"Now listen here, you vacant silhouette of a parental figure. Let me be the first to welcome you to the OSI."
If you distilled the essence of a chain smoker, a drill sergeant, and, for no particular reason, a gonzo journalist, you'd get the man across from you. He is angry. He is scrawny. And he means business.
"I'VE been MEANING to TALK to-"
"Shut it, Father. Or should I say, Patriarch."
"Oh wow, he read the comic too!" Izzy chimes in, before being snapped at just as vigorously.
"That goes for you as well, Kaleidoscope AKA E-Scope AKA Explosivo AKA Izzy. What I'm about to talk about is the most serious of serious business in this whole shit-filled powder keg we call a goddamn democracy."
Broiling a little, you crunch down on the wood of your pipe, crossing your arms and leaning back. Something about this guy really just pushes your buttons. But at the same time, the authority he speaks with impresses you enough to allow him to continue.
"GO on. What do YOU mean?"
"Well, to be as bleedingly, brutally blunt, you red-outlined cardboard standee for evil villainy, we're boned. Boned six ways to Sunday, back and forth."
"....Explain."
"Dear god, how else can I put it, you utterly deranged flaming kettle of a man? The world at large has never been on such a precipice of total, outrageous chaos and worldwide devastation. We were caught with our pants down, johnson in our hands, and a kick-me sign to boot."
"Ahem, what Chief Gathers is trying to explain, in his own particular vernacular way, is that we are in one heap of doo-doo. Oh, and forgive me, I am General Treister. You are familiar with my fellow General Hammer and General Specific from your time in the field, and might I add, good on ya son."
"Oh, THAT? Well, uh, It was MOSTLY nothing."
"Don't sell yourself short, son. We saw how you roasted those multi-chromatic-space-Amazonians-"
"They're Gems, Treister," Hunter interjects.
"I know what I'm saying, Hunter." Triester says, giving a reaffirming pat on your shoulder. "But all the same, we saw you kick those aliens up and down the great northern hat of America. You did good, son."
"Well… thanks? Was THAT all YOU brought me to the side FOR?"
"I mean, we were totally awesome and cool, and we did get a comic and everything. Does that make us superheroes now?"
A chill runs down your spine, one that you are getting far too familiar with. There's that word again. Sooper-Hero. Just saying it in your head makes you feel sick with yourself. You aren't a Sooperhero! You're a villain! A villain through and through! A villain from a long… proud… lineage of villains…
"Dear sweet alphabet soup god in special ops heaven, no." Hunter snapped once more, in a tone more grizzled than a buzzard.
You actively let out a sigh of relief at him addressing that. Thank evil, you are still considered, you know, evil. You weren't sure what you were gonna do next time the VCA awards came around. Finding a new host would have been a nightmare! Not to mention the loss of reputation and the ability to do-
"Wait. IF I'm NOT a hero in your book, WHAT am I?"
"Well, if ain't that what we're here to address. To stop prancing around the campfire, we want to get an understanding, and, if you're willing, offer you a deal." Treister says, leaning forward and crossing his fingers.
"Here's the debrief, you red-hot heap of daddy issues and angst: Supervillain. Superhero. Champion. Scoundrel."
Hunter takes a deep drag off his cigarette.
"Who cares?"
"WHO CARES?" You shout, flinging yourself up from your chair. "I have spent the LAST…."
You stop to count it out on your fingers, but after thinking about how much time has passed, you consider it a lost cause.
"Uh, twenty?" Izzy offers.
That sounds like a good number.
"Thank you, Izzy. THE LAST TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE BEING A SOOPER-VILLAIN!"
"And you've got exactly jack and shit to show for it. Now cool down before we have to get a hot-head out of here, CIA style." Hunter says, grinding out his smoke in an ash-tray.
"I'LL TELL YOU WHO-"
"What string-bean here means to say, Mr. Father, is that we don't care what you've done. Or for the most part, what'chll do next. Not to demerit your accolades of, uh, Gathers?"
"Madman good-boy points."
"For the love of-"
"Fine, his 'evil' accolades."
"Yes, your evil accolades, Mr. Father. I know you're a big, scary villain type, who don't want nothing to do with us governmental types, but we're willing to make a vegetable medley if it means we've got somebody in our corner."
The flames you summoned petered out for a moment. Confusion begins to grow as you try to comprehend their position.
"Wait… What do YOU mean?"
"I think…" Izzy begins, putting a hand to her chin in thought. "They're offering you amnesty from crimes and cover-ups on your work so long as you work with them."
"YOU are?"
