The Honest Men were the kind of people even other villains considered scum.

Establishing themselves at the very bottom of the social order, they made a point out of accepting everyone that had nowhere else to go. Some were once genuinely good people, down on their luck, dragged into a life of crime and trapped in a perpetual spiral of violence and hedonism. Most, though? The lowest of the low – child murderers, cannibals, rapists.

All in all, they tended to occupy the same niche as cockroaches – disgusting, numerous and hard to squash out, but not really dangerous for a serious cowled. But, every once in a while, there was an Honest that Woke to a particularly potent power. They never lasted long – too used to following their whims, unable to resist the hollowing rush of desire – but they had a strong following, a strong power and nothing left to lose.

Inevitably, they left broken lives and shattered dreams in their wake before finally biting it.

***

A day in the Underworld lasted twenty-five hours.

It was a natural consequence of living under the ground. Without sunlight to show the time – and with active cthons like Duat being well-lit and busy regardless of the hour – the human mind tended to drift, circadian rhythms shifting and adding on an extra hour to the day. It left long-term Underworld residents in a perpetual state of chronodisruption, prone to sleepiness and mood shifts, subject to constant fatigue and inattentiveness.

“Hey! What're you doing here?”

It was something a smart villain could make use of.

The Honest scrambled for his weapon. I didn't give him the time.

A powerful kick launched the raider back – straight through the tunnel opening and into the wider cavern, leaving him to crash on the table in front of several dozen Honest Men.

“Knock, knock.”

An old friend once told me that every person has value, and in time I've come to realize that he was right. Office drones, grey and seemingly interreplacable, had access to priceless information. Servants, unnoticed and easily dismissed, could get into unlikeliest places without arousing suspicion. Minions, unpowered and generic, could overturn the flow of the entire battle when placed in the right spot. I paid attention, talked to them, encouraged them in small ways – and so my network of unlikely allies and useful connections grew ever wider. It probably wasn't quite what Jonathan meant with his words, but it was my personal truth.

So it said something that when I looked at the men in front of me, I saw nothing but a waste of air.

The gang's hideout was not a big place, at least when compared to the likes of Grand Auction Hall. A small display case, cheerily-colored walls and several cheap tables – most lying broken by the walls – suggested that this was once a neighborhood cafe, the kind of place people gathered at for the cozy atmosphere and friendly company.

Now it was trashed, soiled, smelling of rotting garbage, piss and fear. Refuse, waste and torn flesh alike littered the floor; once cheerful walls were splattered with blood spilled so recently, it had yet to dry. A woman was tied to a bed in the far corner, most likely the cafe owner or a family member. Ropes and a hiked skirt hinted at the indignities suffered; bruises and blank eyes revealed that she neither consented to nor survived the experience.

Honests sat around the few remaining tables, playing cards and dice, drinking wine right out of the bottle. A small circle formed around a brawling pair in the middle of the room. Right in front of my eyes, a knife flashed among the spectators, skewering one of the combatants in the back. He fell, choking on his blood. The rest roared in laughter.

The captives were huddled in the back. They weren't fenced off in any way, but the fear and dull despair on their faces shackled them better than any chains. One of the prisoners, braver than the rest, attempted to make use of the distraction provided by my entrance and bolted for the exit.

He did not even make three steps.

One of the Honests, a wheat-skinned man with black locks of unwashed hair, rose from his table. His flesh bubbled and bloated, as something much larger rose from within the scarred skinny frame. Outer tissue swelled and darkened to a reddish-brown color, then tore, letting out three new appendage and leaving flaps of skin hanging around the giant like a coat. The last to grow was a pustule on his neck, inflating and popping in a rain of pus to release a second head, with black, rotting teeth and small red eyes shining with malevolent glee. The entire transformation happened in a matter of seconds, and by the time he stood, the Honest was a mountainous mass of flesh, stretching all the way to the ceiling.

“No, I'm sorry, wait - ”

With an almost lazy movement, the giant punched right through the escaping prisoner's chest, grabbing him by the spine. The Cluster was no mercy, as it kept the man alive and awake to see the ogre raise him up to its second mouth.

“No, no, please - ”

Crunch.

I held back bile as the Honest bit into the prisoner's skull, gnawing on the bone like a dog. The screams lasted a surprisingly long time.

“Who's there?”

He did not turn toward me until the last of his prey's toes disappeared behind blackened teeth, at which point he withered, pulling back into the human form – but those little red eyes of his remained, and I could no longer unsee the monster dwelling within.

As far as power plays went, that was one hell of a conversation-starter.

