It doesn't exactly work. The mood’s still rather soured. Which is, honestly, unsurprising. How do you move on from such a revelation?
Virtue only just realized that she broke the glass, so has quickly replaced it, while cursing quietly to herself. Thorn looked like she was beginning to regret her life choice (namely, the one that was about grabbing alcohol), but was still soldiering on.
Damn it, change of subject.
“So, what’s ‘Repayment’, Humility?” Revenant decides to be the change he wants to see and intervenes. “While you were bullshiting the locals.”
“Something of a cultural thing for the transhuman ethnopolities.” Humility replies. Yes, it’s still intaking an awful lot of vodka through something akin to a straw. At least it leads towards its head, Revenant was slightly worried (knowing the transhuman kneejerk reaction towards all that is human) that it would lead to its ass or something like it. “It dates back to the end of the War of Purity.”
“Like most of the good and bad things we’ve seen thus far.” Revenant replies.
“Well, it was a pretty big event, pretty much the end of an era, so it makes sense.” Humility replies. “Once the war was over, there was a question of what to do with the transhumans that stayed loyal to Mankind. The fact that they were often referred to during the war as ‘the Unforgiven’ wasn’t exactly very optimistic.”
Since they stayed loyal in the end, it was probably ‘unforgiven for letting the rest of them start this godforsaken war’, Revenant decides. Not exactly fair, then again if there were some military officials among them, the fact that they didn’t realize what was brewing in order to warn the Commonwealth was probably enough to make them look sus.
“Many wanted them dead, or just to be disallowed to perpetuate themselves.” Humility continues. “So, for example, let Mechanists continue existing but do not allow them to use cybernetic modification on anyone new.. In the end, the cooler heads prevailed and the Unforgiven were forgiven, although it was a marginal victory in terms of votes. Transhumans decided that they were in debt to the organizations, especially the bigger and more influential ones that truly helped to turn the votes in their favor. That’s how the tradition of Repayment started.”
“So let me guess.” Revenant decides to try it. “Some particularly competent and friendly faced transhumans hire themselves for some time and for pretty much the costs of their life to those organizations. Thus making sure that said organization still sees the transhumans as a whole as a-okay guys, all while letting themselves see some of the Galaxy without random people trying to shoot them in the process.”
“Correct.” Humility nods. “Pretty common for young and adventurous members of their ethnopolities to go see the galaxy a little while earning practical skills at the same time. Their governments tend to subsidize it, too.”
Makes sense. And answers some of the questions he had. Should he extend the same subject to others?
“Alright, so taking advantage of the slight lull in drinking…” Revenant says. “...anyone has any additional questions to ask?”
“I have one, but to Virtue.” Onslaught announces. Revenant’s only response is thinking ‘oh no.’ Mostly because, yeah, he does know her quite well. “We only barely met while I was alive, but after spending some time with you around, and after hearing how beautiful you are, I can only ask: will you please date my father once he’s back alive? Because I really want you to be my… mommy.”
Virtue lets out a convincing equivalent of a dying whale sound (very busy trying to figure out what the fuck is she supposed to answer to that), before Revenant groans loudly.
“Also, please ignore anything that Onslaught’s saying, she’s drunk.” He says, completely ignoring Decay’s loud cackling at the side. Someone was enjoying the chaos.
“Hey!” Onslaught, still quite red, pouts at him. “I’m your fiance! You’re supposed to be on my side!”
“I thought we both agreed that the engagement is off and we’re back to being more or less a boyfriend and a girlfriend, until we figure ourselves out.” Revenant replies, while glancing down at her.
“Until you figure yourself out.” Onslaught replies while leaning it to hug him closely. “I’m as committed as I used to be. It’s just you who is being a dummy about it.”
“Right.” Revenant nods again. He’s really weak to her, isn’t he? If it was anyone else acting like that, he would be angry. But somehow, he just can’t be angry at her. “I still think that you should take it easy and, preferably, rest a little. Make yourself comfortable and take a nap or something. This can take us a while.”
Metahumans in general tended to be healthier than normal people. That, apparently, included resistance to poisons. Alcohol counted as poison. It was going to take them a while to get truly drunk, unless they were just really, really weak.
