(A/N) Time for another X-Ray and Vav chapter, and earlier than I'm sure you were expecting this one! The reason for that is because we've got a fantastic new writer here in Jaden Silver, and a chapter that I think you're all going to love, because I sure did! Hopefully we'll have our next update for you all soon, but for now, well, have a little Bullet-Beard. With special guests - the Community!

Enjoy!

Chapter Thirty-One – Scapegoat Simulator

Jack Pattillo / Bullet-Beard

Written by Jaden Silver

"It's too easy to criticize a man when he's out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes."

― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Bullet-Beard stood, tensed, staring at the note in his hand. It was Shadlz's handwriting, unmistakable in its precise grace and sharp angles, summoning the hitman to him once again. He glanced between the note and the metal door to his right. He didn't want to go in there. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but Shadlz scared him. There was something indescribably wrong about that man, something Bullet Beard didn't want to get any more involved with than he already was. He didn't have a choice, though. He'd been hired by the Community, and now he'd been summoned.

I may as well get it over with, he thought with a sigh.

Bullet-Beard realized as he entered the room that, until now, he'd never truly appreciated the word 'pandemonium'. Unlike the last time that he had been invited to one of the Community's war councils, subtlety seemed to be of little concern today. Most of the members weren't bothering to stay in the shadows any longer, instead choosing to lean across the tables as they shouted in each other's faces.

It was just as Bullet-Beard had expected. Despite how well organized they'd been until this point, the Community was still just like any other criminal organization: ready to turn on each other at the first sign of trouble. There appeared to be nothing constructive in their current discussion. At the moment they seemed more concerned with placing blame than trying to fix their mutual problems.

"If you had just let me deal with them-" a young man with an oddly disfigured face shouted, before being interrupted.

"We agreed that caution-" a blonde woman dressed in purple yelled back, her eyes flashing dangerously before being interrupted herself.

"Well, if one of us hadn't gotten caught…" a younger man wearing ear buds said pointedly, trailer off as he raised his eyebrows in her direction.

"Don't you even start! I had things under control – you didn't have to send a goddamn army down there to bust me out," the blonde snapped, turning away from the first speaker to glare at him.

This heated argument went on for some time, falling further and further into a continuous loop of insults, blame, and exclamations. Bullet-Beard couldn't help but roll his eyes at the childishness of it all. He was amazed that these people had ever thought they could accomplish something together, let alone something as lofty and difficult as taking control of a city guarded by some of the most powerful superheroes in the world.

He tuned out the argument fairly quickly, instead choosing to study the people in the room. This was the first time he'd really been able to see any of the Community's members, as, normally, they preferred to stay quiet and uninvolved, at least when he was around. One man in particular caught his eyes. He had a pair of expensive looking custom headphones draped around his neck like a scarf. There wasn't anything too impressive looking about the guy, really. Nothing really, except his eyes. Bullet Beard recognized them. He'd seen this guy before.

It had been during the very beginning of his criminal career. He'd gotten caught up in a heist someone had planned, though he'd never gotten the names of anyone involved. It had been a six person team, with himself as the getaway driver. Apparently the man who planned it didn't trust Bullet-Beard's insistence, or rather Heisty Beardo's insistence, as that was the moniker he went by back then, that he was the best sharp shooter they'd find, and assigned some kid the job instead. That was the first in a long list of mistakes surrounding that job. The second had been deciding that explosions were the best way to cover their trail. Of course, the biggest mistake, as far as Bullet-Beard had been concerned, was when one of his idiot teammates had run him over with a motorcycle and left him behind for the cops. That's where the man with the headphones had come in.

The man he had once been had been in jail for nearly a month by that time, and he was beginning to understand the true punishment of the place. It wasn't the bad food, or the less-than-comfortable living conditions, or even the unpleasant company. The real punishment had been the total mind-numbing boredom. At that point he had been willing to do just about anything to get out of there. It was also at that point that help had arrived.

