Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The thumping of footsteps sounded out into the quiet night air that encapsulated the entire country. It was a Tuesday night at like 2 am and Mellohi had grown incredibly bored of just sitting around at home.

Lunar had left not even an hour or so ago for another one of his hits, when the paranoia that seemed to follow Mellohi wherever he went already grew too bad.

So here he was running and leaping across rooftops in one of the richest districts the country had to offer. The Antarctic District.

With the wind tugging at his clothes and biting at every bit of exposed skin he had, he finally felt free. The wind practically pulling all his worries with it. This was his escape, and he hadn’t even gotten to the best part yet.

A grin started to tug at his lips when he spotted the building that was the entire reason, he came here in the first place. Honestly, it didn’t look like much, just some regular big chain supermarket owned by just another rich, greedy prick.

But to Mellohi it was the tenth layer of hell, this was where his day job took place and Mellohi (or rather Tommy) was pretty fed up with it. He was a cashier here and my gods did he hate it. Sadly, it was really the only place that was going to hire a high school dropout so he kind of depended on this place. Luckily, he had his routine to get back at the big cooperation (and also get some chores off his to-do list).

So, he circled around the back where he climbed through the broken window which he knew didn’t have any cameras observing it. As he turned around to look back at it, he frowned just slightly, it had been a good like four months since he smashed that window, and no one thought to fix it? Don’t get him wrong he wasn’t going to complain about it, but the employees back here probably were.

He slowly started navigating his way through the darkness of the backroom. As he stood in front of the big double doors leading into the main store he quickly checked if all of his stuff was in the right place.

He knew that the second he opened those doors the police would be alerted to a break in. He’s honestly surprised that they’re even still sending the police when they know for a fact that they’ll be coming face to face with one of the most infamous villains the country had to offer. He would’ve thought that by now they would’ve started sending actual hero’s out but once again it made his job easier, so he wasn’t going to complain.

Checking that his twin pistols were still secured at his hips on the utility belt he wore, as well as having his various knives within reach, he finally pushed the doors open and started strolling through the aisles.

Really, he was in no rush, the police weren’t going to get here for another fifteen minutes with their appallingly slow response time and they’d be lucky if he was even still in the same district as them by that point.

He took off his backpack and started stuffing a couple monster cans inside. Lunar basically lived off those and Mellohi himself wasn’t going to say no to the occasional caffeine boost.

He then started to make his way through the store picking out a couple of items that they were running low on and trashing the occasional section of a co-worker he didn’t like.

As the bag had started to get full Mellohi could finally start seeing the red and blue lights speeding his way. Now, he had no actual desire to stay around and fight, but the idea of annoying some cops brought him an awful lot of joy, so as quietly as possible he first folded out his wings and then propelled himself backwards and onto one of the darker shelfs. There he sat perched up high, surveying the entire store.

The smile of his face only got larger as the first two police officers made their way inside. By this point Mellohi was sure they expected him to be long gone, so they simply examined how much of a mess he made and how much it would be in property damages. News flash: a lot.

He took pride in how their faces darkened every time they came across more destruction and in the way he knew that he had complete control over the entire situation if he so chooses. Even if his newfound company did not know it yet.

Mellohi loved having power over others, mostly authority figures and anyone with a superiority complex and yes that was probably a sign he wasn’t all there mentally but let’s be honest you have to have a couple screws loose to become a villain in the first place.

But if there was one thing, he loved over anything else it was chaos. So, he pulled on that slight humming in the back of his mind which allowed him to not only read the room perfectly but also adapt it to whatever the fuck he wants it to be.

He quickly found the energies of two officers inside and about another five positioned outside all around the building.

He quickly singled out the energies of the two inside the store with him before zoning in on them. The first guy screamed of disgust and annoyance while the second seemed calculated and sceptical.

He could work with this. Under the safety of the shadows and his multitude of weapons, Mellohi started to interfere.

First things first, guy number one gets a hefty amount of anger and lets also up the annoyance tenfold.

Mellohi expected a reaction but what he didn’t expect was for the guy to kick at one of the shelves in frustration only for that same shelf to topple over into the aisle behind it and land only about half a meter away from where his college stood.

It took every bit of self-control he had for Mellohi to not burst out laughing. His now extended talons gripping onto the shelf below him trying to not topple over that one as well. He could’ve called upon his powers to alter his own emotions but frankly he didn’t give two shits if the officers figured him out.

He looked back over at the two men that were now arguing. Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks this is pure entertainment.

That was until his phone buzzed from a notification and the men abruptly halted what they were doing. He should’ve left the damn thing at home because now the cops are scouring the place with their impossible bright flashlights.

Even with them looking around he decided against moving from where he had just gotten comfortable. It was really quite a shame, he just started having some fun today and here they were to ruin it. He rolled his eyes and kept observing the men.

Oh my gods, these people were stupid. They held their flashlight either to the ground or to eye level. As if he’d just be standing in some aisle waiting for them. To be fair he was pretty much doing exactly that from atop his vantage point but still.

“Hello?” He heard one of them (the more composed one, his mind helpfully supplied) call out.

Did they expect him to just answer like ‘yes hello, here I am, please arrest me!’? If they did then they were completely correct, he smirked. “Can I help you with anything?” His voice came out as a high-pitched metallic sound. The only reason of why it sounded like that was simply because it throws people off.

Both cops spun around in an instant and his grin only widened at that. Not that they could see of course his mask did an excellent job of covering up the lower half of his face, but he wouldn’t be surprised if his eyes portrayed his cockiness well enough.

And of course, both had their guns drawn in an instant. He overly exaggerated an eyeroll at that followed by a sigh.

“Aw but we just started having fun!” He let a bit of childlike joy slip into his already high-pitched taunt. As always, it worked like a charm.

He watched as their grip slightly loosed at that. Probably to figure out how old he was but its not like he cared. All he cared about in that moment is that he had them exactly where he wanted them to be. Confused and with their backs to the door.

So instead of wasting more time he zoned back into their energies.

Confused, Scared, Determined

He started interfering.

Confused, Scared, Nervous

Their grip on their guns weakened.

Confused, Scared, Nervous

Their guns fell.

Mellohi resisted scoffing at how easy that was and instead he took the opening.

Hell, he never even needed to pull out his own weapons.

Dashing down from off his own shelf, he let his wings carry him over the two officers and out the door.

He could hear a faint click coming from behind him signalling that at least one of the men had clicked off the safety of their guns. Mellohi could not give less of a shit about them. He has already turned into one of the side alleys and scaled a fire escape up the nearest building, The heavy backpack still sitting on his back.

And so, he started running across rooftops. If freedom had a feeling associated with it, he’d imagine it to be exactly this. It was probably one of the only good things that came from his fucked up life. Its one of the few things that makes how things turned out just a bit more bearable.

Mellohi wasn’t even really in the moment. He just let reflexes take over, trusting that his body wouldn’t let him die. Which might be a death wish in it of itself but whatever.

His mind circled back to a time before all of this. Before he woke up screaming with nightmares every morning, before he put his life on the line every single day, before he had to question if his loved ones would come back alive every time they left. To a time when it was just him and Lunar hanging out and having fun.

Two kids jumping on beds or nestled together on the couch watching movies. Two kids just enjoying what life had to offer. Two kids who simultaneously lost everything they knew in a matter of under an hour.

He shook his head slightly as he ran. As many complaints as he had about his life, he knew he’ll never go back. This is the way things have worked out, so be it. He has seen behind the curtains, and he hated what he saw. He hated how the hero committee was so quick to cover up any murder done by one of their precious top heroes. He hated how the lives of villains and lower ranking heroes were seen as expendable. He hated it all.

He didn’t even notice that he was no longer running across rooftops and instead had dropped down onto the main street and reached the border to l’Manburg, when he heard a desperate screech from behind. Instinctively he turned around with one hand hovering over his gun before he saw a kid rounding the corner out of an alleyway and towards him.

Tear streaks marked his face and the white hospital gown looking thing he wore was so big on him it threatened to trip him with every step he took.

Behind him emerged a man dressed fully in black, covered in tactical gear head to toe. This set off every alarm bell in Mellohi’s mind. The man was starting to catch up to the kid, who Mellohi determined to most likely be a spider hybrid.

Before he could think twice about it, he let his wings propel him forward and wrap his arms around the small child. He was way too light for his height and approximate age. The man didn’t stop, however. Even when spotting Mellohi he kept sprinting.

Did this fucker seriously not know who he was dealing with?

Flinging himself to the side and out of the way, he crashed into a wall and his entire back erupted in pain. Not a problem its not like this was his first time handling pain. All he cared about was that the man had missed him by an inch and was now staring at him ready to come at him again. Mellohi shifted the child’s weight to one arm and immediately drew one of his pistols with the other. Back still to the wall he raised it up to where he knew his opponent’s eyes sat.

There was an entry to the underground only about two alleyways over.

Looking the other man over Mellohi tried determining his weakest points. He had no doubt the man wore under armour under his shirt and that helmet could certainly take a bullet or two. He needed to act fast. He couldn’t play the long game with a kid in his arms. A kid that had started clinging to him with all its strength and sobbing quietly into his shoulder.

