Chapter Text
Villains were prominent, maybe even more so than heroes.
Basking in all their infamy, they were both despised and revered.
You could say that was one similarity that villains and heroes had to each other in society. Otherwise, they shared nothing in common, if not for certain ones' massive egos and hard heads (a true wonder there weren’t more civilian casualties each year).
And heroes– hated by lower districts, adored by the upper ones. The opposite of villains. When heroes caused destruction, it was, for some reason, justified. When villains caused it, all worldly issues were suddenly forgotten, and the news would go on and on about how dangerous villains (and, by extension, vigilantes) were and how heroes would one day save the world.
Yeah right, that was some corny movie shit. Ranboo was not a big fan of those dramatics.
Yes, he’s a hero as well– or, more so, a hero-in-training–but given that he was allowed to fight on-field, he’d consider himself as much a hero as any other person at the headquarters. Especially if he was risking his life– god, he should consider asking for pay.
Admittedly, he often found himself a little jealous and maybe a bit annoyed at the fact that “real” heroes could get pay and ones in training couldn't. I mean, he fights all the same! Not with the same prowess or experience, but it's fighting, so what was the issue?
He didn’t wanna dwell on something so stupidly complex so early in the morning, aka 10:30, especially since he's been lying in bed with his alarm going off for the past 30 or so minutes, staring up at the ceiling.
And for a minute more, he stayed in that same position.
“This day’s going to be a terror, I already know it.” He mumbled, turning over in bed and silencing the alarm with a quick punch. He wasn’t too worried about the piece of tech breaking. It was honestly a little impressive, the longevity of the thing… he had to have beaten the hell out of it for a year straight, at least.
Following his routine mindlessly, as he did every day. Shower, brush, brush again–but this time his hair, which seemed to just not want to cooperate–and dress. Luckily, water didn't burn his skin as much, as long as he kept to short intervals and extremely and uncomfortably cold water… It was basically an ice bath every day, and that sucked. Real bad.
Despite not getting a wink of sleep last night, he felt strangely energized. He wasn't complaining, however… he needed that energy (which was likely faulty at best) for his shift.
He didn't care much for being on time. Not that anybody would notice, anyway. Time was not of the essence when you were fretting over when the hell the next strike from the villains would occur. Or where it would happen. Or how it would happen.
Breakfast was not in his sights today.
Instead, he threw his bag over his shoulder and shoved a pair of boots on. Maybe the day would go faster if he just followed it through like every other day. They didn’t feel as long anymore anyway, despite the quote “time passes when you’re having fun”.
Well, he was bored pretty much 24/7, and days went by like nobody’s business. So… so much for fun, huh.
He wasn’t really sure why he didn’t question why every day felt like just another blank; the reason why when people asked him how he was doing or what he’s been up to, he couldn’t exactly answer. He didn’t question those gaps in his memory that, on certain nights, drove him absolutely insane. He didn’t question most things.
He was, however, questioning why he was dwelling so much today, though.
Hastily, he shook himself out of his thoughts and walked out the door of his apartment, double-checking that he locked it before turning around and bolting down the stairs. Maybe it was the stuffiness in this decrepit building. Maybe that was why he was so… out of it.
He assumed that to be the problem, because as soon as he was down the stairs and out of the complex, he felt the slightest bit better. A little alleviated. Thank Prime.
His shoulders dropped as he let out a deep exhale, and he began to walk towards the headquarters. Or, well, towards the subway. It would be a near-5-hour walk if he were insane enough to travel on foot all the way to work. The subway shortened that to a bearable 1 hour, and it gave him time to listen to music at his leisure. Though he did have, like, 30 minutes to get to work.
Again, nobody really cared about punctuality in this day and age. Not even Ranboo, who was praised by a certain few heroes for being an, in their words, incredibly respectful child who listens when he’s supposed to, something something, whatever that meant.
He did rush to the subway, however, so as not to miss it. That, again, felt like a blur of time as he quickly ran down sidewalks, then two steps at a time (he appreciated the lack of stares, as he didn’t really like unwanted attention drawn to himself), to the platform, and then the train itself. He found a seat which was nothing short of surprising, and maybe, just maybe, this day wouldn’t be as bad as he said it’d be.