“Carnival.”

I kept my voice even and my eyes straight. These men were like beasts – show them a weakness, and they'll pounce.

“Carnival who?” the red-eyed man howled with laughter, swiftly echoed by his neighbors.

“Carnival who came to make a deal,” I played along, baring my teeth in the barest facsimile of a smile. “You have something of mine. I want it back.”

Blythe was held separately from the rest of the prisoners, seated behind a table like one of the raiders, holding a bottle of wine with all the desperation of a drowning man. My peeks through the connection revealed that Honest Men mistook him for a villain, and Blythe grabbed onto that idea with everything he had. His outfit was cliché enough that it was taken for a cowled costume, and he exaggerated his British accent to the point it sounded blatantly fake, like an affected persona. A few mannerisms, stolen from Marchioness, Resonant and even myself, and the Honest Men accepted his story – or, more worryingly, pretended to do so.

“Oi,” a stocky Honest with an unevenly cut beard spoke up. He looked like someone took a brick, stuck on some undersized limbs and polished it off with the head of a particularly nasty rottweiler. “Ya think ya can jus' muscle yer way in and make demands from Rakshasa here? Think yar bettah than us? Huh?”

I kept my eyes on the ogre shifter.

“Somehow, I didn't think scheduling an appointment would work.”

That got me a chortled laugh from Rakshasa. The rottweiler didn't like that.

“Think yar funny shit, dick hole?” he growled, something brown and foul-smelling gathering into a wobbly ball above his hand. “How 'bout I make ya real funny?”

“Hey, I recognize that guy!” somebody else spoke up from the back tables. “That's chicken boy!”

I could not hold back a full-body twitch.

“Chicken boy!”

“Cluck for us, chicken! Bwok, bwok-bwok-bwok-bwok!”

Ok, that's it. I had to make my point here, or they'd never even consider taking me seriously.

I raised my left arm with thumb and forefinger extended in the universally recognizable 'gun' shape.

“Bang.”

Rottweiler's head all but burst from the inside, showering the men behind him with blood and brain matter. His body stood a moment longer, slow to catch on, before slowly and ponderously crashing on its side. Blobs of brown splashed across the floor, catching fire and making the surrounding Honests leap away from the body with loud swearing.

I never turned my eyes away from Rakshasa's evaluating scarlet orbs.

Even down here it was a difficult task to get a high-calibre sniper rifle, especially with night vision scope and a silencer, but it was worth every penny. As I first thought, Kirin was a person who could turn anything into a weapon – but worked best with tools that were already exceptional. Not a single Honest suspected that rottweiler died from anything other than my power.

“As I said, I'm here to get back what's mine,” I shot a glance at Blythe, making Rakshasa follow my eyes. “Everybody knows Honests don't take prisoners, which means you grabbed them for somebody else. Well, I'd like to buy my man back. I'll double whatever you're being paid.”

Nuance or subtlety would not serve me well here, so I was blunt and downright honest.

The raiders quieted down, waiting for their leader's answer. Rakshasa slowly, almost regretfully shook his head – though that particular look of amusement never left his eyes.

“Tempting, tempting. But I can't grant your wish, Carnival. Professor B here decided to join our group. I could not possibly sell him out to another.”

Weavers damn it, Blythe!

The Englishman opened his mouth.

“It goes without saying of course, that if he tried to leave, I would consider that a personal insult.”

Blythe snapped his mouth shut with an audible clack of teeth.

Oh, well. I never really expected peaceful negotiations to work.

{Commence Plan B,} I told Kirin and Flare. A less than subtle use of my power called in the remaining actors for this play.

“Still, I wouldn't want to tear the two of you apart,” Rakshasa continued with a gleam in his crimson orbs. “I could find a place for you here.”

“I'm self-employed,” I stated evenly.

“Oh, but I'm not offering you a job. The Honest Men are so much more than that. We're an idea, a movement, a way of thought... Tell me, how often did you look at something and think 'I want that! I could take that!', but held yourself back due to some veneer of morality? Remember the times when you felt so angry it seemed like you were drowning, when you thought 'I'm going to kill him!', but had to choke that anger down, poisoning your life – all just because society and law said you can't? Even your innermost feelings and thoughts remain unheard, hidden, smothered by the layers of propriety and tradition until you can almost make yourself believe you do not have them at all.”

Rakshasa banged his mug on the table for emphasis.

“Do we hide?” he barked suddenly.

“NO!” came the cry.

“Like hell!”

“Fuck them all!”

