Wretched Joy 14 (Patreon)

Commissioned by southmonk

Wretched Joy

Chapter 14

-VB-

What was life if not something to enjoy? 

And what was not a good life if it wasn’t a life spent making the whole community better? 

If it also made me feel better, got me money, and made the good people … not hate me, then it was the right path, right? 

Right.

… But maybe I should think about how I was doing things if I needed to give myself these peptalks constantly. 

Or was it just a soft part of me that I needed to guard? Being a hard man doing hard things was good and all, but if I went “hard crazy” and started killing innocents too just because they were associates of Nazis when they didn’t even know about the guy’s Nazi tendencies, then I’ve gone too far. 

So maybe… just maybe… I shouldn’t… squash that thought? 

…

…

Maybe.

I’ll put a pause on that and go kill some more Nazis. Maybe I’ll know what to do once I’ve baptized enough asphalt roads with Nazi blood. 

Damn, I actually regretted dropping Alabaster in the underwater trench. I could have used him as a stress ball! Just keep him down with some immobilization enchanted clothes and accessories and gut him constantly! 

… Actually, now that I was thinking about it, could I have strapped him down to a table and removed fresh organs every few seconds? I remembered how bits and pieces of his body that was far enough from him didn’t get regenerated along with him.

So if I had something like a powerful enough of a “stamp” that “stamped” out his torso, like a cookie cutter, then I could at least harvest a few of his organs. Donate them fresh to the hospital or something. I’m sure more than a few clinics and hospitals will look the other way regarding the source of the fresh and genetically identical organs coming their way were going to cause problems. Surely, it wasn’t as if I had a slaughterhouse where the poor and downtrodden were being butchered for their organs! 

… Shit, I could have used Alabaster.

Ah, whatever. What’s done was done. 

-VB-

I softly pressed my hands against what should have been a very low density structure. So low, in fact, that my hands should have passed through as if it wasn’t there. 

But with two enchantments called “Cloudwalking” and “Weight Reduction,” I was able to … touch the clouds. 

The literal cloud in the sky felt like couch to me. Solid but with a lot of give. 

With a grin, I sat down on the cloud… and began to laugh.

Little things like this made life better.

-VB-

I hummed as I drew my hand back, and the knife squelched a little as it came off of the Nazi neck. 

The latest Neo-Nazi to die was just some middle-class accountant. Had a family of five, father of three lovely kids, a good husband to his wife, and obviously loved if the screaming in the background said anything. 

Or they were just terrified. 

Or both.

I huffed as I glanced at them for a moment before looking back down at the Nazi.

My Compass, which had also been upgraded to show the kinds of crimes someone committed, lit up with litany of murders. No rapes, though. So I gave him a quick and clear death. He was, after all, just another murderer. Getting more of them off the street was the way to save the rest of the innocents. 

“Carry out his funeral however you like,” I said to the wife - now widow - as I stood up. 

“Y-You monster…!” she hissed as she glared up at me with tears streaking down her face. 

I paused. “Yup! I’m a monster who eats criminals,” I grinned. “It is a satisfying job, and your husband was a murder ten times over. The only reason you are alive, miss, is the fact that everything I know about you says that you knew nothing about it.”

I didn’t bother to stay after dropping that bombshell - because her face went slack - and teleported out of the house and into the streets far away.

I looked around the city from where I stood on the rooftop of a five story commercial building, and saw nothing that stood out. 

With a shrug, I readied myself to teleport away again… only for a trigger to sound the alarm.

A cape had intruded on my territory again.

I teleported toward where the cape should be at instead of back home to my base.

After landing, I looked around the night streets and …

“Again?” I asked and waited for the little hero to stop glaring at me. 

“You’re a monster,” Vista hissed as she got off of the ground after she’d fallen from suffering nightmarish hallucinations. She was still on her knees, yes but it was better than when she was faceplanted on the asphalt road.

There were a few people out and about the street staring at us. Some in worry. Some who felt … vindicated. Others with indifference. 

People were like that. They weren’t a monolith of one idea, emotion, or idea. 

I ignored them and kept my focus on Vista even as I allowed my enchanted tools to scan around the area for more capes or those with ill-intent against me. 

“A monster I may be, but I am better at keeping criminals off of the street than you are,” I drawled. “Sorry, better than the PRT is.” I chuckled. “Can’t believe that I was once a member, you know?”

… Ah.

I did not mean to say that. 

Vista froze, too. “Y-You were … you were a member of the PRT?” she asked in horror. Aghast! 

I sighed. “Guess that cat’s out of the bag,” I grumbled as I crouched down so that my eye was level with hers. “Yeah. I used to be PRT mook,” I sighed. 

“B-But why?! Why do all of this?!” 

Damn, she sounded actually torn about what she just learned. 

I leaned forward. 

“I died.”

“... Eh?”

“I died. Can you tell me how many PRT agents died in the last year? The last two? Throughout your tenure as a Ward?”

She stuttered. 

“I’ll tell you, little missy,” I hissed, not particularly enjoying how she tensed up. Sure, what I said could be a hint that I already knew her identity and that I hadn’t used that against her and the rest of the Protectorate and Wards… yet. Or it could just be a phrase that happened to alarm her. I’ll let her choose. “In the past five years alone among the Brockton Bay’s vaunted PRT ENE, more than a hundred field agents died.” I leaned forward so much that I threatened to topple over. “And of those, more than two-thirds have died to the Empire Eighty-Eight. My coworkers, my friends, and myself… dead. Because. The. PRT. Refuses. To. Root. Out. The. Problem.”

With that final punctuation, I leaned back, stood up, and straightened myself, making all of my accessories twinkle, jiggle, crackle, and click. 

“Do you remember Amy, Vista? Not Panacea but the heart-faced go-lucky girl Amy. The girl who gave you mint candy every Sunday when you were just starting out.”

It took her a moment.

“Y-Yeah…?”

“They found her raped to death by the Empire. Because she was, in the words of the E88 gangsters we caught, an uppity bitch working for the government.”

I could almost see her stomach dropping.

“Good girl Amy. Did nothing wrong. Wasn’t even a field agent. Did no one harm. Raped to death.” I took a deep breath in. “I can go on. I can list at least a dozen right off the bat. Would you like me to?”

She shook her head, trembling. Almost stuttering in her motion.

“Do you see why I hunt the Empire, Vista? The ABB and the Merchants are horrible, too, but their horror is a mundane horror. The Empire… They are a sick and twisted hatred burning a whole in our community. They deserve everything I do to them.” 

I paused and facepalmed. 

“Goddamnit, I’m monologuing,” I groaned, my mood utterly ruined by the realization. I sighed as I let the hand drag down and looked at the quiet Ward. “Go home, Vista. Even if you want to be strong, this isn’t your battlefield. Let the dead deal with those soon to be dead.”

Then I teleported away. 

But as I told her Amy’s story, I found my own resolve growing firmer. 

I was doing the right thing. 

The Empire needed to die and die a death so horrible everyone would have an ample warning.