Chapter 35 (Patreon)

February 4th, Late Afternoon

Undersiders Base

The warehouse was blissfully quiet, save for the occasional shout or snicker from the ‘living room’ - Aleks and Brian playing some sort of videogame that she couldn’t bring herself to care much about. Lisa ignored them in favor of keeping all of her mental focus on the conversation at hand. Divvying up her attention too much often caused her power to confuse itself in a warped attempt to multitask when multitasking wasn’t needed, and that was the last thing she needed while on the phone with her murderous, psychopathic supervillain boss.

Him clearing his throat - again - forced her tired eyes to shoot towards her phone.

“Ahem…” Coil’s quiet voice was deep and foreboding as it filtered through her headset like a particularly annoying snake, all overly-pronounced syllables and dramatically timed pauses. “You’ve had more than enough time to review the PRT’s updated dossier on Avalon, Tattletale - several hours of time, to be precise. I would be… disappointed to hear of no new information on our newest player. Who is he? What are his limitations? Who are his… associates?”

Her eyebrows twitched, powers wrapping around his oil-slicked words and digging straight to the pit. With only his voice to go off of, she had to be a little more creative with what she looked out for; intonation, word choice, and the overall context of his sudden phone call. Coil rarely hit her up directly like this, which was already nerve wracking in and of itself. That would imply that this wasn’t a throwaway for him; he was willing to spend some of his ‘precious’ time actually questioning her over the phone in his ‘main’ reality instead of pumping her dry of info and dropping it right after.

The revelation didn’t exactly help her anxiety.

‘Thinly-veiled impatience; Worried that he’s running out of time to properly handle Avalon. Plans could easily be disrupted by a hero of Avalon’s caliber and unpredictability staying in the Bay. Wants information that can be used to harm and/or blackmail Avalon.’ 

About what she’d already expected, then. Lisa resisted the urge to sigh loudly and piss the supervillain off even more than he already was. She had been using her powers all morning to evaluate the information given to her, but not for Coil’s sake. 

Lisa’s head was killing her. 

“Like I told you already, there’s not too much I can glean about this guy on such short notice, boss. You probably know more about him than I do right now. High tier Trump with several powerful abilities, has a small team he runs ops with; some sort of hacker, a Tinker with a vehicle specialization, and the ugly guy in power armor.” Lisa rattled off the most benign, surface-level observations that she could as she purveyed the much more detailed document labeled ‘Team Invictus’ on her laptop.

‘Invictus; Latin word, meaning ‘Unconquerable’. Purposefully meant to come off as arrogant and powerful. Chosen to warn away both heroes and villains alike.’

What she wasn’t revealing, amongst countless other little written tidbits and observations, was the fact that she was about ninety five percent sure that she had run into him about a week ago in his civilian identity. Jason with the Sunglasses, the guy from the pawn shop with the charmingly flippant personality and a supposed immunity to her Thinker powers. He was the same guy that she’d been trying, in vain, to dig up more information on whenever she wasn’t doing her ‘mysterious’ benefactor’s menial dirty work. 

The keywords there, of course, were ‘in’ and ‘vain’ - Jason had literally nothing beholding him to the city! No family, no registered identification that she could find in both public and private channels, hell, she couldn’t even figure out his fucking birthday!

For all intents and purposes, ‘Jason with the Sunglasses’ was a complete and utter mysterious - a fucking ghost, with no trail leading him to or from Brockton Bay.

One that just so happened to be the cape that was putting the entirety of the city into a tizzy with his bold and fearless plays. Suspiciously blank slate or not, Lisa was just happy to know that her initial hunch was correct - that Jason was someone who could potentially assist with Coil’s downfall. Whether his immunity to her powers meant that he was immune to Thinkers in general or not, the raw power he’d displayed on multiple occasions as ‘Avalon’ left her feeling fairly secure in his ability to brute-force his way to victory if the chips fell that way.

Of course, she existed, so there was no reason not to formulate a more efficient strategy than ‘slam your head against an army of Tinkertech-carrying mercenaries’, but everything hinged entirely on getting her acquaintance to play ball.

For that, she needed something he would want - an offering, or, better yet, an equivalent exchange of goods and services. Lisa was sure that Jason/Avalon enjoyed the finer things in life. His costume was expensive, and cursory proddings into Parian’s pricings revealed that her work started in the several thousands at minimum. Her prices were rising due to the sudden influx of commissions she was starting to get due to her rumored connection to Avalon, but not at such a speed to where Lisa couldn’t accurately estimate the value of her commissioned work for her mystery man.

