Chương 45: Making the Best of Things

Wade watched his wife storm into the room and grimaced. He hadn't seen her this worked up since the day he'd first returned to his dad's business after his long stint trying to get away from the cape business. At the very least, this time he wasn't the one in her crosshairs.

"Someone spilled what happened to the rest of the company," Wynn reported through gritted teeth, dropping into the chair next to him, her voice venomous. Wade sighed, knowing this would happen. When she'd come back in after showing Riftmaker around, she'd painted quite the picture of what had happened. The villain had connected with the squad by bonding over gear and dangling the promise of super tech in front of them.

He'd known then that resistance was futile, but Warren and Wynn still hoped to sway opinion and keep everyone's heads on straight. It wasn't like the two of them wanted the troops disinterested, but it was obvious to everyone in this office that the villain had come in here intending to sweep this entire operation off its feet, probably to consolidate as much as he could under his own power structure, whatever that was.

Given that the Warriors hadn't had a decent job in three months, it had been the worst possible time for a charismatic and yet still hostile takeover attempt. The group had been balancing two or three contracts for years, mostly sticking to jobs in Victory. But they'd gotten greedy and accepted a subcontract through another agency that had them pull a gig in Orion trying to toss a little bit of extra cash in the company coffers for some overdue upgrades. That turned out to be a disaster when the job went sideways.

In the end, they'd blown through a lot of emergency funds getting their people home. Afterwards, The Broker had screwed them over by failing to line up anything more than a couple of one-offs for a few villains who wanted some warm bodies to back them up.

Not even heists, just stuff like holding up a gala of Victory's richest so that the villain paying them could bait out a battle with their nemesis or showing up for a meeting at the docks as a bunch of masked goons in the shadows to keep their business partners honest." Show-biz jobs," as Warren liked to call them, only really covered about a week or two of expenses for the teams that took them. They were bad for morale and piss poor for group funds.

Plus, it was a lot of unpaid hours for Wynn who had to make sure all the gear taken out was accounted for after the job was done. No one was trying anything funny yet, but that was only because bellies were still full with what little work they could scrounge up. Like most henchmen organizations in the city, the Warriors also had to sit out of most of the crime wave from the past couple weeks, though Wade had gotten a few of the guys together to lif t a truck to cover some bills.

That whole thing was villain business, and risked too much direct conflict with heroes and Arrestors. The guys with cuffs might struggle to find a cell for every cape in Victory, but they had all the holding cells you could ask for to hold mundane criminals. With the Arrestors feeling the sting, they might even start throwing the book at anyone unlucky enough to get wrapped up in it and there was a risk of serious jail time too.

Everyone knew the Wakelands were tapping into savings, so all the mercs on staff were itching for a villain to work for. B ut the usual relationship between henchman and villain tended to be impersonal, even on longer assignments. So when Riftmaker came in and immediately solved the number one grievance every staff member who ever wore the full uniform of the Warriors had then promised to let them have some of his old toys, Wade knew that the guy had just won a battle they hadn't even thought to prepare to fight.

"How bad is it?" he still asked, watching the woman who had once put a knife in his face and warned him that she'd protect this company no matter what just deflate.

"Even the guys that weren't there are planning on calling him 'My Lord,'" she informed him gravely. Wade playfully gagged at that, earning a small grin. To be honest it rattled him as well. He'd heard plenty of stories of villains leveraging their charm to turn a henchman organization into their own cult of personality. A lot of those stories were a little too close to this one for him to not be sweating over it. Not to mention…

"The contract he brought in-" he started to say. The door opened and his father strolled in. Both Wade and his wife started to stand up on reflex to help the older Wakeland out before his glare forced them back into their seats. Wade felt embarrassed, knowing that the two of them shouldn't have done that and thankful no one else from the company had been in the room. His dad didn't want the rest of the organization figuring out that his health had been declining for the past few years.

Nothing was too obvious with him spending all his time in this office but the old man stubbornly insisted on making the rounds every so often and would retreat back here just before he started limping.

"Sounds like we're about to get outvoted," Warren grumbled as he dropped into his chair, not bothering to hide his wince.

"You tell her about the contract yet?"" I was about to," Wade explained.

"Dad noticed something about costs of international travel. Seemed odd, so we looked a little closer and found a bunch of odd stipulations in there along those lines. International stuff. When you pair that with some of the notes about future operational expansions and percentages based on coverage areas, well, Wynn, I think this guy is trying to take over the world." It took a lot to surprise his wife.

From the stories Wynn had told him, she'd apparently run through quite a few mercenary bands back in the day before his dad had taken her on as his second-in-command, so seeing her eyes go wide like that was a rare sight.

"Damn…" she chewed her lip.

"So he's League after all… Knew this smelt funny."

"No," Warren shook his head.

