Despite what he had said earlier, it was another 2 days before Dylan added the turret to his drone. He still had a lingering headache after his training, and the physical effects of what he was doing weren’t to be underestimated. He once again had to stumble out of bed, although he didn’t end up nearly as beat up as before (probably due to him skipping the actual beating this time).

Dylan wasn’t quite sure how he made the weapon attachment. He wasn’t quite sure what it shot, either. He didn’t even think he had the components for it, at the start. He just kind of wandered over to his scrap pile, and thought about what he wanted to do, and then woke up on his back about an hour later. The drone had a new, foot and a half long metal tube mounted under it. There wasn’t any slots for ammo, or any place to insert it.

Dylan hoped it was similar to the power source situation. Not needing to provide it ammo would be super useful. He didn’t really have the time or motivation to make that sort of thing, especially not with how limited his supplies were.

He supposed that he needed to test it as well. Dylan looked around his yard for a target. He didn’t think that the weapon would be too destructive, but he did make it with supers in mind, so a target that wouldn’t be missed was a must.

An old wheelbarrow? No, that was still occasionally used for gardening. Dylan knew he had his target when he spotted old firewood, piled up near the corner of the yard. It leaned against the fence unsteadily, and looked like it was mostly rotted through. It must have been sitting there for years. Dylan couldn’t remember the last time they had used their fire pit. The small brick structure sat unused, and the ashes inside it were probably older than Dylan.

He set three logs up in a roughly triangular formation, one stacked on top of the other. Dylan went and looked for his drone. Waving his hand over it, the light at its center lit up. Its rotor blades spun into motion, producing a now familiar whirring sound. It had been almost a while since he had last used the invention, so he was looking forwards to seeing how his modifications would impact it.

Dylan's phone buzzed. He frowned, moving to pull it out of his pocket. Was his mother calling him? Hopefully she didn’t need him to do something. He would be loath to stop his testing before he had even got the chance to start.

The message on his phone wasn’t from his mother, but it did mean he had to abandon his testing. It was the police scanner app, reporting a nearby hostage situation. To top it off, a super was believed to be involved.

Dylan immediately ran over to his suit, popping it open so he could hop inside. Once it was secured around him, he ran over to the fence, peeking over it to make sure nobody was around. Once he was confident, he wouldn’t be spotted jumping out of his backyard in power armor, he hopped the fence, and started off towards the location of the crime, using a GPS app to help him navigate the unfamiliar turns.

He ran fast, far faster than he could've by himself. He even outran a few cars driving down some residential streets. Despite this, it took him nearly 20 minutes to arrive at the location of the crime.

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There were several police cars outside, lights flashing. An older man, dressed like a detective from an 80s novel, was shouting something through a megaphone. Dylan couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Well, there was an idea for improvements. Something to improve his senses while he was in this thing, like microphones that could pick up conversations from a hundred feet away, or something like that.

Not only would it be really cool, it would be useful for situations like this. Dylan would have really liked to know what the detective was saying. Having some idea of what was going on would have been quite useful.

Dylan mentally shrugged to himself. It wasn’t that important. The police could just stand back and let the hero work. He had solved every other incident he had been involved in just fine, so it stood to reason that this one would be the same.

Dylan took a deep breath. The stakes were higher this time, with actual lives on the line, but he felt he could do it. He hadn’t failed before, and he wouldn’t fail now. He was a damn superhero.

The building they surrounded was blocky, made of concrete, almost like a small skyscraper. It was only about 5 stories tall, and it looked like it hadn’t been kept up well. There was no sign over the entrance, and what remained of the paint was a few peeling flakes, leaving the structure mostly gray, the concrete occasionally broken up by a few rust stains that dotted its surface.

Only a few lights were on inside, leaving most of the building's windows completely dark. One of the windows on the bottom story was broken, with graffiti on a nearby wall. That would be the most obvious entrance, being the most accessible (besides simply striding in the front doors) but that meant that it was probably being watched. Dylan had a better plan.

He ran at the building, leaping into the air as he got closer, catapulting through a window on the second story. Dylan had tucked himself into a ball to fit through the frame. The window shattered, the breaking glass sounding almost like a roar. He hit the ground, rolling back to his feet as shards of the window rained to the floor around him.

Dylan stood up, and swung his head around to loosen up his neck. It was time to get down to business.

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Detective Hasborough watched as the armored super sprinted across the street, as faster than any normal human could possibly run, before hurling himself up into the air, and through a second story window.

Fuck. The situation had already gotten complicated earlier, and now it was getting even worse? Fucking amateur supers, walking into things that they didn’t understand. Hostage situations were not situations that you wanted to have untrained actors in. Even experienced veterans could fuck them up beyond repair, with a wrong word or action. Hasborough didn’t need to explain how badly rogue actors could cause this to turn.

He pulled out his phone, and dialed Dynamis. The hero was already aware of the situation, but he needed to be notified of this new element complicating the situation. Hasborough waited as the phone rung.

When Dynamis picked up, all the detective could hear from the other end was labored breathing, with some accompanying crashing and blasts. Hasborough waited until the cacophony of noise stopped before speaking.

“You know that super, the one in the power armor? They just jumped into the second story window of the building where the hostages are being held. Thought you’d want to know”.

It took a second for the reply to come.

“Understood. Once I wrap this up, I’ll be on my way”.

The line went dead.

Hasborough pressed on his temples. He knew that this whole thing would be a pain in the ass. When supers were involved, it always was.