ManyThings

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

Inside Flaming Municipal Recycling Plant, Brookside

---

Once Ardent learned of the homing function of his enemy's fireballs, avoiding them wasn't so much trouble. He let the flames crash against wrecked furniture and pieces of recycling equipment around the plant as he aimed to maneuver closer to Torch. It wasn't going to be easy, or so it seemed.

Briefly taken into some sort of illusory world by Marisol's power, Ardent took a moment to parse the confusing chain of events as the blistering heat soon returned to the room. The fight was over. Was the fire fake? No, it was the water that had been fake, to confuse Torch, and Ardent himself had also been caught by that hallucination for some reason. It was good to see their government oversight finally taking action, but she then immediately decided it would be a good time to offer a critique of his moves.

"Who asked you?" Ardent bristled. Had she only gotten involved because she thought he was actually going to lose?

"You should make yourself useful and try and carry him out of here. Better you than me."

"Ohh, oops. I was totally planning to leave this guy here in the fire, because I'm either evil or an idiot. But come to think of it, you're right. Lemme get on that."

Nothing was worse than being told to do something you were already about to do. Ardent made his indignation known and tried to needle the agent a little, but the flames were getting pretty thick, even without Torch adding any more onto them. Time to go.

Ardent picked up the unconscious villain and slung him over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Then, he affixed a small, oblong device to his own mouth. His compact rebreather. State-of-the-art tech, by the standards of a vigilante, at least. With that done, he extended his free hand to Mari, offering the chance to catch a flight out with him as well. It seemed she didn't have much trouble coming and going from this place, but he wasn't going to turn his back on her without quickly making the offer.

Whether he was carrying one person or two, he took to the air, flying well above the flames. Up there, the worst problem might have been smoke inhalation, but Ardent's rebreather saved him from that issue, and his passenger's gas mask presumably did the same.

As he flew, Ardent passed above Freakshow, who seemed to be making her way back inside the building. Moving alongside her were Terrazards, ignoring her in favour of doing even more damage to the burning building. He slowed down overhead, putting himself in view of the transformed hero just to make sure she didn't think he or Torch were stuck burning to death in the depths of the plant. He offered a nod, a thumbs-up. As far as he knew, this side of the crisis was handled. Hopefully she could grasp that much.

Moments later, a fresh hole was blasted through the wall, and Ardent emerged into the sun with his cargo. The hero's face and hair were slightly marred by soot, and the green jacket around his waist was little more than a pair of sleeves, but he was basically unharmed. He plopped Torch onto the grass, beside Lab Rat and the twins. Leaning down, he pulled the tranquilizer dart out of the villain's skin and then yanked the stupid mask off of Torch's face. This annoying dickhead wasn't much of a looker, Ardent was guessing.

Then, pulling the rebreather off his face, Ardent surveyed the scene. The Terrazards were under their control, the villains were all captured, and no hero was hurt. On the other hand, they couldn't completely relax, since one of the twins was quite badly injured and there was still an inferno raging at the plant. These were issues, but not high-priority ones in Ardent's mind. They could afford to take a practical approach.

He wiped soot from his face with his forearm and took out his phone, the screen only slightly warped from the heat.

"Okay. I'm calling 9-1-1."

If there was a special line for heroes to call when they needed things cleaned up, the former vigilante didn't know anything about that. For him, this was the usual move in the aftermath of a destructive fight, with an injured villain on the scene.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

Inside Flaming Municipal Recycling Plant, Brookside

@Crusader Lord@Silver Carrot

Collabed with GM @Hitman

---

Ardent felt a little embarrassed for Thing One and Thing Two as the pair immediately folded after his first attack. Resting the signpost on one shoulder, he grabbed the phone he had mounted on the wall to record the fight. If he ever posted that one, it would be a pretty damn short video. Then again, maybe short-form content was the way to go these days. More digestible.

"Hey. Quit whining. You're the ones who picked a fight with me." He talked down to the twins, but he was mindful of the injured one's condition.

In Ardent's career as a vigilante, he had managed to avoid killing anyone, accidentally or otherwise. This poor fucker wasn't in a good state, but if he was left to lie there he would probably live. Maybe with some brain damage.

If he was left lying in a burning building, though, it would be a different story. And funnily enough...

"Ah, fuck."

Freakshow's old enemy (or old comrade?) was apparently taking his vendetta a bit too seriously. The drug that had enhanced The Menace's transformation into a gigantic form was now enhancing Torch's fire-tossing power into a searing inferno. Any dreams the HERO team had of being able to present a gloriously pristine and lizard-free recycling plant to the higher-ups were quickly going up in smoke. Literally. Ardent's first consideration was making sure the cloning villains didn't burn to death in the confusion, but Freakshow seemed to be on top of that matter. She had tried using her power to endure the enemy's fire attacks, but seemingly had changed her mind and was choosing this moment to grab what she could carry and retreat out of the blazing deathtrap. Not a bad idea, as far as Ardent was concerned. There was just one more person who needed to be pulled out of the flames.