“When your inner everything tells you to kill, but the law tells you to stop, we remain faithful to ourselves.” Rakshasa raised his voice. “What is law? It's people telling you to obey or else! Are we afraid?”

“NO!” the leftmost table hollered the loudest, banging fists, bottles and anything else they could find.

“Do we fear them?”

“NO!” the two tables on the right redoubled their volume.

“Do we suppress our true nature to play their make-believe of civility?”

“NO!”

“No!” Rakshasa echoed. “Because we are...”

“HONEST!”

The raiders were going wild, hooting and banging and stomping on the floor. Somebody let out a whistle, downright deafening in such close confines. Somebody else threw a bottle of wine against the wall to express their feelings, another pair pulled out knives.

Rakshasa banged his mug on the table again, silencing the men.

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“So, what say you?” he turned toward me. “Do you have what it takes to break the chains society bound you with? Or will you fail and remain a slave?”

A pause.

I yawned.

The room grew silent so swiftly, you could hear blood dripping from the wall.

“Oh, you are finished?” I asked, blinking. “Huh. I must admit, I'm a little disappointed. Cliches and cheap psychological tricks... Is that really the best you can do? I negotiate with high-level corporate executives at lunch, haggle with nobility during dinner and bargain with an eleven-year old before breakfast. Compared to them... your attempts at oratory are rather pathetic. Show some pride in your manipulations!”

Rakshasa remained wordless long enough that the rest of his men started shifting and murmuring.

“I'm going to kill you slowly,” he informed me, malice coating every word. “I'll start with your feet and make you watch as I chew on your body. Piece, by, piece.”

“You won't have time for that,” I informed him right back. “If I'm killed, you're going to die with me.”

Red-eyes laughed out loud. His body bloated and bulged, swelling into the five-armed giant.

“You think you can kill / kill me with those parlor tricks / tricks of yours?” he growled out of both throats. Though the two heads spoke the same words, they had slightly different timing, creating an echo-like effect.

I blinked placidly.

“Not me, no. I'm talking about the armies of Duat that are already marching on this place. And I'm the only one who can tell you which tunnels they're using.”

Rakshasa snorted in derision.

“Pointless / -less bluff. I posted lookouts / -outs at every tunnel intersection / -section. Was that really the best / best - ”

A bloodied and disheveled raider rushing into the cavern interrupted his speech.

“Attack!” he yelled over everybody else. “Attack! They're coming!”

Right on time.

“What / who's coming?” Rakshasa growled, pushing his way forward through mob.

“Duat villains! And security!” the lookout huffed out, breathing hard. “There are hundreds of them!”

“Calm / calm down,” the ogre ordered. “Where are the rest / remaining scouts?”

“Dead!” the raider cried out, his eyes wide. “They're all dead!”

Rakshasa hissed.

“Where are they coming / coming from?”

The man opened his mouth -

“Bang.”

- and crashed into the floor with a hole in his head.

Rakshasa turned toward me, and I lowered my arm.

“Like I said,” I repeated mildly. “I'm the only one who can lead a group of this size past their forces.”

The ogre snarled at me, but it was already too late. The rest of the raiders were panicking.

“SHUT UP / UP!” he roared. “Look at you / you, pissing your pants! Have you already / -ready forgotten who you are / are?”

“Honest...” the reply was severely underwhelming compared to the previous one.

“I / I said, WHO ARE YOU / YOU?”

“HONEST!” this time the answer was much more vehement.

“And are we afraid / -fraid?”

“NO!”

“Like hell we are / are! We're not going to sit here and wait / wait for those gutless cowards to come to us / us! We're coming to show them / them how the Honest Men greet their guests!”

“Yeah!”

“Fuck them!”

“Go and KILL / KILL THEM ALL!” Rakshasa howled.

For all their faults – and there were many – Honest Men were not cowards. Hooting and yelling, the raiders rushed forward through the cave entrances wielding knives, pipes and other makeshift weapons. In the ensuing chaos it was surprisingly easy for Rakshasa – having withered back into his human form – to slip towards, and then out a small back tunnel.

One of the Honests seemed to recall my presence and turned toward me, tossing up and flipping a knife in his hand in a menacing manner. Unfortunately for him, he was nowhere near as good as he thought he was, and misjudged his third throw. The knife pierced straight through his hand, and the gangster let out yelp, abandoning his plan and following others with his tail between his legs.

In moments, the only Honests remaining in the room were those dead and passed out drunk.

“Not the most loyal of comrades, huh?” I asked, moving toward Blythe.

“Did they just... forget about us?” he asked incredulously.

