A Day in the Life

Welcome, reader, to my new column, The Hero Beat. I truly enjoy working here at The Paragon Mirror, and look forward to bringing you news and stories about the efforts of the great heroes of Paragon City. I would like to start the column by introducing you to myself.

My name is Antonio Vazquez, but all my friends just call me Toño. I studied journalism in college for a while before I decided that I had to do more than just report on the news. For over eighteen years, I have studied and fought in various wars and conflicts. In Paragon City, I continue to take an active part in battles still being fought after the Rikti invasion, and I hope that this unique perspective helps bring a different insight into the life and times of being a hero.

I must warn you up front that I am not a hero worshipper. Sure, I respect their bravery and admire the service they provide to the city, but I am also not afraid of bringing you the real story of some of the things that go on behind the scenes. Sometimes it may even get downright ugly, but I want to be the kind of journalist that brings you the truth, no matter what it may be.

So with that said, I would like to tell you about a mission I was on just yesterday. I was talking to a contact of mine on the streets who told me about a clockwork plot in a warehouse in Galaxy City, so I hit the hero comm to see if I could round up a few capes to go with me and investigate. I managed to round up a good crew of five heroes that were not on active missions, and we set off. Now I suppose that you have probably already read about Mecha's plot to build up a force of Clocks and take over that section of the city and a team of heroes that foiled it, but I can tell you firsthand that this was no ordinary mission.

First of all, we had a couple of Kheldians in the group. Although I have met a few, I have never actually been on a mission with one before. It's no secret that they have acquired the nickname "squishies," and I have to admit that I use it myself. But in the heat of battle, they are as hardened as most veterans I have seen. So if any squishies are reading this, welcome to Earth, and I hope that together, our heroes and the Kheldians can make this a peaceful place once again.

Next, I will answer a one of my favorite questions that people ask me about heroes with a story from yesterday's mission. Most of the time, people want to know the usual information, such as, "What is it like to fly?" "How many bad guys have you put away?" and the like. These are not my favorite questions, though.

My favorite questions are the ones that show that although most heroes have extraordinary abilities, they are for the most part as human as the rest of us. They have hopes and dreams, strenghths and flaws, fear and courage. One of these questions is, "So what kinds of stuff happens on these missions that heroes probably don't want us to know about? Anything embarrassing?"

Of course, sometimes really stupid stuff happens. On the Clockwork mission that we took care of yesterday, one of my team was a cat girl named Mercat. We had just dispatched a group of assembler knights and their minions, and she starts coughing. Not a clear-her-throat kind of cough, but a hacking-up-her-guts kind. I swear, for a minute, I thought she was going to spit out a furball. I figured that in the battle, maybe a bunch of dust had been stirred up, but the warehouse was pretty clean. After a minute, she finally stops. Everyone awkwardly asked if she was okay, and she made a kind of hissing noise and spit out a piece of metal. It seems that when she sliced through the breastplate of the last sprocket, she bit it out of spite. Apparently she was so frustrated that she forgot that she wasn't fighting creatures of flesh and blood and got a mouthful of copper and aluminum instead. She spit most of it out but a small piece lodged in her throat, thus causing the fit.

Star of Luminae, one of our Kheldians, chuckled and asked her why she would bite a robot. Mercat frustratedly replied to her in a hoarse voice, "Why do you think? Because I was hungry!"

For the rest of the mission, we could not help but tease her now and then. Afterwards, we all pitched in to buy her dinner before calling it a night. I think the steak she put away more than made up for her slightly injured pride because after the meal, she proclaimed that she had brought dessert--and dumped two handfuls of nuts and bolts right in the center of the table!

So that's it for this week's column. Hopefully you will continue to read and enjoy it, because as long as there are heroes to write about, I will keep covering the Hero Beat. Until next time,

Toño "News Man" Vasquez