Apr 24, 2022 16:48:27 GMT
Post by Megan Daniels on Apr 24, 2022 16:48:27 GMT
If Megan had tried to imagine what training was like for the members of the Hero Program before joining, she had somehow imagined a facility that looked less like a regular gym.
Perhaps she wasn’t being completely fair, the equipment was top of the line stuff that she had to constantly check the weights on because somebody kept using it at 1000 pounds of resistance and there were several complex ‘movement training courses’, a nightmarish cross between rope courses, climbing walls, hurdles, and a million other ways to practice moving over difficult terrain- including two courses specifically for fliers. But none of that changed that it looked exactly like every other gym she had been to. It was apparently a rather slow day for criminals in San Francisco, and so Megan had been able to spend the entire morning in the training facility and her body felt like it- but Megan had nothing physically speaking over a normal human, and she really needed to keep herself sharp because of that.
She pulled her phone out to check the rest of her schedule- briefing on some new intel about a local gang in an hour, then a publicity meeting about her, then a short patrol, then another publicity meeting that wasn’t about her specifically but about the entire team, then a free slot that she and most other Heroes used to get a second patrol in…
Yeah, there was a good reason this was considered such a high stress job, the paperwork had come as close to defeating Menagerie as the supervillains had.
—
An hour later, having showered, eaten lunch, and changed into costume, Menagerie came to the intel meeting. These were perhaps her favorite type since there was nothing to do but listen and it wasn’t about her. Knowledge was power as the saying went, and so Heroes had to know about all the identified local metahuman criminals that were still at large, plus some basics on any organizations employing one of them.
As Megan learned, a new gang with an abnormally high number of metahumans had sprung up, so there were a lot of new threats to keep an eye out for- though she doubted the actual combat threat of the woman with incredibly strong jaws and a paralytic toxin in her saliva- getting close enough to any of the Heroes without nigh invulnerability to bite them was no simple task, there were a few powers that seemed frightening enough that Megan worried these guys were going to become a permanent presence. It seemed like every day there were more and more powerful meta criminals turning up and it was unfortunate but inevitable some would end up entrenching themselves for a while if the Program couldn’t catch them quickly enough.
Soon enough she and the two other Heroes in the meeting (the rest would have the same meeting at different times and places) were dismissed, leaving her to go to her publicity meeting, which was far less interesting. Discussions about an ongoing brand deal that was still a ways away, a lot of public opinion data Megan didn’t understand, and an official apology statement from some state official that she hadn’t even remembered had been badmouthing her. She got that this stuff was needed for the continued survival of the Program, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. She just had to get it out of the way so she could get to her actual patrol now…
—
Cold wind from off the Bay whipped through the air, giving strange transitions from warm sunlight to biting cold. At last it seemed most locals had become accustomed to seeing animated skeletons on the streets from time to time, and despite the weather, the hard training, the meetings, Megan was happy with it- Menagerie was just accepted as one of the Heroes without further comment. She was part of something bigger, something that actually helped people. Menagerie had a reputation for answering more fan mail than most Heroes, boards generally agreed she was “pretty friendly but also scares the hell out of bad guys”, but all in all she was a name though of with the other local Heroes rather than by itself- and after years of anxiety over her powers she couldn’t have been happier to be seen as one of the team.
Perhaps she wasn’t being completely fair, the equipment was top of the line stuff that she had to constantly check the weights on because somebody kept using it at 1000 pounds of resistance and there were several complex ‘movement training courses’, a nightmarish cross between rope courses, climbing walls, hurdles, and a million other ways to practice moving over difficult terrain- including two courses specifically for fliers. But none of that changed that it looked exactly like every other gym she had been to. It was apparently a rather slow day for criminals in San Francisco, and so Megan had been able to spend the entire morning in the training facility and her body felt like it- but Megan had nothing physically speaking over a normal human, and she really needed to keep herself sharp because of that.
She pulled her phone out to check the rest of her schedule- briefing on some new intel about a local gang in an hour, then a publicity meeting about her, then a short patrol, then another publicity meeting that wasn’t about her specifically but about the entire team, then a free slot that she and most other Heroes used to get a second patrol in…
Yeah, there was a good reason this was considered such a high stress job, the paperwork had come as close to defeating Menagerie as the supervillains had.
—
An hour later, having showered, eaten lunch, and changed into costume, Menagerie came to the intel meeting. These were perhaps her favorite type since there was nothing to do but listen and it wasn’t about her. Knowledge was power as the saying went, and so Heroes had to know about all the identified local metahuman criminals that were still at large, plus some basics on any organizations employing one of them.
As Megan learned, a new gang with an abnormally high number of metahumans had sprung up, so there were a lot of new threats to keep an eye out for- though she doubted the actual combat threat of the woman with incredibly strong jaws and a paralytic toxin in her saliva- getting close enough to any of the Heroes without nigh invulnerability to bite them was no simple task, there were a few powers that seemed frightening enough that Megan worried these guys were going to become a permanent presence. It seemed like every day there were more and more powerful meta criminals turning up and it was unfortunate but inevitable some would end up entrenching themselves for a while if the Program couldn’t catch them quickly enough.
Soon enough she and the two other Heroes in the meeting (the rest would have the same meeting at different times and places) were dismissed, leaving her to go to her publicity meeting, which was far less interesting. Discussions about an ongoing brand deal that was still a ways away, a lot of public opinion data Megan didn’t understand, and an official apology statement from some state official that she hadn’t even remembered had been badmouthing her. She got that this stuff was needed for the continued survival of the Program, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. She just had to get it out of the way so she could get to her actual patrol now…
—
Cold wind from off the Bay whipped through the air, giving strange transitions from warm sunlight to biting cold. At last it seemed most locals had become accustomed to seeing animated skeletons on the streets from time to time, and despite the weather, the hard training, the meetings, Megan was happy with it- Menagerie was just accepted as one of the Heroes without further comment. She was part of something bigger, something that actually helped people. Menagerie had a reputation for answering more fan mail than most Heroes, boards generally agreed she was “pretty friendly but also scares the hell out of bad guys”, but all in all she was a name though of with the other local Heroes rather than by itself- and after years of anxiety over her powers she couldn’t have been happier to be seen as one of the team.
