The amount of time it takes a group of eight twenty-somethings to polish off two pizzas is not as long as I thought. Even with Faye and I not being able to participate. And as soon as everyone was done all trash was tossed and the excitement was palpable. Then we went to commit the worst crime of our lives.
Casual jaywalking.
Okay, no, everyone here probably has a rap sheet that could put them away for an entire mortal lifetime… if they could hold us in the first place.
One of Michael’s less-used spells suddenly took over the group, any onlookers would see us just… stop existing to an extent, and that would require them to actually be looking at us to begin with.
We walked up to the front doors, and with a few ‘U’ shapes I used my dismantle spell. We were in the lobby, Lucy was already in the security cameras and Erik was on the lookout for anything else.
All it was from there was a matter of climbing the stairs for fifteen or so flights.
Once we reached the ‘top’ we found that the roof was mostly gone, there was still some cover, but the stability was definitely something I was questioning…
Not to mention that the last floor was really just a bunch of cubicles in an open floor plan. There was nothing of real interest from the first look.
“What kind of treat does the conductor think they’re giving us?” Reed complained.
“Honestly don’t know…” Michael mused, “Hey do you think you can power up one of the computers? Probably one of the ones in an important office?”
Reed nodded and started to draw a spell form, crackling sounds following him along.
“Hey… these papers have some weird stuff on them.” Casper held a spreadsheet from one of the cubicles up. “Whatever this place was, moved a lot of money around.”
Taylor gave out a sharp whistle when she saw what was on the paper, she then snatched the paper out of Casper’s hand. “Wow, it’s measured in milligrams, probably a few million for like… two.”
“Hmm…” I wracked my brain, “Probably a super catalyst or something. Those kinds of numbers sound like what they paid to move the Hyper Crystals around during the blue war.”
“Aren't they all used up though?” Casper asked
“Oh! I heard that there’s a possibility that they’re magical in origin.” Rose piped in, “Or, that’s what my mother said… but if it’s true then they could make more.”
“Probably not possible. I’ve detected absolutely no magic or anything else here whatsoever, and something like that would leave traces even if the office never saw the stuff.” Faye stated.
“Hey Erik!” Michael shouted from what looked like a manager’s office, “We got the computer on! And it’s still connected to something. Do you think you can hack in?”
“Oh sure, ask the cyborg to hack the computer. You know I can only do so much right?” I heard a laugh from Rose at Erik’s complaints, probably because he’s always going to her for his gardening woes. “I mean, come on, I’m not a tech-based villain… wow that was easy… It’s like it was set to automatically log in. Guess that they didn’t have to worry about security from this thing?”
A wave of concern passed through everyone with the implications. If a place like this dealt with millions in transactions, but no security on their computers…
Lucy and Faye immediately started to cast a fresh round of untraceability spells.
“Hmm… looks like it accesses a database of some kind,” Michael said to the rest of us. “What… Oh, GODS!”
Michael shot up and did his best to turn the monitor to everyone, showing what looked to be a journal for some kind of experiment.
Rareium, whoever owns this place was doing experiments with rareium.
If the name itself wasn’t a clue, the stuff was basically a super mineral. It was something that had so many possible applications that it was illegal to work with it without the approval of an international council.
Now, some of the stuff was straight gibberish to someone who didn’t speak mad scientist… But literally, everyone here has been forced to spend time around a mad alchemist, so even someone like Reed was able to piece together what some of this stuff meant.
“It’s meant to be an intelligence booster.” It finally clicks for me, “The only problem is, is that the major side effect is death.”
“Oof.” was Michael’s reaction.
“You know…” Casper elbows me after thinking for a moment, “If we get the Doc on this and give it to a monster that can handle the stress...”
“We can make our monsters sapient.” Sable caught on before I did.
My mind’s eye opened, just thinking of all of the possibilities. With some sacrifices, it was possible to make a particularly intelligent monster… as long as you didn’t mind that it died in one hit.
“Wait…” I said, “But what would the applications be? ‘Cause if we’re tossing sapient monsters into the fray. Then it feels kinda wrong.”