Ardent discarded his parking sign and began to move quickly, darting between the whips of flame that were twisting across the indoor space. Torch was going wild, and his frenzied attacks weren't precise enough to hit Ardent amidst the chaos, but the sheer heat and the smoke that had begun to cloud the plant were still enough to make the flying hero grit his teeth and squint. Rather than shy away from the fresh patches of burning debris though, he donned his goggles and stuck close to them as he took a roundabout flightpath towards the villain, letting the damaged property provide him with cover to mask his approach. It was Lab Rat who had reached Torch first, though, aiming to surprise him from behind.

The laughing villain casually sidestepped out of the way of Lab Rat’s attack. He didn’t even need to turn to face her to do so; it was as if he had sensed or heard her in some way, perhaps. Something about the man was certainly changed, if that even needed more explanation. The crazy person that was hurling a few fireballs was not the same crazy person that stood before them now. His senses were sharper, and his powers were much, much more devastating. The fire-retardant mucus and bone spikes that Freakshow had just tried to hit him with were burnt into cinders by a white-hot flash of fire, evaporated like they were nothing.

Whatever the cause of this newfound strength and ability was, it allowed Torch to jolt quickly out of the way of Lab Rat’s attempted grab, allowing her to harmlessly pass by him. Torch then pointed a hand towards the rodent-like hero, firing a concentrated stream of fire from his hand directly at the location she landed.

He didn’t seem to be bothered or even interested in whether or not he hit his target; he was enjoying his enhanced pyrokinesis (and, consequently, his enriched pyromania, it seemed) way too much. In fact, he didn’t even seem bothered by his original target, Freakshow, any more, or by the fact that she had easily pilfered his device and was commanding the Terrazards return back to the recycling plant, or that she was now running out of the building with multiple people in tow. He simply raised his hands, sending twin streams of fire from his palms at the Terrazards, which were now frantically running into the building. Torch lifted his masked head in the general direction of Ardent.

"I see you up there, hero. Come down and join the pyre!" Five large fireballs formed behind Torch’s head, and then promptly began to chase after Ardent, honing in on him like heat-seeking missiles.

Ardent weaved between the flaming spheres that came his way, but cursed under his breath when they changed direction to follow after him. Whether Lab Rat was going to retreat with Freakshow or stay to fight by his side, Ardent wanted to take this annoying bastard out. He needed a clear shot at him, but apparently the masked villain had gained more than just enhanced firepower from the drug. Whether he was using some fire-based trick to detect the heroes’ body heat or if he had simply gained enhanced senses, it was apparently impossible to sneak up on him.

Using his power, Ardent plunged straight downwards, no longer heading directly for Torch. He picked up speed, and for a moment it looked like he was trying to outmaneuver the fireballs by changing direction just before he would hit the ground. But before he put any distance between them, the barrage of flame came crashing down. There was a brilliant flash, and the stench in the plant worsened as a pile of plastics were incinerated.

Whether Torch was detecting sound, or heat, or movement, the massive explosion of his five fireballs hitting the floor at once was sure to be quite the spectacle. Enough to make him lose track of Ardent’s position? Hopefully. After all, it looked as though the hero had been burned up on impact.

That was until a split second later, when the concrete flooring a few feet ahead of the explosion burst open and Ardent rocketed out, hands pointed in front of him like a diver’s. His boots were slightly singed, but he hadn’t been hit by the fire. Not quite. It seemed that he had pierced through the floor and tunneled underground briefly to shield himself from the attack. Now, he had unearthed himself not far from Torch, and rapidly closed in on him.

”Close call!” In truth, that wasn’t something Ardent had ever tried before, and he hadn’t known if it would save his life. But he hadn’t doubted himself either. Improvised tactics in the midst of chaos were his bread and butter.

Maybe Torch was surprised, maybe he wasn’t. Ardent was going for him either way. Flora had been on the right track with grappling the villain, he thought, but they would need to match the guy’s newfound agility. Ardent could do that, he was certain. Moving at blinding speed, he aimed to tackle and grab hold of Torch at a low angle. If he could lift him, he could get him out of here.

Torch might have been surprised by this clever maneuver. It was hard to tell, what with the full-face mask and the insane chuckling. Either way, though, he certainly didn’t act like the attack phased him. In fact, quite the contrary. The average person would have been completely caught off-guard by Ardent emerging from the concrete ground with the grace and poise of a dolphin leaping from the sea, and likely would have been easily crushed. But somehow, some way, Torch was not going to be taken down by this attempt.

With shocking reaction time, Torch faced down Ardent and, as the hero barreled towards him at breakneck speed, blasted the oncoming hero with a searing beam of fire, attempting to stop him mid-flight and take him down. The enhanced villain laughed all the while as he channeled the pulse of fire directly at Ardent. He was enjoying himself; that was clear.

