"Lux wouldn't know STUPID if it slapped him in the face!"
James, the boy with dense hair darker than midnight and skin paler than vanilla ice cream, doesn't hide his annoyance as he watches Lux sit on what used to be his very neat bed.
James wasn't expecting this surprise visit; his loose-fitted violet pajama pants drape comfortably over his legs, and his Hello Kitty flip-flops would tell you that itself.
His hair, usually straightened down just enough to cover his forehead, but also leave a little breathing room, is now a frizzled, popcorn-like mess, as though he'd been electrocuted in his sleep.
Lux shamefully frowns as he lies back on the bed that isn't his own. He switched out of his Supersuit---A Black hoodie and a face mask---and back into his regular ones he wore this morning. Of course, missing a sock.
"It seemed smart in retrospect..."
Next to Lux stands the dirty Peter, politely waiting for James to give him the go-ahead to sit on that chair he's been eyeing for so long.
James notices and lets out a little sigh.
"You can sit...who are you?"
James extends his hand as he speaks, gesturing for the man to finally rest his tired legs.
The man breathes an exasperated sigh of relief as he squishes himself between the cushions.
For a bedroom, James's room is weirdly quaint. It's minimalistic exactly where it needs to be; his bed is no larger than a king---Lux can tell---which leaves room for the two-seater leather couch in the center, perfectly perpendicular to the television set across from it.
In the farthest corner on the right side of the room is his "set-up," as he likes to call it, which is just a PC, a monitor, a Wi-Fi router plugged into the PC with an Ethernet cable, and a bunch of technical devices that James tells Lux to "not mind his pretty little head about."
"The name's Peter! But you, my techy friend, can call me Pete!"
James listens to Pete's introduction, but as he wriggles around on his couch---which was recently vacuumed and spot-cleaned---he can't help but be attacked by thoughts of how dirty it has become, and how he'll have to go through his entire couch-cleaning routine all over again.
James rubs the bridge of his nose, hoping to relieve the stress that Lux always seems to bring to him.
"Okay, 'Pete', you wanna explain why this dumbass—"
"You don't gotta be mean—" Lux mutters under his breath before getting cut off by James.
"Shut up, Lux! You bring a stranger into my room—MY ROOM—out of all the rooms in this godforsaken building! After curfew too! What the hell are you doing roaming around outside at 2 AM meeting dirty old men?"
James's outburst is quiet since he whispered the whole thing, yet sharp enough that you can hear the rage vibrating in his voice. His face turns almost tomato-red as he keeps going, voice low but loaded with fury.
"Dude, I could give less of a FUCK what you do in the privacy of your room, but please think twice before bringing your pedophilic hookups to mine!"
"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!"
Both Lux and Peter jump up from their spots, instantly refuting the outrageous claim made by James.
"Bro! That's not what this is!" Lux states matter-of-factly
"Yeah! I have a wife at home!" Pete chimes in.
"Yeah, he just approached me in an alleyway and asked me if I could help him with a problem he has..."
"..."
"..."
Lux's voice trails off as he says the situation out loud. Peter notices Lux thinking, and those thoughts in his head seem to be getting wilder and wilder as his face contorts into a quizzical one.
"No, no, no, no-" Pete waves his hands trying to stop what comes next, but it's too late.
"Oh, you're a pervert! I'm 14, freak!"
"No! Stop! We do this every time!"
"Nahhh, you're not fooling me with that time-loop stuff anymore, Deb told me about strangers like you!"
Lux creates some distance between himself and Peter and accidentally trips on the bed frame.
The two argue back and forth before James, who was watching in discomfort, decides to interrupt the squabble.
"Alright! Alright! If you're not here for that, then what?" James speaks, hoping to put an end to this
The room goes quiet for a moment, and Lux glances over to something to the right of him. To the others, it's as if he's quietly contemplating something, but the bright blue light reflects off of Lux's eyes, showing him a holographic screen of information.
Lux's power manifests itself in the form of a system, similar to one you'd see in an old RPG game. This system offers quests to Lux, and if he completes them, he gets a nice prize from it. When he doesn't...well, it usually ends well.
The screen brightly hovers around his face, not too close to cause eye damage, but also not far enough so that it's hard to read.
-----------------------------------------------------------
SIDE QUEST
HELP THE STRANGE TRAVELER!
