Danny shivered as he entered his favorite bar, The Final Word. The January weather was especially cold in Brockton Bay and the change in temperature was jarring to him as he entered the warm bar with Alan. It was a cosy place, the slightly small spaces caused a nice and familiar atmosphere, promoting casual discussion and, in Danny's case, relaxed plotting in the past.
Other people would have said that the authentic wooden tables, bar, and the wooden floor gave this place an old feeling and it was slightly claustrophobic.
Danny thought those people were young whipper-snappers and personal space addicts respectively.
Danny and Alan looked around the bar for Kurt and Lacey. As Danny's eyes passed over Lewis, the owner and bartender of The Final Word, he gave the heavy set, balding blond haired and blue eyed man a nod. Lewis was a former minion and was a dependable and honest person but his dedication was a bit intense. After Danny and his friends made their preference of his bar, Lewis had offered them free drinks for life which they politely declined. He had then offered them a large discount for anything they might buy at his bar, Kurt had mentioned that it would look a bit suspicious to have one group of random people paying significantly less than anyone else.
He had then offered them a free beer, which they gladly took him up on.
He had also offered them the services of his first-born in their next nefarious plot. Danny had thought about it for a second before rejecting the service of a twelve-year-old.
Even an Evil Genius needed standards.
It was then that Danny spotted Kurt in one of the booths at the back. Getting Alan's attention, they both made their way to the booth, where Kurt saw their approach and stood up to greet them.
"Danny! Alan! Good to see you!" Kurt said, arms open wide in greeting.
"Hey, Kurt. How are you doing?" Danny replied to his longtime friend, shaking his hand in greeting.
Kurt grinned at Danny. "You know, same old same old. Even The Dockworker's Union needs an accountant." Kurt then turned to Alan. "So you managed to get Danny out of the hospital. Was he almost about to upgrade all of their equipment?" Kurt said with amusement as he shook Alan's hand.
"I feared for the safety of our city health care if Danny didn't leave the hospital soon," Alan said smugly, a big smile on his face as he did so.
Danny rolled his eyes. They wouldn't just let the zombie thing drop, would they?
"If they had decided to actually read the instructions to the regenerators I had given them, then their deceased patients wouldn't have resurrected like that," Danny said, exasperated at defending his attempt to improve hospitals once again.
Alan leaned toward Kurt in a conspiratorial manner.
"You see what I mean?" Alan stage-whispered.
Kurt nodded sagely, eyes closed. "You have done the right thing."
Danny rolled his eyes, ignoring his friends' jabs at his attempt to improve Brockton Bay General Hospital.
Danny hadn't expected zombies to be a potential complication, but thanks to Kurt, Lacey, Marquis, Annette, Himself and some enthusiastic med students, the zombies had been dealt with before the incident had even made the news. World domination was nigh impossible in a zombie apocalypse after all, and accidentally causing such an apocalypse wasn't a good thing to put on your evil resume.
They'll eventually see that my help doesn't cause undead apocalypses, Danny thought to himself, I'll show them all!
Danny's mental train screeched to a stop as he registered the last, definitely megalomaniacal, thought passed through his mind. I haven't thought that way in a long time...
Danny stomped down on that thought. Yes, he considered using his experience as a way to protect Taylor but that was just a bit too far for the life he wanted Taylor to lead.
"Where is Lacey?" Danny asked, hoping no one saw his slip of self-control. Kurt shrugged. "She needed to go to the bathroom. She had just left before you guys arrived. Come let's sit, unwind with a couple of beers."
As Danny and Alan voiced their agreement and followed, Danny hoped that tonight could help him unwind.
-
Tonight had been one of the most fun nights Danny had enjoyed in recent memory.
It was a night of simple talking and light drinking, a far cry from what he had been dealing with on a daily basis. Lacey had returned from the bathroom soon after they had sat down and had injected her almost trademark energy into the conversation the moment she had arrived. She had been wearing a nice black T-shirt with a pair of jeans that contrasted with Kurt's white T-shirt and black chinos. Their shoes had carried over the contrast further between Kurt's white sneakers and Lacey's leather knee-high boots. They had always enjoyed dressing against each other even before they were married. During the night, Danny had watched the antics that the married couple got up to during their playful talk, and even though it brought up painful memories of Annette, he found himself enjoying their antics. It was hard to watch them but he was happy that Kurt and Lacey were so happy together.
He was forced to admit that he had thrown himself into his work to avoid thinking about Annette and had, as a consequence, probably made his and his daughter's life miserable with his distance.
