Back To Base

Other than the cool wind that swept through the abandoned streets of London's ruins, it was actually quite a nice day.

The sun shone in a cloudless blue sky overhead. The air had a crisp coolness that was expected in the months of spring. It was the perfect sort of day, to be honest.

It was the sort of day that, had we still been in the old world, tourists would have been gathering along the banks of the Thames, flooding its shops and amusements with commerce.

As it stood, that wasn't too far from the truth even now. Though, instead of there being tourists, it was just people who weren't on shift and kids who had no school.

The water of the Thames was still too polluted, even after all this time, for anyone to consider swimming in it but had it been an option this was the sort of day that might have made people consider going for a dip.

I breathed in the atmosphere for a few moments before pushing my way through the crowds, my hands deep in my pockets to protect the few items that were stored within them.

While the central quarter was relatively safe when compared to places like the northern quarter, that didn't mean there weren't sneak thieves and pickpockets roaming the streets, trying to get lucky.

Still, for the most part, this area was safe, if only due to the Protectors that did their rounds keeping guard.

The Protectors were the closest thing the community had to a mundane police force, and strangely enough, they weren't even bankrolled by the PHA. Instead, it was the Villains that had come together to hire the men and women of the force.

The way they figured it was that they lived in the community, so while they wanted power and territory and money, they still needed the community to exist. The main markets were the lifeblood of the community, if anyone were to attack that then the community would die. They would die.

That being said, if there was anything more serious than petty crime going on the PHA base was only half a river away. All of the carts had a special crafter tech button that could be pressed to summon someone like Crystal, Quasar or Brave in mere minutes.

I walked off the main street and cut down a side alley, inconspicuous enough that no one had seen me. Or so I thought at first. When I shot a look back over my shoulder I saw one of the Protectors staring right at me. I wondered if he was considering going after me. People who weren't up to anything didn't make a habit of taking detours toward the Northern Quarter.

In the end he chose not to, I figured that once I was out of the market I wasn't under his jurisdiction anymore.

It didn't take long for me to reach the familiar crater pocked streets of the northern quarter. The abandoned theatres loomed menacingly overhead, casting steep jagged shadows across the street.

I slipped my gauntlet onto my hand and a domino mask onto my face and activated the stealth features of the tech.

If anyone looked directly at me all they'd see is a blob of shifting shadows. Normals know not to mess with Powereds, and no other Powered was going to try and mess with something as perturbing as what I currently looked like.

Before long I found myself standing in front of the train station that led down to the base I had been taken to the night before.

With a deep breath, I entered and started down the stairs, dismissing my shadow field as I descended into the gloom. Instead, I keyed my gauntlet to emit a very low light from the central emitter. It wasn't what it was designed for, but it did the trick.

My memory on how to access the base was a little hazy, but I recalled it being simply walking onto the tracks and then down the tunnel on the left.

I found the gap in the wall after a few minutes of exploring and made my way through to the room.

"Took ya long enough," Lauren called from the sofa facing the other side of the room without even turning around. "I figured you'd probably come along, considering the way you've handled things in the past. Nice to know I wasn't wrong about you!"

"Uh… Right," I said, taken a little off guard by the display of the girl's power.

I walked into the room proper, only to find Greave standing over Allen, the younger boy face down on the ground in an effective arm lock.

"Am I interrupting something here?" I asked, ready to charge up my gauntlet again in a moments notice if I had to.

"Oh ah, Allen and I are just doing some sparring," Greave said, realising that I had arrived. "You can feel free to watch, join in, or you could not. Your choice."

"I uh… I don't mind watching. I don't think I need to join in though, crafter tech and all that," I replied.

Why would I ever need to get into hand to hand combat if I had my tech? That felt like it defeated the purpose of the whole thing.

"That's what I said!" Allen grunted from the ground, gasping when Greave twisted a little harder.

"Never know when you might be against someone with powers that counters yours," Greave intoned as if it were something he'd said many times before, "Always good to have something in reserve that you can whip out if you need to."

He let Allen go and helped the boy back to his feet.

"Right, let's try it again. You need to try and stop me from getting you in a lock, without the use of your powers," Greave ordered, falling into a ready position.

"Whatever you say," Allen shot back, he was clearly a little bit angry at being dealt with so easily.

I moved to sit next to Lauren. Watching this play out could end up being interesting.