“You’re sure you don’t need me?” Azure Avenger asked into his phone, staring at the news footage playing on the screen above him.

  The headline was of course about Dr. Maniacal’s death, but the actual scene playing out was the repair operations in the warehouse area, where his team was located. Azure thought he spotted Radiant Ruby zipping around up in the air. He grinned at that. Without him there, she was probably trying to help everyone with no one to keep her focused on just one task at a time. The human shaped bundle of energy listened to Green just fine, but between her own natural need to be helpful and the power flowing from her gem, that girl could not sit still for long if you didn’t keep on her.

  As for Green Guardian himself, he was on the other end of the call, apparently taking a short break.

  “Aw, you miss us,” his second-in-command laughed. “Seriously though, we’re close to finishing up here. It’ll be done by the time you fly on over. Well, obviously Fixco will still be here for the next few days, but they’ll want us out of the way. Can’t have capes getting caught in construction equipment.”

  Azure finally understood what it was like to be Ruby right now as he nervously tapped his foot on the wood flooring. He knew he couldn’t hunt down Secret Keeper to try apologizing again, and he’d already passed off the concentrated magic essence to the lab techs downstairs, so he was feeling restless.

  “Alright then, well when you guys are done, feel free to head home,” the hero reluctantly conceded. “I’ll text if I get anything back, and we can meet up tomorrow at the base.”

  “Cool, but keep the speeches short,” Green reminded him. “Opal has a date tomorrow night that we promised she’d be able to make, and Sable and I wanted to hit up that new arcade.”

  “I promise, just a quick meeting,” Azure held up a hand in surrender even though his friend couldn’t see him. “I’ll even talk Ruby out of cooking for once.”

  “Oh, I’m glad it’s you and not me. Anyway, see you tomorrow!”

  The line clicked off and Azure sighed. He considered heading downstairs to their assigned “base” but felt like the emptiness would crush him if he did. Sure his team shared a floor with the Starlight Squad but the actual assigned areas didn’t really overlap. And each of those bases slash condos were made to fit ten heroes each with their own rooms alongside a sizable living area and kitchen. When no one else was in there with him, it felt like an empty mall.

  Built well over a hundred years ago by a man named August Amberheart1 and continuously added to since then, Amberheart Tower had been made with a singular vision to take care of the heroes that took care of the city. Beyond just the “penthouse” that kept being pushed up as the tower grew, it boasted several floors intended to house various teams, the late August Amberheart having stated that heroes shouldn’t hide away from the world in Victory City but rather have a place to come together and feel safe. Various research groups with grants from the city acted as a personal crime lab, specializing in just about any discipline you could think of, scientific, magical, or alien. There were even some agencies that worked with Arrestors to act as a dispatch team for heroes who needed guidance on where to go to help out, as well as some that worked with places like Fixco to assign heroes to help with rescue or development efforts across the city. Not to mention the many gyms that were open to anyone with powers, even those who didn’t suit up to help out the city. In fact the gym honestly saw more hero mingling than this top floor ever did on a daily basis. It would’ve been a great place to go to not feel alone and do something.

  But Azure didn’t want to go there. After all, it wasn’t just heroes, but civilians who looked up to people like him, and right now he really didn’t want to face anyone’s admiring faces. At least other heroes understood that sometimes you weren’t perfect and that sometimes you had to make calls that hurt people to get the bad guys.

  “That’s some nice brooding, but I think you’re still not quite going to beat The Dark Knight in a competition,” a familiar voice called out to him.

  Azure turned in his seat to see Reflecta walking up to him, her mask showing his own frowning face. He glanced around and saw that the rest of the Starlight Squad was off awhile away chatting to one another, minus Space Racer who was probably raiding their kitchen downstairs.

  “Relax,” she followed his gaze. “Wavelength didn’t pick up on you pouting over here. I could see it perfectly well enough.”

  It would be a shock if the telepath had. As far as Azure knew, his gem seemed to block lightly focused psychic powers, meaning that he’d know if someone was trying to skim his brain.

