The Spectacular Golden Goblin

Fire-suppression grenades? Check. Extinguishers? Check. Harness in case you need to airlift somebody? Check. Spare respirators? Check. Time to go.

Leave rooftop shed, make sure the door is locked, lift off. Climb high; superstrength translates to amazing eyesight, and you don't actually need a lot of detail for patrol. Glide across the city at a tranquil 35 MPH.

The sky is beautiful tonight.

An hour and a half, eight paninis, and a dozen car accidents later, you catch something. Northwest end of Brooklyn, near the river. An entire apartment floor is on fire, and it looks like it's started spreading to the next building over. The floors above it haven't caught yet; small mercies.
Nothing on the police scanner as yet, so you tap the 'Call 911' button on your ear as you make your dive. This is the worst blaze you've seen this year, and it can't be more than ten minutes old - you'd have seen something on your last pass. What kind of accelerants are in there? The operator, while sympathetic, hasn't a clue.

...Nothing obvious, actually. Honestly this blaze seems weirdly sedate for how big it is; the sprinklers are still visibly doing something. Wait.

Stairwell. Landing. That's a body, in tactical gear.

"Ma'am, I'm going call you back. This is starting to look like a combat situation." You hang up before her response, and drop off your board to check the man's vitals.
It's... bad. The whole right side of his armor is melted, and his gun's magazine appears to have exploded from the heat. But he is breathing, just very, very shallowly. You're loath to move him, due to the odds of spinal injury, so you swap his respirator for one you're sure of, thumb an emergency beacon and slip it in his vest pocket, then spray the area with fire retardant.
No sound from above or below, so one glance downstairs - nothing obvious, like the scorched rail above - then onto the board and up. Meanwhile, consider what you're facing. Unmarked goons of some sort on one side, bomber or pyro on the other? Might have been friendly fire, though; none of Stairwell Guy's buddies checked on him. You're close.
Briefly pop your head above floor-level - no one. Up and over, full speed.
Signs of fighting - burn marks, fires, what look like partly dissolved darts - are more obvious on this floor. Why wasn't the police scanner going crazy? Even if this building was abandoned, which you're pretty sure it isn't, there should have been something. Tapping your ear-piece, you get a fairly convincing 'cannot connect to cellular reception' dialogue, and a low-static silence on the radio function. On every band.

Who even has this kind of tech?

...Well, no sense giving them something easy to track. You set it to no-transmission mode, and continue.

The hallways are laid out in an 'H' shape, and the trail leads to a big crater in floor of the middle one, surrounded with darts pointing both directions. They cornered someone ineffectively, then probably followed him downwards? You certainly intend to. Lead with a (prettily multicolour) smoke bomb - pity you don't have camera drones - then cut your antigrav and drop.

As hardwired, it flickers on again at the last second. Thank you, Dream Tony Stark; no matter how socially irresponsible you are, you design good safety equipment.
Still hunched for pouncing and a small target profile, you race down the hallway toward the building the fire had started to spread to. (You should have been more suspicious, but it's not time for post-mortem.)
Sure enough, there are broken windows on both sides. You can't see more signs of fighting. Judgement call time.


A/N: Later than I'd hoped, but here it is.

Right. Immediate priority, make sure the second-responders are properly briefed. Wheel out left, same direction you approached from, try dialing. Six rings before you get through - high call volume, hopefully; you've got a priority number.

"The fire on Hastings and Kirby is an UC2.* Radio jamming present. Repeat, radio jamming present. Warn the first responders, I have to go back."
"Confirm UC2 on Hastings and Kirby, confirm radio jamming. Godspeed, ma'am." The line goes silent.

...Is it just paranoia, or did she sound like the same operator as last time? ...No. Even if it is paranoia, you have to check. This kind of jamming is dangerous, and harder to track than a pyro. Call back, and also circle the building, looking for anything obvious.

Two rings this time, male operator. You're trying to think what to tell him when you see it - three white vans, all idling on one street. Jet down to investigate, and someone drops out the back of one and shoots you with a grenade launcher.


...That ...wasn't the worst hit you've ever taken, but it's definitely up there. You've lost your board, you've got a parked car as cover, and you are once more grateful that your bombs need charging before they can detonate. Your earpiece is blaring queries about your condition, your ears are actually not ringing... and the queries match rhythm with sounds from inside that van.
Sometimes you hate being right.

Still, you don't have time to lie around until help arrives, so time to try zapping a grenade-goon - and that's about when she vaults over the car you were sprawled behind and tries to hit you with a cattle-prod spear. You slap it aside and catch her on your feet, then try to Fairy Blast her in the face. She aimdodges, using the spear to flip off of you.
Then she whacks at your legs. It actually kind of hurts, but you roll with it, twirling to your feet with a wide-angle Fairy Blast as awkward cover. You think it blinded her, because screws her eyes shut and twists the spear in half, producing twin shock-clubs.

After some initial hiccups, I think I have a better handle on tactical presentation, including deliberate vagueness regarding speed, numbers, and locations. This is to facilitate tactics-as-writing-prompts. As such, this reference document should be considered a loose guideline, and I'm going to try and keep unrevealed AU-specific information out of it, as a way of making sure I actually establish that in-story.

*You normally carry five to ten bombs of each type you have, but no more than forty total. If you're prepped for something specific (e.g. fire patrol), you'll have more of the relevant types, and sometimes a lot more.
*You have ~10-15 spare bomb caches throughout New York, partly justified by the fact that your bombs are hard to arm without a lot of electricity. These caches aren't usually hard to keep supplied, but are mostly designed for glider access.
*Boards are much less expendable than bombs; you only have one backup that isn't at your main lab, and you don't have many there.
*The heavy-loads board is a bit less agile than other gliders, but more powerful and carries a winch. You only have one.
*Your gloves are called Fairy Blasters, which basically means lightning-bolt-throwers. Double as blinding-bright flashlights.
*Current bomb list:
-Ball-lightning-based relatively-nonlethal-immobilizers, your primary combat bomb.
-Smokebombs in various colors, useful for smokescreens and signalling. Optimized for prettiness and nontoxicity.
-Radio beacons. Come with a timer switch and a very strong signal, but not a lot of battery life. Low-profile.
-Fire retardants, which are not optimized for breatheability.
-Thermite. Generally lowest priority to bring.