Chapter Text
uack… Quack… Quack Quack.
Tommy squeezed his eyes shut tighter at the sound of his alarm going off. He’d changed it to the quacking sound because he thought it would make waking up more exciting. He was very, very wrong. Unfortunately. He swung an arm over his face until it went quiet. Though, eight or so minutes later, it went off again and he just groaned before swinging his arm over to grab his phone and turn it off.
He should probably get up to go to work. Ugh. If he didn’t show up would he get fired? …could heroes get fired? He had no idea, though, quite frankly, he didn’t really enjoy the idea of testing his luck and losing his job.
Eventually, as most people unfortunately do, he swung his legs off the side of the bed and got up. He groaned and half-heartedly rubbed sleep from his eyes. It didn’t help, he could still feel the fatigue in his bones. Sleeping had been getting harder and harder as of recent.
He glanced at the blanket he’d kicked to the floor and decided that he’d deal with it later as he walked over to his dresser to grab his hero shit out. He pulled on his black cargo pants (that had some cute little light gray stripes towards the bottom that he quite liked), then his off-gray sweater, and pulled a black face mask as well as a raccoon mask that only covered the top half of his face on. He added some armor to protect him since that sweater wasn’t going to protect shit and then struggled with his combat boots for a solid three minutes. He grabbed his fun looking medieval-esc cape and clipped it around his shoulders before shoving out the door of his room.
He stopped in the bathroom to think about brushing his teeth, fix his hair, forget about brushing his teeth, do one last check to make sure everything looked good in the mirror, and then darted out of there as well. He grabbed a handful of granola bars from the kitchen to get him through the day (he’d probably snag real food from the cafeteria later), and then darted out the door when he realized it was eight in the morning and he was supposed to have been at work an hour ago.
He was just so good at showing up on time.
If a hero were to get fired for always being tardy it would probably be him.
…Probably.
It would be really great if Tommy had a car. He was the 2nd highest ranking hero in the city for crying out loud. Buuut Tommy was 16, had no time to get a drivers license, and didn’t quite believe in his abilities to drive if he tried. And thus, at eight in the morning, many people have fallen victim to the sight of a top ranking hero absolutely booking it down the street in the direction of The Hero’s Spectacle.
Spectacle. Stupid word for such an ugly building, Tommy grimaced every time he thought about it.
Honestly, running for maybe 15-30 minutes depending on foot traffic was pretty useful for his field of work! It woke him up in the mornings, served as good exercise to improve his endurance and stamina (that he admittedly lacked a lot of before this came about), and honestly, once he’d gotten used to it it turned out to be pretty relaxing. Thankfully not too many people were wandering the streets most days, since most had already made it to work or were currently getting ready, which meant that he didn’t have to deal with a whole load of people every morning.
Like that once time he’d face-planted into a guy.
Not his best moment.
As he finally reached the Spectacle he took out his little ID card… thing and showed it to the security people out front before scanning it on the door to let himself in. He showed it to the security people inside who gave him a thumbs up, to which he responded with a little salute. He ruffled his hair as he passed an annoyingly placed mirror in the lobby. Literally why would you need a mirror in the lobby?
He reached the elevator with a grimace as he thought about going on it. There were so many days where he considered just taking the stairs because he hated the elevator. Unfortunately he had to get to the 20th floor and going up that many flights of stairs sounded like the worst thing ever.
He scanned his ID on the door and hit the 20th button, gripping tightly onto the rails inside the elevator. The elevator doors shut and with a jolt and a lurch of his gut, went whirring upwards. Jesus Christ. The day that they realized that an elevator that went up smoothly and nicely would be preferable to a sickeningly quick elevator was the day that Tommy could retire in peace. This shit sucked.
Once the elevator doors opened he stepped into the room. It was surprisingly quiet today. Then again, since this floor was mainly for the higher ranking heroes, he supposed it was always a little quieter so long as there wasn't a mass amount of chaos.
The number one hero, Pluto, was sitting at a table in the corner along with Transmute. Tommy scrunched his nose up a little. He had never liked Pluto much, something about the ram horns maybe. Or just the fact that he was rich and pretentious, but y’know. Transmute was pretty chill though, Tommy liked working with him since he was generally pretty level headed.
Tommy walked past them to his own little corner by a window, sitting at a red booth (he’s a liar, it's pretty much a couch). He grabbed some files out of his bag and set them on the table to look over them. He had like 5 patrol reports to fill out… which nothing happened recently so that would just be boring and he really didn’t want to do that right now. He had some merch deals some interns had thrown at him and… that was surprising about it. Cool. His interns did their jobs. He loved that. He hoped they got paid well.
“Theseus!” He heard Pluto call from the opposite corner of the room.
Aw, man. He didn’t like people. Boo.
He bit back a groan and just pushed to his feet and walked over, standing by the table Pluto and Transmute were sitting at and crossing his arms.
“Yeah?” He tipped his head.
Transmute jumped in before Pluto could, “We wanted to ask you if you also thought it was suspicious how quiet The Syndicate has been recently? I mean- I know there was that sighting down near that bakery by Kinoko recently, but nothing really came out of that, so I’d say they’ve been dead quiet for almost a month now.” The man rambled, raking a hand through his hair. His lips were tipped down into a frown, the scar that ran down his face and through his lip shifted in a slightly odd way.
