“Better huh…”

The two heroes stood out amid the grey concrete and high barriers of the industrial sector. Fitting in more with the bright signage raised atop a sparse few of the factories deeper in, though even fewer of those shined as bright as they used to. Old armor works and vain manufacturers trying to still drum up business despite the lack of customers and the impending foreclosures. No one wanted to buy superpowers these days apparently. But that was just impending dilapidation, Aegis and Alex stood before more matured decay that boded very poorly for their hopes.

The sign was just gone, two sticks left standing from where a matinee style placard once hung above the overhung stoop. The pictures did the building no justice, and the few years of… arguably ironic abandonment did little to diminish the already advanced deterioration. The windows were faded to clouded dust magnets. The wooden structure discolored with very concerning blueish grey additions to the peeling brown lacer. And the nice and inviting “CONDEMNED” tape crisscrossing the door certainly topped off the detritus chic. Aegis was wishing she’d kept that rebreather the Wranglers had given her, and Alex was fretting more intensive laundry cycles. But both could not escape the pressing need to enter. And hope this lead carried on.

The lock would have failed had Aegis put any amount of pressure to it, but the sudden swinging free of the opposite side of the door and resulting uncontrolled *THUK* of it falling through its frame certainly canceled out any issue. Aegis shielded back as a wave of dust and loosed mildew wafted up in spiraling wakes. The heavy door too much for the hinges to keep, and the stagnant air too clamoring for its awaited release. Alex winced and coughed as the waves flowed down the stoop, comeuppance for hesitating behind her senior.

“FUHH When does THIS get better!?!”

The inside of the building offered little improvement, beyond the gradual airing out of the worst of the stagnation. Aegis soldiered through into the foyer, followed by a red hued cloud of Alex escaping the hostile environment again. The interior was dark, the carpet fuzzier than it should be, the wooden surfaces lighter than they should be, and all of it creaking as it really shouldn’t be. A thankfully surviving signage suite pointed visitors toward the office which greatly expedited this already burning expedition along. Aegis covered her mouth and squinted away the bulk of the loosed dust as she- *CRRck* …carefully walked toward the only place there could be any physical files left in this place.

The darkness only increased as the outside light failed to penetrate the thickened layers of dusty curtains. A darkness thankfully remedied by a flick of a wrist. A small sphere, triple thick translucent orange compounding luminosity. A nice handheld flare to light up the dreary decay. And actually allow Aegis to read her findings. The office, aside from more of the same caked and coated wall to wall carpet, still held its stalwart bastion. A small metal monolith to bureaucratic order. A filing cabinet. Kind of a small one but a filing cabinet none the less. *clack* A still locked filing- *SCRACK*. A once locked filing cabinet still filled with rows of manila and paper. A few edge cases of spreading rot ruined a few corners, but the files were all there. A few more- *SCRack* broken locks and the other drawers were emptied of their contents. Slick and fat stacks were handed off to the one not needing to keep her mouth covered against the threat of a small mushroom garden growing in her lungs. And at last the pair retreated with their prize to the safety of fresher air.

The unkempt orphanage lawn was long dead, but the small playground offered only slightly rusted seating. And they would need it, because they were going to have to scour every file regardless of name, since Seth was mute when Aegis handed him off. At least they could filter out the obvious girl names. The red hued cloud rematerialized and hacked back into Alex proper as she sat down on the barren metal arch that used to be a seesaw, stacks in hand and the prospect of more file scrounging driving her down. Aegis smirked halfheartedly up at her as she took up a fallen spring horse as a seat, opening her stack up to the inescapable drudge of research.

Arron Averstan, Alex Brewer, Robert Cruz… all names and faces she didn’t know. Yet all of them staring up at her with that same beaten blank stare she remembered on Seth. All survivors of the crisis. All separated… Or left without their parents to raise them. The only saving grace being the prospect that they were at least still alive in spite of it all. A grace they probably didn’t feel as warmly. And probably would-

“Wait… did Seth have brown hair?”

Aegis shook up from her spiraling as Alex held up the object of her question, and clipped in picture above a file with no header naming it. A picture she knew all too well.

“Heh, yeah that’s him.”

Dropping unneeded files, Aegis swooped in over Alex’s flitching shoulder and scrounged Seth file for anything of note. The fact that the header was blank worried her, though the file looked more like an intake record rather than a continually updated file.

