Chapter 8: 1.07

Her costume had taken a week to arrive, so in the meantime, Ava had had plenty of opportunity to practice the other important parts of their plan. Namely, the largest and most crucial piece, which acted as the foundation for Ava’s future. The livestream. With some training, she’d gotten used to filling the air, to chattering nonstop about whatever was happening in a stream of mostly empty words. Which sometimes earned her odd looks as she biked or walked around—especially without even the excuse of a camera to give a passive explanation—but a girl talking to herself was far from the strangest thing a person would see in territory as volatile and fluctuating as Capital City, so not too many odd looks, all things considered. 

She’d even done a few test runs. It took some getting accustomed to, having to pay attention to the camera setup she carried around inside a frame of hardlight. While it did technically reduce her capabilities because it absorbed some her manifesting strength—not much, but some—it was a necessary sacrifice unless she wanted to hire a full-time camera person to follow her, which first, she didn’t have the funds for, and second, would be way too awkward, and dangerous, so that idea had gone quickly discarded. 

The camera setup weighed around fifteen pounds, and keeping in mind that she needed to position it in a way best to show herself off (both in a sensual way, and a cinematic one) took an amount of mental overhead that could be difficult at times. But again—a necessary sacrifice, seeing how if this plan of theirs worked, Ava would be gaining massive boosts to her power. Sacrifice early, for gain later. An investment.

An investment that could pay enormous dividends, seeing how new powers entirely might be on the horizon. Certainly, at a minimum, were the mutation of her current ones: the strange effects and expansions her powers were taking on, as she’d shown to Brooke. Ava’s situation was unheard of, so really, the sky was the limit. No precedence. Who knew what she was in for?

As for the audio, they had inserted a microphone into the gold collar around her neck. The slight protrusion was a bit annoying, but nothing intolerable, and it provided the best audio quality for convenience and price ratio that she and Brooke had found. When things were calmer, and Ava was just out patrolling, walking around or whatnot, she brought the camera set-up in closer and used the higher quality microphone attached to it. The one around her neck was cheap and meant to be used while she was in a fight.

Broadcasting her voice to the world wasn’t a concern. Heroes were issued high-tech voice modulators to be donned whenever they were out in public, a benefit paid for by the government. She’d gotten hers the day she’d signed up to the Hero Association. It was a thin, skin-colored strip that attached to her neck, invisible unless inspected closely. How it worked, Ava couldn’t guess. It’d been invented by The Tinker, or Thomas Asherone, a world-renowned genius even before his brain had been enhanced by superpowers, and also the man who was the original founder of the Hero Association. Also the first to die in such a public, gruesome supervillain attack, ironically cementing his vision for a unified heroic force. 

Not that for big names, the Code—and the Association’s threat of enforcing it—did much. It mostly kept the rabble behaving. S-Classes and above lived in a different world, with a different set of rules.

Maybe someday Ava would be there. For now, she chattered idly to a blinking red light and empty black lens, feeling more than a bit ridiculous and a whole lot insecure—both at the inanities coming out of her mouth, whether people thought what she was saying was as stupid as it felt like it was, and at the amount of skin on display to a public audience. 

You know. On a site primarily used for camgirls.

Not that the ‘audience’ was much to speak of. This was Ava’s first real stream, despite having five or six practice runs where Brooke helpfully coached her on how to act. The worst of the beginner mistakes she’d smoothed over, but Ava couldn’t be called a veteran entertainer. Nor a natural one. Her only solace was—well, that her audience was there for gratuitous shots of her tits and ass, and the novelty of watching a low-rank superhero patrol in real time. Ava’s capability to maintain an interesting dialogue, not so important. Nobody would accuse LiveCamFrenzy’s user base of having a refined palette. Brooke had said Ava’s idle ramblings would be more than enough to satisfy them. Above and beyond their expectations, even.

A screen was attached just above the camera so that Ava could see her viewer count and the live comments (‘chat’, Brooke called it) streaming in from her audience. The red number tucked to the lower left read ‘12’—which was a weird abstraction, at least to Ava, of knowing that twelve different individuals were sitting behind a screen somewhere and watching her go about her nightly patrol. And likely ogling over her new costume—or the assets crammed within. 

A few times an hour, a bout of clarity hit Ava: that there might even be people pleasuring themselves to Ava’s exposed skin. That was what these people were on the website for, weren’t they? And who cared that Ava wasn’t showing any actual naughty parts? They might be making due with the revealing, skin-tight costume. The thought, every time it popped up, made her flush with embarrassment.

(Embarrassment. Nothing else.)

The chat to the right moved once every few minutes, sometimes faster, depending whether anything interesting was happening. Brooke had said she wouldn’t be surprised if Ava only managed a few viewers for her first stream, so twelve was technically exceeding expectations. Or maybe Brooke had set her expectations low on purpose. That seemed like something Brooke would do, to spare her feelings in case things went poorly.

Considering her audience, the content of the comments trickling in weren’t surprising.

