#told myself i was done writing nkotr fanfiction but i couldn't stop thinking about pink's au so. here ya go!

[primatechnosynthpop]

I'm Gonna Be The Anti-Hero (So I Can Save You When The Time Comes)

"You have to choose now. Beat me senseless and uphold your 'law', or go back to being the Ryan Murphy we've all come to know and love."

That seemingly earnest plea rang in Ryan's ears like a bomb going off as he tried to sleep. It wasn't exactly warm in the alleyway, but he didn't have the means to afford a secret vigilante base (yet; he'd have to look into that in the future) and, well, there was nowhere else he could go. Well, no, that wasn't true. He could always just go back to his own house. But that would go against his pride.

Where he really couldn't go back to was the clubhouse. Not anymore.

He had been about to tug his hat and mask off in shame, to denounce the crime-fighting lifestyle. "I choose to be your friend"... those words had been on the tip of his tongue. Even now, his heart ached with an infuriating ferocity when he thought back to it. But then.

The crunch of footsteps on the pavement behind him had snapped Ryan to attention, and he'd whirled around to see Neil sneaking up behind him with a bottle of chloroform. All at once, Ryan had understood what was really happening here. Kevin's words had just been a distraction so they could apprehend him. And then what did they plan on doing with him? Handing him over to the cops?

Well, he wasn't going to wait around to find out. In one swift motion, he knocked the bottle out of Neil's hands and pinned him to the wall with a hand around his neck.

"You…" he growled, being sure to use his vigilante voice after having momentarily slipped out of it before. "You traitor!"

"R-Ryan, wait," Neil gasped, hands scrabbling to pry Ryan's hand off of him. Ryan loosened his grip, something he wished he could say he regretted doing now, but instead he felt he would regret it more if he hadn't. "We still want to be your friend! Weren't you listening to Kevin just now?"

"I meant what I said, Ryan," Kevin put in, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm. Ryan flinched away from the touch.

"Yeah, the chloroform was just, you know…" Neil gave him a nervous smile and shrugged, apparently trying to seem casual even as his throat jumped beneath Ryan's gloved hand. "A backup plan."

Even now, replaying the confrontation in his mind, Ryan wondered if he should have believed them. If he just went along with what they were saying, took his mask off and went home with them, wouldn't that be so much easier? Whether or not they really liked or respected or trusted him, at least they were going to pretend they did. He could pretend too, couldn't he?

No. I'm not going to play along anymore. His hands curled into fists, just as they had a few hours prior as he faced down his so-called friends.

"If you value your own wellbeing, get away from here and don't come back." He released his hold on Neil and stepped back, looking between him and Kevin with a glare. They lingered in place, looking back at Ryan with wide, frightened eyes. "Now! Get out of here and leave me alone!"

"But Ryan--" Neil began, stepping toward him with his now empty hands extended.

"Don't," Kevin told him quietly, holding an arm out in front of Neil. He leveled his gaze at Ryan--not quite a glare; the anger in his eyes was too heavily outweighed by sadness. "He's already made his decision. Haven't you, Ryan?"

Have I made my decision? Even now, Ryan wasn't sure he had. It felt more like the decision had been made for him. But if this was really how these people felt about him… that he had to give up part of who he was in order to keep being their friend… well, then it wasn't much of a decision in the first place, was it?

In the end, despite having told them to leave a moment ago, it was Ryan who turned and ran from that alley. He didn't want to spend any longer looking at the expressions of hurt and betrayal etched deep across his friends' faces. Not that it made any difference, because those expressions were engraved in his mind now; he saw them every time he closed his eyes, and he could tell that he was going to be seeing them for some time yet. But only in his head. He wasn't going to see them again in person, not if he could help it. Even if that thought made the persistent ache in his heart grow even sharper, he couldn't go back.

Now, as he sat with his back against the wall of another alleyway on the other side of town, eyes clenched shut in a futile attempt to get a decent night's rest, his mask was still on. And it would be staying on for the foreseeable future.

*

Mere seconds after Ryan rounded a corner and disappeared from view, Kevin groaned and shook his head.

"Oh man, what am I saying? He didn't make his decision yet."

"He didn't?" Neil asked skeptically, rubbing his neck. It wasn't even particularly sore, but it was the principle of the thing. "His mind seemed pretty made up to me."

"No, see, I told him to either beat me up or go back to being our friend," Kevin explained. "And he didn't beat us up, so…"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Neil muttered. (Never mind that Ryan's hand had been around his neck a minute ago. They'd pretty much all screwed each other over at some point; it was probably only fair. That was just how friendships worked, wasn't it?) "Should we go after him, then?"

Kevin didn't respond immediately. He stared down the alleyway to the street where Ryan had taken off. It probably wouldn't be too hard to chase him down if they went after him now, but the longer they deliberated, the more opportunity he had to outrun them. And what would they do when they caught him? Guilt stirred in Neil's gut as his gaze drifted down to the discarded bottle of chloroform. He knelt down and picked it up, then turned the bottle over in his hands. Should I apologize?

Almost like he could tell what Neil was thinking--probably because he was thinking a very similar thing--Kevin laid a hand on Neil's shoulder and gave a slight, hesitant shake of his head.

"Let him run off if he wants," he said. When Neil's concerned frown deepened, he added: "Don't worry, he'll come back soon enough. Our bond can't be broken just like that."

"Right," Neil sighed. He wished he could have Kevin's confidence… although, from the way he didn't quite meet Neil's gaze, he had to wonder if Kevin was really that confident either or just pretending. Either way… "And when he does come back, let's not chloroform him. I think that part was a mistake."

Even as he said that, Neil tucked the bottle back into his pocket. He didn't want to have to use it, really. He didn't take any pleasure from the idea of forcefully knocking Ryan out. He just…

Well, after reading those news reports, he hadn't expected Kevin to be able to talk Ryan down so easily. If Neil had listened a little more closely to the exchange, been at an angle where he could watch Ryan's expression change, then maybe he would have thought better of the chloroforming part of the plan. But what was done was done. And now… now Neil had to wonder if the same trick would work twice. If they did run into Ryan again and he wasn't so friendly, would they be able to get him to come home with them without using force?

"It won't come to that," Neil told himself, as if muttering self-directed reassurances under his breath would lighten the weight of the bottle in his pocket. "It's like Kevin said. We're still friends. Ryan's gonna come back."

*

Ryan didn't come back.

On some level, that was exactly what Kevin had expected. He tried to keep up a positive attitude, for Neil's sake if nothing else--he'd given up too quickly before and been proven wrong, after all, so there was always still a chance--but after two whole weeks with no word from their friend, it was hard to imagine Ryan just strolling back into their clubhouse any day now like nothing was wrong.

At least they knew for a fact that Ryan was still okay, physically speaking. The newspaper articles about vicious attacks by the "crazed vigilante" just kept coming. As much as those articles made him cringe, their continued presence in the paper was kind of a relief, too. He read enough comics to know that crime-fighting could be pretty dangerous, and if anything bad happened to Ryan… well, he didn't want to think about it.

