Today was like any other day Alex was walking to school to give a lecture this morning about current knowledge of the Empowereds deeds across the Universe. Alex had a bit of a lifeless stare or look in his eyes as he walked on the sidewalk from his apartment to the school.
Alex wore a wrinkled, untucked, long-sleeved collared shirt as he walked in the early morning under the artificial sun. Eve was both a lucky and unlucky planet that had no sun when first discovered even though there were remains of life on it but still the backers and financial organizations of the Kull civilization wanted to take the planets and make it into a resort planet but eventually, it was decided it would become a housing planet for families.
As Alex was walking down the sidewalk he passed by a sort of crappy and shady convenient store that was probably a front for some big family in the city. Alex stops before going into the store and buying some plastic-wrapped powdered donuts for his breakfast. After gets his breakfast he continues onto the high school campus for that day's lecture.
School passes by and Alex spends the next 2 hours after school grading homework and other papers that were given to him. By the time Alex was done grading, he had felt as if teenagers and adolescents in school were the dumbest things in the universe. After packing up Alex walks back home and stops at the convenience store once more to get some cheap instant meal packages.
At home, Alex throws the instant meal package into the microwave and waits a bit before a perfect T-bone steak and mashed potatoes come outdone and steaming. As he eats he turns on the TV to the news to become depressed about current situations about the planet and anything else.
"Well then now we go, Carrie, for the latest," The anchorman says
"Thanks, Ron. As you can see here this is the scene where the fight between the Undefeated Empowered and the Galactic criminal 'Skul' took place" Carrie says as the cameraman pans across a series of craters and destroyed buildings that had collapsed.
"Currently Skul is still at large as he was able to defeat the Empowered and flee from the scene before anyone could apprehend him. Law enforcement believe that Skul has fled to Stargate city and are asking everyone to please be on the lookout for this man and report and anything suspicious"
An image of a man with greenish-blue skin, three eyes, and a silver-haired goatee shows up on the TV.
'Hm I guess I should be careful' Alex thinks as he turns off the TV and throws his plate in the sink.
Alex happened to live in Stargate City so he needed to be careful or else he would be dealing with a guy who could take on an Empowered. Now there was a ranking system among the Empowereds but Alex barely paid attention to it now as the Undefeateds tended to break records more often than not. So the ranking system was sometimes rewritten by the Central Alliance. The Central Alliance contained most of the universal civilizations in the known universe and they all met every so often to discuss problems and issues to come to some sort of agreement or solution to them. The Kull civilization was apart of the alliance and was quite an influential figure in the alliance.
Alex went to bed after taking a shower in cold water from the apartment's water tank. No matter what somethings will stay the same even after thousands of years of development and progression.
Waking up Alex goes through his usual morning routine before walking to school to give a test. As he is walking he decides to buy another pack of donuts like the day before. However, as he is waiting for walking to the counter he sees that the man at the counter is talking to someone who came in. The man who was talking was 7'0 a good head above Alex wearing a black hoodie. The conversation does not seem to be going that great as the man behind the counter is frown at whatever the guy is talking about.
The guy behind the counter shakes his head at the man and his body shakes in anger. Then he reaches across the counter and grabs the man by his shirt and lifts him with one hand.
"Listen here you better tell your boss that he owes me a favor which I am now calling in!" The guy shouts in a coarse voice as he raises his fist which was glowing a bright purple showing that he was an Empowered. The man that was dangling in the air was scared out of his mind as he saw that this man was going to pummel him to death if he did not do as he was told.
The Empowered man drops the cashier who runs into the back as fast as he can. Alex just stands there in one of the aisles of snacks and junky foods trying to think about what to do.
"I know your back there," The Empowered says from in front of the checkout counter.
Alex is startled at what he hears but eventually walks on out from the aisle with the single pack of donuts he was going to buy. The Empowered does not turn to face Alex as he stands behind him.
"Now then you have two options right now. Put down your communicator and pretend you never saw what happened here or you die. Make your choice"
Without hesitation, Alex takes out his communicator and places onto the floor behind the guy. It essentially looked like a black box with a diagonal silver line from one corner to the other one. The communicator was an older model but it still had the necessary basic functions. Alex begins to back away from the Empowered and starts to go to the door before he changed his mind.
As Alex grabs the door handle to leave he hears a burst of static before a voice comes blaring out of a megaphone.
"This is the police the place is surrounded by two Undefeateds as well as the police and we know you are in there Skul so come out peaceful and quietly or else we will use force!"
When Alex hears these words his heart stops and his feet go numb at what he just heard. Before Alex can even move the back of his collar gets grabbed and he is dragged back into the store before he can utter a sound.
"No one comes in here or else this guy turns into a gorey piece of wall art in here!" Skul yells from inside the store.
