The Gauntlet - Part 3
“Victory Girl! Saviour or Menace! As per the police report, the only reason for last evening’s violent showdown by three Evolveds in the city’s commercial district was to defeat the newly anointed ‘Strongest Superheroine in the World’ by a popular publication. Ever since Victory Girl was given this title, the otherwise peaceful Bayside City has seen a sharp rise in the number of Evolved crimes as many come to challenge the city’s champion, while indulging in a little crime spree on the side. Some have in fact admitted that the only reason they went on a crime spree is to get her attention. How many more…”
She switches off the news. Almost every local channel is playing a version of that story. The three idiots just went around announcing that the only reason they were terrorising the city was to defeat this ‘fake strongest hero’ and claim the title for themselves. She headed to the balcony of her penthouse suite in the tallest building in the city. Before her, the entire city seemed to spread in every direction. She turned around and looked at the large apartment that she now lived in and wondered how many people it could accommodate.
Shortly after E-Division started and she selected Bayside City as her base of operations, she ended up saving the life of one of the richest billionaires in the country. As his show of appreciation, he offered her the penthouse suite in the tallest apartment building in the city. “A most fitting abode for the sentinel of this fine city” said his statement. She was all set to turn down the offer when one of her advisors from E-Division told her to accept it, to encourage corporate interest in the country’s fledgling Evolved law enforcement program.
So she found herself living in a house that she thought was too big for her, keeping mostly to a handful of spaces where she felt comfortable. More importantly, she tried to spend as much time away from it as possible. She secretly wished she could go back to the life of anonymity but she had her responsibilities to shoulder now. And it all came back to how she was now a danger to the inhabitants of the city, even if all of them didn’t feel that way right now.
She switches off the news. Almost every local channel is playing a version of that story. The three idiots just went around announcing that the only reason they were terrorising the city was to defeat this ‘fake strongest hero’ and claim the title for themselves. She headed to the balcony of her penthouse suite in the tallest building in the city. Before her, the entire city seemed to spread in every direction. She turned around and looked at the large apartment that she now lived in and wondered how many people it could accommodate.
Shortly after E-Division started and she selected Bayside City as her base of operations, she ended up saving the life of one of the richest billionaires in the country. As his show of appreciation, he offered her the penthouse suite in the tallest apartment building in the city. “A most fitting abode for the sentinel of this fine city” said his statement. She was all set to turn down the offer when one of her advisors from E-Division told her to accept it, to encourage corporate interest in the country’s fledgling Evolved law enforcement program.
So she found herself living in a house that she thought was too big for her, keeping mostly to a handful of spaces where she felt comfortable. More importantly, she tried to spend as much time away from it as possible. She secretly wished she could go back to the life of anonymity but she had her responsibilities to shoulder now. And it all came back to how she was now a danger to the inhabitants of the city, even if all of them didn’t feel that way right now.
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