We were barely down the street before the first cruiser was on the scene. While a few toys continued to chase us, most of them were being distracted by the arriving police force. With our wrecked cars in the middle of the street, it helped block off any cop cars from following us.
I ran for as far as my legs could take me, and even when I felt them start to give in, I kept pushing. At some point, the only thing I could focus on was the next step. Not the burning of my muscles, the aching of my lungs, nor the voices calling out for me. Only when my body didn’t have any more strength to keep going, did I stop, practically crashing into an alleyway.
I dropped Frank onto the ground, letting him fall on a small pile of trash left on the ground. He rolled off of it, slowly pulling himself onto his feet. A moment later, Tóxica and Reload caught up to us. They tossed aside the empty guns they were carrying, and Reload started summoning more.
Frank straightened himself up. “Taker, I was yelling at you to drop me for like five minutes. What the hell’s up with you?”
“Hey, I was just trying to get us out of there.” I grabbed a pistol from Reload, holding it in a deathgrip. I scanned the surroundings of the alley as I took some much needed time to breathe.
“No, that definitely wasn’t normal, boss,” said Reload, arming himself with two sawed-off shotguns. “I’ve never seen you freak out like that.”
“I just did what any normal person would do. Now let’s hurry up, we need to keep going.”
“You are not a normal person, you doing normal things would be concerning,” Tóxica joined in.
“Yeah, you’re basically batshit crazy,” Reload chuckled. “Like, I love a good fight, but you do shit that makes me nervous. The Taker I know would’ve left some bombs or something for the heroes, maybe copy one of their powers to get us out of there.”
“Wow, you two shouldn’t ever be in charge of an intervention,” I pushed past them, walking out of the alley. “Look, we have bigger shit to deal with than figuring out how I’m supposed to act. The food truck is compromised, and I’d like to try and save it before the Disciples get to it.”
I headed towards the direction of the food truck. It was miles away, my clothes were soaked with hydrant water, and my heart was pounding. It took the others a bit to follow me, but they eventually did.
They were right, there was something upsetting me. But you can’t deal with every problem at once, otherwise the emotional weight would make you collapse. Sometimes you needed to just shove down your thoughts and walk forward.
We walked to the food truck in silence, not encountering any cops or heroes. Our cars couldn’t be traced back to us, but there was a chance the camaro could be traced to its owner. The villain that we just killed in a strip club. Thankfully, Felicity had helped keep the murder under wraps.
When we finally reached the alley where we were staying, we found our food truck in surprisingly good condition. My best guess was that Plaything had gotten too excited with the chase to consider destroying our other vehicle. He was never a villain known or respected for his intelligence. Well, he never was respected in the first place.
“Alright, check for car bombs or anything odd before we head out,” I ordered the group.
“What does a car bomb look like?” Reload asked.
I thought about it for a second. “I don’t have a clue, just look around for anything out of place.”
Each of us searched through different sections of the food truck, looking for anything that stuck out. While I wanted to just wave Plaything off as an idiot, there was a chance that that would be playing into his hands. He’d already caught me off guard once, I wasn’t going to let it happen again.
I was looking underneath the passenger seat when I heard Tóxica shout. “Found something!”
We all rushed to the back, only to find her holding a furby in an aggressive grip. The small toy writhed around in her grasp, attempting to break free. Its eyes scanned around, nearly pleading as it stared at us.
“What is this?” she asked.
I started to pull out my pistol, before remembering we needed to keep quiet from the cops. “It’s a furby drone. They’re Plaything’s eyes and ears across South Rain.”
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“Should we smash it?” asked Reload.
“Don’t be dumb,” said Frank. “Why would we just break it right away?”
“Hey, don’t call me dumb,” responded Reload.
I let the two bicker as I walked up to the furby. It had dark blue eyes that pierced through me, with multicolored fur. These things always creeped me out, but knowing that pervert was likely staring at me through it just made them worse. It made the mechanical whirring feel almost like breathing.
“Plaything,” I addressed the man behind the toy. “You tried to kill me today, and I plan to repay that favor. But there’s one key difference between you and me. No matter how hard or how often you try, you’ll always fail to kill me. I’ll kill you on my first try.”
Loud cracks sounded out, distracting Reload and Frank from whatever they were talking about. The furby’s skull caved in on itself, before the eyes went dark. Once it stopped moving, Tóxica threw it to the ground. With a few quick stomps, she made sure it wouldn’t track us again.
