Now that Dorothy has thought about it, she has never been at the receiving end of Theo's full might.

Sure, she has seen him fight monsters, criminals and even Crow herself, but all of those were times that Theo either held back or was simply playing around.

She knew that his true strength lied in his ability to create items that would make up for his human body.

She once thought of Theo as her equal in terms of fighting prowess. Even with all of his weapons, she believed they were on the same playing field.

This was clearly a misguided notion of hers.

Theo could no longer be judged according to the Supehero ranking criteria.

He was clearly a Supervillain and should be ranked according to that metric.

There were rumors that he was an S Ranked Supervillain that required a full 6 man team of Superheroes to take down.

She wasn't sure if that assessment was correct, because the monstrosity in front of them would take so much more than 5 men to take down.

The 8 man team ran for their lives as the scorpion tank drone fire its M10 152mm Howitzer in their direction.

Instead of a typical heart stopping explosion, the area was covered in a firestorm that would turn its victims into charcoal. Looked like the scorpion was using incendiary rounds and was geared up specifically to counter infantry.

The 8 man team split up and rushed towards the machine at different attack angles.

Most annoyingly, it was at least 1 kilometer away and had every intention of abusing its advantage.

As the 8 tried to get near it, it would move back while taking pot shots using its guns and cannon.

A good decision given that 7 of the 8 survivors had superpower and could give it a run for its money if they got close.

As the only one with no superpower, Dorothy made sure to keep her rate of approach much slower than the others.

Mind you, she has a way to deal with the mechanical scorpion in the form of an EMP grenade, but it wont matter if she got hurt before she could get into range.

The first one to get close was a martial artist.

The man jumped high and screamed

"BLOOMING LOTUS PHOENIX KICK!"

As expected of a martial arts from the Jade Empire, the name of their techniques were both stupid and cringe worthy.

The man was wrapped in fire-like chi as he rocketed towards the scorpion tank drone at break neck speed.

Using its surprisingly agile legs to jump back, it responded by using both the flamethrowers hidden within its pincers to drown the entire area in a sea of fire.

This caused the rest to stop in their tracks.

The martial artist was able to survive this firestorm thanks to his chi aura, but like everything in the more nonsense power branches, he could not prevent the oxygen deprivation.

By the time the martial artist realized the real purpose of the flamethrower screen, his chi aura has given out, his lungs were filled with napalm and his skin has began melting.

To save the martial artist, a knight looking guy summoned a halberd out of nowhere and tried to flank the scorpion.

Here's a fun fact about the human eye.

The eye has cones and rods within it with rods being used to see in the dark.

It takes about 1-3 minutes for the eyes to partially adjust to the darkness, but the process of adaptation would constantly be hampered if it was bombarded by a source of blinding light AKA the wall of fire.

As such, the knight and everyone in the superhero team failed to realize 2 things.

1. There were tons of spy drones flying around. This made the act of going to the scorpion's blind side an impossibility.

2. Since the scorpion used a type of paint that minimized the reflection of light, the knight failed to realize that the 152mm howitzer was already pointed his way.

Before the knight could clear the firewall, the howitzer open fired and blew him to kingdom come.

This time, it used an armor piercing round used against tanks.

Enchanted armor or not, no thin piece of steel could protect a person from something made specifically to pierce significantly tougher material.

Once sure that the knight was in a million pieces, the scorpion stop the flame thrower.

On the ground was the martial artist cooked into a fine well done steak.

Surprisingly enough, the man was still alive, albeit badly burned and could only wither in agony.

The scorpion ended his suffering by quickly crushing his skull with one of his pincers.

Before it could ready itself to receive its next victim, the scorpion was blasted 10 meters as a man made of crystals rammed it from the side at an absurd speed.

This man had a standard physical transformation ability that gave him superhuman strength and endurance.

However, the man's speed was thanks to Wraith's ability to greatly accelerate anything he touches in one direction. This only lasted a few seconds, but the effect was impressive.

