Category: City Of Heroes

The Super Strength thing really kicked in last week when me and my trainer finally worked out the kinks in my powers and I was able to do the whole “Leaping tall buildings” thing officially. The hardest part of the test was learning to steer in mid-air so I don’t land on any Zeroes. (Technically we’re not allowed to call them Zeroes. They are “Unpowered civilians” or just Civilians”) but finally I have my Leap licence, and will be allowed to jump from rooftop to rooftop, which makes getting to these invaded offices a hell of a lot easier.

I still haven’t got to grips with the whole “Arrest” thing. The same technology that saves a hero from a terrible end (basically we’re teleported to the hospital automatically when we’re about to snuff it) means we never actually get to get any real revenge on the people who are terrorising the city. They get automatically sent to this huge sheilded pit somewhere north of Volta or something on the moment of death. Apparently this trick only works while they’re unconcious (Why the lowest minion can resist all the teleportation power Portal Corp can offer while me – a level 16 hero no less – can be immobalized by one of those Thorn pillocks is just one of those questions for the ages), so we’re sent in to beat them up a bit first. And no, nobody knows how they keep getting out again. I don’t ask these questions, that’s Statesman’s problem.

Search for Trent continues regardless. There’s nobody called “Trent Rayne” registered in the city, but in the City Of Alter Egos that’s not really a suprise. I kind of wish I hadn’t blown Laura off before I left. As much as I love her, I can’t ever bring her here. It’s just too dangerous for a normal person. The heroes aren’t really the brave ones, we have superpowers to deal with these bastards, it’s the little people who stick to the ground and live every day in the knowledge that there’s a 40% probablity they’ll be captured by the Circle of Thorns or Vaz’s minions at some point in their life. It’s a real blitz spirit, and I respect them. Still, I wish Laura was around, she’d know what to do to find Trent…

Colour is life.

Life is colour.

I am lifeblind.

I saved Emma again last night. It wasn’t Emma, but it needed to have been. She was being sacrificed by the Circle of Thorns, so I broke up the party. It was the wrong colour.

Circle of Thorns are green. Green is bad. I can see the purple fog of fear, the yellow smell of inspiration as they are about to attack, in time to parry, block and dodge. From a distance I work best, the blue ice and forces knocking them, throwing them, splitting the colours to primary.

Primary colours are better.

I remember things that were not colours, once. I remember a world where I could see things as shapes. There were sounds, too. There are sounds now, really, but the sounds are colours too. Tastes are colours – I can never eat steak again knowing it’s that shade of green, and anything that green is evil. Green, in general, means evil. So I follow the green things, and I remove them from my life, so other colours can bloom.

Now I pity those who cannot truely see the colours of the city. They describe it as grey, drab and dull. They cannot see it as I do. I know no concept of grey.

I’ve been a hero now for less than a day. I’ve arrested the hell out of forty minions of various types, broke up a conference of minor evil. For a while I teamed up with some low-levels like me to keep the streets clean. Scary stuff, more their english than anything else, I could barely understand one word in four. Another team fell apart quite quickly – ten minutes of me asking him what he formed the team for, ten minutes of utter silence as he floated six feet in the air, occasionally attracting the attention of Hellions.

I had this plan together for my secret identity, but it seems that nobody uses them here. I’ve also either got to get a job or a supergroup or something, or find some way to play the stock exchange. Saving the world may keep me in health packets but doesn’t get me a place to sleep at night. Super-heros are apparently the last acceptable form of discrimination. You can be any race, colour, creed or gender to get any job in the city, but all jobs have a “No Heroes” (Or, more usually, “No Hero’s”) rider. I can see why they don’t want to employ someone who can’t be counted on not to be saving the world instead of working his shift, but I still don’t think it’s fair.

The search for Trent continues apace. City Hall won’t let me look at the population records – I’m only a super-hero after all – to trace him the easy way, so it looks like either asking around (Who do I ask? Where would Trent go? Or Emma, for that matter) or working the system until I get to a decent security level and can get access to this kind of ‘fo. The former is time consuming and dull – I’m not the world’s greatest detective – and the latter will involve more stinking zombies, no doubt.

Ah well, I’ve found a hero hostel (Will loan me a cot for a few health-packs a night). Tomorrow will be a bright new day, with bright new zombies in it.

There’s something hideously unfair about this “Heroing” business.

I mean, thanks to a Series of Unlikely and Confusing Events involving a pocket watch and an orbital laser guidance system I’m now somewhere in the region of seven feet tall, I can eat McTacos and lay in bed continuously for a decade and still look like I’m from a body builder’s magazine, and I get a magic sword (Well, I say magic. As far as I’m concerned it’s magic. It appears when I want it to, it disappears when I don’t need it. The fact that the Regs say that it’s a Science weapon is just pointless. Unlike the sword, ah-ha) and the ability to use it. Hero. Designed to save the world from the scum of the universe.

Who can, apparently, beat me up by sneezing on me.

I mean, really. They’re DEAD CORPSES. Well, walking, whining, sneezing dead corpses, which probably goes against all the standard definitions of both death and corpse. But still, I’m a super hero. How the hell can they be almost killing me by sneezing on me?

I feel slightly better now. Time to break up this conference, rescue the hostages and sod off back home. Sooner I’m out of these stinking sewers the happier I’ll be.

I think I’m losing track here, so I thought I should start a diary so that I don’t lose anything about this really weird shit. Obviously all this stems from a couple of weeks ago with the hypnosis experiment and how badly it went. You’d have thought hypnosis accidents – if they resulted in any powers at all – would mean some kind of mind control. No, I get a whacking great sword and the muscles to use it. Plus the patterns. I’m spending a fortune in makeup so that nobody notices that Alex Rayne has the same distinctive markings as The Spiraling Shape does. Anyway, in case I show this to anyone: Had accident, Gained powers, came to Paragon City to find out what the hell I do next. It’s more or less the nexus for heroes in this dimension.

That isn’t the only reason, of course. I could have stayed in the sticks, been the top hero in a small town rather than the most insignificant in the big city. Of course, that would have rendered any ‘secret’ identity pointless, as in a small town everyone’s business is exactly that. No. I came secondarily to develop my powers, find out what causes this etc. and primarily to find out what the hell happened to my brother and his girlfriend. They eloped to here almost a year ago now, and nobody’s heard hide nor hair from them since.

Today I registered as Paragon’s newest Super Hero. I was assigned a quick clear-up job – some new drug means an entire block of the city is quarantine for a while – to keep back the hordes. These druggies were no match for my magic sword, obviously. I teamed up with another super hero – female, cute, prefers melee (as me) and uses some kind of dark magic thing for her defences – and we took out their base and enough of the druggies for the city to give us both a badge for it, then we went to our separate departments for initial assignment.

Initial assignment turns out to be zombies, mostly. A few gang wars, but some Frankensteinian fool is reanimating corpses. Not really too much trouble, though the Sword isn’t much defence against crossbows, right up until the point where I stumbled across a high level gathering in Galaxy and some kind of crazy kamikaze corpse kaboomed next to me, sending me into the hospital. Reached security clearance 4, though, so not bad for my first day.

This diary doesn’t have enough colour in it.

Nothing ever does.