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

[thinkering]

"If you want to be classed as an independent hero and not a rogue you might have to interact with paperwork."

[mxglam]

"I don't wanna be classed as anything, I just wanna help people in costume and get really famous while doing it. The first part's the important one, by the way, I'm not about to start staging heists just to be famous."

[thinkering]

"That's good to hear."

[mxglam]

"And my wiki page got taken down for being made up. Made up!"

[thinkering]

"I'm not sure how notable you have to be before that's guaranteed not to happen."

[mxglam]

They shrug. "...hey, could you ask your branding people about the gender thing? Like, what they think is best, going with 'they' or something else, or stuff?"

[thinkering]

"I try to avoid talking to her. I can give her your email?"

[mxglam]

"Oh, good idea." Pause. "Except I don't have a secret identity email. I'll make one later today, can you tell me yours? Mine will probably be mxglam@yahoo.com, but you never know, might be taken."

[thinkering]

"My cape email is lorica@protectorate.gov but I have a bot handle everything."

[mxglam]

"...dot gov. Damn. That's so sexy. Another point in favor of joining up." They shake their head quickly. "Anyway. What does the bot actually do?"

[thinkering]

"Trashes spam, replies to routine queries, very rarely runs into something it's not sure about and brings it to my actual attention."

[mxglam]

"If I sent it something like 'Hi it's Glam this is my email' would it think it's spam?"

[thinkering]

"No, but it'd probably say 'Hi, Glam, you spelled my name right'."

[mxglam]

"Why would it say that?"

[thinkering]

"Well, mostly because it's always supervising me to pick up more information about how I'd reply and I just suggested it, but also because it's an innocuous reply to a first message from a source that doesn't seem to have gotten my email in a context where it could be copy-pasted."

[mxglam]

"Huh. That's interesting. Why'd you set the bot up, anyway?"

[thinkering]

"I use it for other things too."

[mxglam]

"...would asking what things skirt too close to the fishing-for-secret-weaknesses-and-similar-information impression?"

[thinkering]

"Li'l bit. But one thing it does is monitor forums for some topics and comment for me."

[mxglam]

They blink. It's quite comical, a drawing of a face blinking on the mask. "Why would you do that? Commenting on forums is fun!"

[thinkering]

"Spending all my spare time in a Tinkering fugue is more fun."

[mxglam]

"Hmm. Tinkering fugue. That does sound kinda like a fun thing to have."

[thinkering]

"I like it."

[mxglam]

"Is it like flow, or completely different, or like it but much better?"

[thinkering]

"It's like flow on steroids."