To make things worse, it seemed that people had taken to throwing bricks at them. This only came to Kevin's attention when Neil held up one brick with a note attached to it and proclaimed that it was "another brick from those people who keep throwing bricks at us!" Without acknowledging Kevin's bewildered response to that remark, Neil jumped into reading the note, which announced the addition of a…

"Hmm," Neil said, tilting his head as he read over the note. "It looks like they crossed out the words 'fourth member' and changed it to 'replacement member of your team'."

"Replacement?" Kevin echoed, immediately wary. He got up from the couch and walked over to read the note over Neil's shoulder.

"I know, that's weird, right?" Neil muttered. "Who could possibly replace Ryan?"

Before they could read any further, an unfamiliar voice rang out from behind them. "'Sup, bros, I'm that new rocker kid!"

They turned to see a guy in a hulkamania t-shirt grinning smugly back at them, hands in a finger-gun position. Kevin and Neil exchanged an uneasy look. This didn't bode well…

*

So, Cynthia, remember that filmmaking studio I was telling u abt? They partnered me up w/ this pair of total frados. We're gonna have a fishing sesh now even though fishing is totally midtown. So not deck.

While Spencer was typing out this text message, being sure to select only the most infuriatingly nonsensical slang terms, the foliage above him rustled. He rolled his eyes and swatted a falling leaf away from his hair without taking his eyes off his phone screen. Okay, now to take some gnarly selfies… He leaned back and, after selecting an appropriately pretentious black-and-white filter, held his phone out in front of him and started snapping photos. He tilted his head to one side, then the other… Hmm, what angle makes me look smartest? He stuck his tongue out in contemplation, all the while making sure to keep his vape in the frame.

Just as he pressed the "send" button, a sudden flash of motion in his periphery made him jump. He turned to gawk at the masked man who had just appeared as if out of thin air--although, Spencer quickly realized, he'd probably jumped out of the tree that Spencer had been leaning against a moment ago. Huh, that was weird. Spencer took a puff of his vape and blew the smoke in the masked man's face.

"Hey, what's with the costume, bro?" he asked. "Are you wearing that ironically or what?"

"Vaping in the middle of the woods," the stranger growled in response. "Do you have any idea how much damage that can do to the ecosystem?"

"Woah, chillax, dude," Spencer laughed, holding up a hand in a gesture of surrender (but, like, only ironically, because raising a hand to indicate surrender was so mainstream). "Hang on, let me get some pics of you in that--waugh!!"

He broke off into a yelp as the masked man grabbed him by the collar and tugged him behind the treeline, well out of those lame filmmakers' line of sight. In a series of terrifyingly quick movements, the masked stranger wrenched the vape pen from Spencer's hand, clocked him over the head with it, and then kneed him in the groin. Spencer doubled over with a moan.

"D-dude… so not cool…"

The masked man harrumphed. Without another word, he grabbed Spencer's head in his hands and gave it a forceful twist sideways. The last thought to go through Spencer's brain before it permanently shut down was that the forest twisting around backwards like that would make a sick album cover.

*

Through some miraculous twist of fate, Spencer apparently wandered off during their walk through the woods and never showed back up. Evidently he'd decided that he didn't want to hang out with Kevin and Neil any more than they wanted to hang out with him--a small mercy if they'd ever seen one. That was one problem solved without them even having to come up with a solution.

But the main problem, the real problem, still wasn't solved--that problem being that they had a hole in the team that the studio saw the need to fill in the first place. And that hole did need, desperately, to be filled. But not with an annoying hipster. With the missing original member of the group.

Another few weeks went by. Autumn turned to winter. Soon there was snow on the ground, and the overnight temperatures were low enough to implant a freezing panic whenever the newspapers went a few days in a row with no reports of vigilante attacks.

"Say, Neil… you designed Ryan's vigilante costume, right?" Kevin asked one frost-covered morning, his hands clenched tight enough to rip the front page of that day's paper.

"Yeah, I helped put it together. Why?"

"You think it's warm enough?"

"Oh, uh, it's pretty well-insulated." Neil smiled, but there was a strained twitch to his expression that made it obvious that he knew why Kevin was asking. As if to banish those thoughts from both their minds, he forced his smile a little wider while twisting his hands anxiously under the table. "Ryan's gonna be fine. And if it gets too cold, then he knows where to go, right?"

"Yeah, of course. Back here."

Kevin didn't bother saying what they were both already thinking: that if Ryan wanted to come back to their clubhouse, back to them, then he already would have.

*

Ryan held his breath as he crouched atop the apartment building's fire escape. If he exhaled, then his breath would puff out in front of him and give away his location. His body already ached from having to stay frozen in that position for as long as he had, and the cold was only making matters worse. He was deeply grateful for his gloves; he didn't think he'd be able to stand gripping the frost-coated metal with bare hands.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the door to the apartment beneath him opened and his target stepped out onto their balcony. The target--a middle-aged woman with graying hair dyed pink--leaned over the balcony railing with a heavy sigh and reached into the pocket of her winter coat. A moment later, a puff of smoke filled the air around her--not just her breath made visible by the frigid December air, but cigarette smoke. Not technically illegal out here, but it should have been. What if there happened to be a plant or animal out on this balcony? There wasn't any that he could see, but… in any case, it went against Ryan's sense of justice, which many would argue was as incomprehensible as everything else about him.

With the agility of a cat in an acrobatics competition, Ryan leapt off the fire escape and dropped through the air, cape fluttering behind him, to the smoker's level. He came down on her feet-first. A loud, squawking cough erupted from the smoker as Ryan planted a kick to her back. The force sent her falling against and nearly over the rail; Ryan caught her by the hood of her coat and flung her back toward the door.

"Smoking in public," he spat. "Disgraceful. You're a hazard to everyone around you."

The cigarette dropped from the woman's dangling jaw as she gaped at him. It went out as soon as it landed on the snow-dusted balcony, but Ryan stamped on it and ground it beneath his heel anyway for good measure.

"Wha… you…" Her gaze flickered over Ryan, landing on his mask. "Oh, christ, are you that vigilante who's been going around beating people to death over nothing?"

"No!" he snapped, inadvertently using his natural voice. Upon realizing his mistake, he flushed with embarrassment, cleared his throat, and tried again in the proper gravelly tone. "Not over nothing. I make sure every criminal in this city receives their punishment."

With that, he lunged toward the smoker with his hand tightened into a karate-chop position. He made short work of her, as he did with all his targets. Within seconds, she was sprawled unconscious on the ground, with several bones twisted out of place. (Can't you see how crazy this has all gotten?) Was it harsh? Of course. (We're afraid of you.) Harsher than was strictly necessary, even? Maybe. (You're a horrible fascist.) But it was what he was meant to do, and… well, there wasn't much severe crime in Plymouth, so he had to make do with fighting what was presented to him.

The smoker had left the door to her apartment open behind her. Ryan dragged her back inside before taking off. Didn't want to just leave her exposed to the elements.