  “Sorry for bringing the mood down,” he apologized. “Just had something of a long day.”

  Reflecta gestured at the seat next to him and he nodded. She sat down and looked up at the news reels. She exaggerated her body language, which was something he appreciated given the mask concealing every part of her face. And unlike a certain someone, everything she projected felt very natural, not like it was a performance that was done only to let the observer glean what was intended and nothing more.

  “Sorry to add to this then, but apparently ArachNed has been running his mouth.”

  Speak of the devil.

  “That’s nothing new,” he joked. “What was it about this time?”

  Reflecta sighed, “Orbit says that one of the guys he fought today was worried that Dr. Maniacal’s killer stole all the energy from his machine. When Orbit questioned him about it, apparently Rac had put that idea in his head.”

  Azure closed his eyes, wanting to keep his frustration from his face, “We didn’t confirm or deny that was the working theory. Nor did we tell anyone to keep it secret.”

  The mirror heroine turned her head to face him, “We all know that was implied. And it wasn’t just one villain either. Commander Cosmic and Sun Light ran into Laser Badger today and apparently he also got into a fight with Rac last night when he and a bunch of others were trying to beat up some civvies to find The Broker. Badger said it sounded like something Rac had made up to scare them, but this is dangerously close to leaking information.”

  Azure tensed. This wasn’t a good topic right now.

  “Look, Ned and I haven’t exactly been seeing eye to eye right now, and I know you’re looking out for me,” he told her. “But if there’s one thing I trust about that crusty stick in the mud, it’s this: Ned isn’t doing this to hurt people, and I have to assume that includes me.”

  Reflecta crossed her arms, “Everyone knows you’re making a play for leadership here, and while most of us support it, there’s a lot of people like Rac who don’t want Victory to look like Orion.”

  He wasn’t even surprised to hear that the Starlight Squad had him pegged on this. He doubted they were the only ones to figure out what he had been planning.

  One big difference between Victory City and the so-called City of Legends was that Orion had an informal leadership position for the hero guilds and an actual council of the top guilds that helped direct how heroes operated in that city. Hero teams and solo heroes reported to these guilds and kept everyone in the loop. It was built on just as many handshakes and loose agreements as Amberheart was, but there were a lot more gaps closed and a clearer understanding of the hierarchy and who to turn to. If the Protectors need someone to go to a place on the east side, they could not just contact the hero in question, they could be sure that he’d show up there ASAP regardless of what he’d been planning ten minutes before or where his team wanted him. Azure was lucky if he could find a single emergency contact of anyone on a random team who actually lived at Amberheart, much less coordinate anything that expansive.

  Sure, this loose organization was itself informally superseded by the fact that just about everyone would drop everything at the drop of a hat to listen to whatever Mr. Wonder wanted them to do, but honestly that would be the case anywhere. The man was a legend and people moved when he asked them to make way. But the council and the leadership position had done wonders to help that city coordinate against the various threats that faced it on a daily basis.

  With Victory City slowly rising in prominence alongside Hallowsguard, for which The Dark Knight was pretty much the de facto hero when it came to who was in charge,2 it was becoming clear that the old approach would be tested and found wanting pretty soon. To Azure, Dr. Maniacal’s attack felt like proof enough, and that was with almost everyone trying to work together. Still the fact that they didn’t actually win against the League member was all the more reason why Azure felt there needed to be a better system. He couldn’t help but feel that if someone had taken the reins better, yesterday’s resulting fracas would’ve turned into a decisive victory. Instead, everyone had mostly been picking their own fights and not knowing where to go once they’d won their battle. It had let Manical dictate the battle for them.

  And despite him butting heads with Ned, Azure knew that Ned also wanted something better, but the spider themed hero was mostly focused on the arrest procedures and processing of villains as opposed to coordinating all of the heroes of this city. Despite the rumors that Azure had heard, he just couldn’t see Ned attempting to sabotage him in order to take control of the council Azure was hoping to form. The somewhat antisocial jerk might stir some trouble to stay neutral, but he didn’t seem like the type to lead everyone or even want that.

