Chapter Nineteen
Nobody
"That's one quirk down," Hugo says to Erik after losing the heat and parking under an overpass, out of sight from anyone who wouldn't actively be looking for them. "Not what I would call smooth, though."
Erik takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
"And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this doesn't bode well for us. We have another quirk to steal and a bank to rob, not to even mention an entire school of kids who have quirks just ripe for the picking. I don't know about you, but I'm not very keen on being the target of a national manhunt." Hugo continues as he grows irritated. "Did you even consider the tranquilizer guns?"
Erik snaps, lunging toward Hugo and wrapping his hand around the man's throat.
"Do you know why your position had an opening?" Erik growls, his expression contorting in anger. Hugo, with fear-filled eyes, shakes his head and causes his large glasses to fall off his face. "The other guy didn't agree with my methods."
Hugo's face turned purple as he struggled for oxygen, at which point Erik released him.
"Don't question what I do and you stay on my payroll," Erik says quietly as he straightens Hugo's collar. "Now, I will take what you said to heart. Do you have any ideas that could aid us in this process? Any that might, I don't know, bring us off of the Pentagon's radar? I'm not sure they appreciate their pets dropping like flies."
Hugo takes a deep breath and retrieves a laptop from behind his seat.
"Remember what I said about asking to get in the vault nicely?" Hugo said as he pulled up a man's rap sheet. "I wasn't joking."
Erik's eyes narrowed as he looked at the man's face.
"John Kraglin, ex-villain, code-named Nobody. Got him on counts of murder, attempted murder, arson, attempted arson — name it, he's done it or attempted it." Erik studied his face, expecting to feel any sort of familiarity, but recalled nothing.
"He lives up to his name, I don't recognize him." Erik said as he studied the man's unremarkable face.
"That's the idea. He hasn't been active for forty years, and he's got some great friends in the CIA, gave up this villain named Ambrosia in exchange for a new life." Hugo explained. "His quirk is Nothing."
"He doesn't have a quirk?" Erik sneered, immediately turning his head from the laptop screen.
"No." Hugo quickly remarked as he typed away on his laptop. "His quirk is named Nothing. He creates an impenetrable bubble around himself and everything inside said bubble just — poof — doesn't exist. Time appears to freeze in the bubble from the outside and anyone within it disappears. But on the inside, everything continues as normal."
Erik's eyebrows furrow.
Could be useful.
The voice in Erik's brain echoed, but he shook his head to clear his mind as if it was an Etch A Sketch.
"As it happens, his 'new life' had him placed as a security guard at the bank we're taking down." Hugo says, bringing up security footage from the bank, showing a much older Kraglin than what was shown on his rap sheet. He scowled as he went about his daily routine, tapping his foot impatiently and fidgeting. He certainly didn't appear to be an ex-villain.
"Something tells me you didn't pick this bank at random." Erik proposes.
"Not at all. I can contact him tomorrow, just know that if I do, he's getting a cut." Hugo informs Erik, which causes his breath to catch. After a brief pause, Erik speaks.
"How much?" Erik asks.
"Twenty percent. He's not a cheap man." Hugo says matter-of-factly.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Titania speaks up from the back seat, leaning forward to insert herself into the conversation. "I'm only getting five, I think I've more than earned twenty percent myself."
"If you have a problem, you can leave Titania. You agreed to ten."Erik says without turning to face her. Titania scoffs.
"Unbelievable." She exhales as she slumps back into her seat.
"Titania, we don't even know how—" Erik pauses as he's about to tell Titania they don't know how much their take will be. "Hugo, what do you mean he's expensive? Do you know how much money is in that vault?"
Hugo glares at Titania through the rearview mirror before taking a deep breath.
"This is the kind of bank that hires ex-villains, you can imagine it's not a very clean place to do business." Hugo explains. "Mafia bosses, dirty cops, and heroes — mostly heroes, actually — every type of unsavory individual you can imagine does business here. There's much more money there than I had originally thought."
"How much?" Titania spoke up.
"In the neighborhood of eight million dollars." Hugo states flatly. Titania exhales sharply and flops back into her seat.
Things just got a whole lot more interesting.
"Hugo, that's-" Erik began, only to be cut off.
"More than enough, I know." Hugo finishes Erik's sentence and pushes his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. "I already have our purchases lined up, five refrigerated medium-duty class six box trucks, glassware, medical equipment, the nerve agent, weapons if needed, and one heavy-duty armored truck to transport the big guy."
"Are you expecting that big of a pushback?" Titania asks from the back, still shocked at the amount of money they were getting.
"The Beast is insurance." Erik deadpans.
"Exactly. And your little friend goes to school nearby." Hugo says as he closes his laptop. Erik's fist closes and his fingernails dig into his palms at the mention of the brat. "If he tries to play hero, he's dead. No one can stand up to The Beast."
"I'm telling you, any day he is going to inject himself and that is that." Erik growls. Hugo glances back at Titania before responding.
"Of course." Hugo agrees, but shrugs. "We're bringing him anyway."
"Whatever you have to do." Erik says as he slowly unclenches his fist, which causes his palms to bleed. "Get us home. We have a bank to rob."
Hugo takes a deep breath and turns the vehicle back on, pulling away from the underpass and back into the city.
Shorter chapter this time, that's because I thought it would just make more sense to split this and the heist into two chapters. I tried writing the heist into this one, but it just felt too clunky and drew attention away from the first part. I think this is my most dialogue heavy chapter, but I think I did pretty alright. Also, I noticed that this website doesn't include my page breaks when I upload chapters, so if there's ever any bizarre jumps in time or anything of the sort, I'm just and idiot and only proofread once in the document before uploading. At some point I'll go back and fix that, but for now I'll just do my best to catch it before I upload. No reviews this time, so nothing to respond to, but if you have any thoughts, let me know them!
