Chapter Text
Did hero work have to exist?
Wemmbu questioned that everyday, always coming to the same exact answer; 'yes'
It was hard being a hero, Wemmbu knew that coming into it, he used to have a mentor. Who eventually left him because he was 'reckless' or whatever the hell that meant. The hero committee's rules also didn't make any sense to him, they were outdated, though the public tended to disagree. Wemmbu hardly went on Mojaja now, it was painful reading all the hate he and the rest of Floor 49 got.
Though he had to admit, seeing Flame get well.... flamed may have been funny to him. It was always hilarious to see his eyebrows furrow when he read a post comparing him to LionHeart, his older brother, who happened to be a guardian, top 7 on the rankings.
Wait.
What time is it?
"SHIT!" He yelled, throwing off the blankets and quickly getting up from bed. He was gonna be late.
TO BREAKFAST.
And they were making PANCAKES AND WAFFLES. He can't let Spoke have all the waffles bro. They are the superior breakfast food.
Well other than bacon.
That was pretty good too.
Wemmbu rushed to put on his hero uniform, mostly a purple hero suit with black along where his hands would be, the collar, and other various places. He tied up his long purple hair into a ponytail, careful not to accidentally hit his horns (he had done that way too much).
See, he lived in the hero tower, most heroes did. It was a part of protocol that heroes had to wear their hero outfits when in the tower. A rule made after the top 14th hero betrayed a couple years ago and is now the fourth strongest villain, better known as Null King.
Wemmbu put on his mask, a purple circle with a ‘ :] ‘ on it, along with some tiny doodles from Squiddo. Clasping the straps together at the back of his head, Wemmbu fully became top 42 hero, 'Arsenal'. Eggchan, his long-term friend with the ability to know anything if he asked a question about it, had chosen the name for Wemmbu. Something about Wemmbu not having style. Which he thought was absolutely absurd, he had great style!
He stepped out of his room, looking down the hall of floor 49, seeing that Theo and Spoke still hadn’t cleaned up the mess from last night. They had played monopoly.
Parrot confiscated monopoly after that.
It was that bad.
Wemmbu sighed, making his way down the hallway, seeing that everyone’s rooms were open, he knew they were all awake, he assumed that they all were at the cafeteria. The hero tower, for some reason, had like 100 floors, the guardians resided at floor 100, they had a beautiful view of the city, at least that was what Flame had said.
The cafeteria floor was around floor 6. Then floor 5 and 4 were the medical wings. Floor 3 is where support and all the technological people stayed, it's where heroes go to get their suits fixed or new gadgets, whatever. Floor 2 is the armoury, and of course some other support people make new weapons for whatever hero comes in, typically the hero will just let the support know what they relatively want and support will see if they can make it a real thing, with slight changes of course.
Wemmbu made the excruciating long walk to the elevators, which is funny considering he’s a hero and the elevator was literally a few metres away from his bedroom. He clicked the down button waiting impatiently for the elevator to arrive. While waiting he looked at the picture on the wall, it was of the team’s first day being together, that was 2 years ago, when he was 19. They all looked so innocent, bright smiles, they all were so happy to have been put into a team. Even if most of them had been left by their mentors.
Every hero was supposed to have a mentor for their first year, Wemmbu was paired with Aquaforce, another weapon creation hero, stronger than Wemmbu though, Aquaforce used water to make weapons, causing him to hydrate a LOT. Wemmbu’s weapon creation uses energy. Aqua left him after 6 months.
Wemmbu walked into the elevator, clicking floor 6, the elevator went down, while of course Wemmbu leaned against the back wall. The elevator dinged when he reached the cafeteria, he slipped through the doors as they opened to a size he could actually fit through.
Noise.
That was his first thought.
The cafeteria was filled with noise. Hero teams sitting together, masks lifted just slightly to eat some food, or completely off. Some talked about missions, rankings, or well some glanced at Wemmbu, muttering, probably about floor 49’s last mission. Although all civilians in the area were safely evacuated with minor injuries, property was damaged severely, a block of district 8 was… ruined. Some buildings were a little destroyed due to explosions and exploits.
