Chapter Three – Gossip

“Did you hear?” Sam asked.

Emily blinked. The two of them were meeting in one of the college cafeterias. Well, technically there was only one ‘college’ cafeteria, right near the centre of the campus, but it was widely considered a boring place to be. The food was about what one would expect from a place that accepted vouchers instead of cash, and the room hadn’t been renovated since the early nineties and it showed.

Instead, they were right on the edge of the campus, where an enterprising businessman had bulldozed a couple of lots and then built a ring of restaurants around the now opened space. It was filled with tables that had parasols hanging above them and the air was filled with a dangerous amount of fatty oils from the various restaurants all around the outdoor food court.

It was, in essence, the perfect place for college kids to hang out if they had a bit of money to spare, and Emily happened to be one of those at the moment.

“I don’t exactly keep an ear open for all of the local gossip,” Emily said before biting into an Ubway sandwich she’d just bought. It was too much for her, but then she had a lot of eager sisters who’d want to have leftovers… she’d have to pocket the cookies for later.

Sam grinned as she shifted forwards in her seat. “Okay, so this isn’t confirmed, but Sparkles hasn’t shown up today, and there’s a second rumour that says she’s in the hospital.”

“What?” Emily asked. She wasn’t exactly friends with Spark– with Glamazon, but the older woman was a friend-like acquaintance, which was basically the closest thing to a friend Emily had ever had to begin with.

“Mhm! So, you know the villain attack on the HRF headquarters yesterday?” Sam continued.

Emily lowered her sandwich. “There was a what?”

“Oh, my, god, how can you not know that?” Sam asked. “Girl, you need to spend more time listening to the news. It was all over.” Sam pulled out her phone, and with a few taps placed it in front of Emily who tugged it a bit closer to read the article Sam had placed on it.

It was from the Eauclaire Gazette, a small but pretty okay local paper. Emily wasn’t sure if that would make it more trustworthy than one of the big media outlets, but for local news she figured it wasn’t a bad place to look.

New Villain Attack Defaces HRF Headquarters!

Yesterday, at around 4:50pm, an unidentified Villain attacked the HRF headquarters in downtown Eauclaire. The Villain announced their presence with several loud thumping noises that locals reported left them dizzy, and they destroyed several parked vehicles before moving on to the HRF building itself.

The attack lasted no more than a dozen minutes, but in that time our brave local heroes responded, successfully scaring off the Villain.

Injuries were reported among several civilians caught in the crossfire, and an undisclosed number of HRF troopers were incapacitated as well. HRF Spokesperson Jacob Warner had this to say, “It’s unfortunate to see anyone turn to Villainy, and worse to see them try and disturb such an otherwise quiet and peaceful place as Eauclaire, but the HRF are doing their utmost to investigate and apprehend this villain before they can cause any more harm.”

At the moment, Main and third are both blocked as construction crews and inspectors assess the damage left behind from the clash. It may be several weeks before repairs begin in earnest as Eauclaire isn’t a town that has to deal with such difficulties with any regularity.

The Eauclaire Gazette will continue to follow this story and update its readership in the coming days as more information surfaces.

“Whoa,” Emily said.

“Yeah, did you see the word they used?” Sam asked. “Villain. With a capital V.”

“Does that mean that they’re, you know, an actual Villain-villain?” Emily asked.

Sam shrugged. “Maybe. Could be that they’re just on that end of the spectrum. The news likes to blow that kind of thing out of proportion, but usually it’s after they’ve caught the bad guy. If they haven’t caught them yet, then it just makes people skittish and worried.”

“I’m starting to be worried right now,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure where to begin. A new villain was… a problem, probably. Her current income stream came from some not-quite-at-all-legal sources, and it was entirely possible that a new villain would edge into that.

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For that matter, a new villain might see her as competition.

She could barely handle any of the heroes as it was. The Cabal was very much too big of a problem for her to handle, and she wasn’t sure if she could keep her operations at the level they were on, or if it was even possible for her to downscale. Not to mention what she should be doing to prepare for the nebulous future.

And then there was one other, smaller, more annoying worry that she tried very hard to squash.

What if her sisters thought that this villain was a cooler villain than her?

“What do we know about this… is it a guy or a girl?” Emily asked.

“Not much,” Sam said. “No videos of him, just the aftermath of his passing.”

“None?” Emily asked. “He was on Main, there are shops and stuff there, and people with phones.”

“All broken,” Sam said. “Yeah, I know. My bet is that it has something to do with his power. Maybe some sort of EMP effect? But power didn’t go out in the city or anything, so your guess is as good as mine. We do have one picture.”

Emily frowned. “You said no videos.”

“A picture’s not a video, Emily,” Sam said. She grinned and took back her phone. “Apparently he’s called Rattles, too. Here.”

Emily took the phone back and squinted at the picture. It was clearly taken from some ways away, with the zoom quality she’d expect from a cellphone camera. Still, the image wasn’t entirely blurry.

In the centre was a man in all-black gear, his leather coat looking like it was straining against his biceps and his shoulder covered in a brace of metal spikes. It reminded her a bit of old-school punk clothing, but this guy was actually pulling it off instead of looking like someone that spent too much time at Ot Opic.

He was clearly looking in the direction of the camera, but his features, other than a few artfully messy curls of black hair and darkened eyes, were hidden by thin vaporous smoke. His lower face stood out in sharp contrast though, a grinning facefull of bone-white teeth.

He was in the centre of what almost looked like an explosion, cars crumpled, the ground cracked, a few HRF troopers flung behind him as if they’d been propelled backwards by the shiny bat he held by his side.

“Oh no,” Emily said.

“What?” Sam asked.

“He looks cool.”

Sam blinked. “And that’s… a problem? He’s just a villain, and let’s face it, villains have it easy when it comes to looking cool, especially compared to heroes. A villain who tries too hard just becomes an edgelord, which is still kind of scary. A hero who tries even a little too much becomes a tryhard, and that’s lame.”

“Right,” Emily said. She was not about to admit to Sam, of all people, that she had insecurities about how cool of a villain she was. Sam knew about so many of Emily’s other insecurities that she didn’t think it was wise to add more to the ever-growing list. “Do you think we can find out more about this guy?”

“I can only think of one person we know who might know more,” Sam said.

“The information broker?” Emily asked.

Sam blinked. “Okay, two people. I was thinking of Sparkles. Hospitals have visiting hours, you know.”

And asking her wouldn’t cost Emily anything. Unlike asking Handshake or even Melaton, who might also know something. “I suppose,” Emily said. She needed some time to prepare herself mentally to visit someone in a social way, however.

Fortunately, she still had classes left for the day. After wrapping up her leftovers, buying some extra cookies from the shop–because otherwise she’d have to deal with a few disappointed sisters and Emily was weak–and then packing up her things, Emily and Sam walked back to campus, then split up along the way to get to their respective classes.

Sitting down for an hour and a bit was exactly what Emily needed in order to get her mind into the right headspace for a potential hospital visit. By the time classes were over, she had texted Miss Headerson and had gotten the okay to pick up her sisters an hour later than usual.

That gave her… a fairly short window to visit the hospital in, but a window all the same.

Maybe, she figured, she would be lucky and Jezebelle wouldn’t be taking visitors today? Then she’d be able to honestly claim that she tried without actually having to suffer through the awkwardness of an actual conversation.

A twenty minute bus-ride later, and she was riding up an elevator in the Eauclaire General hospital, no such luck in sight.

***

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