Chapter Text
...Hero name: the Angel (formerly Skizz)
Real name: Skizz Leman
Powers: instant healing, personal, by touch, and ranged, large set of dove wings capable of flight.
Average (mean) cost in property damage per battle: $1 000 000 (high)
Average (mean) casualties per battle: 20 (minimal)
Average (mean) casualties per battle caused by failure to reach: 19.9
Average (mean) casualties per battle caused by own reckless actions: 0.1
Average (mean) severe injuries per battle: 0 (...incredibly minimal)
Average (mean) people saved per battle: 3 000 (very high)
Average (mean) property damage costs avoided per battle: $100 (low)
Average (mean) length of battle against three or less highly-powered individuals: 2 hours (long)
Average (mean) length of battle against four to ten mid-powered individuals: 2 hours (long)
Average (mean) length of battle against a horde of low-powered individuals: 2 hours (long)
Conclusion: While the Angel is incredibly effective at saving lives and keeping citizens alive, his battles are far too long, since he does not have the ability to effectively take down a villain on his own. He usually manages to save almost every single citizen and heals all their wounds, but a ton of property damage is caused in the time waited for another hero to arrive and defeat whatever villain has attacked. If I were a bystander who didn't care about any of the buildings in the area, I would want the Angel to be the nearest hero on duty. However, if I did care about the buildings, or was in a hurry, I would hope for just about any other hero, since the Angel rarely defeats the villain on his own.
Advice: Either the Angel needs more training, enough to make him effective without any sort of offensive or defensive power, or he needs to be put in a pair again. I do not think the first option is overly viable. Most of the heroes who have no ability aiding their offence have spent twenty years or more specialising in a single weapon that leaves them utterly vulnerable to any kind of attack that defeats that specific weapon. What the Angel had with Imp was very good. I do, however, understand that, while my first suggestion is not logistically viable, this one may not be emotionally viable, after what happened between the Angel and Imp, and whatever lingering feelings may remain from that. Instead, I believe the best option would be to have the Angel patrol with a partner, but not be given any kind of permanent partner...
Grian sat back from his keyboard, a satisfied smile spreading across his face as he viewed several months' worth of research and logistical thoughts on said research.
This was what made Grian a huge asset to his publishing company, and he enjoyed it.
Every few months, he'd finish one of these massive dissections of one of the Heroes' Association's many heroes, and then he'd publish it. Anyone who liked logistics or the heroes loved to read his work. Sometimes, the Heroes' Association would read it and actually take his advice.
He truly hoped they did for this article. Any of his listed options would be better than what they were currently doing with Sk- the Angel. It was still hard to remind himself of what the Angel's new hero name was, even though the incident with Imp and the name change had been nearly two years ago. That's what you get for immersing yourself in the heroes at all times, Grian guessed.
The Angel was an incredibly powerful healer hero who could get almost anywhere with his wings, but he could not handle himself in a fight. The Association really just needed to give him a partner, permanent or not.
The other chair in Grian's office squeaked as Scar turned it around. "You're done your report? And satisfied with it?" he asked, fidgeting with his sunglasses.
Grian nodded at his Association-assigned bodyguard.
Don't let the fact that the Association assigned him Scar as a bodyguard lead you to think that he was mad about it! No, no... Grian could never be mad to spend so much time with Scar. Scar was... well, Scar was Scar, and that meant he was amazing.
It was less a bodyguard-and-charge relationship that they had than a friendship where one also got paid to protect his... friend. Yes, that's what they were. Just friends. Nothing more. Definitely.
"Can I read it?" Scar asked, referring to the report.
Grian's reports were actually the reason the Association thought he needed a bodyguard at all. He tended to stick his nose in places it didn't belong, and got himself in hot water because of it.
Now, normally, the Association wouldn't waste a hero so great as HotGuy - Scar's hero name - on protecting a random reporter, even one with a tendency for finding trouble.
But Grian's reports were useful to them. He gave good advice that they often wanted to follow in some way, or he shed light on some significant tidbit about one hero or another that led to a huge improvement in the Heroes' Association's protection of Hermit City.
They'd actually offered Grian a job as a data analyst, where he'd get full access to their massive archives, a full-time bodyguard, a higher chance of being listened to, and a huge salary for his work.
But then the Association would be his boss, and they'd be able to stop him from revealing dark secrets to the public, or would be able to ignore some of his significant advice because they didn't have the public pressure releasing the reports to the people led to.
So, instead, Grian dealt with almost-full access to the files, a higher-than-normal-but -not-government-funded salary, and a bodyguard who, while he didn't go on patrols every other day like most heroes did, was the face of the Association and got called off to press conferences about once a month.
And what a face he had... Grian will admit, easily, that he understands why Scar was called HotGuy. The man was very attractive, with a straight jawline, startling green eyes, and a very muscular build highlighted by his form-fitting hero outfit. Scars laced his body from various battle injuries, but he wore them proudly and confidently enough that they only added to his natural beauty.
"No, Scar," Grian said in answer to Scar's desire to read his report. "We've had this conversation before. No one but me and my editors see the article until it gets released to the public."
"Can you at least tell me who it's about?" Scar begged.