Danny could make hundreds of excuses for that. That he wasn't used to being so helpless . He would have thrown himself into killing his wife's killers if he could have. That he wasn't built to be a salary worker.
At the end of the day, those were just words and he could see that's not what a father should have done. He should have comforted Taylor, who hadn't known that her mother was murdered and who didn't even know who her parents actually were.
And it scared him that the only reason he could see this was that he had been slipping away from Danny Hebert, Dockworker spokesman, into Danny Hebert, Evil Genius.
So Danny reacted how any person should in this situation. He drank more.
At this point Danny had his head lying on the table, trying to somehow feel the alcohol move through his system, hopefully numbing the pain of failing his daughter so badly. But even through the pain, tonight was oddly one of the few nights that he had given a genuine smile.
Danny was brought out of musing by Kurt's voice.
"Hey, You remember Annette's old job?" Kurt asked everyone, a slight melancholy in his voice.
Everyone nodded at that.
"If I remember correctly, she was Lustrum's top Lieutenant. She used to run around in that black and yellow spandex catsuit right? She had... Two katanas?" Alan replied, a thoughtful expression on his face.
Lacey's face lit up as she pushed her straight, brown hair behind her shoulder.
"Yeah, she wore that motorcycle helmet thing and went by 'Ronin'." Lacey's smile widened. "She cut through so many minions with that stoic act she played that I thought she was some sort of feminine robot when I tried to impersonate her. I was so surprised when she started ranting about historical accuracy and the katana's importance in literature after I had thought they were long swords."
That memory brought a smile to everyone's face. It had happened when Annette had led Lustrum's forces through the base and into one of the large laboratories of the base where the Evil Organisation had gathered to stop them. Kurt had been dueling her, teleporting and dodging past expert slashes of those Katanas while attempting to use his superhuman strength and speed to land a hit on her. Then Lacey had turned up in her attempt to impersonate 'Ronin'. To say that Annette was not impressed was an understatement. She had started yelling at Lacey, the first time she had spoken in her Ronin persona, about how her overly robotic movements destroyed the fluidity of the combat style and how the style didn't even work if Katanas, weren't used.
The rant had caused the fighting around them to stop almost completely, as radical feminists and minions paused in their equal-opportunity fight to stare at the stoic warrior ranting in a heated voice about the importance of literature in her persona.
Danny, across the room protecting one of his more explosive inventions from feminists, had paused from his lobbing of a cake slime from the sheer passion if the rant, the slime giving a sad meep at its lack of being airborne. Eventually, everyone had gathered around the oblivious young woman. Lustrum's group members either were looking around in an embarrassed fashion or had gone glassy-eyed from the sheer detail that Annette had gone into. The minions had fared better, the scientifically inclined minions were taking notes while the others were politely nodding along at appropriate times, having learnt what to do in such a situation from Danny's own rants. Lustrum, who had arrived slightly late, had leaned against a wall with her head in her hands while muttering.
The rant had gone on for several hours, where the minions had got tired of standing and those who had excuses to leave, did so as soon as they could. Apparently running a secret underground base was preferable to a history lecture. Kurt had just stood there in his signature leather jacket, boots, pants, and gloves. He was also wearing his sunglasses with his brown hair slicked back. He had paid attention for a while, but eventually went to go get everyone pizza. Lacey was enraptured, one of the scientists had lent her a notepad and she was scribbling on it almost feverishly, having already removed her version of Annette's helmet. Metal Fist had adopted a cross-legged position, his cybernetic body distinct from the other spectators, and was answering questions from the martial artists who sat around him, all paying attention to Annette's lecture. Lustrum and her forces were just milling around, looking around at the lab equipment that hadn't been destroyed in the short fight, chatting amongst themselves. Alan had even walked in, looking for Danny to discuss some of the more... legal operations that The Organisation was involved in. He had looked at the impromptu debate and shook his head and left, muttering about tuition costs for minions as he left.
They had given the impression that they've heard this speech before... Often.
Danny, on his part, had been listening intently to Annette's speech but he couldn't deny that he hadn't found it a bit awkward. Firstly, because he had been attracted to Ronin's intelligence.
Secondly, because he had recognised that voice as belonging to the cute girl who lived down the hall in his university dormitory.
Danny had kept silent and listened to the lecture... Until she had gotten into the metallurgy of the different blades...
She had just been... wrong. On so many levels.
