1.7
Overworld

Greg growled, kicking the iron chest-piece in front of him. He would been jumping around holding his foot right now, but the pain vanished near instantly so he just stood in place. He'd gotten home from the boat graveyard yesterday and made himself some Iron Armor, but held off on trying it on due to his mom getting home from work. Today was a Sunday, and his mom had gone off to visit with some friends from work, or something. In any case, this resulted in Greg having some free time in which to experiment with his powers, and possibly go out for an actual Heroing excursion. But first... He had to figure out how to put on the damn armor! Just like anything else he made with his power, the process wasn't something he could direct. The resulting armor looked as though it had been tailored for Greg exactly. It would be fairly form fitting, no extra space for him to rattle around inside if he took a heavy hit.

It was such a good fit, in fact, that he couldn't fit his head through the hole for his neck. He had done a bit of research, and learned some interesting facts. In the medieval times, apparently most knights or what have you would let squires assemble the armor around them. The actual plate armor wasn't excessive, there were a few plates of metal in enough areas for the combatants to try and guide blows to only hit them in places that could take the hit. The rest of the armor was mostly chain-mail sleeve looking things that connected the plates. Also, it looked pretty uncomfortable.

Greg's armor wasn't quite like that at all. The Helmet was a slab of metal, and it weighed a ton. Greg could manage it, but it made his head feel pretty unbalanced, and he didn't relish the idea of practicing wearing it enough to feel comfortable wearing it into a fight. The chest-plate and leggings, however... They didn't work. At all. As far as he could tell, they were solid slabs of metal. There were no joints, hinges, or any sort of give that would let him move his arms or legs. On top of that, they were both absurdly heavy, to the point where he wasn't sure he would have been able to move at all if he combined their weight with the helmet's and tried to lift them. There wasn't a way to open either of them, so he couldn't put them on. He simply wouldn't fit through the sections intended for the skinnier parts of him. He couldn't help but wonder if there were many other capes that had problems like this. He drew all the pieces back into his inventory in disgust. Why on earth would his power let him make armor that he couldn't wear? Sliding them on wouldn't work, what was he supposed to do, teleport them into place?

Wait. Maybe that was what he was supposed to do. Thinking back, wasn't that exactly what the platform at the shipyard did? To all appearances, it had simply teleported from one point to the other. Looking down at himself, he focused on the armor in his inventory, and imagined it on himself.

Suddenly, it was. Stumbling at his sudden change of attire, he braced himself on his workbench, before furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. They weren't the stiff metal he had thought they were anymore. Swinging his arm back and forth from the elbow, he had to admit that they were actually incredibly flexible. Most medieval armors only allowed their wearer to make very limited movement, mobility being sacrificed for defense. In truth, the armor felt more like a bodysuit of solid metal. It was a bit cold, but he didn't really care about that. It didn't feel quite as heavy as he had thought it was either. He shook his head. "Powers." He said in exasperation.

Still, since he had managed to figure out his armor, and it didn't seem like he'd need much practice to move around in it comfortably, he decided that it was definitely very possible for him to go out in costume today. He didn't really feel any need to wait any longer, after all, how could he possibly be more prepared? As far as he knew, this was about as good as armor could get. Better, probably. He just needed to make himself a better weapon than the wooden hammer, in case he ran into somebody scary. He didn't think he would be seeing anyone like Hookwolf or Lung today, since he was heading into the Merchants' territory.

After all, he already knew where they had a drug lab.

OoOoO

He had his armor back in his inventory. Somehow, he felt like it would be conspicuous if he got onto the bus wearing it. He could probably have just roof-hopped his way there, but thinking about doing that in the middle of the day made him feel uncomfortable. Instead, he would wait until he was about a block away, before darting into an alley to change. As far as he could tell, the armor had exactly zero impact on his mobility, neither slowing his running pace or inhibiting his ability to jump. Getting off the bus after paying the driver, he looked around at the area around him. This part of town wasn't actually considered that dangerous. He wouldn't have expected to find most any Merchant operations here, let alone drug production. To be honest, it was only considered Merchant territory because none of the other gangs wanted it. There weren't any residential areas that the Empire would care about, and the few people that scraped out a living here weren't Asian, so Lung wasn't interested.

He looked around before strolling into the alleyway, but didn't spot any signs of life, other than a few crows fighting over some sort of litter down the street. Focusing on his armor, it appeared on him. Greg took a deep breath. This was it. From this point on, he was officially a hero! There was a minor blip in his beginning actions, when he considered what he had done to Paulson Construction, but he squashed any guilt that tried to arise. They owed him that and more, for what their negligence had cost. They wouldn't connect the thief to him anyways, as he'd only stolen wood. It was actually to his advantage that they'd interrupted him before he'd made it to a metal storage shed. Plausible deniability, at least.

