Hob made his way through the city streets on the way downtown to the Supervillain lair he shared with Construct. He had taken on what Claire had said and done a single fifteen minute visualisation before leaving, but that was all he could really spare.

  The information was useful to him, truly. Instead of focussing on his powers in his human form, he focussed on the transformation into Hobgoblin. He tried to visualise the power going into Hobgoblin’s eyes, making them more dynamic, more capable, more powerful.

  Hob already had enhanced vision and great night vision, but now it was something else. The difference was, you could say, night and day. Everything was just coming into detail that much sharper from that much further away. He could see the graffiti and the scratch marks in the building all the way down the street just by focussing on it, even in the area he was heading through where it was rarer to have a streetlight working than not.

  Hob kept his hood down low over his face and nobody bothered him. He sometimes wondered if crooks and villains just got a general sense that he was one of them and left him alone. Probably he just didn’t look like easy prey, even if there was only one of him.

  Or maybe he’d been seen coming and going enough that the local prowlers clocked him as a dangerous entity despite the fact that he hid his face, and so didn’t try anything funny. Hob knew he had a bit of a reputation in certain parts. His Hobgoblin mug was fairly recognisable and the blackfire was pretty unique too.

  Hob and Con tried to keep a low profile but when you were going after the big stuff, the heists and the high profile robberies, you had to give yourself away a bit. They were also equal opportunity robbers. It didn’t matter if you were a hero or a villain, Hob and Con were just after the part they wanted.

  There was technically some sort of overarching battle between heroes and villains; or the Super League and its enemies if you preferred, but Hobgoblin and Construct didn’t find themselves allying with a certain side. They were against the Super League and how they ran things but most of the Super League’s enemies were at least as bad or worse. Some of them were really downright disgusting people.

  So Hob and Con weren’t allying with them. They had started off as hero vigilantes after all.

  Now that Spaceman was being pushed out of the Super League that muddied the waters even further. It seemed like he was taking a fair amount of Super League guys with him, who also weren’t happy with the way things were being run. Not that many though. After all, who wanted to pick a fight with Cape? Only the very strong and the very stupid would dare to go against the strongest being on Earth.

  Maybe that’s why Spaceman wanted his moon colony. Somewhere even Cape couldn’t control.

  Hob wasn’t sure whether he and Con were strong or stupid yet, but they’d been slowly building up relations with Spaceman’s men. Partly they liked what he was doing. Partly they needed scientific equipment to create the instrument they wanted to make. Spaceman needed those too, by the barrel. If he wasn’t bound by the rules of the Super League - and worse, was getting embargoed by the Super League - then he was free to get his parts from elsewhere.

  Which was where the two budding Supervillains came in. Construct was a tech whiz to put it mildly. Hob wasn’t unintelligent. Anything they couldn’t steal, they could probably figure out how to make from the goods they could pilfer. They also knew what Spaceman would want and why, which made them excellent suppliers for his moon base.

  While Construct worked on the science gizmos back at their lair, Hob would do reconnaissance. If a place needed to be broken into or escaped from, Hob had a great set of powers for it. He would spend his nights scouting out certain areas, labs, convoys, and people. That’s what he was supposed to do most nights, only the community service with Cassie would probably cause problems.

  He needed time to get down to one of his safe spots to transform, then make his way to the place that needed scouting, then to actually watch it, then get back from there to his transformation spot, transform there and then head home. So while it sounded possible to do community service and night recon, logistically it was very difficult. And that was if he completely ignored all the work he was supposed to do for school. Therefore, he wouldn’t really be able to manage it.

  He hoped Con would see it the same way when he took a night off a week for “personal reasons”. He knew that the other Extrahuman wouldn’t.

  “A night off a week? Do you have any idea what that will do to our plans?” said Construct, flabbergasted. Hob had taken him away from his precious lab time just to give him bad news and he was not happy.

  “Completely disrupt our understanding of what’s going in the city and in our locations of interest?” said Hob.

  “Well - basically yeah! I can cover it a bit with my drones, but they’re basically worse than you in every way,” complained Con.

  “You flatter me,” Hobgoblin replied.

  “I’d really rather not when you’re messing me around,” said Construct, unimpressed. “And you won’t even tell me why.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “You know I can’t do that,” laughed Hob.

  “Well whatever it is, just don’t do it.”

  “That would end up causing more problems down the line, believe me.”

  “Why not stop whatever it is you’re doing and come and live here full time? I know what you’re like, it’s the villain life for you,” said Con.

  “Is that right? Just abandon everything?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do you know what I do all day? Maybe I spend the days skulking around in the sewers.”

  “Well now you have my attention. Pray tell, what is it that you’re doing in the sewers once a week?”

  “There’s a lot going on down there.”

  “Now that’s true. I hear reports that the Wallcrawler’s Guild is setting up a permanent base down below. You wouldn’t happen to be associated with them, would you?”