He would appreciate money, then. And information, for his unofficial-official sanctioned warpath against the Empire. These were all things she could get for him given a little bit of time, assuming he’d even want to work with her in the first place.

She simply needed to establish an actual line of contact, one that went much deeper than an awkward ‘hello’ message on PHO. The question was, what could she - or the Undersiders in general - do to gain his attention without tipping Coil off-

“You will be granted more time, Tattletale, because I strive to show patience and leniency to those who do good work beneath my care, and your team’s recent job was performed admirably.” Coil’s voice was measured and silky once again, but there was something there - an almost unnoticeable threat that she could hear loud and clear behind the unfeeling compliment. “The Undersiders will be pulled off of any job for the next week, Tattletale - consider it a well-needed break and an incentive. You will get me the information I require. Perhaps by looking further into these supposed ‘teammates’ of his.”

‘A warning, low subtlety; Feels threatened by Avalon’s existence, needs him out of the picture before he feels secure continuing his plans. Thinks Avalon is too dangerous to handle with current assets. Hopes to draw him out by harming his teammates instead.’

Lisa crossed her arms over her chest and propped her feet up on the desk, chewing on her bottom lip as her green eyes distractedly roamed the ceiling above her. ‘Harming his teammates’ would be stupid, so that part of her analysis was faulty information. Coil was horribly paranoid and exceedingly smart with the resources that he did have - killing a powerful Trump’s support base, the weaker links, wouldn’t make any sense. 

‘Hopes to draw Avalon out by threatening his teammates.’

No, too shallow.

‘Hopes to draw Avalon out by torturing his teammates.

Close? She already knew that he was a freakazoid who got off on releasing his stress through sadism, torture, and… other activities through the means of his alternate realities, but torturing them would imply…

‘Hopes to draw Avalon out by kidnapping his teammates out of costume. Plans to use them as a bargaining chip to either forcibly recruit Avalon or eliminate him under the guise of parlay.’

There it was. Lisa narrowed her eyes, ideas already starting to chug along through her sore and abused brain. 

“I’ll work on it, boss,” she muttered distractedly, glancing back over to her laptop’s dimmed screen. “Give me a little bit to work my magic, alright? This Avalon guy won’t know what hit him.”

A pause, before Coil responded, bemused. “I look forward to hearing back from you, Tattletale. I expect updates daily with all information you manage to acquire during your… ‘magic’.”

“Gotcha. Leave-”

CLICK.

“It to me…”

Fucking rude.

Lisa allowed her feet to fall off of the desk, scooching forward in her swivelling desk chair to get closer to her laptop. Bullshitting Coil wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world, but it always left her feeling jittery and exhausted afterwards - probably because the asshole, quite literally, held her life in his greasy ass palms. Just the mere thought of it burned her chest something fierce, but now wasn’t the time to lose herself in the daydreams of escaping Coil’s clutches, shooting him in the temple, and taking his entire empire from underneath him.

Now was the time to further her own plans. She’d find out everything she could about Avalon and the rest of Invictus, for sure, but not so that Coil could kidnap the team and use them to subjugate or assassinate the hero. 

No, she would do it in order to gain an ally in the man that was quickly proving himself to be one of the strongest, if not the strongest cape in the entirety of Brockton Bay. With him helping out the Undersiders, spending her days working beneath Coil would quickly become nothing more than a shitty memory. With the villain out of the way and his assets beneath her control, she’d be able to get all of her teammates everything they could ever want and more.

A large, successful dog shelter for Rachel.

Full custody over his sister for Brian.

… Hookers and blow for Regent?

She snickered to herself, scrolling down the document and searching for her most recently updated entry about Team Invictus. After just a few strokes of the finger, Lisa’s tired eyes found the roughshod overhead map of the Docks and the Trainyard that she’d copied over from Brockton Bay’s wikipedia. Red lines traced up and down multiple streets and avenues, each stroke of color a route that either he or members of his team has been seen frequenting at some point over the last couple of nights. 

So close to their own base. She was both excited and nervous.

