Rinnegata-Nome-Arma was a server born from a world of capes, costumes, and masks. A world filled with men and women who were more than human. A world filled with the stronger, the faster, the smarter, and those whose capabilities were far beyond the norm. Anyone who’d ever read a comic book would be familiar with this kind of world.
This was a world of heroes and villains. A world that was constantly teetering on the edge of destruction. Worlds like these were often very fragile things. Tending to hinge on the presence and actions of one or two key persons. Rinnegata-Nome was one of a multitude of such worlds that inevitably ended up falling into the breach.
One bad day, and the loss of a fair number of this world’s greatest heroes to a salvo of dimension tearing bombs, was enough to ensure that when the next crisis came along, the world wasn’t able to survive it. The villains ended up learning that the victory they’d sought so much tasted much more bitter than they’d expected. Bitter enough that many of them died from the experience.
The new generation of heroes found themselves having to take on titles like Boss, Lord, and Overlord to match the new and old surviving villains, and anti-heroes, who were still running around. Both sides were forced to guide and guard the dwindling population of mundanes.
The number of super-powered beings in the world spiked as the anomalous energies that inundated the world triggered the emergence of paranormal abilities in more and more people as part of a stress response. Post-apocalyptic worlds were lacking in many things, but stressfulness was one of the few things they had in spades.
Had the HOA not stepped in, and recommended intercession on the part of the Division of Cosmic Artifice, the world would have likely been destroyed by either the multitude of monstrous creatures that kept popping up, or the unstable, and horrendously powerful, superhumans that kept awakening within the world.
Now, after becoming a server of Horologia, Rinnegata-Nome was still a wild place, but at least it was stable now. The population was rising again, most of the dimensional apertures had been closed, and the dangerously powerful supers were kept in check by the controls set through the world’s internal-laws.
Now civilization was slowly recovering. Not that you’d know it on days like today. Days that were full of madness and mayhem. Days where all you can hear were explosions, the raucous laughter of violent grown-up children playing dangerous beastly games, and the tears and sobbing of folk who were watching as their lives crumbled into rubble around them.
Antonia “Tony” Hunter sat on a stair stoop as she watched the city hall for the city of Wildheart crumble to the ground. Two groups of masked figures blurred up into the sky firing laser beams and bolts of fire at each other, ignoring the damage that they’d done and were still doing. Flying around each other like two nests of angered wasps.
Rinnegeta-Nome was an “awakened” world. A world whose mortal and immortal authorities believed in letting the people actually know what was going around them. Thus Tony, and countless others within the city, all received a bulletin from Horologia’s operating system informing them that their city was now, technically no longer a city, and no longer entitled to the protections that Horologia’s programming set for large settlements. Which meant everyone in the city was now living on borrowed time.
The situation was thus. A simple bar brawl between two men had exploded into an all-out gang war between the representative forces of the Republic of Everlast, and the madmen of the Vault-Volt-Vox Patriots. With the town stuck in the middle, and its property and people stuck as collateral damage. Now the worst had happened and many of Wildheart’s key structures had been destroyed.
“......” Tony drew in a sharp breath, as she felt a wave of hot and cold flow over her. She felt outraged and angry and scared at this news. She was flatly overwhelmed with no clue of what to do. A childish part of her wanted to just go back inside her apartment and cry for a bit. Another part of her wished she were strong enough to smack both groups of idiots into the ground, or more likely die trying.
That's just how overwhelmed she felt. Yet she couldn’t. The city needed her, because Antonia Hunter was the city of Wildheart’s one and only mayor.
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The next couple of days were some of the longest that Tony had ever had to live through in her 33 years of being alive. From the moment she arrived at the ruin that had once held her office, there wasn’t a single moment to catch her breath.
Tony and her subordinates had to set up an emergency office in one of the nearby warehouses. She had to set up tents, and borrow the use of the town's few remaining buildings, to accommodate the survivors of this protracted and callous battle by two forces that had no right to be running amok in her town.
Tony had then needed to coordinate her men, the local guardsmen, and the friendlier local toughs, so they could protect the populace from the weaker mutated-beasts that had already started strolling into the town. While also sending folk out to look through the rubble for survivors who might have gotten buried alive beneath all that wood and brick.
There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” said Tony. The metal bands she wore on both wrists shivered and hummed as she drew from metal’s power. The door opened and a head popped in, with a handsome triangular tan-skinned face, straight-brown hair, light-brown eyes, finely shaped eyebrows, a pointed nose, small lips, and a well-trimmed goatee. It was Deacon Fisher. Tony’s assistant. Her go-to man.
The guy, who at this point, was 50-percent of the reason Tony hadn’t already had a meltdown and run away. Abandoning the mayoral office.
The other 50-percent of Tony’s reason for sticking things out, was made up of her own strong sense of personal duty, the guilt that would have afflicted her if she’d abandoned her position during her hometown’s time of need, and the imposter syndrome that she’d been suffering from since the day she’d somehow gotten elected into the office eight years ago.
Tony sighed.
“Oh, it’s you...What is it?” said Tony.
“We’ve got a visitor for you, Madame Mayor,” said Deacon. Being uncustomarily formal. Cluing her in that whoever it was, they were likely already in the building, and potentially listening in, considering how sharp some people’s senses could be.
