First job (Troglodyte, Dustin Waugh if it's fine with Troglodyte)

As Dustin had his eyes set on the farthest person he seemed to have dodged his attack and then threw something. It glimmered in the sun and he dodged it as good as possible. The coins crashed into the ground causing some damage. The guy said earlier about people being killed but he was not worried as he smiled and closed his eyes. He looked back at him as he held out one hand and simulated a pointing towards higher up. His attack then slowed down and shot up and increased speed. Since it was already close it would be harder to dodge.

The sand died down before anything bad happened. And as all of it happened something caught his focus. He looked over at his cage as the guy had cut his way out. He clapped his hands together as giant black and blue spikes pierce through the ground going straight for the guy. Was he running away or was he gaining ground. He could fight both but it would be hard. He held out both hands waiting for their next attack. He would also have to lure them both to him if he was to fight them without having to let one escape.

Gentleman rose into the skies, a big, smug grin on his lips as he observed the goings-on down below. He felt safer up here. It seemed that the new arrival had a certain controll over the sand that littered the area, but up here our Fantastically Fashionable, Ferociously Fancy Fighter figured that it would be quite a bit more difficult to pull a sandstorm out of your arse-enal. Indeed, not even the winds that has plauged him earlier bothered him up here. If he was violently inclined he would merely stay at this altitude and kill off both men with coins, pocketlint or whatever he might have brought wit hhim. Maybe he'd even go so far as to finnish the newcommer off with a diamond! How deliciously Ironic that would be! He would be lying if he said that the thought had not appealed to him somewhat, if mostly for the bragging rights. Not everyone could honestly say they'd taken out a A-list superhero, could they?

However, he would not risk remaining and this location for that long. Sometimes these people travelled in bunches, and it was not worth getting into a scrap with a whole super-team. Especially if they were in the same league as this fellow. Especially since he had already gotten what he came for. The most valuble of the diamonds were safely stored within his pockets. and unless somebody had changed the rule of the game of 'villain versus hero' that made him the victor. Besides, if his father had taught him anything, it was that you better quit while you're ahead!

"Well, gentlemen. It has been quite a smashing evening, but I it is getting late, and I believe that it is time for me to retire. Ta-ta!" He said his theatrically smug voice echoing through the skies, his intonation making it quite clear that he was trying to mock them, rather than leaving in a polite fashion. He twirled his umbrella leisurely in one hand, and adjusted his monocle slightly before departure when he heard something below him. It sounded like a rustle, but what on earth could rustle up. . .

He looked down and the smug, arrogant expression on his face quickly gave way to fear and confusing. The sandstorm was shooting up straight at him, seemingly faster than ever

"What in tarnation!?" He shouted in indignant confusion, as he tried to dodge out of the way, but it was too late. He had let his guard down only for a second, and the man down ther had capitalized on it. the winds tore at him, flinging him around like a ragdoll, and he could feel some larger pieces of sand scratch his face. He did his best to charge his clothes for protection, but it was so hard to concentrate. He wrapped his cloak around his face, but the sand got in anyway. It was everywhere! He tried to get out of there, using all his power to fly to the north, but the winds were too strong, they flung him back and forth. The only thing he could do was to use the power as the wind as a boost, forcinging him out of the windstorm. He crashed towards the earth very ungracefully, bouncing on the ground a few times as he "landed" although most folks would say "crashed."

He lay there for a few seconds, breathing in and out. His clothes were torn at the edges, and his hat was nowhere to be found. his shirt and jacket were riddled with tears, and trickles of blood poured from various scratches and cuts in his skin. But at least his powers had rescued him from being torn apart by the winds and breaking bones in the crash. He tried to get up on his feet, but quickly fell, finding that he was tangled in the tattered remains of his cloak. with minimal struggle he untangled himself and quickly but unsteadily got onto his feet, stumbling like a drunkard, his gracefull movements a mere memory. His head was spinning too, and his stomach felt queasy. That was when he barely managed to hold back a stream of vomit. There was only one thing to do in such a situation. . .

Bloody and beaten, the gentleman turned around, using all his powers to fly away as fast as possible. Not the gracefull escape he had imagine, but a desperate flight fro his life!

As the attack he sent off seemed to have hit but barely the guy was sent for a spin. If only the actual energy would have hit him then maybe he would have been left on the ground for further exploitations. As he got angrier he did not want either of them to leave. He clinched his fist and started to raise his power around him. "Cling". This sound was made behind him and it caught his attention.