“That's what happens when you place enthusiasm above basic competency,” I shrugged with a grin. “Guess you'll need to find another sect to join.”

“Oh, shut up,” he snapped. With a trembling hand, the Englishman brought the bottle to his lips before realizing it was empty. “They were going to kill me if I said 'no'. Kill me and eat me.”

He paused, seemingly remembering something, then turned toward me with an accusing glare.

“And you just left me there!”

“Eh, my bad,” I let out a rueful smile. “I did come for you, though. Which reminds me...”

I looked toward the rest of the prisoners and raised my voice.

“You may want to get away from here before the Honests come back.”

“Won't the Duke's forces defeat them?” the braver of the lot asked uncertainly.

I blinked.

“Oh, I lied about that. Everybody's too busy to look for the Honest Men yet.”

“But that watchman said...”

“I have my own ways of persuasion,” I replied.

Naturally, we hunted down every lookout we could find first. Some I managed to tag with my power, others escaped and Kirin had to kill them. We still had four Honest watchmen remaining.

It was actually a little concerning. When I made them perceive a retaliatory strike force, only one of the four bothered to warn his gang. The rest scattered. I'd have to take that into my considerations next time.

One by one, with uncertain looks toward me and Blythe, the prisoners moved out through the adjoining tunnels, avoiding those that the Honests rushed to. Soon enough, the two of us were the only people left in the cave-fe.

“They're going to hunt you down when they realize the deception,” despite drinking an entire bottle of wine, Blythe's voice was even, though not what I'd call strong. “And me too.”

I waved him off.

“Without their leader, the Honest Men are no threat. Marchioness is personally going to hunt down every single Honest she could find.”

“Except he kind of escaped,” Blythe remarked scathingly. “You know, in case you failed to notice the fact.”

“Not quite!” came the voice from the tunnel entrance.

A second later an unconscious body flew back into the cave, followed by Flare.

“He was exactly where you said he'd be,” she looked at me, bemused. “How'd you do that?”

I shrugged.

“I have my ways.”

Not like it was particulalry hard to foretell the gang leader's actions, though I did initially wonder if he'd take anybody else with him.

Blythe stood up, a bit wobbly but still capable of walking, and wandered over to the body.

“Bloody hell, it really is him,” he marvelled. “Rakshasa.”

Suddenly and without warning, the Englishman kicked the gang leader in the teeth.

“I did promise,” I smiled at Flare.

She beamed back.

In a way, it seemed almost unfair, I mused. I was no genius, I knew that better than anybody, but I spent years training my mind for situations like these. Kirin was a monster, experienced, trained and able to kill without hesitation. Flare had the absolute counter for any strength-based power.

Compared to that, what chance did a hundred gangsters have?

Still, I sighed. I had at least hoped to try out plan C.

***

“What was plan A, then?” Blythe queried, moving through Grand Pyramid's passageway.

It was less than eight hours, but one could barely tell a battle raged here not even a day ago. Structural damage was completely repaired, nanites consumed any suspicious marks and stains, and if anybody wondered about the Pyramid's spontaneous renovation, nobody in the know was quite willing to talk.

It would just remain another one of Underworld's mysteries.

“Honest Men take my money, then try to kill me.”

“And plan C?”

“Don't bother,” Flare rolled her eyes. “He won't even tell us.”

“Let a man retain some of his mystery,” I replied with an enigmatic smile as we came to stop near a branching tunnel.

The coffin-like Katabasis entrance was just beyond the bend.

“This is goodbye, isn't it?” the heroine asked after a moment of silence. “The next time we meet, it will be as enemies.”

“Don't be so dramatic,” I laughed it off. “Plenty of heroes have villain contacts, and I make sure to avoid big-league crimes.”

“That doesn't make it better!” Flare protested, shifting her grip on her sister.

Though she regained some color, the blond girl was still unconscious, most of her nanites rerouted by the thrall ring. And, speaking off...

“Make sure to get a complete Cluster purge as soon as possible,” I told the heroine more seriously. “The thrall ring integrates itself into the network, and there's more than a passing chance that somebody will manage to reactivate it one day. A purge is the only way to take it off without frying half of your grey matter.”

Flare raised her free hand to the collar around her neck and grimaced.

“I'll keep it in mind.”

I shook my head. This wasn't the note I wanted to send her off on.

“Listen,” something in my voice seemed to grab her attention just as the heroine was turning away. “The cowled you, the person you become when you put on a costume? It's an ideal. Not in the sense of being something for other people to follow or believe in, it's the ideal you. It's who you want to be, who you could never be in your first life. Don't let the words of others frighten you off or dictate who you can be. If you want to go by Third Law? Do it.”