After that, he had to get out of there as fast as possible, which in this case meant descending the fire escape three steps at a time. Although he didn't think anyone had seen him, you could never be too careful with big buildings like this. There was always a chance someone could have seen and called the cops. Ryan had dealt with the police around twelve times too many in the past month, and it hadn't always gone well--he could begrudgingly admit that he probably owed his life to being held up in a jail cell over a couple of the colder nights recently, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

While he was running through the apartment complex's courtyard, muscles coiling in preparation to jump the fence, a high-pitched laugh from nearby caught his attention. Ryan froze up, a chill running through him. He turned to see a strange man in a bowler hat leaning against a tree, twirling his mustache.

"My, how marvelous," the stranger crooned. "You certainly gave that miscreant a run for her money."

Ryan approached the stranger with narrowed eyes. "Who are you?" he inquired, trying not to let any apprehension reveal itself through his growl.

"Why, you haven't heard of me?" The stranger raised his hand and snapped his fingers, only to pause and frown when nothing happened. "…Ah, right, the background music is only rigged up for when I'm in my lair. Well, anyway! I'm the Misery Meister, and I believe my goal in life is remarkably aligned with yours. What do you say to the two of us teaming up?"

"Teaming up?" But vigilantes work alone, don't they? Then again, maybe not all of them did; Ryan had never actually met another crime-fighter before. He decided to err on the side of caution with his next question: "What's in it for me?"

"Oh, all sorts of useful things… room and board, for example. I've been watching you for some time now, Mr. Murphy, and you don't have a proper home base, do you?" The Misery Meister laughed, in a tone somewhere between a giggle and a cackle, at the way Ryan squirmed at that question. "That won't do if you plan to keep up this crime-fighting business all through the winter. You could freeze to death without a lair to go back to at night, you know."

As if to accentuate that point, he raised his hand--also gloved, Ryan noticed; he felt a faint twinge of kinship toward this strange person--and gave a wriggle of his fingers. A bluish-white glow began forming in the Misery Meister's palm, and the temperature of the surrounding air suddenly dropped a few degrees. Ryan shuddered.

"If you work with me, I can keep you safe and secure up on Misery Mountain." As he said this, the meister closed his hand, and the ball of ice energy disappeared. "In return, you can… hmm, do a few favours for me. Simple things that I'm sure you can manage. Does that sound like a fair arrangement?"

Ryan paused to consider the offer. He knew all too well the dangers his current lifestyle posed, from bad weather to the police--even now, as he thought this over, he was tensely surveying the area to make sure there were no flashing red and blue lights coming his way--to the possibility that one day he'd encounter a more serious criminal who could hold their own against him in a fight. Teaming up with someone with… ice powers, it seemed?… and apparently a secure place of dwelling could certainly help him out. And, he rationalized, if this Misery Meister fellow turned out to be untrustworthy, Ryan could always just stop working with him.

"Alright," he decided, extending his hand for a shake. "Partners in crime-fighting."

It was only once they were already en route to the Misery Meister's mountaintop hideout that Ryan realized the meister had never actually mentioned crime-fighting. But he had to be another vigilante, right? After all, who else would dress and act like that, and have supernatural powers?

*

The truth was that this arrangement had very little to do with Ryan's abilities or his innate potential as a human being or anything ridiculous like that. It was just that, after spending weeks remotely monitoring everyone in the area, it was clear that this so-called vigilante was the most consistently miserable person in Plymouth county. That made him the perfect specimen to extract DNA anticultures from in order to concoct an anti-happiness elixir. Naturally, someone as powerful as the Misery Meister had other ways of obtaining DNA samples. But if he could obtain those samples while also getting a capable bodyguard/servant to carry out his evil bidding, well, that was just a convenient bonus.

He made sure to start Ryan off slow so as not to scare him off right away. Housekeeping, shooing away hapless trespassers, finding new traffic signs for him to spray paint--things like that, that anyone could do. If Ryan was bothered by being assigned such simple tasks, he did a good job hiding it. Clearly he was more desperate for a place to call home, not to mention some direction in life, than he'd let on.

A few days into their arrangement, one of his monitors started going off. "What?" he gasped. "Somebody's happy in Plymouth?!" Sure enough, the words "happiness alert" blinked on the green-tinted screen beneath live footage of two young men--around Ryan's age, by the looks of it, but that didn't seem relevant or noteworthy--one of whom was petting a dog. It didn't take long to discern that the dog was the source of the young men's happiness. Which meant there was an easy way to deal with it…

"Ryan, come in here," he called, tapping his finger against the little bell he'd installed on his desk to summon his servant. "There's an errand I want you to go on."

Ryan entered quickly, obedient as always. He looked vaguely uncomfortable, as he always did when addressed by name, but he had yet to come up with any monikers that he would rather be called. "What is it, sir?"

The Misery Meister motioned to his monitor. "Look at this. The dog is making these boys happy. I want you to remove it."

To his surprise, when Ryan leaned in to look at the monitor, he stiffened and sucked in a sharp breath. His lips moved, apparently mouthing a name, or multiple names. The Misery Meister raised his eyebrows, intrigued. Ryan didn't know these people, did he? …Ah, but if he does, that could be a new opportunity to spread even more misery…

"Sir, you want me to…" Ryan looked at the monitor and visibly gulped before looking back at the Misery Meister with a poorly hidden grimace. "You want me to kill Roc--I mean, the dog?"

"Kill it? Oh, I didn't even think of that! Should I have you kill it? …No, that's not necessary," he decided. "Just capture it and bring it back here."

"Capture it. Right." There was an audible waver to Ryan's deep, gravelly voice that made the Misery Meister wonder, not for the first time, if maybe that wasn't his natural voice. Still, Ryan clenched his jaw and gave a stiff nod. "Yes, sir. I can do that."

*

Ryan didn't stop thinking about what he saw on the monitor for the rest of the day. Watching the men who he had considered his dear friends smiling and laughing amongst themselves… admittedly, some part of him was glad for them. But later that day, as he replayed the footage in his head with some details slightly distorted by memory, a painful twinge of jealousy stirred in Ryan's gut. It was accompanied by a residual pang of betrayal--a startlingly poignant sensation even a month after the fact.

Look at them, carrying on like that. Like everything was normal… well, maybe everything was finally normal for them now. After all, I was the weird one, wasn't I? With me out of the way, things are probably better for them.

With that thought, the roiling mix of emotions swirling within him calcified into a hard, cold bitterness thick enough to choke on. Yes, it all seemed so obvious now. He had made his choice to leave his former friends behind, and now both himself and those "friends" were doing better than ever. Maybe having ever become friends with those two was a mistake. Clearly they didn't need him, and he certainly didn't need them, either.

*

What Ryan didn't see, looking at low-res footage on a computer with the volume muted, was that the happiness detected by the monitor was diluted by melancholy. In fact, just a few short minutes before the happiness alert started going off, Neil had been on the verge of tears.

