Now, what had to be said in the beginning - right as the introduction to Virtue started - was that the woman was a celebrity in her prime. And not a small one, either. She was famous. Revenant didn’t really care about bits like that, but he is fairly sure that he remembers her being consistently on top or near the top of beauty polls for female heroes.
For years.
In short, she was a 34-year-old old bombshell with a perfectly hourglass waist and nicely pronounced breasts and hips, all of that covered with a skin that was almost perfectly unblemished. Not to mention her long, blond hair that probably saw a lot of cosmetics and were regularly trimmed by top stylists in the country.
Revenant couldn’t even hope to list all the commercials he saw her in. Mostly the more feminine things. Like perfumes and cosmetics in general. Clothes, too. Especially… the underwear.
Oh, god, the underwear. Revenant remembers a running joke that seeing Virtue in one of those adverts was the lead cause for girls nationwide discovering that they aren’t fully heterosexual.
He can imagine it.
He is also absolutely certain that there were many girls in the United States that wanted to be as beautiful, feminine and confident about their body and sexuality as Virtue was. Which, honestly, was an incredible irony on at least one axis, but that was beside the point right now.
He can at the very least see the confidence right now. Virtue steps out of the tube, checks the faces in front of her, recognizes everyone but Humility (her eyes do stick to Onslaught for a moment, he can practically see the ‘what the hell did I miss’ flash through her face), before picking her hero uniform from Revenant’s hands.
Completely unmoved by her nudity, one that gives the people in front of her the sight that millions of people in the United States would kill for. Regretfully, neither Revenant nor Decay really care.
Besides, Revenant still remembers finding her in a proverbial gutter after the First Villain War ended. Virtue only survived its conclusion because she was mangled beyond all recognition by Hellflame, managing to crawl away into a crowd of fleeing civilians before any hero realized that she was still alive.
So many burns. So many of them third degree.
Healing her was a costly endeavor, but a good investment in Revenant’s opinion. It was probably the only reason why she was loyal to him afterwards, regardless of the sort of people that the VAA associated itself with.
Less about restoring her beauty and more about restoring her ability to try to fight once more. She had many people to avenge at this point.
“I assume…” Virtue says, still putting on her clothes. “... that things got complicated.”
Decay cackles in the background, Revenant giving him a tired stare. Yes, they did, and it’s still a hilarious understatement. But is that really a reason to laugh like that?
“To say the least, yes.” He then says towards her. “Good news is that Jormungandr is dead.”
“Those are very good news indeed.” Virtue admits. Yeah, she literally pulled a villainous equivalent of a heroic sacrifice to end that asshole and make sure that the nuke went off just at the right time. Finding out that he lived would be… “But from seeing Onslaught alive, I’m getting the feeling that I’m about to hear some really shocking things.”
Oh, boy.
***
“I’m not sure what makes me more angry right now.” Virtue announces fifteen minutes later. “The fact that my entire life was fake and made for someone’s entertainment, or the fact that I feel a dawning suspicion that I was created to be a living provider of fanservice.”
What does she… oh.
That pool party assassination attempt, yeah he remembers it now. Yeah, that really checks out.
“Wait until we find the fucking fanfics for our franchise.” Decay mumbles in the background. Those few words are enough to make Revenant stare at him angrily, all while Virtue hides her face in her hands. “What? I didn’t even mention the smut!”
Decay is good in many things. He knows how to move around quietly, he knows how to kill people without a sound. He is absolutely great at gaming, disposing of evidence and getting rid of corpses without a trace. Oh, and when tactics are involved.
He absolutely sucks at communicating and social cues.
Also, Revenant just realized that there might have been smutty fanfics written about himself, and probably a lot of those. Because he was the protagonist. Shipping him with pretty much everyone, regardless of gender, in the vicinity. Or, god forbid, giving him a harem composed of pretty much every female character in the story.