The crystal man rushed to the scorpion, grabbed one of its pincers and pulled it with all of his might. Though there was resistance, the pincer was nearly torn off in an instant.

In response, the scorpion shot the crystal man with the howitzer from overhead.

This didn't kill the crystal man but it blew away half of his body and left him at a critical state.

Unfortunately, the shot also caused the roof to collapse, sending both the scorpion and what's left of the crystal man down 2 floors.

Before it could react, a samurai jumped down after it and sliced off the damaged pincer with his enchanted blade.

The samurai's victory was short lived as the scorpion immediately grabbed the crystal man with its good pincer and repeatedly whacked the katana boy into the floor.

It then followed up by burning the poor soul with its flamethrower.

It seemed that the samurai was just a normal man with a fancy enchanted sword.

Never bring a sword into a gunfight, especially if the opponent was an unfeeling mechanical monster.

As the scorpion was about to face its next opponent, a sudden torrent of ice began to engulf its legs.

Remaining at the roof of the building was the superhero that wielded this power. Quite simply, he could create a torrent of ice that froze the enemy.

The scorpion used the crystal man to break the ice and pull itself out of it, but the iceman persistently tried to lock it down.

At this time, Dorothy was able get into range and began chucking her EMP bombs at the scorpion.

Naturally, it had no effect what so ever.

The scorpion was a machine made by Theo. Naturally it had built in counter measures for the greatest weakness of all high tech weaponry.

Realizing her uselessness in this situation, Dorothy decided to hang back and not get in the way of the others.

Wraith also tried to assist by launching whatever debris he could find down to the scorpion, but his projectile simply shattered when it smashed into the thick metal armor.

The final member of the team jumped from the roof, transformed into a 3 meter tall bipedal elephant and body slammed the scorpion.

This caused the floor to shatter, plunging both the machine and the elephant straight to the first floor.

Just to be clear, the elephant man was not a shapeshifter like werewolves. He was a Spirit Medium from the country of Bharata, land of curry, stinky people and the origin of martial arts despite what the Jade Empire's propaganda said.

The spirit medium was capable of taking the form a lesser version of their patron god. In this case, the god was Ganesha, the remover of obstacles.

The scorpion fired its howitzer at point blank range, but the elephant man sacrificed one of its tusks to block the shell.

The machine, still holding the crystal man, smashed the elephant man in the balls and used its stinger to punch the beast off of it.

Before it could capitalize on the opening, the ice man from above froze it in place once again.

At the same time, the elephant man pulled a nearby pillar and repeatedly bashed the scorpion.

Unable to move freely and was barely able to defend itself, a high pitch sound similar to a vacuum cleaner radiated from the scorpion.

Feeling an imminent danger on the horizon, the superheroes redoubled their efforts to destroying the machine.

This was a big mistake.

About 10 seconds later, the scorpion exploded with a force that could be felt for miles.

Instead of a fiery explosion, this was akin to a gigantic fragmentation grenade that used shrapnel to rip its victims apart.

As the closest to the blast, the spirit medium was sliced into thousands of tiny little pieces.

The 3 on the roof would have died if the building didn't take the brunt of the rain of steel.

Speaking of the building, everything within 50 meters of ground zero had enough holes that would make Swiss cheese jealous.

It was a sight that no normal mortal could have survived.

"Theo.... No way...." said Dorothy in shock.

She knew Theo would die for his ideals and she also knew that a cornered rat was at its most dangerous, but she never pegged him to resort to suicide.

"Damn it. No wonder he was rated as an S rank supervillain. He nearly wiped out a B rank team before we could finally take him down." said Wraith who was both fuming and being considerate of Dorothy.

"Bastard! If he was alive, I would have beaten the shit out of him!" roared the ice man in anger.

Seeing how their comrades was taken out one by one, the men's anger was justified.

While the 3 wallowed in agony at their Pyrrhic victory, a figure stealthily climbed on the roof from the side of the building.

He aimed a fancy double barrel shotgun with his left hand at the ice man.

