raminboots

[raminboots]

↱ Unfortunate Circumstances ↲

Inspired by @chasing-starlights story about villain accidentally drugging a hero with a love potion

.・゜゜・ ♡ ・゜゜・．

“Get away from me you cretin!”

A large bang was heard throughout the city of Harfields as the city's favorite hero chased down his ten-legged nemesis. More specifically, the ten-legged man was jumping from building to building as the other one chased him down while flying. Moe was rushing all he could, feeling the adrenaline pump throughout his body as he hopped from one roof to another.

Although it wasn’t really him that did it, it was with the help of the mechanical spider-like legs that were protruding out of his back. He had eight of them, all connected to his brain and working together as actual limbs. Moe was a special case in the war between good and bad. Most of them, whether it was a hero or a villain, had some sort of power. Not Moe, he was a regular person, and to make up for that, he used machinery.

He had a bunch of body and limb enhancers, like his spider legs. But he also had a plethora of others that he stored on his body. But, they had a tendency to overheat or even break in the midst of battle.

The man was rushing with a briefcase pressed to his chest, holding on to it for dear life as he practically threw himself from roof to roof, taking sharp turns, dipping down in between buildings and even crashing into one apartment's window and out of another. All of this in desperation of shaking off the hero who was on his tail. Moe couldn’t lose the briefcase, he just couldn’t. He wouldn’t know what to do if he did.

“You know, running will get you nowhere, Arachnid!” He could hear the hero shout at him from behind, all this did was fuel the fire as he picked up the pace out of pure spite.

“Oh we’ll see about that one!” That was the only thing he had to say to that moronic meathead. But he would soon have to eat his own words as one of his legs got tangled up in two of the other spider legs, causing the whole thing to trip up and for Moe to fall down. Now, that wouldn’t have been too bad if he had fallen on the hard rooftop, it would have been humiliating but it wouldn’t have caused him too much pain.

Instead, he had to have fallen just before he was supposed to jump. So when he fell, he fell straight off the 30 feet tall building head first. He let out a cry of horror as he closed his eyes, waiting for the hard impact of the ground.

But it never came, instead, he felt his body jolt up as it stopped completely mid air. At first he thought that one of his enhancers had been caught on some wire or pipe sticking out from the building, that was until he heard a light chuckle from above him. Oh no.

He tensed up. As he looked up, he saw that the person who had indeed caught him was none other than Mr. Fire himself. Thomas Clément, more commonly known in the hero industry as Wildfire. He was intense, headstrong, insanely determined and robust. And he was Moe’s personally assigned hero.

You see, in the city of Harfields, there were two kinds of people. Normal humans and mutants. These mutants were gifted with divine powers and abilities that made them all powerful. And of course, the government was going to take advantage of that. They created an organisation called The Hero Preparation Foundation, or H.P.F for short. This was where mutants could train and earn their title as a hero. After that they were allowed to go out into the world and serve justice.

But not everyone who was a mutant wanted to be a hero. But the city didn’t care, and more often than not, resisting mutants either got forced into training or got locked up, getting labelled as “too dangerous” to walk freely.

In response to this horrid treatment, a small set of individuals created a resistance. The group went against all of the ideals of the H.P.F because of their corrupt ways. And as the cause got stronger, the more mutants joined, and sooner or later, the group became an underground organisation with hundreds of members. And Moe was one of those members.

But the thing was, once H.P.F got wind as to what was happening, they started a program where they documented each “villain”, as they called them, that was publically known. That would include all their powers, goals and attacks. Then they would try to find the best matching hero to “assign” to that villain, that way, whenever the villain was up to something, their hero would be notified and they would handle them. This way, they streamlined all the hero's work and made it easier to deal with.

Wildfire was assigned to Moe, and at first, Moe didn't understand why. Why would they assign a fire-type hero to a mechanic-type villain. But he would soon learn the hard way just why this combo was so effective. Wildfire’s powers included many different types of fire manipulation, including creating compact balls of flames that he could shoot and throw.

Moe couldn’t count all the times he’d massecared one of his machines or blown up one of his equipment. He could always rebuild them of course, there was a reason that he was called the mechanical spider. Whenever he was building his movements were fast, sharp and very persize. He could build things that would take days in just a couple of hours. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying whenever Wildfire destroyed the shit he’d been working on.