On any other circumstance, Danny would have let her ignorance continue due to her being a hostile intruder.
But it was the Laboratory. You weren't allowed to be that wrong here.
And so Danny had joined the debate.
It had gotten heated almost immediately, neither side would back down, neither side would give a point.
And neither side got the upper hand.
It had been some of the best fun he ever had.
"It was surprising that she wasn't a parahuman, hey? I was almost sure that she was after that day." Lacey continued, breaking Danny out of his reminiscing.
Danny lifted his head off of the table and looked toward Lacey, "It's not that easy to tell who has the weird space squids connected to them. You used to be a parahuman, you know how hard it is to actually tell."
"Don't I know it." Lacey agreed with a small frown on her face. " It wasn't fun at all, I don't miss it one bit."
Lacey had been the only parahuman that Danny had ever employed. Back when they had first met, she had been a depressed and shy college student, a completely opposite person from who she was now. She didn't really have a presence in the room if she wasn't using her power, which was oddly appropriate for what her power did. Lacey's power was technically classified as a Thinker ability, she could literally start thinking like any person she knew. Her mannerisms, her speech, and even her opinions changed to the person she was imitating. She essentially became a Lacey shaped clone of whoever she chose. It was useful in the right situations, but it wasn't exactly a very powerful power. The most she had used it for before she had found Danny was to con people out of their money or liking her.
In fact, when she had approached Danny for a job, she had shyly said that it was because when she had tried to impersonate him, she had immediately felt the urge to laugh maniacally and try to take over the world. She had also known that Danny wouldn't have turned her away...
She wasn't wrong.
With Danny's talent at being an evil genius, Lacey's power increased its potency over a hundred fold. With advanced disguise technology and techniques, she had become one of the best infiltrators in the world, capable of acting, sounding and being anyone. Master-Stranger Protocols didn't do much when no one could tell the difference between the imposter and the real thing. Her performance as Alexandria was still being watched and laughed at today.
She was a valuable member of the organisation and the many new friends she had made had helped her come out of her shell. She had even started socialising on her own accord. However, no matter how much she opened up, she was still distant from everyone else and even was confrontational with some of the minions.
Her shy and sometimes prickly behavior had seemed to simply be who she was...
Until she had lost her powers.
It had been a fight with the Empire 88 where Lacey had received shrapnel into her brain. Thanks to the Evil Organisation's doctors and Danny's quick thinking, Lacey survived with no brain damage. Except for her Corona Gemma.
When she had awoken, she had absolutely no idea who she was and was changing personalities constantly. Even Lacey had admitted afterward that, her jumping around and proclaiming to be a shapeshifted Kurt was hilarious, but it had been deadly serious at the time. After investigating the problem and realising that it was unfixable, Danny decided to simply cut her off from her power.
And just like that, Lacey's personality had changed completely. She was suddenly outgoing and friendly. She had said that it was the first time she had truly felt like herself in recent memory, her power apparently suppressing her identity in order to better act like other people.
Several unfortunate minions had questioned whether she was still the best infiltrator...
After several untraceable pranks, several surprise love triangles and one soaking wet minion later, the questions stopped.
Lacey had still remained the best, even without her powers. It just required a bit more research on her part.
If someone was to ask Lacey about being a parahuman, she would reply "Not even once."
"Wait," Alan suddenly said, bringing Danny's mind back to the bar. "What do you say about a squid?"
Kurt's eyes widened while Lacey sent a questioning look towards Danny. Danny himself kept a blank look as he wondered about why Alan was asking about the source of Parahumans.
"Oh, I didn't tell you two. Did I." Danny asked of them.
"About what?" asked Lacey, quizzically.
"About the source of all Parahuman powers of course."
The silence was deafening.
"What? When I was fixing Lacey's power problem, I saw there was some dimensional interference so I took a look. What I found was some continent-sized squid creature. I assume that it was the thing that gave you your powers but I didn't know, so I just closed the connection." Danny said nonchalantly as he took another sip of the beer he was nursing.
As Kurt sweat nervously and Lacey's face filled with horror, Alan let out an exasperated sigh and turned toward Danny.
"Danny, that was over sixteen years ago..." Alan said calmly.
"It's not likely that important. All I could think it was doing..."
"You didn't tell me for sixteen years!" Lacey interrupted Danny. "FOR SIXTEEN YEARS, YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THAT CTHULU WAS LITERALLY IN MY BRAIN! OH GOD!"
