Chương 139: Simeon, Part 1

The success of raiding the iron works wasn't exactly something that could instantly thwart the ADU's plans. After a short and tumultuous attempt at sleep at the testing facility, I was informed that most of the ADU troops weren't very educated on what was happening. There were, however, a few immediate results. My intuition on how the ADU members with the least zeal all had guns turned out to be relevant. Those ones weren't part of the ADU at all.

They were paid with money and in a few cases drugs specifically as hired muscle, via the Virginia HenchNet. None seemed particularly familiar with Big Balls in any intimate fashion, which indicated to us Big Balls was likely ignorant on this as well. That or there were layers of obstruction. However, most were very familiar with Hidalgo. They were able to name him without prompting and that he was part of several hiring runs related to this line of work.

"It sounds like to me Hidalgo's making a lot of moves to become a major influence on the HenchNet. He might even be trying to take Big Balls' position as a major tent pole in their structure," Tancred theorized. He took a sip of his coffee as he reviewed the debrief with me in his office, which smelled like the inside of a detergent bottle. Probably his best attempt to kill any smells from Casney that kept lingering. I raised an eyebrow.

"But Big Balls isn't the leader, no? He's just a representative. They had to vote for Chris and I instead of him just deciding it," I inquired, glancing around the room. I opted against sitting down, just in case I needed to get moving. Tancred shook his head.

"He's not their leader, no. Henchman Networks are highly decentralized, because they're an organic development of wayward fighting-fit men without employment prospects. We're still in that five year twilight of the Great Recession in '08, which caused such a boom in unemployment that henchmen practically started growing out of the walls. This newer strata especially do not believe in any specific leaders for their respective networks," he explained, taking another sip of his drink.

"You're going to throw a however on that," I pointed out, sitting my hands in my jacket's pockets. Ended up getting a handful of Shivvy by doing that, but he didn't seem to mind. The auditor nodded.

"You got that right. I've explained the ecosystemic model of villainy with you and the others ages ago. It includes regular criminality as well, of course, since that's inevitably adjacent to supervillains." Putting his coffee down, he clasped his hands together.

"The criminal element of any kind is deemed a predator. However, the greater the threat, the more significant a predator they are. This can get to the point they may prey on other predators in the form of intraguild predation."

"Simpler words, please," I asked.

"Killer whales eat sharks and seals. Lions will eat leopards and hyenas if hungry after a fight with them. Jaguars'll eat caimans." He picked his coffee back up.

"Henches are low-scale predators, kind of like coyotes or cheetahs or caimans. Major criminals and supervillains are closer to lions, orcas, jaguars, and bears. Predators developing a prey drive on other predators usually is the outcome of something called interspecific territoriality - or predators fighting over territory, driven by an instinct known as interference competition."

"Those who take also protect what they take from others interested in doing the same to them. And those others might take them if they fail to do so," I added on.

"Fanciful way to look at it, but yes. My point being, Big Balls is one such intraguild predator. He removes competition and sets the pecking order. He has influence that produced a microcosmic monopoly on violence among the criminal element. But he's also a human. Hidalgo is a vampire. He has superhuman abilities, and access to similar resources as Big Balls.

He wants to become the big intraguild predator in the area, which means he needs to steal from Big Balls and probably at some point or another kill him to assert himself as top dog." I nodded.

"Sounds like Big Balls needs to be protected then. I'm not really fond of the idea, but if it means we can avoid a killer vampire who's involved in the drug ring, has government connections, and works with the ADU taking control, I think that'd be worth it." Tancred shook his head.

"We're not protecting him. He's able to take care of himself, otherwise he'd be dead already. As for the government connections, we need to verify that machine ID. We can't just trust a supervillain telling us it's the case, especially one who tried to kill two of your teammates." Another nod from me.

"Okay, then what's the point of all this?"

"That the ADU is definitely still aiding and abetting Hidalgo here, and it's a symbiotic relationship. We can use mass testimony as a way to get Hidalgo under the same warrants we have out for the ADU, which will greatly expand our means of tracking his undead ass down. And since we have a probable cause motive, we can slap conspiracy on top of it. That always gets our prosecution teams foaming at the mouths." There was definitely great solace in knowing we were still beholden to legal rituals even this far along.

