*Warning! Chapters 19-23 were all posted back-t0-back. Returning readers make sure you pick up where you left off!*

Chapter 21: Calm Before the Storm

“Nico! It’s great to see you! Come on in, the other potential recruit we were waiting for already arrived.”

As Talia ushered her friend into the back room of a high-end Gotham restaurant, Alyssa looked up from where she’d been rapidly getting Victor Stone to open up by talking tech with him. He’d been increasingly enthused by some of the designs she’d shown him, originating from Major Kusangi’s world. Enough so to drop some of the wariness he’d had when entering.

Victor had been relatively easy to get ahold of, but it was only Nocturne being a known X-men affiliate that had won him over to meet with them. Alyssa was increasingly grateful that Talia had been willing to join the team. Her having a known connection to a Hero organization, one with with an excellent reputation, was opening a lot of doors that would have otherwise been closed.

Even with that, only three of the six people they’d shortlisted for their first attempt at recruiting had been willing to meet. Elsa Bloodstone was apparently involved in something currently, and Lifeguard admitted she’d prefer not to work with them until they had an official remit. Though she’d tentatively agreed to reconsider if they reached that point and she was still without a team.

Winston actually had responded somewhat positively, but had been more interested in the idea of researching scientific solutions to the Slaughter Swamp issue than in direct heroics. It turned out that, while the JL might have set him up with a decent lab, they weren’t really funding him. More accurately, he’d refused funding from them, as he still really didn’t like them very much. Even the lab he’d only accepted as it had been set up using his ‘father’s’ old equipment from the moon base.

Alyssa had transferred ten of the twenty eight million they’d earned in bounty money to him to get him started on a pollution-cleanup project…and had quietly transferred another 8 million to the funding of Angela Ziegler as well. Eventually, she hoped to transfer both of them to an Overwatch Lab and get them proper staffs, but that was still a bit of a far off thing. They needed to be a fair bit more established before they could do anything like that. For now, the funding would at least help those two get a bit of traction, even if it was likely far from enough to get either of them to a complete result.

Right now, she needed to focus on the two possible recruits who were in the room with her. The third positive response, Laserdream, wouldn’t be available for another week. She had apparently decided to do a bit of celebrating out of country after her recent graduation, though she had responded and admitted that the opportunity Alyssa had outlined interested her. Doubly so as it was not just with Overwatch but also with the cover companies Alyssa was using to start a long-term income stream for the team. She’d successfully launched a couple of apps and a single game from the work she’d been doing to provide her ‘civilian’ life a visible means of supporting herself. Likewise, she had just been coming up with ideas for the small factory above their base with Cyborg when Nico Minoru had arrived.

Turning to Nico as she sat next to Cyborg, across from the three existing members of Overwatch, Alyssa reached out to tap a device sitting in the center of the table.

“This is a noise isolator, and we’ve already swept the room for bugs of the mundane variety. I have some limited magic-adjacent ability and can’t detect anything magical that could overhear us either, but if you could check for us, Miss Minoru?”

The goth-girl smiled and nodded easily.

“Just Nico, please, and sure.”

She raised a hand to her eyes and spoke a few words no one else understood. Not even Alyssa, who’d picked up over two dozen languages by this point. Whatever it was she’d done, the effect was at least partially clear as Nico’s eyes began to glow as she carefully scanned the room. Eventually, after a minute or two, she shook her head.

“Geeze, Gotham is really a mess. There’s dozens of half-broken curses, half as many half-working blessings, and a bunch of chaotic crap all over. There isn’t anything specifically around the room, though. We should be good to talk.”

Alyssa nodded, smiling as she thanked their guest.

“Thanks. I’m still pretty much a novice on the magic side and, frankly, my abilities aren’t exactly magic anyway. Which, combined with what you said about Gotham just now, is kinda why Overwatch is hoping to recruit a magic user who properly knows their stuff. If we want to fix this city, we can’t just ignore the mystical side, even if it’s not our primary focus.”

Nico nodded and opened her mouth to speak, only for a knock on the door to cause her to pause. Dinah answered it, ushering in servers who put down a half dozen sampler platters of the many foods the restaurant offered, before exiting again. When they were gone, Alyssa waved at the food.

“Eat up. The food here is supposed to be fantastic and it’s on us, just as an extra thanks for even showing up.”

Cyborg didn’t hesitate to grab a plate and start stacking it high, with the rest of them doing the same a little more slowly. Nico, as she was piling up her own plate, picked up the conversation with what she’d been interrupted from saying before.

“Just so you know, unless there is some major issue with what you’re offering, Agatha all but ordered me to accept the offer. According to her, I’ve got down everything she needed to teach me and I really only need experience now. Pretty sure she thinks throwing me into Gotham will end up being the sort of ‘sink or swim’ kind of final test that she likes. She’s a bit…old fashioned that way.”

