《Heroes Wanted》


 Prologue: An Introduction to Heroism

    "You''ve nicked your last neck Maw and now that I''m here your entire world is ready to crumble." The familiar figure of a woman clad in claylike armor fit perfectly with the roof she was on and more so with the large man in front of her who had spikes coming through his skin held up a knife to the throat of the girl he had held hostage. "Oh the Roaring hero Quake whatever shall I do against someone like you I''m quak-ing in my boots thinking of your heroics, or more so how I should savor your death at my hands." Maw quickly forced the girl he had over the edge of the building they were on but still kept a hold of her shirt. The girl screamed out for Quake to help her but Maw shook her to get her to be quiet. "Another step forward and the girl falls one thousand feet onto the concrete unless you kneel down and accept your loss." Maw thought he had the upper hand against Quake with a hostage in tow. Quake had sunk to her knees and nodded her head. "Ok I''ll accept this defeat please just let the girl go."


    "Let her go well of course I will!" Using her own words against her Maw let go of the girl letting her fall down but what Maw didn''t account for was the second hero Quake had called in for help incase this exact situation happened. The Hidden heroShadeused the shadow of the building they were on to appear behind Maw and quickly grab the girl before she approached a speed that would be too dangerous to catch her at. Quake stood up after getting the all clear from Shade and rubbed her hands together as if she brandished a sword. "I told you Maw your world is gonna crumble!" Her hands were put out in front of her as the ground around Maw crumbled beneath him sending him falling a floor below where a net would wrap around his body binding him down so he can''t escape capture. Quake and Shade rendezvoused at the bottom of the building with the girl close by to Shade to ensure she gets back to her parents. "Hey Patton thank you so much for getting on. Maw was really running rampant this time I think he''s been having a bad week."You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    "No worries I always come through for a friend in need." Shade stood above the already tall Quake by at least a foot his pale skin looking stretched across his face. Normally this would scare but since he was the hero that saved her the little girl clung to him like he was her father. "After this NPC gets back to her family I''ll log off."


    A few minutes after the initial capture, and another smaller fight with Maw, the little girl''s mother arrived and immediately the two embraced each other with the mother holding the girl up and twirling around. "Thank you so so much hero thank you." The mother bawled her eyes out going to the hero and hugging him as well. "There''s no need for thanks because I am a hero and this is just me meeting my heroic expectations!" Shade would say smiling at the pair.


    He was about to log off when he heard the little girl speak up to say. "I''ll become a hero just like you one day!" Shade smiled at this remark and replied to her by saying, "I''m sure you will and you''ll be an amazing hero just like me." He then logged off.


    With a few final taps of his keyboard Patton''s computer shut off and there he sat in his element. "That''s a cute line of dialogue to put in the game." He turned over from his desk and lay back down on his bed closing his eyes and letting his mind run rampant on thoughts about how that girl could be as a superhero, what her powers would be, and her cool costume then he drifted off to sleep not knowing thata realadventure would be starting tomorrow.

 Chapter 1: The Real Adventure

    A loud beeping sounded in Patton''s room waking him up for the school day to come. He very quickly smacked the button to turn it off and rolled over in his bed cuddling close to his sheets before realizing he''s already awake and his body refuses to let him go back to sleep. He pulls the covers away and sighs at the realization that there is yet another school day today and he isn''t even halfway through the year though that realization quickly passes by him as he also remembers the importance of today which compelled him to turn around and access his computer desk which was just next to his bed.


    His messy black hair gets in his face and he quickly brushes it away with one hand while typing in his password which he would rather remain a secret in the other. After getting in and seeing the homepage he opened up his web app and clicked on his oldest bookmark, the official Arvler website page. Arvler was a multimedia enterainment giant who produced millions of comic book issues every year along with literally every other source of entertainment one could consume in a given year. The reason Patton opened this specific site, besides it being his favorite website to go on of all time, would be to check the live stream that was going on today about a new announcement for his favorite game of all time Heroes Wanted presented by Arvler.


