The Benefits of Being a Megalomaniacal Father (Worm, Evil Genius inspiration)
- Thread starter Inq. Halbread
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm daniel hebert
- Location
- Lost to the Depths of the Deep Web
Maybe se knows form experanse
Grandmother, Grandfarther, Aunt or maybe an Auncle
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
She... Doesn't really know?
Honestly, Emma is still broken but she broke in a different way from canon, a lot earlier. She essentially tortured her friend for two years for a reason she didn't share with anyone or talk about or even have any evidence for except what she knows happened with Danny and her dad.
So, yeah. She isn't exactly right in the head but the sheer derailment of her plan and the psychiatry is helping to get her out of that.
I mainly did this as I realised her canon breaking point would not happen because Alan would be able and willing to kill everyone of those ABB gangers that ambushed them.
Which he did. Brutally. He just doesn't mention it or think of it because it was a day in the life for him which unknowingly reinforced Emma's fear.
Emma even accidentally killed one through instinct. That doesn't help her mental state at all.
- Location
- USA
Do I hear a femme fatale Emma in the works? I look forward to this and everything it represents.
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
I can't really promise that she would be a normal femme fatale but she definitely isn't going to leave Taylor to her own devices.
Hope you enjoy what comes!
Thanks for your honesty. I appreciate it.
If you have any advice to how I can improve on my execution, I would greatly appreciate it as I am always looking to improve my ability to write.
NuclearBird
More issues than Reader's Digest
- Location
- Here and There
Emma as a Baroness type? She has the potential.
- Location
- calgary
it felt like I had skipped a chapter when I was reading the last one.
Plotting 2.4
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
Once more into the breach and once more I realise that I suck at writing in a timely manner.
Hope you enjoy the chapter regardless!
====================================
Brockton Bay
1st February 2011
Secret Subterranean Base of Evil
Floor 69 (Warning: Drowning Hazard. Fatalities will be unfairly judged and mocked.)
If there was one part of Danny Herbert that Alan Barnes could get tired of then that would Danny's surprisingly childish impulses. Unlike most people, whose childish impulses led them to either make fart jokes, Danny's happened to be a bit more productive…
Hence, Floor 69.
Surprisingly, the idea behind it wasn't an especially bad or completely spontaneous one but Alan had a… small problem with how much effort Danny went to make it.
The Idea was simple, If you were going to have a Doomsday device, then you probably wanted to put it into a room at the very end of your super-secret base, forcing any intruders to fight through the legion of motivated minions- nothing motivates them more than fighting in the same place they sleep- before they could stop whatever nefarious plan you were planning.
When Danny said that he needed an entire floor to place his new device in, Alan was okay with it. It wasn't like he knew what science Danny did most of the time.
When Danny said that he needed to actually build a new floor as well, Alan wasn't even sceptical. Every one of Danny's projects were always ludicrously complicated to build with very specific parts, that small tradition had gone all the way back to the Bra dissolver back in their college days.
No, what Alan didn't like was all the effort Danny had wasted for a dumb joke because he made his 'Doomsday Floor' a full twenty eight floors deeper than the deepest floor of the actual base. Or at least that was what he had told the minions sharing a crowded elevator with him when they had asked what he was grumbling about.
It wouldn't do wonders for morale to tell them that the exact reason he hated floor 69 was because he had to use an elevator crowded with minions with construction equipment every time he had to drag Danny from his scientific isolationism, like any best friend should.
At least the minion's uniforms look pretty good. Alan thought to himself, squeezed uncomfortably between the wall of the elevator and a large man clad in a yellow jumpsuit and white hard hat. With the total absorption of the Dockworker's Association, barring the administration staff who went into the Organization's management team, some dissatisfied gang members and a few pickup truck-fulls of homeless people left the number of minions sitting around six hundred or so. Ironically, finding uniform suppliers that would supply hundreds of yellow jumpsuits, and a few custom uniforms for the minions that happened to have specialised skills, was alarmingly easy. Finding a way to avoid a supplier from informing the government, and thus the Forces of Justice, of a suspiciously large shipment of jumpsuits was a welcome challenge for the Lawyer in Alan Barnes.
It was less welcoming now that his face was close enough to see the fine detail of the jumpsuit on the man's shoulder. It was a better position than two other minions he could see. The two females had been squished front to front and one had a significant height difference from the other, causing the shorter one's face to be buried in the other's… assets with neither of the poor women seeming to be exactly enjoying the situation. Alan let out a sigh, giving him slightly more room to breathe, he really hoped that they weren't the whiny sort of minions. They still didn't have an official HR position so any complaints would be automatically brought to him and he was tired of the cramped elevator complaints.
"It's only temporary." Danny had said when Alan mentioned possibly expanding the elevator's size. "After our legion of construction workers have finished, the only people who are going to be coming down here is the science team and the Forces of Justice. Why would I want to make it comfy for large amounts of heroes to invade my doomsday floor?"
Alan grumbled to himself as he reflected that he still didn't really have an answer for Danny besides that the taste of Jumpsuit sucked.
At last, the elevator's strained rumbling came to a halt and a sharp ding bought the feeling of relief to all its occupants. Even before the slow rumbling door opened all the way, people were already squeezing themselves out of the elevator, desperate for the vaunted concept of personal space to return to their tortured minds. Keeping their existence secret, only the first three levels of the base had been filled, apart from the science floor around floor twenty, and the Evil Lawyer and minions had been cramped into the single elevator for a ride that was over fifty floors long.
After escaping the elevator and taking the time to stretch, Alan looked around the expansive area that was the Doomsday floor.
