See No Evil: Mortality (ch. 78) (Patreon)

"You're looking…better," Barbara Gordon greeted me, standing next to my hospital bed. She eyed my face, at least the part of it that wasn't covered by bandages, and saw purple and yellow flesh. Only one of my eyes was uncovered, letting me see she and her father as they stood at the end of my bed. He watched me carefully, cautiously. I'd call James Gordon an asshole for still treating me like a coiled snake about to bite, but it was kinda hard when he was right to.

"Make this quick," Tifa snapped at her, crossing her arms as she stepped forward. It was the angriest I had ever heard her before. There was raw emotion in her tone. I glanced at her, seeing that she was dressed much like I had last seen her -- a white blouse, black mini skirt, and black stockings. Her hands were curled into fists, her knuckles white, and her gaze held a silent promise that if Barbara didn't do as asked, then she would make this visit short herself.

Barbara looked at a distraught Tifa, then back at me. I met her gaze and offered a small nod, which was about the most I could do in my current condition. Barbara then held up a familiar black square, completely featureless. "Does this look familiar to you?"

"It does," I answered, forced to speak from the corner of my mouth.

Neither Barbara nor James Gordon seemed particularly shocked at my confirmation. It was surprising to me however, that she was leading this interrogation as a civilian. Her honorary badge was revoked when No Man's Land ended, so Barbara wasn't a cop, which would have explained Barbara taking the lead. Unless, of course, he now knew that his daughter was Batgirl? When did that happen?

I swear, you get your head beat in once and it's like the entire world just leaves you behind.

"It was retrieved from the back of your spine at the base of your neck. Were you aware of its presence?" She asked me, adjusting her glasses. Using them to read me? Good luck reading my micro-expressions when I couldn't move half of my face.

"I was," I answered shortly. "Scar on neck. Tifa noticed," I said, putting the ball in Tifa's court. She played ball instantly.

"I did notice it. And I said to make this quick! He was attacked in your police station and you didn't notice until he was half dead!" Tifa snarled, taking a threatening step forward, "If you don't make your point now, you'll be thankful that you're already at the hospital!" She spat, taking another threatening step forward until she entered punching distance of Barbara. Who, very wisely, took a step back.

Barbara looked to me for a moment, her lips thinning. "If you knew, then why didn't you have it removed?"

I opened my mouth and didn't answer, floundering. Tifa picked up the slack for me, "He said that he wanted to use it against whoever put it in his head. I didn't like it, but…he made the point that whoever did it evaded our security, chipped him, then sealed up the cut without him being the wiser." That… actually sounded like something I would do.

That earned a frown from Barbara and her father, "That… was likely a rationalization implanted into you. Vergil -- this is a mind control chip. It also conceals thoughts from mind readers. A protection method to prevent the mind control from being noticed." Tifa sounded like she had been punched in the gut. That, she hadn't known. "Do you have any unexplained gaps in your memories?"

"No. Remember everything. Collapsed economy. Killed people. Ranted like a madman," I told her, my lone eye growing wet. Gordon placed a hand on the foot of my bed, looking like someone had thrown something heavy on him. "Used me and company. Advanced agenda. Roadblocks… weren't there."

Barbara looked like she was rapidly processing the information that I was giving her. She came to a conclusion. "The Light was behind this. Vergil, did you willingly join the Light?"

"Couldn't say no," I answered. To that, she nodded as if she had expected as much.

"Okay," Barbara decided. "Vergil, I'm so sorry that this happened to you. We should have paid more attention and noticed sooner. Not just the attack on you, but the mind control as well. We can't undo the past, but I promise you, we are going to do everything we can to make this right. This chip all but exonerates you. It's concrete proof that you were in an altered state of mind and that your actions were not your own." Sincerity dripped from every word. It sounded like she had decided it would be her own personal mission to get back at the Light on my behalf.

Honestly, I was kinda touched.

