Early morning in Paragon City. Almost no pedestrians were on the street, few cars travelling. It should by all rights have been a time of stillness, one of the few moments of peace and quiet that the City of Heroes ever had.
But of course, it wasn't.
An armored truck rested on its side against the sidewalk in one of the old shopping districts that had sprung up in the shadows of Skyway City's overpasses. It was surrounded by a sizable crowd of Paragon City's least desirable elements. The Freakshow had cordoned off the area immediately surrounding the truck, outside their perimeter milled Trolls, Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts, Thorns, Tsoo, Carnival of Shadows, and many others. Nemesis soldiers stood guard around the outer perimeter. Malta agents lurked in the shadows of nearby dark alleys. Even the normally stand-offish Clockwork constructs, Rikti soldiers, and Devouring Earth monsters rubbed elbows with their human brethren for a change. At the center of the crowd, a Smasher lieutenant was holding a chisel to the car's lock with his hand, and whacking on it with his hammer.
"Ohhh, yeah, this is gonna be sooo kewl!" he said as he tapped on the chisel. "Better than metal! Better than Excelcior even!"
"Better than Dyne!" a nearby troll agreed.
"Musssst...devour it," one of the hulking Devoured growled. "Must devour it now!"
"Brrrzt," a Clockwork Baron declared. "It will take our master's mind off of...rrrck...our master's mind."
A Void Stalker leaned on its glowing red rifle and observed the truck thoughtfully. "Of all the things I have seen in my travels through the Void, I have come upon few things quite so amazing as this."
"Goal: acquire," said a Rikti mentalist. "Interspecies cooperation to achieve goal: necessary."
"There are not many things that can hold my interest in this age," said one of the immense mechanical men that might or might not be Nemesis at any given time. "When I come across such an artifice, it is to be treasured...and, of course, obtained at all costs." It waved its staff menacingly at the Freaks by the truck. "Hurry up, you ruffians!"
"Almost got it!" the Smasher declared. "Just one more good whack!" He raised the hammer and cocked it back
And then a blazing orange streak of light shot through the air and nailed him in the back. "Aaaah!" With a cry, the Smasher hit the groundand the crowd of villains slowly turned to look to where it came from.
Up the street, a blazing red-orange cheetah-spotted figure stood, and a red-orange tiger-striped figure floated in the air above her. "You know, I think you've got something that doesn't belong to you," Infurno declared.
"And that's very naughty," Tigerbright added. "So when was the last time you saw the inside of the Zig, anyway?"
"Aaah! Capes!" a Skull said. "Get 'em!" A group of Skulls broke off from the crowd and started their way.
"Capes?" Infurno asked. She looked up at Tigerbright. "But we aren't wearing capes."
"Maybe they should get their eyes checked by the Zig's optometrists," Tigerbright suggested, tossing a ball of fire and scattering Skulls like bowling pins. "Well, in we go! Tyger, tyger, burning bright!"
"Let's light 'em up!"
The two fire heroes charged into the fray, tossing thugs left and right with explosions and flaming fists. Infurno ducked a swing by a Hellion, siezed his arm, and tossed him into a knot of Outcasts. "I haven't seen so many different crooks palling around since the last time they held the national law-enforcement convention here!" Tigerbright said, as she called a rain of cinders down on a group surrounding Infurno.
Infurno swung her flaming sword in a circle that sent many villains sprawling. "Just goes to show there are some things that bring people together...no matter what kind of people they are. Gah!" Infurno gasped as a Master Illusionist caused painful wounds to appear all over her body. She knew they weren't real, but that didn't block out the pain.
"Hey, you! Hands off!" Tigerbright sent a blazing bolt of fire through the air, catching the Illusionist in the side and flinging her to the ground.
Infurno's phantom wounds vanished, and she felt better. "Thanks, TB! Hey, look out!"
"Huh, wha?" Tigerbright beganand then a force bolt from the Nemesis armor's staff flung her across the street and through a shop's plate glass window. "...ow!"
"Oh, now I'm steamed." Infurno growled. "Nobody messes with my sister."
"You might find that I am actually the 'steamed' one, m'dear," the hulking Nemesis grunted, its stacks belching another cloud of smoke to punctuate its statement. "But if you would like me to apply some of it to you, that can be arranged." It swung its staff, disgorging another bolt at Infurno. She ducked under it and swung a blazing fist into the armor's cuirass as she summoned fires to burn more intensely around her.
