"Darkwing, this is Wild Card," Cecil said, gesturing at Leon and his familiars. Ms. Popper stood beside him. "And his companions, Lily and Nyx."
Leon shook Darkwing's hand. "Big fan of your work, sir."
It wasn't a complete lie. He knew very little about Darkwing aside from what he saw in the show. But anyone who fought superhumans, criminals, and whatever this world had to offer daily, without having powers themselves, were worth his respect.
"Cecil told me you're here to break the curse on Midnight City," Darkwing said, his voice gruff and low. "Now normally, I'd brush it off. Glory hounds and wannabe magicians have made the same claims before, to no success. But after hearing from Cecil about how you freed Rampage from his armor, I just had to see it for myself."
"Way to add more pressure, Cecil," Leon joked and lazily saluted Darkwing. "I'll try my best not to disappoint."
"I wouldn't worry too much. Like Darkwing said, plenty of other people have tried before," Cecil said. "If it doesn't work, tough shit. This city will keep being a no-man's-land for the foreseeable future."
"Then I guess it's time to see if I'll be the one to break that streak. But first, we should step outside the curse," Leon suggested.
Following his suggestion, they all stepped outside the dome of Midnight City. They positioned themselves behind Leon, who took a deep breath.
"Stand back even further!" He looked over his shoulder. "It's going to feel like a furnace in here."
Sensing them go to the edge, Leon began his preparations. Voltaic Reinforcement enveloped him in lightning as he shot fire out of his fingertips, creating a circle of searing flames twice as tall as him. The circle rose and fell in sync with his breathing.
Toasty and electrified. Just how he liked it.
Okay, let's do this.
Veins of pulsing grey energy formed on his palms. Slowly, he pressed them towards the surface of the curse and was met with resistance instead of passing through. Just like with Rampage, grey veins began spreading from his hands.
Now that it was his second time breaking a curse, the process was smoother and quicker. If before, it spread like a fungus, now it reminded him of a symbiote from the Venom movies. Within minutes, it encompassed half of the dome surrounding Midnight City and within a quarter of an hour, the entire thing looked like a science experiment gone wrong.
His earpiece crackled. "How are you doing?"
"Just... fine," Leon answered, grunting with effort. He was already down to a third of his reserves. If it wasn't for the electricity coursing through his body and the circle of fire he made to boost his energy regeneration, he would've been completely spent halfway through. "I think I'm close to breaking it. Another ten to twenty minutes should do."
"We're not in any hurry. If you feel like slowing down, slow down."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He slowed down. But true to his word, it did not take much longer for the curse to break.
When it finally happened, a burst of air left Leon's lungs. The circle of fire died as he stepped back to admire his work.
It started from the dome's summit. A hole in the red sky that was bearing down on the city. It spread slowly at first, the edges of the crimson peeling back like burnt paper, curling and dissolving into nothing. Through the gap, the real sky poured in.
Stars. Actual stars, pale and scattered across a deep black canvas.
The hole widened, and the red retreated before it, collapsing downward in every direction as the dome lost cohesion. Moonlight touched rooftops that hadn't felt it in so long the gutters had forgotten what shadows looked like under anything but crimson.
Ms. Popper gasped in awe.
"Well, I'll be damned," Darkwing muttered beside him. He chuckled in disbelief. "You did it. You actually fucking did it."
A firm hand landed on Leon's shoulder. Cecil, of all people, was grinning. Cecil.
"Fantastic job, kid. You have no idea how much money the government and the GDA wasted trying to break that curse. Now we can start cleaning the place up." Cecil looked away from the city and at him. "I think this is the start of a wonderful partnership."
[Feat Achieved! Broke the curse that has loomed over Midnight City and its residents for two decades! Reward: 4250 GP]
[Feat Achieved! Made Cecil Stedman, who has not grinned in nearly two decades, crack a grin! Reward: 1000 GP]
[Feat Achieved! Used Curse Breaker to dismantle a curse of unprecedented scale for the first time. Reward: 300 GP]
[Feat Achieved! Deeply impressed Darkwing on your first meeting! Reward: 200 GP ]
Breaking one city-wide curse got him 5,750 GP. The grin on Leon's face couldn't get any wider.
*Oh yeah. That's what I'm talking about.
Leon thought that was the last of it. That was until two more notifications popped up.
[Feat Achieved! Destroyed the strategic stronghold of a hidden supernatural army. Reward: 1,500 GP]
[Feat Achieved! Inadvertently saved an unknown number of civilians from a hidden predatory operation. Reward: 800 GP]
What the hell?
Leon squinted. A hidden supernatural army? In Midnight City? What sort of supernatural army would benefit from eternal midnight?
Vampires? It could also be something else he hadn't thought of. Either way, this would definitely turn into a bigger problem if left unchecked. But how could he even give hints about this without garnering suspicion?
Leon decided to take a risk. There were monsters in the city preying on its people and he knew about it. He couldn't just ignore it.
"You know, that curse would have made Midnight City the perfect place to live in as a Vampire," he said, as if saying an off-handed remark. "No sunlight. Plenty of crime."
"...You might be onto something." Cecil held his chin. "Darkwing, any thoughts?"
"Hold on. Vampires are actually real?"
Seriously?!
"I've recently been investigating the reason behind the unusual rise of missing people cases in the city for the past decade," Darkwing said.
Darkwing reached into his belt and produced a small device. A holographic display flickered to life, projecting a map of Midnight City's underground infrastructure.
"Every three to four months, a cluster of people vanishes from the same districts. Always from the poorer neighborhoods. Always people with no family connections and no one to file a report." Darkwing traced a few points on the map. "The pattern's too consistent to be random crime and too spread out to be a single serial offender. I've mapped every disappearance over the last ten years. They all converge on the sewer system."