  “Eugh, no. What are they doing that for?” asked Hob, both with genuine curiosity and glad to be off his personal issues.

  “Looks like the lofty powers that be - in this case Spaceman - pushed them out of their old territory. He wanted certain tower blocks around the city. I don’t know what his ideas for launch are but I imagine they’re connected.”

  “He’s not going to launch spaceships off tower blocks!?”

  “I don’t think it’ll be exactly that, but he’ll probably be doing something with them. Maybe connecting them all and creating a launch pad off there. Or maybe it's something else entirely. Perhaps the man likes being high up? Could be he’s just missing the view from the Super League skyscrapers.”

  “Maybe he’s just gone gaga.”

  “As long as he still buys what we nab, that's fine by me.”

  “Speaking of, we’re hitting Richmond Industries, right?”

  “Yeah, right on the canal. You don’t happen to have gills do you?”

  Huh. Could he have gills? If only he visualised it? He thought not. But maybe he could become a Hob with increased lung strength?

  “Why do you ask?” he asked Construct.

  “Because they’re transporting everything below-surface nowadays. Don’t worry, I’m working on a lightweight diving gear that’ll fit you. But it’ll be the first thing they target if you run into trouble. Or swim into it.”

  “Trouble swims into me. My blackfire still burns underwater, so you ought to be worried for them.”

  “I’m worried about getting this finished. We’re only three, maybe four parts off.”

  “Piece of cake, I’m sure.”

  “The whole three layers, mate.”

  ____________

  Hob took to testing his new and improved vision from a distance. This was how he worked. First he observed from afar and circled his target, getting a good idea of the layout and the workers within the building while also seeming inconspicuous. He was viewing from quite far away so he didn’t need to worry about being picked up on the scanners. That was one of the problems with Construct’s drones - they could be picked up or knocked out of the sky by a hero with powers relating to electromagnetic fields. Plus they had no plausible deniability. Hob did. You couldn’t really explain away a drone flying about, but a person just walking around was fairly standard.

  Even if that person was a lanky yellow Hobgoblin.

  Hob watched as one of the security guards stepped outside for a smoke break. The man had done that a lot. Either he was very addicted, very stressed, or very bored. He was a big guy, bald with a well grown brown beard. Hob took a note of the man and the time and the date.

  His improved vision was coming in very handy. Not handy enough though - it didn’t give him enhanced peripheral vision.

  “Ay. Gimme your shit,” said a man approaching Hob, trying to sound intimidating. Hob didn’t need enhanced vision to see everything about him - the man wasn’t wearing a hoodie. He wasn’t covering up at all. By the big square pack on his back it seemed like he’d just been delivering food. Completely brazen. Knew he wouldn’t be punished, no doubt.

  The man pulled a big knife out and approached - quickly. The would-be must have been some type of speedster. Hob lifted his head and his hoodie fell back, revealing the fanged teeth, yellow skin and pointed ears of his Hobgoblin face.

  Hob wanted to burn this guy. Ordinarily he would have, but on a stakeout mission the risk of compromising was too high. Hob was a criminal too but he found something viscerally repulsive about the type of petty thug that randomly accosted people on the street. Their overly-aggressive posturing was grating and the lowness of their goals made him want to roll his eyes. At most he’d have a phone on him - and what else? This man was really going to stab him over such a small score?

  But he suspected that wasn’t why the person was doing it. It was for the boring sadism of it. Just to get one up on someone else - that’s why these types targeted the most vulnerable they could find to prey upon and torment. It was hopelessly base and it disgusted Hob.

  This person was a cut above that if he went after Hob - little old ladies were more the petty thug’s speed - but it was likely only because the man had a power that he dared to act big. He was overconfident.

  So confident in fact, that he didn’t turn and leave as soon as he saw Hob’s inhuman face.

  “Oh what’s up Freakshow? You got any human money?” he said, waving the big knife around while gesturing. It was probably as big as the man’s forearm. Hob slapped him, hard.

  The speedster tried to dodge but Hob was quick too and the slap landed with a crack sound as the would-be robber was sent careening onto the floor. He got up angrily, but it wasn’t the righteous determined anger that would have at least earned some respect from Hob, but the sulky, petulant anger of the child who didn’t get what he wanted.

  Hob set his hand ablaze and steeled his gaze. If the thug brought the knife any closer then Hob would kill him. It wasn’t worth keeping his cover to let a speedster get a sharp object anywhere near him.

  The man stopped and backed off. An app pinged. “Man, fuck you,” said the thief said as he ran off, no doubt to get something warm to someone not so far away. Hob took in the details of the man. Fairly generic. He might come back here to find him if the Richmond Industries job went smoothly.

  Really a job for Richmond Industries, thought Hob, but he was a humanitarian at heart. If they weren’t gonna clean up their streets then he just might.