Chapter 27: A Bird in the Hand

“God, will you stop pouting already?”

I huffed, slapping away a low branch. “I’m not pouting.”

“Suuure you’re not.” Electra rolled her eyes. “And I’m have a grand old time slogging through this stupid jungle.”

We were, of course, trekking once more through the jungle beyond Silverwall.

“Don’t compare us, it’s unsightly.”

Maarin had given us a location where hummingbirds usually nested, and I’d taken Electra with me out of the city. Wouldn’t do for the fox to be in the henhouse while the chickens were plotting a coup, or something like that.

Pardon the pun.

“Yeah, like, who would ever want to be like you?”

I rolled my eyes. “And I’m sure you’re so happy with the way little girls would eagerly buy Halloween versions of your leotard and prance around in it.”

She blushed lightly, rubbing the back of her head. Her hair had grown out a bit, and that plus the humidity made it tend to be more frizzy than spiky these days. “That’s—look, I had a talk with my agent about the whole costume thing, alright?”

“I’m sure your fan boys were devastated by the loss of your thighs.”

“Hey man, these thighs do save lives.”

I snorted. “I’m sure.” I ducked under a branch, letting Electra stumble as she got a faceful of leaves.

“Hey! We’re on the same side here, aren’t we?”

“Hmm?” I turned back to look at her, as if butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. “What was that?”

She glared, tugging the thick fronds out of her hair. “Whatever.” She huffed. “This is the thanks I get for running your little criminal empire for you? Maybe I won’t work so hard next week.”

I choked, holding back a laugh.

Electra’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“N-nothing!” I waved a hand. “I-I’m sure you’ll manage things perfectly, no matter how much or little effort you decide to put in. Your… efforts have been… exemplary.”

She glared at me for a moment longer, as if looking for the trap in my words. Of course, she missed the fact that the entire thing was the trap. Oh man, the look on Wonderman’s face when he got to the center of my Doom Fortress and the entire thing turned out to be just a giant Doom Fortrap… Good times.

But I digress.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“No, no, thank you!” I smiled. “I mean it, I wouldn’t have been able to pull off my plans without your assistance.”

We kept walking, and I affected not to notice the suspicious glances at me from the corner of my eye. She wouldn’t figure me out before the whole thing came to a head, though. I’d already heard that people were sniffing around the edges of my Imperium. God, what a pretentious name, but when you’ve got skin in the game, you play the cards you’re dealt.

Hopefully, Rel would be able to make it through while I wasn’t there. I knew this would be a prime chance for the guild to reach out and contact her, but prepping her for the conversation, or changing the way I acted before leaving the city in any way, might scare them off. I needed the guild to try their coup d’etat sooner rather than later.

Especially because the city now had my armor.

Speaking of. “We will need to get it back, though.”

“Your suit?” Electra shrugged. “Well, yeah. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t call this whole thing off to go charging the palace or something.”

“None of us have even been allowed through the inner wall,” I said. “There’s no way some half-baked attack would work.”

Silverwall was divided in many ways, not the least of which was that the poor sections of the city lay along the north and east walls. Those areas were where the miners lived, and the sailors lived no longer. The main thoroughfare through the city split it in half. Beyond that, even, there was a second wall cutting off the middle of the city from the rest.

That wall was capped with silver on the crenelations, no less. It was probably Silverwall’s titular namesake. The gates were always manned, and there was no miner’s gate into the inner city.

“What’s your play then?”

I sighed. “For now? The exact same as my last plans. Amass power, take over the underworld, topple the guild. Then I’ll have enough resources to launch an attack.” I allowed myself a small smile. “It fits in rather neatly, doesn’t it?”

“Is that how you do all your planning?” Electra waved a hand nebulously. “Just, get stuff so that you can do… something in the future?”

“Were you expecting something different?”

“Well, yeah?” She shrugged. “I mean, your schemes back on earth were always so… 1000 steps or something right?”

I tilted my head. “Is that what they looked like?”

“Yeah?”

“Well.” I chuckled. “You know you’re watching a professional when they make it look effortless.” In reality, things back on Earth had been more ad hoc than my ‘schemes’ on this world. Here, I had a clear end goal, I had only minor opposition, and I was allowed to operate freely with knowledge that the system didn’t know how to counter.

Electra just snorted. “Suuuure.”

I just shrugged. “There’s a reason I was the last one left.”

Electra paused at that. I stopped a step later, turning to look at her over my shoulder. “What?”

“What was it like? Being the last big supervillain?” She rubbed the back of her head. “I mean, sure, people would pop up, using laser vision to rob a bank or something, but you, you were the only one who still tried to take over the world, or whatever. Like, you could have swapped sides and made mad bank with your inventions just because of the clout.”

I turned away. “And here you were saying that I wasn’t actually big news.”

“Oh, c’mon, Empress, that was just talk.”

I smiled. “It always is. Now, let’s keep moving. I want to get back to Silverwall by the end of the day.”