Talia snorted at the careful way her friend had phrased that.

“She’d a crazy old witch who is, at best, neutral. One who occasionally compulsively goes off and does Super Black Magic for seemingly shits and giggles, that everyone else then has to deal with the consequences of.”

Nico’s expression twitched as she tried not to react to that...but she ultimately sighed and slumped.

“That isn’t entirely inaccurate. Though on the plus side, she never does that when training people. She seems to enjoy teaching enough not to get bored and, you know, recreate the Darkhold out of sprinkle donuts and the hearts of five heroes or something.”

Alyssa twitched even harder than Nico had, before choosing very pointedly not to touch that. So long as Agatha didn’t come to Gotham anytime soon, she could be people like the Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, and Zantana’s problem. She certainly wasn’t getting involved in something like that without getting a hell of a lot farther in her ability to use her off-brand Force abilities, at minimum.

“Right. Well, I don’t think there will be any issues, since we’re new enough that there aren’t a whole lot of rules yet. Just a basic charter really. We have a decently equipped base, though it’s not really meant for full-time living for the whole team just yet. A solid gym and training room, garage/workshop, computer room, infirmary, and lounge, with a pair of overnight rooms to crash in. We’ll be looking to expand it to have somewhere for everyone to sleep in the long run, but I have three apartments rented out in the same complex I live in for anyone that needs them in the interim.”

Both Nico and Cyborg blinked, seeming surprised at what she was laying out for them, but Alyssa rolled right along. She refused not to set this whole thing up as a professional outfit. Letting Heroes get stressed out by trying to hold regular jobs while heroing was idiotic and ended up with Peter Parker Syndrome.

“The team pays for housing, provides a decent stipend of $5,000 a month, and will provide all required mission gear within reason. Including a separate budget for projects that will benefit the team, currently up to a million dollars per person if they can convince me the project will be useful. Of course, in exchange for all of that, we require a minimum of twenty hours a week put into either training or actual hero operations. More is expected if there’s a crisis going on.”

Her audience of two were both outright gaping now. She could understand why, at least. She’d grilled Talia heavily about what sort of arrangements various teams had, and what they were offering was easily on par with most already-city-sponsored teams. It wasn’t anywhere close to what core membership of the Justice League or Avengers received, which ran something like ‘Money: Yes.’ It was better than Talia had gotten on one of the X-men Youth teams, though. She’d been part of the latest New Mutants team and only gotten about half that monthly in stipend and minimal project or extra gear budgets. Those were typically only given out to ‘as needed’ by the current mentors of each younger team, apparently.

Nico seemed to be taking things at face value, likely due to Talia’s presence, but Cyborg’s face shifted to suspicion after he got done gaping.

“Okay, how are you affording that and what are we giving up for it? A lot of megacorps have been after my tech for years…”

Alyssa nodded seriously, having figured that would come up.

“To the first? I’m both independently wealthy and we’ve raked in quite a bit of bounty money for the groups we’ve taken down. Enough that we’re actually funding two scientists working on healing tech and a possible pollution solution for Slaughter Swamp. I’m not Tony Stark or Charles Xavier, so don’t expect super planes or a mansion. But operating capital within the limits I just defined is already secured in Team accounts for at least two years of operations.”

Just barely, currently, if everyone maxed out the project and gear budgets, but technically true. It also wasn’t likely that anyone but she or Victor actually would max out their project and gear budgets. Nico might, depending on if she went into the type of magics that used expensive reagents. But neither Dinah nor Talia had skill sets that would be likely to chew through that sort of money. Triply so since, though Cyborg wasn’t aware yet, material overhead was nearly nil for projects due to her own creation ability. Meaning that his million dollar project budget would go a lot farther than he thought it would.

“As to your second question? If you develop something using team resources, then if it goes on to mass sale, we expect a five percent claim to profits. Which goes directly into the team operational accounts, not to any individual members, myself included. Nor does the team claim any actual rights to technology or designs unless an individual team member donates that right to the team. The only exception to that rule is for active heroic gear in use by the team. If you make something for a team member to use in the field, we reserve the right to make more of that thing to keep them supplied.”

Victor Stone frowned as he chewed that over. He’d outright relaxed a bit at Alyssa’s terms, the fact the team would get something out of the project budgets seeming to allay his suspicions somewhat, even if the terms were very lightweight. Only a tiny fraction of what a corporation would demand. Honestly, Alyssa would have waived everything but the team gear issue, if not for her psyche profile on every single one of the tech-types they currently had on their possible recruitment list saying they’d be more suspicious of a complete lack.