He opened his bag, shuffling things around to try to find his headphones… to no avail.
And just like that, he completely changed his mind.
“Oh, for prime’s sake–” He groaned.
Nope, definitely a horrible day.
Ranboo stumbled back out into the cold air, the sky overcast, which was a contrast to how it’d been an hour ago. All the more reason to rush to the headquarters, ‘cause he definitely didn’t feel like getting stuck in the rain.
He shivered at the thought. The last time he’d been stuck in the rain, his arms had been left red and blistered, which landed him in the hospital after he failed to treat it properly, and he’d gotten a horrid fever. The scariest part was when Karl found out, and he’d basically clung to the boy as if he were seconds away from sudden death. That was 4 or so years ago, and he still remembered the whole thing vividly, despite his memory.
And, maybe that was because he still clung to any memories of Karl he had left. Even the bad. Even the ones where Karl’s face was nothing but a blurry mess of color. It was still Karl, wasn’t it?
Primes, he didn’t wanna think about that.
It’d distracted him from the annoyance of walking an extra 15 minutes though, because when he snapped out of his thoughts and looked up, he was in front of the headquarters. They may as well rename it to the hero tower, honestly. It had a better ring to it.
Ranboo readjusted the strap of the bag slung over his shoulder, pulling an ID badge out from it and tapping it to the scanner at the door. It took a second, but when the scanner’s screen turned green, he pulled the door open and walked in towards the front desk. The interior felt oddly dimmer, he noted.
“Ranboo.” A woman’s voice called from the front desk with an exasperated tone. “You’re late, you know that, right?”
In response, he couldn’t help but chuckle; “Uh.. yeah. Sorry about that. Y’know, traffic and stuff. Crazy out there, ma’am.” He had no clue what the woman’s name was, which he made a mental note to figure out at some point.
The receptionist deadpanned, and if Ranboo knew any better, he would assume she was seconds away from kicking his ass.
“Yes, of course. So much traffic.” She responded sarcastically, before pointing towards the elevator. “You are, at the very least, lucky you got here now. Dream’s called everyone to a meeting, and you’ve still got ten minutes to get there. So… go.” She nodded sparingly.
For a moment, Ranboo considered taking the elevator. Last time he did, which was just yesterday, he’d gotten a hell of a lot of vertigo and was messed up for the next hour. If he teleported, however…
He gave a sheepish smile before deciding to just teleport up to the designated meeting floor. The last thing he saw was the receptionist giving him a somewhat-annoyed look and a somewhat-fond smirk. At least she didn’t kick my ass, he thought.
Sometimes his ability decided to act up and embarrass him, which he was relieved to find didn’t happen this time around. Instead of teleporting directly inside the meeting room, where he’d find himself dizzied and embarrassed in front of the others, he’d teleported just outside so he had a moment to compose himself. He held his head in his hands, willing away the lightheadedness. His power didn’t always cause such a reaction; the further he teleported, the worse he felt. That was the exact reason why he didn’t straight-up teleport to work. The last time he tried to, he teleported into the lobby and subsequently passed out for an entire day. That had been incredibly embarrassing. Teleporting twenty stories up wasn’t as bad, fortunately.
After a good five minutes of trying to rid away the faint feeling in both his head and limbs, he only felt slightly better. He couldn’t take much more time to himself without risking being late, seeing as he had about 5 more minutes to get to his seat in the meeting room, so he decided to suck it up and deal with it later.
He shook his head softly, adjusting his mask after it had slipped down his nose, and then he walked into the room.
Holy hell, people galore. He was thankful that not many looked at him, other than a few glances and waves. Those who didn’t acknowledge him were deep in conversation, some serious, and some laughing. He found an inconspicuous-enough empty seat and sat down stiffly, watching as a few more stragglers filed into the room, taking up the last few seats until there were only two open seats left. He knew one of them was reserved for Dream, but he had no clue who the other one was for.
He glanced over the current occupants of the room, trying to see if anyone was missing. He didn’t see anything off, but he also knew his memory was pretty faulty, so he just decided to wait for his curiosity to be answered with time.
And answered it was, as Dream walked into the room just a few minutes later with someone trailing behind. One he, and by the looks of it, a lot of other people recognized quite well.
Schlatt.
