"New Achievement! Crushing Blow! You struck with a single attack that did over 5000% of your base damage and you only did it at level 13! You know, most Augments without Super Strength have to wait until at least the late teens before they get this achievement, but you just had to go and be an overachiever, didn't you? This is a Gold Level achievement. Reward: You have received an A:Tier loot box."
As I was already used to whenever these crime alerts came up, I could see several sets of police lights heading our way, granted this set was on a group of officers on bicycles. Swansong set herself down on the ground as she took in the wreckage. Instead of climbing my way out of the center of the downed spider, I briefly activated Personal Gravity Laws and lifted myself up and over before setting myself down.
“Thanks for the assist there,” I said as I held a hand out toward her that she grabbed with a delicate hand and shook.
“Are you sure you needed my help?” Swansong asked, a skeptical brow obviously raised even under her thin white mask. There was a spattering of freckles that covered her cheeks and forehead that were impossible to miss as the sun shined down over us.
“Well you certainly made it go quicker, I can say that for sure,” I said with an awkward laugh as we turned to look down at the debris. “Any idea where the hell this thing came from?”
"Beats me," She replied with a shrug. She took a few steps forward and leaned down toward the debris with a single hand outstretched. She was about to say something when I saw her look over at the officers getting well within earshot. Her eyes met mine for just a moment before our chat menu opened back up.
I stepped up to the debris myself, opening the small floating menu beside the debris and finding that the Loot option was completely greyed out, making it impossible to select. Given the amount of mini-spiders that the Spider Construct had been spitting out, it should have had an inventory that it had held them in, especially since it wasn’t like there was a factory still trying to produce them in the rubble. I thought about it for a moment as I knelt down, and examined one of the crushed mini-spiders.
The police officers finally got up to us, parking their bikes and wandering over to us with wide smiles hidden behind practically identical faces. The two men each had on a pair of aviators and sported mustaches that were entirely too bushy. This would have made them look like identical twins, if it hadn’t been for the fact that one of them was every bit of six and a half feet tall while the other couldn’t have been much taller than five feet total.
Swansong seemed to back away just slightly with a small wave to a crowd that had followed the officers closer to the debris. A few other officers that had stayed back were starting to put up police tape and I looked over to the approaching pair, highlighting them and finding myself having to suppress an exacerbated sigh as I knew what was coming.
“Lieutenants Dane and Blaine. These are Non-Sapient Friendly NPCs. These two fine gentlemen are well respected within the Central Park Precinct, often known for providing random daily lunches to the rest of their crew. Now, Axio hasn’t told me what exactly the dynamic between this matching vertically different duo is. Are they brothers? Best friends?... Are they LOVERS?! Let’s just hope the answer isn’t all three.”
“Now, please tell me that one of you two has a way to clean this mess up?” Lt. Dane, the shorter of the two officers, said in a deep voice that I was not expecting. I briefly looked down at the pile of rubble and then back to the officers before I gave them a bit of a sheepish smile. I was about to respond when the pair started to laugh. “Ah sorry, gotta use that one every time, y’know?”
“Ah, well yeah, if the joke works, it works right?” I said with an awkward laugh of my own. “Sorry, I’m L-”
“Loophole right? Yah took down that band of rampaging snakes a couple days ago over on 9th,” Lt. Blaine said in a way too giddy voice before he cleared his throat, “Sorry, it’s part of the job to keep in the loop with you local Augments. Like Swansong back there, you’ve made quite the name for yourself up in East Harlem young lady.”
I looked back in time to catch a deep red blush pass over her cheeks as she rubbed the back of her head nervously, “I’m just doing my part.”
“Nonsense, how many wards have you cleared out now?” Lt. Blaine asked and I looked back toward her with my brow raised. Lt. Dane cleared his throats and Lt. Blaine looked at him sheepishly. “Ah, sorry… not the time for that. We’ll get the cleanup crew out here in a jiffy, you know how the city is, they’ll take you guys leaving piles of ruin in the park here over destroying buildings around the city any day.”
“Well that is good to know, though these kinda messes definitely ruin the place and I know better than anyone how nice the park can be when it isn’t being used as a battleground,” I said and nodded back to Swansong. “I really couldn’t have done it without Swansong back there. I was really just running in circles till she showed up.”
I heard what amounted to a squeak of surprise come from behind me but Blaine nodded as he reached out a hand toward me, “Well we appreciate the work all the same, that thing could have been a real problem had you two not dropped in.”
“It’s what we do,” I replied and shook his hand.
“Give us a call anytime you need a cleanup if it does happen again,” Blaine said, handing me several business cards. “And come on by the precinct some time, we could always use a good set of Augments on patrol.”
“Crime Alert Completed! An Assault on Central Park. I gotta say, that was a pretty killer knockout blow. I think you may have gone just a bit overboard but results are results. Reward: You have received 10,000 credits and contact cards for Lt. Dane and Lt. Blaine have been added to your contact book.”
