Chapter 21: You Won't Get Me, I'm Part of the Union
"What do you mean he's 'missing'?" Daniel asked.
It was dim, muggy and early on a Saturday morning. The windows were all wet with heavy rain. The students of the Regency Academy hero course had just been woken up and gathered in the communal dorm area by some dour looking teachers. This was not the due course. usually, they just blared Rule Brittania over the intercom at six AM and let the students get up at their own convenience. So immediately, the teens caught on that something must have been wrong.
They all sat in a big oblong pattern with a tired-looking Feldon at its head. The man usually appeared somewhat sleepy, but on this morning of mornings the bags under his eyes had bags of their own, and those bags had a little set of bags aswell. That was the face of someone who was on a streak of all-nighters and didn't want to lose out on their high score.
"I mean, he's nowhere to be found," Feldon rumbled, his voice like the rumbling of a mighty oak. Daniel was the only kid standing up. His hair was bristling and his wolf ears were upright like an alert hound. His every coarse shout seemed to coincide with the rumbling of thunder outside, which could seldom be heard over the artillery bombardment of rain that was giving the window a severe pounding.
"What the fuck? Find him then!" Roared Daniel, stomping his feet.
"Gee, why did they not think of that one?" Gawain snorted. He drank espresso from a pretentiously small cup and looked miserably out of the window. The weather reflected badly on his mood. Yup, it was a particularly shitty morning to be Gawain Williams.
"Fuck off Gawain! Nobody likes you!" Daniel cried hoarsely. A particularly nasty rumble of thunder made Tanith shiver and cover her bat-like ears. The shouting… the weather… the bad news… it was all a bit much for her. She kind of felt like receding into nothing, shrinking until she disappeared. Her wings shuddered, and she tucked her tail between her legs.
"Listen here son," Feldon started sternly. "I'm going to reiterate to you what we already know, and hope that you somehow get it into your thick head this time. Are we ready?"
A groan of approval.
"Very well: Sometime during the very early morning on Thursday, Jacob Pembroke, your PE teacher, was seen leaving his house and heading towards Regent Street, eventually arriving at Oxford Circus station. Once he enters the station, we have no idea. He never turned up for work, he's not at home. No surveillance has seen him enter or leave any other station, or at all for that matter. He has dropped off the map. Earlier that night, he made a call to the National Hero Service public inquiry line, wanting to resume hero work in secret. He answered a call about a mugging on a train heading into Oxford Circus. Basically, he's gone."
"He's dead, then?" Gawain said, cutting through the bullshit. Feldon took the back foot for a bit. He looked down and away from the students and scratched his head.
"I… There's no precedent to assume… He's only been missing for two days or so…" He stammered.
"Theres no way he's dead!" Daniel rejected. "He's like, the toughest guy in this joint! I remember when he threw your ass to the grass on our first day! Do you think some shitty mugger could've gotten him? No fucking way!"
"Tch, you know him, do you? Hardly. We've not been here for a week and you've been training for maybe half that. How beat up could you possibly be about it? Any of us? What do we care really?"
"I know all about him! Laddie- I mean Mr Pembroke- Uh… the other Mr Pembroke... the short guy from engineering told me all about him! They were married! He was helping me with my Blitzkrieg! I'm almost up to fifty seconds, that would've been more than enough to smoosh your smug fave against a concrete wall, Gawain! So watch your fucking tongue!" Daniel's impassioned tirade brought him almost to the point of tears. His grief had shifted from denial to anger. Mallory hopped up off her cramped seat on the leather sofa and went to comfort him. Her hand shot back when an arc of electricity buzzed off of his raised fur and onto her fingertips. She yelped and jumped, her hair standing on end and turning into a frizzy balled up mess.
"S-sorry…" Daniel said, becoming more docile one he noticed that he might have hurt her.
"It's no problem bro! Team B's gotta look out for their own, right?" Mallory replied, throwing her arm around his shoulder (being careful to avoid areas of live fur) and putting her hand on her waist. Gawain chortled a bit when she said 'Team B', but she ignored him. "Are you… gonna be alright?"
