A small child skidded through the big doors of the metal-walled storehouse, yelling, at the top of his little lungs, “DIEEEEE!!!!!” to anyone who would hear him. “Submit to the evil that is Doctor MegloDeath!” Unfortunately for our young would-be super-villain, no one was paying any attention to him. Prince was in the corner, working towards cracking the code of the safe without tripping any alarms. Lucifer was in another corner, far away from Prince, sulking while failing to look fabulous in his Versace lime green pants, a reaction that may or may not have anything to do with Blood setting fire to his entire wardrobe. No one cared to ask him - no one dared to either.
The lady in question was not particularly happy despite the thrill she had earlier that day., but that may have been because she was furious with the sheer amount of time Prince was taking with the safe. The twelve year old, somewhat deflated, pretended to ignore everyone and went straight to his mentor. But before he could get to the tall, middle-aged man, he was enveloped into a hug by a dread-locked monk wearing baggy, tie-dyed pants with more than enough room between each to house a family of squirrels.
Daisy held the little guy into a warm embrace before he could disturb any other person in the room. He did not want them to get more agitated than they already were.
“Slow down little man,” he confronted, enunciating each word with a lazy drawl, “save all that chaos for the battle field. The fire in your eyes will burn soon, just you wait my man.”
But the young child took no notice of the wise monk’s words, and squirmed his way free of the prison made of love and recycled material. Instead he dashed single-mindedly to the grouchy Frank, latching onto the middle-aged man’s formal pant leg like a kitten clambering up a tree.
“Get offa me kid” he growled with mild annoyance, but did not move a muscle against the child’s awkward affection.
The monk, spurred and dismayed, sat cross-legged and despondent, eyeing the duo enviously with a lazy glare. Soon, however, his attention was snared by Blood, the Queen of Unpredictability. She was greatly infuriated by the amount of time wasted by an idiot’s stupidity so, of course, she acted on her rage.
Blood moved with grace and elegance. She was unpredictable, but unfortunately she also was in a room full of Vigilante members, people who had gotten used to her tactics. One second ago, the malformed and undeniably repulsive Lucifer was sulking, streaks of black eyeliner lining his face, with the backdrop of sad emotional music, and the next he was poised and ready to fight his long-term foe. He whipped in front of him his trusty katana, ready in hand to block any of Blood’s knife attacks.
Everyone perked up to view the spectacular battle that was about to happen in this lonely town. Dr. MegloDeath left Frank’s side and went to join Daisy on the floor, getting really comfortable. An action that was greatly influenced by the fact that the monk in question had somehow managed to get popcorn out of thin air. Frank straightened up and looked at the duo with interest, like he was studying their every move. Only Prince remained where he was, doing the same thing he was doing, paying all of his attention to the thick steel door, not even sparing a single glance to the unexpected continuation of a long conflict.
The battle, to a normal person would have been a total blur. Weapons flying and clashing with one another and the two moving in supernatural speed was expected here. But to the occupants of the room, this battle was a tad bit boring. No one wants to see just blades clashing with each other. But the battle was just starting, nothing got exciting before the first wound.
The first blood drawn in this battle was amazing to say the least. After what seemed like millennia of those two sizing each other up with small tricks, Lucy finally made the first move with one of his grenades that he had up his sleeve.
He did not check which type of grenade he had taken before throwing it straight at Blood. He could not waste a single second, for this was no mere child’s play. Blood was taken off guard at that unprecedented attack and she got caught in full force of the grenade. It exploded causing the normal and almost cliche effect done by Lucy’s grenades. Everyone held their breath in silence. Prince even stopped what he was doing and turned around to get a look at what type of grenade had caught Blood at full blast. With Lucy’s almost a million types of grenades, there was always something new and exciting.
When the faux smoke finally cleared, everyone looked with anticipation at the effect caused by the grenade and almost had to hold their laughter at that. But they managed, as no one dared wish to be the subject of Blood’s ire. Prince took one look at her and motioned something to Frank, who nodded in response. Prince then returned back to his work, completely uninterested in the drama unfolding at his back.
