Vice Bunker 23 (Patreon)

Vice Bunker

Chapter 23

-VB-

I did not make the first move. If they actually wanted to die, then I wanted to kill them without any guilt. Survival of the fittest was not my motto but I would carry out its dictat if it came down to it.

And yet… these four did not move.

They … did not move.

“What?” I asked. “Scared? Realized who you were going up against?”

The PRT traitors that just attacked one of their own heroes kept their guns trained on me. I’ve already expanded this body’s form so that it was covering most of the hallway with meaty, muscular limbs.

Harley had already moved behind me to take shelter. She may have been Harley Quinn before I bought her, but she was, at the end of the day, a regular human; if she took too many bullets, then she would die.

When I considered myself optimally ready to take this annoyance, they made some threatening moves but didn’t shoot. Oh, I could almost smell their fear. They had been brave before because they thought nothing was going to happen.

But now … they weren’t shooting when they had a reason to. Away from prying eyes and all that.

Why?

They were obviously provoked but what stopped them?

I leaned forward and narrowed my eyes. “Leave before I decide to cave in the tunnel and cut off my food from you.”

That got a reaction out of them, and unlike their earlier aggressive and bravado stance, my words made them panic for real this time.

Why?

Weren’t they already half-committed to some kind of hostile takeover, if the attempt at forced entry was any indication?

I took a step forward.

“Cutting off food has you scared… You draw your guns to try to shoot me when I don’t provoke you… You turn on your own ally yet I have yet to hear any intervention…” I growled. “What’s going on, little men? What’s going on inside the head of yours…?”

No reaction.

“Or the heads of those above you?”

Reaction. A small flinch from the trooper in the back.

“... What’s the plan here? Make it look like you guys are having infighting and get me to … attack you during moments like this?” I hummed as I slithered around but didn’t approach, changing my form to that of a giant snake, flickering my tongue at them. My new form unnerved them more than the brutish (*coughBersakacough*) Brute that I had been just moments ago. I was still long, thick, and big enough to nearly completely block the tunnel on our end. “Then what? Get reparations? Some kind of … control?” I asked.

And they reacted.

“I was lied to, wasn’t I?” I crooned, hiding the irritation I felt. “There is no extremists among your PRT branch. You lot are just following orders!” I laughed before slammed down in front of them. “Whose orders is it? Is it the director’s? The deputy director? Armsmaster?” I hissed angrily now. “Who tries to ruin my bunker?”

Then I paused as Tasha’s struggling sounds - of punching and kicking - rang out from the now hardened foam, and then she burst out of it. She showed that she was a Brute, but she shouldn’t be able to break containment foam if she was only a Brute 3…

Unless the PRT was sandbagging on me.

Irritation welled up like a pool inside of me, slowly rising and filling up the well of my patience. Sooner or later, it would overflow and I would … do something unwise.

“I think… I will have to rethink about our agreements,” I hissed before using half of the body to quickly seal off the tunnel.

I could hear shocked shouts and exclamations from the other side (because I was the new wall separating the tunnel), and then turned ot Harley, who’s been there watching and hearing everything.

“Let them stew in their greed,” I grunted as I reassumed a human form complete with pants and a shirt. “Maybe once they feel more grateful for the food we’re providing them, they’ll be less inclined to do stupid shit like that.” I walked away.

Harley frowned, staring at the wall. She didn’t walk with me, which both added to my irritation and added a bit of worry.

“Some of it felt off.”

“Hmm?” I asked as I turned to her.

“The confrontation between Tasha and the PRT soldiers. That was real.”

I snorted. “They could have been pretending. I’m sure their PR department could have taught them how to act. Besides, that girl broke out of containment foam like after only a little bit of struggling, which means that she isn’t Brute 3 that the PRT told me she was. That’s already a lie.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. The soldiers really did hate her and you.”

“... So?”

“PRT lied about her strength… or did she lie to them?” Harley asked me as she turned around to join me walking away from here. “The PRT gains nothing by lying to us, but individuals within it do, so I think you have to think about whether or not the PRT as a whole is an enemy, if what they did there was really what PRT ordered, or individuals within it are our enemy.”

I looked at her for a moment before nodding.

“Well, if one of my wives say so, then it is so,” I grunted. “Why did you become a villain again with that kind of socio-political acumen?”

She grinned before wrapping her arms around my arm as we walked together.

“Well, I know what I like, and politics isn’t one of them,” she chuckled.