"Yeah," Daniel began, offering Mallory a tentative fistbump which she reciprocated enthusiastically and then bounced back into her seat snug between John and Simon. "Just one thing…"
The wolf mutant looked at John, and his eyebrows raised at the sudden inclusion in the conversation.
"Huh?" He grunted.
"Jac, hate to tell you this man, but I'm breaking up with you."
"Huh?" John reiterated, even more confused than before.
"It's not you, it's me…"
"Huh? No, seriously. Huh?"
"From now on, I can't be your rival."
"Oh, that's what you meant. I mean, it's fine with me, but why not?" John stroked his mane ponderously. Daniel grinned and started to walk with determination to the tall stool by the juice bar which Gawain had made his perch. It took a moment for Gawain to look up from his empty espresso cup and grace Daniel with his gaze.
"From now on, I'm rivals with this arrogant dick!" Daniel exclaimed, poking Gawain in the chest with his claw.
"Get your grubby paws off me, you mutt," Gawain sneered.
"Make me! Rival!" Daniel exclaimed, puffing his chest out and flashing his teeth. A static charge filled the air, and Gawain got involuntary goosebumps. He slapped Daniel's hand away, standing up himself and meeting the mutant eye to eye. He was about four inches shorter than Daniel, which they both noticed. This simple fact plastered a smug grin onto wolf boy's face. Gawain scowled.
"You poor fool…" He said.
"Hm?" Growled Daniel, shoving Gawain with his chest a bit. The other boy had started to smile aswell.
"You want to be rivals with me? I refuse outright."
"What the fuck did you just say? You pompous…"
"How do you expect me to be rivals with someone who's so far behind me? A good rivalry drives both parties forward, but as things are you'll just be chasing after me. What's the point? You cant call that a rivalry, so you'll never be my rival," Gawain shouted. A vein bulged in Daniel's neck. He clenched his fists even tighter. Mallory stood up again, seemingly wanting to intervene. She backed off when she noticed the electric field that encompassed Daniel. Streaks of blue were filling the air, stunning the attendants to silence.
"Care to back that up?" Daniel said with quiet intensity. He lurched forward very slowly, getting his face as close to Gawain's as possible. His arm vibrated like they might throw a punch any second. Gawain's grin turned ear to ear. Toothy and sadistic.
"I won't stop you," Gawain shrugged. "Come on doggy, fetch~"
"Okie Dokie you two," Emma said, bombastically inserting herself between the two quarrelling students. She wrapped her arms around both of their necks and pulled them into her body, effectively collaring them both. "Let's simmer down, we don't want any shoot outs in the common room, who's gonna wanna clean that up?"
"Your attempt to defuse the situation with humour might work on those of lesser intellect, but I'm not convinced,"
"That wasn't a joke, kiddo. It was a threat. I can have a mop and broom in your hand like that. Now, deep breaths. Like we discussed in therapy, remember?"
Daniel scoffed heartily himself.
"Ha! 'therapy'," He laughed. Gawain, with great personal restraint, elected not to reply. Instead, he deeply breathed in time with Emma's pushy squeezes of his chest cavity, well aware of her heavy, disciplinary gaze on the top of his head.
"And you, no gettin' into fights on campus unless we got cameras on ya', y'hear?" Emily said, ruffling the hair on Daniel's head with a heavy pet.
"Ah! Watch the ears lady!" He yelped, thrashing around until she let him go. "Fuck this, I'm going to my room…"
Emma watched Daniel as he trotted away, fuming so hard that his ears occasionally twitched.
"I swear… That kid is too friggin adorable…" Emma thought, being partial to animal features and a go-get-em attitude. "Hope he don't get himself killed one a' these days…"
"Well I'm gonna go to morning classes, you nincompoop," Gawain scoffed, trotting off away from Emma.
"Actually Willaims, classes are cancelled today," Feldon interjected. "In light of the… unfortunate events… We're observing a period of reverence… So to speak…" The man sounded well out of his depth talking about death and tragedy.