“I’m going to find you, Avalon, or Jason, or ‘Cute Guy in Sunglasses’... whatever the hell your name is,” Lisa murmured, a vulpine-like smile forming on her thin lips. “And we’re gonna have us a nice, long chat.”

________________________________________

“Ahhhhnnn~...”

Cassie came to a jaw-cracking, barely cognizant wakefulness with a very noticeable lack of hot, toasty boyfriend occupying the space beside her. For a moment, she simply sat in their ridiculously comfortable bed with a blank expression on her face, blinking her dark eyes slowly to clear them of the previous night’s blurriness. Surely that was the only reason she couldn’t perceive Jason, right? Her face-blinkers weren’t properly prepped for the day ahead!

Blink. Blink.

…

Still no boyfriend. 

“Brave man, forgetting to give me my morning smooch…” She wrinkled her nose in mock frustration, less annoyed and more concerned, but ample online research forewarned her of being too clingy and needy early on in a relationship so Cass buried her instinctive desire to shoot Jason a text message. The last couple of days had been extremely stressful and action-packed, and if anyone deserved some time to themselves it was her boyfriend.

Her boyfriend. Just being able to say such a thing even in her own brain made her face heat up and stomach fill with fluttering butterflies. In their bedroom, hidden from any judgemental or mocking eyes - ahem, literally the entirety of Invictus - Cassie allowed herself a moment of immature, girlish glee and fell forward into the thick black blankets, burying her hot face into her hands. All of her dopey, lovesick elation and excitement exploded through her chest like a geyser as she kicked her feet happily behind her, letting out a high-pitched squeal.

“Eeeeeeeee!”

It definitely did not sound like a pig being tortured.

BANG!

“This Pod was alerted by the sound of an omnivorous, hoofed mammal being sadistically maltreated. Query: Where are the interlopers?”

Cassie abruptly quietened, her cheeks turning crimson as Pod 084 burst through the door and hovered menacingly. The bulb on his ‘head’ flickered between yellow and red as he silently scanned the room, uncaring of the fact that he just turned their bedroom door into splinters.

She stared, feet frozen mid-kick. Surprise and embarrassment almost immediately shifted into indignant anger.

“What are you, a friggin’ bulldozer?! Knock next time, tin-can!”

084’s bulb flashed green, and it rocked its little body back and forth. “Order acknowledged; this Pod will endeavor to ‘knock’ next time it hears high-pitched squealing.”

Cassie jutted out her lower lip, wiggling back so that she was sitting flat on her butt instead of lying on her stomach. Her white t shirt - one of Jason’s apparently, considering the way it dwarfed her body and hung loose over her slim, pale shoulders - rode up on her stomach, and she smoothed it back down so that it fell over the milky thickness of her thighs. “I don’t sound like a pig…” 

“Embarrassment detected. This Pod will not respond.”

“Urk- screw you.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Cassie eased her way out of bed and snagged her phone off of the nightstand. A quick retina scan later and she was scrolling through several different windows of notifications and information with quick, decisive flicks of her slender thumb. Even before becoming a Tinker, she’d always been good at multitasking and absorbing information quickly - obtaining the status of ‘World’s Coolest Hacker’ only accelerated the speed in which she was able to comb through data.

An avalanche of random DMs on PHO, multiple taggings in different threads - ooh, she even got a speculation thread made about her!,  a text from Sabah asking to meet and have tea tomorrow morning, and an assortment of pings from her VI Daycare program letting Cassie know that Athena, her ‘head’ VI that was practically being groomed into substituting as the OS for her tech, was finished parsing its nightly training data.

God, she loved programming. Angelic coding made creating VIs infinitely easier on both her brain and her fingers. Each character in the script was practically worth hours of coding in any other human-made language.

It was only a matter of time before Athena was able to create VIs to assist with specific tasks that it couldn’t spare memory and power to do itself. Commanding 084 to do everything would have worked just as well, perhaps even better, but her pride rankled at the thought of asking another person - another programmer to do her work for her. She appreciated him as a teacher and a fellow coder, but Cass also saw him as a rival and a whetstone - to be sharpened against, not to use as a replacement for her own abilities.

Padding over to the dresser, she slipped her CodeLink - in its sleek, earbud-like form - into her ears and spoke confidently into the air, “Athena, go through my DMs on PHO and write me a consolidated list of any important messages that require our immediate attention.”

A woman’s voice, quiet and robotic, whispered a simple, ‘Yes ma’am’ in her ear.