They were at a stalemate as the other Mans hand started twitching to where Mellohi could see a gun sitting on his hip.

They were interrupted before anything could happen and for once Mellohi was glad.

“Aye! What’s the problem here bossman!” came a way too cheery voice from above. He smirked slightly at how familiar it was. It wasn’t often that Discord and Mellohi were on the same side but when they were it was always a sight to behold.

“Fucker here thought chasing a goddamn child was a good idea!” He yelled back just as upbeat. Discord dropped down from above him, having his wings stop him two seconds before certain death.

He watched as the man in black took a step back in face of their newfound company. He also knew that Lethe was most likely not far and his suspicions were confirmed as soon as the guy tried to make a run for it only to bump straight into the taller who just appeared there out of thin air.

Discord said something more which sounded just as taunting but Mellohi was no longer paying attention. The two vigilantes could handle it, he needed an out and fast.

His eyes started darting all over the place, looking for any way to sneak away without the watchful eyes of any of the others there.

The kid in his arms was still sobbing even when there were no more tears left. He didn’t know why he cared so much about the small child, but he did, and he wasn’t going to leave him alone here.

Everyone else seemed too interested in their own thing to notice Mellohi’s internal conflict which was always nice. If he was going to struggle, he would rather do so away from watchful eyes.

He held the kid slightly tighter and watched as he practically melted into the touch. Cool, he’s attached now, no big deal.

He should probably warn Lunar that there’s a child moving in.

Then the first one of Discords explosions went off and he took that as a sign to get the fuck out.

Pulling the small boy closer he made it down two more blocks before he turned down a small and twisting alleyway. He didn’t stop until he stood right at its dead-end. There he took a deep breath and quickly turned around to check and make sure he wasn’t followed. When he confirmed that he couldn’t pick up on any other energies than his own he pressed a button at the back of his neck.

Almost immediately the floor gave way underneath them and they started into a free fall.

Mellohi was certain the child should’ve been screaming by now but no, all the kid did was hold onto him slightly tighter.

Landing at the bottom in a safety net he sighed a breath of relief. Checking that the boy in his arms made it out alright, he found him looking up at him with wide tearstained eyes. He gave the boy his best attempt at a reassuring smile before getting the both of them out of the net and back onto actual ground.

The kid, who was now standing next to him, seemed to cower in on himself and once again Mellohi felt a pang of sympathy for the kid. He could’ve honestly just used his power to get passed the emotions he was feeling towards the spider hybrid, he was controlling his own emotions practically all the time anyways, but something about this kid was different.

He took another steadying breath and decided to get the kid to be more comfortable around him while they were still in the empty hallway leading off of the safety net and not in the bustling underground that was his home. So, he kneeled down to the kid’s level.

As much as his entire life has had to do with emotions, he’s surprisingly bad at them when they happen naturally.

“What’s your name kiddo?” Oh my gods did he sound old saying that. But hey at least it got the kids attention as his eyes were now on him instead of where he was fiddling with his fingers.

“Shroud.” The kid said, voice surprisingly even. Shroud was also eyeing him very suspiciously which was to be expected so he wasn’t going to bring that up.

“You look familiar.” The kid blurted out, squinting his eyes slightly. “Are you a hero…?” His eyes widened at the false realization, and he took a hesitant step back.

Mellohi doubled over in laughter at that. Never had anyone compared him to a hero and the thought alone was so ridiculous to him that he couldn’t help finding it incredibly amusing. “No, No kid I’m not.” He stated as he was trying his hardest to compose himself.

“Then what are you?” Shrouds six eyes started looking him up and down once again.

“My names Mellohi and I’m a villain.” He said quite cheerfully.

The kids’ eyes snapped back up to his face. Mellohi was standing again by that point, but the kid didn’t seem scared which was just a slight bit confusing. Rather he seemed… intrigued?

Shroud stepped closer again, slightly tugging at his sleeveless, red, hoodie and running his fingers through the black and white feathers on his wings. Mellohi watched the kid with amusement glinting in his eyes. He didn’t protest when the kid tried grabbing onto one of the wings to get a closer look and instead just lowered it down so Shroud could see.

After a while he held out his hand for the boy to take and with only slight hesitation, he did so.

Lunar was going to hate him for this, but he thinks he could live with that.

Chapter Text

To be fair, Tommy really didn’t think this thing through. At least Purpled waited on lecturing him until after they put the kid to bed in the empty guest room, but he was sadly making quite a few good points about this whole thing.

“Are you even listening to me?!” Purpled was leaning over the kitchen counters with his hands balled up into fists while Tommy was just sat on a barstool across from him with his feet on the counters. No, no he wasn’t but it was a rhetorical question anyways so there’s not much use in answering.

Purpled sighed after a while. If looks could kill Tommy would be six feet under.

“Toms, neither of us have time to take care of a child. We both have busy day jobs on top of going out practically every night.” He looked exhausted over the argument and Tommy sympathized. They didn’t fight often and neither of them enjoyed it.

“We could ask Drista and Lani?” Tommy mumbled carefully, not wanting to set off the primed bomb that was Purpled right now.

“And what would they do? Tommy they’re sixteen. They are technically kids themselves, I’m not leaving a ten-year-old at their apartment.” Purpled had sat down by this point head resting on his hands.

Tommy didn’t really know how to respond. He was tired and it was obvious that Purpled was as well.

“Look Toms, raising a child is a huge responsibility. We’re barely adults ourselves. I don’t know how you’re planning on making this work.” Purpled was making eye contact now and for some reason Tommy was starting to feel rather protective over his own choices and Shroud.

“So, I should’ve just left him out there with that strange guy?” Tommy questioned, venom clear in every word. He regretted his tone in an instant, but Purpled didn’t seem all that upset about it.

“No. No, what I’m saying is that this isn’t any sort of environment a kid should be exposed to. We’re not fit to take care of a kid and the underground is way too dangerous for him. There are reasons people need a place without any kind of law enforcement to operate, something that’s great for us but devastating for a growing kid. The streets are filled with criminals and information dealers waiting for any piece of personal info to sell. Do you not see how wrong this could go?”

Tommy looked down towards the ground at that. Purpled was right. His feet were no longer on the counter, and it seemed that he overall just folded in on himself at that. Another sigh from ahead of him before “We’ll think of something tomorrow alright? I’m tired and I’m sure you are too. Go to bed.” And then he walked off to his bedroom, shutting the door softly.

Tommy wandered off to his own.

He wouldn’t leave Shroud and deep down he knew Purpled wouldn’t either. He might not be as attached to the spider hybrid as Tommy was but they both knew what it was like to have no one.

To be no one.

And they’d burn the world to the ground before another child would have to experience that.

He shut the door behind him and jumped into bed. His and Purpled’s rooms were about the same size which was rather small but neither of them were big fans of large open spaces so all in all it was fine.

This did leave Shroud to inhabit the largest bedroom in the apartment, however also the most unfurnished. Shroud also lacked any clothes outside of the white hospital gown he was wearing.

They’d have to go shopping soon if Purpled was okay with the kid staying.

He knew he would be.

With that, sleep took hold of him, and he soon lost consciousness.

-----*-----

Getting out of bed the next day was unsurprisingly difficult. He didn’t expect to have an easy time getting up with three hours of sleep, but almost passing out from exhaustion every few seconds was definitely not something he wanted to experience.

With that in mind, he’d need about five of those energy drinks he took if he somehow wanted to get through his ten hours shift alive. Probably more actually.

Really, if the heroes don’t manage kill him first, working retail just might.

So, while only slightly feeling like burning down the entire district, he managed to drag himself out of bed, before he beelined to the fridge immediately.

Chugging down that first bit of caffeine he let out a slight sigh of relief.

He’d never doubt Prime again if he made it through this day properly.

After the last drop of liquid vanished, he went to set his can down, when his mind registered the hand resting on his shoulder. Now fight or flight is something Tommy is all too aware of, and his body seems to particularly favour the former.

Spinning around, he grabs onto the arm and twists before noticing what’s happening. Letting go he comes face to face with an immensely pissed off yet slightly impressed Purpled.

“Fucks sake man, you can’t just sneak up on a guy like that!” Tommy exclaims.

Purpled looks rather unimpressed but Tommy could see the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He rolled his eyes and headed towards the fridge, taking an energy drink of his own.

The alien hybrid was already fully dressed in his work uniform, which Tommy is not at all jealous of.

No way.

But like seriously, he has to walk around in this godforsaken bright blue shirt and pant set which honestly is just an eyesore, he has no idea how the store even still has customers if they have to look at that all the time, but then Purpled gets this fancy ass beige uniform with a sweater vest and all!

Seriously fuck that library and their pretentious ass uniform.

“You alright, dude?” Tommy hadn’t quite noticed that he completely spaced out there. Purpled can deal with it, he’s sleep deprived alright.

He gave a thumbs up and a cocky grin in response which earned him yet another eyeroll.

“Right well”, Purpled took a deep breath, “we can keep the kid…” That’s a bit blunt but once again Tommy wasn’t not going to complain. He technically knew that Purpled was going to say yes but he was still ecstatic.

