Spectacular World

Daisy City

"My, my, you look quite ticked off, friend. Did something happen?" Arvin Ros, head of Daisy's Hero Branch, had an amused smirk on his face as he stared down at his laptop.

On the other side of the screen, Dean Ward ran his fingers through his hair. "You said this would all be under control." Ward hissed.

"When did I say that?" Ros questioned.

"It was you who came up with the fake Cinder plot, to begin with!" Ward hissed. "Your family are the ones that capture most of the Emperor's monsters. You use them for your own means and agenda. I was turning a blind eye to it since this time it helped us, but now your little pawn is gone, and we have the real Cinder running around once again."

Ros lazily tapped his finger down on his desk. Unlike Ward, who was still quite young, Ros was an older, plump little man who had seen a lot during his time working for the Branch. "I'll admit things haven't been going the best for us recently. It all started with that new villain, Battery. I never considered he'd pull his stunt. Not only did he manage to beat the Victorian, he even threw every hero out of their city. Worse yet, he's been doing a better job than we have. We'll need to get it back under control. I'll also take the blame for what happened to Skin Walker. I've used her as an agent for fifteen years now. Her powers made it a good way to come up with cover stories. This is the first time she's run away, however. It's quite worrying, as she seemed very loyal to whoever was in charge. It makes me concerned about what happened to her." Ros let out a sigh and shook his head. "If only we had a button that we could push that would just magically fix everything."

"We do have that button!" Ward yelled as he slammed his fist down into his desk, shaking his computer.

"We do?"

"The Victorian is supposed to be our dog." Ward hissed out. "She obeys us without question. Even now, she should be following our orders! So what if she lost once? It was a fluke. She won't lose again, I'm sure. Especially if the other heroes help her."

"That's likely true. The Victorian could swoop in and solve our little Battery problem. There's just one issue. Nobody can get ahold of her." Ros pulled out a cigar and lit up as he leaned back in his chair. "In the past, she remained in Rose at nearly all times. This made it easy for your mother to get in contact with her. When the Victorian wasn't in Rose, we had Boy Genius who could find her. Now, not only is she not in Rose, but Boy Genius has seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth as well. We simply haven't been able to give her any orders, so she's still doing her own thing until then."

"Will she even obey now that she isn't the number one hero?"

"Her father would. Just remind her of that fact, and she'll fall in line. She's still a good dog." Ros huffed out a stream of smoke.

Ward sighed again. "Why couldn't we have Full Monarch? Every Lord before now was actually worth something. Now we're stuck with all these useless fools. This Lord of the Sun is pathetic, as is the Sea. The only ones worth a damn in this generation are the Sky and Land."

"Speaking of the Lord of the Sky, Gladiolus City is still the only city not under Battery's control. We've managed to move all the other Enforcers over there. I've been working with them to come up with a plan. Mister Man and Lady Time are trying to get ahold of the Victorian, so we might be able to wrap up this Battery issue sooner than we thought." Ros stated. "In the meantime, though, what do you plan to do with the Lord of the Sun?"

"Hope Lauren? I was just going to throw her to the wolves." Ward shrugged.

"How cruel."

"No. What's cruel is her very existence. It's such a cosmic joke. She dared to be born with only a faction of Full Monarch's power. If she truly cared about us, she would never have existed. Worse yet, she got everyone's hopes up during the Beast fight. She actually made us all believe that she could live up to his legend. Now look at her. Depowered and weak once more. Barely above common trash like Golden Weaver. I had a few agents I've placed in Oleander, some of them living amongst Paragon's people, and I managed to overhear the issue of her powers. They believe they could return, but it's been days, and she has shown no sign. We don't really have time to wait for her now, do we? Honestly, it would just be a lot faster if she died and we got a new Lord."