Location: Raindford City, 11 in the morning. In the Rainwatch Unit Private Agency.
Rainy. Like most days in the city of Raindford.
At least it was just a normal rain and not a torrential rain capable of eradicating the city and its entire population.
Ironsyde thanked that small miracle.
Of course that wouldn't happen, at least not without the intervention of powers or advanced machinery. At most a few buildings would break, and that only if they were made with materials from before the 3rd Super War. The kind that couldn't withstand even a self-driving car crashing into them.
But well, it wasn't really important now, since there were currently more important things to focus on.
Such as the… small skirmish from yesterday. "Small" for the police report, for the civilians who watched the fights from the safety of their couch, for the politicians of other cities with much stronger heroes who, according to their grand, diverse —and of course completely partial— points of view… competent.
As if it were the fault of our small Rainwatch Unit that suddenly Raindford City became the target of a clearly organized crime for which it simply was not prepared.
It's not common that in the city more than 100 supercriminals decide to gather and organize to rob 7 damn banks, all, of course, at the same damn time.
Ironsyde could already see Chief Rainwatch complaining about all the rightful claims that the public, the press, and the politicians were making to them, and would continue to make in the next days and weeks.
Digging up shit about them, all to see them denigrated and humiliated, while they reap some benefit, whether installing a group of their own in the city or getting enough gossip to make money.
That is, if the Chief didn't gun them all down with his machine gun first—of course he wouldn't do that.
May… be.
It wasn't certain with that old fossil from the second war.
Not everyone was as crazy as him, to change their civil name to their hero name.
He was literally named Rainwatch, and his hero name was Rainwatch. Who the hell is willing to do that?
"I see I wasn't the first to arrive," said a half-asleep voice entering the meeting room, a voice Ironsyde recognized as his good colleague Mistknight.
"No, but certainly the second," was all Ironsyde decided to tell him, as he noticed his partner had no drops of rain on him, surely thanks to his powers. "By the way, did you see the—"
"The giant crater that left us with half a building? It's kind of hard not to notice it, I mean, you can see it from the entrance, which by the way has the sign… or rather, the remains of the sign, hanging," Mistknight told the metal man. "The Chief will be furious. Same as Yetimaker."
"NOOOO." Came the heartbreaking and powerless scream, sounding outside the half-destroyed building.
The two heroes didn't even flinch.
"Forget it, he's sad." Mistknight just adjusted his hood a bit at his snow colleague's scream.
"The… paladins of Yeti are a bit… uh, destroyed." Said a new voice as a third figure entered, this one dripping wet.
"Eh, Nyan, what's up?"
"It's Ferrocat." Was all the newcomer answered to Mistknight.
And right after Ferrocat, the other operational members of the agency arrived.
Lady Glacium, Bearwave, Pardo, AeroVex, Paladin, Jackbolt, and the young prodigy, Tempestella.
And with almost all the operatives of Rainwatch Unit present in the city and able to operate, the last person arrived, apart from the Chief himself: YetiMaker, entering in tears of icicles and frosty sobs.
Finally, at the very end, someone entered in a surprisingly calm manner, unusual for him: the man in charge of Rainwatch Unit.
Rainwatch himself.
Upon entering, the first thing he did was go to his seat and simply stare in silence for a moment at all the heroes gathered at the table.
"I want someone to give me an explanation… for what happened to my damn building."
For some present, it was a surprise that Rainwatch could express himself so clearly despite his anger, and not simply yell everything, throwing 30 curses per word while shooting his machine gun everywhere just to show his anger.
Some (Ironsyde and Yetimaker) could only look at their Chief and say, in different tones revealing their moods, a single word.
"UltraNeonMan." ×2
"Ah, that explains it." Said the owner of what now were the remains of what yesterday was a building in shape and name, suddenly calm.
"And here we go." Said Lady Glacium, legs crossed, while some cold vapor escaped her lips. She was already preparing for a verbal murder.
Not literally —so far Rainwatch hadn't developed such a power, nor showed signs of it.
At such calmness, everyone prepared for what came next.
"THAT EXPLAINS JACK SHIT. HOW THE HELL DID THAT DAMN COWARDLY FUCKING SPACE BASTARD PIECE OF SHIT NEOMAN END UP BEING THE FUCKING DAMN MISERABLE CAUSE OF MY DAMN, GLORIOUS, FANTASTIC AND STUPID BUILDING BEING REDUCED TO SOME PUTRID FUCKING RUBBLE?"
