Chương 75: Chapter 72: Tower Talks

The construction elevator jerked and whined the whole way up while Nick struggled not to poke any of the other villains on the ride up. His Sharp Shooter outfit boasted a number of retractable blades running along it, all of which were tucked away at the moment, but the shoulder pads still had a little bit of a point to them. In the past, he'd lost track of them on more than one occasion in cramped spots.

More than one villain meet-up over the years had soured before they'd even begun due to being packed together like sardines. A few of those had been bad enough that he'd considered sanding them down, but Irene had made a good point – no pun intended – about how obvious that alteration would be after years of wearing this costume. If he couldn't justify a full costume refresh, there wasn't a point to changing just one part of it.

Still, moments like these made him kind of wish he hadn't gone with as many angular bits when he first designed this thing. In a fight, they were useful to prevent people from grappling him, but as a villain who liked to keep to range, he was usually screwed when a bruiser closed the distance anyways. Meaning he got to deal with all the mundane drawbacks far more often than his literal edge-lord past self got to see payoff to the costume.

He glanced over the other bodies in the elevator to locate Irene, or at least her over-sized floppy witch hat. She wasn't doing much better than he was in the small space alongside the other three, especially since Cluster Rocket was in here with them, over-sized jetpack and everything. Asshole hadn't wanted to catch the next ride and so now everyone was squeezing against the edges of the metal crate. After half a minute, the lift finally ground to a stop and the front opened up.

Cluster tried to get off first only for Irene to tap his shoulder. He instantly froze, her chronomantic powers locking him in place and allowing the competitive little asshat to slip on by him first. Cluster quickly recovered, her powers bleeding off him in less than half a second after the small touch and Nick heard the groan from inside his bulky suit. To his relief, the big lug didn't seem in the mood to protest any further.

"Is this everyone?" Crowmaster asked as the rest of them piled out, his birdlike mask barely hiding the wince when he pointed down towards the group of other villains milling about. Nick was the last one off, letting Cougher slip in front of him to make sure no one got jabbed by his own suit. He peered over the shoulders of the guys in front of him to check out the masks gathered up ahead, recognizing a good portion of them milling around the unfinished hallway.

The group loosely gathered around a small holoprojector set up in front of the only part of this floor that looked like it was close to being done, which kept the outside world from realizing this construction site was a lot more active than it appeared. Even with the tarps loosely wrapping parts of the exterior, there were enough gaps that exposed them to the open sky, which was why that projector was so important.

With it active, anyone flying by this half-finished floor would only see the illusion, a perfect recreation of the empty hallway where a heavy set of wooden doors rested, clearly having been installed too early in the project. You would need to cross an invisible boundary to realize the truth. The holosphere's effect wasn't quite as pronounced for those within it, but it did plunge the interior into a pseudo-night even though it wasn't even noon yet in its attempt to maintain this illusion.

Even with the weird light playing tricks on his eyes, Nick got to see the full roster of his fellow capes. Shockjock and Leckter were chatting with one another alongside an assortment of other electricity supes while Catterwallop and the rest of the Feline Felons were mingling with a far less thematic group consisting of Heatstroke, Midnight Lance, Ash Stray, and Ion Ink. Plenty of serious threats here, even if most weren't the type that had actually managed to single-handedly hold the city for ransom. Still…

"We're missing the little twerp and her favorite loser," Nick noted to himself as he caught up with Irene, who had managed to wave over Wither Wasp to join her. His roommate chuckled at that while the woman sporting the steel grey insectoid armor tutted in admonishment, amplified by helmet speakers, "Be nice to Terri's new guy. She looked really happy on the TV!" A set of metallic wings stuck on her back buzzed angrily to let him know not to insult members of her little club even by extension.

He gave the former Evil Eight member a weary grin, about to try and diffuse the situation when an angry red eye symbol appeared a few inches from his face, pulsing in warning itself.

"Who's the twerp you mentioned?" Vandal stepped out from behind a corner, her brows crinkling her multicolored blindfold while her nose visibly wrinkled. Sharp Shooter rolled his eyes before remembering his lenses made it impossible for her to see that. Instead he walked through the explosive sigil and ruffled her hair, "You are, kid. But you're in charge here and we're all onboard, so don't take the grumbling personally."

The info broker swatted his hand away while a few other villains chuckled, but no one dared to make fun of her worse than he had. As expected, the eye symbols across her clothes glowed dangerously and so Nick retreated backwards to let her preserve a modicum of respect in front of the other villains as he held up his arms in surrender.

