Lyn forced herself to not quake in her seat. She kept her teeth gritted as the diminutive dinosaur stood up.
It had been decades since the ReOriginator Machine detonated.1 Like many things that stepped through the holes in time, these primordial creatures had reemerged into the modern era across the globe, pockets of them sprouting up in the years that followed the heroes’ victory over Alphareon. Thanks to the efforts of countless supers on both sides of the caped world, these days you’d typically only see the reptiles that used to rule the world on the preserves, far from any mortal civilization, unlike the elusive wyrms who refused to be kept contained. And while their trip through the tears in space and time had altered a few of them, they certainly didn’t talk, at least not without visible cybernetic components like Metallo Rex sported.
In this world, that could still mean a thousand things, but Lyn knew the simplest answer was true: This was Arex.
And being in the same room as this League councilor was already too close to him. While he might be halfway across the room right now, the speed at which he could simply transform into a giant monster whose sudden increased size itself simply closed the distance would make it difficult for even speedsters to reach safety in time, any manner of horrible forms of death simply filling thin air in an instant. That assumed he even bothered to fully mutate himself. The man, if one could call him that, defied any logic regarding the conservation of mass, and would often simply transform parts of his body on his command. Those tiny claws which had barely managed to scratch the snout of his current form might suddenly be replaced with the maw of an allosaurus already snapping down upon you or a wall made from dozens of horns or spines or barbs from any number of creatures. Archival footage even showed him simply enlarge a single finger the length of a brontosaurus’s neck in a heartbeat, the tip of it a mass of razor sharp teeth which simply ripped straight through the previously thought to be impenetrable shield of Bronze Bulwark.
Arex’s raptor head swept from one side of the bar to the next only for his gaze to settle on Lyn’s table with a wicked grin that flashed too many teeth. The raptor stood up and walked to the edge of the table before its jaws opened.
“Opened” was an understatement. They snapped apart at an impossible angle, and where the yawning throat of the reptile should’ve been, a human skull emerged. Abruptly, flesh ran over it like a stampede, muscle and scaled skin clawing its way over the bone, forming a squarish face. Quills erupted from the skin of the new jaw, quivered and fell apart to leave behind human hair while reptilian eyes flowed into the hollow sockets above, eyelids enveloping them as they came to rest. A skeletal arm reached out and pulled itself and the rest of the ribcage it was attached to out of the maw. Not a drop of blood fell from this grotesque display as the villain peeled himself out of his old form in what felt like an eternity but Lyn knew was only a matter of seconds.
As he performed this awful transformation, the tiny raptor body shriveled like a puppet being turned inside out. As a leg emerged from the mouth, Lyn couldn’t help but notice that it was immediately clothed, the material weaving itself in midair to preserve Arex’s modesty, if one could even ascribe such a word to a scene as visceral as this. His miraculously formed boot slammed to the wooden floor of Misery’s Call, causing everyone to jump. Most attempted to move themselves as far back as they could without attracting his attention. Clothing continued to form atop his upper body as he wrenched his other leg free of what remained from the small raptor he’d once been, his massive humanoid form seeming to build itself at three times the rate as the reptile continued to vanish.
As he finished his transformation, all that remained of his previous form, a reptilian skull somehow attached to a chain that Lyn never noticed appearing, fell into the palm of one of his gargantuan fists. Arex threw the necklace over his head and allowed the macabre decoration to dangle in front of his bare chest. His skin gleamed for a moment before Lyn noted the scales fading from sight. Had she missed this display, she would have been hard pressed to believe such a giant had ever once been a tiny dinosaur that barely reached her knee in height.
Arex cracked his neck, almost certainly for effect. With such mastery over his body at a cellular level, it was incredibly unlikely he’d have accidentally left any stiffness in his joints after a transformation like that. He then confidently strode forward and slammed both his palms on Lyn’s table. Lyn’s heart-rate was through the roof, but she still moved to put herself a little bit in front of Celeste, just as Sand Devil protectively shifted towards Turnaround. A smile that didn’t reach the man’s eyes split his jaw in two, all teeth and no warmth.
“Celebrating a job well done from what I’ve heard?” he barked a laugh and scooped up Turnaround’s flimsy envelope where it had fallen from the villainess’s hands when she’d wilted back to her chair while watching his appearance. He turned it over with a predatory grin. “Heard about that. All the crime in this city and somehow you lot managed to be the talk of the town last night.”