Even Onslaught was just tipsy and let the atmosphere get to her head in that state.
“Alright!” Onslaught announces cheerfully. Then she decides to make herself comfortable. Revenant merely sighs, puts the glass down and helps her relocate.
To his lap.
“You’re absolutely and completely spoiled rotten, aren’t you?” He then asks, just as she turns her back on the others and hugs him closely. Now that she has an advantage of height, she ends up hiding most of the room from his eyes.
“Uh-huh.” Onslaught nods. “Absolutely. But you love me that way, aren’t you?”
Ehh.
He does find her antics funny, and it’s one of the very few things that truly and honestly make him laugh without making him feel like an edgy teenager. He can’t keep finding bad stuff humorous (like the whole running gag of ‘ah yes, humans and xenophobia’ he has going).
It’s probably not healthy.
“Also we’re going to have a very serious talk about the things you’ve been hiding from me, because I’m tired of discovering it all after my death.” Onslaught then adds, suddenly much more serious. “First of all, because I’m your fiance, even if one-sidedly. Second of all, because keeping it all bottled down isn’t healthy and I want you to be healthy and happy, you lovable, emotionally-stunted dumbass.”
Right.
“That’s for tomorrow.” Revenant replies. Hopefully she’ll end up forgetting about it. Not because he wants to keep secrets from her, but because he just doesn’t want to talk about it. “Also, are you sure you’re Onslaught and not Kitsune? You’re acting like her now.”
“How so?” Onslaught asks. Revenant mentally high-fives himself at a successful subject change.
“She was my… well, something between my unofficial therapist and personal complaint manager.” Revenant replies. “Someone to talk about absolutely everything, especially emotions. Or whatever was making me angry at the moment.”
“She was also fucked up in the head.” Decay comments from the side, before drinking some of his beer. He then sees the look that Revenant is giving him. “What? You know I’m right.”
“You know that saying that about the woman that was your wife’s maid of honor during your wedding is going a bit too far?” Revenant replies, still looking past Onslaught.
“Alright then.” Decay leans forward before clasping his hands and looking back at Revenant “Tell me, with a completely straight face, that you think that Kitsune wouldn’t benefit significantly from visiting a shrink.”
Revenant, unfortunately for himself, doesn’t like lying to his almost-totally-a-brother. Who, clearly enough, considers the supervillain’s silence to be his victory. Worst of all, he might be right.
“Tell me more about her.” Onslaught immediately says.
“You just want to know about everything you can about a potential competitor, aren’t you?” Revenant asks.
“Yes.” Onslaught nods.
Well, at least she’s honest about it.
“You seriously don’t have to worry about Kitsune, of all people.” Revenant replies. “Trust me.”
“Didn’t she state openly that she’d gladly take Onslaught’s place in your heart and do her utmost to make you forget about her?” Thorn says, clearly surprised by the direction the talk was talking.
She was also hugging a bottle of what looked like tequila (the cork even resembled sombrero in shape), which was probably going to end up hilariously bad. At least it wasn’t yet opened (Virtue was clearly trying to explain how to drink ‘proper’ alcohol to her first).
Worst of all, she wasn’t even drunk (just a glass of wine thus far), meaning that she had suicidal tendencies while sober. Horrifying.
“Wait, she did?” Onslaught asks. Suddenly, yeah, suddenly Revenant can basically hear the boss music.
“Yes, but that was just Kitsune being herself.” Revenant replies. This, naturally, didn’t help him avoid potential death at the hands of the paraplegic Hulk that was now sitting on his lap. “Yeah, look, she’s just a complete sucker for everything she considers ‘romantic’. She joined me in destroying the country because I was doing it as a revenge rampage over the death of the love of my life and that was romantic. She tried to take your place and become the person that helped ‘fix’ me through their love because that was even more romantic. And, I guarantee you, the moment she is back alive and discovers that the love between me and you led to us being reunited after something akin to death, she is going to turn into the most fanatical and devoted wingwoman you could ever imagine, ready to do absolutely everything she can do help us be happy together. Because that’s super-romantic.”
“Have I ever mentioned that I consider all of you to be to varying degrees insane?” Humility comments. Onslaught is clearly still busy digesting the brief introduction to the complicated meanders of Kitsune’s mind.