...
The police chief hears what Skul said from inside the store and frowns at what he has just heard.
"Shit I thought you said this place wouldn't get any customers," he says as he turns to an officer from the intelligence department next to him.
"W-well yeah the reports say that this place is used as a front by the Gunslingers so it could be one of their gang"
The chief nods his head as he gives the order to prepare to engage against Skul, the presumed hostage was a sacrifice that they would gladly exchange for the capture of Skul.
The Undefeated's that were on stand by were watching the scene behind the police. They had name tags above their heads that were only visible by other players. One read "ThotGod97" and the other read "ThotGod96". They both were part of the same clan and decided to take the mission to aid the police with the capture of Skul. They both were J class Empowereds while through their systems it showed that Skul was considered I rank. (Ranking system goes from A to Z. A is the lowest and Z is the highest grade obtainable by any Empowered) Seeing this they still had to be wary of any sort of skills that Skul had up his sleeve since skills and power determined the victor. (I will continue to reference the players by the numbers for now since I don't want to continue typing out their names) 96 was a Long-range Assassin class while 97 was a Berserker Warrior class. They both knew that they were going to have to take action so they made some small preparations for their weapons.
"You hear about the hostage in their right?" 96 asks
"Yeah but the additional exp reward for saving him is minuscule so why bother with it also the update is gonna happen in a bit and I would like to be back at base for the log out" 97 replies as he takes out a rod that transforms into a double-edged great ax in his hand
"Alright I get it we have enough time. Oh well everything is about to go down soon so let's get up front," 96 says as he walks in front of the police line followed by 97
...
When Alex was dragged further into the store he thought that he would eventually die from this Empowered with the only hope of the police negotiating some terms to Skul or that he would turn himself in realizing that he was surrounded and still wounded from the fight from yesterday. Those hopes were dashed away when he saw that the police were gearing up for a fight and now two Undefeated walked forward ahead of the police line outside.
One of them was wearing a classical ninja garb while the other was wearing furs and no shirt exposing a rippling mass of muscle. They also had an air of in deference and boredom about then like they had something better to do and that they did not care about the present situation. Seeing this Alex knew right then he was a dead man. Skul also saw the police movements and he soon realized the hostage tactic would not work in this type of situation so he had to get rid of this hindrance in his arms before anything else.
Just as Skul was about to break Alex's neck a gunshot rings out. The glass door of the convenience store shattered from the bullet. Alex closed his eyes when he heard the shoot since he thought that the police were shooting Skul to save him. Alex's luck proved otherwise.
Opening his eyes Alex could see that he was now lying on the floor at the back end of the store.
'Why am I on the floor?' Alex thinks as he moves his head around.
He felt a feeling of cold numbness for some reason coming from his chest.
"Go go go!" The police chief yells and the two Undefeated charge the store.
As the sound of gunfire sounds off Alex struggled to bring himself up but as he does he gets a look at his chest. When he sees what was causing the numbness any remaining color in his face drains as he sees that he was shot below the heart. Seeing this wound caused by the police Alex gets infuriated that the police who took his taxes decided to shoot him like a dog in the street. Anger is the only thing Alex feels as he silently passes away on the floor of the crappy convenience store.
...
While Alex passed away in the convenience store a fierce battle was happening in the surrounding area of the store. Skul was not going to go down without a fight so he tried his best to resist his arrest. Eventually, the two Empowereds were able to subdue Skul and hand him over to the police but not before he seriously injury 3 officers. A few buildings in the surrounding area were damaged but nothing serious. The convenient store that Alex was in was perfect condition... well minus the bloody dead body on the floor and the hole in the ceiling that Skul made when he jumped out to escape.
The police chief was inspecting the scene with some detectives and people from forensics to figure who this dead guy was that the sniper team took out. Eventually, it was revealed that Alex was a high school teacher at the nearby school and the security cameras in the store showed that they had shot an unarmed civilian. The chief had everything covered up saying that Alex was actually a part of the Gunslinger gang and that the police sniper missed the target of Skul instead of hitting Alex and killing him.
When the public heard of this they thought nothing of it since Alex was not well known or liked by his colleagues or acquaintances so they never thought it was covered up. So Alex passed away from this world with everyone thinking that he was no better than the scum of Eve and no would ever know that Alex was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
...
Today was Alex's funeral a few people came but they came only for the free food and beverages that were offered after the ceremony. Alex's dad showed up and even after everyone left he still stayed at his only son's grave. Parents should never witness their children's death and even though Alex's dad hated him for nothing that happened something in him that day broke as he cried tears for his son. He realized what he did was wrong and that his only son was dead at the age of 25 years old while he was 49. He stayed there at his son's grave as he cried before kneeling and asking for forgiveness for his actions that he did.