He'd been trying to figure out a holiday cookie recipe, but even though he was following the recipe to the letter, the results just weren't turning out how they were supposed to. He could only assume that Ryan had some sort of secret ingredient to make them taste right. Even though it had been several weeks already, his first thought upon coming to this realization was, Oh, then I'll just ask Ryan what that ingredient is. Of course that wasn't how secret ingredients worked, so Ryan probably wouldn't have told him even if he had been around--heck, if Ryan was around, then he could be the one doing the baking like usual and they wouldn't be in this situation.

But none of that would cross Neil's mind until later. In the moment, upon having that thought, he poked his head out of the kitchen and opened his mouth to call Ryan's name, only for it to die on his tongue when he remembered that his friend wasn't around anymore.

"Oh, hey, Neil," Kevin greeted him from his position on the couch. "Everything going okay in there?"

"Not really," Neil admitted. He wiped his flour-coated hands off on his pants and moved to sit down next to Kevin. He noticed there was a newspaper on the end table--unsurprising; Kevin had been very vigilant about keeping up with the news lately. Neil picked up the paper and thumbed through it. "Any more reports of vigilante attacks?"

"Not today."

That was the answer he'd expected. It had been a few days now without any reports of vigilante activity, and at this point they were both pretty worried. Although Kevin's countenance was outwardly calm now, Neil had seen him pacing around the living room muttering to himself earlier. That was what had prompted Neil to try baking something in the first place--an attempt to cheer them up and get their minds off things.

"Well, at least…" Kevin added after a moment in a quieter, more weary voice, "There's nothing in the obituaries, either."

Neil grimaced and looked away so Kevin wouldn't see him tearing up. That effort was probably undone, though, by the warble that he couldn't keep out of his voice as he rattled off the same empty assurance that the two of them had been repeating back and forth to themselves and each other for a month now. "Right, so… there's no reason to think anything bad happened to him. He's fine."

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment, with the only sound being the faint rustling of the newspaper as Kevin picked it back up and started looking through it again, as if searching for any relevant news he'd missed the first time around. Neil realized after a minute that he'd left a batch of cookies in the oven and they were going to burn, but he didn't bother getting up to take them out. They probably weren't going to turn out very good, anyway. Just like how their last webisode, the one about fishing, hadn't turned out very good. The studio had said it was boring because nothing interesting happened in it. If Ryan had still been onboard their team, he could have come up with a way to add conflict to the narrative, but without him… it seemed like nothing Neil or Kevin did was turning out properly.

However, as soon as the oven's timer beeped, there came the scuffle of paws against the kitchen floor, followed by the sound of the oven opening and the clatter of the tray being removed. Neil gasped in delight as Rocky trotted up to them, tail wagging, with the tray of cookies in her mouth.

"Hey, there's a good girl!" Kevin reached down to scratch her behind the ears while Neil took the tray and set it atop the end table.

"Let's see how they turned out," said Neil. He was admittedly still skeptical that this batch would have turned out any better than his previous seven attempts (he'd been at this baking thing all day; was it any wonder he was getting a little frustrated?) but Rocky showing up to help like this felt like a good sign. She tended not to get involved with lost causes, which might have been why she didn't usually help them out with their webisodes.

And to his pleasant surprise, when he bit into a cookie, he found that it tasted… if not exactly like the ones Ryan made, then at least the closest to it that he'd gotten all day. Similar enough that he could close his eyes and imagine that it was Ryan who had made them, and that he was sitting right there next to them, and they'd all apologized to each other and everything was fine. As quickly as that illusion faded when Neil opened his eyes, it lingered just long enough to implant a genuine comforting warmth within him. For what must have been the first time in weeks, he smiled.

"It's a good thing we've still got Rocky, huh?" Kevin murmured, vocalizing what Neil had just been thinking. As if to punctuate that statement, the dog jumped up and licked his cheek, prompting a little huff of laughter from Kevin and subsequently from Neil as well.

"Heh, yeah, we can always count on her to lift our spirits!" Neil reached over to give her a pat on the head, eliciting a happy bark in response. "Things don't seem so bad when she's around."

Things were still bad, of course, and this moment of semi-cheerful respite wouldn't last long. But when their beloved dog was jumping up on the couch to clamber onto Kevin's lap even though she was much too big to fit there comfortably, it was hard not to laugh. It was hard not to be happy, even if it was just for a minute.

*

Freshly fallen snow crunched beneath Ryan's boots as he made his way through the forest at a quick pace. According to the monitor in the lair, his target was currently in this area. Out on a walk, no doubt. He tried to ignore the acidic sting of guilt that rose higher in him with every step. In his pocket, his hand curled around the drugged hot dog he was supposed to use to capture the target. He wouldn't use it, he decided. Not unless he had to. Unlike some people--the image of a bottle of chloroform flashed through his mind, and his scowl deepened--he would only stoop to such tactics as a last resort.

It wasn't long until he heard a set of all-too-familiar voices coming through the trees up ahead. Despite going into this mission knowing full well that he was going to encounter his old friends, hearing them in person from what couldn't have been more than a few metres away froze Ryan in his tracks. Holding his breath, he ducked behind the closest tree as their voices grew closer.

"What about that one?"

"That's a rock."

They were out looking for a tree, he realized. Yes, just as he thought--carrying on just fine without him. Keeping his back pressed flat against the tree, Ryan cautiously turned his head as far as he could to catch a glimpse of them without revealing his presence. His heart was pounding all the while. While his vigilante outfit had served him well for prowling the streets late at night, it didn't do much for stealth in broad daylight against all this snow. Luckily, they passed him by without noticing. Their canine companion, however, paused to raise its head and sniff curiously.

The dog. The target. An it, not a she. Yes, that was how he forced himself to think of it, the terms he had to conceptualize this mission with. If he stopped lying to himself for even a second, if he let himself acknowledge that these were his friends and their dog--that this was Rocky, and his mission was to steal her from Kevin and Neil… then he wouldn't be able to go through with it. But he had to do this.

(Why did he have to do it? What was he trying to prove? Hadn't he told himself a few short days ago that he didn't have to keep working for the Misery Meister if he didn't like it? Ryan didn't want to think about those questions, either. He just wanted to get this mission over with and get back to the lair.)

While his former friends were busy picking out a tree, Ryan stepped out of hiding and made a soft clicking sound with his tongue. Rocky immediately perked up and ran over to him, tail wagging. The dog's utter lack of apprehension at approaching him only made the vice of guilt squeeze tighter around his heart. But she must not understand, he told himself. Despite being a fervent animal rights activist (at least according to the unauthorized biography that Kevin had written about them with the claim that he was going to show it to his grandkids one day) Ryan had to imagine there was some discrepancy in the intelligence of humans compared to animals. Rocky probably didn't understand why he had left, and she surely didn't know his intentions for showing up again now. If only his human friends shared the same willingness to approach him, maybe he wouldn't have had to leave…

He banished those thoughts with a shake of his head. This wasn't the time to stew in resentment towards either himself or his friends. But he could use Rocky's naive trust to his advantage.

"Come on, girl," he whispered, patting his knee. "Follow me."