It didn’t matter that all civilians in the fight had been evacuated from the area safely with only minor injuries. All that mattered to the public, and the hero committee, was that property was ruined. No, not that all civilians survived, or that the villains were successfully arrested. Property damage.
Why did it matter?
The rules were outdated by a hundred years!
They were irrelevant.
Wemmbu walked over to the rest of Floor 49, sitting down next to Parrot, better known as Prismwing, the team leader. Well he was the only responsible one, he typically planned fights, but they always went wrong somehow. Prismwing had the power of mimicry, he was also REALLY smart, a certified nerd, though it was a good thing, but Wemmbu would never say that aloud.
Around the table were the rest of his teammates;
Immortalis, Flame, with the power of fire, he’s a blaze hybrid, got it from his mother who had escaped the Nether when the villains had just taken over it which was like 24 years ago. Flame gets a LOT of backlash because blazes are from the nether and that dimension is the villains. So you can assume how bad Mojaja can get. Flame takes cooling pills. His body overheats a lot when he uses his power, so Spoke typically will exploit cooling pills for Flame. Which might be illegal but is fine.
Then we had Glitch, Spoke, he has the power of exploits, dangerous things, sometimes he could fall into a coma, or be paralysed if he used too much. Spoke always said he wouldn’t do crazy commands, but he always ended up passing out either during or after fights.
Bombardier, Theo, the smallest bird, with the power of explosions, being able to control range, make TNT minecarts, which was typically his go too. He and Spoke were typically the reason for Floor 49’s property destruction, but the team will always appreciate the two.
Gatewatch, Planet, he has the power of teleportation, along with that he can also make portals, though it takes a lot of energy and thought because he actually has to map out the place he wants to go to in his head, so he can actually form the portal.
Springstep, Jumperwho, or Jumper for short. She has heightened physical abilities, she can hit real hard. Though, she was ditched by her mentor because she accidentally kicked a car and it kinda got crushed. Wemmbu thought that was stupid, it was an accident and it wasn’t even that big of a deal, the hero committee got the civilian a new one.
Silvertongue, Prince Zam, he has voice manipulation. Though the power only lasts 5 minutes on someone, and depending on how powerful the words he says is, his throat will be sore. So he can’t exactly go around saying ‘Kill yourself!’, or his vocal cords would probably need a rest for a week or two.
Silverclaw, Pangi, adaptive scales, his scales will adapt to things, so for example, if he’s fighting a villain with fire abilities, Pangi’s scales will become heat resistant! It’s pretty cool, though if there are too many types of powers his scales will overload and hurt himself instead.
Stormspark, Derapchu, electricity, he can electric shock people, he’s currently trying to make lightning, but it hasn’t worked yet because storms barely happen anymore because of Pirate King, and Derapchu doesn’t exactly have a mentor to help him.
Inkweaver, Squiddo, she has the power to make anything she draws a reality, although sometimes she runs out of ink or whatever she wants would take too much time to fully draw to actually form it.
They were all sitting around the table, and Parrot passed Wemmbu a tray of food. He always tends to get the food for everyone, and Jumper tends to help him out with carrying the food on over. Wemmbu started eating, tuning in on the conversation as he did so.
“What do you think the next mission will be?” Spoke mouth full of pancakes as he spoke.
“You're disgusting.” Zam said, judging Spoke with a side eye. "It’s probably going to be something small. After all, we didn’t do well on the last one.”
Squiddo spoke up from Wemmbu’s left. “I thought we did pretty well. Didn’t you Jumper?”
Jumper glanced up, “I think that we did well, who cares what the public says anyway?” A few others nodded along with that. They knew that Mojaja was a horrible social media website, especially for them. Constantly belittled every single day, and every mission they ever do. Mojaja was weird, villains literally posted stuff on there and somehow they found a way to not be tracked down. Heroes did have official accounts but barely any hero actually uses it, they just like to use it for marketing. Especially with the guardians.
Parrot spoke up from Wemmbu’s right. “Well the odds are that it’s a small mission for the day. Our last mission didn’t go that well, and given our popularity, we’re not the best at big missions, like protecting the end.”
Theo groaned, looking over at Parrot. “We’re ranked 42 in teams! Why the hell are we STILL doing small missions. I’m tired of dealing with robberies!”