Cassie’s serious facade cracked, and she grinned happily. “Hehe, sweet!” 

It was a simple directive, but even the simplest of things had the potential to skyrocket with enough elbow grease and brainpower! Right now it was scanning her online DMs, later it could potentially be controlling entire suits of power armor for her like Dragon! … Well, maybe not that, but baby steps, right? Even more excitingly, she had gotten another idea while hacking into Armsmaster’s visor back during the ambush - something that would hopefully please Jason, too.

“84,” Cass turned from the dresser and directly addressed the silently hovering Pod, “Where’s Jay? And don’t tell me he’s out patrolling again- Mr. Busy Body needs to take a freakin’ breather.” 

They had enough time to hunt down the rest of the Empire, and he had been out patrolling with New Wave earlier that morning. She was honestly worried that he’d end up getting burnt out at the rate he was going.

“This Pod is pleased that you’ve asked that question. Master is waiting for Mistress down in the Training Hall. He mentioned needing to talk to you as soon as you regained consciousness.” 084’s voice was as droll as ever as it casually delivered the news, little mechanical fingers clenching and unclenching.

Cass blinked. “Wha- why didn’t you lead with that? And why the heck did you rush in here and break down our door if you were coming to me anyway?!”

No response, save for that blank, silent hover and a red blink of the bulb.

The silence was telling.

With a loud, exaggerated sigh, Cass quickly made for the attached bathroom. “I’ll be down there in, like, ten minutes, so tell him to wait up!”

…

15 Minutes Later~

…

Now dressed, rather comfortably, in one of her favorite black AC/DC hoodies that reached past her knees, bubblegum pink panties, and mismatched thigh-high socks (because she couldn’t find the matching pair), Cassie shuffled obediently down the hallway to what was unofficially labeled the ‘Training Hall’. It still struck her as otherworldly and unbelievable, the speed and depth in which everything in her life so suddenly changed, but she honestly wouldn’t trade it for the world. Sometimes, like last night when the truck almost flipped, the change was scary, but Cass genuinely believed that the good far outweighed the bad in almost every way.

Sure, she was probably now on multiple government watchlists and could die at any second whenever she went outside her home without protection, but… she had an amazing lover, an amazing - read, annoying - ‘son’, an awesome and unfairly attractive bestie, and a house that was quickly feeling like it was made from actual Magic, with a capital M. Heck, Sherrel and Trainwreck were both pretty cool too, even if the latter was a bit of a grumpy, sexist asshole with a stick up his ass.

Her life was made up of pure chaos now, and although it took some adjusting, Cassie could honestly say that she loved it.

At this point, she had no idea what to expect when she finally pushed open the door to the Training Hall. Pot-bellied aliens with waxy green skin, magical runes straight from freaking Dungeons and Dragons, possibly even mutated insects fighting to the death on top of a homemade skating rink? Whatever he wanted to show her, Cassie doubted it would surprise her too much-

“MMMFFF! MMMMMFFFF!”

“I already told you, chick - call me out my name one more time and you’re gettin’ gagged. I keep my promises.”

She froze in the doorway.

Jason, as tall and striking as ever, stood in the middle of the cavernous room, staring directly into what appeared to be a massive golden cage vaguely shaped like an orb, its ‘bars’ reminiscent to gnarled, gilded tree branches. It stretched all the way up to the ceiling, only barely skimming the dark, smooth stone that acted as the roof. 

The cage wasn’t what surprised her, however. Neither did the sight of Jason’s shirtless, tattooed, and perfectly sculpted body - even though she really wanted to lick her way up the curvature of his spine god damn it. No, what caused her to freeze up like a deer in headlights was the sight of Rune the Teenage Neo-Nazi bound in the middle of the ostentatious cage. Limbs of ornate gold extended from the bars, wrapping around her wrists and ankles and leaving her suspended, spread eagle, in mid-air.

Her hood was pushed back, revealing a pale, sweaty face flushed with what appeared to be all-encompassing anger. It was clear in the clenching of her jaw and the pure vitriol in the smoldering glare that she was aiming at Jason.

This… was probably the last thing she had been expecting. Cassie wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel at the sight, so she studiously ignored the burst of anticipation and excitement that shot through her stomach.

‘This isn’t one of your novels, girl - calm down!’

