The next day ...

Compaktor raged to the skies, crushing the dumpster, as was his want, into a tiny ball. Other than wanting to crush things, Compaktor was a fairly harmless individual. He never hurt people and Psycona had never managed to learn from the monosyllabic beast of a man why he did it. Catching the tossed, compacted dumpster with a thought, Psycona placed it to the side before returning to face the foul-smelling monster.

Then, for some unknown reason, Psycona hit Compaktor with a punch that would have even rocked Principle. The transformed man, part-human, part-trash, smashed into the wall behind him and crumpled to the ground. Psycona hovered in the air, using his abilities to check the condition of the villain and learning that he had broken almost every bone in Compaktor's body. Several internal injuries would require immediate surgery and, all around, Psycona could hear whispers. Shocked whispers.

Whispers that soon turned into boos and jeers. Even in the minds of the watching crowd, he could hear their distaste at his actions. Hear the accusations of brutality. Of his lack of compassion. Compaktor had a following, of course. In this world, even the worst of humanity had their sycophants, but this was not that. The crowd had turned against Psycona not only for his brutal treatment of this pitiful creature beneath him, but for something else.

The Oakmont. That name came to the minds of dozens of observing people and, as the local law enforcement officers arrived, bearing enhanced cuffs to arrest Compaktor, he heard them, too, mention the hotel.

"Where was he when the place burned, huh?" One officer glanced Psycona's way. "Where was he?"

-+-

The bullpen of the Daily Bulletin ...

"Don't rest on your laurels, Burns!" The Editor-In-Chief, Brody Quint, thundered his voice across the entire room. "I want follow-ups! I want an exposé! 'Is Psycona really the hero of Faraday City?'. Nelson! I want fresh pictures! Psycona scowling! Psycona angry! Anything that corroborates our headlines! News never stops, people, and neither do we!"

Betty's story had hit the website before the morning edition had even dropped at the stands and the comments had come in thick and fast. She felt a little guilty at the vitriol her article had caused, but even a rudimentary search had shown that Psycona had simply not appeared at the Oakmont. He wasn't fighting any other villains. Wasn't putting out a raging fire. Not even getting a cat out of a tree.

He had not appeared at the Oakmont and someone had almost died. Someone that, yes, Betty wasn't 'close' to anymore, but who had meant a lot to her in the past. Maybe Psycona could not have saved Wade. Maybe he could. But, to not appear at all? For a super with his kind of powers and abilities? Well, it beggared belief.

Principle would have made it. In Arclight City, the white and gold costumed hero seemed to appear in a dozen places at once. Nothing seemed below him. He helped everyone and everything. If he slept, it was never for long. Hell, even in Bohemia City, Fear terrorised all the bad guys, all the time. A creeping shadow that brought hospital traction from above for anyone stupid enough to break the law.

And in New Hastings, that new hero, Blood Obsidian, appeared to take great delight in swinging and floating through the towering skyscrapers. Even if they couldn't reach every situation, like Principle, they at least tried. The social media feeds showed that hero pushing themselves to exhaustion to reach situations. And they never shied away from acknowledging those cameras. A glory hound, yes, but clearly trying.

Psycona always had a sense of contempt surrounding him, as though he had far better, far more important things on his mind than saving people, and Betty could only wonder why he even bothered trying to be a hero. Sure, he saved people, most of the time, but never stayed at the scene, never held interviews, like Principle. In fact, the two heroes couldn't be more different from each other.

At her desk, she opened up her files on Psycona, but, as with everything else about the super, there wasn't much to go on. Appearing decades ago, never seeming to age, Psycona had drifted from city to city until favouring Faraday City, for some reason. Never quite reaching the heights of joining Bastion, the world's premier super-team, Psycona wallowed in the 'B' list of heroes, despite his powers. Powers that were still mostly unknown, even after all these years.

She scrolled through the dry, sterile information, learning nothing new, while all around her the bullpen buzzed with activity. Her article had caught the city's imagination. Had struck a chord that had revealed a deep distrust, a wariness, about Psycona. And now they had a villain that appeared to have a personal beef with Faraday City's elusive super, but Psycona had not even deigned to face him. Through being busy? Through, perhaps, fear?

Despite the boomed orders from Chief Brody, she doubted anyone else would fare any better than her. Not here, scanning blurring eyes at a screen, nor by scouring through the dusty stacks of the morgue, down in the basement. She needed to go to the source.

She needed to interview Psycona.

-+-

Outside the Faraday City branch of Aurora Labs ...

They used alien weaponry. Weaponry that Psycona remembered well from the attempted, and thwarted, K'Targ invasion of several years ago. He had thought Bastion had recovered all the K'Targ technology and destroyed it, but, it seemed, some had survived that purge. And if these weapons survived, then others, and other tech, could still prove a danger in the future.