"You've known about this for eight years and didn't tell me?" Cecil's grin was long gone.
"I told the GDA. Twice. Your people sent a team the first time and found nothing. The second time, they told me it was a policing issue and to take it up with local law enforcement." Darkwing's tone could have chipped concrete. "Local law enforcement in Midnight City is four underfunded precincts that can barely keep the lights on. So I kept investigating on my own."
Cecil's jaw worked. Leon recognized the look. Some people in the GDA were about to have a very bad week.
"How many missing?" Leon asked.
"Confirmed? Over three hundred across the decade. Estimated?" Darkwing folded his arms. "Closer to double that. The ones without anyone to report them don't make it into the numbers."
Six hundred people. Maybe more. All taken from a city that seemed to already be forgotten by everyone on the outside.
This could even involve Dracula, if he also exists here. Who am I kidding? He's probably the leader. A city cursed into permanent darkness, poor population with nowhere else to go, and a sewer system large enough to hide an army? No vampire would deny living here.
Leon kept his expression neutral. He couldn't know any of that for certain, not as far as Cecil and Darkwing were concerned.
"If what both of you said are true, then the curse breaking changes things," Leon said. "Whatever's been hiding down there just lost its biggest advantage. If it's vampires, they had free reign of the surface because sunlight was never a factor. Now it is. They'll either retreat deeper underground or try to relocate before dawn."
"Dawn's in eight hours," Darkwing said, checking his watch.
"Then they'll start panicking soon." Leon looked at Cecil. "If you send the Guardians or some other capable superhero team into those sewers before dawn, you'll probably catch them mid-scramble. They won't have had time to plan an evacuation. I could even join in. If we're talking about killing vampires hiding in a sewer, I'm perfect for the job."
Cecil arched a brow. "And why is that?"
"Because I can sense anything that's connected to the ground, and because I can do this," Leon replied, raising his hand above his head.
Blinding, golden light converged in his grasp before transforming into a nearly three meters long spear, accompanied by crackling electricity. It seemed as if he was holding a literal bolt of lightning.
Cecil and Darkwing shielded their faces.
"Is that... a lightning bolt?" Darkwing asked.
"Yes and no." The Sunlight Spear vanished as quickly as it appeared. "What I held just then is called a Sunlight Spear. A spear of lightning imbued with the power of the sun. Now do you see why I'm perfect for tonight's vampire extermination?"
Darkwing and Cecil exchanged a look. Cecil recovered first.
"Sold," he said. "But you look like you're about to keel over. You sure you're in any shape to go underground and fight?"
Cecil wasn't wrong. His reserves were still half full and breaking Midnight City's curse took more out of him than he expected.
"I'll be fine. Give me an hour to rest and I'll be good to go." Leon gestured at the trees around them. "Fresh air does wonders for me."
Cecil glanced at the surrounding terrain, then back at Leon with a look that said he'd stopped being surprised a long time ago. "Fine. One hour. Darkwing, how long do you need to prep?"
"I can be ready in one," Darkwing said. His gaze hadn't left Leon since the Sunlight Spear vanished. "I've memorized the sewer layout. Three main entry points, two emergency exits, and a central junction that connects all the major tunnels." He pulled up his holographic map again. "If they're running an operation down there, it'll be headquartered near the junction. Deepest point, hardest to reach, and the only area with enough space to house significant numbers."
"How do we know they haven't already started evacuating?" Cecil asked.
"Because they probably don't know the curse is broken yet," Leon said. Everyone looked at him. "Think about it. If you've been living in a sewer for two decades, you're not checking the sky. The curse has been there their entire lives. They have no reason to think it's gone until sunlight hits them or someone tells them."
Darkwing's eyes narrowed behind his mask. "That's... a fair point. Hm."
"Which means we have a window," Leon continued. "Once dawn hits and the first rays reach the streets, whoever's near the surface will figure it out fast. But the ones deep in the junction? They might not realize for hours. If we go in now, we can catch the leadership before the rank and file can even warn them."
Cecil pressed his earpiece. "Donald. Get me the Immortal, War Woman, Green Ghost, and Martian Man. I need them prepped for subterranean operations in Midnight City." He paused. "Yes, I said Midnight City. The curse is broken. I'll explain later. Just get it done."
He pointed at Leon. "You get your one hour. Sit on the grass, hug a tree, do whatever it is you do. When the team arrives, you're on point with Darkwing. Your job is detection and extermination. His is navigation and tactics."
Leon looked at Darkwing. "Works for me if it works for you."
"I've been hunting these disappearances for years with barely any backup," Darkwing said. He adjusted his gauntlets. "Having someone who can sense through walls and throw sunlight isn't exactly a downside."
"High praise."
"Don't get used to it."
Leon grinned behind the mask and walked toward the nearest patch of forest still standing outside the former dome's boundary. He sat down on the grass, pressed his palms flat against the soil, and let Gaia's Child do its work.
Lily settled beside him. Nyx landed on a branch overhead and tucked her head under her wing.
"You did something extraordinary tonight," Lily said after a minute of silence. "A city freed from a two-decade curse. That is no small thing."
"And now we're going vampire hunting in the sewers underneath it." Leon leaned his head back against the tree. "Just another Tuesday."
"It's Thursday."
"It's a saying, Lily."
"A factually incorrect one."
"Nuh uh."
Lily sighed.
Leon closed his eyes and smiled. The moon shone over Midnight City for the first time in twenty years.
In one hour, he'd go underground. Whatever was down there, they had six hundred people to answer for. Six hundred people who have probably been turned into deadly thralls.
Six hundred thralls that he could kill for gacha points.