Every time he looked over the expansive area, he couldn't help being awestruck. All around him was not a series of corridors and rooms but a massive expansive room that covered the entire floor, massive pylons of high tech electronics reaching from ceiling to floor, each at least fifty meters tall. The elevator led out onto a steel platform connected to the wall around midway, that connecting to a large series of connecting walkways and gantries leading to all the towers, which were covered in hordes of construction minions, slowly constructing whatever techno science that was inside them. Looking down, Alan saw the massive expanse below being filled with water, likely from the previously existing Aquifer, that Danny said would serve as a cooling system.
Alan's eyebrow raised at the sight of some minions being swept away, their bright yellow jumpsuits visible in the shifting water. Alan really hoped that they would get saved by their fellows soon. Worksite accidents, especially deaths, were so much work.
Standing up straight, Alan made his way to his true destination, massive central tower in the middle of the expansive floor.
When he finally made it there, he saw Danny messing around with a terminal on the catwalk surrounding the tower. Looking over his still-best-friend, Alan was surprised to see what exactly Danny was wearing. Danny's old Evil Genius uniform had always looked like a cartoon villain's but apparently he had got a new one. The style had stayed the same but the colour of his faux military uniform had been changed to a deep red with golden buttons. A blue cape now adorned his shoulders, ironically framing the unassuming face that would have been hidden by a missing silver helmet
"Danny?" Alan tried to get his friend's attention and was rewarded when his friend let out a surprised 'what' and spun around.
"Don't scare me like that, Alan." Danny breathed out in relief. "These dimensional calibrations need to be very precise."
"It must be, considering you didn't hear my shoes clanking against the walkway the entire way here." Alan replied. "That's an… interesting change for you, Danny." Alan pointedly looked at Danny's outfit.
Following Alan's gaze, Danny smiled.
"Well. Considering it has been so long since the last time I wore the old suit, I figured that I should change it up."
"It certainly is a change." Alan covered for the fact that he felt it a bit ostentatious. "That isn't the reason I'm down here though."
"Then why are you here?" Danny frowned in confusion, taking a look at the time display on his work terminal. "I know you've had to drag me away from work to get Taylor, but its only eight in the morning. It isn't time to meet her at home yet."
Alan smiled.
"I'm here to get you to do your job, Mr CEO. Mayor Christner asked for a meeting with the head of Evil Corp to discuss our attempts to buy out the Docks."
"I didn't agree to that." Danny quickly reflected, nervousness clear on his face.
"No, you didn't." Alan's smile grew vicious. "Lacey did it for you. She figured the sunlight would do you well."
"Well, unfortunately, I have plenty of work to do so-" Danny tried getting back to work but he winced as he felt Alan's hand land on his shoulder as he turned his back to him.
"Lacey isn't the only one who thinks that." Alan spoke as he pulled Danny towards him.
"Et tu Alan?"
"You can't stay in your lab all day and all of us are tired of you throwing your schemes at us while you do nothing." Alan grinned as he began dragging Danny away.
"No! Please! My project is too exciting! You can't stop me now! Please!" Danny begged his heartless friend.
"It will be here when you get back. Now, I have just the right business suit for you…"
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Danny screamed as Alan dragged him to his fate, drawing the mirthful eyes of the 'hard working' minions as they passed.
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Danny grumbled under his breath as he pulled up to Brockton Bay city hall in his trusty pick up truck.
Some people just didn't respect the needs of Doomsday plotting.
Danny sighed. Well, he was here now and he might as well just go to the meeting. Checking his face in the mirror, Danny quickly fixed a stray hair on his balding head and left the vehicle. After locking it up, The suited Evil Genius made his way up the nearby stairs to the large City Hall building.
Perhaps Ironically, Brockton Bay City Hall was one of the newest buildings in the entire city. There were no exposed brick and mortar walls, no imposing architecture or a sense of about to be entering an old school building. Instead, it was like a minimalist modern office building like the ones in New York City, albeit a stunted one. Looking up the walls of the building revealed four floors of large glass windows covering every floor with frames of steel between them. All around the concrete steps leading to the entrance of the building were a wide variety of people of all walks of life, from the uniformed police to snazzy council workers to shabbily dressed vagrants, that was the only indication that this was the seat of the town government.
Danny let out a grimace as he noticed that he was drawing the attention of some of the people that he passed. He had told Alan that he didn't look good in a suit and now he was even more conspicuous.
It made him want to blow up City hall and thoughts like that was probably why the building was the way it was. Danny remembered that the building used to be completely different, ancient with nice homely bricked walls, until the E88's All Father had blown it up to prove a point. His daughter, Iron Rain, then blew up the reconstructed building to get out of a parking ticket.
Then Danny had accidentally blown it up in a lab accident involving a misaligned death laser.
Then Lustrum had destroyed it in a 'peaceful' protest.
This went on and on until the city realised that it was way too much effort and expensive to keep rebuilding it the same way every time something vaguely sinister happened in the bay.
So, in response, the Mayor at the time had commissioned a team of architects to design a building designed to be functional and completely replaceable at a moments notice. One year of design, two years of legislation and a collection of customised steel frame pieces that acted kind of like Lego pieces and the city had the first and only government building that can be replaced approximately two days after it's inevitable destruction.
Truly a paragon of efficiency were the thoughts that Danny had as he opened the front door to the building and entered the lobby.
The Lobby itself was unsurprisingly bare compared to a typical lobby. There were no signs, no waiting chairs and no fancy artworks. It was a simple, steel room with a built in steel table on the other end of the room where a female secretary in a white blouse stood with her laptop as a workstation.
Danny walked up to the secretary who gave him a polite smile.
"Welcome to City Hall. How can I help you today?"
"Yes. My name is Daniel Hebert and I have a nine'o clock appointment with Mayor Christner."