Ugh. If he ever ends up seizing an inhabited planet of this universe, banning fanfics is going to be his first decree.
“Nice of you to rub salt into my wounds, Decay.” Virtue sighs after a few seconds of internal despair. “But I was acutely aware of the number of people out there that were thirsting about me, and didn’t mind it at all. My issue isn’t with smutty fanfics, my issue is with the fact that I was literally made to be a walking piece of fanservice. I consider myself to be more than just my looks.”
Yeah, poor Virtue. Revenant would have given her headpats or something, but she’d probably try to stab him. So, instead, he lets her recover from the existential horror for a moment longer.
She eventually does.
“So, who else is around?” Virtue then asks Revenant.
“Thorn.” He replies. “I actually hoped that you two could provide us with food while we’re trying to figure it all out.” She seems to think that it’s something that she’s more or less comfortable with.
Having those two have someone like them to talk with should be helpful. Because Revenant is done summoning the people that are only sorta-villains.
***
“It’s nice to see you again in good health, Virtue.” Thorn says when Virtue enters the farming zone. The superhero-turned-villain lieutenant still looks slightly pale in her opinion. Then again, she just went through the Shocking Revelations moment.
“Yeah.” Virtue sighs while looking around the room. “Nice to see you too, Thorn. Nice farm you got yourself.”
To be honest, it’s mostly bare walls, and a few shallow basins carved in the floor by Decay. Some of them are already filled with water, Thorn having brought it here with a wooden jug that she made from tightly entangled roots that she spawned with her individuality.
Hey, it’s rather diverse in terms of utilities.
Contrary to how it might look, it wasn’t Virtue making fun of Thorn. In fact, there was absolutely no hostility between the two, despite their apparently clashing personalities and interests. After all, a popular model for the more sensual underwear and someone as prim, proper and innocent as Thorn?
That’s until you realized that Virtue in private had a very limited experience with dating. Very, very limited. And mostly from her teenage years.
The discovery that she was a provider of fanservice must have hurt even more when you were a person that mostly dropped any romantic pursuits out of being completely tired of people trying to date you because you looked sexy and because dating you would give you a boost to fame if you already were a celebrity.
Virtue ended up making a rule for no sex before marriage in order to filter out the people who were after the wrong thing, at least once she decided that she was getting older and older and that it was the high time to settle down. Add a highly demanding life of a hero that she considered a priority which made relationships more complicated and suddenly… the filter got too restrictive.
It didn’t take Virtue and Thorn a long time since joining the VAA to realize that they were two peas in the pod, on some level. Despite the age gap.
They prove it by hugging each other right in the middle of the farm. It’s not a lengthy hug, but it’s a friendly one.
“It’s reassuring to have you here.” Thorn then says, looking over the Virtue appraisingly, as if checking out for injuries. “At least some of our new companions are a bit…”
“I know.” Virtue sighs. “Rogue AI and a self-proclaimed ‘Slaughterer of Billions’. Right next to Clockmaker, of all people.”
Clockmaker had a reputation. Not a good one. None of them liked the mad-scientist cyborg at all, no one in the PLF remnant force did. But with Halworth Industries becoming a dominant force on the black market, they didn’t exactly have an alternative when getting equipment was involved.
The entire history of the PLF after the New Liberty bombing was that of the whole organization slowly trading its supposed moral high ground for a chance at actually achieving their goals.
Virtue was a villain by now. She knew it. So was Thorn. It’s just that admitting it aloud would make the whole thing a done deal. But… There are still some lines left uncrossed. There is a difference between letting some civilians die to kill an important dog of the state and unleashing a ‘Slaughterer of Billions’ upon the Galaxy. A big one.
“I think…” Thorn replies. In her head, the ‘I hope’ remains unsaid. “... that Revenant has a plan. But…”
“I’m sure that if he actually lets us appear around it, he either expects us to betray him and prepared for it accordingly…” Virtue replies. “... or took the pretext of food production to get Humility to spawn us so that he has someone to threaten the AI with. Alternatively, it’s some sort of mental manipulation strategy against it, or anyone else really.”
