Chapter 4: Last Hero Standing
TW: The post credits scene of this story contains a brief description of a gory scene
“She… she will be fine” Del looks to Reign, a confident expression betrayed by her tone, “Well I am not aware of what fine might be for her but she’ll get out of there when she wakes up. Now, you have one of those healjectors for our fallen brother or am I going to need to practice CPR?” She taps her foot to an unknown beat, stabilising to the beat of chest compressions. Reign rolls their eyes with a tiny smile, throwing across a syringe which is caught and quickly injected into the recipient. His body carefully taken to a nearby park where he is seated, giving the carrying duo a few minutes to rest their heavily used arms.
Brodee’s eyes finally open, enough rest for now, he has work to do! The world is a blur for a moment before his eyes focus on the elegant blue sky, the sun beaming down, the flowers of the park, all different bright colours, standing out from the basil green grass and bushes. “… Did I die…?” His words collapse out of his mouth. Eyes go to his sides, on the lovely little park bench is Del to one side and Reign to the other, “Guess not, you’re still hiding behind that hoodie” he produces a weak chuckle, as much of a grin as his tired little mouth can produce. Reign gives a blush and looks away, not too impressed at the comment, but tries to turn things around by producing the funky fresh Brodee basketball, spinning it on their fing- it falls, leaving them to chase it down the path, hunched over and repeatedly kicking it away from their hands.
“……..” He watches for a minute or so before remembering that it might be rude and turning to Del, “So… Do you have any tricks for me?” He offers a smile to her, feeling his senses properly coming back to him. “Well I did want to ask if you are feeling well” Del looks to him with a strange, deadly serious look aimed right at his chest, “You… for lack for a better word, snapped in the fight, so I would like to ensure that you are feeling well enough to continue” nanobots swarm around her wrist, forming some form of X-ray scanner, letting her see through to the bone, she takes a look all over him, wincing a bit at his torso. “Look, you’re not going to get hit by something like Wendy again but after this, you need to rest, a big fall or fighting Wendy again could ruin your bone structure. At the very least, do your best to stop torso attacks” she nods, happy of her assessment. Brodee gives a soft sigh, “Please don’t tell Reign about this, they’ll think this was their fault or start on a mental spiral, I won’t hide it, just… after we have the milk” he shoots an apologetic smile and gets a solemn nod in response, right on cue for the third amigo to return with the ball, they’re panting pretty hard.
After a few unsuccessful moments of catching their breath, The hooded leader holds up the ball, “Ball,” is all they say in their deadpan tone, passing the ball back to its owner, getting a small chuckle from the party. They stare blankly for a few moments, studying the reaction as if encountering humanity for the first time. Del soon takes notice and stares back with a light head tilt, they quickly look away, mumbling a quiet “Sorry…” Now it’s Del’s turn to stare in confusion, “I… uh” they look away but feel a pair of eyes boring into them, their feet start to shuffle on the ground, “Wait… let me” they grab their phone and start rapidly typing. Fingers like lightning, sweat on their brow, tap tap tap, the physic begging of the eyes to get off of them, not that they have any kind of way to push these thoughts into anyone else’s mind. A lot of taps later, their eyes run over the screen multiple times before showing it to the group. “Sorry, I’m not great with social skills or… people at all really, I can be really weird, not like I don’t try to talk more or anything like that, I just find other people really hard, moreso IRL. Del, you seem really cool and being tech dorks sounds really cool but this isn’t something I can turn off” they were sure their heart could be heard through the bench.
Brodee is the first to speak up, “Reign, you don’t have to be so hard on yourself” for the first time in the adventure, his tone is dejected, his chipper tone replaced with sorrow and worry.
Reign quickly replies, “Three years” their eyes divert away, this was meant to get eyes off of them.
His eyes are pinned on them, “Three years? What’s three years?”
“Since we met” they close their eyes, “Been three years”
“So?” his tone is unreadable, mixed between pushing back and genuine aggression, “Reign, you show up at my door and have I looked upset or anything? We chat all the time online”
They don’t look, they can only imagine the look on this face, their hand starting to shake, making the message rather hard to read, “But I-”
“Right, I’m not being clear enough” He sighs, leaning in and pulling them into a tight hug, a move catching them so off guard, they drop their phone, “You’re not a bother for being yourself, I get that this has probably been exhausting for you, but please, it seems like you’re making friends, don’t…” he pauses, trying to find the wording he wants to use, “Don’t lock yourself completely off, you don’t have to push yourself but Del and Fiona seem pretty friendly, it doesn’t have to be constant meetups or anything, just saying high and catching up sometimes” his usual chipper tone has completely disintegrated, leaving behind pleading words of a close friend.