He didn't need to survive the entire elevator ride without causing an incident only to be the one to cause the schemer at the center of this whole operation to self destruct by exposing how much of a little nerd she was in front of everyone else. Even if Nick was pretty sure that all of them knew that by now.

"Anyone else showing up?" Irene stepped forward to catch Vandal's attention, pulling heat off her roommate.

"Nope, this should be everyone," Vandal said, walking past her towards the doors, a few of the others following close behind.

"I thought for sure you'd invited Terror and Menace to this," Leckter muttered. Vandal turned on her heel to face him, "Yep! Told them it started an hour earlier so they're already inside. Gave them time to get set up and look… menacing after thinking everyone else was running late." She said it with a cheeky grin that lacked a single ounce of shame. Nick sighed and rubbed his temples.

He wondered if he had any right to comment on that after how he'd just ruffled all those feathers while Vandal yanked at both handles on the doors to what was no doubt the executive board room of this upcoming office building. Or maybe a cape's hidden lair? Nick was seriously wondering why they'd installed this so early in the construction. He decided to point out the obvious flaw in her plan, "You know, most everyone here is familiar with Terror and him, right?

No matter how much he's rebranded, he's-" Nick's damn mouth clamped shut as he stared past her shoulders once the doors swung open. The room beyond was consumed by darkness, a few portable lights from the construction site fighting a losing battle against what must've been more of Vandal's holoprojectors being deliberately tuned to dampen even their pathetic efforts.

This caused the dark figures of the minions that Nick and the others had seen atop the float from the other night seemed to pool up from the ground like stalagmites across the room, flanking the edges. Their faceless helmets all turned towards the newcomers in unison. A pair of them stood beside a long table taking up the center of the room, positioned roughly halfway up its length and more visible than their counterparts as they basked under the soft illumination cast by a light hung from the ceiling.

They moved back toward the dark edges of the room as though they were curtains being drawn back, revealing a large inhuman shape in the darkness that stirred and rose. Wisps trailed around it as it towered above the baseline humans. Long legs carried the silhouette of what Nick hoped was Terrorantula into the deeper shadows at the edge of the room where she alarmingly vanished. Worse, something else scuttled around unseen in the dark as her own footsteps went silent.

Lots of tapping noises that made the hair on the back of Nick's neck stand straight up, but his eyes couldn't see a speck of movement. Reluctantly, he forced them to center on the space behind where the giant spider woman had vacated as the sounds faded away, looking at the two final occupants of the room who were now visible. The first was in motion. Sand Devil's blood red arms adjusted a large bag sitting atop the table as she leaned into the light.

The demoness seemed unconcerned with the crowd standing in the open door as she made whatever final preparations she had left, her expression a careful mask with harsh shadows carved across her face by the light above her. Straining his eyes, Nick thought he saw the ghost of a smile dance on her lips, all but outright promising mischief to anyone who stepped into the gloom. By contrast, the other seemed almost as much a fixture as the chairs scattered around the table.

It took a moment to recognize him, even if his outfit was clearly inspired by his original costume. Hell, had Nick not known to expect him, he probably wouldn't have figured it out at all. Dark metallic armor wove itself over a red and black costume, contouring softly along his body like a second set of muscles, bulking out only slightly on his forearms and legs. A fur collared mantle was draped over his shoulders, swallowed up by smoke that trailed from his pauldrons like faucets of miasma.

It pooled around him and swallowed the area half a foot from the floor in shifting clouds which spread across the room hungrily. His gaze was impossible to track behind the dimly glowing red visor at the center of his angular helmet, even as his head slowly swept over the newcomers. Nick was convinced he saw two pinpricks of light in that slit of blood-colored glass, but couldn't tell if that was just a reflection of the light or not.

"Did we get the time wrong?" he asked. The voice modulation actually sent a shiver down Nick's spine and he'd spent his entire career around people who spent every weekend trying to perfect their "sinister voice." It made his question rumble in the air with a faint crackle of energy to it that you could mistake for the precursor to violence. The entire scene felt like walking directly into a full blown supervillain's lair, catching them in the middle of planning a global attack with their inner circle.

Godsdamn, it felt like wandering into a League hideout actually, given his experience with those these past few weeks. Less psychopathic vibes from the people around the armored figure but he was getting the same kind of tingles on his spine that he got when he'd surveyed a warehouse that Vandal told him had one of their A rank threats in it.

