Wretched Joy 6 (Patreon)

Wretched Joy
Chapter 6

-VB-

May 5th, 2010

Rune got in my sights by accident, and I took it as a blessing that it was.

With her gone, the Empire lost its highest mobility cape capable of moving their heavy hitters quickly. Her death reduced the Empire’s cape effectiveness - and thus their territorial integrity. The current territories held because the impact of her death hadn’t settled in yet, but when Lung, Skidmark, and Piggot all come out of their stupor, the Empire will be reeling as they get pummeled from all sides without the ability to respond as they did before.

Oh, and if the Empire Eighty-Eight responded back with ferocity at their inability to fight back as well as they did before, and capes got injured badly?

I got more excuse to kill them more.

At this point, my revenge was technically over. I killed two of their capes and numerous low-level gangsters for my death. Hell, as far as karma went, my part of this already ended with Cricket’s death.

But I didn’t want to balance the karma. I wanted to make them pay tenfold.

It’s been a week since then, I was back in my hideout outside of the city limits and deep in thought about how I was going to improve myself. I had just finished my morning obstacle course and realized that … my eyes weren’t mine!

I remembered that I got my eyes slashed out, but somehow, I still saw!

It took me a good minute in front of the mirror to see that my eyes were fakes, and somehow, I had used my power on these fake eyes to mimic my real eyes.

Did I have to start worrying about infections?

Actually, could I improve these fake eyes?

I blinked and then felt excitement rise up inside me.

“Could I … bullet time?” I asked with a growing smile at that particularly wondrous idea. “Could I perceive time slower than it actually is?”

Without a thought but also because three charges were chump change for me, I tossed all three charges of the day into my fake eyes and forced a new enchantment upon them.

Heat.

I gritted my teeth as the fake eyeballs heated up inside their sockets, and I nearly screamed out in pain.

But then the heat subsided, and I “saw” a new enchantment upon them.

Tremblingly excited, I activated.

And time s l o w  e    d         d          o                w                         n                        .

“GAH!” I hissed as I stopped the effect as soon as I began to get a headache.

I curled up in front of the bathroom sink and nearly hurled.

“What…?” I muttered to myself in confusion.

Why did that hurt?

It took me a while (the realization came like eureka at dinner) to pinpoint the cause of the nausea and pain.

Human minds weren’t calibrated to perceive time at a slower pace. Sure, I might get away with how dogs perceived time pass by just a bit slowly, but anything like that end bit where the second hand of the clock wasn’t moving at all was too much.

What I had done to myself was overloading my brain with sensory information to the point that it couldn’t handle it.

… I needed more than just my “Eyes of Perception” to do bullet time. I needed enchantment to mitigate damage, improve my physicality, and more. Actually, I have been unknowingly making just that this past week. The Ring of Regeneration was another steel ring enchanted with an esoteric power, and with eighteen charges in it, I found that I could regenerate entire limbs.

I, of course, didn’t test it out on myself.

I tested it out on the deer I hunted down for its meat.

Despite the phantom pain still stinging my eyes and brain (brain hurts), I put on the ring… and the pain disappeared.

Grinning, I activated the eye again-.

-VB-

May 7, 2010

“What does the fucker think he is? Jack the Pussy Reaper?” Skidmark chuckled. “Bah, whatever! Our Everyday Joe has been working hard to fuck over the shit-shoveling sons of Nazi whores!

His minions laughed around him.

“Skiddy, it’s done!”

He looked up and grinned at the monstrosity that was his bitch’s creation.

As the monster bus roared to life, Skidmark laughed.

“The Empire’s been neutered! Let’s go fuck them over!”

They cheered and raised their weapons of choice into the air.

---

“... And that is the current goal of our PRT and Protectorate operations for the foreseeable future,” Director Emily Piggot declared. “The new villain’s periodic attacks - crucially fatal to the workings of the Empire Eighty-Eight - have proven to be a boon for us. While we could waste our time to hunt down the Unwritten Rule breaking villain, the villains themselves will do it for us, so I don’t see a reason why we should do it for them. No, we will focus on curbing the Empire’s operations.”

“What about when we encounter Metalbat, director?” Triumph, the only Ward currently in the meeting, asked worriedly.

“Wards are to immediately run as they call his position in,” she replied as clean cut as possible. “You do not stick around, try to talk, or anything else other than running. As much as it concerns us, civilian bystanders cannot be saved if you engage him and end up dead.”

Seeing as Metalbat Joe’s track record showed his willingness to go for the kill shot by smashing people’s head in, Emily knew that even Aegis, their toughest Ward, would not survive such a hit, despite the fact that he was a regenerator. Triumph wouldn’t even last half as long.

Assault and Battery might, if the latter was charged up, but-.

BRRRR

“Goddamnit, what now?” she hissed as she reached forward and pressed down on office phone and pressed 0.

“This is Director Piggot. What is the issue?”

“{Ma’am, the Merchants are attacking the Empire at Erendale Avenue and 22nd Street!”

“That’s right in Downtown!”

“Velocity!” she snapped.

The red stripped hero saluted and then blitzed out of the PRT ENE headquarters.

“Armsmaster, Dauntless. I want both of you to back up Velocity. Miss Militia, Assault, Battery, and Challenger, I want you four securing the perimeter. The Wards are not to participate, understood?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Dismissed.”

-VB-

Hookwolf growled as he crashed into the shitty tinkertech monster truck the Merchants put to use against him.