They don’t know how to react, heart racing the hardest it has in years at the physical contact, their arms spread out and confused, “I…” they look to Del who has their phone safe and sound and appears to be abstaining from the conversation but gives a friendly smile in agreement to his words. “I can try” one arm faintly wraps around him, “But I dunno” the other arm joins on him, “If I can” they take a deep breath in, a slow breath out, “So, who’s d’Artagnan?”
“Who’s…? You mean the Musketeers? I guess Fiona, I think Del is part of the trio at this point, she’s really stepped up our game. I guess it’s the reverse though, us three trying to get the favor of the knights” he lets out a soft chuckle, “Sorry to get serious on you, sometimes I just need to remind you that at least one person outside your bubble of one cares, alright?” His arms slowly remove themselves as he sits back up, passing the phone back to its owner.
Del finally speaks up, “If it helps, I would like to formally be friends and I can ask Fiona on the matter when she’s feeling more awake, if you would like” a small nod of acceptance is given in response, “Wonderful, well it is nice to make a friend”
“So” the sportaholic looks to the people on both his sides, expression brightening up yet again, “Let’s get this milk before one of us breaks down in some way” voice back to its chipper tone, he springs to his feet, getting a couple of stretches in as the others got to their feet. “Final stop on this heroic tour?”
Reign stretches their arms, a small smile on their face, “All for one?”
Del rolls her eyes with a smile on her own face, “And one for all, let’s go, Athos, I can take a guess at where the big guy will be, not like Wendy was in any state to tell us” and with that, she leads on, a spring in her step.
The walk is neither long nor arduous, for Reign it might be with their double layers in the sun but for everyone dressed for the weather, it was fine. The trio walk side by side, warm breeze blowing in their faces, the final fight in sight, talking to the strange woman they keep encountering on their journey. Tall, long brunette hair, dressed in a jumper because there couldn’t be one person badly dressed for the season. As they approach, they catch a bit of the conversation.
“… I dunno, mix something up, like you think it he person that managed to get legally recognised non-binary markers on local IDs would be called something other than ‘he’ this or that” Haloes thinks for a moment, “I mean, I don’t want to be like-” he looks up and sees the group, quickly zipping it and giving a wave. Mapel turns and gives a bright smile, eyes sparkling brightly!
“Hey guys! Sounds like you had quite a day” she beams, her voice sounding softly ethereal, “Wanna tell me about it before you take on the big leader? You know how much I love your perspective,” Reign nods, the trio spending a bit of time explaining what has been happening today, the twists, turns, the fights, and sweet moments. They soon run out of memories to gush about, “Wonderful, I’ll let you all be, give my regards to the next me you meet!” And with that, she walks past and out of the soon to be fight radius.
“So,” Haloes waits until it’s the trio and himself, “you three look like you’ve been through a lot, you still want to go through with this?” Unlike when he was speaking with Mapel a moment ago, his tone has a lot more confidence, a much more typically heroic tone. Reign simply nods in response, hand shooting to their holster. “You don’t have to grab that thing too quick, I’m not going to surprise attack or anything, if I really wanted, I probably could have you all passed out on the ground by now. You’ve probably noticed a couple of people you fought here have powers, well I’m no exception. To make this fair, I won’t use my usual sword or armour, I’ll even let you get the first hit, just don’t expect me to be easy on you after that,. The only people getting through are emergency services and people strong enough to see whatever they’re doing through,” he glares at them for a moment, taking in the details, the final judgement, “I would prefer not to call an ambulance so if you do feel like this is too much for you at any point, just say and I’ll stop,” his final warning has a stern edge to it, a genuine warning under the heroic bravado. Reign and Brodee both look to their third member.