  Unfortunately, he still represented an old guard faction even if he didn’t want to, one that was reluctant to commit to working together as guilds, even if Orion had adopted such a system in all but name, and any success that Ned achieved was seen as a failure of Azure’s. There were a lot of solo heroes and teams that really didn’t want to be told what to do and saw Ned’s misbehaving as proof that Azure didn’t have what it took.

  “Ned wants what Ned wants,” he responded. “And no matter what, I need to show the holdouts that I can handle things. I’m not going to make the mistake so many others have made of trying to put that spider in a box so I can focus on campaigning. I need to step up.”

  The Maniacal situation, despite the setback of not stopping his ritual or superweapon or whatever, presented an opportunity. It wouldn’t magically solve his problems, but if his team used this to their advantage, then there was a chance to walk away convincing a lot of people that he was ready to direct Victory City’s defenses against the ever rising threats.

  “I get that you’re mad at his loose lips, but I’ve got a lead and if it pans out, I can make a formal announcement to the public about our suspicions along with having a solid gameplan for how to catch whoever this is,” he continued. “Ned’s impatient but he’s not wrong that people should know what us heroes know. I just want everyone to know that we’re not running around blind on this so there’s no panic when we do announce our suspicions.”

  Reflecta looked back at her team. Specifically, Azure knew, she was looking at her friend Wavelength, the one who actually distrusted ArachNed.

  “It’s not his impatience, it’s… his relationship with the villains,” she muttered.

  Azure sighed. That was unfortunately a fair point. Despite Ned’s insistence on corrective actions and unwillingness to look the other way when a crime was about to happen, the man was frankly cordial if not outright friendly with most of his rogues. Ned justified it that he was working on helping them, and that it helped keep them managed. While the majority of the villains he fought actually did seem content not to escalate like a lot of other super powered criminals, in over a decade of Ned’s career, very few of his villains actually gave up their life of crime. This had led to rumors that Ned fostered his rivalries for some reason or another, but hypocritically chastised the rest of the superhero community for the catch-and-release policies.

  Not helping the matter was his anti-psychic safeguards. Both suits that repelled psionics and the way he managed his own internal monologue made it incredibly hard for a lot of other heroes to trust him.

  Azure had once gotten into a full on argument with Ned and he honestly suspected the spider-themed hero to be fine with catch-and-release as an idea but had issues with the practice, a more nuanced opinion that was hard to actually get across when you lived in the very black and white world of capes sometimes. Not helping matters was how much Ned would deflect and refuse to give more concrete details about a lot of things, often to protect himself or his rogues.

  “Look, let me handle ArachNed. If it turns out he’s saying more than he should to the wrong people, let me handle it. At the very least to show off what I’m hoping our new code of conduct should be, alright?” Azure offered.

  Reflecta mulled it over before nodded, “That seems appropriate. You handle Rac, and I’ll try to sort out that.”

  She pointed back to Commander Cosmic and Sun Light, the two’s previous conversation apparently starting to sour, as had been the case a lot recently.

  “Dare I ask?” Azure gave an apologetic smile.

  The mirror heroine sunk in her seat, “The Commander has had a hard time getting used to the fact that his ‘Kid Cosmic’ is now a young lady who wants to have her own identity. Meanwhile Sun Light isn’t willing to jump ship to the Young Guardians. She’s a little scared of leaving the rest of us behind to go hang out with heroes her own age.”

  Azure chuckled and silently thanked the fact that while a couple members of his team were younger than him, thankfully they were all mostly willing to listen while suited up and find their own friend groups outside the team. He was happy the team had a family dynamic, but equally as happy that none of them were teenagers and had gotten most of their rebellious phase out of the way before grabbing a Spectrum Gem.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a hero swooping in on the patio. His gaze almost went back to making sure Commander Cosmic and Sun Light didn’t start a brawl in the common room before his mind clocked the sour expression on the newcomer’s face.

  “I know I’m juggling a lot of plates, but do you think I need to check on Ice Hawk?” he asked Reflecta, subtly gesturing over his way.