"Hold on a minute, sir. " She quickly tapped a few keys on her laptop. "Ahh yes. Mayor Christner is waiting for you in the basement office."
Danny thanked the secretary and moved deeper into the building.
Due to its disposable nature, it became necessary to put the more permanent residents of the building, such as the mayor, in a bunker like basement level. That way, theoretically, the heads of government would be safe from random acts of combustion that happened to the building above.
Danny just hoped that this was a social call from the mayor and not an attempted assassination attempt like what happened with Co-
Suddenly a nearby lawyer drew a Tinkertech laser rifle from his briefcase and fired a beam of deadly light straight at Danny's head. Danny looked on, unimpressed, as the laser hit his invisible energy shield, causing it to glow a translucent blue.
Sighing, Danny drew his personal Death Pistol from his inner suit pocket and returned fire on the confused assassin. The bright green blast hit him before the merc had any chance to react, reducing him to ashes.
Well, I warned Coil… Danny thought to himself as he entered the detonation sequence into his watch.
Danny looked out a nearby window as the ground shook and a huge pillar of concrete turned magma erupted from where Coil's base was, having been created by Danny's conversion charges and most likely dissolving the stupid snake painfu-
--====0-0-0-0
Danny just hoped that this was a social call from the mayor and not an attempted assassination attempt like what happened with Coil a few months ago.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Come in" a strong voice erupted from beyond the office door after Danny knocked on it.
Walking through the door, Danny was immediately impressed. He had never been in Mayor Christner's office, Danny having retired before Christner had gotten into office, but it looked like he was a man of taste.
The Office itself looked like it had come out of an old James Bond film. The walls were panaled wood while the floor was a dark green carpet. Against the walls lay many cupboards and shelves of assorted expensive crockery decorations and several diplomas and hunting trophies were decorating the walls themselves. Teamed up with the apparent oakwood desk and comfortable sitting chairs it looked like a very professional office.
It looked so professional, in fact that it was completely obvious to Danny that it was all fake.
Where were the pictures of the Mayor's family? Coffee or tea stains on the built in carpet during long nights?
No, this room was built to impress, not work in.
The mayor, recogniseable by his wrinkles denoting his five decades of life, pristine suit, balding head and large ears, was even simply doodling on the paper infront of him.
The Mayor looked up, stared into Danny's eyes and then gave a friendly smile.
"Already found me out hey? Keeping where I actually work a secret is quite the advantage in Brockton Bay" he spoke in a voice that would have belonged to someone twenty years younger. Something that a younger person wouldn't pick up but as Danny had also suffered the ravages of time, he could tell the subtle difference.
"Hence this is your dummy office?
"Hence it is my Dummy Office." He confirmed with a nod. "Come! Have a seat Mr Hebert! I have been so eager to meet you."
Danny walked in and gave him a nervous smile as he sat down in a comfortable leather chair, the only difference being from the Mayor's chair that Danny's was smaller.
"It's nice to meet you too Mr Christner, but surely meeting me is not that important in the grand scheme of things. I'm simply a new CEO of a new company." Danny said poilitely. It already was a mere courtesy for an up and coming CEO to meet the Mayor before conducting a big amount of business in their city but being polite here would stop the Mayor from being an especially intrusive obstacle to his plans later, inevitably requiring a change in leadership for the city.
Election campaigns were so expensive.
"I think you will find, Mr Hebert, that it is very important to me that I meet with you, especially since you are the CEO of a company that only really began existing two weeks ago."
"I'm sure you'll find that our company has been in operation since 1832."
"That's what all the records say." The Mayor nodded while Danny sneaked a scrutinizing look at him. "However, looking a little deeper, I note a peculiar lack of any interruptions of business whatsoever."
Danny sat up a little straighter. This was no mere Mayor.
"Of course, If your company was really that old, I would be very impressed that the sudden introduction of parahumans in the 1960s had no effect on such an old company. Especially since new Villains at the time tended to take revenge on workplaces that previously hired them.
"Well, I can safely say that Evil Corp has a great history of employee satisfaction. We had no disgruntled employees to 'take revenge' as you say."
Mayor Christner nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.
"Of course! My research revealed that too but, please allow me to continue my train of thought."
Danny nodded wearily, causing Christner to smile.
"Thank you. Well, I must say that I was very impressed when I read that little fact but, I was definitely confused on how you managed to maintain that during an economic depression."
"As well," Christner continued. "I was definitely interested to read that no Villain had managed to put a significant dent into your company's very unspecific business through out an entire century. Not to mention that It is incredibly fortunate that your company is still standing despite having your head office in three cities that Endbringers have destroyed, leaving the majority of your files sadly too destroyed to decipher. It all seems very convenient, especially if you wanted to claim that a company hadn't been originally made as a backup money fund around twenty years ago"
Danny narrowed his eyes.
"What exactly is your intention for this meeting Mister Mayor?"
"It is purely a social call, my friend." Christner gave a teethy grin. "I really wanted to see who had defeated the best agents my previous employer had to offer, not to mention whether the Techno Commander was as personable as his photo on the company website suggested."
Danny didn't react at the mention of his previous alias as a public Evil Genius. It was obvious that the Mayor knew exactly who he was. However, Danny now knew who the Mayor was as well.
"For you to be in that chair, I guess P.A.T.R.I.O.T must have had some tremendous layoffs when I retired?" Danny challenged with a smile.
"It was decommissioned by the White House unfortunately," Christner's smile didn't shift at all. "Supposedly replaced by the up and coming PRT at the time. It is such a shame that the agencies assets were also decommissioned instead of being reallocated considering the amount of contacts we had managed to get in the criminal underground of the country."
"So this is your retirement then?" Danny asked. "It seems a bit stressful to go from an Agent to the Mayor of a town like Brockton Bay."