What now? He turned to see a robot that had a large blade had hit the energy he was going to use to project at the guy who was flying. His mind was pushed. Bringing both of them down was hard and he did not think he could continue to go after both. If he did not start charging the next attack the robot would have gotten to him without a problem. He jumped back as far as he could then slid to a halt. He raised his hands and the energy that stopped the robot had enveloped his hand. He pointed it at the robot and fired it all at once.

He regained more power and placed it in his hand. He fussed them together and slapped the ground. The power surged through the ground and raced to catch up to the other guy. If he was smart he would not press his luck against the wall. The power had made it passed but it kept moving until it was a good distance to shoot up so the guy would not simply fly over it before it had time to set. No more sands or wind only power.

He needed major help and quick. These two were able to attack him at once but since they were not he had some lean in the fight. He looked at the other robots that were leaving with the salvage from the truck. Darn I cant let them get away. I have to stop them, he thought to himself. Looking out seeing all the robots he had to hit them all in one shot before they all left. He shot a single blast into the air, aimed only at one robot. He started concentrating as the blast separated into many shots going for the robots. He was not able to hit all of them but he could hit most of them. The dispersed energy followed behind the bots slowly catching their trail and would soon be right on them.

Gentleman flew along the ground peacefully, clinging to the hope that he would get away soon. Hopefully he would be out of the other man's range soon, He wiped some sweat from his forehead, trying his best to regain his composure. The wobbliness had left his knees already, the numerous gashes and slashes did not hurt all that bad anymore and his mind had once again grown practical and calculating rather than governed by fear and panic. However, the queasyness in his gut still remained for some reason, although it seemed to be fading too, albeit at a slower rate. Still, it had been a rather harrowing experience, being flung around like that. Most disruptive to his generally cool and collected demeanor. That was when he saw it, reflected in his monocle. A wave of energy behind him shooting up yet again. He grunted annoyingly and quickly turned around, speeding back towards the wall, Raising his umbrella like a sword and his tattered cloak like a shield. That man was starting to truly get on his nerves.

With his umbrella he quickly slashed a hole through the "wall" of energy, big enoufh for him to speed through, and speed through it he did, wrapping his cloak around him in case the hole would dissapear when he was half-way through. He had avoided this dangr, but it had been quite bothersome with that fellow over there sending various attacks over increasingly vast distances to kill him off. No sense of style, that one. He quickly shoved the umbrella into the sand and bent down, gathering up as many handfulls of sand as he could, letting his energy surge through it. charging it up before he hurled it back towards the man. True, there was quite some distance between the two now, but every grain of sand was capable of smashing a small hole in a tank, and was travelling faster than a bullet. The slight spread of his attack would mean that not only the man would get hit, but also the strange robots that seemed to have swarmed around the downed car. Yet another villain making a grab for the loot, probably. Anyways, it was almost impossible to dodge the sand, and even though the other man's energy was powerfull, his own kinetically charged objects had been proven stronger.

After hurling his little attack, he grabbed the umbrella and continued his escape. He would NOT die here! There was no way he was going to die out here in the middle of nowhere! He speeded up and flew forwards as fast as he could, occasionally glancing backwards. This was getting far to dangerous for his tastes, no doubt the police were on their way too, since this whole thing had taken so much time, not to mention that their target was a quite high-profile, high-priority transport. It might have been fate, but just as gentleman thought those very thoughts, several small red-n'-blue blinking lights appeared in the distance, and the distinctive Oii-Oii-Oii of an angry police-car could be heard. No doubt they were they heading towards the downed car. Gentleman rose into the skies and hoped that the police would pass underneath him without seeing him.

As he broke a hole through his wall made of both energy and darkness he looked in amaze. He knew people's ability went up a couple notches over his but combined his power at least matched anyone who was one notch ahead of him. He looked at the guy as he was leaving and decided to give one last attempt to stop him. The wall shattered into 1000's of shards. They were floating in the air when suddenly he threw his hand forward and all the shards started moving forward. They had enough force behind it to catch him before he went out of reach.

In the mist of what he did not see a cloud of sand was headed for him and everything behind him. He suddenly took flight but he only grazed the side of the cloud and that's when he felt it. There were small holes in his foot but not that many. It had hit his left foot but he could still walk but with a major limp. The truck behind him was completely destroyed and then he heard it. The sirens in the background. He looked over his shoulder when he seen the lights flashing. They would start shooting at everyone who was a super so he had to chain the other guy, but he was not looking at him that much. He turned around to see him scrounging around for something.

