The three roommates finished breakfast and started to get ready for the day, changing into proper clothes and checking up on Dream's stitches. They got together a plan. All of them were going to go to Sapnap's work, drop him off, and then go to George's work.
The first hitch came when they got to Sapnap's work. He walked in there, smiled pleasantly at his co-workers, and handed the woman at the counter a note. "Give this to the boss, please!" he said, his smile seeping into his voice. Then he walked right back out.
George and Dream were a bit ahead. George was giving Dream a briefing of what was going to go down once they got to the hub. "So, Dream, I can do all the paperwork and all that stuff for you- I just need your testament. And also, if you're interested in a coding job, I can hook you up with an interview with-"
"HEY, WAIT UP!" Sapnap ran up the sidewalk. He quickly caught up with his friends.
"Dude, I thought you were going to work. What happened to that?" Dream asked, looking over at Sap.
"Oh yeah, I decided to quit."
"Oh, cool." There was a pause before the news seemed to sink in. "Wait, what?" George whipped around.
"Yeah, I figured I'd just get the job at your workplace and call it a day-"
"JUST BECAUSE I WORK THERE DOESN'T GUARANTEE YOU A JOB, IDIOT."
"Huh. Well man, I sure hope I do good at this job interview."
"...You are an absolute idiot, Sapnap. Or should I say... Snapchat."
"No, you shouldn't say." Sapnap flicked George and Dream laugh-wheezed at their antics.
----------
After a few minutes, they arrived at the Hub. George walked in and waved hello to Finn, who was handing some paperwork out to some people. He gestured for Sap and Dream to follow him in and led them to an elevator. They had to wait for it to come back down.
It dinged and opened. Out stepped a tall pink-haired man. Dream felt his blood go cold. Technoblade was here, right in front of him.
Oh God, he's going to notice me. I should have never come. He is going to murder me on the spot and George and Sap will be killed for association. I need to GO. I need to GO. I need to GO.
"Hey, George, who're they?" He looked over Dream and Sap. Sap gave a wave.
"Ah, hey Techno! Just some friends, looking for a job. We're kinda understaffed so I figured here would be good."
"Cool, cool. I'm gonna start training some new nerds. You may have seen them in the lobby."
"Oh, nice! Are you gonna put them through Phil first?"
"You know it." Techno gave a wave and started walking by.
And that was it. They walked past Techno, and he didn't even spare another glance. The trio walked into the elevator. Dream let out a breath. The elevator doors shut with a ding and Dream felt his blood start to flow again. A few moments passed, elevator music playing in the background. The door opened again. The trio stepped out.
Dream's panic was replaced with a sense of victory as it hit him- He'd just gotten past Technoblade. He'd done it! He walked into the records room with a skip in his step.
He was sure that if he made it past Techno, he could do almost anything.
----------
Bad was extremely happy to be out of the Hub. He was so tired of heroes questioning him and being stuck in the bed. Wilbur had been nothing but professional, but Bad was just tired of being asked to say the same things over and over.
He stretched as Skeppy led him into a small cafe. The Hub may be where some of the best superheroes work, but the food wasn't good. Bad had barely even touched his breakfast, so Skeppy offering to treat him to a muffin or two from a nice cafe sounded like a perfect afternoon.
Skeppy went up to the counter and ordered for them. He already knew Bad's order, so Bad went and got them a table. A few minutes later, Skeppy returned with their drinks and a chocolate chip muffin for each of them. Bad accepted them gladly. The pair sat in companionable silence as they people watched.
Bad's eyes flicked to the television on the wall of the Cafe. It was basic news- Some criminals had tried to rob a bank. Apparently, Schlatt had stopped them- He was reportedly visiting some friends. The next story started but was cut off as the TV flashed a bright red. 'BREAKING NEWS' floated across the TV in big block letters.
Skeppy looked up at the TV as well. The news anchor's face appeared on the television. "Good afternoon," they said, although their voice did not give the impression that the afternoon was good. "We are reporting live on a recent murder. Evya Crowaiz, age 21, was found dead in an alley near 5th Street."
