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When the Ender King’s guards hauled him back down the basement steps, the Crowfather’s left eye was swollen nearly closed, and his nose was so visibly broken it moved when he breathed. The villain tried and failed to keep his feet underneath him as the guards dragged him across the floor, and when they dumped him into his cell he collapsed in a heap of bloodstained feathers and black fabric.
On the other side of this half-lit basement, Techno shifted to try and check on the other man without falling himself. He’d dragged his body across the cement to prop himself against the back wall of his cell, and he was a bit concerned that if he leaned too far he was going to tip over. With his ribs as they were, he wasn’t sure if he would be able to shove himself back upright with any speed if he fell.
The angle was bad, but he could see that the prisoner in the other cell was still breathing. “Crow?” he ventured, trying to scan the older man for visible broken bones. “You doin’ okay?”
The Crowfather waved a hand, hissing through his teeth at the movement. “Fuck off,” he forced out, and shoved himself upright on shaking arms. He spat some blood to the side and drew in a ragged breath. “I’m fine.”
A wave of relief broke over Techno. “Oh, that’s good to hear,” he said. The Crowfather was trembling, but he was stubbornly crawling towards the back of his cell. His fellow prisoner was still kicking, and Techno wasn’t alone here in a cement box. “Bruh, you look terrible,” Techno said, aiming for deadpan.
Crowfather coughed out a laugh that became a pained sound, arms pressing to his ribs as he wheezed. “You’re one to fuckin’ talk, kid.”
Techno was sure he did look like he’d been repeatedly beaten, given how the last few days had been spent. But agreeing with each other wasn’t the game they were playing, he and his long-time rival. “One to talk?” Techno sunk some indignation into his voice. “I’ll have you know my costume is barely even scratched, and the branding is still doin’ good work.” He gestured at himself with the arm that hadn’t recently been dislocated, the green and pink of a generic first-year hero’s costume still repelling blood and dirt. The cartoon frog on his chest was intact, incongruously cheerful in this bloodstained basement. “I don’t even know what your costume’s supposed to be, old man.”
The Crowfather had made it to the back of his cell. He turned over and fell against the back wall, knees coming up to prop him against the concrete. It looked like he wouldn’t be able to stay upright without pinning himself in place, wings splayed at his sides. Techno didn’t like the look of the joint on the man’s right wing. It bent where it shouldn’t. The villain he’d been fighting for the past year showed bloody teeth in his direction, snapping one of his hands in a dismissive gesture. “ Shut , you little shit,” he started, flopping his hand in the direction of the tattered jacket and waistcoat he wore. “This is a suit, a real suit. It’s about fuckin’ style, not that you’d know anythin’ about that.”
“Oh, style,” Techno said, nodding sagely. The back and forth was stabilizing, falling into the familiar pattern of bits and jabs with his regular adversary, despite the setting. “That’s why your outfit doesn’t repel bullets, doesn’t ground shocks, and doesn’t soak up blood. That style keep you well fed, does it?”
The other prisoner grinned across at Techno, breath rasping as he breathed. “At least I don’t fuckin’ glow in the dark, Anura. How’d that work out for you with the avoidin’ gettin’ caught, again?”
“Fantastically, thanks for askin’, Crow,” Techno returned. “When the rescuers get here, they’re going to find me in—in seconds.” He licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry as he faltered. His suit had a beacon built into it, so that rescue could find him if he was captured. 24 hours, they’d told him in training. 48 hours, if he was somewhere tricky.
It was hard to reckon time down here, but even if he just counted the longer periods of sleep, it had been at least five days since he’d been ambushed.
Techno’d had more time than he liked to deal with a realization he really didn’t want to have—that either the beacon had been removed and rescue wasn’t coming, or the signal was blocked and rescue wasn’t coming, or the hero board had decided that a 19-year-old hero barely out of training wasn’t worth the effort of an extraction mission. And rescue wasn’t coming.
Techno cleared his throat. Best not to dwell on it. “You just sink into the shadows, nobody’s gonna see you,” he said to the other prisoner. He shook his head. “Didn’t plan for every eventuality. Sad to see.”
“I do sink into the fuckin’ shadows,” the Crowfather told him, grin twisting his mouth and eyes half-lidded. “And then I attack my fuckin’ enemies from ‘em. How’re you gonna get revenge when you’re pink and fuckin’ shiny?”
“Oh, that’s simple,” Techno told him. The floor was cold under him, and everything hurt. He was hungry and thirsty, his depth perception hadn’t been working right for at least a day, and on top of everything the blood dried under his uniform itched. “Heroes don’t get revenge. We let the villains do it for us. Speaking of that, do you think you’d be interested in takin’ a little visit to a mutual friend of ours, when you’re rescued? I think it’d be really rewardin’ for you.”
“Gettin’ a villain to do your dirty work, is it now?” The older man chuckled, breathing fast and shallow. “Torture’s fuckin’ changed you, mate.”
