Current Energy: 18
Current Training: Aura (5/10)
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
Uptown, Brockton Bay
You squint at the man with the sword, trying to determine what he'll do next. The greyscale effect permeating your surroundings makes it hard for you to pick our details, and you can just about feel the physical force of your Master's annoyance as she attempts to do the same.
[Is this common?]
"More than I'd like, less than you'd think." You grumble under your breath, trusting for the half spoken words to translate to your passenger accurately.
"Hey, honest question, how durable are you right now?" Your Master calls out to the man with the sword, tapping her foot in agitation.
"Your tricks wont work on me Musashi! Draw!" The man responded, taking a step forward and bringing his sword down with perfect precision. There was the brief sound of buzzing followed by a thin slice of concrete to your Masters left being split apart.
Your Master, not known for her tolerance when faced with immediate violence, merely narrows her eyes at the man, then flares her spiritual pressure, driving him first to his knees, and then entirely to the ground, his arms shaking as they struggled to keep his face from hitting the pavement.
"See, it's just, you guys caught me at a bad time so I sort of wanted to kick you around for a bit. But I can't do that if I don't know how hard to hit you so..." Your Master explains with a careless shrug.
'Master, do you... know this man?' You ask curiously, keeping your weapon ready and an eye out for any trouble.
'No but I can guess. Uber and Leet are joke villains mostly. They've been around the Bay for a while now. They have a thing for low budget theatrics like this.' She informs you quickly.
"Gah. L-lame. D-do over." The man on the ground burbles through obviously struggling breaths, all traces if his fake accent gone. Your Master quirks an eyebrow at him - obviously not really considering him a threat - but then the plucking of the string instrument in the background stops and the world around... fizzes... slightly. At first you assume nothing has happened, but are quickly disabused of that notion when you notice the man who was previously on the ground standing back where he previously was as though nothing had happened.
[An illusion?] Ozma offers carefully.
"Cool right? Took some doing but we just knew we had to get this perfect if we were gonna do a stream with you in it." The man crows from his position, readjusting his grip on his sword.
"So... just curious, is there a reason I can't just-" Your Master asks, flaring her power again. Again, she is met by that same fizzling sensation, returning her efforts to nothing.
"We'll just keep doing that. Come on! You literally have a katana as part of your power! Do you know how cool that is!? Just play along and we can be done faster!" The man says eagerly. Your Master growls.
"I'm... confused." You say after a moment of watching the exchange.
"Uber and Leet stream their escapades. Mostly for money." Your Master says, still scowling. Then she turns to glance to her side and notices - at the same time as you - that the gouge in the concrete from earlier is now gone.
A sense of dawning dread appears in your Master as she whips around to stare at the enemy swordsman.
"Did you idiots Grey Boy me?!" She yells incredulously.
[I'm unfamiliar with that turn of phrase. Is it a type of punishment?] Ozma asks, obviously out of his depth.
"I actually don't know either." You mutter.
"Nah, this is just the one stable time loop. None of the extra stuff. Now." The man says confidently.
"Draw your blade." He repeats, returning to his fake accent. You notice as he does so, that while he was speaking normally the time delayed effect on his voice wasn't it place. Mostly because it returns the moment his accent changes.
You find yourself momentarily confused when your Master does just that, withdrawing her sword and leaping forward to swipe at the man - you don't know if he's Uber or Leet really - landing a solid hit that cleaves his sword roughly in two, and then lifting a foot to kick him in the chest so hard you're fairly certain your Master would need to heal the man shortly to avoid his imminent death.
And then the world flickers and everything returns to how it was at the start of the fight.
Your Master, now in a mix of blind fury and panic, rushes forward to repeat her assault, and is this time countered as the man with the blade slides to her right, parrying her attack as though he had predicted it. The two exchange blows for a second, with the weaker man managing to survive the fight for a few seconds longer than previously, before your Master skewers him through a leg.
And then the world resets again.
Panic begins to set in as you realize that you are useless. Fighting isn't helping here. You're not sure what will. You watch in horrified fascination as your Master is reset a half dozen times in the span of a minute, with each reset taking longer to happen as your enemy becomes accustomed to staving off your Master.
Should... should you help? Would it matter? You don't-
[Oscar. She indicated that there are two of them correct? Is this effect one of their semblances?] Ozma cuts in, interrupting your near panic attack.
"I... I don't know!" You blurt out, taking a hesitant step forward just in time to be replaced at your starting position by another reset.
[Taylor acted as though these two are fairly well known, but was surprised when they did this. So it's unlikely the man before you is maintaining the effect. Where is the other one?] Ozma instructs you sternly, as though explaining basic math to a child.
He makes a good point, you realize. This is supposed to be a duo - just like you and Taylor. So where is the other person?
'Master, I have an idea!' You quickly inform Taylor before turning to sprint into one of the nearby buildings, unnoticed by either combatant.
