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Alex turned up at the hospital the second they knew which one Morgan was taken to. They didn’t bother with the check in desk, and demanded one of the nurses take them to Morgan’s room. She tried to argue hospital protocol, but Alex just read her mind and brushed past, finding it themself.
Morgan was in a bad way. Broken bones, stitched up lacerations, and sedated with heavy pain killers. Their lung had been punctured by a broken rib and they had suffered an orbital blowout fracture. Alex wasted no time rectifying the situation, waving a hand and repairing Morgan's injuries. It was potentially too abrupt, however, as Morgan gasped in shock and potentially a bit of pain, but Alex was seeing red and didn't want to have to waste their time with niceties.
"Who did this?" They demanded, voice sharp and brittle like ice.
Morgan didn't reply right away, still groggy and unfocused, his words slurred and unintelligible. Alex tried to read his mind for the answers they wanted like they had the nurse, but Morgan's thoughts were too cloudy and didn't provide any answers. They couldn't see any of the attackers faces, everything shrouded. Alex cursed and turned to face another nurse who had followed them into the room and demanded to know everything they knew about Morgan's situation.
"Well I don't know much honestly. A civilian found him in an alley about 20 minutes away, and called an ambulance. He didn’t seem to have been there long, thankfully." They explained all they could before looking past Alex towards Morgan, whose face was strangely reverse swelling very rapidly. "Hey, what the fu-"
"Forget about it," Alex said, waving a hand at the nurse. "Go check on another patient."
Their face went limp, eyes dazed and unfocused. "Huh? Oh, right, right. I have to go check on another patient now…"
After the nurse left, Alex shut the door behind them and bent over the hospital bed, bringing their face close to Morgan’s ear. “Morgan, if you don’t tell me who did this, I am going to level this entire city,” they said, low and even. “Every single person who has ever even thought of coming into contact with you will be tortured beyond previously thought humanly possible, so unless you want me to ensure that hell becomes a real place, I suggest you muster up the energy to give me an answer.”
“I don't know, I've never fought them before,” Morgan said. His arm was pressed over his eyes, and he was mumbling. “I was jumped in the east district, near Roofer’s scraper, but I don’t know-”
“Was it Roofer’s people?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan repeated, quickly sounding annoyed. “Can’t this wait until-”
“I'll find out myself,” Alex interrupted. They stood up straight again, having gotten as much info as they were going to from Morgan while they were still in their state of post-fight adrenaline crash confusion. “I’ll be back later, I’ll send a doctor in to l-"
"No, Alex. Please. Just stay here, we can find them later. I need a minute, I want you to stay with me."
Alex hesitated. They never could tell Morgan no. Alex made the quick decision to double themself, and left their clone to sit with Morgan and keep him safe while they went out to make sure he stayed safe. Having to control both bodies was only a minor inconvenience, greatly overshadowed by their need to rectify the situation immediately.
They appeared in Rex Roofer’s top floor office a second later.
“Oh, fuck! Shit, Stewart, what the hell are you-”
Alex cut off Rex by cutting off his air supply. Rex started grabbing at his own neck, even though there was nothing really there, and Alex was reminded of the villain on Interplanetary Battles, and watching those movies with Morgan, which only pissed them off more because they had planned to watch the next movie together tonight, and by the way Morgan was talking, it sounded like they were going to have to reschedule.
“Earlier today someone was nearly killed in the alleyway outside this very building,” Alex said, slowly enunciating each word with malice, receiving the same information from Morgan in real time. They weren’t in the mood to repeat themself. “You’re going to tell me who did it, whether it was your men or others. Do I make myself clear?”
Rex, who at this point looked to be on the verge of passing out, nodded weakly, and Alex released him. He fell backwards, leaning onto his desk for support, taking deep, dragging breaths. “Who are you talking about, a name would help.”
“The Generator, a D tier villain whose main M.O. is robberies,” Alex replied.
“Yeah, I have no idea who that is,” Rex replied. Alex was reading his mind as he spoke, and they knew it was the truth. “Me and my people don’t usually deal with anything lower than a C tier. You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Great, now pull up the security footage.”
“What footage?” Rex asked.
“I know you have this entire building being surveyed inside and out, whatever cameras you have anywhere near any alleys I want the footage from.” Alex said.
“The camera room is on floor 43, let me call Sebastian and get him to send up-”
Alex teleported to floor 43 and grabbed the first person they saw, pinning them to the wall. “Where are the security camera feeds?”
“I- I don’t know, I’m not- That’s not my department,” The woman said, but she had lied. Alex had saw, for a brief moment, the room number label flash in her mind.