“Because the hero committee hates us.” Flame muttered, “we aren’t the best people to market and the public doesn’t like us either. No point in sending us out bro.” He pushed his food around with a fork, looking down at his tray.
Wemmbu rolled his eyes. “As if you get hate.” Parrot stared at Wemmbu, shaking his head slightly. Wemmbu didn’t listen, staring at Flame, he couldn’t see Flame’s eyes through the blindfold but he could guess Flame was glaring at him. Wemmbu smirked, “You mad Flamey?”
“Bro, you literally have the worst fashion sense known to man. Your ‘hate’ is just constructive criticism." Flame snapped back, dropping his fork onto the tray. The others were glancing over awkwardly, Pangi looked uncomfortable, and Jumper looked like she wanted to say something, though Squiddo’s hand on her shoulder and a shake of her head caused Jumper to pause and eventually turn back to her food.
Wemmbu’s smirk faltered at that, turning into a scowl. “At least it’s better than yours!” His voice raised, causing a few heroes to look in their direction. “You just wear sweatpants and a hoodie! You dress like a homeless person!”
“You literally wear a corset! You're basically a femboy!”
“That has nothing to do with this!”
“Bro we’re talking about fashion??? Are you slow!?”
“SHUT UP!”
They paused, turning to Parrot who had yelled at them.
Parrot gestured around them, whispering. That’s right, Wemmbu, stupidly, had forgotten they weren’t the only people in the room. Floor 49 sat there in silence, awkwardly eating or just staring at the table as they tried to block out the whispers.
“How are they still heroes?” One of the heroes said.
“They just cause chaos.”
“Should be fired.”
“Their literally lost causes.”
That last one stung, luckily Planet stood up and gestured for the others to leave with him. They followed, making the walk of shame back to the elevators to take them back to floor 49. As soon as they had made it to the floor, Mapicc turned to Wemmbu and Flame.
“What the hell was that?”
Parrot glanced at him, dragging a hand down his face. “Mapicc.”
Mapicc whipped his head around to look at him. “No! Parrot, c’mon, bro! We’re already hated by everyone. These two’s dumb rivalry feeds into that!”
Wemmbu snapped at that, “It’s not dumb!”
“It kinda is.” Zam spoke up, causing Wemmbu to glare at him. “Look man, I know it’s hard to accept, but like everyone knowing about that rivalry is making people think we have personal hatred for one another.”
Pangi nodded, “Why do you guys even hate each other?" He asked, tilting his head slightly.
Wemmbu and Flame were silent, Wemmbu avoided eye contact and Flame seemed to be doing the same, judging by his body language.
“You don’t know?!” Theo and Mapicc both yelled out at the same time.
Planet looked in between all of them, before speaking up. “Maybe we should all just relax?” He said softly, “I thought we all accepted that everyone hates us already. Flame and Wemmbu getting over a rivalry isn’t going to change anything with the public or rankings.”
Jumper nodded, “Planet’s right, nothing's going to change if they suddenly stop. It’s best if we just get over this.”
Squiddo smiled, “why don’t we play Uno?”
Spoke smirked. “I think we should play monopoly!”
Parrot grimaced, “absolutely NOT.”
After a quick game of monopoly, Theo was currently holding down Spoke for using cheats to win the game. Flame was helping and Mapicc was cheering Theo on. Parrot was reading a book on the couch, Jumper was talking to Planet about what to do with these idiots, Zam and Pangi were watching the whole thing go down with Squiddo and Wemmbu, all four sharing popcorn between them.
While this chaos was going down, suddenly a beeping noise came from everyone's communicators, which were earpieces so that they could talk to each other or call the hero committee for backup during fights.
The moment paused as Parrot answered the call for all of them.
“Floor 49, report to district 9, team of 13 bandits currently terrorising the district. Civilian casualty without interference - 67%, property damage without interference - 42%, probability of mission success - 79%.”
Masks were on rather quickly, as the group quickly made their way over to Gatewatch, Planet, who was holding out his arms in front of himself, summoning a portal in a quick flash, through that portal, Arsenal, Wemmbu, could see the chaos that was happening. He followed the others through the portal.
Loud. Seemed to be the theme of every bad place Wemmbu stepped foot in. The group of 13 bandits had gathered a group of around 7 hostages, primarily women and children.
