Chapter Text
Life is fucking good! It is so great being me right now, baby. The last few weeks have really just paying nonstop with goodness coming every single fucking day!
I got some fucking adorable photos of Chad’s niece’s dance performance, Sunday Smiles finally responded and we are going to talk tonight after she finished a work shift. Get on a video call together and hammer out or collab, and now I was minutes away from seeing the sight that’d also get me an extra grand of play money in my bank account.
Mecha fucking Man!
Mecha Man was a fucking icon. One of the things you were expected to see when you traveled to Los Angeles. Movie stars, Disneyland, and the fucking blue metal man flying over head.
I still had one of my first videos I uploaded when I came to California. ‘Mecha Man Blue Throws Down with the Inkster!’, some weird fucking squid based graffiti tagger whose used all of his fucking extra arms to throw spray paint and paint buckets at Mecha Man as they fought outside City Hall.
It was all and all pretty lame, he was more of an anarchist protestor than an actual villain and the video didn't perform well in terms of views or hits. It was just one of two dozen cell phone videos recording the fight, not even a good one because I hadn’t upgraded my phone yet.
A super graffiti artist didn't make for the most interesting fight. But it had meant something to me. Being there. Watching Mecha Man get a broom sized paint brush slather his metal face in yellow paint.
I’d made it. The city of stars. The start of my music career.
Then, it had gone downhill pretty quickly afterwards. Straight shit really. The vapid fucking bitches in the music industry either unable to handle me, or tried to handle me in all the wrong ways.
Turns out, even when you have a good reason, throwing a music producer or five through windows and walls quickly gets you blacklisted.
Who fucking knew.
But it was fine, I didn’t need fucking them. The Indie scene was alive and well in the digital age and just having a youtube channel, a few socials, and fucking staying present is all you need. Build up your core audience, do all the basic shit, and then it's just time and effort.
…
…
Time and effort.
To be honest when Mecha Man Blue blew out of the sky I was like, legit upset. I performed for one of the vigils. I changed my profile to the stupid M icon.
Of course, I did some color modification to still make it me. Prism. Pink and blue. Gotta keep that branding.
It got me a bump in followers and got the fucking Bone Zone off my back.
I’d been part of the Z-Team for a few months and the fucking Bone Zone had been chewing his way through people. Exposes, ‘reveal alls’, fucking interviews from our so called victims.
If that fucker didn’t want to see ‘violent and unstable,’ then he should know recording booths are for fucking artists, not his fucking wandering hands and shitty pick up lines.
Don’t even get me starting on the so-called ‘justice system’ of LA. Strong black girl with powers? You can bet your fucking asses they didn’t want to hear my side of the story.
And okay, I may have a ‘history’. If you define a history of putting fucking assholes and punk ass bitches in their place.
Anyways, with me fucking sining Billie Eilish and going full sad boi hours on all my socials, Bone Zone had pivoted. Instead of riding my ass, he did a special on Chad and his shenanigans.
To be fair…Chad makes it easy. The man is an unrealized comic with how he fucking apporaches life. An IRL jester. I fucking love going on assignments with him, making a hard light copy of him gets him puffing up like a peacock, both of them trying to both seem coordinated while also trying to outdo one another.
Man, Chad…. I hope he comes back. He was fun to be around, had a pretty cute fucking niece. Afghan man with a Spanish accent, looking like a Ringling Brothers Circus act while named after a French cooking technique.
What a beautiful fucking mess of a personal brand. And somehow he owned it, strutting around and ignoring 80% of the world to focus on the 20% that reaffirmed his belief that he was awesome.
He was like… a big flaming labradoodle. Something so cute and squishy pretending to be something fierce. Meanwhile you could just throw a ball and call him hot shit and watch him fucking preen with fire pun compliments.
Anyways, Flambae was missing the fuck out. Royd’s basement lab was filled with tech shit, the dance studio/main lab space now had THE Mecha suit.
And damn did it look good. Fresh blue paint, not a damn scratch on it. You couldn’t even tell-
Staring at the tv screen in the bar as the news camera zooms in on the fucking wreckage’s. Room dead fucking silent as we all watch twisted metal and scratched paint as medical personal slowly extract a fig-
It looks good. It looked new.
And there was fucking Dispatcher Robert climbing into the thing, like it was as natural as getting into a car or taking a shit.
It was dope.
The last half hour he had just been…so fucking natural around the fucking thing. Him and Royd checking readouts or adjusting some fucking bolt or clasp that none of us could fucking see. Climbing up to the shoulders with the easy you only got by doing an action hundreds or thousands of times.
Fucking Robert Robertson was Mecha Man.
