Accidental Villainy 44 (Patreon)

That night, the bar was crowded. 

It was not the usual bar crowd, not even by the usual standards of it. My customers were silent as they consumed their fare, paid, and left. Their tips were generous, usually in the range of ten thousand. However, even with the bar suddenly raking in more money than I could imagine earning through a legitimate business, I wanted nothing more than to close it early and deal with my horrible headache. 

Unfortunately, that was not an option. It looked like people had already concluded that I was behind what had happened earlier, and the last thing I needed was to give them any evidence that I was involved with it directly. 

The ‘tragic’ passing of two villains and a hero during their battle was already on the news. Unsurprising, as during the super battles, death wasn’t a common outcome, which had been enough to spook the other parties for some time.  

Hopefully, it would be enough to spook both parties. Not just by my apparent ability to ‘order’ the deaths of three supers, but also by my information gathering, enough to catch the ploy against me in a timely manner and counter it on time. 

I  was glad for Emily for that report.  Without it, I would have been in incredible danger.  Even assuming I managed to deal with the attack by using the laser cannon, avoiding the damage to the bar was inevitable. That way, it was almost certain that it would have revealed my current powerlessness. Also, it would have also revealed the tunnel, removing my way of going back to the city without being noticed. 

Her help also proved useful in giving me the background check on the visitors. The more information I had, the easier for me to discover their drink preferences to follow the threatening gimmick of the bar, which meant my headache didn’t have to get worse. 

All that remained was to see whether my trick had worked well enough to intimidate them. 

Just as I was preparing to close the bar, the cameras picked up another visitor. A redheaded woman, in her mid-twenties, her confidence enough to mark her either as a moron, or someone truly dangerous. 

My power suggested the latter, so I took two actions. First, I sent her picture to Emily, asking her to help me to research as much as she could find. School records, misdemeanors, holiday pictures … anything. 

Her confident gait helped me, as the dossier arrived before she could, allowing me to go through everything. To my surprise, there wasn’t much information available publicly, but Emily still managed to find some, particularly when she was just a student. 

A lot of misdemeanors, some arrest records that went nowhere, and several photos where she had been traveling a few years ago before she fell off the grid completely. Altogether, she looked like a classic problem child who disappeared once she received powers, only to return as a villain. 

As for matching her identity to a super, it was not as easy. Emily’s powers didn’t help her to analyze people’s disguises and match them with their hero identities, especially since most outfits had included some basic measures of concealment like changing hair colors and other simple techniques. 

I could, but it required far more time than I had under the circumstances, and at least a reasonable subset of convincing targets. 

Luckily, the clues I was picking from her suggested she had no perception abilities, and her confidence showed that she was not afraid of being hurt. I turned to Tara. “Go upstairs, make no noise, and be ready to intervene if I give you a signal. We have a super visitor.” She was still wearing her helmet, but I didn’t need to see her face to feel her tensing. “Don’t worry about it, it’s just a precaution,” I added. 

The last thing I needed was for her to act prematurely. 

With a sigh, I leaned forward, for once feeling the discomfort of dealing with yet another dangerous encounter. Still, I stood being the bar, which gave me the best chance to exert my authority as the mysterious villain. 

Soon, the door opened, and my gaze met with a bombshell of a redhead, stumbling inside, alone. “N-nice place,” she muttered as she glanced around, doing a convincing drunk impression. I relaxed slightly, as if she was bothering to fake drunkenness, it would mean that she wasn’t ready to act. 

While she stumbled toward the bar, I took note of her beauty. Her red hair was mussed, and her leather skirt — already tiny — had slid up carelessly to reveal even more of her milky white legs, the fishnets she was wearing hardly an impediment. The boots she was wearing covered anything below the knee level, but that could be hardly counted as coverage. 

Her top, a black crop top that looked crooked enough to fall at the slightest touch, was hardly an improvement, especially since it was thin enough to show she had no bra. 

Altogether, she gave an excellent impression of a party girl. Without my powers — and the fact that her eyes lingered on the spot where Tara was supposed to be sitting — I might have actually bought her drunken impression. But, small details, like the steadiness of her steps even as she stumbled, the way her back straightened, and the immediate tensing she displayed when I reached under the counter betrayed her state. 

As she got closer, I could smell alcohol on her breath, showing that she had prepared well for the visit. Not a professional, but not an amateur either. It was not her first undercover assignment. “H-Hey, I found a surprise bar,” she slurred, her drunk accent near perfect. 

“Good for you,” I answered with a big smile as I peeked into her cleavage, reacting in a way she expected of me. The seduction attempt was rather obvious, but either I played along, or she moved to plan B. 

And when it came to villains, plan B often included a lot of violence. 

While I was enjoying the view, I also made sure to check for a recorder. They were good enough, but my power was even better at picking them. 

She was clean. 

“So, what a girl needs to do here to get a drink,” she said. 

I smirked, picking on her seductive attitude. “Why don’t you tell me how did you end up in this little neighborhood first,” I said, making sure to sound slightly suspicious. “Not exactly your kind of place, right?” 

She shrugged, which had the effect of enhancing her cleavage even more. “Nothing much,” she said. “I come here with my girls for a party …” she said, then sniffed reflexively, trying to imply drugs. “Then, her boyfriend decided to get a little too randy, and I decided to leave. Then, I found a bar,” she said while I mixed her a drink. A nice gin-based cocktail with mint and sugar, something like a variant of mojito. 

She took a sip … and she hated it. “D-delicious,” she muttered. 

“Happy to hear,” I said smugly, like I didn’t notice her flinch. I had seen enough holiday photos of her to get a general sense of her palette, and she much preferred more bitter tastes. However, it was the kind of drink a party girl like her would enjoy. 

A deliberate mistake on my part. Since the first day, I had made sure to convince the others that the reason I was able to guess their favorite drinks was more about the information-gathering capabilities of my organization, mixed with some bragging. 

After all, I wouldn’t be the first Villain to ruin his life because of a desire to brag. 

Since she was not a known figure, guessing her drink correctly would imply something else. And, as an added benefit, it signaled her that I had believed her party girl attire. Admittedly, it wasn’t too unbelievable. She wouldn’t be the first girl who visited the neighborhood to hang with the gangsters to get a sense of danger … and a lot of hard drugs. 

Since she went through all that trouble, I decided to play along. “So, tell me about yourself,” she said as she leaned forward, giving me another glimpse of her cleavage. A little suspicious, but not completely unexpected for a drunk rich girl. 

“Not a lot to tell,” I answered with a smug, confident smile. “Just a handsome bartender killing some time. How about you?” I responded, revealing my confidence while also probing her for information, keeping my tone deliberately dark and mysterious. 

I noticed her eyes dilating slightly as I delivered my words, showing signs of attraction as I played dark and mysterious. But, that was the extent of her reaction, and it wasn’t accompanied by any other clear signs. 

She was attracted to dark and mysterious bad boys, but she wasn’t aware of it. 

It gave me an interesting idea.