“Cass,” Jason suddenly called out, his deep voice filling the silence of the Hall in an instant. Rune immediately began making muffled noises again, no actual words escaping her throat in spite of her clearly doing her best to speak, but Jason casually ignored her in favor of looking back at Cassie. His cool, intense gaze was free of their usual shaded cover, the sight nearly enough to cause her to choke on her next words.

“J-Jay, fancy meeting you here…” 

She almost smacked herself in the face.

Jason blinked, eyes narrowing, before an amused grin split his lips. Cassie knew that he was probably reading her emotions right now, the same way he allowed her to do to him on the night that they confessed their love to one another. The realization didn’t spook her, but it did make her more self-conscious of her feelings, both conscious and subconscious. ‘Damn it, heart, stop beating so frickin’ fast!’

“Don’t be silly. C’mere,” he gestured with a tilt of his head, turning back towards the now-silent Rune, and Cassie found herself padding quickly across the Hall on mismatched socks to stand beside him. Normally she’d act a bit more bratty and stubborn, make him grab her and toss her around a little before she turned obedient, but it was clear that now wasn’t the right time.

She couldn’t help a little grumbling, however.

“First I don’t get a morning kiss, now you’re making me complicit to kidnapping and torture…” One eye closed, Cassie glared up at her quietly amused boyfriend and crossed her arms over her reasonably-sized chest. “The doghouse. Immediately.”

“Right. The ever-important ‘mornin’ kiss’. My bad, babe.” 

Cassie’s eyes abruptly opened, cheeks flushing as Jason roughly gripped her chin in his calloused grasp. Embarrassed and panicked, she shot a quick, furtive glance at the wide-eyed Rune staring from the Gilded Cage.  “Wait, y-you don’t have to- mmmf!”

Molten lava encased her lips, heat traversing from her tingling mouth all the way down to the tips of her toes, and Cassie did her best to hold back the loud, slutty moan of pleasure and need that wanted to leave her chest so freaking desperately. She’d kissed Jason plenty of times before, and she knew that he kissed with passion, but this… this was something different.

As he tilted her head back, dominating her mouth so forcefully as he so often did, Cassie tasted… chocolate? Milk chocolate, creamy and sweet and delicious, to the point where she found herself actively fighting through a haze of pleasure and delight to lick and suckle on his tongue in a desperate effort to taste even more of him.

It was only when Jason’s hand gripped the back of her hair firmly, tugging her back and separating their mouths with a wet ‘pop’ and a thick trail of clear, glimmering drool, did Cassie come back to herself. Her entire body felt tingly and electric, like her very nerves were being stimulated, and Cassie didn’t have to look down in order to know just how much of a sticky mess she had made in her panties. Her body was too slow to keep up with her brain, and with her head tilted back and her eyes staring dully into Jason’s, the only thing Cassie could do was try to catch her breath.

“Haa… haa…”

“Good morning to you too, sweetheart. You’ve got a lil’ somethin’ riiiiight here…”

Jason’s rough thumb slid across her swollen bottom lip, wiping away the vestige of saliva that lingered from their smoldering kiss, and Cassie’s eyes widened as a shock of pleasure and arousal shot through her system like a bolt of lightning, nearly causing her legs to give out from beneath her. They buckled weakly, but his left arm was wrapped firmly around her waist, keeping her attached to his side with seemingly no effort. 

Dully, as she slowly came back to her senses, Cassie noticed Rune’s flushed face pointing as far away from them as possible, her eyes squeezed firmly shut. She was breathing heavier now, her robed chest rapidly moving up and down in synchronicity with her breaths.

In spite of herself, Cassie found it hard to tear her gaze away. Maybe it was the suddenness of her own arousal, or the punch drunk-like feeling of pleasure that was still making its way through her body, but the thought of being seen like this by a pretty girl - dominated and used by her sexy hunk of a boyfriend… it was invigorating in a different way than the kiss had been. Exciting.

“You alright?” Jason’s voice, low and rumbly deep in his chest, brought her out of her one-sided staring contest with the bound girl. Cassie swallowed thickly, still tasting him on the tip of her tongue.

“What-” she started, only to hiccup and bite back a moan as her teeth dragged across the abnormally warm flesh of her lips. “What the heck did you d-do to me?”

