Hob was observing for about twenty minutes by the time the Supers arrived. They came in guns blazing, car driving erratically and with the lights and sirens blaring. Hob continued as he was, sticking to the shadows. He was absolutely amazed when the car pulled up closely beside him, almost hitting him, and three Supers burst out in all their spandex and cape glory.

  That was the typical Super outfit. Each specialised for their own powers and style, although the individuality had been slowly regulated out. Each was technically colourful but the colours were darkened and plain. The lead Super came out in a white and red outfit, but it was like looking at it through a grey filter. Whatever explosive “pop” the older Super’s outfit once had was long gone. Hob could almost picture him in his glory days, alabaster white and shining crimson. It certainly wasn’t those days now.

  The other two, obviously rookies judging by their age and the way they stood behind the other Super in a deferential manner, wore suits that looked better in dark colours - one a man in a mixture of camo greens, the other a woman wearing a deep shade of purple - and Hob realised that they must have chosen their outfits post-regulation. They just looked more natural in the greyed out spandex.

  “You there! Uncover your face!” said the lead Super.

  “Identify yourselves,” said Hob, knowing that legally speaking they were bound to before charging him with anything or even before using him as evidence in whatever investigating they were doing.

  “Flexistretch, badge number #4502. I’m with my understudies Hunter and Papyrus,” said the lead super, though he didn’t seem happy to reply.

  “Badge #5644,” said the man in camo, presumably Hunter.

  “#1822,” said Papyrus.

  “You’re being charged with vigilantism in the first degree,” said Flexistretch.

  “What?” laughed Hob, his mind racing. He certain hadn’t been doing any vigilante work. If anything he was a villain! He thought back to all his previous jobs. Attacking Supers, theft, arson, obstruction of justice etc would have all been fine and obvious, and would have caused an aggressive response in him but he was so stunned by the accusation of vigilantism that he just stood there.

  “Earlier this night you used your powers to interfere with an attempted theft, did you not?” asked Flexistretch whilst Hunter and Papyrus surrounded Hob and posed menacingly.

  It took Hob some time to realise what they meant. “The guy with the knife!? He was trying to rob me!”

  “Suspect confirmed,” said Papyrus into a walkie-talkie behind him.

  “Are you joking with me?” laughed Hob out loud. “Not being stabbed is vigilantism, how exactly?”

  “Put your hands behind your back,” said Flexistretch, producing a pair of handcuffs.

  “Who even called you?” asked Hob, perplexed. Then it dawned on him. Who else would be so brazen? “The fucking thief!”

  “Anything you say now may be held against you at a later date. Let me do you a favour here mate; derogatory language isn’t going to help your case.”

  “Seriously, is he the one that called you?”

  “We’re not going to release that information.”

  “Is he being arrested!?”

  “That’s really not something we can disclose.”

  Hob wished he couldn’t believe it. He really really wished he couldn’t believe that a mugger would call the Supers after a failed crime against him and have three Supers show up to arrest him. But at this point he absolutely could. This was the state of the country that he lived in. So he did the only thing that he could think to do.

  He kicked Flexistretch in the face.

  The Super took it well. True to his name, Flexistretch’s neck just elongated from Hob’s kick, taking the transferred energy and using it to fuel his own powers. Hob figured blunt force damage wouldn’t go great against the guy, but he was still glad he put it to the test.

  Hunter had aimed and fired a Tazer at Hob, who just batted it away. A second one struck him in the shoulder - hunter was dual wielding! The electricity did little to Hob who just stepped forward and punched Hunter in the face. Unlike his mentor, Hunter took it badly, sitting back down on his arse and looking rocked. Flexistretch grabbed at Hob with his elongated arms wrapping around Hobs own. What a disgusting feeling thought Hob as he grabbed the Super’s arms and flipped backwards. The Super came all the way around with him; there must have been a limit to his powers as his arms didn’t just continue growing and so Hob lifted the Super off the floor and whipped him around in a big arc and smashing him into the ground hard.

  Papyrus, unlike the other two, had backed off. She’d summoned a piece of paper in front of her and was writing something on it. He didn’t want to find out what. Hob dashed towards her, intent on stopping her before she finished, but two hands grasped his ankles and were wrapping their way up them. It looked like Flexistretch hadn’t taken much damage from the slam.

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  That’s enough blunt damage then. Time to move onto piercing.

  Hob crouched down and grabbed Flexistretch’s hands and started biting. In his Hobgoblin form his incisors transformed into terrible fangs that came out over his lips in an almost tusklike manner, so it was no surprise when Flexistretch started screaming in pain, enough so that he let go of Hob.

  There was a twang and something struck into Hobgoblin’s side.

  Speaking of piercing, thought Hob as he looked down at the beefy arrow sticking out of his midsection. Hunter, living up to his name, was already aiming a second arrow.

  “Hunter, no!” called Flexistretch but Hunter fired anyway. This one was aimed to be a killshot but Hob just knocked it out of the air. He pulled out the one at his side, mostly annoyed about the damage to his hoodie. The material was self-healing so the hole closed up in seconds, but Hob still wasn’t happy about it.