Picking up on Tommys excitement Purpled quickly added “But only until we find out who that man was and we can guarantee that he’ll be safe out there.”

You know what, good enough. Also, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to know who the fuck that man was and why he was chasing a ten-year-old around like a mad man.

“Fair enough.” He smiled at Purpled.

“Right, well I already texted Niki and Hannah and they’re willing to take him with them to work at their florist shop today.”, he hesitated shortly before adding, “I also might have mentioned the kid to Aimsey and Guqqi and they may have impulsively bought him way too many clothes.” He shook his head slightly with nothing but fondness at the couple’s antics.

His tail was swaying ever so slightly, making the rings on it clank together and create a calming melody.

-----*-----

Purpled wasn’t kidding when he said way too many clothes. The empty closet was filled to the brim with clothes. Well at least they got Shroud out of that shitty hospital gown.

He looked so happy at even just having the freedom to pick out his own clothes. He knows the kid probably had a traumatizing life up to this point and he also knows that its far from over but he thinks if he can shield Shroud from the hellish world around them in any way imaginable he’d do so without hesitation each and every time.

Anyways they dropped Shroud off at Niki and Hannahs before parting ways to get to their own jobs.

Tommy sat in the subway blasting music into his ears at an unhealthy volume (He probably wouldn’t live long enough to have to deal with those consequences anyways).

He’s dreading work. He swears, the first Karen he sees today is getting a fist to the face cause his patience for entitled customers is running real low right now. Not like its ever really anything but low but he’s reached new depths of not giving a fuck today and he will make it everyone else’s problem.

The subway is packed and it’s not helping his annoyance one bit.

Theres a sweaty guy that seemingly just came back from the gym to his left (Who the fuck goes to the gym before nine am) and a screaming toddler to his right.

He actually feels bad for the toddlers mom who’s really trying her best to calm the kid down and shoots the people around her an apologetic look every couple of seconds but Tommy is not above dropkicking a child and this kid might just find that out soon.

You’d think for someone who can control emotions he’d be better at regulating them. Technically he could. Alright fuck it, might as well put these powers to good use.

First of all that kid needs to calm the fuck down. Turns out, singling out one energy out of like a hundred people isn’t actually easy but he thinks he’s got the right one as he slowly starts pushing new emotions into the kid and removing unwanted ones.

Alright one parts good now to his own. Manipulating his emotions has always been easiest so he tightens his grasp on his own energy and starts fiddling around with it. Most of it is already fine as he never completely looses control over himself but he’ll add a bit of calmness and remove some annoyance anyways.

Quickly he feels his muscles relaxing. He now only feels like punching a Karen the normal amount.

The intercom rings out, announcing their arrival at the Antarctic Station so without a second glance Tommy exits the train and makes his way up the stairs towards the outside.

If he had to describe the Antarctic District with one word it’d be pretentious. The streets were lined with way too perfectly shaped trees and the houses behind them all looked way too uniform with way too perfect little gardens. Everything was just too perfect and lacked any kind of personality.

Which he guesses makes sense as this was also the place the hero tower was located, and most heroes spent their free time in the district but that was simply part of the problem.

Arriving at work he clocked in and started helping customers. Most of them were actually tolerable and of course he reciprocated the gesture, yet there still had to be the occasional entitled asshole in there testing his non-existent patience.

All in all though, it was still early and they were usually as not busy around this time so he just laid back slightly and let himself be caught up in the familiar routine.

Until his peace was destroyed because of course someone had to fuck up his valuable time.

A man came up to his register with about five tubs of ice cream, a bottle of red wine and a stack of frozen pizzas. Either this guy just went through a real shitty breakup or he’s throwing a party and either way Tommy was going to judge him to hell and back.

The next thing he noticed was that this guy was pissed. He was talking with someone on the phone at a volume that made Tommys eye twitch.

“Phil, I’ve said this days ago, I’m not attending that damn meeting.” Ah work problems cool. Tommy was not interested in listening to this guy whine about his high-paying job, while he was working minimum wage.

“Hello sir, did you find everything today?” Fuck customer service.

The man, who Tommy now noticed had brown messy hair and a godawful bright yellow jumper on, took his attention off his phone for a quick second to respond “Yeah, yeah whatever.” Before resuming his conversation.

Alright kind of rude but whatever.

“Phil, No, I don’t care about working on our team building or some bullshit like that!”

“I’m going to need to see some form of ID for the wine.”

“What?” The man replied covering his phone with one hand. Tommy sighed internally.

“ID?” Fuck formalities he didn’t get enough sleep for this.

“Right.” The man seemed annoyed, and Tommy would be lying if he said he didn’t find this whole thing ever so slightly amusing. Mostly insufferable though.

The man pulled out a driver’s licence before handing it to Tommy and resuming his call.

Tommy was quick to make a mental note of any information he could find on it before handing it back to the man he had now learned goes by the name of Wilbur.

The names pretentious as fuck but he didn’t exactly expect anything else. Hell, he wouldn’t have been surprised if his name was fucking Bartholomew or some shit.

“I don’t give a fuck about what Scott thinks alright he could’ve scheduled this fucking meeting sometime that’s not at the fucking crack of dawn!” Alright even for a guy he has no clue about this kind of outrage does not seem deserved.

But what does he know, he’s just some guy working at a supermarket right now.

He finished scanning everything before speaking up again.

“You want a bag?” He’s so done with this interaction, fuck customer service.

He was quickly shot another glare followed by a short nod. Rude, can’t a man just do his job at peace. He was supposed to be the one judging, not the other way around.

He grabbed a bag and put that over where all the other groceries sat.

“Cash or card?” Tommy was now giving him his own glare and a slight smirk formed on his lips at the slight sneer the older man now possessed.

Silently he stuck out his card and looked expectantly at Tommy. If he scoffed slightly at that, the man didn’t notice. Instead, he made sure the asshole could pay and get out of his hair as fast as possible.

The older inserted his card and as tempting as it was, Tommy didn’t look at the pin he typed in. As much as he hated this job with a burning passion, he didn’t feel like getting fired.

After one final annoyed glance from the brunette, he moved to his stuff and swiped it into the bag in one fluent motion. He then turned on his heel and out the door.

There wasn’t a line so as soon as he left, Tommy took out a small notepad and quickly jotted down the information he remembered from the guys drivers licence and his looks in general. He had a strange feeling that this guy could be an interesting case.

Things luckily even out a bit after that, Tommy continued ringing people up with only a couple hiccups along the way.

Until the very end of Tommys shift when they were just about to close down the shop for the day. A new customer entered. No big deal, sure there were only about five more minutes until they closed but that’s fine.

Tommy definitely wasn’t about to figure out the mans entire family tree.

Fuck Niki and her whole “be the bigger person” bullshit, she also kills people in her free time who the fuck is she to be all peace love and plants!

Actually, Niki is really nice but he’s in a really pissed off mood right now and needs to let steam off somehow.

-----*-----

It took the man fifteen minutes to finally make it up to Tommys register and Tommy was going to find any reason to ID this man.

He didn’t look half bad. He had loose brown curls hanging slightly over his face and was wearing a comfy black hoodie with some black jeans and boots in the same colour. Can’t really go wrong with black Tommy guesses.

Theres one thing that made him suspicious though.

Even if Tommy wasn’t trying to, he was still subconsciously picking up on the guys’ emotions and the sheer amount of anxiousness seemed like enough to kill a man, yet the man looked absolutely fine.

His expression was schooled into what to the untrained eye looked like boredom. Tommy was no untrained person, he saw the way the guys’ eyes flicked across the store a bit too fast for his liking, the way the brunette was ever so slightly tapping his finger against his outer thigh, the way he’d avoid eye contact.

Tommy made sure to pretend he was none the wiser of this. The guy looked to be in his early twenties, so it could’ve been nothing. Maybe some first date or job interview or something. Still, he had a lingering feeling that something was amiss.

His groceries were frustratingly normal. A bit of lettuce, a couple bell peppers, some bags of chips, a quite frankly ungodly amount of caffeine products even by Tommys standard, but all still annoyingly normal.

He needed something, anything. Something like… a line of painkillers? The fuck?

No, he didn’t see that wrong, the guy was trying to buy a mountain of painkillers. That wasn’t legal right? But then again literally nothing about Tommy was legal so who was he to judge.

So, he started scanning, revelling in the way he felt the man’s anxiety spiked every time he picked up one of them to scan.

Right, he’s just going to ID him for this. That’s probably possible.

“Could I see an ID for all of this?” He started, once more trying and failing to establish eye contact.

“Oh, yeah sure man.” Was this guy still trying to look nonchalant because who was going to tell him that he’s failing miserably. Not Tommy he was having the time of his life messing with him.

The man handed over his ID with surprisingly steady fingers. Right, Tommy wasn’t actually checking it. He should’ve been home ten minutes ago he’s not wasting time with that shit but he was memorising it to the best of his abilities before handing it back.

He was quick to finish up that transaction and clock out, not wanting to waste another minute here and so he headed for the exit.