His chuckle was warm, comforting, and familiar. “New power,” he responded coolly, grabbing a large, juicy handful of her thigh and squeezing. As his fingertips dug into her skin, forming imprints in the supple flesh, her nerves lit up like a Christmas tree, sending pleasurable crackles of electricity through her entire body.

“Mmmph- Jason! Behave!”

“Heh, sorry. ‘Bodily fluids’ - gross terminology, by the way - makes the recipient more aroused and sensitive. Gives ‘em pleasure too, judgin’ by how you responded. It’s not too much, is it?” Beyond his usual casual, unconcerned drawl, there was a genuine note of worry. He was staring down at her, watching her for any sign of genuine uncomfortableness or pain, and that naked earnestness on his face was enough to squash any sense of unease at how easily he was able to manipulate her body.

Now Cassie was just horny. And a little embarrassed. But mostly horny.

“Right,” she breathed shakingly, wiggling her hips to adjust her very wet panties that were beginning to grow uncomfortable to wear. “Ignoring just how ridiculous of a power that is to gain, ‘cause your whole powerset is just frickin’ stupid at this point…”

“Uh-huh. Cope.”

“Do you want to explain the elephant in the room? Or, I guess- the nazi?”

Rather than answering her himself, Jason simply gestured with his index finger, making a ‘come here’ gesture, and the flustered neo-nazi abruptly strained forward against the golden branches that bound her limbs, her mouth opening wide as a hoarse, painful-sounding inhale wracked her body. Immediately after, Rune began greedily sucking in lungfuls of air, her blue eyes wide and wild as she did so.

He eyed the girl with a cold, dispassionate gaze, and Cassie felt the atmosphere in the room settle. Turn cooler. “She’s-”

“Fuck-” Rune hacked out a cough again, spitting a wad of spit at Jason’s feet. It burned mid-air, bubbling into nothing, but the blonde girl didn’t miss a beat. “Fuck you, Avalon. You’re a fucking coward, locking me up in your creepy ass sex dungeon, trapping me in a fucking cage. I swear I’ll fucking kill you!”

Jason glanced over at Cassie, his lips twitching up into an emotionless smirk. “Notice how she didn’t say anything racist?”

Taken aback by the pure animosity in the air, she only gave him a hesitant nod. Rune snarled at the sight, opening her mouth to spit out more expletives, but Jason’s darkly amused voice cut her words off at the root before they could even begin.

“It’s ‘cause she knows I’ll kill her. The same way I killed Crusader and Stormtiger. The same way I’m gonna kill Kaiser and Purity and the rest of their little delusional cult. Ain’t that right, Tammi?” His gaze turned back to the livid neo-nazi, back to ‘Tammi’, and Cassie watched as the blonde girl’s splotchy-red face abruptly turned pale white with fear and confusion.

“H-How do you know my name?” Though the words were practically spat out like a hissing bobcat, the stutter in her voice betrayed the impact Jason’s casual usage of her name had on her. She tried to move again, straining fruitlessly against the gilded metal that restrained her, and a desperate growl escaped her throat. “You’re screwing you and your girlfriend over! The Empire- we have connections all across America and overseas. You- you-”

“I- I- I don’t give a shit. I’m not afraid of the Clans, of your European Overlords, and I’m especially not afraid of the remnants of your quickly dying Empire. As far as I’m aware, they’re all livin’ on borrowed time anyway,” Jason unwrapped his arm from around her waist, patting her gently on the hip, and Cass obediently took a step to the side in order to allow him the full ‘stage’. 

She didn’t know how to feel about what was going on in front of her - it was surreal, like almost everything surrounding Jason. It was like watching some sort of action-thriller movie, where the gritty vigilante interrogates the criminal, except this was real. She held no empathy for the girl, but she did find herself curious about where he was going with this.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Rune shook her head violently, sending long tresses of blonde hair whipping over her shoulders. “They’ll come looking for me. They’ll come looking for me and find this shitheap of a ‘secret lair’ and burn it, you, and your fucking chiii- A-AGHHH!”

Cassie nearly jumped out of her skin as a ragged scream of pain ripped itself free from Rune’s throat, as if coaxed out entirely by Jason’s cold, shining glare. It only lasted for a brief moment - immediately after, she sagged against her restraints, sweat trailing down her face and falling to the floor of the cage. “F-fuuuck…”

He tilted his head, frowning. “I’m gonna lay all of your options out for you, so no one can ever say that I’m a disingenuous man. You get me?”