I welcomed that notion with the same glee of receiving my own funeral plans. Didn't even want to think about that. And lo and behold, I was blessed with the opportunity to think about that as the office door had opened. A younger man in a suit leaned in through the doorway as it opened and spoke up.

"Agent Tancred, sir, we have a situation."

"Okay," Tancred acknowledged.

"Out with it."

"With… Hercules here?" The staffer asked, looking almost concerned.

"If it's a situation, then he's more likely to be there than I am. And he doesn't have the pajamas on, he's Leo right now. Come on, time's a wasting." The staffer nodded, stepping fully into the room and shutting the door behind him.

"Right. Sorry, Leo," he added on. I shook my head.

"It's alright." Another nod from him.

"So Charlottesville PD received a call from a local bank's manager about receiving bomb threats. The caller kept ranting about how he was gonna 'bring everything I can to blast it to Hell,' and so on. The call was not recorded, but the manager was audibly disturbed according to their dispatchers. The manager was informed that while Charlottesville PD does not have bomb disposal, they can have officers sent out for security." More fucking bombs. Had enough of those from the 11th.

I fought off groaning in frustration, but I kept my attention regardless.

"And they weren't content with that," I asked. The staffer nodded.

"With the bomber's incident earlier, they were hoping maybe The New Sentinels could show up, maybe provide some morale for the other staff at the bank who are scared for their lives. With the recon all over the place on our own end, we have no reason to believe there's any activity that could allow for a bombing at the moment, but it's your call, Agent Tancred." Glancing back to the auditor, he took a deep breath.

"Bunch of hypochondriacs. We can't get them the full New Sentinels anyway. We need at least a couple available for emergencies. Maybe Chris…" He hummed.

"What would Chris be able to do against a bomb?" I asked.

"In the event it's real."

"True, but what would he do against that Quercus guy, either?"

"If he's given time to deploy on Quercus, I think he could do more damage than you think. I can leave Shivvy available for him too." The metal popped a head out of my jacket's pocket, looking up at me, as though expecting command.

"Sounds like you want to be there," he noted between sips of his coffee.

"Just don't want to risk someone unprepared for specifically bombs to be at the bank. I don't really think there's going to be a bombing, though. ADU doesn't use explosives from what we've seen, and I think any potential supervillains in the area have been scared off by the recent developments. I think it's a prank. But I'd rather be there to make sure."

"Yeah, but no offense, you have no charisma or sense of whimsy whatsoever. You might worsen morale on your own. You need someone with you." He rubbed his chin in thought, before raising a finger.

"Take May. Jairo can deliver Chris and Shivvy wherever if they both have to deploy, and May has ranged capacity that you don't. And also, she has social skills."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I'm trusting you without the thing that protects you from guns, aren't I? Plenty of confidence from me in the shit I know you're good at. Now go get your suit, I'll have dingbat here update May," he noted, gesturing to the staffer.

"I don't appreciate being called a dingbat, sir," the staffer noted. Tancred looked at the man.

"Where'd you serve?"

"Air Force, sir."

"This is why I kept asking for Marines and Army. Those assholes know how to take an insult. Now get out of my office before I come up with worse ones."

"Yes, si-" he started, before interrupting himself and just getting out. I glanced at him.

"Venting on random staff now that you said you'd be nice to me?"

"No, I just hate suck-ups. I've shown you a lot more favoritism than you think because you bite back." If that was favoritism, I was really not surprised he was divorced. Without further conversation, mostly because I didn't want any, I went and did my errands for the job. I dropped Shivvy off with Chris, who was immediately excited by the prospect of hanging out with a metal cat. After that, I got my costume on and was shown where exactly we'd be going. A decently sized local bank.

Different from the one Chris and I visited. By the time I made it to the van, May was there in her full Spectroma kit, with some kind of duffel-bag.

"You got ready fast," I stated. I didn't bother questioning the bag. If she had it, I trusted she wasn't bringing it arbitrarily. She shook her head.

"You just took a while." She didn't look at me at the end of the motion, instead looking off to the side.

"Plus this is… actually kind of the stuff I was looking for when I was told I'd get to be a superhero. Just helping people feel better, making them feel safe." Her gaze then snapped back to me, giddy.

"And I get to do it without being on my stupid prosthetic." I glanced down, remembering that she did in fact get her foot back after that whole ordeal with Foras.

"You know," she brought up.

