Pietro was having a bad day. This was supposed to be, if not simple, relatively straightforward. Wait for the one hero remaining in the city to be occupied, grab some hostages, get ransom money and disappear. They’d done it before.
The first sign, Pietro noticed, that this wasn’t quite going to plan was when one of the downstairs windows broke. That shouldn’t have happened. Sure, it could be the police. They might have gotten antsy, conducted a raid, called in the swat, whatever. It wasn’t impossible. Maybe they thought he was lying, that the hostages were already dead, or that he was going to kill them either way. Maybe some trumped-up bureaucrat wanted to resolve this situation quickly, and show leadership by taking down the “terrorists” without having to give any ground or negotiate.
Pietro didn’t think that was the case for a few reasons. First, he was a super. While supers on the police force weren’t completely uncommon in other places, in a town this size, well, it just didn’t happen. Anybody who showed any amount of competence or promise and was also interested in law enforcement was quickly swept up into the bigger cities, by larger branches of the heroes' guild, with more to offer.
Perhaps a few would be rotated back here, as Dynamis was, but most were gone, off to seek bigger things (or die in bigger battles, but that was neither here nor there).
That meant that the police wouldn’t be breaking that window. They didn’t have anybody to compete with him, while Dynamis was busy. Unless they had suddenly gained a death wish, they were all still sitting outside, crouched behind their cruisers, negotiating with one of Pietro's men.
The second reason why Pietro didn’t think it was the police was the tingling sensation that was running up and down his spine. It was a secondary effect of his power, and it worked almost like a supernatural danger sense. It was a pretty common type of power for big league supers, and although Pietro didn’t fall into that category, the ability still served him well.
It had even saved his ass on multiple occasions. Like the time that he had fought Calamity. He still had the scars to prove it, but without the warning his power provided, he would have died almost immediately.
That same power told him that danger was coming. That was why he had sent out two of his men to check out the source of the broken window. If it was anything truly dangerous, well, they would probably be ineffective, but they did have guns, so hopefully they could at least hinder whatever was the source.
Problem was, it had been ten minutes since it happened, and Pietro had heard nothing. No gunshots, no shouts, no reports back. The building wasn’t that big. It meant something had gone wrong. Either his men were incapacitated so fast that they didn’t have a chance to fight back, or whatever they were up against was able to completely muffle the sounds of conflict.
Pietro had some of his men stationed around the floor they were holding the hostages on (the same floor that he himself happened to be on), so he would have to tell them to come closer to the main rooms that they were using. It wouldn’t do to let them all get taken out one by one as they wandered off, like it was some sort of action movie.
The sound of breaking glass could be heard from the hallway. It was closer than the first time. Pietro grit his teeth. What was it now? Hopefully whatever had broken the first window had encountered finally faced difficulty with one of his men. He doubted that. Likely, it was another intruder.
Pietros' hands clenched, his nails drawing blood almost instantly. It dripped down onto the floor, like a small crimson stream. He winced. It had been a while since he’d done that. He slowed his breathing.
If anything, this should be reassuring. Things like this rarely went to plan. He should be happy that it was just someone nobodies trying to break in. Pietro supposed that it could have been much worse. The Crimson Blade could have been in town, for one thing. Pietro shuddered at the thought, before ordering his henchmen to regroup closer to the core of their operation.
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Dylan walked around the entirety of the second floor of the building. Despite his somewhat obvious entrance, nobody came to greet him. No guards, toting machine guns, no cultists dressed in robes and masks, not even the super behind the incident. No, the floor was almost completely empty.
Dylan’s search was considerably hastened by the fact that almost all of the furniture inside the building had been removed. There were marks on the cheap carpet that suggested it had once existed, light patches resembling the bottom of cubicles and desks. They barely stood out amidst the myriad of stains that dotted the carpet.
The place was kind of gross, to be honest. Dylan didn’t really want to stay in here longer than he needed to, so he made sure to keep his search succinct. He wasn’t super worried about missing anybody. If they were strong enough to harm him then they likely wouldn’t be hiding. Plus, he had a goal. Dylan would simply have to accept the risk that he missed someone and move to saving the hostages.
Satisfied that he had looked as much as common sense demanded, Dylan made his way to a stairwell, located in one of the corners of the building. He pulled the door open, revealing a dimly lit stairwell, many of the bulbs long burned out. What remained was a sickly yellow light.
Dylan caught sight of a blue form disappearing around the top of the stairs. Seconds later, he heard a thud and a grunt. A man, dressed in camo, came flying down the stairs, hitting the ground with a thud. By the hollow thunk the man's head let out when it hit the ground, and the following limpness, Dylan guessed that the man was knocked unconscious.
Dylan jumped back, swearing quietly, as the blue clad figure peeked back around the stairs. Adrenaline shot through his body, and his armored hands came up in front of him.
The man in blue stepped fully around the corner, and Dylan realized that man wasn’t quite an accurate term. The figure was tall, lanky, and skinny, more lean than muscled. He wore a super suit, a light blue that covered him from head to toe, but unlike the ones other supers wore, this one seemed cheap, somehow. It was almost like somebody had purchased a knockoff version, as if they were on a budget. The suit had light armor on the knuckles. It was scuffed and dirty, and there were even a few faint stains on it, as if it had been well used.