Rocky barked out her agreement loudly enough to make Ryan wince.

"Ah, no, don't bark," he told her in a whisper. "Quiet, okay? Good girl."

He realized with a twinge of discomfort as Rocky obediently shut her muzzle and set off after him that this was the first time in days (or was it weeks?) that he had intentionally used his natural voice. At this point, a normal person's throat would be irrevocably wrecked from constantly keeping up that intimidating vigilante growl. But he slipped back into his original voice all too easily. It was like his very biology wanted him to drop the vigilante act. It's not an act, though, he reminded himself. It's who I am. Anyone who can't accept that isn't really my friend.

Although Rocky initially trotted after Ryan without hesitation, she slowed to a stop once he got a few metres away. When he realized that the sound of her pawsteps behind him had stopped, he turned to see her sitting in place, tilting her head to look back the way they came.

"No, we're going this way."

She whined and thumped her tail against the ground. Ryan sighed and shook his head. He walked over and looped his hand through Rocky's collar, then gave a gentle tug to urge her forward. She didn't budge; he tugged harder on the collar, but all that accomplished was making her whine louder.

"I know, girl," Ryan murmured, running a hand over her back. He wished he could take his gloves off so he could feel the soft silkiness of her fur, but that would be unprofessional… maybe back at the lair. "But Neil and Kevin can't come with us. I know you think you need them, that they're your friends, but…" His hand clenched tighter around her collar, and he stuffed his other hand back in his pocket, where it wrapped around the drugged hot dog. "They're not our friends. We don't need them. Let's just get out of here, and I can introduce you to someone who really understands what's important."

Rocky blinked and tilted her head, the picture of confusion. It would be cute--well, it was cute, but he'd be able to appreciate that cuteness better under different circumstances. As it was, the dog's puzzled expression only served to tighten the noose of guilt around his throat.

"Come on," he whispered one final time, with a desperate plea hidden just below the surface of his words: Don't make me drug you. Don't make me stoop to their level.

In the end, Rocky took one last reluctant glance at the clearing behind them and then followed after Ryan. Whether that was because of anything he said or just because she smelled food in his pocket, he couldn't say. Either way, he arrived back at Misery Mountain with the dog in tow, and the Misery Meister ushered her into a kennel and praised Ryan for completing his mission.

*

Ryan tried to ignore the persistent stirring of unease within him as he watched the news report displayed in the Misery Meister's flickering magic screen. While his employer cackled with delight next to him, he couldn't bring himself to smile at the sight of his former friends in such an obvious state of stress and anxiety.

"One trillion dollars for the return of our dog…"

"What do you think, Ryan?" the Misery Meister asked, laying a hand on Ryan's shoulder. "Quite the pathetic display, isn't it? Those 'new kids on the rock' will never see their beloved mutt again!"

"Right…" Ryan tore his eyes away from the screen and glanced over his shoulder at the caged dog behind them. Yes, it was a cage, not a kennel. He could acknowledge that much, even if it made him uncomfortable.

He had no idea what the Misery Meister planned on doing with Rocky, if anything--as much as his employer liked to loudly announce his plans to himself when he was alone, he was highly secretive about everything when asked directly. But it would be okay, Ryan told himself, although he had trouble believing it. Rocky was still being fed--mostly by him--and he would stick his hand through the bars of the cage to pet her whenever the Misery Meister wasn't looking. And if the meister's plan did involve hurting her at some point… well, Ryan wouldn't let any harm, direct or otherwise, come to the dog. Even if protecting Rocky would lead to him being exiled from the temporary home he'd managed to secure for himself, even if he wound up back on the streets… that would be worth it, right? Or would it?

Ryan wished he could be more certain of where his priorities lay. As it was, he was kept awake at night by all the questions plaguing his mind like a swarm of hornets.

On the screen, the news report concluded with Neil looking into the camera and delivering a speech.

"We've already lost one good friend this year. We really don't want to lose another. Ryan Murphy, if you're out there watching this, please come home. We miss you a lot, too. And if you know where Rocky is, then please bring her home too. Thank you."

Ryan flinched at the mention of his name. He stole a glance at the Misery Meister to see if he had registered it, but his master's icy smile gave nothing away. Neil's wide, plaintive eyes stared back at him from the screen. His speech sounded every bit as heartfelt as Kevin's speech to Ryan in the alleyway had sounded all those weeks ago. And if that speech hadn't been earnest after all, why believe the sentiment behind this one either?

Still, on some level he couldn't help but hope that Rocky would miraculously escape and find her way home somehow. He couldn't be the one to let her out of her cage, because the Misery Meister would know it was him and probably punish him for it. And despite all the promises he made to himself about moral codes and priorities, Ryan couldn't afford to go back to life on the streets and risk freezing to death overnight. This arrangement only sat worse with him with each passing day, but there weren't any feasible alternatives.

It was almost a relief when, a little less than a week after capturing Rocky, the Misery Meister announced that there were a pair of intruders on the mountain. Ryan didn't need to see the footage on the monitor to guess exactly who those intruders were. So they really do care about her, he thought, and inwardly smiled--an expression he didn't dare make outwardly, at least not in front of his master. Maybe that means they really care about me, too… no, now's not the time to be thinking about that.

"Dispose of them for me, will you?"

He nodded, obedient as the dog he had so easily captured a few days prior. "Of course. Right away, sir."

*

"Man, my head hurts," Kevin groaned, rubbing at his temples with a grimace.

A few steps ahead of him, Neil muttered his agreement. "Yeah, that was a pretty rough landing. But at least we're here."

According to Frosty, the spell of channeling their happiness would have worked better with an additional person. With only two of them, he had to drain an increased amount of happiness from each of them, leaving them feeling weak and dizzy. Kevin almost felt like the happiness was still leaking out of him--either that or it was internal bleeding. Hopefully not the latter. Either way, not a great condition to be in while heading into the lair of a potentially dangerous villain. But it was too late to turn back now.

While they made their way up the twisting mountain path to a building that looked like a large warehouse with a lighthouse-esque spire, they stopped to grab a couple of makeshift weapons off the ground. Kevin selected a stone that fit comfortably in his hand, while Neil picked out a branch. Kevin was worried that it was a bit too small to make a good weapon, but Neil assured him that it was deceptively sharp. Once they got to the building, they paused outside the door and exchanged an apprehensive look. What now? It couldn't be as easy as just marching in there and getting their dog back. If they had learned anything from the past few weeks, it was that things could be difficult and have lasting consequences. Still, they had to try. Kevin gave a stiff nod: No way around it. Let's do this. Neil returned the nod with a grim expression that looked jarringly out-of-place on his face, and together they pushed the door open.

The building looked about the way you'd expect a villain's lair to look. A cursory glance around revealed various electronics including a control panel with a flashing red light, but no sign of Rocky. Kevin was about to ask whether they should split up to look for her when a rough, gravelly snarl rang out from across the room.

"Get out of here, intruders, before I make you leave."