“Huh? But you didn’t—”

I started walking. “Are you coming?”

She huffed, jogging to catch up with me. “If you didn’t want to talk about it, you just had to say so.”

“So,” I said. She gave me a dry look. I sighed. “Look, did you think it was fun? Being alone against the world? Being the only one left with any ambition among a bunch of two-bit thugs and wannabe Capones?”

“You made it look pretty fun, not gonna lie.”

I sighed. “Oh the things we could have done together. Ruled the galaxy as father and son.” Electra gave me an odd look. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen those movies!”

“What movies?”

I turned to stare at her. “You know what, never mind. I probably would have just stuck you in a capacitor. I need minions I can talk with.”

She gave a laugh. “Oh, that’s why you keep the boys around, huh?”

“They do make better conversationalists than some.”

Electra rolled her eyes. “Hey, don’t change the conversation now. I’m serious, you think we didn’t talk about you, what made you come back each time we beat you? Hell, I always wondered what made you come back each time you won.”

I worried my lip, casting my gaze up towards the dense green canopy. “Because… I’d already changed sides once, and I’d be damned if I came back after that.”

Electra blinked.

“I used to work for Aegis, you know?” I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. “The hero organization. Of course I signed up. I got a job there too, for a while.” I smiled. “Then I met Marvelous.”

Electra pulled a face. “Oh, yeah. She was kinda stuck up, wasn’t she.”

I shrugged. “Sure, we can go with that.”

“So that’s it?” Electra asked. “You were on our side once, so that means you could never come back, even if you could have made a fresh start for yourself? Hell, you could have just hung up the cape, I know you know that we couldn’t have come after you.”

“I’m sure it started that way.” I shrugged. “But then, at some point it stopped being about that.”

“What was it about then?”

I smiled. “Winning.”

She followed after me, a difficult expression on her face.

I laughed. “Why so serious? It’s not like I’m some martyr who was forced down this road every step of the way. I made my choices, I decided what was important to me… and what wasn’t.”

“I guess that makes sense why Marvelous got transferred, huh?”

“Oh, no.”

“No?”

My smile grew slightly. “I made her ask for it herself.”

Electra didn’t say anything.

Which, if we were being brutally honest in this moment, was my preferred state of affairs.

In due time, we made it deep enough into the jungle to find one of the clearings. Really, it was the glinting of bright feathers in the sunlight that drew my gaze. Electra and I moved to the edge of a small open area in the jungle. There was a break in the trees, and there was a whole group of hummingbirds nesting in the eaves of a smaller palm tree closer to the center.

“That’s a weird clearing.”

I nodded, looking down at the carpet of wildflowers that grew denser in the clearing itself. “Probably has something to do with the birds themselves. Hummingbirds are pollinators, after all.”

“What, do they kill the trees?”

I shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve since landing here, would it?”

“No.”

We stayed for a moment longer. The birds themselves were still sleeping. It was only a little bit past sunrise, and it seemed like they were still in their early morning torpor, or whatever the equivalent was. After a moment, Electra nudged me in the side. “Well?”

I sighed. “How about—”

We both paused at a low growl.

Behind us, an emerald green cat was padding out of the shadows, thick mane of fur bristling in an obvious threat display.

Electra took a step forward, fingers sparking.

What, you thought I wouldn’t give her a few hours with my generator before heading into hostile territory? I was petty, not stupid.

Still, it wouldn’t do to let her have all the fun.

I snapped my fingers.

Blue launched out of the underbrush like a shot. My demon caught the pouncer in the side, biting deep into the creature’s neck even as both pairs of forelimbs clawed deep into its sides.

The cat yowled, twisting and jerking as it tried to get free.

“Toss it.”

At my command, Blue reared up, jerking his head to throw the pouncer into the air. It tumbled past us, into the clearing, leaving a trail of blood.

Blue loped after it, sliding to a stop at my side. I reached over, ruffling the blue hair along his spine. “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good booooy!”

Electra snorted. “And here I thought Villains were all cat people.”

“Villains are people who make do.” I rose. In the clearing, the pouncer got back to its feet as well, stumbling because of the blood loss through a low haze of pollen. At my side, Blue crouched, awaiting my command.

Then a hummingbird landed on the creature’s flank.

The beast froze. The hummingbird pecked once.

It turned, claws lashing out into the air, but the bird was gone. In its place, a chromatic storm of wings descended on the pouncer, drawing thin pinpricks of blood along its sides. The cat swung once, twice, both times hitting nothing but air. Then the flock pulled back, flying up to rest in their tree.

The great cat’s sides heaved, but the wounds were superficial at most. They must be waiting to make another pass.

At least, that’s what I thought, until it let out a low whimper and fell to the ground.

Blood, tinged with the slightest hint of purple, leaked from its wounds. It soaked into the soil, and the flowers bloomed.

“Ah.” I nodded. “That’s why Maarin was so worried.”

Of course the hummingbirds were venomous!