After another quick sweep, we couldn’t find anything else that would’ve been left behind by Plaything.
“Frank, the entire industrial section is compromised. We need to get going before heroes and villains swarm this area,” I said as we walked to the front of the truck.
“Alright,” he hopped into the driver’s seat, bringing the engine to life. “Where are we headed, then?”
“We’ve got a handful of bad choices, but the red-light district should keep us safe until the heroes stop investigating. Just go to Whiskey street, we can look around for a parking spot from there.”
“You a big fan of the red-light district?” Reload chuckled. “Didn’t realize that was how you had fun.”
“Piss off, I don’t need to pay for sex,” I flipped him off. “I just lived there for a while. The area is a mess, but that just makes it easier to hide.”
“Not to interrupt,” Frank interrupted us, “but we should get going.”
I headed off and hopped into the back of the food truck, taking a seat on the pile of blankets that also functioned as my bed. I scrolled through news sites, hoping there would be some new information that would be helpful. But for some reason, people only cared about the bombs we set off all across Villain Territory.
It wasn’t until the back doors opened that I realized just how long it was taking for us to get going. But what stood out to me more than that was Reload climbing into the back. For as long as we’d been camped out, he refused to sleep in the back, preferring the passenger seat.
“Oh, hey, Reload. Where’s Tóxica?” I asked.
He sat down on the metal floor next to me. “She’s riding up front with Frank. Who knows, maybe she’ll convince him to play something other than Blue Train.”
“What, he doesn’t let you have control of the aux?”
“Even a gun to his head wouldn’t make him switch. Trust me, I’ve already tried it. He sometimes plays different albums, but Blue Train is his go to.”
“You know, I’ve never asked him about his jazz music before. It all sounds the same to me, but maybe I’m just unsophisticated.”
“Well, you should ask. He gets all excited about it, but he's only got me to talk about it with. Which, that’s cool and everything, but it’s still not my type of music.”
“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.”
I went back to scrolling through my phone, searching for anything that could help us in our approaching fight. It was becoming clearer by the day that we needed to settle things, and both sides were hoping to do so quickly. But from the corner of my eye, I could see Reload staring at me.
“Hey, Taker. We’re friends, right?” he asked, his smile fading.
“What?” I put down my phone, caught off guard by his question. “Of course we’re friends, why’re you asking?”
“To be honest, I don’t got a lot of experience with having friends. As a kid, I just couldn’t connect with anyone else. Even when I worked as a mercenary, the others were too scared or weirded out by me. So, I guess I just wanted to check.”
“I understand how you feel, Reload. I wasn’t exactly popular growing up either, I doubt anyone from school even remembers me,” I chuckled to myself. “The only people I could really call friends before I met you either died in front of me or are trying to kill me.”
“So we’re both losers who kill people on the daily? Starting to think that we’re not the good guys, but that could just be me.” Reload let out his own laugh. “Even if we’re villains, I don’t have any regrets. You’ve been the best friend I could ask for, so we might as well face hell together.”
“If it’s you coming with me, then we can handle whatever bullshit the Disciples try to throw at us. You’ve been by my side through every single struggle, how could you not be my best friend? Honestly, if you wanted, I’d even tell you my true name.”
The system didn’t just give you powers, it gave you a new identity. Your super name is yours alone. Even after you die, no other super will get that name. For Superheroes, it’s just a second identity. It’s common for a hero to keep their normal life, but they change into their super persona when it's time to work.
For a villain, it means something far more personal. The truest way to be sworn into villainy is to shed your old identity. You don’t get to be a part-time villain, where you can just pretend that you’re not one of us. When I became Taker, that killed who I used to be. And one of the closest bonds for villains is to admit who you used to be. The person you killed to be who you are now.
“No thanks,” said Reload. “That means a lot to me, but you’re Taker. That’s all you need to be. I don’t need to know who you were, not when I’m already following who you are now.”
“That’s fair enough.” To be honest, his words were just what I needed to hear. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t want to talk about it, not yet, but I’m sorry for pushing you guys away.”
“Hey man, we all have shit that we’re dealing with. Just don’t forget that we’re not only here to help you kill villains. We’re here for you through whatever else you need.”
“Thanks, Reload.”