It fit. It fit so fucking naturally and just made so much fucking sense it almost felt criminal that I’d be taking Mal and everyone’s money for the betting pool.
Everyone had been guessing different shit. Trying to put together clues or a theory. But what no one fucking considered or looked at was obvious.
Hero persona.
Every fucking hero, performer, actor, they fucking put on airs for the camera. They had a facade that they’d put up and show the world and depending on what and how they used it, it’d tell you about the person underneath.
If someone was a PR dream then they were also inauthentic as fuck. Avoiding scandal, controversial ideas and topics. Take Miss Blazer for example. Polite, happy, and always saying the right thing when asked, but when you don’t ask? When you just watch her? She fucking rambles. Quiet comments, little jokes. Girl is socially starved but plays hero ball because it’s what’s expected of her. She's damn good at it, still has a good heart, but girl’s living a crazy life and just wants someone to acknowledge it.
Girl’s starving herself while in fucking Candyland, all the different clubs and bars around LA.
Then you take a loser like Bronze Surfer. Lame ass name that basically puts him as a 3rd rate hack, before he even opens his fucking mouth. You look at any interview, viral video clip, and you find yourself a drunk angry loose cannon who is carefully managed by some stressed out PR manager.
Or Windwalker! If Flambae’s a labradoodle then the Windwalker’s a pitbull. One of the old ones that’s a sweetie that just drools in your lap. Especially in the last few years, his a voice has that fucking old man raspyness now. Even pushing into his sixties the man still had it.
...
Don't you fucking judge me! Only God can judge me!... And Robert.
And speaking of Robert? He didn’t fucking have one. No hero persona. You take the speeches from the LA marathon? The highlight reels of Mecha Man quips and insults from the internet? The towering blue form charging out to help people?
Swap it out for a scarred, beat up white boy and, baby, there’s no venn diagram! It’s a flat fucking circle.
He did everything, was there for fucking everyone. And he sassed everyone along the way. He saw to the Z-Team with the exact same fucking diligence and commitment that he gave to the entire damn city when he had a towering super mech to haul around the fucking watermelons he called balls. ‘Mr Powerless’ threw down with every fucking big bad jackass that had tried to make LA their bitch.
Seriously, LA is like one of the main cities on the west coast. And it didn’t have some fucking Super team or friends squad, it had fucking Mecha Man. Sure there’s like several hundred heroes and anyone trying to make it big tries to come out here, same with the actors and music stars, but Mecha Man fucking stayed and that meant he’d seen almost fucking everything.
It’d be like trying to survive Korea or Japan as a one woman show against all the fucking Idol groups.
And now we were going to see fucking him.
…
…
I wonder if he invented the name Robert Robertson for the SDN gig? Mecha Man not having any fucking civilian identity because he was fucking Mecha Man would make sense. It’d explain why it’s such an ass name.
The audio speakers click on and it’s fucking him. Mecha Man. Robert.
“Hey everybody, I, um, I appreciate you coming to see this. Your support means a lot.”
We’re all in this fucking lab and shit’s crowded. I grabbed one of the seats at the back and am updating my socials, cleaning out the fucking comments.
Seriously, with the bots and the scammers now a days, you fucking had to check your shit hourly if you wanted to grow an actual following.
Everyone’s antsy. Mal and Golem look bored out of their minds waiting for shit to happen. Royd’s lost in the monitors, the big guy having some serious bags under his eyes. Dude needs to moisturize.
Sonar’s watching with the same three year old energy he had when we walked in here thirty minutes ago, and Invisigal and Chase are just watching. Both of them holding themselves like fucking statues as they watch Mecha Man like like it’s about to break out into song and dance.
…
…
Would he if I asked him?
Shit, that’d go viral instantly…
I didn’t have a good read on Chase. Angry fucking old man, but that was it. No idea which hero he was, I don’t track any of the fossils who were running around fifty years ago. He was loud, mouthy, and hated us. I didn’t need to know more.
Though given that he was here, he must have been more than just Robert’s onboarding coworker and dog sitter. Desk buddies? Was that a thing in offices?
Hmm… maybe he ran with Mecha Man Prime?
“More than a lot! It means one thousand and thirty six American dollars.” Punch-Up calls back. “Cash, lad.”
Punch-Up was an idiot. Harmless idiot, but a mouthy one. Always willing to back up someone else rather than stand out on his fucking own. If you’d asked me a month ago? I’d say he was a shithead who could go and drown in the kiddy pool and I wouldn’t give a shit.
…
…
But… now I’d save him. Probably. It was cute how Waterboy followed after him. Like one of those tiny chickens who somehow raised a giant swan. Him getting hurt just…
It wouldn’t be funny anymore.
“We’re only here cause these broke asses want proof before they pay.” I say lightly, putting away my phone.