"Ding-ding-ding. Congratulations, you wanna-be Hannibal Lector with a personality disorder, you saw the obvious." Hunter jabs a finger at you and Izzy. "We watched what you did up North. Single-handedly turning a loss to a stalemate to sending those sci-fi rejects packing to the great, wide, fuck-all-empty North. And we want in."
"It was you, wasn't it? You're the one who created that comic and made those series, aren't you?" Izzy asks, squinting in a suspicious glare. "Let me guess: You wanted control of the narrative, and we wanted to get on our good side."
"Indeed we did, little missy. Pardon the extrapolation, by the way. We didn't have much to go off of. Only got your papers after we got the first run of the comic out, so high-diddly-dee, you're his adopted teenage daughter you rescued from an orphanage-circus."
You and Izzy give each other an exasperated look.
"I'm like 27."
"And I'm… An INDETERMINATE age in my forties."
"Ahuh, sure thing boss."
Hunter looks over to Treister, raising an eyebrow.
"Whaat? It worked for Batman! Hell, it even worked for Delta Boy, got that one right too! Besides, jus' cause you're old doesn't make you not an orphan!"
"I'm not an orphan." Izzy corrects. "I still have my parents. In fact, last time I checked, McLean was the last one to own my birth certificate. Oh, right, probably should have told you about the cloning project he was working on-"
Izzy is then cut off by Hunter.
"Dammit Treister, you know what a shit show that was when the truth came out about him! And Batman isn't even real! He's a lie made up by us to cover up the bat-people! Do your goddamn field work!"
"I did this time, I did. Well, at least I know most of what was in that comic was balderdash lies. As if a propane salesman could operate some sorta, flyin' mechanical spaceship made from alien technology."
Hunter simply pinches the bridge of his nose.
"We'll fix that later. But we're getting off track. What I'm trying to explain here is this: I don't respect that you are a deluded madman with an obsession with tormenting a terrorist cell of children. In fact, I actively despise you for it." Hunter's hand outstretched and clenched with visible rage as he described his hate for you, fingers curling inwards. Maybe you found somebody almost as angry as you. "But we're at an impasse."
"As hard-bit a general as I am, I find it hard to say." Treister pauses. "So I won't, 'cus I don't have to. Hunter?"
"It's simple. We're going to offer you a one-time deal that any son-of-a-bitch with a death ray would think himself the holy-fucking-grail of luck to have." Hunter slides forward a small card across the table to you. "We're going to turn a blind eye away from your criminal escapades, your villainous shenanigans, your tyrannical temper tantrums…so long as you work with the OSI and the U.S. Government when we need you to."
Picking up and flipping the card around, you see exactly what it says.
"Benedict Uno: License to Kill?"
"And don't bother worryin' about the paperwork, we already got onna our interns to get it all filed away. You sign up with us boy, and you can go about, havin' your little schemes, and makin' your robots, do all your shadowy corporation style sorta stuff. We'll cover yer back, give you a pretty little dress up for the public, and in turn, you help us sort out the rest of these loonies."
You look the card over, pondering. You can't help but notice Izzy looking rather jealous at your newfound ability to legally murder people. Not that you really wanted that power. It wasn't your sorta method, after all. Closest you came was baking children in a cake- and truth be told, you didn't even realize that would kill them till after the fact
"AND in turn? What DO I have to do PRECISELY? AND what about THE so-called Guild?"
Treister crosses his arms.
"Oh, that disgruntled league of half-wits and sissy-sallies? Sure, they got some mighty fine gunmen and assassins, not to mention the cost-co membership, but with that butterfly-lookin' fella leading them, they ain' got no future."
"Indeed. According to our information, the Guild has been on a rapid decline since the Monarch has taken power. As for what you would do for us, it's simple. You stay a villain, we enable you like a horrible stepmother enables a fat bastard of a child, and when we need your help and cooperation, you do precisely that. Help us defeat an alien army? Bingo. Kick the living daylights out of a super-villain upstart? Blammo.Traffic drugs?"
"Like ROOT-beer?"
Hunter once again pinches his brow.
"Good lord you blithering man-child with the pyrokinetic powers of a demi-god, you will be a pain."
"Lemme handle this for a second boss," Izzy says, once more jumping back into the conversation. "So what? You want Father to come down and beat the crap outta people whenever you get something you can't deal with on your own? Like that giant pufferfish, he fried?"
"Yep."
"Ahuh-ahuh."
"I see," Izzy says. "And in turn, you'll look the other way to our crimes and keep our public figure pristine?"
"We do have our limits, and surprisingly, morals, but yes."
"And those morals are?"
"Number one. Keep the body count to a minimum. Nobody minds a bank robbery, but a massacre is a no-go for the public. Number Two. You cannot officially join the Guild, or any other villainous organization without first alerting us. The last thing we need is a triple agent. We already have a one-eye weirdo on the case for that, and before you ask, setting up your own is fair game. Number three. No striking Government assets."