But, I offered a small shake of my head. "Don't. Not yet. Lex is after company. Used me and Jason to buy shares of his. Still controls Lex Corp through us and Mercy."

Barbara saw where I was going with this, "You want him to over commit. But I found out through your medical records, so he should be able to…" she trailed off when my lips curled up into a feeble smirk. "You knew about my backdoor? I got the X-rays and he didn't? Concerned Citizen?"

"Let Lex overreach. Reveal mind control to damn him. Plans to take control of the Light, I think." I said, earning a curt nod.

"Okay. If that's what you want, then that's the plan we'll go with. I'll make sure he doesn't try something at the last second to dodge the accusation," Barbara decided, going with my plan. "For now, rest up. We'll keep you in the loop on this. I promise, Vergil," Barbara swore, giving me a firm nod before marching out the hospital room like a woman on a mission. Gordon followed after her, giving me one look over his shoulder, before leaving without saying a word. As soon as the door slid closed behind them, I sighed.

Things hadn't gone quite to plan, I reflected, working my jaw and finding the lingering pain from having it shattered manageable. Running my tongue along my teeth, instead of finding bloody gums, I found healthy dentition.

S-Rank health supplements would do that.

"I'm so mad at you," Tifa whispered to me, taking a bandaged hand. I fought off a wince for a couple of reasons and settled for giving her an apologetic look. "Who did this, Vergil?"

"The Penguin," I answered, much to her shock.

"Cobblepot?! But, he-" Tifa cut herself off, looking bewildered. Oswald Cobblepot had been out of our lives since No Man's Land. Even before that, he was practically a non entity to us. The last time that I saw him was when he murdered all of his lieutenants in a fit of rage. The last time I was supposed to see him was at my expo, except he never showed up.

After that, Oswald Cobblepot was gone. Lost in the wind. I let him be lost on account of having outgrown him. Gone were the days when I was a gangster tiptoeing around him with a five million dollar debt hanging over my head. Now, I could wipe my ass with five million. Despite it all, I hadn't wanted to kill the man. I had learned so much from him. Letting him be lost and living out his life in exile seemed like an acceptable compromise.

Right up until those two fucking detectives entered my interrogation room. I had been counting on the heroes realizing something was wrong earlier, but they hadn't. Roman Cavallo and Marcus Wise beat the holy hell out of me. I had damn near died. They tore out my fingernails, broke each finger, and only then did they start beating the shit out of me. That had been a major fucking miscalculation on my part.

But, it worked out. The added injuries made Barbara pity me and convinced her of my innocence.  Because she couldn't imagine I would let myself be tortured and nearly beaten to death to sell a story. And she was one hundred percent right about that. Despite being a mistake on my part, It was a misstep that had ultimately worked in my favor.

"That's twice those two beat the shit out of me," I muttered darkly. I was going to get my revenge. "As far as I can tell, Cobblepot left them with a contingency -- if they ever got the chance and I ended up in one of their cells, that they would kill me for a pay off. Extra if they made it painful-"

"Vergil!" Tifa snapped at me, bringing my attention to her. I saw that there were tears in her eyes as she clutched my hand tightly. She was lucky my bones had already healed. "You really scared me this time. I thought I was going to lose you. You just walked out of your office, and I… I trusted that you had a plan to deal with this, but I never would have let you leave if I had known this was it! You could have died!" She told me, her voice growing thick with emotion.

I felt like absolute scum. I had done some pretty terrible things. Things I planned to drop at the feet of Lex Luthor. However, watching a tear fall down her cheek as she clenched her eyes shut… as far as I was concerned, this stunt was by far the most heinous thing I had ever done.

"I'm sorry," I whispered back to her, trying to squeeze her hand but the dumb casts on my fingers wouldn't let me. "I… I was thinking too fast. I just saw a train coming to hit us, so I just moved. I'm so sorry, Tifa." I told her, my reassurance doing very little to mollify her.