Thorn shakes her head. Yeah, that’s… very in character for Revenant. She is still shocked by actually getting to see him smile once or twice nowadays. She did hear from his inner circle members (mostly Singularity and Decay) that he smiles when Chronoshift is around, but…
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She had issues even imagining that. Now, this.
Confusing. Like about everything in their true lives. To be honest, they would have a much worse meltdown if not for the looming threat of dying once more giving them something to focus on.
“You got the whole introductory talk?” Thorn then asks. “You know, Vermillion Gamma, describing your individuality to the AI and so on.”
“Yeah.” Virtue replies. She has no idea what to think about it, really. Aliens stealing human brains? That’s weird even for someone living during the Age of Heroes. “In the meantime, I think it’s time that I help you with the farming.”
***
“That’s your definition of help?” Thorn asks thirty minutes later, staring at Virtue over one of the basins. With slight irritation in her voice.
She has reasons to react like that. Virtue used her individuality to spawn herself a temporary sunbed and lie in it, using her own power to do the closest thing to sunbathing one could achieve in this god-forsaken place.
She also took off her hero uniform and replaced it with hardlight constructs appearing identical to a swimsuit and a pair of sunglasses. With something akin to a loincloth (matching the color of her underwear perfectly) completing her outfit, she looked as if she was attending a pool party rather than working.
“Honey, what can I tell you about my agriculture skills?” Virtue replies, while pulling her sunglasses up a little to look at Thorn. “Well, mostly one thing - that they don’t exist. I’m providing you with sunlight, making everything properly illuminated and I’m ready to provide you with all the basic tools for as long as you describe them to me in detail. But I really can’t do anything more.”
Thorn squints at her, an action that made a lot of villains of the VAA realize immediately that they went a bit too far and should apologize profusely. Virtue is unrepentant.
“Look, you should consider taking advantage of the whole ‘new life’ thing and let loose a little.” Virtue replies. “We can lock the door and, you see, sunbathing for a bit, especially naked, should really improve your skin complexion. It’s just healthy! So why not loosen up a bit and…” She blinks for a millisecond, before glancing at the floor. “... move from that spot RIGHT NOW!”
Thorn is a former sidekick-turned-villain lieutenant. When someone tells her to dodge - especially someone like Virtue, and with that look on her face - she doesn’t ask questions. Instead, she does that.
Two seconds later the spot she was in is pierced by a metal spike emerging from the floor with a loud cacophony of metal accompanying its emergence. Thorn barely has the time to see anything more than the floor around it giving up and mechanical hands grabbing the edges of the hole in order to pull something up before Virtue greets the invader with an overhead swing of a two-handed hammer that appeared out of nowhere… and vanished completely a moment later.
Loud crush, a cacophony of metal noises and a blast of heat and light, the mechanical hands vanishing as whatever was behind them was sent flying downward.
“I think that you should go find the others.” Virtue announces calmly. She’s still wearing the swimsuit - then again, it’s not as if her old villain/hero uniform offered any significant increase in protection. “Whatever it is, it’s more pissed off than injured.”
“How do you…” Thorn is about to ask when suddenly the floor explodes again in the same place, Virtue leaping back to avoid getting shredded by metal shrapnels. And then, something emerges from the hole.
It is a monster.
An infernal mixture between a giant mechanical centipede and a giant mechanical quadruped animal. There is something of a feline grace in the way its body bends, in the way its four giant legs move, but the segmented armor on its sides glistening with dozens of mechanical arms resembles a centipede.
Its face(?) moves around, a handful of colorful lights (sensors? cameras?) on a surface resembling a non-transparent glass at the edge of the centipede facing them, surrounded by armor plates.
Virtue’s idea of going to get help is suddenly much more appealing. And that’s before discovering that the plates around its supposed face weren’t armor plates.
