Disclaimer: The main character is loosely based on a character that I use in City of Villains who goes by the name of "The Scoutinator." ((Yes, you did read that right.)) He is currently a Level 7 Brute in the Union server. However, he is different to the character in this story; The Scoutinator was modelled on the Scout in Team Fortress 2, immediately after I learned that you can really use a baseball bat as a weapon (it is an option for the mace, if anyone wants to know.) The character in this story is older, and wiser, but could just be him. As for the other characters, organisations, and suchlike, I really do not own them. Neither am I a real political conservative, unlike my main character.
"You know, kid, it's a mighty tiring life, being a villain."
I just nodded. Being held captive in a cell, with this old guy watching over me, it didn't seem politic to do anything else.
The old man nodded. "Mighty tiring." He reached in his pocket, produced a cigar, and lit up. He offered me one. "D'you smoke, kid?"
I hesitated. Only a few hours ago, I had been fighting tooth and nail with this guy, giving him high kicks, chops, and all that karate stuff. We had been swearing at each other, spitting, cursing, and then he just thumped my lights out with a baseball bat! And now here we were, with him talking in a soothing voice like one of those old cowboy actors- who was it? Yeah, Burt Reynolds, or perhaps that guy in the Golden Compass, would be closest to his voice- and offering me smokes. I shook my head dumbly.
He sighed, and took a drag. "Typical, I suppose. Makes you eat less, d'you know that?" He didn't wait for an answer, but carried right on. "I guess not. Hippie media hates the habit. Hates our damned guts, too." He even looked like a cowboy actor, in a checked shirt and jeans, with a baseball cap looking oddly out of place. A far cry from the normal spandex which I had adopted without a second thought. Makes sense, I thought. He sounded like a Republican, which would explain a lot.
I was jerked out of my silence by this. "It isn't all 'hippie', as you put it," I said, attempting defiance. "They have right wing pundits and all." I rattled off a few names. Suggesting that our TV was restricted? Madness!
"I guess so. But have you ever seen one taken seriously?" The man puffed at his cigar for a few more moments. "Not derided by every paper in the land, I mean?"
"What's this got to do with anything?" I asked. My knowledge of politics and government was restricted to what the taught us at Hero Academy, which I hadn't listened to very hard. Protect the American way, defend the weak from the strong, that sort of thing. Not that hard to follow.
"What?" The old guy lowered the cigar for a moment.
"What's this got to do with anything?" I asked again. "I mean…"
"I'm supposed to torture you or sumthin'?" The old guy gave a short, barking laugh. "Well, kid, I could easily do just that. Have you read 1984?"
I nodded. It would be more accurate to say that I had skim read it and got poor grades, but that was another matter.
"Let me put it to you this way. When George Orwell talks about a machine which causes pain by the turning of a switch, well, he got his idears from a little rising power called the Rogue Isles." Another barking laugh, which broke into coughing. Violent coughing. "Well-cough- you could say that-cough…" there was another fit of coughing. It sounded like the man was about to empty his guts onto the floor, like some weird Vahlizok construct. "you're in the mouth of hell, kid," the man finished. He slumped onto the bunk, next to me. "You really are."
There was a long silence. Screams could be heard, even through the thick walls of the jail cell. One was swiftly extinguished after a period of shouting. Something hissed sinisterly, strangely. Rats could be heard, scuttling and skittering. The jail, wherever it was, was teeming with swarms of them. I shuddered. The noises slowly grew louder, and louder. I began to look around, first one way, then the other. The old guy just sat, smoking, looking quite normal.
"So," he said, breaking the silence, "here you are. The hero, the protector of 'Truth, justice and civilization', jumping at shadows and rats. Rats." The guy said the last word with absolute loathing. "To tell you the truth, I would be too. We got a lot of rats, we did. They went as big as cats in 'Nam. I never did find out why, but they used to eat the dead. Swarms of 'em." He shivered. "Little bastards."
"Of course I'm not scared of rats!" I started to say. But I stopped. Admitting that you had a fear of rats was not what the bad guy normally said before kicking your teeth out. So, instead, I asked "What the hell are you going to do with me?"
"Hnnh?"
"I mean, can you get it done quick or something?" I was confused by now. Was the old guy going to just sit here and bark platitudes gruffly. "Because, really," I added, aiming for the sort of line that would get printed in the Paragon Times "I was hoping to get some beauty sleep before having it all ruined by the rack. And-"
There was a sudden stab of pain. Well, not a stab. It felt like my leg was being torn in half. I held the scream in, but only just. The old guy was on his feet, gripping what looked like a really eighties mobile phone with a switch on it. He flicked it, and the pain relaxed. "Kid," he said, "believe it or not, I am not a man to go and inflict pain. I don't keep any goddamn little critters in cages or anythin' for my own amusement to torture. But when a guy starts yappin' bullshit, I get angry. Yessir, I get danged angry. That little display just summed up why I joined this little shit bucket- this city of villains- in the first place. To-" he looked as if he was about to hit me again, but he stopped. He looked furious, I could see that.
But he then he changed. He seemed to deflate before my eyes. Where there had been a vibrant psychopath, shouting and raving, now stood an old man. A tired old man, with wrinkles and cave like crags for eye sockets. He sunk down onto the bunk again. "Kid," he said, "to tell you the truth, I'm just tired of this whole affair. Of the chases. Of the fights. Of the killin's. Of the thefts, beatings, rapes, all this and more." He said it slowly, melodically, looking away from me all the while. I couldn't see his face, but I have my guesses of what he was seeing. All we veteran heroes see them, on occasion. The faces of those who we killed, and beat, all in the name of liberty and justice. "I want to confess. I was never a great Catholic, not really," the guy said, emphatically, "but we all need to from time ter time. So, kid." He turned to me. "You ask a few things, and I'll answer away. And it is in your interest to answer, or else my thumb might just slip on this switch of mine."
Was it such an odd request? Not really. He had me in his power. War veterans who do the same in books and on TV aren't uncommon. But it was jarring at the time, to think that a man who actively worked for Arachnos had a conscience at all. They were just monsters, surely? People who killed without a second thought, who attempted to poison water supplies, ambush aid workers for profit, back organised crime- in short, bring down modern civilization.
This must have showed on my face, for he just smiled, and the thumb flicked to the switch. I said the first thing that came into my head.
"Why the bat?" I asked. More to the point, how the hell could a sixty year old looking man with a stick beat the hell out of a twenty year old with a black belt times a factor of perhaps eighty five thousand?
"Well," the guy said, looking right at me, "it all began a long time ago…"
((This will get more exciting as it goes along, trust me here. I would recommend occasionally listening to Frank Sinatra's My Way to get into the mood.))