Wretched Joy 26 (Patreon)

Commissioned by southmonk

Wretched Joy

Chapter 26

-VB-

Nine days.

Nine criminals. 

Zero witnesses beyond the “victims” themselves.

Therein laid the problem.

All of the victims turned out to be criminals of the worst sort. Men and women who took sinful acts with children. 

Everyday Joe also made sure to post online the crimes each of those criminals conducted, and did so across multiple forum, news, and social media sites. Each of those posts came with a warning: “delete this and I will start having to kill the criminals to ensure justice gets carried out.”

So far, no posts have been deleted, not even Parahuman Online with its rather strict posting standards. 

And the longer it went on, the more Alexandria realized that the sudden change in tactic had been directed at her.

‘He’s not just a dumb murderous idealist,’ Alexandria thought to herself calculatingly as she analyzed each and every single action Everyday Joe took since reappearing after her arrival in Brockton Bay. 

Everyone knew why she was here. The Protectorate and PRT announced it to everyone who would hear. It was to put a stop to Everyday Joe’s rampage. 

And, well, his rampages no longer looked unacceptable to people, not after the first five brutally beaten and mauled “victims” professed their sins with evidence to back it up which correlated with what Everyday Joe put up on PHO. 

At first, the discussion had been about how Everyday Joe was trying to dodge Alexandria.

But now, it was about whether or not Alexandria should even go after him. 

And Rebecca knew that the longer this went on, the more she would be at a disadvantage. Not only did Everyday Joe become stronger everyday, each day that passed was a criminal being brought to light who would have never received their rightfully due penalty. Already, cold cases of missing children were being solved one by one, if not outright solved when children were rescued from sex dungeons.

But what was worse was that a lot of the criminals caught by Everyday Joe were those who once held wealth and status within the city. 

And the people of Brockton Bay and across the United States were starting to feel that there was a problem among the well-connected and wealthy. WATCHDOG reported an increase across the border of distrust of authority and high classes with only very few who didn’t lose their support among the public. 

It was a slowly growing problem, and one that Contessa was trying to mitigate along with a dozen other problems she solved on a daily basis. 

But this was a problem she couldn’t solve, only mitigate. 

At this point, Rebecca realized that she had a choice. 

She could go after Everyday Joe with all she had to offer, using resources within PRT and from Cauldron. End this threat to Cauldron’s stable control over USA Bet. 

She could retreat. This would cause temporary loss of trust but, according to Contessa, it would eventually recover because people would see her retreat as “tacit approval” of Everyday Joe’s “non-fatal handling” of civilian criminals. Except she didn’t approve of anything he did. 

She could compromise. Demand to meet Everyday Joe, hoped he met her, and negotiate a stop to the “near fatal” arrests of politically inconvenient actors. 

She could “compromise.” Act as if she was going to negotiate before arresting him when he met her face to face. But the moment she did this, the very idea of a Truce with the PRT loses all meaning until the identity of Alexandria gets forcefully retired by PRT and Protectorate’s own members, which would cause internal strife and damage. This event, of course, would be useful to help maintain her role as the Chief Director of the PRT, but arresting or eliminating Everyday Joe wasn’t worth losing the identity of Alexandria by a large margin. 

Perhaps if it was the entirety of the Slaughterhouse Nine, she would seriously consider it…

Should she fail to bring in Everyday Joe, however, the rising vigilantism movement will gain momentum.

… There really was only one option for her to take. 

“Door me.”

She needed to meet with Contessa and get her help in eliminating Everyday Joe. 

-VB-

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Rebecca demanded tightly. 

Contessa stared at her across the narrow corridor. “What I mean is that Brockton Bay is lost to us.”

“... Do you want to explain that? I haven’t heard this from you before,” she hissed. 

Contessa paused as to contemplate something, though Rebecca knew that it had to be her power instructing Contessa to take that action for maximum efficiency of whatever Path she was on. 

“Everyday Joe is already on par with you and Legend.”

Rebecca nearly cursed at that. “... When?”

“Long before his public appearance at court with Kaiser.”

“... And what are my chances of defeating him if I were to encounter him?”

“Zero.”

There was no hesitation in that answer.

“Are you serious?”

“I am,” Contessa hummed. “He has too many ways to incapacitate you. And knows your weakness.”

Alexandria narrowed her eyes. “My weakness?”

“You still need to breathe.”

Rebecca paused, opened her mouth, and then stopped. 

She did. 

She definitely did. It was why Leviathan always tried to drown her. 

“I see. And how far is he going to go if we confront him?”

Contessa looked blankly at her before shaking her head. “He’ll do his best to kill us. In his eyes, we’re no different than Kaiser.”

Something inside twitched at the thought. “He doesn’t know.”

“He does.”

Rebecca blinked. “What?”

“He has both the general idea of what we do as Cauldron and what our goals are. He doesn’t care. We’re still criminals at the end of the day.”

“Then he’s stupid.”

“One might say he’s the clear minded one.”

“And is he an asset to the final battle?”

“... Yes.”

With that, Contessa left without any other words spoken or conveyed. 

Rebecca stayed in that narrow corridor, letting her head drop back.

She wanted to bring justice to that man but … if he was an asset to the final battle, then she could not afford to maim or kill him.

Which limited her options even further.

‘Talking to Contessa didn’t give me more options; it reduced them,’ she thought forlornly as she asked for a door back to Brockton Bay.