The air was hot. Too hot for the baggy sweater Li was wearing. That was for sure. He refused to take it off though. Not just because it hid certain parts of him he didn't like to share, but also because that would mean having to put down his camera and take off his backpack, and that was a waste of precious time. Battles were quick, despite how the media tried to present them. They were here and gone in a flash, but it was a flash easily caught on camera by a good photographer. Lilian wasn't one to brag, but he considered himself pretty good at his job.

Climbing up on the wall around the top of the building, he swung out one leg and then the other, sitting precariously on the edge with his feet dangling high above the street so far, far below him. It was a good thing he wasn't afraid of heights, honestly. Looking through the dust and debris swirling below, Li was grateful that he was so high up. He was well out of reach of the airborne hazard, not that things like that every bothered him that much as it was. Even when assholes lit up a smoke next to him while he was waiting for the bus, he never coughed. It was just the damn smell that got to him. Smoke, dust, pollen, it was all nothing to him. He had even survived a carbon monoxide leak once back in his college days, but rescue teams accounted it to him having his window open.

As the cloudy mass below him began to settle and clear, Lilian readied his camera and zoomed in on the two figures below. His camera was built for taking pictures of the moon, so the image was crisp and clean as he focused on two figures he was more than happy to see. A fight between Gamma-Burn and King Stag? That just made this whole mess all the more worth it! Any other hero and villain and he'd have cared less about how the pictures came out and what story he was going to write. Getting to write about these two always brightened his day. After all, they were the biggest names in Wilacrik, top five in Washtenaw County, and top ten in all of Michigan. Of [i]course[/i], they were an exciting pair to cover! It was safe to say that Li had a [i]bit[/i] of an obsession with he pair.

On the one hand, King Stag. The idyllic hero. He was strong, brave, and true. As he should be. As [i]any[/i] hero [i]should[/i] be. His broad form and shining green armor of carapace could catch any eye. The way the morning sun reflected off his iridescent shell added a brilliant element to the pictures Li caught of the valiant hero facing off against his nemesis. Lilian had followed King Stag's rise to fame since his first appearance on the news. His only regret was that he wasn't among the reporters covering the story. Oh, he still wrote an article about the event. Of [i]course[/i], he wrote an article. He had just had to rely on publicly available pictures, and that was...less than desirable. Nevertheless, Lilian had focused his attention [i]hard[/i] on the hero. King Stag just had a certain quality to him. In a way, it reminded Li of his childhood hero, Trueheart. Yet another idyllic hero of history. Sadly, Trueheart had been corrupted by an unknown force some time into Lilian's childhood, and had become one of the most fearsome villains Montreal had ever seen. The similarity often bothered Li, as he worried that King Stag might fall to the same fate. He held hope, though, that such would never happen, and that the coleopteran hero would stay true until the end.

Gamma-Burn, on the other hand. He was the villain every villain wished they could be. Standing for a cause many could agree with, he was like the leader of a rebellion. Commanding, empowering, and most of all, moving. His cult following spread his ideals far and wide, and his internet presence cast his reign of terror onto the world. There was no villain as socially powerful as Gamma-Burn, and his origin story was not one of corruption on his part, but rather, one that revealed the corruption of corporate leaders and politicians. With his powerful voice and striking visage, Gamma-Burn was more than a villain, he was an icon. His bulky gas mask and goggles hid his face, speaking on the anonymity of him and his following. His billowing silhouette not only contrasted against the rugged form of his rival but, too, stood for the natural elements of the world, filled with natural curves, flowing with the wind instead of standing against it. He always added an eerily intimidating factor to the images, a ghost of a world that once was, the spirit of Mother Nature herself rising to reclaim the Earth.

The ideals that Gamma-Burn stood for. His overpowering aura. His compelling energy. It was what made these battles as exciting as they were. Li, and many like him, were left in the middle of it all, cheering for the hero, because that's just what you [i]do[/i], but all the same, cheering for the villain, because the words he speaks ring truth, and maybe, just maybe, he could be the hero of someone else's story.