Chương 70: Chapter 68: Killing Time at Frankie's

There were a lot of things about being a villain you had to learn. A lot of the processes of going about your business that weren't super obvious – partly because if they were, the Arrestors and heroes probably would've shut them down by now – meaning you'd need to pick them up over the years. For example, the common citizen of Victory wouldn't know how you offload loot or what made for a good haul. After all, not everything ended up going through Fencer, just a good amount of the best pickings, the prime cuts.

Which led to the other less obvious truth about being a villain: some of the best returns on jobs where you stole something didn't involve turning any of the spoils into hard cold cash, but instead trading them to another villain who was looking for that exact thing you'd bothered to steal.

Sometimes it was about them paying desperation rate prices in one way or another, other times it was stacking up favors to cash in for the big jobs you had planned down the line, and other times it was about just straight up trading for something they specialized in making. So how does one villain know which of their fellows were looking for what? Well, you could go to Fencer or an information broker and ask for tips, but that got expensive.

And even the villains that could rob most banks in this town on a weekly basis tended to avoid overspending when it came to intel. When it came time to balance the budget and you realized half your haul had effectively been spent weeks ago really put a damper on the celebratory act of rolling around atop piles of decks. Online message boards were risky and tended to go dark just as quickly as they popped up.

Half the time i n order to avoid the obvious traps law enforcement put up, you had to pay an information broker just to learn the non-indexed website and get a passcode. By that point it was just easier to pay them for the jobs they knew were listed on there in the first place. The other half of the time, you'd only get the link to them from doing the type of swaps you wanted from the boards in the first place. So the answer to all this? Villain bars.

You got gossip, loud whining and whinging, regular ass mingling, and more than a few local celebrities looking to slum it with the rest of fodder because it makes them feel special. People were there to celebrate, drink troubles away, and see new faces, and it made for the perfect hotbed to get shit done in this life. But what's that, you might say? Most villains wouldn't come in costume to places like these? So how do you figure out who's who at a villain bar?

That's the kind of insider knowledge you have to pick up over the years. If there was a universal rule to follow, heroes would obviously be trudging in these places all the time to pick fights. So naturally, every place developed its own little system of "name badge" if it got really popular.

Sure, half these places didn't really start out with the intention of being villain bars, but most villains of this city knew to keep from causing too much trouble at where they relaxed and the more successful of them were big spenders. And so the staff and owners of these establishments would learn to accommodate their clientele's little gimmicks so long as they didn't show up dressed in the spandex and masks, assuming they didn't make up one themselves.

Eventually, you'd be let in on the trick everyone was using and maybe teach it to someone else on a job or at a meetup in one of these bars. Learn the system and you'd unlock a world of possibilities at a villain bar, operating in plain sight at any hour they were open.

That being said, Alex wasn't actually sitting on a stool at Frankie's for anything in particular at the moment, other than to see if he could spot some familiar faces and kill some time, but he still adjusted the dull red bracelet on his cuff to make sure it was visible. It was an old system that this place hadn't seen a reason for changing in the years it had catered to Victory's underworld, so Alex knew it well.

Frankie's was actually the kind of place where you could find some supes in costume, but that tended to be only once the sun went down, and that was still plenty of hours away. Not that he could show up in costume himself. While Luna Lace had worked literal miracles before Celeste and his eyes mere minutes after finishing some details with the mad scientist, she'd left several of the more technical components of the new outfit to Starsilk to finish up.

Roughly 80% of it was done, including the new rendition of his mask, but going out into town as the new hot villain on the block without a working set of gloves or shields felt like a stupid idea, so he was content to let it hang on display back at the lab. Alex sipped at a can of soda, pacing himself after his first beer since he figured he'd be here for awhile, as he watched a TV hanging over the bar.

Ordinarily it would be set to whatever sports game was filling time right now, but the current season was more contentious than acknowledging either the heroes or the League so the news played instead. The local station briefly acknowledged the situation with the League worldwide at such a rapid clip that the villain suspected they were intentionally trying to downplay the whole thing. Instead they moved into more preening about upcoming Victory Day festivities. Didn't really matter to Alex.