Ardent had been here before. Darting around, repelled by ranged attacks whenever he tried to get in close. It wasn’t so different from his fight against that annoying cowboy. But as quick and as deadly as Torch was, he was no cowboy, and Ardent was getting tired of listening to that laugh.

I’ve played this stupid game already!

As he flew headlong at Torch, Ardent used the building to his advantage once again, dipping both hands down to break off a section of the flooring, longer and thicker than his own body. In a normal fire, the concrete skeleton of the building would be the only thing not burned up. Against Torch’s flame, even that much was optimistic. Used as a shield, the flat face of the massive slab quickly warped and glistened like melted candy. Torch was too sharp to fool, even with his attention split between Lab Rat and Ardent. No more tricks. Feeling his shield begin to reach its melting point, Ardent continued to press forwards to his target. At the last moment, he struck the backside of the slab with his elbow, letting chunks of half-melted concrete scatter forwards over Torch. Amidst that shower of debris, whirling just beyond the beam’s line of fire, was Ardent, fury on his face, finally finished closing the gap.

Clenching his teeth, Ardent brushed off tiny pieces of superheated shrapnel. He reached out towards the pyrokinetic, intent on grabbing hold of him while maintaining his own momentum, to send himself and Torch flying through a window on the backside of the building, away from everything.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

Inside Fixeon Municipal Recycling Plant, Brookside

---

After a bloody slog through the waves of Terrazards, the forerunners of the HERO team had made it through the breach. With Freakshow fully on board to try Ardent's style of approach, the former vigilante's mood was only improving. He wasn't exactly a genius, but the scene inside was basically just what he had been expecting: a bunch of villains laughing it up about how they controlled a Leftover army and how nobody could stop them. Typical.

Well, the mysterious gaping abyss beneath Brookside was sort of a surprise, but that was something to worry about later.

Apparently, the bad guys had two secret weapons. The first one was used to power-up a guy who immediately booked it outside. The backline team was going to have to handle it. The second secret weapon was the source of the problem they had been sent here to fix.

More immediately, two dorky villains were looking to face off. Ardent stuck his cam to the wall behind him. This was going to be good.

"I can take these guys." Ardent muttered to the hero by his side. Lab Rat. The ICOSA transfer. A moment ago, he had been talking big about how Freakshow needed to trust her team. He probably needed to do the same thing."You think you can snag it?"

He didn't want to be too obvious. He only inclined his head slightly and threw a glance across the room in Torch's direction. If Flora had paid attention to that villainous monologue just now, she would hopefully be able to guess what he had in mind. They needed to keep their eyes on the prize, and if any hero was going to be able to quickly work out the controls of that device, it would be her.

"Look, bro, we get the two lamest heroes. Lame Rat and...Lamedent. Sorry, didn't think of a name on time."

"Yeah, feeling's mutual, pal. I was looking forward to fighting somebody with half a brain in their skull." Ardent taunted the self-replicating villains as they began to form a small mob. "What's the point of having two guys with cloning powers, anyway? Did one of you just get hired as a package deal with the other? Out of pity?"

The enemy team's plan clearly centred around keeping the bulk of the heroes occupied while Torch settled his score in a one-on-one clash with Luna. However, it wasn't in the business of heroes to let villains have things the way they wanted. Ardent didn't feel like letting Torch dictate who fought who. These brothers had abilities that probably made them excellent nuisances, skilled in wasting time. Devoting multiple heroes to fighting them was stupid when there were more important things going on. Luna was making headway against Torch, but if the creep was so eager for an isolated battle with her, he probably had a strategy for winning against her transformations.

"Anyway, how many of you does it take to screw in a lightbulb?! Huh?!"

He taunted the twins again as he flew forwards to meet their charge. If he was gonna draw the full attention of these two, he was going to need to strike a nerve. That was something he was good at. Expert villains like Doc Holliday may have been able to see through him, but he had a feeling these two weren't quite so bright.

Cloning villains could be annoying. Left unchecked, Ardent imagined Thing One and Thing Two could go from eight, to sixteen, to thirty-two, to sixty-four. Big trouble. If he wanted to shut them down, he needed to work fast, faster than they could multiply. From eight, back to two, down to zero.

And if there was one downside to the Azure Skulls' Leftover security system, it was that the lizard army had already primed Ardent to fight against a crowd.