Don’t get me wrong, having monsters that could direct themselves would be insanely useful, but so far we’ve conditioned the heroes to kill them on sight.
“Hey Lucy, do you have a spare drive?” Erik held his hand out to the photographer, who in turn rolled her eyes and produced an SD card from somewhere.
“Wait, I have an idea!” Casper said excitedly, “What if we… We have company.”
The mood instantly went serious, and everyone moved to spread out. I quickly made my way to the stairwell door to see if I could hear anything.
“I assure you sir, any and all incriminating equipment was destroyed in the incident, and everything that could be salvaged was promptly recovered if it wasn’t taken in the evacuation. And the heroes didn’t bother to investigate the offices.”
Casper held his hand in the air, shaking four fingers to the beat.
“I don’t care that everything is safe, this place should have been scrubbed clean the second it was compromised, just count yourself lucky that you still have a job.”
I grimaced and sent my own signal to everyone, bringing my finger across my neck, guessing we were dealing with a supervillain.
In a moment ten glass orbs were held high in the air and brought down hard.
“Thank you, sir, I humbly apologize for my oversight… What was that? You two, go check that.”
The sound of boots stomping up the last flight of stairs was quickly followed by the door slamming open. Two armed guards quickly scanned the scene, only to find one thing.
Firework, standing a few feet in front of them, and with a snap they were flashbanged.
The next few moments were quite hectic for the poor men, as one of the nearby potted plants suddenly found the strength and will to grab the guns from their hands. Then their feet were suspiciously stuck in place so they couldn’t dodge the robotic hands that went to rip their helmets off. And as soon as they regained their sight their world was filled with sparkles.
I had to rush in and grab them by the back of their shirts so that they didn’t slam into the ground once they were asleep.
“Ah, that makes sense.” An older man was standing in the doorway. Late fifties with the fur cape and gold lined cane, mostly gray hair, and leather gloves. The obvious evil billionaire type. Behind him was a dude in a beige suit jacket, looking completely out of his depth.
“Once is a coincidence, twice is a conspiracy, or am I getting that wrong?” The man calmly walked over to the closest chair, and with his powerful presence, he managed to make a half-broken office roller look like a seat meant for a king.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“To think that I have the displeasure of attracting the attention of The Theater. The most unpredictable group of supervillains in the world.”
“Um… actually sir, that would be the Coalition of Villains.”
“Shut up.” The office worker flinched back at the man’s command. “So I might as well ask as to what you lot think you’re doing here?”
“Dunno, not much.” Emcee replied as he leaned up against the cubicle wall next to the billionaire, “We were just told there would be something cool here.”
“So is it true? That you all act on blind faith to orders to some kind of master.” The man looked like he was caught off guard for a moment, but his expression morphed into genuine curiosity.
“Yup!” Bouquet answered, “Wouldn’t be fun otherwise.”
“Finally, it’s done loading.” Photographer rounded a corner, holding the SD card up.
A shocked look of realization crossed the man’s face, then a great amount of anger was directed at the office worker. “You are after my research into the intelligence formula. It won’t do any of you any good though, not without access to rareium.”
“Oh, yeah, no.” I chimed in, the man’s gaze settled on me, and I did my best not to shutter. “It’s incredibly easy to make. Just need purified granite and some good-quality gold. Crumble and melt them together then put them under thirteen tones of pressure while under a few billion volts of electricity and superheated. Then in a week or so, you have a nice chunk of mid-grade rareium.”
The man was now absolutely bewildered as if he didn’t believe me. Of course, everyone else was giving me a ‘really’ look. Except for Bouquet.
“Yeah, the doc has a few pounds of the stuff sitting around the lab at like… all times.” She said a bit too excitedly.
“No… no not possible, and if you lot even had access to rareium none of you would survive any kind of dose of the formula. Even with your odd quirks, it would only spell disaster.” He quickly stood up, flaring out his cape in the process.
“Why would we do that?” Emcee asked, “You know what, Carnival, keep being a nerd.”
“Har har,” I stuck my tongue out at Emcee, then turned to the man with a smile. “If we're right all you need to do is minimize the dose of your formula, probably with some tweaks, then inject it into the base code of a new lifeform.” The man and his lackey would see our smiles grow a bit… malicious. “Then base. line. sapience.”