The Crowfather had been an established villain on the scene for almost two decades. He had his neighborhood that he effectively ruled, and the hero board had long since found it no longer cost-effective to get in his way. He stayed in his area, and enforced his rules, and heroes dealt with bigger issues. Anura, newly-minted hero fresh on the scene a year ago, hadn’t been allowed onto those bigger jobs, and when Techno had stopped for coffee at a local shop and seen protection money being paid, he’d followed the enforcers to their boss and proceeded to make a nuisance of himself.
They’d fallen into a pattern—Techno would do his best to foil the Crowfather’s plans, the Crowfather would prepare counter-plans he would triumphantly reveal when the hero showed up, Techno would throw himself at the problem and the Crowfather would always just evade capture or charges. As frustrating as never quite being able to take down the villain had been, Techno had enjoyed the challenge of it, the back and forth between him and the man in the black suit, the instances when he startled his adversary into laughter in the midst of a fight. He’d told himself that this time he would finally win. If he planned and prepared enough, it would work, despite a pointed lack of support or funds from the hero board. Nobody starting out got a lot of support, not until you proved yourself, he knew that. So Anura was going to become a fully-fledged hero by taking down a villain with a track record old enough to drive, he’d decided.
And he’d really thought he was on the verge of succeeding, too.
“Oh, you know,” Techno said. “Must have slept through my torture classes in trainin’, they caught me off-guard. Kinda cringe of me, really.” He looked across the basement at his old adversary, crumpled against the other wall. The blond hair on the side of the older man’s head was matted with blood, and there was a slow trickle of it trailing down the side of his jaw. “Bet you wish you’d started with torture immediately, woulda gotten me out of your way much sooner.”
The Crowfather’s expression thinned. “I wouldn’t torture you, we’re nemeses.” He shrugged a shoulder, stopping half way through the motion to slow the movement and breathe out. “You gotta respect that.”
“Bruh, you mean all you gotta do to make yourself safe from torture is get up in someone’s business and ruin their plans a bunch of times?” Techno raised his eyebrows. “I gotta let people know about this, it’s gonna revolutionize the scene.”
“Yeah,” the Crowfather said, tone dry as he pointedly looked between one battered body to another. “Cause that’s what happened here.”
“Well, every plan has its weak points,” Techno said, loftily dismissive. “I think overall the point stands and we should put it into action immediately. Only way to be safe from torture is get a nemesis. This sounds flawless to me.”
The Crowfather made a gasping, wheezing noise, and Techno stiffened despite his exhaustion. Had something happened? Blood pooling where it shouldn’t or a bone shard puncturing something vital? Was this how it ended, watching someone he respected struggle for breath on a concrete floor? After a moment of fear, he realized that the other man was laughing, arm wrapped around his chest. “Kinda fuckin’ backfired, for me, mate!”
When Techno had been ambushed he’d been doing a circuit in the neighborhood he’d taken responsibility for, along the regular path that he’d let people know that they didn’t want to cause problems for each other on. Someone had shot a projectile that exploded into powder in front of him just as they hit him with a flashbang, and he’d drawn in a breath on instinct, cursing the reflex as he felt the drug hit his lungs. By the time he blinked the after-images out of his eyes, he could already feel his limbs getting heavy. Masked figures had started to move in, and the last thing he’d seen before whatever drug it was dragged him under had been the Crowfather arriving and furiously laying about him with taloned hands.
When Techno had woken up behind iron bars, the villain had been unconscious and bruised on the other side of the room, his talons clipped. That had been several days and a number of beatings he’d lost count of ago.
“Backfired? This has been workin’ out great for me, and that’s the important part,” Techno said. “I’ve got company here, and I don’t even have to worry about my enemy committin’ crimes while I’m incapacitated, this is fantastic.” The Crowfather was still wheezing with laughter, tears collecting in his eyes, and Techno pressed forward with his punchlines, heartened by the reaction. It always felt better when he could make the other man laugh. “Really, Crow, if I’d been plannin’ this kidnappin’ out I don’t think I’d have changed a thing.” He nodded sagely. “Who’d want to be kept prisoner by an insane villain without an adversary to keep them company? Sounds like an L to me.”
“Really?” The Crowfather tried to turn and wipe his eyes on his shoulder, still chuckling wheezily. “I think I’d change some fuckin’ things, but that’s just me.”
“Can’t imagine what,” Techno said. “All my problems have been solved by tryin’ really hard to take down a supervillain, I think.” He paused, tilting his head to the side. There was a tremor running through the floor, the metal bars at the front of his cell starting to hum. “Not to change the subject, but do you feel that or do I have brain damage?”
“Well, I’m not gonna rule out the brain damage, mate, I think we’ve both probably got concussions.” The Crowfather had his head turned to stare at the far wall, the empty cement with a crack in it that dust was starting to trickle from. “But there’s somethin—“ He glanced at Techno. “Your hero board’s finally got their act together?”