“Tch, which guests?” said Tony. Already having had it up to here with the number of so-called friendly faces that had found their way into the city during Wildheart’s time of need. Offering devil’s deals that Tony could never take because she genuinely couldn’t live with that kind of ugliness on her conscience.
“A Mister and Missus Holst from the Holst Curio and Convenience Store? They said you’d know them?” said Deacon. Frowning a little and looking perplexed.
“Oh, I take it you do know these folks?” said Deacon. Nodding to himself.
“Huh? How’d you guess?” said Tony. Her brow furrowing. Wondering if she’d ever spoken to Deacon about the strange bar that she'd found in town one day. A bar and store that served drinks that tasted of exactly what special birthdays, teenage confessions, and spring rains would taste-like if one was able to somehow convert them into liquor form.
“Well, boss your expression just went from ‘good thing, my guns are locked in the safe where I can’t reach them and this office is on the ground floor because I’m just about done with this shit...to bring out the fireworks and scotch its fourth of July’..” said Deacon.
Tony just glared at the man. Refusing to make any arguments, because she was well aware that her face was kind of an open book. Another reason that her being successfully elected as mayor, not once, but twice, left her flabbergasted.
“Hardie-har, you know those folks in the black store uniforms that have been handing out food, water, medicine, clothing, and other stuff to our people…Those are ‘their’ people. Anyway, just let ‘em in wiseass,” said Tony. Feeling strangely relieved at the reminder that the world wasn’t full of nothing but opportunistic slavers who’d show up offering you a hand, so long as you’d sell off half of your newly homeless townsfolk to them
“Sure thing, boss,” said Deacon snickering as he pulled his head back through the gap of the door.
A moment later, a familiar tall man who looked almost painfully ordinary if you ignored his pink hair and yellow eyes showed up. Hints of something extraordinary appearing if you happened to look at him out of the corner of your eye, or just happened to catch him unawares on days when he wasn’t expecting customers to actually show up.
The man was accompanied by a bubbly blond woman who looked like she basically lived at the gym and ate nothing but whole cows, horns, and all.
“Hullo-Hullo!” said Josephine. Smiling with the bright innocence and charm of a newborn babe. Seeming in far too good a mood, considering the current climate in the city.
“Greetings,” said the blonde’s much more even-keeled business partner and husband.
“Hi, guys...Sorry, I can’t give you much more of a welcome. I’ve been swamped with well...I’m sure you’ve seen,” said Tony. Smiling and then frowning as she remembered how bad a situation she was in.
“We know! That’s why we’re here to help, you big silly,” said Josephine. Greeting Tony with a nice warm, incredibly soft, hug.
“Oh, guys...I know you two are some kind of magical-whatsits but the city’s broke...I’m broke. I’m afraid I can’t afford your services,” said Tony. Feeling distressed, and disheartened, as she made that admission.
“Indeed...That’s why we’re here to offer you a deal,” said Ellis.
Tony’s frown grew more pronounced as she recalled a couple of terrible deals she’d already been offered and turned down.
“Hm, I can see that you’ve already been offered a few deals already...But our family name is Holst, not Mephistopheles...So, please kindly pull back your bloodlust,” said the pink-haired man. Giving Tony a stern look.
“Ah...Right. Shit, sorry...It’s just that the last fucker asked me to give up 100 of the town's kids. Could you imagine? Could you believe the nerve?” said Tony. Sighing. Blinking and then easing up. As she felt the man push her aura back with his own aura.
The man’s expression didn’t change but his tone was clearly commiserative. The blond picked up Tony’s hand and patted her gently.
“We know, hon. We actually had to already squash some insects that were outright trying to steal people…”
“Some of the fools even attempted to accost us, while we were on our way here...So, I'd like it on record that it was self-defense...If any of your hard-working lawmen have questions,” said Ellis. His tone was cold and annoyed.
“What?! Where?! I mean thank you...Do you know who they were?” said Tony. More concerned about the idea of slavers already creeping into town to run raids, than she was about the deaths of a few of the hoodlums those slavers had working for them.
“They don’t matter now. We squashed the ones that came at us, and sweetums sent his best sneaky-sneak rooks after the rest...Crushed insects just go in the toilet and are quickly forgotten. That’s just life. What matters is that you’re a terrible singer, you were never good at piano anyway, and you hate all fifteen years that your mother made you play violin…” said Josephine. Her chipper and cavalier tone regarding the deaths of the unknown slavers was so unnerving that Tony instinctually decided to focus on the other matters.
“Uhhh...Hey, not cool! That was bar talk! Let's not bring that talk here where people might hear,” said Tony
“We’re liquor sellers, not priests or psychologists...Plus it’s just us here...But I believe we’re getting off course. Do you agree with my dear partner’s statements that your atrocious singing, piano, and violin skills are of no use to you?” said Ellis.
“Uh...Yes...But what does that have to do with-?...Oh,” said Tony. Eyes going wide as she suddenly understood what they were saying.
“If you agree to the loss of those skills and 3 years off of your remaining lifespan, I believe we can sort this whole situation out for you lickety-split,” said Josephine.
“I...Thanks, guys. You’re literally the best bartenders a gal could ever ask for,” said Tony. Feeling a little teary-eyed and quickly agreeing to the deal. Aware that based on the other prices the store listed for much smaller things than rebuilding a whole city, the pair had essentially given away their services for free. Especially considering that most folk who died of old age within Rinnegata-Nome died in their 300s or 400s.
