Tech Crash immediately readied a canister of Retch Gas to fire. Right now, every single one of them that was in his gauntlets, as well as the two sleep gas cans on his belt, just so happened to be liabilities to him, each can its own recipe for disaster. While the gas was safe most of the time, it would immediately go up in a fireball if Blazeshot nailed a direct hit on any of them, and having been hospitalized more than once due to a hero not appreciating safety labels with flammable gas, Alex, er, Tech Crash had no desire to repeat some of his early villain mistakes.
Firing it towards the pair, he hoped that Blazeshot wasn’t as hotheaded as her kind of powers usually made supes of both sides of the cape, especially since his spoils were still hovering in a not-exactly-fireproof bag just a few feet from the two heroes. Since he’d seen her dismiss her fireball, he knew she had some limited pyrokinesis, not just the ability to produce flame, but wasn’t sure if that would apply to any secondary fires she produced. Pyrokinesis didn’t necessarily come from magic since cosmic rays and some advanced mutations basically opened up into the same kind of fuckery as glowing stones from long lost eras and memorizing catchphrases from elder gods, but a good portion of fire powers he knew basically only worked on the flames the user directly produced. They didn’t tend to make you Hydrando, Master of Water, but for any form of combustion.
Thankfully, either she was composed enough to not immediately shoot down a mystery projectile with flames or Spelljam was just quicker, as the cloaked man was the one to intercept the flying gas grenade. The mage threw his left arm to one side and the canister was immediately yanked towards that direction by an unseen force, several of the sigils around the hero dissipating as he used his magic before slowly beginning to reform in the air. Oh good, a visible “mana gauge”.1
The two shot into motion, dashing into opposite directions, the bag moving to follow the green cloaked hero. As they did so, both of them wrinkled their noses when the fumes of the gas barely reached them as a cloud of it exploded into being in the corner of the room.
“Retch Gas!” Spelljam cried out. “Flammable!”
“Got it,” Blazeshot replied and then stuck both arms behind her back. A foot wide area behind her exploded into a quick blast of orange light. She surged forward on the shockwave but most of the exhibits remained unharmed, although a few of the glass displays nearby that Tech Crash had sliced holes into audibly cracked in response, the damage beginning to spread across them.
In less than a heartbeat she was on him, a heavy punch swinging right towards his chest. He fought the urge to try to block the straightforward punch and instead threw himself to the side, feeling the heat from her thick gauntlets as they passed nearby. He could probably only let a few of those blows connect with his own gauntlets before the heat cooked the gas grenades enough to be a problem. A few more after that and he’d probably need a new hand or two. Not to mention his gravitor generators would begin to melt in their casing and he’d need to rebuild the whole piece of armor from scratch just to replace it. Of all the heroes to fight, it had to be a fire one.
“Careful! Like Green Hood said, I’m packing a lot of stuff I’d rather not go pop,” he risked a quip, dodging another heavy swing that from how telegraphed it was, he knew it was her attempt to bait him into a block. Worse, having to dodge this way meant that he lost track of Spelljam.
Thankfully, Blazeshot took the bait and went for the banter, “You could always let me hit you and call it quits. I don’t particularly want to punch a bomb myself, but I’m betting your armor muffles enough of the blast that I walk away with just a quick trip to the medpod.”2
Tech Crash wasn’t great at banter. Only a few people were and he largely suspected those were either powerhouses who were holding back and punching down, or the type of motor mouth who never stopped talking. Given that neither of these two had seemed the latter type and he doubted the former would be on guard duty here, he was really hoping to get them talking more than focusing on the fight and hopefully throw them off their game. Heroes seemed to obsessively love banter a lot more than villains. He liked to think this was because their social circles outside their team weren’t too great on account of either secret identities or just clique bullshit.3
Her next blow was slightly more delayed than her previous one and she didn’t shift back to a neutral stance quite as snappily, letting him scan the room. A reflection in one of the displays gave him just enough warning to slip underneath a magic projectile fired off from Spelljam, who had slipped into a blindspot behind him and to the left. Tech Crash used the momentum from his dodge to jump further away from the pyro trying to wail on him. To his surprise, she didn’t pursue and he quickly turned to try and get both the heroes in his view.