He swung the parking sign once again. The sheer length of the improvised weapon gave him a massive reach advantage, letting him hit the clones long before he was in range of their pipes or tasers. And with his strength, he could sweep through a whole group of them at once, crushing as many as he could catch in a single arc of the signpost. Compared to when he had fought against the lizards, he reduced his power a little, but it was still enough to inflict shattered ribcages and concussions. Maybe worse. Ardent was counting on these two having "original" bodies that would stay out of trouble, making it okay to deliver fatal wounds to all the replicas. If every clone was a full, living person... they were going to need a lot of coffins.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

Outside Fixeon Municipal Recycling Plant, Brookside

---

While some of the heroes seemed to be bothered that the situation was slipping out of their control, or that they didn't have the rapport to execute seamless teamwork, Ardent was doing better than ever. Unexpected changes mid-battle, and having to play things by ear... it was more his style than making a plan and sticking to it from start to finish. Since they didn't know each other that well, that meant they all knew themselves better than anyone else here, so he was content to just assume that his fellow heroes were finding roles in the fight that suited them. Building walls, melting things with acid, or whatever.

The original handful of Terrazards that had tried to outflank the heroes on the left had been dealt with, sliced up and smashed by Ardent's makeshift polearm. However, as he hovered and waited for another group of lizards to come towards his edge of the perimeter, he observed just how many more were on the way. With those sorts of numbers, the Terrazards were more than just a half-assed security system. Someone had clearly put real work into gathering up an absolutely massive crowd of the creepy things.

He imagined some smug bastard sitting inside, thinking they could dump all their problems onto their lizard army and call it a day. It awakened an itch in his head that had been dormant since the encounter with the Five. Someone in the recycling plant needed to get hit, badly.

Ardent broke from his original position and rocketed towards Freakshow before she had even finished calling out to the team. With a thunderous crack, he shattered two Terrazards with a midair golf-swing from his parking sign before landing alongside her and setting to work. Here, he was able to take out the things much more efficiently. It wasn't because he was ramping up his power at all, but rather because they were approaching the hole from which the dense mass of enemies was emerging. When they didn't have time to spread out, he was able to clear two or three with each swing, even as the metal sign grew battered and the concrete base began to chip.

"Morons inside have lost their minds, and splitting up for interceptin' these things won't do squat to help unless we stop the source of em' comin' out from the inside!"

"You're right, but--" He thrust the signpost into another lizard's chest as he spoke, repelling enemies from Freakshow's left flank while she spearheaded the charge, "--We can't just leave the lizards out here, either. Rushing to the heart of the plant all together is the strongest play, but it's not the right play."

Looking at the bone-spurred scorpion-centaur form Freakshow had taken, he was starting to understand her hero name. To his eye, it was a goddamn badass transformation. However, he couldn't agree with what she was saying. He appreciated her prime experience as a leftover hunter, but he was beginning to feel that her extreme caution around these leftovers, making her deeply resistant to the idea of splitting up, was going to put them in a bad position. With this many lizards going berserk, they couldn't just pierce through their formation and leave the remaining beasts alone on the plant's front lawn. Not when they didn't know how the creatures would behave afterwards.

He looked to Luna, his face lightly splattered with scales and reptile blood. He grinned.

"You're worried about what these things can do. Fine. But it's time to show some trust. These things are dangerous, but so are we!"

With himself, Freakshow, and Terraformer mowing down Terrazards in a bee-line for the breach, it wouldn't take long before they could reach it. But when they charged forwards like this, it meant they couldn't really prevent enemies from passing alongside them and getting at the rest of the group. He looked over his shoulder.

"We're going in, but a few should stay here!" He called out to the team, "We can't let them run wild behind us, and we definitely can't let them spill out into Brookside!"

Ardent didn't have any particular training in regards to protecting civilians, but he had plenty of rough experience with it. Enough to know that leaving monsters unattended outdoors was bad. Which heroes were best at eliminating large numbers of lizards? He didn't really have a precise plan of who should go inside and who should take on the 'zard mob, but there was one person here who he knew would do their best work in the yard with the mass of creatures.

"Mire! If that was so easy for you, then do it again! But bigger! Wipe out everything that gets past us! If I can breathe through my nose without choking on the smell, you haven't melted enough!"

Moving quickly and tearing apart any lizard in their way, the charging group of heroes wouldn't have to wait long before they were through the hole in the wall. It was up to the remaining heroes outside to choose whether they would join the charge or focus on culling the horde.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

Outside Fixeon Municipal Recycling Plant, Brookside

---

David was going to have to put some trust in the new hero transferred from ICOSA, it seemed. As long as she didn't start writing up critiques of their battle performance, he could live with that. Probably.

He was ready for action, but Freakshow had a pretty long-winded battle plan for the group, first. As a former solo vigilante, David found himself growing disinterested with the details of the plan. Too complicated. Too rigid in its structure. He preferred to improvise. Not to mention, it seemed excessive. Based on the reading he had done on these creatures and the report of how quickly Jellyfish and Albino had folded to the fresh recruits, David was pretty sure that just Mire and Ting Feng working together would be enough to clear out the two-dozen-odd Terrazards running towards them, leaving the rest of the heroes free to rush inside the plant before the Skulls had time to prepare.