“No questions, not yet.” Dream stated, seemingly sensing the confusion (and anger, as Schlatt was not a favored person in hero society) radiating from everyone in the room—because Ranboo could feel the exact same tension as well. Dream and Schlatt took their seats next to one another. Sapnap, who had the misfortune of being a seat away from Schlatt, blatantly scooted his chair away from the brunette man and closer to Ranboo.
“I know this is a bit sudden, but I don’t want to hear any complaints. This meeting is important, and Schlatt needs to be in attendance for it.” Dream stated, and, unlike usual, got right into the meeting content. Usually, there’d be a little bit of time for conversations about how people were doing and updates about missions, but it seemed that even he was on edge with Schlatt around.
“We’ve gotten word of an attack that’ll be coming from the Syndicate. It’s tonight. We don’t know the details yet, but it sounded serious. That’s not the main issue, however…” The green-hoodied man sighed before continuing with an overt drop in tone. “...we believe there is a traitor, in our ranks. In this room, possibly.”
Ranboo’s eyes widened as gasps and murmurs broke out around the room.
“A traitor? How are you so sure? You should know that’s–” Sapnap tried to speak, but was quickly silenced by a look from Dream.
“We’re sure because somehow the Syndicate is gathering sensitive intel about us. About our powers, our weaknesses, and our identities. This is… well, obviously, not good.”
Every word after that was like static as Ranboo zoned out, staring down at the table in front of him contemplatively. Powers, weaknesses, identities. All things that, even outside of his hero work, he was secretive about. His fellow heroes didn’t even know his name or his face, with the exception of Sapnap and… Karl. Karl, who’d gone missing one day on patrol. Karl, who’d gone missing, possibly due to this apparent traitor among the ranks. Just how long had this traitor been handing off intel to the villains?
Could they take others he cared about away? Could they take him away?
His train of thought was interrupted by Sapnap placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The noise, once static, was now a cacophony of numerous arguments and frantic discussions– of which Dream managed to placate once again when he raised his hand.
“Please, don’t let this information turn you against your companions. What I suggest is simply to be vigilant and to report any, and I mean any, suspicious behavior.” He said, before nodding towards Schlatt, who nodded right back.
“Back on the topic of the attack,” He continued, “Since we know it's happening, we’ll be dispatching a few heroes out to take care of the issue. We don’t know which members of the Syndicate will be there, but just to take caution, we’re sending out more heroes than usual. Schlatt decided these dispatches, so if you have any problems…” His voice trailed off as he tugged on the collar of his hoodie. “...take them up with Schlatt, not me.”
Ranboo directed his gaze to Schlatt, as did everyone else. The ram-horned man smirked. Everything about him screamed privileged, insanely privileged. You could go as far as to say he radiated malice.
“Of course. Any problems, take them up with me– but I’m sure there’ll be none.” The smirk grew sharper. “I’ve decided to dispatch Sapnap, Eret, and Ranboo. Foolish will be your emergency backup, and Ant will be on comms. Any issues?”
When silence was received in return, Schlatt nodded in satisfaction.
“Good. You’ll be leaving at 6 PM. 5 hours is enough to prepare, right?”
No. Not really. Ranboo thought, expression troubled.
Schlatt turned his head to Ranboo as if he heard the thought, a small tilt of his head. The action was nothing short of condescending. Still, silence– but Sapnap did move his body to shield Ranboo from the ram’s gaze. The two had a silent conversation with their eyes, and after a few seconds, Schlatt backed down with a sneer.
“You’re all dismissed. And you, you five– don’t slack off. Don’t be tardy. Okay? Alright. Run along now.”
“..How do you do it, Ranboo?”
Ranboo looked up at Foolish, who was in the breakroom with him, watching him intently as the former moved things around in the overstuffed communal fridge.
Foolish was intimidating in more ways than just one. Height, build, and the scars that littered both arms and jaw— everything about the man was just… scary. A man who was entirely cut out to be a villain if he so desired to. A man who could maybe, definitely, probably take over the world. A man who was… surprisingly very kind-hearted. One of Ranboo’s favorite colleagues, actually. He still got a little scared whenever the man and him conversed, but it was out of instinct rather than personal dislike.