"Ha!" Daniel laughed. It was an incredibly petty laugh. Gawain harrumphed and took the other staircase up to the dorm rooms. Everyone else followed, scattering to wherever they decided in glum silence. Ginger sat where she was, her fingers digging into her thighs. Feldon just began to turn his back when he heard Ginger call after him.
"Mr Feldon!" She squealed. He turned back, grimacing at the prospect of more conversation.
"What is it?"
"What about Mr Pembroke's husband? You know, the guy in engineering? How's he doing?" She asked, clearly concerned. Laddie was practically a stranger to her. Hell, she only knew Jacob as the man who piledrove her right to the nurse's office and who put her through several far too intense morning jogs. However, for personal reasons, she had a large amount of experience with people whose spouses had disappeared off the face of the earth, possibly dead. She felt instinctual empathy for the man.
"Laddie? How would I know? He's not shown up for work or answered any phone calls since he filed the police report. Will you leave me alone? I need time to… grieve…" Feldon said suspiciously. Ginger raised a curious eyebrow at him, but let the issue go.
She returned to her dorm. She guessed she had the day off now. What was she going to do with herself?
-THE PRIOR THURSDAY, UNDISCLOSED BLOCK OF FLATS-
"You said you weren't cold," said Redd, fumbling around in yet another of their extremely deep interior pockets.
"Y-Y-Yeah… w-w-well I'm n-n-not…" Shivered Dylan. The gruesome events of the last few hours had left them distinctly shirtless on this cold September night. "B-B-But I'd p-p-prefer you open the d-d-door s-s-sooner rather than l-l-later…"
"I told you that you could borrow my coat, and you said no."
"I g-g-get it! Now o-o-open s-s-sesame mother f-f-fucker."
"No need for expletives, comrade," Redd hummed as the door clinked open. It was an old, rickety, wooden affair. Flanked on either side by cloudy, grimy glass with no apparent practical purpose other than making the entryway look incredibly tacky.
The antechamber of the block was revealed beyond the dark doorway. A barren, concrete interior, with old newspaper scraps and empty bottles tucked into the four corners. Strange wetness covered the floor, which Dylan strategically avoided as he slinked passed the entryway, closing it silently behind him. It wasn't much warmer in here than out there, and there wasn't any light either.
Redd produced a wind-up powered torch and lit the stairway ahead.
"Theres no electricity and no gas. At least, not in the whole building. When your get to the habitable room at the top, we get enough power to run a lightbulb for eight hours every day, and just enough gas weekly to either keep the room warm or cook dinner on the stove," they said.
"I thought we lived in the whole building. How come our 'generous sponsor' is so fucking stingy?"
"The whole building? Bourgeoisie crap. How much space does one need? No, we all share one flat on the top floor."
"How many people was that again?"
"With you? Five."
"Bit many..." Griped Dylan.
"Frugality is one of my principles, Dylan. I could have asked That Man for a whole lot more, but I decided only to take what I needed."
Excellent, principles. Dylan rolled his eyes. He had hoped joining a villain syndicate would at least have involved the slightest bit of luxury. Even a hole in the wall bar to loiter around in would be better. Get some fancy guy behind the counter, even if nobody orders drinks. He was looking forward to having some atmosphere if nothing else.
The door came up to him quicker than he expected. When you are complaining, time goes quicker. That was Dylan's experience anyway. Flat number five nine nine. With another key off of the ridiculous huge ring they had, Redd swung this door open aswell. Beyond this precipice were the comrades Dylan could well be laying is life down alongside. He hoped to make a good first impression.
The room was cosy if nothing else. Someone must have been cooking on the gas stove Redd mentioned because the first scent out of the multi-layered smell profile belonging to this overpopulated barrow was the combination of propane gas and fatty bacon.
Dylan looked to his immediate left, prioritising the smell of food over anything else. In a little nook, separated from the rest of the living room only by a fake granite worktop, some wonky ceiling-mounted cupboards and a change of flooring from ratty, sparse carpet to checkerboard tile pattern PVC flooring mat, was a small kitchen.