The air hung heavy for a moment, as the dots connected for the older villain. Whatever he was going to say next got cut off when he noticed something from outside.
Someone was flying near… Actually right towards us.
“Welp… that’s our cue.” Record voiced, “Nice talking and all, you should probably put some passwords on your system though.”
The office worker suddenly began to sputter when Firework lifted his communicator up to his face. He gave the command and with it, nine other lights pulsed…
We were back in the lab, and I still don’t know how comfortable I am with the whole collar thing. As soon as I step out of my chamber I put myself through the discomfort of the costume bomb so I can revel in the whole sweatpants thing again.
However, Erik, Casper, Rose, and Michael don’t even bother trying to change out of their costumes before they’re glued to a monitor. Making a vain attempt to parse through the information we just got.
“Hey… did we ever get the dude’s name?” Reed says with a big stretch, followed by a yawn.
Yeah, no, I could feel the tiredness creeping up on me as well. The past few days were catching up to me and I was definitely gonna need to take tomorrow slowly.
“Um… got it.” Taylor holds up her phone, showing a picture of the man we just stole from. “That was Victor Strout or the Green Colonel.”
“Oh wow…” A wave of dread fell over everyone who was listening as I couldn’t help but vocalize, “We were very lucky.”
“Yeah… he could have obliterated us just then…” Sable said the obvious.
“Wait who?” Michael said, “I don’t remember who that is.”
“The Green Colonel is a part of the Assembly of Superiors.” Taylor said, “Fought in the blue war for Russia and the U.K. before they kicked him out for his research into super serums.”
A big ‘oh’ was all Michael said before he returned to the intelligence formula, but I couldn’t help but feel like we were let off.
To start, the Assembly of Superiors is a group of a bunch of rich old people who believe that they are better than everyone… and some say they are due to the sheer amount of power between the ten or so members. Between the money and political power, they hold on top of the fact that they are all supervillains.
Now the Green Colonel? Back in the blue war, he took his super serum in a bid for power and it worked. He has extreme levels of strength and durability, and it’s to the point where we would not have won if we fought.
If we had the time to coordinate as a team and drew him onto our playing field we could manage. Getting caught off guard in a random building in New York? No chance.
“Alright… I’m'a head home.” Faye broke the awkward silence, “I’m gonna try to make it up to Dr. Yancy by going into the clinic tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’m beat.” I say, “See ya around.”
“Oh yeah! Michael.” Rose said, “Tía Angel is cooking dinner tonight, we can’t miss that again.”
“Oh, shoot, you’re right! We need to go home now.” Michael began rushing to his chamber, only to remember that he had to calibrate it.
I laughed at the antics for a moment then said the rest of my goodbyes, getting Erik and Casper to promise to send me a copy of the research. I also made sure to joke about how everyone was forced to use the teleporters when I had my personal portal. I even heard Reed absolutely lose it when I dropped the portal beneath my feet so as to fall through…
Now… Rest, Relaxation, and a crap ton of studying to do.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Victor Strout was very confused. He had spent years diligently studying and researching the possible applications of the world's rarest substances, and all it took was a group of snot-nosed wannabes with unknown backing to shatter his life’s purpose.
To make things worse, the animal had given him something worth trillions on a whim… and it works.
Victor had a time when he made diamonds and other such jewels for some failed project, so he had the tools available. The extra components of heat and electricity were jury-rigged but no scientist worth his salt would let that stop him.
The gold as well was way too easy to acquire. It was actually the granite that was a bit more of a challenge, but once again not a roadblock…
And now Victor was holding up a rock, nothing to speak of unless one likes the look of gold melted around granite, but it was a breakthrough of a century. If one were to put the small thing under a microscope, one could find flecks of rareium.
“I do say, losing the New York location wasn’t even a setback to begin with. Now you have something that can set us ahead by decades.” The Black Baron marvels as he should. The dark-skinned man was never one to deal with the sciences, but he was very willing to profit from it in whatever way he could.
