• Tyro sat on the top of a five-story mall,knees pulled up in front of him, balancing carefully on the edge, and looked out over Serlan City. An odd name for what had to be the most problem-filled city in existence. The place was practically stuffed with insane killers, deranged technological freaks and phsycotic mutants. Of course, there were as many "heroes" as there were "villans". It was a miracle anyone wanted to live here.
    The "heroes" weren't much better than their counterparts. He still had yet to see one who didn't simply want media attention. That was the next largest portion of the population: reporters. If there was a crime, only they cared, and it got almost no attention. Unless another "hero" showed up, and then it was likely to get noticed. At least he didn't crave attention; the media was nice to have, just to be recognized, but unlike so many others, he liked to just sit on a roof or something, wearing all black during a heat wave in July, with temperatures peaking at 120. Whereas "heroes"-
    Will you shut up?
    Maybe.
    Tyro sighed. He had too many voices in his head. They could be useful, but they were mostly just annoying.
    Is that a compliment? I can't tell.
    No. Now shut up.
    He needed something to distract himself. Nothing would work long, but he might be able to get the voices to go away for... well, for a few seconds. Fine, then; he could get exercise
    He planted one hand behind him and used that to launch himself across the parking lot, landing on some obscure pizza...place.He started running the moment he landed, wondering breifly what people thought when people like him did that. He jumped up to a clothes shop, clearing forty feet in about five seconds of running,and jumped again.
    This time, he found himself in a mostly-empty parking lot. In front of him was a bank: two stories of boring gray concrete, bright green massive block letters spelling out Serlan City Union, a suprising number of windows (many large enough to be doors), news reporters, cops, a blaring alarm and-
    Tyro blinked and looked again. Reporters. Cops. Alarm. Exactly what he was looking for. Where had his mind gone?
    He jumped, crashed through one of the windows and landed just inside. The brightly-lit interior was in suprisingly good shape for a crime. The only problems it had were bullet holes, corpses, bags of money that had been about to be stolen, cowering people and some random man holding another three feet above the ground by his shirt.
    The one who was on the ground tossed the other to the police, apparently to be jailed, and turned to Tyro.
    tyro recognized him instantly as Cyber Man. What an original name for an original- and extremely expensive to keep in one peice- "hero". What joy.
    Shut up.
    "Oh look." Tyro drawled sarcastically."It's you. The computer nerd. What's the matter? Have a problem with people using computers, instead of the other way around? Trying to create self-aware machines? Or did you just fry a microchip?"
    Cyber snarled and charged, not bothering with words. A two-foot blade slid from the top of his right wrist. Tyro simply waited, and jumped just out of range.he landed just behind Cyber, who stopped almost immediatly. Cyber's blade swiped at where Tyro's neck should have been, but Tyro had rolled right uned him. Tyro's own weapon, a quaterstaff, came out of his hand and he spun, knocking Cyber's legs out from under him.
    Too easy, Tyro thought as he rammed his staff into Cyber's steel stomach, transffered his mind along it, and tripled the size of every metallic cell in Cyber's body.
    Rather than watching the somewhat long and gruesome process, Tyro slung a moneybag at the cops, ignoring newscasters, flying bullets and the return of the voices in his head. Only then did he realize that there was nothing else for him to do. except throw more money at the reporters, which he did, just because he could.
    Time to go.
    He sprinted back outside and almost ran into a light pole. He absorbed himself into it instead, linking himself the the network of electrical wires that spread aacross the entire city, and set ou in search of something else to do.