Wretched Joy 35 (Patreon)

Commissioned by southmonk

Wretched Joy

Chapter 35

-VB-

With my latest campaign against civilian criminals across Brockton Bay, I can state with some certainty that the city was free of most criminals. 

It was low enough that I felt comfortable enough to leave the rest of the incompetents. Because surely - surely - they can handle two dozen minor criminals by themselves, right? 

.

So since I successfully depopulated Brockton Bay’s criminal population, it was time for me to start looking out of the city. The question was who or where was I going to start? 

It wasn’t a bad idea to go after the Slaughterhouse Nine… but considering that I had been so thoroughly affected by my own power, I wasn’t sure if I could succeed where others didn’t. Would suddenly teleporting in and killing everyone work? Or would my presence be alerted by the shards? Would his Shard even be able to sense me? 

I’ve been operating on the notion that my power was not a shard but was that really the case? 

The safest way for me to eliminate the Nine was the literally nuke their general location, and even then, some of them might survive anyway. 

… Well, I supposed that when it came to the Nine, killing all of them was never the most efficient way to go about it. 

No.

Instead of killing them all, I needed to kill Jack Slash. That’s it.

Once Jack was dead, then his little web of shard-induced sweet-nothings would go away, and the conflict-prone villains would turn on each other. 

But was I going to be satisfied with that? 

Let’s assume that that’s exactly what I do. I somehow kill only Jack Slash. After I kill him, I get out of there because I would obviously not be able to kill the Siberian, Crawler, or any of the others. Without Jack, the group splinters and goes their separate ways, assuming they don’t just outright kill each other.

Would I be happy with that result? 

I thought about it. 

I tried to feel as if I was there in the future, reading the news about Slaughterhouse Nine’s dissolution. 

And I could imagine myself. 

Scowling.

Upset.

Fuming that I didn’t put an end to the monsters. 

That answered my question rather handily. 

But how did I want to kill them? 

‘Hunt them down,’ something whispered to me. ‘Hunt them down and make them beg for the end like they made others beg for it.’

It … had merit. 

‘End it all as quickly as possible,’ something else whispered. ‘Allowing evil to prolong even a second more than is necessary is itself evil.’

That was true.

‘Mercy is the power of the strong,’ a softer voice spoke. ‘And we are not strong enough to be merciful to those monsters. Nor responsible enough to take accountability for those who would suffer from their attacks.’

… That truth hurt to consider but it wasn’t wrong. 

‘Is it okay to end things by ourselves? Should the whole nation not have a say in how the Nine dies? They deserve the closure. To see their tormentors dying. To be able to record and celebrate their deaths as the monsters’ very last breaths leave their lips’

I’m actually against that. 

‘We already torture people for their sins. What’s nine more?’ 

… Indeed, what was Nine more? 

And I already had the tools for that, didn’t I? I just needed to find the Nine. 

None of them had mental defense anyway.

-VB-

Colin felt … uneasy. 

For a whole month, Everyday Joe didn’t show up. 

There was a murder a mere week after his last rampage. He didn’t show up.

A robbery. He didn’t show up. 

A new gang popped up. He didn’t show up. 

People began to speculate. 

Criminals began to speculate. 

Capes definitely speculated.

The problem with all of these speculation was that it was the same regardless of who did it and why. No one had enough data to make an accurate enough speculation or guess, so everyone was just left … twiddling their thumbs.

Because that’s what they did. 

Oh, don’t get him wrong. He put a lot of villains behind bars as they tried to move into Brockton Bay. A Teeth cell tried to move in (thank God the Butcher didn’t show up) and the Protectorate ENE arrested them all within a week of their arrival. The public began to trust them a little more. 

But everyone still waited for Everyday Joe. 

Waited in suspense. 

The idea that he might show up one day and lead a purge of the city? It was horrifying for everyone, even those who were innocent. Joe didn’t care for who the criminals were connected to, after all. He invaded their homes, tortured or killed the criminal, and left. 

He broke over a hundred families. Husbands dead. Wives dead. Sons and daughters tortured and broken. Public scrutiny then killed any hope of advancement. People got fired for being connected to criminals Joe punished or killed, especially since they all learned what those crimes were. 

Most of those families moved out. There was no longer any prospect for them in the city. 

But a lot of people also began to move in.

The Nightmare Circles? It was a hotbed of real estate development. House prices shot up in those areas because it was, ultimately, the safest place in the entire city. No, the entire state. 

Possibly even the entire country. 

And wasn’t that another problem? The Nightmare Circles presented areas where authority broke down. After all, if you didn’t need to enforce security, then you didn’t need to follow authority that came with that security. Stealing was still a crime as far as the circle was concerned… but so was overcharging. No one quite knew where the line was, but once a landlord started overcharging the tenants, the landlords got treated just like any other criminals. 

Which was actually a minor problem as far as he was concerned.

No.

The biggest problem was one that was exemplified by the Circles’ constant growth outward.

While he was not seen in public, Everyday Joe was growing more powerful every day.

And it’s been over a fucking month since he showed up.

What sort of horrors would he have next? Would he be as tough as an Endbringer? Stronger than Alexandria? Would he be able to counter Eidolon and Legend? 

“Colin.”

He looked up from the microboard he had been working on. “Good morning, Dragon,” he said as he put some of his new social interaction classes to use. He also saw the time and felt his hand reach out automatically but stopped himself. 

There was a lot of scrutiny on Protectorate ENE since Joe’s disappearance. Everything, including his caffeine intake, was coming under audit. People who had no experience what life was like in Brockton Bay were trying to find problems and issues with the city and its protectors to write up papers about “where the defense of the city went wrong.”

Fucking jackasses. 

“Everyday Joe has been spotted in Ohio.”

He froze. 

Then he frowned. 

Ohio?

Why Ohio?

“Is he in Cleveland, Cincinnati, or Columbus?” he asked. All three cities suffered about as much as any other major cities across the USA since the rise of parahuman villains. He knew that Cincinnati in particular suffered from a trio of perverse villains.

“None of them. He was sighted in Canton, heading south into the forested rural countryside.”

He frowned again. 

“... What could possibly be there that drew his attention?” 

There wasn’t a Fallen lodge there, right?