SSV3 Chapter 6 (Patreon)

“You two got back late last night.” Melody casually commented, as we were all getting up and milling about the kitchen for breakfast.

“Stella’s hair was wild. She looked like she’d been in a wind tunnel.” Mona agreed, even though the telepathic super had picked through my memories already and knew the truth.

Not that I was hiding anything. Mona had full access to root around in my head, just as I did hers, only I rarely used the latter.

Stella still couldn’t stop grinning while she sat at the table in one of my button downs. She said it made her feel small and like she was mine. “My hair was wild because of the villain with electricity. Stupid idiot ruined my pretty date hair.”

“Uh huh.” Melody didn’t seem convinced.

Angelina sat down groggily, and I couldn’t help but turn my attention to the slime girl. She didn’t normally need a morning pick me up.

I levitated over a cup of coffee to her seat, and she snatched it out of the air. “What kept you up?” I asked her.

“Melody’s project. She wants to learn how to be a villain.” Angelina took a sip of the coffee and pursed her lips. “Sugar? Lots.”

“Can do.” I sent a little stream of sugar over to her cup and mixed it in. “How’s ‘make Melody bad’ going?”

Angelina took another sip and nodded, seemingly pleased with the heavily sugared coffee. “We need to figure out how to turn the public’s perceptions against her without doing too much damage. So far, all she has come up with is destroying a local park after hours.”

Melody threw her hands up. “Sorry.” She rolled her eyes. “I just don’t want to kill people. That’s a line I don’t want to cross if I’m ever going to come back from this whole villain play.”

If she came out of this killing no one, it would be a miracle, but that’s not what she needed to be told right now.

“What about theft? Steal some nice shiny cars and take them for a joy ride. Do that between smashing in a few banks and running away with the cash.” I offered.

“Pretty much.” Angelina agreed. “But eventually she’s going to have contact with other villains and heroes. She needs to play the part, so we’ll get it right and practice it.”

Melody scowled at me. “Who the fuck do you think I am?” she tried out a villain persona.

“Not you, and certainly not more than a thug.” I deadpanned. “You’re right, Angelina, you have your work cut out for you.”

My purple elf crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, frowning, even as I slid a fresh waffle in front of her.

“How about you, Obsidian? How’s the lair going?”

Obsidian was back in her tight asymmetrical black outfit along with her black lipstick made her seem rather morose, but she was just a little crazy.

“Good. I’m still digging out. I bought the mineral rights all around the neighborhood, so we’ll get a nice big lair.” She grinned as her eyes shifted over to the barrel of ‘gem liquid’ that she’d been working with Angelina to make.

If Emma were present, she would have had some comments to say about it, but the lazy cat girl was still sleeping. I still had yet to fulfill my promise of trying to compress the liquid minerals into gemstones for her.

“Just how big is this lair going to end up being?” I wondered as she mentioned the sizeable area of mineral rights.

Obsidian just waved away my concern. “The actual primary structure will be small, but there will be a large amount of branching tunnels. Every lair needs multiple exit routes.” Obsidian grinned, and so did one of her clones that was working nearby.

I made a mental note to go check on it before it got too far out of hand.

“Yes, and we can get Velody a secret entrance so she doesn’t have to leave the house!” Stella waved her arms and the overly long button down sleeves flopped about. “Wouldn’t want to lose out on Velody just because she’s becoming a villain.”

“Velody?” Melody frowned before it hit her. “Villain-Melody.” She slapped her forehead. “Stella, you need to stop coming up with names.”

“Can’t stop, won’t stop.” Stella only smiled wider. She was in a great mood. “We should tour the lair. With like a zillion Obbys working down there, even if it’s been less than a week, she’s gotta have made progress.”

“Significant progress, thanks to Miles. Though we have no stairs or elevators at present.” Obsidian shrugged. She would have just used her power over shadows to pull herself or her clones around.

“Then I’d like a tour before I head to work.” I decided I was going to check in on her progress.

Obsidian nodded to one of her clones, who ran off, likely to get her other clones prepared for a tour.

“As much as I’d like to, I need to get to work.” Angelina checked the clock and pushed away from the table. “Miles, tonight you have a session.”

I gave her a sharp salute. “I’ll be there. But only if you find a chance to get some rest.”

Angelina nodded and found a travel mug, filling it with equal parts coffee and sugar before heading out.

“What are you going to be up to today, Melody?” Now that she was benched on a hero front and about to go villain, I wasn’t sure if she could even show up at the Bureau.

“Pratt gave me an off-site location where I can go to get more details about my mission. I’m going to be busy with that today.” She put her cheek in her hand. “Who knew that being a villain would be so much work?”

