I sat at the BHF table, scrolling through my phone. With all the recent stress, I had put it off until now, but after everything that happened, I had to inform myself about the current makeup of the L.A. Freakshow.

For a moment I thought about checking the classified sections of the WANTED Database but going into the lion's den with more information than I reasonably should have is dangerous with a fellow mind-reader present, so that was out. Instead, I restricted myself to the public sources.

The makeup of the team had shifted quite a bit in the five years I had been gone. As I already knew, Othello was no longer in charge. Not only that, but he wasn't even part of the team anymore.

Good.

Dude was a major brain case.

Instead, his second-in-command the Haunting Nightmare was on top. As before, there was next to no actual info available on him. His Power was unknown, but speculated to be a shape-changing ability of some kind as he appeared in multiple very different, but equally monstrous forms over the years.

Others theorize it was a group of different people sharing one name, as there were 2 occasions where he was wounded in a manner that should have been fatal, but reappeared again later with a new look.

A murderer, maimer, and cannibal with a long of offenses. But since he took over the team he had been out less and less, unlike Othello, who had always been in the thick of things.

Thanks to his....promotion, I had a bit more info to glean on BHF-specific sites. Villain forums and chatrooms existed, of course only accessible via the BHF marker, but they weren't massively popular. What they were useful for was checking the Supplier sites and reading what they had to say about certain individual bad guys.

Apparently, the Haunting Nightmare was a lot more reasonable as a client and business-minded in his endeavors than his predecessor.

That was something I could work with.

But then again, there's no guarantee he'd be like that with his team.

Still, better than nothing.

Next, his second in command. Alicia Burrows. Boneyard. Thoroughly disowned by her family and a serial killer since age 16. Stopped her spree when she was recruited by Freakshow but had seemingly no pattern when it came to her victims. From a 6-year-old American girl to a 63-year-old Japanese man and everything in between, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason.

Since taking up a leadership role she had been more prominent again, being the new face of the team in place of her boss. Not much more to glean.

She could kill me in a second, so I had to be extra careful around her.

Then I came upon the last person who had stayed the same from the old roster, which surprised me. There must have been a major internal restructuring for whatever reason.

Darwin. Real name Jackson Rivers. A Reviver.

When he is killed, he returns to life shortly after, his body now changed to be entirely immune to what did him in.

He was shot and woke up with bulletproof skin.

He broke his neck and woke up with rubbery, stretchy bones.

He burned alive and woke up fireproof.

How the Power worked in detail was not known, but it seemed like he could only hold one upgrade at once. This was later confirmed by a snitch.

Like all Revivers, there had to be a limit to his Resurrective ability, but of course, no one knew what it was. Probably not even him.

The interesting part to me was they were originally part of a duo. His sister Natalia, aka The Fittest, had a similar Power to his, just without the need to die. From what I read she fled Freakshow and ratted them out for immunity.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

That must've been the cause of the internal restructuring. Or at least a big factor.

Now she was performing again as part of Alberti's Hovering Circus.

From one circus-based cape team to another. I guess old habits die hard.

Both had been pretty ruthless, though less just for the sake of it than the others. More extortion, trafficking, and violence used for intimidation....monetary gain. The trafficking stopped when they joined up with Freakshow. The rest....not so much.

She had testified that all of it was her brother's idea and she had merely been forced into it, but I found that hard to believe.

A bad feeling was growing jn my stomach. It didn't sit right with me that she got full immunity and the right to become a Hero. But there was nothing I could do about it.

There was Alice, of course. The Child at Heart. I knew enough that I couldn't find anything relevant or new. But as I found out there had indeed been a katana missing from the office of the CEO she killed. Huh.

Lone Twin. Ironically, there's two of them. Nothing much is known. They seem to mostly go out at night and handle things. No names, no pasts, no prior crimes, no details on their Powers. As part of Freakshow, they had killed 6 people, and that's about all I could get. Lots of rumors and speculation, but there was so much that I didn't feel like combing through it all.

And finally, there was Ariadne. I had pegged her to join Freakshow for a while before I went off the radar.

A woman whose top half was that of a human but from the waist down sat a gigantic spider body.

Her crimes before joining up with Freakshow were a predictable routine. Rape, murder, cannibalism.

She would go out at night and find a man. Any man. Then she would take him to a nest she had prepared and....get what she needed to fertilize her eggs. Afterward, she would eat him bit by bit.

The only reason we knew this so specifically was because one of the 'Nests' she chose was an abandoned clock tower belonging to a rich guy who had security cameras installed in case of vandals and squatters.

I had seen the whole video. It was horrific. Especially the eating.

She kept him alive until the last possible moment.

But she wasn't even done after.

The final part of her little ritual involved finding a woman and laying the eggs inside her. Unlike the men, the women weren't physically harmed.

Strangely enough, most female victims took between one or two months before reporting the incident. From their testimonies there seemed to be some kind of fogging of the mind as part of the whole process. Before I went away, none of the victims had carried their....babies to term. Now there was an account from one who had. All that came out of her were spiders. She had......given birth in a laboratory setting, and the spawn contained.

There was an interesting article about the results of two years of rigorous testing. These spiders were an entirely new breed. At the time of the report they were not fully grown yet, but already the size of oranges, and about as intelligent as octopuses.

I shuddered at the thought of these things escaping into the public. Large, hyper-intelligent spiders in the wild are not something anyone needs.

It was really only a matter of time before she was either caught or joined up with Freakshow. Rape is so bad for PR that even a lot of Villain teams avoid recruiting rapists to avoid scrutiny.

Of course, most teams who are fine with cold-blooded murder don't really care, but they usually either work on a theme or are money-minded and avoid recruiting crazies. And from testimonies of the female victims, Ariadne seemed to be everything but mentally all there.

Freakshow and Femmes Fatale were her only options, and to me, she seemed to be Spider first, Woman second.

Since she joined up she hadn't been seen a whole lot. Which could be either a great relief or horrifyingly anxiety-inducing depending on what you think the reason is.

I personally was.....less optimistic.

I sat back and went over everything in my mind again. I had a good read on everyone but Lone Twin. And Zen, of course.

Luckily the twins were exactly the people I had to meet for the run.

I sighed.

How the hell did this happen?

No, I knew exactly how.

It all started with the stupid Yellowbricks.

I wanted to be at the top of the bottom. High up enough to get a steady influx of run requests and some clout, but not high enough to get on anyone's radar. Anyone that mattered, that is.

And I overshot it.

It all spiraled from there.

If not for the Yellowbrick run, I wouldn't have fought Army Ant.

If not for that confrontation, the Idiot Trio wouldn't have rescued us.

No afterparty would mean no bad memories.

Without needing a clear head I wouldn't have run into Manet.

Not gotten to speak with Boneyard.

.God fucking dammit.

But that would also mean I'd now be an orphan working a 9-5 or something, never knowing better.

Or would W.R.A.I.T.H. have intervened? Maybe the Intruder or one of his buddies was standing nearby, ready to take out Souto if he went for Ray's body? Maybe I erased two people from existence for nothing?

Luckily, a text pulled me from my thoughts.

Yo MC! Sluggy, Smoothie an TG r meatjing us tmrrw at 5. PM \\^||^//

I smiled.

great. btw. ill probably not be home til 5 or 6 in the morning. got work! and wth is that emoji?

It didn't take long for the reply to come in.

Oooooh, Mysterious Work! U gotta tll me All about it ltr, k? Have Fun! Ur old lol

I took a deep breath and put my phone away.

I still had a few hours but my mind was made up.

Not much use prolonging the inevitable.

Time to prepare and go meet my new comrade.