@Leophael @myinneroblivion @ShadowsofNight
Talia was discrete with her arrival to CHAMP HQ. She was welcomed by Paul, who looked significantly more tired than before, likely from watching over his injured best friend. He may have been the most mundane member of their team of heroes, but his dedication and loyalty were anything but mundane. "Ah, Ms. Talia right? Manny is in the apartment waiting for you guys. If you don't mind, I'll go catch a few more hours of sleep." The tired man said as he let the woman in as he turned the open sight to a closed sign. It was a slow day for the laundromat-café anyway.
Bob however, the athletic and adventurous man that he was, opted to put what he learned from Talia into practice. Unlike a few days ago where the sight of the masked hero warranted concerned looks and a few calls to the Hero City police, now there were significantly less concerned looks on the faces of the citizens and even some were actively taking pictures and videos of the impromptu acrobatic performance of the hero that would surely be posted online. As he reached the window to Manny's lackluster apartment, the window was already conveniently open. It seemed that Manny anticipated the Jersey Devil's preferred way of entering HQ.
As soon as the two entered the apartment that smelled of a machine shop, they saw Manny standing there with a proud smile on his face and a newspaper in his hands. "I got loads of good news!...
andsomebadinconvenientnews." His rapid-fire stream of words almost made the last part of the sentence incoherent. But before he did anything else, he shows the two the newspaper headline that read that the hero team of the Ele-Men thwarted a bank robbery perpetrated by the Super Villain Hammer Head, showing the element themed hero team atop the stolen money while a colossal shark man laid unconscious beside the money. But that wasn't what Manny was pointing to. Delegated to a side story beside the main headline it read 'Mysterious Heroes thwart Drug Den' with a little and negligible photo of the Nox Nightclub with Bucur and Facade detained at the Downtown General Hospital.
"We made it to the headlines!" He said with no small amount of mirth. "Not only that, the Rent-a-Hero cash came by today." He puts down the newspaper on the coffee table and almost sprints to the sealed envelopes atop the kitchen counter before handing Talia and Bob one each. "The base pay of the job of busting Bucur plus the drug den bust and villain detainment bonus leads to the grand total of..." he drums his hands on the motor oil stained surface of the kitchen counter. "Two thousand dollars. Each." He then proudly extends his hands to his sides before letting them fall to his sides. "And people say that hero work would get you killed, broke, or both. We're proof that those naysayers wrong."
He'd left out the bad news for last hoping that by some stroke of luck he didn't have to say it. But he couldn't lie to his team. "For the bad news...well I kind of fried the Gadgeteer Suit's power source so I'll be off hero work until I fix it or find a replacement." He scratches the back of his head. He really didn't want to tell more bad news but they had to know. "Uhh...also Talia. I received an email from your parents. They're...uhh. They're not happy. Brenner did his best and Paul has kept our records safe but I guess some journalists have seen your performances before and did some thorough digging and connected the dots to the 'mysterious' acrobat that busted the Nox." He begins twiddling his thumbs together. "They said they were taking the next flight here to talk...s-sorry."