I looked back over at Swansong and she gave me a thumbs up and a wide smile as she started to lift from the ground. I still had the Exhausted debuff from utilizing my Surge, but my Stamina had climbed back up to just over 20% already. I started to lift off from the ground, giving one more wave to the distant crowd before turning and following Swansong as she darted toward one of the buildings on the outskirts of the park.
It took me putting on just a bit of speed to keep up with her as she seemed to soar effortlessly and I noticed what almost looked like a trail of stardust that glimmered out from under the twin tailed cape she wore on her back. She set herself down atop a building on the east side of the park, slowly coming to a gentle landing.
“Well that was really intense,” Swansong said, her shoulders slumping ever so slightly. She materialized a Stamina Injector in her hand and pressed it into her side which I was quick to follow. We probably could have waited to let it refill, but the Enhanced Injectors that could replenish 50% of a bar weren’t that hard to come by and it was better to be ready, especially with robots just falling from the sky.
“Yeah, what are the chances this is the only one that dropped from the sky?” I asked, scratching my chin as I sat down on the ledge.
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“Umm… Hopefully high?” Swansong said with a nervous laugh.
"Yeah I'm not so sure, I swear I saw other stuff flying around the city this morning," I said, looking behind me and back out at the city. I kept my focus above the buildings searching for that same glint of metal that I had seen earlier with no luck.
“Maybe, but even if they were pretty close, I think you'd probably be fine," She said and I turned to look back at her curiously, but she just smiled. "I mean, that was one hell of a punch, why didn't you just lead with that?"
“Besides the fact that it took my entire bar? That thing had a shield, my initial attack barely did anything to it but the insides weren’t guarded at all. I didn’t really want to throw the attack until I knew it was gonna work if you know what I mean,” I said with a shrug and she looked at me skeptically.
“Yeah but that was a really strong punch, especially for your level. That spider had to weigh a ton and you sent it flying like it was a beach ball… I’d think your powerset was something super strength related if it made even a bit of sense with all the other stuff I just saw you do.”
“It’s uh…” I said, briefly stopping myself before soldiering on anyway. “Let’s just say that Hercules' song of yours combos really well with my Launchpad ability.”
“Oh yeah?” She asked looking over at me curiously. “How so?”
“Err…” I hesitated again. Given just how versatile my powerset was, I had been making it a habit of keeping just what I could do relatively to myself. I had thought that had been a side effect of the Acceptance Matrix trying to keep some tension and mistrust between us Augments, but that feeling was still lingering as I looked at the girl that, while she had been helpful, was also a complete stranger to me.
“Aw come on, just tell me,” She practically pleaded, almost as if she was reading my mind. I briefly wondered if that had been a part of her powerset when I realized that she probably would have overheard me thinking about my abilities already if she was. “I know everyone likes to hide what they can do and I get it but like, with all the talk about the regions and teamwork, Axio basically screamed that this next Phase is gonna be easier if we work together. I’m not much of a fighter, I basically have like, one ability that is sort of combat related. I’m not saying anything like “Hey let’s go and make a squad” but like, isn’t it better to have someone to work with?”
“I… Okay I’m not trying to be rude or ignore your question, I promise I’m not, but how are you as high on the leaderboard as you if you aren’t a fighter? How’d you get through the bikers attacking your neighborhood?” I asked.
“Bikers?” Swansong asked, looking genuinely confused. “I didn’t have any fighting to do, my main mission in the first phase was dealing with a pandemic that started to spread…”
“A pandemic?” I started before I held up a finger, and thought internally. “I thought you said that new Augments always had some sort of non-Sapient enemy to start them off?”
“Oh look, I lied about something that wasn’t relevant to you at the time, aren't we all just soooooo surprised. I mean really, how would you have felt if you knew that support types without combat abilities had much different challenges to deal with than you combat types?” Angie said. “Contrary to what you seem to believe, Axio isn’t trying to kill you all. He’s made it pretty clear he wants you all to continue ascending to greater heights.”
“Get the info you were looking for?” Swansong asked as she crossed her arms over her chest. I had been making it a point not to pay too close attention to the skintight outfit she had on, but the motion made it a bit hard to ignore and I quickly diverted my eyes before she noticed.
“My P.A.I.s kinda an asshole. She likes to give me half truthful information, or like, not the whole picture and then frame it as being helpful cause she only gave me the “relevant” information,” I said with a sigh and immediately ignored Angie as she started to grumble in the back of my head. “Not much I can do about that now though… So you had a pandemic to deal with? How’d that rocket your score up?”
“Hey now, you still haven’t told me how that punch of yours happened and now you want me to reveal my secrets? That’s not very gentlemanly of you,” She said with a half smile.
“To be fair, I did tell you the general way it happened,” I said and she rolled her eyes.