“…That, sounds reasonbale. More than reasonable, really. It feels a little weird that so far you’ve talked more like this is a job than a hero team, though.”

Thankfully, they’d prepped for that sort of observation, and Talia took up the implied question.

“I can see why you’d think that, but the New Mutants actually had a similar set of clauses for housing, gear, and a living stipend. Almost all serious teams do, specifically to prevent issues with people risking burnout or unavailability if they try holding regular jobs on top of Heroing. It’s something rarely talked about, but considered ‘best practice’ by hero teams like the JL, Avengers, and X-men. Being a hero should never be about ‘getting rich.’ But teams not taking care of their people can end up with an already frequently traumatic lifestyle turning into hell on Earth.”

With the voice of experience having said her piece, Dinah added her own perspective.

“I was kinda uncomfortable with the idea too. I didn’t start protecting the bit of Gotham I was looking after for money, you know? I almost flat turned down the idea of a stipend, in particular. But then I actually started hitting gang facilities with Star Knight and Nocturne, and realized how much it takes it out of you. Not so much physically, though some of that too. But mentally you have to be on, for hours at a time in both planning and running raids. By the time you can switch off? I can’t even imagine trying to do a regular job afterward. Not even something like counter slinging at a Quick-E mart. Even with things like housing and food taken care of, everyone has needs, so…”

Slowly, Victor nodded, but he wasn’t quite ready to leave the subject be.

“All of that sounds…logical enough. But you haven’t really said what your vision for Team Overwatch and Gotham is. Even if the other stuff sounds necessary…”

Alyssa smirked.

“It’s not the goal, right? Don’t worry, I honestly just wanted to get the boiler plate stuff out of the way before I went full overachieving, wide-eyed idealist on you. You ready for that part? Trust me, it’s a doozy.”

Dinah groaned, reaching up to rub her forehead. Alyssa had laid out her pitch for the future to both Dinah and Talia only a few days ago, when she’d needed to explain why she was wanting to shell out millions of their bounty money to fund Winston and Ziegler. Nocturne had been wide-eyed but understanding, having apparently heard ranting from Forge and a few others on certain topics.

 Dinah, on the other hand, had banged her head on the lounge table and muttered about somehow getting tied up with psychotic overachieving optimists. Something which had amused the heck out of Alyssa, given she’d never been called an optimist before, in either life. She was a dreamer, and unashamed of that fact, but she’d always and ever assumed reaching any of those dreams would be nightmarishly difficult, rather than easy.

She’d simply tried anyway.

Thankfully, while Nico now looked slightly wary, Victor was looking less so. Both looked curious and Victor gestured for her to get on with it. Grinning at him asking for it, she happily did so.

“Gotham is only the first step! Getting a City Team up and running, and tackling a city as crazy-hard as Gotham, including managing the local Endbringer and underworld? That’s only our ticket to getting a voice in the bigger picture of things. Anyone that can take on Gotham, of all places, and visibly improve it? People are going to respect that, and I want to use that to do something no one else seems to be interested in. Specifically, I want to pull an uplift maneuver on humanity.”

Both members of her audience blinked, and Nico hesitantly raised a hand.

“Um, does that mean you’re an alien? Not that I have anything against that, one of my best friends is an alien…”

Alyssa smirked and waggled her hand playfully in a so-so motion.

“Technically? I started out baseline human, but not on this particular version of Earth. My powers came from how I ended up here. If you’re thinking I’m planning to introduce tech from my version of Earth, though? Nope! Frankly? Humanity doesn’t need alien tech to pull an uplift. We already have the tech to do it ourselves. Think about it, how many tech heroes and villains out there are running around with hypertech all over themselves and their teams? Iron Man, Dragon, Armsmaster, Doctor Doom, AIM, half the crazy shit Hero Island makes for W.H.A. Heroes? All hypertech way beyond the ordinary tech levels even the megacorps have, for the most part.”

Victor looked like he was starting to see where she was going, but Alyssa pinned Nico too with her next bit.

“For that matter, even ignoring all the hypertech, magic is ripe for use in uplift too. I’m not talking super advanced magic. Even something as relatively mundane as a spell that reduces the weight of metal could massively shortcut a space program, you know? And that sort of magic can be done without sacrifices and other dark shit, right?”

There was a bit of genuine question in her voice, as Alyssa seriously did not know what the local rules of magic were like. They’d been majorly different between Marvel and DC, and most of the other Hero setting she’s recognized mixed into the reality she was now inhabiting hadn’t had much in the way of the occult, if anything at all. Nico blinked at recognizing the question and frowned, clearly thinking.