Lacey put her hand over her mouth as she retched internally. She seemed to have a shade of green to her face as she got up and sprinted to the bathroom.
The table was silent until Danny turned towards Kurt. "I thought it wasn't that important," Danny said, slightly morose for causing physical and possibly mental illness to a close friend.
"You do this all the time. Remember when you gave me the super serum?" Kurt replied, annoyance clear on his features.
Danny remembered.
Kurt grimaced as he drank the serum. It's awful taste combined with the smell of the cramped dorm room he shared with his genius friend, Danny Hebert, made it especially unappealing.
Finished drinking, he placed the bottle on the bed and looked at the desk where Danny was studying for an upcoming Physics test.
"I'm done," Kurt called out.
"That's good. Your cancer should be cured and possibly have superpowers after it has done its work."
"Yes!"
"Now the serum just has to rewrite your genetic code. It might be intensely painful"
"WhaHUURK"
Danny didn't see Kurt's point.
"I had assumed you knew what would happen. I gave you everything you needed to know, I didn't think you needed to be told that rewriting your genetic code would be painful." Danny said, indignantly.
"Dan... You gave me an eight hundred page article, written by you."
"See? You had everything you needed."
"Dan, I didn't read any of it," Kurt replied, his tone filled with disbelief. "I was a college student. I barely read my textbook for goodness sake."
Danny shrugged his shoulders and hummed noncommittedly. Kurt let the matter drop. It was over twenty years ago and Danny was just like this when he got into "Evil Science."
Besides, it's not like Kurt didn't enjoy his powers.
Just then, Lacey collapsed into her seat, having returned from the bathroom. She still looked a little green. "I am never getting that image out of my head." Lacey sighed out.
At that, Danny laughed and Kurt's frame started shaking in minuscule amounts as he tried to suppress his laughter.
"What?" Lacey asked.
Both men burst out laughing while Alan shook his head in mock disapproval.
"Haha. You see it's funny because there was a squid in your mind, and you said you'll never get it out of your mind!" Kurt struggled to speak through his laughter.
Lacey stared at Kurt, her expression deadpan.
"You aren't having sex tonight," Lacey stated calmly and turned away from him.
Kurt sobered up immediately while Danny laughed harder. Even Alan had a chuckle at that.
It was a minute until everyone had calmed down. "Why did we ever stop being together?" Alan asked, amusement and longing tinging his voice.
"Annette and I wanted Taylor to have a normal life... Fat load of good that did us..." Danny said.
Kurt chimed in, "She could have still had one you know, Lots of supervillains have kids."
Danny rolled his eyes, "Having a father and two mothers isn't normal, Kurt."
"What's this about two mothers?" Alan asked, confusion evident in his features.
Danny's head landed on the table as he groaned in embarrassment and Lacey giggled.
"Lustrum threatened to marry Danny if he actually managed to conquer the world after he married Annette," Kurt said smugly.
At this Lacey shifted excitedly in her seat, "Oh, I remember exactly what she said..." she said with a large grin.
Danny looked up at her from his head-table position.
"How?" He asked.
Lacey gave him a wink.
Danny groaned again.
For all I know, she was probably Kurt at the time. Danny thought to himself.
Lacey cleared her throat and when she spoke, the voice and southern accent of Lustrum came out of her mouth. "If you think you can simply steal my Lieutenant from me and then steal the world, mister. Then I'm gonna bully yeh into polygamy."
Alan laughed out loud.
Danny groaned again. Alan wasn't going to let this go.
-
The night went on until Kurt got a serious look on his face.
"Danny... This is the happiest we've seen you since Annette died."
Danny took a quick glance toward Alan and Lacey, noticing similar looks.
"Look, Danny, the last few years have been rough, for you especially. We've noticed the spiral you've been falling down, and you don't need that. Taylor doesn't need that."
The table remained silent as Kurt took a long breath. Danny wanted to see where this was going.
"You weren't meant to live a normal life," Kurt continued. "You only even feel this good because you started plotting again. Yes, Alan told us about the bullying and texted us about the slimes."
Danny looked towards Alan, who looked at the ceiling innocently. Danny couldn't deny that Kurt was right. Any other day, Danny would have argued that his life was fine and that he was happy with it.
But after Taylor... And after thinking about how to get revenge...
He had never felt as himself as he did in years.
"What Kurt is getting at, is that we have an important question to ask you." Lacy continued where Kurt left off.
"Do you want to conquer the world?" Alan finished.
"What?"