"I know," Tifa told me. "I know that you didn't mean to. And I know that you think as bad as this is, it's better than the alternatives. But you really scared us Vergil. Me, Cass, 2B, and even Miranda. If Revy knew, then she would have been so pissed at you. When we heard you were in the hospital… when we heard how bad it was -- Vergil, I never want to get another phone call like that." She told me, and I could hear the ultimatum in her words. "I can't stop you taking risks. It's what you do. And I love you for it, but I don't want you to take those kinds of risks."

I was silent for a moment while Tifa breathed in deeply, controlling her emotions. Reassurances we're on the tip of my tongue, but they felt too much like lies for me to utter. So, instead, I did something I rarely did -- I told the truth. "I can't make that kind of promise, Tifa. What this is -- what I do? It's dangerous. And so far, I've been good at mitigating the risks but I can't always promise that I can. Like with Cass… I didn't even think that they would use a boom tube like that. And I just saw red…" Another sigh escaped me.

Tifa didn't look happy. That wasn't what she wanted to hear.

"But, I'm going to be better prepared. And, one day, I promise you, I can make you the kind of promise that you want to hear -- that this and nothing like this will ever happen again. Not to me, not to you, Cass, 2B, or anyone that we care about." I said, reaching out with my other hand and placing it on top of hers. Her gaze searched my face, at my eye that was still slightly swollen over. I could tell that wasn't what she wanted to hear at all. She wanted an iron binding promise that this wouldn't happen again.

I couldn't give that to her. It would be a lie and I never wanted to lie to Tifa. Not for any reason.

I waited for her to come to a silent decision, giving me a slight nod. "Okay," she decided, accepting my promise for what it was. "If you believe you can keep that promise, then I'll believe you." That was a weight off of my shoulders.

"How are the others?" I asked after a moment, earning a sigh from Tifa.

"2B is really upset and doesn't know how to process it. Cass is helping her through it, but she's not doing great either. Miranda is probably dealing with it the best. Revy is gone, so she doesn't know yet," Tifa examined. It felt like I was going to be in for a round of trouble when I got out of the hospital.

"Has Revy arrived?" I asked, earning a sharp look from Tifa, a silent warning that I should not be trying to work right now. Not that I could. She still had my contacts and cards. She seemed to choose to believe that I was asking out of concern.

"No, not yet. You were only out for a few days. It's going to take Revy a few weeks to get there. It might be a shorter trip back if the Green Lanterns take her with them though," Tifa answered. Meaning that I had at least a few weeks to wrap up this situation.

"My court date?" I asked, knowing that the charges were going to stick. There were too many important players wanting them to for them not to. That was the cost of making so many powerful enemies. Tifa frowned, clearly unhappy with the idea that I would be getting charged with anything, guilty or not.

"It's coming up at the end of the week," Tifa told me, making an eyebrow shoot up and one of the cuts on my forehead sting. "The world wants this done fast, Vergil. Lex Luthor is saying that Sainthood Enterprises should be absorbed by the US government because it's too big to fail. The UN is fighting for pretty much the same thing. They're just waiting for you to go to prison for them to make the decision."

I scoffed. Of course they would. Fucking vultures. Lex wouldn't let this opportunity slip him by. I wasn't as smart as him, but I knew how the man thought. He would use his time as President to install yes-men into my company while it was a government entity. When his term as President ended, he would resume being CEO of LexCorp, but he would still control Sainthood Enterprises through those that he installed. My company would be a prize for him, handling the tech and research that he didn't want associated with his.

And, in a few years, Lex Luthor would control the two largest mega corporations in the entire world. He alone would control roughly ten percent of the entire world's GDP. He would have the whole fucking planet in the palm of his hands.

The plan was so good that I was starting to think that he really was planning to betray the Light because at that point, there wasn't much the Light could offer him. Vandal Savage likely suspected that as well, so he would be making moves to dig his own hooks into my company. He couldn't move against Lex because of the Reach and Lex just became his most important piece on the board, but that pawn was looking to become a king.

What an absolute fucking clusterfuck.

