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The parade was going well so far, the people were enjoying themselves, and Austin didn’t even need to step out of his lab to tell. Every news outlet from across the state of New York was talking about Castleburg and HERO’s big day. People had come from out of town, schedules vacations and drove hundreds of miles for this day.

But unlike all of them, Austin was more content to sit back and observe. In his lab, a maze of esoteric machines and dangerous weapons, he sat in a leather chair with his one eye glued to an array of screens, arranged in a honeycomb pattern. One of the screens showed the collective footage of a dozen security cameras overlooking the orientation for the newest heroes. Another broadcast a live news coverage of the parade itself. A screen for real time data on an experiment he was running in the back of his lab, a screen for schedules of active heroes… Screens, screens, and more screens. To anyone other than Austin, it would’ve just been a useless cacophony of sensory overload. But this was simple to him, all the information being thrown at him felt like watching paint dry as he took everything in.

Austin was never one for parades or the spotlight that came with being a hero. People looked up to heroes that defeated evil and served as beacons of hope, and Austin defeated evil with weapons and showing no more than the legally bare minimum about of mercy they were to be given. That just wasn’t his scene.

Austin was hoping today would just be a relatively lazy day, but then his Lexicon- which was way cooler than those smartwatches- sent him a message.

[quote]

[color=lightslategray]"Attention, heroes. I need a group of you to assist me at the Johnstone Convention Center. If you are available, please come and meet behind the stage. You will be rewarded for your time."[/color]

[/quote]

That, unfortunately, included him.

He tapped a button on the wrist computer’s interface, opening up a channel. [color=a90000]”Wiseman here, give me ten minutes. On my way.”[/color]

He switched the screen setup off, and got ready.

[hr]

Eight and a half minutes later, Wiseman walked up to the Johnstone Convention Center, in his full armor and strapped with all of his weapons. A red and white suit of combat armor, and a helmet fitted with a complicated visor. On his back was a rifle that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, and there was an equally high-tech looking knife holstered at his belt. Wiseman had a feeling he knew exactly why Powers was dragging heroes out here, there were two realistic possibilities.

Either a villain was attempting to make use of crowded area to sow uncontrollable chaos by attacking the center of the parade, or the Director was just looking for an excuse to put the rest of them in the same position as him. If the second happened, Wiseman would probably just walk off the stage and go about his business.

So when he found others present, Blast, Amune, Ardent and Terra… He considered leaving before even approaching them.

Oh well. He walked up to them regardless, hearing bits of their conversation. [color=a90000]”The most likely reason for calling us here is that Director Powers wants to show us off to the public. He doesn’t like giving speeches, and he has a sense of humor,”[/color] Wiseman commented, explaining his guess as to why Powers wasn’t even here at the moment.

[color=a90000]”He might not show up at all.”[/color]

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Mire did [i]not[/i] want to be here. Only a week after getting free from that lifeless box, and they were shipped across the land to this city of metal and concrete. And they could [i]stand[/i] all this noise. They had been escorted to island called “Savior,” by those creepy humans in the suits, and told to look for the assistant director. Mire felt like they were a grain of sand in a desert, without the millions of eyes and ears they had in the woods… They couldn’t even hear where to go, so they had to use their “eyes” to properly get around.

This “hero orientation” thing was grating to them, they never wanted to be this close to humans or be a “hero” at all. It pissed them off, being in this city what stank of trash and wasted nutrients, almost as much as being held against their will like a prisoner of war. But according to the humans, they were simply too interesting to be left alone, so now they were a slave.

More trudged along the grass of the Savior Island in the closest thing to quiet they had gotten in a while. The humans had encouraged them to not mind the looks of abject horror at other humans who grew pale in the face when Mire walked by, even when they started dialing numbers in their phones and shouted, [i]”Call the heroes! There’s a monster on the loose!”[/i] Unfortunately, some innocent bystanders who were simply enjoying their day had gotten a snarl, a loud warning to leave Mire alone and a profound scare for their troubles… If telling people to fuck off and leave them alone was all it took to be a “hero,” then maybe they’d be fine.

Eventually, the fungal horror caught a glimpse of several humans having a conversation. One of them looked to be vaguely dressed like the suited humans that Mire had been brought to this island by, so they hobbled closer, appearing only a few feet behind Emily Duff and speaking in a [i]disgusting[/i] voice. Like a person trying not to choke on hot candle wax, filtered through a broken ham radio.

[color=88FF00]”Are you the human I was made to talk to?”[/color] They asked, in brazen disregard for all of the other humans present.