"Only as stressful as becoming the head of a Dockworker's Union from an Evil Genius." Christner replied. "I didn't really want to speak about the past though. I really wanted to discuss the future. More specifically, Your immediate future of course."
"I guess you want me to not do-"
"No. Go ahead. In fact, I highly encourage to continue."
Danny felt his mouth go wide in surprise.
"What?"
"As an old, burned spy, I don't really care what you do on the grand scale of things." Christner waved it off. "I also have a great need of making the PRT look like an idiot so I do encourage you to do just that. I just brought you here to threaten you into not making the city worse. I have re-election soon and I can't have a random genius breaking my city just before that."
Danny re-centered himself, trying to control his utter surprise. Christner was a former Agent of Justice and letting him realise just how surprised he was would be disastrous.
"So I guess you would threaten to expose me, or the life of my daughter in order to maintain your city?" Danny felt himself grow angry at the thought.
"No. God no!" Christner shook his head. "Threatening a loved one's life just causes an inevitable action movie plot where the guy gets his revenge and then no one lives happily."
"No." Christner continued. "If you break my city, I am impounding your car."
"Oh. Okay."
"So are you actually doing anything disruptive in my city this week?"
"No, that would be in Boston. It took a lot of planning and paperwork to move the trial up."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"You know, when Danny told me to get a canary, I really thought he meant a bird." Lacey spoke to her husband as they entered a very specific courthouse in Boston.
"Don't lie." Kurt laughed. "You knew what he meant, you just really wanted to get canary ever since you saw the bird Alan's oldest daughter had."
"That's not true." Lacey pouted. "Archimedes was just a very beautiful bird and I couldn't just let him sit in that terrible petshop cage for another minute."
"Attention, everyone." An announcement echoed through the courthouse's entrance hall. "The trial for Paige Macabee will begin in thirty minutes."
"Oh, you should get ready, love." Kurt spoke eagerly to Lacey as they dodged the idling photographers. "You don't want to be late for our big debut do you?"
"No, I wouldn't." Lacey agreed with a smile
Hope you enjoy the chapter regardless!
====================================
Brockton Bay
1st February 2011
Secret Subterranean Base of Evil
Floor 69 (Warning: Drowning Hazard. Fatalities will be unfairly judged and mocked.)
If there was one part of Danny Herbert that Alan Barnes could get tired of then that would Danny's surprisingly childish impulses. Unlike most people, whose childish impulses led them to either make fart jokes, Danny's happened to be a bit more productive…
Hence, Floor 69.
Surprisingly, the idea behind it wasn't an especially bad or completely spontaneous one but Alan had a… small problem with how much effort Danny went to make it.
The Idea was simple, If you were going to have a Doomsday device, then you probably wanted to put it into a room at the very end of your super-secret base, forcing any intruders to fight through the legion of motivated minions- nothing motivates them more than fighting in the same place they sleep- before they could stop whatever nefarious plan you were planning.
When Danny said that he needed an entire floor to place his new device in, Alan was okay with it. It wasn't like he knew what science Danny did most of the time.
When Danny said that he needed to actually build a new floor as well, Alan wasn't even sceptical. Every one of Danny's projects were always ludicrously complicated to build with very specific parts, that small tradition had gone all the way back to the Bra dissolver back in their college days.
No, what Alan didn't like was all the effort Danny had wasted for a dumb joke because he made his 'Doomsday Floor' a full twenty eight floors deeper than the deepest floor of the actual base. Or at least that was what he had told the minions sharing a crowded elevator with him when they had asked what he was grumbling about.
It wouldn't do wonders for morale to tell them that the exact reason he hated floor 69 was because he had to use an elevator crowded with minions with construction equipment every time he had to drag Danny from his scientific isolationism, like any best friend should.
At least the minion's uniforms look pretty good. Alan thought to himself, squeezed uncomfortably between the wall of the elevator and a large man clad in a yellow jumpsuit and white hard hat. With the total absorption of the Dockworker's Association, barring the administration staff who went into the Organization's management team, some dissatisfied gang members and a few pickup truck-fulls of homeless people left the number of minions sitting around six hundred or so. Ironically, finding uniform suppliers that would supply hundreds of yellow jumpsuits, and a few custom uniforms for the minions that happened to have specialised skills, was alarmingly easy. Finding a way to avoid a supplier from informing the government, and thus the Forces of Justice, of a suspiciously large shipment of jumpsuits was a welcome challenge for the Lawyer in Alan Barnes.
It was less welcoming now that his face was close enough to see the fine detail of the jumpsuit on the man's shoulder. It was a better position than two other minions he could see. The two females had been squished front to front and one had a significant height difference from the other, causing the shorter one's face to be buried in the other's… assets with neither of the poor women seeming to be exactly enjoying the situation. Alan let out a sigh, giving him slightly more room to breathe, he really hoped that they weren't the whiny sort of minions. They still didn't have an official HR position so any complaints would be automatically brought to him and he was tired of the cramped elevator complaints.
"It's only temporary." Danny had said when Alan mentioned possibly expanding the elevator's size. "After our legion of construction workers have finished, the only people who are going to be coming down here is the science team and the Forces of Justice. Why would I want to make it comfy for large amounts of heroes to invade my doomsday floor?"
Alan grumbled to himself as he reflected that he still didn't really have an answer for Danny besides that the taste of Jumpsuit sucked.
At last, the elevator's strained rumbling came to a halt and a sharp ding bought the feeling of relief to all its occupants. Even before the slow rumbling door opened all the way, people were already squeezing themselves out of the elevator, desperate for the vaunted concept of personal space to return to their tortured minds. Keeping their existence secret, only the first three levels of the base had been filled, apart from the science floor around floor twenty, and the Evil Lawyer and minions had been cramped into the single elevator for a ride that was over fifty floors long.
