Despite his name, the Alchemist did not turn lead into gold. In reality, the Pharmacist would be a better nom de plume for him, but that was hardly a marketable name. He made things such as power enhancers, extra-strength painkillers, and other drugs, mostly for other villains, but also for private buyers. So it came as no surprise when Lady Bird and her troop came out of the tunnel, that they found his stash heavily guarded. That would be for later. They needed to find where he kept his ingredients. No ingredients, no product. No product, no profit. No profit, nothing to turn in at the end of the quarter and a fall in the rankings.

“It’s time to split up.” She stated to the group. “Remember, destruction is the mission here, not plunder. If you see something you want, take it, but don’t dawdle too long. When I give the signal, pull out immediately.”

Somewhere in the back of the group, there was a remark of “that’s what she said” along with a smack for the bad timing. Lady Bird prepped her weapon, a smaller pistol version of what her minions had. She looked to Number One, who nodded. He would be one of the ones coming with her. There were two others.

“And remember, don’t let Murdoc explode anything until one of us gives the signal.” She ordered. “All, right, Operation Comeuppance is a go!”

The troop split into several groups and hers went off, determined to find the Alchemist.

“Are you sure that it’s wise to have explosives around all the chemicals?” One of the Minions with her asked as they ran along. Number One blasted a couple of the Alchemist’s minions who rounded the corner.

“It’s fine. The explosives are mostly for the equipment. We made sure not to give Murdoc too much C4 to play around with.” The demolitions expert, much like his nickname’s sake, liked explosions a bit too much. But he knew what he was doing, so Lady Bird kept him around. As long as you could limit the size of his explosions through resources, his explosion fetish wasn’t a problem.

Thanks to the information she had gotten, Lady Bird’s troop arrived at the raw ingredient storage room. It wasn’t as heavily guarded as the finished product, so the ones guarding it were easily taken care of. As the Minions with them dragged off the guards to hide them, Lady Bird and Number One looked at the containers of the ingredients.

“So, how do we dispose of these without endangering ourselves?” She mused. “You don’t want to go setting random chemicals on fire.”

“I had the science department whip up one of the Count’s old recipes.” Number One tossed her a tube of small brown balls. “I made sure they got the recipe right before I had them mass-produce them. It’s not quite as good as his, but it will do for our purposes.”

“Ah, I nearly forgot about these little things. They always reminded me of bath bombs. Just, uglier and not as nice smell.”

Once placed in the container with the rest of the chemicals, the bath bomb’s ugly cousin would dissolve into it, not only messing up whatever chemical was in there, but also leaving behind brown sludge. It was a mess to clean up and smelled terrible. If Count Resser hadn’t gone missing, Lady Bird wondered if he would’ve broken into the bath bomb industry. These things produced more foam than any commercial bath bomb she used ever did. It would just have to smell nicer and be a different color too.

“If you run out, don’t worry. Any amount missing is some he doesn’t have.” She reminded him as they started to drop the bombs in. The brown foam came up and she closed the lid. It would take the Alchemist a while to clean up this mess. Hopefully, they got a few chemicals that were hard to replace.

Once the other Minions came back, they participated in the bombing. Soon, they were out of the little balls, but Lady Bird felt satisfied that they had done enough to snare up his production for a good while. She stood back and observed their work with hands on her hips. While most containers were closed, there were somewhere the foam was leaking out of the lid. Some might consider this childish, but sometimes simple, silly solutions were the best.

“Shall we go pay a visit to the Alchemist? He’s bound to know that something is up by now, but I think we’ll have a few minutes to gloat.”

Number One gave her a thumbs up and the group traveled on. It wasn’t too hard to find the Alchemist’s office. Compared to the rest of the rooms and hall, it was nicely decorated and was someone’s room with its plush carpets and door that locked on the inside. Lady Bird easily kicked it in, mostly thanks to her special shoes and the fact that she knew where to kick. The other two Minions shot into the room in a spray pattern, hitting anyone in the room. Hopefully, the Alchemist was hiding and didn’t get hit.

Number One and the Minions rushed in and took custody of the Alchemist. He was a touch older than Lady Bird herself, but not considerably despite the bit of gray coming into his hair. His costume shtick was what she could only describe as a fantasy pharmacist get up. Something told her he wanted a plague doctor motif, but it didn’t fit what he did and there was another villain who had that going on. The Minions had him restrained. He was one of those villains who didn’t have great physical prowess. He struggled in their grasps.

“Let go of me, you imbeciles!” He demanded as he had little success in breaking away. “I’ll melt your skin off!”

