Dark Sun sighed internally as he stood atop the roving car, waving to the masses of citizens as they came out to the streets to see him. Some of them chanted his name and one woman even lifted her shirt to show off her breasts, but regardless, they all seemed excited to see him.

Flash didn’t mind the excitement, but this wasn’t what he wanted. Even a short speech would have sufficed to help make people feel safer and confident that he could help out, but this was definitely a bit much. Vogel said it would amp up his popularity, but being a hero wasn’t about how popular you were, at least, it shouldn’t be.

“Dark Sun, we love you!” one woman yelled.

“Show us your light, Dark Sun!”

Flash groaned inside, but he kept his smile up and his eyes lit up. Raising his hands, he pulsated flashes of flaming light into the air, which exploded into mini fireworks.

The crowd roared with cheers and there were more snapping pictures of him.

“Dark Sun, everyone! Your new hero of Canterlot!” Protectorate Sod clapped her on the shoulder.

For the parade, Autumn Breeze had told him that Protectorate Sod and King Max would be there with him, to show him how it was done. He had insisted just using the two of them, but Autumn said he had to be there. After all, this parade down the streets of Canterlot was for him.

“Not bad, Dark Sun,” Protectorate Sod whispered in his ear. “Just keep it up. Make the crowd happy, give ‘em a little show here and there. Ya got this.”

“Protectorate Sod, we love you too!” someone shouted. “You’re our hero!”

Immediately, the heroine’s smile widened and she pointed to the crowd. “You guys are the real heroes! And today’s not about me. Today’s about Dark Sun, our newest member! Know that whatever happens in this city, he’ll be out here to save y’all too!”

“Come on, smile more, dude.” King Max nudged him. “And look a little more confident. Like this.”

The green haired hero started flexing and there were shrieks from the crowds.

Flash tried to do the same, but he felt it just wasn’t him. Instead, he just puffed out his chest and looked skyward. It was what heroes did on his posters at home, especially Protectorate Sod.

“Atta boy.” Protectorate Sod tipped her hat to him. “Just smile and wave. It’ll all be over in no time.”

There was a sudden gunshot and Flash felt something ping off the car they were standing on and the crowds’ cheers immediately turned into screams and people ducked and looked around. There was another and this one hit Flash in the chest. He dropped back a step, but was otherwise unharmed.

“Dagnabbit. Someone just had to mess this up.” Protectorate Sod clucked her tongue and frowned at the buildings around them. Flash guessed she was using her x-ray vision. “If anyone dies, we’re gonna have more collateral to deal with. Best we find this shooter fast.”

There was a sparkle of light in Flash’s vision and he turned to see something glinting on the roof to his right, before another gunshot echoed and pinged off Protectorate Sod’s forehead. That had been a good shot, but unfortunately for the shooter, it was a bad move.

“Up there.” Flash pointed.

“And off we go.” Protectorate Sod grabbed King Max and blasted off into the air towards the shooter, leaving Flash standing there, wondering just what that shooter was expecting to do, shooting at superheroes with a gun and why she hadn’t taken him with her.

Flash figured he might already be too late if he ran up there, so he just sighed and got back to reassuring the public that everything was going to be okay. At least that was something.

Protectorate Sod stood before the gunman, her arms at her hips, unamused as he fired at her with his firearm, the bullets bouncing off her chest harmlessly.

The man continued to fire at her, as though something could change if he kept it up. The corner of his mouth tilted down as he gritted his teeth, a droplet of sweat trailing down the other side. King Max stood beside Protectorate Sod, looking heroic, but he too wasn’t sure what the gunman was up to.

“Really?” he asked. “You’re going to shoot at Protectorate Sod?”

The gunman reloaded his weapon and fired again, his face strained and agitated as bullet after bullet pinged off Protectorate Sod’s chest.

King Max looked at Protectorate Sod and sighed. The leader of The Septet took one slow step after another, even as spent bullets and cartridges rained down on the floor in a shower of gold and brass. One more step, and the superheroine was only a few inches away from the gunman’s weapon, its barrel smoking with all the shots that had been fired.

Protectorate Sod shook her head and then slapped the gun out of the gunman’s hands, a nasty crunch coming from the man’s hand as his wrist was bent out of shape.