Infurno struck the Nemesis armor repeatedly, punctuating her strikes with words. "You" SMACK "should go back to" SMACK "cleaning carpets!" WHAM! With Infurno's final blow, the Nemesis suit's boiler overheated and blew, and the armor crumpled. Its helmet fell off, revealing nothing inside. Infurno smirked. "'We are the hollow men.' Hey, TB, you OK?"
Tigerbright clambered out of the storefront, pausing only to smack an Outcast with a fire sword of her own. "Just peachy! Kind of bruised, but still sweet!"
"...right." Infurno walloped the Devoured monster, then slapped a teleport beacon onto it so the Zig could whisk it away. "I think that's just aboutAAAAAH!" A bolt of blue electricity crackled from out of the shadows, and Infurno writhed as it surrounded her in a blue nimbus.
The Malta Sapper stepped out of the alley. "We have to confiscate this shipment for further...investigation."
"Oh yeah?" Tigerbright took a deep breath, then exhaled a cone of fire over him. The Sapper slumped to the ground, clothes smoking and boots melted. "Now who's next?"
Infurno brought her flames back up and looked around. Apart from the unconscious thugs who were even now winking out as the Zig's teleporters came on-line, the street had suddenly emptied. "Figures. They're all cowards when you get right down to it," Infurno said. She walked up to the truck and knocked on the front window, shielding her face with her hands to look inside. "Hey...you OK in there? Yeah? Good...hang on a sec, we'll have you right-side up in a jiffy." She went around to where the roof of the car lay against the sidewalk, and reached down to the edge. "Hey, TB, help me out here. I'll pull on the bottom, you push on the top."
"Got it." Tigerbright lifted into the air, and set her shoulder against the other edge of the roof.
"One...two...three...HEAVE!" It only took a couple of tries for them to set the truck back on all four tires. "I think it'll be OK, these things are built tough."
The drivera young man with brown hair, wearing the livery of the armored car service that owned the truckunlatched and opened his door. "Hey! Infurno, Tigerbright...man am I glad to see you! If this shipment hadn't made it, a lot of people would have been disappointed."
"Don't I know it," Infurno said. "Want us to ride shotgun with you 'til you get where you're going?"
"If you wouldn't mind..."
Infurno nodded. "Least we can do." She climbed into the passenger side of the truck, while Tigerbright perched on the roof. Its engine turned over, the driver threw it into gear, and they began to move down the road.
That was when the Clockwork Baron stepped out into the street ahead of them. "Whaoh no!" the driver said, starting to swerve.
Infurno jerked the steering wheel back on course. "Gun it."
"But"
"I said gun it!" Infurno growled. Reflexively, the driver stomped on the pedal and the truck picked up speed, slamming into the shambling robot at forty miles per hour. Just as they hit, Tigerbright fired off a double fire blast from the truck's roof, and the combined impacts exploded the Baron into a shower of metal parts.
"YES!!!" Tigerbright whooped. "Take that, you bucket of bolts!" The driver looked somewhere between relieved and hopeful that the damage to the truck wouldn't come out of his paycheck.
A few minutes later, the armored truck reached its destination: the plaza in the shadow of the tall concrete pylon, not far from the Faultline hazard zone. Vitaly Cherenko waved as they drove past. "Is he always there?" Tigerbright wondered to Infurno over their team chat comlink. "Doesn't he ever, y'know, sleep or anything?"
"Well, he is a big ol' gee-whiz super-mystic," Infurno said. "Maybe he doesn't need it."
The truck pulled in behind a small shop just off the plaza, whose sign proclaimed it to be "The Wizards Well"a comic, game, and book shopand exhorted the viewer to "Imagine yourself a new life!" As the truck backed into the loading dock, they were met by a man who might well have been the mustachio'd, goatee'd wizard from the placard, right down to the pointed hat. "Oh, marvelous, marvelous! You made it! Was there any trouble?"
"Nothing Infurno and Tigerbright here couldn't handle," the driver said, stepping down. "To tell the truth, they really saved my baconand your shipment."
"Oh, it was nothing, really," Tigerbright said.
"Just doing our job," Infurno said. Then, as the four of them walked around to open the back of the truck, Infurno added, "And though we wouldn't normally think of asking for a reward, well, do you think maybe this time...?"