"Wade here pointed out that the confidentiality agreements directly call out the League as a rival organization. Doesn't look like he's Hive either. I think this is honest-to-gods someone new on the scene." Wynn leaned back in her chair, hand covering her mouth as she thought through what the two of them had processed after going through the contract. Wade wondered if she'd reach the same conclusion. Finally she said, "This… could be it." Wade smiled, knowing she was onboard.

---------------------------------" Of course, we'll keep you posted," Azure said as he dodged yet another energy blast shot from some villain with a giant lens on his chestplate. As the line went dead, he sighed. Despite the woman n ever wearing a cape nor commanding an army of killer death robots, Azure couldn't help but feel intimidated by District Attorney Nightingale.

The woman acted as a liaison between the Arrestors, the heroes, and the city's government, though some days it felt like she ran all three of those organizations. ¹ He'd saved a phone call with her for last when it came to sharing AnamaloCarrie's news with other authority figures, feeling like he could handle Warden Sentinel Kastel and Mayor Cinderoak back-to-back better as opposed to having to break the bad news to her first."

I mean," Ruby piped up as she formed a giant fist that appeared to be made of crystallized red light and slammed it into the villain who had been taking potshots at him, "that wasn't the worst way that could go."" Yeah!" Sable appeared out of nowhere behind one of the armed guards who was lining up a shot on Ruby, "Despite that extremely colorful metaphor, she didn't actually make any actual threats for once. It was more of a possibility, you know?"

He extended his arms and darkness covered the henchman's face, blinding the man and causing him to fire the laser rifle aimlessly." And I don't think it's physically possible to do that with someone's skull in the first place," Opal added as she swept the legs out from underneath the blinded man and two of his fellows with a white light construct in the shape of a disembodied leg.

"Well, I mean, I think they'd die before she could beat them to death with it I mean."" No, that happened to my buddy one time," Guardian piped up as a wall of green shields manifested to stop a gout of flame heading his way.

"He got better. Hey, SK, who are these guys again?" The mage fluttered down from above and three tomes floated off their body. Each snapped open at their arcane words and glowing chains raced outwards to wrap around the remaining combatants.

"We do not have records of the villains involved in this altercation, although the accent of the pyrotic is local to a specific region in eastern Avalon," Secret Keeper informed the New Aurora Champions.

"Meanwhile the weaponry of their non-powered assistants is consistent with the Red Robes mercenary company, although they appear to be forgoing their normal apparel." Azure surveyed the scene around him. This fight had started a few blocks over when t he Champions had stumbled across this group attempting to hijack an armored vehicle. They'd been dangerously close to a power station, but the team had managed – through clever use of their powers – to shuffle the battle to this larger intersection.

Despite having them wrapped up, Azure made no moves to have Amethyst Archer rejoin the team. She likewise didn't seem to be in any rush to dispel her roadblocks just in case the villains broke free. T h ankfully it looked like the beating the group of villains and their backup had taken made them think better of testing the chains.

All in all, m inimal damage to the city, although Azure cringed at the hotdog stand that Ruby had failed to account for when she'd thrown the guy with the beam armor towards this patch of the street. He made a mental note to file that one under their fault in the incident report.

"I kind of thought the you-know-who being here meant that we'd be fighting tougher battles, not easier ones," Ruby said, her gaze just so happening to skip over the shattered remains of the street cart and its scattered sausages as she pretended not to see it. Azure shook his head, "They're probing right now. They don't want to put on the same show here that they're doing elsewhere."

He left out that it wasn't just the heroes the League was testing with these attacks, although they almost certainly were recording every ounce of data from them. No, these tactics were intended to probe the Arrestors, the city' s governance, the civilians, the press, hell, even the local villains.

Azure had it on good authority that the League had made their first big power play with the dark capes and were deliberately stepping on every toe they could to see who would snap over a territory dispute o r make a desperate attempt at a job they could sabotage. Not to mention all of these fights w ere clear propaganda for recruitment The League thrived off being the big name you could turn to when you were down on your luck. If villains struggled to make rent, they knew who to turn to.

If villains felt like the heroes were winning too much, they knew who could help even the odds. If villains felt like their rivals were too weak and pitiful but still just a smidge too powerful to take on themselves, then they had the right number to call. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. So the League was flooding the zone with nobodies and gradually working their way up.

It didn't matter if a few of them got taken in as long as they reminded people they existed. And slowly, the Arrestors would be forced to make judgment calls on who was worth a custom built power-suppression cell. If the League kept throwing their forces forward, power suppression cuffs would start to run out too, especially with the whole world suddenly needing them.

² Hell, the Arrestors might just process the super tech off these ones and toss them back out afterwards if Kastrel could see the writing on the wall already. Azure's thoughts stewed on these things but he didn't voice them to the rest of the team. They were too pleased with the victory they just achieved, so instead he let a weary smile decorate his face.