The hero was looking at him with a playful smirk, not a menacing or mean-spirited one, rather one filled with amusement and glee. And that, in Moe’s opinion, was way worse.

“Well well well. If it isn’t my favorite spider. How’s it hanging, mon moitié?” The man said as he looked down at Moe who was in a very compromisable position. He couldn’t help but scoff at his stupid pun. And the french didn’t help his annoyance. He hated when Wildfire spoke french to him, because he couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

“Go to hell.” The hero quirked his eyebrow at this, a smile still remaining on his face.

“Ouch! Such hostility, what did I ever do to deserve this kind of treatment, Arachnid?” He asked in an exaggerated voice, Moe rolled his eyes, ignoring him. “Aww come on, is this really how you treat your friends?” Moe felt annoyance build up in his body as he heard this. Although, Wildfire couldn’t see this annoyance on his face since he wore a gas mask that covered half of his face and a pair of goggles, blocking out both his face and his eyes.

“Shut up! We’re not friends, we’ve never been friends and we never will be!” He kicked his legs slightly in frustration, making his body dangle slightly in Wildfire’s grasp.

“You know, you’ve got a lot of balls saying this stuff for someone in your position.”

“What are you going to do? Drop me? I thought you hero’s were supposed to be better than us.” Moe could admit, if it was anyone else holding him he would not be talking like this. But it was Wildfire, it was Thomas. That big idiot would never drop him. He has a strict no killing policy and he has never broken that policy throughout his years as a hero. He doubted that he would break this policy now.

“Nah, you’re holding onto something way too important for me to drop you.” Moe thought for a second before he remembered what he was holding.

“The briefcase? I’ll drop it! I swear to god I’ll drop it if you don’t put me down!”

“You wouldn't.”

“Oh I so would!”

“Okay, then I’ll drop you and catch the briefcase.” This caught Moe slightly off guard. He knew deep down that Wildfire wouldn't, but it would be so easy for him to drop him if he felt like it.

Wildfire sighed, running a hand through his brown curly hair. This only brought the fact that he was holding Moe with one hand to his attention. He would say that it was impressive but Moe knew about his super-human strength. And he’s not going to compliment him for doing one of the three things he was good at as a hero; Fire-casting, flying and being strong.

“Look. How about you just hand over the briefcase and we can spare you any extra embarrassment once you get home to your little villain hide-out.” At first, Moe was confused by this statement. That was until he looked down and saw a pretty sizable crowd that had formed at the bottom of the building. Any and all confidence that Moe had left his body as he felt his face heat up.

“Put me down! Right now! I’m telling you, you better-” Moe was interrupted.

“Say the magic words.” After Wildfire said that, Moe shot a glare at him, and after that he looked down once more. People were watching and some were even filming, but the two were very high up so he doubted that they could hear him. After a couple of seconds of consideration he sighed as he kept his gaze away from Wildfire. And he remained like that for a good minute or two. At this point he didn’t care if people were watching, he had already embarrassed himself enough, he wasn’t about to lose his last piece of dignity by playing Wildfires games. It didn’t take long before the hero sighed, and that was when Moe knew that at least in one way, he had won. Certainly not in any significant way, but it was at least something.

And so, the hero flew away. He flew with the villain dangling from his grasp, as he lowered himself down into an alleyway a bit away from the crowd. As soon as he was put down, Moe immediately tried to scramble away like a scared cat, but he didn’t get very far.

“Oh no you don’t. Come back here.” Wildfire grabbed a hold of one of the spider-legs and yanked it backwards, effectively pulling Moe back and also severing the leg. “Oh shit, sorry ‘bout that one. God, you oughta make them a bit stronger.”

“A bit stronger? You have superhuman strength! What do you want me to do? Get some indestructible material? You’re such an idiot- '' Before Moe could finish, a hand slammed itself mere inches from his face, making him flinch as he looked back at the hero towering over him.

“Listen, Arachnid. I’m really tired today, why don’t you just cut to the chase and give me the briefcase.” Moe hugged the briefcase to his chest, clutching onto it as he looked away from Wildfire. He sighed in response. “I will rip it out of your hands if I have to, and I don’t think any of us wants that.” Moe looked down at the briefcase one last time, furrowing his eyebrows before letting out a defeated sigh.

