The Vespidian Arc 3 All These Squares

Chapter 3

I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. My thoughts swirling about what exactly I should be doing. This was like a whole new leaf type of deal. It sorta had not really sunk in until now. I am going to be a Super Hero. Me. This fucking train wreck of an individual. It is kind of baffling really. Why the hell did they let me in? I mean I am happy, but surely someone as messed up as me can’t do this.

‘Shut it slut, you got this.’Whispered Sub in my head.

‘Do I?’ I asked.

‘Sure. What is the worst that could happen? Might as well try at least, if it don’t work out there is always a place being a Villain.’

‘You are not wrong, but fuck me. I would rather just not deal with this sort of stuff.’

‘Not excited to run around wearing fetish gear in public like it is normal?’

‘Maybe if I wasn’t a bug monster sure. I mean fuck I don’t even got booba or ass to show off.’

‘Now, now stop hating on what we are. Should just accept it. Will make things a lot easier on you.’

‘Why did they let me in Sub?’ I asked her.

Sub just shrugged in the corner of my vision. ‘Don’t know.’

I rolled and flopped about. Something about this wasn’t sitting right with me. Why? Such a small and harmless question, yet it was eating at me. Surely they are not this gullible? Do they know that Molotov is threatening me? Don’t tell me they are actually good people, well besides Captain Metal. That… that makes things harder if push comes to shove. If they were all like Captain Metal then I wouldn’t bat an eye at fucking them over.

Neon Nurse for example has been exceedingly kind to me. I mean at this point she is closest thing I have to a friend. I am not sure I would be able to betray her if Molotov came knocking. Acha, why this gotta be so difficult? She will come back at some point. Will I betray her and risk my life or will I betray the kind people that have taken me in?

I slumped in the bed. I didn’t like all this time I had. Time to think, think about how weak I am. I am just getting dragged around in other’s plans. Hmm. I suppose either way I need to get stronger. I am just a weak little bitch at the moment and that needs to change. If I want any sort of control over my future I am going to have to work harder even if I don’t feel like it.

Rising from the bed I lifted the weights, my claws curling tightly as I hefted the substantial mass. I needed to get stronger. The muscles bristled and flexed as the dumbbell rose and fell. Finding it to be too easy, I adjusted the weight, 10k wasn’t cutting it. The number on the side adjusted 11k. My arms were feeling the burn hefting it up and down. My abdomen flapped, the vents fanning as I strained lifting the deceptively heavy thing. I think it was gravity tech or something that altered the weight. Feels like Chief mentioned something about that. Ah, this stuff was made by Adamantine working together with Miss Universe, it was Hero League special training equipment.

Hm. If it was Miss Universe she could beat Molotov. Her power was ridiculously strong. It was Gravity control. Could make things weightless or increase the gravity. I strained my brain trying to remember details about her. Ugh. Nothing much more was coming up. Ah I do have access to the web so should be easy to look her up. If I was gonna weasel my way out of getting pickled should probably be a little more proactive about looking into stuff.

My wheeled chair spun a little as I wiggled into it, scooting it in to the desk. The fish tank stirred as Mr. Bubbles blub blubbed about angy about something. I stared at him for a moment. Hmm. Probably hungry. I pushed back and rolled across the room to the fridge rummaging about until I found his nom noms. Yes a packet of frozen blood worm cubes. Tapping the little container one such cube plopped into my hand, I put the rest back and scooted back to my desk. The square of worms dropped into the tank drifting to the bottom where it started to thaw.

My attention shifted back to my screen as I brought up the browser and started searching up Miss Universe… odd. There was an abnormal amount of porn of her. I mean, a lot. Reminded me a bit of Woman Wonder and those knock off spicy vids. Hmm. No idea why that would be the case. Seems to be a lot of fan art and stuff, pinup drawings and even pics. I scratched my head. Was I remembering her wrong? I wasn’t thinking of an adult actor was I? Shifting the safe search on cleared out all the smut and I stared at the image of her costume, it was spandex full body suit that had a galaxy type theme with distant stars that covered her smooth blank face.