“Me too?” Clockmaker asks, her attention suddenly drawn away from the bottle of what might be absinthe of all alcohols.
“Thus far you appear almost worryingly sane.” Humility replies to her girlfriend(?). “Then again, I’m yet to see you in one of your ‘creative moods’, which is when I presume your natural metahuman insanity comes to surface.”
“Yeah, I do remember Clockmaker having to replace a part of her dentures because she tried to use her teeth instead of a wrench during one of her moods.” Revenant comments. Everything but trying to address whatever internal turmoil Onslaught was having. “Simply because her wrench broke and something in her mind thought that going over to the nearest tool bench was too much of a delay in the pursuit of the art of creation.”
“Oh, well, errr, yeah, that happened.” Clockmaker nods a few times. “Fun time. Anyway, I think that it might be a good idea to mention that I’m going to have one of my moods soon.”
“Oh?” Revenant blinks at her. “That’s a surprising development. I didn’t know that you could predict those in adv…” He is interrupted when Clockmaker suddenly bolts from her chair, sprinting towards the door (Humility grabs the absinthe bottle with surprising dexterity) that she then opens by ramming it with her shoulder, before disappearing in the corridor behind it. “Ah. You can’t. Okay. That happened.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Now I really need to get drunk.” Virtue sighs painfully in the background. “50 bucks that it’s going to be something horny.” Humility actually glances towards her at that.
Yes, if that happens, it’s going to be all your fault. Or, at least that’s how Revenant interprets the look that Virtue’s giving to the AI.
“50 bucks that it’ll be something explosive.” Revenant replies. “It’s typically something explosive.”
“Is ‘why not both’ an option that I can place a bet on?” Decay replies while cracking open another beer can. Revenant decides that he isn’t comfortable with the resulting mind images.
Humility surprises them all by standing up from its chair.
“I think that I should probably follow her to make sure that she doesn’t accidentally blow up the maintenance bay.” The AI says. “Or scare the civilians too much.”
Revenant was about 90% certain that the real reason was the AI wanting to observe the creative process in question just in case Clockmaker created something that qualified as an exotech. The remaining 10% was the AI somewhat getting actually attached to Ezra Halworth.
The only question was whether it actually could get attached. Thus far Revenant suspected that the AI was a perfect recreation of a human being (just made from computer code instead of flesh), with the small thing that it could actually consciously alter themselves if they wanted.
Or, well, that’s what he gleaned from the AI apparently being able to switch their sexuality on/off and being able to simulate being drunk without actually intaking alcohol.
As the AI disappears from the room, they all return to drinking.
Tomorrow, they are going to pick their first (aside from Revenant) SSS-Rank supervillain out of the resurrection tube. And damn if it isn’t going to be loud.
***
When Revenant decides to go to sleep, Onslaught’s there, and as clingy as ever. Naturally finding her way into his bed, and just… fitting it like a glove. It’s like she belongs there. She probably does.
She is lying on her side right next to him, hugging him closely. He reciprocates. It’s… nice.
“So…” Revenant tries to ask, but she doesn’t let him.
“I’m sorry.” She says. Mostly into his chest, so it comes out quieter than it should. “For acting like a dumbass during the party. I’m just… kind of stressed out of worry for you and out of feeling just too useless since I don’t get to do much to help you nowadays, and I’ve gotten a bit… loose with my tongue over the alcohol and…”
He kisses her on her forehead, the only currently accessible part of Onslaught. That silences her instantly.
The sad fact is that she’s right. She wasn’t very helpful, at least in combat aside from delivering the taunt to that one pirate. His opinion that she was one of the strongest possible combatants available to him was a bit… weakened by the discovery that even Virtue’s hardlight bulwarks weren’t bulletproof nowadays.
Technological progress, dammit.
He doesn’t want to lose her again. So, he is holding her back at least until they have Overhaul around. They can patch even fresh corpses up.
“You don’t need to prove your usefulness to me and everyone else, Oni.” Revenant replies. “You’ll have your entire life to do it once we get off this rock and get you patched up. In the meantime, you just being there means a whole world of difference for me.’