The spot where Blood stood was covered in black viscous ink, which was pulsing every second. Dripping from head to toe, she looked more furious than she did the day before and rather comical. “Lucy darling.” She purred as she charged towards him. “I am gonna drag you down~.” She added in a sing song voice.
Lucifer stiffened in response to being called by that horrid name and blocked Blood’s attack with equally the same vigor. He charged forward with his Katana which seemed to grow tentacles out of nowhere. Having expected that, Blood quickly managed to cut them down. Alas, she was bested by Lucifer by a second, Lucifer gained an advantage and one second was all he needed to defeat Blood.
“Silly Blood. You don’t drag the King of Hell down. He takes you there with style!” He bragged in triumph as he slowly gained more and more advantage over Blood.
Suddenly Blood stopped moving. Lucy, not expecting this stillness from her, went on charging and consequently smashed his already deformed nose the hard floor after losing his balance. He stood up and glared at Blood, confused and angry.
“Who said anything about hell? I was just gonna drag you down to my dungeons and torture you there.” Blood jeered. She looked upset that the entire mood was ruined.
Daisy did not waste a second in covering the young kid’s eyes and ears after hearing that. The young doctor might be a wannabe super-villain but he was still a kid.
“You have a dungeon?” Lucifer took some time to wrap this around his head.
“Yes, she does.” It was Prince who replied, with his back still facing the shocked group.
It was silence, except the occasional clicking of the safe, as everyone looked at Prince’s back and then at Blood. They went back and forth with those two and just stared with their mouths half-open as young MegloDeath tried to pry free of the iron hold. Finally Blood broke the uncomfortable silence.
“Does anyone have wipes or something? This stuff is starting to get sticky.” She said looking rather irritated.
That did the trick and everyone just snapped out of it. Frank handed her a big white handkerchief and she nodded in thanks, wiping the pulsing stuff from her face.
“How much longer is this going to take?” An annoyed, high-pitched voice crackled to life in the ears of everyone occupying the room. “Some of us have places to be, things to do. One cruddy door isn’t worth a whole night of online Texas hold-em. I could be making thousands right now. Thousands!”
The thought of the riches she could be making only enraged the voice further.
“Quit acting like bullocks, sitting on your arses, and get a bloody move on!”
With an exasperated sigh, Daisy replied to the British voice.
“There’s kids here, you know?”
“I once had a minion,” groaned Frank, as if pained to even be talking. The kid still squirmed against Daisy, and a gaze of pure awe towards the balding man lit up his innocent face as he listened intently as though each word was gold. “Jeeves, I think it was called,” he continued. “I imbued his genetics with the genes of an ocean explorer, to command my evil navy.” Although the prospect seemed grand, Frank waved it aside as though he were recounting the sale on kale he took advantage of the previous Sunday. “He traversed the seven seas like a true sailor,” he sighed deeply, “unfortunately, he had the mouth of the sailor too. It was all, ‘****’ this, or ‘*&%$’ that. ‘&*%@ to port’, or ‘There’s a @$***& storm coming.’” The group stood in disgusted awe, except for little MegloDeath who began to write notes, which were promptly snatched away by the monk. Frank continued to list profanities, each salty sound said with as much vigour as a spectator of an old lady’s Bingo night.
The metallic click of the safe opening caused Frank to stop his melodramatic recollection, and as a result got little MegloDeath out of the iron grip. “Go on.” Prince urged him. “Don’t let me stop your fantastic story time.” He said standing over the open safe.
Frank looked at the empty safe behind him and then said, looking Prince dead in the eyes. “I don’t think I will have to tell you not to take the treasure for yourself. There are more than competent people here to stop you should the need arise,” he commented dryly at the cloth-covered parcel in Prince’s hands.
Prince looked at everyone eyeing the thing in his hands with more than mild interest and started to laugh. “I am not going to take this for myself, but I cannot say the same for the rest of us here. In this profession, one seldom has people that one can trust,” he said, his eyes sweeping around everyone in the room. However, they stopped at one occupant.
“None of you here even know the true value of that thing.” Lucifer looked murderous, and quite hungry. “It would be wasted in your hands.” His voice was almost a low deadly growl.
