30 minutes later.
An underground conference room in Theo's hideout.
In the world of super powered individuals, Theo was near the bottom of the food chain.
It did not matter if he had some upgrades and cybernetic enhancements, none of these could save him from the truly powerful beings up the ladder.
As such, the inferior being called Theodore Lorne could not stop his body from shaking in fear when in the presence of an extremely pissed off Omegaman on the other side of the relatively small table.
All this monster had to do was to sneeze and Theo would instantly be turned into a bloody smudge on the wall.
In most cases, Theo would do his best to hide his fear underneath the facade of calm and composure.
However, this was not 'most cases'.
His fear of Omegaman vastly overwhelmed his self control.
Despite every fiber of his body screaming to GTFO ASAP, those standing with him gave him the small sliver of courage required to not faint.
Nosferatu in his Varghulf form.
The main reason why Theo chose the underground conference room was to ensure no sunlight could reach Nosferatu.
A fully armed and armored Juno.
While she was currently hiding her true might from Omegaman, she swore she'd unleash hell if things went south.
Also a fully armed Mother Leticia.
Her presence alone signified the backing of the Ecclesiarchy. No one in their right mind would want to face an order of fanatics.
Beside him sat Ms. Samantha.
Now an insanely hot MILF, Theo would love nothing more than to hide behind the competent looking office lady.
Aside from these specialists, nearly every unit in Theo's armed forces were suit up, armed and carrying the biggest gun they could find.
FYI: Aside from Juno and Nosferatu, Theo was fairly confident that absolutely no one can stand a chance at even mildly inconvenience Omegaman.
Unable to take Omegaman's death glare,Theo decided to bite the bullet and break the ice.
"Welcome to my humble factory Omegaman. If you're not here to break every bone in my body, is it safe to assume that you have a mission for me?" said Theo with the confidence that he simply did not have.
"Theodore Lorne.... Do you know why I'm angry?" asked Omegaman in a voice that made Theo's balls shrink.
While the thought of bullshitting did cross his mind, he immediately discard this idea.
Omegaman may not have the brain of Crow,but he was no fool.
Lying would only make Theo shoot his own foot.
"Of course. No way you wont be angry with the wholesale 'reconstruction' happening beneath our feet."
"Then can I ask why are you doing this?"
"Because it is the right thing to do."
"Is that suppose to be an excuse?If so, then it's a bad one."
Naturally, Theo did not come to this discussion without a plan.
At the snap of his fingers, Juno handed him a thick folder.
"The first 5 pages of this document is the yearly reports of murder, theft, rape and every possible crime happening in the city. The next 5 are graphical representation of where and which district these crimes were committed. Everything else is the name, biography and criminal history of every person being tortured right now. The source is the Vermilion City Special Task Force."
Omegaman skimmed through the documents which showed a sharp decrease in crimes committed on law abiding citizens ever since Theo's human harvesting facility has started operation.
"And at what cost?"
"Aside from our time and effort,nothing of value was lost."
And as Theo expected, this pressed Omegaman's big red button.
"NOTHING WAS LOST?! You killed thousands of people for what?! Just to reduce a statistic?!"
NOTE: Theo peed his pants a little.
Nevertheless, he powered through.
"A 'statistic' huh? That's an interesting way to describe innocent lives."
Omegaman flinched at his response.
Theo was actually surprised that Omegaman fell for such a Hail Mary trap.
The bait was the document.
The purpose was to piss off the opponent about how Theo prioritized efficiency over ethics.
The trap was sprung the moment the opponent said the word numbers or statistics.
The result: The opponent was made to look like he failed to see the value of reducing the murder rate.
The chance of this happening was so small that Theo never really expected it to work.
Miss Samantha gave Theo a thumbs up underneath the table.
"Omegaman. Sir. From my point of view, every single criminal I 'convert' is at least 3 instances of murder, theft or destruction of property averted. Isn't that a good thing?"
"So you're saying that the end justify the means?"
"Correct."
"You-!..... *sigh*.... Just what happen to you Lorne? How did you end up so twisted?"
"Come now Mr. Omegaman sir. You know exactly when it happened." said Theo as he used his mechanical left arm to point at his terminator right eye.
"The one when you lost your arm and eye? The perpetrator was captured and sent to jail. Isn't that enough?" replied the confused Omegaman
"Huh? Didn't you know what happened after that?"
"I've only read the report. I wasn't in the planet you see."
"I see.... Then let me give you the 411. She escaped about 1 year after you captured her and proceeded to kill thousands in the Hell Gate Incident."