    A quick glance at the clock would hint to Patton that he needed to get ready for school right now but a further look back at his computer and quick memory of his grades being the highest in his class helped convince him to stay for a while longer at his desk and ignore school completely to be up to date on the thing that has wholly consumed his life at this point. Since the stream would be live in a few hours he needed to concoct a plan to convince his mom and dad that he was too sick to go to school and that he needed a day''s worth of rest at least. Now the plan he came up with was simple all he needed was a tennis ball, some wire, and a mannquin as well as an accurate to life speaker system (which he of course had bought with his saved up money) playing the sound of someone coughing and maybe even thowing up if he needed to. Within the span of a minute though his mother came in and said. "It''s time to get up Patton I don''t want you to be late today and ruin that perfect record." Patton was caught dead in the act of his scheming though his mother didn''t know it yet.


    He sighed a sigh of despair but did not concede to the laws of school and life and said to his mother very bravely mind you, "There''s an important update coming out today for a game and I don''t wanna miss it could I skip today." His mother named Janet nodded with a worried expression and replied, "Are you sure you want to skip school today? You will lose your absolute perfect record of always being there on time."


    "Yes please I''ll make sure my grades don''t suffer for it either I''ll study for it."


    "Well ok I''ll call in that you got sick. I trust you." And with that Janet left his room and Patton air fisted with joy knowing that he had an entire day free to just himself alone in a room with just a short live stream to keep him company. He realized that he''d probably get bored after the live stream was over but decided that he''d just grind up a new character in Heroes Wanted like he usually did in his free time which he started now.


    The game was opened after he pulled the stream page into his second monitor. He scrolled down his list of over twelve heroes each completely different from the rest thanks to the insane amounts of customization in this game. Finally getting to the shiny yellow "New Character" button he started making the ideas he had from last night thanks to that little girl''s dialogue. First he made her look like the little girl and added a little age to her face to make her look like she was in her mid 20s afterwhich he would give her alittle more color and uniqueness adding her long red braided hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Then he got to the powers section and realized he didn''t actually think about her powers so he just gave her a basic flight power with an added hint of increased acrobatics and martial arts just so he could carry on with the creation. Next a hero suit, title, and name. He spent alot of time on this suit and it showed with the great detail in it. First the most prominent feature besides the basic black eye mask was the center piece of her suit, a silver oval that looked like it was contained by black lines that came from the collar and waist of her suit the lines themselves forming a bigger oval around the silver one. The rest of the suit was silver like the oval. She had a black belt on, that made her suit look like one piece. Her pants were silver with black lines running along the sides ending in silver and black boots. The entire thing was form fitting and man did she look heroic.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    The hero name and title came next which was simple, The Surprising hero Penguin, and he had just finished the character with around a minute to spare before the stream. Knowing his limits Patton decided to make a backstory after the update stream which started now.