"Okay... if I was trying to hide from a Brute, where would I go?" You mumble to yourself, quickly scanning the squat office building for anything that might catch your interest.
[Somewhere close enough to watch what's happening, but far enough away to avoid being collateral damage.] Ozma suggests, to which you nod and run to the roof of the building you are currently in, looking around. The surroundings are mostly barren. You aren't sure if Uber and Leet deliberately made sure there would be no other people around or if they're all just hiding inside while the fight plays out. The nearby buildings are of an older make, most not more than two or three stories high. But there is an exception. A skyscraper that towers over the rest of the nearby buildings. It almost seems too obvious a choice.
That is, until you notice something near the top of the building. A flicker of colour. Not something so out of place under normal circumstances, but when the entire world has become colourless...
You don't waste time thinking about it. You move, straining with every ounce of enhanced strength you can manage to leap across the street and through a fourth-floor window of the building, landing with a roll amid the shattered glass of the window. A small part of your mind registers the non-descript office you appear to have landed in, but you move forward ignoring it, running for the nearest hallway and looking around until you find a stairwell. The door is locked, but you shoulder it out of the way, feeling the cheap steel bolt sheer in half under your weight.
Then you look up. Multiple floors separate you from where you need to be. Hundreds, possibly thousands of stairs.
And also, dozens of cludged together looking turrets.
"...I think I hate Tinkers." You say aloud, then, are forced to leap aside to avoid a hail of bullets as they plow into your previous position, chewing through the marble landing like paper.
[They look like they have a limited range of motion. They can't all fire at once if you-] Ozma offers easily.
"I know!" You yell, once more taking a prodigious leap upward, rising two floors and feeling a handful of bullets painfully ping off your aura, the force behind them nearly pushing you against a wall before roll to one side and use a turret that can't seem to fully turn around to fire at you as cover.
Pausing for breath you stop to try and calm yourself, closing your eyes. Your Master was deathly afraid of whatever a Grey Boy is. So much so that you think she might be actually trying to kill the man in the street. You need to move. This is what you're for.
Eyes snapping open, you rise, kicking the turret infront of you around to face another of its kind on a far wall and forcefully holding it in place as it fires, destroying the other weapon and sustaining heavy damage to its own mechanisms in exchange.
You keep moving, never stopping for fear of more than a few cursory bullets landing on your body. Long Memory spears the mechanism on one turret that allows it to rotate. You dodge another two as you continue to ascend. A fourth begins to glow as though preparing a different kind of payload, and you land on it feet first, kicking it off its mount and using it to ascend yet higher.
By the time you reach the top of the stairwell, you are breathing heavily, low on aura, and profoundly certain of your new stance on Tinkers.
But still, you've made it. With little hesitation, you step forward, once more forcing the roof access door open, and find yourself staring at a scrawny man in poorly fitting Japanese robes, staring at a laptop screen that is precariously located in his lap. Your eyes meet for a second, and then his widen as he quickly scrambles to do something with the machine.
You don't let him, rushing forward to slap it out of his reach and pointing Long Memory at him.
"...Damn. Busted." The man says, much less worried than someone at the end of your weapon should be.
'Master, I have found the source of the 'Grey Boy'. We're on the roof of the skyscraper.' You send to your Master, immediately experiencing a flood of relief and pride flowing from her.
A couple of seconds later, you hear the sound of screaming, followed by your Master's arrival on the roof of the building, with a lightly wounded man firmly gripped around the middle like an unruly child.
"You morons can build this but you still choose to be fucking villains?" She asks incredulously as she steps forward, dropping the larger man next to his compatriot and pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance.
"I dunno how to tell you this kid, but when a hero and a villain fight, the villain almost never dies. We don't fight other bad guys cus they'll freaking kill us. You Justice League knock-offs are a lot more tame." The lanky villain points out.
"Yeah but you're going to go to jail now." Taylor points out, glancing over her shoulder as whatever was stealing the colour from the world begins to fail without someone to maintain it.
"Eh. It won't stick." The more muscular man says with a shrug.
[How... unrepentant.] Ozma muses as Victoria flies down to you in a panic, quickly checking Taylor over for injury.
"Yeah, that's..." You want to say 'how it is', but well... it's not. It's actually your fault. Your species at least. And for the first time, you feel... really bad about that.
Of course, it is only as all the colour finishes seeping back into reality around you, that a long string of beeps begins to emit from your Master and Victoria at once, causing both girls to blink and withdraw their phones, neither one particularly concerned with Uber or Leet, one of whom begins to slowly edge towards his laptop.
You swat him on the side of the head for his troubles, then turn to your Master in inquiry.
"We're getting hit all over the city. Some new group attacked a Wards patrol, the Undersiders took over the evening news... and the Director wants to talk to me. Great." Taylor says in annoyance. Her eyes flick to Uber and Leet and back to her phone again, before she sighs and taps something out on the device with an almost comical slowness.
"Should get Parian to stay at the base for a while. Maybe her family too." Your Master mutters under her breath.