-----------------------------------------------------------
OBJECTIVE:
BREAK THE TIME LOOP
STATUS:
IN PROGRESS
REWARDS:
???
100 EXP POINTS
PENALTY:
NONE
-----------------------------------------------------------
GOOD LUCK!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Deep in thought, Lux stares at the screen for what seems to be a bit too long. The other two start to notice and see that, instead of being deep in thought, it's as if he's staring at something...
"Lux?" James asks with his head slightly tilted.
"Ah, yeah..." Lux perks up, releasing himself from the trance he was stuck in. "Look, we needed your opinion on something."
James rocks back and forth in his chair, eyebrows raised at the proposition.
"Hm? On what?"
"On this."
Lux walks over to Peter and grabs his wrist, the one with the shiny, expensive-looking watch on it. "Our friend here can't get it off himself."
"...that's it?" He stops rocking and leans forward, covering his mouth with his hands.
"Yeah, um, I guess it's stuck on him?" Lux shrugs his shoulders, lifting Pete's wrist with his.
"JUST TAKE IT---"
The veins protruding from his forehead look as if they're about to burst, but James calms himself down, and he breathes slowly, like how you would if you were meditating; maybe he is meditating?
He closes his eyes and repeats his breathing structure over and over again; his lips twitch every so often, probably chanting some mantra in his head.
"...instead of going to a doctor or a Jeweler...you decided to wake me up at 2 AM?!"
Lux and Peter glance at each other for a moment before they simultaneously say,
"Yep!"
WHAM!
Splinters fly from the door as Lux and Peter are thrown out of the room. The two lick their wounds for a moment before trying to talk to James again.
"Dude, CMON! There's more to the watch!"
Lux's voice falls upon deaf ears; it seems James decided he was going to get the rest of his 8 hours tonight.
"Yeah, he's not gonna open the door again," Peter says as he wipes the dust from his already dirty pants. "Never has before, at least."
"So what? You said this is a new route, right?" Lux says, banging on the door some more.
"Yeah, but just cause something new happens doesn't mean the same things won't." Pete sighs as he leans against the wall, watching Lux bang on the door relentlessly.
"We could bang on this door for hours and waste our time, maybe dream about seeing his Hello Kitty slippers again, but I'd rather not. That doesn't end well."
Lux stops his hand from banging the door again and slouches down onto the ground in front of it. "Then please, enlighten me with your---oh so spectacular ideas."
The man looks at his sparkling wrist, and a smile grows on his lips.
"Let's take a walk, yeah?"
.
.
.
"You'd think it was a rural city with how quiet it all is right now," Pete says, scratching his ass, not worried if anyone sees.
Lux sees it, though, and his face contorts with disgust, and he seemingly starts to notice a distinct smell coming from Peter, one that he couldn't notice until he started thinking about a very important question.
"...I-Is that you? Do you not take showers?!"
"Don't worry, we'll get to our bath scene later," Pete jokingly comments, sniffing his fingers.
Repulsed, A lump of last night's dinner comes back up from Lux's stomach, he almost pukes it out, but holds it in and swallows it back.
"You don't know what you're saying, freak."
"I know everything! Remember?"
When Lux first met Pete, he was in the process of putting on his 'Supersuit', which is just a torn, ragged black hoodie he bought from the thrift store and a cheap face mask to go with it.
But since he had to go see James—who doesn't know about his midnight escapades as a vigilante yet—he had to wear the same uniform he wore to school. Dirty? Yeah. But you make do with what you've got.
Pete's still wearing the same mess.
Annoyance is creeping up on Lux; they've been walking for twenty minutes, and Pete still won't explain what they're walking for.
Just as Lux is about to voice his concerns, a terrified scream rings out—not too far from where they are. Without hesitation, Lux yanks his hoodie over his head and bolts around the corner, searching for the source. Pete follows behind, but doesn't run; he takes his sweet time catching up.
As Lux turns the corner, nothing looks off at first, until another scream, followed by a heavy thud, snaps his attention toward the sound.
He sprints toward one of his favorite corner stores in the Grandville District. The man he sees every time he visits—Willy, though Lux calls him Pop—is being held up by three masked figures, all armed with various weapons.