    A man who looked to be in his early 60s wearing a business suit was in the middle of what looked like a blank white room staring at the camera with a nice bright smile on his face. This man was the president of Arvler Game Studios Matthew Hodrick who actually started out as a writer for some of the comic arcs but quickly rose to his current position after he used his business and marketing talent to get there. "Hello fans of Arvler. Today an important game changing update for Heroes Wanted is coming." Just after that sentence Patton was inching closer to his screen in anticipation. "As you know currently in the hero world there is an invasion going on from a different planet that is kidnapping heroes and turning them against their allies. This arc concluded with a final fight with heroes and villains alike combining forces against this alien threat and right now this conclusive battle is going on." Patton took a picture of his character''s attributes and switched to his current main hero "Shade" just to help out in the fight that was still going on. Suddenly though from the screen sirens started sounding and the screen was going in and out of red as if an alarm light was on. "Oh no they''re already here. Be safe heroes I''ll come help later." Metallic tentacles came through the roof and captured Matthew as a new voice came in. "Ah this is how they report updates to you heroes. Hello I am Ergbor, second general to the Verdant Empire. As you may know you are in a losing fight against us and I would like to tell you of the future to come. Firstly all super powered beings that aren''t willingly allying themselves with us shall be captured and depending on how useful we deem their powers to be shall either be executed or turned into something more efficient to us. Of course some heroes will escape our capture. A few notable ones so far have been Quake and Shade so of course expect us to find you later on if we haven''t captured you yet." Holy shit I just got mentioned by name. What does that mean I''m so scared and excited! But mostly excited. Patton''s freak out lead him to getting Shade get beat by some of those alien foot soldiers. "Your world is ours now heroes and there isn''t one of you that can stop us now. Good bye and see you when you get captured." After that the live stream went offline and the aliens started grabbing Shade. "We have him but we want the real Shade." A tentacle went straight for the screen of my computer and I jumped but kept trying to get Shade to break free while holding back that tentacle but soon Shade lost and the tentacle made the screen go black along with my vision as I fainted.

 Chapter 2: Fell Forever

    The buzzing of electricity hit his ears causing him to rustle awake from his slumber which had lasted for who knows how long. Patton looked around where he saw nothing but strange electronics and metals all with colors that humans wouldn''t use. After looking throughout the room he finally looked down and saw that his skin was wrapped in a white skin tight suit. What looked like needles were all pointing to different parts of his body ready to enter at any moment. Patton attempted to move to get away but quickly realized that he wasn''t able to despite not seeing any sort of straps on his arms or legs. He thought for a moment before realizing that the suit must have been the reason why but couldn''t figure out how.


    From the corner of his eye he saw some odd looking creature. It looked to be taller than six feet closer to seven, with grey skin and several black eyes that seemed to be looking everywhere. This creature was hunched over wearing a suit similar to what Patton was wearing except with black lines that would appear at the collar and proceed downward disappearing at one of the other ends. It looked over at the awake Patton and proceeded to tap a button on the control panel it seemed to be at. All of the needles suddenly stabbed right into Patton causing him to scream as loud as he could, but just as the pain started it also stopped even becoming soothing. "What are you doing to me you shitstain!" He shouted at the alien who didn''t seem to care about his comment. After a few seconds the needles removed themselves and a display quickly went up before his eyes.


    [Nanobodies successfully implanted.]


    [Hero abilities: Peak Human Strength, Peak Human Reflexes, Peak Human Durability, Energy Manipulation (D) obtained.]


    These notifications that appeared over his eyes reminded him completely of the game. At creation a character was given an amount of points that the players spent into getting skills which usually ended up at about the same level he had now though usually he''d be able to gain one more skill that could compliment Energy Manipulation to give it more use. These nanobodies seemed to only be a minor power booster.


    He looked back to the alien by the panel who seemed to be sighing a breath of relief and a video suddenly appeared before his eyes depicting another human with metal parts instead of where her skin was. She was cornered on the ship and the aliens that had caught up to her had fired their lasers leaving a sight that made Patton have to hold back any bile that would have usually been splattering over the floor. After that it left the room. Patton was now alone.


    ''How will I get out of here?'' He thought to himself with that electric buzz that woke him up interupting his thoughts. This gave Patton an idea for escaping. His idea was to locate where the buzzing was coming from based off of where he heard it and then with his powers stop that electricity. In practice though he couldn''t do it because he never needed to learn how to echolocate so he couldn''t and even with how quicklyhe can usually learn things wouldn''t be able to teach himself how to do it before someone came by. If only he had something like a minimap that would tell him his mission objective.


    [Minimap Activated]


    [Quest: You must escape the alien ship immediately. Rewards: 300 EXP.]


    [Current Objective: Break free.]


    The quest notification along with the Minimap helped him see that the buzzing was coming from directly behind him. So it was this machine that was holding him down. Using his power he would deactivate it.


