Jim wasn't having a good day. Well, he generally didn't have good days but this day was worse than usual. It wasn't just the usual 'get my butt handed to me by GJ' day, oh no. He had been unfortunate enough to get a promotion.
Now, why would getting a promotion be such a bad thing? Isn't that how you get ahead in life? The technician had thought that once. He had even thought that when he applied to this organization. Actually hoping to make it to the higher tiers of the organization!
Alas, he had joined the wrong company for that sort of thing.
Jim walked into the henchroom—goodness knows why it wasn't just called a break room—and got a cup of tepid coffee. Usually he would just skip it in favor of taking a nip during his break time, but since he was now one of the top Letters, he was going to have to be careful. Jim had just become Agent Theta and knew that the last poor soul to get the position had been fired, literally, for 'inappropriate work behavior'. Apparently it's against company policy to have a cake and eat it without sharing.
"Heya Prof," he waved to Agent Delta. His fellow henchman was sitting at the break table, fully absorbed in what he was doing. "How's it going?"
The Prof, also known as Stu, was a large man with a triangle on his hench uniform. He waved distractedly, keeping his focus on the crossword puzzle in front of him. "Not too bad, Iota. Gamma has not messed up so I am still feeling pretty secure. My little bun-bun also won her spelling bee. She actually managed to beat out the smartest kid in the 3rd grade. I was quite proud of her."
He chuckled and looked up from the crossword. When he saw Jim, he did a double-take before looking around. "Huh." The henchman turned back to his compatriot with the coffee. "Sorry Theta. I could have sworn that I had heard Iota talking…"
"I am," said the man with the giant 0 with a line through it replied.
"Oh." Delta's eyebrows dove for the bottom of his brow. "So you—"
"Got promoted," Theta finished with a sigh. "Yeah.
The larger man winced in sympathy. "Sorry Io—er, Theta."
"Not your fault."
"True." Stu glanced at his half-finished crossword puzzle and sighed. "I wish we did not have to put up with a tyrant."
Gemini, Delta's boss's boss's boss and said tyrant, had a fetish for Greek numbers, astrological signs, and dogs. It was a wonder in and of itself that he had actually managed to become a super villain head of an international crime organization with all of his eccentricities. Or maybe he got that crazed from having to run a criminal organization?
Jim took a sip of his coffee, swallowing the bitter and grainy mess with difficulty, before saying, "You could always quit." He looked at his superior with a straight face before they both burst into laughter. They both knew there was no quitting this gig. Just the price you pay when you don't read the fine print in a contract. Or do no research on your possible boss.
Delta's laughter slowed to a chuckle before he took a breath and sighed. "I do miss being able to teach," he replied, his tone carrying a note of melancholy.
"Just a shame that you had to get mixed up in this business." Theta didn't really have any qualms with joining the villain industry nor did he actually feel bad for anyone else involved. He hadn't had too much going for him anyway. Just got out of a messy divorce and lost custody of his son to his former partner. It hadn't actually hurt all that much to lose either of them, which was a bit of a scare in and of itself. When had Jim lost his humanity?
Of course, that just made it all the easier to be a henchman for a super villain where a lack of empathy was actually a good thing.
Suddenly a screen dropped from the ceiling and the head of their organization appeared on the tv set. "Agent Delta!"
While Gemini had only called for Stu, Jim knew better than to not stand at attention. They both dropped what they were doing and jumped into a stiff stare at the one-eyed man and his shaking dog. Their boss looked like he was in a bad mood already. Probably was just looking for an excuse to dismiss someone with extreme prejudice.
"Agent Delta," Gemini repeated with a snarl, his flesh hand petting his twitching chihuahua. "Who exactly were you referring to with 'tyrant'?" The bearded man's robotic hand twitched and Jim realized that a finger was barely hovering over a button on his control panel. The newly promoted henchman was pretty sure it wasn't the milk and cookies option.
Jim then remembered just how Gemini managed to climb the ranks of villains; the man was a complete lunatic.
"We were conversing about your sister, Sir," Delta answered smoothly. "If she did not continuously try to stop us at everything we do and delay our every move, we would have gotten our objective finished by now and we would not have to deal with her and her bothersome GJ grunts ever again."
If lying were a sport, Stu would have earned a gold medal by now. Or if it were an art form instead, Delta's work would be sitting right next to the large statue of that naked man in a museum. Even dancing the macarena version of lying would show that Stu knew how to dance, and dance well. It was none of those things though so instead it gave him the ability to talk nearly freely and be able to cover up any slip-up with ease. Jim was jealous of Stu for that ability, which he lacked in spades.
Gemini narrowed his eye suspiciously and watched the both of them for a few seconds. Slowly, he replied, "As true as that is, I would prefer that you not use ambiguous language like that. It's hard to tell exactly what—or whom—you are discussing."
"My apologies, Master Gemini," Stu said, his body language somehow managing to radiate shame. "I will make sure to make things perfectly clear in the future."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" the one-eyed man snapped suddenly. "You think that I'm stupid? Do you think like my foolish sister that you're better than me for being older? It was only by five seconds! Age doesn't matter at all! It's how you use your abilities."
He had clearly forgotten that Agent Delta was actually several years younger than him. Then again, knowing their boss, he probably couldn't even remember Delta's real name or his specialties. He killed off his staff so often that it was a wonder that he could still hire anyone from the various hench agencies.
