Chapter 132: Monsters?

"For someone who claims to be stronger than me, you’re looking quite weak right now."

Standing in the hole created in the wall was Overdrive, looking down at Volt, who was still lying on the rubble.

"Looks like you got your ass handed to you," Overdrive added as he walked towards the hero, crouched down and poked his cheeks. "I wonder what Eli would think, seeing his hero like this."

Volt remained silent even when Overdrive continued poking his cheeks. But after a while, he muttered,

"This is my fault."

Overdrive looked at him, noticing that tears were streaming down his face before he covered it with his arm.

"If only I had tried hard enough, then maybe I could’ve saved him back then."

Of course Liam knew of the idiot’s past and of his brother thanks to the comics, but seeing Tyler like this was completely different from simply reading about it.

With a sigh, he stopped poking Volt’s cheeks and dropped his teasing tone. "Hey."

"Even if you somehow had enough Pragma to run back there," Overdrive continued, "then what?"

Volt moved his arm away from his face and looked at Overdrive. "T-then I could’ve saved him."

"Don’t be an idiot," Overdrive responded with a sigh. "How much Pragma do you think a newly awakened kid has?"

"T-that—" Volt started, but was interrupted as he spoke up again, "if you had gone back and gotten yourself caught, don’t you think your brother’s efforts would’ve gone to waste?"

Overdrive then sat on the rubble beside him. "Besides, there are so many people that look up to you now; are you really willing to ignore their cries for help?"

"..." Volt silently continued looking at Overdrive.

With a sigh, Overdrive stood up, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. "I know I suck at this sort of stuff, so I’ll leave you to your thoughts."

He walked towards the hole in the wall again before stopping and glancing back at Volt. "Just remember that you’re now a hero, and a lot of people are hoping you’ll save them."

With that, he walked out of the hole in the wall, leaving Volt alone in the rubble.

***

"Now then," Overdrive looked around the city, "shall we keep the Villain busy until our speedster is ready to go through his character arc?"

[A couple more heroes had been dispatched, so the civilians should be—] Cyrus suddenly stopped talking.

"What’s wrong?" Overdrive asked with a frown.

[There are multiple new attacks all around the city,] the agent explained, [and from the street footage, the city seems to be under attack by... monsters?]

"Monsters?" Liam’s frown got even darker; after all, from what he could recall from the comics, Sterling City was never involved in a fracture event.

Victor also never had a major experimental outbreak, so what the hell was going on?

***

"Thanks to the explosion of Victor’s lab, an unknown energy was spread into the air, mutating the surrounding creatures into monsters, and a few days later, said monsters attacked the city."

SNAP!

A book with golden with hard golden cover was snapped shut as its owner finished writing. On the cover was the title,

[Radiance.]

"That should keep the heroes busy for a while," the owner of the book, the Argent Ring’s newest member, Quill, said.

"Your Factor’s quite cool, Quill," Dune said with a smile. "Why don’t you write us the identity of Zero, so we can get an early vacation?"

"It doesn’t work like that," Quill responded, "else my book would’ve been completed quite early."

"I see," Dune nodded in understanding before she looked towards the city again, "still though, I guess we don’t even have to make a move anymore."

"We still have to find Zero," a voice was heard beside Dune.

"AHH!" Dune jumped back in surprise, before noticing that it was only their shadow lady. "Stop popping out of nowhere!"

The sleepy man, on the other hand, simply looked towards the city, which, at this point, had smoke rising from multiple different locations.

Just as the Argent Ring had intended, the HA would be too busy dealing with this to go after them.

This should give them enough time to create more awakeners and also enough freedom to look for Zero.

It was like killing two birds with one stone.

***

"Are you okay?" Lea, in her hero costume, asked the civilian before her.

The man looked completely out of it, after all, his entire arm had been ripped off just seconds ago, yet the new hero, Halo, had just regrew it.

Seeing as she was getting no response, Halo turned towards another hero with a Factor that allowed them to create ’Safe Zones’ and said.

"Create a safe Zone around this place and get all the injured to me," She ordered.

The hero frowned before responding, "listen here kid—"

"Now," Halo cut him off, her eyes sending shivers down the hero’s spine, "or would you like to be responsible for the deaths of everyone here?"

Though she was his junior, the hero, Barrier, was quite terrified of the look in her eyes. It was completely different from her usual self.

"Y-yes," Barrier said before placing a hand on the ground and a golden glow extended outwards from his palm.

A large barrier formed around them, one which his Factor allowed him to specify what could and couldn’t enter, hence, making it a Safe Zone.

Halo then turned back to the civilian and said, "The HA will get you out of here soon; until then, you’ll be safe here."

She then looked towards the city, one that had mostly been destroyed by these strange monsters.

Rose, Liam’s friend, was keeping Eli safe, which meant that she only had one person to worry about,

Liam.

"Please be safe," she muttered to herself before focusing on the incoming civilians.

***

Overdrive, on the other hand, had a confused expression on his face as he looked at the bald man with a blindfold before him.

"We finally meet," the bald man said with a smile on his face, "Zero."