 

(9:12) Cappilemper: nice tits

(9:12) Cappilemper: pull them out. I’ll tip

(9:13) soulspadekino: is this real?

(9:13) soulspadekino: hello?

(9:13) soulspadekino: hellooo??

(9:14) soulspadekino: prerecorded, i’m out

(9:14) soulspadekino: nice ass tho

(9:15) soulspadekino: hello?

(9:15) soulspadekino: you’re really hot

(9:15) soulspadekino: what’s the biggest cock you’ve taken?

(9:15) soulspadekino: ban me if you’re not going to respond, whore

(9:19) 22sandSous: Your costume is gorgeous :)

(9:19) 22sandSous: You’re really Spotlight?

(9:20) 22sandSous: Wow. That’s crazy. Surprised to see you streaming here?

(9:22) 22sandSous: That makes sense. Such a fun idea! I’ll be keeping an eye out!

(9:23) 22sandsous: Have a good stream :)

 

Ava mostly ignored the inappropriate comments, but she didn’t ban them, as Brooke had suggested she could (and soulspadekino had outright asked). She didn’t want to encourage a pornographic feel to her stream, even if eye-candy was one of the main attractions, but she knew what site she was streaming on, and that her body was a decent portion of the appeal—and would become even more so as this plan of theirs progressed. And a viewer was a viewer; Ava needed every one of those she could get.

Some of the chatters, like 22sandSous, were actually friendly, and not constantly insulting, degrading, or only caring about her looks. Unfortunately, they hadn’t stuck around for long. Ava had explained the conceit behind the stream, had a short but pleasant conversation with them while walking down 44th street, then they’d made their leave, probably to greener pastures. The downside of her stream being hosted on a camgirl site was that most people who were there—who hadn’t come from Ava’s announcements on Twitter or Instagram—were looking for much spicier content than Ava was providing.

The easiest moments were when she didn’t need to interact at all, besides keeping the camera in position. Which was to say, when her patrols yielded fruit, which was a common thing in Capital City, for both mundane and villain activity alike.

In this case, the latter. It was the first real bit of excitement of the night: something Ava had to focus on, not low-level muggings or harassment, but something with real danger involved. Because going by the flashy black-and-green costume the woman was wearing as she sprinted away, backpack in grip and fleeing from a storefront with broken windows, she’d bumped into an actual villain. Of the super variety, she assumed.

“Stop!” Ava shouted, breaking into a run as soon as the woman had come crashing through the window. Instinctively, Ava floated the camera away and forgot about it; her practice sessions had taught her how to maintain it passively, without giving too much thought.

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The villain, obviously, didn’t stop. Ava didn’t think the warning yell had ever worked, but heroes needed to abide by certain rules villains didn’t. One of them being, Ava wasn’t justified to use force without first telling the villain to cease, or surrender. It was a flimsy law, a pretense more than anything, but plenty of laws were, especially when it came to supers, who operated outside the law to more than a minor extent. They were, after all, exceedingly difficult to drag to court.

Having given her warning, Ava brought her powers to the forefront of her mind and readied herself for the incoming fight.

Ava had been a competent enough C-Class hero (though that was a slight oxymoron), but now that she’d received a sizable upgrade in her powers, she was a force to be reckoned with—as long as her target wasn’t someone of competence themself. So, maybe not a force to be reckoned with … but not a total pushover, okay?

A band of golden light materialized around the fleeing villain’s ankle, snagging her foot and stumbling her. She went sprawling, backpack flying from her hands and down the sidewalk. The civilians cramming the streets were already fleeing; the denizens of Capital City knew better to involve themselves with an ongoing struggle between supers. Some pulled out their phones and clung to the outskirts, but those were the adventurous. Most simply fled. Spotlight and this random C- or D-lister weren’t remotely interesting enough to put themselves in danger over. A fight between big names might have resulted in a larger crowd, but not this one.

The hardlight construct shattered the same moment it snagged the villain’s leg, because though Ava’s powers had upgraded, a doubling from ‘very weak’ only resulted in ‘weak’. Her abilities were still nothing to write home about. They couldn’t halt the momentum of a human running at full speed, couldn’t lock them to the floor like suddenly-materializing cement.

But they didn’t need to. Tripping was enough.

The black-and-green costumed woman scrambled to right herself, turning to see who she’d been attacked by. She spent only a brief moment appraising Ava, then her eyes snapped to where the backpack had gone flying. Ava could read the intent on her face. Using a new band of golden light, she yanked the pack away and flung it toward herself right as the villain stumbled to her feet and sprinted for it.

The villain didn’t choose to cut her losses. Rather than fleeing, she pivoted and sprinted toward where Ava’d flung the backpack. Which was to say, Ava herself.

Then something odd happened. The villain shimmered, and a moment later, split into three identical images of herself.

There it is, Ava thought. Clones? That’ll be annoying. Any chance they’re only mirages, and not physical?