"The world is in a bad place, Dan," Kurt said, "This isn't the time we lived in. No parahuman is really following their unwritten rules before and somehow the PRT had even managed to become worse at their job. Africa is literally on fire and Europe suddenly has Nazis again."
"The world is really messed up." Lacey continued in a small voice. "Back then, You had known that the world was going wrong and you wanted to take it for yourself. So that you could steer it in the right direction. The new Endbringers, the gangs, everything is just collapsing in on itself and it's only getting worse. Even Hero died to those psychopaths!" Lacey now looked directly at Danny, determination in her eyes. Hero had been a fun adversary, he hadn't taken everything as seriously as his colleagues and was the one enemy who had taken the most responsibility of how he acted. It had hurt Lacey to lose a good frenemy, even if they had been retired by then."We almost won it all last time, and I can't help if wonder if so many people would have died If we didn't quit."
"Lacey..." Kurt tried to comfort his wife, hugging her tightly.
"I know I shouldn't feel this way. That it's too many what-ifs." She paused, taking a deep breath. "I don't feel we should do nothing anymore... We don't feel that. I know you enjoyed it all, it was your passion to take over the world."
Kurt turned towards Danny, "Even if you don't feel that you'd be giving Taylor the normal life she wants. She isn't safe. Not after what happened and it gets worse if you take a look at all the Gangs and disasters."
Alan sighed. "What they are getting at, Danny is that the world needs a new leader before there isn't a world left to rule."
"So what do you say, Dan?" Lacey tentatively asked.
Danny thought about it long and hard. Scenario after scenario went through his brain.
Any other day, he would have said no.
But today, he looked deep inside himself.
And there was only one answer that would make him happy.
That would keep Taylor safe.
"Okay," Danny answered.
"Okay?" Kurt echoed.
"Yes, Let's take over the world."
Kurt, Lacey and Alan smiled, pleased that they were back in business.
Danny stood up.
"Let's go to the base then."
The pleased expressions turned into confused ones.
"Danny, We don't have a base..." Lacey spoke up.
"Yes we do, I built it in my free time."
Danny left the table and made a hand signal to Lewis. Lewis' eyes widened but he smiled and reached down to press something behind the bar. Danny nodded to him and walked to the stairs leading to the basement, followed by his confused friends who shared a look with each other.
They followed him down to the basement where they found alcohol in storage, an elevator that seemed to pop out of the floor and a terrified nineteen-year-old girl.
She had blue eyes and blond hair, similar to her father upstairs, tied up in a pony-tail. She was wearing an Apron with The Final Word's logo on it over her shirt and skinny jeans.
She started at the noise of Danny coming down the stairs and paled when she saw who it was.
"Dad was telling the truth..." She mumbled to herself.
"Hello Clara, I'm just passing through." Danny greeted the shocked girl.
Danny went over to the elevator and opened the door. The elevator looked like your typical elevator that you found in buildings. The inside even looked like it had just been in an office building.
"Alright, Everybody on the Elevator. I built the base underground."
"How big is it?" Lacey asked, incredulous but still entering the elevator first.
Danny took a moment to think. "... About fifteen levels I think? At least three times bigger than an Endbringer Shelter with room to expand."
"When did you build this?" Kurt asked with a laugh. He was excited that his friend had built all this.
"Oh, Annette said that i should take up a hobby and the Dockworkers needed a job." Danny casually said.
"Where did you get that kind of money?" Alan asked.
"Investments and intense stock trading."
Kurt hopped into the elevator like a happy child. Alan was still not too sure about something.
"If the base is that deep underground... What about the Aquifer under the city?"
"What Aquif... Ooooh." Danny realised. "Yeah, It isn't there anymore."
Alan pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
"Don't tell me that you built a secret base, secretly and secretly replaced the Aquifer with it."
"Ok, I won't tell you that, but the elevator takes a while to get to aquifer depth so please get in."
Alan sighed as he got into the elevator. He had the feeling that this might be the start of a harrowing adventure.
When the elevator doors closed, the elevator sunk back into the floor, the section of concrete above it slotting back into place on the floor, leaving no evidence of the elevator's existence.
Having witnessed all this, Clara knew that she needed to do one thing.
"Dad! Can we talk about that employment opportunity you mentioned!"
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AN: Well this was the lucky nominee for the Inspiration lottery. Once again, this is unbeta'ed and now the premise is revealed!
I enjoy writing this story and hope that the humor is good.
Enjoy the writing.
Comments and Criticisms welcome
