His words give Demiurge’s hatred for him a pause. He says a pause, because… it won’t disappear any time soon. It’s way too deep-seated. Revenant gestures at the praetorians to give some minimal breathing space to the woman so that she can speak.
“You can bring them back?” Demiurge asks. Still on guard. Yes, she was already manipulated by him once, and she doesn’t want this to happen again. This is perfectly understandable.
“Yes.” Revenant replies. She doesn’t believe him. “It’s going to be a pretty crazy story. But in short, our lives were a lie. We were characters in a comic book. But now? Now a new Wishgranter came around, messed up Reality and suddenly the tubes in the room we’re in can give life to fictional characters… of our comic, to be precise.” He smiles wryly. “How does that sound?”
“Like a load of bullshit.” Demiurge replies. Yeah, to be honest, it reads off like that. He wouldn’t believe it either.
“You can confirm my honesty in a matter of a few minutes.” Revenant replies. “I brought Destro, Onslaught and Hypothermia back to life already. Even Clockmaker is around again. Getting Songbird and Amplitude back shouldn’t be a problem. A matter of a few days, actually.”
Demiurge glares, thinking it over. She wants to find out if that’s true. She loved Amplitude, she cared for Songbird. The rest of the world could as well die and she wouldn’t care. But those two?
Even evil has loved ones. Well, some of it that is. He knows a lot of people that lack emotional capacity to love anyone but themselves.
“Let’s imagine that you aren’t bullshitting me.” Demiurge says. It’s clear that she isn’t believing it in the slightest. But… she wants to believe it. “I want access to it. To the tubes. Without your oversight.”
Oh, so that’s the game she was playing. To be honest, it could work in the context of his plan. But… he had to act to be against it, as otherwise she’d suspect that something was odd there.
“You think you’re in position to do that?” Revenant asks. “You think that you’re in a position to demand anything?”
“You want my individuality?” Demiurge squints at him. “How are you going to make me use it? Beating and torture? Yeah, especially with Onslaught around. Brainwashing? Yep, not you. So the only thing you can do is strike a deal. And guess what, I’m willing to strike one with you.”
Revenant squints and tilts his head a little, scratching his chin a bit.
“Go on.” He says.
“Two to one.” Demiurge replies. “You get two people, I get one. If you want you can delay summoning of one to pull a series of three or four people later on, I’m fine with that.”
That’s her game. Make a faction strong enough to influence him, while at least theoretically giving him an upper hand. Not counting for Demiurge hoping that she can get some people from his ‘faction’ to switch over to hers.
She is unaware that he has significantly recovered from his late-war end. She’d be surprised by a discovery of how hard it’d be to achieve now.
Demiurge is probably already counting Clockmaker into her faction. Ha! As if.
“Alright.” Revenant decides. “Only active villains, mooks and elite mooks and family members or love interests. My rule.” Demiurge nods. There is a loophole here, but it’s the sort of a loophole that only Decay knows about from those presently alive. “You want Amplitude as the next person, right?”
“Yes.” Demiurge replies. Yes, she is still on the floor, with his praetorians all around. Despite that, she sounds confident. “Your pick?”
“Kitsune.” Revenant replies.
“No.” Demiurge shoots him back. Oh, the gall of this woman.
“No?” Revenant asks back, his brow raised.
“I don’t trust you to not kill me before replacing me with Kitsune.” Demiurge replies. Huh, that’s surprisingly fair. Kitsune could do that. Even to the point of being able to use her individuality. Making Demiurge herself…
…rather redundant.
“Then it’s Black Knight.” Revenant replies. Demiurge has no issues with that. “I withhold the second slot. Next one on your side is Songbird, yes?”
“Yes.” Demiurge replies shortly. Yes, at least she is predictable. Two superpowered bodyguards in the game now, Black Knight played a similar role for him as Songbird did for Demiurge. Minus the ‘walking vibrator’ thing. “What's next on your side?”
“Kitsune.” Revenant replies dryly. Demiurge opens her mouth to disagree, but he doesn’t let her. “I don’t care about it, Demiurge. Kitsune is next. You’ll have Songbird to guard you from potential impersonators.” A part of him wants to meet her again and get over the mandatory Onslaught-set date. Besides, Oni deserves to meet her second bestie-for-life as soon as possible. “And I still withhold the second slot.”