    [Attempt Failed. 10 Skill EXP earned]


    Damnit he didn''t do it, but without a more advanced Energy Manipulation he couldn''t. After seeing that skill experience though he got another idea that had to work. If he gained enough experience in Energy Manipulation it''d level up enough to turn off this electric ball and chain. The more failures the more experience he''d gain after he finally succeeded on something. He looked around the room for things he could practice with. Looking around he found something that looked less complicated to control than what was holding him. What he tried to control would be some sort ofalien medical tool that he could tell had power running through it. After activating his power the tool went berserk activating and shooting weird goo everywhere.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    [Attempt Success. 15 Skill EXP earned. No Fail Bonus.]


    He didn''t want a success damnit he needed to rack up points. Quickly his vision went around the room looking for anything else to use, but found nothing. He sighed and started to use his powers on the machine holding him captive again.


    [Attempt Failed. 10 Skill EXP earned]


    [Attempt Failed. 10 Skill EXP earned]


    Every failed attempt was agonizing but would be worth it in the end. If he just wore it down enough maybe?


    [Attempt Failed. 10 Skill EXP earned]


    [Attempt Failed. 10 Skill EXP earned]


    The plus side would be that he''d probably level up at least once after doing this. If he succeeded in time. His mind wandered off to what the alien doctor was doing but quickly snapped back to his objective.


    [Attempt Failed. 10 Skill EXP earned]


    [Attempt Succeeded. 20 Skill EXP earned. Failed Bonus: x6 = 120 EXP]


    [Energy Manipulation (D) is now level 2.]


    Patton slumped to the ground the second he succeeded. His eyes started to tear up from the stress of this situation. He got up after collecting himself and ran out of the room trying to find an exit.


    [Current Objective: Find a way out.]


    After that notfication his minimap blipped the entire ship yellow. It looked like there was no way out at all. He kept up his run easily thanks to his enhanced physical body. There was a small group of five alien soldiers he had encountered partway through who noticed him immeditately. The combat engaged with the aliens drawing their laser guns and firing them at Patton while he ran in the other direction. The blasts missed Patton and landed on the ground in front of him causing nothing but small sparks. The halls blew passed Patton and the soldiers until they came across a similar corner to what Patton saw earlier. Patton looked around hoping for some chink in this wall of soldiers but was too distressed to think of a way out. His panicked mind suddenly calmed down though as he realized he could use the lasers to his advantage. He used his Energy Manipulation to overheat their guns all at once.


    [Attempt Succeeded...]


    He ignored the notifications and looked as four of the five aliens dropped their weapons. The last one that held firm fired at Patton who quickly grabbed the energy in the air with his power and flung it back. The soldier fell to the ground stunned by the hit. The other soldiers recovered and rushed to Patton who would use his enhanced reflexes to quickly jump over them and grab one of their guns which he used to shoot the rest. Patton thought about using his Energy Manipulation to amplify the power output and then about how he could do that to kill these aliens. He pointed the gun at them his hands shaking uncontrollably. ''I need to teach these bastards a lesson. I need to show these aliens what I can do.'' He shook all the way down to his feet as he stared into the aliens'' eyes whichshowed no emotion related to fear even as they could''ve died now. ''But what would be the point? A hero wouldn''t do this.'' He lowered the gun and took the four others. He ran away from the soldiers to get some distance between him and the aliens. He laid out the four guns he wasn''t using against the ship wall.Focussing his power on the guns he tried to set them all off in a more explosive manner this time.


    [Attempt Failed. 20 Skill EXP earned]


    He got this notification three more times one for each gun. Again he attempted and got the same results. The first soldier that was stunned began getting up and slowly walked its way to Patton. Patton once again attempted to blow up the four guns and finally got the four messages he wanted to see.