Stella was only half paying attention as she played with the loose sleeves of my shirt.

“As attractive as you are in one of my shirts, I think you need to get ready if you’re going to make it to conditioning on time.” I prodded Stella into getting ready for the day.

She stuck out her tongue. “What if I want to be late?”

“Well then, you won’t get a chance to play with the trainees.” I knew how to motivate Stella.

Sure enough, Stella dropped the playful act in an instant and got moving to get dressed.

After she was out of the room, I turned to Mona.

But before I could speak, she was already on it. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep her and the trainees on task, at least until Emma shows up.”

“I hadn’t expected Emma to be a responsible one.” Honestly, I was surprised that Emma put them on task.

“When you aren’t around, she’s actually motherly. She’s pretty good with the trainees and Stella.” Mona said, as she shared a few memories with me.

A few of the memories I had experienced myself while we were out in the field. Emma certainly had been coaching them then, but the memories Mona gave me included some of their conditioning.

I smiled, glad Emma was meshing into the group. But it would help if she ever rolled out of bed before 10 AM.

Wrapping up breakfast and floating the dishes over to the dishwasher, I turned to focus on Obsidian. “Let’s take a look at this new lair of yours.”

The last couple days, the obsidian clones had stopped trooping through my home with all sorts of lumber and other building materials. It piqued my curiosity.

The multiplier villain stood up from the table. “Then follow me. I have cleaned up the place where we caused problems.” She pointed down the entry hallway, which looked like it had been recently mopped and scrubbed of the construction dust that had been lingering before.

“Thank you. It’s certainly been messier during construction.”

She only shrugged and continued to my basement.

It had been four days since my last time in the basement. The place wasn’t much more than a giant pit that she had been digging out, but she’d asked for my help by loosening the ground. I had drilled all the way down to bedrock. At that point, she’d taken back over and had been working on the project with her multitude of clones.

As we descended, I noticed that the stairs were banged up. Apparently she hadn’t gotten around to fixing that yet.

But as I reached the bottom, it was a very different story. She’d entirely transformed the space.

What was once rough dirt had concrete poured, walls framed up, and drywall was being primed.

There was also a faint breeze pulling down the stairs, which meant that at least one of her tunnels had already finished into an opening somewhere. Here on the first floor, it looked like no one was home.

“This is the first floor. It’ll be pretty basic. And you are welcome to put things down here. If someone walks into your home, the goal is for them to just see a basement.” Obsidian walked on until there was a twist in the wall leading to a corner. “Here is where the elevator shaft will go.”

It was the same spot where I had made a giant kinetic drill and went all the way down the bedrock.

“Well, let me fill that role for now.” I stepped out onto a platform of kinetic energy I made, and Obsidian took a tentative step to follow behind me. She raised an eyebrow as nothing happened.

“Going down.” I called out as I dropped the kinetic platform. As we moved, I used my powers to reach out and see just how far down the shaft could go.

My gut dropped as the shaft just kept going down further.

“How many floors are there?” I asked.

Obsidian’s black painted lips twitched. “Right now we are setting up forty-three, including your basement. Though there is room for more. That should be enough for now.”

I choked. “Yes, that should be far more than enough. How many clones do you have active right now?”

“A lot.”

We came down to the second floor, at least in my head. It was technically below the first.

The floor was a tall, wide open space with Obsidian clones covered in machine oil as they assembled large vehicles. “This will be our vehicle and large weapons bay. I’m no mad scientist, but I do okay.”

She could fit a dozen 747’s in the space. It was far too much.

I stared at her in shock. “What the fuck?”

“A girl has to have a few toys. Besides, you need to put the heavy things further up. It’s a pain to transfer them up and down a lair. Also, it has an exit already.” She pointed at the far end that had a tunnel large enough for several lanes of traffic. “We are bringing semi trucks for our loads now that we have it in place. It’s so much better than carrying things in by hand.”

And that made more sense for why my hallway stopped being a construction zone.

Even as we spoke, Obsidian clones were using fork trucks to unload trucks, then other clones were in place to carry those bags down another shaft.

“Where’s that lead?” I pointed to the area.

“Just the next couple floors. This is really the end of the fun stuff. Come on.” She motioned for me to keep lowering the platform we were on.

I followed her motions and dropped us down further.

The next level was a sterile white room that reminded me of the mad scientist lab below the BSH.

“This is R&D, plus I thought that Doctor Wells would appreciate a space to work.” Obsidians were in the space, installing cabinets and tables that were built into the floor.