The paper with all the information he could find on both men was laying comfortably in his palm.

Drista was about to have a field day with this shit.

Chapter Text

Drista sat in her room doing some last-minute homework. For once she actually had to be at her legal address with her foster parents.

They usually wouldn’t care where she was or what she was doing, but the next day they had some kind of fancy business party where she’d have to attend just so her “parents” could boast about what nice people they were to take in a defenceless little orphan like her.

She scoffed at the thought. Defenceless. Yeah right. But being left alone usually worked somewhat in Drista’s favour. I mean call it neglect all you want but hiding a secret double life as a villain from your hero parents is a whole lot easier if said parents simply don’t care to look close enough and figure it out.

And funnily enough, those business parties usually also worked in her favour, because a party meant quite a good amount of inside information if you knew where to look for it. And if people were drunk enough to simply hand it over of course.

She was dragged back to reality by the soft ding her laptop emitted.

She smiled as she read the email address. It was one of Tommy’s many aliases, this one going by ‘Theo Clementine’, with Theo being a nickname for the much more well known alias ‘Theseus’, which was given to him by the vigilante Ares, and Clementine being the first pet Tommy ever owned.

Opening up the e-mail she was met with a short, encrypted message as well as a picture attached. The picture was also safely stored away behind a bunch of safety mechanisms.

She quickly got to work deciphering everything. Homework could wait, this was much more interesting.

Her fingers were flying across the keyboard with practice ease, every push of a button happening so fast you’d miss it if you weren’t paying attention.

Once she got everything securely onto her side, she actually read what the other blond wanted. It was just some basic information on two individuals but the image is what brought a smile to her face.

It was simply a photo of a piece of paper with shitty handwriting all over it. But there, at the top of the note stood a name she’d recognise from a mile away. Wilbur Soot. A name that wouldn’t tell you much if you didn’t have the right connections into the hero committee but like she said, she knew who to hang around with to get her way.

Call it manipulation or whatever, but Drista prefers the term ‘payback’. If they didn’t want to be led into a false sense of safety maybe, they shouldn’t have sacrificed her brother as cannon fodder. Just an idea, consider it.

With a smile she pulled up the hidden file she already had on the brunette before taking a look at the second persons information.

Its not someone she’s met before or so she thinks. The name is extremely generic and so is practically everything on there. She could go by birthdate but with literally everything else just being average she doesn’t have much faith in finding much.

Actually, scratch that, there’s no way of her finding anything. Her eyes zip back to the birthdate. As she thought, wherever this information came from, it was a forgery.

February twenty-ninth in a year that wasn’t even a leap year, what was this, Amateur hour?

She almost laughs at the idiocy. Almost

.

Whoever this person was, they was suspicious as fuck. But there was one thing her mind kept getting back to. How did Tommy not notice that it was a forgery? The lot of them aren’t new to illegal activities in the slightest and she knows all of them could pick out a forged document blind sighted, especially if it was done by someone who seems to be a fucking moron.

You don’t make deals unless you know to trust the other person involved and you don’t trust anyone unless there’s a provably real contract in place.

But now Drista’s invested and once that happens there’s really no backing out anymore.

She sighed slightly before picking up her phone and spinning around to face the door. She was in a house filled with heroes and apparently nobody has heard of sound proofing. Hell, she could hear her foster parents down in the kitchen and could make out practically every word they said.

Now, that might just be her training speaking but she’ll stay as quiet as possible anyways, better safe than sorry.

Finally pressing the call button next to Tommy’s contact name, she tried to relax slightly. Against her best efforts however, her foot started tapping against the floorboards and a slight headache started forming.

“Hi, Dris! What’s up man!” Drista almost jumped out of her seat when Tommy’s way too energetic voice sounded out. It was almost one AM how the fuck did this guy have the energy to pull these stunts?

“Not too much, I’m just looking over the notes you sent. Mind telling me more about the second one?”

“I mean sure, but most of the info I have should be on the paper.” So he really didn’t know?

“Tommy, that thing is a plain old forgery.” She pinched her nose bridge slightly.

“What?” Okay, cool he was also confused.

“Why would you think that? I mean I think I’d know if it was a forgery.”

“Tommy, his birthday is on February 29. In a year that wasn’t even close to being a leap year.” The tapping now resumed, this time out of frustration.

The other line was silent for a bit. Drista actually went to check if he was even still there, but then. “What stupid motherfucker doesn’t go to check if his fake ass birthday actually even exists?” Okay, Tommy sounded pissed. Understandably so.

“Apparently this guy. Mind giving me more information on him?” She tucked her phone between her shoulder and head. Immediately her fingers flited back towards the keyboard, hovering slightly above, itching to start typing again.

“Yeah well, he had like brown slightly curly hair, was I’d say maybe 5,11? Somewhere around there and I’d guess late teens to early twenties in age?” She hummed slightly to herself. A couple months back she’d worked together with Inferno and they managed to get access to some secret government site that was used for tracking every citizen in the country. It was actually scary how much information was just there for them to use at any point in time.

Of course, there was nothing on them. She had long since altered her own file and those of a couple of friends that needed it. They didn’t have anything on Tommy or Purpled in the first place except for how they were presumed dead seven years ago.

“Alright mind me asking why he caught your eye?”

“Oh, first because he was one of those assholes that came in like two minutes before we closed and then just expected us to keep the place open just for him and afterwards because of the honestly concerning amount of pain killers the guy bought.”

“Wait, how many pain killers did you sell him? Isn’t that like insanely illegal or some shit?” Her fingers halted quickly before returning to try to figure out the filter system of this site. She was sure it had to have one. How else were you supposed to find shit on here?

“Drista, at this point my whole existence is illegal. Trust me they’re not gonna notice the sale of one too many pain killers under all of the first degree murder charges.” He deadpanned. He had a point, If Tommy was gonna go to jail it wouldn’t be for overselling pain meds.

She rolled her eyes and went back to tapping around on her keyboard. For once Tommy was silent. Content on letting her do her thing and my gods was she grateful for it.

The sound of the keys clicking around clouded her mind as she let herself get lost in the familiarity of it all. Still, she was frustratingly not making any real progress. Instead, she was consistently running into one dead end after the other.

How dare they protect the very private information of their citizens.

Surely there had to be some filter mechanism. At the very least something to find those with a criminal record or something right?

She could contact Inferno and once again try this with him but man her ego wasn’t going to like that option.

“Alright hold on Tommy, I can send you the stuff I have on the first one and I’ll get back to you if I find something on mystery guy.”

“Sounds good, talk to you later.” You could hear the genuine smile in his voice, before the call ended.

Right, well better get back to work. This guy won’t find himself. Actually, judging by how inexperienced he is he just might. Better for her anyways.

As expected this wasn’t a one night sort of thing. She ended up just finishing her homework and getting into bed which now landed her half asleep in school. Was she excited to be here? Fuck no, she was even sitting next to one of those assholes that kept trying to talk to her while working.

Morning people really sucked. It didn’t help that the teacher giving some sort of presentation had the most monotone voice imaginable. Seriously she’s going to fall asleep if that bell doesn’t end her agony soon.

The next class she’ll have with Aimsey, so although both of them don’t know shit about chemistry at least they’re not the only ones.

“Drista?” The teacher called.

And all her hope of survival just got crushed. She took one look at the blackboard and the useless scribbles on there. Fun, she’s a coder, a mastermind in her own way and what many would describe as a child prodigy. But math was absolutely not her thing.

This is why those super calculators exist. This is something she’d rather spend hours programming a bot for than actually do herself.

The teacher was getting impatient and Drista’s impending doom was quickly approaching. Right. She took in a deep breath before just randomly guessing: “twenty eight?”

“… We’re doing fractions Drista.” Welp, she tried her best. Rolling her eyes, she let her head rest on her arms once more. Math was really not her expertise.

This fact tended to surprise people but you need surprisingly little maths to make a functional piece of code.

Most of it is just trial and error. Mostly error. As the previous night proved.

She was still vastly frustrated about that, but she had to stop as soon as her parents started yelling at her that ‘they couldn’t have her falling asleep at the event’. Assholes, the lot of them.

The question got answered by some other guy towards the front and the dude next to her was still talking. She had half the mind to smash her fist into his face so he’d finally shut up. Surprisingly she didn’t.

-----*-----

By the time the bell rang, Drista had already packed all her stuff and immediately made a beeline for the door, taking a deep breath the second she stood outside in the halls. Math sucks.

She met up with Aimsey outside of the next classroom.

“We excited for chemistry?” Drista said slightly too enthusiastically. Sarcasm clear in her voice.

“Always are.” Aimsey answered with a monotone voice and a facial expression portraying the exact opposite.

Drista chuckled at that, although humourlessly, before stepping into the classroom and dragging a less than motivated Aimsey along with her.

It was fine. Chemistry was more so Lani’s thing anyways.

-----*-----

School had ended about an hour or so ago. For once in her life she admits she’d rather be at school than here.

While the parties themselves were always rather interesting and informational. The same could not be said about the whole getting ready process.