Populating the kitchen was a man of about Dylan's height give or take an inch. A poor stature. He had a disco as fuck long bedazzled leather jacket that came to the down to the back of his knees, an iridescent burgundy tonic shirt and a pair of white flared bellbottoms that went all the way out.
His face was in profile, looking down at the sizzling cast iron pan that was clasped in a blinged-out hand. Dirty blond hair, looked bleached. Sideburns, a goatee, balding at the top but neck length everywhere else. A lame attempt at a combover. A big toothy grin and wide-eyed stare. He was relishing the moment. Or he was high. Or both.
Something like a scaly rash covered the side of his face. When the man looked over at Dylan, who was only seconds in the door by that point, the boy saw that the rash has a symmetrical twin on the other side. It was a bit lizard-like, but not so much that it couldn't just be a skin condition. He hardly resembled any sort of mutant.
"Hairy eyeballs, youngblood?" The man spoke. It wasn't that his breath smelled like booze and cigarettes. It was that his voice sounded like booze and cigarettes. Slurred, gravely, low and rumbling but with a joyous lilt. Dylan full-body shivered upon the noise slithering into his ears.
"W-what…?" Dylan stammered. He wasn't sure that the words the senior villain said had any actual secret linguistic meaning or if he was being pranked elaborately with fake villain slang. It was worse than either, in truth. He actually just talked like that.
"Jeezy peeps Klowey. I was expectin' some Crawford Ran and you come in the door with this string bean."
Dylan decided not to say anything, on the off chance that this was just how people had started talking in the past twenty-four hours and he would make a fool of himself by talking like a normal person. Wait, Klowey? Hmm... Like 'Hoenklowen' Dylan guessed.
"He passed, that's all you need to know."
"We'll put some meat on him yet, ya pinko bastard. Y'like bacon, sunshine? We're avin' breakfast! Those of us that ain't been up all night that is,"
Dylan put his hands in his pockets. This conversation had just come down to his level. Like a bad texas hold'em player who just got dealt a pair of aces, he had a sudden shit-eating grin plastered on his face as if his conversational victory was at hand.
"Heh, I called em' pinko too," He snarked.
"Ha! Groovy fella!" Hooted the disco man. He lifted the pan and slipped half of the overfilled contents onto an awaiting, remarkably chipped plate. It had the queen's face on it, but it was scratched up to the point of not being recognizable. If there wasn't a caption that proudly declared 'OUR MAJESTY ADAMANTITE JUBILEE' on the front then Dylan wouldn't have been any the wiser. Although, he now got the feeling that this wasn't the type of plate you were meant to eat off of. It seemed more like the type you hung on a wall if you were incredibly sad or old.
The bacon itself was something to behold. The rashers were a centimetre or two thick each and were as wide and long as the bottom of Dylan's shoes. They werent crispy either. They were slick and slimy with bubbling fat and bright pink in colour. This was the kind of bacon you only got when you went specifically to an old-style butcher's and watched them slice the belly up with a steak knife and some intense scrutiny. Dylan ate with his hands, feeling the primitive aesthetic that his shirtlessness and slightly bloodstained chest gave him.
With a floppy half of pig meat hanging in his furiously chewing mouth, he heard a wolf whistle come from behind him. A noise of specifically feminine pitch. Dylan tripped over himself and started choking on a chewy strip of sinewy swine flesh, eliciting a giggle from the unseen girl.
"Smooth play, Shakespeare," Laughed the cooking man, who had already put some more bacon on, hoping to get a full portion to himself.
"Hello there~" she mewed. Dylan did an about-turn and stood to attention. This was a social red alert. His brain cells were all primed and ready. The disco guy was only 'code orange'. This shit was 'two minutes to midnight'. They have a fucking lady here.
"Hey," He barked instantly, spraying some very small wet chunks of bacon onto the back of the sofa. He didn't care. He was still good. Thank god he didn't get any on her. He was ok. He wiped his mouth but made sure to do it real hard-boiled like. Oh god, he thought of the hard-boiled thing too late and tried to abort his normal mouth wipe midway and now he just looked weird. One minute to midnight.