Kevin's head snapped up to stare in slack-jawed disbelief at the figure standing in the nearest doorway. Fog of indeterminate origin swirled around his feet as he marched towards them, posture tense but stride confident, masked face set into a scowl. If it weren't for the familiarity of the costume, not to mention the ponytail swishing behind him as he walked, Kevin might not have even recognized him. An unparsable mix of emotions jolted through his system--shock, amazement, confusion, relief, terror.

At his side, Neil gulped and raised a shaky hand to point at the approaching man. "H-hey, isn't that…?"

"Yeah. It is." Kevin addressed the vigilante through gritted teeth. "What are you doing here, Ryan?"

"I'll have you know that I work here," Ryan growled. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Yeah, we do," Neil retorted with an accusatory jab of his finger, "Especially if you're the one who kidnapped our dog!"

Ryan came to a stop a few feet ahead of them, close enough that Neil's outstretched finger nearly brushed against the front of his vigilante costume, and crossed his arms. "Rocky followed me here willingly. She must have finally figured out the same thing I did: that you two aren't her real friends."

His voice audibly wavered on that line, although he quickly caught himself. Neil slowly lowered his hand away from Ryan's chest and took a couple steps back. Kevin moved to stand in front of Neil, assuming a defensive fighting stance that he hoped he wouldn't have to use.

"Ryan, seriously, listen to us," Kevin said slowly, doing everything in his power to maintain outward composure even though his heart was hammering hard enough that he wouldn't be surprised if Neil and Ryan could hear it. "We've been really worried about you. We've missed you, a lot. All we want is for you to go back to being our friend."

"And, uh, I'm sorry about the chloroform thing," Neil interjected. "I shouldn't have… I mean, listen, I thought you might be dangerous. I just wanted you to come back with us, whatever that took. We still want that, Ryan, more than anything."

A high-pitched note of pleading crept into Neil's voice at the end there; Kevin thought he could see the beginnings of tears glistening in his friend's eyes. He placed a steadying hand on Neil's shoulder as they watched Ryan's reaction. For a moment, Ryan just stood still and stared back at them, his expression unreadable behind the goggle portion of his mask. He slowly raised a hand toward the mask, as though he was going to take it off, and for a moment hope reignited… but then he paused, lowered his head, and dropped his arms to his sides with his hands clenched into fists.

"I'm sorry. I can't do that."

*

There was no way around it. Ryan had to fight them. He went into this confrontation, such as it was, knowing he had to fight them. They were traitors, liars who never really cared about him, discarded fragments of his worthless former life… even just looking at them now, listening to their pleas, ignited a seething resentment in his chest. How could they still pretend to genuinely care about him?

(Unless of course they weren't pretending, and they really meant it, and he was the one in the wrong and he could fix everything here and now by agreeing to go back home with them… No. No, he couldn't start thinking like that. Even if Neil and Kevin really did want to be his friends again, it was too late for that. Ryan had his orders.)

"This is your final warning," he growled. His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword--a weapon whose existence he frequently forgot about altogether, because he'd never encountered a tough enough opponent to warrant drawing a blade. "Leave this place now."

I don't want to have to hurt you, he didn't say. Part of him wondered whether the Misery Meister was monitoring this exchange. If so, he was probably already annoyed with Ryan for letting these trespassers remain unharmed for this long.

"Sorry, but that's not how we operate," Kevin said sharply. He tossed a small object in the air and caught it like a baseball as he spoke--a stone, Ryan realized. Was he planning on using that as a weapon? "We're not leaving without our dog, and we're not afraid to fight to get to her."

"Yeah," Neil added, jabbing his own makeshift weapon--a thin stick, practically a twig--in the air for emphasis. "We're not messing around here!"

Under his breath, Ryan let out a huff of incredulous laughter, although under these circumstances he didn't find it very funny. If he'd been in their position, he'd have at least brought a full-sized brick to fight with. But he wasn't in their position; he was positioned across from them in what was about to become a battlefield. There was no way around this. Ryan took a deep breath, unsheathed his sword, and sprung toward them.

Neil intercepted his first strike with the branch he wielded. The sword sliced through Neil's makeshift weapon like the twig it was, and could have easily sliced his hand off if Ryan had let the momentum carry the blade any further. It still wound up grazing him. Neil yelped and stumbled back, clutching his bloodied hand, while Kevin lunged forward to throw a punch. Ryan swerved to avoid the attack, then raised his sword above Kevin's head and let it hover there for a second. It would be so easy to kill them if he wanted. And then he would never have to worry about them again. Wouldn't that be easier? Wouldn't that be better?

"No," Ryan whispered aloud, his hands almost involuntarily weakening their grip on his blade. "No, I don't want that."

No sooner had those words left his mouth than something sharp poked into his shoulder. With an indignant yelp, he looked behind him to find that Neil had jabbed him with what remained of his stick. The moment Ryan turned to swat the stick away, something hard connected with the back of his head--the rock. Not a very strong hit, but it was enough to momentarily stun him. He stumbled forward, directly into the path of another jab from Neil's branch. This one struck his cheek, and it actually stung. Ryan rubbed at his cheek with a grimace and then took another swing with his sword. This time Kevin knocked the blade aside with the stone. Ryan let the sword clatter out of his grasp and made no move to pick it up; likewise, neither of his opponents made any move to grab it for themselves. Instead Kevin hit him with a punch to the jaw, nowhere near as hard as he could have, and Neil jabbed him with the broken twig again.

Ryan groaned, out of frustration with himself rather than from pain. Obviously none of them wanted to be doing this, so…

"Why don't you just leave?" he asked through gritted teeth. "Rocky is fine. You don't have to worry about her. Just get out of here before I get serious."

"Oh, only getting serious now, are we?"

Ryan froze, a shiver running down his spine, at the sound of his master's lilting tone. The Misery Meister stepped out from behind a piece of machinery, watching the tableau before him with steepled fingers and a manic grin. Looking at his employer's countenance, Ryan was once again reminded of himself. Was this how he appeared to others? Well, of course it was--that was how he tried to appear most of the time. But did it delight people, or did it actually scare them in an unpleasant way? Ryan had always thought that he was only spooky in a fun way, but now he had to wonder…

"I see you've met my servant here," the Misery Meister went on, laying his hands on Ryan's shoulders and flashing Neil and Kevin a menacing grin. "It's such a shame he's not on your side anymore. Well, Ryan?" He traced a finger across Ryan's face to tilt his chin up; Ryan shuddered at the touch. "Are you going to take care of these intruders, or do I have to finish the job myself?"

"I told them to leave," Ryan mumbled. He looked back at his friends--former friends, he reminded himself, but that bit of mental recitation did nothing to ease the tension that permeated his body and calcified into a knife in his heart. "Sir, can't they just have the dog? We're not doing anything with her anyway, so--"

"What? Of course not!" the Misery Meister gasped, reeling back and laying a hand over his heart. "That would increase the total amount of happiness in the world. I would sooner die than let that happen!" Then something flashed in his eyes, and a wicked grin spread over his face. "Speaking of dying… heh, yes, I know just how to deal with these little pests…"

A chilling spike of dread jabbed through Ryan with those words. He grabbed his master by the sleeve and shook his head vehemently, lips drawing back in a grimace.

