Chapter Text
Clown glared at Ash down the table.
Ash, unfortunately had gotten used to it over the three weeks Branzy had been out injured.
The fact that Ash couldn’t see Clown’s sharp gnashing teeth and glowing red eyes from behind his mask, probably played a role in that as well.
“So, are you just going to glare at me or are we actually going to start the meeting?” Ash asked mildly annoyed.
“Well, any updates on Spoke’s little bribery shop?” Clown begrudgingly asked. Most heroes had little less then legal business or side gigs. That was what the team was targeting for the most part. That and making sure the heroes were getting no work done.
Spoke had set up a little bribery shop that villains could go to, to bribe the hero into letting them off the hook for the kos.
Real convenient.
So far progress was slow, mainly because most of their schemes relied on rigging the tech the shop used, and without Branzy being there to rig the tech… things often didn’t work and no one knew how to fix it.
So, they’d settle for just breaking stuff- which did not have the same effect.
In Branzy’s words, it didn’t have the super villain ‘pizzazz.’
He was so good at making big elaborate statements. The way the two would make plans is that Clown would come up with what he wanted done, then Branzy would turn it into this shining, glittering, impossible to ignore statement.
Like the casino, originally Clown was just going to take up one of the abandoned properties, which in hindsight would’ve been a terrible idea, but then Branzy came in and was like, ‘no no, I can scam Red. Just give me a day and a half.’ And somehow Red ended up paying Branzy a hundred thousand dollars.
Clown didn’t know how or why and he didn’t ask.
“Maybe we should just put terrorizing Spoke on hold till Branzy heals?” Chief suggested.
It wasn’t a bad idea-
Suddenly the meeting room door swung open. “Or ya’ll could learn to attach tech correctly.” Branzy declared walking into the room. “But I’m here now so I suppose that can wait till the next time I’m out sick.”
“Wooooo! The engineer is back!” Ash declared.
“You sure you’re good Branzy? Sprains usually need four weeks to heal- and it’s only been three.” Rek asked.
It was a very reasonable question. Especially considering Branzy wasn’t ready to be in the field yet. He was still in a splint. A specially designed splint that did let him walk without any kind of limp- built by Branzy himself obviously. But still.
“Yes, I’m fine. I even have a little extra support. Even though I don’t need it.” Branzy wasn’t looking at Clown, but it was definitely directed at him. “So- are we going to terrorize Spoke or what?” Branzy asked sitting down in his chair.
He laid his arm on the armrest, and Clown gripped it in his hand. He was trying to show his displeasure in Branzy’s decision.
When Branzy showed Clown the splint he hid his suit because he knew where it was going. Apparently Branzy found it.
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Clown insisted on coming with Ash and Branzy to rig Spoke’s shop. He was going to do his best to make sure Branzy stayed safe.
The shop was small, it was basically just a shack with a handful of atm looking machines.
The way it worked is that a villain would come up, pay an abhorrent amount of money to get a token. The token was a tracking device that if you had on you, the heroes wouldn’t kill you.
It wasn’t difficult to smell out the scam.
What Branzy was doing, is switching the tokens around so that the watches heroes used to see the trackers would become trackers, and the tokens would display the heroes location.
Both locations would also display to a device Branzy had.
It’d be discovered pretty quickly, that’s why Branzy was also rigging his wiring to explode if messed with.
“So- do you have like, a day job? Or-” Ash asked.
Clown purposefully turned his head and mask incredibly slowly to look at him. Despite Ash’s face being one glitchy hole, Clown could still see the awkward expression that would be there.
“Well excuse me for trying to make small talk.” He mumbled.
“About civilian identity’s? Yeah sure.”
Clown wondered if Ash got a suspicion on who he actually was. Though he doubted it. Ash was one of the people who underestimated him based on his crutches. He was also one of the people who had seen him trying to walk on a bad day without the crutches.
The thought probably didn’t even cross his mind.
“Ok, ok, bad taste in small talk… hmmm… you kill anyone lately?” Ash tried.
“Yes.”
