AN: Alright, so slight change of plans. I'm moving 2 of the character interludes to later and double posting the other 2 now. The other Character Interludes are probably going to be folded into the end of a longer interlude for that character. One of them might not even get introduced this arc, actually. Anyway, Just a quick update on how that's going of you were interested.

Life was fucking boring.

Alec, born Jean-Paul Vasil, often found himself bored with everything around him. The game he was playing now certainly wasn't helping. Sitting on the couch in the Undersiders hideout he let his mind drift between matches. His father turning him into a Sociopath was the root cause of his emotional deficit. Growing up in a den of hedonism even the Ancient Greeks would have called excessive tends to do that to young children. Especially when your father uses his powers to twist your mind until you snap and trigger. Before he left that pit of hell he'd been made to do a lot of things he didn't want to do back then. Hell, he had even been forced to take control of his one of his fathers women and march her around the compound like a puppet made of meat. He'd never known which of them was his mother. It was impossible to tell since they all took care of the kids. If she hadn't been so thoroughly fucked up by Heartbreaker's powers she probably would have been horrified of him. But no, she wasn't. In fact, she thanked him for it. For using her. Everyone Nikos Vasil had taken control of had been twisted to enjoy whatever he chose to do to them. Any person in that compound that wasn't one of his children would actively thank Alec for taking control of them and doing whatever he wished.

It was that particular quirk of growing up that had truly messed him up. Growing up in the Cape version of a hyper sexualized hippie compound was one thing, but being encouraged and thanked and begged to use his powers on people was what really caused him to drop whatever moral compass he still had at that point down a deep, deep pit. If not for the fact that Heartbreaker was a twisted voyuer he might have stayed. The problem, more than anything, was Heartbreaker's voyeurism. Forcing all of them to perform for him. Anything and everything was on the table as long as he was entertained by it. He didn't even want to try to recall half the things he'd done to entertain that sick bastard. But more than that, his father was terrifying. The bastard had no sense of reason. It was all pleasure for him. Nothing but the pleasure mattered and he'd do anything to keep up his high.

So Jean-Paul left and became Alec. The problem with leaving was that he'd triggered young and spent so much time with that bastard that he had lost interest in so many things. He didn't care about who he hurt during his time spent as Hijack. He didn't care about hurting people now. There was still that tiny little bud of his father in the back of his psyche that viewed people as toys. His power allowing him to make people his toys certainly didn't help either. He could slit someone's throat and not feel a thing. He could be the center of an orgy and the high would only last for a few minutes after. Nothing really did it for him anymore.

On the plus side, all the fuckery Heartbreaker pulled made Alec somewhat immune to his powers. At least, he speculated it did. He hadn't been and had no desire to ever be close enough to Heartbreaker to check..

Now, living in Brockton Bay, things were a bit more interesting. He got paid to sit around more often than not, only having to hit one of the gang safe houses around the city once a week or so. It was dangerous, sure, but that's where the fun was. That and video games. You could do so much in video games and it was fake so you'd never get in trouble for it. Shooting games allowed an amazing outlet for some of his more violent tendencies. His team was only ever subjected to his detached snarking.

His mind switched to his team as he thought about them. He didn't care about his team. Not really. He wasn't really capable of making those types of connections anymore, but he felt he should care. They'd been through a lot together and so he forced a connection. Met their attachment to him with one to them because he felt it was the right thing to do. He wouldn't feel anything if one of them died or disappeared, but he was loyal to his team and so he would force himself to feel bad if that happened. He cared because he wanted to. That was something that took him a long time to do. Heartbreaker had tried his best to beat sentiment out of him, but he kept it in spite. Because he didn't want to be like him.

But that didn't stop him from wanting to feel things.

It was a shame that the only real enjoyment he got was out on the job. Sneaking around through Empire or ABB safe houses, tripping people up and making them misfire or fall down stairs was entertaining. The money certainly helped, too.

He tossed his controller on the couch after another death.

"This sucks. I wish there was something else to do." He said to himself. He looked over the back of the couch to the kitchen. He rolled the idea in his head before sighing. "Nope. Stars. Can't do it. Not today." He flopped back onto the couch.

If only there was something or someone to do. Rachel was out by default. He wouldn't try for fear of her trying to snap him in half. She was strong enough she could probably do it, too. Brian wasn't into guys and didn't stay at the Loft, so that was a no. Lisa was… Well, she said her powers supplied her info that made her dryer than the Sahara Desert, and he in particular set off her warning bells like crazy, but he suspected it was something else. It probably wasn't hard to ignore her powers telling her a guy just wanted to smash and dash or stick it where the sun don't shine, but she didn't even seem to enjoy the time they tried to make out. He had just asked and she, for some reason, had agreed to try. It actually made him feel a little self conscious. He took pride in his ability in bed.

So teammates were out, he didn't want to go chasing tail around town, he'd had enough of his games for the night, so what was there to do?

Before he could even start to answer the question his whole body twitched violently before seizing up for a second. When it passed he felt different. Like maybe he could enjoy playing games for a little longer. But something was poking at him. In the back of his head he felt an impulse and drew his finger across the air. A portal snapped open like teeth and led to pitch darkness.

"Well, this should be fun." He stepped into the portal with newfound enthusiasm.