The one holding a metal bat is putting it to good use, smashing the glass screens off the freezers; his mask is a darker shade of blue. You could tell it's not his first time wearing it, thanks to the rips and tears across the entire thing.
It's barely doing a good job of concealing his identity; if the tear along his breathing hole was just a millimeter longer, it'd reveal his entire face from his right eye to the right of his chin.
The one clawing down the aisles with bladed gauntlets has a more feminine build; her mask is pristine, and the bright green shines off the light as if it's just been hand-washed and delicately scrubbed. Those gauntlets look brand-new as well; the two blades that extend out from the center of them seem sharper than a brand-new wire brush.
When Lux finally looks to the last one, enough goosebumps to fill the Grand Canyon shoot through his skin.
Their mask is pitch black, and the gun they're pointing at Pop doesn't look like a regular gun to Lux. It's outlined with a particular blue glow and detailed with a strange rock at the end of it. The frame looks as if its creator was trying to copy a 9MM handgun from memory, with ridges and bumps all around it. His fear grows with every second as he watches, crouched behind the nearby phone booth.
He hears just enough of what they're saying from the distance he's at, but still has to lean a little to help understand the jumbled-up words.
"Give us the money, old man!" The black masked one says, waving the gun toward the cash register.
"Y'all must be some desperate folks, ain'tcha?" Pop speaks with a calm look on his face; the sight of his shop getting torn to shreds before his eyes seems not to bother him much.
"Quit the small talk and hand over the cash!" Black Mask waves the gun once more, this time, though, they rack the slide.
"Cmon! Hurry up! We don't know when they'll come!" Green Mask says a bit panicked, but still swiping away at the chips and pastries.
"The way I see it," Old Man Willy speaks, his low voice deepens with every word, "I could let you take my hard-earned cash, but then I'd starve to death, seeing as how you fucked up all my product. Or, I could just see if you're really 'bout it."
The man leans closer to Black Mask, "See if you got what it takes, but either way, I'm dead. So pull it."
Black Mask winces at the old man's words, but all they need are seconds of thought before deciding what to do.
"I need this money, man, ain't two ways about it."
Then they move their finger from the side of the barrel to the trigger.
A stroke of luck passes the old man for today, though, as well as a blue glow that burns brighter than any star.
Lux pierces through the door and bolts straight into Black Mask's chest, causing them to fly into one of the torn-up aisles.
Lux, having launched himself like a skydiver, lands hard on his back and onto some of the broken glass from the door.
"AAAHH---okay, that hurt more than I thought..." Lux hisses as he regains his footing.
Just as he lifted his eyes from the ceiling, two large blades pierced the air, soaring towards him.
He notices fast enough to make a split-second reaction, which is falling right back down onto the scattered glass shards.
"Little wannabe hero, huh?" Green Mask scoffs at his pathetic attempt.
She looks over to Black Mask, who's groaning on the ground, leaving her uneasy. "We don't have time for this!"
"Well, you're gonna have to make time!" Lux barks as he jumps up and adjusts himself into a fighting stance. "Cuz, I'm not going down that easy!"
The stance Lux takes is familiar to him; his body is bladed and his elbows tucked, his forearms are positioned close to his head, and his hands are cupped as if he were ready to catch a ball at any time. He has one foot in front of the other and has his knees bent, ready to move swiftly at a moment's notice.
He watches Green Mask's body language, prepared for any movements she makes, but then the sharp crack to his left shoulder reminds him that she wasn't the only one he had to worry about.
"AAAARRGHHH!"
Lux screeches, his left arm explodes with pain as he is thrown back from the blow, sent flying into an aisle of toiletries.
Lux curls into his arm as he shouts from the scalding hot pain. Green Mask and Blue Mask watch as he rolls around in his pain.
You can see Green Mask's eye squint a little, seeing the pain he's in. Blue Mask, however, is grinning; a gleeful look shines on his face.
"Just stay out of our way, kid!" Green Mask yells, her face betraying her stern voice for a moment of kindness.
Lux writhes around a moment longer before reaching out to the air. The masked robbers watch, confused and slightly intrigued at what he's trying to do.
As Lux reaches his right arm into the air, he whispers something, quiet enough for the two not to be able to hear him.
Then, his hand disappears into a whirling wormhole of some sort.