“… huh?” Del looks back, “Oh, you want info? Hmm……..” She puts her hand on her chin, goes deep into thought, seconds extend into minutes, minutes extend into hours, hours extend into days. And after 2 minutes of pondering, “… If we are to treat this as a real fight, I believe we are, what’s the common word for it? Ah yes, we are screwed,” she gives a bright smile, she did find the right word after all but after a bit more awkward pleading staring, “look, if he wanted to kill us, he could have crushed our brains by now, do you have a counter attack for that? And before you ask for a weakness, based on everything I have seen, there is no weakness we can strike. He is possibly mortal, though I haven’t seen him age at all so that could be incorrect,” she continues mumbling her thought process out loud but none of it provides a solution. She does eventually stop, ponder for a few moments, “Oh!” a spark in her eye, “He’s not as strong as Wendy, if we beat the snot out of him before he does the same to us, we might be able to win! He is smart though, that’s why I didn’t hold another planning session, he would see right through it,” she gives a thumbs up to a bewildered duo.
Reign sighs, digging through their pockets, “Hit hard, together,” they grab out a stack of bolts with shining tips, “I shoot explosive,” they point to the hero ahead, “Hit them together,” the other two nod. One basketball bouncing and one set of nano bots forming a fist roughly the size of its user. Bolts loaded into a smaller than normal crossbow, the leader of the group steps forward, “Go” they fire all bolts in the stack around the area, fist and ball charging straight ahead, hero casually standing with no stance or guard up at all. For a second, time appears to slow, 8 bolts all around the hero, ready for an explosive impact, followed up with a dual full force beatdown from a duo, how could this possibly go bad? Even if the bolts are punched or knocked, they’ll still explode on impact!
8 simultaneous explosions land with two fighters launching themselves into the resulting fog, Reign quickly reloads with plain old bolts, waiting for the visual to clear so they know where to shoot if needed. Before they can see what is happening, the basketball they bought shoots at them at lightning speed, a perfect headshot causes them to almost fall backwards but they’re able to just about to keep their footing, keeping an eye on the ball in case it’s needed soon. The scene ahead soon becomes clear, Haloes hasn’t even moved, shattered crossbow bolts scattered no closer than a foot away from him, and to top it off, Brodee and Del are frozen in place, fists a few inches from his face with red translucent chains wrapped around their arms. They struggle to no avail, arms locked tight.
“So…” Haloes looks between the three of them, “… this is what you three can do?” He finally makes a move, getting a closer look at the struggling arms, “This is what took out Wendy?” He looks a slight bit insulted by the effort put up, “Look, if you can’t even touch me, let alone break through my basic power then I really can’t let you pass. And sorry Del,” a swift gut punch to Brodee and neck chop to Del takes them out of action, the chains fading away and letting them drop to the ground, his eyes move to the group’s leader.
Del has taken a fatal hit!
Brodee has taken a fatal hit and has been removed from the fight!
“Unless you have something up your sleeve, I highly suggest you take your friends and take your leave, we can take care of things as soon as we have the evidence to intervene,” his stare is detached and deadly serious, not a hero giving a light warning but a guard telling a citizen to back off.
“…” Reign’s eyes were not focused on the hero ahead, their ears were not taking in his warning, their eyes were focused completely on their fallen allies, their breath becomes uneven, eyes undulating, what little colour in their face drains, “…” their mouth moves but no words come out, “…” they plan for something to say but nothing comes out “…” eyes are on them but nothing comes out. Their body tenses, heart racing, mind running faster than it was ever meant to, before they register what is happening, they’ve loaded a stack of bolts, eyes shooting up to see the target, a burning intensity behind them.
Reign has gone berserk, all stats increased
“Look, I’m not an enemy, I just needed to prove the point, you could be dealing with someone-” a bolt is fired, Haloes blocks it without effort, a small red shield appearing around him for a split second for the bolt to bounce off of. “We’ve had reports of a massive operation that has stripped the local area of milk, someone that could put that together could be extremely dangerous!” His eyes move away from the last bolt launched at him and… wait, they’re gon- another bolt, deflected. “What are you even trying?” he looks at the ground around him, nothing wrong there…
Reign uses e-gel, speed further increased!
His eyes look up just in time, a bolt bounces off the ground as Reign has launched themself from a nearby building, the extra speed from their current state stacked with the additional speed from the gel allowing them an extreme speed and with it, a lot of power behind the fist currently pointed at the hero’s face. He blocks the bolt but doesn’t have time to put the full force of his power behind blocking the fist, he puts what he can up but it shatters like fragile glass. The fist connects, launching the both of them multiple feet.
Haloes has taken a fatal hit! He holds on through Heroic Resolve!