Looking at the ground, he extended the hand holding the case to the hero, and he grabbed it, very gently. Sometimes it was almost painful to Moe to feel how careful Wildfire was with him. He didn’t understand why he didn’t just rip the case out of his hands, why he didn’t let him fall, why he never aimed for Moe when throwing his fire balls. He had been presented with so many opportunities to hurt him, to kill him, and yet, he never did.

Without another word, only a glance over at Moe, Wildfire flew away, leaving Moe alone in the alleyway.

…

“Yes Mark, it would seem like the young hero Wildfire managed to secure a briefcase from The Mad Arachnid earlier today nearby the H.P.F headquarters. When asked about the contents of the briefcase or the villains whereabouts, the hero had this to say,”

The faint sound from a television plagued Moe’s mind as he walked through the streets of Harfields. It sat in the window of a television shop, broadcasting a news channel that was talking about the battle that had occured only minutes earlier. He looked at it, tuning out the sounds and feeling his gaze get stuck. Soon he looked at his reflection in the display window. His eyes were tired and unfocused. One big benefit from having a mask and goggles during his fights was that no one, not even Thomas could see what he was thinking.

After their fight, Moe had fled and hid away in a separate dark alleyway. He couldn’t be in the same one that Thomas had dropped him off at, there would surely be cops and people crowding the area. He needed a quiet space where he could not only calm down but also change out of his disguise since he didn’t want to draw any unneeded attention to him by walking home in his villain outfit. And once he calmed down, that’s what he did.

Hiding behind a big dumpster, he threw off his spider leg compartments by removing his backplate from under his trenchcoat. It had started to heat up during their battle and Moe was left with the uncomfortable heat on his back as he changed into his spare shirt and jacket that he had brought with him. He didn’t want to say that he expected to lose, but he believed that you should, as he was taught, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

He took off his lower half gas-mask and thick goggles feeling like he could breathe properly and fully. He put his long hair into a ponytail as he pulled the hood from his jacket over his head.

He walked out of the damp alley and out into the streets of Harfields, feeling a pit start to form in his stomach as it finally started to settle in what had just happened, he just lost the briefcase full of the H.P.F intel.

Feeling himself snap back to reality he realised that he had zoned out in front of the tv. It showed a picture of him, The Mad Arachnid, along with phrases like “be on the lookout” and “Call immediate authorities if seen”.

He stuck his hands in his pockets as he muttered to himself while walking home. He couldn’t exactly take a bus there since public transport was on hold because of their fight, and he just had to get away from the main part of the city as fast as he could. Pulling on his hoodie strings, he grumbled and kept up his pace, trying to walk as fast as he could. Part of him contemplated even going back to the headquarters, he knew what was waiting for him there. But he knew the rules and what he had to do.

“How could you let this happen! Don’t you understand just how important those files were!?” Moe flinched as he got cursed out by one of the leaders of the organisation. They called him Raven. That was his only alias, only a handful of people knew his real name. The reason he was called Raven was because of his mechanical wings that he used to fly around, accompanied by a pair of claw-like gloves and a plague doctor mask. It was easy to see where Moe had gotten his inspiration for his costume from.

But Raven was similar to Moe in more ways than one. He too had no powers at all. He used his wings to get around and claws to attack. Although, since he was the leader and symbol of their movement, Raven didn’t actually attack all that often. He mostly helped people who trained, held meetings and planned out all the attacks.

“… I’m sorry…” Moe mumbled as he looked down on the table in front of him, feeling the shame drape over him like the very trench coat he wore. He was currently sitting inside Raven's office, getting lectured by the older villain. He let out a sigh as he looked at the shrunken up boy, whether that was with pity or disappointment didn’t make a difference to Moe. Nothing that Raven thought of him in that moment wasn’t something that Moe hadn’t thought of himself.

“Listen to me kid-”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Don’t… interrupt me.” Raven told the younger villian off. “You’ve got a lot of potential, alright?” This was what Raven always told Moe when he failed. You’ll get them next time, you have a lot of potential, you just need to work on your attacks.

Despite all his encouragement, Moe had a painful lose-to-win ratio, having barely won two or three fights while losing the rest. At what point do you just throw in the towel? Raven was conflicted, as his mentor he wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he would get stronger the more he trained. But as his boss he had to ask himself, was this all worth it? He wanted to see him thrive and grow, but at times it didn’t even feel as if Moe himself wanted to grow.