It took him a moment to shake away his nerves, reminding himself this was Menace of all people, not one of those heavyweights that landed out of nowhere and took the entire cape world by storm by murking a big name hero or villain or whole ass team of either. Irene elbowed him in the side, shooting him a shit-eating grin, no doubt going to let him have it later on how badly he'd just eaten his own words by clamming up like that.

She herself nearly jumped out of her skin when Terrorantula's face suddenly dropped from the ceiling a few inches in front of Vandal, who she'd been standing next to. His roommate wasn't alone as a few other villains who had also made the mistake of following too close behind the little twerp got jump-scared as well.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" pitch black eyes stared daggers through the info broker's blindfold. Vandal herself didn't jolt at the villainess's sudden reappearance, probably due to her powers, even if no neon eyeballs were floating around as far as Nick could see. Still, her voice had a little nervous crack to it when she answered, "Just wanted to give you guys time to set up, that's all!" Terrorantula continued to glare until a buzzing sound caught her attention.

She had only half a second before Wither Wasp collided with her, manic laughter following her as she drove the larger villain back into the shadows with a barrage of questions to accompany the unexpected hug she was suddenly delivering. To Nick's surprise, Leckter was hot on their heels along with both Three Ring and Miner Mole, who he'd missed before, making for an impromptu Evil Eight reunion. Or maybe Evil Five?

Regardless, the group shuffled off to the side, clearing the doorway as they suddenly began chatting with each other like old friends. Thought they hated each other? Nick thought to himself. Was pretty sure that team fell apart due to the drama. Judging by the look on Terror's face, it seems like she thought the same thing. Oh well, I guess if someone took down Sharpshooter a peg, I'd be buying them drinks too.

Menace sighed, drawing attention back to him as he rose from his seat, smoke trailing his movements in a facsimile of an afterimage. Nick wasn't alone in standing ramrod straight as everyone watched this guy, trying to get a bead on how much of this was careful posturing. There was a defensiveness to the air as the other villains eyed him. While the five members of the Evil Eight over there were proof that you could celebrate others' wins in this business, there was also a lot of ego when it came to villainy.

Which meant everyone was trying to figure out if Menace's recent success out of nowhere was a fluke or not. The armored villain stopped just by the end of the table next to his henchmen as he surveyed the crowd eyeing him. His slightly robotic voice had a slightly warm tone to it as he held out an arm, sweeping it across them with his palm held up, "I recognize a lot of you, at least by reputation. Good to be working with you all. Shall we come up with a plan to steal some rocks?"

It was a subtle thing, but his words carefully avoided any implications that he might be in charge or better than the rest of them. Likewise, it avoided being servile and weak. Good, Nick smiled under his mask and strolled forward to be the first to shake his hand, I think we can work with this.

Alex struggled to keep his pulse from spiking after seeing the crowd of villains piling into the dark room that his team had been stewing in for the past hour. A few of his henchmen he'd posted up on a nearby building. They'd seen the gathering crowd from their perch and warned the group inside with every new arrival sneaking onto the construction site.

As the number climbed higher and higher, Alex and the others could only tensely wait in the dimly lit conference room, wondering why not a single one had bothered to touch the doors. The longer this stretched on, the more it had begun to feel like a trap, but Wakeland's men had been rather clear that just about everyone they spotted looked like a villain, so Alex had no choice but to trust- Okay, no he categorically hadn't done that.

His text history for the past thirty minutes could attest to that, being full of messages to Vandal – who had left each of them on read – asking what was going on. In fact, since she'd texted him to wait in this exact room by the holoprojector, she'd not sent a single message. He'd resisted the urge to have the Warriors who had accompanied him in here go and open the door. Despite how cagey she was being, this was Vandal's show and he didn't want to act like he was in charge in the case this wasn't a trap.

Not to mention, his minions outside couldn't track where the other villains were positioned due to the holoprojector out there. If this was an ambush, it was probably better to use the dark to their advantage.

Lyn had used a folding mirror they'd brought along to deploy several of her foot and a half long spiders – which was something she did now and would make him forever nervous about the mirror in her bedroom whenever he slept over from now on – into the shadows around the room in order to respond to threats from any angle while Sand Devil had lined the edges of the room with piles of sand to sense vibrations. To the best of her abilities, she'd confirmed that everyone was gathering right out front and just… talking.

