The light in the chest of Dynamo’s suit was almost blinding, showing that she had built up a huge supply of electric energy, and was ready to use it. She stretched her arms out to the side crackling bolts running down their length. Normally, she would have liked to stretch before she ran across a city, but this was alright too. Giant robots were something of a specialty for her. If there was a single entry point in their armor, her power would find it and fry all of the finely tuned circuits inside.

The electricity was jumping between her fingers now, begging to be released into an unsuspecting villain, and Dynamo was happy to comply. Still hanging in the air, she slammed her arms together in front of her, creating a huge thunderclap and a sword-like flash of concentrated lightning. The ear-shattering blast echoed for a mile around, and the beam of energy pierced straight through the hulking robot. She got a good look at it for the first time as it reeled from the hit- it must have been more than 20 feet tall, a humanoid shape made of an impact resistant supermaterial, and designed to resemble a knight in a bucket helmet and plate armor.

After the electricity still in the air had dissipated, the robot stood still in the position it had been in when struck. Dynamo smiled, content with another job well done and another potential disaster stopped. She was on the ground again, having spent more electricity than she needed to stay afloat, and began to walk away, ready to sign autographs and take pictures with the bystanders and small-time heroes who always seemed to gather at sites like this. It was a little bit of an indulgence on her part. She knew it wasn’t exactly encouraged by whatever vague government agency monitored the superheroics that week, but she always enjoyed engaging with the paparazzi when an operation went particularly well, like this one.

Here, a couple of teenagers were pointing at her, all excited over what they had seen. Who wouldn’t be? Thought Dynamo, putting on her best superhero smile and preparing to be bombarded with questions. But, the two kids kept pointing at her as she got closer. Their mouths were open, shouting something. Her ears were still ringing from being right in the center of a massive thunderclap, and she couldn’t hear anything they were trying to say. Oh well, she consoled herself. They’ve probably never seen something as exciting as a giant robot being taken down by a famous hero.

* * *

“Turn around!” Gene and Kat were both yelling at the top of their lungs for Dynamo to turn and look at what was coming up behind her. They pointed and screamed, but she didn’t seem to care. Their ears were still ringing from the massive blast that had staggered the robot, but Dynamo seemed to be completely deaf, and wasn’t even trying to figure out what they were saying to her.

A metal foot the size of a refrigerator was poised above Dynamo, its owner calculating where exactly to strike. That thunder and lightning move had slowed it down, but it rebooted a few seconds after she had turned her back and started using its fried systems to exact its revenge. Since she couldn’t hear the groaning servos lifting the massive foot, she didn’t bother to turn around.

She was approaching the two of them and saying some platitude about heroism, but there were only seconds before she would be crushed to death, and they couldn’t waste time listening. Gene jumped over some shattered pavement and tackled Dynamo at full speed. She was flung away, not expecting that kind of response from a fan, and landed squarely on her back. As for Gene, he landed on his front, splayed out in the street. The robot had apparently already made its decision, and its foot dropped.

* * *

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When Gene’s brain was knit back together enough to process sight, he realized that he was looking at the rough pavement. His memories quickly rushed back, and he remembered what had happened to get him there, and when he had most of his bones and muscles back, he pushed himself up and looked around. There was smoking wreckage of the robot that must have crushed him all over the street, and someone had moved the now-severed foot off him to give him space to regenerate.

There was police tape all around the wreckage, and emergency vehicles were still parked all around, showing Gene that he couldn’t have been out for too long. He noticed a group of police officers speaking with Dynamo and some other heroes. They must have shown up later to really take down the robot, Gene thought. There were some pretty big names in this huddle; besides Dynamo, there was Yokozuna, the sumo wrestler who had mythic powers given to him by a magical artifact, and Vivaman, the CEO of a multinational pharmaceutical company who had gained access to a form of bio-energy by one of his own experimental vitamin compounds. Gene would have been excited to see them, had they arrived earlier. Now, he was determined to stagger over and give them a piece of his mind.

However, the heroes noticed him before he could make it all the way over. “Ooh, you’re not looking so great, kid,” said Dynamo with a grin, and tossed a towel in his direction. Gene tried to swing an arm up to grab it, but it seemed he didn’t have those tendons yet. The towel landed on his shoulder and fell onto the ground. He was really fuming now, even if he couldn’t quite express it on his face. How could Dynamo be so flippant with someone who had just appeared to die saving her life?

Just as he was wondering this, Gene saw Kat standing in the group of popular heroes, smiling at him. She must have caught them up, he thought, still a little bitter about the whole ordeal. He bent over and picked up the towel to wipe off some of the not-quite healed spots. “Thanks. So, uh, why did so many big names show up for a fight like this? I figured Dynamo could probably handle it by herself, if she wasn’t- y’know.”

Dynamo’s grin widened. “Crushed into pulp?” she asked, and laughed. “Yeah, you really saved my hide back there. That thing was a little trickier than it looked, so I called in backup.” She threw a thumb back to the gathered heroes. The three of them weren’t exactly a team, but were known to work together and balance each other out well. Seeing all three of them together was rare, though, because they usually only gathered in public to prevent some world-threatening disaster or governmental coup. That realization made Gene a little uneasy.

Kat pushed through the gathered heroes to where Gene was standing, and started filling him in on what he had missed while he was unconscious. “Oh man, you should have been there- well, you were there, but- you should have seen it! As soon as you got crushed, Dynamo freaked out and called these guys,” She gestured to Yokozuna and Vivaman, who seemed a little bit uncomfortable with the small-time heroes getting up in their business.

Dynamo stiffened slightly and spoke up. “I didn’t freak out! Heroes don’t freak out. I realized that the fight would be too much for the present forces to handle, so I just called for some assistance.”

A police officer holding a clipboard interrupted their conversation, asking Dynamo over to a cruiser to answer some questions about the fight. Even a hero who was monitored and officiated by the government needed to follow procedures once they had done the exciting part of their job.

Kat walked Gene away from the group of heroes, and said, “This is great- we finally get to network with some real heroes! We’ll be moving up their social ladder faster than… Dynamo, I guess. Faster than she runs. That was a bad analogy, but whatever. This is where we start to hit the big time!”

“I don’t know about that,” Gene said, “but I’m sure that they’ll remember that we saved one of their lives.” Gene smiled with that thought. Even though it didn’t hurt him, being crushed alive wasn’t exactly fun, and he wouldn’t want to do it for no reason. Seeing something good come from this ordeal made him grateful they had responded to so many emergencies in the past, preparing them for this one.

“Hey, kids,” called Dynamo from the blockade of police cars, “wanna come over here and fill out some incident reports, like real heroes?”

Gene and Kat both gasped, shocked and delighted more than they thought they would be to do such a mundane task, and raced over to do their duty as heroes.