Only a few hours after we’d gotten situated in our new hideout did I get an update on the traps we left behind. From what the news reported, our bombs were a lot stronger than anticipated. Instead of only taking out whoever entered the room, like we planned, they were strong enough to trigger the other bombs on the second floor. Every single henchman who was on the balcony at the time got sent straight to hell.
That was sadly the last bit of our good news. We had no way to contact Surge, and I wasn’t going to travel just to give him my new number. So we were only able to get updates from rumors on social media and the news.
And the news on that front was grim. Plaything was sending patrol furby’s across all of South Rain City, supers that Tóxica recognized as Contract’s fighters were being spotted around the city, alongside a handful of small scale villains.
The Ballers didn’t join them, and while I wasn’t afraid of Backhand, it was better that he wasn’t involved. The real gift from Snake God, however, was the fact that The Performers publicly refused to work with the Disciples. If they had those singlet wearing assholes on their team, it would be near impossible to take down Agony.
This still wouldn’t be easy, though. My biggest advantage this entire time was knowing what our enemy had in store. I knew where they would be, what would be waiting for us, and how to overcome it. But now I had to run in blind, a thousand unknown variables being thrown into this fight.
After we spent a few days sitting back, learning what we could about our new enemies, it was finally time to make our move. The biggest issue is the fact that we had too many people searching for us, and we needed to either avoid detection or make them give up trying to hunt us down.
I hopped out the back of the truck, headed to the front where Frank and Reload were. Somehow they had gotten their hands on chalk, and the two of them were playing Tic-Tac-Toe on the pavement, only stopping their competition when I approached.
“Frank, Reload, you two are going out. It’s time.” I tossed a bag of clothes into Reload’s hands, a uniform I had him make a while back. “You two are going to the car we left parked near the motel. Frank, you already have the list of addresses and the route you’ll be taking. You just need to get a block or two away after dropping Reload off, then let him do the rest.”
“Are you still not going to tell me why we’re going to be driving around in the middle of the night?” Frank asked. I knew that he would object to what we were doing, so I figured it would be best to keep him in the dark. But if he was going to participate, he had a right to know.
“If I tell you, we’re still going to do the plan. No matter what. So I’ll tell you if that’s what you really want, but you could also just do it in ignorance. The choice is yours.”
“I know that we’ll be risking our lives, and if you’re not telling me, then we’re probably putting innocent people at risk. But as a part of the team, I want to know. So take away my bliss and tell me what you’ve been planning.”
I was impressed. I’d assumed he would refuse to learn more, but if he wanted to know, then so be it. “Reload’s going to be dressed up as a FedEx employee, delivering boxes to Disciple safehouses all over the city. It’s late at night, and the guards won’t question or notice someone leaving a box behind. The boxes are going to be carrying the same bomb that took out the last safehouse we were in.”
“But what about—”
I cut Frank off. “You wanted to know. Innocent people might get hurt, but that’s the price we’ll be paying. You have your orders, now go get the car.”
I hoped that no one innocent would be hurt, but that was nothing more than wishful thinking. We barely had any advantages over the Disciples and their allies. We needed every win that we could get, even if it meant innocent people would die.
While Frank and Reload started their walk back, disguised for the long journey, Tóxica and I had our own work to do. The others knew that we would be making our own attack at the same time, but they weren’t given any details. I wanted the only things on their mind to be what they needed to do.
Tóxica followed me as we left the food truck behind, making sure it was properly locked up. It was a lot harder to hide her identity compared to the others. While they had security camera footage of us, they had high definition photos of her, all sourced from Contract.
Frank had suggested that she go bald, which would hide her distinctive hair dye. It took me and Reload half an hour of fighting to save him from her after that comment. We were able to find a compromise, which led to me and Tóxica dressing up as hipsters.
She wore an orange beanie, which hid her hair, and clothes ripped straight off a lumberjack. I couldn’t mock her, however, since we were wearing matching outfits. The flannels looked awful, but they’d hopefully stop us from being identified.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
There was a reason I delayed our attack, beyond sitting around to learn who our new opponents would be. We were all waiting just for the one night where I got [Reptilian Transformation] on my first use of [Borrow]. While it wasn’t necessary, unless we ran into some unexpected danger, it would be a lot more impactful.
Our target was The Crab Factory. There was a reason the rumor of a super stripper spread, and that was because this was the stripclub of choice for villains and henchmen in South Rain. I doubted we would find anybody worthwhile, but just one or two kills would be enough. For our first real move in this war, we needed to send a message.