His eyes weren't watching the anchors as they chatted with each other over last year's pop up markets or parades, but rather were stuck on the ticker at the bottom of the screen. This was the true trick Frankie's did when it came to being a villain bar. The nonsense at the bottom of the TV looked genuine to the untrained eye, but you'd quickly realize that it wasn't displaying stories or stock reports or anything of the sort.

If you could parse it, you'd know exactly who had shown up to the bar and was looking to chat. The way it worked, you'd pass a napkin with your villain name on it to the bartender when you first ordered who would send it straight to the back. There, some guy was splicing this fake graphic onto the TV's and he'd add you to the board.

If you didn't bring your own "hint" to wear, you could palm a bracelet from a jar near the restroom that matched your costume's color and grab a few letter charms that looked like they were pinned to another wall. Presto, instant name tag that civvies wouldn't recognize unless everyone got really obvious about the system. Alex smiled as the words "L. MIN.: 556^ ACE."

went by on the bottom of the screen, enjoying yet another reminder of his new identity, even if the guy in the back had mangled it to make it look like a stock tracker. He liked to think the green upwards arrow next to the numbers was a little wink and a nudge about how his last job had gone. That grin quickly fell off his face when he realized the news story had swapped over. His name now scrolled directly below the proud figure of Thana Stormdaughter as the anchors fawned over her.

Last night, the heroine had stepped in to help out in a fight over in the south side of town, officially revealing herself to the general public apparently. The civilian side of the city was taking it as a sign that the global situation was going to be getting better soon. The villain side of the city also saw it as good news, since everyone knew there was a bigger target than them in the city that she was no doubt focusing on.

That seemed especially true since she'd flown in to kick in some League teeth for her grand reveal and had lingered just long enough to tell a camera crew that she was here to help out the local heroes for a bit and maybe catch the parade in the meantime. Alex knew different. Suddenly being the new hot villain on the block felt less like standing on the winner's podium and more like kneeling under a guillotine.

"Hey, you're M- Lord Menace, right?" a voice to his side asked quietly. He fought to keep from jumping at that as he glanced over at the newcomer pointing at his bracelet, where the letters L. M. were barely visible along the side of his wrist. He wasn't immediately familiar, but the scars on the back of his calloused hands and the chipped tooth in his grin said he was a cape.

He looked a little younger than Alex was, or at least his dull green eyes still hadn't quite had the world iron out the hope in them yet, even if the five o' clock shadow spoke to someone who figured the mask let you skip the razor every morning.

"It's been awhile," the unfamiliar face said cordially, and stuck a hand out. Alex shrugged and shook it but admitted, "Sorry, you-?" The man chuckled, "Yeah, we only did one job together about four years back. Never took off masks. It's Ambush." When that didn't jog anything, Alex tilted his head. The guy didn't seem to take it personally, "You, uh, filled in for Tri-Dent when he was sick and we had a whole fight planned with-""Oh yeah!" Alex snapped his fingers.

"You're one of the Crimebreakers' foes." Ambush's smile widened at the recognition. It hadn't been hard to place him with the extra hints, since Alex only had a couple of solid team-ups under his belt which had expressly been to fight a hero team. Of those, only two of them had involved someone getting sick at the last moment rather than someone quickly trying to add a few more bodies to their side of the table. The other one hadn't gone so well, and had ended with the arrest of all but one of that team.

Breathtaker had moved to Washgreen years back to join her old crew last Alex heard. That had made him hesitant to work with Ambush at the time, but the upfront payment had really helped out in a rough patch.

"Glad you remember that! We probably would've had to skip town if you hadn't shown up," the other villain said.

"Almost didn't realize it was you until I remembered your old costume." His eyes flicked down to Alex's wristband and the villain cursed under his breath. Right… his new costume was going back to his old color scheme so he'd snatched the red one, but most likely everyone here knew him from the Riftmaker green outfit. No wonder no one had bothered to approach him yet despite being here for a few hours.

"Yeah, since the cat's out of the bag, I've got a different costume ready," he explained, earning a nod of approval.

"Great to hear you're finally moving on up," Ambush said, still not bothering to slide into the seat next to Alex.

"Picked a hell of a time though." He nodded at the screen above, still showing the goddess up there. Alex didn't bother to hide his scowl.

"Hey, you know how these things go," Ambush patted him on the back.

