Chapter Text
There’s a fine line between a hero and a villain.
Both have powers. Both seek justice in their own way, usually. Both were shoved into this complicated life by the Machine. Neither chose who they wanted to be.
And then there’s me.
Shoving the TNT into my front pocket where it continued to burn a hole, I clenched my now empty hand and forced myself to take quick strides towards the black and white villain, who glumly kicked at the floor of the roof, not having much else to do. “First day on the job? A hero could have done more damage than that. Heck, grab a random civilian and they could have pulled it off better!”
They didn’t look up. Really, it would have been humiliating if they tried to stand up for themselves. It had been all too easy to fly to this building, scanning it for any potential threats only to walk to the roof and see the giant pile of gunpowder cases, ready to create some havoc.
“C'mon,” I grumbled, stooping behind the villain and yanking their chains up. Without so much as a glare from their red and green eyes they obeyed, the power-resisting cuffs doing their job nicely. “Are you afraid of heights? Ahh, who am I kidding, we’re on top of a building.”
Unfurling my red and white leather feather wings, I wrapped an arm around the oddly tall villain’s waist and launched off the hard concrete floor into nothingness, feeling the cold breeze rustling through my curly hair which stabbed my eyes before I shook my head to get it out.
Looks like I’m due for another haircut.
For all but a second I could sense the villain tense up then relax, glancing back at the building they had just flown off of.
“Reminiscing the damage you coulda caused, huh?” I jabbed, thinking of the piles of TNT still left on top. I’ll have to swing by and grab them before anybody else gets a bright idea. As it was, they should be okay for the moment. The villain hadn’t even had the time to wire them up to the detonator.
“You always ruin everything,” they muttered, finally looking away from the building.
I grinned. “That’s my middle name!” Then, I paused. “How, exactly, do I ruin everything? I just met you, sorta. Unless you mean I ruin any villain’s plan, which you probably do, then you are correct!”
“You don’t even know what you just did,” they seethed, their anger finally simmering. I typically had that effect on others. “But you’ll know soon enough.” The gleam in their eyes promised it.
Rolling my eyes, I gave another mighty flap, heading right for the tallest building in miles. Even at a far distance, where the Hero Tower flashed with the bright light from the sun, about as tall as a pencil. It jutted way above the other buildings who were mandated to never build above half of the height. But, it was one of the only laws that I actually agreed with, because it sure helped me find my way back wherever I may be.
GPS was overrated anyway.
“Care to explain?” I asked after a minute only to humor the guy. Villains had this weird tendency to monologue, especially when they think somebody actually cares to listen, but it was helpful to blunt their plans. The only hard thing about it was listening to their praise of themselves and to hide my continuous yawns.
They harrumphed, the gleam fading away, curiously. “As if.”
“Your loss.” After another minute of silence with the Hero Tower looming closer with every second, I admitted, “Mechtro send me to get you.”
They nodded in understanding, their anger dissipating completely. “Those bastards.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I muttered, not surprised that we had something in common. In general, Mechtro was hated by everyone. Must have something to do with the dissatisfaction rate among jobs which they oh-so-nicely told us we would be stuck in forever.
We didn’t say anything else and in a few more minutes I landed on the landing pad of the Hero Tower, blatantly ignoring the dozens of signs that screamed “HELICOPTER ONLY!” “That means YOU Tommy!” “NO UNWANTED GUESTS,” “READ THE SIGNS!!” “I WILL SIC A WARRENT ON YOU, TOMMY!” and began leading the villain to the sliding glass doors near them.
“Seems like a nice place,” they observed, reading all of the signs. “They really love you here.”
I snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
The girl behind the desk glared at me from behind her pink hair, passive aggressively shuffling through her papers. “Welcome back, loser. You still can’t read.”
“Just for you, Niki” I said, grinning as I hauled the villain after me into the brightly lit, spacious front lobby for emergencies. “Just don’t put that on the paper.”
“I have to write who goes through the door and why, you know that!” she growled, snatching a pen. Popping the lid open, it sailed through the room, but she didn’t bother to find it as she scrawled her signature over the blanks. “Get outta here before I really do sic a warrant on you.”
Grinning behind my mask, I reached into the pocket and tossed her the piece of TNT that I really shouldn’t have anyway. “Here, a gift. Don’t tell Sam.”
Grumbling some more, she took the TNT and stashed it away into her pocket, but her handwriting smoothened out and her snarl looked less fierce. “Thanks. Now go.”
With a nod and a solute, I shoved the villain into the elevator, ignoring it when they yelped and glared at me from their collision with the wall. “Righty O!” I crowed, punching the number for the temporary vault down in the basement of the Hero Tower. Then I flashed the badge I always carry, waiting patiently as the light turned green, the doors shut, and we began our descent.