Just in time as Spelljam had been racing towards him with the glowing image of a sword extending from a knifehand chop down towards him. Tech Crash instinctively blocked this one with his forearms and was rewarded with a clang as the illusory blade bounced off his armor, leaving a smaller cut than he’d feared it would. Sure “Iron Menace” hadn’t been literal, but his armor’s composition still had its limits when it came to how much abuse it could take. Thankfully, it looked like the new underweave and the scattered bits of the power armor he’d rearranged managed to protect his forearms a little better than he’d dared to hope for.
“Huh, his armor’s tough, B,” Spelljam remarked. “He might be upper C or lower B class.”
“Aw, you’re too sweet,” Crash kept up the banter now that he had a moment to breathe. “Well if I’m that tough, maybe we should wait for backup.”
The villain quickly evaluated what he had on him. One more Retch Gas can in his right gauntlet and two more in the left after all he’d used tonight. A couple of smoke bombs, only it was too much of a risk to use infrared with a fire hero if she had any experience with that trick. Getting flash blinded here for even a second was probably game over. Two cables left, one loaded in each gauntlet with a few more stored on his belt and too little space to reload here if he missed. The lasers of course but he’d have to be careful not to carve up the museum or kill either of these two unless he wanted to immediately become a priority capture target. Last up, those sleep gas cans he hadn’t bothered to load…
He’d previously considered dumping them into the vents and letting them soak a wing or two with them, but ultimately decided against it when he couldn’t figure out where Gold Armor was holed up, not to mention he’d taken out most of the guards in the security room and felt like it was a waste. Now he was regretting it. Might’ve been able to dodge this fight if he’d been willing to eat the cost of those.
Reflecting on it, despite all of this kit he had ready, his gauntlets hadn’t really ballooned in size as much as he’d been afraid they would. The canister launcher fit snugly besides the gravitor generator, and the new shock absorption from the underweave had actually given more room for him to fit them both in there. It still left his forearms a little oversized compared to the rest of his armor, but he thankfully didn’t resemble a ridiculous cartoon sailor just yet.
“We’re evaluated and insured for upper B class,” Spelljam bragged.4 “Besides, I don’t think an actual B class would give us that option.”
The mage fenced with him, lashing out with blows that felt a little too telegraphed to drive him back. He beat them away with blocks from his arms as he eyed the floating sack a few feet behind the hero, thankful his visor was hiding his hungry gaze. Flicking his sight back down, he caught Blazeshot rapidly moving to his right side in order to flank him. He needed to find a way to keep her back.
He decided to risk the lasers, tracking her with his eyes as he tapped the activation buttons in between his blocks, and blinking three times. He was thankful that the one piece of eye tracking in his helmet was hooked up to these and that Celestial Scientist had bothered with a few simple blink commands. Three times in quick succession followed by a confirmation key from the gauntlets meant that they were supposed to fire near but not directly at the target.
As he threw back Spelljam after yet another downward slash which he’d managed to block with both arms, the laser emitters swiveled on his shoulders and fired backwards, twitching and rotating to carve a little bit of room between the villain and his would be ambusher.
“Damn!” she loudly exclaimed, letting Tech Crash know that he’d successfully not murdered her. Meanwhile, the lack of a toasty punch told him the maneuver had worked to keep her away from him.
The surprise on Spelljam’s face let him know he had the opportunity to fire off a Retch Gas can at her general direction. He twisted his head as though he was aiming at her, but kept his eyes locked on the mage. His last can in the right gauntlet went flying as he shot it blind, but apparently it had been close enough in the correct direction judging by the reaction of the hero in front of him. Spelljam quickly responded, moving his arms to command his magics to bat away the canister of flammable gas from his partner, crucially leaving very few of his weird runes still floating around his arms. There were so few left that Tech Crash decided it was worth risking going for his prize. His other arm shot forward and activated his gravitor to yank the relics to him, snapping them away from whatever force was levitating them in the air. His spoils, that sweet bag containing his victory, soared through towards him.