"Well, Chief, one of the villains from yesterday, Hombre Cricoso, I think, was the one who threw Ultraneonman toward our base, and the force and energy absorption ability of UltraneonMan was such that he went through the building's force field and—"
"I ALREADY KNOW THAT, YOU DAMN MISERABLE SNOW SACK, I JUST WANT TO KNOW HOW THE HELL YOU COULDN'T PREVENT OR SOFTEN THE FUCKING DAMAGE MY POOR AND DEFENSELESS BUILDING SUFFERED. ESPECIALLY YOU, VEGETABLE NOSE, YOUR PATHETIC AND MISERABLE 'ICE LITTLE KNIGHTS' WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THE DAMN LAIR."
And with that, the elegant snowman shrugged timidly, trying to make himself smaller.
"W-well, you see, Chief… uh… my paladins can't do much against a guy who could destroy planets and—"
"AND YOU!" Said the war-hardened veteran to the team's sole inventor, Pardo.
"DAMN TRASH LOVER, YOUR TURRETS, YOUR WALLS AND YOUR SHIELDS —PLURAL, SHIELDS— WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THIS PLACE EVEN FROM CONTINENTAL MISSILES." He continued shouting at full volume, pointing at Pardo, who, already used to his stupidly rich and cartoonishly loud Chief, simply replied:
"Well, yeah, continental missiles are one thing, and that weird Ultraneonman thing is another. Although still, I'm surprised someone strong enough to throw Neonman toward our base existed, and that he went through it, and not simply —you know— crashed against the first energy shield and bounced off."
"Uh, I think I mentioned it was Hombre Cricoso and—"
"Yeah, Yeti, I wasn't listening, I literally fell asleep. Also, who the hell is that idiot?"
"Uh, I think he was someone who caused trouble even to the 'strongest', Starprime." Added JackBolt.
"Wasn't the strongest John Doe or Phanteon?" Said Bearwave.
"Nah, neither of them is stronger than her." Yeti dismissed Bearwave, waving his wooden arms. "She's like Ultraneonman, but millions of times better, she can even fight billions of times the speed of light on the planet and not destroy it. Unlike Ultraneonman."
"Uh, that doesn't mean she's stronger than him." Pardo said, bored. "Like, even if she were, several of Neonman's metal-organic race could beat her, right?"
"Dude, don't you know?" Started Jackbolt, arms flailing incredulously. "More than 70% of Neonman's race tried to go against her, only to be brutally beaten and humiliated. And that 70% were the strongest ones."
"I don't believe you."
"Dude, that was like a month ago, how the hell did you not hear about it?" Said Yeti, incredulous that his trash-loving teammate didn't know.
With that, the snowman took out his phone from his head and handed it to Pardo, who saw a paused video. "Look, here, watch."
And so they began chatting while Rainwatch just stared at them ignoring him and the briefing about last night's events, making him boil with even more rage.
"And tell me, Chief, do you know anything or are we frozen in information about yesterday's events? I mean, it's not every day that all the banks in the city are robbed at the same time by more than 100 supers and about 800 mercenaries. Well-armed and with power armor, if I'm not mistaken."
Said Glacium while looking at her nails, in her typical diva attitude. Seeing her Chief about to awaken again as a super, but this time with magma powers, she decided to save her teammates —magnanimous as only she could be— and steer the conversation back to the main point.
Both Ironsyde, AeroVex and MistKnight silently thanked their arrogant but competent teammate.
Ironsyde, quickly choosing to direct the conversation, said:
"About that, we were lucky that most of those villains weren't excessively strong; at most some of the strongest could only harm people who can resist blows capable of destroying cities or mountains."
"With the exception of Hombre Cricoso and ErucTwister, who focused on Ultraneonman." Said Paladin, speaking at last. "Though of course, they didn't do anything to him."
"And why doesn't he dodge or protect himself?" Asked AeroVex, not remembering ever seeing the weird space mustache guy defend himself.
"Uh… something about respecting them for… choosing to attack him even though they're 'so pathetically weak they couldn't even destroy a quark', his words. Also he has some kind of danger sense, I think. That and he knows when something could hurt or kill him, so if that were the case he'd dodge or destroy it from afar." Said Yetimaker, doubtful, remembering how eccentric the man was, while glancing at Ferrocat.
Ferrocat, feeling Yetimaker's stare, recalled how he tried to touch Ultraneonman with his claws, only for Ultraneonman to instantly move 12 blocks away and throw a street lamp at him.
Not even with his sharp feline senses did he notice him move away and throw the lamp. He only realized when he woke up a few hours later, recovered.