Continuing on, we moved down to another floor that was unfinished enough that I couldn’t figure out its purpose.

“This will be offices, boring stuff. Then we have some lounging areas to put your feet up, relax and drink. Kind of like a big bar.”

We continued on down, and at that point, it just became areas that had hundreds of Obsidians working to dig or mine out more space.

“See, not much to show yet. But we are rapidly working on our lair.” Obsidian smiled.

“Our lair?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Pretty sure I get to be part of this grand adventure you call a family. I’ll behave. I promise.”

I noticed we hadn’t gotten quite to the bottom and went to lower us further.

“If you’ll please not pry down there. A girl has to have a few secrets.” She batted her eyelashes at me.

Sighing, I resisted the urge and lifted us upwards up at a comfortable pace. “So. There’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Will I help… Velody?” Obsidian paused, remembering Stella’s nickname.

“Yeah. She has no idea what she’s doing, and I don’t want her alone. I don’t need you to participate with her, but as she gets into villain culture, I want someone with her.” I clarified.

Obsidian pursed her lips and nodded. “The villains can be pretty brutal to a newbie. Even if she has a strong power, they won’t respect her until they see her kill.”

“She said she didn’t want to earlier, but I need her to kill at least among the villains.” I told Obsidian.

If she tried to integrate into the villains of the city, they would sense her good nature and her weakness.

I had Emma with me when I went through it.

I’d been young and inexperienced when I’d gone to my first seedy bar with Emma. And it had been like bleeding in shark-infested waters.

But I’d been prepared. Emma had told me I needed to show my force so that I wouldn’t be messed with, and that bar had held the perfect target.

A woman had approached me, trying to use her power to force me to ‘give her a go’. I’d felt violated, and it had spiked my emotions.

Just like Emma had coached me, I’d kept my face impassive and cold. I’d kept the kill clean and my power mysterious, but it was hard to keep your emotions out of an attack. I’d put too much of my power into my hit and turned her entire head into mush that had blown all over the bar.

While I still remembered my first kill like it had just happened, I had to admit that the look of terror on the surrounding faces had been amusing. But in that moment, I’d been terrified.

“Can’t you go with her?” Obsidian asked.

“As Void?” I surmised.

She nodded. “Pretty sure no one would touch her if you did. You could protect her.”

“Maybe after a while, but not at first. She needs to dive into this without leaning on me like a crutch.” I reasoned that if I were there from the beginning, she’d never gain the confidence and insight that came with seeing the dark side of humanity. That and Void would become a crutch for her to enter villain society. She needed to stand on her own.

Obsidian nodded along with me. “She needs to stand on her own against the villains. I’ll keep a low profile and watch, only stepping in if she needs me.”

“Thank you.” I blew out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Obsidian smirked. “You know. I kind of wished I met you earlier in your life. I bet you were a ton of fun.”

“Oh. Emma taught me the ropes, and it was brutal at first, but then I stepped back into high end theft. It was a fun and challenging use of my powers. Killing people and smashing in stores was too easy, and too messy at the same time.” I thought about what Obsidian might be up to deeper in the basement. “What exactly do you have going on down there? It’s a lot of activity, yet you aren’t anywhere near that level of footprint in the city according to the BSH.”

Obsidian whistled. “Maybe I could be doing the most heinous of all crimes.” She paused and cleared her throat. “Hello, we’ve been trying to reach you about your extended warranty.”

I couldn't help it. I laughed. “If you are that evil, I don’t think you can live here.” Those warranty callers were fucking blight.

“I’d never go that far.” Obsidian promised me. “But I have some legitimate business as well.”

I waited, but she didn’t give any more clarifying details.

I let it go and not pry for that moment. I could trust her until she gave me a reason I shouldn’t.

And the lair would likely come in handy one of these days.

Bringing the lift to the top, I paused. “We should figure out how you fit in all of this after we finish with the Velody plan.”

Obsidian twitched. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be good, Miles. I’m too broken. Even when you put the pieces together, they won’t fit right. There’s going to be jagged edges and a lot of missing pieces…” She trailed off and I knew there was more to that.

I only smiled, trying to keep the mood light. “We all have our jagged edges. Don’t let perfection get in the way of doing better. And that’s an issue for another day. At the moment, I’m thankful you’re still bad. Melody needs it if she’s going to survive this mission.”

Obsidian bit her lip, but nodded. Her mind clearly drifting off in another direction.

While Obsidian may not believe she could be good enough to be a hero, she kept sending clones to my place for a reason. There was something I could do to help her, and I was going to figure it out.

AN - The start is a little slow, but I'm having fun with it.