She brought up three rapid anklets to stumble each of the targets, which were splitting off to surround her, and all three snagged and shattered. Having expected something of the sort, they stumbled but didn’t fall, catching their footings.

No such luck. The clones were physical, because they didn’t pass through Ava’s constructs. As much as to trip them, she’d been checking for that.

Ava braced herself for a chaotic fight. Three on one, never fun, even when she had the clear power advantage.

But before the clones reached melee distance of her, a red outline split the air to the side of the left-most clone. A red-haired, domino-masked woman emerged. Without a moment wasted, her fist impacted the villain’s cheek, and the clone dropped like a sack of bricks—then fizzled into black-and-green mist.

The unexpected addition shot a roguish grin at Ava, then said, “Looks like you could use some help.”

“Not really, but the more the merrier, as they say,” her instant response came. Maybe a week ago, she’d have been too caught by surprise to have anything to retort with, but her constant chattering into a camera had loosened the gap between brain and tongue; the words left her almost without intent.

Ava took brief note of the brow that furrowed on the right-most of the three (two, now) clones. 

That’s the real one? The discovery was pointless; the woman fizzled, again, and a third body rejoined the fray. Guess it was too much to hope for the ability would be one-and-done.

The distance between Ava’s attackers and her closed, and the battle began in earnest.

It was routine, all things considered. Ava’d been in dozens of these types of fights, even if she’d only been patrolling for three months. It passed in a blur. Body-copying was an enormously useful ability, because numbers advantage could be devastating, but the villain otherwise didn’t have any powers aiding her, and Ava’d been joined by a second hero, which made it straightforward—even easy.

She fought with her hands, fists, and constructs. Not deadly weapons. While the Code didn’t outright ban violence, because that would be absurd, maimings and killings were off the board for both hero and villain alike. 

Now, the latter—villains—obviously had less interest in adhering to rules, but the Hero Association had a wealth of resources to call on, and could cut sprouting weeds as they popped up. The goal, then, for low-level villains, and even high-level ones, was to avoid being seen as the tallest weed at any given point. Violating the Code pushed a person to the top of that list, so most respected it.

So her attacker didn’t use knives or guns, or anything deadly, the same way Ava didn’t. She did, however, wield a blunt baton, which did plenty of damage—more than her fists, for sure. Villains adhered to the letter of the Code rather than the spirit. No maimings or killings, but they still had no problem roughing heroes up.

The exceptions to villains adhering to the Code, of course, were the ones smart—and strong—enough to get away with it. Those were mostly the S-Class threats, with a smattering of A-Classes. And other exceptions, of course, but those were scarce. The vast majority of supers followed the Code for their own safety. Most villains weren’t evil in the capital E sense, anyway, seeking to kill for killing’s sake, but instead opportunistic, or struggling, or least forgivingly, merely ambitious and not interested in operating under the Hero Association’s rules.

The fight progressed, and at some point, the villain realized she wasn’t recapturing the backpack Ava had yanked away from her. She turned to flee, finally choosing to cut her losses. If Ava hadn’t had backup, the villain probably would have gotten away. But for all that a body-copier could be painfully difficult to catch, the red-haired woman could jump through portals—it closed the gap, forgive the pun.

The brawl ended with Red-Hair perched atop the villain, collar gripped in her hand, and Red-Hair’s fist raised, ready to deliver another punch. But the villain was out cold, Red-Hair’s unforgiving onslaught having put her to sleep.

She’d be fine. Supers were more durable than their civilian counterparts, even when their powers didn’t relate to strength or hardiness. They could walk off what would give normal people brain damage—like being pummeled to unconsciousness, as Red-Hair had gleefully delivered. 

Red-Hair leaned back and wiped a hand through her hair, then laughed. Her cheeks were flushed from the excitement of the fight, and her eyes a bit wild. Some supers treated the fight as a necessity, and others enjoyed it. Ava could tell this girl fell pretty deeply into the second camp.

“Slippery bitch,” she said. “Thought she was going to get away.” Red-Hair patted the unconscious villain’s cheek condescendingly. “Fortunately, I’m a pain in the ass, too. Portals, right?”

“Portals,” Ava agreed, vaguely amused.

“Thanks for the assist, goldilocks.”

“Spotlight,” Ava corrected. “And I think you have that backwards. You’re the assist, not me. I was here first.”

Red-Hair snorted. “As if. How would you have stopped her?”

It was a fair point, because pinning the woman down before she escaped might have been an impossibility for Ava’s powerset. By the smirk on Red-Hair’s lips, though, Ava could tell she was just trying to goad a reaction out of her. An antagonizer, this one. “Very carefully,” Ava replied. “Maybe I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” Then, moving to business, Ava said, “Do you want to call it in, or me?”

Red-Hair rolled off the villain and collapsed onto her back. “Go for it. I’m beat. You have any idea how exhausting it is to split open space-time?”

Ava gave one last glance at the sprawled out heroine before pulling out her Hero Association phone. “I’m guessing very,” she said amusedly.

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