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
"I read that she died in the incident.Is this certain?"
"Without a shadow of a doubt. I made sure to jam both of her severed legs into her eye sockets for good measure."
Omegaman couldn't help but shudder at Theo's gleeful recount of the morbid incident.
"*sigh*.... For such a promising youth to fall so low.... We have failed you Lorne. I'm sorry."
"No need to apologize. You didn't fail me sir. You failed every innocent lives that are lost every time a filthy low life gets out of prison. And as long as you refuse to do what needs to be done, your failure will keep piling on."
While Theo delivered this line with stoic calm, his inner self was grinning in sadistic glee.
Who knew watching the most powerful superhero squirm could be so titillating.
Nevertheless, he had no intention of rubbing it in more than necessary.
"Let's shelve our discussion on philosophy for another time. You came to me for help right? Who needs to face justice this time?" asked Theo.
Omegaman was silent for a couple of seconds. Clearly he was conflicted about giving Theo the mission.
Eventually, he was able to steel his resolve.
"I'm sure you know this but social media has been in a frenzy about you as of late."
"Really?" replied Theo with genuine confusion.
"Of course! Every major platform is screaming for your blood! You have celebrities publicly condemning you! How can you-!.... Don't tell me.... you don't have a social media account?"
"I do but I haven't accessed it in.... How long has it been? Hmm.... 2 years ago?"
"Huh... You're a weird one aren't you. Teens your age have their eyes practically glued to Squeeker or Facenote."
"I cant help it really. I find no value in the whole social media thing. Everyone does not care of what I think and I don't care what others think. It's mutually beneficial to not give a shit about each other."
"I believe on the contrary. While your beliefs are in the minority, there are still those who share it. You can easily gather allies with shared world views without resorting to your disgusting meat grinder method."
"Let's agree to disagree on that. "
"Very well. Back to the topic. At the moment, the activist group called 'Allies of Justice' is calling you out. They demand that you release the Jade Empire Princess Xiao Ning from her captivity or else they'll riot in 5 different cities."
"Tch. Them again? What a farce. Anyways, if you can see my torture pits underneath the base, then you already know what Xiao Ning's current state is."
"Yes.... Clearly you're not holder her against her will... but who could have thought that Vivi Cornielo and her would make such a good yet disgusting pair."
Wondering what Omegaman was talking about, Theo accessed the hidden cam in the room he provided to Vivi and Xiao Ning.
What he saw was the level of degeneracy he had come to expect from Vivi.
At the moment, the couple were already at their 5 day of non stop sex marathon.
The hentai play this time around was the 2 sharing a double sided dildo shoved in their ass.
It seemed that Vivi enjoyed being the receiver a little too much.
As expected of the man who taught Theo the ways of degeneracy.
"*sigh*.... Vivi is impressive as ever." said Theo as he facepalmed. "Anyways, lets leave those two love birds alone. What is the mission?"
"Right. The mission... *sigh*.... Who would have thought the greatest White Mage in history would be so..." replied the confused Omegaman.
"That's enough Mr. Omegaman! Focus on the mission before you go into an existential crisis!"
"I-I see... Very well. The mission. In all honesty, I think this entire social media storm is artificially generated. I'm not sure who is behind this and what is their goal, but they're using the people as a shield for something. This alone is enough to hamper us regular superheroes out of fear of hitting an innocent life in the crossfire."
"Er.... That's it? That's your big emergency? You're making a big deal about some spoiled shits on the internet?!"
"Did you not listen?! The Riots are the main concern! If we don't solve this, there will be unnecessary damages to 5 cities!"
"Bah! Cowards. They know they'll be slaughtered by the oh so many criminals in this city if they're stupid enough to pull of the same shit again. Anyways, I say let the police of said cities deal with it. Why else do they leech off the tax payers dime if not for situations like this?"
"That's actually a problem.... These cities openly support the Allies of Justice. The police cant touch them."
Theo nearly exploded when he heard this.
He wasn't angry at the police. They're just following orders.
His anger was directed to the idiot politicians that has pretty much legalized burning, looting and murdering in their cities.
How can someone in public office allow criminals to commit crimes against the public?!
From his point of view, said politicians were a bigger threat to the innocent than said criminals.
So great was his anger that he accidentally applied too much force on his left hand which happened to be griping his right hand.
Though unintentional, the pain was able to snap him out of his 'kill everything that moves' mindset.
And once he was able to clear his head, he realized that something was off with the whole situation.
He covered his face with both of his hands to avoid Omegaman's gaze.
Not because he was shy or anything. It was because his mind was connecting all the dots.