“Aaaaaah!” The man cradled his destroyed hand and stepped back until he bumped into a stack of wooden panels.

“Ya know, really?” Protectorate Sod put her arms behind her back and walked in a circle in front of the man. “Ah’m Protectorate Sod. Ah’m bulletproof. So are most of us heroes. Why’re ya tryin’ to shoot at us for? Come on, Ah’d like an answer. Ah’m truly curious.”

“I just… I hate you supes!” the man cried, spit flying from his mouth. “Vogel took everything from me, my family, my car, my house. You don’t deserve all that praise you get! The world needs to see you as you are! Monsters.”

“Really?” King Max folded his arms. “Who do you think is the real monster to the people? Us? Heroes who save them from harm, or you, a gunman who shot into a crowd?”

“Oh, don’t ya worry ‘bout what King Max has to say to you.” Protectorate Sod walked up to the man and patted down his shoulders and straightened his coat. “Yeah, Ah get it. Sometimes we heroes do the wrong things, we hurt people, but then ya try and come after us and Vogel just doesn’t take it sittin’. Ah know it ain’t fair for ya, but then again…”

The man bent forward and gasped as Protectorate Sod punched him in the chest. She had punched him so hard that her hand went right through it and ruptured his heart. Blood seeped from the hole in his chest as the heroine removed her gloved hand, which was now stained red. She bent down and wiped it off on the man’s clothes, then dusted her hands.

“Life ain’t fair, my boy.” She smiled at the body. “Well, shooter threat cleared, Max, what’cha say we head back to Dark Sun’s parade and give him a hand?”

“Did you need to kill him, dude? I mean, right on, the shooter’s neutralized, but he didn’t need to die.” King Max looked at the lifeless body as blood pooled around the man’s body. His heart now hung limply and flattened out of his chest and his broken ribcage.

“Hey, he shot first,” Protectorate Sod said firmly. “All Ah did was defend myself and the lives o’ all those people down there. Ya know why, Max? Because that’s what heroes do.”

“Well, at least we have a reason for that.” King Max pointed to the balcony. “Then we better go and let the police deal with the body.”

“Swell idea, Max.” Protectorate Sod grabbed him around the waist and together, they descended back down towards the crowd, who began cheering once they saw them.

She smiled. It was always nice to be loved by the people.

Sunset Shimmer sat in the back of the van, again watching as the city passed by block by block as they moved along towards Soarmaster’s residence. Mulcher’s van didn’t have heating and it was getting colder being trapped in this metal tin of a vehicle and Sunset began to shiver more, but on the upside, at least her coat did quite a good job at keeping her body warm. She couldn’t say the same about her legs though.

“I have some costumes in the back.” Mulcher turned around and faced them while driving. The van began to swerve and someone honked them from outside. Sunset held on to the side of the van and prepared herself for impact. Mulcher quickly righted the vehicle and pointed her finger out the window. “Cock! Anyway, it just so happens I have some repair costumes, but they might be a tad small on ya, Sunset.”

Once she had calmed down, Prenchie helped her with rummaging through a duffel bag with various articles of clothing until they found two repairman garbs.

“Ugh, they’re musty as hay.” Prenchie held her nose and waved a hand across the attire. “Glad I’m not the one wearing it.”

Sunset changed into it, and the sleeves and pant legs were too long, so she had to roll them up. Other than that, they helped in warding the cold off, so it wasn’t so bad.

The van eventually pulled up alongside an apartment building with brick walls and dirt-stained windows and all four women looked out the windows at the place. It wasn’t what Sunset had been expecting.

“A supe lives in this sheephole?” Prenchie scoffed.

“Yeah, I’m with Prenchie on that. Shouldn’t supes have like, a lot of money?” Sunset added on. She thought it would at least be some sort of fancy apartment that was cleaner than what they were looking at.

“Cock’s a low rate supe,” Mulcher said and re-tied her ponytail. “She probably doesn’t make loads of money like them Septets. Anyway, one way to find out. Go on up there and have a look yourselves.”

“So how are we doing this?” Sunset looked at the name tag on her suit. It read, ‘Charred Broil’.