Still, listening to Luna's tone, he got the sense she wasn't speaking just from some desire to boss the group around, but because these Leftovers had left a serious impression on her from previous encounters. He didn't want to be a dick and run off on his own after she had just asked for backup and support to watch the group's flanks. The plan wasn't David's style, but that didn't mean it was a bad idea, necessarily. He took issue with one bit, however.

"Don't follow them? Are you serious? If they stop coming to us, we're gonna have to go to them. The mission is to clear out the whole place, which means we're gonna have to go in there and get our feet wet a little. If you don't feel safe doing that, you can wait outside. I'm gonna-"

The rumbling of reptilian footfalls alerted him moments before the gunshot. They were coming.

"Hah! At least we can forget about the bait!"

Hearing Freakshow go on and on about the dangers of Terrazards and the strategy for killing them had begun to irritateDavid and stress him out a little, but that stress was gone now that he could just focus on taking action. He flew low, rocketing forwards alongside Freakshow towards the mob of Leftovers. "That was a lot of yapping just to say 'let's watch each other's backs while we fight some lizards'! Better hope it works!"

As he flew, Ardent snatched up a metal sign in one hand. He twirled it experimentally, getting a sense of its heft. Almost automatically without thinking, he had improvised a weapon. The 'EMPLOYEE PARKING ONLY' sign on the top end would make a fine axe, and the hefty concrete weight that served as the sign's base was a solid hammer. Satisfied, he gave a confident grin as he watched Freakshow lunge for the spearhead of the formation, darting off to the left at the same time.

Luna had seemed pretty surprised by the formation of the enemy, but as far as Ardent could tell things were going exactly as she had guessed. A bunch of 'zards were running at the group while a few tried to outflank them on each side. He flew low towards the pincer group of lizards that were aiming to wrap around the HERO team's left side. With his speed, he could reach them while they were still basically in front of the group, not yet wrapped around their position. At the last second, he flew higher, and then came crashing down into the reptiles' frontline, sending up a spray of dirt and dust.

Based on the Leftover data for Terrazards, what Freakshow had just told everyone about them, and the fact that one had just died to a sniper rifle, it seemed like they were tough enough to survive small firepower, but nothing beyond that. Since he didn't have to worry about their lives like he would with a human enemy, Ardent had plenty of freedom to use the strength required. With 20-25 Leftovers in the whole formation and the bulk of them charging in the centre, there must have been under ten of the creatures on the flank he was attacking. Light work.

His first attack carried his landing momentum forwards to skewer the foremost Terrazard on the sign-blade. Immediately, he pulled it out and set to work. At the speed he was swinging the sign, 'EMPLOYEE PARKING ONLY' was no longer readable to spectators, it was a complete blur. With the length of the weapon, Ardent could keep the lizards beyond arm's reach as they fought. He slashed one's throat with the sign, then spun it around to splatter the next one with a crushing blow from the concrete base. With his power and his expertise in using random crap as weaponry, he was a whirlwind, deadly and impassable.

However, he didn't advance into the enemy flank, even as he cleaved through the foremost of them. He maintained his position and awaited their approach. As much as he had gotten tired of listening to Freakshow, it seemed he had grasped the basics of her plan after all. With wide-area attacks from the likes of Mire and Terraformer, the core group of heroes surely had the ability to wipe out the numerous monsters charging their way, and the only thing that could really disrupt their rhythm would be a surprise attack from the side or behind. Ardent's eyes darted to the edges of the Leftover formation, making sure none got past him as he fought. As long as someone could do the same thing on the right flank and someone kept an eye on their backsides, the group would only have to worry about the enemy's frontal assault.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

Outside Fixeon Municipal Recycling Plant, Brookside

---

David flew low through Brookside, following along with the HERO transport vehicles. He was once again outfitted in his costume, with the green jacket tied around his waist, and any minor damage to the fabric from his combat with Doc Holliday since mended. On that matter, the damage to his arm had also healed up nicely, mainly thanks to Alpha's power. He was ready for action.

When David was assigned to this mission instead of being sent for ICOSA evaluation, he had been thanking his lucky stars. No doubt the nosey bastards were interested in a psychological profile of him because of his background and probationary status, but apparently there were some even more concerning heroes on the local roster, and he was safe for now. It was also possible, David considered, that Powers had given him this mission in order to put off what would very likely be a disaster of an evaluation. In truth, David had no idea how he was going to sit down and chat with the ICOSA representatives without giving them a piece of his mind. He had gone legit precisely to avoid having these sorts of people breathing down his neck. Back then, it had been the Boston HERO team on his ass until he joined them. But as the saying went, there was always a bigger fish. A fucking annoying fish. A magical British one.