Malevola scowls at me but stays silent. I meet her gaze easily, just try me bitch. I’m getting my fucking money today. Since we’d stepped in here, her and Sonar had been quiet and I’d let it go.
It was fucking obvious he was Mecha Man now. But if she and Sonar admitted it, then there’d be no excuse for us to stick around and we all wanted to stick around for this. The return of Mecha Man. The fucking symbol of heroes on the West Coast.
It was happening.
We’d tell our grandchildren or be in a documentary or some shit in thirty years.
“That actually makes way more sense,” Robert says mildly.
Chase snorts, looking off to the side. “Can’t believe you actually hung out with these fuckers.”
“You jealous, old man?” Invisigal asks, putting one hand on her hip, drawing Chase’s glare. She draws the entire team's gaze,each of us instantly catching the tension between the two.
Well shit, I put away my phone. We might be getting two shows tonight.
“Of what? Let me guess, you get into a bar fight? I’m right, right?” Chase snaps back, “That’s what criminals do at bars. They ruin everyone's fun.”
Eugh, and this is why I didn’t care about the fucker. He was a pain in the ass as our dispatcher for the seven or eight months before Robert came to SDN. The other dispatchers were ass too, don’t get me wrong. But with them it was impersonal. Corpo fucking motivational speakers or weird retired sports coaches. Weak ass bitches who couldn’t handle some fucking questions and light joking from the team.
“In fact, if you're going to make me stand next to a criminal, you could at least hurry this shit up!”
But with Chase it was always fucking personal. He could keep up with us but seemed to hate and loath every day he had to interact with us. If it wasn’t for Miss. Blazer and how fucking earnest she was when she tried to ‘check in’ on the Z-Team after a dispatcher left, I would have walked months ago. Fuck serving out parol and repaying shit to society. I’d go underground.
My follower count probably would have doubled.
“If you’re gonna make me stand next to Benjamin fucking Button, you could at least Change his diaper.” Invisigal shoots back. And I hide the smirk on my face. Get him girl.
“You’re the only one here that’s full of shit.”
I kinda missed this. Invisgal was the only one witty and fucking stubborn headed enough to go toe to toe with Chase. They’d go back and forth for hours when he’d cover the Z-Team. With all the ease of your favorite radio jockeys or Podcasters. The Bitchy Bunch Podcast.
…
…
Has a nice ring to it.
“Well, what you missed was three AM tacos, leading to four am heartburn, followed by five AM diarrhea.” Robert says from inside the Mecha Man suit and it’s fucking disorienting to hear his normal quips and comments come from it. Both Chase and Invisigal calm down at his words, his soft tones diffusing the argument with fucking ease.
“And despite all of that, it was lovely.”
I have to recognize the fucking charisma, aura, swag, whatever the fuck you call that special Robert sauce that let him snark and shit talk with the best of us and somehow always defused any tension that was building.
Like seriously, how the fuck do you do that?
“Ooookay.” Royd speaks up, still not looking up from the monitors he had been typing into for the last ten minutes. “ Proto Pulse test nineteen. Ready to commence. We good when you good Mecha Man.”
We all fall silent at that, our eyes on the suit.
“Engaging Proto Pulse… now.”
There’s a click and low hiss, though the suit doesn’t light up or react.
Royd examines his screens, reading out some data shit that looks more like one of those nonsense screens you'd see in a sci-fi film.
“All reading’s super stable.” He reads off, a smile growing on his face. “Here we go! Time to make your grant re-entrance.”
“Alright, ready for launch”
And then, then it fucking happens. Mecha Man’s visor lights up, small puffs of smoke at each of the joints as the suit shifts. No longer a mechanical frozen statue, but mobile, responsive. A hero.
Mecha Man.
He’s standing there, hands on his fucking hips, casings and cover plates missing showing internal pistons and circuitry, but there’s no mistaking it.
It’s him.
Mecha Man.
A grin splits my face, that giddyness from my first day in LA rushing back as I glance over to Malevola and the rest of the team.
“See there, is that confirmation enough for you cheap ass bitches? I ask. “Pay me my money!”
“Fucking hell,” Punch Up mutters in shock, nodding at Malevola as she forms a small portal and pulls out my fucking payday.
“Told y’all! It’s so obvious he don’t have super powers.” I say as I examine the fucking stack of cash Malevola hands me. My nails were going to be fucking glowing this weekend.
“It’s a fucking waste of time… if he was gonna lie about being a hero, why would he pick Mecha Man?” Malevola mutters, stepping forward so she didn’t have to see me with all the fucking cash she had been sitting on.
“Uhh, reminder the mic is still open.” Mecha Man says, beginning to shadow box within the lab. Small sprays of purple smoke with each strike.