The wormhole is a black void that appears from thin air to the robbers; however, it seems like it's in stasis; it's not sucking anything in besides Lux's arm.
The robbers recoil, stunned, watching his arm sink into the wormhole with a moment of recognition.
"THE KID HAS A SUBSPACE?" Blue Mask yells, stunned at the realization of it.
Green Mask doesn't speak but instead just watches as Lux retrieves a bright red vial from his subspace pocket.
As fast as he possibly could, he bites the cap off the vial and downs the potion faster than anyone could say, pumpernickel.
Lux groans for a moment as he throws the vial to the side, letting the potion work its magic, before finally stretching and twisting his left arm.
"The hell did that kid drink?" Green Mask questions.
"Yeah...that's not gonna happen again," Lux says, climbing up from his body-shaped imprint on the aisle.
The two robbers are stunned, surprised that the little kid could have something like that in his back pocket.
"Hey...that potion looks expensive, huh?" A smirk grows on Blue Mask as his eyes shift into a perverse manner, "Could probably fetch for some nice coin..."
"No! We get the money and get out!" Green Mask shouts, trying to get them back on task.
Black Mask speaks calmly as they start to regain their footing, "Watch out, the kids got Mystics."
The two turn their heads to Black Mask, who has been quietly writhing in pain until then.
Lux takes the opportunity to burst forward, his legs shine with a magenta-ish glow as he sprints, and he cracks the flooring of the store with every step he makes towards the two.
The two twist their heads back to Lux, but they're a step too late. Lux leaps forward and bends his knee as he spins in the air, releasing an energized kick to Blue Mask's right side.
Blue Mask torpedoes past Green Mask, who was standing right beside him, and lands on a nearby stack of newspapers.
Lux doesn't relent his attack as he shifts the aura from his legs to his fists in a matter of seconds, turning his attention to Green Mask and throwing a flurry of blows her way.
His jabs and crosses don't make contact, however, as Green Mask narrowly dodges every attack. Lux's fists fly just by her head as she leans back when it comes, and twists her body when he tries to hit her.
She doesn't just dodge, though, putting her blades' range to use. When Lux narrowly misses her body once again, she shifts to his left and attempts to strike his neck.
Lux is prepared this time, though, he falls to the ground, but not by accident; he falls into a pushup position, his hands and feet holding him from the ground, then he spreads his aura from just his hands to his feet as well.
Though the glow seems a bit fainter, it does its job, and he pushes up from the ground, spinning upward horizontally, going just high enough to eye-to-eye with Green Mask.
Then his leg whipped forward, striking Green Mask's head, but his energy is still spread to his hands and feet, so when Green Mask parries his strike with her gauntlet, there's not enough force to push her back; instead, it leaves her the perfect opportunity to counter.
With his stomach wide open and within distance, she thrusts her bladed gauntlet into his stomach.
Lux reacts quickly enough to shift his energy from his hands and feet to the impact point, though, and instead of piercing, he gets sent flying.
He recovers, landing on his feet and sliding a few feet back, then just as he adjusts himself, WHIZZ, a blue pulse of energy slices right by the tip of his ear.
Black Mask stands right beside Green Mask, holding the makeshift gun in their hands.
Lux immediately ducks for cover behind an aisle as another blip of blue energy slips by him.
"Fuck. That's not good."
The introduction of the threat of being shot raises the hairs on Lux's arms.
Lux opens his system, letting the blue hologram float in front of him, showing him a main menu of information.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Lux Carmichael - Level 2
Main Skill - GAME (LV6)
-----------------------------------------------------------
Health - 95/100 Mana - 70/100
Experience - 10/100
Attribute Points - 1 Mystic Points - 0
-----------------------------------------------------------
Select where you would like to go.
---SKILL TREE---
---ATTRIBUTES---
---SKILL LIST---
---INVENTORY---
---QUESTS---
---SHOP---
-----------------------------------------------------------
Lux peeks at his Mana bar, breathing a sigh of relief at its amount.
"If it's like this...maybe..." He pauses in thought, then the whizz of blue energy and the smell of scorched wood remind him of the danger he's in.
"Fuck it."
The two robbers inch closer to the aisle Lux is hiding in, Black Mask fires a flurry of blasts around the area he's at, and Green Mask inches towards him on the other corner, cornering him with her sharp blades.