“Yes, it is.” The Green Colonel sighed, then took a sip of his whiskey. It was a nice one, but Victor still preferred the cheaper stuff, a remnant of his younger days. “But I don’t care for the amount of luck that went into this. Not to mention the fact that it was The Theater that set me down this path.”
“Victor honey.” The White Nurse said as she swirled her wine. She was the wife of the Red General, but her own formidable skill as a spymaster was more than enough to earn her a spot in the Assembly of Superiors. Albeit she did have the audacity to call their little group ‘friends’. “You were always someone who looked a gift horse in the mouth. I wouldn’t put it past those children to have not thought twice about giving you that information. They are young people who believe themselves agents of chaos after all. Hammond, you have encountered one of them before, correct?”
“Ah yes,” The Black Baron laughed to himself, “I think his name is Emcee or something like that. He wanted to learn battlefield tactics from me, I still don’t know how he found me in Iraq though.”
“Ha,” The Green Colonel let himself ruminate on that information, “Now that makes me want to avoid a fight with them even more.”
“Victor…” The White Nurse tapped her sharpened nails against the bar counter, “Do Not tell me you have let that group of children become one of your stupid fixations…”
“Fine, Charlotte… I will not tell you that.” Victor’s retort elicited a laugh from Hammond.
“You already draw enough trouble from The League as is.” The White Nurse’s tone sharpened. “What you or any of us don’t need right now is a dangerous bunch of miscreants as our enemies.”
“That's the thing though…” Victor let his thoughts run for a moment, “I wouldn’t want to involve myself in a war of information with Photographer, or go against Emcee leading a well-armed unit. Any kind of close-quarters combat with Fiesta would spell disaster, and that’s even if Choir’s nullifications don’t get to me first… But when I talked to them yesterday afternoon, I knew I could take them all then and there. After all, they are just a bunch of ‘children’...”
Victor picked his rock up again and started to roll it around in his hand. “I spent a good deal watching the footage from the recent attack. Requiem did almost nothing of substance. Carnival is obviously new to the game, both of his major attacks left him at a severe disadvantage. Firework just played the whole scenario wrong, assuming the whole thing was won with confidence and adrenaline from the start…”
Victor sat back in his seat, holding the rock to the light. “It makes me wonder just who their benefactor really is. Charlotte, are you aware of who the ‘Doc’ figure they speak about is?”
“It’s generally accepted that it’s he who makes the monsters they fight with,” Hammond answered first, eliciting an odd look from Charlotte. “What? Carnival is a shapeshifter. Of course, I’ve done some research on the group.”
“Ha, all it took was for the Blood Merchant to get one over on you and now you shake in your boots at the mention of an animal wannabe” Charlotte could help but poke fun at the war master.
“You say that, but you haven’t had twenty of your men falling for a woman, only to find it was a man, and he has wiped out months worth of supplies.” Hammond aired out his grudge.
“Oh, that does remind me, Victor, what did you do with those men you brought to New York?” Charlotte’s eyes settled on the Green Colonel, waiting for gruesome details.
“Hmm? Oh, Stephen and Noah.” Victor stared off into the distance, “The result of the encounter was no fault of their own. They were accosted by a coordinated trap from supers, so I’m going to let them stay on the force. But if you wanted something I did give the branch manager a nice punishment.” The White Nurse’s eye began to shimmer in excitement. “I scrambled his memories beyond return and dumped him naked in the anomaly. Some time in the fey-wild should turn him into something useful”
“The fey-wild?” The Black Baron said with a confused tone. “Not if you used the one in Maine. Christopher just told me the fey-wild isn’t accessible in the Americas until at least mid-July… And I know that the merr-wild closed off to earth at the end of February…”
The Wight Nurse let out a laugh, catching the two men off guard. “That would only leave the drake-wild. Oh, the poor thing…” She took another sip of her wine, “Well, if the creature does actually manage to survive, Drake-touched can provide very valuable and destructive assets.”
“Ha, well if he’s stuck there I at least wish that he’d get a good tan going.” The Green Colonel mused, “I swear I’ve never seen someone look so much like a ghost while still alive.”