“... Don’t feel too bad about the files. We can just wait a few months and send someone else.” Moe didn’t expect to be allowed the mission again, but it still hurt to hear Raven admit that he screwed up, enough to deny any second chance.

Moe only nodded his head at this. Refusing to make eye contact with Raven. It pained Raven to see such a sad sight. He knew Moe was super passionate about their cause, joining them despite not having any powers. And no matter how many times he lost, he always returned. That’s why he didn’t want to give up on him, he was more devoted to their stand than most of their members.

Since their cause grew bigger and bigger, more people started to join just to have an excuse to commit crimes. They didn’t care about the resistance or the others involved, so to have someone like Moe, it wasn’t something you saw everyday.

“Why don’t you just lay low for a while, alright? You’ve been out on a lot of missions lately. You should go home and relax, you’ve been pushing yourself too much and I think it’s getting to you.” Moe let out a sharp breathy laugh, he knew that Raven was probably right, but it didn’t feel very good to be sent home when he should be doing something. But the laugh was short lived as he got quiet.

“… Alright sir, I will.”

As Moe walked out of his office and down the hallways of the HQ, he could feel almost a dozen eyes plastering onto him. He knew what they were all thinking. He was known as the runt of the organisation. Nothing but a waste of space and resources. He knew what they said to him behind closed doors. All of them, nothing but snakes.

Speaking of snakes, Moe sighed as he heard a certain low chuckle, a chuckle that anyone who’s been working there would know about. Turning his attention to one of the darker areas at the end of the hallway he could see two glowing eyes staring back at him.

“Hello, Serpent.” The black serpent, she was an infamous trickster among villains. Through her battles she proved two things; she saw everything as a game, laughing and messing around during her missions, but she also proved that she was quite useful when it came to winning. She had won so many of her battles, she was the complete opposite of Moe, having a drastically higher win streak than her lose streak. Everyone knew that she was one of the people who joined just to cause chaos, but it didn’t matter. She could care fuck all about the cause, she was simply too valuable of an asset to lose. And so, she got to stay.

“Evening to ya. Heard you totally busted your last mission.” She giggled as she formed out from the shadows, having only been a mist with two glowing eyes up until then.

“...”

“Yeah it was really embarrassing as well,” she let out yet another mocking laugh. “It was like, broadcasted to all of us. We got to see that sweet failure in raw HD.”

“If you’re just here to mock me then you can piss off. I don’t have time to talk to you.” He started to walk away, and that was when Serpent quickly turned into mist and slid in front of him. She reformed once more, much closer to him this time. Causing him to flinch back.

“Amazingly enough, I’m actually not here just to mock you.” Keyword being just. “I’m actually here to make you an offer.” Now this actually intrigued Moe quite a bit.

“What do you mean? What… kind of deal?” He asked, this made the shadow manipulator smirk. She got him.

“What Raven says about you isn’t false Moe,” he tensed up as she used his real name. They’re not supposed to refer to each other by their actual names unless it’s really urgent or serious. Although, Serpent was quite liberal with her use of these names, specifically Moe’s.

“You’ve got a lot of potential. But here’s the thing, those bastards at H.P.F are really good at matching heroes with villains, and it just so happens that they paired you up with a really good one. I think the only thing holding you back is your failures, if you could just win a couple of battles against that meathead, I’m sure you’ll get even better!” Moe picked at his fingers as he looked away from the taller woman in front of him.

“But… wouldn’t that be… cheating? What are you even going to do?” He asked, the woman started to walk away, nudging her head in his opposite direction, signaling for him to follow her.

“Since when have we ever followed the rules? There are no cheaters in this game, only winners and losers. I’m not gonna kill him or anything like that, then they would just send another hero. No, what if I told you there was a way for you to be able to completely control him? To control that wildfire that has been plaguing your life!” Moe fidgeted uncomfortably with the ends of his shirt as he interjected.

“How would you even do that?” Serpent only chuckled in response.

“A potion.” Of course. Serpent was known for her work with potions and other kinds of magic.

“How would I ever get close enough to give him the potion though?” Serpent sighed as she turned back to Moe, her eyebrow twitching slightly.

