From a roof, across the street from the neon-lit “XX CLUB XX,” a shadowed figure gazed down at the pavement as a man stumbled out. The man wore a skintight green and yellow suit that showed a little too much. He was clearly drunk. If it was not obvious from his swaying gait, then his incoherent babbles, and the bottle that he smashed onto the wall of the building, would have given him away.

Two bouncers, both rivaling his physique, blocked him from reentering the club. He didn’t usually leave this early, and must have gotten himself in trouble.

There was a second figure, this one atop the club itself. As the inebriated man stumbled down the block, the two shadows followed him closely from opposite sides of the street, witnessed only by each other and the moon herself. Oddly enough, they did not know each other, and it was only by chance that they both chose to follow this man on the same night.

The man stopped underneath a dingy yellowed streetlight to empty his stomach. The club-side figure leapt across the street, revealing himself to be a man with a shiny white mask covering his nose and mouth. The mask had purple blushed cheeks and an exaggerated, painted frown. His brown hair was tied up, and visibly curly. He wore brown pants and a brown vest over a white dress shirt. He spoke. “Hero Arbiter, eh? Can I call you Harbiter?”

“If you want to,” Hero Arbiter staticked through her voice changer.

She herself wore a white mask with red lenses over her face. The mask had the ‘scan’ spell, of course, and she could see that his nametag read: 

Lvl 73 - Fighter - Misery.

“Are you here for Justice Fist?” she asked.

“Yeah. Out for a bit of hero slaying. Support class, any good spells?”

“No.”

The man below began to turn the corner, and they followed with hushed voices.

“What is a level 18 Support hoping to do to a level 36 Fighter?” asked Misery.

“Talk to him.”

Misery laughed. “Okay. When you’re done, buff me, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Hero Arbiter shook her head. “No need.”

“What? You don’t want me to do anything?”

She shrugged. “You can have your fun with him, just give me a few days first.”

“You couldn’t stop me if you wanted to,” noted Misery.

“Pretty please.”

He presented a white-gloved palm. “Well, go ahead then.”

Harbiter dropped down from the building, landing in front of the hero with a thump.

“Justice Fist,” she stated.

Even as drunk and dazed as he was, the harshly modified voice caught his attention. “What, are you a villain?” he slurred.

“If you want to call me that.”

Justice Fist pulled a pair of dark glasses from his pocket and held them up to his eyes, before laughing. “Level 18 Support? What are you gonna do, lower my defense by ten percent?”

“I’m only here as a warning. Return all of the money that you’ve taken, or I will be back.”

His brow angled sharply down. “I haven’t taken anything!” His hands began to glow.

“I’ll check in on you tomorrow.”

As Justice Fist swung, Harbiter vanished, leaving him with his fist in the empty air. His momentum brought him to the ground, and he screamed in fury. He struggled to get to his feet, cursing the whole way, before kicking a nearby trash can.

“How heroic,” mused Misery from the roof.

 

It was long after the sun rose that Justice Fist woke the next day. From the roof of a nearby building, Harbiter watched him through his apartment window blinds with binoculars. He rolled out of bed and took a swig of milk, straight from the carton.

Harbiter had been worried that Justice Fist might forget the events of the previous night, but then he crushed an empty can in his fist and exclaimed hotly, “Fucking teleportation! Such an unfair power,” before tossing it into a loaded trash can.

“You staking this guy out or what?”

Harbiter jolted away from her binoculars. It was Misery again. “Something like that. Why are you here?”

“Just curious.” He sat down next to her and poked his arms through the railing. “I was gonna kill the guy, but it’s not like I’d get much XP from him. Might as well give the rookie a fair shot.”

“I don’t like killing if I can avoid it.”

“You must have killed something if you’re not a level one civilian.” Misery flailed his arms through the rails, restlessly.

“Dungeon monsters and food. Deer, the like.” Satisfied that Misery was likely not there to murder her, Harbiter put the binoculars back to her mask and watched as Justice Fist ate boxed cereal in fist-fulls.