"S-sir, what are--no, no, you can't," he stammered, his vigilante voice dropping away in this moment of panic. "You can't kill them!"

"Oh, can't I?"

Still grinning, the Misery Meister reached into his pocket and drew out a sleek pistol. The weapon gleamed as he leveled it at Kevin and Neil, who gasped and recoiled at the sight of it. Ryan's eyes widened behind his mask. No! The Misery Meister was making some villainous speech now--yes, villainous, he was so clearly a villain, how could I have been so willfully ignorant?!--but Ryan didn't hear a word his master was saying. His senses were laser-focused on that gun, and the hand wrapped around it, ready at any moment to--

The Misery Meister's finger twitched against the trigger. Too quickly to formulate a single thought, let alone consider all the potential consequences, Ryan moved on pure instinct. He grabbed the Misery Meister's arm and wrenched it to the side as hard and fast as he could. A loud crack rang out in unison with the echoing bang of a barely misfired gunshot, and the Misery Meister shrieked.

"Why, you… you just broke my arm!"

Ryan offered no snappy comeback to that remark the way Kevin or Neil might have. There was no room for words in his mind; in that moment, it was reduced to a void of rage. He moved on instinct, with all the force and swiftness that the meister would have had him attack his friends with: a karate chop to the neck, a punch to the stomach, a kick in the shins to knock him off balance. At some point the gun went off again; a loud metal clang indicated that this time the bullet found its mark in the spray-painted stop sign hung up on the wall. He didn't let up for a second. Soon he had the Misery Meister backed into a corner, bloodied and gasping. The glint of fear in his eyes gave Ryan a vindictive thrill as he drew back for one final decisive strike. That's what you get for threatening my friends.

Then the Misery Meister pressed his wrists together, and a flash of blinding blue filled Ryan's vision. He flinched at the sudden shock of cold, and then…

*

Neil watched the fight breathlessly, heart hammering with equal parts fear and excitement. This was just like before, he thought, when Ryan had fought off that thug who wanted to steal their ice creams--the encounter that had started this whole mess in the first place. Sure, the stakes were a whole lot higher now (that was where the fear part of the fear-and-excitement came in, because holy crap that guy has a gun we're all gonna die) but at the same time, it was like everything was coming full circle. And Ryan, he realized with a slowly forming incredulous grin, was defending them.

"You see that, Kevin?" Neil whispered. "He really does still want to be our friend!"

"Yeah…" Kevin gave a slow nod, just as wide-eyed as Neil but with a little more apprehension. "I just hope he comes out on top."

"What are you saying, of course he's gonna win!" Neil grinned and clapped Kevin on the back as a bullet whizzed by a few feet away from them and lodged itself in the "stop smiling" sign. "I mean, look at him, he's totally kicking that guy's--"

There was a flash, and the room's temperature suddenly dropped several degrees. Neil flinched and rubbed his eyes. The sight that met him when his vision cleared made his blood run cold.

Ryan was frozen mid-lunge, arm poised above his head to bring down a finishing karate chop. Frozen, in a very literal sense. His body was encased in glowing blue ice, vigilante cape hanging stiffly behind him and all.

Neil and Kevin screamed in unison, while the Misery Meister cackled. Before they could turn and run, the meister stepped out from behind Ryan's frozen form and, with his non-broken arm and nothing in the way to redirect his shot this time, fired his gun at them. Thinking fast, Neil grabbed a random object off the nearest surface--a handheld mirror--and held it up like a shield. He let out a sigh of relief as the bullet bounced off the mirror and flew back across the room…

…Directly into Ryan's back.

A shrill scream split the air; it took a moment for Neil to register that the sound came from his own mouth. The mirror slipped from his fingers, which turned suddenly numb along with the rest of him. Countless shards of shattered glass scattered in a hundred different directions when the mirror hit the floor, just like the explosion of blood-soaked flecks of ice where the bullet tore straight through Ryan's frozen body, leaving a gaping, crumbling hole in its wake.

"Ah… ahhh…" Neil raised his trembling hands slowly up his face to clutch at his hair. He took a step back and then promptly dropped to his knees as his incoherent screams crescendoed into a wail. "AAAHHHH!"

"Get ahold of yourself, man!" Kevin told him, clamping a hand on his arm. "We can help Ryan after we deal with that misery moron."

"Help him? No, we can't… can't you see?" Neil shook his head wildly, while his nails dug into his scalp hard enough to sting. An image of a dark alleyway flashed through his mind, of him standing there with a bottle of chloroform still in his hand and watching Ryan run away, making no move to go after him. Of a hidden room with pictures of Ryan's ancestors, and a lie Neil made up on the spot just to mess around, not thinking anything serious would come of it. And now… "H-he's dead! And it's all because of me, I--I killed him, Kevin!"

The bullet's force--the bullet he had redirected--had shattered the area of impact like glass. Now half of Ryan's back was gone, reduced to a pile of blood-soaked slush on the floor. The gaping crater around where the bullet had hit narrowed into a roughly fist-sized hole that went the rest of the way through him. More of that ghastly slurry of half-melted ice and human tissue dribbled out through the hole. Spreading out from the hole itself were dozens of cracks, some just hairline fractures, others wide enough that they were bleeding too… if you could call it bleeding. Bleeding, melting, whatever it was--the structural integrity was collapsing.

"My, how excellent," the Misery Meister trilled. "It seems that in your moment of brilliant self-preservation, you disposed of my traitorous servant for me!" He flashed his maniacal grin over his shoulder at the half-shattered chunk of ice that had been Ryan. "Don't worry, my brave little vigilante, your precious friends will be joining you very soon."

As he said this, the cracks in the ice spread out until there was nothing holding Ryan's body together. At that point, the frozen figure collapsed in on itself. Chunks of ice and flesh crumbled apart and came crashing down into a pile of sludge on the floor. My fault my fault he's dead and it's all my fault--

Kevin grabbed Neil tight by the shoulders and shouted something, probably another attempt at reassurance, but Neil couldn't make it out over the blood rushing in his head. All he could do was scream and cry and shake beneath the crushing weight of the realization that he had gotten his friend killed.

*

"Neil? Neil!" Kevin grabbed his friend by the shoulders and jostled him, but Neil just kept wailing and shaking his head. "Damn it… he's totally out of it."

A shrill laugh diverted his attention back to the Misery Meister, who was now walking slowly toward them, still aiming his gun. "One down, two to go," he said in a lilting, sing-song tone. "Let's see… which of you wants to join your friend first, hmm?"

