Tw: guns but only at the beginning

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"DRIVE, HENRY! DRIVE!" Ray barked as he dived in the back of a pickup truck and Henry stepped on the gas, sending them speeding off.

The two heroes were taking a break from their jobs to attend a party at an upscale club as a means of celebrating some big victories, but Henry had made the unfortunate mistake of picking a fight with someone there, and turns out they belonged to a gang. And a not-so-friendly one at that.

"Ray! Why are you in the back of the car and not up here where it's considerably safer?" Henry replied and yelped as a bullet cut through the windshield and missed the blond's head by a few inches.

"So you don't get shot, That's why!" Ray shouted back as he fumbled in the back for a pistol he bought a few weeks ago and fired back at the attackers.

Henry, in a desperate attempt to lose them, shouted at ray to get down as he took a sharp turn down a more narrow road, the sound of screeching tires leaving a ringing in his ears. "Are they still there?"

"Unfortunately." Ray replied and fired back at them, "see that really busy road up ahead? I can see at least three cop cars, they won't follow us there."

Henry obliged and sped over and down the road, looking behind him. By the time the attackers came into view, the vehicle was too crowded by other cars to even dare to shoot.

Ray opened a hatch in the back window and attempted to subtly sneak inside the truck, but hit his head on the floor.

"Are they gone?" Henry asked, driving back to junk-n-stuff.

"Yeah, it was a close one." Ray replied. "Pretty sure I saw Drex in that car."

Henry's stomach dropped. "Really?"

"Yeah, it's been a while since I've actually encountered him." Ray replied, trying to sit up. "I've known he's been in modern swellview again, I've just never seen him around."

"How did you know that!?" Henry pulled into the man cave's garage.

"Rumors and anonymously submitted information." Ray replied and crawled out.

Henry gave ray a skeptical look before the two went down the tubes and down to the man cave.

Ray let out a sigh of relief and went over to the many monitors to check any activity.

Henry left him to do that and went down a long hallway and opened the door to what looked like a small yet cozy apartment building. Ray had the area specially built for Henry when he moved into the man cave, and He had quickly made it home.
The blond changed into more comfortable clothes and began texting his close friend Charlotte.

Is Piper with you? She's supposed to stay the night at my place.

*     *     *

Yeah but she's busy right now. I'll bring her over when we've finished, Charlotte texted back and turned around to see Piper lightly tracing her fingers against a rather large, shiny piece of metal.

"So this is going on a drone? Like a flying drone?" Piper asked.

Charlotte nodded. "Yeah, I'm thinking I'll have it on one of the bigger drones in testing right now."

"One of the birds?"

"Yes."

"You know Charlotte, it's super cool that you run an entire business where all you do is make really cool robots." Piper said, looking at her reflection in the steel.

"Yeah, it's pretty fun." Charlotte replied, digging through some half-drawn blueprints in a box nearby.

"Some of them you use to help people! Like you're almost a superhero!" The young girl replied as she walked over to the box with Charlotte. "...but don't you think your robots are kind of replacing my brother?"

"Not really," the engineer replied. "my robots only show up where henry and ray can't or don't."

"But everyone says you're so much better at their jobs than they are," Piper replied.

"My distress signal interceptor thingy doesn't run all the time like theirs does." Charlotte replied nonchalantly and grabbed a roll of blueprint paper.

"So that way you can— wait, you never named it?" Piper asked, giving the engineer a strange look.

"I did. It's the distress signal interceptor thingy." She replied and rolled out the blueprint paper on the ground. "Now, ready to help me design a big fire-breathing robot animal?"

Piper smiled from ear to ear and helped Charlotte come up with ideas.

Once they finished their concept, Piper looked up at Charlotte. "Can I ask you a kind of off topic question?"

"Sure! What's up?" Charlotte asked, tying her hair back to get ready to work on building more parts for the drone.

"What happened to jasper?"

The engineer froze in place, a sick feeling began to form in her stomach.

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't seen him since you both quit your jobs at junk-n-stuff, have you heard from him or something?"

Charlotte shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I haven't heard from him, but I've heard about him." She said, hiding the shakiness in her voice.

"What have you heard then?" Piper asked.

"From what I know, jasper has... been off doing important stuff."

"What kind of important stuff?"

"Henry texted me earlier asking me to bring you to his place to watch a movie or something." Charlotte changed the subject.

"Oh yeah! Can you take me there? Please?" Piper asked.

"I have something really important to do right now and I can't. However..." the engineer began. "You can ride the rescue mech over!"

Piper's eyes lit up. "Really? I thought it was only for emergencies!"

Charlotte smiled. "I can make an exception," she said as she headed up to a small room near the ceiling full of controls and called over a large almost square cube of metal that was mostly hollow within, mounted on two large steel legs and accompanied by two hulking robotic arms, all framed in white and gray steel armor and a bright orange cagelike layer.

Charlotte pulled her chair up to a control board, the front of the machine's center clicked and opened to reveal a rather hospitable interior, and moved it's two large hands to the ground where Piper stepped on and the mech gently placed the younger girl inside and snapped shut, and the armor moved aside to reveal two heavily tinted windows before lumbering off to junk-n-stuff.

