The Justice Warriors

Richie Riley cautiously approached the nondescript warehouse in the middle of the city's industrial district. His incredible nano-tech armor, designed by his mentor the one and only TechKnight, was currently in stealth mode, making him virtually undetectable. Stealth mode automatically camouflaged him to his surroundings in real-time making him virtually invisible, especially while standing still while also hiding his heat signature and absorbing radar waves.

Richie Riley or CyberSquire was one of the most famous superhero sidekicks in the world. He had trained under TechKnight from the time he was 13, both individually and as part of the sidekick training team that came to be known as the teen warriors or Justice Warriors when the team went public when the teens all turned 18. The Justice Warriors had a good 5 and a half year run until it all came crashing down in what CyberSquire called the calamity. BadgerBoy and PsyHawk had just left the team leaving the team short-handed when the New Meta Order secretly working with the government Meta Control Agency struck. The NMO and MCA attack left Projector Boy missing and presumed dead, OctoLad in a coma, Warrior Princess literally disarmed, and Kid Streak trapped in some other dimension, while CyberSquire was to use his tech armor to surround and contain a zelta radiation bomb that Master Disaster was going to set off in the middle of the city. CyberSquire barely had enough nanites left over for a face mask to protect his secret Identity, so lesser concerns like protecting his modesty fell to the wayside. He succeeded in saving the city and his secret identity, but he ended up stuck in city square, holding the metal sphere made from his armor, completely naked except for his mask.

For over an hour, he was stuck like that naked and unable to move as he had to maintain physical contact with the nanite sphere to contain the bomb. He was literally holding the city’s fate in his hands as news people and various onlookers buzzed around him asking inane questions. Warrior Princess regrew her arms, something Richie didn’t even know she could do until then and helped keep the public off Richie until their mentors the Super Society of America could arrive fresh from their latest mission just in time to collect the ruined and naked pieces of the Justice Warriors. They extracted the three remaining members of the team. Got OctoLad to a hospital, comforted a distraught Warrior Princess, and extracted the Naked Richie and the bomb he was containing. TechKnight eventually was able to dispose of the bomb though it took the better part of a week by which time Richie’s old team was basically finished. Warrior Princess, the heart of the team, had taken off leaving Richie as the sole remaining active member and the one upon whose shoulders fell the responsibility of avenging his team.

Richie had always felt invulnerable in his armor, but after being left hanging naked and for all that time he couldn’t help but feel exposed. The whole world knew now that he had to be naked under his armor. That there had to be a direct physical connection between him and his nanites for him to be able to control them and form them into any shape or device he could imagine. If the physical connection was broken, they just remained in whatever shape they were in last and the electro-static connection which kept them together weakened making them far less invulnerable than they were when Richie was in contact with them. Which is why he had to stand there naked holding his armor construct and why he had to be naked underneath the armor. Any clothing would have broken the connection and weakened the armor.

Richie always accepted this reality in the past and thought nothing of it but now it was all he could think about. That the whole world knew his secret. That anyone could look him up online and see his naked butt, blurred or not. That he was now sure that it was only a matter of time before he would be exposed like that again. Even though it had never happened to TechKnight, and it had never before happened to him either, he was sure that he would be exposed naked again saving the world. Richie could not tell you why he was so sure of this any more than he could tell you why the thought of this excited him so and left him hard every time he thought of it or remembered being stuck naked in the city square. All he knew was that it was true and that the thought both scared and thrilled him more than anything else in the world.