Psycona had to take care in this situation. The K'Targ were a mildly psychic race and had developed weapons to counter any psychokinetic defences, even his. During the invasion, Psycona had suffered a wound he had struggled to recover from. A wound that had, temporarily, divested him of his powers. He had never felt more alone, hiding in sewers, trying not to let anyone see his true form. Only the intervention of Peter Skein, Drone, had managed to recover Psycona's powers.

A bolt of energy sparked past Psycona's head and he knew he still suffered distractions. Namely the strange, uncalled for appearance of the Phaross persona, and of the reactions of the people earlier. He had never placed himself as one of the people. He could not do the easy smiles and waves that other supers doled out with abandon. He took his duty far too serious for that. Yet he had never expected such outright animosity.

He had caught the attention of the would-be technology thieves, who really should have known better than to attack Aurora Labs. Labs so cutting edge that they had supers available to call at the first opportunity and, with Principle still on his mission, that left Psycona to answer that call. He weaved in the air, avoiding the energy blasts from the alien weapons, seeking a way through the barrage, but at least he had taken the thieves' attention away from the humans in attendance.

"Typical! Running around instead of standing and fighting." Psycona caught that thought, from someone in the crowd, and it was not the only one. "Lucky he turned up at all. Or maybe he'll beat up these people like he did Compaktor. Coward."

Coward. Coward! They thought him a coward! A coward and a brute, able and willing to beat criminals into submission! As though they had never witnessed him work in the past. As though he wasn't there at all at the Oakmont. He was there! He was ...

"You could kill them all. You know this. Look at them, scurrying around, begging for help while despising you." The voice of Phaross. Not only the voice. Psycona could see him hovering above the thieves. "Show them your true power! Burn these miscreants! Burn them all!"

"No!" With a thought, Psycona dragged a street inspection cover, heavy, circular, and held it with his mind, like a shield, before him. Like how Trooper John used to use his shield, and Trooper Jane after he became lost in another war. Another time. Psycona descended upon the thieves. "No!"

The 'shield' moved according to his thoughts, catching some of the deadly energy bolts, redirecting others toward safer areas. They could not complain about him now. He showed due care. He showed competence. Even as he reached the thieves, he gave them the merest of taps. Only enough to make them unconscious. Control. Professionalism. Restraint. He showed it all and, as he gathered up the alien weapons, removing the power cores and crushing the remains, he turned in the air toward the crowd.

"Needed a shield? Lame." Voices cascaded into Psycona's mind. "Is that building burning? Did he bounce that laser into a building?"

More and more dissenting voices. Some real, others projections from angered minds. What did they want from him? He did as they expected! He had saved them, hundreds of times, and they now looked down at him because of one incident? Because he had not arrived to face one villain, albeit a villain of his own making? Accusations, insults, coming from all sides and he could hardly stand to be near these ungrateful curs.

All except one. One mind did not cry out against him. Nor did her mouth shout obscenities. As though all others fell away, Psycona focussed on that one mind and he soon realised why he could not hear their thoughts. Betty Burns stood at the barriers of the police cordon, staring up at him. She showed almost as little emotion as he, but Psycona felt blessed relief in the silence of her mind.

"It's her fault. She is the one that started all this, with her ridiculous invite and then her puerile article." Phaross had returned and no matter what Psycona tried, he could not dismiss the illusion. "If I had the chance, I would kill her now. There, before this entire gathering of ingrates. If they cannot, will not cheer you, they should fear you."

"Shut up!" Through gritted teeth, Psycona fought to dismiss the illusion. "You aren't real and you are not me."

"I will be." The voice began to fade, as though Phaross drifted away through mist. "I will be."

"Psycona! Betty Burns, Daily Bulletin." Betty held up her phone toward him, though he doubted the microphone powerful enough to catch his words at this height. "Do you have anything to say about last night's attack by the new villain, Phaross? What is your connection with the villain? He seems to have a personal grudge against you. Would you like to address why you did not turn up at the Oakmont? Do you have any rebuttals at all against my article?"

"Miss Burns." He drifted down to her. "May we speak privately?"

"It's Ms, and sure. If I get an exclusive." She looked at the hand he extended to her. "I'm not a cheap date. Where would you like to ..."

As soon as her hand touched his, Psycona lifted them both in the air, carried aloft by his telekinetic powers, defying gravity. She couldn't see his powers working, only the effect and her eyes bulged as she looked below her feet, watching the ground and the crowd fall away into the distance. Psycona needed that distance. It couldn't quiet the voices that he heard all the time and filtered out, but he couldn't see them. He still heard them.

"Kidnapped that lady!" Different voices, similar thoughts. "What a douche! I think he's a villain in disguise. Not a hero. Villain."