“Do what?” Ranboo responded with his own question, grimacing as his hand almost touched a wet spot in the fridge, luckily he noticed it beforehand and redirected himself, taking out a water bottle. Bottled water didn’t harm him because it didn’t make contact with his skin. As long as he drank it iced cold with a straw, he’d be just fine and dandy. He assumed that after so many reactions to water, and the odd exception of being able to drink it, it was simply a reaction between his skin, water, and the air. Only plausible explanation, at least.
Foolish was silent for a few seconds, which gave Ranboo time to grab a straw from the coffee station and sit down. He beckoned Foolish over.
“I’m sorry, I just…” Foolish sighed as he walked over and sat down. “This might be a sensitive topic. I guess I should… rephrase the first part. I meant to ask, how are you doing? With the whole… Karl, stuff. I know you two were real close. I just want to know you’re doing alright.”
Ranboo paused mid-sip from the straw. He knew that Foolish likely meant his question to be “how do you deal with the loss”, but he was glad that the man decided to rephrase it— because the truth was, he wasn’t dealing with the loss. More so, he was pushing it to the back of his mind and trying to ignore the feelings that came with it.
And for the record, if he liked Foolish any less, he would’ve just responded with an “I’ve been doing fine” and walked off. But he liked Foolish, and when Karl was still around, so did he. Therefore, he decided to be honest. Not only with Foolish, but with himself, for once, as well.
“...I’ve not been doing the best, actually,” Ranboo mumbled, to which the others’ shoulders tensed. “I think about him a lot, but… I can’t remember much either. I’ve been trying to, you know? I ask Sapnap about things we all used to do together, but I just forget about it immediately after as well.” He bit down on the plastic straw that was submerged in the water bottle, hesitating on taking a sip. Instead, he kept talking.
“I can only remember bad or bittersweet memories, and I guess that’s better than nothing, right?” He smiled, though it was weak.
Foolish looked down, then to the side, then back towards the door– and then straight at him. He opened his mouth to say something with what looked an anxious expression on his face, but as soon as he tried to get a word out, the door flung open. Eret peeked their head in.
“Hey, you two. Thought you’d be in here. If you’re eating, eat quicker– Schlatt said we’ve gotta leave for the mission at 5 now instead of 6. Annoying bastard, that man is.”
Ranboo whined. Foolish huffed out a quiet “Seriously?”
“Yup. You’ve got about an hour to get ready. I’ll see you guys in the garage when you’re ready, alright?” They said, waving a hand before walking off. They didn’t bother to close the door, likely knowing that Ranboo and Foolish would be leaving the breakroom soon anyway.
“Dang… I wonder why he changed the departure time so suddenly. Maybe he had to adjust for travel time?” Foolish mumbled, mainly to himself (though loud enough for Ranboo to overhear), as he slid out of the chair and stood to his full height. Ranboo stood as well, folding the straw in on itself, closing the water bottle, and placing it back into an open spot in the fridge.
“Probably.” Ranboo said, taking the initiative to walk out the door, Foolish in tow. “The 10th floor is the changing rooms, right?” He questioned, looking back at the taller man for confirmation, to which the other nodded. Ranboo approached the elevator, pressing the button with a down arrow on it. It took about a minute or two, but soon enough, the elevator arrived and the doors opened.
Foolish nodded a greeting to two of their fellow colleagues who walked out of the elevator, as he and Ranboo walked in. The elevator doors closed, and the two stood in silence as the shaft slowly moved down to the 10th floor. It wasn’t that far down thankfully, else Ranboo might’ve gotten dizzy again— and, honestly, he was a little sick of being dizzy so many times today.
The elevator ride only took 20 seconds, with (thankfully) no stops to other floors on the way. When the doors opened, Foolish walked out first, and Ranboo followed.
Prime, please tell me he has his ID badge because I left my bag in the locker rooms. Ranboo thought to himself, but didn’t express the thought. Fortunately, his prayers were answered as Foolish pulled his badge out and pressed it to the scanner at the changing room door, allowing both of them in.
The only reason why the room had a scanner in the first place was because of a prank that George and Sapnap had played on Dream once, where they’d stolen his mask and then lost it when trying to give it back. The whole debacle pissed the number-one hero off enough for him to persuade the head of the board to install the scanners on the door.
Pretty useless, but hey, what did he know?