“God, do you ever stop whining. Figure it out. Doesn’t that big dope hold a bunch of fan meetups all the time? Just go dressed as a fan and give him a pastry with the potion inside of it. This seems way too easy for you to be complaining this much.” Suddenly, she stopped, turning back to Moe and grabbing his shoulders.

“Imagine it, you could play him like a fiddle- no, like a cheap kazoo! All with your own mind! You could finally win!” She was shaking him slightly, trying to build up anticipation in him. Moe pulled away, backing away from the woman. This only made her sigh as she rolled her eyes. “There you go again with your ‘oh god Serpent is crazy’ look. If you’re too much of a coward to do it that’s fine. But remember, if you ever change your mind,” She walked closer to him, placing a small card in his shirt pocket,

“You know where to find me.”

It was dusk, the sky was a orange hue. Moe liked the color a lot, it was really comforting to him for whatever reason. He had taken a train back home and now he was standing outside of his apartment, digging through his pockets to find them. After taking them out he hesitated slightly before he put the keys in and opened the door.

“Welcome home, Moe. How was today?” The monotonous voice of his assistant greeted him as soon as he entered his home. They were looking at him, eyes glowing as he turned on the lights in the apartment. There had been quite a few times that he had woken up to those terrifying yellow eyes staring at him in the middle of the night, but at this point he was pretty used to it.

“Not great.” His answer was short and sweet. He found that it was easier to not lie around E.S.A.H and just get their daily checkup done.

“Would you like to tell me about it or not?” They responded according to program.

“No thank you.” Moe said as he walked inside, going into his kitchen.

“Could you rate your day from 1 to 10 for me please?” They asked, following behind him, hands behind their back.

“Like, a 2? Maybe a 3? Yeah, a 3.” He answered, taking out a cold drink from the fridge. This was a standard procedure between the two. E.S.A.H would run a fairly simple checkup to make sure he was alright. If anything went wrong they would report to Raven and Storm, the second leader of the cause. Moe learned very quickly that he couldn’t be sarcastic with the bot after a bad joke led to a very awkward phone call with a very upset Raven.

“And how would you rate your overall well being at the moment?” Moe let out a breathy sigh as he thought to himself.

“Probably a 5. I’ll go with 5.” As he walked into his small living room, he threw himself on the couch and turned on the TV, absentmindedly flipping through all the channels, but he stopped once he came across an interview with none other than Wildfire. They were, presumably, talking about the fight earlier that day. Moe scoffed and was just about to change channels when he heard something.

“So, Wildfire,”

“Please, call me Thomas.” He was so pretentiously humble. Moe rolled his eyes.

“Ah, of course. Thomas, is there any reason why you can’t tell us where The Mad Arachnid went?” The interviewer asked. Moe tensed up slightly, looking towards the TV.

“What…” He mumbled to himself. And for once, Moe turned up the volume and listened.

“Well, sadly it’s classified H.P.F information.” Moe stopped paying attention as his own thoughts got louder than the TV.

Bullshit. In almost every single case of a villain escaping, the H.P.F always came out with at least a statement about where they believe the villain might be residing. There’s absolutely no reason as to why HIS whereabouts would be classified.

Was Thomas… Lying? Was he lying about their fight? He practically let him get away! He always does! Everytime they fight, he always lets him go, he never aims for him, he never lets him fall, he never reveals where he is or what happened. He grumbled as turned away from the TV.

“Are you okay? You seem upset?” E.S.A.H asked, looking over at Moe.

“I don’t need his pity…” Moe said to himself, completely ignoring the robot. E.S.A.H tilted their head in confusion as they could see Moe take out a card from his pocket.

“What’s that?” They asked, looking at him with wonder.

“It’s…” Moe looked down at the card. The phone number almost felt like it was calling to him, wanting for him to call it. That’s when a voice on the TV brought him out of his trance.

“So, you’re going to be holding a meetup of some sort on saturday?”

“Yes! I want to… well it sounds kinda silly, but I want to give back to the people for getting me this far!”

“And you’re not worried about any crazy fans?”

“Oh please, I fight villains for a living. I can handle anything at this point.” The hero smiled and laughed slightly as they continued the interview. Moe thought to himself for a second, looking down at the card in his hand. He stood up from his couch and walked towards his room.

“It’s nothing you have to worry about. Now,” He looked back at the robot one last time before opening the door to said room.

“I have to make a phone call…”