“Not many deer in the city. Where you from?”

“Is this an interrogation?” asked Harbiter.

“That’s a lovely word,” said Misery. “Maybe I just want to get to know you.”

“Networking. I get it.”

“Don’t fancy networking back?” he asked.

“I’m not a router,” replied Harbiter.

“I don’t have a clever answer to that.”

“Then don’t.”

There was a short pause, before Misery asked, “When are you gonna not-kill him, or whatever it is you’re doing?”

Harbiter bit back an irritable response. Justice Fist was getting dressed in his hero uniform now, a gaudy skin-tight suit colored green and yellow. He had been late to work a few days in a row now, a consequence of his partying.

He pulled a roll of cash from an unassuming kitchen drawer and flipped through it. This was not part of his morning routine, and it was evident that he was considering Harbiter’s directive. He pocketed the money and exited his apartment.

The two followed him from the rooftops as he made the journey down the city sidewalk. The hero stuck out like a porno mag in a kid store on the street below, and tracking him was no trouble. It was not uncommon to occasionally cross a hero, but passersby still gave him an interested head-turn.

“So who’s he took the money from?” asked Misery as they leapt from rooftop to rooftop.

“He collects weekly protection payments from people in his patrol area.”

“Sounds like gangster stuff.”

Harbiter shrugged. “You would be right to say it is thoroughly illegal.”

Justice Fist entered a gated parking garage. Soon after, a white sedan drove out. From there, his typical route deviated, and he turned left.

Harbiter turned to Misery. “He usually heads straight to the Hero HQ. Track him.”

Misery raised a brow, his eyes curved in amusement. “Bossy much?”

“I’m not a high enough level to buy a tracking spell, and you might as well since you’re here.”

“As much as I would love to please my dear master, I don’t have any tracking spells on me either.”

“They’re quite common.”

“Well usually at this point I’d have killed the hero last night, not followed him across the city.”

“We’ll do this the hard way then.”

Harbiter reached to her ear and twisted a knob on her mask slowly. She hummed, and her voice raised in pitch, becoming less garbled and more feminine. “Testing.”

“Is that your real voice?”

“No.” She tapped a number into her phone and held it up to her ear. With a voice as sweet as Saturday morning pancakes, she practically squealed an introduction. “Oh. My. Gosh. Is this Justice Fist? The real deal? I’ve heard SO much about you. You’re a real up-and-coming superstar! I saw your number on the internet and I just HAD to see if it was you. I’m a huge fan, you hear! Uh-huuhhh… Oh? Maybe we can meet up! Sounds AMAZING. I gotta go, but call me soon hunny bun.” Harbiter hung up.

“That’s terrifying,” commented Misery.

Harbiter rotated her voice back into the grating static as she spoke. “Wherever he is, there is no distinct background noise or conversations.”

“So what’s your next move?”

“Camp one of his victims and see if he shows up to return the money. If he doesn’t, I’ll have to meet up with him. I’d prefer to follow him, but it seems like that won’t be happening.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“If you want to be a level 73 abandoned duckling.”

Harbiter extended a scarred hand. Misery put his own white-gloved hand in hers. They touched, and the world around them changed.

 

They were now on another rooftop, this one overlooking another almost identical set of apartment and parking complexes.

“This is the first place he comes to collect money. It’s not collection day, but if he does plan to return the money then he should come here at some point.”

“He’s probably putting it in a bank or something,” said Misery. “Hey you hungry? I could go for a DLG pizza right about now.”

“I’m not taking off my mask,” said Harbiter, “but I’ll take a mint berry soda. With a straw.”

“Drats, I wanted to see if you were a girl or a boy.”

“That’s not your business.”

Several minutes after Misery left, Justice Fist entered an apartment several buildings away. Harbiter dropped down and entered after him. The place had pale maroon carpeting which had been beaten down from many footsteps. It smelled like several generations of tobacco had been smoked in the lobby.