Ah, she was cute. Forget the doomsday clock, the nukes were in flight. She was bent over the back of a saggily upholstered sofa, resting her head daintily on her interlocked fingers. She was skinny. Delicate, Dylan might have said. Her face had porcelain features. Almond eyes and a sharp little nose like a thumbtack. Thin, pouty lips that were stretched wide into an alluring, ensnaring smile. Quite an alarming smile, actually. Slightly uncanny in how wide it went around her face. Her hair was a maddening mix of rainbow colours, haphazardly dyed and with the natural hazel clearly showing through at the roots. What strands that werent caught in the psychedelic rubber bracelet she used for a hairband and formed into a messy, wavy ponytail were strewn in every direction, even over the face.
Dylan shivered. He needed an opener. Something casual perhaps? Something hard-boiled. He wanted to seem really hard-boiled, he knew that much.
"Are you cold, or something?" Said the girl. "You won't stop shivering. Put a shirt on, bro." She slipped her hand behind the limp couch cushion and produced a set of safety scissors. She began to cut her own hair, extremely ineffectually. It was more like she was combing it, or tugging on it. She seemed to find Dylan's confounded expression enjoyable because she was tittering uncontrollably the whole time that he stayed silent.
"Why are you… doing that?" Dylan asked, referring to the odd scissor based activity.
"It's stimulating. The light tugging pain, that is… the hurting makes my brain smile…" She cooed creepily.
"Yeah," Dylan started boastfully, changing the subject back to himself. "I lost my shirt in a fight. I ripped it off and he like, started quaking in fear of these killer king cobra lats." Dylan put both of his arms behind his head in the awkward fake-casual style that was his trademark. What he said wasn't a lie. He couldn't have been lying about that, since nobody knew what happened after the shirt came off anyway, not even himself. "Then I killed the guy, heh," He snorted.
"Those aren't lats, those are your ribs. You're skinny as fuck~"
"Same difference!" He snarled defensively. Perhaps he should have looked up what 'lats' were before saying he had a 'killer king cobra' set of them. All he actually knew was that Bruce Lee also had them. "How many heroes you killed today you fuckin' hater!"
"Today? None…" The girl's tone descended and she curled up. Dylan nodded smugly. "What about all-time though?" She suddenly sounded much more enthusiastic. Yes! She wanted to hear all about the great Dire's villainous escapades. Fuck. What villainous escapades? That time he got beat up doing graffiti? The precisely one time that he killed someone? That's baby shit. She was gonna think he was a big baby if he let on. He wasn't much of a liar either (although he was adept at fooling himself). His only option was strategic avoidance of the truth.
"Uh… y-you first."
"Me?" She said, sounding a bit ditzy. An excellent move on his own part, Dylan figured. From here, he could change the subject with ease. "I dunno."
Wait, what?
"You 'dunno'?" He spat.
"Ya I stopped counting after I ran out of fingers and toes." She flipped her whole body around and threw her feet over the back of the sofa. Dylan felt another chill and started to shiver again. That was hardcore. His blood was running cold and he had goosebumps. What was it that the creepy train station guy had said about trustees and executives? Dylan was feeling the enormity of the two monsters around him. Abhorrent devils that were capable of insane slaughter, both of them. One of them was playing with safety scissors and the other was making bacon and humming disco tunes. Wait, the girl started painting her toenails pink. The girl was his age. The man was his size. The only difference was the kill count. 'In over his head' was the word he'd use.
"You're shivering again, man." The girl said, sounding actually concerned. "Wanna come under the blanket~?"
"Yeah, ok," Dylan responded on command and slumped over the top of the sofa. The pratfall he took over the back of the chair, made him collide face first with the worn-out cushions, making the girl giggle. Though, everything seemed to do that. She dunked a balled-up cover onto his flattened body. It was woven from thick, itchy wool, and very old.
"Comfy?" She asked.
"Yeah…" He murmured submissively.