After escaping the elevator and taking the time to stretch, Alan looked around the expansive area that was the Doomsday floor.
Every time he looked over the expansive area, he couldn't help being awestruck. All around him was not a series of corridors and rooms but a massive expansive room that covered the entire floor, massive pylons of high tech electronics reaching from ceiling to floor, each at least fifty meters tall. The elevator led out onto a steel platform connected to the wall around midway, that connecting to a large series of connecting walkways and gantries leading to all the towers, which were covered in hordes of construction minions, slowly constructing whatever techno science that was inside them. Looking down, Alan saw the massive expanse below being filled with water, likely from the previously existing Aquifer, that Danny said would serve as a cooling system.
Alan's eyebrow raised at the sight of some minions being swept away, their bright yellow jumpsuits visible in the shifting water. Alan really hoped that they would get saved by their fellows soon. Worksite accidents, especially deaths, were so much work.
Standing up straight, Alan made his way to his true destination, massive central tower in the middle of the expansive floor.
When he finally made it there, he saw Danny messing around with a terminal on the catwalk surrounding the tower. Looking over his still-best-friend, Alan was surprised to see what exactly Danny was wearing. Danny's old Evil Genius uniform had always looked like a cartoon villain's but apparently he had got a new one. The style had stayed the same but the colour of his faux military uniform had been changed to a deep red with golden buttons. A blue cape now adorned his shoulders, ironically framing the unassuming face that would have been hidden by a missing silver helmet
"Danny?" Alan tried to get his friend's attention and was rewarded when his friend let out a surprised 'what' and spun around.
"Don't scare me like that, Alan." Danny breathed out in relief. "These dimensional calibrations need to be very precise."
"It must be, considering you didn't hear my shoes clanking against the walkway the entire way here." Alan replied. "That's an… interesting change for you, Danny." Alan pointedly looked at Danny's outfit.
Following Alan's gaze, Danny smiled.
"Well. Considering it has been so long since the last time I wore the old suit, I figured that I should change it up."
"It certainly is a change." Alan covered for the fact that he felt it a bit ostentatious. "That isn't the reason I'm down here though."
"Then why are you here?" Danny frowned in confusion, taking a look at the time display on his work terminal. "I know you've had to drag me away from work to get Taylor, but its only eight in the morning. It isn't time to meet her at home yet."
Alan smiled.
"I'm here to get you to do your job, Mr CEO. Mayor Christner asked for a meeting with the head of Evil Corp to discuss our attempts to buy out the Docks."
"I didn't agree to that." Danny quickly reflected, nervousness clear on his face.
"No, you didn't." Alan's smile grew vicious. "Lacey did it for you. She figured the sunlight would do you well."
"Well, unfortunately, I have plenty of work to do so-" Danny tried getting back to work but he winced as he felt Alan's hand land on his shoulder as he turned his back to him.
"Lacey isn't the only one who thinks that." Alan spoke as he pulled Danny towards him.
"Et tu Alan?"
"You can't stay in your lab all day and all of us are tired of you throwing your schemes at us while you do nothing." Alan grinned as he began dragging Danny away.
"No! Please! My project is too exciting! You can't stop me now! Please!" Danny begged his heartless friend.
"It will be here when you get back. Now, I have just the right business suit for you…"
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Danny screamed as Alan dragged him to his fate, drawing the mirthful eyes of the 'hard working' minions as they passed.
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Danny grumbled under his breath as he pulled up to Brockton Bay city hall in his trusty pick up truck.
Some people just didn't respect the needs of Doomsday plotting.
Danny sighed. Well, he was here now and he might as well just go to the meeting. Checking his face in the mirror, Danny quickly fixed a stray hair on his balding head and left the vehicle. After locking it up, The suited Evil Genius made his way up the nearby stairs to the large City Hall building.
Perhaps Ironically, Brockton Bay City Hall was one of the newest buildings in the entire city. There were no exposed brick and mortar walls, no imposing architecture or a sense of about to be entering an old school building. Instead, it was like a minimalist modern office building like the ones in New York City, albeit a stunted one. Looking up the walls of the building revealed four floors of large glass windows covering every floor with frames of steel between them. All around the concrete steps leading to the entrance of the building were a wide variety of people of all walks of life, from the uniformed police to snazzy council workers to shabbily dressed vagrants, that was the only indication that this was the seat of the town government.
Danny let out a grimace as he noticed that he was drawing the attention of some of the people that he passed. He had told Alan that he didn't look good in a suit and now he was even more conspicuous.
It made him want to blow up City hall and thoughts like that was probably why the building was the way it was. Danny remembered that the building used to be completely different, ancient with nice homely bricked walls, until the E88's All Father had blown it up to prove a point. His daughter, Iron Rain, then blew up the reconstructed building to get out of a parking ticket.
Then Danny had accidentally blown it up in a lab accident involving a misaligned death laser.
Then Lustrum had destroyed it in a 'peaceful' protest.
This went on and on until the city realised that it was way too much effort and expensive to keep rebuilding it the same way every time something vaguely sinister happened in the bay.
So, in response, the Mayor at the time had commissioned a team of architects to design a building designed to be functional and completely replaceable at a moments notice. One year of design, two years of legislation and a collection of customised steel frame pieces that acted kind of like Lego pieces and the city had the first and only government building that can be replaced approximately two days after it's inevitable destruction.
Truly a paragon of efficiency were the thoughts that Danny had as he opened the front door to the building and entered the lobby.
