Chapter Text
[[BREAKING NEWS]]
SKOTOS, NOSK OF ‘LEGION FOR CHANGE’ ATTACK BUTLER ST. BANK, RESIDENTS ADVISED TO STAY INDOORS.
“This just in, there is an ongoing attack from the Legion For Change on the police station on Butler Street. Another attack on the bank just down the street indicates that this may be a coordinated attack from the LFC. Residents of neighboring houses are advised to remain inside and hide in basements if they have them. Only one hero, Loki, has been spotted on the scene. More updates coming soon.”
The Conductor listened to the news report through an earpiece as he worked, clicking his tongue in disappointment. Though he should’ve been grateful about the lack of heroes his villains had to deal with, he really wasn’t. The plan needed as many heroes as they could get their hands on- and DNA samples from. So no heroes meant no plan, which was just beyond frustrating.
It also led to situations like this, where he had to take over an entire police station all by himself, just to get the stupid League of Peace and Protection’s attention. Easier said than done.
He sighed as he tossed another shivering policeman to the side. Not too hard, of course. He didn’t want to hurt the guy, not any worse than he’d already done. He looked down at his watch. Waited. Sighed again. Tapped his foot impatiently. For the love of everything, where are-
“What’s going on here?” an altered voice suddenly said from the police station’s doorway, making the villain whip around with wide eyes. And then, he grinned, the expression hidden under his mask. Perfect.
“Doesn’t matter,” another sighed from one of the windows to the side, sounding bored. “You’re gonna give up so we won’t have to fight you.”
“Or you can fight anyways,” yet another said, sounding way too smug for their own good. “And lose.”
Three heroes stood around the room, surrounding the lone villain. One was a tall, lanky person with a blue suit and golden, mechanical wings stretching out behind them. Their suit was covered in incredibly sharp feathers that swirled around the hero at his beck and call. The second who spoke wore a green suit that didn’t look all that fancy. Just green with occasional white engravings here and there, mimicking its owners less-than-enthusiastic attitude. The final hero wore an elaborate red suit with so many different gizmos and gadgets built in that it made The Conductor a little jealous. Supposedly, the hero had made their own suit, using incredible technological know-how in lieu of any actually abilities. Canary, Hyde, and Mech., respectively. They’d do.
The Conductor let out a soft chuckle to match his much-more-confident-than-he-really-was persona. He could take these heroes by himself. Definitely. Probably. Hopefully? Yeah, hopefully. A lot of the villains’ plans seemed to be running on hope as of late.
“Well, this is a little insulting,” he started arrogantly. How he even found it within himself to even sound arrogant at all, he never figured out. “The League could really only afford to send you three? And here I was, thinking I was doing a good job.”
That comment seemed to really get to Canary, while the others didn’t bat an eye at the taunting. Just as The Conductor expected. Canary had always been easy to get to.
With a huff, the bird-themed hero let out a sharp whistle to control the five feathers surrounding them. Funny. Normally, the guy would go all-out and bring up all- oh goodness the fight’s started.
Completely instinctively, the villain dashed to the side to dodge the onslaught of feathers, which flew by and missed him by just a couple centimetres. Sounded silly, really wasn’t. He’d been cut by those before. Not fun.
He dashed away from the dagger-like feathers, which only followed him like homing missiles. So he kept running, straight for Canary. But before he could get to the hero, he felt a sudden impact in his right side, and it was all he could do to stay standing. And when he looked, he saw why. To his right stood Hyde, who now boasted a much more elaborate (and big) suit, the white engravings more pronounced and glowing. To top it all off was a wide, mechanical grin built into the face mask, with razor-sharp teeth that the Conductor didn’t want to get anywhere near. With Canary in front of him, Hyde to the side (hah), and Mech. creeping up from behind, the villain knew that this would be a more difficult fight than he had anticipated.
He took a deep breath. Focused. Prepared. Breathed again. He could do this.
When Hyde dashed at him again, he was ready. He threw himself backwards to avoid the charge, then whipped around to face Mech. The hero hastily reached for one of their suit’s weapons, but it was just a second too late. The Conductor had thrown his punch before they could do anything. Mech. jumped back to dodge the blow and tried again. Suddenly, the villain sensed movement behind him, so he quickly stepped to the side. A flurry of dagger-like feathers shot out from behind him, just moments away from hitting him. Thankfully, those were Mech.’s problems now.
As Canary shouted an apology and Mech. let out a cry of pain, Hyde came charging for the villain once again. This time, they made sure not to overshoot, instead stopping perfectly in front of the Conductor and swinging an incredibly heavy fist aimed right for the man’s head. He ducked, then sent a blast of electricity right for the hero’s midriff. They didn’t even flinch. But their movements became a bit twitchier, the mechanical suit unhappy with the excess electricity.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement- more blurs of gold- so he hastily ducked behind Hyde. But Canary learned from their past mistakes and fixed the feathers’ paths to move around their ally. As they shot towards The Conductor at impossible speeds, he noticed something. Blood, on one of the feathers. Mech.’s blood. This was gonna hurt. But it would also do quite nicely.