“Just follow my lead, Sunny.” Father’s Coffee grabbed the other repairman suit and slipped it on. Hers read, ‘Rikers’. “But all that hacking, it’s going to have to be you. We’re not going to have a whole lot of farming time, so you’ll have to be fast. You sure you’re up for it?”

“Up for it or no, we need to do it. I’m ready.”

“That’s the spirit, Sunny.” Mulcher flipped open a laptop and handed it to Prenchie. “So we’ll be right here, monitorin’ what’cha give us. And we’ll be in contact through earpiece, so don’t ya worry about a thing. Just do what’cha gotta do and get that blighter’s systems.”

“Umm, yeah, I’ll do my best.” The fiery haired girl nodded as she and Father’s Coffee left the van.

The other woman was quite tall, standing at least a good head over her, and Sunset liked her hair. It was really pretty.

“So how long was your team around, uh, what do I call you? Father’s Coffee? I mean, not like I have a problem with it.”

“That’s fine. If you’re finding it a mouthful, FC will do too. Or just Coffee. Starlight, if you must, but I’d prefer our enemies don’t know my real name, so the less said the better.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

“And the answer to your question is… I dunno, five years or so?” She shrugged. “Sometimes time just passes so fast you forget. I sure as hay try to forget some things we’ve done. I have a daughter now and there are things I’ve done I don’t want her to be proud of. You get me?”

Sunset nodded as they entered the building’s stairwell. “Yeah, I get it.”

Would she want to tell any future children she might have that she blew up a superhero from the inside? In the end, that was really nothing to be proud of. Sunset sighed. She couldn’t let revenge cloud her judgment. She knew what she was fighting for and she was not doing it just for herself, but for anyone who could end up in her position because of a superhero’s recklessness.

“Seventh floor, we’re here.” Coffee pointed to the door into the hall.

Sunset hadn’t noticed they had already climbed so far up, but she didn’t feel all that drained. Perhaps what she didn’t know didn’t tire her.

The hall was badly lit and musty, with the stench of cigarette smoke coming from one of the rooms. Parts of the floor were sticky or slippery and it made walking through it a hassle. Whoever did the cleaning here, if there was any done, needed to be fired.

Some parts of the brick wall was chipped and one corner of it had graffiti of what looked like King Max and it read, ‘Farm all supes’. It seemed there were more like minded people out there than she first thought. Sunset still couldn’t believe she used to look up to superheroes.

“Forty-four, forty-four…” Coffee looked at each door, trying to find the right one. “Forty-four, there.”

It was the door second from the end, and it didn’t look any better than the rest of the place. Sunset didn’t know why a supe would live in such a rundown place. Even she had a better apartment building than this and she definitely earned a lot less.

“Here goes nothing.” Coffee reached her arm out and knocked on the door.

There was nothing at first, but after the second string of knocks, the door opened, revealing a man with dark blue hair and blue skin, dressed in a simple white shirt and strange enough, striped boxers. Sunset blushed at his lack of clothing, but he didn’t seem to find a problem with it.

“Can I help you?” he asked, scratching at his unshaven face.

“Hi there, we’re upgrading the routers of the whole building,” Father’s Coffee started. “So could we ask for a few minutes of your time and your permission to do so?”

“Upgrading huh?” Soarmaster stepped aside and let them in. “By all means. I can’t say no to faster internet.”

“Thank you, sir. We promise we won’t take much of your time.” Coffee ushered for Sunset to follow her in.

The inside of the apartment actually looked better than the outside. The floor was carpeted in the living room, which housed a black leather couch and a flat screen television atop a white table. The kitchen was at the back, which had a smooth wooden floor. Sunset couldn’t see the rest of the apartment, but at least what she saw was clean enough.

“So how many devices do you have in here, sir?” Coffee asked and pointed at the TV. “You’ve got one television. A phone, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, and I’ve got a desktop in my room.” Soarmaster gestured to a doorway beside the television. “Router’s under the television. Just let me know if you need anything. I’ll be in my room for the time being.”

The hero levitated off the floor and floated away into his room.

“Well, uh, this feels a bit easy…” Sunset rubbed her hands nervously. It didn’t feel right.

“Doesn’t matter. Nothing seems wrong yet.” Father’s Coffee pushed her. “Go on. Get to work. The sooner we’re done here the better.”