Clearly she is a hero. All that other stuff must have been like cosplay pron or something. At any rate I found my way to her Hero League profile. Certainly a Hero, a Rank 9. Yup, Gravity Manipulation oh has Telekinesis too. She was on the same tier as Hubris. Seems she is stationed over on the East Coast in Washington DC. I looked about her page up and down, it was sparse, no real details about her besides that she is on government contract and it certainly did not give any contact info. Ah wait, she is currently on leave. Well that is gonna be on the back burner for a bit then.

Who else could help? My brain hurt thinking this hard. Hubris. Ah there was Hubris. I switched over to his page. Yeah this guy might be able to do it. He is arguably the strongest super in the Hero League besides Captain Liberty, Rank 9… something. He kind of has a lot of powers. He got laser beams, super strength, speed, Endurance, can fly, gravity control, telekineses, etc… This guy is fucking broken. If this was like a game he would be a fucking cheater. Got a literal laundry list of powers and apparently he keeps getting new ones. I suppose I can see why he is Captain Liberty’s number two.

He is in DC as well and of course no contact info. Well the league should have some kind of internal communication stuff so given time could contact either of them. For now not much to do but do my thing I guess. At some point should definitely try to notify them of Molotov and hopefully they can pile drive that bitch into the ground and lock her up.

Was there anybody else? I peered through the Hero League database for the highest ranked members. There were a few that sort of fit the bill. The Fast, Rank 8 Speed. Fastest man alive, well named the Fast I would hope so. Acha he was based over in Japan with Mecha Man also Rank 8 guy had a giant mech and fought the horrors of the deep that seemed to plague New Tokyo, the old one got crushed by kaiju. I could see from the list of incidents that they were getting attacked rather regularly. Definitely couldn’t count on them they had their hands full.

Another caught my eye, Saint Echoheart, Rank 8 Sound manipulation, healing harmonics, and divine magic. Magic… my head tilted a bit, true magic was real. I recalled Xava mentioning it. That might work though she seemed like a squishy healer type so would get obliterated in a heads up fight. Based over in Europe. Last report she was doing peace talks in Germany. Of course no contact info.

Other Europe based heroes were Strong Arm, Rank 8 strength… that guy might give Molotov a run for her money. Ah damn he is planning on retiring in a few months. Who else who else… Tecton Rank 8 Geomancer can make earth quakes and volcanoes erupt or stop them. That sounded pretty strong. Could probably just have the ground suck Molotov down and suffocate her. Looks like he is in France digging a new canal.

Adamantine Rank 8 techy, appeared to be based in… Citadel of Order? What the fuck is that? As it turned out that was the Hero League Global Head Quarters. It was a flying city of sorts, which was pretty cool. Had some serious fire power on it and shields. Of course it was currently over Europe, Germany to be exact. Seemed to be some shit going down over there.

Armadillo Rank 8 endurance, the walking fortress. Oh~ maybe that guy could stand up to Molotov? The immovable object verse the unstoppable force? I looked over his profile. Wait this guy is in L.A. That was really close by, like four to five hours south. Ignoring the detour around the slums of course. No contact info….

Speaking of L.A. they had a good number of Heroes down there, well it made sense the city was sprawling and had a huge population and… just as much crime. Sleep Walker Rank 8, Time Travel. I scratched my head looking at the description of the power. It seemed useless but very useful at the same time. When he slept he lived through the next day so he could see the events that would occur and when he woke up time would reset. Very useful for info and stuff, but utterly worthless for combat. They didn’t go into specifics for safety reasons since villains could figure out how to kill the guy.

Seemed like the Captains of the teams down there were Rank 7s, at least some of them were. Mr. Fahrenheit Rank 7 Pyrokinetic, Mystral Rank 7 Cryokinetic, Volt Tackle Rank 7 Electrokinetic. Seems that they had a bit of an elemental theme going on down there.

