What is Happiness 5.2: Don't Dare the Demon (Patreon)

What is Happiness
Arc 5 Chapter 2: Don’t Dare the Demon

-VB-

Pushing my powers faster and faster, I nearly flung myself. Between the brief moments of cooldown that the explosive teleportation had, I was using vector manipulation to push myself just ever so faster. Along the way, I watched as the bugs under Taylor’s control formed vague directions and instructions.

What I thought had been a call for help was more of a call for reinforcement than a rescue call.

Her bugs kept Kaiser and his models at bay, but they were advancing towards one of the refugee camps.

I might not have done anything, but Taylor was different. She was adamant about keeping the white supremacists away.

I ended up slowing down a bit, but still made it before they were even in line of sight of the camp itself.

I blasted into the asphalt road with another explosion, and glared at Kaiser, Menja, and Fenja.

“You lot are dead today,” I sneered as I felt the geas urge me on.

“Not if I have you thrown into the sea, Butcher. You got too close to us to run!” he shouted as Fenja and Menja lunged towards me.

Too bad for them, I intentionally placed myself there.

Instantly, I separated the vectors keeping theirs in place, and the sudden scattering of the molecules pulped their necks into red liquidity goo. They fell apart as their heads separated from their bodies.

Just like that, the geas subsided and I was left with …

Huh.

Between killing off Hookwolf and Kaiser’s squad and the previous deaths I’ve dealt them, I realized that I just killed off most of the Empire Eighty-Eight’s capes.

I spared the thugs the trio had brought with them and scoffed before the geas activated again, and I felt an overwhelming urge to kill them all.

So I did.

I merely looked at them, and fire erupted like a bomb among them. Again and again and again and again-.

By the time I stopped, there were no remains to be found, and a quick teleport chain and use of vector manipulation later, all of the remaining fires were gone.

And then I felt a bit of brutal cruelty well up inside me. It wasn’t a need or a desire, but a pragmatic choice I might need to take to live up to my cape name.

Manipulating the vectors on the asphalt ground, I heated up the asphalt, molded it up like spikes, and then quickly cooled and compressed them. With my three impossibly sharp impalers at the ready, I brought the heads of the dead Empire capes, separated the helmets from their heads, impaled the helmets, and finally impaled the heads.

Once I was done, I looked around.

The “battle” had been so quick that the only damages to the area had been my own firebombing of the public property. People were staring at me, some filming and others talking on their phones.

This was perfect.

“This is the Butcher’s territory!” I roared, and saw people flinch and hide. “I have killed Hookwolf, Stormtiger, Krieg, Rune, Cricket, Menja, Fenja, and Kaiser himself! The Empire Eighty-Eight is finished! Let this be an example to all who dares to come to Brockton Bay! You are entering the land of a warlord, so don’t think you’ll leave so easily!”

But I knew that the Slaughterhouse Nine was coming anyways. I supposed that I needed to prepare for them, especially considering that I just killed off many of the capes that would have been their candidates.

“Enter at your own risk! Touch what is mine and you are dead!”

But for now, my little monologue and act would be “in-line” with the Butcher. It would make everyone think that I was becoming the Butcher they knew. They would prepare for a Butcher they were experienced with: aggressive, suicidal, and murderous.

It would just give me more time to beef up my territory in the meantime.

I teleported out of there.

-VB-

“That was completely unnecessary,” Tattletale told me with a deadpan stare while she sat on the couch with a new laptop while the news on TV reported the scene of the Empire Eighty-Eight’s death and the civilian identity of Kaiser being Max Anders, the CEO of Medhall Pharmaceuticals.

The PRT ENE was being bombarded for not realizing that such an important position in the city was held by the Empire, even if I personally didn’t agree with the accusation.

“I think it was,” I objected casually. “Most capes know not to mess with me right now.”

“But fear only lasts so long.”

Taylor didn’t say anything. She looked upset. Why would she be, though? I saved the people she asked me to protect, right?

Sabah also looked upset. “I agree that it might have been necessary to end the E88 but not like this. This is too brutal.”

“So?”

“It’ll just invite more brutal people to fight you,” Taylor answered. “What happens when some cape decides that the pain might be worth whatever glory he might get? Or heroes, for that matter.”

“Heroes do outnumber us all,” Tattletale interjected. “And the PRT won’t be afraid to take you on since the rest of the gangs have more or less gone the way of the dinosaur, thanks to you. That just means they have all of the resources they used previously to keep them all away in uncoordinated multiple front standoffs into a single front war against you in coordinated attacks, right?”

I thought about the way she said.

“But it won’t remain that way.”

She grumbled. “Okay, so maybe it’ll stay you versus them for only a few months, if not weeks, before the next contenders come in, find a new status quo, and everything changes. Yes, that could also happen.”

“What else could happen?”

“The Nine could come.”

… Right, I never told them about that.

“Let them come.”

They looked at me as if I was crazy.

“What?! Are you insane?”

“It’s not that I am being arrogant about it, but it’s me against eight at best.”

“Eight?”

“Why would they come to Brockton Bay if not to recruit someone?”

They looked sick at the thought.

“Since I came to the scene, I more or less kept all of you out of the spotlight. With New Wave and the Protectorate being so loud as much as I am, they and I will be the only real targets. Besides, I discovered something about the Nine.”

Tattletale narrowed her eyes, obviously getting something from her power. “You didn’t discover it, but there are others who know it. What is it?” she paused. “Something about the cohesion of the Nine?”

Damn, she’s scary.

She smirked. She knew that I was thinking about how scary she could be.

Taylor looked curious as well. Well, more determined than curious. “You can use it to end the Nine?”

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m just going to shoot him with conventional grenade launchers until he’s dead.”

My three women glared at me at the stupidity I just spouted.

“Why would that-?” Tattletale began, only to stop. “Conventional. You specifically used that word. Why grenade launchers when you have powers?” She paused again. “Someone in the group - someone like … Jack Slash? - can detect power usage.”

Like holy shit.

“Yup,” I replied.

“But he’s power is knife projection.”

“It is.”

“... He’s a grab-bag?”

“Nope.”

“... Different expressions of power.”

“Wait, people knew about this?” Sabah asked, horrified.

“Not a lot of people do, and nothing could be confirmed because no one wants to test it out with their lives on the line,” I objected. “It’s information from a precognitive view of Earth Bet.”

“You’re a pre-cog?” Taylor asked, bewildered.

We were derailing.

“I basically know the weaknesses of the Nine, especially that of Siberian and Jack Slash. All I will do is tell the PRT about it, and elements within their ranks will take care of them.”

That was the plan really, my only real preparation.

Tell the PRT and its myriad of peoples who were wronged again and again by the Nine how to kill the Nine… and well, even if the chances of me being wrong was possible, there were people among their ranks, here and abroad, who would gladly throw away their life to kill the Slaughterhouse Nine.

And once the Nine was gone, I could once again relax and go back to fucking my girls and planning a family.

Why do the dirty deed myself when I could get others to do it for me?