//tw drug mention, needle mention
The anchor's face vanished, replaced with a picture of a smiling girl. A smiling girl who was now dead. "Evya was found with a knife buried in her side. A mark on her arm indicated she had recently had a needle in her arm. No traces of any drugs were found in her system, however. She seemed to be missing around three pints of blood."
//tw over
"Seems familiar," Skeppy said, taking a sip of his coffee.
"The knife was marked with this symbol-" The hilt of the knife flashed on the screen.
"No fingerprints were found. This case is odd in particular die to Evya's power. She could control the strength of a person's powers. Power dampening, it is called. If you have any leads, call the Guardian Hub at..."
Bad looked back at the table. "Oh, that poor girl. I guess we were lucky to get out of there last night, huh?"
Skeppy nodded silently. The duo left the cafe and started back to their apartment.
They got in, Bad shut the door, and Skeppy looked him in the eyes and said, "Bad, I wanna be a vigilante."
There was a pause before Bad laughed. "Good joke, Skeppy. Almost got me."
"I'm not joking."
"...oh."
Skeppy walked away from the door and began to pace in front of their couch. "You saw that report. Someone else was murdered last night, the same way I would have been. Illosia is supposed to be one of the safest places on the globe, but there was only one hero squad out last night." He ran a hand through his hair. "And they were with me, so they couldn't help her."
"Skeppy, it's not your fault. You don't need to do this." Bad hadn't moved from his spot by the door.
"That's where you're wrong, Bad. I do. If the heroes can't keep people safe, that means it falls on people like me, with strong powers. I can handle myself as a vigilante. I just need your silence and help to heal."
"I- Skeppy, I can't just let you do this!" Bad clenched his fist. "You barely handled yourself against your attacker. I- I won't let you?"
"...I thought I knew you better than this." Skeppy stopped pacing and looked Bad directly in the eyes. Bad looked away.
"Skeppy..."
"No, Bad. I'm doing this- you can't stop me. Call the Guardians on me. I'll just fight them off, too."
"...I- you- Skeppy- Fine."
"...What?"
"Do it. But," Skeppy sighed, but Bad just kept talking. "You need to learn how to fight. You can turn small things into crystal blades, right?"
"Yeah?"
"I can throw knives. I can teach you the basics, to help your fighting skills. And if you do this vigilante stuff, I want to come with."
Skeppy balked. "Bad, no!"
Bad gave a smile. "If you can do it, I should be able to go too. And I can be useful!"
Skeppy's resolve on this issue broke fairly easily. Bad made good points, and Skeppy had already gotten the main thing he wanted. "Fine. You can come along."
And with that, two people decided they were going to be heroes.
----------
Tommy and Tubbo were hyped.
They'd gotten their IDs and schedules. Tommy wasn't very happy with them.
"What're we, back in school or something?" He read over it again. "We gotta be here from eight to three!"
"Yep." An unknown voice came from behind Tommy. He froze and slowly turned around. Phil stood behind Tommy, a dangerous glint in his eye. "Just like school. And I'll be your teacher."
"I feel like this is going to be bad," Tubbo said.
"Oh, Tubbo," Phil smiled. "You don't know the half of it."
----------
Phil was a great teacher, alright. He'd be amazing for a military school.
The day started with protocol lessons- When to engage when to call for backup, how to work with their team. They got 30 minutes to study the material. Then there was a pop quiz. It would have been fine, but Phil pushed it an extra mile.
Every wrong question was fifty pushups.
After that was true physical training. They went to the Hub's gym and did a workout devised by Phil. Tommy was pretty sure it was a form of torture that Phil put new recruits through to toughen them up.
Then it was lunchtime. That was its own form of torture. Phil was merciful- He told the boys a trick of the trade. The Sleepy Bois, who Tubbo and Tommy were honorary members of, had lifetime free meals at the local fast food places after they'd saved most of them.
After lunch, more physical training. Specifically, power training. Phil pushed Tubbo to his absolute limit. The boy was swaying on his feet, he'd been worked so hard.
Tommy was also pushed, just in a different way. He was given a portion of Techno's daily training to do. It was easy for the self-proclaimed blood god, but for Tommy?
