NOVEL WEB Prologue – Aurora
Aurora sighed quietly to herself, looking out over the sea of traffic that sat perfectly dead still in front of her. The sea of cars stopped down the arterial road was annoying, but expected. Of course the reason why traffic was at a standstill was literally from out of this world, but the flicker of bright red lasers and the golden light of holy magics about ten blocks down was by no means an unexpected occurrence. A glance down at her phone showed the emergency alert system going off.
[ALERT ALERT ALERT: SuperSTAR Delta Tier fight in progress in your area! Non-combatants are recommended to evacuate to a safe distance immediately. If you are unable to do so, please dial 9-1-1 and remain in your present location until help can arrive.]
It was probably Crimson Omen and Solarbeam going at it. Again. Aurora wasn’t the most well versed in terms of the Paragons and Vagrants that roamed Earth now, but it was hard to miss the names of the two SuperSTARs that were practically at each other’s throats every three days in her brand-new home of Clarcton. She remembered choosing the city for its relative lack of STARs, back when Crimson and Solar were more casual enemies.
Of course, given her luck, that had devolved into an all out war in the time she’d moved, gotten a job, and started making delivery runs for Nile. All without proper medical insurance, despite what she was promised when she took the job. Should’ve read the contract first, dumbass.
Ignoring her own internal chastisement, Aurora used her hands-free set in her van to dial up her manager. The phone rang once… Then twice… Then three times…
“Hello, thank you for calling Nile Shipping, Kate Chane speaking!” Came the overly cheery, customer-service voice from the other end.
“Hey Kate, it’s Mark.” Aurora said, feeling the bile at using her deadname. She refused to risk her current job by having her chosen name recorded by some overly bigoted HR representative and having her life turn into an even worse hell than it already was.
“Ah, hey!” Kate’s overly cheery tone vanished, relaxing into a more casual affair. She notably avoided using either of her names. “What’s up? We’re running a bit behind here, a couple people called in sick. Your next load might be a bit late, so you may want to plan for an early lunch.”
“About that…” Aurora watched as a bubble of golden energy burst in the air just above the midrises. Were they getting closer? “I’m stuck in traffic. News is saying it's our local pair of idiots at it again.”
There was a long groan over the other end of the phone, followed by a soft thumping sound. Aurora could imagine her manager thumping her head against her desk.
“Well,” Kate said after a few moments, “That would explain the callouts. Alright. Stay safe, take your time. I’ll note another Act of Aliens clause in your record. Hopefully it won’t affect your performance review.”
“Thanks. My dashcam is getting pretty much all of the light show anyways, so I’ve got proof.” Aurora snorted out a laugh, glancing at the paperwork sitting in the passenger seat next to her. It’s not like she was going anywhere anytime soon.
“Oooo! You’re that close?” Kate’s voice grew notably more interested. She was way more into the whole superhero thing than Aurora was. She could remember when she first went over to her friend’s apartment to find it lined with framed and signed posters of some of the biggest SuperSTARs around North America. “Can you see them!?”
“Nah, it's just the lasers and holy light still.” Aurora didn’t even look up, making sure she was working down the right list of deliveries. She cursed her luck that her laptop died that morning of all times, and the physical papers were absolutely not optimised to be used by anyone in the field.
“You aren’t even watching, are you?” Kate’s pout was audible, and Aurora let out an exasperated sigh.
“Give me a second. I’m just trying to… SHIT!” Aurora glanced up from where she was scanning the paperwork. She got to see the black shape of a notorious supervillain slam in the front of her van, right in time for the van to crumple and the airbag to smack her in the face and send her into unconsciousness.
