Circuit Breaker

Prologue

There are 3 types of crimes.

Pre-meditated crimes, Which are planned ahead of time. Such as recording an armored cars routine in order to pull off the perfect heist.

Crimes of passion. These are crimes you commit based on your emotional state. Such as getting so angry some stupid hero like Red Flare arrives just in time to foil your plans that you lash out, without a care of what happens to you, or your mission.

Then there are crimes of opportunity. You don't think about them. You only commit them when you notice the opportunity falls right into your lap.

Like noticing that the stupid hero is so busy helping someone else that he can't stop you from snatching your prize.

Mike Richards committed all three of those crimes.

Earlier that night.

Mike peered through the broken shutters. No sign of it yet. His scouts and observations about the street were correct, there was an old, three storey high abandoned building, perfect to stake out in, but he hated every second of it. The paint peeled off in certain places, and the entire structure smelled like a musty sewer. He could almost see the dust particles floating lazily in the air, flying in their awkward pattern of zig zags. The furniture still remained, which suggested that the last family who occupied the building was most likely dead, which meant he was all alone in there, which was perfect for his plans.

Yet it was the worst. Abandoned, dark places chilled him, and he would do much better without the added fear of his first heist to top it all off. But it would have to do. He knew he had to do it, for Sarah's sake if not his own. He had done the work, he had studied the routine and he knew it like the back of his hand. He had timed everything to perfection.

He knew the risks, he knew how to deal with the police, if they came after him. The heroes were who he was worried about, but he forced himself to deal with that matter when the time came. He couldn't let this all be for nothing.

Five minutes of waiting, and finally the shrill, annoying beeping of his watch reverberated through his ears. It was time.

After a deep breath and adjusting the handkerchief he wore around his face, he sprinted forward and jumped through the brick wall. He landed on the roof of the armored car, and looked up at what lay ahead of him on the road. A police escort was no problem for him. He thrust his hands forward, aiming them at the police vehicle in front of him, and a blast of electricity followed suit, landing it's mark at the wheel of the car, blowing out the tires and sending it into the air in a haphazard barrel roll, making a landing at the side of the street on it's roof, to which the remaining officers at the back of the escort drove around. Pedestrians screamed and ran while civillians on bikes or cars sped forward, fleeing from the impending battle. Others brought out cameras and phones and tried their hands at recording the whole thing, which was exactly what Mike expected to happen.

This type of thing happened often in Mattea City. Due to it being overrun with villains and heroes alike. Mattea was once a peaceful city, with a crime rate other cities could dream of. That was before the attack. At least what it was called by various journalists and press. At first, they were thought to be miniscule objects of debris from a possibly destroyed meteor, but the government had wrote it off as nothing, due to scientists explaining that they were so small they wouldn't do any damage, added to the fact that they seemed to be completely missing Earth.

The scientists were wrong.

Even after the unprecedented change in direction of these 'mini meteors', the government refused to warn the public, in order to avoid mass panic and over the top theories about what they may be. Then finally, they hit. Initially, they were expected to fall over the ocean, and that nothing would be majorly damaged. Not only were they three times in quantity than originally thought, but they struck major and minor cities alike, in some cases causing damage to infrastructures and loss of life due to that. The entire event went down in official police records as 'Incident B'. Mattea city was no exception. It was theorized that the government had hid the information from them about the objects, and after no proper responses from its representatives, citizens started taking these rumors to truth, resulting in riots and more protests than the government could
handle. People had begun receiving powers all over America, and eventually all over the world. Resulting in plenty of villains, and barely enough people willing enough to commit themselves to saving their cities or countries.