“Brown hair whiting at the roots, limited ability to speak, Brighton Blinders baseball cap. Yup, that was him to a t.”

“Wait… you knew him back then?”

Aegis smirked almost devilishly as Alex turned up at her, but it smoldered off into a more somber attitude.

“You’re not allowed to tell anyone yet… but he was my first save way back whe-“

“WAIT!! Are you fucking with me!?! He’s… He was really…“

“Yup. He was the Sole Survivor of Brighton.”

Alex recoiled, looking back and forth between the picture and Aegis’ somber stare at a face she-

“AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US!?!”

The weight of Aegis’ mistakes suddenly slammed down on her with force enough flatten her solemn remembrance flat.

“It’s… I just didn’t… recognize him.”

“You clotheslined him day one of training and looked him dead in the eyes! Are you blind!?”

“Y-You try remembering people ten years from now! He was a child! A child who couldn’t speak! I’m just as mad he didn’t tell me who he was that day either but you don’t see me pointing fingers! …It’s complicated.”

Alex scoffed, but quickly skipped to chuffing that she trained beside the-

“Holy shit, Para’s going to implode if you tell him this.”

“And as much fun as that would be to see, you understand why you can’t tell anyone. Right?”

“R-Right.”

“Good. Besides, I think we’re far from done with the past today.”

Aegis poked at the file, flipping the intake sheet away and moving on to the additions after it. Incident and disciplinary reports mostly. Nothing too egregious beyond watching too much television and some poor grades in school. But one or two stand out slips caught her eye.

“Snuck onto an active maintenance floor?”

Both looked up and judgingly looked to the stark columns of concrete jutting over the rotting fence surrounding the plot.

“Not an uncommon occurrence I’d say.”

“But…”

Alex flipped through the bunched up slips tucking in below… all fifteen of them.

“These all say the same place.”

Aegis looked back down at them. At the plaintiff demanding restitution.

“United Armors huh.”

Her hand patted Alex’s shoulder.

“There’s our next lead.”

Or it could have been a lead, if it wasn’t a hollowed out testament to the fall of an industry. Aegis’ exacerbation hit her full force yet again, hand desperately trying to cover it and smother it away, but the downward pull was too much to counter. The heroes had only needed to walk a block over, but all it meant was that the lead dead-ended sooner. The building was stripped of its vibrant signage, its whirring machinery, even the doors were gone. All of it replaced with chain-link fences and signs with less extravagant sales pitches. “For Lease” But despite the obvious prospects of having to tangle with bank records and trading hands, the renovation of the building seemed to be only partially complete. Palettes of boxes no doubt laden with tools and equipment were still awaiting removal and storage. And all the paperwork they would be looking for, if Aegis remembered correctly that there was a built in office over top it all. A short legally grey hop over the fence and both heroes were trolling the left behind crates before heading inside.

“You’ve really already been here?”

Alex looked disbelievingly down at Aegis as she crouched to read a box labeled “Series 5 revisions”.

“Yeah, they got broken into. Remember after the start of Fight Month when I had to step out after lunch. I came here because three of their suits got stolen during maintenance along with a whole load of ordinance from a secure warehouse. Heh. By Tango no less.”

“Wait seriously! The stuff he brought to the bank was from here…? Shit, no wonder Seth knew what they were using.”

“Yeah. Makes this city seem pretty small huh? The only thing we never quite found out in the end was who tipped them off. That much firepower doesn’t just get reported on the news.”

Aegis scanned the other boxes scattered around, noting nothing close to office supplies.

“Eh, oh well. One case at a time.”

She thumbed up to the building looming over them and headed off inside.

The interior was a tapestry of negative space. Oil and dirt stained concrete presented clean shadows of what once took up the majority of the floor’s space. A wall of cubbies cut out of added layers sat empty and foreboding. But despite the loss of filling, the upper level hanging off the far wall still appeared whole from the cursory look. The stairs up to the office squeaked in the financially enforced silence, and the florescent lights buzzed to life as Aegis passed under their motion sensors. Room after room stood empty of personal effects, supplies, and chairs.

“Why do they always take the chairs?”

A few more turns and checked offices and the records room was upon them, thankfully more complete and definitely not as fuzzy as the last one. Though being more complete had its draw backs.

“Great… Is investigating really just scrounging through files all day?”