When Devil had noted Vandal's voice outside at almost exactly the hour mark, Alex and Lyn had both figured out the trick here. Still, he did his best to keep himself from getting too mad. Thankfully, his girlfriend's own throttling of Vandal had been thwarted by some of her old friends.

He smiled to himself: Lyn's prediction about how meeting any of her old comrades was going to play out turned out to be incredibly wrong, with Wither Wasp currently asking her a million questions a minute while the rest of the villains shuffled inside. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

To be fair, he hadn't expected to shake this many hands at a meeting like this, especially considering how many of these guys were the type to dominate news cycles in normal times. Even disregarding the Evil Eight, more than a handful of the guys making small talk with him had wrestled with the New Aurora Champions or the other bigshots of the city more than once and walked away from it.

Shockjock over there gave the entire Elemental Aegis a run for their money on his own and the Feline Felons had actually beaten the full lineup of the Crimebreakers one-on-one! He was thankful when Vandal finally called the meeting to order.

"Alright!" she growled performatively.

"That's enough of that. Lord Menace is right. We're here to plan out our Victory Day celebration! So let's get down to it." It was a flurry of movement after that as the room full of villains bee-lined it to empty chairs. There weren't enough to go around, so more than a few people would be forced to stand, though a few larger supes like Con Crete and Lyn were always going to be saddled with that fate.

To Alex's mild surprise, no one tried to snatch the spot by the bags that Devil had laid out, allowing him to settle back down in his own seat, even as the spots next to him were being jostled over. No fights ended up breaking out either, allowing the punk-themed info broker to immediately continue her speech.

"Right… let's get started."

Ned bet that when Azure extended this invitation to him, he had never expected the spider hero to attend every single one of these meetings. Probably thought the "antisocial" hero would want to do anything besides sit in a cramped room with a dozen or so other heroes and go over plans. His mistake, honestly. Despite what some people might think of a solo hero, Ned loved these kind of meetings. People would just tell you what they were planning on doing in the immediate future and where they'd be?

And he didn't have to hack their comms or bribe their support staff with pastries? And full access to enjoy witty cross talk usually at Azure's expense? Sign him up for an entire year's membership, please! It had been hard work to stretch his schedule to make it to both the morning and evening meetings but it had been worth it already.

Despite the magical origins of the Spider Idol of Octagrath which first gave him his powers, Ned wasn't too up to date on spellcraft, so listening to Locke Key Solomon explaining how exactly the Wardkeepers were using scrying magic to narrow the net on Over Seer's movements was fascinating.

And he'd never expected to get insight on the patrol patterns of the Crimebreakers given how they were practically just as fast and loose with Amberheart protocols as he was, so Dragon-by-Day's layout of what areas of the city they were currently focusing on helped Ned better math out the other hero activity in this town. In fact, since at least three or four independent heroes were coming to these regularly, Ned was getting an amazing birds eye view coverage of heroes in this city.

They were surprisingly all eager to share, contrary to what both Ned and Azure had been expecting. At least those that had shown up. The obvious exception cases like Dashback and his team hadn't bothered popping into one of these, but more unaffiliated hero teams than expected had decided to cash in on the invitation and spill the deets on where they wore grooves in the pavement.

Plus there was the report data that Amberheart staff members would helpfully throw together on a map sourced from the various heroes, Tower or otherwise, who were reporting back to them. Frankly, Ned had never seen so much information on the capes of this city, even with all the extra legwork he put in on the regular. Unfortunately, as expected, Azure got his wish, and this "complete" view of the city was all filtered through the lens of fighting villains.

While about thirty percent of these meetings did involve the civic planning of the Victory Day celebrations, the rest of these meetings were all about tracking threats across the city. For now, that meant the League, but the independent heroes brought in were all too excited to shift the conversation to familiar masks in their neighborhoods when the Tower capes discussed security concerns or patrol routes.

Locations were being mapped out to convert less trafficked or more contained locations into "safe battlegrounds" where heroes could draw their fights towards so they make the most of their abilities without worrying about civilians being caught in the crossfire. Just... converting playgrounds, basketball courts, parking lots, and other familiar facets of everyday life into arenas.

Villains were only being referred to by their codenames and all the talk about them was just concerned with their powers or strategies to fight them. It made Ned's skin crawl every single time. These were people. People who had made awful decisions but they were being reduced down to "threats" and "targets" over the course of these conversations. The few instances where pictures of them when they were out of costume were shown all ended up being mugshots and evidence photos from crime scenes.