"Guess I have court to look forward to," I muttered to myself, sinking into my surprisingly comfortable hospital bed. "Do I have a lawyer?" I was kinda regretting getting Harvey Dent killed by running my mouth. He was the only defense attorney that I knew of.

"Try a legion," Tifa answered me. That was reassuring. However, right now, it was an open and shut case. My dirty deeds saw the light of day, and my reputation had a great big stain on it. I was pretty sure my lawyers were just collecting a check because there was no way that they could win the case without the evidence that I had been mind controlled. The fact that my court date had arrived so fast was telling -- I was supposed to get a hearing, jury members were meant to be picked out, and all that shit.

From arrest to court in less than a week?

People up top wanted me to go away. They were probably pissed that I hadn't been beaten to death.

"Don't think about that right now," Tifa instructed me, leaning down and giving me a kiss on the cheek. "Just rest and get better. You can beat this, Vergil. I know you can." She said, reaching into her purse and set down my cards on the table. She gave me a pointed look, and I tried to look sheepish because we both knew I wouldn't be resting. "I have to go take care of things on the company's end."

"Give 'em hell," I told her, giving her hands one last squeeze before she left my hospital room, leaving me alone with nothing but my heart monitor to keep me company. I let out a long, drawn out sigh as I placed my hand on my deck of cards. Sliding my hand off, I summoned a card to the top of the deck -- my contacts. Then I looked at my fingers in their casts, leaving me unable to do much as bend them. It took some finagling, but I managed to slip one finger cast off, revealing bandaged fingers for my regrowing nails.

With one off, it was easier to slip off the others, letting me bend my fingers for the first time in days though only hours of that time had seen me conscious. Unsealing my contacts from their card, I placed one in my eye and blinked a few times to let it return to its rightful place.

Instantly, I saw that I had a backlog of tens of thousands of red flags. However, quite a number of them had been grayed out, marked as noticed and dealt with. Spies entering my company in droves, information leaks, corporate sabotage, and employees that were only loyal while things were looking good. I decided to put that away for now -- cleaning house could be done after I was in the clear.

I got an update from my R&D department, telling me that a counter to teleportation had been made and implemented. I guess Tifa had them working overtime on that after what happened with Cass. That was reassuring.

I also got updates from Miranda's end -- the Brain was dead, much to my surprise. The failed assassination attempt put him in hiding, and when he was discovered, he was bombed to high heaven with another non-radioactive nuke. Meaning that all that was left of the Light were Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor, Klarion, and Black Manta. Naturally, people were freaking the hell out now that nukes were being used for the first time since World War 2.

There was a lot of backroom chatter about plans to kill me. The sheer number of assassination plots… Deathstroke and Deadshot had been contacted. Deathstroke accepted the job but Deadshot didn't. Huh. Guess I scared him off.

The Sentinels were doing well. Their public arrest of me solidified their image that they didn't care who was bankrolling them -- they would deliver justice to all who broke the law. The public was eating it up and people were throwing money at them by the fistful when they thought that my company would revoke their funding. All in all, my arrest hadn't negatively impacted their image in any way It had only enhanced it. Meaning that stage two of the plan could be implemented while they rode out the good will.

The world needed more than the Justice League. I was already repurposing the tech and abilities of those in Belle Reeve. I had a couple dozen members of the Sentinels with more on the way. Stage two would have a massive 'recruitment' for the Sentinels until they numbered in the hundreds. Then I could push to have a team in every city across the planet.

The Justice League would likely never vanish. They were all too stubborn for that. But the reason why they held such influence was because they were the ones that saved the world every single time it was in danger. That was their brand, to simplify what they did -- they saved the day. Every time. Whether it was Wotan blocking the sun to kill all life on Earth, alien invasions, or Klarion splitting the world into two. They came through every single time, and it was always them that saved the world.

But, their brand and subsequent influence could be diminished by other teams doing good. If the world was facing devastation two times, up until now, The Justice League saved the day twice. However, if the Justice League and the Sentinels each saved the world once, then the Justice League's influence would instantly take a hit.

Come through in a pinch enough times, and the Sentinels’ influence would match the Justice Leagues. In practice, it would be a competition to save the world.

Despite the major ass beating I had just received, I fell back into making plans and back-up plans easily. But, I knew what I was doing as I laid in my hospital bed, saved by pure dumb luck. I made a gamble, and it had paid off in the end, but…

“It’s been a long time since I thought I was going to die,” I muttered to myself, closing my eye and pausing my work. When was the last time I really thought my life was going to end? I’d had a number of close calls over the years, but as things snowballed, that fear of death lessened. Not with exposure to it but because I kept stacking the deck so that when I did find myself in a bad spot, I was never in any actual danger.

The last time I thought I was going to meet my maker was in that alley. Crime Alley. It was the same two fucks that I thought were going to kill me, too.

Opening my eye, I ignored my work for a moment, thinking on the promise that I had made to Tifa. Enhancing my body had been on the table for some time now. I had a range of options from Super Soldier formulas and advanced tech, to magic. I never bothered because of one simple thing -- my reputation as an everyman.

Metahumans were rare. Maybe one in a million, so there are only a couple thousand metas in total. Which wasn't a lot given the impact that they had on the world. My image coated on being a street punk kid that clawed his way up to the big table. The reveal that I had meta abilities would undercut that image, so I had just kept relying on my tech.

I tossed off my covers as I got an alert on one of my contacts. I could only sigh when I saw what it was -- the hits just didn't stop coming when you got knocked on your ass. I hissed in pain as I made my way to the window, pushing back the blinds to let me see the night sky and moon hanging overhead.

"Hey, Klarion," I spoke, looking through the cameras in my room to see that I was no longer alone. Klarion appeared in a red and black blur, seemingly materializing from nothing, and solidified while holding his cat, Teekl. "Why didn't you give me a heads up about what they had planned?"

"Because I thought it would be funny to see you get caught off guard," Kalarion told me, coming to a stop so that he stood next to me. And honestly, who needed enemies with a friend like Klarion. I paid him no mind, though, choosing to keep my gaze on the night sky. "You always just roll with the punches, like, all the time. I thought it would be funny to see you get knocked on your butt."

I made a sound of acknowledgment in my throat, "And was it?" I asked him, focusing on Klarion's reflection in the glass.

"Not as funny as I thought it would be. Because you're still gonna roll with the punches, aren't you? Can't you let me have this one joke? It'll be hilarious!" He said, cracking up at the thought of it.

"How about I show you a joke that's even funnier?" I asked him, catching his attention instantly. There was genuine delight in his red eyes, and he was practically bouncing on the spot like a little kid. It was too easy, really. However, a half second later, something else caught his attention. I was getting a half dozen red flags by the second as what I was expecting to look at finally entered my range of view.

It was the Warworld. It was hardly the size of the moon when I first caught glimpse of it, but it was rapidly approaching, and because of it, Earth's gravity was being fucked with. I leaned against the window, looking up at the Warworld, idly making plans as I watched the massive artificial planet get closer and closer by the second, proving that despite being the size of Earth twice over, it was still faster than my fastest ship.

"Ohh…! What's that?" Klarion questioned, sounding excited. However, I didn't share the feeling. I was just looking at another thing on my to-do list. My mind worked over a far more pressing concern and a promise that weighed heavily on me.

Not that long ago, I had stood before legends that had altered the course of human history over hundreds of thousands of years. I had wondered how I could avoid becoming like them -- peaking centuries prior without anything to show for their centuries of effort. A seed had been planted at that time. Now, as I stood covered in casts and bandages, a promise to Tifa on my mind, that seed began to sprout into an idea.

"Klarion?" I spoke up, catching my friend’s attention.

"Yeah?" Klarion questioned, seemingly noticing my tone.

"Wanna help me kill a god?"