And when he eventually saw the big picture, the smile plastered on his face was that off a man who was about to kill someone.
"So that's the game huh? And to think they sent Omegaman to make it convincing. Well played assholes."
He took a deep breath, got his poker face on and returned to the conversation.
"I assume that you want me to put a stop to all of this, right?" asked Theo.
"Yes. You move outside what constrains us. You're the only one we can think of that can go through the filth without losing sight of what is right." replied Omegaman.
"Then I assume that you know exactly what will happen if I do get involved, right?"
"What exactly?"
"I'll do what needs to be done."
"Like I said, what exactly are you going to do?"
Theo slammed his metal fist into the table.
"Do you want my help or not?!"
"*sigh*.... Yes. Please solve this problem."
"Got it. Now leave. Your presence is a hindrance to my operation."
"I understand. Please be careful."
-:-
20 minutes.
""HAHAHAHAHHAHA!""
Theo and Ms. Samantha uncontrolled laughter echoed loudly through out the canteen, earning them quite a bit of confused gazes.
Both Nosferatu and Mother Leticia, though not LOLing like madmen, were still snickering like the villains that they were.
"Err... Is there something funny?" asked the confused Juno.
"Of course there is! Can you not see the joke young lady?" replied Ms. Samantha.
"Well.... not really. It was like any mission my love accepted from the heroes."
"That's the joke Juno. The entire mission smells like a setup." said Theo.
"I see.... How?"
"There are 3 signs that the dumb ass who wrote this script is incompetent. First and most glaring hole in the plot was Omegaman himself. He's the definition of a 'Good Guy'. No way he'd allow my human resource recycling plant to exist. The regular Omegaman would have found me and beaten the living day lights out of me."
"Didn't Ms. Samantha talk her down?"
"No way that's possible my dear. That guy is as stubborn as a brick wall with the power to enforce his will. No way he'd change his belief system just by talking to me." said Miss Samantha.
"I see. Then what of the other signs."
"Second: The Allies of Justice and the Broadway celebrities dog pilling on me. We already know that those paid activists have the Jade Empire as their primary backer after the shit they pulled last time. Same goes to the silver screen stars who want to get their movies released in Jade Empires' massive movie going population. They'll bark and bite at whoever the communists want them to."
"Not particularly surprising for such faithless heathens. If only the Ecclesiarchy would accept my proposition of purging that cesspool of filth." said Mother Leticia.
"Then wouldn't that criteria apply to the Commonwealth Government as well?" asked Nosferatu.
"And now you understand why I'm stuck in the city with the highest murder rate in the world."
"Aaaanyways, the third sign is more subtle. When Omegaman asked me what was I planning, its as if he was trying to get me to say it out loud. I immediately felt something was wrong when Omegaman didn't beat the shit out of me when he saw our meat processing plant. I wasn't entirely sure what was happening but I made sure to avoid using words that could potentially incriminate me to murder. This was in case he had some tech based or magical recording apparatus on him. That question of his was probably because he got no concrete evidence that cant be used in a court of law."
"So the Superheroes has finally started seeing you as a threat..... Can I finally kill Omegaman now?" said Juno with a smile that made everyone in the room take half a step back.
Everyone present was absolutely sure of 2 things about Juno:
1. She has never revealed to anyone how truly powerful she was.
2. When it came to murder, she has never failed to kill anyone she set out to kill.
As such, she was probably capable of doing in the most powerful being in the world.
This scared everyone, especially Theo.
"C-calm down. Killing Omegaman will paint a target in our back. It's a big minus in the long run." replied Ms. Samantha.
"~Eh~. Killjoy. What are we suppose to do then."
"2 things. First: We find the one responsible for this coordinated attack. We kidnap him and we 'convince' him to reveal his secrets." said Theo. "The second one is much more fun. We need to leave Vermilion City."
Quite a bit of murmur echoed through the canteen.
This was quite an announcement and the implications meant that their situation was more dire than initially thought.
"Just to be clear, we're not screwed.... yet. We're just getting out while we're ahead. We're not going to wait for the time when we go into open conflict with the superheroes."
Everyone let out a collective sigh.
"But where are you going to relocate? I welcome your group with open arms, but I doubt you guys want to do something so boring." asked Nosferatu.
"Right you are my scary vampire friend. I actually have a couple of places that is more than unwilling to part with their lands. But let's put that on the back burner for a little bit. We have to sort-of-kind-of do this mission for Omegaman. It shouldn't take too long."
With evil grins all around, the future massacre of a certain nation was slowly taking shape.