He managed to grab hold of its side just as he felt a force wrench on it, beginning to pull it back away from him. The fabric gave a worrying sound as it stretched but wasn’t being yanked away from him as hard as he’d expected. That tickled a sense of danger in his head so Tech Crash let go, jumping back just as Blazeshot surged forward again, the bag tumbling through the air for a moment before coming to a stop in midair once again.
“You’re trying to bait me,” he realized, immediately understanding why Spelljam hadn’t run away with the prize to play keep away.
“Well, duh,” Blazeshot shrugged. “You were too cautious and would jet on out of here if we didn’t.”
“You WERE following me. I knew I heard something.”
“Someone,” Spelljam rolled his eyes, “doesn’t know how to not walk into things while she’s invisible.”
“We were still figuring out what he was here for!” Blazeshot protested. “And now we know: it’s your standard Fencer shopping list.”
Tech Crash paused, “You don’t know that.”
Blazeshot stopped in her tracks, looked over at the bag and back to him, her expression incredulous at his denial, “It’s kind of obvious. It’s all old villain stuff. You didn’t even touch the Lasso of Courage!”
“It’s broken,” he pointed out.
“So is the Sword of Morgash!”
“Yeah but I can find a smith to fix that. There’s like 20 magic blacksmiths in this district alone. You want to tell me where I can find someone who fixes lassos?”
“I don’t know? Someone who fixes- Look! Just admit you’re here to steal stuff to sell to Fencer!”
“I’m here to steal stuff to sell to Fencer,” Tech Crash admitted.
Blazeshot relaxed and smiled smugly, acting like she’d won the entire fight with that alone. Her partner sighed and shook his head.
“Look, you’re outmatched,” Spelljam informed him. “Surrender now and we’ll tell the Arrestors you cooperated. We saw your handiwork at the security room and know you’re not actually trying to cause too much harm so they should go easy on you.”
“Assuming you’re not Ikor under that mask,” Blazeshot piped up. “I still totally think you’re Ikor. In which case this will at least look good on your record.”
“I’m not Ikor,” he told them, realizing that he really should’ve dropped his name at the armored truck. “I’m Tech Crash, and I’ve got no intention of giving up that easily.”
Both of them tensed, but didn’t rush forward. Perfect. That gave him the exact opportunity he needed.
He activated his boots, and blasted away from the two of them, shooting through the open door.
“Wh- HEY!” Blazeshot shouted at him as he heard Spelljam curse. “THAT’S THE DEFINITION OF GIVING UP!”
In truth, Alex was weighing his options. Leave now after a name drop like that and he’d at least get a little bit of reputation out of this.5 Not the best advertising, but it would still be a net positive and his expenditure on this job wouldn’t be too much of a strain on his finances. He’d have to come up with something quick to help blow the socks off Starsilk and lock in a contract, but that was doable. Still, retreating here and now would mean he wouldn’t get the explosive rise to fame from a solid winstreak that he really needed in order to start recruiting minions and threatening city hall any time soon... and there was the whole “League of Domination is probably out for my blood” thing to consider.
Plus all of that loot was bagged up nice and neat and it was such a shame to let the heroes win. He’d have to be smart about this though and get them apart. Thankfully he had a whole museum to-
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“GET BACK HERE!”
Blazeshot was rocketing down the corridor behind him, the flames behind her no longer an orange red but a bright blue white. Well, that didn’t take long. With Spelljam nowhere in sight he might be able to take out the hothead while the two were separated.
Tech Crash flung himself to the side down a narrow corridor to break line of sight and hopefully keep Spelljam guessing which way to go if he wasn’t keeping pace. Swiveling to face the way he came, Tech Crash raised his fist, ready to nail her with the gravitor blast the moment she came around the curve. He was not however ready for her to slam full speed into the wall after barely curving in time to make the turn.