Why women? Can’t bandits take men hostage once in a while? like they can be weak too bro, it’s not just women, don’t be sexist. That’s even worse than being a villain. Wemmbu always hated that women were always pictured as the damsel in distress, women are strong, just look at Springstep and Inkweaver, they’re such baddies.
Arsenal should lock in. He snapped out of his thoughts as he actually paid attention to the scene before him. Prismwing was currently doing his best to get the bandits to lower their weapons, trying to prevent damage to the civilians. Arsenal glanced back, at the first of Floor 49, he noticed Gatewatch getting his hands ready to summon another portal, bigger than before as he was actually taking the time to charge up the portal.
The bandits leader, at least Arsenal figured they were the leader, was currently threatening Prismwing to back up. Prismwing was trying to reassure them that they weren’t going to hurt them if they didn’t hurt the civilians.
Unfortunately, the bandit didn’t listen and aimed a gun at one of the civilian's head, a child that looked about 9. She was crying, clutching a Heliarch push tightly as she cried for her mama. A woman, the child’s mother, was yelling, pushing against a bandit's grip as she tried to reach her child.
The bandit didn’t care about to pull the trigger on the little girl.
‘BANG’
The girl was gone, pulled through a portal with the rest of the hostages the second before the man pulled the trigger.
In a flash, Immortalis and Springstep were attacking the bandits, fire scorched the concrete. The hostages were being protected by Inkweaver and Silvertongue. Prismwing had seemingly taken to the skies, trying to keep the fight coordinated through their communicators.
They were all doing relatively well this time, Bombardier wasn’t bombing the place that much, and Glitch wasn’t even using major commands. Arsenal was fighting alongside Silverclaw, swinging a sword that he’d conjured up to slice at the enemy with. Everything was going rather smoothly.
Which should’ve been their first warning.
It was until most of the bandits were already captured that Arsenal started having suspicions of the whole fight. Why would a group of 13, clearly experienced bandits, just go down that easily? They clearly knew what they were doing, they had hostages and targeted a child, forcing Floor 49 to intervene and arrest because of rule 15.
‘Step in if a child is at risk of injury or death.’
Everything was in the bandits favor. It seemed like no one else in the team realised this as they had just clipped handcuffs around the last bandit. Maybe Arsenal was just overthinking it.
Rain.
It was raining. That was sudden. That was unusual. It never rained because of-
Shit.
“Inkweaver, left, wall!” Arsenal shouted, Inkweaver understood, drawing a wall just in time to block a wave that seemingly came out of nowhere.
“Good reflexes!” A distorted voice called out over the rain, there, standing on a platform made of water was Pirate King. Top 5 villain, in the world. He was holding a trident, his mask covered his lower face, did nothing to hide the smirk in his eyes.
It didn’t make sense. Floor 49 wasn’t even relatively a problem to Pirate King, he was too strong to care. So what was he even doing here?
Another wave came from behind them, splitting suddenly to force Floor 49 away from each other. The first thing Arsenal noticed when he opened his eyes again was that Inkweaver was, thankfully, with the civilians. The next thing he noticed was string. Green string.
“Fuck.” Arsenal muttered, quickly standing on his feet as he whipped his head around. Puppet Master was standing near the bandits, the green strings wrapping around them, eyes going green, Puppet Master then unlocked their handcuffs.
This was too unusual, Puppet Master and Pirate King barely teamed up, Puppet Master was the top 7 villain, it was too weird and they only ever teamed up when fighting the Guardians. Floor 49 wasn’t even close to that level.
Another wave, along with Puppet Master controlling the 13 bandits to suddenly attack them along with Pirate King coming down from the platform to join the fight. Chaos. It was chaos. Bombardier was fighting a group of bandits, using his explosives which caused buildings to break, Immortalis’ fire was scorching the buildings. Glitch was exploiting the terrain, electricity was bouncing off of the floor from Stormspark, Inkweaver was struggling to form walls to block the waves, the civilians were huddled behind her. Silverclaw and Silvertongue somehow managed to end up together and were fighting 4 bandits. Prismwing had landed on the ground and was using a bow to shoot at some of the bandits, Springstep was with him, helping with close range as Prismwing wasn’t exactly known for fighting.