  Reflecta was in the middle of giving some hand signals to Orbit and Wavelength to help get the father daughter pair apart for a bit. When she looked over she shrugged, “Most of his team is still in recovery downstairs. They rushed in before waiting for backup. I don’t think you’re the best person at the moment to go have a chat with him, as much as you want to be everyone’s dad.”

  Azure rolled his eyes, “I don’t want to be everyone’s dad, but yeah, I did tell them to wait so he might take it as rubbing it in. Still…”

  Their eyes locked. Azure didn’t love the look Ice Hawk gave him for a moment before the other hero’s face went neutral.

  Before he could think more on it, he got a ping on his phone.

  Reflecta looked over at him as he read the preview message.

  “Apparently we got a hit. There’s a single case match to the essence, but no name attached. The lab says they want to talk to me about it in person,” he told her.

  Reflecta stood up and nodded to him as she left to go help break up her team’s spat, “Good luck.”

  “You as well,” he replied, not envying her.

  Finally though, after everything that had happened in the past couple days, things were starting to look up.

  ---------------------------------

  “Taa daa!” Lyn lazily spread her arms out, hiding a wince that came from the motion.

  Celeste beamed from ear to ear and rushed forward to hug her friend.

  “Wait! WAIT!” Lyn panicked, adrenaline spiking as she anticipated the shockwaves of pain from the impact.

  “Oh right!” the scientist stopped inches from the panicking woman. “You mentioned you were sore.”

  Sore was an understatement. Transforming back into her new body after getting back here as Terrorantula had been awful. Well it hadn’t been any worse than turning into her spider form, but that coupled with the whole body ache was atrocious. Still she deserved to show off!

  “Yeah, just a little,” she undersold the pure agony from her beanbag chair. This had been much more comfortable as a giant spider lady, apparently having been flattened out over the years, but it was one of the few bits of furniture that she didn’t have to spend forever adjusting that worked for her now. “But it’s so worth it! We can finally go out for food again!”

  Celeste grimaced, “I actually kind of like delivery compared to sitting down some place.”

  Lyn waved off the familiar rant before it could start, “Look, we can actually go to places in general again. Damn, I’m going to need a whole new set of clothes…”

  Celeste grinned, “Well good news!”

  The mad scientist unslung the bag on her shoulders and dumped oh so many stacks of cash on the floor. It was Lyn’s turn to grin excitedly for her friend.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “So everything went well?”

  “Yep!” Celeste started to pick up the stacks and pile them on a mostly unoccupied table. “Tech Crash was legit and we’ll probably have another order soon.”

  “Tech Crash?” Lyn considered helping out but even a small lean forward told her to stay in the damn chair for a little longer. “I thought that the guy was called Steelstar, who by the way doesn’t seem to exist, so congrats on not meeting an axe murderer.”

  Her roommate rolled her eyes, “You said the place was safe. Sure, he apparently was dressed up like the world’s most suspicious drug dealer, but it went fine. He’s apparently figuring out names still.”

  “Ugh… I don’t miss that. It took like a whole month to go with ‘Terrorantula’ and I still don’t love it,” Lyn sighed. “I’ve met worse though. Still, Tech Crash sounds like he’s aiming to be a villain of the week for the Young Guardians.”

  “Actually,” Celeste laughed, “he’s planning to take over the world.”

  Lyn blinked several times, as if it would clear something up, “Seriously? They still make that kind of guy?”

  “Hey, don’t go dissing my new boss,” Lyn shook a brick of money at her in warning.

  “Please don’t tell me you signed on with some no name villain who was buying jet boots off you,” Lyn dragged a hand over her face.

  “Well not yet, we’re going to see if he manages to actually come through with some jobs first. Plus he was pretty scared of asking me to be his resident mad scientist despite clearly wanting a volcano base. Probably because he was broke after paying for everything and it looks really bad to float the offer when you can see the moths coming out of your wallet.”

  Lyn couldn’t help but smile, “Oh hell, that’s great. Still if ‘Tech Crash’ actually does turn out to be good for a short contract, that wouldn’t be the worst.”