The spry old man in the wizard costume chuckled. "Oh-ho-ho, it's like that, is it?" He fitted a key to the only-slightly-bent lock and pulled the door open, revealing stacks of boxes sporting a big "Scholastic" logo. A couple of them had burst open when the truck had been knocked on its side, spilling their brightly-colored rectangular contents across the truck's interior, but none looked badly damaged. The man poked his finger in the air a few times as he mentally counted the boxes and the unboxed contents. "All here. Good." He grinned at the two heroes. "Oh, yes, I do believe we can...how do they say it? 'Comp' a couple for you..." But as Infurno started to reach for one, he caught her by the wrist with greater strength than by all rights he should have possessed. "...but not for another eighteen hours, I'm afraid."
Infurno blinked. "What? But...aw, come on! We just saved the whole shipment for you!"
"I know, and I'm properly grateful, believe you me. But I can make no exceptions, not even for this." The old man shook his head. "The contract was very clear. You heard about what happened in Canada? It would be more than my shop was worth if I broke it."
"Aw, not the whole 'lawyer' thing again," Infurno groaned. "What is this, City of Lawyers?"
"Oh, do not misapprehend me. I know how to deal with lawyers," the old man said with a glint in his eye. "But do you honestly believe, in this world of heroes and magic, that such an important contract would be enforced with measures strictly mundane?" The back door to the shop opened and a couple more wizard-costumed employees came out with dollies to cart the boxes back into the shop. "No, I am quite sorry, my heroic friends...but you will have to wait for midnight, along with the rest of the world, to catch your first glimpse of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." He let go of her wrist. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do..."
Infurno and Tigerbright found themselves gently but firmly shuffled off to one side as the boxes of books swiftly disappeared from the back of the armored truck into the protected confines of the store. And they were protected, Infurno realized; she wasn't an expert in magic but her fur was tingling in the way that it usually did only in the presence of powerful warding spells. It would take more than a bunch of Freakshow to get their hands on those books now.
Infurno sighed. "Well, guess we might as well hit the tram. Head home, get some sleep so we can be back here at midnight."
"Yeah." Tigerbright launched into the air, heading back north. "You know what we should have done? We should have borrowed those chameleon suits again and helped the Freaks. At least then we'd have our copies now..."
"Well, nobody ever said the life of a hero was an easy one, TB." Infurno looked over her shoulder at the store one last time, then followed her sister. "At least we've all got something to look forward to tonight."
((Happy Harry Potter Day's Eve, everyone! Hope you get your books on time! And NO SPOILERS IN-GAME!!!))
Early morning in Paragon City. Almost no pedestrians were on the street, few cars travelling. It should by all rights have been a time of stillness, one of the few moments of peace and quiet that the City of Heroes ever had.
But of course, it wasn't.
An armored truck rested on its side against the sidewalk in one of the old shopping districts that had sprung up in the shadows of Skyway City's overpasses. It was surrounded by a sizable crowd of Paragon City's least desirable elements. The Freakshow had cordoned off the area immediately surrounding the truck, outside their perimeter milled Trolls, Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts, Thorns, Tsoo, Carnival of Shadows, and many others. Nemesis soldiers stood guard around the outer perimeter. Malta agents lurked in the shadows of nearby dark alleys. Even the normally stand-offish Clockwork constructs, Rikti soldiers, and Devouring Earth monsters rubbed elbows with their human brethren for a change. At the center of the crowd, a Smasher lieutenant was holding a chisel to the car's lock with his hand, and whacking on it with his hammer.
"Ohhh, yeah, this is gonna be sooo kewl!" he said as he tapped on the chisel. "Better than metal! Better than Excelcior even!"
"Better than Dyne!" a nearby troll agreed.
"Musssst...devour it," one of the hulking Devoured growled. "Must devour it now!"
"Brrrzt," a Clockwork Baron declared. "It will take our master's mind off of...rrrck...our master's mind."
A Void Stalker leaned on its glowing red rifle and observed the truck thoughtfully. "Of all the things I have seen in my travels through the Void, I have come upon few things quite so amazing as this."
"Goal: acquire," said a Rikti mentalist. "Interspecies cooperation to achieve goal: necessary."
"There are not many things that can hold my interest in this age," said one of the immense mechanical men that might or might not be Nemesis at any given time. "When I come across such an artifice, it is to be treasured...and, of course, obtained at all costs." It waved its staff menacingly at the Freaks by the truck. "Hurry up, you ruffians!"
"Almost got it!" the Smasher declared. "Just one more good whack!" He raised the hammer and cocked it back
And then a blazing orange streak of light shot through the air and nailed him in the back. "Aaaah!" With a cry, the Smasher hit the groundand the crowd of villains slowly turned to look to where it came from.