Her foster parents made sure to put her into the most obnoxious green dress they could possibly find with heels so tall they might as well double as murder weapons.

Fun fact, she’s tried that one before. Surprisingly effective. And the amount of heels she was wearing for all sorts of events also resulted in her being able to fight in them. Apparently a fifteen-centimetre heel to the face wasn’t an enjoyable experience. Who would’ve guessed.

She didn’t know much about the event, just that apparently some big contract with a different organization was supposed to get renewed or some shit. Whatever she didn’t really care about the ins and outs of whatever they were doing anyways.

Her “mother” was currently stood behind her curling her dirty blond hair. Every now and then she could feel the hot piece of metal travel ever so slightly too close to her skin, resulting in a couple of burns. Nothing too bad she’d been through worse.

But if this is how she was wielding what was practically a weapon out of gear, without any of the stress and further action that came with being on a battlefield, Drista would love to see how well they hold up in an actual fight.

With every bit of burn she could also feel her powers simmer slightly heavier just below her skin. Her fingertips were tingling with an instinctual need for revenge on the person hurting her. Even as her brain was telling her that this wasn’t on purpose and that there was no need to act on it.

Perhaps this comes as the result of her time coming up. You see, Eris is by far one of the least spotted villains, despite causing immense property damage and overall quite some noise whenever she is spotted.

This is due to her need to meticulously plan out each of her heists. And all of them have a reason. Even if it’s not obvious to anyone looking from the outside in. She doesn’t act spontaneously.

But its been about two months since her last appearance and her powers are letting her know that it’s about time to get back out there. Not today though. Today she has other things to take care of.

As her “mother” released the last strand of hair and started tying half her hair back up to form a loose bun looking thing. Look she’s trying her best to describe whatever is happening.

Looking into the mirror she didn’t hate it. Well, she probably would’ve chosen a lighter fabric because, man, if she didn’t already have a fair bit of muscle built up she’d be struggling. The hair was fine overall. She really didn’t mind the way she looked but this took way too much effort.

Anyways, her “mother” had ran downstairs to help her “father” with his suit and Drista was left alone. So she shoved a small cabinet to the side revealing a hole in the wall. She stuck her hand inside, retrieving two small throwing knives, a vial of aconite poison which she had gotten a week previously from Hannah. Plant powers are a saint when it comes to a lot of poisons.

She strapped the knives underneath her dress but still in reach from where the slight slit in it sat and tucked the poison into a hidden pocket inside the small handbag she was carrying. Better safe than sorry.

With one final deep breath she made her way downstairs where the others were waiting. Her “mother” once again tugged on a couple loose strands that had somehow managed to fall out of her hairdo and soon enough, they drove off towards the Antarctic District.

Chapter Text

These car rides never seemed to last quite long enough. Way too soon she stood inside the endless halls of the hero tower, making her way towards the event room. A room conveniently located on the ground floor and decorated with so much detail and gold that it looked straight out of some medieval church. Keep in mind this whole thing was built with the money collected from the everyday civilian just hoping to scrape by.

She tried to hide her scowl underneath the same practiced smile she always wore to this sort of occasion. Most people were none the wiser of her disgust as they stepped through the mahogany double doors and into the giant event room.

Immediately her “parents” left her side to go mingle with their hero friends, always ones to leave their foster child behind in favour of their friends.

Her eyes flit across the room as well. Spotting the big black wings of The Angel she smiled to herself as she made her way across the dark wooden floor.

As she stepped closer though she halted for just a moment before something genuine crept into that ever-growing smile of hers. Next to The Angel and Phantom, stood a man with broad shoulders, waist long pink hair neatly braided and tossed over his right shoulder, with a cape hanging from his shoulders and black combat boots holding him upright. The vigilante Ares, or rather Techno, was not a man that was easily mistakable and Drista was sure she’d be able to recognise him from a kilometre away. Funnily enough, Techno was one of the few people that even knew of her less than legal activities. This was about to be fun.

With newfound confidence she strode towards the trio. Posture upright and heels clacking against the wooden floors. The Angel was the first to seemingly notice her and turn around. That same warm, fatherly smile appearing on his face the moment he spotted her. She greeted him with a smile of her own, making sure her eyes crinkled ever so slightly.

She came to a stop next to the oldest. Neither Techno nor Phantom having noticed her arrival yet, both stuck in a heavy debate about, she thinks it’s about anteaters like all of Phantom’s discussions but she’s not quite sure.

“Guys break it up, no violence in front of the child.” The Angel spoke out as the typical anteater debate started getting more physical. She halfway scoffed at that. Violence was practically in her DNA by this point.

Both parties stopped their onslaught, Phantoms eyes finding her first and immediately he lit up.

“Drista! Great timing! You need to squash an argument here, Techno over here”, he points at the accused party next to him, “Is of the opinion that anteaters aren’t dirty parasites that need to go extinct, I think they do. Please tell him I’m right.”

The Angel quickly added: “Yeah, by the way, Techno, this is Drista. Drista, this is Techno.”

She slightly smirked at herself. Techno’s expression was akin to what Drista would expect someone who just saw a ghost to look like. “Cool, nice meeting you Tech! Anyways, he’s right suck it up Wil.” She leaned forwards slightly towards the brunette in an obviously mocking gesture.

Wilbur leaned back in mock offense with a hand over his heart. Ever the drama queen.

She noticed how Techno leaned ever so slightly over towards her, Drista was quick to copy the gesture also leaning towards the older.

“The fuck are you doing here Dris. This is the Hero Tower, last I heard this isn’t really a villain friendly space.” He whispered.

“Last I heard you weren’t a hero either boss man, so how about we don’t potentially fuck ourselves over by mentioning it, aye?” She whispered back, her tone gaining back the slight edge Techno was used to. It was weird hearing her speak without it.

“Just didn’t expect this kinda stuff to be your thing.” Techno’s voice stayed as monotone as ever.

“Are you kidding me? You know the amount of information that you can get from this kind of place? Watch me.” She grinned.

“Hey Phil!” She didn’t like using their real names. Saying them out loud felt like sandpaper against her throat, but it was a sure-fire way for them to let their guards down around her and if she could use that against them she absolutely would.

“Yeah kid?” The nickname made her grin ever so slightly more. In all aspects but age, she hasn’t been a child in a long time. The grin to most people seemed like a sign that she appreciated the sweet gesture, obviously only Technoblade was able to understand the irony of the supposedly endearing term.

“How’s that containment project going?” She made a show of looking actually curious, putting on her best clueless child façade.

Any tenseness was lifted off of The Angels shoulders, replaced by the same fatherly smile he seemed to possess. There was no denying that he held an attachment to the secret villain. Techno had half a mind to hit her over the head for how obviously she was using that to her advantage, after all Phil was a good friend of his. That’s how he got dragged along to this shit in the first place.

“Well, we’ve had a couple more meetings and we actually found out that-”

“Okay! Let’s switch topics! How was school Drista?” Techno rather frantically interrupted to switch topics before Phil had the opportunity to leak any classified information, all the while he was death staring Drista to shut the fuck up.

She chuckled slightly at it but played along, nonetheless. “Pretty good, except for math. Oh my gods, I could rant about math for hours, it’s the absolute bane of my existence!” She was exaggerating only a slight bit, after all she had much more pressing issues at hand. They didn’t need to know that though.

After a bit more mindlessly boring chatter the tapping of a microphone sounded out and suddenly the booming voice of a man, approximately in his sixties, engulfed the space. All eyes shifting towards the giant podium on the other side of the hall.

Slightly absentmindedly she tapped against the small earpiece inside her purse. Like during all of these events she had asked Lani to stand by. Being a villain in a room filled to the tip with heroes usually wasn’t ideal and she liked being prepared.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m glad to see so many of you have taken the time out of your busy schedules for this, I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do so I won’t drag this out much longer!”, He chuckles, eyes creasing ever so slightly., “May I welcome Mr. Alderitch to the Podium!” His voice rang out.

While speaking, a shorter man with an even worse receding hairline and a white lab coat joined the first guy up on the small stage and was promptly handed a microphone as well.

Both Phantom and Angel had apparently felt the strong need to get closer to the action and so they moved further towards the podium. Drista and Techno stayed back. Her gut was screaming at her that this wouldn’t end well. Nothing was happening that was out of the norm however, so she shoved that feeling down with all the rest of her emotions.

“Well, thank you for having me, Mr. Hetchman I very much appreciate it.” The balding man in the lab coat said. Both of the men’s voices sounded as manufactured as the next but what did she expect from two billionaires.

“Pleasures all mine! Alright dear guests, we are gathered here tonight to renew the contract between our two wonderful organisations: The Hero Committee and Salus Incorporated. Mr. Alderitch and I have already agreed upon some new terms and conditions for the next five years that this contract will span, and we are here today to make it official and add our signatures.”

Wow these stuck-up pricks really will find any reason to throw a party. One look at Techno tells her about as much about his thoughts on this as she expected. His brows were furrowed, and his lips were pressed into a line. She’s guessing he’s figured out about the same amount about this event as she has, which is that all of this could’ve been an e-mail.

But no, of course they had to throw a lavish party on the backs of every taxpayer in the country.