“You know,” I started, turning to the villain, “I still don’t know your name.”
They blinked and shuffled, the clink of the chains magnified in the metal box. “Why would that matter? I’m just a lowly villain, not even on the rank yet.”
At this, I frowned. “Then why did I have to come get you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Mechtro wanted you out of the way for something?”
That wouldn’t make any sense. If Mechtro was doing anything good, surely I wouldn’t have been trying to stop it. Or if they were doing anything bad, they know I would never be able to. Whatever they did was set in stone, unmovable, and the rest of us could cry our hearts out to the grave about it.
Sensing my confusion, the villain just shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it. But, maybe Mechtro just doesn’t need you anymore if they’re sending you out to catch people like me.”
Not needing me .
The words sent a shiver down my spine, and when the elevator dinged at our destination, I was hauling the villain out before the doors even opened fully. It wasn’t a secret of what Mechtro would do once they didn’t need me anymore. They were careful with the amount of people that could be born, but even so, accidents happen, and are sometimes kept if they had a better power than someone else.
Mechtro didn’t care who they eliminated to grow this future star; popular people, strong, charismatic, ect. We couldn’t do anything about our destiny that they wrote for us. Time and time again, though, I’ve always wanted to try.
And time and time again, I’ve listened to their commands.
Shoving the villain whose name I didn’t care about anymore into the nearest open cell under a dim light bulb, I slammed it harshly and felt a little warmer when the blue glow overtook the cell, letting everybody know it was now locked.
“Busy day?” a gravelly voice asked, and I turned around to see Sam walking forward. His armor clinked together, and I could barely see his green eyes, as typical, through his helmet and low lighting.
Throwing my shoulders back, I stretched a smile. “Never too busy for muah! Why, do you have something else I gotta do?”
“No,” he said amiably, shuffling closer to take a look at the villain. “Rank?” he asked them, powering on the tablet he held to write it down.
“None,” they replied, their voice modifier making it difficult to tell if they were male or female. Their suit was both small and large, with no definite curve or line. A smart tactic for underestimation, but it made the fighter instantly wary of their potential skill. The only obvious thing about them was they were tall.
Clicking his tongue, I could sense the surprise on Sam’s face as he turned to me. “You got the right villain, yeah?”
“I got the coordinates,” I said, pulling out my phone. Tapping a few times, I showed him the exact message I got, and the exact building I had been on, when this villain was there. Although I hid it under a relaxed posture, Sam’s surprise made me nervous.
“Yeah, that . . . checks,” he muttered at last, watching the villain who lay on the floor, already resigned to their stay in the vault. “Why did Mechtro send you there?”
I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. They just said to get the first villain I saw. But, you think you can finish this without me? I gotta go back and stow away the rest of the TNT there.”
Sam waved a hand. “Then get outta here. I’ll figure this out. There’s gotta be some silver lining to this whole plan of theirs.”
I hoped it was a good silver lining for me, and not just for them. With a nod and another solute, my signature good-bye, I ran off, jamming the button for the second level so Niki wouldn’t kill me, and waited tersely as the elevator slowly crawled up to its ascent. Nobody was in the training room when I entered, and so I ran over all the obstacles, grinning madly that nobody was here to tell me off. Then, with a push against the window, I flapped out into the sky once again.
“All right, back to the building,” I said, pulling the coordinates back out. Angling my body to be somethat Northwest, I flapped quickly to make good time, and hoped that nobody had snatched the TNT back on the roof.
When I had done the check in the building the first time, starting from ground up, nobody had been there to answer my echo screech. Still, anything could happen in a couple of minutes. Especially if Mechtro tipped certain villains about my jailing one of them.
Mechtro could be weird like that.
Still, though, it didn’t stop the pool of worry and dread that started to fill my stomach as I flapped back on the same building.
The TNT was gone.
“Blast it,” I muttered to myself, scanning the entire rooftop, but nothing red peeked out. “Maybe they just needed that villain out of the way, then, to get the TNT? But then why send me? Mechtro could have used their own villains to attack each other . . .”
It didn’t make sense. Nothing typically did nowadays. It was similar to the one time Quackity went against a fight with the Rank 5 and 3 villains and lost badly, getting a scar on his face that would never heal now. The fight had been agreed by Mechtro. Or it was similar to the time Puffy had gone to an abandoned warehouse and jumped by a group of villains who kidnapped her and tried her for information. Mechtro had sent Puffy to the warehouse.
Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair, wondering what they were trying to set up for. It couldn’t have been the total ruin of the heroes. They’ve done things like that before, and vice versa to the villains, but always whey were brought back.