"I think the van's a waste of our talents. Don't you?" She asked, the clunking of the van's front door punctuating my question. I cocked my head.

"I do, but aren't we going to want Billy as back-up just in case?"

"He can follow us if he wants. Though, I guess you're right, maybe we shouldn't…" she trailed off.

"I don't think you could keep up with me if I went full speed." Some sort of competitive streak stirred up in me. Maybe I was just pissed at Tancred saying I had no whimsy. Maybe it was just a good warm-up for if anything happened, in my opinion.

"What, scared you'd lose a race?" I asked, smirking. Her face scrunched, and immediately she spat on the ground, subtly trying to plant a heel on it. I knew what she was doing already. I slipped one foot out to my side, bracing it against the asphalt.

"You only out-paced me because I wasn't confident on landing on a prosthetic. On both feet, you'd be eating dust."

"Try me," I called out. Billy made his way from the front of the van.

"Hey, guys, what's the hol-" THOOM VWOM May used the reflective nature of her own saliva to make a big light trampoline under her foot. It launched her damn near as hard as I do just jumping. We were parallel in the air, riding entirely on momentum and a childish lack of fear for once. We'd both nearly gotten killed by the ADU. Free flight through the air, knowing we both had ways to recover, was just fun at this point.

She didn't try to make it known, but when we hit the first building, I could hear a bit of a laugh from her. She hid it with a VWOM as she hurled herself off to another, lower building. Every movement was rich with spins and spanned out arms. Despite the fact she was basically catapulting herself around, she never looked like she was out of control. She was entirely in her element. Made me wish I had that kind of control. By the time I kicked off, she already crossed two rooftops.

This wasn't just a race of up and forward. Since we were both moving with leaps, getting down fast was also pivotal. I wasn't entirely sure how to use gravity to fall faster, especially since I still hadn't figured out how to really use it as gravity and not strength on my own yet. Meanwhile, in the corner of my eye, I could see her ping-ponging off of alley walls using blasts of light, growing closer to the bank.

I already could tell I had lost the race, just because trying to go any faster would damage the buildings. I took my loss as best I could, hurling off a building and landing next to her at the same time, managing to not tear a hole in the ground on impact.

"How do you handle throwing yourself around that fast?" I asked as we made our way into the bank.

"Air resistance is tricky, but since it's broad daylight, I have a lot of light that I can just focus into ultraviolet and heat up the air ahead of me. Low density air means I'm not slamming into a wall of it," she explained, reaching through her belt.

"And I just use hard light to counter my force slightly and I fall just fine. I can make it disperse before it breaks anything, so no collateral." As we entered the bank, a few people yelled in surprise, and others were talking. All signs indicated that if someone was bringing bombs, they hadn't brought them yet.

"Hey, guys! We're here to hang out for the day. Anyone's kids here?" Spectroma called out, as a few children, maybe a few years older than Sam's, made their presence known. May dropped down that duffel-bag, unzipping it and digging through it.

"I've got some stuff for you guys!" And there she pulled it out: Plush toys of her and I, in our costumes. They had tags. I didn't even realize I had merchandise like that. I'd seen some plastic masks like mine, but I wasn't entirely certain why I needed a fuzzy stuffed thing to represent me. All I knew for certain was I should not have trusted her with the duffel-bag. The kids clamored over it, and she looked at me with a smirk on her face.

"If we didn't race, I would've had time to warn you I was bringing merch." An older man in a suit hobbled his way over to us, reaching a hand out and introducing himself as the bank manager.

"Thank you for coming," he stated, voice breathy with nerves.

"I wanted to make my staff and our clients feel comfortable coming here even in spite of danger. Knowing The New Sentinels are here is a good way to laugh in the face of troublemakers." I nodded.

"We're happy to help. Do you have any description on the caller, by the way? Just out of curiosity." He shook his head.

"Nothing in particular stood out, besides his accent, I suppose. He didn't sound like he was from Virginia at all." I raised an eyebrow. That was already a cause for concern. Out-of-state prankster if we were lucky.

"Where'd he sound like he was from?"

"You know, I feel like I'm just over-assuming because my wife's from there, but it almost sounded like he was from Houston." May spoke up.

"Houston." I glanced over at her.

"…You know someone from Houston?"

"Yeah. The Astros." Glass crashed overhead. In that same second, a pumpkin-like wooden pod fell between the faces of both May and I. God damn i- BAM