Up the street, a blazing red-orange cheetah-spotted figure stood, and a red-orange tiger-striped figure floated in the air above her. "You know, I think you've got something that doesn't belong to you," Infurno declared.
"And that's very naughty," Tigerbright added. "So when was the last time you saw the inside of the Zig, anyway?"
"Aaah! Capes!" a Skull said. "Get 'em!" A group of Skulls broke off from the crowd and started their way.
"Capes?" Infurno asked. She looked up at Tigerbright. "But we aren't wearing capes."
"Maybe they should get their eyes checked by the Zig's optometrists," Tigerbright suggested, tossing a ball of fire and scattering Skulls like bowling pins. "Well, in we go! Tyger, tyger, burning bright!"
"Let's light 'em up!"
The two fire heroes charged into the fray, tossing thugs left and right with explosions and flaming fists. Infurno ducked a swing by a Hellion, siezed his arm, and tossed him into a knot of Outcasts. "I haven't seen so many different crooks palling around since the last time they held the national law-enforcement convention here!" Tigerbright said, as she called a rain of cinders down on a group surrounding Infurno.
Infurno swung her flaming sword in a circle that sent many villains sprawling. "Just goes to show there are some things that bring people together...no matter what kind of people they are. Gah!" Infurno gasped as a Master Illusionist caused painful wounds to appear all over her body. She knew they weren't real, but that didn't block out the pain.
"Hey, you! Hands off!" Tigerbright sent a blazing bolt of fire through the air, catching the Illusionist in the side and flinging her to the ground.
Infurno's phantom wounds vanished, and she felt better. "Thanks, TB! Hey, look out!"
"Huh, wha?" Tigerbright beganand then a force bolt from the Nemesis armor's staff flung her across the street and through a shop's plate glass window. "...ow!"
"Oh, now I'm steamed." Infurno growled. "Nobody messes with my sister."
"You might find that I am actually the 'steamed' one, m'dear," the hulking Nemesis grunted, its stacks belching another cloud of smoke to punctuate its statement. "But if you would like me to apply some of it to you, that can be arranged." It swung its staff, disgorging another bolt at Infurno. She ducked under it and swung a blazing fist into the armor's cuirass as she summoned fires to burn more intensely around her.
Infurno struck the Nemesis armor repeatedly, punctuating her strikes with words. "You" SMACK "should go back to" SMACK "cleaning carpets!" WHAM! With Infurno's final blow, the Nemesis suit's boiler overheated and blew, and the armor crumpled. Its helmet fell off, revealing nothing inside. Infurno smirked. "'We are the hollow men.' Hey, TB, you OK?"
Tigerbright clambered out of the storefront, pausing only to smack an Outcast with a fire sword of her own. "Just peachy! Kind of bruised, but still sweet!"
"...right." Infurno walloped the Devoured monster, then slapped a teleport beacon onto it so the Zig could whisk it away. "I think that's just aboutAAAAAH!" A bolt of blue electricity crackled from out of the shadows, and Infurno writhed as it surrounded her in a blue nimbus.
The Malta Sapper stepped out of the alley. "We have to confiscate this shipment for further...investigation."
"Oh yeah?" Tigerbright took a deep breath, then exhaled a cone of fire over him. The Sapper slumped to the ground, clothes smoking and boots melted. "Now who's next?"
Infurno brought her flames back up and looked around. Apart from the unconscious thugs who were even now winking out as the Zig's teleporters came on-line, the street had suddenly emptied. "Figures. They're all cowards when you get right down to it," Infurno said. She walked up to the truck and knocked on the front window, shielding her face with her hands to look inside. "Hey...you OK in there? Yeah? Good...hang on a sec, we'll have you right-side up in a jiffy." She went around to where the roof of the car lay against the sidewalk, and reached down to the edge. "Hey, TB, help me out here. I'll pull on the bottom, you push on the top."
"Got it." Tigerbright lifted into the air, and set her shoulder against the other edge of the roof.
"One...two...three...HEAVE!" It only took a couple of tries for them to set the truck back on all four tires. "I think it'll be OK, these things are built tough."
The drivera young man with brown hair, wearing the livery of the armored car service that owned the truckunlatched and opened his door. "Hey! Infurno, Tigerbright...man am I glad to see you! If this shipment hadn't made it, a lot of people would have been disappointed."
"Don't I know it," Infurno said. "Want us to ride shotgun with you 'til you get where you're going?"
"If you wouldn't mind..."
Infurno nodded. "Least we can do." She climbed into the passenger side of the truck, while Tigerbright perched on the roof. Its engine turned over, the driver threw it into gear, and they began to move down the road.