“Wrong answer,” they said with a fake pouting frown, and released her. He turned, heading in the direction of the correct room, leaving the woman screaming as she slowly turned to stone, starting with her hands and feet and working through the rest of her body.
Alex didn’t even bother with the two men in the security room, simply melting their organs where they stood, and stepping over their oozing bodies. They turned their attention to the screens, and rewound the footage from the two neighboring alleys to the start of the day, watching the footage at 5x speed until they found what they were looking for. Back at the hospital, Morgan was fighting sleep, and Alex was promising to still be there when they woke up.
Morgan had entered the alley on a motorcycle that Alex knew wasn't his, and tossed it aside, likely dumping it as evidence, before lock picking and entering through a door to the abandoned building on the other side of the alley.
Shortly after, a group of three civilians came meandering down the alley, coming from the opposite side as Morgan. They spotted the bike, and then noted that the door that Morgan had gone through was unlocked. They waited outside for a while, one on the phone, before two more people showed up, and all five went inside.
Alex couldn't see what happened inside the building.
The next thing they could see was the door flinging open, and two people running out, two of the original group of three. They bolted back the way they came, clearly trying to evacuate the scene. Then three more people came crashing into the alley; Morgan and only two of his attackers. One of them had visible powers, either using short spurts of super speed or close range teleportation to their advantage, while the other attacker seemed to fight with regular human abilities, albeit they did seem skilled in hand to hand combat and was wielding a large metal pipe. Morgan managed to get on top of the dumpster and scramble up the wall to a window sill, and higher still until he was almost as high up as the camera was. He pulled himself up to where he could only hang on by his fingers, and then the speedster (or teleporter) suddenly appeared right beside him, but too far to grab onto the ledge like Morgan had, and they proceeded to scream (Alex could only tell through visuals, as the camera had no audio) as they fell from the height. Given the fact that they were naked when that last move happened, Alex felt it was a safe bet that it was Morgan that had done it, and the fact that the attackers hadn't teleported themself to the ground safely suggested they either had a cool down period on their power or weren’t a teleporter at all. They hit the ground with a thud, and as the person with the pipe ran to check on them, Morgan's grip was starting to slip. He fell, but managed to catch himself on the next sill down, and kicked the window below him until it finally broke, and he slipped through it. The person with the pipe heard the window break, and after a moment of indecision, climbed up and in after him.
The powered person disappeared after another moment, likely teleporting themself to a hospital, and once again Alex was left staring at an empty alley.
The next thing Alex saw, Morgan was quite literally chucked out of the same window he had slipped through, and he hit the ground just as hard as the teleporter had, only he had the fortune to land on a stray trash bag beside the dumpster to at least somewhat cushion the fall. Alex could see the last remaining person standing at the window, watching Morgan as though waiting for him to get up, but he didn’t, and they then disappeared back into the building, presumably leaving through a different door than the one Alex could see on camera. A pedestrian walked past a few minutes later and, seeing Morgan laying there, called for help, kneeling down to check on him. They stayed there until an ambulance arrived.
Alex had gotten a very good look at the two that fought Morgan, and one of the ones that ran. Good enough.
Alex teleported into the building where the fighting had taken place, and could immediately smell blood. It stained walls and old abandoned furniture, and Alex knew it was multiple people’s blood because they could smell the blood types. They found the dead body of the missing third original person, killed by a gunshot wound to the head. Alex was certain there was a story there, but they didn’t care at that moment. Without much thought Alex brought them back to life, healing over the gaping hole in her head.
She might’ve been alive, but they still reeked of death and rot, and didn’t fully have their wits about them.
“What is your name?” Alex asked. Distantly, through their cloned eyes, they could see Morgan shift in his sleep in discomfort. Alex cleared his mind to prevent any unpleasant dreams, and carefully, with a featherlight touch, brushed his shaggy curls out of his eyes. The undead woman didn’t respond right away, and Alex snapped their fingers. A deafening crack rang out, and she screamed, launching her hands towards her leg as though she could do anything about the bone that just shattered. “What. Is. Your. Name?” Alex repeated.
“C- Cory!” She wailed. “Please, what ar-”
“Cory, who were the people who you came here with?” Alex asked. Their voice in contrast to Cory’ desperate pathetic cries was startling, as he spoke as though they were in a formal interview, which was the furthest thing from the truth. “I recommend you answer my questions quickly if you want to keep your other limbs intact. My patience for this whole affair is running thin.”
“I don't know the heroes' names! Just their aliases, Frog and Mammoth."
"And the other two who called them?"