“Not bad right?”
“It looks better than the original.” Chase mutters and I side eye him. Another point for him being from Prime’s era. Were there any black heroes in LA back then? Or maybe he was one of those heroes that was fully enclothed….
“The smoke is a little overkill…” Invisigal mutters, squinting to make out his form.
“I thought the same too, but I think the purple is a nice touch.” Mecha Man says, rounding off the punches with a kick before shifting to do jumping jacks. The ground is vibrating with each weighty thud as he impacted the ground.
“Ohhh…. Maybe he’d be Mecha Man purple now?” I muse watching how…easy it was. It wasn’t like those power suits some villains rolled out every few years or the different air craft, hoover craft, and any other shit that people had invented. It was seamless. The towering form moving with all the ease of Golem. It made complete sense that the big guy thought Mecha Man was a construct.
“What smoke?” Royd asks, finally looking up from the monitors. His face goes pale at the sight. “SHUT IT DOWN!”
An alarm starts to ring out and… and shit gets bad.
Mecha Man stops and stumbles, like something hit him, recoiling from something we can’t see. The smoke continues to stream out of the joints and creases of the suit.
“ Help him, Royd!” Invisigal yells.
“Just get him out!” Chase demands.
The rest of us watch, frozen. This… this wasn’t right. This wasn’t….
It’s hard to describe. Robert nags about it all the time. How the human body has three states of response in emergencies, fight, flight and freeze and how, a lot of times people are more used to freezing in the modern day.
We’d all decried it. Called the ones who froze fucking bitches. After all, it was our job to now be heroes, we fought, obviously.
“Shit!” Royd swears as Mecha Man knocks over a cabinet, the big man running for the door.
I… it really fucking sucks to say that most of us froze in that moment. Watching Royd push against the door like we were fucking civilians.
“It’s locked down.” Punch says stupidly.
Malevola suddenly starts forward at his words, “Ah fuck, I'm on it!” She throws a hand out and portal rift thingy forms against the shut door.
Royd charges through it and grabs Mecha Man from around the waist. Trying to stabilize the suit as he continues to stagger around the lab.
I’m just about to move when the suit starts to spark, Mecha Man’s head twitching and jittering, the illusion of life, of animation stuttering as the mechanics of the suit fail.
Royd backs up and then sprints away, diving over a table.
“GET DOWN!”
The glass separating up fractures, breaking into thousands of little pieces, but stays in whatever plastic shit that stops it from blowing up in our faces as the suit, Royd and the lab is encompassed in a fireball.
“Jesus fuck!” Punch Up curses, as Golem turns to shield Sonar and Malevola. I’m fucking tacked by Chase of all fucking people as the shockwave shakes the room.
I’m staring up at the ceiling, my visor skewed and stunned.
But… it had been fine. Mecha Man was moving and Robert…
…
…
Robert!
I sit up coughing, squinting at everyone else. Malevola, Golem, and Sonar are already standing, Malevola reforming the portal that had been there previously.
Chase, Punch-up, and I were laid out.
“Visi?” I call out.
“Here.” A voice coughs and Invisigal blips into sight, a few feet back from where she had been, kneeling down, inhaler pressed up to her lips. “Fuck!” she yells, throwing her inhaler back into her pocket. “Robert!”
We all fucking scramble to our feet, the entire Z-Team shoving our way through Malevola’s portal. I hear Chase talking, calling on a phone or radio or something, before I pass through the portal and quickly get a mouthful of foam.
“What the fu-” is all I can get out before I’m hacking and trying to spit out the chemical.
“The fuck is this shit?” Punch Up asks, his form completely buried by the 2-3 feet of foam that's coating everything.
“Fire suppression system,” Royd groans from somewhere I can’t see. “Triggers when a blast breaks the safety glass.”
“Fuck that shit, Robert!” Invisigal yells, trying to not slip with the rest of us as we close in on Mecha Man.
The suits in a bad way. The front casing is warped and melted, still smoking from where the foam hits the hot metal. The entire thing resting on its side against the far wall, blasted back from the explosion. The acidic smell of burnt plastic, metal…and meat wafting from it.
“Get him out of there,” Royd coughs, and a bit of moving foam signals Punch-Up’s movement as he peels off from the rest of up to head towards where Royd’s voice is coming from.
“Easy big man, we’ll get the lad.”
Sonar bats the fuck out, doing his weird, hinda gross thing where his body bulges and warps. He and Golem brace Mecha Man, and with grim faces, they begin to pry open the front chest cavity.
Invisigal, Malevola, and I wait anxiously as slowly the pilot seats revealed to us.