“Not without this you won’t.” Number One took off his belt that was lined with little pellets. “And I suggest you not move around too much. These Minions are the best when it comes to a fight. They aren’t afraid to break bones and rupture organs.”

“Neither is mine.” One of the Minions twisted his arm, causing him to yelp. “But I get the point!” He sighed in relief when the Minion let up. “Is this because I said that villains on the B-list were wannabes who didn’t know when to quit?”

“No, though there is some satisfaction to be had regarding that.” Lady Bird went to his desk and found his laptop. She picked it up. It probably wasn’t the only place he had files, but they didn’t have time to locate a possible server room. Other Minions would be taking care of the hard copies. “Remember a month ago when I fought my way through several security systems in a certain storage facility and then you swooped in at the very last second and got that box I was after? Where is it?”

“That thing? I threw it out. After all, it is ten years old. Tech that old isn’t very good. If I had realized you wanted it so badly, I would’ve…”

Lady Bird whirled around and punched the Alchemist in the jaw. She gave him a minute to recollect himself before she continued with the interrogation. He moved his jaw around and probed his teeth with his tongue. She knew she hadn’t hit him hard enough to loosen anything.

“No, you didn’t throw it out. No one would just throw out something of Count Resser’s, even if it is ten years old. His technology was years ahead of its time and even the stuff that isn’t still works.” She handed the laptop off to Number One, who proceeded to take it apart so that they could have the hard drive. “It goes for millions of dollars on the black market alone. So, either you didn’t know what it did and you sold it or you stored it away and hoped to sell it at a later date.”

The Alchemist sagged in defeat, not that he was a very psychologically challenging person in the first place. She hadn’t even used any real tactics on him.

“Fine. I thought since it was one of Resser’s things, it’d be something I could use. But no one could identify the part, so I was stuck with it. It’s in the closet.” He turned his head to what she assumed was the closet door.

One of the Minions released him and went and investigated. He returned with a small box. Lady Bird opened the lid and made sure that something was in there. The Minion picked the box back up.

“Do you know what it is, just out of curiosity?”

“I know what it belongs to, but not what it does exactly.” She replied as the Minion began to exit. “And no, it’s not something you would be interested in.”

“What about you? You’re hardly in the tech business yourself. Is it because it was something of Resser’s?” The Alchemist nodded as he concluded. “I see. You want a memento of him. You used to work for him, right? You certainly are sentimental about an old boss. Unless…” His expression grew curious. “He was more than a boss to you, wasn’t he? At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Given the age of your husband, I wouldn’t think older men would be your type.”

“They’re not.” She tried to not sound too annoyed by the implication. If she acted too insulted, he would think it was true. It wasn’t the first time someone had said that she and Resser were romantically involved. People couldn’t believe that she was the foxy femme fatale whose only job was being his secretary. Why else would an older man like him hire a young woman to work for him? “I don’t expect you to understand our relationship. After all, you couldn’t break into that high-security vault yourself. It honestly wasn’t that difficult. Surely an A-lister like you had the means to hire someone if your minions were lacking in cybersecurity skill.”

She started walking away with the box as the Minions tied up the Alchemist. The closet would be the perfect place to stuff him, just as he had stuffed what he stole from her. She elected not to gag him.

“This is just the beginning, Lady Bird.” He threatened even as he was pushed into the closet. “Since you’re such a sentimental person, I’ll go after the thing you love. Your husband…”

“Who is under constant protection and the one who does most of the other villain’s taxes.” Lady Bird pointed out. “And you’re welcome to try. Do you think you would be the first one to ever go after him? You’ll find he’s not as defenseless as you might think.”

The Alchemist pursed his lips as he tried to figure out something else to say that might throw her off.

“Then that kid that you adopted, Mary. I bet you’d miss her if she was gone.”

“And so would Beretta. She’s her kid. Remember what happened the last time you tangled with her?” She kicked him the rest of the way into the closet. “If I were you, Alchemist, I would focus on recovery first and then revenge. After all, you’ve got a lot to recoup before the quarter is over if you want to keep your ranking.”

And with that, she shut the door. “All right Number One, give the word to pull out. We’ve got what we came for and we threw a wrench in. If we try to do any more, we’ll be pushing it.”

Number One nodded and gave the order out over the radio. Lady Bird opened the lid to the box and looked at the odd-shaped part inside. It was one of the only remaining pieces of the machine Count Resser had built that blew up and caused his disappearance. It would be good to add to her collection of his stuff. When he came back, he would be amused to see it. Besides, it was good to have something else to remember him by besides a burned cloak