The Lobby itself was unsurprisingly bare compared to a typical lobby. There were no signs, no waiting chairs and no fancy artworks. It was a simple, steel room with a built in steel table on the other end of the room where a female secretary in a white blouse stood with her laptop as a workstation.
Danny walked up to the secretary who gave him a polite smile.
"Welcome to City Hall. How can I help you today?"
"Yes. My name is Daniel Hebert and I have a nine'o clock appointment with Mayor Christner."
"Hold on a minute, sir. " She quickly tapped a few keys on her laptop. "Ahh yes. Mayor Christner is waiting for you in the basement office."
Danny thanked the secretary and moved deeper into the building.
Due to its disposable nature, it became necessary to put the more permanent residents of the building, such as the mayor, in a bunker like basement level. That way, theoretically, the heads of government would be safe from random acts of combustion that happened to the building above.
Danny just hoped that this was a social call from the mayor and not an attempted assassination attempt like what happened with Co-
Suddenly a nearby lawyer drew a Tinkertech laser rifle from his briefcase and fired a beam of deadly light straight at Danny's head. Danny looked on, unimpressed, as the laser hit his invisible energy shield, causing it to glow a translucent blue.
Sighing, Danny drew his personal Death Pistol from his inner suit pocket and returned fire on the confused assassin. The bright green blast hit him before the merc had any chance to react, reducing him to ashes.
Well, I warned Coil… Danny thought to himself as he entered the detonation sequence into his watch.
Danny looked out a nearby window as the ground shook and a huge pillar of concrete turned magma erupted from where Coil's base was, having been created by Danny's conversion charges and most likely dissolving the stupid snake painfu-
--====0-0-0-0
Danny just hoped that this was a social call from the mayor and not an attempted assassination attempt like what happened with Coil a few months ago.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Come in" a strong voice erupted from beyond the office door after Danny knocked on it.
Walking through the door, Danny was immediately impressed. He had never been in Mayor Christner's office, Danny having retired before Christner had gotten into office, but it looked like he was a man of taste.
The Office itself looked like it had come out of an old James Bond film. The walls were panaled wood while the floor was a dark green carpet. Against the walls lay many cupboards and shelves of assorted expensive crockery decorations and several diplomas and hunting trophies were decorating the walls themselves. Teamed up with the apparent oakwood desk and comfortable sitting chairs it looked like a very professional office.
It looked so professional, in fact that it was completely obvious to Danny that it was all fake.
Where were the pictures of the Mayor's family? Coffee or tea stains on the built in carpet during long nights?
No, this room was built to impress, not work in.
The mayor, recogniseable by his wrinkles denoting his five decades of life, pristine suit, balding head and large ears, was even simply doodling on the paper infront of him.
The Mayor looked up, stared into Danny's eyes and then gave a friendly smile.
"Already found me out hey? Keeping where I actually work a secret is quite the advantage in Brockton Bay" he spoke in a voice that would have belonged to someone twenty years younger. Something that a younger person wouldn't pick up but as Danny had also suffered the ravages of time, he could tell the subtle difference.
"Hence this is your dummy office?
"Hence it is my Dummy Office." He confirmed with a nod. "Come! Have a seat Mr Hebert! I have been so eager to meet you."
Danny walked in and gave him a nervous smile as he sat down in a comfortable leather chair, the only difference being from the Mayor's chair that Danny's was smaller.
"It's nice to meet you too Mr Christner, but surely meeting me is not that important in the grand scheme of things. I'm simply a new CEO of a new company." Danny said poilitely. It already was a mere courtesy for an up and coming CEO to meet the Mayor before conducting a big amount of business in their city but being polite here would stop the Mayor from being an especially intrusive obstacle to his plans later, inevitably requiring a change in leadership for the city.
Election campaigns were so expensive.
"I think you will find, Mr Hebert, that it is very important to me that I meet with you, especially since you are the CEO of a company that only really began existing two weeks ago."
"I'm sure you'll find that our company has been in operation since 1832."
"That's what all the records say." The Mayor nodded while Danny sneaked a scrutinizing look at him. "However, looking a little deeper, I note a peculiar lack of any interruptions of business whatsoever."
Danny sat up a little straighter. This was no mere Mayor.
"Of course, If your company was really that old, I would be very impressed that the sudden introduction of parahumans in the 1960s had no effect on such an old company. Especially since new Villains at the time tended to take revenge on workplaces that previously hired them.
"Well, I can safely say that Evil Corp has a great history of employee satisfaction. We had no disgruntled employees to 'take revenge' as you say."
Mayor Christner nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.
"Of course! My research revealed that too but, please allow me to continue my train of thought."
Danny nodded wearily, causing Christner to smile.
"Thank you. Well, I must say that I was very impressed when I read that little fact but, I was definitely confused on how you managed to maintain that during an economic depression."
"As well," Christner continued. "I was definitely interested to read that no Villain had managed to put a significant dent into your company's very unspecific business through out an entire century. Not to mention that It is incredibly fortunate that your company is still standing despite having your head office in three cities that Endbringers have destroyed, leaving the majority of your files sadly too destroyed to decipher. It all seems very convenient, especially if you wanted to claim that a company hadn't been originally made as a backup money fund around twenty years ago"
Danny narrowed his eyes.
"What exactly is your intention for this meeting Mister Mayor?"
"It is purely a social call, my friend." Christner gave a teethy grin. "I really wanted to see who had defeated the best agents my previous employer had to offer, not to mention whether the Techno Commander was as personable as his photo on the company website suggested."
Danny didn't react at the mention of his previous alias as a public Evil Genius. It was obvious that the Mayor knew exactly who he was. However, Danny now knew who the Mayor was as well.
"For you to be in that chair, I guess P.A.T.R.I.O.T must have had some tremendous layoffs when I retired?" Danny challenged with a smile.
