Together, the two slipped around his apartment building into an offshoot alleyway. When Scott had first stepped onto the cold metal fire escape, he had tried to command the suit some more. Just by thinking "boots," the liquid metal extended down over his feet and created shiny white footwear. "Gloves" formed some gloves, and he wanted to try and make a cape to complete the Futureman look, but he thought Bombshell would laugh at him for it.

The sky was deep black, but Scott could still see superheroes above, their caped silhouettes gliding like phantoms over the rooftops. Usually the sight of a hero gave him some sense of security - but now that couldn't be more wrong, especially with the sheer amount of them around. Every single super in Champion City must've been out looking for the suit.

"They're lockin' the city down." Bombshell explained through a mouthful of pizza. Scott kept the box in his shaky hands, having not touched a slice. "They don't want that suit gettin' out. Explain to me why you took the thing in the first place, exactly?"

"It was an accident. I don't know. I think I stepped on it, or well, in it... it just stuck to me and I didn't notice until I got home."

"Hmm." Bombshell reached over for another slice. "Guess we'll have to ask Doc about it."

"Doc?"

As she took a bite out of the pizza slice, she extended her hand out. Scott watched in awe as she knocked on thin air, her knuckles rapping against something invisible. That invisible something swung open like a hatch, revealing the inside of a luxurious car - plush seats, gold-plated walls, a bucket of ice and champagne in the middle.

"Hop in." said Bombshell, climbing into the invisible vehicle.

The cabin had two rows of seats, one along the back and one along the front where the driver sat. Scott slid in next to Bombshell in the back, sitting across from a dark-cloaked figure. They wore a black mask that looked like a mix between a plague doctor's mask and an old school gas mask. Next to the cloaked figure was an Asian woman in a golden dress, her black hair kept in a neat bun. She looked disinterested, staring out the window without a look at Scott or Bombshell. The door to the vehicle automatically closed shut with a hiss, but the car didn't move.

"What is this?" the cloaked person asked, their mask modulating their voice in a strange way. Scott could tell it was a woman, however.

"Plans changed, Doc." said Bombshell. She threw an arm over Scott's shoulders, pulling him close to her in a friendly sort of way. "Scott, meet Doctor Demise. Doc, meet Scott Shuster."

Scott's eyes went wide. "Doctor Demise?" he asked. This was one of the city's top villains, a crafty schemer who ran things from the shadows with her undead minions and robotic creations. She was so secretive that no one even knew what she looked like... or that she was a "she" to begin with.

The cloaked figure shifted in place, nodding her head. "In the flesh. Delilah, explain yourself."

"Scott here wants to be our associate. See the suit?" Bombshell said, running a finger over his chest. It made him blush. "He says it got on him by accident and that he wants to keep it. He shot your little gizmo, so we don't really have a way of takin' it by force. And it seems like he can call it to him, so swipin' it ain't an option either way. He seems like a nice guy, so-"

"Y-your associate?" Scott cut in. "I never said anything like that!"

The two came face to face, Bombshell raising an eyebrow.

"You agreed to come with me and you agreed to get in this car. That makes you my associate."

"Quiet, both of you." Doctor Demise was rubbing their forehead over their mask. "So what's the idea here, is he on our side?"

Scott's eyes were still locked with Bombshell's. "How about it, Scott? You with me?"

Well... it was either the heroes, or her. The heroes wouldn't let him keep the suit, that's for sure, and probably wouldn't accept him either way. Bombshell didn't seem like she wanted to hurt him, and from how she spoke, it seemed like the bad guys only had one of the suit-remover things. He felt bad teaming up with the villains, but... well, he wanted to keep the suit really bad. And also, he had complete control of it. With him in command of the suit, they couldn't use it to blow up the city or whatever. For now, it seemed to be the safest option.

He nodded silently, and Bombshell clapped him on the back.

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"Good boy! See, everythin' worked out fine, Doc. I got the suit just like you asked."

"Not just like I asked." Demise replied.

Despite the villain's demeanor, she appeared to be satisfied with the situation. She reached a gloved hand back and rapped on a window that separated the cabin from the driver's seat. Through the glass, Scott could see the chauffeur look back - and that they were a zombie, with mottled green skin, an eyeball dangling out the socket, and a little blue hat. By pressing a button on her mask, Demise made some kind of electronic whistling noise to the zombie. The command recieved, it turned back to the wheel and the car sped off.

Bombshell leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs. She took another slice of pizza from the box, which was in Scott's lap. "Want some?" she offered her two fellow villains.

"No." said Demise, unamused. "Dominos is repulsive slop."

Bombshell shrugged. "More for me, then."