He had been in the fenced-in yard where he and the other inmates were allowed to get their sunlight and exercise every day. He'd just been wondering if he could make it over the fence when there had been an explosion near the prison's entrance. During that moment of realization and shock where no one had started moving yet, something had fallen on Heisty Beardo's shoulder: a rope, leading to a helicopter. Heisty Beardo hadn't been in a position to question good fortune, nor had he wanted to. When he'd been pulled into the craft he'd finally been able to see his rescuer. The man's face was covered, but Heisty Beardo had seen his eyes, sharp and critical, as though he'd been weighing the rescued prisoner's worth already.

He had never seen the guy again after that. He'd never been given an explanation for the rescue, except for a cryptic note saying 'you've caught our interest'. It was a few months after that he'd been recruited by the Community, and that he had taken on the name of Bullet-Beard.

And now he finally knew the connection. This was the same man who'd broken him out of prison. And from the looks of things, he was running the show. It was subtle, and Bullet-Beard doubted he'd have noticed if he hadn't already been paying attention to the man, but both Shadlz and the Corpirate were deferring to his judgment.

His suspicions were confirmed when, with a nod of the man's head, someone finally decided to end the Community's bickering.

"Gentlemen," a voice spoke, surprisingly soft for the authority it held. "Ladies. Perhaps we should continue this discussion in a more civilized manner."

Bullet-Beard felt an edge of fear creep into his heart when he heard the voice. Shadlz. I really don't like that guy, he thought, crossing his arms and sinking further into the shadows of the corner where he stood. Something about him is very… unsettling. To Bullet-Beard, he seemed like the type to stab a friend in the back, with very little reason. And he had experience in that area, he reflected, thinking back to the heist that had gone wrong all those years ago.

All eyes in the room turned to Shadlz, some out of fear and others out of respect. With a wave of his arm, and another nod from man wearing the headphones, Shadlz diverted the attention to the Corpirate.

"I'll be honest with ye all," the suited man said, adjusting his eye patch uncomfortably. "I am very… unhappy with all these failures we've been 'aving recently."

The Corpirate took a moment to look at each person sitting around the table, staring them down until they each broke eye contact. "You assured me this plan would succeed," he continued angrily. "And yet you each played your part, and we still failed. So what happened?"

There was a long moment of silence, the kind that comes from people too afraid to speak up out of fear of receiving culpability. For the first time that night, no one seemed eager to voice an opinion.

"We didn't plan on these new heroes," a voice finally arose from the group. All eyes turned to a mysterious man whose face was obscured by the shadows. All that was visible of him were his folded hands on the table: one normal, if slightly scarred, human flesh, the other shining metal. "Our forces were prepared to deal with X-ray and Vav, though we still expected them to be dead by now. They were not ready for the monster and cyborg that attacked." He seemed to glance at the faces around the room before settling back on the Corpirate. "In short, we tried to continue with this last step of our plan when earlier portions had not yet been successfully completed," he summarized monotonously.

Angry looks were thrown around the room, most evenly divided between Bullet-Beard and the blonde woman. Several Community members started whispering to each other until the room was filled with a low, angry murmur. The whispering ended when the blonde spoke up again.

"Look, discussing our past failures won't get us anywhere," she said in a clear attempt to remove attention from herself. "We need to think about what we're going to do next."

"Y'er right, lass," the Corpirate agreed. "We need t'formulate a new plan on how ter move ahead."

"Move ahead?" another man asked. He was young, wearing civilian clothes. Bullet Beard wasn't sure whether to respect that he hadn't fallen into the whole 'super villain' cliché, or think the kid was stupid for showing his face. That said, if he were put to it, he wasn't entirely sure that he would be able to remember the young man's features. Brown hair, dark eyes, sallow skin – he would have disappeared into almost any crowd with ease. "We can't move ahead, not like this."

"Nothing has changed," the blonde insisted. "What the heroes do doesn't matter. Our plan is still the same."

"Everything's changed," the disfigured man said, growling angrily in reply, and for a second his eyes flashed purple. "The city is protected by an army of robots now, and there are two new heroes we don't know how to defeat. I'd say that's pretty much the goddamn definition of 'changed'!"

"Which brings us back to the original problem," the younger man said, stepping in between the pair of quarrelling members. "We need to get rid of these heroes."