Before he could recover from the shock, Blazeshot had already bounced off the wall like a bullet ricocheting, leaving a smaller dent behind than he thought someone at her speed should’ve left and already collided into the opposite wall. With a start he realized that she wasn’t out of control, the hero was leaping from the walls at high speed directly towards him! Her rapid movement as she pushed the speed of her pursuit into these wild leaps, each one half ricochet and half rocketing jumps, made it impossible to get a bead on her. Before he could manage to track her with his arm, she passed over him, the heat from her mane of fire brushing against his mask. He spun backwards as she gripped him and wrenched him around.
A very expensive noise cut through the air and Tech Crash realized with horror as he began to fall to the ground that she’d slowed herself down after turning herself into a human pool ball by ripping off one of the laser emitters on his chest piece. The motion had sent both of them tumbling to the ground. Shaking off his confusion, he tried to rush to his feet before she could. A wash of heat accompanied the sound of an explosion and he realized she had simply exploded the air between her and the floor to launch herself upright.
His eyes met the blazing orbs glaring at him and he saw the fury written across her face. It struck him then that he might have miscalculated his odds against her. She’d been holding back in the previous room, clearly not actually wanting to blow up the gas in a room full of hero artifacts. Out here in the hall with only some relatively old carpets, some aged curtains, and a placard with a digital code to scan for a map, she apparently was ready to let loose.
He tried to get a shot off with his gravitor gauntlet but she was too fast, dodging to the side and leaving a trail of hazy air behind before launching herself forward with an axe kick. He barely dodged the arc of fire that was her leg, only to feel the wash of the flames through his boots, causing him to stumble back. She lashed out and grabbed another of his lasers and ripped it off him, dismantling his equipment with more clinical precision than he thought possible from a hero that looked this pissed.
He could feel himself cooking in his armor and quickly launched himself out of the narrow hallway with his jet boots and through a locked door, breaking through into a small exhibit full of busts of some old dead guys, almost toppling a few. Whatever they used to keep them in place did solid work though. Guess kaiju and earthquake proofing this place paid off.6
Blazeshot trudged through the remains of the door and Tech Crash immediately chose the “flight” option when his brain presented it, smashing through the door on the opposite end of this room while keeping the contents of the room between him and the fire hero. He realized he was back in one of the grand halls only as his momentum ended up carrying him over the railing a few feet through the entryway. He went toppling down several flights to the floor, barely missing several large skeletons on the way down.
He managed to right himself with his jet boots and ended up in a stumbling landing as he fell, a few bits of debris from the railing and door above raining down on him as he attempted to scan the room for a good way to ambush the fiery berserker.
“Hey! Freeze!” one of the security guards he’d missed rounded a corner and leveled a gun his way.
He was in no mood for this and quickly fired three blasts from the gravitor gauntlet at the fellow, sending the man sprawling to the floor as he began to rush towards the main entrance. This was probably a more ideal place to fight her, but a quick look around showed a lot of corners and things to hide behind that Spelljam could end up using to flank him from if the hero had managed to keep up. Blazeshot actually living up to her hype about being able to take on upper B class had been more than enough of an unpleasant surprise for him.7 And he didn’t trust that he could hide in here better than a hero with actual magic powers.
He almost made it by the time the fire hero exploded downwards into the center of his path.
“No more!” she growled, flames tumbling from her shoulders and licking the stone floor.
“It’s over!” came Spelljam’s voice as the hero shot forward from the shadows, having somehow kept up with the chase. The bag lazily floated into view behind him.
Of course he brought the relics. Probably because he couldn’t trust I wouldn’t double back for it but I can’t help but feel like he’s taunting me. Still, at least Blazeshot has to behave again so she doesn’t burn anything important.
