of mechanical clicks, going from just a helmet with a visor into something that covered his whole face.
He blinked at his HUD and his sirens blared.
The combatants jolted as Alloy's Tinker-cycle glowed bright with LEDs, and Alloy drew his Tesla Rifle, controlling the movements of his bike with his legs while bringing the rifle up to his shoulder to aim, like a sharpshooter in a Spaghetti Western. His HUD pinpointed the gang members that were raising ranged weapons at him, the greatest threats. That - that was good, actually. Most bullets wouldn't pierce his armor, barely leave a scratch in the paint, and since this was a clear display of aggression he wouldn't have to waste time issuing warnings.
He pulled the trigger once, twice. Coordinating with his helmet, the rifle smoothly nailed the ones that were raising their own rifles; a pulse of pale violet light struck each of them, not quite unlike the aura that Steadfast gained in her Breaker state. The light struck the gang members and they dropped like they'd had their strings cut; they forcibly relaxed the muscles, although it wasn't really unconsciousness. He couldn't afford to use his zapping option, in case it accidentally caused them to squeeze the trigger while being electrocuted.
Alloy turned on his Vector Prediction Software, a program that was surprisingly useful in a city that had quite a few capes that revolved around moving objects or themselves in straight lines - Killshot, Red Baron, Flying Fox, Juggernaut, even Sandstorm to a lesser extent. As Killshot charged up some poor civilian's Honda Jazz, his HUD gave him the probable vectors at which the car would fly; synced to his motorbike, the autopilot deftly dodged the flying Honda and raised his weapon to fire at Killshot. Killshot stumbled back, and fell off the cargo compartment just as the violet light streaked over his head. Alloy wondered if Killshot was always so criminally lucky.
Alloy hopped off his bike, and bike's autopilot rolled away to a safe distance, close enough for him to quickly hop back on if he needed to make chase. He took down three more gangsters who thought it might be wise to try and take potshots at him. Alloy was the superhero that everyone approached. Alloy was the one who did PR rounds, partially because Duke was an ass and so was Steadfast and Mirror Man was pretty shy. Despite being already overworked, Alloy made certain to dedicate some of his spare time to making friends with civilians, making sure that he gathered a reputation as a nice, friendly, and patient person. Alloy did his best to emulate Hero, with a bit of Legend sprinkled in.
And when usually passive people got angry, well, you knew you'd fucked up.
"Enough!" Alloy roared, his modulator lowering the pitch of his voice and making it reverberate in the surroundings. The gangsters hesitated, both sides, looking warily at him. "I don't know what's going on here, but I have a suspicion you haven't either. Have you looked around since you began this fight? Have you seen the damage you've caused?"
Silence, and a few of the braver ones looked around, examining the damage. Buildings had been turned into colanders from all the bullet-holes they'd accumulated, unless they'd simply been reduced to rubble courtesy of Killshot. Weak pleas for help, ragged breathing in the distance, and ambulance sirens filled the night.
"Throw down your weapons. You've caused enough pain for one night - for the whole year, even," Alloy continued, channeling his simmering anger into his voice. "Pick up a shovel or use your bare hands if you have to. You're going to help me rescue these people from the rubble you buried them under."
Alloy, his heart beating wildly, clipped his Tesla Rifle onto his back. Nobody raised their weapons at him - that was good. He stalked over to the nearest pile of rubble, from which he thought he could heat cries of help, and began pulling off concrete and steel from the pile. Nobody moved, until at last, one of the young Vietnamese men, still shaking somewhat, lowered his weapon to the ground and began to help.
And then two more men came to join him. Alloy smiled under his mask in relief, as-
He turned around, shoved the closest man out of the way, and dodged himself, as the same truck that Killshot had fallen out of was catapulted at him at ridiculous speeds. It bounced over the mountain of rubble and glanced off another, still-intact apartment block. One of the Vietnamese gang members that had come to help him, had been struck by it, his body horrifically mangled after being trapped between the truck and the rubble.
Alloy didn't get a chance to scream in frustration as Killshot threw at them a handful of shitty homemade caltrops; their material quality didn't stop them from embedding themselves in the flesh of unarmored young men, who screamed, and rending their flesh with their barbs. A few pinged off his armor, and Alloy stood, his motorcycle coming back to him. His HUD highlighted Killshot attempting to launch a small car at his bike, and he realized that if his bike moved, one fallen gangster would be crushed by the car.