"Surprise Butt Sex!"

Before anyone could react, the ice man popped like a balloon after getting hit by 2 bunker buster rounds on the back.

The 2 survivor took battle stance to confront the new enemy.

Clad in power armor except for his helm which he held on his right hand, Theodore Lorne stood majestically.

"T-Theo?! But... how?" asked the confused Dorothy.

"Miss Samantha's Teaching #23: When in a disadvantageous position, never fight fair." replied Theo as he equipped his helm. "Anyways, I'm glad to see you're well Dorothy. As for your new boyfriend, nice to meet you for the first time Johnny Doe. My name is Theodore Lorne. I'm Dorothy's ex. A pleasure."

"YOU! YOU SOULLESS-!" roared Wraith AKA Johnny Doe before he was interrupted.

"Stop it Wraith. We spoke of this earlier. He's trained in the same art of emotional manipulation as I am. Talking to him will piss you off more and make you careless. He'll exploit that to no end." said Dorothy.

"BUT HE KILLED KENNY! "

"Bah. I killed Kenny multiple times in the past. I'll kill him again in the future."

"YOU BASTARD!"

"Stop talking Wraith!" roared Dorothy, forcing Wraith to stop in his tracks.

After taking a couple of deep breaths, Wraith finally calmed down.

"Aw. I was hoping to take out Wraith quick and easy. I guess that's not happening now huh." said Theo in an exaggerated manner.

"Theo, can I ask you a question?" said Dorothy.

"Sure. Go ahead."

"We all know that you took a mission from Omegaman about stopping the riots. And for some reason, you've been mobilizing your entire force for the past few days. Is this related? Are you trying to start a war for a bunch of spoiled brats with worthless degrees?"

"Do you seriously believe that I'll answer that?"

"In all honesty, yes but I expected you to lie."

"Well you're wrong. I'm not gonna answer that simply because its a pain to explain the entire thing."

"If you're not going to answer Dorothy, then let me ask a question of my own." said Wraith.

"Lay it on me friend." replied the amused Theo.

"You're in the middle of a city with one of the highest concentration of Superheroes. You then kill a bunch of them in cold blood. Do you seriously think you'll get away with murder?"

"Yes. Without a shadow of a doubt."

Dorothy was shocked at Theo's response. To think someone would boldly say that despite committing one of the worst crimes in the modern world, he also would suffer no consequence.

Only the Allies of Justice rioters were that disillusion.

Wraith on the other hand was fuming, but he kept his emotions in check.

It seemed that he finally understood how Theo deliberately saying things to push his buttons.

"Care to explain?" asked Wraith as he seethed with anger.

"It's all thanks to your higher ups. As they will give me a pass on my murder spree, the same thing that will also prevent Arsenal from coming here no matter how much time you're trying to buy by making me talk."

The superhero pair winched at his words.

Such a simple ploy was painfully obvious.

While the two were probably thinking of another plan, Theo decided to indulge them.

"Let's pretend that I didn't see through your little scheme and allow me to dump some exposition. Right now, Arsenal is trying to get clearance to jump into action. This is the main problem with being bound to a hierarchy like the Commonwealth Army. He has to go through bureaucracy before he could make any significant actions. And since he's a soldier through and through, disobeying the higher up's command is very hard for him to do."

"Dont tell me.... You did something horrible to them?!" asked Dorothy.

"Not exactly. The higher ups are only human after all. One was bought by the prospect of immortality. Another was facing a potential career ending scandal and is begging for my help. The last one had his daughter received cybernetic limbs from yours truly when the little child got caught up in an assassination attempt on his life. I don't need to destroy peoples lives to get what I want."

"Yet you slaughtered our team like pigs."

"What can I say, I hate people who cant read. I'm pretty sure there are signs all over the scrapyard saying 'This is private property. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again'."

"Is that what you're going to do to us?"

"Yep. Pretty much. But in deference to our past relationship, I promise that neither of you will die today.... I'm just going to make you hurt really really bad."