“Shit…. R-Robert,” Invisigal gasps, her voice wavering as we see him.
It's… It's bad. It looks like he tried to shield his face, his arms raised over his head, torso twisted to look away from where the blast originated.
But from the way the metal was shunted out…the blast was about a foot and a half from his head.
Baseline recovery is six months or longer, not counting physical therapy and long-term damage.
This was so much more than just some broken bones.
It’s not good.
“You…. you can fix him… right? With your fucking wound transfer shit.” I say, my voice wavering as Malevola slowly navigates into the open cavity, her red hand hesitantly reaching out to the… the…
Charred figure, black cracked fucking ski-
To Robert.
“Do it.” Golem rumbles.
“It’s… it’s too much damage….” Malevola says, her voice shaking as she glances back at us. “This is… it’d destabilize Golem’s core, burn up all his magic.”
Invisigal is fucking white and I feel halfway there myself at Malevola’s words.
This… fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not….
…
…
Not again.
A few weeks back, Punch and Malevola pulled some shit and we went too far. Normally, it's fine. The only ones paying for our fuck ups either ourselves or some fucking villians who deserve that shit.
But Robert wasn’t like us. Wasn’t even like most of the enhanced and powered villains we’d be slapping all over Torrance. He was baseline. Fragile. An egg.
And we had cracked him. It was an easy fix. Broken bones, blunt force trauma. But it… it reminded us all. And not in some gentle way where your mom sits you down and explains that because you have powers you can’t hit boys at school with your full strength even when they call you names.
It had been fine with Malevola here. She could heal any dangerous shit and none of us would ever intentionally try to hurt the man, even if he could be an annoying bitch at times. Or…
Watching wide eyed as Flambae shoots a continuous stream of flames at where Robert had been standing, hand half out reached to… to… to what?
Now Robert wasn’t cracked. He was fucking fried.
“Doctors are on their way, get him out of the suit!” Chase yells from the other room.
“If I fucking try to move him, I’m pretty sure half of hims going to stay seared to the metal!” Malevola screams back. Her face furrowed.
My stomach feels like it's both too full and two empty at the same time. This was wrong. So fucking wrong. We were supposed to be joking about fighting Mecha Man tomorrow for our tuesday exercise and asking if he was going to join us on assignment.
He was the hero who was supposed to help us use our powers, not fucking get taken out by some fucking lab test. He’d survived being blown up and falling from the fucking sky, rebuilding the suite piece by piece, always…coming…
“We have to do something” I say, anger and fear and frustration and every fucking shitty thing in me pour out in my caustic tone. “Can’t we… can’t we do it in stages?”
“The fuck do you mean?” Malevola asks as Royd becomes visible, supported by Punch-Up whose hair is barely visible.
“Spread it out amongst us.” I say, gesturing to Invisgal, Sonar and me. “Reduce the damage just enough for Golem to take the rest of it.”
“That’d… work.” Malevola admits, turning and quickly examining Robert. “Everyone get in a fucking line, Golem at the back, this is going to fucking suck.”
We go to line up only for Royd to make his way to the fucking front.
“Dis is my fault,” He mutters, his eyes downcast. “I need to make this right.”
Invisigal opens her mouth, probably to argue with him only for Malevola to interrupt.
“No time! Just give me your fucking hand, your getting this shoulder!” She snaps, her tail stretching out to poke Royd.
It’s… it’s real fucking gross, watching the burns, the woulds melt off Roberts form, travel across Malevola’s her body twitching and spasming as it tracks onto Royd’s body.
The giant man gasps, his right arm going limp, as several other bruises and burns pepper his body.
Malevola pushes him away, “Next!”
Invisigal steps up and another series of bruises and burns shift onto her.
“Fucking hell! Why the fuck does it hurt so much?” she curses as she stumbles away, quickly crouching down to pull her arms closer to her body.
“Because it’s Robert’s pain, you're feeling what normies feel.” Sonar says behind me and I only have time to blink at the information before-
“FUCK ME.” I yell as the worst fucking headache comes over me, aches and pains littering my joints and limbs. I’d been fucking hit by a car and hadn’t felt this level of pain, this is like… that one time I threw hands at Cochella and got beaten up by the act I was suppose to be opening for. Their drummer had been some Viking Norse powered meathead.
They’d beaten me pretty bad before throwing me out of the concert, literally. Woke up the next morning in a little crater in the hills.
This was on that level, which was a level I promised to never get to again.
“Next!” Malevola yells as Sonar stumbles away and Punch-Up steps up.
“Fecking Hell!” Punch-Up yells as his skin splits open all over his body. “I almost forgot what pain felt like.”
Then it’s Golem and we all watch from our spots on the floor as Malevola reaches out and touches his hand.
