rogue, meet hero

[peterxy]

Most of the time, patrolling is a dull, uneventful affair, somewhat akin to the Ankh-Morpork City Guard ringing their bells and calling "All's well!" at night.

Sometimes, it's not.

Dauntless was not expecting to run into two unpowered Asian gangs (Japanese and Korean? that's what it looks like at a distance) duking it out in the middle of the street. Granted, it's the evening, and it's not quite the most well-frequented of streets, but still.

He decides to call for backup, not because he wouldn't be able to take them on, but because he's supposed to do that whenever confronting another parahuman or a large number of non-capes, at least until he graduates. He turns the comm on and describes the situation - a bit over a dozen people on each side, arguing and brandishing blunt weapons and in some cases guns - then waits and watches.

Comments

[mxglam]

"Okay, other than that, limiting his visibility is the obvious thing, probably. Also putting trackers on him, maybe if we could predict where he was about to land...? Or maybe one of your robots, a very fast and discreet one, could perhaps attach itself to him and try to tranq him?"

[thinkering]

"I did land a tracker on him last time but it didn't help that much. Maybe I could rig something up that could do gaze-tracking through his mask and tell where he'd land and have something ready there but it'd need split-second timing."

[mxglam]

"Hmm, maybe a tracker designed to deal with him, hooked up to lot of people's visors or comms or something so everyone knows where he and his copies are all the time."

[thinkering]

"Transit's the only one who wears something with an HUD that's me-friendly. Armsmaster might be able to figure out an interface, I guess."

[mxglam]

"Can't you design one for the other heroes?"

[thinkering]

"Branding doesn't like it and I'm not particularly good at 'inconspicuous' to get around that, and it's hard for other people to get along with my tech anyway."

[mxglam]

"Why?" Pause. "To all the things."

[thinkering]

"Interferes with costume flow and recognizability, not my specialty, not my specialty."

[mxglam]

"...'interferes with costume flow and recognizability' sounds like a really bad reason not to do a thing."

[thinkering]

[mxglam]

"I presume that one would be in your 'cons' list."

[thinkering]

"No comment."

[mxglam]

They giggle. "Right."

[thinkering]

Patrol, patrol.

[mxglam]

Uneventful patrol.

"Why does Transit have a you-compatible HUD?"

[thinkering]

"He's my dad."

[mxglam]

"Oh. That's nice."

[thinkering]

"Yeah."

[mxglam]

"You mentioned long-range low-precision teleportation. How does that work, exactly?"

[thinkering]

"Okay, look, you seem nice, but I'm starting to feel like you're hoping I'll slip and reveal someone's secret weakness and I'm literally just summarizing wiki entries."

[mxglam]

"Oh. Uh. Sorry. I'll wiki him later, then." They shrug. "I suppose my saying that if I were trying to do that I wouldn't be so obvious about it doesn't help, does it?"

[thinkering]

"Only a little."

[mxglam]

"Right." Pause. "Satisfying my curiosity about other people's powers is actually a pretty big incentive to join up. It doesn't quite overcome the cons, but still."

[thinkering]

"If anybody ever asks me how to improve recruitment I'll mention that."

[mxglam]

"Will you really?"