It’s not like he expects this arrangement to last longer than that. Then, changes will come. But Demiurge probably thinks that he is gathering up the slots for a major release.
“After that…” Demiurge tries to speak again, probably to announce her desire to bring Biohazard back.
“No.” He interrupts her. “The situation out there has a tendency to change rapidly. Plotting so far ahead is pointless.” What were the chances of it reinforcing her misunderstanding of his plans? Pretty high.
Demiurge was intelligent. If someone ever made a list of masterminds (villainous or heroic) of the United States of America of his time, and sorted it according to their skill level, she’d be in the top ten. Somewhere around the middle of it. But…
Revenant was the number one on the list. Second and third place in his opinion were Mindscape, the Top Hero of New York, and Archvile (hard to say which one was better between the two as they never fought). Fourth and fifth were Spyglass, the strategist of the Vigilante Network, and Mastermind, the second leader of the Legion of Purity.
Demiurge was sixth. She outmatched almost everyone in the country on that one field. But she was now facing someone who outmatched her - and spent a lot of time observing her handiwork, the way she worked. He had Mastermind dissected in a similar way.
So, she fell for it. If only because she really wants to be on the same level as he is, and she subconsciously lies to herself that it’s a thing - because she clearly managed to get him to agree to a deal with her.
“Fine.” Demiurge relents. “We have a deal then. Can I put my clothes on? Unless this is my new official villain uniform.”
And she even has a sense of humor.
“Sure.” Revenant gestures at one of the praetorians, the man putting the clothes on the floor right next to her. “Oh, and no words about what I did to you with Onslaught.”
***
“You realize…” Humility says to him a while after they leave Demiurge behind, one of the praetorians tasked with showing her around. “... that she’ll try to tell that to Onslaught at some point in order to hurt you or something like this?”
“I know.” Revenant replied calmly. “That’s why I’m going to tell Onslaught everything myself. Today. Makes you wonder what sort of face Demiurge will make if she tries to drive a wedge between me and Oni, only for it to fail completely?”
Humility looks at him without a word.
***
He does what he said he was going to do. Some time later, he and Onslaught are sitting on the verge of their bed, Oni leaning on his side, holding his hand and letting him speak. What he did to Demiurge, why he did it. What sort of person he was by the end of the war.
Deranged. Still brilliant, but deranged. And it started to gnaw at his results, although not enough to stop the villains from winning, heroes having lost way too many big names during the battles in Western and Central United States.
She listens, her head resting on his shoulder.
He finishes speaking. Only then does she speak.
“Was it the worst thing you’ve done?” God, he wishes it was. He did a lot of nasty things. Wars… wars were nasty. He was a war criminal. Most of them were.
“There were… others.” Revenant admits. There is a glimpse of fear deep inside him, fear that Oni would push him away… and a glimpse of disgust at himself for thinking that. “I attacked a field hospital and slaughtered most of the people there to kill a single person, namely Molecular, one of the Top Heroes. Then there was Broadcast.”
“Broadcast?” She asks. “The Top Hero of Louisiana?”
“Yeah.” Revenant replies, before sighing painfully. “His individuality let him broadcast his emotional state to his allies in the area. It sounds weak, until you realize that there is also an element of ‘empowering’ to it. Broadcasting bravery alone made everyone in the area that was on his side stronger, faster, and improved their morale. It was a pain in the ass. The Government had him as the head of a major group of heroes that was holding Louisiana, maintaining a land corridor between Texas and the area the government held in the East.”
“And… How did you deal with him?” She asks. Yeah, that was… one of the most underhanded things he ever did. A logical way of dealing with this sort of individuality, but… not something he was particularly proud of.
“I discovered his civilian identity.” Revenant replies, the supervillain staring into space in front of him. “Kidnapped his family. Had them executed in front of him in the middle of the battle. His own individuality knocked out the entire hero force present in the city, only one or two being strong enough to manage to escape despite the crippling debuff.”