"The heroes aren't our problem," the blonde insisted. Bullet-Beard wasn't sure, but he thought there was something uncomfortable about her voice. She didn't like discussing this topic. "Besides, I thought that was already taken care of," she added, staring pointedly at Bullet-Beard. He glared back at her, knowing she was just trying to draw attention away from her own apparent failure, which had resulted in her arrest when a mission went south.

He didn't know anything more than that – he was pretty much as far away as you could get from the Community's inner circle while still being allowed into this room, and the details of the mission where unknown to him. He could guess, however, that it had been important, judging from the others' reactions.

Bullet-Beard didn't like how the mood in the room seemed to change, as more and more of the accusing stares shifting to him as whispers picked up again. He knew a group that were looking for a scapegoat when he saw it.

"Well?" Shadlz stated calmly, turning to look at the mercenary. "How is that going?"

Bullet-Beard scowled at the condescending tone, glad his expression was hidden by the shadows. "I'm working on it," he replied shortly, his expression barely managing from portraying the resentment that he was feeling.

"You're 'working on it'?" Shadlz repeated, sounding mockingly amused. "Would you care to elaborate?"

Bullet Beard's scowl deepened. "They aren't exactly normal targets," he said. "In addition, it's very difficult to plan anything if I don't know where my targets are going to be." He looked at the Corpirate. "Maybe if you'd tell me your plans, I'd be able to make my own accordingly."

"What do ye mean?" the Corpirate asked defensively.

"You lured X-Ray and Vav to the docks," he explained. "If I had known, I could have set up a sniping position and taken them out. Now it's just a missed opportunity."

The Corpirate stood up straighter, glaring at the hired gun. "We didn't 'lure' the heroes anywhere, though we did suspect they might crash our little paaaarty. And we didn't forget to invite yer. Speakin' for meself, and many other members of the Community, well, we've lost confidence in yer ability to kill those two. We've decided to take matters into our own hands."

"Then I'm sure you now realize that killing these heroes isn't a simple matter," Bullet-Beard smirked, though his beard his this expression. The Corpirate didn't respond. "I can do it," the assassin insisted. "I just need you to be patient."

The Community's leader opened his mouth to respond, but was silenced by Shadlz. "Our patience with you has ended," he said simply. "You were contracted to remove our problems, and instead they have multiplied."

"You created Iron-Ryan and Mogar," Bullet-Beard argued, pointing his finger accusingly. "That has nothing to do with me."

"Regardless," Shadlz said, voice turning icy as his eyes fixed on the finger. "You have been paid to terminate the city's heroes, and your time has run out. You will complete your contract."

Bullet Beard's eyes narrowed. There were certain things he couldn't tolerate. One of those things was someone telling him how to do his job.

"I will complete this job as I see fit," he said. "When the time is right, and no sooner."

"You will follow my orders," Shadlz insisted confidently.

"No," Bullet Beard said, finally having had enough. "I won't."

A wave of whispered comments passed through the room. No one refused Shadlz's orders. Some would say that there were enough bodies across the world to attest to that fact. In fact, and far more worryingly, there weren't. No one found the bodies of Shadlz's victims, unless he wanted them to be found. The lack of bodies spoke far louder than their presence ever could.

"What?" Shadlz asked, sounding genuinely surprised. He wasn't used to people defying him like this.

"I said, I won't," Bullet-Beard repeated. "If you want another mindless lackey, you have plenty of candidates here. As for me, I'm done. I don't work for you anymore." He turned back toward the door he came in through and moved forward.

The Corpirate, finally overcoming his shock, shouted. "Ye can't just walk out on us!"

With a nod from the mysterious man in headphones, his first action throughout the entire meeting, Shadlz spoke. "Let him go," he said soothingly, a malicious undercurrent in his words. "I'll deal with him later."

Bullet-Beard hid the shiver in his spine at the menacing words, keeping his back straight as he left the criminals. He knew it wouldn't be that easy. He knew they would never leave it to end like this. But this was the only option left available to him. He couldn't work for the Community anymore.

He was done.