"Cool, I'm goin' to bed~" She hummed, hopping to her feet and skipping off.
"Aw, and I only just got up! Without your radiance this ere' this joint's so painfully dull," The man piped up, laying on some familial charm.
"Izzy!" Chided the girl. "Not in front of the new boy! You're embarrassing me!" She scampered over to a door halfway down the darkened corridor that shot off from the living room and slid right inside. In the murky darkness, Dylan saw a plaque on the front. Or, it was more like a decorated whiteboard. In big, curly letters, 'Jessica's Room' was written in marker, with a lot of pointy little hearts surrounding it. She was a bit manic, but cool. A lot cooler than him, anyway.
Dylan noticed something that up until this point he had only been suspicious of. He looked down the hall connected to the living room, and there were three doors.
"Hey, there are only three bedrooms. Where am I gonna sleep?" He inquired. Redd started laughing hysterically.
"First of all, one of those is a bathroom and the other one is a closet. Secondly, you cant have the closet cuz' Bo sleeps in there. You're gonna sleep right where you're sat and you'll be happy with it."
"Huh? How do five people live in this shitty shoebox? You're all crazy, I'm taking one of the empty flats."
"Like hell you are, son. All the doors are stuck shut, and we only get light in this one." Redd huffed. "And to finish answering your previous question: The little lady gets the bedroom, this crusty old bod only needs the folding chair over there, and Izzy sleeps in his van."
"The shaggin' wagon!" Izzy piped. "I got a water bed in the back! I take it on heists all the time. She's like ma' baby."
"I wish you wouldn't call it the 'shaggin' wagon'." Moaned Redd. Dylan contemplated.
"That means the only one I haven't met is closet guy, right?" Dylan asked, staring straight forward at the door that lay at the end of the short hallway. "And he's in there right now?"
"Was last I checked. Bloke's been in there for like, fourteen hours. Don't come out much." Izzy answered, swaying his hips judgementally.
"That's the one who trusted me with his name. Bo, wasn't it?"
"Right on the money," Izzy congratulated.
"I wanna say hi. I'm sure he won't mind being woken up, right?"
"He's a mate, mate. Wouldnt hurt a fly. Go right ahead, but I'm staying over here," Izzy said cautiously.
"Why's that?" Dylan inquired lazily, already walking over to the closet door. He was right up against it. His hand was on the handle now. There was an intensely low engine-like rumbling from inside. That must be the boiler, right?
"Oh, he pongs a bit."
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Dylan felt like he had just cracked open the sarcophagus of an ancient Nephilim. The colossus that laid within the claustrophobic broom closet defied rational thought. At least eight feet tall, that much Dylan could tell instantly. The monstrous man was hunched, cramped and knee-bent. Packed into the little chamber like the world's biggest, scariest sardine. It was asleep, clearly but… its eyes were… open? It was sleeping with its eyes open. That noise wasn't a boiler, it was his snoring. And its face was… painted? Dylan took a step back, so as to fit the man into his field of vision even in a theoretical sense. It looked like… a clown. Yeah, it was a really huge creepy clown.
What the hell?
The man's flat, narrow little face that rode low on his pinhead appeared to be caked with a thick, permanent layer of greasepaint. Black around the eyes and mouth, and white everywhere else. It made patterns with sharp angles, like little diamonds off playing cards. He had these braced buck teeth that slightly stuck out from his fat top lip and were filed down to a sharp point like shark teeth. His eyes were practically bulging out of his head, and had this docile, peaceful quality. Like looking into the eyes of a tame horse or sow. They were dull green with brown flecks, the colour oxidised copper.
His clothes were where he really drove home the theme so to speak. The theme of 'nightmare creature from the Juggalo and Kiss members dimension'. He had puff around his shoulders, crotch and thighs similar to that of a medieval jester, and the rest was covered in a Mad Max-esque leather one piece. All except for his arms, which were bare up to the titanic metal manacles/bracers that he was wearing. They were as thick as Dylan's arm and had concentric holes in the top. Was he hiding something in there? His muscles were on show, too. Thick, stringy fibrous muscles that bubbled forth into bulging tumour-like growths at the biceps and triceps. All of it was interlaced with a deeply rooted, thick criss-cross of pulsating veins and arteries clearly visible under the skin. He had two per cent body fat, at most.