He tossed the paper down in front of Turnaround who meekly sank further into her chair. Then he fished into the jacket. A massive fist emerged clutching a brick of decks in a plastic bag. He tore the bag open with sharp teeth and slapped the money down at the center of the table.
“Relax, you four are the only ones in here that actually bothered to try and punch up! Doesn’t matter if you didn’t get all of them, you brats actually did a decent job, and I figure you lot earned this. As for the rest of you-!”
He pushed off the table as he howled at the rest of the bar, “You all just did whatever you damn well pleased and somehow thought we’d be, what? Impressed? You threw a fucking party and rioted and thought that would ‘honor’ our dead mate?”
His snarl bared his pointed teeth to the gathered crowd. Lyn thought she knew violence, thought all the villains and heroes of this city knew it, but she could see in Arex’s burning gaze that she’d been just as naive as the civilians she’d looked down on. This was a man who on a whim could raise his hand and unleash a hydra of horned heads to skewer through the crowd in an instant and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it. His face looked comically bare without gore streaked across it, even though this was the first time she’d seen it up close. He was a man of sanguine cruelty whose passing mood controlled the violence of this room on a second by second basis, his own fancy dictating the amount of blood spilled at any moment.
As evidenced by his mouth twisting into a smile, almost genuine this time, “You’d be right! Little Manny always loved a good riot!”
He roared with laughter over his own joke, accompanied some awkward chuckles. Most in the crowd still were too terrified to join in. Arex wiped away a tear from his eye before continuing.
“But like I said, only these ladies, and the rest of their team, bothered to try and take on the big names,” his tone was serious as he gestured at Lyn’s group. “Oh sure, a few of you tossed out some fun little gizmos or tried to break some records for bank robberies but look at you all!”
He swept both arms in front of him, causing the crowd to flinch, “Partying in a bar with regular fucking folks? Not even a quarter of them are packing heat! What kind of villains are you all? They should either be too afraid to look you in the eye or should be kissing your feet to learn from you!”
Arex snapped his fingers, “Everyone who doesn’t wear a mask, get out.”
The statement was soft and calm, the Unstoppable not even bothering to put an ounce of malice or implied threat into it, but the power behind it carried through the crowd. Over half the bar scrambled to escape. Lyn looked over at Celeste, who was frozen in her seat, not able to look at the monster casting a shadow over her as the entire place cleared out. Lyn swallowed and reached out to her.
The slight contact as her fingers brushed against the woman’s shirt caused her to startle, wide eyes snapping to her friend. Lyn grimaced before gesturing toward the piles of people all clawing at one another to leave as they clumped at the entrance. The petite woman squeezed her eyes shut and nodded, beginning to rise.
An enormous hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Arex grinned, “Not you. You’ve earned your spot here. Don’t worry, I don’t care if you’re knocking teeth in, so long as you’re a real villain.”
He patted her and slipped his hand away, each tap causing the tiny woman to jolt as her teeth chattered.
Through Lyn’s boneshivering fear, seeing her friend trembling like that, watching someone dare to touch her friend, something stirred inside her. An acrid taste pulled her out of her thoughts and she realized she’d been staring at Arex’s neck, venom beginning to drip down her fangs.
Don’t, she warned herself. This will all be over without anyone getting hurt if you don’t do anything stupid.
“You too!” Arex called out and Lyn noticed bartenders halt in their tracks while they attempted to flee. “Can’t be a proper villain bar if no one’s drinking!”
He turned his attention to the emptied room. A moment ago, the crowd here had felt like over a hundred people cramping up the room. Now Lyn saw a little over twenty still among the abandoned stools and tables, half drunk glasses scattered about like the ghosts of the departed. Those that remained did their best not to quiver as the mountain of a man once again laughed.
“Well, that’s not quite as many left over…” he glanced around and shrugged. “Don’t worry though, I’m sure this place will fill back up in no time.”
On cue, the doors swung open once more and in piled dozens of people in costume. Over half of them seemed to be in matching uniforms, so the newcomers appeared to be a blend of villains and their minions which soon filled out half the room, all of them shooting glares at the smaller crowd opposite them. Lyn couldn’t recognize a single one of them from all her years here.
“See? Now that this place has a proper reputation, it’s attracting the right clientele,” Arex held his arms out and the newly assembled crowd snickered and guffawed. A private army imported for a show of force at a random bar, just because Arex wanted them there.
Victory’s villains eyed the newcomers with barely concealed suspicion and hate, not that any of them would dare act on it. A few of the new villains sauntered over to the bar proper and plopped down into empty seats, knocking aside the abandoned drinks to sneer at the frightened bartenders. One of them hopped over the bar and grabbed a remote that controlled a couple of the televisions in the bar. Lyn noticed Arex’s eyes follow that one and got the feeling this was part of his demonstration.