"Parker and- and Ben! Ben Holton, he’s, he’s the one who shot me!” She said quickly, but as she spoke her expression pinched even tighter than it already was. “He shot me… Fuck… Fuck I was- I di-”
“You’re dead,” Alex confirmed, and her lifeless body hit the ground again, right back into the stain of her own blood, her eyes as empty as before Alex had entered the facility. Alex then teleported back to the hospital, but carefully avoided going anywhere near Morgan’s room, and their clone drew the curtains and temporarily dimmed Morgan’s ability to hear. He didn’t need to be woken up. They grabbed the first doctor they saw. “Have you had a patient admitted today who teleported themself in?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t give out patient info to-”
“Too late, you already have,” Alex said, and snapped the doctor's neck. As expected, everyone in the vicinity started panicking, and Alex grew annoyed at the noise, so they froze all those around them in place before heading to where the low level sidekick was currently in surgery. They froze the surrounding healthcare workers in the room, and forced 'Frog' awake without bothering to close up the leg being operated on. Having been shocked awake, they opened their mouth to shout out, but Alex took away their voice, nothing coming out.
"You picked a bad hero to be a sidekick for, Franklyn," Alex said, circling them like a vulture circling its prey. "Doesn't seem very heroic to leave a lowly D tier villain to bleed out and die in the street, or leave your sidekick alone with broken legs. But you still managed to get to where you needed to be, hm?"
Franklyn, or Frog, the low level sidekick able to 'hop' small distances in space had only just been employed as such, and had managed to fuck up royally already by proximity. They tried to reply, but again nothing came out. They tried to teleport, but just popped back in the exact spot they already were.
Alex bared their teeth in a malicious grin. "Where do you think you're going? Don't be stupid, even if you could teleport long range, you'd never be able to escape me. Do you know who I am?" Franklyn nodded. "Good, so you know that you're going to tell me exactly what I want to know. Who does Mammoth work for? You can talk, go on.”
Franklyn opened their mouth hesitantly, and said, “Proponents, the new local street crime watch coalition that formed last year. Please, I can’t feel my legs…”
“Oh, you want to feel them?” Alex questioned, raising their eyebrow and glancing down at the abandoned operation. “Somehow I doubt that…” And then instead of a person, a frog with incredibly fucked up hind legs took Franklyn’s place. The Frog croaked and tried desperately to move, but Alex scooped it up and tossed it into a pocket in the void for future use. Alex left the hospital, allowing those frozen in place to awaken mid-motion, confused and disoriented with a dead doctor and a missing patient. The other Alex made sure nobody came in and woke Morgan as Alex made his way to the Proponents downtown office.
“Harpy, long time no see!” Alex said cheerily as he strolled through the front door. Harpy, the leader of the Proponents, jerked her head up from the papers she was looking at as the blood drained from her face.
“What are you doing here?” She asked sharply, her claws tightening onto what she was holding and the feathers along her back puffing.
“Just coming to check in on my local small-time hero department,” Alex replied, giving a lop-sided smile. “Y’know, I wasn’t sure this would amount to anything when I first heard you and what’s-her-bucket were putting this team together, but look at you guys now!” By this point other people in the building began to take notice. The braver heroes started to edge closer to Harpy to back her up, but others backed away, around corners and into dark rooms. Alex saw them all, and kept track. “Y’all must be doing pretty well if you’re feelin’ confident enough to attempt murders in alleys without even filing paperwork for it.”
That threw Harpy off. “Excuse me? What are you talking about?”
Alex reached into the void pocket and tossed out the frog, it landing with a wet thump and shrill shriek in front of Harpy. She bent slightly to see it clearer and as soon as she realized what it was, cried out. “Is that- Is that Franklyn?!”
“Smart girl,” Alex confirmed. “Frog and his little leader decided to fuck around, and now all of you get to find out.” Alex snapped their fingers, and every door that had been carefully and quietly shut flung open. They flicked their wrist, and each person was thrown out into the hall, some crashing into walls and others into each other. But who they were looking for wasn’t there. “Where is Mammoth?”
“He hasn’t come in this afternoon,” Harpy said. “Whatever your issue is with Mammoth and Frog, you don’t need to barge in here and take it out on all of us. Now, what’s this about an attempted murder?”
“They’re your responsibility, are they not?” Alex asked rhetorically. “And they are a representation of their organisation, are they not? It seems like you need to learn to take accountability, chicken bitch.” Alex waved their hand, and the frog once known as Franklyn at Harpy’s feet exploded.
She screamed, and the building lit up with action. Finally, Alex smirked, bending slightly into a fighting stance, time to wrap this up.