He crouched slightly, out of habit. He didn't really need to, he'd found. He could jump just about as high no matter how he prepared himself beforehand. Weird, but whatever. He had to catch the edge of the roof with his hands and heave himself over, but he'd still made it up in one jump. Rolling into a crouch, he stealthily made his way over to the other side of the roof. Staring into the building that he was pretty sure he'd seen some of the Merchant grunts assembling bags of what he could only assume was cocaine, he once again spotted a variety of people hard at work at their nefarious task. He grinned to himself. They wouldn't be doing this for much longer, at least! He braced himself, trying to gauge how he should enter the building, and then he spotted a hole in the roof. It had probably been a skylight at some point, but now it was missing half of the windows. No wonder the warehouse was abandoned, it had probably been flooded a few times. Well, it would serve his purposes just fine. He carefully leaped across the gap between the two buildings, and looked down through the hole, making sure he wouldn't land on anyone in his entry. After a few moments of calculation, he made his move.

Hitting the floor of the warehouse with a heavy thud, Greg pulled his wooden hammer out of his inventory. After a moment of panic when he realized he hadn't thought up what he was going to say, he went with his gut. "This lab is now closed. Anyone wanna dispute that?" Good, good, that actually sounded kinda heroic! Sorta.

The response to his statement wasn't quite what he had expected. In his mind, he had imagined some sort of rush, where some of the workers would try to club him over the head or something, or shoot him. Instead, everyone he could see fell to the ground immediately, except for one guy who booked it out the door. He almost wanted to chase the guy, but Greg repressed the urge. He looked around in satisfaction. Was he just that intimidating? Apparently! His satisfaction ebbed slightly as he got a good look at the people around. They didn't really fit the profile that he had envisioned. Instead of the burly thugs he thought the Merchants made use of, they just looked like... people. Poor people, probably homeless. There were a lot of women, too. The clothes these people wore were ragged, the men unshaven and unkempt, and everyone around Greg could probably use a shower.

This didn't really make sense. These people didn't look evil, or brutish. They looked like the world had stepped on them. He needed to learn a bit more. "You." He pointed at an older looking man, at least in his sixties. "I need some answers. You can stand up, all of you, but don't make any sudden moves."

As the crowd timidly rose to their feet, the man Greg had chosen looked at him warily, like a starving animal. "Wh-whut do you wanna know, sir?" His voice was tremulous, and Greg felt a stab of guilt. The man swallowed. "If yer lookin' for where summa the other labs are, I dunno. Only the bosses know."

Greg waved the statement off. "I'm not interested in that, I'm interested in you. All of you. Why... why are you here? Working for the Merchants? You can't possibly think this stuff is good for anyone." Greg was a combination of angry and confused, mostly the latter. What could they say that could possibly excuse this?

The old man stared at Greg for a moment, a worried look on his face as he began to wring his hands. "Not much've a choice sir. A man's gotta eat, and workin' fer the Merchies puts a meal in ya erry-day. Nobody else got much've a use for an old man what didn't even graduate High school." The second statement had a bitter edge to it. Looking around at the other workers, Greg could imagine similar stories behind each of them, life's hardships left their marks, on their faces, their state of dress, but most of all in the way they stood. As though they'd been broken a long time since, and they only kept going out of momentum. If he called the police and got these people arrested, he'd just be continuing the cycle of grinding these people into the dirt. Greg... didn't want to do that. He didn't even think he could do that now. But he couldn't just walk away, there had to be a way to help these people. Heroes could help in ways other than just fighting, couldn't they? Greg had a power that could help, too. It wouldn't put food on their tables, but he could put a roof over their heads, at least get them off of the street. Surely that would help, wouldn't it?

He sighed, and spoke again in a tired voice. "You can all relax. I'm not going to arrest anyone, that won't help anything. I need to figure this out. How can I help you guys?" The wariness and disbelief on their faces was almost heartbreaking. God, he had been prepared to beat these people up? That was awful. Greg watched as the people gathered into little groups and began to whisper to each other. After a few minutes of discussion, the old man was nudged forward by a few of the others, apparently having been elected spokesman for having already talked to Greg. The man swallowed again, and gave a huge, rasping coughed before beginning.

"Food and shelter's all we really need, sir. Can't see much of a way for you to help with that, though we thank you kindly fer the offer." He bowed nervously, as though afraid I'd lash out at the mild rejection.

Greg replied haltingly. "Not... necessarily. I'm not too sure what I can do about food, but my power's pretty good at building things. I could probably build a decent shelter, at least. I just need something to make it out of..." Looking around him, Greg's eyes were drawn to the walls of the warehouse. The building had definitely been in better shape once, but time and neglect had left their mark. The walls had more than a few holes in them, enough that a good breeze probably went right through. With the state the ceiling was in, they didn't have much protection from both rain and heat. All in all, the conditions were terrible. He could definitely do better than that, especially if he took the warehouse apart for the materials. There was probably a tool he could make that would help him demolish it. "Do any of you know who owns this building? I could replace it, rebuild it better." Greg addressed the crowd as a whole, unsure if any of them would even know. Did the people who owned it even care anymore?

A voice rang out from behind him. "That'd be me, shitstain." Greg spun around to look at the source of the words. A spindly black man in a blue costume that covered the top half of his face, leaving his horrible teeth visible in a wide grin. "What the fuck wazzat about fixin' up my buildings?" Behind him stood a hulking figure encased in steaming machinery.

Greg stiffened. Crap, Skidmark and Trainwreck. He might get that fight after all...