The villain fiddled with the device for a moment before the screens all flicked over to the news. The locals all hissed or covered their mouths as they watched scenes from around the world play out.
“Villain bars obviously have to have the right entertainment,” Arex chuckled. “So we of the League of Domination thought we’d put together something, inspired by your little display. Three weeks of crime? That’s cute, but we’re working with a little more here.”
He motioned a woman in power armor from his crowd to come forward and she held up her palm. Dozens more holographic displays showed off the heavy hitters of the League everywhere around the globe… and space apparently. Lyn struggled to comprehend all of this happening at once. Legions of underwater monsters assailed Atlanthea’s capital of Corrella while flying blimps dropped cogwork soldiers on New Brasa in Xeta.2
“Why don’t we make it three months? Or maybe even longer? Why don’t we show the whole damn world how villains should act when you kill one of us?!” Arex’s tone started out with that false jovial tone he’d been maintaining for awhile now before he was spitting his words again. “You lot can enjoy the entertainment while me and some friends take care of that little shit who dared to kick this off. The one all of you failed to find!”
He returned his attention to Lyn’s table and gave a smile, “You lot are free to give us a call after this is done. We’ll shuffle you off to somewhere you can actually grow up to be real villains.”
Finishing up his speech, Arex reached his massive arm out towards Celeste, who in turn squeaked. He probably meant to use her as a prop for some point or to once again harass those around him to reaffirm his position of power here. Everyone in this room was merely a toy to him.
The reasons didn’t matter. All Lyn recognized in that second was the hand clawing towards her friend and the look of panic, horror, and despair on her face. Lyn herself had been grasping the sides of her chair, fingers locked into claws so tightly her knuckles felt like they were going to burst trying her damndest not to draw any more attention to herself, as if Arex’s vision was based on motion. But in that moment, her mind simply stopped thinking any rational thoughts. Instinct took over. She only realized how stupid she was as she noticed one of her spider legs inches from Arex’s hand, too late to stop herself.
The spiked tip slammed the massive hand to the table, piercing straight through it.
The whole world stopped. Not a soul breathed. Every eye in the room was locked on Arex’s impaled hand.
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Lyn was right there with them as she struggled to comprehend what she had just done while looking down at it. She only registered the movement out of the corner of her eye before she went sailing across the room. The pain as her spine shattered against the bar and her body bounced off it to smash the television above was so intense she couldn’t even recognize it was happening. It was just flashes of white and black and the feeling of stopping all of a sudden before her body introduced her to a state of being she’d only experienced once or twice before in her entire career. Her existence became agony itself as her body couldn’t send a rational message to her brain besides “we are hurt and in danger” and it was screaming so loud it was just noise.
“Weaver!” one of her friends shouted. Probably not Sand Devil but you never know.
“Gods damn!” she heard the first genuine laugh out of Arex that whole night. “Bone Saw! Fix her, now! Holy fuck, we’ve actually got someone with a spine and I just broke it on reflex!”
Several people rushed towards her but she was incapable of recognizing them. The only thing that was clear was the booming laughter of the man who had crushed her. She was having difficulty breathing for a moment before something sharp entered her neck and the world turned down from “a state of indescribable existence” to simply being blistering flashes of pain as her spine knit itself back together and cuts she didn’t realize she had quickly closed across her body.
As awareness took hold again, she saw the smiling face of Arex peering between Sand Devil and Turnaround, both of whom had thrown themselves between the monster and her prone form, arms raised in what would be a futile attempt to use their powers against him should he come closer. The giant of a man held up his hand to peer straight through a bloodless hole in it right at her before breaking down into laughter. His wrist suddenly sprouted a beak-like snout that snapped closed over his injured fist only to dissolve away and reveal his uninjured palm.
“I take back what I said!” Arex finally got himself under control. “You lot can give me a fucking call and I’ll hire you on personally! You’re absolutely ready for the big leagues!”
As she struggled to her feet, noticing the man covered in bone like armor bent over her with glowing red hands for the first time, Arex reached over to the bar and scooped up three glasses at once, throwing back everything that remained in them in one swig. He let loose a massive belch and fished a card out from his jacket, throwing it her way.
“Looks like this town is going to be more fun than I gave it credit for,” he turned and snapped his fingers.