The Honest Men went too far, way too far, but the notion itself was not wrong. To be a cowled was to reject the place society had assigned to you. Heroes and villains did not fit into any preexisting roles – they carved out their own. To bend under the pressure of others' expectations was to betray everything that we stood for.

“Is this the long-awaited villainous monologue?” for a moment there was something small and vulnerable in her eyes, quickly hidden behind a mask of humor. “The part where you try to tempt me to the dark side?”

“Why, milady,” I twirled an imaginary moustache, “I'm flattered by your interest. I'm sure I can fit you somewhere into my Legion of Doom.”

Flare laughed and punched me in the shoulder, this time without the bone-crushing force. I still staggered dramatically, clenching my shoulder as though it was a mortal wound.

“Betrayal already? Truly, you are most worthy of being my lieutenant!”

She grinned in genuine cheer.

“If you two are quite done flirting,” came Blythe's grouchy voice from behind my back. He too carried a body, Rakshasa's, and I'm sure it was a complete coincidence that the gang leader's head ended up slamming into every wall and counting every stair we passed. “I'd like to get out of here before something else crazy and horrifying happens.”

I opened my mouth to reassure the Englishman, and he swiveled to point a finger at me, nearly poking me in the mask.

“A-ah. You're not jinxing this for me.”

“Since when do you believe in jinxes?” I asked in amusement.

“Since meeting you.” Blythe replied dryly.

I laughed.

“Then I'm glad I was able to enrich your worldview. Maybe I should take you with me the next time I come down here?”

Flare burst out laughing at Blythe's look of sheer horror.

***

After saying my farewells, I traveled back to the Grand Auction Hall, with Kirin always step or two behind me. There was nobody else in the room at this time, and I was free to occupy one of the many balconies, taking advantage of their anonymity screens and sound-muffling fields. As my companion closed the door behind us, I raised a hand, asking for a few minutes of silence. This was a conversation that needed to be had, but first I wanted to ensure that everything got properly wrapped up.

Through my connections with the pair, I observed them travel back to the overworld. The return trip didn't have any stops, and the two were barely acquainted with each other, so the journey passed in near silence. Sometimes Blythe coughed, at others Flare shifted her grip on her sister, but by the time the doors opened once more, the duo was all too happy to escape the awkward silence.

“So, uh, where do you want me to put him?” Doctor asked, gesturing at his haul.

“You're not coming with?” the heroine blinked.

He shook his head.

“I'd like to avoid any uncomfortable questions about what I was doing in the Underworld.”

For a second the cape looked like she had a few questions of her own, but in the end she just shook her head with a rueful smile.

“I can understand that. Pass 'im here,” Flare tranferred her sister to her left arm and patted her right shoulder. “I'll carry him.”

Blythe followed her orders, but afterwards couldn't hold back a snort. With two bodies on her shoulders, one of which was taller than her, Flare looked somewhats comical. Rather than be offended, the heroine posed in a theatrical manner.

This time he actually laughed.

“Thanks. If the rest of the heroes are like you, I know the city's in good hands.”

“I, uh,” Flare stuttered, her eyes startled wide open at the sincerity. “Thank you?”

The Englishman nodded and turned away, ambling toward the rising sun at a relaxed pace.

The heroine's own trip took her the opposite way. Though Katabasii entrances were few and far between, one could actually leave the Underworld from a vast array of exit points – one of the many reasons villain attacks always seemed to be so far-ranging and so unexpected. The gateway she chose was less than fifteen minutes away from her destination, a fairly simple residential area in shades of blue and yellow.

Just before she could reach her house, the door opened, letting out an older man, tall, thin and graying.

Flare froze.

Dressed in a facsimile of a cape costume, gathered from the materials available at Horus' Nest, with a wanted criminal on one shoulder and an unconscious younger sister on the other, she looked disorientingly out of place in such a serene neighborhood.

“Hey, dad,” she tried to smile from beneath her load. “So, uh, I got a new job?”

The man remained silent and inscrutable.

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how grounded am I?” she sighed.

“Thirty,” he finally replied, moving forward, giving his older daughter a brief hug and pulling the younger one into his arms.

“Why thirty?” Flare wondered.

“Because that's the lowest age I'm ever letting you out of the house again.”

“Da-a-ad!”

***

It took me a moment to realize what pulled me out of the trance.

It was a rather familiar sound from behind my back, one that activated every warning signal and sent raw adrenaline rushing through my veins.

The cocking of a loaded gun.