"But we're ready for them," he lied with as much projected confidence as he could muster. His team either bought it or knew to keep up the same appearances with all of them grinning back at him. That was good. Morale had spiked after Secret Keeper had returned and the Champions were back on their game. It was worth celebrating that." So… about what the DA talked about…"

Ruby approached the subject without a hint of subtlety even as she began to gather up the fallen henchmen and their dropped weapons with her powers. The rest of the Champions eyed him and Azure barely stopped himself from grimacing this time. He couldn't really avoid this subject since Nightingale had basically shoved it in his face over the comms. Still, the reason Ruby was being coy meant she knew he had to be a stick-in-the-mud over it.

"Out of the question," he told her, knowing he'd just kicked the hornet's nest. He had to start firm though or else he'd cave way too easily. Ruby pouted but to Azure's surprise it wasn't her or Guardian that fought back on this one, but Sable.

"C'mon!" the normally incredibly introverted hero protested.

"It's Victory Day!" And just like that, he was facing a sea of puppy dog eyes. Of all the things to be outvoted on, it had to be this. Victory Day was a local holiday that the Amberheart Foundation had come up with after the Great War that was transparently an effort to support the emerging costumed heroes after the conflict. It wasn't even about the War – or any other conflict actually – which would often confuse newcomers as to why VC celebrated Victory Day and Peace Day about a month apart from each other.

No, the alleged reasoning was about celebrating the founding of the city built off a non-aggression treaty with a local Atlanthean subkingdom which helped make it possible, though a deeper look at history failed to support most of the facts to that story. These days it was commercialized to hell ³ and back and mostly beloved for the excuse for feasting, drinking, gifting, and the city council's more elaborate celebratory parades.

Not to mention the Amberheart Ball, the hands-down worst idea of all bad ideas for the city to go through with while the whole world was under attack from the League of Domination. Not that the Ball ever went a year without getting attacked. That was pretty much part of the tradition of the day by this point. Azure was pretty sure that half the villain population of this city would be giving him the same look as his team was if they heard he was trying to have it canceled.

Or they'd actually kidnap him in order to ensure it went off.

"I love the Ball too," he lied once more, this time earning more than one scoff, "but with everything considered, this is a really bad time for this." He glanced down at the captured villains and henchmen whom his team had shuffled together and restrained using their powers. All of them were glaring daggers at him in a way that rattled him. These might just be nobodies, probably even less dangerous than most of Victory's D-listers, but the hate in those eyes was far more malicious.

He had no doubts that if the tables had been turned and the Champions were the ones who lost this battle, these villains wouldn't be nearly as kind with how they treated his team. It was all the reminder he needed to assure him this was the right decision, even as his team began to protest in overlapping voices. He was about to say something when Secret Keeper came to his rescue.

They clapped their hands to break through the noise, " We believe Azure Avenger's misgivings are well placed, especially with this morning's news. It is not the best appearance to plan a party in such a state. However…" Azure's slight grin that had dared to emerge at finally having some support quickly turned itself around as the monk held up a finger playfully, "That assumes our new troublemakers manage to keep up their momentum in the weeks until Victory Day. Should we not assume that we shall prevail over them?

Perhaps we might return to making plans once we have thoroughly trounced our foes?" The Champions grinned at that, Azure included. Just like that, the Librarian had managed to take the chance that they'd have to cancel everyone's favorite celebration into a sort of goal that the hero community could work towards.

"Defeat the League" might be a tall order for the still fractured capes of this town but "save Victory Day" had a campy charm to it that Azure could see himself leveraging.

"Alright," he held up his hands in mock surrender, "I'll tell the DA that we'll make sure it's safe enough to start ordering streamers." He took in the joy of his team at that and for the first time in weeks felt like the scars of his deal with the Scarlet Sorcerer were beginning to heal. A bark of laughter from one of the captured League lackeys threatened to ruin that.

"Go ahead and party all you want," sneered the man with beam emitter.

"We're not leaving until we get what we want." Azure felt the tension bleeding into the air with that comment, even though it came from a defeated no name villain clearly acting as a disposable pawn. It was just enough of a reminder of the League's hidden occupation as well as them cutting off any backup with their worldwide schemes to undermine what Secret Keeper had managed to build up with their spark of hope. Unfortunately for them, Azure knew exactly how to leverage this to his own advantage.

He crouched down in front of the trio and the bundle of minions that were all bound together through magical chains and the light constructs of his team's gems. Archer was still keeping the civilians away so at the very least this little performance wouldn't cause too much of a panic regardless of what these idiots would say, so he knew this was the best opportunity to use.