Haloes landing on his back with Reign on their knees on top of him, quickly aiming their crossbow at his face. Not a flicker of the meek person or any humanity behind those eyes, he looks to them with wide eyes, his eyes flicking to the crossbow. Their trigger finger moves, pulling the trigger, as it gets halfway to firing, a red hand appears behind their head and neck chops them.
Reign has taken a fatal hit! Their heart races and won’t let them stop!
Haloes pauses for a moment, expecting them to stop or pass out or collapse or something that indicated that a neck chop, his go to move for a quick take down of someone weaker and this group are a group of random people, heck, wasn’t this person meant to be some kind of shut in?! Regardless, time is running out for him to act, his hand clenches, launching up into their unguarded chin. Reign launches a foot into the air, landing to the ground with a heavy thud.
Reign has taken a fatal hit!
The party has fallen
The failure of a trial means the road forwards will remain blocked!
You must persist!
You must
take your
life in
your hands…
“You good??????????” Brodee’s voice rings through, “Come on, I know you’re not that much of a sleeper, I swear if you’re dead I’m not going to forgive you” Reign’s eyes slowly open, a groggy groan coming out of their mouth, standing over them are their two buddies of course! “Oh thank god, I would have actually killed him if he killed you, I mean, I would have tried” he smiles but there’s a serious edge to his words, his hands are clenched into fists and shaking. They sit up, feeling sore in the jaw, “It happened again, didn’t it?” In response, they look away, hiding their face behind their hair, “I’m not saying that you need to fix yourself or anything but that was a friendly fight, not life or death” while carrying the firmness of this being wrong, his tone is gentle and caring, his words catching in his throat, “wait I don’t mean to be harsh or anything” his breathing hitches, his eyes darting away from his friend. “I just mean, you don’t have to worry so much about us, we’ll be fine”
“… alone,” they softly mumble to themself, “being alone,” they finally look back to him, tears in the corner of their eye, “away from home,” their heart is racing again, but different this time, “it hurts,” why does it suddenly feel hard to breathe? “Fight to stop,” they take a deep breath through their nose and slowly breathe out of their mouth, “stop the hurt,” they look away without hiding their face, taking a few deep breaths.
“The worries can wait until later” Del chips in, “We do have a job to do, don’t we?” She offers a hand up which is taken with some reluctancy, “I’ve had a chat with the big guy and we’re allowed through, with a stern warning to be careful of course” her tone is carefree, given how she was found, she’s likely heard this kind of warning before and didn’t listen that time either. They simply roll their eyes with a smile, “So musketeers roll out?” She gleefully repeats this saying or possible inside joke with a bright smile, like they hadn’t been beaten a short time ago, a thumbs up given by Reign and a small chuckle by Brodee. A shared deep breath is had as they step on the newly opened path, the path stretching far into the distance. Finally, they have proved themselves enough to get through this darn roadblock, hopefully the end is in sight, Reign would very much like to deflate at home soon.
Watching them go, Haloes sees the prince approach “How’s the B team doing?”
Arthur sighs, “Better, the bolt wounds have healed and Fi is rested”
“Good, can you have them follow the group from a distance? I have gotten word from the city that we can finally move in”
“From a distance? Why not just send them in? Hell, why not go yourself?”
“Well that group going off into the distance can probably actually get everything done, they’re a tight knit group but some backup wouldn’t be bad in case something happens, and someone has to stick around to guard while we wait for Wendy to wake up”
“… fair enough, I’ll go and get everyone,” and with that, the prince gets his phone out, quickly making calls.
Next time?
The trio walk through the desert, following a well driven road to their destination, the hours pass, the sun moves across the sky. As the sun gives it’s last gasp of light in today’s sky, they see it, what could best be described as a dark wizard’s tower. The sands around it are well driven and many loading bays surround the ground floor. This is the final stop on the local tour.
Credits
- Colour Printer – Writing & Cover art
Thanks
- Molrcore – Giving the push to see this through
???
The credits have finished rolling but something is still there, a static that clears to be some form of interview room, Haloes sitting on the provided chair. “You have to understand that…”
The scene cuts with static, Chi is standing in front of armed guards in some form of prison, arms spread to protect unseen people “Get behind me!” After a few seconds, a gunshot rings out and statics back to Haloes.
