Evening had come, and early too. In the North, it’s always pre-evening.

The Thieves Court had become cloaked in the final remainder of the sun, and in the night, the villains returned from their days to their sleep for the night.

A crowd in the droves came back through the door, all wearing various gear, whether it be spandex or snowsuits, they had returned, and they’d returned hungry.

They expected food lined across the diner tables in the dining hall, what they currently saw was laminated, waxed, shiny, yet not edible, hardwood.

There were around fifty people all in the dining hall, all of them awaiting a menu, or a dish to be delivered. The chefs however, were currently… preoccupied.

“LeCroux!” Sal shouted out across the dining hall, busting through the door with incomparable anguish. His eyes darted across to each table in the room, yet no sign of the man.

“Has anyone seen a lanky, disgusting, middle aged child kidnapper wearing a tophat and a blue tacky tuxedo?” he queried the room, making a scene. Yet, it did help. A hand raised from the group of people. A woman wearing a blue evening gown with egregious amounts of orange lipstick reminiscent of liquid vomit covering her mouth.

“Yes mam!” Sal smirked, his charisma shining through his anger.

“I passed him on the stairs, sir.” the woman told Lethal Inferno. “Is he in trouble?”

“Yes! Indeed.” Sal smirked devilishly.

“And, uh, also, are you one of the staff? Is food coming soon?”

“He is the reason you all aren’t getting fed tonight! Do all of you low li- fellow villains wish to assist in forcing this man to cook for us?”

“No food?!” a voice rang out.

“But they said there would be an all you can eat banquet!” a rotund bald man chimed in.

“Yes! Let us make this fool cook for us!” cackled a scary looking man with spider legs coming out of his back.

“YEAH!” the mod roared. Sal smiled at his handiwork. This is how you make a statement. This is how you move a crowd.

This is also how you start a revolution, but Sal just wanted to beat the fuck out of LeCroux.

Selene had only just finished the final dish in the kitchen. She set it upon the counter next to hundreds, the first ones now completely dry.

The door burst open, startling her. She stared at Courtney, her hair frazzled and face boiling red.

“Where is the food!?” she exclaimed like an angry bitch.

“Wait, we’re supposed to cook?” Selene shuddered, nearly having a panic attack.

“Yes! It’s on your list!” Courtney yelled, running up to Selene, who nearly fell over backwards. Courtney snatched the list from her pocket, almost ripping it in half. “Let me see that…”

“You… how much of this did you do!?”

“I’m doing it in order… uh… no… the…”

“THE DISHES ARE THE FIRST ITEM! YOU DID NONE OF IT!?”

“But, look, they are all done!” Selene tried to say, but too little, too late.

“You disrespect your master! Your queen. I am La Reine. Do you know what that means, girl?” Courtney growled, Selene peered down the back of her throat, it was dark, and unbelievably slimy. The darkness began to turn to light, like someone had spun a dimmer, slowly turning on a light inside her belly.

“That’s… The Queen… in French…”

“Good, you know your languages, I see that is what you study while you slack off. Vouivre… do you know what that means?”

“Uh… dragon… female dragon…” she whimpered, holding back tears.

“Yes, now you follow. That is what I turn into when I lose my mind. You do not wish to see my other form, but I won't need it to punish you in a way that you’ll never forget.” her throat grew brighter with ember and smoke.

Suddenly, the door flung open. Twee stood in the door and shot out her hand to the side. Her horns shone and a butcher’s knife from across the room zipped into her palm.

“Keep away, bitch. Know your place.” Twee said with a badass scowl.

“You dare insult me too, demonette?” Courtney said tauntingly, turning around with Selene’s throat in a single hand, the hand looking rougher and stronger than usual. Twee noticed the gem necklace around the queen’s jugular was throbbing intently.

“Yeah, I dare, psycho. Put Selene down. She is sweet and innocent, and if you want something from her, you go through me.”

“I only see a psycho holding a boucher knife. I am not the psycho here.” Courtney grinned with vigor.

“And yet you hold a weak child by her neck.”

“I’m nearly eighteen, Twee.” Selene gagged, the miniscule hint of a smile crossed her face, just relieved to have someone to save her right now.

“Touche then. But what do you intend to do? What is your plan to save the meek princess from the mighty wyvern?”

“Look, lardass, I just got done with a scathing fight with my old teacher. I slapped that dude across the face, and I wanted to do it again, but... I decided to hold back. But now I see you here, about to kill my boyfr- best friend’s sister! So the question is, what the fuck wont I do?”

Courtney dropped Selene. She fell to the floor, gasping for air, but Twee didn’t go to comfort her. No, she stood her ground.

“Darling. That was marvelous. Absolutely. Perhaps you’d prefer a job on my security detail instead?” the dragon queen said, smiling like nothing happened.

Twee simply walked closer, each step, she shook her head. As soon as she was within arms reach of Courtney, the knife went to her throat, not even with her metal powers, just hand, knife, neck. “Perhaps you’d prefer to shut up.” Twee grinned.

“But, Twee, you were working for a one-off loser villain in Canada, don’t you want to be something more?” she said, right before being pushed down onto the counter, silverware shaking upon the impact. Twee deadpan stared directly into Courtney’s flabby face, a rage filled hand pinning the queen to the table.