Hellmouth and Firestorm. Plus some superheroes that didn’t quite hit the Top Hero status, yet weren’t far behind that. Still, it was one of the worst disasters for the Hero Association during the war.
He felt her hand tense when he said the ‘executed’ word. He isn’t surprised. That was the battle that made Thorn decide that she can no longer fight on their side with clear conscience and retired soon after.
“Technically, they were all adults.” Revenant continues. “Broadcast was one of the older heroes. But… I lashed out against the world over the Government killing those close to me, and then I was doing the same thing to others. In a situation that, if you thought about it in context, was even worse than what the Gov did. They were at least desperate to kill Archvile, a last ditch attempt to stop the country from declining into a thousand years long era of darkness. I’ve done that to kill a bunch of people, most of which were pretty decent, just so I could kill even more of them for the sake of personal revenge. One more thing to the ‘I want to fix it’ folder.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Onslaught says nothing for a longer while, instead she returns to squeezing his hand comfortingly. He doesn’t deserve her, doesn’t he?
“If you ever fall so far off the deep end again, I’m going to punt you out of the window.” Onslaught eventually says. “Got it?”
Looks like the Knight Templar out there isn’t the only person interested in seeing him stop being a dickhead.
Jokes aside, saying that? Letting it all out? It’s… like a weight off his shoulder. At least once Onslaught didn’t punt him out of the window (not like they had any) right after hearing about what he did.
“Yes, ma’am.” Revenant replies quickly, bringing a smile to her face. Faint one. “Does burying the people who did all of that to Singularity alive counts as an atrocity?”
“Debatable.” Onslaught replies. “I would have punched them all to death instead. But I actually kind of like your option here.” Oh, now he really wants to take her here and now. “On a sidenote, how did you do it exactly?”
“Archvile enjoyed using a combination of individualities available to him, namely a warp one and a stone disintegration one, to make Villain Academy bases deep underground, with no contact with the surface.” Revenant replies. “Air and water recycling system, insulation, an inner heat sink with a person or two with minor individualities that could take care of what said sink radiated, that sort of thing. I just made sure that people from that particular base couldn’t get out. They all starved to death or killed each other before digging back to the surface.”
It doubled as a dead man’s hand. Archvile knew that if he was killed, most of his organization would go down with him. Good deterrent for potential inside rebels, who would only inherit a fraction of his power.
Even if his warper died, he always had spares. He could always give another person a warp individuality. Mistman died together with the Doctor and Starscream. Cloudburst defected to Revenant’s side. Eclipse never got the intel about the base locations due to being a technically independent supervillain. Judgment could warp, but she never told her dad about it.
Cloudburst was the only possible way out of many of the old VA bases. Revenant was scarce with handing it to people.
“Well, that’s nasty but to be honest well deserved.” Onslaught decides. “I know my dad killed people, it’s a thing when you’re leading a war. I get that it’s a necessity sometimes. But brainwashing? Ugh. Fuck those guys.”
Revenant has absolutely enough of it. So, he wraps his arm around his back and pulls her back, Oni letting out a loud ‘wha’ before her back lands on the bed. She realizes what was happening once their lips met and once his fingers found their way between her legs.
And from then on, they had something else on their mind.
***
“You gotta stop finding me dissing your enemies this hot.” Onslaught pouts at him a longer while (and a quick shower) later. They are back in their bed, Oni’s hair still slightly wet, and she is lying beside him, clinging on to him, her arm thrown all over his chest.
Both of them changed into their pajamas. Revenant still has a gun under his pillow. C’mon, he is a supervillain.
“Nope.” Revenant replies. “No way.” Onslaught shows him her tongue. “Is this an insult or an invitation?”
That brings out a chuckle out of her. Yes. He can make sex jokes nowadays. It’s a new development. He still isn’t sure how to deal with that. But he feels as if it makes him more ‘normal’.
Oni grins, before making the ‘oh, now that you mentioned it’ look. Then she tells him to help her hop onto her wheelchair (he does that, his question of ‘what is it about’ left unanswered). And then?
Then she rolls out of the room, telling him to wait for a moment.
He stays in his bed, reclined on the pillows, for about five minutes. Then, Onslaught finally returns.