Regretfully, he ordered his bike to stand steadfast and increase it's shield to maximum capacity. A faintly glowing gold dome shimmered into existence, and shattered like glass as the car was thrown into it. As advanced as the forcefield was - capable of deflecting shots from even Tinkertech weapons - it wouldn't hold up to one-point-five tons of steel crashing into it at speed. His bike, being made of one of his alloys, would hopefully be salvageable; if not, then, well… he had more important things to focus on right now anyway.
Alloy charged forward at Killshot, and unslung his rifle again. No more. He changed the settings from the pale-violet relaxant shot to launching orbs of electricity. It would drop them, hard, and it would definitely hurt. He wasn't feeling too sympathetic towards them, though. He raised his rifle to bear, and fired; Killshot ducked behind one of his men, allowing them to be electrocuted. A cruel master; Alloy couldn't understand why they'd choose to follow him. In any case - Alloy's train of thought was momentarily interrupted as he ducked out of the way of Killshot launching industrial rivets, the kind that they used for bridges and the like, however the hell he got his hands on them - and raised his weapon again. He wouldn't miss this time.
He was distracted by a clawing mass of hands erupting from the concrete beneath him and grabbing at his armor.
"What the f-?" Alloy ripped his leg away, and to his horror, some of the hands that had grabbed at his boots had been ripped out of the ground like rather bloody tubers. More hands erupted from the ground like tortured souls trying to drag him into the depths of hell himself. He ignored them and focused again on Killshot, and his eyes widened. Killshot was charging a truck with his power. His Vector Prediction Software issued bright red warnings.
Alloy launched himself to the side as best as he could. The hands, power armor or not, hampered him because there was just so many. The horror-movie arms were crushed into red mist as the truck hurtled through them; Alloy's legs were caught by the front bumper, and he didn't have time to scream as he was sent spinning through the air and crashing onto someone's balcony. He felt lightheaded. Looking at his HUD, the armor plates and the servos on the legs, the right leg especially, had sustained critical damage. Probably broken inside, too.
"Alloy?" a terrified voice whispered. Alloy turned, to find an Asian woman - a bit hard to make out any more than that in the dark - beckoning him. To come inside. "You need to hide, right?"
Alloy nodded dumbly, and began to crawl himself towards the sliding glass door. There was no way that Killshot wouldn't notice this, but it would be easier to fortify himself inside a mansion than if he were alone on the street. Or it would've been, but the mansion was undoubtedly full of civilians who would be caught in the crossfire. Alloy ground his teeth. Then again, with the state of his legs, there was no possibility of jumping down from a third-floor balcony unharmed. He was stuck in the mansion either way, so he might as well find a defensible spot.
"I can't thank you enough," Alloy whispered to the woman as she shut the glass door behind them and locked it, as useless as it might be. "But you will be in danger."
"I… I'm in danger anyway," she replied, but she was still terrified.
"Here." Alloy handed her his lightsaber. "It's my l- plasma-sword. Even though it's Tinkertech, there's only two settings with the little button where your thumb goes, so you should be able to use it. It will cut through steel like it's butter, so do not point it at yourself or anywhere near yourself, okay?"
The woman nodded furiously and clutched the weapon to her chest. Alloy didn't like the way her hands shook violently with a lightsaber in her hands, but he supposed it couldn't be helped. He'd trust her to have enough sense with it. His armor auto-injected a mild cocktail of Tinkertech, consisting mostly of a regenerative serum and painkillers, into his bloodstream. He took a deep breath and allowed his lower face-plate to open up, revealing his mouth. He coughed briefly as the sudden lack of air filter brought him a lot of dust and all sorts of unpleasant smells.
"I can't move anymore. Not well, nor quickly. I'm going to barricade myself in your living room, and I'm going to shoot anyone that comes through the door. You stay in your bedroom or your bathroom and don't come out if you can help it. Do you understand?"
"Y-yes," she whispered.
"Good. Stay safe."
Alloy winced as he adjusted his position to better use the Tesla Rifle, aiming it at the front door. He could hear the villain's foot-soldiers storming up the stairs of the apartment block. He cocked his head towards the window as he heard Killshot speak.