"It was decommissioned by the White House unfortunately," Christner's smile didn't shift at all. "Supposedly replaced by the up and coming PRT at the time. It is such a shame that the agencies assets were also decommissioned instead of being reallocated considering the amount of contacts we had managed to get in the criminal underground of the country."
"So this is your retirement then?" Danny asked. "It seems a bit stressful to go from an Agent to the Mayor of a town like Brockton Bay."
"Only as stressful as becoming the head of a Dockworker's Union from an Evil Genius." Christner replied. "I didn't really want to speak about the past though. I really wanted to discuss the future. More specifically, Your immediate future of course."
"I guess you want me to not do-"
"No. Go ahead. In fact, I highly encourage to continue."
Danny felt his mouth go wide in surprise.
"What?"
"As an old, burned spy, I don't really care what you do on the grand scale of things." Christner waved it off. "I also have a great need of making the PRT look like an idiot so I do encourage you to do just that. I just brought you here to threaten you into not making the city worse. I have re-election soon and I can't have a random genius breaking my city just before that."
Danny re-centered himself, trying to control his utter surprise. Christner was a former Agent of Justice and letting him realise just how surprised he was would be disastrous.
"So I guess you would threaten to expose me, or the life of my daughter in order to maintain your city?" Danny felt himself grow angry at the thought.
"No. God no!" Christner shook his head. "Threatening a loved one's life just causes an inevitable action movie plot where the guy gets his revenge and then no one lives happily."
"No." Christner continued. "If you break my city, I am impounding your car."
"Oh. Okay."
"So are you actually doing anything disruptive in my city this week?"
"No, that would be in Boston. It took a lot of planning and paperwork to move the trial up."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"You know, when Danny told me to get a canary, I really thought he meant a bird." Lacey spoke to her husband as they entered a very specific courthouse in Boston.
"Don't lie." Kurt laughed. "You knew what he meant, you just really wanted to get canary ever since you saw the bird Alan's oldest daughter had."
"That's not true." Lacey pouted. "Archimedes was just a very beautiful bird and I couldn't just let him sit in that terrible petshop cage for another minute."
"Attention, everyone." An announcement echoed through the courthouse's entrance hall. "The trial for Paige Macabee will begin in thirty minutes."
"Oh, you should get ready, love." Kurt spoke eagerly to Lacey as they dodged the idling photographers. "You don't want to be late for our big debut do you?"
"No, I wouldn't." Lacey agreed with a smile
- Location
- USA
So, how many times a week does Coils base have its explosive remodeling delayed by timeline shenanigans?
Demonianism
I'm not possessed, this is normal.
- Location
- United States
Hmph. These green ass PRT pukes are going to see what real Agents of Justice had to deal with! Let's just see how their fancy pants "containment foam" handles the likes of what we had to go up against. Why I remember having to stop Dr. Impossible's hyperbolic gamma bomb in mid air over the city with just my secret decoder ring and spy watch! Took using my shoe laces and a couple of rubber bands to get out of that one....
You're still upset about the pension.
Damn right I'm still upset about the pension!
You're still upset about the pension.
Damn right I'm still upset about the pension!
- Location
- Nottinghamshire, England
YES! YEĖEĘEĒEÊEÈEÉEËESŚSŠS!¡!'! ĮT ŁÏVÉŠ¡ ÍT'Ś ÆŁÌVĘ¡ *Maniacle laughter of joy*
Ahem, sorry about that. But still, just 9 days short of being posted exactly 5 months after the most recent comment! Shame on you, Inq. Halberd! Shame on you! You could at least TRY to keep us updated on your progress next time you need to take a month-or-so-long break from Sufficient Velocity!
Ahem, sorry about that. But still, just 9 days short of being posted exactly 5 months after the most recent comment! Shame on you, Inq. Halberd! Shame on you! You could at least TRY to keep us updated on your progress next time you need to take a month-or-so-long break from Sufficient Velocity!
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
It was a darn good pension!
Sorry about that. To be honest, it was closer to two months because I was writing the other stories and Honours physics had burnt me out to the point that I couldn't write comedy anymore, only sarcastic commentary.
I will try to keep up the inspiration but I go back to Uni on monday and it will be pretty busy.
I think at least once a day if Danny is out and about. Coil's ego is too tough to die to molten concrete.
You know, honestly surprised Danny didn't come up with a resurrection device of some sort to bring Annette back.
Also wondering when we'll get another glimpse of Taylor and what she's doing.
Also wondering when we'll get another glimpse of Taylor and what she's doing.
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
Well, I would tell you but [REDACTED] and then she [REDACTED] who then kills [REDACTED ] because he broke her car, causing her to [REDACTED].
Its probably a bit complicated but I hope it was a facinating read.
Plotting 2.4.9
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
I realised that I forgot a little piece of Dialogue between the Mayor and Danny, so here it is.
==============================================
The Mayor glared at Danny through his lidded eyes.
"Somehow, I don't believe you."
"Well, I'm not lying." Danny gave a small shrug at him. "I'm really not planning anything big this working week."
The Mayor stared at Danny and after a while he nodded. apparently satisfied.
"Okay then. Just keep what I said in mind. Your pickup's wellbeing hangs in the balance." Christner reminded. "That was all I wanted to say so you can go now if you want."
"Before, I go. How did you know?" Danny asked.
"Excuse me?"
"All those points you mentioned, the forged documents and conviniently missing files, is just standard procedure for proxy companies. How did you know I was the Techno Commander?"
"Despite the fact that you just confirmed it now?" Christner smiled at Danny's glare. "No, don't worry. I actually figured it out through a very complex system of analys-"
"It was the name wasn't it?"