He and about half the villains he’d brought with him suddenly vanished with a *pop*. Bone Saw thankfully remained, continuing to pump healing energy into her while her friends crowded nearby, glaring at the remaining crooks who’d been left behind.
“Not the smartest idea,” the skeletal crook told her. “But I’ll thank you for it. The boss was throwing a tantrum about having to kill, quote, ‘the only villain with any balls in this shitty knockoff of Orion’. You’ve made my stay here a little more pleasant.”
Lyn glared at him, earning a laugh from him before he stepped back and vanished as well. Her teammates helped her back to her seat as out of town villains swept past them. Oddly enough, several of them chucked decks on their table, apparently to mimic Arex or some shit. Maybe they thought those parting words from the monster foretold Lyn one day being their boss and were trying to brownnose?
Whatever the case, Lyn eyed the growing pile of cash with slowly building hate as echoes of pain wracked her back even with the injury faded. She wanted to sweep it aside or tear it all apart before letting loose on all of these invaders who were currently harassing the locals. She bit down that urge and turned to Celeste.
“Thanks for that…” the woman muttered. “But-”
“Take this,” Lyn’s hand shoved the pile her way as she hissed.
Everyone at the table eyed her, clearly thinking she must’ve taken brain damage from the blow. She growled, “I want you to keep working on that little surprise you’ve got cooking for Riftmaker. He’s going to need it. No… We’re going to need it.”
Celeste accepted the money while Turnaround and Devil fished out their payments from Fencer, not arguing about it. Meanwhile Lyn sat there for a moment, plots swimming in her head.
Maybe the League needed to lose two members to this damn city to learn a fucking lesson.
---------------------------------
Alex sat there looking at the screens which had appeared in front of him as Song sighed.
“Dramatic as always…” she muttered and continued to sift through the documents on the coffee table. “You know, now that I’ve thought about it, I don’t really like Byron’s Blackguard. I think you’d need to put too much up front investing in them for the pace you want to set.”
Alex blinked away the feeling of watching a metaphorical axe descending towards his neck and gazed at her in pure disbelief as she didn’t seem at all interested in the League’s massive power play on a global scale. He stammered, “You do realize that this is a distraction?”
“Mmm, yes, they are definitely here, even if they’re barely pretending not to be, but I wouldn’t call this a distraction,” she waved away his concern. “But this just proves how clueless they truly are. If they were truly aware it was you, then someone would’ve already come here by now. It would make them stupid enough to try.”
Alex paused, “What are you talking about?”
Song rolled her eyes, “I am capable of putting together the obvious clues. I might not have known all of the details until I visited little Farrow the other day, but it finally explained that hidden compartment you drilled into the floorboards during your first month here. I’m glad you did that correctly or I’d take it out of your deposit.”
Alex’s heart froze, “You know about-”
“All I know,” she interrupted, “is that you got incredibly jumpy the day after the little scientist burned himself up. I know that the League decided to put on this little display to show that there’s nowhere else to run to, not just to keep everyone busy while they root around in Victory. I know that you had a particular object stashed under the floor of your closet, and that Fencer has a little display with a gap in it around the same size. I know that the League would’ve simply ordered the death of whoever killed Calhoun should avenging him be the only thing they care about. They might’ve still warned everyone to stay away but their message would’ve plastered a face and a name up for the world to see. The rest, is conjuncture, which I shall not ask for confirmation or denial of.”
Her eyes never met his as she shuffled several of the folders around, eyeing the various organizations that Fencer had recommended to her. She didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the prospect of the most dangerous villains on the planet running around hunting for him while he lived under her roof, not to mention apparently knowing what they were looking for was stashed away upstairs.
Wait…
“You said ‘had’,” Alex realized. “Not that I ‘have’ something stashed under the floor.”
“Yes, I did.”
Alex’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t tell if it was fear or fury, but whatever it was burned in his chest and it was directed solely at the woman who was barely paying attention to anything other than the papers in front of her.
“It’s safe,” she reassured him, still not bothering to look his way. “Far safer than before. I told you not to bring trouble to this place and they’re not really looking for you, are they?”
“What are you planning to do with it?” Alex asked through gritted teeth, ashamed that he’d been starting to trust her, believing he had an actual ally.
There are no allies in this world, his mother’s words drifted in his ears. The only ones you can trust are the ones you control.
“Hand it back to you of course,” Song shrugged.
He blinked, not expecting that. The phantom of the woman who gave birth to him crumbled to ash.
