There was darkness, cold and silent.
Elisse could feel a shiver running down his spine as he walked through the corridor,
The air felt heavy on his lungs as his steps seemed to go slower and slower.
He had a bad feeling about this
It was far too early for him to be awake, the sun wasn't up yet
"M..mother?.." his words were barely a whisper.
He had heard her steps walking to the kitchen, he was sure of that.
As he approached the kitchen a horrible, putrid smell hitted his nose
Had something rotten?
Then as he walked closer he noticed the door was open.
He almost tripped on his feet
There was an open suitcase lying on the floor
Along with clothes, women clothes
Stained with something he couldn't see in the dark.
He tried not to trip over the fabric and continued walking
He almost jumped and screamed as he felt something cold hitting his feet.
He finally had reached the interior of the kitchen and what he saw…
He opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out
A hand grabbed him from behind
"It was just an accident"
He finally screamed.
A loud, terrified and long scream that made echo in his mind.
Elisse woke up.
He was sweating and panting
His heart beating as fast as it possibly could.
It was just a nightmare, one of many he had that week.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room as he got out of bed
And walked to the switch to turn the lights on
He wasn't sure if it was day or night since he didn't use on sleeping much
and the concept of time was still hard to grasp, even after being in this dimension
for a long time.
After the lights were on, he walked to the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror.
His face was still the same, pale, almost greyish skin from the lack of sunlight
A pair of yellow eyes that had an unnatural glow to them highlighted by purple bags under them
And a wild mess of purple that stood proudly over his head.
He was still there, he was still alive.
After reassuring himself that he was ok and what he just had was
Indeed, a nightmare, he decided to take a bath.
With all that taken care of, he dressed up and walked out of his room
today, was a special day, he knew that Black Hat was going to be busy
there was an annual reunion of villains and even if he hated having to attend such events
he had to go because it was a good business opportunity.
Flug was going to be left in charge while he was gone
Who else could take care of his business in his absence?
Demencia was far too crazy and irresponsible, 5.0.5 was practically a child, and Elisse had absolutely no interest in taking Black Hats place even if it was for a short time
He would have been annoyed with the motion of Flug being in charge, because of their rivalry.
But, he was going to be busy doing deliveries that day, and probably, by the time he finished
Black Hat would have already finished with the event after causing some misery.
Everything was going to go as well as it could talking about that kind of situation
or at least that was what he thougth before arriving to the lab.
Black Hat was already gone, no surprise do to the time, but there was something odd
He could feel it, something wasn't right.
Flug was pressing keys on the big computer, quite frustrated as he looked angrily at the screen
orders in binary code were being thrown at the computer which didn't seem to cooperating.
But aside from the frustration and anger, Flug was really scared and anxious.
Not that it was new, but this was a different kind of fear, the kind of fear Black Hat made him feel sometimes.
"What are you doing?" asked elisse, the scientist almost jumped out of the chair
"What have I told you about knocking?" said Flug grabbing his chest as he could feel his heart beating too fast from the scare he got
"Its not my fault you are that easy to scare" said Elisse rolling his eyes, trying hard to contain his need to laugh
"Your deliveries were cancelled and will not be resumed until further notice" said the scientist as he accommodated back into the chair
"What?" Elisse questioned, surprised at the change on his schedule
"Some of those orders were cancelled anyway" Flug explained as he went back to pushing buttons and pressing keys
Elisse could notice something interesting on the screen.
There were some words that didn't make too much sense at first, until Elisse began to think about them.
Those were the titles of files from the main computer
it had suffered a cyber-attack last week, probably from a hero base.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" asked Elisse, not caring about how frustrated Flug seemed to be at the unresponsive computer.
"We had a lot of orders cancelled lately… could you check the addresses to where you had to deliver?" he was actually kind of curious about all that sudden change, especially since some of those orders where from well-known villains that confirmed they weren't going to be on the reunion.
"I guess" after all Elisse didn't have much to do anyway, all of his projects were finished and he seemed to not have a lot of work left to do
He walked out of the mansion and took out a tiny black box from his pocket, after pressing a few buttons it transformed into his motorcycle.
He drove off to the first location and was surprised when he saw it was being repaired
"Excuse me, Delivery for Death Skull" He said to the guard on the stall beside the porch
The guard called to ask if his boss ordered anything
"No, if you are the deliverer for Black Hat tell him that the order was cancelled, we called his secretary"
Elisse laughed a little at the egocentric scientist being called a secretary, Black Hat needed to hire one, definitely.
"No, I mean I just wanted to confirm this was the location" explained Elisse.
He drove to the next location and got a similar response
He wondered why those bases specifically were being repaired
He decided to try his luck and go to the darker streets to see if he could find someone who knew what was going on
After a while he eventually found a coffee shop
He was in for some time asking for information
Finally he found someone who seemed to know
"Those villains just retired a few days ago, they haven't made any public claims, but some of their employees were fired and they said that was the reason" explained the waitress.
"But...why? I mean its too sudden and its not like they owned any money.." if they owned money to Black Hat he would had probably already used some over the top method to collect his pay
And age didn't often play a factor since most villains weren't even human
"Nobody knows, there is a rumor that heroes are making deals with some of them
offering a lot to get them out of business" she didn't believe much in that theory either
"Is not like a proper villain to be making deals with heroes, besides, what could they even offer to buy them in that way?" this wasn't for money, he was sure of it.
It couldn't be because they wanted immunity either, could it?
"There have been rumors of the return of a hero, so sadistic, their own kind turned their backs onto them because their methods are… rather unethical.
The heroes must be growing desperate." The waitress laughed.
Heroes were always desperate, weren't they?
"Oh but they were already desperate enough to send kids to fight their battles, I doubt they can grow any more unethical than that" he despised heroes with every fiber of his being, and now he had another strong reason to do so
Didn't they always gloat about being completely moral?
Practices like killing and torture were largely frowned upon, and now they were reaching to a "hero" that had no morals, it was shameful in his opinion.
He played the waitress for the information he got
It wasn't much, but it had to do.
He drove back to the mansion, some hours had already passed.
He had driven for a long time, and wasted even more time waiting to get the information
Black Hat was already there and Flug had already fixed the computer
He heard something about them having found the location from where the attack was launched
Something about killing the people responsible.
He didn't care
He felt really tired all of a sudden
He decided the information could wait for when they finished their talk and decided to go back to his room.
He fell into a dreamless sleep that night, definitely, the best he had in a while.