February 29th 1996, Brockton Bay
Two weeks had passed by in a flash. With no incidents at the school and spending most of my free time cleaning the gym and designing my costume it seemed like the night came much too soon.
I was Just entering the gym when I heard the now familiar swearing of Hephaestus from the basement. We had cleaned out all the equipment with me and Heracles breaking down the larger machines. Hephaestus had been given the basement area for an armory and forge area and had been hard at work setting us up some basic equipment.
We had decided that when all of our basic armor was done that me and Heracles would go out on our first patrol tonight in downtown. We wanted to start out somewhere relatively stable and not give away the location of our base immediately. I saw that Heracles was already suited up and doing some shadow boxing in the mirror to burn off some excess energy while he waited. He had A large bronze helmet shaped like a lion head with a bronze fitted chestplate like that of hoplites. He also had his weapons of choice which were a pair of basic brass knuckles.
“Ares, finally go get your armor on the be quick I wanna go out soon.” He said in a hurried tone obviously having been waiting for me for a while.
“Already going down to see Hephaestus I'll be done in a jiffy.” I said nervousness and excitement speeding up my steps downstairs.
I made my way down to the forge and saw my finished armor on display. It was vaguely inspired by a mix of medieval knights and greek hoplites. A full smooth Black Bronze chestpiece and with forearm and shin guards protected my body while a helmet in the shape of boba fett’s from star war but with sharper angles also black covered the majority of my face with the exception of my eyes.
Hephaestus was hard at work at his newly made tinker forge that used a combination of clockwork and manual input to church out what he dubbed “ Celestial Bronze” , an incredibly strong alloy that was apparently stronger than steel. I could see him putting the finishing touches on my new weapon, a large single handed warhammer also colored black of course to match. He didn't see me come in so I had to give him a gentle shove otherwise he wouldn't come out of it for quite a while
“Oh hey Ares, Here for the hammer?” He asked, pulling up his goggles.
“yup , By the way when was the last time you ate or slept Hephaestus?” He had gained the habit of losing track of time down here.
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“Artemis dragged me upstairs like an hour ago so I'm fine for a while.” He said lowering his goggles back down. “ Make sure you guys are careful today, don't want you getting hurt on the first day and having to rebuild the armor would be a pain in the ass.”
“We'll be fine, nice to know you're concerned for our armor.” I said between a couple small chuckles. “ See you in a few hours, Hep.” waving goodbye as I finished putting on the armor.
Heracles and I made our way after I finished donning my armor making our way downtown on rooftops. I had the feeling we were going to run into some people tonight and was slightly on edge. When we made it downtown we went to street level and it was fairly busy since it was only 6 o’clock.
We got a few strange looks as we made our way through the streets and I could see people pull out their flip phones to snap photos of us. Eventually we spotted a news van in front of the Brockton Bay art gallery and decided now was as good a time as any for a small introduction.
They saw us as we approached and I could see the news anchor. A blond man in a suit starts telling the camera to get us in the shot.
“It seems although we have some new breaking news here folks. Either some people really like to dress up or we have some new capes in Brockton Bay!” He said in an excited tone only a news anchor who found a juicy story could have. “ What are our new heroes' names if you would introduce yourselves?”
“HEY EVERYONE” Heracles yelled “ My name is Heracles! God of strength!” He said obviously enjoying the attention.
“And I am Ares god of war” I said in a calmer tone than Heracles. “ We are a part of Pantheon, a newly established independent hero group. Looking to clean up the streets of Brockton bay.”
“A new independent group? Would you happen to have been inspired by the Brockton bay brigade? They have been active for a few months now.” He asked, his curiosity peaked.
“We respect their efforts but wanted to go a different direction with how we are going about cleaning up the bay so we decided to make our own team.” I answered, trying not to say anything harsh about the so far ineffective Brigade.
“And why not join the PRT? They are government funded and are already established?” He asked, now deciding to do a full interview in lieu of whatever other story he was doing.
“We like our independence but are willing to cooperate with the PRT for any emergencies that they need our help with.” I said diplomatically.
“And is it just you two in this new group or will we be seeing some more new faces around Brockton?”
“We have a full roster of capes available and the others will be making their debut soon enough if i had to guess.” I said not wanting to specify how many of us there really were.
“Well it sounds like the city is going to be in goo-” The newscaster was cut off as a large explosion blew out the front of the library.
Myself and Heracles immediately blocked the debris from the news team and got ready to deal with whatever caused it. But what we weren't ready for was one of the more terrifying parahumans in Brockton Bay casually walking out of the gallery flames still licking at their clothes.
The Butcher had made an appearance.