Tech Crash paused. Then an idea sparked in his head and with no time to think through anything else, he lashed his hand out and used the gravitor gauntlet to pull on the floating sack. This time, he used as much force as he could, pulling his arm back to increase the tug from the mostly invisible beam connecting his arm to the loot. Spelljam’s eyes bulged and Crash felt the mage fighting him. Good. He saw Blazeshot beginning to move forward, a snarl on her face before she stopped the moment she heard it.
The rip.
The bag exploded in the air, the contents pulled forward by the gravitor’s pull. The priceless bits of history went tumbling end over end. Spelljam let out a cry and made several motions with his arms, sigils winking out as a few of the objects arrested in midair but most of them continued their fall. Blazeshot’s head swiveled between Tech Crash and the falling antiques and she stood paralyzed, her flames beginning to dim as she realized what was going on.
Tech Crash meanwhile saw the one object he was looking for: The Scroll of Silence. He twisted his arm so the gravitor beam intercepted it, yanking it towards him. It was the most visibly flammable object in there and he could use it like a shield to buy himself a few moments in a fight with Blazeshot. She might not be concerned about the remaining gas in his gloves exploding just him but he would bet she wouldn’t want to risk burning this scroll.
He cringed as he heard several of the remaining artifacts hit the floor. The hilt of that sword made an awful riot, but with the exception of one of Baron Conquest’s old lightning rods shattering, almost everything that touched down seemed to survive the trip down.
“Shit!” Spelljam realized what he was holding. “B, he’s got-”
“I know!” she rolled her eyes and got back into a fighting stance, though noticeably her flames simmered down and her gauntlets’ glow faded looking less like they were fresh out of a forge and more resembling a warm stove.
Tech Crash readied himself for another round-
Bzzt
A noise made him glance down at the scroll in his left hand. Lightning danced along it. Red lightning wreathed in a velvety mist. A familiar sensation tingled in his spine.
No.
No!
The magic surged along his forearm and shot around the scroll, a small arc of red lightning dancing off his knuckles to lash at the ground, the fingers of electricity gouging scorch marks into the stone floor. His stupid power! Not again!
His arm shook with what felt like a recoil as another burst discharged itself to the floor, the red glow lingering for a few moments. He braced himself for whatever was about to happen, for a repeat of something on the level of what had happened to Maniacal… only for nothing more to occur other than small little arcs to run across his fingertips, pinpricks of black marks appearing on the ancient scroll where they caressed it. He glanced up and saw both of the heroes eyeing him warily. Huh. Guess-
He heard a loud ping of metal impacting metal and felt a jab against his left forearm from inside his armor. Then heard the sound of rapidly escaping air. He stared at the gauntlet as red lightning flicked across the armor. A moment passed before he realized what had happened with horror.
Oh shit, the magic damaged the remaining gas grenades!
Dropping the scroll, Tech Crash yanked the gauntlet from his arm and flung it forward as fast as he could. As it left his hands, a small trail of red light connected his finger tips to the piece of armor housing the flammable payload. The heroes cried out, their faces showing the horror of their own realization at what was about to happen.
The world went white.
---------------------------------
Alex came to with the third worst headache of his life. His entire body ached as he managed to push himself off the ground, fresh bruises protesting his actions. As he made his way upright, he realized he could barely see anything, the interior of his helmet all wrong for some reason. He tried to wipe the visor clean but his hand knocked into something hard that shouldn’t be there.
He risked taking off his helmet. Doing so, he immediately was greeted to the smell of molten plastic and some other chemical burning. He gagged and sank to the floor again, looking around.
He was still in the same wing as before, but the area around him was completely transformed. Displays were shattered, cardboard and paper sections smoldering after having burned themselves out quickly. A huge scorch mark covered almost twenty feet of the floor in front of him. Chunks of debris from what looked like the walkways above were scattered around along with whatever had been unlucky enough to be too close to the blast. A quick glance didn’t reveal the heroes, but it did let him know that one of the giant skeletons above was now dangling precariously in a way it definitely hadn’t been before.8
He looked down at his mask and his eyes started at the sight. A good portion of his gauntlet’s vambrace was lodged solidly into the helmet, a spike of it running through his visor and having come to rest a few millimeters from where his eye would be. Alex yanked it out and put the damaged helmet back on, letting the abused filters that remained try to protect him from the acrid air. He unfurled another one of his bags to stuff the damaged gauntlet into. No point in leaving more evidence if he could help it.