"Once one person goes for a big reveal, everyone else with a cape has gotta show off too. Besides, Victory was overdue for a celebrity visit. Relax man, you're not her biggest concern." You would be wrong, Alex thought to himself but kept a smile on his face. Ambush didn't wait for a response, as he pushed off the bar, "Anyways, I gotta get back to my team. Nice seeing you, man." He strode back towards a small group gathered in a booth a short distance away and immediately they began chatting quickly.

Alex's paranoid side screamed at him when he saw a few stares slide over him but he returned to his drink, pretending the attention didn't bother him. Silently, he watched the screen, trying to push away the creeping feeling of dread which was weighing on his shoulders. He decided to focus on the events of the morning instead, remembering the time spent with Lyn before she and Sand Devil retreated to another room to talk about magic things. Something about a "wish list" they were putting together.

That naturally led him to wondering if she'd reached out to that wizard who had gotten her in touch with the fey in the first place. His fingers drummed on the counter as he wondered if he should just go ask Celeste, since she'd apparently been the one to find the spellcaster in the first place. No… Lyn wouldn't like it if he went around her like that after she'd brought it up. Especially with how she'd been acting regarding the fey thing. And yet…

He stared at his fingers, a part of him trying to rouse something out of them. Maybe… after a lifetime of disappointment… Maybe he could just… Nothing happened. Not just "nothing", like a kid trying to fly by jumping into the air and hoping really hard. No, despite having spent twenty or so years ignoring it, Alex still knew the practice to touch the pool at his center. And the probing feelings of his will had brushed there, trying to coax the latent power up. And nothing. Nothing there to try and pull from.

Maybe not nothing, but like the dregs of a drink that a straw couldn't reach, there wasn't enough there to work with, even just to try and sparkle off his finger tips. He sighed, hurt once more by getting his hopes up. He glanced down at his wristband instead and figured he might as well see if changing it to green would-"Menny!" a thick paw clapped him on the shoulder. Alex rolled his eyes, "I'm not drunk enough for your shit, LB."

Laser Badger chortled as he scooted onto the stool, dressed in his stupid purple costume that looked halfway between a shitty fursuit and sloppy armor that was modeled to kind of resemble the creature of his namesake. The jaws of it were open wide to expose the man's whole face, his smile on broad display as he laughed, "Let's fix that! Hey!" He flagged down the bartender by waggling his arm.

The man shared Alex's enthusiasm as he trudged over and Badger ordered a round for both of them, passing his napkin over with more subtlety than anyone could expect from him. Alex noticed that when Badger turned to look around the room, the bartender disposed of it quickly, not bothering to send it back.

"Hey, so, I gotta apologize man," Badger said, his tone too jovial for Alex to think this was going to be anything serious.

"T came by here awhile back while I was… uh, a little out of it, looking for you. I may have gotten things twisted about that and didn't know she was having second thoughts about not having her irons in the fire, if you know what I'm saying." Alex reached over and closed the helmet's visor while Badger wiggled his brows. His pawed hands struggled to reopen it for a moment, "Hehehe, I'm glad it worked out with you and your goth spider girlfriend."

"She's not actually goth," Alex shook his head.

"At least I'm pretty sure from what I've seen. Not enough black eyeliner. Of all things, I kind of expected you to mention her being blue honestly."

"Hey," he shrugged, "I'm like a badger: colorblind." Alex raised a finger before angrily pulling out his phone.

"Fuck you," he said before Saga'ing that. Motherfucker, he was right. Godsdammit, Alex hated how much badger trivia this asshole forced him to learn.

"That explains the costume."

"What about the costume?" his acquaintance asked as their beers appeared before them. Alex gestured to it. LB wore a look of outrage that Alex couldn't tell how real it was, "It's accurate to badger colors!"

"It's purple."

"Like badgers appear under UV light!" Alex began to start typing in his phone before catching the man's grin, "You're a fucking bastard."

"I'm sorry, milord," he feigned a bow before slipping into an overly posh accent.

"Mayhaps you desire more serious conversation now that thou art noble and grand." He rolled his eyes as the guy burst into laughter at his own joke. Still, a smile threatened to break out on his own face at the D-lister's antics. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"I've got next round," Alex said, only for the man in purple to shut him down.

"Nah, it's dumpster night at Upsell," the man told him without an ounce of shame.