“Considering that all of you here are morons, I think it will be best if I took care of it.” Blood did not hesitate to add her two cents in the situation.
“He’s right,” Daisy said from where he was sitting. The murderous aura emitting from everyone else in the room which was now directed towards him did not affect him in the slightest bit. “We are all power-hungry. We want it for ourselves.” No one denied his accusations.
“I am not saying that I am better than everyone of you here, but…” The high-pitch sound was back again. “I don’t know what that bloody thing is or what it is worth, but I can confidently say that I can make ten times more than that with a single click.” He sounded nonchalant.
“I know M, I know.” Prince smiled, his eyes still hadn’t left that person.
Daisy looked over at where Prince’s gaze was fixed and smiled. “I agree with you. There is only one person in here who would be able to take this precious treasure over to M without us worrying about it.”
Prince shot a smile at Daisy’s direction and nodded, now looking at the young MegloDeath whose adoring gaze was upon the murderous look in Frank’s usually impassive face. He slowly walked towards the kid and knelt down and said, looking the kid in his eyes, “I was wondering if the great Dr. MegloDeath would do a little favour for me.” The little kid stopped looking at his mentor and turned to Prince with excitement filling his eyes.
“Sure, whatever,” he replied in his most adult-sounding childish voice, the look of adoration now fixed towards Prince. Having paid no attention to anyone beside his master, young MegloDeath was the one most unaware of the current situation.
Everyone watched it unfold in silence because frankly there was nothing anyone could do now. With just one sentence, MegloDeath was caught up in Prince’s web from where there was no escaping. He wasn’t the Master of Manipulation for nothing.
However when Prince whispered something in the kid’s ears, Frank couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. There was no need for Prince to do that, the kid was already a puppet in his hands, ready to do anything Prince asked him to.
Prince stopped whispering and gave the badly-wrapped thing in his hands to MegloDeath and said with a beaming smile. “Give it to M, will you? He’s in the van parked outside.” MegloDeath bobbed his head up and down for about a minute and ran to do what he was asked to.
“What did you promise him?” Frank asked, glaring down at Prince, the venom from before still lingering in his eyes.
Prince held Frank’s gaze as he stood up. “Why do you even care?” He replied with a question that couldn’t have been a more straightforward answer.
Frank did not say anything, but mostly because he knew that it was pointless arguing with Prince. That bastard always had something up his sleeve and Frank was done with all that for today. He was just tired. Prince just smiled and went to fetch his overcoat from the chair he had draped it upon.
“I think we should start going too, unless of course you guys want to take something else from here,” Prince said, buttoning up the heavy black material.
That did the trick as the deadly serious atmosphere was instantly changed as everyone laughed poking fun at the building they were at.
“We got what we came here for, let’s just leave. I can’t stand this wasteland for another minute.” Blood agreed, walking towards the exit. As the rest of the Vigilantes moved to follow him, a scramble of boots on metal echoed through the storeroom. Prince swore under his breath. How could he have missed a silent alarm? He was sure that he’d taken care of everything discreetly. However, judging by the approaching footsteps coming closer by the second, that was not the case.
As the group, collectively sighing in frustration at the delay, shooting accusatory glances at Prince, turned to face the approaching nuisance, they held fast in their tracks at the sight of the bald-headed Daisy, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes shut, gently inhaling and exhaling. Not a single Vigilante dared to make a sound. They watched and listened as his large chest powerfully rose and fell, each breath feeling like it sucked out all the air in the room and then returned it with a blast. A rhythmic pounding became faster and louder, dwarfing the scuttle of footsteps. When Daisy finally opened his eyes, they had a dark-purple glint to them, glittering like flames. He no longer wore the passive, kind-hearted visage of the Daisy they all knew, but the focused and bloodthirsty countenance of the Chaotic Monk.
“Finally,” he growled gruffly, each baritone vibration of his voice causing little MegloDeath to quiver. “All this peace and quiet was really stifling my connection to the world.”
Without needing a second confirmation, the group turned and walked calmly towards the exit, the tiny villain clinging to Frank. Although their steps were slow and calm, their stride was uncharacteristically long. Things were about to get messy.
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