For sure, Ardent was much better off out here, on a simple errand. Flying beside the truck meant he could keep Crane company during the journey, keeping pace with her platform. Still, he wasn't sure the two of them would have much to talk about. Did he really have anything in common with someone who couldn't step inside any building smaller than an aircraft hangar?

If anything, they at least had a common problem in the oversight of the mission. Randolph's minion was apparently gonna be watching the whole mission, and the new addition to the team was apparently also from ICOSA. "Don't like this. I don't trust them." David spoke to Crane as they passed through town and under the imposing shadows of the Brookside prisons.

Although David was very happy not to be getting psychologically evaluated, he wasn't exactly in love with the mission he was on. As a vigilante, he had mainly gone after criminals and villains rather than Leftovers, and he didn't have much experience with exterminating them. He wasn't even sure he wanted to.

"...And on top of that, the whole mission feels like some sort of sick test. If taking out these things is actually important, the ICOSA crony should be fighting, too. She's going to be there, anyway. But no, she's just going to watch us."

As he travelled with Crane, Ardent's face and tone told a story of someone who was unhappily resigned to doing stupid, useless work.

Soon enough, they had arrived. Ardent saw Perez on the tower nearby, and followed her sightline to spot the bulk of the Terrazard group. He landed near the truck, boots touching down on dead grass. He eyed the large hole in the wall, then glanced at some of the broken windows. He wasn't really a big pre-planner, but the watchful eye of ICOSA made him slightly conscious of the need for strategy. If they made some dumb misplay with Perez watching, they'd probably never hear the end of it.

"Before we start." He glared at Lab Rat, who had emerged from Crane's truck. "I wanna know. Are you actually with us?"

He tilted his head up towards the tower.

"Or with her?"

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

5th Avenue, New Athens, Castleburg

---

Through the blood splattered on Holliday, Ardent felt the cowboy pre-aim his shot at the float. He knew he was coming, but since Ardent also knew the angle and direction of the prepared counterattack, he still had a shot at landing a hit without having to take one in return. He burst through the float a bit higher than the Doc had guessed, forcing him to adjust his aim at the last moment. Much like the opening move of the fight, it would come down to a contest of speed and endurance. A gamble, without knowing what kind of bullet was coming next. Ardent locked eyes with Holliday as he prepared to kick him.

Then, he saw movement over the villain's shoulder. He smirked. He didn't need to do anything.

Instead of spinning into a kick, Ardent aborted his assault and twisted his body and hurled himself downwards, letting the enemy's final shots whistle over his head. He landed in a crouch, only inches from the hole he had broken in the float. It would've been a terribly vulnerable position, if Doc Holliday hadn't just been shoulder-slammed into next week by a certain super-fast hero.

Amid the small cloud of debris, Ardent rose to his feet. This was immediately followed by a resounding SLAM as the parade float, which he had tipped nearly vertical, fell back the way it had come and landed right-side-up once again, albeit no longer in drivable condition.

"Thought maybe you were catching a nap over there." Ardent stopped flying, putting his weight on the ground. He stepped away from the float, picking up Holliday's first gun from the road. "But you actually did something. Solid."

He flicked out the cylinder of the revolver and removed the remaining plasma bullets. As he did, flecks of blood continued to hover around him and drift towards the wound on his arm, which was being squeezed shut into a thin line by his power.

Blast had Holliday pretty firmly under control. It sounded like Wiseman and the kid heroes had turned the tables on Lady Blade's ambush. That only left the drones to take care of, but as Ardent prepared to fly and looked down the street, he saw them all dropping like flies. Wireframe, who had looked like she might have been struggling to hold off the army of robots, was being carried in the float's direction by someone very pink. The brightly-coloured leftover immediately rang a bell in Ardent's head, and he looked sharply back towards the man in civilian clothes by the bench.

"Wait, it's you..!" Ardent's eyebrows went up. The name took him a second. "Alpha?"

The glowing had looked familiar. Ardent vaguely remembered running into this strange pair not far outside of Boston during his vigilante days, although he recalled this guy having some type of super-strength, not healing powers. He definitely hadn't been expecting to see the two of them again after switching careers. "Why are you..? No, nevermind. It's good to have you here." He cut himself off, not wanting to ask anything that would put the duo in an uncomfortable position with HERO.

He only hoped that Alpha was just trying to blend in, and hadn't actually become a Blast fan.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ardent could see frightened civilians emerging from behind cover and peeking out the windows of the buildings overhead. Some held phones, and were very obviously taking videos. Good. A Blast-Ardent teamup with a tipping parade float was going to make some waves online, no doubt.

"There's still a lotta shit to do. We gotta make sure the trainees at Hero One are safe, and I wanna know where that fucker who made the robots is hiding out." Ardent looked to the other heroes there, then at Alpha in particular. He held up his arm, which had been badly grazed by a bullet of superheated plasma. In his sleeveless costume, the damage was pretty evident. "But can you use your power on me, first? This hurts like hell."