He glanced around again, hating how familiar he was getting with adjusting his sight to see through a shattered visor these days, and winced. Not from the pain he was feeling but seeing the badly singed Scroll of Silence nearby. It looked like it had been a bit too close to the blast and lost about a quarter of itself to the explosion. Enough of it was still there so he picked it up and tossed it in the bag as well. Through falling ash and dust, he spotted a few more of the artifacts nearby, all of which looked worse for wear now. Nonetheless, he retrieved them with his remaining gravitor gauntlet after verifying that it still worked. There was a sputter he wasn’t sure he was happy with but the device thankfully still functioned well enough to yank the prizes off the ground.
As he scooped up the hilt of the Sword of Morgash (with a lot less remains of the shattered blade left on it than it had started the night with), he heard a noise and saw a large pile of rubble shift. He stepped back as a pile sloughed aside to reveal a glowing cocoon constructed out of layered magic glyphs and glowing lines that peeled away into fading motes of light to reveal a very haggard Spelljam holding onto an unconscious Blazeshot and the guard Alex had knocked out. The mage eyed him as he set down his friend and the security officer before groaning as he stood up.
“Living up to your name, Tech Crash,” he coughed, wincing in visible agony as he forced his body to assume a ready stance. It was obvious with just how heavily his body hung that the mere act of standing, let alone bringing up his arms and summoning the few sparkles around him that he could was taking almost all his willpower.
Meanwhile, Alex wasn’t sure if he had another fight left in him, especially if Spelljam had any amount of magic in reserve himself. Those fizzling symbols in the air didn’t seem too threatening but if the man could push him around at all with them, this was probably a losing battle. Why the hell couldn’t his magic bullshit work like that? Anyways, it sounded like Spelljam thought all of this was just his gauntlet going nova instead of a superpower, which Alex was happy to let him believe.
“Yeah, well, unfortunately that’s what I get for not fireproofing better,” he half-lied. The gas and the gauntlet didn’t love heat and probably would’ve gone up in smoke soon enough, but it definitely had been that stupid little spark of his that had taken this from a big fireball into an explosion that size.
Whatever Spelljam was about to say in response (though let’s be honest, it was probably going to be another call to surrender) was lost as the giant skeleton of some ancient sea monster above groaned and began to fall, whatever unseen force had been keeping it there having failed. Spelljam glanced back to the two unconscious figures before lifting his arms upwards. The skeleton’s fall slowed but only just as the massive pile of bones kept descending, a few stray bits ignoring whatever the mage was doing to keep the rest in the air so that they could smash against the ground. The hero cried out in frustration, the sigils flickering rapidly in warning protest with several outright shattering as the skeleton inched downwards, and Alex saw it was going to crush the three of them. He planned to be long gone by then.
He lit up his boots which coughed to life after a few tries and looked back over at the trio. Contempt for all three of them filled his veins, but a voice told him he shouldn’t leave them to die. With his kit this badly ruined, he could not deal with the heat that would come down on him from wiping out two heroes and a civvie. Sure, offing heroes was a great way to pack on the rep quick, but that was for the heavy hitters who were ready to take on the whole of Amberheart at once.9
Fine… but he didn’t need to be gentle. Raising his arm, he pointed his remaining gravitor generator at Spelljam.
The mage caught sight of him and his eyes widened, “Wait! Please, don’t-”
“Goodbye,” Alex told him as his gauntlet overcharged, unleashing a widened blast of the gravitor pulse. The force of it shoved him back violently and used his jet boots to compensate in order to not go slamming into the wall.