“... What are they?"

“You remember what I had you scream before trapping you in the Arch?” Jason approached the cage, hands resting in the pockets of his slim-fitting sweatpants, and Rune eyed him warily as he got closer.

“... Yeah.”

“Repeat it.”

Silence. Cassie’s head was moving back and forth like she was watching a national tennis match, oddly absorbed in the dramatic play by play.

“Fuck-... ugh. B-black power, fuck nazis.”

Jason nodded, looking moderately pleased. “Good. So here’s your options - One, I just kill you and send you to hell with the rest of your trash racist teammates. I captured you to avoid having to end a young lady’s life before it even really started, but I can be convinced to do otherwise. You nearly callin’ my girl a ‘chink’ almost did it for me.”

Her face turned bone white once again, but Rune didn’t say anything. Jason continued, unperturbed.

“Two, I toss your ass in prison and let the ethnically-diverse populace there do what they do to racist white bitches with blonde hair and blue eyes. ‘Cept, I’m murdering the rest of your gang, so no one will be alive to bust you out.”

“Th- that’s barely any better than-”

He held up one finger to the bars, face deathly serious, and Rune snapped her mouth closed with a loud ‘click’. 

“Third and final option - you spill everything you know about Kaiser’s operations. Betray your former comrades completely and utterly, turn your back on the racist ideology that you’ve grown up with, and, at the end of it all,” Jason leaned against the cage, eyeing Rune up and down with a half-lidded gaze, and smirked. “Fight for the good guys. Show that you’ve actually changed. I'm biased towards this one, personally.”

Cassie’s eyes widened, but she resisted the urge to speak up and question him in front of the ‘prisoner’. It wasn’t that she was against rehabilitation, to a certain degree, but Rune… Rune was clearly a toxic and unrepentant bitch, hiked up on rebellious bad girl energy. Even now, she was glaring at Jason with a baleful, withering venom in her frigid blue eyes, her pink lips unsure of whether they want to scowl in disgust or part with open shock and confusion.

Jason was charming and persuasive, Cassie would be the first to admit, but he wasn’t charming enough to just erase years of neo-nazism rhetoric and deeply-entrenched racism. She wasn’t sure what power he had that made him confident in this path, but… for better or for worse, she trusted Jason Black. 

He hadn’t led her astray yet.

“N-no,” Rune shook her head stubbornly, clenching her jaw. Her breath came out harshly through her flared nostrils, betraying her nervousness. “I’d rather die than be a fucking traitor. Go ahead and kill me! I’d die before betraying my race! The- the superior race!”

“Hah!”

A sudden bark of laughter escaped Jason’s chest, taking everyone - including him - off guard. He held back another chuckle, rubbing his hands across his chiseled jaw as he stared at the bound girl. “If it wasn’t so sad, it’d be funny…”

“What? I’m serious!” Rune snarled like a trapped animal, not even bothering to shake her hair out of her eyes. “We-”

“You,” Jason cut her off, an amused levity clear in his smirk, “Are not ‘superior’ anything. None of you are. But I guess I can show you better than I can tell you, right?”

He pushed off of the cage, turning his back to it, and glanced over to Cassie. All she needed to witness was the cut of his eyes to pitter patter her way back to his side, her movements slightly awkward and stilted due to the little mess she’d made in her panties earlier. She had questions, a lot of them - almost too much to count, and definitely enough to annoy her endlessly mysterious boyfriend - but they’d have to wait.

His arm wrapped around her waist, the heat of his body warming her skin like a toasty blanket, and Cassie leaned into his side. As they made their way towards the exit, she peeked up at Jason from the corner of her eye. “You’ve got a looot to explain, mister.”

He sighed tiredly. “Don’t I know it.”

“Wait!” Rune shouted, a desperate anger turning the low rasp of her ‘cool girl’ voice high and shrill. “I-I said that I choose option one! I don’t give a shit what sort of bullshit torture you put me through, I won’t betray the Empire!”

Jason glanced upwards, not even bothering to look over his shoulder. 

“Guess I lied about givin' you a choice, 'cause you will change your ways - whether you want to or not.” he said quietly. The tone of his voice was confident, amused, and slightly bitter, all in the same breath. “... Yeah, you definitely will. Get some rest, Tammi."

His gaze turned forward once again. "You'll need it."

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