My Weekly Gag Villain Job Is Pretty Fulfilling: Chapter 9

My Weekly Gag Villain Job Is Pretty Fulfilling: Chapter 9

…

Commissioned by Arksoul

…

I kept an eye on a few places around the world that didn’t receive much attention.

Lots of studies showed that humanity progressed far enough to be noticeable to interstellar and interdimensional civilizations. Some said that it started when we hit the industrial age and population swelled up along with numbers of highly talented individuals. If you believed some of the conspiracy nuts, they might’ve started trying to interfere in the last world war, given all the technological breakthroughs that happened in such a short time frame.

For leaders of nations, that meant more expenditure into industry, defense, and consolidating their populations. Even with a general rise in superheroism, with most people with power deciding to do good things and helping keep things safe and stable, it was necessary to concentrate populations into defensible locations, which could be augmented by force shields, point defenses, and even some more esoteric stuff like magic.

Still, even with all the incentives to move into the new megacities, there were plenty of small towns plying their trade. Places that didn’t have wireless energy provided to all cars, flight lanes for hovercraft, and monorails had light industrial footprints. Candy factories, textiles, fishing, farming, and stuff like that. As great as vertical farming was, people were happy to pay a premium for meat not grown in a vat or wheat made from some heritage breed of wheat.

Small towns were buoyed by their exports of bulk goods to megapolises, but there was still a downside.

Lack of access to facilities that could only be supported by a megapolis.

The best hospitals nowadays would have been unbelievable fifty years ago. Limbs could be flash-grown within a few hours. Organ replacement was easy to facilitate as long as they had a sample of your tissues ahead of time. Even if they didn’t, they could put you in suspended animation until they had it. But all that equipment had to be supported by a population in the tens of millions. Small towns would have to buy used MRI or X-ray machines. They can’t afford a genetic repository, let alone a bio-vat or even a pharmaceutical fabricator.

Thus, people were left to suffer, especially the elderly.

So, when I had the time, I did something about it.

…

It was a small, innocuous service that I implemented through my Imps. It was easy enough to spread them across all North America. They could observe from the shadows, not letting themselves be found out, and through them I gathered information. For the most part, I looked for targets that wouldn’t get me on any lists that would involve the heavy hitters, but while they searched, I kept track of people who were hurting.

Addicts scrounging in the alleyways.

The elderly who didn’t have anyone to take care of them.

Kids running away from home to partake in vigilantism.

For the first and the last, I just put in anonymous tips to get them off the street. Addicts are usually flown into a city and detoxed before getting put into a program to take care of them. The chances of them having power, or developing it somehow or some way, made it common practice for people to spring to take care of them. Someone with the ability to throw around a skyscraper being addicted to something was pretty terrifying.

As for the kids, the fewer heroes going around fighting meant fewer people to oppose me in the future.

And, well, they should be at school and not risking their lives.

The elderly, though?

I gave an offer through a letter slipped through their door.

Handwritten with an explanation of what I offered.

Most of them tore it up, and I never contacted them again.

But a few of them did take me up on it.

I called them, made sure of things, and then moved in personally after they were sure.

Darkness receded, and I entered a kitchen and dining room combination. The walls were a bright yellow, and the appliances were retro in design. Chrome with bright pastel colors. The floor was tiled and had a shine from a recent cleaning. The scent of lemon cleaner hung in the air.

“Mr. Samuel, good evening.” I declared myself after emerging from the shadows. Mr. Samuel was a bald gentleman with a silver-gray beard, a leg replaced by a prosthetic, and a cover for half his face. He glared at me as I emerged and eyed my offered, gloved hand. “Or, at least, I hope that you have had a good evening.”

“It’s not.” He replied tersely and jutted his chin towards his small dining room table. I put my hand down. “Got some coffee ready.”

“I am grateful.” I replied honestly and followed him to the table. He grunted and used a cane as he went to the table. I considered getting the chair out for him, but I decided against it. He sat himself down and motioned for me to take a seat across from him. The seats were wood and hand-carved. Mr. Samuel looked at me with distrust. I couldn’t blame him. I was a mass of darkness dressed up in a nice suit. “Would you prefer some niceties or to go straight to the heart of the matter?”

“Give it to me straight.” Samuel grunted. “It’ll be painless, right?”

“You won’t be dying. I will be removing your consciousness from your physical form, and then you will be placed away to rest forevermore. It will be like falling asleep.” I put some sugar and cream into the coffee. The sugar cubes were in a small, painted porcelain container with a cover and tongs.

“Except I won’t ever wake up.” He growled the words out, and I nodded as he glared at me with his one good eye. Then, he took out his phone and showed me a picture. “These your people?”

The picture was of my recent engagement against the IHA and the Sentinels. Spotty pictures of my forces using the bodies of aliens and enrobing tanks to use them. It was going to take a while for attention to die down… if not for the fact that the article was so small, barely had any views, and was just one of dozens.

“They are. As I said, we will be making use of what is left behind after you are put to rest. What you see in those pictures are just their physical forms.” I sipped the coffee. It sat on a sunflower coaster. He glowered at me. “Do you have an issue with my forces clashing against the IHA and the Sentinels?”

“It’s one thing to want a peaceful death. Another is to know that my body will be used to fight people.” He admitted it and leaned back. He steadied his trembling hands on his cane. It moved and jittered against the tile floor. “You can’t have my body.”

I gave a nod at his words.