Tóxica and I sat down in a nearby alleyway, waiting for the message from Reload. We scrolled through our phones, Tóxica having gotten addicted to the internet once I taught her how to use it.
She was currently swapping between two different tabs. Whenever I looked over, she was watching videos of supers fighting, pretending to be enthralled by the violence. But whenever she thought I was looking away, she would look at pictures and videos of cats and dogs.
I couldn’t blame her for finding animals interesting, I still hadn’t even seen one in person. When the system appeared, so did the super fauna. It was the animal's own version of the system, where any animal on Earth could awaken at random. That made it so pets and wild animals were outlawed in cities, due to the risk of a super fauna breach at any time.
While I looked at my own pictures of animals, I felt a knock on the back of my head, as a message from Reload came in.
I stood up, Tóxica following close behind as I walked towards the club’s entrance. The bouncer barely glanced our way before letting us in. This place wasn’t popular enough to hire great security, which was great news for us. The thumping music shook the ground as I looked over the main floor of The Crab Factory.
There were around fifty people inside the club, most of them too fucked up to actually notice anything around them. I scanned over the crowd until I found two people who were on our list. Two enemy supers were here, likely celebrating their newfound power under Agony. Neither of them would be much of a problem for just Tóxica, let alone for the two of us.
After I pointed them out to Tóxica, I made my way across the club. I walked up to a gorgeous woman with vibrant purple hair who was currently grabbing a tray of drinks from the bar. When Felicity saw me, I waved her over.
“I hope you’re here for another dance,” she said, shooting a suspicious look.
“Sadly, I’m here for something worse.”
Felicity raised an eyebrow. “You’re talking to the wrong girl if you want that.”
“Woah, I’m not that type of guy,” I put my hands up, taking a step back. “I’m here on business, not pleasure. Giving you a heads up that you need to clear this club out.”
“I don’t know if you think I’m the owner or something, but I can’t exactly do that.”
“I’ll be honest here,” I lied. “There’s two guys here that me and my friend are about to kill. I want to get as few innocent people involved as possible. If we don’t get them here, then a lot of innocent people will suffer later.”
“Can’t you just wait for them to leave? Why do you need to start a problem in my club?”
“When they leave, there’s a good chance that their reinforcements will pick them up. If that happens, then this entire block would be at risk. You remember the bombings that happened last week? They’re tied to that. We need to get the drop on them now.”
Technically, they were tied to that. They’re now working with the Disciples and we bombed the Disciples, so it wasn’t a complete lie. There was no reason to mention that it was my group that set the bombs off.
“Fine. Give me five minutes to get the girls to a safe spot.”
“Thank you, Felicity. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to leave a good tip as an apology.”
“As if you won't be the one paying for the cleaning.”
I discreetly handed her a stack of hundreds, and then I made my way back to Tóxica. She had somehow grabbed and drank an entire bottle of tequila in the brief period of time that I was gone. While we watched the dancers slowly disperse from the room, I asked her about it.
“So, no offense, but how do you handle drinking that much? I was bordering on the edge of being an alcoholic for the past few years and you outdrink me like it’s nothing.”
“It’s a hidden effect of [Poison Drip], poison doesn’t affect me. I need to drink many bottles before I feel anything.” She took a swig from a second bottle. “You were an alcoholic?”
“Well, sort of. I was drunk more often than I was sober, only stopping when I had a job to do. I’ve been drinking less since I left the Disciples, don’t have the time to get drunk. But I still don’t know if I would say I had a problem.”
After the awkward silence that came with this type of thing, I noticed that most of the dancers had left. The only one still on stage was rushing through her dance. And trust me, when a strip club loses all the strippers, people tend to notice.
But while the horny drunks stuck with their fellow drunk horny guys started to complain, me and Tóxica walked over to our targets. I pulled out my flask, unscrewing the top, before taking my first sip of the poison.
It was horrible. I knew it would give me power like I never had before, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever tasted. It was like an unwashed homeless man had taken a bath with lead paint. But I powered through, fighting the gagging.
By the time I finished, I already felt my body starting to grow in response. Tóxica had recommended for us to have clothes that could easily stretch, and I understood why. My baggy flannel already began to constrict against me.
It was like my flesh had been ripped apart, my new form forcing itself out of me. I let out a pained cry, which came out as a guttural roar. The distracted crowd turned their attention to me, and I made eye contact with my target.
“What the fuck?” Fracture shouted, the villain freezing at the sight of me.