Quick as a flash, The Conductor dodged all the feathers but one. He purposefully put himself in the path of the bloody feather, then screwed his eyes shut and braced himself.
Almost instantaneously, his shoulder was screaming in pain. Perfect. But also holy- that hurts so badly why did they pull the feather out?!
He let out a cry of pain, but he refrained from touching the wound despite everything in him desperately wanting to. He didn’t want to mess with the DNA sample he’d gotten.
Seeing that the villain was hurt, Hyde took the chance to get him while he was down. They reared back and slammed a fist right into The Conductor’s chest, sending him flying back into a nearby wall. He made impact and almost flew out the other side, he hit so hard. Immediately, red flashed over his vision, and it took him longer than he cared to admit to figure out that those red flashes were his suit’s mechanical systems warning him of damage. Wow, that was helpful. It’s not like the countless bruises and pounding headache didn’t tell him the exact same thing.
With a groan, The Conductor managed to pick himself up and prepare himself to fight some more. All the heroes honestly looked quite surprised. But, determined to keep the upper hand, Hyde rushed at the villain once again. He needs to go. And, in just a couple moments, The Conductor had a plan.
Quickly, he conjured as much electricity as he could despite his exhaustion. He stockpiled a decent amount. Hyde charged. He waited. Closer. Just a bit…
As soon as the hero was too close to dodge, The Conductor threw all the electricity he could muster at them. Once again, they didn’t flinch. But they did pause, because their mechanical suit locked up from the newly-added copious amounts of unwanted electricity. That was just the opportunity the villain needed. Hastily, he grabbed the dagger concealed in the left arm of his suit and swung it at Hyde.
An impact just before the strike, a clink of metal on metal, and the Conductor’s knife went tumbling to the floor with the feather that hit it. Could any part of this mission go right?!
The villain didn’t have much time to dwell on his misfortunes, because, with a sharp cry, Canary flew at him inhumanly fast. They raised a fist surrounded by feathers and swung it at The Conductor’s chest. Which was a bit silly, because, despite the sharpness of the feathers, they were still swinging at the strongest part of the villain’s armor. Their fist glanced off the metal, the punch not nearly strong enough to break through his armor. The Conductor smirked- for himself, since no one else could see it- and quickly flicked out an Assassin’s Creed-esque blade hidden in his suit’s right palm.
“My turn,” he growled far too arrogantly. Or maybe perfectly arrogantly, because, with the most powerful hit possible, he slammed the blade into Canary’s shoulder joint, a wonderfully, poorly-armored place. Joints tended to be.
The hero cried out in both pain and anger and quickly whipped around to get back at The Conductor. The feathers all quickly snapped around their left hand, since the right shoulder was injured. Then, they started swinging like crazy at the villain, determined to prove themself.
They jabbed at his wounded shoulder; he angled his torso to avoid the blow. He used his momentum to drive a fist towards Canary’s head, but they ducked just in time. They threw an uppercut, he stepped back. He threw a bolt of electricity, they just stepped to the side. They punched. He blocked. He stabbed. They dodged. The two went back and forth for a long while, both fueled by some deep instinct to survive, and to win.
Finally, though, the cycle was broken, though unfortunately not in the villain’s favor. A sudden force from the side drove The Conductor into the wall, and kept him there. Mech. was back on their feet, and they had thrown… something. A kind of disc with an insane pull towards it. Whether it was magnetic or somehow defying the laws of gravity, he had no idea. All he knew was that he was stuck.
“…Cheap move,” the villain grumbled as he struggled to move. But his wounds were quickly catching up with him; he couldn’t do much in the way of struggling.
“Yeah, I don’t really care,” Mech. replied with a scoff, glancing briefly at Hyde. “You know how long it’s gonna take to fix his armor? I think it’s a fair trade.” Hyde. Pronoun, his. The Conductor filed that little tidbit away for later. Surely, there’d be a later, right?
“You’re coming with us,” Canary managed through gasping breaths. They slowly strode towards The Conductor, though they were careful not to get too close to the disc that was keeping the villain stuck in place. It must’ve been magnetic, then. Also helpful for later.
Before the heroes could figure out how to get him out of the police station (and presumably to the city jail), the villain noticed a slight shifting of the shadows in the corner of the room. And he couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
“Goodness… look at the time,” The Conductor, despite himself, chuckled. “I really should go. Got plans for tonight, you know?”
And with that, the villain sank into the shadows. He caught a quick shout of some kind from Canary, but all that faded into background noise as he met with his fellow villains in the safety of whatever realm Skotos brought them to.