  “Right? I’m still hoping he manages to actually come through on his plan so I can build a superweapon for once!” her friend was excited. Considering that Celeste had complained so many times about how the warehouse had no room for an earthquake machine or a blizzard maker, Lyn knew that this was the part of the hypothetical future contract she was most excited for.

  “Well it sounds like our bills are set for a bit. Want to celebrate?” she asked.

  Celeste eagerly nodded, “Yep! Let me order from that new place down the street. We’ll get you some actual clothes tomorrow and we can eat at one of those chicken places you’ve scared the employees by slobbering over their windows at once a week.”

  Lyn laughed again. Her face was actually beginning to hurt from how much she was smiling.

  “Hey, any news on the bounty yet? Considering no one’s come forward by now, it’s definitely not League infighting,” Celeste was bringing up an online menu on a laptop and hurrying over to sit down next to Lyn.

  She shrugged, “Sounds like it might be dangerous actually. Rumor is that they killed Maniacal to steal his thunder.”

  She grinned at her own pun while Celeste just rolled her eyes.

  “Anyways, I’m trying to figure out a team to take them out, quick and quiet. I’ve got a few names already like Turnaround and Sand Devil that I’m planning on giving a call.”

  “And Iron Menace?” Celeste gave her a smug grin.

  Lyn managed to not blush as far as she could tell, “Obviously. Just need to find someone to track him down. We never got around to sharing numbers. Anyways, I’ve been making some calls to get some of the losers to back off. Don’t need D-listers ferreting out the guy before us and getting someone else to snipe the bounty.”

  Celeste finished putting in her order and passed the laptop over. Oh, all of this looked delicious.

  “Think we should order anything for leftovers?” she asked and Celeste chuckled.

  “Already did, just grab whatever. We’re good for it.”

  Oh that was so nice to hear. Sitting here, looking at all of these delectable options, hearing that her roommate might be on track to get a solid contract with someone who might at least make it to threatening the city before they carted him away, with a new body and all of that cash piled high a few feet away...

  Things were definitely looking up.

  ---------------------------------

  Alex heard his front door open.

  “Well you look busy,” Ms Song came up, an extremely tempting aroma coming from a grease stained bag in her hand.

  He instantly understood why a bunch of amoral businessmen and some amoral businesswomen were all attempting to win her over. Clearly she knew the value of a good fast food run while you were working on a project. She followed his eyes to the bag.

  “Oh this? This is only for real villains,” she teased.

  In response, he pushed himself aside in his chair so she could see the suit laid out on the table, the upgrades partially installed. She smiled and lightly tossed the bag full of addictive junk food his way. Oh gods, he had been staring down the barrel of rice and beans tonight and this was heaven compared to that.

  She let him devour a small burger as she went over the exposed wiring and open panels where he was shoving the new upgrades into.

  “Not a bad start,” she gave him a passing grade.

  Cleaning off his hands and face with a napkin, he turned to face her with a smile, “Yep, this should serve well for the first few jobs. Should be ready to go within a day or two.”

  Her eyes flowed along the suit, stopping at the gauntlets with a frown.

  “How in the hell does that even work?” she muttered, concern written all across her face.

  “It’s a gravitor generator.”

  “That’s not what a gravitor generator looks like,” she repeated the mistake everyone was making today.

  “Well it generates gravitor fields,” he shrugged, not really in the mood to try and convince any more nonbelievers.

  “I see…” she trailed off. “And it’s safe to have in my building?”

  “These gloves have been smashed, shocked, burned, submerged in water, cracked open by telekinesis, chewed on, and worse than that, and they’ve never blown up,” Alex assured her. “Well, not these ones. I’ve had to replace them, especially since some of them have gotten eaten by giant monsters and there was one time that they got bacon grease in them.”

  Her eyes narrowed, “It was you…”

  “The fumigators got the smell out in a week!”

  Ms Song didn’t seem too pleased with that one so he backed off.

  “The point is that these are safe. I’ve been working on these gauntlets for years and at worst, if something goes wrong they spark and catch fire, not produce a singularity.”