    [Attempt Succeeded. 40 Skill EXP earned. Failed Bonus: x2 = 80 EXP]


    A blast of green energy blew up right in Patton''s face but the scale of it wasn''t enough to get through his durability. He peered through the hole and saw that they were currently in the atmosphere because of the bigorange blot that Patton assumed was Earth. He knew that this was his objective, he knew he needed to do this, but he couldn''t. All that happened in these past couple minutes was barely enough to handle and now he had to jump who knows how far in the sky down directly intoEarth? All of these thoughts raced through his mind until he felt a sudden force on his back that made him fall into the hole. He made it several feet down and stared at the yellow blot that he was rapidly approaching until his vision started getting filled by a warm light that had brought him into a familiar place.

 Chapter 3: Back to Earth

    Patton was back in his house finally. His eyes wandered around the room that was covered in bookshelves which towered over him. Each bookshelf was filled with scientific notebooks, books about the sciences, and at the very end of it a massive collection of every comic book you could ever want. Then he realized this was his old house when he lived with his dad and this was the library that Patton''s father studied in.


    Patton felt a pain in his heart after noticing a man hunched over a desk doing something with a pencil in hand which had the lamp that was lighting up the room. Patton made his way over to the desk until he was staring right up at the man. He tugged on his pants trying to get his attention. "Just a moment there Patty dad''s working on something. I''ll play with you soon."


    "Dad I had a nightmare.. Can I stay here?"


    "Yeah sure." Patton''s father stood up from his desk and reached up on his toes to get a box up from the shelf above his desk. He set it down on his lap and searched through it until he found the thing he was looking for. "Right here read this. These always helped me escape those nightmares." His hand descended down with a book titled The Many Adventures of The Outstanding Lightning Bug. In a corner of it there was an A designed to look like someone made it by running in its shape. "Pick out some other boxes if you wanna read more." His father would add before going back to his work. Patton opened up the book to the starting page and started his reading.


    The city had always been full of crime. Each alleyway would have some kind of darkness brewing in. Some of these darknesses were so thick even the police couldn''t handle them. Soon though the city of Chicago would gain someone that could truly lessen this darkness someone named Lightning Bug.


    This was just the introductory blurb to the book and already Patton had been hooked. Sure at the time he couldn''t understand every word and he didn''t know what a Chicago was until much later, but that night he had read more comic books than he had anytime later in his life. He memorized all of their names, origins, and various impactful stories that would affect his child brain in ways that would shape him into becoming who he would be now.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Several months after that night Patton would continue this trend, spending many nights reading comic books while his father would be occupied with late night work. The days when he didn''t he''d sit there and read along with him. Somedays they wouldn''t even read at all, instead they''d talk and discuss the topics. Those conversations were more his father telling him the knowledge and Patton happily absorbing it into his mind.


    While these bright nights would go on for Patton very dark days would follow a year later. His parents'' relationship had been deteriorating for a while with their loving gazes shifting into just simple gazes until they couldn''t even stare at each other anymore. Patton didn''t notice it from how young he was at the time but there was this disturbing silence that would follow the house if his parents were ever in the room together. Another couple months later,his parents had divorced in secret and had been fighting over custody of Patton.


    These secrets were revealed to Patton all at once. First his mom told him that they would be living with grandma for a while away from daddy. After a few weeks of this Patton started asking questions about why dad wasn''t with them to which his motherfor the first few days would say, "He''s running a little late." but by the next week she''d just pretend he didn''t ask. Then he stopped asking.


    A police officer came into his grandmother''s house one morning and informed everyone in the house of his father''s passing. He said that there was no suspicion of foul play just that he had drunk too much one night and drove off the rode and crashed into a tree but didn''t go into detail about it knowing how a child would be affected. After that day Patton would shut himself in his room with comics in his arms. He didn''t even read them he just held them staining some pages with his tears.


    Feeling the comics close to his heart and the tears flooding his eyes Patton finally woke up from this dream just to look around to see a crater where he fell.