This didn't even just apply to League villains either. Last night, Ned had needed to keep himself from storming out when an anecdote about Prime Ape had led to a comparison to Monkey Wrench, a retired villain who had left the city entirely. Amberheart staff were more than happy to throw a collection of twenty year old photos up on screen regardless, prompting Steel Wall to ask for a threat assessment since he recognized a statue in one of them which was nearby his usual patrol.

Even after Ned had explained that Cecil Cook had served his time ten years ago and wouldn't be a threat, the other hero had still wanted to get a rundown of the man's powers "just in case." Ned took a deep breath, trying not to let that memory ruin this morning as he waited in hallway for today's meeting. He was determined to make this one more productive, especially since Azure had hinted last night that they were going to be going over the main street festival's volunteer work.

Which was why he wasn't surprised to see Dashback appear out of the elevator at the end of the hall today. The speedster had made it more than clear that he cared most about this one particular aspect of the celebrations more than anything. He was definitely going to be here. What did surprise him was the naked scowl on the man's face when he looked down the hall.

Okay, sure, Dashback probably was permanently rocking a look which said "I don't want to be in this darn tower a second longer than I have to be," but that particular venomous glare seemed directed at someone in particular. Ned got the impression it wasn't being sent his way, so he risked a subtle glance over his own shoulder, where a few other heroes were milling around while the staff members were busy setting up the room for them. Let's see…

No Azure, so the easy answer's out, but we've got Flying Fist, Commodore Crystal, Astra Alice, Determiner, Blue Blaster and Red Rocker, N. Cog N2, Reflecta, and… Ice Hawk, Ned frowned, feeling like he had his answer, but curious as to the particulars. In the brief moment he looked away, Dashback had closed the distance, putting a hand on his shoulder. Ned stopped himself from leaping backwards to gain distance on reflex, which looked like a flinch but was totally different.

"Sorry, need to borrow you," the man grumbled before yanking the spider hero away at super-speed. Ned shook off the disorientation as a new scene came into focus. He felt the lingering effects of whatever accelerating force gave Dashback his powers – which also conveniently kept them from pulping others when he did something like that – bleeding off his body as he looked around. They were only a few hallways down, but it was worrying how few defenses Ned had against being kidnapped like that.

He made a mental note to have accelerometer based defenses installed in his next round of upgrades, obviously with a manual toggle to ensure he didn't zap a friendly giving him a ride. As he considered that, Dashback began speaking, "Look, I don't trust any of you Tower capes anymore since Voltage retired. ¹ Don't think just cause Azure hates you means I like you. I don't care that you're apparently hot shit just cause the rest of the free masks see you around neighborhoods."

"Okay." Ned flatly replied, feeling uncomfortably close to sharing Azure's opinions on this speedster as the man danced around whatever grievances had prompted him to snatch him away at superspeed. The man seemed committed to being as prickly as possible. Dashback's mouth quirked at Ned's tone, but thankfully he just shook his head and continued, "Whatever. Look, the point is that I'm going to trust that your little tiff with Big Blue is real and that you're not just putting on an act, Webby."

"Tiff?!" Ned mimed clutching pearls.

"I'll have you know that my relationship with Azure is at least a scuffle. Maybe even a quarrel."

"Don't fuck with me right now," Dashback fixed him with a glare that even his dorky over-sized goggles couldn't hide.

"I'm trusting you to give me the straight take here, but I will walk from this whole thing if you're gonna be just as big a pain in my ass as Azure is." Ned crossed his arms, "You want to get to the point? Is this about Ice Hawk?" Dashback had absolutely no poker face. Jolting at the name and wearing his surprise all over his face, "Wait. You know what happened?"

"No," Ned said sourly, letting his eye roll animation play out.

"I caught your glare and… well, I want to hear from you first." Dashback studied him for a moment before sighing, "Look, the other night, his team was covering for mine while we did some recon work. Following up on a few League perps that the High Rise Heroes tracked to our turf. Couldn't find their hideyhole but we did stumble across a weapons cache they'd set up a dozen blocks away from the park.

Would've tried picking up the trail again, but your tower clerks asked us to stick around for the Arrestors so no one grabbed the rayguns and split. So we passed the tracking job over to Pike and her girls. The trio could use some more notches on their belt anyways." Ned disabled his auto animations again, just knowing that Dashback was definitely going to mark him as a villain apologist if he reacted to any of his phrasing regarding the "perps" he was chasing.