The Asian woman finally opened her mouth. "If you get grease on my armrests, you're gonna clean it yourself." she eyed Bombshell angrily, but the villain was unaffected, smiling wide at her as she took a bite.

"Ah, Scott, this is Golden Geisha." she spoke threw chews. "She's Doctor Demise's partner, this is her car."

"I know who Golden Geisha is." Scott said, looking at the woman. "I covered her fight against System last month."

Doctor Demise looked from Bombshell to Scott, then back. "Covered?"

"He works for HeroHub. You know, the trashy cape gossip blog?" said Bombshell. Scott objected to her use of the word "trashy," but didn't speak up.

"Ah." Demise leaned in to address Scott. "So you hate the supers, too?"

"Hate the supers?" once again, Bombshell felt the need to speak for him. "Kid's got their posters on his wall. I'm surprised he doesn’t have little Champion heads on his undies."

Scott did actually have a few pairs like that, but he wasn’t about to admit it. Especially not with the present company.

"So if you don't hate the supers," Demise folded her arms. "Then why join us?"

This time Bombshell let him talk, although he didn't have a clue what to say. Honestly, he was far from sure of himself with this decision - he just couldn't believe everything that was happening.

"I don't know." he said finally. "I want to keep this power, and I don't think the heroes would let me. Plus... I don't know. I think they'd kill me if I went to them now..."

"Oh, they'd do worse." said Demise. "You've got a lot to learn about the heroes, friend."

----------------------------------------

Luiza stomped her foot on the ground as System inspected the crime scene.

"There is no reason this kid should be this hard to find!"

Both were in their superhero costumes, which was a pink and yellow bodysuit and goggles for Streak and sleek, dark black power armor for System. They'd arrived at Scott's apartment building not too long ago and had spent some time at the front desk getting cleared to investigate his room. A few people had come down to make noise complaints and a very confused pizza girl was in the lobby too, so System had been able to get some information out of them in the meantime.

"The Dominos girl said she saw Bombshell and Scott on the bed." System crouched down, looking at the ruined mattress and shattered wooden frame. There were some bits of Bombshell's bio-explosive, though they were dirty, which meant they were probably old. "Apparently, he wasn't wearing any clothes."

"Lucky him." said Streak, playing with her goggles idly. "So what, they were fucking hard enough to break stuff?"

"Don't be crass." System stood up and walked to the other side of the room, where there was a person-sized indent in the wall and broken glass on the floor. Among the fallen posters were a few still-smoking metal scraps, which he scooped up and picked through. "They were fighting."

"Yeah, no shit." Streak whispered under her breath. "Supergenius brain at work here, folks."

"Lay out one of these posters." System said, gently taking one off the wall - it happened to feature himself, however it was an old photo back from when he had hair. He passed it to Luiza, then dropped the metal scraps in her other hand. "And lay all these pieces out with equal spacing."

Luiza did as told, moving her hands so fast that her gloves looked like blurs of pink. In a second, the hundred or so bits of scorched metal were neatly alligned in perfect rows on the turned over poster. System gestured for her to stand back, then extended his arm at the poster. A panel on his wrist flipped open, revealing a diode that scanned the metal pieces over, creating holographic duplicates of each. He aimed his arm at the air, the holographic copies moving with the motion.

"Reconfigure." he said.

The projections of light all moved together, slotting into place like pieces of a puzzle. Luiza raised an eyebrow in confusion - what was it supposed to be, a TV remote? Though there was a missing section where it had been blasted, System seemed to realize what it was.

"The failsafe." he said, shaking his head. "That explains how they were able to remove Futureman's suit to begin with. But how did Bombshell get her hands on it?"

"Failsafe?" Streak asked. "What's that?"

"Futureman created it, in case he was ever brainwashed, hypnotized, or otherwise turned against us." he explained. The hologram dissipated into streaks of light. "It utilizes a shock of hypercharged plasma to disrupt energy barriers and nanotechnology. The idea was that we could use it to set his suit back to a 'factory' state, if that makes any sense."

"Sure." said Streak. "Hypercharged plasma, yeah, makes perfect sense."

"It's clear to me now what happened." said System. "Whoever Scott Shuster is, he's got the suit, and it's coded to him now. And from the looks of it, he's with Bombshell - by his own will or not, I don't know. He appears to have a grip over the suit's capabilities, so we can only hope he hasn't discovered it's true powers before we're able to locate him."

System started walking off towards the door.

"Where are we going?" called out Streak.

"Back to HQ." he said. "That failsafe was the only one made, but I think I could create another. Futureman's schematics should still be around. Come on, we've got to move."

Streak sighed. How come nobody ever told her about things until they became a problem?