There was nothing in his body language that suggested he was hurt or hampered by the minor injury, but something in the back of his voice suggested he was definitely feeling it, now that the adrenaline was settling down.

Fate/Dark Heritage

First Night

Near the Abandoned Lot

@GOATPlumber@Letter Bee

---

Caster's motivations were more or less what Assassin had been expecting. An alliance of convenience? It was weak a foundation for trust, but the choice wasn't theirs to make. Nor was it their Master's, really. They were technically part of this alliance by association, but had no interest in directly fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the Servants here if they could help it.

The announcement rang out, being heard by Servant and Master alike. The Assassin's whiskers twitched.

Well, Master, They spoke through the psychic link, If you want to to keep spying on this little meeting, you'll have to use your magecraft, or ask your new ally what his Rider is up to.

They were already on the move, hopping away from the abandoned lot in spirit form. This new threat, whoever precisely they were, was something that nearly every participant of the war would be going up against. So, if their Master's promised husband was going to be putting his life on the line, Puss wanted to stay one step ahead of him.

If the Ghost Liners were as powerful as all that, it wouldn't be too difficult to detect their presences with a bit of scouting. And with Presence Concealment, it ought to be possible to get a good look at them without too much danger, and see what they were made of.

With that in mind, Puss set off, searching for the corruption that threatened his Master's wish.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

5th Avenue, New Athens, Castleburg

---

Ardent had originally chosen his angle of attack to draw Holliday's sight away from Blast. Now, from what he could see from his high position, the situation at the Bench was looking a little different. Someone in plainclothes had seemingly healed Blast's wound, and now they had Bastion covering them from stray hits.

Maybe it was time for Ardent to try some of the "teamwork" stuff that organized heroes were always raving about. Or maybe he just felt like giving the other heroes a wakeup call to get them off the defensive. Either way...

By the time Holliday had cleared Ardent's blood from his vision, the flying hero was nowhere in sight. No matter where those superpowered eyes looked--ahead, up, left, right, behind--there was no sign of him. Because he was below. While Holliday still stood on the remains of his Western-themed parade float, Ardent was flying prone, his chest hardly an inch off the ground as the ledge of the float blocked line of sight between the two of them. He was a loud guy, no doubt, but his flight was absolutely silent. At least, it was silent until the impact.

Since the parade floats had stopped moving, standing on the float must have felt basically the same as standing on solid ground for Holliday, but that was about to change. As Ardent made impact and lifted the side of the float with one hand, he tipped it over. The entire surface very rapidly tilted nearly ninety degrees, and the cowboy's footing went from a completely flat platform to a completely smooth cliff. Metal and wood snapped and creaked as barrels, tumbleweeds, and likely the Doc himself were scattered off of the float and deposited unkindly on the curb.

Since Ardent had been approaching Holliday from the side of the road opposite to Blast, tipping the float sent the villain roughly towards the trio who had now gathered at the bench. It was no coincidence.

The structure of the float groaned under the strain as it slowed for a moment before beginning to tip back the way it had come. Ardent hadn't quite gotten it fully vertical. The lifted end would crash down onto the road at any moment, but in the meantime it acted as a broad wall that stood between him and everyone else.

"For a guy who can outrun a Bugatti, you sure like to take your time!" Ardent was speaking to Blast, but his voice came through both the speedster's and Bastion's watches. His tone wasn't accusing in the least. In fact, he sounded like he was in better spirits than he had been during the backstage meeting. "Ready to make a fuckin' move?!"

The plasma wound on Ardent's arm still hurt like hell. He probably wouldn't have been able to move the limb much normally, but his power let him stop any more blood from flowing out and maintain his full strength. He had called on the others for support, but that didn't mean he was going to wait for them to get it together.

Before a moment had passed, before the overturned float had even crashed back down, he was launching his next attack. The flimsy and damaged floorboards of the float snapped and shattered as the green-haired hero burst through the "wall", aiming to surprise Holliday with his assault before the Five's leader had regained his footing. Since Holliday should have been dumped right next to the float, Ardent would have cover from his view until the moment he broke through that cover and appeared in close range. One shoulder was down, and that left one to go. Lunging through the barrier, he immediately spun into a sweeping kick that came for Holliday's offhand-side, fast and forceful enough to turn the man into a wreck that would never pull another trigger in his life.

It was a risky move that involved breaking line of sight to launch a surprise attack. Or at least it would have been. Except that for Ardent, there was no uncertainty about exactly where Holliday had landed. Whether he had tumbled, or landed on his feet, or leapt some distance off the float, or even managed to hang onto the platform when it was turned nearly-vertical, Ardent was going to come directly for him. Without looking, he knew where the villain was, and even which way he was looking and aiming his gun. It was because the blood he had splashed at the cowboy a moment ago, which was now wiped on the villain's face and hand, was still subject to Ardent's power. Like any part of his body, he could psychokinetically move it at will. And as a side effect of that, he could feel its position and movement, which meant that even without being able to see Holliday through the flooring of the float, he could track him down and disarm him for good.