"I gotta keep my wits about me if I wanna nab the best stuff. Oh fuck, ain't that one of your girls?"

"I don't have 'girls'," Alex shook his head, wondering what in the hell the rumor mill was pumping out now as he glanced up at the TV. The screen showed the recent break in at the Highlands Mall with an archived picture of Velocity Val in the corner.

"Yeah, but she's one of the ones that works with you, right?" Badger pointed up as though Alex had missed it.

"You know what that's about?"

"No," Alex lied.

[Earlier that morning]"I hate you," Val said with tears threatening to break out in the corner of her eyes. Alex counted himself lucky that Turnaround wasn't here to pour fuel on this fire as the speedster dumped several duffle bags onto the table in front of him. Sand Devil was over enough to be a permanent fixture by this point but her partner in crime still seemed to have her own extensive friend group that she spent most days hanging around, but there was still a risk.

"What is this even for?!" Val asked before he could thank her.

"Why could you possibly need these?!"

"For Vandal's job," he explained.

"This is for Contingency 6."

"I was there," Val cried out, exasperated, "and I know what she said. Nothing about that involved robbing a mall! A! Mall!"

"What's going on?" Lyn asked as she and Sand Devil peeked through the door.

"Menace made me rob a mall!" the woman in an outdated aviator's outfit protested.

"Like a shoplifter! I'm a villain!"

"And you said yes?" Devil held up a hand to her mouth that only barely covered her cruel smile.

"He said it was important!" Val stamped her foot, face growing redder and eyes getting waterier.

"It is," Alex asserted.

"These will be important for the upcoming job." He unzipped an overstuffed bag only for clothes to explode outwards. The other villains gave him disbelieving looks.

"I had her nab that stuff to cover up the real prize," he shook his head, digging through the bag.

"Also, I got new clothes so I figured you guys might want some wardrobe updates."

"Aw," Lyn cooed while Devil rolled her eyes and gestured at her shape-shifting dress. Alex just shrugged it off and withdrew the real prize, holding it up for the others to see. Everyone was silent for a moment before Devil spoke up, "I don't get it." Alex replaced the object in the bag and blew a raspberry, "I'll explain when everyone's here. I don't want to have to repeat myself eight times because you know Turnaround isn't going to shut up about this." Lyn and Devil just nodded while Val continued to pout.

"But why did I have to steal these?!" she shouted.

"Terror could've broken in at night or Devil could've lifted it all without being seen!"

"We're busy," Lyn snapped, narrowing her eyes.

"Also, I would not be caught dead stealing from a mall like a common criminal," Devil once again hid her smile behind her hand." I am a respectable villain."

"See?" Alex shrugged. Val glared daggers at him, her face now fully red with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.

"What? Your powers should've let you get in and out with no one knowing it was you," he reminded her. That caused her to look away and Alex could've sworn he heard a whimper from her. Groaning, he asked, "What happened?"

"There was… an enhanced security guard," she muttered.

"Not a speedster but… fast enough to trip me." Devil guffawed before shoving both her hands over her face and leaving the room entirely, her shoulders shaking with barely contained laughter. Lyn's face turned to stone and Alex knew she was holding her own giggles in. That only made the tears sparkle more in Val's eyes.

"I mean…" Alex tried to figure out a way to soften this blow.

"You know how people forget about you? I'm sure that no one will remember this in a couple hours." Her face went on a journey from outrage to embarrassment once more and straight on to hopeful, "You think so?"

"Yeah!" he encouraged her.

"There are bigger stories out there. No one will care. Trust me."

The story on screen focused entirely on Val. Alex had been expecting it to mention her connection to him given the P. H. O. T. O. N. warehouse job, but it just never came up. Just a whole lot of speculation on why a speedster of her – admittedly not that impressive – qualifications could possibly have robbed several stores in a mall of all things.

Hell, it didn't even pick up on the true reason for that heist, which meant that Val had taken his advice on how to make some of the thefts look like random damages in her pilfering. He felt his phone buzz and ignored it, not in the mood to be chewed out by a crying track star thief and continued to shoot the shit with Badger before the guy pushed off from the bar to head out into the city himself.