“Stocklord is my loser. Mine. You are nobody. Just some fat bitch with a mansion. We’re going to live here, in your rooms, with real beds that don’t stab you, eat your food that whoever the fuck you pick to replace us prepares, and we will not do any more of your stupid fucking chores!”

Twee smiled, pressing the blade into her soft flesh. “Got it, darling?”

Courtney swallowed saliva, and then spoke.

“Fine.”

Twee let her up, kneeling down to Selene to help her.

“Just know, Twee, you won’t like your stay here. Not after what you’ve done. And as soon as you leave, and this contrived, one-sided deal is done, you will not only be a criminal in the normal world, but in the villain world too. I am not nobody. I am nobody you want to trifle with.”

Courtney left the room, and now Twee and Selene sat on the floor, both trying to figure out what just happened.

“Sal, he’s in his room, one of the master suites.” a vaudeville themed supervillainess said to the smug fire super. He simply nodded and ushered the angry mob to follow along to get their forsaken dinner back.

They came to the oaken door and waited outside intently, like lions waiting for the gazelle to begin drinking from the watering hole.

“Alright, when we get in there, I need at least four people holding him down.” Sal whispered to the crowd, who was staying as quiet as the audience of… well, I guess... a boring play. Who the fuck goes to plays in this day and age?

They nodded. Sal held up his fingers.

Three fingers.

Two fingers.

One finger.

A fist. It ignited and barreled into the door bashing it down right off its hinges.

“Wow, okay, didn’t think that would happen…” Sal admitted, awkwardly staring at LeCroux halfway putting on his man makeup. “GET HIM!”

What happened next was pure chaos. The crowd rushed in, punching and kicking at LeCroux like bully school-children until he was on the ground. Nobody had made up their minds on who wanted to pin him down, and thus nearly all fifty of them were pushing and shoving, trying to beat him to the ground and keep him there.

“We got him!” a muscular meathead with a metal forehead and a vent puffing every so often on his scalp guffawed.

“You are going to make us some fucking dinner, asshole! You have refused to feed us!” another villain with the maw of an orca cackled angrily.

“Gentlemen! And ladies! This is… all a big… misunderstanding!” LeCroux squirmed as he spoke. “I told the servants to do it, and they were disobedient! Simply put, I had nothing to do with it!” the Candyman tried to elucidate, writhing beneath the pile of normally somewhat dignified villains.

“He’s lying. The servants worked their hardest, but the list was simply too long to be completed in one day. He intentionally made some tasks harder too, like by disabling the dishwashers.” Sal chimed in with a wry smile, relaxing on LeCroux’s bed with his dirty shoes on.

“What a scumbag!” a villain shouted.

“We should disable the ovens or some shit to make his work miserable!”

“We should destroy his perfume and makeup!”

“YEAH!” the mob cried out, and began trashing the makeup table. Over the course of a minute, the table was trashed to shards of wood, marble, and glass and LeCroux angrily watched, struggling to free himself.

“Hey, Le Croux. You interested in making us some food now?” Sal asked with smug satisfaction from the bed, clearly beyond pleased.

“Fiiiiiiine!” The Candyman screamed, and the entire crowd stopped vandalizing his room. “You’ll get your food. Go back to the dining hall! This is uncivilized behavior!”

“You heard the child kidnapper! Go relax, you all did a great job acting hangry.”

The crowd cheered one more time before leaving the room in a surprisingly orderly fashion. Sal however, stayed behind, looking at LeCroux, lying on the floor.

Sal turned himself around and rested his chin upon the baseboard as he looked down at the beat up body of The Candyman. It was simply justice served, and the ex-hero missed it o’ so much.

“These pillows are so comfy for your feet, you know?” Sal smiled tauntingly, resting the bottoms of his shoes on the pillow. It wasn’t just any pillow, it was memory foam, and extremely soft, expensively so.

“Courtney will figure out about this.” he scowled distastefully.

“Hell yeah she will. I’m sure she’ll be enthused to learn you intentionally sabotaged Selene, and perhaps Twee and Quincy too.”

“And yet you didn’t even work.”

“I did work. I got your people food. I got a friend to cook an entire three course meal ready within an hour and a half. And now, I can rest while that same friend entertains me. Sounds like a perfect way to spend my night, friend!” Sal said, cheekily winking.

“While you act high and mighty now, I wonder how Courtney will react when she finds out you're spying for TUHF.”

“But I’m not though?”

“Who is she to believe? Me, or the new recruit who just started an uprising in her mansion? Face it Sal, I’m the Candyman! I’m ultra-powerful.”

“You French people and your anime.”

“Laugh now, but I know more than you think. More about you, more about your overbearing mother, more about your suicidal father, and more about your address! So suck a lollipop and get the fuck out of my once-lovely room, Sal. We’ll have our reckoning later.”

Sal didn’t say anything, he just got up from the bed and picked up a cyan vase, shattering it across the floor before leaving the room.

Oh, actually, he did mutter something.

“If you touch my family, I will put your two inch dick in a meat grinder, along with the rest of you.”