It was a grueling set of tasks that seemed nearly impossible. He barely got done with it by the time the two were supposed to leave. He and Tubbo stumbled out of the Hub after a short set of cooldown exercises. They got home and immediately started trying to look up how to reduce aches from workouts.
The boys nearly passed out before dinner got there. Then they remembered they had been assigned a section of the handbook to read.
Training to be a superhero was much harder than the boys had thought.
----------
Wilbur was so glad to be done with Bad and Skeppy. One was polite, almost painfully so. One so clearly didn't want to be there and answered no questions.
He walked out of the room with a sigh and bumped straight into Techno. "Oh good," said Techno, stepping aside. "Ready to interrogate?"
"Oh yeah. It's great stress relief, you know?"
"...Not so sure, but if it works for you, we're good." Techno smiled and Wilbur laughed. They went up to the holding cell.
They looked through one-way glass at the figure. Fundy stood on guard duty.
Fundy was the jack of all trades for the Hub. He had many skills, from coding (although he could use some help, trying to rewrite the whole system was hard) to music. Wilbur supposed that made up for his power- He was a foxman, whether he wanted to be or not.
"Wil, Techno, welcome! The crim's been sulking on the bed the whole time. No noise. They did look around a bit. I think they realized that they're too high up to teleport down."
Techno nodded. "We've got it from here, Fundy." The foxman nodded walked to the elevator.
Techno and Wilbur walked into the room. The figure looked up, but the cowl of the hood still covered their face. Wilbur started the interrogation.
"Just answer us and you won't be hurt." He said, holding out his hands and tried to use some small sound bursts to push their hood down. It fell around their neck.
"Oh god." Techno's eyes widened Wilbur's hands went to his mouth in shock.
Sitting there with a grin was a person who was turning into dust. Wilbur wasn't sure how he didn't notice it before, to be honest. Small piles of dust were dotted around the person. Half of their head was gone, and their hands seemed to be gone as well. They grinned at the two heroes.
"Didn't expect this, huh?" Their voice sounded odd, too. The rasp of their old voice glitched in and out, mixed with a feminine voice that was tinted with a hard to place the accent.
"Who- what happened?" Wilbur asked. Was this a curse? Was this person dying?
The figure laughed. "Wouldn't you like to know, music boy? Fucking idiots, like I'd give you any info." The figure stood up and started towards the pair. Their legs were fine, at least.
"Stay back," Techno said, stepping in front of Wilbur.
"I'm not going to hurt him. Just figured I should point out all your mistakes before I go. For one, you forgot to look for my bag. I tele'd it out way back when I was trapped in the plant." They took another step forward. Techno braced for a fight. Wil began to set up a vice with his power.
"Two, you didn't look under my hood earlier. You may have gotten me- Real me, not just this me, one of the King's copies."
The figure took another step forward. Wil finished prepping his vice grip of sound. Techno signaled him to set it off. They didn't know what this person was capable of.
The noise crushed inwardly, but the figure just laughed. They fell to their knees as their legs began to dissolve. The noise seemed to accelerate it. Soon enough, they were only half a head and the top of a torso.
"Your last mistake was that- acting so rashly." The figure laughed again. "Thought you knew better than to be rash, Wilbur."
They were just a mouth now. A grinning, horrible mouth. They spat out a device- a voice changer and spoke in their true voice. Was that accent Irish?
"Anyways, the Assembly sends their regards." They laughed again. Why did they find this so funny?
"Buh-bye boys."
And they were gone.
A/N
hehehe i hoped you liked this one
spent way too long making that symbol- imma reference it a lot to make up for time spent lol
also i finally started an outline!!! now i can officially introduce the 'villians'!!!
I'm excited to see what people think of them lol
the word count for this chapter is so high considering it's just the end of an interlude arc,,, exactly 2500, counting this.. wild, right?? i never write this much lol
so much dialogue this chapter,,, that stuff's harder to write than I thought.
if you have any ideas for who else to bring into this story, drop their name in the comments please :) I've got a few more people lined up but I'm trying to think about who to bring into this next.
uh yea! Hope you enjoyed!! see you next ch!!!
-ace