Most of his robots had already carried of a lot of the loot and it appeared the sand died before coming close to the robots. He sighed and thought lucky. He looked at the guy and held out his hand and shot an enrgy formed ball at him. Sorry, but your not getting away like he did. He started to focus on the person who was a lot closer.

Slyblade had the fear of his life when he saw the sand coming. This time they wouldn't be any miracle for him: he couldn't dodge enough to be able to deflect the rest and his newly adapted cloaking device wouldn't help at all...
And then the sand just stopped. He just froze there for a while, looking at it falling back to the ground, less than a yard from him. He almost nervously giggled: of course every power had it's limits! He just couldn't believe his luck. But he quickly got back to himself again when he heard the sirens. He better had not be there when the cops came: he didn't wanted to hurt them for doing their duty.

But the other super seemed to have other plans. He actually launched one of these energy ball at him, saying that he wasn't going to get away like the gentleman. Slyblade smiled behind his mask as the energy was rapidly coming at him.

No I won't flee, you're right... I'll leave in style.

He then raised his maimed arm, the stump clearly visible, and touched the screen of his watch, activating at least his cloaking device. Now invisible he just stepped out of the way, letting the energy dig a crater on the road behind him. No point in staying anymore. After all he had all the loot he could collect and things were pretty dangerous with the cops who were probably going to fire everywhere and all that... his robots were staying only in case the other guy could find a way to stop him. But as soon as he would be in the Charybde they would quickly follow.

Gentleman cursed loudly as his sand-attack had somehow failed. Not only was the man still standing, but all of the aggravatingly annoying androids were also seemingly unnaffected! How could this be! He cursed loudly as he turned around and fled, However, as he was escaping he heard a rather loud noise, that was in a way similar to the sound glass makes when it shatters, but at the same time sounded very foreign to his ears. He was a little disheartened when he saw what has happened.

The wave had shattered into a myriad of pieces, all of them looking skin-peircingly, sharp and organ-impalingly pointy. Not the nicest things to be up again. However, even though they were fast, they seemed to be somewhat on the clumsy side, since all of them headed straight for him, rather than spreading out. That was the danger with his sand, that it spread out, causing dodging to be futile, however, this attack was the opposite, and since the shards only came from one side, dodging this would be easier. Not easy, mind you just easi-ER.

Gentleman quickly changed his course, flying upwards instead, and it seemed that the "shards" where rather slow on the uptake, and sluggishly moved to pursue him, some of them not making it in time, crashing into the ground and seemingly disintergrating, then gentleman sped on upwards and away, hoping he would be able to outfly them. This seemed to be a rather tricky thing to do however, since they were slightly faster than he was. However, he did not despair. He simply turned around flying backwards, parrying the shards one by one with his umbrella as they approached. Due to him simultaneously flying away from them, they did not strike at him en masse, as was the plan.

However, as he moved far enough away from the shards, they simply disintergrated, seemingly being out of range from their creator.

"Good riddance!" The gentleman said and flew off, back to his hotel-room. Maybe he would be able to see how the fight ended on TV. Perhaps they would even mention him! Plus, he would have to find someone to fence the diamonds too later.

As everything was coming to a close it was time to part. he gritted his teeth and looked as the Gentlemen has left and now he was not able to catch him. He was faster than Dustin and it sucked to loose. He looked at the other guy and saw his robots had almost all left. But most of them were already to far out of range so it did not matter. Well I have to run. I don't need the cops on my tail because of what y'all did. I'm a good guy so I cant have people running in fear at the site of me. I'll leave this to another time but be warned if we meet I will have more people and I wont let you run again. He said as he started floating in the air getting ready to burst off.

The cops are coming and he had no time to waste with the guy any more so no more moves and no more attacks he did not need the publicity. He flew up in the air and started for the desert. He looked back down and could see the glare from the cop cars closing in. Until that time. He burst off in a rush to get away. He would have to get stronger so he could out match people like this. he was to weak to be going up against these people.

Fortunately the hero wannabe seemed to fear the police misunderstanding the situation too much to stay and try to stop him. He probably wouldn't have been able to stop him anyway... power couldn't do you much good if you didn't know were to apply it. So in the end it was a victory of the brain over pure power... though luck had played it's part. And next time he might not be so lucky, he had to prepare better. Some energetic ranged attack would be nice, also more mobility...