He was Clownpierce, of course he killed someone lately.
Speaking of killing someone lately. Here comes a little hero.
Clown banged on the shed to warn Branzy to finish up fast.
He doubted this would turn into a problem for him, but you can never be to careful.
“I don’t think you two are supposed to be here.” The hero declared grinding his fists together. Little sparks came out. Electricity powers huh? This would be interesting.
The fight went fairly well, Ash and Clowns fighting styles worked together quite efficiently.
Ash had the villain wrapped around in his meteor hammer, he then pulled it back hard, throwing him towards the shed.
Clown watched in what was essentially slow motion as Branzy cautiously open the door and the hero flew backwards directly towards it.
He opened the door about one fourth of the way before it was slammed shut in his face.
A crash could be heard from the inside, as well as an; “ow!”
Branzy sounded like a wounded puppy.
“If he has any kind of serious injury I’m killing you.” Clown said walking towards the shed.
“Oh come on! That wasn’t my fault.” Ash groaned.
Clown opened the door, moving the hero blocking it by cutting him in half.
Branzy was on the floor, but clearly not injured. However he was holding his face through the mask.
“Branzy?”
“I broke my nose.”
Clown looked over at Ash.
“That’s not a serious injury, right?” He asked.
“No.” Clown was still going to punch him later though.
“It’s a minor break, I already pushed the bone back in place, I can breathe for the most part, there is a lot of blood.” Branzy said he was holding his hand under his vial.
Clown had a decision to make, either ask Branzy if he could inspect the break, revealing that he’d seen Branzy’s face before… or try to navigate getting Branzy to a safe- Clown was looking at the break.
“Branzy, can I see?” Clown asked kneeling down to where Branzy was sitting.
“Yeah sure- make sure Glitch doesn’t see.”
“Wait like-” Ash asked from behind them.
“If you don’t shut up and mind your business I will kill you.” Clown said as he slowly lifted Branzy’s vail.
It was a fairly minor break. It was really swollen and there was a lot of blood, but it would be fine after an ice pack and a good bandage job to hold the bone in place.
“I told you-” Clown started to whisper.
“I’d be in the situation regardless of my ankle.” Branzy quickly shut Clown up.
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“Oh- this is going to piss them off so bad.” Rek declared looking at one of the flyers.
“You said it yourself, hit them were it hurts most. Their egos.” Branzy practically cackled.
It’d been less then a week since Branzy broke his nose and he already came up with another scheme.
Clown laughed looking at one of the posters. It was a picture of Prince Zam on one side with a white line drawn down the center and ‘Zam Jewel’ on the other side.
They’d worked hard to find out a lot of major heroes identities, and then find a good picture of them to put side by side.
Zam was the easiest, he was a relatively public figure from a wealthy family, but they got plenty others.
Leowook, aka Leonardo Westwood. A lawyer apparently.
Spoke, aka Rain Spire. A photographer.
Subz, aka Samuel Zachary. A cafe owner.
They had others, mainly heroes who were really in favor of the kos who called themselves the ‘cleansers.’
They had flyers that they were going to spend around the city, as well as giant posters that they were going to hang from landmarks.
“You know, they might come for our identities after we pull this stunt.” Chief commented.
“Well, I’m legally dead. So I don’t really care.” Branzy commented.
Clown knew that information didn’t really matter- he knew half of the people here already knew that- but still. Why??
“Suppose that is kinda a non issue for you huh?” Rek asked picking up a pile of posters.
“Wait- your legally dead? Why-” Ash started to ask.
Clown was doing his best to pretend he didn’t hear that information so he wouldn’t get dragged into this conversation.
They went out in teams of two to set up the giant posters;
Branzy and Clown, duh.
Glitch and Squiddo, duh.
Chief and Rek, because they were the two left.
Also, Chief was horrible in a fight so it made sense to team him up with the most super powered Villain- vigilante. Because RR2 wasn’t teChnIcalLy a vILlaiN.
Clown rolled his eyes every time Rek brought that up.