Golem’s body ripples, sections of mud and dirt falling around him as he quickly takes on a narrower body shape. He grunts, and then his arm fully fucking falls off of his body.
“Dude!” Invisigal tries to sit up. “Are you good?”
“Yeah,” Golem grunts, taking a step back, examining his detached arm. “It actually hurt this time. But I’m good, I just need fresh mud.”
“How’s,” Royd gasps, looking up, his arm still held tightly against his body. “Robert?”
Malevola looks behind her, and none of us can see him, given that most of us collapsed on the fucking floor to ride out our new injuries and the phantom pains. She reaches in and we all tense.
“He’s okay…” Invisigal breaths, her eyes locked on the form Malevola pulls out. “He’s okay, he’s alive, he’s okay, he’s alive….”
“Well he’s better…” Malevola says, carrying him out bridal style, Robert’s clothes and skin are still marked with ash and blood. But there were no visible wounds on him, no missing hair, exposed bone, burnt flesh and seared muscle. “Still in shock and unconscious, but now he’s not an oven stain.”
I feel my breath ease, even though the new burns and injuries cause my lungs to heave, themselves feeling some level of injured.
A rush of movement draws our attention as medical arrives, the staff of SDN’s infirmary quickly filling the lab, making their way towards up.
It would… it would be okay.
“He’s alive,” Invisgal repeats and I grunt and pull myself up. Shuffling across the ground to lean my back against hers as we sit the remains of the foam.
“You’re damn right he is.” I grunt as I watch Royd wave the SDN staff away from him, pointing to Robert.
They take Robert to his own room, three of the staff splitting off to go with him while two stay with the rest of us.
“Is this what happened the first time?” Punch-Up asks as he helps slather Royd with some of the burn cream they had given us. Punch-Up’s own injuries already mostly healed by his powers. “When he went boom over the city?”
“They’d mentioned they brought in a special healer, I think,” I mention as I examine my face through my phone’s camera. It wouldn’t be too bad, some make-up would probably conceal whatever didn’t heal through the night. My eyes drift to Invisigal who's visible behind me, her face still really pale. “How’re you doing, Golem?” I ask, changing the topic.
“I think I’m like… five feet flat.” He says in wonder, the mud man standing next to Sonar and looking up at his bat form. “Is this what it’s like to be you?” He asks, looking at Punch-Up.
Punch-Up glares back, continuing to rub burn cream into Royd’s shoulder.
The jokes peter out after that, all of us coming to terms with just how fucking close we’d been to loosing our Dispatcher.
Punch Up’s words float back to me though. Was this how it had always been?
Mecha Man’s last explosion hadn’t been the worst LA had seen him take before. Only his coma and press conference suggesting that it had been particularly bad. Over the years, there’d been so many different iconic images and injuries that Mecha Man had sustained. The suit had been impaled, torn in half, exploded, dipped in acid, sent flying away from the city to land god knows where.
The first video of Mecha Man Blue exiting his mech was a classic viral video. Some villian with a fucking scyth, pretending to be death incarnate or some shit, prying open the suit, only for a fucking blue blur to jump out on him, tacking the nine foot tall motherfucker. The pilot straddling his neck and raining blows on the skull mask with a wrench of all things.
It was the first time the newest Mecha Man pilot had been caught on camera.
It was a joke at the time, if you saw a figure exiting Mecha Man Blue, that was when you were in real danger.
But with those jokes came the reality. Mecha Man was his most vulnerable out of the suit. It was the thing that signaled how bad things had gotten.
And he’d been out of his suit for months.
“…She's just a regular fucking girl who likes singing and dancing and has way too much on her plate. And Prism? If you aren’t careful, you will break her.”
Underneath all that metal, and behind all that sass… Mecha Man was just a regular fucking guy…
…
…
“Hey Team,” a voice at the door says and I almost jump out of my seat as Blonde Blazer and Chase walk in. The old man holding Beef like it was the only thing keeping him alive. The dog whining and licking at his chin.
“Miss Blazer! Any update on Robert? Is he awake? How’s his arm?” Blonde Blazer winces, her face solemn as she surveys us.
“I can’t tell you that.”
Invisigal pushes off the wall she’s been leaning against, crossing her arms. “The fuck you mean you can’t tell us? Is he fucking dead?”
“Back down,” Chase snaps, but it lacks any of his usual heat. “It’s fucking HIPAA, alright?”
“The man has herpes?" Punch Up asks, wiping his hands and stepping away from Royd.
“HIPAA, it’s patient, doctor confidentiality, means that, unless Robert gives permission, I can’t share medical details with just anyone.” Blonde Blazer says, her tone apologetic.