She rolls into the room, stopping right in front of the still open door, with an impish smile on her face. That after maybe three seconds changes into a frown.
“No reaction from you.” She says. Looks like she expected something to happen. “She isn’t behind me, right?”
Revenant begins to form a solid suspicion of what it was going to be about. But, in the meantime, he cooperates. And says that no, there is no one there.
“Thermy, stop being shy and come out.” She then says loudly, confirming Revenant’s suspicions. He also sees something of a mumble coming from outside. “Do. It. Now.”
Hypothermia shows up, the upper half of her body popping out from behind the edge of the door. Revenant almost breaks into loud laughter. Because somehow (somehow), they managed to find something she could wear to bed that was appropriately cute.
An adult onesie. With a hood. Brown. Judging from the shape of the ‘face’ on the hood above, it was made to resemble an otter. It’s absolutely adorable. The faint blush on Mia’s face (the one that if translated to a person with normal intensity of expressions would be a complete and total freak-out) only makes it better.
“W-well…” Revenant manages not to cackle loudly, if only because he doesn’t want to make the freak out worse. “... it really fits you, Mia.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Onslaught replied cheerfully in her place. Hypothermia, naturally, isn’t in a shape to answer herself. “C’mon, Thermy. Time to push me towards the bed. Go on.”
Mia takes a deep breath, before gathering enough mental strength to show the rest of herself, helping Onslaught get to her bed.
“Oni, just be honest with me here.” Revenant, observing it all from the bed, decides to say. “Did the list of your motivations for making me date your older sister include the fact that you wanted to stop choosing whom do you want to sleep cuddled up with?”
“Yes.” Onslaught is completely shameless about it. “We’re sleeping together.” Revenant glances at Mia. He expected her to freak out over that, but to his slight surprise, she seems to be into it. “Anything against this?”
“You do know that we’re at a ‘first kiss and a rather awkward small talk afterwards’ stage?” Revenant asks. Hypothermia finishes helping her into the bed, Onslaught promptly grabbing him under the quilt and getting as close to him as possible. Mia is clearly having a moment of freak out over where she is supposed to go now exactly. Revenant sighs and gestures at her to come to his other side. Then it’s back to Onslaught. “Isn’t it a bit early to…”
“Nope.” Onslaught cuts in. “It's not too early. Me and Thermy slept in the same bed for years. What’s the issue?”
How is Revenant supposed to explain that having night cuddles with your female best friend as a heterosexual female is something different than having night cuddles with the same woman as a heterosexual male?
Because, to be honest, the second Hypothermia gets into bed properly and decides to hug him from her side too, he realizes the mistake of letting her hop onto that side of the bed. Mistakes were made.
And hot damn, if she isn’t soft.
Revenant looks up at the ceiling, sighs in realization that he is going to absolutely die, then accepts his fate. Then he has another imminent death realization when he understands that the chances of Kitsune trying to jump into the relationship were actually pretty big, and he wasn’t sure if he was in an ethical position to say no to it after accepting Hypothermia.
How exactly did he put himself into the position suggesting imminent harem ending? If you could even call it that way, as the list of girls involved was very small for an actual harem ending, and it had the explanation of their backstory to tie them all together.
What happened to him? Was he so tired of his asexuality (and complete disinterest in romance) born out of his death seeking tendencies that he snapped to another extreme? It’s all because he ended up listening to Oni and found himself incapable of saying no, was it?
He glances to the side, seeing Mia’s face in the dim light of the room, the woman clearly trying to return the look to him but failing, her eyes drifting to the side.
“Well, at least one of you isn’t a heretic.” He says dryly. “And instead has perfectly normal sleeping habits.”
“What are you talking about, Revy?” He hears from under the quilt, Onslaught hidden under the covers completely. “Oxygen is irrelevant, I want maximum warmth! That’s important. And you’re very warm. The rest is just making sure that I get the most of it.”
Wow. She is absolutely spoiled rotten, isn’t she?
***
“Did Demiurge do anything?” Revenant asks Humility in the morning, the AI dropping by his office.. He is looking forward to the moment when the answer will be ‘yes’.
