"ROOKIE HERO GRAVITATE RUINS EVERYTHING"
Hoshi Orbit Article Contributed by Karla Yuu
It's been weeks since this article came out but it still stings every time he reads it. At this point, he can only bear to skim the clipping….
Not only does the newsblog chew him out for destroying The Gravitas, there's also a quote from Rexford damning him for "costing him hundreds of thousands of dollars." Of course there's a quote from Jury too, saying that Travis sabotaged what otherwise would have been a successful mission for him.
The MCPD have also marked him as a dangerous fugitive, pinning The Splice Circle murders on him.
There have been major political battles surrounding electronic tracking and privacy rights. Travis is supposed to be protected from most tracking as a result, but he doesn't buy that for one second. He purchased anti-tracking software as soon as he could, so his H-Chip does its best to keep him erased from GPS grids and clean up as many of his electronic footprints as possible.
The software wasn't cheap though, setting him back $400.
Last and certainly not least, Mayor Victon's office commented in the article, saying that it's "amateur hero screwups like this one that Mayor Victon's hoping to further regulate during the rest of his term."
While this Orbit article probably helped to make Karla Yuu's career, it appears that she has done irreparable damage to his. Even though she gave him a boost with that first piece on Trackr, she has thoroughly trashed his name with this second article—a fact he won't forget anytime soon.
The people of Hoshi City now think of him not just as a hack, but as an actual danger to society. If he thought getting a good hero gig was hard before, it just got doubly difficult.
The only positive news is that, good or bad, famous or infamous, he placed himself on the map in a big way. Getting people's attention is the first step to becoming a hero, even if it's only negative attention.
And now that all of Hoshi City is watching, it's up to him to decide what they see next.
With that thought in mind, he took some time to rest and recover from that first, traumatizing night. More importantly, he took time to reflect upon his actions.
Travis reputation is ruined—people think he's useless at best and a criminal at worst. It's going to be impossible now to launch a successful heroic career.
This crazy mystery girl clearly has it out for him—she knew his code name, sabotaged his first mission, and successfully framed him. It should be a top priority for him to figure out who Veta is and what she wants.
No matter how he feels about his first case as a hero, he realizes that this is going to be way harder than he expected. He's going to have to be stronger, smarter, and faster if he has any hope of surviving the deadly enemies he faces, and finding the success he so desperately craves.
But what if this is all a crazy pipe dream? What if he's not good enough? What if the odds just never work in his favor? His dreams could simply not come true and no one would know except for him….
He quickly shook these doubts off, though. No one ever said this was going to be easy.
Ready to get back to work, he pulls on his Gravitate costume. He knows Grandma will kill him if he doesn't say goodbye before leaving, so he walks into the living room, where he finds her wrestling with a rather large palm frond. Grandma's brooches are all askew, she has lost an earring, and her usually tidy, blonde hair has come undone.
"I'm fine!" Grandma says, wiping her brow. "Tropez here is just having a bit of a hard time adjusting but he'll feel right at home in no time. By the way, that video game woman called again…and she sounded rather angry."
In his haste to start his heroic career, he quit the video game testing job without telling the company (or returning his advance deposit). Perhaps not the smartest move, especially now that he has no idea how he's going to start making money as a hero.
Unfortunately, his bank account also took another hit this morning after he paid $800 for rent; Grandma's pension doesn't cover all the bills.
"Anyway, are you going to go see Jenny?" Grandma asks, returning to her battle with Tropez.
Grandma thinks that with all of this fresh, heroic hell on his plate, it'd be smart to strategize with his PFPP agent, Jenny. She has access to government information and claims to have a lead that could help him sort out the mess with the Gravitas case. But he probably bit off too much too fast taking on The Splice Circle, so he got his sights set on a smaller-scale mission for tonight.
"Oh Travis," Grandma says, "have you made a decision yet about the sidekick-mentoring project?"
Despite his heroic false start, Grandma has still been insisting that he take on a sidekick-mentee. She's always been involved in mentoring Powered youth—Travis even had his own hero-mentor back when he was younger (though the most exciting thing he asked his to do was pick up his dry cleaning).
He'd never tell Grandma but he doesn't have much faith in the program. Besides, he can't imagine why any young Powered person would want to work with an amateur like him. He's been rather reluctant to choose all week but at this point he's just tired of Grandma's constant and "helpful" reminders.