Covering his body was a complex pattern of structural metal ribs. They went from his chest down to his legs and seemed to form some glam-rock platform shoes near to the bottom. It seemed like at every point that jutted outward from the body, the thin metal armour had spikes covering it. His fingernails too, they were like witch's claws topping his head-sized hands. The grip and size of those things could probably make Dylan's head disappear like a tightened sponge into the man's palm. Even his hair was like a bed of thorny bushes that puffed up and filled the closet to such voluminous lengths that the curvaceous spines seemed to have a desire of their own to pour out and fill the space in the hall. The hair was raven black and matted with sweat.
Speaking of sweat, 'Izzy' was not lying. When Dylan's relatively slight period of observation had concluded, he was hit by a wall of odour that threatened to blow the knitted blanket off of his shoulders. Pungent engine oil. Ripe cotton candy and sticky syrup. Festering blackcurrants. A lot of B.O. Like, a lot of B.O. Dylan was sick a bit in his mouth. His retching awoke the beast.
"...Is it… time to go…?" The humongous clown croaked. He croaked like a fat, wet, and warty toad. "We got a job... or something?... Redd?" His frame leant forward and scraped the edges of the doorway, the ceiling, the walls. "Oh… The new boy… Hi…"
"H-hello…" Dylan squeaked. The colossus put forward one open hand. He was offering the young boy a handshake. Dylan took a look at his empty palm. His mind conjured the image of a rusty bear trap that was balanced precariously on a landmine.
"I… Would rather not shake your hand… I'm… uh... "
"Wise choice…" The beast guffawed. His laugh was like someone slowed down audio of a normal person laughing by half, then bass boosted it. "Is that… all you wanted…? To say hello…?"
"Uhm… Actually I have a question…"
"Shoot…" Hummed the giant.
"Why do you sleep in the closet?" Dylan said, his snarkiness returning. "You barely fit in there…" He mewed, his voice was waning now that he realised his place. The woken man grinned a bit. Evidently he liked this question.
"Because warriors sleep standing up," He rumbled. His gargantuan hand moved over to Dylan and patted him on the head like a little puppy. He stroked the boy's rough sliver hair like the coat of a cat. "Goodnight… Cherry pie…"
With that, Bo was sucked back into the comfortable recess of the closet. The door slammed shut instantly like it was being wrestled by a poltergeist. Dylan hadn't noticed, but his knees started knocking together halfway through that conversation.
"Satisfied, Dylan?" Redd inquired sternly.
"Was nice chattin' boyo. Night's just gettin' started for me though! I'm hittin' the clubs~" Izzy disappeared out of the front door with the grace of a cat burglar. Dylan saw the flash of pound notes bound together thickly inside of a brown paper bag before he shoved it deep into that bedazzled jacket of his and shot off away. This living situation… his new roommates… It was gonna take some getting used to.
"I'm going to fucking bed…"
-LATER THAT NIGHT-
Dylan couldn't sleep. Not at all. He literally felt too tired to sleep. Like the exhaustion that had built up within him to the point of causing him physical pain was keeping him from even shutting his eyes. He wriggled like an earthworm on the lumpy sofa, still a little bit too cold with the blanket. His back was killing him too.
He kept thinking about what happened in the underground. His very first kill. It took a little while to sink in, but he was a murderer now. And not just any murderer, a hero killer. He tried to understand how he felt about that. His mind kept going to his last memory of his victim. It was the shocked look on his face after he got up from that full strength piledriver, followed swiftly by an oncoming wall of darkness. After that, he didn't recall a thing. He felt… nothing.
"Redd, you awake?" Dylan whispered raspily.
"That creaking you're making has been keeping me up," They replied. The sofa was very loud. They were still wearing their coat and armour, the folding chair bending to support the weight of the ceramic. They rested their forehead on the butt of their umbrella. "What do you want?"