“Nothing significant.” Humility replies. “I think she’s still getting over the existential dread. Got a guided trip around. Got a murderous stare from Thorn when they showed up around the aeroponics and just left. Tried to chat with Overhaul but they were too busy and seemed to have given her a cold shoulder. Clockmaker was asleep at the time, so no talk with her.”
Overhaul gave Demiurge a cold shoulder? That had to hurt. When the Halworth Industries fell and Clockmaker died, there were a few survivors, mostly people who weren’t on Ceres when it happened. Demiurge, Overhaul, Amplitude, Biohazard and Songbird, from bigger names. Junk Knight, Wolfhound and Clockmaker herself didn’t make it, together with most of the corporation’s mooks.
Demiurge was the dragon. Technical superior for the rest. But Overhaul was a wild card, unfettered master of the biochemical that was part of the HI because it offered them… avenues. But it seems that Demiurge still expected something out of them. For old times.
Didn’t work. Great.
Making sure that Demiurge was under observation (thanks to the ship’s security system) was only natural.
“Keep me updated.” Revenant replies. Humility nods. “How are the ballistic tests going?”
“Destro is invulnerable to conventional modern weaponry.” The AI replies. “Even tactical rifles fail to pierce his body in an active mode. Dedicated anti-tank weaponry can injure him, but with his regeneration speed it’s not a guaranteed kill unless they hit his head..”
Yes. Destro volunteered to get shot by the local weaponry to see just how deadly they were exactly when people had their individualities on. With Overhaul on standby for healing/resurrection. It was a better option than involving Onslaught, honestly.
“This, however, doesn’t expand to more exotic weapons.” Humility continues. “Especially exotech ones. Sorry but regardless of how strong you are, I don’t imagine you shrugging off a, say, plasma cannon round. Balls of superheated plasma with temperature counted in millions of degrees Celsius rarely leave anything behind.”
Fair. Even Overhaul wouldn’t manage to patch that up. But, he is fairly certain that Captain Patriotic could survive that if she knew what was coming. Then again, Captain Patriotic was freaking terrifying.
“Those aren’t common, right?” Revenant asks just in case.
“No, but I’m mentioning this just in case.” Humility replies. “Also, while tactical rifles can’t pierce through sufficient durability amp up, they can still score critical hits. Like, say, when you shoot someone into an open mouth or an eye.” Bad mental images, bad.
“So, in other words, we can charge regular infantry, but we should keep our distance from reinforced positions and, especially, heavy weapons teams.” Revenant summarizes it. Since Destro and Onslaught have comparable durability levels, this also meant that Onslaught might have been allowed to do something in the field. Once she would stop recovering from the operation. “Great, that gives me a baseline. Virtue? Singularity?”
“Similar case.” Humility replies. “Singularity can generate gravity fields that can deflect or repel bullets from conventional weaponry, including tactical rifles unless they’re fired up close. However, there are weapons that it won’t stop, especially energy weapons.”
Understandable.
“Virtue’s present level is somewhat comparable to that.” Humility continues. “Two or three shots from tactical rifles should shatter her bulwark, but she can recast it unless she gets ganged upon by several people armed in those. This, naturally, should get better if she gets better lighting to work with.”
“Great.” Revenant nods. “That’s what I needed. How much time before Amplitude gets resurrected?”
“Four hours.” Humility replies. “Anything that I’m supposed to know about her?”
“Aside from the fact that she is a mass murderer?” Revenant asks dryly. Leave it to Demiurge to fall in love with a person that would feel pretty fine in the Sanguine Pact. “Make sure that she can’t damage the tubes if she loses it after resurrection. Move the other tube behind the primary one, we’ll also put Virtue and Hypothermia to the sides of it to make sure that they can shield them all if she has an episode.”
Sure. She had a backstory that more or less justified Amplitude’s fall from grace. But the degree of it? That was on her.
“Duly noted.” Humility comments. “On a sidenote, do you remember what I asked you for when I had Onslaught inspected? I think I have a few things to talk with you about when you have the time.”
How lovely. It’s going to be another boatload of complications, isn’t it?
***
Another Hypothermia chapter?! Well, yes.
Why?
Because this:
Obraz [https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1029465796570783838/1070946600471515186/00009.png?width=651&height=651]