“You need to focus on this,” she gestured to the coffee table. “And not be worried that any time you leave here, someone might break in and steal from you. So I’ve already stolen it. Now it’s in a place no one will ever think to look, and you can focus on building your power base. You’ll need it. Focus on your greed and what you desire. Pursue it without thought of loss or you shall trip and fall.”
“With the League here-” Alex began, wanting to point out how risky it was to continue to try and climb the ladder now of all times. He needed to find a place to lay low. Maybe somehow they’d get distracted when the heroes inevitably fought them off elsewhere?
“They are here for whatever they’re looking for. Their message did not say anything about local villains needing to stop whatever plans they have schemed up, simply to not interfere with their actions. By their very charter they can’t impose a moratorium on crime, especially not those committed for the sake of ambition. This is posturing with hopes that it frightens everyone out of their way,” Song calmly explained. “They might grumble about some upstart trying to upstage them, but your actions should still appear to them as being those of a fool who thinks they can impress them while they’re here. Besides, you should make no mistake.”
She turned to face him, “The League will find out who killed Calhoun. And when they do, that person will need as much strength as they can muster. Assuming the person in question has ambitions for ruling the world, they will need to be ready to deal with challenges to their ascent. They will need allies, pawns, and more.”
A toothy grin split her face and she laced her fingers together, “Besides, this would be the perfect opportunity. The League has divided its forces for a show of force and to cast wide a net. They’ve no doubt deployed more than a few of their stronger fighters here, but that’s all the more reason to crack their teeth and send them home with a bloodied nose.”
Alex considered that for a second. This was something he’d been expecting to have to face. Hell, a small part of him actually craved it. Not a single member of the League’s leadership was one of the villains he idolized, and even those guys had inspired more than one shower dream of Alex holding a ray gun over them as they lay in the ground at his feet, defeated. Those fantasies were probably respectful, or at least maybe came from a place of admiration, while the ones he had about lording his conquest over the league definitely weren’t. Those ones tended toward the “maybe I should kidnap a therapist” type of wish fulfillment if Alex dared to be honest to himself.
As Alex chewed over Song’s words and what it meant for his future, he found that he had to note something aloud, “Your way of speaking changes when you get worked up.”
That was apparently the wrong thing in her speech to focus on, judging from her glare.
“Fine, you’re right, sounds like I’m due for a fight with them in the future…” he grumbled, putting on a show to disguise how terrified the prospect made him… and how oddly excited he was. “Might as well figure out how to do this on my own terms.”
Her smile returned and she passed him a folder, “Good, then what do you think of these ones?”
The next few hours were spent arguing over Alex’s immediate options. While the different henchmen options were interesting, they still left moments for his mind to drift. When his thoughts weren’t dreaming up him leading a troop of costumed goons into battle, they would occasionally drift back to the missing gas canister, but he wasn’t willing to bring it up again. Even with Song’s statement about staying true to his desires, he was going to try against every instinct he’d built up in his thirty something years of living to try trusting her. Song’s confidence that the League wouldn’t be able to find it spoke to confidence that seemed like it could be backed up, especially coupled with her sheer indifference to their actions. He might not know who she really was – hmm, she was glaring again – but from everything he could place, her surety felt like a mountain weathering a storm.
Still, with the thoughts of storms on the mind, Alex’s mind moved away from worrying that the League might find it to something else entirely. With Thana in town, not having that gas made him feel… a number of different emotions he didn’t really want to feel at the moment. His chest ached at the memory of the explosion that had sent him scrambling out of Orion with his tail tucked between his legs, memories of blue and red sparks in the air and he shivered, earning him another odd look from his landlady. He was about to reassure her he was fine when an alert from a text message broke the small silence that managed to settle over the room.
“We need to talk, Menace.”
Fuck.
1. Alphareon - allegedly of the First Universe - tried to use the ReOriginator Machine to “fix” the world to its “true form” in what was known as the Breaking Point, where multiple heroes and villains, including the League, were forced to join forces to stop his plans. Alphareon had recruited several allies to his side, including the former head of the Protectors, Justice Sentinel. Experts are still discovering aftereffects of the device’s activation and subsequent destruction to this very day.
2. Capital of the Ameran Union, New Brasa was founded in the fifteenth century after the fall of the Mataili Empire. Located in Xeta, one of the larger nation-states of the Amera Union, located in the southern hemisphere, the seat of power for the large continent. Picked for its neutrality among the larger nations that joined together to form the burgeoning union, New Brasa quickly became a cultural hotspot as the Ameran Union expanded, even more so when the AU became a global superpower in the last two centuries.