Spelljam and the two he was attempting to save were rocketed backwards to safety several yards away as the skeleton resumed its fall in earnest, smashing to the ground and shaking the entire museum. Alex didn’t stick around to watch, he was already headed straight towards his entry point at full speed, breaking through doors on his way, barely able to fight through the pain each time. He had no idea if his lasers would still be able to cut his way through any other exit and wasn’t in the mood to try and find out.
The corridors blurred together as he shot down them, barely pausing to kick off his jet boots and strap the half full bag of damaged artifacts to his back as he raced down the back passageways in a sprint. Once the halls widened enough, he managed to coax the boots back to life after a few tries, never actually slowing below a brisk jog while he did so, and erupted through what remained of the trip out, practically exploding from the roof into the no longer biting cold of the night sky. He barely oriented himself when a sound gave him just enough warning to dodge an incoming projectile.
“Hey! I was hoping I’d see you soon,” a cocky voice called out to him.
Tired, weary, bruised, and beaten, Alex looked down at a familiar hero. If the night hadn’t completely numbed every emotional feeling he could muster, he probably would’ve despaired at the figure bouncing up towards him on four mechanical legs, eight glowing eyes locked onto him.
Of course. ArachNed was here.
1. Mana is a conceptual idea that is used in a lot of fantasy works as a source of magic. Actual magic seems to have multiple esoteric energy sources dependent on a lot of factors, most of which are poorly understood at the current time.
2. Medpods are a treatment device that most modern hospitals employ these days used for extreme trauma. While a majority of hospitals do employ staff with healing powers, these devices are often more readily available and can be used on an individual for far longer. Medpods come in all sizes to accommodate any size of patient, though calibrations must be made to treat non-human patients.
3. Another reason is due to the expectation set by fictional works about superheroes. Obviously meant to make fight scenes more interesting, the expectation of banter has had a real world effect on the practice of being a hero, much in the same way that fictional works have inspired villains to monologue to explain their plans in order to appeal to various organizations such as the League of Domination.
4. While not necessary in Victory City, heroes that work with Amberheart are strongly encouraged to undergo evaluations and carry insurance for their work though social and financial incentives. This also encourages heroes not to bite off more than they can chew by providing them a reasonable understanding of what threats they might face, while helping expedite compensation for civilians regarding property damage and injuries resulting from heroing.
5. A surprising amount of villains have made their debuts by having their plans foiled by heroes only to vow vengeance as they escape without their prize. Some heroes even theorize that the League in particular targets these frustrated villains to raise up to showcase the incentives of working with them, which in turn has led to the theory that some villains take an early loss in order to capitalize off this unspoken “investment program”
6. Victory, like most cities, is largely built atop inertial plates which are inserted before large scale building projects begin or have been retroactively added below historical buildings. However, advances in “sticky tack” have led to better ways to secure valuables in the event of ground shaking beyond the capability of these plates to disperse.
7. In truth, the entirety of the Elemental Aegis was evaluated for upper B level threats, itself still a more general grading scale. The actual evaluation is listed the team as capable of handling threats of 78.74 ur of Physical Threat, 94.32 il of Magical Threat, 57.22 ci for civilian rescue efforts, 19 ss of Speedster Countermeasures, and unrated for hazardous conditions, among other categories. Blazeshot’s individual evaluation wouldn’t rate her for dealing with a full city level threat on her own, but was notable for being an exceptional fighter against most standard combatants and having an impressive resilience against magical threats.
8. Thankfully, the skeleton in question was simply a replica of a Livyatan skeleton, though Reddins’ replica was scaled up even larger than most specimens that have been recorded, coming in at nearly 80ft long.
9. Officially, Amberheart and most hero organizations condemn heroes seeking personal revenge against villains who have killed a member of the hero community. However, it is noted that Arrestors will issue priority target calls for such villains and hero teams are known to work more closely with one another in the aftermath of such tragedy, effectively resulting in a manhunt for the perpetrator.