  He leapt at Hunter and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying. He landed with a crash and Hob could hear him gasping for air in the distance. He turned around to see Flexistretch swinging one giant arm towards him like a clothesline, only aiming for his legs.

  Hob was embarrassed to say that it completely swept them out from under him, sending him spiralling to the floor. It hit hard and he landed in a daft lump, but immediately bounced up and leapt at the arm as it tried to retreat. He grasped onto it and dragged his harsh nails down it, tearing through the Supersuit and drawing blood.

  Something else wrapped around Hob immediately after. Chains, and lots of them, had flown out of Papyrus’ paper and tightened themselves around him. Each flailing end completely fused to the other parts of the chain when they touched, so there was no beginning and no end. It wrapped around Hob completely. He tried to snap them but they barely buckled. Still, there was something off about them - he couldn’t feel the cold steel biting into his flesh.

  Hob laughed aloud. “This is just,” he called as black flame burst from his hands, “paper!” he shrieked as the chains burst aflame and quickly dwindled into nothing. The heroes tried to retreat now but Hob wasn’t going to let one of them go unhurt. He sprinted and grabbed Papyrus by the neck. She looked at him with fear in her eyes and he was tempted to squeeze but he threw her aside onto the ground.

  More chains launched at him from her paper as she flew through the air but he burnt them before they touched him. An arrow sang through the air towards him but Hob merely sidestepped it. It wasn’t a good shot - Hunter had been half-retching as fired it, trying not to throw up from the brutal kick that had downed him. It was still roughly on target though, so Hunter was living up to his name.

  Hob fled the scene, fuming. All this because a jumped up low-grade Extrahuman doing delivery work wanted to rob him? And how insane was it that he called the Super League after failing to do so and the Super League actually showed up. After the other setbacks with him being busy once a night, this Richmond Industries operation was turning out to be a right fiasco.

  He also knew Con would be pissed at him, which didn’t help his mood.

  _________

  As it turned out he was right about Con being pissed, but not at him.

  “You’re actually joking right now? The absolute state of this place. And now that messes with our investigation,” said Con. “Why does nothing ever go simply?”

  “The Supes were fairly strong too. I know there’s enough going on in this city that they should have been spending their time on something more pressing than self-defence,” said Hob.

  “Yeah but they figured you would be an easier job and it looks better on the statistics. Their bosses give them quotas you know?” Con made his fingers into air quotes. ““We’re cracking down on vigilantism so if you want that promotion you’re going to have to get this many by this time, blah, blah, blah.” It’s a joke,” he spat.

  “Yeah, like if they were going after us because of our actual criminal activities it’d be one thing. This is just stupid,” laughed Hob. The stood there in silence for a second before Hob followed up. “So the plan for Richmond Industries…”

  “Yeah, about that,” said Construct as he leaned pensively back in his chair, breathing apparatus half-finished in front of his worktable. “We can’t really have you walking around that area again. I can send my drones in. If anyone is going to catch them it’s these guys though.”

  That was true. Richmond Industries was a military technology company - one of the few left. They specialised in amphibious warfare and were excellent at discovering submarine and subterranean Extrahumans with their scanning technology. It could penetrate deeply. In fact, that was exactly why Hob and Con wanted it. But robbing from a company with highly specialised detection capabilities meant there was a high likelihood that you would be detected. Funny, that.

  Hob had had a lot of time to think things over on his walk back to their lair though, and he had a bit of a plan. “How about this? You don’t see me for tomorrow or the next day. Focus on moving the stuff we have in stock and that breathing thing. The day after I’ll go back to reconnaissance and I should be better than ever.”

  “How’d you figure that out?” asked Con. Even under his mask, Hob could tell he was unimpressed.

  “Maybe one day I’ll tell you,” Hob laughed. “Just trust me on this.”

  “Your track record isn’t going so great right now…” Construct joked.

  “Minor setbacks, that’s all. Richmond Industries isn’t going to know what hit them,” bragged Hob.

  “That’s what I like to hear!” said Con, getting hyped up. “Just do me a favour though?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Next time some joker comes trying to rob you, save us the headache and just kill him,” laughed Con.

  “You know what? I honestly might just have to,” said Hob, shaking his head. “I’ll catch you later. Busy couple of days,” he winked.

  “See you around. Good luck with whatever it is,” nodded Con.

  Hob left their lair and headed down to the local park that he’d transformed into when he left that day. He liked to do that - transform forth and back in the same spot. Then if any cameras happened to catch him coming and leaving the area it didn’t look suspicious, as he had his quick change clothes. Marcus and Hob wore different clothes. So if anyone ever questioned Marcus on what he’d been doing during those times, he was just going to tell them he spent the whole evening in the park. If anyone pressed on that, he had a fairly simple line to tell them…

  He chuckled to himself thinking about it.

  Whilst leaving the woods that he’d changed in, Marcus saw a familiar if bruised face walk past him. Hunter. The Super he’d beat up on earlier that night. He was looking around like a dog sniffing tracks. He really did live up to his name. Marcus would have to avoid these particular woods from now on - he had no wish to escalate with the League of Supers over something so ridiculous.

  The Super didn’t seem to notice Marcus but the fact that he was sniffing around at all made Hob very, very unhappy.