Justin had gone over the quest timeline, and had double-checked his systems for evidence of intrusion, and there was just no mundane way for Ku to have known Revenant would be pulled into responding to the Hua and Los Demonios attacks when he'd organised them days ago. Which meant the only possible answer was that he had access to powers capable of predicting or altering the course of events, the system knew he was considering Revenant after all. Happy enough with the answer, but with no ready solution, Justin moved on to their other problem, well, one of their other problems; the Heroes League.

He spent the next few hours trawling through the League charter, federal and state laws, and an obscene amount of financial disclosures. Coming out the other side with a some decent xp to his Law, Business and Economics skills, but more importantly, some very interesting information.

The first thing he'd discovered, the Heroes League was classified as a private non-profit enterprise, which meant there was nothing stopping someone else from developing a competing organisation. Since they were the most prominent, nation-wide hero organisation, Justin had just assumed they were government sponsored, and since they weren't, it had led to him investigating how it was possible to keep them funded.

Twenty years ago, when they were just starting out in New York, it looked like the nascent League- received healthy donations from a number of well-off private citizens, almost certainly the secret identities of a number of beta testers. After which they mostly lived off of the income patent rights and merchandising. When the League expanded nationwide, they discovered their cash reserves running low, and so made some changes to their charter. It was these changes that had been so interesting to Justin, because they referenced something he, and probably a lot of other heroes, had been completely unaware of - super villain bounties.

Apparently most active super villains had state or federal bounties placed on them, it had originally been a way to incentivise and reward heroics, and had been incredibly successful in reducing the cost of powered enforcement and rebuilding expenses, it just wasn't advertised much anymore since the vast majority was processed through the Heroes League. Every hero team formed within, or signed up with, the League signed over bounty rights. The League then subsidised their teams, but Justin would bet the majority didn't realise they were actually earning the handouts themselves.

Checking the federal database, it appeared Detroit had posted a bounty of $20,000 on Black Dragon, and given enough hoop-jumping, it should be theirs for the taking. What that all meant was that a successful super team, with a legal presence and access to the right channels, should be able to easily support itself.

Leaving future team speculation until he met with the others later on, Justin re-focused on his workshop and his own financial issues. He had some ideas on how to cut costs, but what he really needed was a product to sell. Armour and drones were too niche, unless he sold them to the government, which would attract a lot more scrutiny than his fake ID could handle. He had some ideas about material synthesis that could be extremely profitable, but it would require a large injection of funds to establish a reactor chamber or miniature particle collider.

Whatever he developed would need to be initially cheap to produce, but with a high enough demand to support growth.

Justin lost himself in speculation.

"Wait a damn minute," Shift was on his feet, his words running over each other, "I could have been getting paid for stopping criminals?"

"Not any just criminal, villain of power. Though, Bureau of Investigating offer bounty on normal top of the ten criminal list." Justin answered through the laptop. He really needed to get power back on to the building so he could have proper cameras and monitors, but for that they needed an electrician to sign off on the wiring, which meant they needed new wiring. He wondered if IRA knew how to install electrics.

"Well isn't that interesting." Division said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He'd gone with a softer outfit today, blue combats with a heavy blue sweater. It made him appear much more approachable and less like a soldier.

Justin had brought the new information up as soon as they were done talking over the previous night's conflict. "Need establish legal team identity. Then reward claim." Justin said, pushing a little. He wanted to get everyone thinking about the team as a done deal, before they remembered it was only supposed to be a temporary arrangement.

The heroes glanced at each other, Division finally breaking the momentary silence. "Ku is still out there, and there's going to be conflict over the outer gang territories whether he initiates it or not; and to be honest, I'd quite like to see what we could be capable of if we carried on working together." He looked around the table once more, meeting the eyes, camera, and eye sockets of the team, receiving a nod from each.

"In that case: Artisan, make us legal enough to claim rewards, and see if it's possible to roll in any of our previous captures. Also, check if there are any villains in Detroit with outstanding bounties, it wouldn't hurt to pad the bank account and get this place fixed up. Shade, I want you with your ear to the ground, we need to know where Ku is and what he's up to, and if any other gangs are thinking about getting adventurous. The rest of us are on training, I know a derelict neighbourhood where we can practice working together in an urban environment, it's on the outskirts so it's going to be a bit of a jog," He grinned at the rest of the team, "last one there does a hundred push-ups!" The rest of them glanced at each other before agreeing, everyone knew that against a speedster, a flyer, and a construct who didn't get tired, Division would definitely be coming in last.

Which is why Justin was so confused later on when he found out that Division had actually won. It was cleared up a moment later when Shift told him that Division had cheated and won on a technicality, his clones having already travelled to the site before he'd even issued the challenge.

It was the work of a few hours to get the Outsiders up and running as a legal entity, and Justin had to go through a business agent in order to cover the state contact requirements without disclosing the Underground as their base of operations. They probably needed to establish an administrative office as a point of contact, even if they didn't end up using it for anything more than a letter box.

While he was doing that, he had ERA downloading the bounty list and cross-referencing it with her database of local villains.

After he'd finally finished with the paperwork, he got back to his newest project. The world of 2020 was still in the grips of a clean energy crisis, and Justin had some ideas for improving on a number of different renewable technologies. He was going to start with an improved solar array, and once he had a proof of concept, he'd be able to start producing panels for his own use, and hopefully for sale.

He also needed to rebuild his Phantom drone, though this time he was going to build it all himself from the inside out.

And after that he was going to investigate the possibility of a microbial fuel cell, inspired by a section of Manticore's work. The doctor had considered using microbial electrolysis as a weapon of terror, seeding power-plants with electricity eating microbes, but hadn't gotten much further than documenting a number of micro-organisms with appropriate building blocks.

Which reminded Justin, what the hell had happened with the mad scientist? He asked ERA if she had any information on Leo, and she forwarded him a file.

So... nothing good is what we're saying. Justin thought with a mental sigh. Well, at least there's a bounty out on him.