"No Number FOUR or NUMBER five?"
"No."
"Huh."
You pause and think, stroking your chin.
"LETS see.. BESIDES the Pro-PO-ganda, and freebie on the crimes, anything ELSE?"
"We literally just gave you a license to kill! What else do you want, dammit?!" Hunter shouts, before Triester calms him down again.
"Let's hear 'em out." Triester says.
"What if I wanna, I dunno, STEAL a DEATH ray?"
"Why not just buy one?"
"For FUN."
"See- Gah, fine. We would look the other way."
"I SEE. And all I'd have to do is help you deal with big monsters and 'OPERATIONS' or whatever?"
"You'd be correct."
"But I'm a SOOPER-villain. I can' GO around saving the WORLD!"
"Why not?" Hunter snaps, practically grinding the burning stub of tobacco between his straight laced teeth.
"BECAUSE I have a REP-u-TATION! I can't Just go around DOING good STUFF! I'm a bad guy! I'm a TERROR to children across the GLOBE! I'm the villain!"
Treister simply sighs, shaking his head.
"Let me tell you something, Mr. Uno. We have agents with the body counts that would make the dying corpse of a North Korean Warlord wet themselves. We've worked with scum a thousand times worse than you, protected dirtbags and played patty cake with, surprisingly, people more pathetic than you. I don't care if you're a bad guy. If you're a villain. If you get your kicks burning down orphanages- Only the CIA knows how many houses Pilot Light or Captain Sunshine burned down, and good lord, don't even get me started on all the damage little Rusty Venture did."
Hunter takes out his cigarette and snuffs it into an ashtray that has more cigarette stubs than ceramic.
"What we know is this. You are willing to help us, even when no-one asks for your god damned help. We are in a situation that is UNPRECEDENTED in the god-damn history of this organization. We have more cryptids, aliens, monsters, wizards, EVOs, and robo-callers than we beat with a stick. We put two and two together, and we've come up with this. We give you info, hell, maybe even some agents, some weapons, an unlimited license for crime. We'll even tidy up after you, sweep it under the rug, paint a pretty picture for the public, so long as you don't pull at the threads." Hunter taps the card in your hand. "We want an alliance, a partnership, a working relationship, a sub-dom relationship, whatever gets it through your inflamed head. We point you at what to kill, you do it. If something wants to kill you, we tell you. I can't promise the god-damn moon, and nobody knows if this will go any further than this conversation. But I can tell you this; whether or not you work with us, things are going to get way, way, worse before it gets better. IF you work with us, both you and the OSI might be able to get through this shit storm."
You let it all sink in. You turn to Izzy.
"Well?"
"I dunno boss. Free crime might be a good trade for a little community service. Not to mention what else they might be able to provide us. Technology, weapons, help, funds. Might be nice to have a secret agency helping us out, especially one that's so morally flexible. But really, it's up to you."
In the end, it really was up to you.
- - - - -
The OSI wants to form an alliance with you! They wish to utilize your incredible combat abilities to help fight threats they can't beat with traditional methods.
In exchange for doing the OSI's dirty work for them now and again, the OSI will provide Father information, technology, special agents, and a mutual defense alliance. The OSI will assist in the management of your public image, painting you as either a "sooper hero" (yuck) or scrubbing your good acts from the record altogether. You will become immune to most forms of persecution by law enforcement and being targeted by other agencies within the US government.
To keep up his end of the bargain, Father must help the OSI whenever they come a-knocking. The OSI will call upon Father's help no more than once per 5 turns, unless they are directly attacked or otherwise find themselves in a "we need your help now or we die" emergency situation. This will often take the form of a unique National Action with an [OSI] tag. As long as this action is accomplished by Father or his minions in a timely manner, the OSI is unlikely to be picky with how it gets done.
The OSI requires you to keep your illegal businesses free of innocent bloodshed. As Father operates now, he doesn't actually kill anyone. While the OSI also forbids you from joining any villainous organization without their approval, no one's stopping you from creating your own. Your current relationship with Mammoth is still allowed.
If a particular OSI action is too odious to go through with, Father can always refuse to perform an OSI action. However, if Father vetoes too many OSI actions, the alliance (and Father's special benefits) will become at risk of being dissolved.
You may either agree or disagree to the offer.
[ ] AGREE
[ ] DISAGREE
⏰ THIS VOTE HAS A 14-HOUR MORATORIUM.
In addition, we will factor in extra "demands" from you all that may be presented as write-ins. There is no guarantee you will get this, but depending on what they are, or what you are willing to give, they might agree to the terms you set.