  Her eyes floated to the fire extinguishers he had nearby. Finally she nodded.

  “Don’t burn down my complex and we’ll be fine.”

  That… unfortunately hit harder than she’d expected it to. He remembered his place in Orion, the flames consuming it. All because his boss wanted to kill a hero.

  “That won’t happen,” he affirmed, not entirely to his landlady.

  She looked him over for a few moments, then seeming satisfied, went over to one of the free chairs nearby and sat down in it, leaning her legs up on the coffee table. Alex fought down his annoyance at that and turned back to his work.

  “Your emotions are loud,” she told him.

  He froze.

  “Relax, I’m just picking up on some of the general 'noise' your emotions are generating, not actually peeking at your thoughts. My powers don’t work that way,” she waved off his concerns. “But I can tell you’re upset.”

  She didn’t make any moves to remove her feet from his table, so he had a felling this wasn’t related to him getting irritated.

  “Just reminded of something,” he muttered.

  “Hmm…”

  He realized she was waiting for more.

  “If I don’t say anything else, you’re going to use your magic voice again, aren’t you?” Alex sighed.

  She shrugged, “It’s not magic, but yes.”

  “I lost my last place because I worked for the League and got caught up in their bullshit,” he turned away from the suit, not wanting to work on it while he recounted this story. “Lost just about everything and broke up with my partner at the time because of it.”

  “You mentioned not wanting to go back,” she mused.

  “Yeah, worked under Marquis Blood,” he recalled the stupid vampire-wannabe with his centuries out of date facial hair. “One of several henchmen for hire. He was feuding with a hero and thanks to some stupid coincidences, I ended up getting caught in the crossfire.”

  As long as she didn’t ask, Alex felt no reason to explain more than that. Especially not what he’d done during the whole thing.

  Thankfully, she seemed pleased with that explanation and she moved onto the next subject, “How does one end up a henchman anyways? I didn’t really have the luxury of trying that out.”

  Yeah, no shit. When you had powers worth a damn, if you decided to hench, you usually were put so high up the chain of command as a force multiplier that you were basically a junior villain and expected to have your own villain name to match. That barely qualified as henching, more like apprentice villainy with a better paycheck.

  “I ran away from boarding school,” Alex admitted. “Dad put me there after I disappointed Mom one too many times.”

  Ms Song glanced over to the disassembled supersuit, “Despite your occupation, it doesn’t seem like your skills would make your parents that upset. I’m assuming you were already causing trouble.”

  He chuckled, “Honestly, Mom might’ve been happier if I was. Actually I picked this up while I was bored at boarding school.”

  She didn’t appreciate the wordplay so he continued, “No, I just came out worse than my sister in every way, which apparently was Dad’s fault as much as mine from what she told him.”

  “Matriarchal family?”

  Alex waggled a hand, “Eh, kind of. More like family dynamics in general were some fucked up merit-based thing, and Dad and I just didn’t measure up. Mom was considering grabbing another marriage but apparently she had to deal with the rest of the family blocking her on that. So Dad knew he was on thin ice and shoved me away so he could try to prove himself.”

  Song’s eyebrows were high. Yeah this story tended to do that, and was always great to crack out if anyone started asking too many questions about why he left Orion.

  “Another marriage? Not a divorce?”

  “Polygamy,” he shrugged. Yep, the ultimate conversation piece around here. There were some places where this wouldn’t get more than a shrug but in this part of Amera, it basically let him control any conversation he wanted.

  Oh, your sister-in-law got really into collecting weird knives? Well some of my cousins have more than one spouse. Your fucking move, Jimmy. Try to fucking top that.

  Funnily enough, it wasn’t even uncommon in various parts of the Amera Union, especially in areas that didn’t see a large immigration from Atlanthea or Uropa. However, in the north side of the mega-continent which had a bunch of people show up on boats and submarines in the distant past, Alex’s family quirk had raised more eyebrows than just about anything else he said, even when he mentioned more of how the family’s weird merit system worked. Sure, almost no other family he’d met had the parents basically move across the country because their four year old wasn’t up to grandma and grandpa’s strict standards to get special training, but lo and behold if he dropped that fact then someone would feel obligated to bring up how their friend’s grandpa wrote someone out of the will for getting a tattoo or something like it was equal.