Already in his full Changer form, he ripped his way out, dragging fuel lines, wires, and limbs by the edges of his hooked blades as his superhuman strength made ripping and tearing easy.

As the tinkertech truck let off steam and whines as it died under his assault, Hookwolf jumped out and landed on the street with ground cracking slam.

He looked around and saw more than a dozen of his men on the ground, dead or dying from bullet wounds, but they’ve given more than they took, and three dozen druggies, probably not even Merchant members, laid dead or dying with them.

If Cricket was still alive, then that would have been five dozen dead!

With a final whine, the tinkertech truck exploded from within, but Hookwolf managed to see Skidmark and Squealer.

He didn’t bother chasing the duo as they took over one of the trucks their people brought with them and escaped. If he got close, then Skidmark would use his power to send him hurtling back.

No, he’ll instead kill the rest of the Merchants here who weren't smart enough to stay out of this shitfest!

He roared and jumped towards a limping white druggie-.

And slammed into the ground as Armsmaster crashed on top of him with his tinkertech motorcycle!

“You are under arrest, Hookwolf!” the Protectorate hero roared as he brought down his halberd down on him, and Hookwolf roared right back as he pushed himself off of the ground.

The motorcycle bounced away, but the expensive toy righted itself mid-air and landed on the ground on its two wheels like a cat. Armsmaster merely jumped along with his push, the armor ignoring all of the barbs of his changer form. He landed near his bike and whirled his halberd around to face him.

“You should be fucking over the Merchants, moron!” Hookwolf snapped at him. “But no, you instead attack the peopel defending themselves!”

“Criminals defending themselves are still criminals, and I don’t see Merchants.”

Hookwolf felt like he’d been played. He successfully defended an attack upon his territory from the Merchants, but all it left him was the troublesome absolute bullshit Protectorate heroes to deal with.

And then he felt something clink against the ground right next to him.

Experience carried him through as he jumped away from what had to be a foam grenade Velocity, the sneaky bastard, dropped next to him.

The foam grenade went off with a swooping gale, and caught the tip of his tail. He disconnected that bit of him, and met the tinker in a one-to-one battle as Stormtiger finally finished up with the Merchant mooks and came to help him against the heroes.

He unleashed his wind, and Velocity was forced to slow down because the fucker couldn’t even run up against the wind if we went too fast.

That’s when the new hero, Dauntless, dropped out of the sky.

Stormtiger lashed out with air slashes, but the hero blocked them all with his lightning-coarsing shield.

For a moment, the two sides were at a standoff.

“Oh, boy.”

The new voice made all of them turn toward the source of the voice, and all of their eyes widened in shock.

Lazily twirling a bat with his right hand and his left hand shoved into his pocket, Everyday Joe casually walked into the skirmish mere fifty feet from Armsmaster and Hookwolf.

Hookwolf, though, wasn’t having it.

“YOU SON O-!” he roared as he whirled around on the spot and charged toward the irreverent, murderous motherfucker who killed his friend.

He launched off of the asphalt road, leaving gashes along the road with his blade wolf form, and t-.

CCClang.

He stumbled forward and stopped.

Where was Joe? He just disappeared?

Then he just … fell to one knee.

“Huh?”

He looked down and stared incredulously at his left foreleg.

Or rather, what remained of it.

CCClang.

And then his other foreleg crumpled up and his fake wolf head smashed into the ground.

“Hookwolf, above you!” Storm shouted, and he looked up.

Hookwolf turned his head around and saw the white clad villain rushing down at him with his bat raised up.

Instead of dodging, he let the blades and hooks on his body explode outward.

‘Got you!’ he thought.

But then Joe disappeared.

CRUNCH.

He whirled around and screamed.

He screamed and roared as he chased after Joe as Storm’s body fell to the floor with his head caved in.

He -!

He crashed into the ground and whirled around frantically. “Where did he go!? WHERE IS HE?!”

But he was nowhere to be found. Instead, Hookwolf had to contend with the three heroes blocking him.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

-VB-

Hookwolf got away.

He was also stronger than I expected. In fact, even though I had teleportation and increased movement speed from boosting my shin guard, I failed to deal any damage to him. Teleportation was still my greatest tool, sure, but I remained an annoying bug so far.

Oh sure, I took out two legs, but those were cosmetics as far as he was concerned.

I had to kill Stormtiger as a consolation prize, but I was alright with that.

It was only later that I learned that the fight the heroes and E88 got into only happened because the Merchants attacked the former first.

Honestly, I didn't care how the fight broke out

I came. I killed. I left.

It was a very productive day as far as I was concerned.

'But I know now that my metal bat won't cut as it is,' I thought to myself as I looked over the bat in my Trainyard hideout. 'I'm fast enough that no one but Velocity could react to me, but  couldn't take down the real, big threat.'

I stared at my bat for a while before sighing.

It wasn't like I spent every day killing Nazis. I just needed to hang back to dump a week's worth of charges into the bat before going back out.

It was a decent plan. Buff up and then go back to killing. Couldn't be simpler.

But … I had something I could use to destabilize the Empire even more.

The next time I had the time for it, I was going to reveal who I really was.

… Okay, so I might have a little bit of grudge against the PRT, too, for their kiddie glove approach to villains, even if I had a rough idea why they did that from a few of the things I remembered.

Speaking of remembering, I should invest in anti-Thinker, anti-Master, and anti-Stranger tools before anything else.

-VB-

A/N: all of the gears and how much points were spent on what will be shown on the next chapter... whenever that happens to be for this story.