The room was uninteresting. A long grey-colored room with a white tiled floor and lockers lining the walls. Also, some metal benches that were not only cold but also uncomfortable as all hell when you sat on them. Ranboo didn’t pay much attention to what Foolish was doing after entering, because he instead focused on getting to his locker and putting his hero attire on.
His locker was near the back, as he was still relatively new to on-field work. About a year, yeah, but they hadn’t had any new hires as of late. He put in the combination, which was practically worthless for him, because the code was simply just written out on a sticky note and pinned to the lockers surface due to the whole memory-issue thing. A quiet creaking sound echoed through the empty room as he opened the locker.
There it was. His hero suit. He wasn’t sure if he was excited or terrified to see it right now. Fighting the Syndicate was pretty damn scary. Even heroes (in training) got scared sometimes.
When he looked it over, he noticed something.
Ah, damnit…
A miniscule tear on the suit near the wrist from his last mission when he’d been scratched by a particularly feisty cat. He was surprised it hadn’t been fixed yet, because he was sure he put in a request. They must’ve been busy, then. He didn’t mind.
It’d be fine, probably. It was barely visible, and small, so he just settled on getting it fixed after this mission.
He grabbed it off its hanger, hiding himself behind the locker door as he changed. It was a nice-looking suit, he couldn’t lie. He always admired it when he put it on. Black, white, and purple… all nice colors. He then grabbed the cloak out as well, draping it over his shoulders and clasping the two pieces together.
He put up his hair into a small ponytail, pulled the hood over his head, and stared at himself in the small mirror propped up on the door of the locker. Now, all he needed was the mask. He did already have one, but the one he wore with his hero attire had a voice changer embedded into it and it was much sturdier. It kind of looked like a gas mask, honestly!
Shooting one more glance into the mirror, he looked up at the horns that peeked out from his hood. He couldn’t really make eye contact, not even with himself in the mirror, so he was just hoping everything was on right.
Then he closed the locker door after his little moment of reflection, and then looked around the room; noting that Foolish had left. He could understand. He did take a while to change… so he should probably get going. Quickly.
The locker door was shut a little louder than Ranboo meant to close it, but he didn’t spend too long thinking about it. There was nobody else there to apologize for his loudness anyway, so he just speed-walked out of the room and back to the elevator, repeating the same process as before. Press the down button, wait for the shaft to arrive, get on it, go to the basement floor, wait again, and get out.
The elevator dinged as it dropped him off to the basement floor. As soon as the doors opened, he saw Sapnap leaning against the wall as Foolish conversed with him about… something. He couldn’t hear.
He stumbled out of the elevator, stretching his arms and back. He looked back towards Sapnap, who was giving him a fond smile.
It reminded him of—
“Okay! We’re all here now, yes?” Eret called out from near the car (because, yes, they were going to drive to the location of the attack… you can’t expect someone to walk for so long and then fight, that was a one way ticket to exhaustion), waving them all over. “Let’s get a move on. I don’t wanna hear any words from Schlatt nor Dream, or so help me Prime, I will burst my own eardrums.”
Sapnap barked out a laugh at that, and Foolish walked over while chuckling. Ranboo, after a second, followed the two towards the sleek black car that Eret was leaning against.
“I call shotgun!” Sapnap quickly shouted out before Foolish could even think to open his mouth, to which Foolish whined out what sounded like a “no fair”.
Ranboo stifled a snort, as he opened the door to the backseat and slid in as did Foolish. Sapnap sat in the passenger seat, and Eret in the driver's seat.
Ranboo wrapped the seatbelt around his person. He knew some heroes saw it as inefficient for time— but being a hero was all about being lawfully good, and putting on a seatbelt was pretty damn lawful in his opinion, so he did so. The others didn’t comment on it, but he did note that Foolish was the only other one to buckle in as well.
The car started up, and soon enough, they were on the road. The other three laughed and joked around warmly, and Ranboo couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face. Other heroes probably would’ve just sat in silence, maybe with some pointed looks— but this was… surprisingly nice. Tame, in comparison to the mission they were about to deal with.
Scratch what he said about this being a bad day earlier. This day was actually becoming pretty decent. He had high hopes for the mission, in that regard.
Just get to the mission, get through it, and return. Piece of cake.