Wretched Joy 24 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Southmonk

Wretched Joy

Chapter 24

-VB-

Damn.

Did PRT send Alexandria or did she come here out of her volition? 

It was one thing to go around erasing literal skidmarks. It was another thing entirely to take on Alexandria. Sure, my own sin-sensing equipment showed me - or rather, allowed me to feel - the sheer depth of the sins Alexandria partook in. One couldn’t be part of a literal human trafficking, experimenting, and manipulating organization without sinning. 

I wondered how I should crack this nut.

Because I could. 

Alexandria wasn’t the only one with all-or-nothing defense, and I was always someone who believed in preparation. 

But just killing Alexandria… it wouldn’t be good enough.

All it would do was make her and the rest of the non-villains think that I was just another villain when I wasn’t. 

So what was I going to do? 

I needed a way to make everyone see that the current system was not working. That the PRT was not working. That the current system needed to be torn down. Killing Alexandria wouldn’t do that; it would just make those in power hunker down.

The only way for me to defeat Alexandria… was to make sure she gives up. However, with “humanity” on the line, surrender was not an option for her. 

Again.

What was I going to do? 

Despite the urge to go out there and just start a fight… I knew that wasn’t the answer. 

If I did that, then all credibility I had built up would go down the drain, which meant that it would become impossible for me to protect people in the long run. It would make it easier for the villains to get civilian help because the civilians wouldn’t trust me. It would make it so that villains could get away with their deeds.

That last one was the reason why I couldn’t go out there and kill that sinner.

Which meant that for me to force Alexandria to back off, I had to do the exact opposite of what I wanted: play the game and discredit her. 

The mere thought of it pissed me off. 

I had done so much good, and now I had to step back because Alexandria was here?! 

…I had time. 

I could think of a better way. A way that saw less people suffering from the villains and the corr-.

…

The corrupt.

I grinned. 

Oh… Oh, I just got a very good idea. 

I was just going to do what I intended to do, but instead of targeting the gangs, which was what was expected of me, I was going to start going after regular corrupt civilians. 

The wage thieves. The cops wanting favors. The cultish pastors. Anyone framing others for their promotion. The manipulative bastards and whores. Instead of killing them, I’ll cripple them instead. I didn’t care if the justice system worked their magic; I was going after them specifically because the justice system wasn’t working. 

Maybe it was working somewhere else but definitely not properly in Brockton Bay and surrounding areas that wasn’t Boston.

So.

If that was the case. 

Alexandria probably wasn’t going to stop. Hell, there might even be more of an incentive from the political class to go after me before I started uncovering every little corruption and skeletons in their closet. 

Maybe I also needed something to counter Alexandria’s all-or-nothing defense.

Mustard gas, maybe? I don’t ever remember reading anywhere that Alexandria’s biology didn’t still function normally. If she was truly time stopped, then she wouldn’t need to breathe. She definitely wouldn’t be able to think. 

So. Mustard gas would definitely work. Hell, I might even go with just plain old laughing gas just for shits and giggles. 

Yes… a good plan was finally coming together…

Now then.

Who was going to be my first target? Something that will paint Alexandria in muck for coming after me? 

-VB-

Mayor Roy Christener grimaced.

“Why are you here?” he asked fatalistically while staring at the biker helmet’ed vigilante-villain. There was a roughly painted smiley face on it, too. He sat on top of his expensive ironwood desk as well.

“I’m just here to give you a heads up, mayor!” Everyday Joe said cheerfully as if he was doing Roy a favor. “See, I could probably kill Alexandria and continue my cleansing of Brockton Bay -.”

The fact that Joe said “cleansing” of people with a straight voice scared Roy more than anything. 

“- but killing her would just make a lot of things worse everywhere. So I decided to throw some muck at her. Make her something she doesn’t want to be, if you get me?”

“... No?”

“Ah!” Joe tsk’ed. “Alright, let me explain it to you. See, I’m going to go after a specific class of people. The kind of people who make life harder for others because they are willing to look the other way… as long as they get a cut.”

“The corrupt.”

Joe pointed his bat - the same bat he used to murder hundreds of Nazis, civilians and capes alike - and chuckled. “Bingo! But I’m going to make this very public. I want her to come after me every time I go for them, and I’ll have all sorts of things ready for everyone to hear. Every time Alexandria comes after me, I’m going to make her and her collaborators look like they are defending the corrupt!” 

“And you thought telling me, the mayor and, by your admission, a collaborator, is a good idea?”

“You might want to stop being a collaborator if you don’t want the entire world to know you bought your son a power in a vial.”

Roy froze.

“Oh yes, dear mayor,” Joe purred. “I know all about that. But that’s not illegal, you know? Not even corrupt! Maybe lying is, but they don’t even ask about how you got the power, so you didn’t even need to lie!” He shook his head. “No, that’s not what I’m here to coerce out of you. You see, the first group of these corrupt people I’ll be going after are certain class of people who love … uh, minors in an explicitly sexual way.”

It took Roy a few seconds before he got a meaning. “Oh.”

“I don’t care about people who keep it to themselves. Can’t help what attracts you and all that. But if you act on it? On real people? On real children? I got this bat here for them,” Joe hummed. He finally got off of his ironwood desk. “But here’s a thing, mayor. I like the work you do. I really do. You try. Even my Compass of Goodness says so!” he said before flourishing a compass… which was pointing at him. “And the Compass of Corrupt doesn’t even point to you.” Another compass got pulled out… and it flickered toward him every once in a while. “Well, mostly. But the fact that it’s barely pointing to you despite the fact that it is literally in your face tells me that whatever corrupt shit you got involved in is nothing. Like I’m talking about maybe ignoring the paperwork for your cousin or something if they needed a new permit for local town hall parking. That level of nothing.”

Roy had to admit he did do that. A lot.

“But I’m here to warn you, good mayor, because … there’s a lot of people near you who aren’t so clean.”

To make that point clear, Joe swerved the compass around… and there was someone very close to them.

And in that direction, there was -.

Oh.

Oh, he was going to feel sick.

His deputy was nearly sixty years old! 

“See what I mean? It’s gonna splash on you. So I’m gonna give you a choice.”

Then Joe pulled out a piece of paper. 

It had a single word boldly printed on it.

CLEAN.

“This thing is enchanted to remain hovering over someone’s head for around a week. I could attach it to you, and everyone will know that I came to see you. Made sure you were clean before I moved onto others.” A pause. “Or you can reject it and take the full public scrutiny without my paper of cleanliness approval.”

Was that even a choice?

“I’d like the paper, please.”