Shouting rang down the stairwell. “Did you rat me out to this Hero Arbiter guy?”

“No! I swear it!” cried a fearful man’s voice.

“Who else could it have been then? You’re always the one that causes the problems around here.”

“Hey I got your soda,” said Misery.

Harbiter spun around. “How did you find me?”

“Oh, I’ve had a tracking spell on you since last night.” Misery presented a small pizza box, on which balanced a medium-sized soda.

Crash! Thud!

“You couldn’t have used it on Justice Fist?” asked Harbiter.

Misery’s eyes creased, evidence of a grin hidden behind his mask. “I had it on him too, just wanted to see what you would do.”

Bang! “Aaaargh! I didn’t do anything Justice Fist. It was anyone else! It was the old lady in room—” Whack!

Harbiter grabbed the soda and took a sip under her mask, before clunking it back on the pizza box. The two walked up the stairwell towards the noises. The door to the apartment was ajar, so Harbiter entered. Misery waited in the hallway. Inside, Justice Fist had a young civilian man pinned to a wall.

“Who else did you tell?” Justice Fist shouted into the poor man’s face.

“It wasn’t him,” said Harbiter, voice static.

“You!” Justice Fist turned and let go of the man, who drifted to the ground like a wet leaf.

“This doesn’t look like returning money,” said Harbiter.

“If you have a problem with it then fight me!” The hero’s hands began to glow with pulsing yellow energy.

“That’s a pretty skill.”

He swung at her, but she sprung away in an instant. Justice Fist laughed. “You picked ‘Leap’ as your first skill? You don’t even have any attacks! You can’t do anything with that setup.”

Harbiter leapt behind him. He swung around, and she kicked out his feet. “Fool. Mobility skills are the most important for melee builds. Having glowing hands doesn’t make you better at martial arts.” She glared down at him through her mask. “It’s not too late to return the money to your victims.”

He grit his teeth and stood up, a hand to his cheek. “I’m a defender of justice! The money helps me do my job.”

Harbiter pulled out a knife. “Then get a different job.” She bolted past him, leaving a long scratch on his arm. The fabric of his suit split, revealing a thin line that welled up with beads of blood.

“You really are a rookie. A little knife like that is barely going to do anything to a high level hero. Our flesh is tough as wood!”

For a level 36 he sure was cocky.

Harbiter leapt up at him and stabbed him in the shoulder, concentrating the weight of her body on one point. He cried out in pain as it drove into him.

He grabbed her forearm, trying to wrestle her off.

She twisted the blade further in and then shoved him away, bending her arm out of his grip. 

His unscathed arm swung towards her, but she easily dodged the wide movement and kicked him roughly to the ground. He groaned and pulled the knife out of his arm, the front of his suit now soaked with blood. He stood once again, hands glowing.

“Casting your unique over and over? It looks like you picked a bunch of melee attack skills that didn’t synergize,” remarked Harbiter.

“Fuck you,” he spat, lunging towards her. 

She danced around him, like a river around a rock. “I’ll give you one more week,” she said to the back of his head. She planted a foot on his spine and shoved him with all her force to the ground. He howled as he landed on his wounded arm, and curled up in pain.

Harbiter walked out to the hallway. Misery adjusted his mask and put a nibble of pizza crust back in the box. “Gonna teleport?”

“Is that a request?” she asked.

“I like how it feels.”

Harbiter placed her hand on his shoulder. In an instant they were in an alley elsewhere in the city. Misery tossed the pizza box in the dumpster and held out the beverage.

She took it from him and sipped at it. She paused. “Did you drink from this?”

“I paid for it.” He grinned.

She tossed it into the dumpster, disgusted. “Are you gonna keep following me?”

“Nah,” said Misery. “I’ve seen enough for today. You should join my crew. You seem pretty competent for a level 18.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Not a no,” he said.

“Not a yes,” she replied.

“Well, I’ll bother you about it later Harbs. All this action makes me want to go hunting.” Misery jumped up the sides of the alley to the roof, disappearing over the top.