Sunset nodded and followed Father’s Coffee to the router. They crouched down to examine the device.

“Huh,” Sunset said as she looked at the router. “Looks kind of old.”

“Is that a problem?” Coffee asked.

“Shouldn’t be a problem.” The fiery haired girl took out a small screwdriver and a tiny microchip, barely the size of a fingernail. “Fiddle with the wires over there and make sure the router’s unplugged. I don’t want to end up getting electrocuted before we get anything done.”

Father’s Coffee duly disconnected the wires and the lights on the router went out. Sunset quickly unscrewed the plastic casing and exposed the inner workings, where she placed the microchip and fixed it in place with a few dabs of glue. Then she put the router back together and asked Coffee to reconnect the wiring.

“Well, that wasn’t too hard,” Sunset stood up and dusted off her knees. “Router’s done. Now we just need to mess with the cameras and we should be able to link them to Prenchie’s computer.”

“Not bad, Sunny.” Coffee clapped her on the shoulder.

Sunset messed around with the television’s connection next, and when she was good, they had to go get Soarmaster to deal with her phone and PC. They found the hero floating over his bed, reading some kind of magazine.

“Done already?” The hero threw his reading material aside and slowly floated back to the ground.

“Just your phone and your computer left, sir.” Coffee pointed to the black monitor on the hero’s desk in the center of the room across from the bed. “And if you have anything else that needs connection?”

Soarmaster shook his head. “That’s it. I’ll get it on for you.”

Sunset eyed the hero as he walked past them to switch on his computer. It all still felt too easy and it made her feel uneasy. Her mission to Vogel Tower had been stressful, but planting the bug had been all too easy. But just when she had thought it was all done, Refraction came knocking at her door. She didn’t want to prematurely let her guard down a second time.

“Okay, go ahead and do your thing.” Soarmaster stepped back. “So how much faster will my net be?”

“We’re uh, trying to reduce the waiting time by about… a minute.” Sunset got to working on the connection, tapping into the camera systems. Soarmaster didn’t seem to be the type to understand technology, so she should be safe to do it in front of him, but she tried to block his view a little with her body. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll see the difference once we’re done.”

“Well, you girls are the experts.” Soarmaster shrugged.

Father’s Coffee looked around the room while Sunset worked, trying to get a mental image of it should they need to note anything for later. It never hurt to get an understanding of the target.

“Computer’s done.” Sunset closed all the windows and smiled.

All that was left was Soarmaster’s phone and when that was done, Sunset put everything back into her tool kit at her waist and they proceeded for the door.

“Well, thank you for your time, Soarmaster.” Father’s Coffee shook his hand. “Big fan, by the way. Always dreamed of flying, but not everyone gets lucky.”

“Right. Yeah, I guess so.” Soarmaster nodded and looked at the TV. “Well, thanks for the upgrade. I’ll be sure to check it out.”

Sunset and Coffee waved to him and they were off back down the hall, moving as quickly as they could to the elevator. Only once Soarmaster shut the door behind them did she allow herself to breathe. It was tense, being so close to the hero when they were trying to hack her systems, but they were finally out. That actually hadn’t been too bad and with Refraction out of the way, she didn’t have to worry about any invisible people following them after this.

As they were approaching the stairway, someone almost bumped in to her from around the doorway.

“Woah, watch it,” Z-Truck said, taking a step back.

Sunset stopped and eyed the superheroine. Here she was again. The superhero who killed Pine. Her heart began to beat faster and faster, her eyebrows creased and her mouth hung open in some kind of disbelief.

“You, uh, you okay there?” Z-Truck looked at her and Father’s Coffee. “Something the matter?”

Sunset couldn’t say anything, so Father’s Coffee pulled her aside and led her down the stairs. Z-Truck already didn’t seem to recognize her. Had she been nothing more than a problem to get rid of after her accident with Pine? Sunset just couldn’t understand it, but then again, now she knew that was what heroes did.

Z-Truck just watched them go, then shrugged and started walking on to Soarmaster’s apartment.

Author's Note

What does it mean to be a hero? Is it just all about saving people or is it about being selfless and putting others before yourself? Do share your thoughts!

Cheers!