Tapping a finger against the rooftop, I scooted myself to the edge of the building, trying to figure things out. Would Mechtro not need me? Was I not doing something properly? Yeah I kinda busted a lot of their rules, but all in good jest!
That was when I spotted the tiny red object on the sidewalk. People milled around it, oblivious to the fact that a highly explosive piece of gunpowder was inches away from their feet.
Leaping off from the lip of the building, I fanned my wings out and swooped down, gently landing on the pristine concrete floor. Snatching the piece of TNT from the floor, I rolled it around my fingers, ignoring the surprised cries of the people all around me.
“Oh my gosh, hi, Tommy!” a group of girls gushed, while the adults grinned like they won a free cake. Only one person didn’t fly into an ecstatic storm at seeing me, and we briefly locked eyes, violet to blue, before the teenager ducked his head and hurried on.
Odd, but not uncommon.
Tightening my grip on the TNT, I walked forward, fluttering my leather wings behind me as I headed towards the next piece of TNT laying on the floor. Others in a random succession trailed after, foreboding a dangerous path if followed.
I wasn't sure whether I should have been thankful to have Eagle’s Eye or not as I picked up the pieces, following the trail I never would have seen otherwise from that high. Human vision must be terribly bad if they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.
“Whatcha up to, boss man?” a friendly voice piped up.
Shifting my wings behind myself, I grinned at Tubbo who stood behind him, clutching his own handful of TNT. “Following bombcrumbs.”
The vigilante nodded, flicking his thin golden bee wings. “Clearly, they want somebody to follow it. Knowing how useless humans are, they knew they could leave freaking bombs right in the city without any casualties.”
In the near distance something loud exploded, nearly singing off my eardrums. Car alarms immediately wailed, screams detonated, and a pillar of smoke rose above a building only to be snatched by the air.
Tubbo grinned sheepishly. “Well, not too much damage.”
Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Let’s go. You pick up the rest of the TNT and I’ll keep following it. The Tower will send out another hero to deal with this mess anyway.”
With a quick nod that sent his antennas flying, Tubbo flew off, buzzing down the trail of bombcrumbs and looping down periodically to pick them up.
Brandishing my wings, I quickly overtook him in speed, zipping down the bustling city, watching out for the next red marker.
“Heyyyyyyyy,” I started, shuffling my wings together as I stooped in front of a small child. “I think I’ll take that, is it okay?” Holding my hand out, I gave a big smile, hoping it would convince the kid to drop the piece of TNT he held. Like in a daze he slowly complied, making me wonder if I had shocked him with my manliness somehow. “Thanks.”
Then, I shot off again, clutching yet another piece of explosives.
The area where the bomb had detonated wasn't really all that bad. Sure, the perfect sidewalk now had an ugly scar, and a gust of water continually streamed up, but all that aside, everything else was fine.
Flapping my wings, I dispersed the rest of the lingering smoke and went on. The TNT led me on, past the traffic of cars, taking a right, over the water fountain, and steadily the amount of explosives lengthened as the buildings spread out and the people lessened, coming to the outskirts of the city.
Nearby, the hum of water crashed against the rocks as I stopped for a breather at an intersection after not finding another piece of TNT. The street lights here switched once in a while, like they were letting an invisible row of cars pass through.
With a sigh, I began pacing around, toying with the TNT in my hands as I waited for Tubbo to arrive. Maybe he would know where to go next.
But what was the point of all the TNT? What did the freakishly tall villain need with it? It wouldn’t have done anything to blow up a building; that definitely wouldn’t have given them a rank if that was what they wanted. It might have gotten some attention, maybe hurt a few civilians, but that was about it.
Frustration bubbled up in me.
Was all of this just a goose-chase to get me out of the way? Did Mechtro really not need me? Did any of this hero work even matter anymore?!
Of course it did, a small voice told me, trying to calm myself down as my heart beat faster. I shoved it away and stood still, staring at the TNT in my hands.
Then, I raised my arms and hurled them across the road.
Before I even finished the throw, I knew I messed up. Right away, like a magic I couldn’t understand, the magic I didn’t want to understand, the fuses of the TNT sparked to life.
“No. No, no, no!” I screamed, stretching my wings out to dive after them. But at the last second I thought better and dove away, watching with wide eyes as the TNT exploded against the side of the building. Crumblings rained down on me, hot and cold at the same time and I shuffled my wings behind me on automatic, raising an arm to cover my face.
Great.
Foolish was not going to be happy with yet another building to design. Yet that wasn’t the scariest part. Swallowing hard, I ran my fingers through my hair and tugged, shoving the feeling of absolute glee down.
But, when the villain I literally just took to the temporary vault in The Tower appeared in front of me, gasping at the carnage, I knew I had more trouble piling on fast.