Arsenal on the other hand, was fighting a 2v1. Against fucking Pirate King and Puppet Master. For some reason, the two villains had decided that they were fighting him, specifically.
Just as Arsenal fought it couldn’t get worse, his body suddenly slowed down, and he was kicked into a brick wall. Water pushed him back onto the broken road, and strings tugged him back into a punch from Puppet Master.
Chronolock had shown up, top 6, time control and was currently the only known Enderling in the world. Now Arsenal was getting 3v1’d, he wasn’t even able to fight back, the strings were pulling him around and if he managed to break off, Pirate King would send a wave to push him towards him so he could stab him with his trident. Either that or Chronolock would slow time down so he was slower or maybe faster and run himself into the floor.
Either way, this wasn’t a good position to be in. The more he used his energy on making a weapon to fight, the more sluggish his movements became. Arsenal couldn’t focus, water, time, strings, noise–it was too much!
Arsenal didn’t even know how he was standing, blood was gushing out of his right shoulder blade. He felt like he should just pass out, or curl into a ball and cry. Maybe Aqua and those heroes were right, maybe he was a lost cause. It wouldn’t matter if he’s dead, surely he was going to die here.
A wave hit, and suddenly the world went black.
-Parrot-
He didn’t know what to do. Prismwing could hardly fight by himself! His bow had been lost from the massacre that was waves of Pirate King’s powers. And he had been split off from Springstep.
Despite being the smartest out of the group, Prismwing couldn’t figure out a plan for once, his communicator wasn’t working, probably because of the onslaught of water. He was currently running from two bandits, trying to make it to Bombardier, when he saw Arsenal’s situation.
He had watched desperately as Arsenal hit the ground, passed out, either from blood loss or energy loss. Neither good. The three villains stood over him, looking at each other before deciding to wrap Arsenal up in Puppet Master’s strings and splitting off to fight different heroes.
Prismwing needed a way to get Arsenal out of there, unfortunately, it was nearly impossible. He couldn’t call the hero committee nor could he tell the others what was happening. The trio of villains must have planned this whole thing out and gotten rid of their only communication system.
Instead of dwelling on Arsenal, for now at least, Prismwing turned his attention to Inkweaver and the civilians. They couldn’t risk them dying, no matter what, so Prismwing took the risk, and shot into the air.
At first, the storm pushed him around a lot, before Prismwing eventually balanced himself in the air and flapped his wings, forcing himself forward. Luckily, none of the villains had noticed that he was in the air again. Prismwing quickly landed near Inkweaver, looking around at the civilians, while she was making more walls.
He noticed that most of the civilians were now drenched in water, some had minor injuries, probably from being pushed around by the waves and slammed into buildings or the concrete.
Aside from that they all seemed relatively unharmed, Prismwing let out a sigh or relief. He went over to the group of civilians, kneeling down. “Are you all okay?” He spoke softly.
A woman nodded, Prismwing gave a reassuring smile. “You're all going to be okay, let me promise you that. All I need is one of you to call the hero committee.” The civilians looked at one another, before the woman pulled out her phone and dialled the committee. She gave the phone to Prismwing.
Pressing the phone to one ear, Prismwing waited patiently for the call to be answered. It didn’t take long.
“Hero agency, your emergan-”
“This is Prismwing reporting from district 8. We require immediate backup.” He cut the man off, speaking rather firmly.
The man spoke up again, “details.”
Prismwing didn’t hesitate. “We had successfully secured the bandits, before Pirate King appeared and split all of us up. Puppet Master came in and freed the bandits, controlling them with his power. During the fight Chronolock had appeared.” He paused, before continuing, “All civilians are currently with me and Inkweaver. Communicators are down, and Arsenal has passed out from being 3v1’d by the top villains.”
Prismwing spoke again after catching his breath. “We cannot safely remove the civilians and it’s very likely that Glitch will pass out soon as well. Inkweaver is running out of paper. We require backup.”
The other end of the call was silent for a moment, before the man spoke again. “The guardians will be sent over immediately, try to hold on a little longer.” The call ended, and Prismwing gave the woman back her phone.
Just wait for the guardians.
That's easy enough.
Right?