"Leonard!" Captain Boomerang smiled. "Good to see you, mate."
"George…" Captain Cold ground out. "Haven't seen you in ages. What are the chances we both hit the same goddamn lab?"
"Must be my lucky day, isn't it? Running into an old friend and everything." Captain Boomerang's grin widened.
I watched in silence as the two of them talked.
It was a bit of a surprise seeing this many villains gathered in one place. Gotham was no stranger to costumed villains, but even for me, running into this many freaks was a first.
While the two Captains seemed to be chatting amicably enough, the rest of the assorted villains were not looking at us kindly.
Thankfully, that didn't seem lost on Captain Cold. His hand stayed close to the trigger of his Cold Gun.
"So, as I was saying," Captain Boomerang continued, putting on a wounded expression, "the bobbies really don't know how to treat a man in prison."
"Uh huh." Captain Cold just scoffed. "Cut the crap, George. What the hell is going on?"
"Whatever could you mean, mate?" Captain Boomerang smiled, one hand pressed to his chest. "I'm just happy to see an old friend."
A man in a leather jacket, with tiger claws gleaming at the ends of his fingers, scoffed from the side. "What's the point of hiding it?"
A couple of the other villains bristled.
"Bronzey," Captain Boomerang warned, his smile thinning, "how about you keep your mouth shut—"
"Screw off." The clawed man sneered. "It was an Amazo."
Ah.
That wasn't good.
Even I'd heard of that one. When something was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with nearly the entire Justice League, it tended to pick up a bit of a reputation.
"Which version is it?" I asked.
Amazos had appeared a few times over the years, and one of my old friends had a thing for robots. Loved keeping track of them too, so I knew a bit more than the general public.
Some could only use one power at a time. Another only kept the powerset of the Justice League. Then there were the versions that could copy a bunch of new powers, but were limited by distance or some other nonsense.
The clawed villain shot me a raised eyebrow before shrugging. "It's a version that can use a bunch of powers. Picked up some weird meta ability that lets it sense anybody in a certain radius. Whatever the lab folk did to it fried its intelligence, though, so now it's just madly killing anybody who tries to leave the damn place."
"I see…" Captain Cold frowned. "What other powers does it have?"
"We think it has the Martians, because it phased inside Javelin and stole his guts," a woman holding a rat muttered, her expression haunted.
Youch.
Several of the other villains winced at the mention, and if you could get a room full of villains to react like that, then it must have been bad.
"How convenient that you didn't want to mention that, George." Captain Cold scoffed. "Trying to use me as bait?"
Captain Boomerang just whistled and looked away.
"Asshole." Captain Cold pinched the bridge of his nose. "The Bats and his brats probably guessed I was gunning for the lab. We should wait for them. Once they enter the labs, we'll be able to find a way out."
I kept quiet as Captain Cold worked out a plan with the rest of the villains.
As much as I had an adversarial relationship with the Bats because of my career, I never wanted to kill the Bat or any of his sidekicks.
I respected their skills, but throwing a crazy robot that could go toe-to-toe with the League at them had a very high chance of going terribly wrong.
There was also the fact that I didn't want another random group of villains going free in Gotham.
We never really addressed it, because both sides seemed to realize some things were better left unsaid, but the elephant in the room was still very much there.
Why the hell was there a massive group of villains working together?
I already had my hands full with Gotham's crazies. I didn't want to start dealing with out-of-state imports too.
So…
"I can do it."
The rest of the villains paused their planning and looked at me like I was an idiot.
The clawed man, who I had learned was aptly named Bronze Tiger, shook his head.
"Don't be an idiot—"
"Now, now, Bronzey…" Captain Boomerang cut in, raising a hand. "Let's not spit on our hero's sacrifice. If the man wants a go at it, then by all means, right, fellas?"
He looked around, and the rest of the villains muttered among themselves, looking a little too pleased at my stepping forward.
"Ah, on one condition, though." I raised a finger. "You see, I'm a Meta-human, and my power is a bit strange, but it'll help me survive. I promise it won't hurt you guys or anything. If we wait for the heroes, you might get caught, but if I distract it now, you get to escape none the wiser, right?"
Captain Cold twitched, looking at me in surprise.
"What is it?" Bloodsport asked, his stare going flat. "If it's some telepathic—"
"Oh, no. It just causes you guys to piss yourselves." I smiled innocently.
The room went so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
"Bahahaha!" Captain Boomerang bent over from the force of his laughter. "Good joke, kid."
"Joke?" I asked, smiling at him as innocently as I could.
Captain Boomerang's laughter stumbled. "Erhhh."
"Don't mess around." Bloodsport scoffed. "If you wanna hide your power, fine. Just do it."
"Are you all in agreement?" I asked, my smile widening.
The rest of the villains exchanged looks, clearly deciding I was messing with them, before nodding along.
"Well, then…"
I slowly turned on Terrifying Presence.
"Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me,
I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed."
They all stared at me like I had lost my mind.
Then their expressions began to change.
A chorus of panicked swearing filled the room.
Oh, I was going to savor that look.
—
I marched down the hallway, humming happily as I waited for this new Amazo to find me.
[Feat Achieved! Piss Squad]
[+1 Golden Gacha Ticket]
Heh.
***
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