"I'm just studying my options here. I'll see what I can dig."

"Well, let me know when you have it. We'll arrange a drop. And like I said, should be a week or two to make. Oh, one last thing. I'm changing my name. 'Hopper' was stupid and temporary. You have just made a deal with the tinker known as Vertigo!"

He laughs. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Vertigo. I remain just 'Will.'"

"Right. Well, bye for now."

"See you later, ex-Hopper."

...Home to ponder her new criminal endeavor.

That was easy. Maybe too easy. Should she have taken the help from Glam? Maybe it got her too used to doing shadowy deals.

She goes home and does homework and tries not to hate her dad quite as much. She decides it's time to use her various electronic taps - police scanner, 911 call intercepting, the fire alarm notification system - to watch for places she can actually help at. That's the whole point after all.

It's three days later when she catches something about a possible gang fight.

The idea of being the fighty kind of hero is not super appealing. She was hoping to rescue people from fires or car crashes or something. She even made a clamp that can hook into fire hydrants at one point.

But apparently those just don't happen all that often.

She hurriedly loads anti-crowd gear into the few swappable parts of the Mechsuit (the major revision of it since last time she went out is a hastily painted red/blue color scheme and the word VERTIGO splashed across the chest), and tromps off towards the area where things seem to be going down.

From a distance it looks like there are two groups of people yelling at each other, a bit over a dozen people on either side, brandishing blunt weapons and in some cases guns. They seem to all be regular humans—or at least none of them are displaying powers.

This is going to be fun. Not.

She maneuvers to a nearby roof, reasonably quietly, and tries to see if anyone is already hurt.

She will find a junior hero with a slightly glowy warrior's garb on top of one of the buildings, looking at the fight.

"Yo! I think I recognize you. And you're not participating in... That. So, probably a hero like I'm trying to be."

He doesn't jump, but he does look at her rather silently. "—yes, I'm with the Wards," he whispers. "I'm Dauntless. And you're... Vertigo?"

"Glad to see the paint's working. You might have heard of me as Hopper but that's a stupid name. I have first aid stuff, sticky webbing, stun grenades..."

"Oh. You're the one Armsmaster talked about."

"It was an accident. My current rig doesn't carry even as third as much charge. Because I actually tore out all my supercaps."

He raises his hands in a surrender-like sign. "Not here to scold you or anything. Are you gonna help out with them?"

"I was planning on it but I didn't want to crash in there and make things worse, hence talking to you."

"Cool, what do you have to help?"

"I have a lot of electrical stunning stuff, stun rod and taser thing and stun grenades, but if you don't trust it I understand. I'm pretty maneuverable in this suit, and it's armored. I have sticky nets. I have first aid stuff, but it's not tinkery, just regular bandages and so on."

"Well right now you're only wanted for something something accidental property damage so unless you want to be wanted for manslaughter I trust you'll be careful not to kill anyone," he says wryly.

"I'm not gonna- Look, do you want my help or not? I'll leave you to handle this yourself if you like."

"Just saying. Alright, so I called this in, we'll get reinforcements in a bit, but if violence breaks out—" It does. "I take the ones on the left, you take the ones on the right?"

Sharp nod, "Got it." She steps off the roof down into the street - this suit's tentacles(?) can stretch really far apparently - and steps right in between the mass of people shooting at each other.

Reckless, perhaps, but her armor is layered plates of old boat steel.

She starts using her sticky net launcher on the guys with the biggest guns.

Well, if they weren't using guns before, now they are!

Dauntless is equipped with his spear (slightly glowy), shield (with a soft aura), and boots (crackling with lightning). He charges, faster than normal humans, and uses himself as a pinball.

A few conveniently placed rocks, soda cans, and other similar types of obstacles start appearing and making members of both gangs seem much clumsier than they'd otherwise be. And these obstacles become mysteriously absent when they might have inconvenienced Dauntless.