“You can at least tell us he’s alive right?” I ask, getting up to stand next to Invisigal.
Blonde Blazer nods, a small smile coming over her face. “I can tell you that. I can also tell you that Chase told me what you all did down in the basement.”
Chase grunts, not looking at any of us as he continues to pet Beef, the dog still looking up at him. “You all saved his life down there, some real hero shit.”
There’s a quiet collective inhale, most of us looking wide-eyed at Chase. In the corner I see Golem and Punch-Up fist bump.
Chase had never called a single one of us Heroes. Never.
“Chase is going to stay the night, the rest of you should go home, eat a big meal and rest, give your bodies the calories needed to recover.” Blonde Blazer says into the silence, her smile slightly wider at our baffled looks.
“And why does he get to fucking stay?” Invisigal asks, eyeing the old man.
He clenches his jaw, but replies calmly, if a little stilted. “Because I’m still his fucking emergency contact, that’s fucking why.”
I turn over the phrasing. Still. As in he’d been Robert’s emergency contact for a long time. But when would Robert have needed-
Oh. Wait.
Robert was Mecha Man Blue. But Blue had only been around for like a decade. Before it was Astral with the Brave Brigade.
Pieces snap into place.
“No way,” I breathe, looking at Chase with new eyes. “You’re fucking Trackstar!”
“Fucking finally one of you motherfuckers caught on.” Chase says, finally looking up from the damn dog to meet my gaze. “Listen, go the fuck home, Blazer or I will reach out with tomorrow’s game plan if Robert’s not up by then.”
We all slowly funnel out of the infirmary, quietly reflecting on it for the last two hours.
It still didn’t feel real. To try and track Mecha Man’s history onto Robert. It fit, but it was weird. Like suddenly seeing a part of a friend's house you’d never been able to go into in all the times you visited. It both made perfect sense and was utterly new and different.
“So… now what?” Golem asks as we all exit the building and pause before the parking lot.
“Go home I guess,” Invisigal mutters, opening her phone to read a message.
“I was going to go grab a drink for the lad, something to switch to when he’s done with those pain killers they’ll give him.” Punch Up says, turning to look at us all.
“How do you know they’ll give him painkillers?” Sonar asks.
“Because that’s the American Healthcare system,” Punch-Up says snorting. “Listen, I can pay for it just fine, but if anyone wants to help chip in, I won’t say no.”
“I’ll come with you,” I say, shooting a quick message to Sunday, letting her know that I’d be late. Technically she wouldn’t be free for another hour, but knowing the Z-Team, we were probably going to be out for a little while longer.
“Me too,”
“Same.”
“Can we pick up some mud on the way?”
“Bro, just walk on the fucking grass,” I say, rolling my eyes. “The irrigation sprinklers have probably all gone off and you can just grab some on the way.”
Golem blinks at me. “That’s a smart idea.”
“There’s a liquor store a few blocks away from here,” Invisigal says, looking up from her phone. “Fifteen minute walk?”
We all murmur agreement and begin walking.
…
…
It takes less than a minute before Malevola speaks up.
“Hey, Robert’s kind of fucked up.”
“No shit Mal,” Sonar snorts. “He just got exploded.”
“No like… his body, all the scar tissue and crap. It’s…more. More than should be there.”
“Can’t you just transfer that shit too?” Invisigal asks, turning to look sideways at Malevola.
The half demon shakes her head. “It doesn’t work like that babes, wounds are like…weight and shit added to a human’s soul. Lift it off right away and the soul can just bounce right back. But let it sit and it sinks in, becomes part of the soul. Rip that off and you're causing serious damage.”
“What does that mean for me and all the injuries you gave me?” Golem asks as we digest the information. It wasn’t often that Malevola actually went into to detail on how her powers worked, and when she did, half of it seemed to be made up shit to get us scared. It didn’t feel that way now, as we ignore a crosswalk and walk across the intersection.
“Means you got more soul than any fucking mortals,” Malevola tells him with a wink. “But yeah… Robert's soul is like half old injuries and trauma and shit.”
“All this talk of souls and shit.” I grumble, “If you can’t heal it, why we talking about it?”
“You can heal it.” Malevola insists as we approach the liquor store. “Just not with supernatural demon powers. You do it old school. Have a good shag, go to therapy, time heals all and that shit.”
“Dude, You're still like, six feet right now,” Invisigal says, turning back to look at Golem who had stopped at the entrance. “You fit. Get in here.”
Golem gives a small smile and jogs to catch up with us. “Cool.”
“I’ll take one for the team.” Sonar heaves a sigh, “I’ll fuck him.”
“Oh please, like Robert would ever even consider you.” Invisigal grumbles as Punch-Up leads up to the whiskey shelves.