The second both of the men made a big show of signing the damn piece of paper the entire room erupted into cheers and applause.

It was loud enough to almost have Drista go deaf, loud enough to seemingly rattle the giant chandelier hanging from above and loud enough to almost cover up the loud bang sounding out from behind.

Almost.

With her and Techno having decided to stand on the perimeter of the hoard and with both of them never quite letting their guard down, they noticed not only the sound but also the ever so faint scent of gunpowder lingering in the air. Usually, she welcomes it with open arms.

Theres nothing usual about this.

Her heart starts racing and so do her thoughts.

Immediately she locks eyes with Ares. Within the blink of an eye Drista had grabbed him by the arm and was now dragging him along towards the slightly hidden backdoor. In situations like these she’s glad she’s taken the time to fully memorise the layout of the room and all of the doors leading off of it.

“Are these other villains?” Ares whispered.

“Not that I’d know of.” She responded.

And that was terrifying to her. She’s prepared for everything, she overthinks everything, knows about every little thing that could possibly go wrong. She knows nothing about this.

She got out the earpiece and poison and then discarded the rest of her bag. Putting the earpiece in, she got increasingly aware of how stiff and tight her dress was. Fighting wouldn’t be an option. Ares seemed to also be mentally elsewhere.

“Did you bring an earpiece or any weapons?” She whispered carefully.

“I brought some weapons, but I didn’t exactly think someone was either brave or stupid enough to try and break into the hero tower.” He answered.

True. Whoever this was, was in fact a fucking idiot. All of the heroes are gathered here, and they chose this as their break in point?

Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Techno got ready to knock down the door. She got ready herself, although the dress she wore meant she probably couldn’t fight all that well, she still widened her stance and tuned into her surroundings more.

Her goal was to leave no survivors. Leave no one behind that could snitch on her identity.

Just as Ares went to swing at the door, he halted. And slowly turned his head towards Drista.

“Are you okay?” She asks hesitantly. He looks at her, face covered in utter confusion.

“Weren’t the alarms supposed to have gone off at this point?” And he was right. The Hero Tower was, after Pandoras Vault, probably the most protected building in the country. So protected that they even scan for movements well below the tower. That’s like the entire reason why the underground doesn’t have any tunnels underneath or directly around the tower. The nearest exit and entrance was still a couple hundred meters away. Every millimetre of this place stands under heavy 24/7 supervision and still, there wasn’t a sound made by anything.

Whoever this was had inside information and had meticulously planned this out for weeks or even months. The shuffling inside got louder and she could make out the metallic doused voices of at least ten people inside.

Whoever this was, was no idiot but rather this was a calculated attack and nothing they were able to deal with, without any unwanted attention and without the proper gear.

Apparently, Ares had come to the same conclusion. A second later the voices were right at the reimbursed metal door.

Ares dipped into the shadows to his left. Drista did the same, jumping the other way to her right. As soon as she felt sufficiently shrouded in the dark shadows around her she quickly pressed down on her ear piece. She breathed a sigh of relief when Lani answered almost immediately.

“I need backup to the tower immediately, I have no fucking clue what we’re dealing with but it’s a lot. I don’t wanna fight whoever this is and make this bigger than needed, I just need someone that can get me and Ares out of here and fast.” She bit out while trying to concentrate on the growing noise of shuffling and destruction going on behind her. Just audible enough for her to make out but not audible enough as to alert anyone else in the event.

“Ares is there? Never mind, Give me a second. Can you make it towards an exit.” Lanis voice was the rock within the storm she needed right now.

“I am at an exit but someone else is here. I don’t fucking know man.” She was getting really stressed out here.

“Alright, Nyx is on her way.”

Nyx was a great choice if they wanted to go by unseen. Her power allowed her to reach speeds unimaginable with even the fastest mode of transport. The downside being that Nyx was the number three most wanted Villain in the city, only being bested by her teammates and best friends Morta and Virtus, and with that kind of fame comes the fact that if she’s seen, she will be recognised.

“Oh, Fuck.” Lani wasn’t much of a swearer, at least nowhere as bad as the people she surrounded herself with so that right there meant trouble.

“What’s happening?”

“Hold on, I lost access to everything, it seems the entire tower is on lockdown. Drista what’s going on?” You could hear as Lani grabbed her mic to pull it closer on the other side.

“I don’t know Lans, no one in here other than me and Ares have noticed anything!” She was whisper-yelling at this point.

“I’m sending this stuff to Inferno, he needs to get in on this. I’m moving The Soup Group into our connection.” The Soup Group was the group name for Morta, Nyx and Virtus. It had started through an inside joke in which the trio consistently tried to come up with more and more unhinged plans of how to solve any problem or conflict using soup. Some of which weirdly successful.

All that was forgotten as the metallic scraping that was Morta’s voice changer made itself known through the line.

“Holy, Dris! This place is surrounded!” The wind could be heard whipping around her as she sat probably perched on some roof or something.

“Wait, What?” Her head zipped around looking for any windows to verify Morta’s claim but all she was met with were heavy, velvet red, and sadly, drawn curtains. Looking forward she catches Ares’ eyes just staring at her clearly unsure of what to do.

“Yeah, people in black armour and stuff all around. Probably like a couple hundred of them if I had to guess.” Morta chuckled under her breath. Cool, this was not the time for jokes.

Taking a deep breath in to ground herself, she responds.

“Alright Lani I need you to send anyone you can. I don’t care how little we know them, this is an all hands on deck sorta situation.”

“Got it.” If no one else she could always count on Lani to have her back.

“Has Inferno found any weak points in the lockdown? We need to search for those.”

“Yes, he has. Floor number forty-three, the balcony on the very left of south side. It is however heavily guarded.” Was Lanis response.

“We’ll handle that!” Nyx spoke up before any and all audio from her being contorted into that of the howling winds zipping past at immense speeds.

“Alright guys, Mellohi, Lunar, Rosethorn, Lotus, Rosequarz and Amber are all on their way and Mellohi has your stuff Dris!” Lanis voice announced through the chaos.

“Good. Add them in here as soon as possible. I’ll hand my other earpiece to Ares if that’s alright with you?” She really needed any extra support possible as well as her damn gear.

“Go ahead.”

Light scraping could be heard from the door as she tuned out the rough sounds of fighting and screaming audible from The Soup Groups line.

Once again establishing eye contact with Ares, she deafened both earpieces and swiftly made her way over to his side. Not without a near heart attack when passing the back door but still pretty successfully. At least no one inside seemed to notice.

“What’s happening.” Techno tried to inquire. In response Drista silently held out a small white earpiece.

Techno knew not to take this lightly. He was being handed a piece of technology directly linked to the villains’ comms.

He silently took it and put it in.

“I got a plan and I need you to follow me on this.” Drista stated, leaving no room for arguing.

“We are going to go back to the others and pretend as if nothing happened. They’re trying to lockpick that door and even though chances are high they’ll succeed, it’ll take a while.”, She sighed. This was incredibly risky, but what other god damn choice did they have., “Chances are they’re gonna want something and possibly take us hostage, that’s the outcome we want alright?”

“Wait, what?” Techno seemed deeply confused, she doesn’t blame him she’s unsure of the situation herself.

“They obviously have somehow managed to get access to the towers’ systems. They’re going to know that other villains are trying to break in. The only advantage we have is that we one: have a distraction now, and two: they don’t know we’re in here. If we go back now we will avoid suspicion. I’m guessing they’ll have picked that lock about as soon as the others will have made it to the front door. If Lunar or maybe even Virtus arrive there at that point, the door wont stand a chance even if they use their access to the system to heighten security.”

“This is so risky, Dris.” Techno seemed to mull her words over.

“I know. You got a better plan?” She said with slightly too much venom tainting her voice.

Techno let out an exasperated sigh, before grabbing her wrist and taking them back towards the crowd. The same crowd that’s still very oblivious to the situation.

“Hey guys, where were you we were looking for you!” Phantom called out as soon as they entered the rest of the crowds’ line of sight again.

“Oh, you know how awkward Techno can get in social situations.” Drista waved Phantoms worries away. She put on a content smile when in reality her mind was racing. There was seriously no way that they’d get out of this unscathed. She just had to hope her timing works out.

She let out a silent prayer to whatever selfish deity was willing to listen, just for once in her life please do not let this end in a disaster. She knew it was wishful thinking. She’s made this same prayer so many times in her life underneath her covers at night hoping that she would wake up and everything would be like how it once was. That was until she took change into her own hands.

Still the familiar gesture did barely anything to calm her worries. She didn’t care about the majority of the people in this room but she also didn’t know what to expect from their attackers. If this goes wrong she might’ve just led all of her friends to an early grave.

In midst of her spiralling Techno had apparently taken over the conversation at which she decided to distance herself just ever so slightly from them. She still had them in sight of course just slightly out of earshot.

Un-deafening her earpiece, the other ends of the line erupted in chaos. She silently hoped nobody got too hurt.

“Guys, can I get a status update?” She whispered under her breath, cautious of the people surrounding her.

“Yeah… one second…” Lani answered clearly very stressed out.