I was starting to realize that there wasn’t that many high profile heroes, or rather there was a lot at rank 7 and under but not too many still active above rank 8.

I sat spinning in my chair, trying to think of what I could do. Was not too much I could do here since not allowed to leave. I suppose for now was just a waiting game.

I hefted up the gaming helmet and locked it into place. I could see my image in the bottom left corner of the screen. Definitely had a robo alien vibe. The blank black face plate reflecting in the light of the computer screen. I nodded launching the Spasm stream after a little bit it loaded and I completed arranging the set up for the display, not too much had changed it was nice seeing something rather familiar. After a little bit it went live and some viewers started popping in.

“Hey. Hey people. How we doing this fine morning?” I said idly booting through the log in for SRO.

I could see the chat log to the side a couple messages started appearing. At first I didn’t recognize any of them, but then it clicked. Ah it seems only the perverts were dedicated to my well being?

TittyMouse: “She LIVES! BOOOOOOOBIES! Ds!”

Footlover69: “Show us them feetsies baby.”

BigBootyBitch: “Yassssss Queen.”

I face palmed. Was my chat always this cringe? I mean it is nice that I have fans but, is it really such a good thing when it these weirdos? Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Besides at least they stuck with me even after the absence.

“I live! How has everybody been? Been through a bit of changes so to speak. First and foremost like the new outfit?”

The chat scrolled along several asked, “Super cosplay?”

Footlover69: “Step on me Mommy.”

I ignored the degenerate and continued talking, “Yeah something like that. Figured should rebrand a bit.”

TheNightBumper: “Everything been ok? Were gone for a long time.”

“I guess everything is sorting out now. Can’t really go into things but a lot has changed. Not sure how often I will be able to stream going forward, new job gonna be taking up a lot of my time.”

TittyMouse: “What kind of job?”

“Why you prying?”

TittyMouse: “Just want to know?”

“Haven’t exactly chosen yet but leaning into something like EMT work. You know, helping people and being a good person.”

The chat filled with shocked and laughing emojis. Several of them even coordinated and formed a questioning face out of dots.

“What?”

FootLover69: “You, helping people? Who are you and what have you done with our evil Queen?”

I scoffed, “What I help people all the time.”

TittyMouse: “You extort people and call it helping.”

“Hey now that isn’t nice. I mean sure I am a bit rough at times, but I drag scrubs through dungeons and stuff. Come on now. Hell I have helped a lot of you guys.”

“Yeah cause we bribed you.”

I squinted, “What wrong with that? Hey, gotta make it worth my time. Girl gotta eat you know.”

“We all know you got nothing better to do, you have beaten all the content in the game.”

“Haven’t beaten everything I am still achievement hunting. Ah speaking of I need like five people as sacrifices for the burning hearts achievement. Plus gonna need to redo all that god rep grind, fuck my life.”

“You could just help people out without demanding stuff.”

I squinted hard, tilting my head, “Huh… I guess… I guess I could huh?”

“Yeah! Help us out will you?”

For some reason I felt like something was wrong with that. “Wait a minute you fucks just want me to plow through dungeons for you so you can get free shit.”

The chat filled with scared emoji faces.

“Oh great and glorious evil Malachite Queen have mercy on your lowly slaves. Not the Blood orgy pits again!”

I chuckled, laughing like a villain, “Yeah that is right bow down lowly worms.”

Smiling I fired up Shattered Realms. The all too familiar yet distant feeling of the world sucking away washed over me. The room faded and I shifted into the magical world of the game. Vast vistas of the Lunari spread out in their elegant and ethereal designs. Beyond the Realm of Shadow, home of the Moon Goddess, rather uncreatively named Luna, well Lord Solar wasn’t any better. Lazy game designers.