"All right, all right," Travis says, pulling up the applicant files on his H-Chip. As they scroll in front of his face, he decides to go with "Tarana Rain" It sounds like she might be a real pain and he can't fathom why she's applying to this program, but Travis does like the idea of having a connection to the Orbit. Impressing her parents might come in very handy, given their considerable influence within the media world.
If he's going to do this mentor-a-sidekick thing, why not get something out of it for himself, too.
"Oooh, I smell trouble," H-Chip Aphrodite says, appearing today in one of her standard-issue outfits, a naughty secretary. "That mess is going to be too hot to handle!"
Ignoring Aphrodite and wishing he'd chosen a potentially less-offensive personality template for his H-Chip, he looked up.
"I'm going to go with Tarana Rain," Travis says to Grandma.
"I had a feeling you might," Grandma says, a mischievous smirk stretching across her face, "which is why I told her to meet you in Ringe Square in five minutes to help you with whatever you've got planned for tonight."
Travis opens his mouth to protest but knows it's no use—arguing with Grandma once she has made up her mind is mind-numbingly futile. So he simply nodded, jaw clenched. This is certainly going to be…interesting.
Before he goes, he walks over to say goodbye to Bronzina, stroking her petals for good luck.
"And for heavens sake, Travis," Grandma starts, once again looking more worried. "Please be careful out there?"
Travis nods at Grandma, knowing it will be hard to screw things up worse than he did last time.
In his room, he prepares for takeoff, checking over his costume one last time. Then he looks up at the poster of his parents, causing another streak of guilt to run through him.
But then he stopped himself, thinking that nothing has changed. He has been left to live his life without his parents so that's exactly what he's going to do.
Instead he glances over at the poster of Rebellion, thinking that getting to his level seems further away than ever before.
Tarana Rain is late. Already, this whole sidekick thing seems like a very bad idea.
Travis waits in Ringe Square alone, feeling a bit self-conscious in his costume. Grandma knew he had to meet Tarana Rain somewhere public to protect his identity but she could have chosen a better location—this park is a notorious drug center. Travis feels the eyes of dealers on him from all around, waiting to see why he's here.
Not to mention some punk kid recognized him and shouted about how his dog could probably be a better hero than him. What a great first brush with fame, he thinks.
He could also swear one of them is taking photos of him, but before he can locate the source of the flash, his H-Chip pulses with an alert.
"Hey lover, I have an update on that big ol' crush of yours," H-Chip Aphrodite says. "Try to keep it in your pants this time, you read me?"
Turning red, he ignored Aphrodite and opened the newsblog clip instead:
THE HOSHI GROUP GETS A TOUCH OF MAGIC
Black Magic to Become Group's Newest Member
As he reads this headline, his heart nearly stops beating. There's Black Magic in the holographic picture, looking more like Lady L than he can stand.
Travis always saw Black Magic as a solo hero like himself, so it's a bit disappointing that she has decided to join The Hoshi Group. Still, he imagines himself standing next to Black Magic in the photo, his hand secretly on her back behind the cameras. Team or no team, he'd be the hottest celebrity couple in all of HC.
Then his mind wanders to him and Black Magic backstage, in a deserted storage closet, pressed up against the wall. His hands on her chest, her hands sliding down his stomach, unbuckling the belt on his costume.
"Uh, hello?" Travis hears a sharp voice saying, pulling him back to reality.
He turned to find Tarana Rain standing next to him, arms crossed. She wears thigh-high boots with five-inch heels and a tight, white costume, which pops against her dark-brown skin.
"Wow," Travis says, without thinking. Nothing about Tarana's outfit is the least bit practical for heroing—especially not the diamond earrings (which probably cost more than his apartment).
"Of all the lame-ass heroes they could have stuck me with, I get the reject who couldn't even handle an ancient accessory," Tarana seethes, eyeing Travis as if he had leprosy. Looking exhausted, she reaches down into her boot and pulls out a flask.
"Mommy needs a shot."
"Woah, aren't you only-"
"Relax. I generate water, remember? The excess moisture in my body keeps me so hydrated, it would take an entire distillery to catch a buzz," Tarana says, downing half the flask in one gulp. "Still, it takes the edge off if I lace it with some 'ludes. Now are we going to off some baddies, or what?"
Travis stares at Tarana, speechless. He really picked a winner here, didn't he?
"We're going to break up the Ani-gang rumble," Travis says, knowing there's no going back now. He got to give this whole sidekick thing at least one night or Grandma might kill him.
"What the slugger is an Ani-gang?" Tarana says, taking another long pull from her flask. "Is that some kind of weird, hood thing?"
Oh dear.