"When you kill someone, how does that make you feel?" Dylan asked. Redd scoffed at the question.
"You think this is a girly sleepover or something? Are we gonna do a feeling's circle now? Braid each other's hair?"
"Come on…"
"Peh… Fine," Redd snarled. "It feels… dull. Like trying to cut with a pair of rusty scissors. Like… Uhm… eating the same crap food for the hundredth time in a row. Feels like cardboard and sandpaper going down. But you still eat it, cuz you're hungry."
"Oh… Ok, I guess…"
"What's the point of this question?"
"What about the first time you killed someone?" Dylan interrupted.
"It's rude to answer a question with another question y'know," Redd huffed. Then, they leant back in their chair and breathed out very long and hard. A laboured, recollective breath. "The first time, huh? I guess I was fine for the first couple of minutes. That was as long as the shock lasted. Then I started crying and vomiting for days. I almost turned myself into the filth a few times. Got quite close to jumping off a building. Guilt was pretty hard to deal with since I was such a pissbaby back then I thought that the prick 'didn't deserve it'. This personal enough yet? Want more nitty-gritty details?"
"Nah… that's fine…" Dylan curled up in the fetal position, his knees uncomfortably hanging over the floor. "I just… wanted to know how it should feel. This is… the first time I killed anyone."
"Yeah, I could tell."
"Hey!" Dylan cried, almost waking Jessica. He piped back down and put his head on the armrest. It muffled his speech somewhat. "It was that obvious?"
"Big time." Redd snorted. "So… how does it feel? To be a killer? Are you gonna start crying anytime soon? Should I get a bucket?"
"Come on…"
"Maybe hang a net up outside?"
"Cut it out motherfucker!" Groaned Dylan. "I don't feel a damn thing!"
"Yeah right. Let me guess, you did Russian assassin meditation under an ice-cold waterfall in Siberia to empty your mind of empathy or some such shite?"
"I'm not bullshitting this time!" Pleaded Dylan. "I just feel… empty. I don't even remember the moment that I… got him… y'know? Once I went berzerk I can't remember anything… I'm pretty sure I should at least pity the fucking guy, right? Look down on him or something?"
"My advice? Count your blessings. The first kill is always the hardest. If you can circumvent all that regret bullshit and get down to business right away, that's an advantage in your favour."
"Right…"
"I'll be honest with you kid. I'm no psychopath. I don't enjoy killing people one bit. I might be the only one here who doesn't. Bo and Jess get off on it I'm pretty sure. Izzy can snuff a man out like he's stubbing a cigarette. I kill with reverence because in my ideal world none of our battles would even go down. I am a quote-unquote 'villain' whose goal is to make myself obsolete. I commit every name of the people I take out to memory, and it makes me feel like shit combing over the list. But I still do it. It reminds me that I'm not here for fun. I will advise you to do the same thing. If you're serious about our cause that is."
"Right… every name…" Dylan moaned. He racked his brain over and over. "What… what was that guy's name again? He probably told me once, but… fuck…"
It was like every important detail had just slid right out of his mind. Even subconsciously, he didn't care one bit.
"I do believe that was one 'Jacob Pembroke'," Redd recalled.
"Right… Jacob Pembroke…" Dylan repeated the name over and over in his mind. God, what a posh piece of shit name it was. I mean seriously, 'Jacob'? What's wrong with just 'Jake'? Fucking pro heroes, man.
He gripped his hand so tight that the soft flesh of his palm turned red. Nothing. He still felt nothing. Not a damn thing.
"I gotta get to sleep…"
TO BE CONTINUED
The conclusion of the King's Cross arc is here! It's not really the exciting type of finale we got in the Regency Royale, but I still felt like including it under the label of the King's Cross arc. We are at last introduced to the villains teased long ago in chapter 2! The gang's all here. What did you think of them? Let me know if the reviews! PM me if you have any questions, and remember to join the discord and check out the wiki! (links in my bio of course!).
Nothing much to report this week. As always though, thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter!