Supervillains 2 Chapter 32 (Patreon)

Mona, Stella, Melody, and I had flown to the bureau for another day of hero work.

Stella dropped me off as we landed on the steps of the bureau. "I wonder what Kitty Cat is going to look like."

"Green. I can promise you it'll be green," I chuckled, she'd wrap herself in emeralds if she could.

But my focus went back to Melody with her arm in a sling. She was listless today; for the first time in a while, she didn’t seem excited to be a hero.

"Melody, today you are on light duty, but I need help making sure Stella exercises," I tried to inject some normalcy to the day.

"Master, I do them on my own," Stella pouted.

"Barely," Melody snorted. "You 'don't want to get hard'"

Stella put a hand to her chest and gasped. "Succubi are all soft curves. It’s my nature."

I put a hand on Stella. "Not here. We are at work. Now, go let Coach Melody turn you into my little battle succubus." I slapped her ass, eliciting a little yelp out of her.

Melody swooped in and put her arm around Stella, ushering her forward before she could goof off any more at work.

"You spoil her. It even went through your mind to tell her—" Mona started, but I cut her off.

"Stella is bubbly by nature. Even if I could make her more efficient by giving her an order, I'm not always going to," I stopped Mona.

She nodded. "I understand. Even if she would literally do anything you ask of her, letting her be her own person is just as important to you."

"Yep. I’m glad you get it," I replied.

"I don't." Mona’s tone was flat. "But if it makes sense to you, I'm more than happy to follow along."

She leaned in and pecked me on the cheek before moving to follow the other two.

Now that they were off for their morning exercises, I needed to focus on the Monster Fruit Gang, or whatever they fancied themselves. Either their operation was going to grind to a standstill now that they’d lost their teleporter, or they would have to expose themselves.

Both of those were a win in my books, but I needed the analysts to keep a close eye on the city to spot any new routes that popped up.

I moved quickly to head towards The Spine, wanting to see the latest. As I stepped in, Beatrix turned around and spotted me, catching me completely unprepared.

"Were you just leading me on? After the other day, you haven't even... ugh." She let out a frustrated groan.

"Look, I'm swamped. You're beautiful, but I have no time," I replied, moving around her desk.

She rolled her eyes and turned back to her station.

I used to be able to dump women and just walk away without a second thought. Hell, I had somewhat done it with Melody. But now I actually felt bad about Beatrix. I didn’t want her to feel used.

"Sorry," I managed to say to her back before moving down to my analysts.

They were just getting started for the morning. Ben was downing coffee like it would get rid of the bags under his eyes. The others were likely engaged in some idle gossip based on the way they were both excited and trying to be quiet.

"Girls. Ben." I waved to them. "Morning."

"Morning, boss." Ben raised his mug before downing it and looking for more.

Rachel's ears perked up at my entrance and she spun around. "What can we do for you?"

"I saw the report yesterday; Ramon the teleporter is dead. That means they are going to have to figure out another way to smuggle Monster Fruit into the city. I need to figure out where it is coming from now that they are exposed. This is our chance."

They blinked at me for a few moments before Ben finally reacted.

"We can do that. But there's a hell of a lot of things moving around the city every day. If there was a single place it was going that we could track it back from, that would be far easier. Otherwise, it’s going to take some luck."

Mary was turning to her terminal and typing away. "Looks like we had a few more of the mutant giants last night. Nightshift bagged eight. That's three dozen this week."

I paused, rubbing my chin. My team had dealt with our own handful, and I knew there had been reports of others by other hero teams. But three dozen was too few. Ramon had made it sound like they were distributing hundreds or thousands.

Either he was disillusioned or there was something we were missing.

And three dozen mutations gone wrong meant around three dozen that had worked based on what we’d seen so far. And that would explain why Antiope was so flighty. That kind of muscle would become tough to fight back against.

But with the risk of an awful mutation, his army had to be built out of people who had little to lose or were deeply devoted to the cause. My bet was on the former.

"Okay, Ihad asked you to look for disgruntled gatherings. What do you have for me?" That was exactly where they would be distributing Monster Fruit.

"We’ve reached out to informants. Besides the usual, there hasn’t been any spike in activity, except of course the new villain organizations popping up, but it’s hard to listen in on them," Ben explained, stealing Mary's coffee and starting in on it.

If she noticed, she didn't seem to care.

“I need more, places that already exist. Any homeless camps or the slums under the bridges on the south side?” I pushed them for more.

Ben held up his hands. “Homeless aren’t exactly using a phone or anything we can monitor.”

“What about prisons? Would they count?” Rachel asked with hopeful eyes.

I blinked, focusing back on her words. "Exactly like a prison. Fuck. These guys were already focusing on criminal organizations, and they would be better nourished and taken care of than people on the streets. Can we heighten security on anything coming into prisons?"

If Ramon wanted to pick a place with a large number of people with a bone to pick with the BSH, prisons were perfect.

"Yeah, we can put out a warning to them. I'll get right on it." Ben spun around and his fingers flew over the keyboard.

"I'll leave you guys to it." As I walked away, I began playing out the horror of Monster Fruit getting into the prisons. It really was the perfect breeding ground for their small army.

But even with a teleporter, they hadn't done it yet. Or at least, the Monster Fruit hadn’t been eaten yet. We would have begun getting reports.That meant that either their supply wasn't large enough to pull it off or they didn't have the manpower or means.

Given the numbers we'd seen lately, I had a feeling it was about to start expanding faster than I’d like. The draw to extra power was too tempting. Power had become a part of a person’s identity. And it drove a lot of a person’s life. Just looking at Mona and Stella, it was clear how power could completely shape the way society viewed a person based on their power.

There were many who would take the Monster Fruit, even if they weren’t desperate. But they might not be willing to carry out the vision. They’d be doing it in a self-serving capacity. Whoever was now in charge needed a group that would follow them and be willing to make a deal. And that brought my thoughts back to the prisons again.

There were three in Point City, and the BSH had basically packed them with everything that Ramon would have needed to create an army against the BSH.

All he had to do was get the Monster Fruit inside.

"Miles." The gruff voice of General Pratt interrupted my doomsday spiraling as I walked through the lobby.

"General." I held out my hand to shake it with him. "I wasn't expecting you until later."

"Early bird gets the worm. I’ve always found that a surprise attack is more likely to succeed. I was just looking for Kim so that we could discuss some jurisdiction matters. But I'm glad I found you. Join us. I'd like to make sure you stay on top of everything so that you are primed to take Kim's spot."

"Going to fire her?" I teased, but the General didn’t laugh. I found myself tensing up.

I knew that the general hated that a woman led the BSH, even though women were in most of the leadership positions, but I hadn’t expected him to be ready to move on it. Kim had led the BSH incredibly well. Relics like Pratt liked to hang onto a male-dominant leadership.

Thankfully, he might be above her, but he needed a committee to replace her and appoint someone new. Kim handled those politics well.

Not wanting to touch on that topic, I moved the conversation on. "Our best bet is to catch her in her office. She comes in early and stays late; you aren't going to ambush her in the lobby."

"Can't blame a man for trying. I feel like she's too relaxed with all the problems lately," the general grumbled.

I badged us into the offices and held the door for him. "Worrying over everything doesn't solve it. We are working on all the major issues."

"Except the research and development to solve the crisis that looms over all of humankind." The general coughed, and smoke billowed out of his mouth.

"You okay?"

"Powers age like the rest of us," the general said, turning to the side and blowing a plume of smoke as he coughed openly. "Been tickling my lungs a lot lately."

I didn't know the general's power, but it seemed to have something to do with smoke. Now I had to wonder how much of that he'd blown up people's asses.

Kim was bent over her desk, working away when I knocked. She looked up, excited to see me, but her face dropped into a frown as she noticed the general walking in behind me. With a sigh, she waved us in.

"General, early, again," Kim commented.

I could tell that it wasn’t the first time. She must have been expecting him.

"Director." The general folded his hat and took a seat. "I think you know why I'm here. The BSH is going to take over research and development for the new drugs showing up on the street. The military wants to start using them to improve our soldiers tomorrow, and we want to see if we can't crack the great problem of the genders."

Kim rolled her eyes. "Want a massage and a drink while I do all your work for you?"

I took a seat. This was going to be a while. I made sure to position myself equally between the two of them. I didn’t want to get into the middle of whatever was going on between them.

"Your Bureau has had all the access to the materials as part of your investigations. Libertech was the second to successfully move onto human trials. We need to push this forward."

"Bullshit. You are getting all the same reports I am. The results are going off to your useless military after."

"Useless?!" Pratt started to stand.

I caught onto the general’s earlier words though. "The second trial?"

The general ground to a halt halfway to his feet. "Well... ask her. She fought to get the first shut down."

"They deserved to fucking be buried." Kim got angry and fire sprouted in her hair.

The general seemed to take delight in her anger. "You still killed project Cerberus. It had the greatest chance of solving all of this."

I was still trying to understand what they were talking about. Kim had said they needed to be buried, who needed to be buried? "Bodies? Whose bodies?"

Pratt turned to me; Kim couldn't meet my eyes. "There was an event that caused a large number of high-powered individuals to die."

It dawned on me. "Fortress."

Kim cringed. "Yes. The military was still in charge of heroes, and all of their bodies were swept up and sent to a mad scientist. He performed atrocities on them, and I nearly burned down his lab before we claimed all of the bodies... or what was left of them, and buried them respectfully."

"The scientist was wonderful at what he did, even if it was a little unorthodox." Pratt grinned as smoke spilled between his teeth.

"We had to use DNA to verify the bodies," Kim scowled. "Besides, he was probably the only useful thing from the military in recent history. I want to understand why you are going to hand off R&D to BSH when you don't do anything."

"The military—"

Kim interrupted the general. "Sits on its ass all day long. When was the last time we needed them?"

He scoffed. "Better to be prepared for when it does happen. Foreign—"

She cut him off again. "There is no foreign aggression. The nine cities are just trying to survive, and we are cut off of the rest of the world. Sure, the west coast has another cluster of cities, but besides the occasional signal from a station on top of the Rockies, we have no communication with them."

Pratt snorted and leaned back as if he'd heard this argument a thousand times. "We are as we've always been, prepared to protect Point City."

"Next time we have a titan incident here, I'll let you go exercise your military," Kim shot back.

Pratt turned to me with the change in topic. "We don't have to worry about the Roc anymore. I thought I was reading a work of fiction when I read that report. Fantastic job. That's the kind of thing that can make you Director."

"Don't hint at offering him my job in front of me," Kim sighed and returned to the prior topic. "So, you are going to shove the R&D down my throat no matter what? I’m guessing you have the support to force this?"

"Pretty much. That's the great thing about being established. The politicians agree that you should take over R&D for powers. That includes the remainder of Libertech; there’ll be an announcement soon." The general leaned back with a broad smile. "You'll put those mad scientists you have buried under here to work and hopefully reverse engineer this 'Monster Fruit'. Or maybe you can figure out Libertech’s serum and replicate it. The military is very interested in boosting its assets."

Kim snorted. "Get out. And you can tell your military that it'll take us a few months to onboard a few new teams and get up to speed on all the data. So we'll be up to speed in four months, give or take."

"Two," Pratt shot back. "Have a good day. Director, Miles." He got up and left her office.

Kim's hair flared like a huge bonfire for a moment before she blew out a breath and it all went out. "I hate him."

"Doesn't sound like he's worth much."

But she surprised me. "Oh they do some. Most of the training courses we have were piloted by the military. They are the funding behind Libertech and half a dozen other research projects. The military is also loosely over the BSH, but I've made inroads to limit just how much oversight they have."

Frowning, I didn't understand the conversation that just happened then. "Why give him so much shit?"

"Because he only respects me if I'm brash and rude." Kim picked up her tablet. "So, we have a lot of things to work on. Emma is finishing up getting her suit done if you want to meet her. Oh, and how's your power?"

"My power?" She caught me off guard.

Kim looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. "You don't think that Wells just walked out of there with the Libertech serum, do you? I signed off on it. If you want to be a guinea pig, that's your decision. Although, I do wish you’d talked to me about it first.”

She paused before continuing. “I just wanted to know what your power was now that you are officially a super, at least by her report."

I shrugged. "Nothing has happened yet. Most of the time, people figure out their powers as scared teenagers."

Kim nodded with a sigh, no doubt remembering her own incident. "It can be terrifying. I learned mine during a car accident. Set the gas tank on fire and blew myself up."

I winced. "It would be nice if I didn't have such a drastic accident." But in the back of my mind, I realized that my actual power came out during a disaster that was so much worse.

"Okay, go see Emma. Oh, and be careful with that one. I still think she's trouble. There’s something about her that’s sneakier than the others."

I smiled. Emma would be a handful, of that I had no doubt. But I was starting to think of her as mine rather than some stray that I just happened to be friendly with.

I got up to leave and paused with my hand on the door. "Kim, I think they are going to try and get Monster Fruit into the prisons. There's no proof, but that is what my gut is telling me."

She put her tablet down and blinked several times as she processed what I had said.

"Most of the prisons have powerful supers, capable of immobilizing people. Lots of people with electric type powers work as guards so that they can taze anyone who would cause problems. There’s also some odd ones like being able to spew sleeping gas. Breaking into or out of the prisons is pretty much futile. But I trust you, we'll alert them to be on watch."

She went back to work, and I knew when I was dismissed.