Paradigm Shift: Monolith of the Rebellion

Wyatt sat down on one of the spare barstools. "So, we're heroes now. How did that happen?"

***

"Oh, really?" Kirika tilted her head, regarding London with a curious expression. "And what exactly did you have in mind?"

***

"Great."

"So, you know how we have that website, right? The one with the links to our Twitch and YouTube channels? We haven't uploaded anything for a while and it's going to start looking bad if all we have is just backlog footage."

Damien shrugged his shoulders a bit. "i'm asking myself the same thing. One moment we were robbing from a casino the next BAM we are now official heroes. Why? You having second thoughts?"

"After the... debacle with Empire 88, I figured it would be best to improve everyone's durability, or give us some weapons that could be use at any time. Would it be possible to build nanobots that reinforce bone or skin, heal? Or in my case, design them to turn into weapons that my power can then harden to invertibility?" London asks.

"What does this have to do with me?" Tom asked, not liking where this conversation was going.

"Sorta. I don't like the idea of working with 'official heroes.' They're not any good at their jobs, otherwise this city wouldn't be such a shithole. They won't take any steps to actually deal with villains. Cops have had the right to shoot people for decades, go after criminals in their homes with the right evidence but capes? Nope. Fuck if that makes any sense." Wyatt groused.

***

Kirika was silent for a moment or two. "Yeah, that'd be pretty easy to do actually. Carbon nanotubes are actually really easy to build inside a human body...uh, not that I've tried it or anything. As for the armor...yeah, I think I know how we could do that. It might get a bit fiddly though, depending on how high you can increase the mass of it."

***

"Well, you're in charge-"

"Except for London"

"-yes, except for London, so we wanted to make sure you're alright with us streaming our patrols and stuff"

"What were you thinking of doing?"

"Yeah...politics." Damien sighs as he looks back down at his drink. "It's all about images. The golden age hero image. Where all our action must be what little children want to see in those saturday cartoons. No necessary killing, no ridding the murdering psycho. "Do what's right." He looks back at Wyatt, "It's easier not to think about it."

London shifted slightly "My max density is... well I tried it once. Long story short I brought down the equivalent of a skyscraper."

Tom

"Well, since we need some new footage, we figure we can either go out in costume ourselves or stream your guys' fights."

"Yeah, it's not exactly our normal stuff, but if PHO is any indicator people want to know more about us. Impetus, I mean, not us two, they already know us." Calvin added. "The drone broadcasts on an adjustable delay, usually a few hours, because contrary to popular belief we're not idiots and we don't want people to stream-snipe us IRL." Yes, he actually said it "eye-are-ell."

Stan gave him a disapproving look before continuing. "Besides, you kinda look like Lucio, London's outfit has the whole Artorias thing going and I guess Levitate looks like Matt Miller if you squint. So it's not too far outside our wheelhouse anyway."

"Yeah, and Wyatt's a colossal prick and Kirika doesn't speak to us anyway so who cares about them."

***
Damien

Wyatt snorted. "Sure, it's easier. But somebody's gotta think about it, otherwise the dipshits in charge get to keep covering their own asses at the expense of everyone else. And now we have to do what they tell us, too. Didn't think London would agree to that, to be honest. Thought he'd tell 'em to get bent...I guess the paycheck and the fame looked a little too sweet." He sounded bitter.

***
London

"What do you mean by 'equivalent' of a skyscraper?" Kirika asked, curious.

"A small mountain or a very, very, very large boulder. I was young and in a fight with another brute. He tried to get into an argument with me and I came out with the stronger opinion." London said, squeamishly.

"Then tell me, why did you join? You still had the choice of not joining am I right?"

"As long as you don't do anything too dangerous for civilians to get hurt, I'm fine with it. "

"I see." Kirika was silent for a minute. "Yeah, we might as well try building it and if it doesn't work well, we can always modify it after the fact. Add more layers of nanobots, you know?"

***

Wyatt thought that over. "Dunno, actually. I might end up leaving the team if this doesn't work out."

***

"Of course not. We're heroes now."

"Have to keep that positive karma. It's basically like Fallout, except without mini-nukes."

"You can build mini-nukes."

"...you know, I'm pretty sure I can, actually."

"Great, I'll be around whenever you need me." London says getting up.

He walked out and found Wyatt and Damian, stopping when he saw Wyatt's less than pleased expression "Everything alright?"

"Till then, let's drink. Enjoy ourselves and watch each other's back."

"We aren't building mini-nukes, that will go badly for all of us.

Uber and Leet sighed, shaking their heads.

***

Wyatt shrugged at London's question. "You tell me." With that, he left the room, leaving Damien to field further questions

London sighed, this was obvious.

"Give me a minute." He said to Damian before following Wyatt.

The second that he was in sight he said "When I first met you, you asked if I was willing to do things that the Protectorate wouldn't. And I tell you this, on my life, Lung and Kaiser will not remain breathing for much longer, no matter what our new allies might say."

Wyatt regarded him for a long moment, saying nothing. Finally, he nodded. "Good." He still didn't seem happy, but he seemed like he would deal with it for the moment.

***

The remainder of the evening passed without incident, leaving it up to London and Tom when Impetus would next take to the field and what they would do when they got there.

London brought Tom into the backroom, just the two senior members of Impetus.

He shifted next to the wall "Before I start, is there anything I should know about?"

"Well Uber and Leet are off doing livestreams, other than that everything is normal around here. What's up?"

London blinked "Back up, Uber and Leet are livestreaming?"

"Well as they said it, they aren't livestreaming but they're on a couple hour delay.  so they will be more difficult to track. "

London felt the need to drink very badly "I need to have a serious talk with them." he muttered.

He shook it off "But in any case, we're going to be making another pass at the ABB soon."

"Well I'm game, what's the plan?"