Then three bars of candy come flying from where Lux is hiding, toward the side of the aisle where Black Mask is, they're caught off guard so they haphazardly shoot at the bars indiscriminately as the bars fly over their head. After shooting one they realize it was a fluke.
They rush toward the corner where Lux is at, only to see a chocolate bar on the ground.
Then, unnaturally, a shadow is cast over the chocolate bar, a shadow coming from Black Mask's figure.
"Oh, fuck."
Black Mask relents as they twist their body around.
"WATCH OUT!"
Green Mask yells, but it's too late.
A bright, flaming blue aura bursts from Lux's right fist. This time, it's the biggest glow yet, as if a sun were in the shop with them.
Floating above Black Mask, Lux inhales swiftly, bracing for impact, then crashes down, smashing his fist against their chin, causing them to crash to the ground alongside him, cracking the already loose tiles and transforming them to webbed fragments.
Lux writhes for a bit; the impact damaged him as well, but his brain reminds him of the other threat, and he quickly rises from his fetal position.
He searches for Green Mask, who disappeared; they're nowhere to be found.
"Couldn't handle the heat, huh?"
Lux quips as he looks towards the entrance, then he looks around. The small crater left in the ground with a Black Masked person lying in the center sticks out like a sore thumb.
He walks a bit toward where Blue Mask was, and he's still there, having a quiet little nap.
The entire store's in shambles, from the broken glass to the rigid aisles; the crew did a number on the place.
Lux approaches the counter where Pop was, "Hope you got insurance, Pop."
Pop, who was crouching behind the counter, lifts himself and brushes the flakes of dust off his pants.
"Ain't no thing, young blood. You'd be stupid not to have insurance in Grandville!" His hearty laugh eases Lux; his nerves still on edge from the fight have calmed now.
"What's ya name, son?" Pop asks, his head tilted ever so slightly upward. "I wanna know who to thank."
"I'm...still working on that," Lux replies sheepishly.
"Well...here, take this, you've earned it." Pop opens his register and pulls out a crisp 20-dollar bill. "Don't spend it all in one place now!"
Lux retreats instantly, raising his palms toward the money. "I can't, Pop! You gotta save it for repairs!"
Pop flinches for a moment, then smiles, "Forgot about the insurance, Didn'tcha?"
"Then give it back to the community, I'm sure there's a guy on the streets out there that could use that more than me." Lux isn't budging; he's standing on this no matter what.
Pop sighs, then puts the money back into his register, "Whatever, kid, I respect it. Not too many heroes come into this part of town, so just know I appreciate you."
His heart thumps out of his chest, a genuine thanks; the thought passes his mind, and he can't help but gleam a smile, though you'd never be able to notice past the face mask.
"Don't worry 'bout it, old man." Lux happily replies as he makes his way towards the exit. "Besides, I already got my payment."
As Lux looks ahead, the bright blue holographic image floating ahead of him displays something that excites him to his core.
-----------------------------------------------------------
SIDE QUEST
STOP THE ROBBERY
COMPLETE!
-----------------------------------------------------------
REWARDS:
1 RANDOM ITEM
1 ATTRIBUTE POINT
20 EXPERIENCE POINTS
-----------------------------------------------------------
GREAT JOB!
-----------------------------------------------------------
The comment leaves Pop squinting, confused, but he shrugs it off and starts dialing some numbers.
Outside stands Pete, who's swatting around some flies that are pestering him.
He doesn't notice Lux until he swats one in his direction, then bursts into a gleeful grin.
"Ah! You look well!"
"Shut up."
Lux responds harshly, his tone deeper than the deep sea.
Pete is taken aback by the hostility and pretends to be hurt, dramatically holding his chest.
"What'd I do?"
"Don't pretend like you didn't know that would happen."
"I genuinely didn't!" Pete looks away, but his fidgety fingers and circulating eyes seem to betray his words. "Remember? New route!"
"Sure, asshole. Let's just go."
Lux shakes his head as he ruffles the dust off his hoodie.
He steps maybe two steps before Pete says, "Ah, that's the wrong way."
"Wrong way?" Lux pauses in place, turning to Peter.
"Yep, you wanna go this way." Pete's finger leads them to a very suspicious alleyway, similar to the one they first met in.
"Why?"
"'Cause that's where we'll get our answers."