A hero launched a fireball at Alex at the same time that another let off three arrows. Alex caught the flame in their hand and sent it towards the archer instead. They reached out their other hand and shut their fist quickly, causing a muscle head charging them to crumpled to the ground, screaming. Harpy swooped in from above and Alex grabbed her by her beak nose, slamming her into the floor with enough force to create a small, Harpy-shaped hole in the concrete. They melted the frame of the door, sealing in the heroes who had been smart enough to try and get out with their lives, and the two heroes that already had hands on the door were fused to the molten metal. The fireball had started a fire, and smoke billowed into the air. Alex sidestepped a throwing knife and grabbed another hero by the neck, snapping it and using their limp body as a shield from the second knife before throwing it on top of Harpy. They teleported behind the knife-thrower and in a split second smashed their skull against the wall, their head caving in and spurting like a rotten tomato. Alex took one of their knives and threw it just as they had, only this time at a hero, catching one in the eye. The fire starting hero’s hair was now flying around them engulfed in flames, and Alex stared them down, a wide smile still firmly across their face. They threw another fireball at Alex, which they caught, but had to dodge a second one that exploded behind them. Alex simply swirled the fireball in his hand before slamming it into the heroes still trying to find a way out- they were no fun to keep alive if they weren’t going to fight. Alex killed the last two heroes besides the flaming hero, and as the building around the two of them continued to crumble, and the distant sounds of sirens came closer, Alex cornered them and snapped their fingers. The hero’s flames were immediately doused, and without fire in their eyes, Alex could see the blood curdling fear behind the rage.
“You did half the work here for me,” Alex purred in a sickly saccharine tone. “I’d wager your flames killed almost as many of the people in here as I did.” The hero opened their mouth to argue, but Alex wasn’t interested in hearing it. “You ought to learn to control yourself better if you want to be a hero. As is, I’d say you’d make a better villain. You and Mammoth both.” Alex leaned in even closer, revelling in the way the hero pressed even closer into the soot dusted wall behind them, their heartbeat racing. “I’m going to keep you alive so you can pass on a message to any hero who wants to try me in the future- Don’t. Touch my things. And Don’t. Attempt to kill my coworkers. Do you understand?” The hero nodded weakly, and Alex stepped back out of their personal space. “Good.” They looked around at the chaos they had wrought in this little building. “Well, good luck explaining this to your superiors,” Alex said, abruptly switching back to their disturbingly upbeat tone before teleporting themself out of the facility. They remerged with their second self back at the hospital just in time for Morgan to begin waking up.
He rolled over, stretching, before barely squinting his eyes open against the fluorescent hospital lights. “You’re still here,” he said as his eyes settled on Alex.
“I told you I would be,” Alex replied. “Are the lights bothering you? Do you want them off?”
“No, it’s fine,” Morgan said, stifling a yawn. “Since you decided to heal me, I think we’re probably good to go home, right? How does health regeneration factor into hospital bills and medical history?”
The smile Alex gave Morgan wasn’t like the sarcastically cocky and jovial smile he gave Harpy, or the salaciously violent smirk he gave the fire starter. Their smile for Morgan was genuine, affectionate, and thoroughly smitten. “I wouldn’t worry about that, I think the staff has their hands full right now. They can send an invoice if they need to.”
“Oh, now I can tell you who I got in a fight with,” Morgan said. “It’s actually kind of crazy, apparently I wandered into an abandoned building where two guys stored their stolen goods while looking for a getaway, and so they ended up reporting me, and they ended up killing someone and trying to convince the two heroes it was me, which makes no sense because I’m D tier, but anyway It was 4 v 1, me being the one of course, until the two guys bailed and I was left fighting a teleporter whose power was almost as lame as mine and a dude with literal thick skin, hard to injure.” As Morgan spoke, Alex waved their hand, and Morgan didn’t flinch as he appeared back in his living room, laid on the couch quite similarly to how they were laid in the hospital bed. Morgan told them all about the fight that they had seen most of while Alex tucked a blanket around him and picked up his feet so they could sit down too, Morgan plopping his legs into their lap as they both settled in. Alex summoned a teapot with accoutrements to the coffee table, and handed a cup to Morgan before fixing their own. Morgan was very proud to tell of how he outsmarted Frog, but was less excited about their one on one with Mammoth. Alex chastised Morgan for going solo on a mission, but made sure he knew they were impressed by their clever use of their power.
“Although… You could’ve called me,” Alex reminded him.
“Well yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”
-
Alex knew they’d track down and finish punishing Mammoth and the two low life scum who called for the heroes in the first place soon, but Alex wanted them to see what they had done to their colleagues. Alex wanted them to know that it was their fault. They wanted the three living in fear of the day Alex would come to finish the job. And when Alex would, it’d be worse than anything they had prepared for.