“That…if you were just trying to, like, reduce weight by half instead of make something float? Yeah, you could do that with a simple, stable, enchantment. No problem and very little chance of it running wild if you did it right…”

The goth girl’s voice trailed off, her brain visibly turning as she mentally shifted her thought processes and seemed surprised at whatever realizations she was having. Good. Part of the reason she’d wanted Nico Minoru was that she seemed extremely bright and extremely capable. All while simultaneously being young enough, at just twenty, to have grown up in a modern tech environment. Asking most of the ancient sorcerers around to think about ways to create a spaceship would likely get you blank looks, since it was outside their existing thought paradigms.

“Perfect! See, humans already have the tools to uplift ourselves. To get to the point where we can crush a lot of poverty and pollution problems, get clean energy going, and build enough of a space presence to stop looking like an easy target to invade for every third alien race that stumbles over us. The problem is that almost all of the hypertech and magic? It’s focused into heroics and staving off the next disaster. Not into making things better.”

Alyssa waved a hand, preempting argument as she added more.

“Oh, that’s not entirely fair. Stark’s Arc Reactor projects in New York, LA, and Milwaukee are making a serious inroad on clean energy, just as one positive example. He hasn’t been able to spread them far, though, since people keep going after the reactors. The fact the only three existing large scale reactors are right next to the Avengers, West Coast Avengers, and Great Lakes Avengers’ headquarters is no accident.”

Cyborg, who had looked like he wanted to protest, settled down with a nod and a frown at what Alyssa was implying.

“Yet, I think there ought to be more. Right now? We’re just forming a Hero Team to clean up Gotham, and that’s enough to focus on. It’s a big ask that might take years. In the future though? There’s a reason we’re also funding two genius scientists. One is a brilliant doctor working on healing tech that could save millions, but who Big Pharma would cheerful murder rather than help. Another is, as I said, working on a solution to pollution in Slaughter Swamp. But that same solution could be a big deal for cleaning up industrial pollution issues worldwide.”

Pausing for a moment to let that sink in, Alyssa finally brought the whole thing home.

“What I want to do with Overwatch isn’t just create a Hero group. I eventually want to create a group that advances humanity. To tackle the root of a lot of problems. Employ an entire science wing dedicated to improving life for everyone. One which isn’t either buried in governmental red tape and secrets, or looking to squeeze every penny out of their products at the end of the day. All while having the Heroic Horsepower to protect that branch from the inevitable crazies that will target them.”

She could both see and feel that the idea was starting to click with the pair. Positively, too. She was just about to strike while the iron was hot and ask if they were with her! She had them, she could feel it!

Then her Danger Sense spiked and she frantically threw up her hands on instinct, throwing every bit of power into her telekinesis she could as the wall of the restaurant exploded inward…

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: *cracks knuckles* Alright, I'm going to tackle the logic here, even if one of the people doesn't get recruited formerly until chapter 23.

Winston: Becomes an affiliate funded by them, rather than a core member, as he honestly seems more a researcher. This brings him into their orbit without bringing him to Gotham, and along with Mercy is a bit of a call out to the name of their team. Others from the Overwatch world may or may not be recruited eventually.

Victor/Cyborg: Honestly? The original Teen Titans (NOT 'GO,' FUCK THAT BULLSHIT VERSION OF THE SHOW) version of Cyborg is SUPER chill and quite mature for his age. That was a major draw, but there's also some additional logic here. Alyssa is, frankly, spread to thin and her tech skills are only 'okay' not 'genius.' She's working off blueprints from a higher tech base and making them work with the Amalgam tech, but she doesn't have the time to really 'invent.' Taking most of the tech/engineering work off her hands frees her to focus on the Investigation line which is really where Major Kusangi's skillpack shines.

Nico Minoru: Gotham has a LOT of magic bullshit going on, and it will be a long time before Alyssa gets deep enough into stuff with her knock-off-brand Force to handle a lot of it. Even once she does, she won't have the education of a local magic user. Hence me wanting to recruit exactly that, a local magic user. Nico won out due to having several advantages, though note I've changed her backstory a fair bit. She got a proper magical education from one of the best out there, and didn't spend much time with the runaways as a whole. Though she's kept in touch with at least a couple of them. Because of that education, she's not nearly as reliant on the Staff of One, though she still has it. Notably...she's also a known bi-sexual character ;-). I genuinely don't know what I'm doing with pairing for this fic, but setting up a few people in Alyssa's orbit that might be interested in her specific...arrangement...seemed like a good place to start.

LaserDream: Came about in large part due to me wanting to connect Worm characters a little more deeply. Though the fact that she's stated as being 'good on television' in her Worm bio helped me set her up to fill an important role for them as well. Even if she can fake it, Alyssa is still and introvert, not at all a natural for public-facing speeches and such. So Crystal can handle a lot of that sort of thing, while providing an experience combatant with a very solid powerset.