“Okay so.”, Inferno took over while Lani was obviously figuring something else out, “All participants are on site. At this point in time, we have The Soup Group outside, trying to get to that back door, I saw got breached.” He stated while simultaneously typing away on his keyboard.

Drista had always admired Infernos ability to multi task and stay calm in stressful situations.

“Alright, everyone else has broken in and is currently on floor twenty-eight. Approximate death toll is about forty people, we estimate about another fifty to be heavily wounded.”

That’s another thing about inferno. As easy as it was to joke around with him on a normal day, the second shit hits the fan he knows how to be serious and how to deliver information effectively.

“Any news coverage so far?” Drista inquired. That was one thing they didn’t need right about now. The news and some stupid reporters dropping in their unwanted opinions.

“Doesn’t seem like it but I’ll update you if anything changes.”

“Alright but I have to deafen again, I’m still at the event. So far no ones noticed shit in here.”

That’s another thing she doesn’t understand. Why they installed some sort of sound proofing in here. Wouldn’t these heroes want to know when danger was approaching while they were most vulnerable or did they just believe that the amount of them in one spot was enough to scare off any intruder? Because obviously it wasn’t.

She made her way back over to the others. In response she got a small nod from Techno that she assumes was supposed to be comforting or something. She didn’t mind the way Techno very obviously had no clue how to really be comforting. Strangely he resembled Lunar a whole lot while trying to be. She chuckled at the thought.

The other two participants of the group were very obviously engulfed in their own conversation, not even having noticed Drista’s absence or her subsequent return. Did that annoy her? Absolutely, yes. But its whatever. They had more pressing issues at hand.

Phantom currently had a wine glass in hand and was complaining about the pain that is filing patrol reports after every one of them at which point Angel reminded him that he was already two months behind on those and really needed to pick up the slack and finally file them.

You know, rich people problems. She rolled her eyes.

She was only picking up snippets of the conversation from there on out as she completely tuned into her surroundings. Any major noise made her tense up, her eyes continuously flitting back to the same hidden, unassuming back door. She felt like she was about to explode with anticipation, yet nobody noticed. Nobody except for Techno who at one point rested his hand on her shoulder. A gesture that actually did a lot to keep her grounded in reality.

Her earpiece suddenly emitted a small noise, almost scaring her half to death but it was meant as a way to alert her that someone wants to talk to her. She un-deafened it silently and then quickly went to tap it twice to signal that she couldn’t talk right now.

“Alright, Status update Dris. The Soup Group is making progress in getting to that back door but from what I can see right now, whoever we’re dealing with will have made it in before then. My guess is you have maybe another minute or two max before that door falls. I need you and Ares to get out of direct sight of that door and make your way further towards the main entrance. The others will probably get through there a minute or less after them.

By the way Techno’s face contorted she could tell he had been listening in as well.

Angel and Phantom were severely confused when they got grabbed by the wrists by Techno and dragged over towards the other end of the room. Probably not the greatest idea when you’re trying to keep low, Drista mused, but she ultimately played along, acting as surprised as the other two and moving along as well all while expressing her confusion at the sudden action.

Techno was doing nothing to hide shit now. Staring down that metal door as if it personally wronged him. She can’t say she blamed him for how he acted as just a couple seconds later the door actually fucking fell off its hinges. Apparently they had given up on lock picking.

Immediately a bit over ten people burst into the room making sure all attention was on them. The five towards the front were obviously in charge as they started firing off warning shots and shouting out commands to the hoard of heroes, while the ones in the back seemed unsure of themselves and surprisingly scrawny, even under the thick black armour they sported, each set of armour having a bright yellow illustration of a sunrise somewhere on it.

Then, like estimated by Inferno, the main door collapsed in on itself before all chaos broke loose.

Chapter Text

There was some sort of space documentary on in the background. Tommy wasn’t quite sure what part of space it was about specifically, he had never really been all that interested about what laid beyond their planet. That was more so Purpleds thing.

He was just glad to see his best friend happy, being an alien hybrid and all, the older really tried to get as much of an understanding about the origin of that part of his species as possible. Tommy could understand, he himself didn’t feel as much of a connection to his avian origins as the other did, but that probably had more to do with Purpled being a first-generation hybrid while Tommy couldn’t even tell you how many generations back the first hybrid in his family came to be.

Being a first-generation hybrid of course also meant that Purpleds Hybrid features were much more prominent. Luckily enough alien hybrids had the strange ability to mimic the appearance of those around them, often having a separate form to disguise themselves, never fully copying other peoples’ looks but rather transforming a whole new one based off of their existing features and already existing human DNA.

Alien hybrids were also really close to extinction, so not a lot of people were aware of that fact.

Right now, the hunched over nineteen-year-old really wasn’t all that worried about disguises which led to a weird sight of some parts looking completely human while others very much did not.

Tommy smiled slightly to himself at how docile the current situation seemed to be. Shroud was already in bed, Tommy was scrolling through the seemingly thousands of messages Aimsey had spammed him with during a boring school lesson and Purpled was intently staring down the tv screen with his two extra sets of eyes and tail gently swinging back and forth.

For once they decided to stay in, having spent the day wandering about the underground with Shroud, showing him all possible exits, entrances and secret passageways, they could think of. Just in case he needed to get away from someone again. Tommy started seeing red just thinking about the day Shroud had run into his arms. Realistically it was only a couple days ago and yet it felt like forever.

The lights were practically out, the only light being emitted from the tv mounted on the wall.

Then a buzzing sounded out from the kitchen counter. Both Tommy and Purpled turned towards the noise, confusion painting their faces. Then realization. They left their earpieces on there.

Tommy jumped off first, in his hurry and in the midst of darkness, he tripped over the blankets spread around the floor and the empty chips bags that had been carelessly discarded just moments before.

Getting to the counter, he picked up both sets of earphones. Purpleds were black with a purple shine to them, they were small enough as to be easily overlooked in the midst of battle. Tommys were a painfully bright red, or at least Purpled seems to call them that, in Tommys humble opinion they were just fancy. They also had small golden accents on them.

He quickly put one of his in and answered the call.

“Mellohi, Hero Tower, right now, quick stop at mine to pick up Drista’s shit!” Lanis slightly distressed voice came through.

“Wait, isn’t Dris at some event at the fucking tower right now?”

“YES! HER AND TECHNO! THAT’S KINDA THE WHOLE FUCKING PROBLEM!”

“Wait why’s Tech there?”

“No time to explain, see ya soon.”

And with that she transferred him and Purpled into a different call with Inferno, yelling out directions to a very pissed off Morta. He silently hands the second pair of earpieces to Purpled before storming off to his room.

His villain outfit had just come out of the wash, and he was slightly salty about getting it dirty again so soon, but oh well what can you do about it.

He put on his under armour making sure it fit comfortably to his skin, then he pulled over a black turtleneck shirt and his statement red sleeveless hoodie. He reached for the black half balaclava sitting on his bed and pulled that over, before pulling up his hood and making sure he covered any stray pieces of hair. He also put on a pair of baggy black, cargo pants and his red utility belt decorated with all sorts of weapons. Including grenades. Lots of them. Last but not least he fed his wings through the slits in his clothes and flapped them up and down a few times to make sure he had full mobility and wouldn’t get stuck on anything.

Stepping back out into the living room he saw Purpled crouched down on the kitchen island in full gear ready to go.

Purpleds get up had always been simpler to get on than his, mostly since for the most part he didn’t need to worry about concealing anything, instead opting to fully let go of any mimicking he might have been doing earlier. Meaning he looked quite interesting to say the least. His hair had faded to a completely white colour, He had grown a couple inches and his limbs had extended to a length that wasn’t fully inhuman but rather just ever so slightly off. His fingertips went black and there were sharp claws at the ends of them. His tail resembled that of a lion, having a fluffy fur tip and all, but instead of fur, the rest of the tail looked more akin to that of a lizard. Two glowing purple antennas danced around on his head and his skin had taken on a slightly purple tinge. The three different pairs of purely purple eyes and his razor-sharp teeth, weren’t helping his strange appearance either.

His outfit was fairly simple consisting of the same under armour, a black shirt some black cargo pants and a oversized, dark purple, varsity jacket.

“Ready?” The older asked in a raspy voice with a weird pitch to it. Alien vocal chords were certainly not designed to make human sounds, but it at least helped conceal him even further.

“Yeah, gotta make a quick stop at Lani’s though.” He engaged his voice changer.

Lunar gave him a quick thumbs up, opting to not strain his vocal chords any more than needed.

Walking out their front door, Melllohi grabbed Lunar by the wrist, pulling the both of them into the air and speeding towards Lanis’s place. Lunar immediately almost nullified the gravity around himself, that way Mellohi had less problem carrying him and Lunar wouldn’t dislocate his fucking shoulder.

“Jesus fuck man, do you want to slam my face into a fucking wall?!” The older rasped as they narrowly avoided another apartment building.

“Deal with it, at least I’m not the one digging my claws into your arms.” He bit out, past the whipping wind.

“Do you want me to fall?!”