“No…”

Aegis pulled at the nearest cabinet and scanned down the rows of technical specs and financial speculations.

“Sometimes you get to sit in one place for 5 hours waiting for someone to do something illegal.”

“That’s still not better. Ugggh, and neither is this filing system.”

Stack after stack of records and designs, financial statements and payroll stubs, prototype diagrams and… resignation letters?

“Who even keeps these arou- Wait! This is Seth’s?!”

Barely three cabinets in and Alex had a neatly stored file with a letter taped on to the front.

“Huh, his last name is Tarrow.”

“Really?”

Aegis left her stack aside and returned to Alex’s shoulder.

“He seriously quit working here to be- Wait, he had controlling stock!?”

Alex flipped through the file proper, documents outlining transfers of corporate ownership and the legal equivalent of a middle finger.

“Jeeze, every time you try and understand him you suddenly have your assumptions thrown back in your face.”

Aegis reached over Alex and pulled a paper out of the file.

“But at least we have his address now. 20090 Mako Road, and Para was right it’s an apartment.”

“So no more files…?”

“Nope. No more files. Now we get to do the fun stuff like raiding a domicile and scrounging for physical evidence.”

Alex’s slight enthusiasm deflated at the idea of more scrounging.

“Well… that’s all only if he’s not home. Either way we finally have his address and…” Aegis pulled up her phone, punching in the address to map it out. Only for it to move all of three block down the street.

“And… we passed it on the street getting here. I am going to fucking kill him.”

The final destination on this egregiously small scale investigation loomed stockily over them. A wannabe brownstone of concrete and cinderblocks. Only a few stories to fill yet full garage amenities squished beneath. But a distinct lack of activity and a clear sense of limited occupancy. No cars on the street, no leasing advertisements, and a not so inviting run down-ness to the façade. Not to mention the location, Aegis could still smell the soot from the steelworks down the street. But the convenience certainly seemed a nice weight in its favor, that and probably the privacy. A privacy they were going to have to violate.

“You think he came back here after everything?”

Alex scanned the windows for activity, seeing little more than drawn curtains.

“Whether he did or not it’s best if we go in quiet. Better if we don’t draw undo attention to this place unless we have to.”

“But… shouldn’t we report this before-”

“No! We need answers, not another battlefield.”

Aegis smirked off her dire attitude.

“Besides. If it comes to that I’ve been meaning to sock the shit out of him for making use go through all of this.”

Alex haft heartedly tried to chuckle the tension away, but couldn’t not see the simmering aura grow with Aegis’ seriousness.

The front door opened without issue, an apparent lack of need for extra locks. The mail slots taking up the wall of the miniscule foyer were carded up waiting for tenants, but only one bore a name. One Mr. Tarrow in room 304. Though one slot seemed to be missing a card, but given the state of the building that almost seemed the more expected standard. The interior was little more than a squarely spiraling set of stairs stopping at balcony landings bearing door after door. The wood varnish on the banisters was weathered away, the wallpaper trying to make the walls look like brick was fading, and the stairs… looked a little newer than the rest of the furnishings. As did the door they were after, just two flights up and already within their sights.

Aegis eased a foot onto the first step, warry of creaking it and arousing suspicion amid the empty quietness that surrounded them. But the step just softly clunked under her shoe. A good sign for the rest, but an odd reality given the environment. The pair pushed forward, one unison step at a time. Aegis’ eyes locked on that door, only shifting away to make sure of her next step. Alex kept a watch on the front door, following just a step behind. The landing came and went, along with the door watching over it. Only single glances afforded to it, but it was definitely used. The second flight was started, tension edging high with every step toward that final overlooking door. Aegis shifted left and locked on to the peephole shining down on them, light reflecting and refracting into it as an all seeing eye she sought to challenge. And the moment it closed, was the moment stealth was no longer an option. Alex hugged the wall, keeping a loaded stance ready to keep up with her when things hit the fan. But her nerves were rattling her hand against the wall, enough for Aegis to hear, and maybe enough for-

“Is he really that terrifying?”

Both heroes flinched about, both pictures of terror at the sudden casual exclamation breaking the silence that drew the world taught. The door at the landing was wide open, soft orange and blue light spilled in like clashing stars. The sweet smell of vanilla and pine juxtaposed with a hint of ozone and coolant. And standing in the center of all this contrasting atmosphere was-

“…MOM!?!”