《 Super H.E.R.O. 》

「 ARDENT 」

5th Avenue, New Athens, Castleburg

---

Minutes later, Ardent was in the air.

While he hovered over the parade and waved at the people down below, he cast his gaze over the buildings, looking up and down 5th Avenue and the immediately connecting streets. It was crowded. He could pick out Wireframe from among the pedestrians, and he presumed Bastion was somewhere among them, too, although he didn't know his face. Having opted not to perch on a building, there was no way for Ardent to rely on the support of the part-time hero's shield. It was better to have that protection near the crowd, anyway.

It was a good vantage point, but the villains probably wouldn't be approaching on foot. A car? Ardent descended a little, until he had a view of the sidestreets that let him see the faces of drivers through their windshields.

He heard the gunshot.

Instantly, Ardent whirled around and braced for a hit, his power coursing through his body. There was no impact. He had been hoping to draw some attention in the air and lure out the enemy's first attack. Apparently, someone else had that misfortune instead.

"This is Blast. Don't know if you heard, but they're here and they don't seem to be in the mood to negotiate. Cowboy Bebop is in a particularly feisty mood. I'll try to re-engage him when I get the chance- AGH, SHIT! FUCK!"

Blast. There were worse options for people who could've been shot. At least Holliday hadn't opened the fight by killing a civilian.

The scene of the battle wasn't hard to spot. There was a Wild West themed parade float (In a hero-themed parade?) that was suddenly unleashing a small army of robots, and a certain speedster was zipping around near it, scrambling for cover. Ardent took off, hurtling through the sky over 5th Avenue. He could see his target.

"Hey, Birdboy, could use that weather report at some point. I'm target practice out here."

"Careful," Ardent answered through his own watch, "Might make me rethink who I'm gonna punch when I get there."

As Ardent flew, the situation started to clarify. Lady Blade was inside, somehow. She had gotten past them, to the kid heroes and Wiseman. He felt a twinge of frustration. On the upside, they were holding their own, and Oracle's power had given them another huge advantage in intelligence. Out front, a wave of robots began making for the entrance. Thankfully, the parade crowd seemed to have the good sense to run away at the sight of the things. Ardent still didn't know Wireframe's power, but he trusted her and Bastion to be able to handle that side of the situation. He passed overhead, a blur to the naked eye, weaving between the aerial robots. Even if they fired at him in passing, they posed no threat to him. He wasn't interested.

Ardent was keeping his eyes on the prize. Holliday was standing on the remains of the deconstructed float, preparing another six shots.

The former vigilante banked in midair, curving his approach to come from the direction opposite to Blast, putting the villain between the two heroes. The damage that had clearly been done to Blast, and to the mailbox, wasn't lost on Ardent. He remained keenly aware that some of Holliday's specialized bullets might be packing deadly surprises.

"It's high noon, you old-timey fuck!!"

...But that didn't mean he was going to take a cautious approach.

Holliday had sharp eyes, and presumably drones watching his back for a surprise attack. Given the choice, Ardent preferred to have the sharpshooter look his way, to give Blast and the stranger with him a reprieve. He rocketed through the air at a downward angle, descending faster than any bullet towards Holliday.

Of all the heroes present on New Athens, Blast and Ardent were probably the only two capable of changing direction quickly enough to avoid a bullet after it had been fired. In that sense, Holliday had an unlucky matchup, but they couldn't rely on dodging alone to beat an enemy whose entire schtick was hitting impossible shots.

In Ardent's experience, when it came to long-ranged fighters, whether they used eye lasers, tossed globs of lava, telekinetically hurled cars, or shot plain-old bullets, the core idea was that the best defence was a good offence. This seemed to be applicable for Holliday. His power didn't give him any protection from attacks, so he needed to rely on the fact that either his enemy would get shot and die, or they'd be too busy avoiding his bullets to launch a proper counterattack. It had clearly worked on Blast, who was stuck running for cover instead of closing the distance to take the bastard down. If he waffled about how to avoid taking a little damage, he would never get close enough to strike. Ardent had a different approach.

Even with the warning of a battlecry, Holliday would only have a scant moment to react. Enough time to fire a shot? Possibly. Ardent was ready for that.

A fist flashed out, quick as thunder, driving furiously towards the villain's upper body as Ardent lunged down from above. It was an instinctual, practiced motion that gave no sign of the angle of attack until the moment he entered striking distance. He aimed for the shoulder on the side where Holliday was holding his gun. Even reducing his power to avoid a bloodbath, Ardent's punch carried more than enough force to obliterate bone. Forcing this cowboy to drop his weapon was the first step in crushing him.