“Well then, to be general, I learned early on that healing Sapients is a Phase Point Gain item. They vary in point value based on just how sick they are and a few other factors, but heal enough and your score can go really high,” She said with a soft smile. "It's been really nice being able to go around and heal people of stuff they never thought they'd have healed..."
“That’s… that’s actually really cool… kinda feels like you’ve done a lot more important stuff than I’ve done,” I said with an awkward laugh and to this she let out a wide smile.
“I’m just doing what I can, and I want to keep doing what I can, which means making it through the next phase too. But again, before we get to that, I really want to know how you delivered that kind of blow at this level,” She said and I let out a sigh. I couldn’t really see the harm in telling her how this specific thing worked, though I was a bit worried Axio might decided to “patch” how my ability worked just to weaken it. Knowing I had just gotten an achievement for the very attack that Swansong was curious about meant that if Axio was going to care about it, he already knew exactly what I had done, so I wasn't giving up an exploit that I had discovered for nothing.
“My primary power gives me a lot of versatility and my abilities kinda lend to that, but in truth there was a bit of extreme doubling going on for me that really just put all the pieces together. I can explain it if you really want to know just how I knocked the carapace off that thing, but it basically just comes down to stacking effects,” I said and watched as her eyes widen and her smile nearly split her face in half.
“I think I can follow so try me.”
“Okay, basically the punch I threw got amplified three times. First I had my main ability that I poured most of my Stamina into for the punch itself, bringing the damage up to around 1,300%. It sorta starts amplifying faster after I throw more than 50% of my Stamina into it and I never really was good at keeping perfect track of it, but it's definitely around there," I started to explain and she nodded in response that she was following, so I continued. "Well, then your song doubled that strike up to 2,600% and then there was the way I delivered that blow. My Launchpad ability lets me go rocketing up into the sky really quickly if I’m using a different ability already. I don’t know if you saw me crash down on the spider, but that’s a different ability of mine and Launchpad can refresh it to let me use it again.”
“I must have missed that, I had been flying up at the northern edge when I got a Crime Alert to assist. I only was just getting into range when you beat the first leg off of it,” She explained.
“Well that’s not relevant, it was just to try to explain the whole “versatility” thing in my powerset,” I said and she nodded again as she leaned back against the door to the stairwell of the relatively small rooftop. “Launchpad can also combo with my punch. If I deliver a blow after being shot upward, it also doubles the total value of the strike that landed. I doubt it would have mattered exactly which way those two amplifications took effect since they are both doubling, but I don't know, almost feels like cheating that I was able to double it up twice like that.”
“So… your punch basically did over 5000% of your base damage in that single strike?” She asked as her eyes lit up, “I mean… I’m really not saying we need to make a squad but you’ve only seen two of my songs and they both kinda complimented your abilities, don’t you think? It would probably make for the start of a pretty good combo and I have a lot more than just damage amplifying songs.”
“She’s kinda pushy, I’m not sure if I like her,” Angie said.
“Not now, Angie,” I shot back before I looked at Swansong curiously. “Well you are a lot more friendly than the other Augment in the city I’ve had to deal with, but I gotta say… you’ve really only seen me fight this one time… If you’re a healer and a buffer, you could probably team up with just about anyone... Not that I'm not flattered or anything, but why me exactly?”
“To be fair, I haven’t really run into a whole lot of others, though I haven’t been that far out of East Harlem,” She explained.
“Which makes it even more curious,” I said as I continued to probe.
While she certainly seemed nice, the odd desire to even consider a longer term squad after only just meeting me should have been sending up red flags. After all of the bullshit that had come with discovering the truth behind SnakeBite, I probably should have thanked her for the help and flown the other way before she turned out to be another one of TechWarden’s unwilling accomplices. But for all the suspicions I should have had, nothing about her screamed suspicious.
“Okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but promise to keep an open mind?” Swansong said with an almost hopeful look and I found my curiosity piqued.
“Well you can’t just say that and not expect a guy to want to know where you’re going with this,” I said with a laugh before another blush passed over her face. I let out a forced cough to cover the laugh that was definitely not fooling her but she seemed to appreciate it all the same as her blush died down only slightly. “Sorry, sure, I can keep an open mind.”
“I… You know what, how about I show you instead,” She said as she started to lift off from the roof. “Do you have a bit of time or are you in a rush to run off and punch something?”
“That depends, you’re not about to lead me back to some weird shrine or something, are you?” I asked and the blush on her face nearly made her look like a tomato as she raised her hands up.
“No! Nothing like that!” She said and shot me a glare as I laughed. “There’s a hospital a few blocks away, there’s someone there I want you to meet.”
“And that’s going to explain why you’re being a little eager about teaming up with me?”
“More than anything I’m gonna say now,” She said with a nod and I just shrugged.
“Well I do like a good mystery and have some time to kill before my Exhausted debuff fades. Although I really hope this one doesn’t end like the last one I had to deal with… that was really not a fun time,” I said as I lifted off from the ground and waved toward the north. “Lead the way.”
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