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The skinny man looked to be young, probably no older than 20, and still in that awkward phase between boyishness and manhood. The only portion of him that was exposed was the lower half of his face, and his eyes. It was hard to make out any details due to the poor lighting and the distance, and the lens on Dylans helmet wasn’t helping much either.
Dylan figured the person was a super. All the signs pointed toward it. Or perhaps, the person wanted people to think they were a super. A few people were like that. They were a rare breed now, with most ending up badly injured or killed. Unpowered vigilantes, they set off to fight crime with just their human capabilities. Unfortunately, those capabilities often came up short. Even having a weak power would give you the edge over most normal humans.
For starters, if you used your power to fight, it would reinforce your body, making you stronger or faster, unless great pains were taken to keep it from doing so. While this meant that the primary effect of a power might end up weaker, it also meant that supers tended to be unusually fit, even without a power that would normally influence such things. While most minor villains wouldn’t be as strong as, say, a professional strongman, they would likely be stronger than any normal person their own size. Likely, they would be faster as well, and so on and so forth. Combining that with the main portion of their power, even a relatively weak super could be a large threat to a normal human. Realistically, a super could bring everything that a normal person could to a fight, plus things that they couldn’t.
And while some vigilantes carried firearms, or other weapons, these didn’t often work out well. If you shot a super that didn’t have power that made them immune to bullets, they tended to die. And whilst that might be fine in a case of self defense, when a vigilante killed someone, even a villian, with a gun, well, it wasn’t looked upon kindly. Those that did so tended to vanish, or be brutalized until they could barely even walk, let alone try and stop crimes.
That meant that it was often better for a firearm wielding vigilante to encounter a villian who was immune to bullets, because then, generally, they would just be beaten severely, not crippled. All in all, it was generally a lose lose situation.
While unpowered with super technology tended to do better, it was astronomically hard to get your hands on anything like that as a civilian. A large majority of technology focused supers worked in civilian fields, keeping cities running, and those that didn’t tended not to share their tech.
Which meant that the man in front of Dylan either had a power, or was somewhat crazy. Potentially both. Regardless of which it was, he warranted caution. If he was a super, then he could be dangerous to Dylan himself, and there was no certainty that he was friendly. The man in the blue outfit might even be the one responsible for the kidnappings. The fact that what looked to be a henchman was currently out cold by Dylan's feet suggested otherwise, but you could never be too cautious in these sorts of things.
If the man was a vigilante, well, that was dangerous in a different way. He could very well mess up the entire rescue operation. Were he to run in there, he could give away any sense of surprise, and potentially get one of the hostages, or himself, killed.
Dylan frowned at the thought. If the man had no powers, would Dylan be obligated to protect him in the case of a fight? That could prove to be very troublesome. He was saved from any further pondering when the blue suited figure spoke.
“That guy’s out like a light. You’re like, a good guy, right? You don’t seem much like the evil type.”
The voice was surprisingly young. Dylan took a moment to respond. He tried to make his voice sound deeper, more authoritative.
“No, I’m a hero. I’m here to save everybody”.
Dylan cringed at the sound of his own voice. The depth didn’t make him sound any older. It was so obviously feigned that it probably made him sound younger, matter of fact. Dropping the voice, Dylan blurted out:
“Do you have powers?”
The blue clad man nodded.
“Yeah, I do. Names Puncher. You?”
Dylan was so relieved that he wouldn’t have to deal with a vigilante that it took him a moment to recognize how ridiculous the name that was just presented to him was.
“I - what?”
They stared at each other in silence for a little.
“Your names not really Puncher, is it?”
The kids' cheeks colored.
“So what if it is? It’s fitting. I’d like to hear your name, if you think mine’s so bad.”
“I don’t have one yet. I’m waiting until I come up with something good. I wouldn’t want to get stuck with something like Puncher.”
The kid looked down at the floor, clearly embarrassed. He reached up and rubbed the back of his head.
“I chose it when I had just started out, ok? By the time I realized how dumb it was, it was too late to change it. It’s not like I had it registered officially or anything, but I’d built up some street cred with it, and if I changed it I’d lose all of that.”
Puncher got a serious look in his eye.
“Besides. I’m going to be so good that criminals will fear my name, regardless of how goofy it is.”
Dylan let out a small chuckle.
“Yeah, sure. Hey, do you know what's going on here? I kinda just heard ‘hostage situation’, the address, and ran over without confirming any details”.
Puncher waved a hand towards himself, beckoning Dylan to come up the stairs.
“Yeah, I know a bit more. I’ll tell you about it as we keep moving. Try to stay silent, though, and keep behind cover. This whole thing works better if they don’t know I’m here. Not only is it easier to knock em out, I’m not particularly bulletproof, so I’d like to avoid getting shot, if possible”.
Dylan started up the stairs towards Puncher, taking care to try and be quiet. The suit made it hard, but he was able to avoid making too much noise, which he supposed would have to be good enough. Besides, while Puncher might not be able to tank gunfire, Dylan should be fine. He hoped. He had only gotten shot once while in his armor, and that bullet was pretty small.
On second thought, it was probably better not to test if his suit could withstand larger rounds or sustained gunfire, at least not while he was in it. Puncher didn’t want to get shot because he wasn’t very bulletproof. Dylan suspected that he himself wasn’t bulletproof at all.
Crouching down, he moved behind Puncher, who had started walking towards the door to the third floor. Catching the other hero's eye, Dylan nodded.
“Let’s get going”.