She realized it the moment they slipped to the side, uncovering…
A wall of light erupted between her and the invader, stopping the burst of flames from what seemed like multiple flamethrowers centered around its front plate.
Alright, Thorn gets the message this time around. She leaps off towards the door, disappearing behind them before the attacker could react.
It moved its eyes toward Virtue.
***
In a twisted way, Virtue was happy that the attack happened. Because, to be frank, a part of her wanted to unwind violently by punching something real hard. And hey, she got what she wanted!
Not knowing a thing about the enemy was a pain though. But she had a lot of combat experience. She could learn.
At least twenty-feet long, looking like a bastard child of Wolfhound and Jormungandr. Probably heavily-armored. It took her Hammer of Dawn point-blank and kept standing, though there was a visible crack on its back, surrounded by signs of the surface armor getting melted by heat.
Not a lot of enemies could withstand that attack.
But then it attacked Thorn first.
She grins lightly. It must have hurt, didn’t it? That’s why it immediately attacked Thorn. It wanted to see if the other enemy was capable of hurting it. To see if it should fight or retreat. If Thorn stayed around, it might have fled.
Sending her away was a good idea. They don’t know whatever place that thing came from to know about them. And it might have friends.
In short? It clearly treats her as a threat. And if so… she can slay it. Without waiting for the reinforcements. Although she should probably still be cautious. It might, after all, be wrong in its assessment of hers.
“So…” Virtue says, while using her individuality to transform her swimsuit into a copy of her hero uniform. “... what the hell are you?”
“YOUR DEATH.” The machine responds. In English. Loud and clear, but also clearly mechanical. It can understand the language and is surprisingly sassy… while also pretty cringe. Another murderous AI? How many of them were out there?
It immediately decides to prove its sincerity. Armor plates on its back slide slightly to the side, something popping up from the hole. Looks like a machine gun. A second later it opens fire.
Virtue solidifies light in front of her, creating a wall of hardlight, a golden bulwark almost too bright to look at it. It’s thick enough to withstand the gunfire… for several seconds. Then the rounds suddenly start piercing through it, signifying that the enemy switched to the armor-piercing rounds.
Thankfully, she was no longer there. She is casting the walls left and right, dashing from one to another, trying to get a read on how well it could detect her movements. Was it just the sight? Did it have some additional sensors?
It clearly doesn’t notice her movements well enough. It also fails to realize that she was creating walls even outside of her actual range (then again, what were the chances of whatever monstrosity it was knowing that particular ancient superhero comic book?).
She tries to leap away from the bulwark, only to get torn to shreds in a heartbeat once the machine’s guns finally caught up to her. Except… that’s when her body vanishes.
The attacker has maybe a second to realize that it was played around before it gets slammed by another Hammer of Dawn by Virtue, who suddenly emerged from behind a Golden Bulwark… on the completely opposite side of the machine than its decoy body.
From the time it fired at her for the first time, it didn’t realize that she was actually running in the opposite direction… under the cover of the Invisibility Cloak.
The blast, once again, is massive. The hardlight forming the hammer is rigged to decompress on impact, unleashing a blast of light and heat. It’s basically an explosion, except with a weaker kinetic component.
The machine, despite that and despite its giant size, is still slammed into the wall on the other side of it.
Virtue clicks her tongue. Too shallow.
Her individuality has a simple name. Light. It allows her to manipulate light around her. Sounds simple, even somewhat weak, but is actually extremely powerful and almost infinitely versatile.
She can bend light around her, making her invisible (although she can still be heard). Super Move: Invisibility Cloak.
She can form rudimentary matter by concentrating and ‘stopping’ (hard to describe it to someone who doesn’t have the same individuality to perceive the light the same way she does) light in place, creating the so-called Hardlight. Super Move: Golden Bulwark.
