Chapter Text
It was a normal day of dispatching, well as normal as it can be.
After the events of Shroud and Red Ring almost destroying LA and even more surprising Robert decides to NOT to kill the villian, just rough him up a bit. No one would've blamed him if he did end up killing Shroud. The most he'd get out from actually killing the guy would've been a suspension for killing another being... maybe Jail time, but he didn't kill the villian so as a result, Shroud is now locked in a high security Prison and from what he's heard from Blonde Blazer, also isolated for life. He deserved it anyway.
Now back to his team of Ex-villian heroes... honestly at this point they really are true heroes, so we'll stick that. He's got a total of 10 heroes now in his roaster while forgiving Coupé and adding Phenomaman.
Mandy, thinks it's way too many heroes for one dispatcher, the maximum being 8 heroes per shift, unless there's an emergency. Robert definitely agrees, but he doesn't want to give any of them up, so he fights for them with HR till they agree to let him handle all members. Mandy actually comes up with a schedule system so that Robert doesn't have to handle all 10 heroes at once and everyone gets equal amount of missions and shifts. Z team like the idea and with also a pay raise on their checks no one is complaining.
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First Robert pairs up heroes who have the most synergy and work extreamly well together when sent on missions. So he pairs Flambae with Prism, Punch up with Coupé, Sonar with Malevola, Invisigal with Golem and finally Waterboy with Phenomaman. Even though Waterboy and Phenomaman haven't really worked together in the past, they've actually proved themselves top and beyond and work extreamly well with eachother since, much better than when Waterboy used to pair with Punch-up.
There's a morning shift and an Evening shift, three pairs will work one shift, the third pair works both shifts for the whole day. However for the next day they will only be available to join for the evening shift and will be unavailable for the morning shift. The pair that works both shifts changes everyday so as to give everyone a chance of working both shifts keeping workload challengeing but also at the same time not overwork our heroes giving ample of rest time than what they had previously. And it also fullfils the requirement for having at least 6 heroes on the roastar so everyone's a winner.
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The morning shift is almost over, Robert's heroes in this shift are Flambae, Prism, Invisigal, Golem, Sonar and Malevola. The pair that's on both shifts for the day are the half man half bat all freak and his kind hearted and vibey sponsor. The last mission of the day pops up and it's an anonymous tip from an SDN scout informing about mild red ring activity in an abandoned storehouse, it looks heavily guarded with fighters so the dispatcher needs to dispatch heroes who can quickly take out members but also have heavy defense incase something goes wrong.
Robert dispatches Invisigal and Golem to red ring area where disbanded members still linger. Surprisingly even if it's filled with villians, they all look really weak, like runts of a litter. Robert gives the command to take them out swiftly but carefully. They're almost halfway done before the rest of the members notice that something's up.
A disruption icon pops up and Robert clicks on it.
"Hey so we're almost through with red ringed dicks here, but the rest of them have noticed us, should we take them out fists out? or go on defense?"
Robert looks over the stats, with Golem high enough on defense, the best course of action here is to go full defense and take them out slowly.
They complete the mission successfully but don't leave the area just yet. Invisigal decides to explore the area a bit more, "hey Robert, do you want me to check what they were trying to hide? There's a door but it's encrypted, can you hack into it?"
For a shift that's supposed to end right about now, Robbert thinks it's definitely taking it's sweet ass time. "Okay this should take me about a minute, it doesn't look too complex for somthing that's so well guarded."
As Robert hacks his way through the door, he feels like something's off. He shakes that feeling off and hacks into the encrypted door successfully.
"It's done, just be careful while inspecting, there could be traps set up and I have a weird feeling about this place."
"Yep, I got it!" Invisigal reassures and walks right in. The space looks like a Lab where experiments are conducted but there's one single huge bean shaped pod like structure right at the middle.
Visi stares long into the pod, with Golem backing her up near the door. It looks like something...no someone is inside the pod. She sees another person's face inside, a man wearing just a simple bodysuit and seems to be asleep...or frozen. Yea this definitely creeps her out.
"Hey Robert, you might need to look through my camera to see this, there's a glass pod or something here with what looks like...another human person inside. It looks like a man maybe in his late 30's or early 40s."
"A man inside a pod? That sounds-" as Robert clicks the camera tab under Invisgal's name and sees what she sees he freezes. He can't believe his eyes. There's no way the man in that pod should even be there? He saw him getting burried 15 years ago??? Why the fuck is he in that damn tank?!?!.
So many thoughts go through Robert's head but he's unable to utter a single sentence. All Visi and Golem can hear on their side was a gasp and then some heavy breathing.
"Uhh Robert, you good bro?" He hears someone on the line, probably Golem. However the only thing that comes out of his mouth is-
"Dad?"