"Anyways, we figured we'd do a quick patrol just to let the civvies see their actual heroes for the day. And that's when I think I saw someone you might recognize," Dashback gave a knowing smile that Ned didn't like. The spider hero kept his voice neutral, "Oh?"

"Yeah, only saw her from the back, but she was that crazy chick with all the colorful arrows on her suit," Dashback said.

"The one driving that float from the other day for that Menace bastard." Turnaround. Ned had looked into her back when he'd first seen the footage from the P. H. O. T. O. N. warehouse fight, wanting to know exactly who Evelyn had pulled into her schemes. His extensive research had him believing she might have a little bit of a daredevil streak to her, but she definitely wasn't "crazy" as Dashback put it.

A C rank villain with more than a few violent incidents on her record, but one mostly motivated by greed and maybe an adrenaline high. It was important to get the motivations right rather than reduce the act of superpowered crime down to insanity. It. Was. Important.

"What happened?" Ned asked, fighting to keep the edge out of his voice. Dashback grimaced, "I saw her walking alone in the park without a care in the world. Well, kind of unsteady to be honest, but that might just be how she walks given her powers. All on her own but dressed in her costume. Recognized her instantly. I called out to her but she didn't react, telling her to stop." Her powers definitely didn't give her an odd way of walking. Concerning.

Unfortunately Forestwall didn't have that many cameras for Ned to pull footage off of and check the woman's condition, so he'd have to rely on Dashback's retelling of the story. The speedster continued quickly, "I rushed in front of her to cut her off and she finally reacted. Tried to make a run for it when another speedster attacked me out of nowhere. Never did see who they were after they sucker punched me." That would probably be Turnaround's teammate… Uh… Someone? Ned would look up her name again later.

"You never saw them?" Ned asked, figuring that Dashback would at least jump back pretty quick. Most speedsters he knew were devilishly difficult to keep knocked down. He shook his head, wanting to get to the point, "Wait, how does Ice Hawk factor into this?" The other hero frowned, "You mind letting me finish? Like I said, his team was supposed to be looking over the park, which should be easy from the air, but somehow he only saw that Turnaround chick after her friend hit me and ran away with her.

I saw him give chase and figured… we'd work together." An obvious lie that Dashback didn't even bother to put much effort into. It was clear he didn't want an Amberheart cape to show him up. Still, Ned had a pretty good idea of how this story was going to go. Call it… first hand experience.

"Let me guess," he interrupted, "you ended up slipping on a patch of ice during the chase?" The leader of the Park Patrol snarled, "Look, if you're implying something-""Not about you." Dashback met his gaze and his lip fell like a curtain, covering his teeth slowly, "Yeah… the ground got kind of tricky. And when they broke out of the park and made it into the city proper, he tried a trick with some ice walls. Only he didn't end up boxing in the right cape."

Ned crossed his arms, "Let me guess, he 'wasn't used to working with you'?" Dashback leaned against the nearby wall, "You want to fill me in? This a regular thing around here? Getting competitive over who wins the chase?" Ned shook his head, "No. No, that's not how most of the heroes here work."

"But certain ones?" Ned looked up, scanning for security cameras. None in sight but he knew Amberheart sprung for some decent mics. So he whispered, "Can't say. But I'm keeping my eyes open." Dashback chewed on his words for once, "Alright. Whatever this shit is, feels like it's Tower bullshit I don't need in my life. I already gave him a shiner for that shit so I'll keep my cool for now. But I don't want his team in Forestwell again or there will be trouble."

He leaned in and whispered himself, "If you're looking into this, I'll leave it to you. But I want your word that you'll let me in if that asshole turns out to need an asskicking." All too eager to jump to violence, Ned frowned behind his mask but he nodded all the same. He was reminded of his promise with Thana to keep her looped in when it came to a certain someone as well. So many people wanted his word that he was going to help them hurt others for some reason.

"Good," Dashback seemed satisfied.

"Well, let's get back already. I think we're probably late by this point." Ned sighed, imagining that Azure probably thought he was finally skipping one of these meetings. It wasn't his fault! He'd been dragged away by- WAIT! NO! The spider hero was suddenly standing in the meeting room, all eyes on him and Dashback as the door slammed shut behind them.

"Ah… I see you two are joining us," Azure said through his teeth.

"Great. Well, take your seat already. We've got a lot to cover."