“Then, I will not take it. You have my word. I will call and report it before we proceed, if you wish.” He tried to search me for lies but realized figuring that out from a mass of shadow was going nowhere. Instead, he just nodded and rose from his seat and walked. I finished my coffee and followed. “You had other concerns on the phone. Do you want to address them?”

“No. I know I won’t be reaching the same place as her.” We passed by many pictures that lined the floor. Vacations, children, anniversaries, and finally reaching a bedroom. Everything was nice, neat, and clean. Sterile and ready to be left behind. “I did a lot of horrible things.”

“If you persist and die a natural death, you will be cleansed and be given another chance to be a good person. You have a chance at reaching her with another life.” I clarified, and Samuel just gave a grunt as he took off his shoes. He put a suit jacket on his bed’s footboard before clambering onto the king-sized bed. It looked more than half empty. “Mr. Samuel, are you sure that this is the path that you wish to take?”

He was quiet for a moment before looking my way on his deathbed.

“I know myself. I’ll make the same mistakes. I enjoyed it. The killing and the hurting. When she passed, I thought about it every day.” Samuel took a steadying breath and provided me with his answer. I didn’t do much research into him. All that I had seen was an old man who scowled at life while it was around him with chronic illnesses taking root in his body. He was unsupported and alone. I could guess as to why that was the case now. “Take up a gun, find some way to get power, and just go out while hurting as many people as I can. The only thing that’s stopping me now are memories, and they’re starting to fade.”

I met his gaze while he extended his hand towards mine.

“I don’t want to give you my body, because I hate the thought of you doing what I want with it.” He finished simply while I took the glove off my hand. He took my hand in his, and instantly the shaking stopped and all his muscles relaxed. I was cutting everything off slowly and carefully. A slow descent into darkness. “This is… something else.”

“Sleep well, Mr. Samuel.” I told him simply, before removing my hand from his. His last breath escaped him, while in my hand was an orb of darkness, and within it was a shining soul freed of struggle, need, and want. Eternal respite from the material and immaterial. Well, if the Sentinels never go to it. They’ll just use their power to make new bodies for anyone whose souls they can collect. Regardless of how that persona feels about it.

I held his entire existence in an ungloved hand for a moment before shaking my head and placing it in a small, velveted box and into Boss’s care.

If he gave me permission to have his body after he passed, I would get a bit of power from this.

Maybe an entire Imp’s worth from his body, in fact.

But I had given him my word, so I took his phone and dialed, triggering the emergency function that’ll silently alert authorities to his home.

Before I left, though, I gave a nod towards the picture frame on the bedstand.

Sorry, ma’am, but you won’t be seeing him up there.

You won’t have to suffer watching him make all his mistakes again and struggle through everything until he gets it right, though.

Some people might consider the struggle worth it, but I don’t.

…

Interlude: Chroma Scarlet: Aine Campbell

…

Tsubaki lent me her shoulder while I did my best to stay standing and take in breath after breath.

In front of us was a War Maiden, and we managed to punch it through the wall.

A wall it was already clambering out of with barely a scratch on it.

“Enough.” The voice was Tsubaki’s father. He wore a suit and looked down at us from the simulation room. By his command, the War Maiden stood at the ready for another command. A blazing star encased in humanoid metal with blazing wings. “Impressive. With barely a few months of training, you two have managed to hold against a weapon of war.”

“Thank you for your praise, Father.” Tsubaki made sure that I was fine before standing tall and giving a bow from the waist. I did my best to mimic her, and we both received a nod in return. “I hope that was enough to show that my patron is strong.”

“I never doubted that your patron is strong. I worried that your patron was not strong enough to stand against the threat you face. Shirin, show them.” The War Maiden bowed before touching the side of its head. A projection came forth from its visor and formed on the scratched, burnt floor. No, it started on the floor and built up into a globe. Black dots then began to appear all over it. “While you train and grow in strength, the Legion of Shadow has been performing reconnaissance. All over the entire world, the creatures you face have been sighted, and they are taking measure of its strength.”

“…We suspected as much.”

“Suspicion is good, but I saw nothing from your patron to counter this. You have strength to spare, but strength can fail. Knowledge is a resource that your foe now has in spades.” His speech reminded me of my father. This was a lecture. He was telling us what we were lacking in. What he expected us to improve upon. “I understand your unwillingness to bring us into this conflict, Tsubaki, but you are mistaken. We live upon this world; therefore, we are already involved in this conflict.”

He looked at the War Maiden, and she obliged.

One of the smaller creatures was creeping around an empty warehouse and looking around. After a few moments, it transformed into a long, black portal, and from it came… boxes and boxes of rare metals.

Someone else came in a moment later and, with the help of robots, loaded the metal into trucks.

Then, a chill went down my spine as shipping container after shipping container filled the warehouse in a sped-up video. Tons and tons of bulk grains came in and filled the warehouse in unmarked vans.

“You shared with me that these creatures enslaved populations from other realities to glut themselves and make more. They do not need to be here. They have seen the strength of our industry and have put it to their advantage.” Tsubaki’s father showed us the warehouse as the doors to it were closed. A moment later, and there was only darkness within it. When it passed, it was empty. Hundreds of tons of grain are gone. “My analysts believe that they are harvesting rare earth metals from the seabed. We recovered samples of the metals and verified it. You face a foe whose forces can appear anywhere, harvest resources that the world hungers for, and they multiply from resources that nations will happily supply.”

He turned to Tsubaki, but his words felt like they were aimed at me.

“Do you believe that you can stand alone against this direst of threats?”