As he jumped on his submarine the blueprint were already starting to draw themselves in his head... of course, with a proper use of the propeller and a single engine instead of multiples engines he could cut on the needed power and make something fast and really manoeuvrable at the same time. He hadn't even reached the inside when other project started themselves. After all he needed a new hand, if he could mix some of his needs in it... and he had been exposing himself too much, he needed something to protect himself... also this self cleaning suit really was a good idea, now that he had two seconds to think about it there was really huge stain of blood everywhere on his suit, he could only throw it out now, what a shame, he hated to waste.

One of the robot closed the hatch behind him has he walked toward what he had left of the sick bay, to at least temporary fix the stub before working on the prosthesis. Keeping the veins and artery shut with his mind was distracting, and he still could get infected... better do that now as the Charybde was leaving the scene of the crime. The most remote robots who didn't made it in time before he got into the ship would just jump into the water and swim until they could get into the sas.

_____________________________________________________________________________

-So... What. The. Fuck. Happened. Here?

Detective Dimitri Kasp wasn't too pleased by the look of the mess. Damn metahuman... he had nothing against a guy with superpower most of the time, but when they started shooting lasers at people and safe containing highly valuables jewels he quite easily lost his temper. What were his men supposed to do against threat like that? How could normal people survive when they were attacked by something like that?
The convoy guard in front of him was still shaking. Poor guy.

-I... everything happened so... fast! One minute we were just driving and then this guy just landed on the hood of the truck and destroyed the engine by stabbing it with his umbrella!

The young cop who was taking notes next to the detective raised an eyebrow, since Dimitri had discovered that the new guy was a real life meta nerd he had always took him to take the notes in these sort of cases, sometimes he was able to identify the perpetrator only with the description.

-'xcuse me? Did the guy had a top hat? And a cape?

The guard looked at him a little surprised.

-Y... yes... he also had a monocle... funny what shock make you remember...

-Yeah... Sounds like the Gentleman, the guy is starting to have quite a little reputation.

-The Gentleman yes! That's what he said, the blueblooded gentleman! He destroyed our guns and told us who he was and then left us... so we ran and hide, we didn't had any other choice...

-Yes, I understand, you couldn't do anything else... but still you could see from afar? The detective couldn't blame the guard for saving his life, but he needed more information.

The guy took a deep breath and nodded before starting again.

-We were far enough when things started to get really bad... some other dude came on a motorcycle, they talked a little then started to fight! It was horrible... they both wanted the diamonds...

-Could you describe the second supervillain? The young cop was curious about someone who challenged the gentleman and didn't got smashed. The guys abilities were powerful.

-Well... it's kind of easy... and really hard because... he... he had no face... no I mean, he didn't even had hair... nothing, just a head with no mouth and no eyes, no nose, no ears... freaky stuff...

-Mmmm... never heard of him, must be a new one... and after that?

-A third one came... but I don't think this one was here to fight, he seemed to end up here by coincidence. He got into it after we told him there were other people attacking our armoured truck. It looked like he was trying to help.

-Description?

-Err... he was rather average for a fre... for a meta, we didn't noticed anything... the army of robot came almost at the same time and took everything that was left in the truck, and got into the huge submarine... and then everybody fled because you guys were coming.

-At least they still fear authorities a little... Mumbled detective Kasp.

He left their witness to go and talk to the forensic.

-What have you guys got?

-Not much...

They handed him three evidence bag, one way bigger than the other.

-First one is a bit of scrap metal from what was left of the truck, there is blood on it, maybe some of the DNA is still intact... Second is a top hat who has clearly seen better days, and third is a knife, throwing knife by the look of it, probably our best lead, it's the most likely to have fingerprints. We looked everywhere for the licence plate of the motorcycle, but if there was one at the begining it got destroyed in the fight...

-It's still better than most of the time these days...

Dimitri Kasp put the evidence bags in his car and drove them to the police station to give them to the experts in these kind of things... and was actually surprised when they brought him good news. Not that they actually had a name, but they had a lead. Which was way better than in Dimitri's three last meta cases...
He sighted. Fifty names. You could check that, he read the list. One of his eyebrow jumped when he saw one name for which the only criminal record was:

Accused of shoplifting at the same time as several other teenagers, proved innocent by shop security camera tape.

Probably not the guy they were looking for. But it made him wonder what the kid had become since... No other criminal record, so he probably lead a good life by now, either that or he had been very smart. Wait... there was another line under the first.

Suspected of the murder of Cheryl Garnet, missing since the 16 July 2021. Cold case.

He sighed again. Crazy world. He wondered what the truth was.

-Cold case...