These might be the numberless hordes of the League, not important enough to be given any real information, but Azure knew villains could be gossipy. The League might think of them as disposable tools that couldn't really backfire on them, but Azure knew the truth: they could be just as much of a weak link as if his team had captured one of their heavy hitters. So he played to their ego, acted like the oblivious hero with the script that these wannabes were expecting, "And what's that?

What could you possible want with our fair city?"

"Payback for Maniacal!" one of them shouted while others taunted him or immediately clammed up. He cocked his head in the direction of who he thought let that slip, "We looked into that and nothing came up. Either whoever did it fled town or Maniacal's machine malfunctioned. Either way, you guys aren't going to get what you want in Victory." That set off a chorus of shouting from the henchmen while one of the villains screamed at them to shut up. Another glared daggers at him in silent fury, not rising to the bait.

The pyrokinetic turned out to be the weak link.

"You're either stupid or lying, blue boy," he spat through a snarl.

"Either way, Over Seer's gonna find him first."

"We'll see about that," Azure stood up, controlling his smile as the villain let slip just enough information.

"Despite what you might think, we're good at finding people." He glanced back at his team, all of whom were doing a worse job at keeping the knowing grins off their face than he was. Sure, the fact that the League's spymaster was apparently part of the operation in Victory wasn't great news by any stretch of the imagination, but it also confirmed his suspicions that this entire global operation by the League was a smokescreen for finding OC3002116.

For a task like that, Over Seer almost certainly was leading the search from within the city itself, especially to rein in someone like Arex and whoever else the League had skulking the shadows. While the heroes might have been struggling to figure out the identity of the mystery villain at the center of this whole mess, that largely came down to having to balance fighting a citywide crime wave alongside hunting a faceless man. And to cap it off, there had been almost no clues about what to look for.

No doubt whoever "Roger Stevens" was, he was lying low and doing every effort not to draw attention to himself. Over Seer on the other hand would have to make plays in her search that would expose her. And like Azure said, the heroes of this city were good at finding people.

"So you have… spider minions?"

"You're awfully okay with the fey royalty thing," Alex's girlfriend noted. She was wrong. Alex was distinctly trying not to think about the fey royalty thing and the potential fairy assassins part of the story. That was definitely a wrinkle to a lot of future plans. Not to mention he could feel a two sets of glowing red and orange eyes watching him, reminding him of just how useless he was once more. No matter how many upgrades he got to his suit, he'd never catch up.

Everyone around him would just get better and better. He was just a burden that-"I'm focusing on the immediate future," he lied.

"So what can they do?" Lyn bit her lip, "I'm not sure. I can talk with them later and we can figure that out. I think they can maybe help out with a couple of our plans provided we use them properly." Right it's "our". Remember that. This is a partnership. You wanted to date the giant spider woman who could fold you like a pretzel, you get over your bullshit about power imbalances right fucking now, you fucking moron.

"Right, well… more bodies definitely can't hurt," he smiled.

"How big are they? Are they like normal spider size or something." Lyn's cheeks puffed up in the most adorable way possible, "No! They're like… this." She used her hands to give some rough dimensions.

"Uh, dear," Alex tested a pet name cautiously, "that's like… three feet tall." He noted her eyes glitter at his use of 'dear' before she deflated as he pointed out the obvious. She quickly recovered, "Okay but there's a lot of them. Like about a hundred. So if we figure out how to actually get them over here then that's still a solid minion base, right?" It was actually. Alex had definitely seen some villains use dozens of tiny drones to effectively handle entire teams of heroes before. This had potential.

Just one problem.

"So… how do we get them over?" he asked. Lyn collapsed on the pile of pillows that served as her makeshift couch with a frustrated sound, "I don't know! They apparently were able to help out during our fight with the Starlight Squad but… I think it's a magic thing." Right… magic. Again. It always came back to fucking magic. Alex moved over to his girlfriend and threw himself down next to her.

Neither of them said anything as the sound of the mad scientists at work – and her occasional cackles – echoed over the dull hum of computer servers nearby. He was about to ask her about the possibility of asking this mysterious magician who kept coming up for help when his phone rang. He glanced over at Lyn who shrugged an acceptance to answer it.

"Hello?" he asked, recognizing the caller id at the very least but wondering why they'd be calling back so soon.

"Riftmaker," the younger Wakeland addressed him.

"Our organization has decided to accept your offer. Please send us the finalized contract at your earliest convenience." The phone call continued at a lightning pace from there, ironing out some final details with an appropriate amount of discretion. The entire time, he watched as his partner's face beamed with excitement and he felt silly for having freaked out earlier at her own revelation.

The moment he hung up, she practically scooped him up with a hug that put a small strain on his back as she squealed with delight.

"Oh this is perfect!" she exclaimed.

"So what are you going to do first?" Alex grinned, "I actually have the first trial run ready for my new team."