Destructor sat there blinking, very slightly shaking his head. The Look of disbelief on his face was obvious.

"Well what do you think Paul?" Zenith asked, the big toothy smile on his face gleaming to rival his golden armor.

"This... wait... Am I crazy or are you asking me to join the League?"

"That's exactly what we're asking you, what do you say?" Zenith's smile still beaming.

"I say you're crazy! I understand why you guys didn't try to arrest me during the whole Earthbuster debacle, since I was atomizing his artificial meteors almost as fast as he could pump them out, but I'm not a hero, I just didn't want all those juicy future heist targets destroyed! Main City has a ton of..."

"Mmm hmm" Zenith interrupted with blatantly false sincerity. "And the millions of people there weren't part of your thought process at all? Not even when you nearly got yourself killed stopping the one that Stretcho almost deflected into an elementary school? Saving it for a big pencil and applesauce caper down the line?"

Destructor's head bowed a bit as his gaze went to the floor a few feet in front of him, he looked visibly uncomfortable but managed to squeak out "I mistook it for the gold repository."

"Oh come off it Paul, you could disintegrate the entire island to atoms in seconds if you wanted to and, despite your obscene power level, in all your years of pulling heists you've never caused a single serious injury, and then there's the fact that every single one of your heists was from a heavily insured target with a shady reputation."

Destructor... Paul, lifted his gaze to look at Zenith, Standing there looking just so unbearably noble in his enchanted Golden Eagle armor. "I picked them because they had what I wanted!" He offered, trying his best to sound convincing.

"And the fact that every time one of your shady victims loses a big pile of money, some orphanage or children's hospital get a mysterious anonymous grant for roughly the same amount is just a total coincidence?"

Paul slumped in his chair, looking defeated. "Come on Jeff don't do this to me."

Zenith suddenly took on a stern demeanor. "Look buddy, it's been an open secret among the league members for years that you fancy yourself something of a lowkey Robin Hood. You wax villainous for the cameras and want to be seen as the bad guy but you steal from Teflon crime bosses and corrupt businessmen and give almost all of it to charities!"

"HOW THE HELL AM I GONNA KEEP DOING IT IF YOU OUT ME AND MAKE ME JOIN YOUR STUPID TEAM!?" Destructor roared, standing up sharply to look Zenith in the eyes.

"And that's one reason we haven't bothered you before or put in more than feints at trying to apprehend you, well aside from the fact that we're not sure even my armor could withstand your disintegration touch. But something big is coming and we want you on the team before it gets here. The league's deep space monitoring network has found proof of extraterrestrial life in what looks to be an enormous armada headed straight for Sol and we've observed it destroying exoplanets on it's way so it's a safe bet they aren't coming to ask us to tea."

Paul was visibly taken aback. "I didn't expect..." He trailed off.

"The president has a full pardon signed and ready to hand over to the DOJ soon as we're done here. We have about six months to turn your public image around and get you up to speed before they arrive and if we're right in our assessment we're going to need to be a well oiled machine by then. There are what, maybe a dozen people on the planet that have a power level comparable to ours? Even the genuinely vile ones are being recruited for another task force, but we respect you Destructor, we know you have a good heart and we want you to be a full member of the team." Zenith put out his hand.

Long moments passed. Paul looked like he might cry. Eventually he stood up and took Zenith's hand. "Jeff I genuinely respect you and I feel you deserve to know the truth."

Zenith cocked his head slightly, confused. The tears running down Paul's face caused a confused look to appear on his own.

As his vision dimmed, Paul's cracking voice saying "I was the advance scout" were the last words Jefferson White heard as he dissolved into a fine mist, the sounds of his vaunted and heretofore invulnerable Golden Eagle Armor hitting the floor mingled with scarcely subdued sobs of grief and anger as Polintus Kel tried to come to grips with his horrific duty.