"In... simplicity, yes." Christner nodded. "While almost everyone is going to look at that ingenoious name and immediately write it off as far too easy and likely unrelated to any Villain activity, attributing the name to some shady CEO or Marketing intern, some of us aren't fooled by even the most effective disguises. Not to mention that you, the Techno Commander, is the only Evil Genius that was left unaccounted for so it was easy to guess your other identity when I confirmed that you were an Evil Genius."
"You said us. Who else found out?"
"A local hero actually." Christer's grin widened in amusement. "He has sent at least a hundred letters to City Hall asking, then demanding and finally begging us to investigate you for being a possible front for a Covert Evil Genius operation because his own superiors thought his ramblings were baseless. Stupid PRT agents. He even had complex flowchart diagrams and everything."
"And you aren't?"
"No, Danny. I'm not going to investigate you. Hopefully, If I leave you alone long enough, the agencies might come back and I'd finally have a good place to put my Niece."
Danny frowned.
"I don't think a spy agency is a good place to raise a kid."
"Oh you haven't met Dinah. She really needs some proper direction in her life. And maybe some self defense courses."
Unwilling to be part of a discussion of whether a ten year old needs to be in boot camp, Danny simply nodded and got up to leave.
"Oh, I almost forgot to ask." Danny paused at the door as he remembered. "Who was the hero that found out."
"Oh. It was Armsmaster." Christner smiled.
==============================================
The Mayor glared at Danny through his lidded eyes.
"Somehow, I don't believe you."
"Well, I'm not lying." Danny gave a small shrug at him. "I'm really not planning anything big this working week."
The Mayor stared at Danny and after a while he nodded. apparently satisfied.
"Okay then. Just keep what I said in mind. Your pickup's wellbeing hangs in the balance." Christner reminded. "That was all I wanted to say so you can go now if you want."
"Before, I go. How did you know?" Danny asked.
"Excuse me?"
"All those points you mentioned, the forged documents and conviniently missing files, is just standard procedure for proxy companies. How did you know I was the Techno Commander?"
"Despite the fact that you just confirmed it now?" Christner smiled at Danny's glare. "No, don't worry. I actually figured it out through a very complex system of analys-"
"It was the name wasn't it?"
"In... simplicity, yes." Christner nodded. "While almost everyone is going to look at that ingenoious name and immediately write it off as far too easy and likely unrelated to any Villain activity, attributing the name to some shady CEO or Marketing intern, some of us aren't fooled by even the most effective disguises. Not to mention that you, the Techno Commander, is the only Evil Genius that was left unaccounted for so it was easy to guess your other identity when I confirmed that you were an Evil Genius."
"You said us. Who else found out?"
"A local hero actually." Christer's grin widened in amusement. "He has sent at least a hundred letters to City Hall asking, then demanding and finally begging us to investigate you for being a possible front for a Covert Evil Genius operation because his own superiors thought his ramblings were baseless. Stupid PRT agents. He even had complex flowchart diagrams and everything."
"And you aren't?"
"No, Danny. I'm not going to investigate you. Hopefully, If I leave you alone long enough, the agencies might come back and I'd finally have a good place to put my Niece."
Danny frowned.
"I don't think a spy agency is a good place to raise a kid."
"Oh you haven't met Dinah. She really needs some proper direction in her life. And maybe some self defense courses."
Unwilling to be part of a discussion of whether a ten year old needs to be in boot camp, Danny simply nodded and got up to leave.
"Oh, I almost forgot to ask." Danny paused at the door as he remembered. "Who was the hero that found out."
"Oh. It was Armsmaster." Christner smiled.
Hye
Reader of The Long Words
- Location
- In the middle of a story
Of course it was Armsmaster It was up to either him, Triumph or Assault. And Triumph would probably not need all that, nor would he make a diagram and everything. And Assault would likely not do anything lest he loses all the potential humour he can get out of it Like Mouse Protector
It was up to either him, Triumph or Assault. And Triumph would probably not need all that, nor would he make a diagram and everything. And Assault would likely not do anything lest he loses all the potential humour he can get out of it Like Mouse Protector - Location
- Nottinghamshire, England
Oh. Okay. Yeesh, now I'm even MORE glad that I've been officially signed off of college.
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
To be perfectly fair, Triumph probably already knows but is a bit more... discreet thanks to some family 'lessons'.Of course it was Armsmaster
I agree about Assult but I think he would rather tease Armsy about it constantly
.Mouse Protector would just invade Evil Corp warehouses weekly in the hope of getting some proper hero vs villain action.
Its not that bad, as long as you realise that you aren't going to know everything.
And get headaches often.
And lose freetime.
But hey, its pretty good besides.
Hye
Reader of The Long Words
- Location
- In the middle of a story
Exactly.
Exactly!I agree about Assult but I think he would rather tease Armsy about it constantly
Exactly! Although, this would be hilarious to see. Her and Assault teaming up to make the best, Green-Egg-and-Hammiest Hero duo to do battle against them
Come on! It's Leviathan, so he clearly needs to be killed in a game of Go Fish.
Inq. Halbread
Angry Physicist Robot
- Location
- Somewhere where there is no. (South Africa)
FOOLISH MORTALS... I! HAVE! AWOKEN!!!!!
Sadly, I do not have a chapter for you guys yet, but I am actively working on it so expect this story to get the next update.
I just didn't want to get your hopes up for a new chapter when I am still busy with my massive University project but I figured I might as well say something now that the thread has recieved a random rez.
Sadly, I do not have a chapter for you guys yet, but I am actively working on it so expect this story to get the next update.
I just didn't want to get your hopes up for a new chapter when I am still busy with my massive University project but I figured I might as well say something now that the thread has recieved a random rez.
Go Fish... Heh.