Grian sighed. He couldn't say no to that face. "It's about the Angel."
"Oh." Scar sat back in his chair. "Did the whole... Imp thing come up? If it did, I might want to warn him not to read it. Most heroes like to read what you write about them, specifically the advice to make them better, but that's... still a sore subject for Skizz."
"It did, there was no way I could leave that out. That's most of his career, Scar."
"The betrayal did hurt, and he's constantly surrounded by it. I'd like to make sure he doesn't have to be more than necessary."
The 'Imp Betrayal' was one of the sadder events Grian had heard of happening to a hero that wasn't the tragic backstory that led to their heroism.
The Angel started out his career as Skizz, one half of the famous Imp and Skizz duo, two heroes who were childhood best friends and worked beside each other with skill and ease. Imp had been the fighter, dealing with the villains and guarding the Angel while he pulled civilians out of danger and healed them or healed Imp.
About two years ago, tragedy had struck for Hermit City's favourite hero duo.
Skizz had been moving rubble to unbury a group of bystanders, his back to the fight going on behind him between Imp and a villain called the Canary. The Canary toppled a building on Imp and Skizz didn't notice. No one knows what happened to the Canary after that - he disappeared and never attacked Hermit City or any other city again, but his body was also never found.
Skizz assumed that Imp had beaten the villain and was digging civilians out of the rubble elsewhere, and so did not look for his partner. Eventually, he discovered a crushed corpse wearing the remains of Imp's hero costume, too far gone even for Skizz's remarkable healing abilities. Later investigation revealed that the body's skull had been crushed by a chunk of concrete that fell off after the collapse of the building. Had someone noticed, maybe whoever it was could have been saved.
The identity of the corpse remains unknown, as the original assumption of it being Imp was proved incorrect about a year later.
Skizz had tried to continue being a hero. However, he didn't trust himself to protect a partner anymore and didn't have the pre-established relationship he had with Imp with anyone else. So he became a solo hero. He usually had to call for backup, as he was a healer, not a fighter.
One day, he was on patrol and a new villain who no one had seen before arrived. This villain introduced himself as the Demon. He had the same powers as Imp - bat wings and an ability to magically form anything into a refined weapon of some kind - and fought Skizz. It quickly went badly for the healer hero.
Once the Demon had Skizz backed into a corner, he revealed himself to actually be Imp. He believed that Skizz had betrayed him somehow and knew that he'd been injured when the building fell, but not gone to help him. He made the fatal villain mistake of monologuing, however, and the heroes Skizz had called as backup arrived. He fled, leaving Skizz and most of the civilians in the area alive.
It was all over the news immediately.
Skizz took months off to deal with what happened. Grian had spoken to him about it, early on, and he wasn't actually alright by the time he came back. But every hero was necessary, so he returned, and the Heroes' Association changed his hero name to 'the Angel', to show that he and the Demon were enemies.
Grian sighed. "You're right, Scar, you should tell him. It'll be published within the week." Grian leaned over and opened the bottom drawer of his desk, which was full of files. He started flicking through them, looking for the largest one.
"I will, and- Grian, what are you doing?"
Grian glanced up, pulling the thickest of his folders out of the drawer. He held it up. Scar knew what it was - a collection of every piece of information he'd gathered on a hero, compiled into one place, with leads he hadn't followed up on yet marked off. Even when working on specifically one hero, he still gathered up leads on other heroes, both to disguise just who he was working on, and so that, when he eventually reached each hero, he'd have a large basis of information to work from, and many leads to follow up on.
Scar sighed. "You're really not gonna take a break? Just two days of not skulking around in dark alleys to meet untrustworthy informants?"
"Nope. There's a lot of heroes in the Association, and I'd like to get through them all at least once before I die." Grian flipped the file open, checking which hero it was, which hero he'd gathered the most information on. He laughed. "Oooh, this will be fun."
Clipped to the inside of the file folder was a picture of the hero, as always.
This hero wore a black bodysuit under armour plates of the same colour, the whole thing accentuating his muscled build. A wing-like emblem, half teal, half orange, was emblazoned on his chest. The teal and orange accents were continued throughout the rest of the outfit, specifically in the coloured sunglasses disguising his upper face and the bow he wielded.
His chocolate-y brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, as always, and he was smiling the winning smile that made all his fans, regardless of their gender, scream. Almost all his photos had him smiling - the only ones that didn't instead had him in a dramatic mid-battle pose, the kind that never showed the full iconic outfit - and anyways, the smile was iconic too, along with the scars criss-crossing his skin.
Grian leaned back in his chair, spinning away as the very hero whose file he held craned his neck over to try and catch a glimpse.
"Come on!" Scar laughed. "Who is it? You should tell me - I'm a resource! These are my coworkers, I know them!"
"Not happening!" Grian laughed back. "Even telling you that the Angel is the one I did my last report on was way more than I should have given you!"
Scar groaned. "Fine, fine! But maybe you can tell me why it's gonna be so fun?"
Grian turned away, knowing Scar was going to try breaking him with the pleading face again. "No, that would tell you who I'm researching. You're just going to have to wait."
Grian shut the drawer of his desk and stood up, ready to head out of his office and get back to work.