  “So then, I’m assuming part of your plan to take over the world involves getting a harem together,” Song laughed.

  “Nah, harems are cringe-worthy,” he said, then immediately noticed her giving him a look. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with them. I just don’t feel like I personally need several people fawning over me.”

  Right, she has a whole apartment complex of suitors.

  She sighed, “You’re planning to take over the world? Isn’t that by definition wanting everyone to love and respect you? Also you fold too easily. Are you that afraid of my powers?”

  Alex turned back to his station and began slipping together a few parts, “Not really actually. The boarding school had someone like you as a teacher, so honestly I’m used to powers like yours. I just would rather not lose out on the free rent.”

  A pause filled the air of the apartment, a silence spreading in the gaps between the sounds made by the assembly of his supersuit.

  Finally, Song asked incredulously, “Someone like- Do you not know who I am?”

  “Not really? I’m assuming someone important since it looks like you retired and that’s not easy, but other than that, I haven’t really figured it out,” he admitted.

  There was no response. He dared a peek back using a reflection on a plate he was attaching to the suit and saw his landlady looking almost disappointed. Like she’d dropped a plate of food on carpet. She quickly shifted to a neutral expression and he adjusted the plate out of her view.

  “That’s fine. Anyways, hopefully your rise to infamy will finally make your parents proud.”

  That would be an odd thing to say outside of the circles Alex and her ran in, but it was somewhat heartening to hear. He had his doubts about his mother ever being impressed though. Honestly if he did manage to conquer the world, he bet he’d hear that his sister could’ve done it quicker. Song stood up and began to head out.

  “Oh right,” she remembered. “Have you got a new name picked out?”

  Alex held up his new helmet. It looked similar to his older one, still completely face concealing but this one had a few more flashing lights, “I’m think of Tech Crash.”

  “Awful,” she replied instantly, “but better than the previous one. If you’re going to take over the world you need something with weight to it.”

  He rolled his eyes and replaced the helmet on the table. She gave a supportive smile.

  “I look forward to seeing your success. Show the heroes and the pitiful League what a villain with real ambition can do.”

  In one motion, she had swept open the door and strode out into the hall, letting it close softly on its own. Well, the retiree had given her blessing in her own way. Plus it sounded like he wasn’t the only one with a chip on his shoulder over the League of Domination. He laughed to himself and threw himself back into crafting his new identity, grabbing a few rapidly cooling fries as he did so.

  Sure, let’s show them all.

  As he stared at the suit, the promise of it hit him. Looking up, he saw the outlines to his plots on the wall, written in dry erase marker on a small whiteboard with some clippings magnetized to it. A bit about the exhibit, the passcode to Fencer’s place, and a radio frequency for the armored cars. In front of him, in pieces but there all the same, sat the start of his rise out of the muck that he’d been stuck in for almost a decade.

  Today was the start of his new life, and things were finally, finally starting to look up.

  1. August Amberheart was a wealthy investor inspired by Orion and Mr. Wonder’s actions and the subsequent rise of Orion City who nearly went bankrupt setting up the institutions that would form the foundation of Victory City. His wife, Amelia Amberheart, managed to pull them out of debt with several favors called in from her friends. However, it was the endorsement by Mr. Wonder that actually pulled in various other investors and allowed Victory City to thrive. Today, the Amberheart family is mostly a memory, its youngest generation having unfortunately been one of the many victims of the Great War, but the foundation they established continues to support heroes in the northern Amera Union to this day.

  2. There is a sizable hero population in Hallowsguard, but it is undeniable that The Dark Knight is the name everyone associates with it. The cursed city has no shortage of villains, and yet almost all fear the hero that skulks in the many shadows of of its skyscrapers. Various teams of heroes regularly follow their lead and are advised from the shadows by this mysterious figure, though almost every attempt by outside heroes to contact them has been met with failure.