The silence that closed in after the absurd idiot left was more uncomfortable than Alex was expecting, so he turned his attention back to the screen above while ordering another drink from the bartender who seemed to have waited until the other villain had left to bother coming back to this side of the bar. A few names scrolled by that he recognized now, surprised to see how many people had filtered in while he'd been distracted chatting with Badger.

He turned on his stool only to immediately lock eyes with a man sporting a pair of electric blue ones which contrasted against his sun-battered skin. Alex immediately recognized the guy even if the two ran in completely different circles. After all, he'd been paying attention to members of the Evil Eight back when he first started to get a crush on a certain spider villain and this guy was one of those that didn't wear a mask with his costume.

Leckter – who Alex swore was supposed to be serving in Ironwall – pushed away from a nearby table and strolled across the room to hover in front of the villain. He sipped at a bottle in his burn marked hand before addressing him, "Hey, Menace, right? Got a sec to chat over here?" Alex scooped his own drink and followed the man, trying to get a read on him as he stared at the back of his head, eyeing the messy black hair that was just long enough to being to curl.

Lyn's stories weren't the most positive but she seemed to carry a chip on her shoulder about her time in the Eight in general. Still, of all the people who had spoken to him so far, Leckter was the only one who wasn't all smiles and camaraderie, instead coming off like he had business with Alex. With nothing better to do, he figured he might as well find out what the lightning villain wanted.

They trudged over to a booth towards the back in silence, third from the back since the other two were occupied by groups hunched over their tables conspiratorially. Leckter slumped in first and gestured for Alex to sit across from him as he took another long drag from the bottle, placing it down hard on a coaster to his side when he was done.

"Damn, shit's crazy these days," he muttered while Alex pulled into his own seat.

"I bust out just in time for people to start thinking I zapped the League's head doc with some red power up and suddenly the big guys themselves move in and start causing trouble. All while Sir Squid, the Cephalopod Socialite, is AWOL and no one wants to get the Eight back together. Then Webby gets a boyfriend and beats up Ned without the rest of us. What is this world coming to?" Alex eyed him warily, "Is this you trying to induct me into the Eight?"

"Fuck no," he shook his head.

"You need more fights with Ned under your belt if you want that privilege. No, this is me saying I don't care what kind of power ups you're rocking. You hurt her and I'll dig up the other twelve members of the Eight to kick your ass, understand?" Right… the turnover for that team was… Pushing the math aside, Alex blinked as he processed Leckter's protectiveness, "She kind of made it out like you guys hated each other."

"Yeah, but like…" Leckter scratched his neck, "the whole thing was about no one messing with us anymore, you know?"

"Leckter, she's a nine foot tall spider woman with venom and knows where I live," he pointed out.

"If I hurt her, you probably won't get the chance." If anything, if my secrets get out, there's a good chance she can just feed me to stronger wolves than you guys, he thought to himself, sipping at his beer. The lightning villain snorted, "Yeah, fair. Anyways, I heard you were part of Vandal's little thing." He tensed and looked around before rounding back on the man and hissing, "The thing we don't mention out loud even in villain bars?"

Leckter's lips scrunched together as he considered that, as though the concept of announcing you were planning to raid Amberheart Tower in public hadn't occurred to him as something he should keep secret before now, "Oh right, probably shouldn't do that." Suddenly, Lyn's attitude about the guy was making more sense. Alex sighed, "Yes, I am. That means you are too?"

"Well, yeah, but now I don't think it's a good idea to give more details…" he said lazily.

"No, probably not," Alex deadpanned.

"She said she'd be reaching out to us before the thing to do introductions and go over the plan." Leckter snapped his fingers, clearly just remembering that, and causing sparks to fly from them, "Oh right, yeah. From what I've heard about you, you might see some familiar faces." He raised an eyebrow at that, "What have you heard?" The other villain shrugged, "That you've teamed up with like half the villains in this town at one point or another.

You didn't join any teams for real but you sure put in some massive leg work early on." Alex sat back in his seat and remembered those early days in Victory. Every team he'd worked with had made him feel like he'd be the rookie on board and after getting out from underneath Blood's thumb, that was the last thing he'd wanted. Still he was smart enough, even as angry as he'd been at the time, to know he needed people to watch his back in a new town with a whole different set of heroes than what he was used to.