“…sadly, in this world…”
Static again, clearing to Fiona, a gleeful smile on her face as she looks ahead, “With this power, I can help everyone!” She sounds thrilled beyond anything seen within the story, static back to Haloes.
“…heroes…”
Static to an image of what appears to be a blonde Haloes locked in a cell, curled up on the floor, static quickly returns to the interview.
“…can’t be made clean…”
Static to a point of view shot, vision blurring as Wendy looks to her hands, coated in blood, then past her hands to a pile of corpses, ripped apart, insides mixing from the number of open wounds, back to the interview.
“…there’s always a scar”
The image cuts.
Afterword
Okie this is actually over now
Some words from our god and creator (the author)
You know, like Colour Printer, the person that made this?
You can stop looking at this weird now please, you’re making me nervous I just wanted to say hi
Thank you for reading! This has been new and different and wonderful to make. Some of these characters have been in my head since September 4th 2013 (Haloes has anyway) and I love them all dearly even with how much they are tortured. And if I end up writing every part of this world, I apologise to Wendy, girl suffering the sins of someone else.
Here’s a Q&A based on questions I imagine people have, I’m always willing to answer questions directed to me on my Bluesky profile
- What are these characters? We did start half way through the story
- Reign is a web developer with serious social issues. They learned how to throw and shoot small items to pass the time alone at home. Their usual interactions with others is online work meetings and chatting with Brodee (online of course), they tend to keep to their home and the private area around it, they live outside the local town
- Brodee is a retail worker that plays basketball on the side, he’s the only person that Reign has in their life from before they realised the whole non-binary thing, well afterwards too but that’s less impressive
- Del is the lead (and only) engineer at the local Delta Tech R&D lab, focusing on robotics and AI (not like LLM, actual AI). She’s encountered after a panic state is triggered within the lab, causing a barricade to block the path forward with comms not working to check if she was alright. After being rescued from her own machines, she joins the group as thanks
- The Rainbow Stripes…. you’ll have to see, I will say that there are at least a couple more of them though :3
- What the heck was that post credits thing?!?!?
- Glimpses of the Rainbow Stripes, silly little goobers
- But really, it’s a teaser of the heroes side of things,
- What were the items being used?
- egel/espray
- When used on receptive characters (typically fem characters, but there are exceptions), gives a speed buff
- When used on an unreceptive character, gives a attack/defence down
- No effect on nonhumans
- tgel/tspray
- When used on receptive characters (typically masc, but there are exceptions), gives a speed buff
- When used on an unreceptive character, gives a speed down
- No effect on nonhumans
- Healjuvinator
- Provides a full heal outside of a fight, needs time to work, not great to use in a fight
- Works on humans and zeon
- egel/espray
- You have plenty of character cards but the descriptions don’t match the characters here! >.<
- That… that isn’t a question, but anyway most of those character cards are for my TreBoot project, a total revamp of my characters from scratch
- Reign has a card but that was for a different project showing my self inserts, I want to do cards for this story like my existing cards!!!
- Do you have some kind of class system or are you just throwing stuff at the wall?
- There’s a 5 part class system consisting of
- Weapon set
- Fighting style
- Fighting position
- Party role
- Powers/skills
- For example, Reign’s fighting spread is mini crossbow, sharpshooter, Tier 2 commander/Ranged damage, trick/elemental arrows
- There are some special options for some options
- Commander party role, this is an additional party role that provides buffs to the party and provides the commander a one time chance to power through an attack that should take them down when said character is in command of the party
- Polymath weapon set, allows use of all weapon types with basic skills, may also include a specialised weapon
- Characters with powers may also have a skillset
- Haloes exclusively has 2 powers, there is a lore reason for this
- There’s a 5 part class system consisting of
- Are you going to make more of this? You left a lot at the end there
- If I can, I’d love to write the whole thing, it’s a story of 3 times
- The present of Reign and heroes
- The dystopian far future
- The greener fields of far far far far future
- At the very least, I’d like to write the first 2 parts of this era, one covering the whole of this journey and the other covering the history of the Rainbow Stripes. The rest of the era is close to my chest but there is another Reign story and Rainbow Stripes story as well as an epilogue
- If I can, I’d love to write the whole thing, it’s a story of 3 times
Again, thank you again for reading, it means the world to me that I’ve been able to share this, thank you for reading. Please leave any comments either below or on my Bluesky linked above!
