Wretched Joy 32 (Patreon)

Commissioned by southmonk

Wretched Joy

Chapter 32

-VB-

Last time this had happened, it had been accompanied by personal grief and trauma. 

This time, she was just angry. 

“Alright, that should be it,” David said as he pulled his hand away from the last cut Everyday Joe had put on her. He was one of the very few capes who had a power that could bypass her invulnerability to fix her physical problem. “Are you sure I shouldn’t be handling Everyday Joe?”

“You keep asking,” Rebecca said. “And the answer is going to be the same each time. If he can bypass my defense, then he can get past yours. And you’re far too valuable to lose to a jumped-up vigilante. Not again.”

David nodded solemnly. “Fine. I’ll let it go,” he said. “But what are you going to do about Brockton Bay, then?”

“It’s a lost cause,” she hissed slowly as she leaned back into her chair. “Coil is gone, all of the major gangs are dead, all of the minor gangs are running away if not also dead, and leftover capes have all been thoroughly scared into submission if not outright fleeing from the city.”

“... Then shouldn’t we move in as per regular PRT policy?” he asked. “I’m sure there are enough good eggs around the departments to put together a team.”

“No,” she denied him immediately. “Any team we can put together won’t come to Joe’s level. He’s been playing softball with heroes and rogues so far, but if we push him, then he might choose to start targeting other cities as well.”

David sighed. “And he hates us.”

“... Yes.”

She knew why Joe didn’t kill her, even though he called her a villain as well. Or rather, she suspected the reason why. She did enough “good” to outweigh the “bad,” but not enough to leave her untouched. 

“But how did he know?” she muttered to herself. 

“It has to be a Thinker power, right?” 

“It could be, but if he could look into our operations so surely, then he would have used it for bigger things, not just his local corruption and villains.”

“Like what?”

Rebecca frowned. “If Joe ever stepped into D.C., then he’ll either maim or kill ninety percent of the politicians there. And then do the same thing to half of the police department.”

“Just half? I’m shocked,” David muttered. “But for what?”

“If my observations are correct, then he’ll beat up the racist police officers just enough to leave a lot of bruises but no broken bones. But he’ll kill any officers who took bribes from gangs.”

“... But he hasn’t killed any cops in Brockton Bay yet, right?”

“Piggot filtered most of them out with that compass of hers.”

David grunted at the mention of the compass. 

The compass was one of Everyday Joe’s products. The man confirmed it when he dropped off the list of criminals he was going to go after, but before that had happened, Piggot had taken full advantage of the “gift” to root out spies and criminals among the PRT first and then across the major police departments in Brockton Bay. 

This resulted in Brockton Bay’s already understaffed police departments to become even more understaffed, but the heavy reduction in criminals and the willing exodus of the survivors so far meant that the police’s understaffing problem wasn’t as big of a problem it could have been. 

“... We’ll have to rely on our other projects to see the viability of parahuman feudalism,” she sighed. 

“And Everyday Joe?”

“... He’ll make a mistake eventually. We just have to wait and be ready for it.”

-VB-

One-hundred fifty names, Joe said. 

She had warned fifty of them herself. 

And still, the “heroes” didn’t do anything. 

Hell, even New Wave did something! 

Even if she didn’t like what they did, she had to give it to New Wave that they did something before the PRT did. 

Namely, they made Laserdream her chaperone. 

Fuck.

Like… if it was Glory Girl, then she might have run away or something, but Laserdream was nice! 

And not Dean’s girlfriend.

She frowned. 

Actually, she felt disappointed with Dean lately. She just … He just didn’t do anything. He just “followed orders.”

She didn’t like it. 

She really didn’t like it. 

She didn’t like what Dean was doing so much that she wasn’t sure if her dislike for Vicky was still as strong as before. 

But Crystal wasn’t Vicky, even if there was a definite family semblance (stupid pretty blondes with big tits while she was short, flat, and short). She could afford to be nice to Crystal.

“... Why do you do it?”

Vista stopped and turned to look at Laserdream. The taller, curvier, and adult-er girl was a lot of things Vista wanted to be, but in this moment, it felt as if she was the one Laserdream was looking up to.

“Because it’s right,” Vista replied tiredly. 

They had just left the home of the fifth person they visited today. The man inside, or rather a family with a young man as their eldest son, had been shocked at the coming doom. They tried to deny it. Called her a liar. Called her a … villain. 

It wasn’t the worst she had been called. 

“Is it right?” Laserdream asked. 

“... at least I think so,” she grumbled. “It’s better than sitting on my ass and twiddling my thumbs, isn’t it?”

“And the rest of the Protectorate…?”

“The pig wants to keep control of the situation. They’re finally going after some people, but it’s stupid clear who they are going after.”

“Who?”

“People who haven’t donated to the PRT but are rich,” Vista sneered. 

Even Laserdream looked disappointed by that. 

Oh, she was sure that there were other criteria that they were using… but it always came down to money. 

Idiots.

She knew what they were doing, though. When Joe said he was going to do something, he did it. He threatened all of the PRT and Protectorate ENE that if they didn’t act, then he would punish them. 

But they forgot the most important detail in that declaration. 

Fix the problems now that you are aware of them. 

And the PRT wasn’t fixing them. Just mitigating them because to actually “fix” the problem, they would have to crack down on so many people who were at the charities, balls, and events.

It wasn’t that the heroes didn’t want to.

It was that the PRT didn’t rock the boat politically, and this was going to look very political. So much so that when Director Piggot called PRT national, they explicitly ordered her to not go after them. 

Joe wasn’t going to care. 

He was definitely going to kill a few heroes.

… Actually, he might just break a lot of bones and tell Panacea to not heal them.

Would Panacea listen to Joe or do what she always did? 

“The system was made to protect the innocent,” Laserdream sighed. “Joe’s wrong to ignore it. He’s going to kill an innocent eventually.”

“... Yeah, he probably will,” she agreed. “All the more reason to actually check all of the people on the list so that we can be there to stop Joe from hurting someone who is actually innocent, right?” 

Laserdream blinked before smiling. “That’s quite forward thinking of you, Vista,” she said.

Vista shuddered. “... I’m not doing this to get praises,” she grumbled. 

“Well, I’m going to say it anyway. Good job, Vista! You’re a true heroine.”

She looked away from Laserdream, trying to hide the blush on her face. 

“Let’s just get to the next idiot on the chopping block,” she grumbled and Laserdream tittered behind her. 

Laugh at her, will she? 

Vista extended space in front of her and hopped on through… and then left Laserdream behind. It wasn’t too far away, so she got to hear Laserdream letting out an indignant squawk.

She giggled. 

-VB-

New Wave. Vista. Battery. Assault. Dauntless. Triumph. 

The rest … chose not to act. “Following protocols,” they had said in their press conference. 

I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. 

That’s fine. 

If they weren’t going to do their job - the very job that they were getting paid out of the taxes paid by the people - then it was time for them to look for another job. 

I pushed myself up from my chair.

But since they were obviously not going to quit on their own, they needed an external … encouragement. 

“Panacea can fix them up after I’m done with them.”