After Action Report I

In his condo, his wife having left for the night, Vitrius rages, grabbing all the glass he can find, and smashing it to powder.

I finally make the top ten, and I'm beat out by El Toro? Impossible!

Finally he calms down and meticulously begins reforming and replacing each thing he broke. Actually on reflection this wasn't all that bad. Breaking the top ten, being seen among them, was the most important thing, no matter who is above him. And, maybe there was merits to El Toro's approach, even if Vitrius couldn't replicate it. If they were going to work together to figure out who was manipulating the heroes, Vitrius would need to at least learn to cope with spontaneity

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the city, Diego's abuela has decided to throw a party in celebration. Just a small family affair of about eighty people, cousins, second cousins, cousins in law, etc. Uncle Ramone is at the barbecue, dishing out the meats. Kids running around playing 'super hero' with each other. And while the atmosphere is festive, Diego is worried.

Talking to his cousin Cecilia he says, "I mean, sure it's great and all. I mean, who doesn't want to be a super hero right? But I don't know. I didn't really get into this to do anything serious right? I just wanted to get in there, pull some tricks, make the bad guys look like idiots and have people cheer for me." He takes a pull from his beer. "Top ten work, that's serious shit though. People are going to expect like real super hero stuff you know?"

And staring into the night he can't help but feel that something about Valor just seems 'off' to him, and that they're all being manipulated to playing a game he at least isn't well suited for.

After being deposited back onto the street by Valor, Echo makes her way through the city to her office within the NGC Arena. Regardless of being on the Hero Report, she wanted to get a detailed report into her sponsors before dawn. She put all of the details down as honestly as possible, leaving out some of her inner regrets on not keeping a better eye on Slapshot. She'd have to put in a requisition for some of those zip-tie things that Vitrius had, or something like it. She usually left villains too dazed (or completely unconscious) to run off, but they were a good idea.
She sends off her report and grabs a quick drink from the mini-fridge under her desk. She'd have to have a talk with Patrick tomorrow. He was the Arena's resident gear-head and costume designer. He had a real eye for heroic fashion and a knack for figuring out a gadget for whatever you wanted to do. He could probably figure out a restraint solution for her. She checks the locks he designed for the Vault (where she and the rest of the Arena's heroes keep their trophies from hero work) for no reason other than to keep her mind off of what Valor brought up to them.

A quick jog brings Echo back to her apartment building. It was a piece of modern art in itself, and charged prices to match it. She didn't mind. Her sponsors were more than happy to put their best hero up in such a place. Echo would have been more than happy with a more modest place, but she wasn't about to turn it down. Waving to the night shift lobby-workers, she then rides the elevator up to the 12th floor. The apartment is empty, as always. But Echo didn't mind so much.
She changes out of her costume, putting on comfortable workout clothes and putting her hair up in a ponytail. She switches the tv on, changing the channel to the Hero Report to watch more of the news and to see the new rankings. Mounting her treadmill, she tries to burn off some excess energy. It may be another sleepless night with how wired up she's been recently, and especially from all that energy she absorbed from Slapshot's stick.
Echo smiles when she sees that El Toro made it into the Top 10, even more so when she sees that Vitrius advanced as well. Her smile drops when she sees her name. 13? 13?! Admittedly, she hadn't been keeping track of Jade Dragon or Kraken's goings on. But with the other two getting such better rankings, she had to wonder what went wrong. Nope. Nevermind. That's where it went wrong. Echo comes out of her head enough to realize that she overheating her treadmill a bit. She brings it back to a more manageable pace, still amazed that she wasn't even out of breath yet.
She flips through the channels, sick of news. She finds a channel running a classic horror movie marathon. It was going to be a long night, might as well enjoy it.

Diego's schedule is already pretty full without dealing with the Fanatics and the fallout from that. He's got a weekly podcast and a YouTube channel to worry about, so he'll spend the morning with his production team, putting together a highlight reel of yesterday's events with commentary, and he has a meeting that afternoon to discuss merchandising opportunities. He'll drop and reschedule things as necessary to get to the interrogation that Echo's working on though.

She was right. It was a sleepless night. She ended up running the treadmill until the sun started to creep up. The bright side to being a regenerating, energy-fueled powerhouse was, even when you didn't sleep, you were never really tired. Oh well, being awake all night had given her some time to think, and she had prepared a small agenda for today.
A light breakfast and large cup of coffee later, Echo picked up the phone and dialed the number she had looked up for the NGCPD's "Hero Hotline". After a brief and slightly empowering bit of hero worship from a sweet operator named Jeanette, she was connected to the Confinement Division.
Echo explained to the man on the other end of the line who she was and why Vitrius, El Toro, and herself wanted to come in and ask Fastball a few questions. She also asked about Blitzer, but after last night, wasn't too sure how much they would get out of him.

The officer on the other end of the phone asks a few questions related to the case and politely puts you on hold telling Echo he needs to confer with his superiors. What seems like an eternity of listening to bad Muzac covers of some popular hits from five years ago, a new voice comes on the phone. "This is Captain Richard Jones of the NGCPD, I'm with the Hero Liaison Office. Ma'am we will be happy to arrange an interview tomorrow morning. As this is your first time participating in the process, there are some things to go over." He goes through a long list of rules and regulations that are frankly a little obvious and boring. The suspect has every right to refuse to talk to the heroes, they have the right to have their lawyer present, a Hero Liaison Officer will be present (specifically Capt. Jones in this case), there will be no use of powers and steps will be taken to monitor and prevent their use, if you violate that statute you face revocation of your hero status or even charged with a crime...and so on. "We will call you back as soon as we get an answer from the suspects. Shouldn't be but an hour."