I had not realized it last time due to the interruption, things seemed more… responsive. My pitch black hand moved even before I had wanted it to. It balled crunching against the thick armor plates that covered my avatar. I gazed up at that fake sky. The seven moons arrayed through the night, the absence of stars and the giant jellyfish in the sky gave me an uncanny feeling. I had seen it so many times before, yet now it felt… wrong.

“Hey scrubs you want to start a guild?” I asked chat. “Never really did the whole guild thing was more a lone wolf type deal.”

It instantly filled with replies. I suppose it not really a surprise since if we were in a guild it would basically be free rides for a lot of them since there is a vested interest in gearing up the raiders. How to choose them though? I contemplated for some time as the flood of messages bombarded me.

“Who has run a guild before?” I asked.

***

My play time passed rather quickly in a blur of activity. But the stream had come to an end as I sat there yawning. Who would have known organizing a guild could be so hard. Luckily there were some people that knew what they were doing. As it turns out, degenerates were rather actively playing the game. Footlover for instance was actually a paladin and the guild master of Blood Rose. That certainly made things a lot easier. I suppose I am more or less the figure head of the guild, which was fine it meant they wouldn’t be reliant on me if I got too busy with the hero stuff.

I smiled, until I turned finding that familiar but spooky blue phantom of the opera lady standing there looking at me through the thick glass of my, enclosure. What the fuck was her name again… my head was coming up blank. Something about a magical rimjob… no magician? No it was something else.

“Uhh can I help you?” I asked staring at her after I finished taking off my helmet.

“Vespidian, I am here for you mental health check up.”

“Mental health check up? I think I am doing pretty good. Not depressed, fairly happy actually what with not being tortured.”

“That is good to hear, but I still need to check in your head.”

My carapace crawled at her words. The vibes were off, to say the least. Sub’s warning sirens were going off. Now I remember this bitch, Dreamer. Ah the mind messer upper that pried into my head when I first arrived. I stared at her. Technically speaking my fear of her is irrational since she hasn’t done anything to me. But who knows what she might dig up if she goes rooting through my head. I mean I get scared of what is in my head who knows what she might see in there. She might ship me off to an asylum or something. Hell she might even see that I am sorta compromised due to Molotov threatening me.

I raised a finger, “I heard that was optional and voluntary. As such I am opting out.”

“For others yes, for you, no.”

“Uhh why?”

“We have our suspicions about you.”

My head tilted a bit, I don’t remember not complying. “Such as?”

Her eyes narrowed, “I am on to you.”

I looked about confused. “On to me?”

“After I look through your head I will know for sure if you are compromised or not.”

I started sweating bullets, “First off I believe that is an invasion of privacy. Second, compromised?”

“Your mental health, I am a licensed therapist that rehabilitates villains. It is ok if you are a villain, everyone makes mistakes, or falls in with bad people at times. Due to my powers, we can explore traumas and forgotten or repressed memories in order to fix mental scarring and alter mind sets.”

“But I am not a villain, I ran away from them.”

She narrowed her eyes, “I have my doubts about that.”

I crossed my arms, lower hands on my hips, “Look lady, I am sure you have the best of intentions, but my head is not somewhere I want people fiddling around. It is bad enough that I have been physically tortured, abused, molested, and dissected. So kindly fuck off. I just want to be left alone.”

“Vesper, if you want out of this room I need to evaluate you. Think of it as a medical check of sorts. You already did your physical with Neon Nurse so surely the mental check up won’t be so bad. I promise it will be painless and you might even come to enjoy our sessions as my other patients do. Think about it as a way to open up and just let it out. It is not good to repress trauma. I am a licensed Therapist you know.” She insisted, attempting to appear disarming.

My antenna twitched, smelling her, my eyes squinted… she might be telling the truth. But even if she was meaning well, I had things to hide.

“You can’t keep me locked up in here, I have not committed any crimes. Besides I surrendered in good faith.”