She can create weapons out of said hardlight, while slightly rigging its properties in a way already described above. Super Moves: Hammer of Dawn, Sword of Noon and Spear of Twilight.
She can also create herself clothes - and sunglasses - from a thin layer of hardlight, its surface modified to reflect only particular frequencies of life in order to simulate right color and texture. Not exactly a Super Move material until she pulled the variant of the technique that let her cover herself in a hardlight armor.
Plus many, many other super moves. She had thirty-seven of them in total. She might have been a celebrity, but you don’t become a hero this famous without being a training freak.
All of them had the same weakness. She could only shape or alter properties of light, not create it. It wasn’t a resource that she could run out of (unless you locked her in pitch-black room), yes. But she couldn’t use her stronger techniques without sufficient background light level. And even the weaker techniques would be underperforming without enough light.
She wasn’t creating sunlight to help Thorn grow crops. She was altering properties of the already existing light to be virtually indistinguishable from natural sunlight, while also concentrating the light in the room closer to where the crops were.
As a result of that mechanism, her Hammer of Dawn that sent the machine back was operating at maybe 30% of total firepower. Not enough to take it down. But certainly enough to piss it off.
Numerous slots opening on its upper armor. Missile salvo? It must have realized that the enemy can become invisible and decided for a perfect solution to the problem while in a locked area.
Saturation bombardment.
The death machines of the far future can’t just be stupid, right? It would certainly make things simpler.
But she can predict the trajectory. There isn’t enough space in the room for a parabolic attack. Piercing Gaze is enough. The moment the micro-missiles leave their silos, they are sliced in half with a golden laser beam that she just fired from her eyes.
She could fire it from elsewhere, but doing it that way helped make it very precise. Also, even at its 100%, it really couldn’t pierce an armored frame of whatever she was fighting. Small missiles, in the meantime, all blew up nicely…
… while concealing her line of sight for a second with their explosions. She realizes her mistake the moment the enemy emerges from the cloud, midway-towards her position, before body-slamming her into the wall.
She can feel one of her wings breaking. They looked pretty but were a bother in a fight - she lost track of how many times she needed them restored with healing individualities after losing them in a fight. She doesn’t really care about it right now.
Piercing Gaze deals with the tentacle-like appendages (all of them ending with something sharp) that moved towards her head. She covered her hands with hardlight and tried to punch it off her while it was still pinning her to the wall.
Not enough firepower. But her plan B works.
She made a hardlight copy of herself, had it attack the machine from the side. The decoy had a body, the attack dealt damage. The machine, which was about to shoot her dead point blank, was briefly confused. Illusions were one thing, something that actually had a body was something else.
Virtue bought herself the time to smash it with the Blade of Midsummer. The strongest and most destructive of her special moves. A blade falling from above, with the tip of it being the most concentrated form of her hardlight. Its hilt is propelled downward by another form of hardlight whose dissolution generates much less heat and light and much more kinetic energy.
She remembers using it to kill the US Secretary of Treasury, the giant sword of light - launched from the sky above, and at noon - piercing through 27 levels of the skyscraper, obliterating the man and everyone else who had the bad luck of being there.
With so little light and so little space to gain momentum, the minuscule version of that attack is only comparable in firepower to Hammer of Dawn. But it doesn’t need her to swing it at the enemy, which is helpful when you are practically pinned to the wall and can’t move your body.
The attack connects, the hold weakens. Virtue frees herself, before getting some distance. The farm is already mostly trampled and honestly, she feels like she’s going to have to apologize to Thorn for this.
But not now.
The attacker slashes her decoy in half with something resembling a scythe. Then it looks towards her actual body. Now coated in full hard-light armor, making her look like some fantasy world paladin.
“WHAT ARE YOU?” The attacker asks. Looks like someone realized that they were facing an Outside Context Problem. A person doing things that they shouldn’t be capable of.
“Your death.” Virtue replies, grinning at it cockily. Time for round two.