Paradigm Shift: Monolith of the Rebellion

Levitate chuckles a bit and glances at Monolith, "I like how you refer to us as second in command and lieutenants. When did we decide on putting rankings on us?"

"If I'm a lieutenant, do I get to order Uber and Leet around?"

Monolith shrugged "When I wanted to talk you guys up because you deserve it. Really, it doesn't matter that much."

He paused at Sandstorms question "So long as you don't get them to run out on us before they build us tech, then yes."

A few moments of silence passed, the four costumed and newly-branded heroes standing in a rough circle facing one another before Sandstorm cleared her throat. "So...what now? Back to base?"

Monolith nodded "Soon, right before you make sure this doesn't have a tracker on it." He said, tossing her the phone Armsmaster had given him.

Sandstorm caught it, held it in one hand while her other hand dissolved into a not-entirely-solid stream of nanoparticles and swept across it. "No trackers...I think. But they could still probably figure out where the phone is if they wanted to."

"Can't win them all." London mutters "Well, that's not exactly surprising. But for now, we should probably tell everyone else the result of the meeting. Then, I have a few questions I would like to ask you and Leet for our next project."

"...you want me to work with Leet?" Sandstorm sounded understandably reluctant.

London stopped, and thought over what he just said "No, I want to ask the two of you some questions. You don't have to work together. I have a feeling you'd rather avoid that."

"Thank god."

"So General Armstrong, what is this next project you speak of?"

Monolith opened his mouth, but then stopped "Who is General Armstrong?"

"N-nothing. Nevermind. Moving on" Levitate looks away and wishes to drop the subject about the nickname.

At that point they likely returned to what Uber and Leet were desperately trying to name "The Batcave."

Monolith heard this, and stared the two of them down "The batcave? Really?"

"Yes."

"It works, it's a secret underground base loaded with high-tech gadgetry"

"Not to mention I'm super rich and a skilled everything, like Bruce Wayne himself."

"Who would be nothing if not for all his gadgets, built by me."

"Nothing except a loaded super genius detective who also happens to be incredibly handsome. Also like me."

"... doesn't also Batman punch criminals until they surrender? Like, me?"

Sandstorm saw an opportunity to leave and did so, heading into the other room.

"Superpowers don't count."

"You have superpowers, you scrub."

"But I have Batman's superpowers, for a given value of superpowers."

"Batman doesn't have powers. He's just naturally that badass."

"So am I."

"You literally just said powers don't count."

There was a pause.

"Anyway, no, you'd be a nerfed Martian Manhunter. Or Vision, if we aren't sticking to DC."

Monolith didn't know who those people were, so he started to leave as well. But as he left he glanced back "Your access to materials doubles if you can shorten the time on that project of yours."

After he left, he joined Sandstorm and sat down on the only other chair in her lab "I regretted my decision the second my mouth opened. How did you deal with that for months on end?"

"Headphones, a Spotify playlist and booze for the particularly bad days. That doesn't work anymore, but I think I could automatically filter out the sound of their voices if I tried to hard enough..." She looked thoughtful.

"Booze still works for me, and I would take any headphones you can make." London comments.

He waves the thought aside "Anyway, how are your projects going?"

She waved a hand. "Fine. Right now, I'm working on the interface between the nervous system and the controls, for the communicator I mentioned."

---

Calvin and Stan had finally settled their argument, it seemed. They approached Tom. "Hey, you're second-in-command, right? Behind London?" Stan asked him.

---

Damien, meanwhile, was approached by a rather irritated-looking Wyatt. "Damien. Got a minute to talk?"

Damien looks over at Wyatt with a confused raising brow, but he still nods. "Yeah, sure." Gesturing Wyatt to sit next to him.

London nodded "That will certainly be useful. But once that is done, I have something in mind. A challenge, if you would."

"yeah, what's up?"