Kevin gritted his teeth and glared back defiantly at the Misery Meister. His already burning rage toward the villain, now further ignited, clashed with surging panic. What are we gonna do? The mirror lay broken at Neil's feet--couldn't use that trick a second time. Kevin's gaze swept across the room and landed on Ryan's discarded sword. If he made a quick enough dash for it, maybe…

He sprinted for the weapon like an athlete trying to score a touchdown in the last five seconds of the game. Two gunshots rang out, prompting a wince from him as he ran; one bullet whizzed so close over his head that he was pretty sure it skimmed off a couple hairs. He grabbed the sword and charged straight into the path of a third bullet. This time the bullet bounced off the blade, leaving a crack in the metal which Kevin paid no mind to. He didn't have any long-term plans for this weapon, and besides, a broken blade with a jagged edge could make just as good a weapon as an intact one.

"This is for kidnapping Rocky!" he proclaimed as he slashed the blade across the Misery Meister's chest. The blade shattered upon impact, leaving him with half a sword in his hand but every bit as much rage to drive him.

The Misery Meister stumbled backward with a hiss, firing another shot as he did so. This time the bullet grazed Kevin's shoulder. He clutched at the injury with a pained hiss, while with his other hand he readjusted his grip on what remained of the sword. He couldn't let a minor injury slow him down now. One more press of the trigger followed by a click and a string of curses revealed that the Misery Meister was out of bullets. Kevin smirked. He charged forward and took another swipe, this time slashing the jagged strip of metal across his opponent's face.

"That's for making Neil cry! And this…" He drew back the blade and, with all the strength he could summon, thrust it deep into the Misery Meister's chest. "This is for Ryan!"  

"My heart," the Misery Meister gasped, eyes widening as he stared down at the hilt of the blade protruding from his chest. "My heart…."

With that final pathetic declaration, his body spiraled in on itself and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Kevin coughed and waved the smoke out of his face, only to yelp at the pain that shot through his grazed shoulder when he moved that arm. It was just a surface wound, he'd been hurt worse just from playing sports, but it sure stung like a bitch. He backed away on unsteady feet, face twisting into an agonized grimace as blood seeped through his sweater and onto the hand he clutched his shoulder with. His other hand, dangling at his side, released the broken blade and let it clatter to the floor. He wouldn't be needing that thing anymore. And, well… neither would Ryan.

Silence fell over the room as Kevin trudged back over to Neil and helped him to his feet. Neil seemed to have stopped shaking and crying, but there was a glassy look in his eyes now, and he was unresponsive to Kevin's assurances that they were safe. When Kevin followed Neil's shell-shocked gaze to the crumbled pile of melting ice and flesh, his stomach heaved. The whole sickening mess was seeping into the floorboards now, leaving a glistening stain in its wake--a person, their friend, reduced to that.

"…Come on, Neil." Swallowing down the choking grief in his throat, Kevin put his arm around his friend's quivering frame and guided him across the room. "Let's get Rocky and get out of here."

As he walked past the remains, while being sure to steer Neil's head away from the sight, he could have sworn he saw a detached blue eye blinking up at him before it dissolved into red-tinted slush and disappeared.

***

-FOUR MONTHS LATER-

In the most luxurious mansion in all of Plymouth county, a young man in a finely-pressed suit reclined in a state-of-the-art gamer chair. On the widescreen monitor before him lay a virtual world with the most dazzling 3D graphics the 21st century had to offer. And it was his, all his, for he was the only kid in town who could afford such a high-end game.

"Ah, how being rich pays off," Mitch said to nobody in particular, smirking as he pressed the series of keys that would deliver a devastating finishing blow to his virtual enemies. If only he could enact the same level of violence against those who opposed him in real life… Hmm, perhaps I'll look into hiring a bodyguard.

After playing for a while (he wasn't sure how long exactly; it was so easy to lose track of time when he had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted) thirst began to claw at his throat. He reached for his glass of the finest wine in the world, only to find that it was already empty--and all his servants were busy with the dishes and laundry right now, so he couldn't summon one of them to refill it. Mitch regarded the empty glass with a scowl. Did he have to do everything for himself around here?

With great irritation, he paused the game and went over to the kitchen to grab the wine bottle off the counter. His annoyance only grew as he realized that the kitchen sink was running, but nobody was currently manning it. Did his good-for-nothing servants want to flood the place?

"That settles it," he decided. "Their pay is getting docked again this month. And if this keeps up, I'll have all the staff laid off and replaced by someone more competent!"

However, when he tried to turn the tap off, he was startled to discover that it wouldn't budge. A steady stream of icy water--far icier than the faucet's position indicated it should be--poured into the sink until it threatened to overflow. Then, when Mitch leaned over the sink to figure out what on earth was going on, a hand shot out of the sink and grabbed him by the throat.

"Gah! Wh-what--aughh!!"

He screamed and flailed, but the hand had a solid grip despite seeming to be made of water. As Mitch looked on in heart-stopping horror, another hand reached out, and then both appendages extended into arms… and then a full body, stepping gracefully out of the sink as it took solid shape. Mitch found himself face-to-face with a masked vigilante clad in a hat and cape, and gloved hands squeezing painfully tight around his neck.

"Wh-who are you?!" he managed to choke out.

"My identity is not of your concern," came the vigilante's reply, halfway between a growl and a gurgle; the voice didn't even sound human. Mitch shuddered. "But your actions are inexcusable. Die."

*

Local Deadbeat Millionaire Found Dead-- Third Mysterious Drowning This Month, the front-page newspaper headline proclaimed. Attached was a full-colour photo of the drowning victim in question, facedown in a bafflingly large and ornate kitchen sink. There was something on the counter next to the sink… Kevin squinted at the photo, holding the paper closer to his face. Was that a strand of long brown hair? It wasn't high-definition enough to tell.

"Hey, Neil, you don't think…?"

"What?" Neil glanced up from the four-leafed clover he was absentmindedly fidgeting with. The plant didn't seem to be giving him much luck so far, but it gave him something to keep his hands and by extension his mind occupied, and the bright green leaves provided a nice splash of colour against the dark clothes he'd taken to wearing since that tragic December day.

Kevin looked back at the paper and skimmed through the article. There was no mention of the hair strands by the sink; apparently the consensus was that one of the victim's servants was responsible for the murder, because the mansion had such tight security that there was no way in or out. "For it to have been an intruder, they would have had to literally come in through the sink," one member of the household staff was quoted as saying. "And as we all know, that's impossible." Kevin lowered the paper with a sigh and shook his head. He didn't know what he was doing, jumping to conclusions based on such flimsy evidence. That was supposed to be Neil's thing, wasn't it? Then again, Neil hadn't exactly been cheerful enough to fill that role lately.

"Ah, never mind. Just wondering what the guy did to piss one of his staff off enough to kill him."

"Well, at least we know we'll never have to mess with him," Neil replied with a weak little half-smile. Then he lowered his head again and went back to silently twisting the clover between his fingers.

"…Yeah, guess not."

Still, for some reason, Kevin couldn't stop thinking of the similarities between this new series of mysterious drowning cases, and the string of "mysterious" vigilante attacks that had come before. And although he wasn't usually one to get his hopes up, he couldn't help but wonder.

-- END -- [....TO BE CONTINUED??] -- [Edit: read the follow-up here!]