Justin had parked his drones a while ago to conserve battery power, they were sat on a nearby boulder overlooking the remains of the ambush. It had been over two hours since the fighting had ended, once Ku and Black Dragon were out of the fight, the rest of the gangers were quick to flee or surrender.

Remembering how the fight had ended, Justin's camera involuntarily swivelled once more to check on North Wind, now asleep against the trunk of a nearby tree. He was lucky to have gotten his drone under her in time, slowing their fall enough for Revenant to catch them. She'd let the paramedics strap up her broken arm, but had otherwise insisted on staying with the team. He turned his camera back to the mass of flashing blue and red lights.

The first to arrive had been the local police, called in by Division Alpha as the rest of him swept through the battlefield, leaving behind disarmed and zip-tied gang members. He'd even triaged the wounded and applied first aid to the most seriously injured. Now Division was tied up with the DPD. While the rest of the team recovered, he'd handled debriefing the police and paramedics, dealt with the Heroes League representative that showed up, and had given a brief statement to the reporters.

Noticing the representative, the reporters had asked if we were members of the Heroes League, and Division had replied that 'no, we're outsiders'. The statement seemed to have been misinterpreted as their name, and had gained enough traction that a system message popped up a letting Justin know it was now available as a Team name. With a mental shrug, he'd clicked 'yes'.

His mind turned back to working over the most troubling news of the night. After safely catching Justin and North Wind, Revenant had gone to secure Ku. But after peeling open the crumpled wreckage of the SUV, they'd found he'd once more disappeared. Questioning the gang members revealed that the majority of them were Los Demonios, and that their leader had been promised a powerful undead warrior for helping with tonight's expedition. Obviously Ku had meant Revenant, but how had he known that a Hero team would show up to stop them, or that Revenant would be a member. Had he known? They'd interrogated the few gangers that belonged to the Hua, but apparently they were new initiates on their first operation.

Black Dragon was at least in custody, but had still been unconscious when taken away in an ambulance. Division warned the escort officers what she was capable of, and they just had to hope they'd take the proper precautions. Maybe they did need a mystic on the team, binding other magic users was something they could do right?

Finally letting the matter go, Justin returned his attention to Division, who was walking back to the group, finally showing a hint of tiredness.

"We're cleared to leave now," he greeted them, "but I had to promise our help in cleaning up the mess. Revenant, could you shift the damaged SUVs to the roadside? My guys are already clearing wreckage."

Once done, they woke up North Wind, and recovered the beaten up truck Shade had acquired to bring them all out here. Shift and Wind had joined Revenant in making their own way out, but they seemed happy to have the ride back. Revenant waved them off before returning to help with the clean up.

Shade was driving up front with North Wind in the cab, while Shift squeezed into the bed amongst Justin's drones and all the Divisions.

"Do team battles always lead to so much paperwork?" Shift asked, groaning theatrically as he stretched.

Justin wasn't sure, but apparently Division knew more. "They do, but I don't think HL teams are usually tied up so long." He'd removed the full-face mask, and Justin could see him frowning. "I think they usually give a statement and then go, leaving the rest up to the HL representative. I saw the rep talking to the DPD sergeant early on, and that's when things got a lot trickier."

"Trickier?" Shift asked, before Justin could.

"The sergeant began pushing a lot harder, who fired first? What were we doing out here? Why didn't we contact the local police?" Division smiled cynically, "Apparently the rep had convinced him that because we weren't 'official', and because we'd intervened before a crime could take place, that the incident should be classified as a gang fight, with us being arrested as the instigators."

That was a very troubling interpretation of the evenings fight. Justin sat and stewed, he'd not investigated the laws concerning heroes, what were the rules? Were they supposed to wait for a crime to be committed? Division chuckled at the look on Shift's face, and Justin was once again glad not to have a face to reveal his internal shock.

"Don't worry," Division said, waving a hand in apology for laughing. "We were good as far as the hero laws are concerned. Black Dragon had an SV warrant, which meant we were clear to go after her and her men at any time, and I placed a call to the local police before the ambush letting them know that I had reason to believe armed gang members were in the area. They didn't have the man power to investigate, but it gave me a report number to show we'd contacted the authorities before intervening ourselves."

Justin was suddenly twice as glad Division had agreed to join up with them tonight.

As the other two went quiet, Justin decided to use the ride back to clear his notifications. His Piloting had gone up quite a bit, along with Awareness and Assessment. And he'd gained an Artillery Weapons skill for his use of the drone's grenade 'launchers'.

He'd also received Quest Completions and a Level Up notification.

Quest Complete!

The Hua Kids on the Block

Type: Hero Team, Linked

Description: You have stopped the Hua's territorial ambitions.

Difficulty: Challenging

Reward: 700 xp

Quest Complete!

The Demons of Old Detroit

Type: Hero Team, Linked

Description: You have stopped Los Demonios' territorial ambitions.

Difficulty: Difficult

Reward: 500 xp

Quest Complete!

Haven't We Crumbled Enough

Type: Hero Team, Linked

Description: You managed to keep collateral damage to a minimum.

Difficulty: Average

Reward: 300 xp

Quest Complete!

The Blood Belongs on the Inside

Type: Hero Team, Linked

Description: You managed to prevent civilian casualties.

Difficulty: Difficult

Reward: 500 xp

Congratulations!

You are now Level 3

Rewards: +1 Attribute Point, +1 Character Point.

You currently have 1 unspent Attribute Point, and 2 unspent Character Points.

So all in all, a good night. They'd stopped the villains, gained some xp, kept people safe; a couple of the team had almost died, Justin had lost his Phantom, and they'd almost been arrested. Yes, a good night, Justin thought glumly.

Shade had dropped them all off near the Underground, they'd already all agreed to meet up for a debrief later today, so Shift and Division waved goodbye before disappearing off home. North Wind was going to sleep in the conference room before heading out since she didn't want her family seeing her injured and exhausted.

Justin let ERA pilot the drones back to the workshop while he settled his awareness back into the void of his system. He was tempted to get back to his research projects, but before he did that, he had some serious thinking to do.