He wasted a life on that.
"And the mercenaries had laser and plasma weapons, and were well-trained." Added Mistknight as an afterthought.
"And we defeated them all easily." Lady Glacium said while removing her gloves and tending to her nails.
"I think I did most of the work." Said Yetimaker, remembering most of his ice creations handled most of it.
"Relax, snow boy, you might melt if you get angry." Said Glacium, though she clearly noticed the snowman wasn't angry, it didn't stop her from teasing him. "Besides, I could have done it all by myself."
"Almost 1000 heavily armed men and many supers, you alone?" Said AeroVex, incredulous and skeptical at his coworker's… audacity.
"The crico-something guy and the burping guy would give me some trouble, but I would beat them, all of them." Declared the ice diva, finishing polishing her nails with an arrogant smile.
"And any information on what they might want to cover up? I mean, I don't think they all just got together and decided to rob banks all at the same time." Said Jackbolt, relaxing in his chair, feet on the table. "I don't think that gives enough profit to be worth it."
"Actually yes, yes we do have some idea." Said Rainwatch at last, after calming down.
He took a remote from the table, pointed behind him and a screen appeared.
"This." Pointing to some containers, "was stolen yesterday during our fight against RainBreaker—"
"Rainbreaker?"
"Yes, Bearwave, Rainbreaker. It's the provisional name given not only to the heist, but to the possible organization or individual who orchestrated this, because such coordination of events couldn't have been a coincidence." Said Rainwatch, talking to her as if she were a little girl, more to calm himself than anything against her.
"And how—? Who stopped that heist?" Said Paladin and Tempestella, who finally spoke upon seeing the images of several guys (around 10)… detained in a rather questionable manner.
They were literally put in a hole in the cement, all 10 together, squeezed. And according to the images, the police had trouble taking them out and arresting them.
"Most likely this weirdo." Said Rainwatch, switching images to show someone crouching on the edge of a ledge, looking down.
"Who?" Said Pardo, after returning the phone to its owner, seeing the random unknown guy.
"A weirdo who's been prowling around a certain area of the city like a stalker." Said Paladin with a bad opinion of the guy.
From her perspective, he wasn't a hero, just some guy not registered in any hero academy. Not that there are more than 2–3 institutions on their part of the continent, but at least they were big. And legal.
"Oh great, another weirdo in the city. More than a hero I'd say he's a vigilante. How long do you think he'll last? I think less than half a month." Said Lady Glacium, looking at the armor made by the supposed vigilante.
"Maybe not even ten days… I don't think he'll stay alive after ruining what seems to be the main objective by himself." Said Jackbolt, noticing that no one seemed to be backing the vigilante. "I mean, maybe someone is supporting him, but frankly I don't think so."
"Eh, relax guys, this is Raindford City; crime isn't exactly common in the city that always rains." Yetimaker replied quickly, noticing how his teammates seemed to be sending the edgy guy in the image to his death. "I mean, I give him a few months until he gets bored or leaves to greener pastures with more crime and less rain; I mean, the guy… uh… lizard?... frog?... amphibian?... seems like the type who looks for conflict."
"Who cares." Said Bearwave, uninterested. "He's just another weirdo. As long as he's not a criminal and doesn't bother us, it's fine."
"I think you're wrong about something, Yeti." Said the mist knight to the snowman. "Crime has been increasing quite a bit these last few years, especially supercrime. Even more with the arrival of those corpos: Alchemiunx and R4inbowx."
"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, this guy… uh…?" Ironsyde began, looking at his Chief, wanting to get to the point.
"According to the reports, his name is Frogstriper."
"Frogs-stripper!!!??" Said Paladin, outraged by that stupid name coming from her screaming Chief.
"They must have meant something like Frogstrike or Frogripper." Added Tempestella, remembering how they altered her name several times during her early months.
"Uh, yeah yeah, Frogruppert has nothing to do with it, at least as far as we know." Continued Rainwatch. "But besides that... there is nothing, literally nothing. We couldn't even find out what was inside what the guys defeated by the weirdo wanted to take. The company that owned the truck didn't tell us anything."
There was a deathly silence in the room. They had come to this destroyed building, with the wounds and exhaustion from a few hours ago, only to be told they had absolutely nothing on yesterday.
"Oh, by the way, about 70% of the guys we captured yesterday already escaped. Anyway, take the day off." And with that, Rainwatch left the room, leaving an even worse silence.
"WHAT??!!" Several screams echoed in the room.
Just another day in Raindford City.