“You’d be surprised Visi, I can do this thing with my tongue-“
“Maybe I should have waited outside,” Golem says quietly as Invisigal has the funniest fucking expression on as Sonar starts gesturing and sticking his tongue out-
Fuck! Why is it that long?
Malevola thankfully slaps the back of his head.
"What? I was demonstrating!"
"No you weren't. Stop being fucking weird."
Thank you Malevola.
“Do you think this also happened after the crash? He was in a coma last time, right?”
“Must have. Comas don’t just happen all the time or anything.”
“Do you think he’ll be in a coma this time?”
“Nah mate, the wound transfer got all of the actual damage. It… it shouldn’t…”
“Will you all shut the fuck up?” I ask, turning around and glaring at Sonar, Punch-Up and Malevola as I finish paying for the whiskey and getting out of line. “Robert’s going to be fucking fine!”
“Sorry lass,” Punch-Up says before turning back to Sonar and Malevola. “Tomorrow’s supposed to be exercise day. What’d you think we’ll be doing?”
“I don't know. I thin-”
“Hey, have any of you seen smoke like that?” Invisigal asks, interrupting Sonar.
We decided on a whiskey for Robert, something top shelf according to Punch-Up. That had taken the first ten minutes or so, the remaining twenty had been each of us buying our own assortment of liquor and drinks.
I’d just bought a pack of canned margaritas, something cheap to offset how much I threw in for the Whiskey. Robert better be fucking great full and savor that shit. Now I only had eight hundred leftover from the bet.
Some idiots had come in behind us, their loud voices carrying from the entrance. A glare from Golem and Sonar had sent them scurrying, not wanting to mess with some off the clock heroes.
“Not really, never seen Mecha Man before today.” Golem replies.
“No like… around.” Invisigal says, gesturing out past the parking lot. “Underground circles and shit. I feel like I’ve seen that before.”
I frown, pulling out my phone and opening one of my feeds. A quick profile change to pull up a new algorithm of videos and posts. “Anything specific?” I ask.
“Maybe like… smoke coming out of a building? ‘Science fail’?” Invisigal says, her tone uncertain.
I continue scrolling, passing anarchy posts, calls for bodies, and other bullshit the underbelly of LA was dumb enough to post online. Which was a lot. Seriously, if you knew the right tags to filter for or the right accounts to follow and you’d get a pretty good pulse on the criminal going ons in the city.
I switch apps and try another one. With the fucking Red Ring having grown in the last month, most of the posts and videos are on their new enhancements, only a few posts criticizing them while most are from people who got the enhancements installed.
I filter again and eventually find something.
“This one?” I ask, turning my phone around, a shot of an apartment building, blue purple smoke and flames suddenly shooting out of a window.
Invisigal grabs the phone, the light of the video casting a blue hue on her face as she watches. “Shit… yeah, that's…that’s it. Hey, can you send that to me?”
“Sure thing,” I say, taking my phone back.
Invisigal pulls it up on her own phone, before putting it away, looking dazed.
“I need to… I need to…”
I wait expectantly for her to continue her thought.
…
…
Blip.
“Good night to you too.” I say to the empty parking lot.
“We’re going to bounce too,” Malevola says, gesturing to Sonar. “ See you tomorrow?:
“Yeah.” Punch-Up sighs, “Whole day’s been fucked up.”
We all bid each other goodnight and I’m left walking home on my own, scrolling through my phone.
Fucking Invisigal, I didn’t have time to wonder at why the fuck she wanted to hunt down some failed villain experiments. It wasn’t like anything cooked up in a bootleg villain's lair could compare to all the resources Royd had to play with at SDN.
…
…
I open my messages.
Yo, fireball, Rocket Robbie almost blew himself up today. In the infirmary.
I watch as the read receipt changes to read, waiting for a reply.
…
…
Shit was pretty bad. Malevola had to give all of us his injuries.
Again, the read receipt changes to read.
…
…
“Fucker,” I mutter shoving the phone into my pocket and heading for home.
…
…
“Hey is this Smiles? What up, girl! My god, I cannot believe I’m talking with the bad bitch who wrote Sugar Craving! I’m Prism, but you know that.”
…
…
“Of course! Girl, you got mad skills. Been following you since your Sunday Cover era. So give the deets girl! Where’s Sunday been this year?”
…
…
“Oh… I’m… I’m sorry to hear it. You and your dad…. You're good?”
…
…
“I…”
…
…
“Eugh, shit sorry. I- No! No! It’s me. Sorry, today was kind of a shit show.”
…
…
“Ha, yeah…Just a thing blew up at work. Let’s try again. Hi, I’m Alice. I like your music.”
…
…
“Cool.”