“Vesper, you don’t leave this room until I check your head.”

“You can’t keep me here.”

She crossed her arms under her breasts, making them pop up a little bit straining against the blue fabric of her costume. My eyes kept dipping down to the slight jiggle. “Eyes up here. Yes we can. I need to know that you can be trusted outside and not be a concern for public safety. You should be thankful that you are even getting a chance, most subhumans are removed to either the slums or shipped off to the Institute for rehabilitation and research into treatments for their conditions.”

“Look, I don’t want trouble with nobody. I just want a normal quiet life.”

She chuckled a little, “You are a Super now, we don’t get that.”

I relented a little, “Ok normal for a super hero. No labs, no weirdo tests, no mind fucking. I can do a lot of good out there, just let me prove myself.”

“You are unvetted, untested, and your motives are questionable at best.” Her fingers drummed on her arm as she gazed coldly at me.

“What is so wrong with not letting someone in my head?”

She sighed, “When dealing with Super Villains we have to be extremely careful. My role is to gather information and I know that you have a lot in your head. Just the bits and pieces I saw in there have helped us a good deal already. That random assortment of jobs that you had seen in Molotov’s lair was able to link many crimes to the appropriate gang members. Your cooperation is important, this is about more than just me and you, with what is in your head we can stop a lot of crime or get breaks on a good few unsolved cases.” She put her hands together in a vaguely prayer sort of motion, “You can help us a lot. Ok, just once let me see what is going on in there and assuming I don’t see anything exceedingly beyond the norm or questionable, then I will personally approve of your release.”

‘What you think Sub?’

‘I don’t trust that bitch.’

‘Hmm she seems sincere…’

‘You dumbass she is trying to trick us. Have you forgotten what I told you already?’

‘No, I have not forgotten.’

‘Good. Keep her out.’

“I can help in other ways, no mind diver stuff.” I replied firmly.

Her eyes narrowed, “If you had nothing to hide you would not be so opposed.”

“I just don’t like people fucking around in my head. Look I have a hole in my brain, my thoughts can get really dark ok. If you want to ask questions I don’t mind that.”

Neon Nurse entered, gazing between me and Dreamer. “She is under my care, if she says no, then no.”

Dreamer relented, pausing as she watched me a for a long moment. “For now. I don’t know what you are up Vespidian, but I can sense you are up to no good. I have seen a lot of villains in their civi disguises as such I pick up on bullshit rather quickly and you Vesper, you are not good at lying. I will get to the bottom of this, one way, or another. It will be a lot less painful for you and me if you just open up and be honest. We all make mistakes, covering them up tends to make things worse.”

She left with a bit of a huff. I can’t tell if she is just paranoid, doesn’t like me, or actually saw something last time she was in my head and wants to verify. I think that bitch is on to me or rather Molotov’s plot to use me.

“How are you functioning?” asked Neon Nurse.

I tilted my head, “Functioning?”

There was a brief pause before she pat her hand into her other hand, “Oh, wrong terminology. How are you feeling?”

“Good as can be I suppose. When am I getting out of here?”

The robotic nurse smiled, “Good news, your tests have mostly concluded, by my calculations tomorrow you shall be free of quarantine. I shall be bringing my findings to Ring Master later tonight and discuss your release.”

I smiled, “Thank you, Neon Nurse.”

She clapped her hands, with a rather plastic looking smile, “Yes, this calls for a celebration. Oh I know shall I demonstrate and aid in using the gift I gave you?”

My eyes shifted from her to the bed and the box under it. “Eh… I will take a rain check on that, how about pizza and cake?”

She didn’t seem disappointed and continued her little clap, “Oh Vespidian, always so gluttonous. Very well I shall arrange it, what specifications?”

I rubbed my chin, “Meat lovers for the pizza. Hmm maybe some carrot cake?”

“How delightful, I shall procure it tomorrow. Once everything is sorted out, look forward to it.”