Once that had left, Charlotte grabbed a microphone in the corner and called up a location that was unheard of to anyone in swellview, the true name wasn't even there, only the word 'EVERGREEN'. The mechanic clicked on it and waited for someone to pick up. Within minutes, a strangely familiar voice answered.

"Who is this?" It said.

"It's me, Charlotte. Is that you Sidney?" She replied.

"Yeah, you know I run the technical side of things here."

"I know, anyways I'm here to discuss business. Have you been collecting empty bullet shells like I asked you to? I could use the brass. I can't pay you for it because all the money is going into a new drone, but I can build you something in return."

The other end was quiet for a minute.

"That should work." Sidney replied. "Tell me what you can do for us and I'll let jasper know when he gets back."

"Wait, what is jasper even off doing?"

"Business..."

*    *    *

"Stop it right there!" Kid danger shouted as two hooded figures in an alleyway looked up quickly. They both were clad in mouth masks and their hoods on their black sweatshirts pulled low over their eyes.

"Kid danger? What are you doing here?" One of the hooded figures asked, trying to mask their voice.

"And where's captain man?" The other replied.

"Captain man is off cleaning up the mess you two made, and I see you're carrying a briefcase." The hero replied, squaring up.

"You'll have to-" one hooded figure couldn't even finish their sentence as the young hero hit them squarely in the jaw.

The other hit kid danger in the throat and was immediately hit back. He hissed and retaliated.

Kid danger kicked him in the side and the other hooded figure tackled him and punched him a few times until the blond was visibly weakened.

The first hooded figure pushed his companion off and hit the opponent a few times with the hard briefcase, sending him scampering off in pain as something fell out of his pocket.

The two hooded figures looked around the alleyway and made sure no one was around. Then one removed their hood to reveal their short black hair And glasses. The other handed him the briefcase.

"Here's the medicine, Oliver. Stay here and wait for the person like they agreed. They needed it far more than that addict we stole it from. That narcissistic piece of shit, using up valuable resources just 'cause they can." He growled. "I sent someone else out to keep you company while I head back to headquarters. Good luck."

Oliver nodded and put his hood back on while the hooded figure picked up what kid danger had dropped as he fled, putting it in his pocket and walking out to see a beige car pulling up and stopping, a girl with short brown hair opened the door, motioning for the hooded figure to get in.

He jumped in and they drove off, removing their hood to reveal messy short brown hair and forest green eyes with small cuts around them. He let out a sigh of relief.

"Tough fight, huh jasper?" The girl asked.

"Not really." Jasper replied, looking around warily for a moment. "It's just that kid danger was one of my best friends, And every time we have to fight each other this weird sad feeling kicks in after."

"Probably nostalgia." She replied. "And we know nostalgia is a liar. It only tells you the good parts of things."

"You're right," jasper replied. "That was another life. I was a different person then. I can't believe People remember me like that."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going to bore you with my backstory." Jasper groaned and looked out the window as they drove to a more secluded location.

The young rogue decided to look at what his old friend dropped, it was a Polaroid picture of Henry in his kid danger uniform with no mask, and jasper stood next to him, wearing a blue crop top, board shorts, and his hair was tightly curled.

Jasper squinted in disgust. "You're dead to me." He growled, looking his younger self dead in the eyes for the last time before destroying it.

There were too many memories that came with that time. Memories he would much rather forget.

He watched as the city lights turned on and the sky darkened on their way back, barely noticing his driver had turned on the radio.

"I wonder how he's doing nowadays, kid danger." Jasper said to no one in particular.

"You realize he goes by danger the kid nowadays, right?"

"Really? It's about time."

"Yeah. I just hope he doesn't find out about what happened to me." Jasper said before drifting off into a light sleep.

He woke up to Sidney shaking him like crazy and the smell of cigarettes.

"Hey! Oliver's back." They said, pointing over to him coming over to sit down with a box of crackers.

The headquarters for them and the rest of their psuedo-mafia was the last thing you would expect such a place to look like. The outside was a secluded warehouse, but the inside was a surprisingly cozy place. Comfortable chairs littered the area and string lights were everywhere, massive steel shipping crates Jasper had stolen were stacked on top of each other to act as rooms and offices.

Jasper congratulated Oliver on the successful mission before heading off and climbing on top of one of the shipping crates, where Sidney was waiting for him with two sodas and a small bottle of bubblegum flavored vodka.

"Hey, jasp. How did it go?" They asked, pouring a little of the soda into a cup, and adding a splash of the alcohol.

"Good, only problem was captain man and danger the kid showed up." Jasper replied, picking up the soda bottle and pouring some for himself.

"Really, dude?" His companion said, giving him a bit of a disappointed look. "They can't fight that well. It's only when their gadgets come out is there an actual challenge, and how often do you see that?"

"I know, I know. Just you know my past with danger the kid."

"You still feel weird when you have to fight him? Really?"

"We were close friends."

"As close as Henry was?"

"Almost."

Sidney nodded and took a sip of his drink. "You know, I almost feel bad for captain man and danger the kid sometimes. They May have been able to fight everyone in old swellview and win practically effortlessly, but times are changing. They still do a good job now, but we all know it'll be a matter of time before they're useless."

Jasper nodded solemnly. "I hope they figure something out, to be honest with you."