Yeah, that was true. The heroes hadn’t really engaged with a single notable Syndicate member for a long while. Hell, it had been well over a month since Tommy’s last altercation. Truthfully, he hadn’t really thought about it, he’d just been complaining that work had been boring (which in his line of work was unfortunately a good thing).
“You’re right,” Tommy nodded, “They’ve been eerily quiet. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were planning something insane. Did they do anything notable last time we saw them, anything that might hint towards something?” He leaned on the table, gesturing towards the files on the table. He honestly would rather just fuck around and find out but Sam had gotten a little bit mad at him recently for doing so, so he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have an actual conversation with other heroes about their theories.
Ugh how come he was expected to do his job when he was at work?
Evil. Absolutely evil. It should definitely not be allowed.
Pluto chimed in, those ram horns of him nearly taking out poor Transmute’s eyes and he ducked under them. “Not particularly, though it can be noted that Zephyrus was making some hefty threats when engaging with our heroes recently.” He cleared his throat before continuing, “Namely, oddly enough, retired heroes such as Warden and Captain. He mentioned a lot of things regarding Pandora’s Vault, from some sort of prison break, to even just destroying the whole thing where it stands.”
Tommy stiffened a little, “Does Warden know?” He inquired sharply.
Pluto nodded, “He was contacted shortly after this, they’ve been on high guard for a few months. Though, I don’t know that even The Syndicate could do much to that place.” He huffed.
Tommy nodded slowly as he turned the information around in his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted to try something on the prison. Though, are there any Syndicate members currently within it?” He tipped his head curiously once more.
Both of the heroes shook their heads.
“Which is what makes this theory so odd.” Transmute explained, wings fanning out a little behind him. “What would the syndicate gain in harming the prison? Nobody they’re even associated with is currently in the prison’s records, so it would seemingly be for no reason.”
“And they hardly ever do something drastic without a serious reason.” Tommy finished off as he thought, heel bouncing on the ground like it had a mind of it’s own as he considered this.
Pluto hummed in confirmation. “And if an infiltration of the most secure prison in the whole damn country isn’t drastic, then I don’t know what is.” He laughed a little gruffly and Tommy had to keep himself from rolling his eyes.
After several moments of silence Tommy just nodded again. “I’ll think it over, if I find anything I’ll bring it back to you two.” He hummed as he took a step backward and gave them a little salute as he turned around.
“Sounds good!” Transmute called out as Tommy retreated back to his little nook.
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Sam’s footsteps fell heavily, echoing in the relatively empty halls of the prison. Bring a damn retired hero into work everyday over some silly threats, genius. If Phil was idiotic enough to try and get near his prison then he was even more deranged than Sam had initially thought.
He knew that Sam had a card above him… but Phil had cards against him as well. They both knew each other’s identities, and frankly Phil probably knew more of Sam’s than Sam did his… but Phil was damn lucky Sam had enough respect not to have turned him in years ago.
He got to his office and tossed his trident to the ground, it fell with a clatter of metal he didn’t bother to check. It would be fine. His eyes narrowed as he stared at all the cameras. Nothing. Just like it had been for months.
A part of him was practically begging for The Syndicate to go back to their usual activity. He wanted to spend his days at home with Ponk and Fran, not in this cold (or sweltering hot) prison that remained dead silent no matter how many inmates it housed.
He clenched his teeth together and hit a button to get the prisoners their lunch. He’d been so damn bored he’d turned off the automatic systems for that.
He’d spoken to Tommy a week prior, the kid hadn’t heard from the Syndicate in a while either which was so infuriating. He’d hoped the heroes had at least had an idea of what was going on and were just choosing not to communicate it with him, but no, they were just as useless as he had expected.
Ever since he and Puffy had retired he’d thought that the top few heroes had been lacking. Maybe if Pluto finally retired it would be a smidge better. The current lineup just didn’t push against the Panel enough, they didn’t have the initiative to do digging on their own. It seriously pissed him off.
Then again, what didn’t these days?
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Tommy got home after another eerily silent, incredibly boring patrol and finally changed into something more comfortable.
Which.. Consisted of just a red hoodie and some black sweatpants. Honestly not too much of a difference from his hero get-up. But still significantly more comfortable.
He sighed, what would a normal teenager be doing right now at… ten at night? Sleeping, maybe. Or maybe hanging out with friends. That thought resulted in a frown tugging at his lips as he dramatically collapsed against his bed.
He never really had time for friends, being a hero and all since 14. He had Sam, but he was like… ten years older than Tommy and more like an uncle figure than anything else. And Sam hardly talked to him anymore now that Tommy wasn’t training under him.
He wasn’t particularly close to any of the other heroes, he just never really slid into any of their groups and most of the heroes that he was in training with were either a whole lot older than him or lower ranking or both so he never really talked to them.
He didn’t mind.
Not at all.
It didn’t eat at him inside at all that he had never once gotten to goof off with other teenagers. That was so immature and Tommy was a very big man.
Though… if he fell asleep that night with that thought on his mind it didn’t really matter.
Nobody would know.
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Purpled crossed his arms as he sat at the table with the rest of The Syndicate.
Okay, well he wasn’t really a Syndicate member he just loosely worked with them once and apparently that got him in all their meetings. He didn’t really mind, he got some fun intel.
And maybe he was a little bored and a little lonely but that wasn’t the business of any of these fuckers.
That is until Protesialus turned to him and asked a favor, and oh, boy. He was a bit intrigued in this plan so… who was he to say no.
For a price, of course.