“Charmer.” She replies quietly before trying to snuggle even closer to him. “I didn’t… say too much or anything? I know you’re probably playing some mindgames with Humility over my head, and…”
“No, you didn’t.” He reassures her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” Onslaught replies, before suddenly smiling up at him. “So, wanna cap this evening by finally taking my virginity?”
This sudden change of subject actually makes him chuckle. Looks like her brief bout of self-doubt (that she was very prone to in general), is over. At least outwardly. Inwardly she still has all the issues.
She hates feeling useless. And she cares about him. Feeling not just useless but also as if she was actually a detriment to him is just the worst.
“You know what, fine.” Revenant surprises himself. Seeing Onslaught’s quiet ‘omfg is it actually happening’ freak out is just hilarious. “You won. Your persistence won the day. How do you want that to happen?”
“Change of plans, I don’t.” Onslaught replies, while giving him an impish grin.
…
“You know what, I’m going to respond by borrowing words from Decay.” Revenant says dryly. “Kitsune is a rather hyperactive person, prone to moodswings and changes of mind. He was once particularly tired of it, so he glared at her over the table during the VAA leaderrship meeting and said, and I quote: ‘If you were a Warhammer 40k faction, your name would be Chaos Undecided.”
Kitsune wasn’t a gamer. She had only passable knowledge about Warhammer 40k. Her just freezing with an open mouth and trying to figure out what just happened only made it more hilarious.
“Now I’m really looking forward to meeting her!” Onslaught smiles. “Sounds like a second bestie material after Hypothermia! Anyways, I’m really looking forward to getting absolutely ravaged by you, but hey? You think I want it to be a ‘you know what, fine, I’ll do it because you asked?’ thing.” Yeah, now that she mentions it… It feels cheap, especially after literally waiting a lifetime for it. “I’m going to wait until you finally make up your goddamn mind and make a proper move on me.”
“Alright then.” He admits defeat. “You’re willing to risk us dying before that happens? Waiting with it in such circumstances might be…”
“For you?” She smiles faintly before kissing him. “For you I’m ready to wait as long as you want me to. And I trust you to keep us both alive without any dumbass malevolent Author meddling with you to make sure that the bad end comes to pass.”
Ain’t his sort-of-a-girlfriend adorable?
He then sighs, because he can feel her hands wandering where they (probably) shouldn’t be.
“Anything to say to me, Oni?” He then asks.
“Hey, we can get quite far without, technically, having our first time.” She says with a mischievous smirk on her face. “It was a fun party, but the snacks department was kind of a letdown. Think you can provide me with something… new?”
Absolutely spoiled rotten, yeah. And since her father’s about to be up and running again… well, it probably won’t help fixing that issue.
***
Morning is a mess.
“I…” Thorn announces when Revenant leaves his room in the morning, Onslaught hanging off his shoulder. “... made a mistake.”
She is sitting by the wall, looking as if she actually slept there. She probably did. She must have gotten very, very wasted to have a hangover of this magnitude.
“You sure did.” Revenant nods. “Why did you even decide to do that?”
“I remembered that, during the Middle Ages, monks were commonly producing alcohol. Meaning that drinking alcohol was religiously acceptable.” Thorn replies, nicely avoiding the subject of Revenant unleashing his Traumatic Backstory™ on her, which was clearly horrific enough to give her a push in this direction. “I forgot that it was mostly beer. And certainly not tequila.”
Right.
“Well, I must say that you were quite… bold, by the end.” Revenant says while helping Onslaught sit by the table. “You actually told Virtue that you were ready to give birth to her children, you know that?” It was hard to hear due to how much the alcohol was influencing her speech at that point, but…
She stares at him, with a completely dead look on her face. Then she turns her face away from him, before hiding her head between her knees.
“Kill me before she wakes up, please.” He can hear Thorn speak, just as Onslaught is clearly trying to stop herself from laughing. Looks like someone is going to return to their policy of strict alcohol abstinence.
“Hey, who never did something stupid while under influence, be the first to cast the stone.” Revenant decides to try to cheer her up a little before they start working on breakfast together.
“You have one for me to throw?” Decay takes that very occasion to leave his own quarters. “I’m ready.”
Revenant just glances at him.