Gemini was completely caught up in his rant, semi-oblivious to the henchpeople he had called to yell at in the first place. His eye took on a glazed look as he went on the same subject he usually went on about. It was a tradition of sorts for a newly appointed WEE member to not be considered an 'official' worker until they survived their first rant with Gemini. Only a few of the recruits made it through that stage, making henching for the head of WWEE one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
Jim and Stu stood at attention for a good several minutes as their boss complained about the clear prejudice that their father had shown to his eldest child. Neither of the henchmen dared to relax even a little, afraid that the hairpin trigger temper would activate at the slightest movement. Like a bug trying to escape from a highly observant chameleon by blending in and pretending to be a leaf or a branch.
"But of course, she just has to rub it in how much better she is than me. Even when our organizations, she just has to prove how much better than me she is, just based on our age difference. Actually told me yesterday, at our mother's birthday no less, that a junior agent could beat my entire organization!" His gaze had somehow gone to his robotic arm, which he examined for a brief few seconds before his eyes suddenly met those of his underlings.
"So Delta," Gemini started in a clipped tone, his false arm now once again resting dangerously close to the sensitive button of death, "are you like my foolish older sister? Do you think you're better than me?"
Great. Now Jim was going to have to find a new break buddy. Whenever the boss got like this, you could only hide and hope that he got someone else first. The cyclops was an unreasonable pile of bulls that chased down the nearest target and gored them. So much for going out for brunch after their shifts.
And now Theta would have to waste money on a 'Sorry our boss killed your loved one' card, too.
"No Master Gemini." The underling was now shivering with fear. Jim couldn't blame him. "I may have age, but wisdom does not always come with it. Your older sister has proven that she is most certainly not wise in going against you."
"And why is that?" Gemini ground out, his finger still hovering dangerously close to the insta-death button.
"Because you are guaranteed to win," the large man said in a rush. The words tumbled on each other in their haste to exit his mouth. "There is no chance of you being able to lose. You are a very capable strategist, you have resources that rival her meager organization, your fighting capabilities far outweigh hers, and your mother most certainly loves you more than her."
"Go on," the madman said stiffly. Jim noticed that his hand was relaxing and easing away from the button panel of death and yummies. The underling barely withheld a chuckle. Stu was a lucky SOB. Sucking up to the boss was actually working!
"Your sister has only managed to thwart your goals due to her using underhanded tactics to gain an advantage. I would not be surprised if there was an agent or two from GJ incorporated into our own ranks."
That suggestion had an instant reaction on their boss. His eye bulged in his socket and he whipped his head to look behind and around him. A growl came from deep inside him as he set off a number of buttons on his chair. The screams of all the men that served in Gemini's control center could be heard through the view screen as an unknown fate (yeah, right) was given by an unforgiving executioner whose only reaction was to pet his dog.
Jim sometimes wondered if maybe Gemini was the one that had psychologically damaged his dog and not his sister. The little rat certainly didn't react beyond a snort to the deaths of the men around them.
Then their boss turned back to them with a smirk.
"And what about you two?" he asked, his eyes twinkling in vicious delight as he began to clench his fists in a sort of crazed fanaticism. "How can I be sure that you two weren't sent by my miserable sister to try to get the best of me? How do I know you aren't working for Global Justice?"
Oh shit.
Before either Jim or Stu had the chance to defend themselves, they were granted a reprieve. Pepe, having been silent but shaking from his own neuroses, reacted in his usual manner to the despised words uttered by his master. The little dog began to yip uncontrollably and shake like it had just gotten splashed with some liquid nitrogen.
Gemini gasped and his mood suddenly shifted to a mother doting on their crying child. "My darling little Pepe!" He began to coddle the small canine, petting it and nearly suffocating it with hugs. "Daddy is so sorry for saying the dreaded GJ words. He'll make sure to put a quarter in the jar later. Daddy loves you so much."
Agent Theta was glad that Gemini was so thoroughly enthralled by his dog. It gave him time to wince and shake his head at the scene before him. Stu elbowed him, earning the larger man a glare. He returned one in kind.
The two agents turned their attention back toward their boss not a second too early as their boss had just finished coddling his dog and looked back at them.
"What are you standing around for? Go patrol the hallways and make sure that the base is secure!"
"Yes Sir!" they replied before running for the door.
"I'll have to order some more henchpeople from that conniving weasel Hench now," the Letters heard Gemini grumble before he shut down the screen. The large television retracted into the ceiling, leaving no trace that it had even been there.
"Git," Theta said under his breath.
A/N:
Just a bit of background stuff for the young!Drakken 'verse I'm trying to conjure up which has yet to really get a name. This is what's going on in Gemini's neck of the woods. In this 'verse Gemini was actually the younger one which, by my reckoning, makes him even more psychotic about the birth order and, overall, a crazier less-funny-malicious villain. Barely has the hinges of his mental door hooked up to reality.
Another reason why I wrote this is because I realized while surfing tv tropes that there's almost nothing written for the poor pathetic one-kick-from-Kim-and-they're-down henchmen. They're people too after all. I thought about who had it the worst in the KP series and instantly thought of Gemini's henchmen, more importantly his Letters. Those poor, poor schmucks. What is the measure of a mook to a deranged criminal organization head that slays them like they're an unlimited resource (which they most certainly aren't; the hench industries have got to draw the line at some point)?
The strange tone with the words is me trying to tell the story from Jim's POV. In his head, from his perspective. Hopefully I did a decent enough job of portraying a down-on-his-luck loser that has some issues. Reviews are appreciated~