But it didn’t matter when he and Branzy were at the top of a building rolling out their second poster.
It was the Spoke one.
“How long do you think it’ll take for heroes to show up?” Branzy asked flinging smaller flyers off the building.
Clown was about to respond when he saw something flying at them from a distance.
“Now.” Was the only word he could get out before ducking out of the way, nearly getting beheaded by Spokes glider. He drew his scythe in the same motion.
“Welp, that was fast.” Branzy laughed before starting to make his escape from the building.
Clown could keep Spoke distracted.
“Now, where do you think you’re going Branzy?” Clown heard a voice saying.
Glancing backwards he saw Subz, not good. Subz had super strength. It wasn’t as powerful as Zam’s but it still wasn’t good.
“You like the photo Spoke? Tried to get a good one.” Acting confident was probably the best way out of this situation.
Branzy wasn’t a good fighter, but he had things like smoke bombs and electro- whatever’s. He’d be better at fighting Spoke.
Clown could handle Subz.
They probably needed to switch opponents.
He probably needed to kill both of these heroes quick.
The fight wasn’t fun. Spoke kept flying to high for Clown to reach and whenever he went to go help Branzy he kept Clown focused on him with his whip.
Clown tried grounding his glider several times, but it seemed it was made out of some kind of mutant power resistant metal, or something.
Whatever it was Clown couldn’t manipulate it.
Branzy was having a predictably hard time fighting Subz, or well, doing his best to dodge his attacks. Which to be fair, he was being quite successful in that since.
But clearly Branzy had the same thought process as Clown.
Suddenly Branzy bolted straight past Clown, nearly getting himself his by his scythe… but instead the blade came down right in front of Subz.
Opponents successfully switched. Now, kill him fast.
Subz was clearly not confident in his new match up. Both Clown and Subz were close range fighters, but Clown had slightly more range with his scythe vs Subz’s sword.
A scythe wasn’t a very practical weapon, to get proper range with it it’d have to be incredibly big and heavy, luckily heavy wasn’t an issue for Clown.
Most people also weren’t familiar with fighting an opponent with a scythe, so that was another advantage.
This would be over quick.
Clown could hear Branzy letting off bombs so hopefully he was doing well.
Subz suddenly Clown saw Subz smirk. He heard Branzy scream.
Clown turned his head just in time to see Spoke’s whip retracting from Branzy’s shoulder.
It hit.
There was a deep red gash in Branzy’s shoulder.
Branzy tried to turn, but the whip managed to snag on his ankle. No, his ankle splint.
The force flipped Branzy upside down.
Clown was about to help, when he felt something collide with his face. It was a punch from Subz.
It knocked Clown back a few steps but he managed to block the next blow. But he couldn’t help.
He kept trying and trying to get over to Branzy but- couldn’t.
His attention was turned over to Subz for what felt like a second, when he turn back, Branzy was in a headlock, dangling in the air. His legs bond by Spokes whip.
No.
No no no.
Not again.
Not another person Clown cared about being killed by heroes- “No!”
Clown didn’t mean to say it out loud but he did. Spoke heard him.
Spoke flew out over the side of building.
“Oh, so you do care about your little pet?” He laughed.
Branzy was trying to wrestle out of Spokes arms but to no avail. The whip dug deeper into Branzy’s legs. Clown could hear a horrific sizzle of Branzy’s suit against the whip.
He was still in an active fight with Subz.
“So how much do you know about your master hmmm Branzy?” Spoke asked.
Clown knew what that question led to, what it always led to.
“Nothing! He doesn’t tell me anything!” Branzy yelled.
Clown locked eyes with Branzy, even though Branzy’s vail Clown could see something in Branzy’s eyes.
“I don’t really believe you~” Spoke taunted.
That sealed it. That sealed what Clown and Branzy knew.
“You’ve had your fun- fallow your stupid kos and drop me.” Branzy gritted out.
“Oh no Branzy, you have some info that we want.” Spoke laughed.
Subz suddenly leapt grabbing onto Spokes glider, and they were gone.
No.