Once he'd cooled his head, he still kept playing nice – even going as far as to teach a couple of newbies himself – since he'd quickly learned just how expensive it could be to get your gear trashed by a whole team of heroes when you aimed for riskier jobs. But those riskier jobs sometimes were the difference between making rent or not, and that was before he knew his landlady was scary… to some people. For some reason? Maybe he should Saga her name after all?

As for why he never joined on with anyone else after getting settled? Basically every villain team had a hero team or solo cape they had beef with, and Alex had wanted to avoid that out of pragmatism. A nemesis meant your safe jobs, your quick smash-and-grabs or late night break-ins, would always come with more risk. Plus it felt artificial. Like, when he'd helped out Ambush, the rest of the team obviously had been beefing with the Crimebreakers for years by that point but it was just a job to him.

No real emotions behind it. He figured those must come from countless foiled jobs and ruined plots. The same hero fight on a monthly or weekly basis probably drove people crazy in that kind of way. Definitely not for him. Not to mention, there was a hero that was no doubt out for his blood already and he didn't need to be constantly reminded of that feeling.

"Yeah, yeah, I didn't get sucked into the drama," he waved away Leckter's comment.

"Who knows. Maybe I will see some familiar faces there." Leckter shrugged once more and picked up his bottle. He took a sip that obviously left him disappointed, "Huh… well that's dry. Shit, gotta head out anyways. See you later, Lord." He grinned at that like he found it funny as he scooted off, leaving Alex behind in an odd mood.

"Maybe I should just head back…" he thought aloud as he stared at the remaining half of his drink. He wasn't sure what he'd do if he did. Celeste wouldn't let him tinker with his gadgets without hovering nearby and that would defeat the point of trying to do it to relax.

He felt like he should be doing something to help prepare for the upcoming job, but without access to his gear and without more concrete details than what Vandal had deigned to give them already, trying to run his minions through drills would be pointless. He took another sip and began to run through his options to kill time when someone's shadow crossed over him.

"Oh, wow, you're him right?" a young, excited voice asked at just above a whisper.

"The Iron Menace, right?" Alex fixed the youth with a stare that bordered on a glare, "It's Lord Menace, kid." The young man chuckled and slid into the seat opposite him without asking, "Yeah, sorry. I saw the broadcast. You were so cool!" Alex smiled at the praise before his lips quirked downwards, "Are you old enough to be here?"

"Yeah, I'm older than I look," the kid told him, and surprisingly Alex believed him despite his soft features. Something about his eyes told a story that didn't match the rest of his face, and in Alex's experience, those always told the truth.

"I gotta say, I'm a huge fan," the kid launched into chattering more immediately.

"I didn't get to see you live but when I saw the recording I knew you were something special! Is it true you really helped take down the Starlight Squad?" Maybe it was worth staying a little longer, Alex thought as he grinned. Sure, it was obvious the brat wanted something and was willing to play to his ego, but… dammit it was working so he might as well let this whole thing go until the sales pitch. Then, he could leave.

"Yeah, that was me and a couple other villains. Not the whole team, but we managed to get what we were after." The kid nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah, that's the one! It was with Terrorantula, Sand Devil, and Turnaround, right?"

"And Velocity Val," Alex reminded him.

"Right…" he said, clearly tripped up by that.

"... And no one else?" Alex was midsip when the question caused him to pause. He gently lowered the glass back down to the table, "What are you talking about?" The kid shrugged, "I was just wondering. I thought I heard you guys had one more on your team, but she doesn't seem to show up much from what I've seen." Alex didn't say anything, feeling a chill down his spine. How did this guy know about Celeste?

"Who are you exactly?" he asked the question he should've led with, cursing himself for not doing so sooner.

"Just some guy who's been doing this for a bit and wants to help out some up and comers," the not-kid said, with a twinkle in his golden eyes.

"Someone who was real impressed by that other spider gal that's on your team. Along with the rest of you honestly but she left an impression." Alex stared into the man's eyes as he watched the pupils elongate into slits. The grin that split his mouth was full of sharp teeth and scales slowly crept along the corner of his face. The next time he spoke, his voice was deeper, crueler, and rumbled with a dozen growls of cold-blooded beasts as Arex the Unstoppable asked, "So how about it, kid?

You and your little runts have caught my attention. Want to learn from the best there is?"