“You want to talk about Chicago?” He then asks. Decay freezes up for a moment.
“You know what, fine, I can’t throw the rock anymore.” Decay concedes the point. Yes, he still remembers the Shopping Cart Incident. “Speaking of, what are we talking about?”
“Thorn realizing that she is bisexual and has a crush on Virtue.” Revenant deadpans. Decay whistles, while Thorn actually throws an empty bottle of tequila in Revenant’s direction but misses.
“I do not have a crush on Virtue.” Thorn replies. Revenant actually freezes in realization that she didn’t deny the first half of the sentence. Huh, looks like she decided to focus on one option either out of religious beliefs, biological clock ticking… or he was just reading too much out of an accidental slip of the tongue. Huh. “I was just drunk and talking stupid. Could you just please ignore me while I’m wallowing in self-pity here?”
“Sure.” Revenant nods. It’s time for breakfast either way. Which is remarkably calm, at least until Onslaught asks if there are any eels in the pantry for the dinner, because she wants to stick to the theme.
She’s probably doing that because it’ll get much more awkward for her to be herself in public very, very soon.
***
“So… Destro, is it?” Humility comments once they enter the resurrection room. The figure floating in the tube is big. Complete opposite of how his own daughter looks like. A giant. Well, you don’t become a captain of your college’s football team by being small and meek. “A big name, I presume?”
Revenant is present, together with Decay, Onslaught and Humility. The others are missing, for a variety of reasons.
“Leader of the People’s Liberation Front, a villainous organization that actually managed to stage not only an almost successful coup d’etat about the US Government but also engaged it in a full-blown civil war… and practically won, before the New Liberty was nuked.” Revenant replies. “A fellow SSS-Rank villain, although in his case it’s both out of the strength of his organization and that of himself.”
“Oh?” Humility asks, while turning its head to face him. “What did he do to earn the latter half of this assessment?”
“He punched Invincible, our friendly local Superman-style Flying Brick…” Revenant replies. “... through the White House. During the coup.” Regretfully, Invincible got back up, and it was Destro’s defeat in the end (he and Demagogue escaped, while Just Cause ended up being apprehended by Invincible), but…
Humility says nothing, just stares. Instead, someone else does.
“And it was so cool!” Onslaught says with an enthusiastic smile on her face. “I only had it described to me, but it was still so cool! My daddy’s super awesome!” A fact that didn’t stop her from pretending to be a perfectly innocent angel to him the whole time. While being… well, herself.
Ehhh.
“He is here mostly because of us having to deal with the civilian pops.” Revenant replies, ignoring Onslaught’s ‘what are you talking you dumbass, he is pretty much your replacement father figure so don’t act as if you didn’t want to see him’ pout in the background. “He is a politician by trade. We’ll ‘sell him off’ as our mercenary team head of the PR department and unleash him upon the Triumvirate. They’ll be eating out of his hands by the end of the week.”
“Are you sure about it?” Humility asks. Revenant sighs.
“The man in this tube created his villainous organization by persuading three major groups of political extremists in the country to pool their resources into overthrowing the Government together by creating a joint revolutionary army. “Revenant replies. “And trust me. When someone manages to talk revolutionary socialists, libertarian capitalists and gun-nuts and a union of fascists and fanatic militarists into marching together under one banner, I’m sure that persuading a group of civilians to go along won’t be a feat of increased difficulty.”
Absolute madness, which is why it caught the Government completely off-guard. Moneysink, Demagogue and General Ripper (the heads of the three ‘extremist political parties’ in question) working together? Madness.
Until you knew what Destro promised them. Then it was still crazy, but more… understandable.
“Wouldn’t you be able to deal with them yourself?” Humility asks. Is it suspecting some trap? Him bringing in people that he can trust so that they can then backstab it together?
“Wrong type of charisma.” Revenant replies. “Most of the villains are to various degrees cynical bastards. You don’t move them with sweet words, but with a combination of ruthlessness and proven ability to deliver on your promises. We need someone who can sweet-talk people. The best picks on that field are either Demagogue or Destro, and the latter also brings combat skills to the table.”
Dealing with his… errr, personality quirks was going to be the true challenge here.
***
Say hello to Dadstro.
I meant Destro, sorry xD
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