After days of slowly realizing that optimism might in fact be stupidity, having a viable reason for hope made Techno’s heart climb up his throat. There were official heroes who could cause earthquakes. They were all high-rated and worked on crisis teams, but maybe—maybe—“I dunno,” Techno said, trying to keep his tone level. “Still could be the buildin’ collapsin’, maybe. Seems a little more on track for how these last couple days’ve been goin’, y’know.”
With a crash of broken concrete, a mechanical tunnel bore punched through the back wall. Inside the covered cab, a small inchling hybrid was sitting at the modified controls. “Boss!” he said, pointing a spotlight at the cells. “Found you!”
“Sneeg,” the Crowfather said, relief saturating his voice. “Took you long enough.”
So it wasn’t the heroes, after all. Techno had still been left here.
The inchling jumped to the floor and scurried across to the door of the Crowfather’s cell, climbing up the bars and reaching inside the lock with picks that looked oversized on his tiny frame. “Had to get the drill off of Apis, it took a while, man! Shit, you look bad. They’ve really done a number on you, have they?”
“I’m fine,” the villain said, trying and failing to lever himself upright. “We have a new enemy to destroy later, once I have my actual tools with me, that’s all.”
The inchling fluttered to the ground as the door to the cell swung open, moth wings breaking his fall, and then scurried over to his boss. He ran up the villain’s shirt and held out a handful of small pink pills. “Here, take some meds, dude!’
Crowfather ate the proffered pills and then squeezed his eyes shut, breathing as his posture slowly straightened. “Alright,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. “Let’s get out of here before they notice the wall comin’ down.”
“Oh, they’ve got other things going on,” Sneeg informed him, swinging into position on the Crowfather’s shoulder as the man hop-limped towards the exit. “Set off a couple stinkbombs in their air vents and set fire to their garbage chute, they’re busy dealing with that.”
“Good,” the Crowfather said, pushing the door of his cell open. “Good fuckin’ job.” He paused to get his breath back, leaning on the bars.
There was a hitch in Techno’s breathing, watching his fellow prisoner leave. He’d made the man laugh, commiserated about their situation with him, been distracted from his own pain with conversation and jokes. He’d almost forgotten that they were on opposite sides, but of course, he was the Crowfather’s enemy. That was how it had been from the beginning. If a villain’s henchmen came to break him out, they would take the man in the black suit, and they wouldn’t take a first-year hero who hadn’t even proven himself yet.
Techno didn’t want to face how this was going to end alone.
He managed a smile at the other two. “See you around, huh?” He was proud of how level his voice was.
The Crowfather blinked at him. “See you—” He held onto one of the bars of the door to stay upright, squinting his un-swollen eye at Techno. “Nah,” he said dismissively. The villain looked at the inchling on his shoulder. “Get his cell open.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Sneeg said, fluttering to the ground.
And that was hope, back, but blossoming stronger in his chest this time. This wasn’t the hero board finally remembering him after days of pain, this was someone who’d been with him the whole time taking him with him when he left. This was loyalty from a source he wasn’t supposed to expect it from. “You’re—you’re lettin’ me out?”
The inchling had climbed up the bars and was busy at his lock, metal scraping against metal. “You’re a valuable ransom,” he said.
Techno seriously doubted that, after this long. He was pretty sure he’d been filed under “acceptable losses”, actually. He raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah,” the Crowfather said. His eyes were on Sneeg as the inchling finished with the lock and the door swung open. “That’s why. Ransom.”
“An unrated hero’s gonna be really valuable to the city,” Techno said, deadpan. “Everybody knows that, yeah.”
Part of Techno was shouting at himself that arguing with the person offering to rescue him was a really stupid idea. The rest of him was saying that he knew this man, this was his nemesis, this was his partner through hell. Joking with each other was what they did .
The Crowfather’s henchman was standing on his leg now, offering him a handful of mystery pills. “Take these, we’re leaving.”
It probably wasn’t poison. Something similar had been fed to his villain. He could take the risk of trusting them this far. Techno painfully moved his arm to grab the medication and swallow it.
“I’m really good at bargainin’, I’ll get money for you,” the Crowfather said, tone dismissive. “Or you can be a villain now, join me.” He let go of the door and limped towards the hole in the wall. “Let’s go, Anura.”
There was very little that wouldn’t be better than this, and he did trust that even if he was exchanging one captivity for another his longtime enemy would treat him well. And well, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered leaving heroism after this past week. It didn’t seem to have the best results for his efforts. Maybe he could give villainy a shot, if it came with this company.
He could feel the drugs hitting his system, some combination of stimulants and painkillers that made him feel like movement was possible. Techno pushed himself upright, hand out to catch Sneeg before he fell. “Alright,” he said, getting ready to follow the Crowfather out. “Lead on.”