“Stop being dramatic, we’ve done this so many times before, you’ll be fine.”

“No thanks to you, asshole!”

Mellohi rolled his eyes before descending in front of one of the two-story houses that were built into the side of the tunnel.

He had grabbed the spare key to Lani and Dristas place on his way out earlier, so he reached into his pockets, slightly digging around in them, before his fingertips came into contact with the cool metal of the brass key. He unlocked the door and pushed the slightly weighted door open with ease.

The house was built in a way where the entrance almost immediately opened up into the big main Livingroom.

Mellohi didn’t even get to take two steps inside before a black pull string bag almost smacked him in the face. He caught it milliseconds before it could make impact and was greeted with an eyeroll from Lani, who was sat on the main couch, laptop in hand and already in her Pyjamas.

Small greetings were exchanged before he walked out again and chucked the bag at a less than impressed Lunar, who also caught it, admittedly much better than he had.

Not wasting anymore time he grabbed Lunar by the wrist again, pulling him along as he ascended once more. There was an exit at the top of this tunnels since a lot of the top villains, that are able to fly, live around here.

Dashing towards the ceiling, he instinctually braced for impact. Even if he had done this same thing hundreds of times before, it would always still make his heart race with adrenaline.

The motion detector, like always, noticed him before he could decorate the ceilings with his own blood and guts and the roof split off in two pieces, allowing him to quickly dash through before the opening shut behind him.

The exit was quick and they were soon gliding over central l’Manburg, basking in the cool air of the evening. They didn’t have long to breathe in the crisp night air though, Mellohi quickly dashed off towards the Tower, ignoring the wind that was currently pelting them in the face.

-----*-----

The skyline of The Antarctic District appeared in his view and the sight of it only made him speed up.

After a couple more twists and turns, he was able to make out the sounds of bullets ripping through the air, he tuned his earpiece back into the correct channel.

“We’re on site, requesting directions.” He hoped his voice wouldn’t get drowned out by the absolute chaos going on around them. He was getting closer to the tower, the sounds of gunshots getting louder and louder.

“Mellohi! Perfect, there’s an entrance south on the forty-third floor, its where all the corpses are.”

Fair enough, he thought as he mentally started counting the floors up to the forty-third one. Halfway through he heard the sound of a gunshot ring out. Landing only a couple windows down from where he was.

He flew off to the side, just as a second one grazed his shoulder. Within a split second Lunar had drawn his gun, and shortly after their assailant was laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.

“Two floors above.” Lunar rasped.

And, true to his word, there was a balcony with a missing door just above where they were. Mellohi rolled his eyes at the unimpressed look on Lunars face and ascended upwards.

The sight before them was nothing short of grim. Bodies lying around, some already purple from blood loss and a bunch still trying to stop their wounds from bleeding or coughing up the blood they were currently suffocating on. Not a pretty sight but they’d be lying if they said they were feeling even just a slither of sympathy for the men dressed in the same uniform as the man that almost took Shrouds life.

“Mellohi? Lunar? You here?” Nyx bit out through their comms.

“Yes, we’re at the entrance point.” Mellohi took over talking since Lunar still wanted to have a working voice at work the next day.

“Perfect, head down the hallway in front of you and down two flights of stairs, everything should be cleared out.”

“On our way.”

The stairway was gigantic, wide and very obviously mostly unused. Instinctually Lunar clutched his gun slightly more as they quickly descended down the twisting steps.

Four more villains reported to have arrived on scene by the time they had caught up to the Soup Group.

A quick look over the chaos showed them the extent of the fight. Tables had been flipped over to create quick makeshift hiding spots. The walls were littered with bullet holes and throwing-knives were sticking out of every surface, but they were winning. That much was clear.

They didn’t have a lot of time before they were noticed, and the bullets began to fly towards them. Mellohi grinned. Something dark and cruel and to some extent challenging.

Lunar dove off to the right opting to help Virtus in a fight against about eight other guys. Mellohi had no intentions of helping anyone, the adrenaline was coursing through his veins as he pushed off the ground, dashing towards a group of Agents, hiding behind a table and shooting out from behind it. He didn’t like cowards.

Bullets came towards him, he was dodging them for the most part with the exception of a couple grazes, he ignored the pain. He always did. The adrenaline would’ve overwhelmed him a couple years ago, instead he welcomed it with open arms, feeling his heart thumping against his chest. There was a slight ache in his wings that were certainly not made for long distance travel but like always he ignored the limitations of his own biology.

He pushed off the floor, landing on top of the table used as a hiding spot. The table crashed to the ground as he dived back. His powers starting up immediately and as soon as the insecurity and uncertainty hit, their hands started jittering and they started stumbling all over the place. The next couple shots missed as the hands of his enemies started having troubles aiming their guns. He stopped his movement for a quick second to pull out his twin pistols and took a couple shots. He hit three but missed his last shot as the person ducks out the way and dashes towards him like a madman with an axe in hand. Mellohi reels back, being just quick enough to dodge the axe coming down on where he just stood, the axe only leaving a nick on the front of his hoody. He steadied himself again. Reaching behind him he lifts up a stray pipe off the floor and brings it upwards to block the next axe strike. This guy was not going easy, he put all of his power behind those strikes, but Mellohi knew how to deal with those kinds of people. Mainly because Drista was one of them. They put everything into those first couple of attacks but if you block enough of them, they tire out very easily. All he needed to do was wait for the breaking point.

He pushed his powers slightly further, pushing in more and more anxiety and taking out any accumulated confidence. The axe strikes were relentless as Mellohi shot off a couple more shots and dodged as well as he could, but it was clear his opponent was running low on energy. His strikes were losing power, and they became a lot more random. With a grin Mellohi went off the defensive. He aimed for the hand currently holding the axe and promptly took the shot. To his delight it hit its designed target without issue and soon enough came the bloodcurdling scream similar to that of a dying animal. Cool, Mellohi’s ears are about to start bleeding. The man was curled up into himself clutching his hand. A bit overdramatic if you ask him but whatever. He took another shot to put him out of his misery.

As the body hit the ground, Mellohi could do nothing but laugh. Yeah, he might’ve lost his mind a bit but oh well.

Glancing around the room, most people started wrapping up their fights. Morta was tearing her battle axe out of a guy’s stomach, Nyx had her Katana held to the nape of a guys’ head obviously interrogating him with little success and Virtus and Lunar just killed off the final guy they fought.

-----*-----

After everything had been wrapped up, they ran down another couple flights of stairs picking off a couple more groups of people. On their way down they were joined by Lotus, Rosethorn, Rosequartz and Amber. As soon as they arrived, The Soup Group left to try another idea Inferno had mentioned. The back door.

Mellohi vaguely remembered Drista asking for a status update at some point. He was glad to hear she was okay but was also slightly caught off guard by the surprising lack of chaos coming from her end. It was although the entire room was left in the dark. Figuratively and literally.

Either way they made it down to the main entrance room. Just one hallway away from where Drista and Techno were.

“Corridor to your right. Be careful, might be guarded.” Infernos voice rang out in his ears.

“Status update on Dris and Techno?” Lotus quietly bit out through gritted teeth. Eyes swaying over the open room in front of them and a small ball of water shifting shapes in her hand.

“The back door is about to get breached.” Inferno said, equally as uneasy.

Mellohi blended that out, attempting to pick up on foreign energies beyond theirs.

“Five at the door, two on each side about halfway down the hallway.” He whispered, all eyes on him.

“What?” Amber asked, also whispering. Her head tilting almost comically in a way that made the white bunny ears on their white trapper hat flop to one side.

“The hallway we’re about to enter. One on each side of the hallway, five guarding the door.” He deadpanned.

Rosequartz started snickering beside Amber, pink hair falling in her face at the action. Both villains wore masquerade-like masks. One light pink and one a deep, royal blue. She shut up after Amber shot her a deeply offended look.

Lotus sighed. Right, Mellohi? Lunar? Can the two of you deal with the ones in the hallway? The rest of us can cover the rest.”

“Sure.” Lunar forced his voice to comply.

“Dibs on the left one, big L!” Tommy whisper shouted. Before lifting himself into the air and darting off. He vaguely heard muffled complaints from behind before careful footsteps followed from below.

Unsurprisingly, Mellohi was spotted first. Turns out the agents weren’t deaf and could hear his muffled chuckling. Whatever, he thought as he dived down towards his intended target, spinning around in the air a couple more times to avoid some more bullets, before picking up his target and ramming him face first into the wall. He repeated this step a couple more times before dropping the now lifeless and heavily mutilated body to the ground. The wall sat decorated in crimson. The helmet of his opponent sat indistinguishable from the rest of his face. One look behind him told him that Lunar had opted for the much less brutal plan of a bullet to the head. Fair enough, he thought.

The others had taken out the ones at the door shortly after, leading to them now being stood in front of a pair of intricately designed mahogany doors.

“Lunar, tear those down, Agents have already arrived on the inside.” Infernos clipped voice made its way through the comms.

Not wasting any time, Lunar extended an arm forward. For a split second the door emitted a barely noticeable, purple glow, before rapidly collapsing in on itself. Everyone rushed in.