Pixelation

Friend

The man lunges at me and I jump backwards. I hit the wall and I spin around. My feet catch on fire and I run up the wall, the man almost slamming into the wall attempting to catch me. "The hell is that!?" He roars as I run up the wall.

I jump off the wall and go flying upward, my ability allowing me to keep a reasonable distance. But I'm not running.

I extend my wings and circle around, the man running out of the alley. I then dive down toward him, unable to guess his expression from under his mask.

I point my feet out and connect with his chest, sending him painfully to the ground. "You got a lot of talk in ya. Too bad you couldn't use that sword of yours." I taunt him.

Unexpectedly, I watch his sword materialize in his hands again and I use Blink to keep a reasonable distance as he swings his sword. If I hadn't moved, he would have hit me.

"Continue to make fun of me and I'll chop your tongue off." He growls.

"I'd love to see you try, tough guy." I grunt. I reach under my jacket and grab an object I haven't had use for yet. I pull the handle out and flip the sword, extending the blade.

"Judging by the way you're standing, you've never fought with a sword. That will be your last mistake." He growls, lunging at me.

I throw my sword up and his blade makes contact with mine. I push him back and he staggers backward. "What the..." He grunts.

I had to grin. In Dishonored, if you blocked at the right time, you could knock your enemy off balance. Just what I did with my buddy over here.

I activate another game's ability and flames sprout on my left hand. I launch a ball of fire at him. He quickly regains his balance and swings his sword with enough speed to repel the flames.

"That's new." I mutter. The man then throws his sword at me and I sidestep, unable to slow down time. His sword explodes behind me before rematerializing in his hands again.

"You are more surprising than I thought you'd be. I guess I cannot underestimate you." He sighs. "So be it."

With that, his right eye begins to glow under the mask. How do I know? Because it's like he put a red light through his right eyehole.

He jumps at me again, his speed double what it was earlier. I launch into the air again, hoping to create some distance between me and him.

To my luck, he grabs ahold of my foot. We both launch into the air and I look down at the demon on my leg. I kick him in the face and he attempts to swing his sword at me. I whip him around and the sword's blade just misses my face.

I kick him in the face again and I knock his mask off. "Wait a minute... Darren?!" I yelp, his facial expression immediately dropping.

He lets go and falls to the ground, landing without breaking anything. I land on the ground about a good ten to fifteen feet away. "You've been trying to kill me this whole time!?" I yell at him.

"Who are you under the mask?" He asks me. I growl and my mask clicks. I grab my mask and pull it off my head. "You're from Ms. Pad's class, correct?"

"Yes. I'm from Ms. Pad's class. Now tell me, why are you trying to kill me?! What the hell is this world? My magic doesn't even last this long!" I say, talking about the frozen world around us.

"I don't think I should tell you. I won't kill you, but you should stop. You're getting in some serious shit." He says, he turns around to leave and I hear the flapping of wings above me.

I look up and another masked man drops down in front of me. He's wearing a nice cloth shirt under a leather vest. His pants seemed to be made of something similar to jean fabric, yet it isn't. He's also wearing some nice shoes, which were all black and definitely made for combat.

Yet his mask threw me off. It's the shade of silver with a red streak going down his right eye. Like the other guy, he has a sword in his hand.

"So you're the St. Louis vigilante." The masked man says.

"What are you doing here?" Darren asks, looking surprised.

Darren's leader then removes his own mask, revealing himself. "My name is Nathaniel James. I sent Darren here to give you a warning, but it seems that he went a little far with a warning, didn't he?" He says, looking back at him.

"Far enough that 'my blood will stain this world'." I respond, Darren rolling his eyes.

"Interesting." Nathaniel sighs, looking at me. "Is that not Aiden Pierce's costume from Watchdogs?" He asks.

"Correct. And the mask is Corvo's." I respond.

"So I'm guessing your powers are then based around those two. I saw you. You seemed to teleport, but that's best known as Blink, right? And then you running up the wall, that's another ability from a game. Those wings also seem connected to your wall running ability." He says, catching me off guard with his perceptiveness.

"That's...That's right." I mumble.

"Look, I'm guessing there's no way I can convince you to stop helping people. The thrill of combat, the rush of flight... It all got you, didn't it?" He asks. I can only nod. "Alright. Then I'd like to work with you."

"You want to work along side newbie?" Darren asks, making fun of me.

"From what I saw, he held you off didn't he? For being the guy who taught me how to really swing a sword, you couldn't even hit him once." Nathaniel says to him, Darren scowling. "The St. Louis Vigilante. Let's work together." He says, extending a hand.

I clasp his hand and we shake. "Alright. My name's Nick. What are we going to do then?" I ask him.

We let go and he looks toward the tallest building, the One Metropolitan Square. "We're headed there. On the top floor and in the basement, that's where hostages are being held. They moved them with magic into that building."

"Hold on, there's a basement?" I ask, Nathaniel laughing.

"Exactly. A perfect place to hide them if people don't know about it. You will take care of the top floor and we will take the basement. Come on, show us what you got, Nick." He grins, his dragon-like wings sprouting from his back.

He launches into the air and Darren vanished.

Time speeds back up and I look at the guy webbed to the floor. I grunt and launch a web close to the roof of one of the alley's buildings. I jump into the air and the web pulls me toward the wall, allowing me to run up the side of the building.

I reach the roof and see the One Metropolitan Square. What confuses me is that the top floor is known as the Top of the Met. It's a banquet area, but how do the people working in the skyscraper not notice those people up there?

I stop questioning things and I extend my wings. It's now or never.