That was when the Clockwork Baron stepped out into the street ahead of them. "Whaoh no!" the driver said, starting to swerve.
Infurno jerked the steering wheel back on course. "Gun it."
"But"
"I said gun it!" Infurno growled. Reflexively, the driver stomped on the pedal and the truck picked up speed, slamming into the shambling robot at forty miles per hour. Just as they hit, Tigerbright fired off a double fire blast from the truck's roof, and the combined impacts exploded the Baron into a shower of metal parts.
"YES!!!" Tigerbright whooped. "Take that, you bucket of bolts!" The driver looked somewhere between relieved and hopeful that the damage to the truck wouldn't come out of his paycheck.
A few minutes later, the armored truck reached its destination: the plaza in the shadow of the tall concrete pylon, not far from the Faultline hazard zone. Vitaly Cherenko waved as they drove past. "Is he always there?" Tigerbright wondered to Infurno over their team chat comlink. "Doesn't he ever, y'know, sleep or anything?"
"Well, he is a big ol' gee-whiz super-mystic," Infurno said. "Maybe he doesn't need it."
The truck pulled in behind a small shop just off the plaza, whose sign proclaimed it to be "The Wizards Well"a comic, game, and book shopand exhorted the viewer to "Imagine yourself a new life!" As the truck backed into the loading dock, they were met by a man who might well have been the mustachio'd, goatee'd wizard from the placard, right down to the pointed hat. "Oh, marvelous, marvelous! You made it! Was there any trouble?"
"Nothing Infurno and Tigerbright here couldn't handle," the driver said, stepping down. "To tell the truth, they really saved my baconand your shipment."
"Oh, it was nothing, really," Tigerbright said.
"Just doing our job," Infurno said. Then, as the four of them walked around to open the back of the truck, Infurno added, "And though we wouldn't normally think of asking for a reward, well, do you think maybe this time...?"
The spry old man in the wizard costume chuckled. "Oh-ho-ho, it's like that, is it?" He fitted a key to the only-slightly-bent lock and pulled the door open, revealing stacks of boxes sporting a big "Scholastic" logo. A couple of them had burst open when the truck had been knocked on its side, spilling their brightly-colored rectangular contents across the truck's interior, but none looked badly damaged. The man poked his finger in the air a few times as he mentally counted the boxes and the unboxed contents. "All here. Good." He grinned at the two heroes. "Oh, yes, I do believe we can...how do they say it? 'Comp' a couple for you..." But as Infurno started to reach for one, he caught her by the wrist with greater strength than by all rights he should have possessed. "...but not for another eighteen hours, I'm afraid."
Infurno blinked. "What? But...aw, come on! We just saved the whole shipment for you!"
"I know, and I'm properly grateful, believe you me. But I can make no exceptions, not even for this." The old man shook his head. "The contract was very clear. You heard about what happened in Canada? It would be more than my shop was worth if I broke it."
"Aw, not the whole 'lawyer' thing again," Infurno groaned. "What is this, City of Lawyers?"
"Oh, do not misapprehend me. I know how to deal with lawyers," the old man said with a glint in his eye. "But do you honestly believe, in this world of heroes and magic, that such an important contract would be enforced with measures strictly mundane?" The back door to the shop opened and a couple more wizard-costumed employees came out with dollies to cart the boxes back into the shop. "No, I am quite sorry, my heroic friends...but you will have to wait for midnight, along with the rest of the world, to catch your first glimpse of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." He let go of her wrist. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do..."
Infurno and Tigerbright found themselves gently but firmly shuffled off to one side as the boxes of books swiftly disappeared from the back of the armored truck into the protected confines of the store. And they were protected, Infurno realized; she wasn't an expert in magic but her fur was tingling in the way that it usually did only in the presence of powerful warding spells. It would take more than a bunch of Freakshow to get their hands on those books now.
Infurno sighed. "Well, guess we might as well hit the tram. Head home, get some sleep so we can be back here at midnight."
"Yeah." Tigerbright launched into the air, heading back north. "You know what we should have done? We should have borrowed those chameleon suits again and helped the Freaks. At least then we'd have our copies now..."
"Well, nobody ever said the life of a hero was an easy one, TB." Infurno looked over her shoulder at the store one last time, then followed her sister. "At least we've all got something to look forward to tonight."
((Happy Harry Potter Day's Eve, everyone! Hope you get your books on time! And NO SPOILERS IN-GAME!!!))