"Alright, tough guy," Killshot said, sounding almost bored, the piece of shit. "I'm giving you one minute to crawl out of the room you're in. I don't wanna kill you, really. That'll bring down even more heat on my head than there already is. But I don't know if you're gonna do some Tinker shit to hurt us, so we're gonna take hostages and shoot them through the head unless you comply. You heard that?"
Killshot, according to his HUD, his voice was coming from almost directly beneath the balcony he'd crashed into. Maybe if he could overcharge the Tesla Rifle and throw it outside, it might create a blast big enough to turn him and his immediate surroundings into plasma. Would definitely end up in a lot of paperwork, but surely HQ would understand that he didn't have much of a choice. Either give himself up, or let hostages be hurt or killed.
He began ripping away at his armor, and froze, as phantom hands began to wrap around his ankles. From the locked bathroom, he heard sudden screaming. The woman that he'd lent his sword to, rushed out of the locked room, covered in blood and hands that were still clutching at her legs and arms. A creepy-as-fuck power, and he could understand how the woman might be feeling. He, with all his training, was unnerved.
"Calm down!" Alloy barked, making the woman flinch. He felt bad about shouting at her, but this was not what he needed right now. She trembled in obvious fear, and Alloy slowly relinquished the Tinker rifle from his grip and dropped it on the floor beside him. Then he pushed it away from his reach, to the best of his ability. The hands that were sprouting beneath the woman's feet like grotesque tendrils retreated. Another pair of arms rose up from the floor and picked up the rifle.
Alloy gave a grim smile. "Best not. You think I wouldn't have any security features on that thing? It's locked to my DNA, checks my pulse to make sure I'm not unconscious or dead so that it's not being used against my will. You don't want to trigger the self-destruct, now, do you?"
The hands hesitated, and they put it down. Alloy breathed a sigh of relief. The woman backed away, slowly, but the owner of the weird hands didn't seem to care. In unison, all the hands that weren't tying him down pointed at the door. Telling him to exit.
Behind his visor, Alloy closed his eyes and fought not to sigh. His mouth remained a grim line.
"How do I have your assurances that the hostages you've taken will be released without harm?" Alloy tried.
Two arms made a 'what can you do?' gesture. Infuriating prick.
"I want to be certain that you won't harm anyone."
After a moment of silence, Killshot yelled from outside. "Hey, mate, I dunno if you've noticed, but you're really not in a position to negotiate!"
Fucking… Alloy briefly fantasized throttling Killshot, with his power-armored hands. Maybe throw him into a truck at two hundred kilometers an hour to see how he would like it. Alloy grimaced he sat up, and began to drag himself to the door, over-playing his injuries and taking it real slow. It wasn't even that difficult - with the lower portion of his armor effectively dead weight, it was pretty damn hard to move. Buying more time for help to arrive…
Looks like it worked.
Sounds of shouting, guns firing, dominated his hearing for about thirty seconds. Then the trucks started up again, and began peeling away. Meanwhile, ambulance sirens sounded, higher-pitched than usual as the sound dopplered closer. Thank God. Alloy slumped in relief.
"Sir? Alloy?"
Alloy allowed the cameras on his visor to turn a little to get a view of whomever had said so. A girl, dressed in baggy black pants and a black hoodie, both several sizes too large for her. She was wearing a scarf around her lower face, covering everything beneath her eyes. The voice sounded familiar.
"Blink," Alloy grunted. "How… how are the hostages?"
"I pulled them out, sir. They're hysterical, but unhurt."
"Thank fuck," Alloy gasped out. "Did you chase them off on your own?"
"No. I had Slipstick helping."
"Good, good. I'm afraid my legs are broken." Alloy looked at her. "Thank you for rescuing me, Blink."
Behind her hood, she blinked in surprise. "No - I just did my best…"
"You're a great hero," Alloy said, even as his adrenaline began to wear off, leaving him in what was probably shock. "I… I might fall unconscious. A mixture of shock and Tinkertech painkillers that I injected into my bloodstream. I'm sorry, but…"
"No, no, it's okay. The police will be arriving very soon with ambulances," Blink reassured him. "Will you be okay here? Should I move you into a more comfortable position?"
Alloy cracked a smile at that. "That won't be necessary. Besides, I don't think you could lift me up in my armor."
Blink chuckled awkwardly. "That's true."
"Go help the others in whatever capacity you can, Blink. And again, thanks for helping me."
Blink gave him two thumbs up and disappeared in a flash of pale blue light. Alloy sighed.
What the hell had gone wrong?