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fanatichistory · 2 years

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The Dark Within Part 19

*Edited

Masterlist1 Masterlist2 Part20

CW: Violence, character death, beat down, burn gore mentions, slight torture mention from Deimos’s past, Deimos is villain caretaker but only to Maven, Maven is Sidekick/former hero,

The villains and their respective sidekick or two began showing up one by one and formed a collective group in the warehouse Deimos had told everyone to meet at.

A couple villains had brought a Hero or two which earned some glares and Maven already had to mediate a stand-off.

If Deimos was willing to work with Maelstrom to take down the Academy then there's a chance he would be willing to work with them too so she made it known that no one present in the warehouse was going to make that decision for him without him present.

As if on cue Deimos entered the warehouse through a portal of shadow, the warehouse instantly fell silent from it's hushed murmuring and quiet conversation from earlier as their boss took the floor and commanded the room.

"Thank you all for coming on short notice. I know preparations are still underway but the Academy knows we're coming. That we are preparing to attack them."

Deimos paused as the collective gasps and shock took over the gathered group of criminals and the like, two heroes he just noticed were present, nervously met his gaze with an affirmed nod that they were with him. Which surprised him considering he slaughtered a bunch of heroes the other night and only a handful remained in the city that weren’t a part of the Academy holed up there.

He noted whose hands they were holding as the lightbulb clicked on and he put the matter aside for the time being and nodded back, allowing them to fight alongside their romantic partners as he continued the debriefing.

"Surprise is a short window of opportunity and that opportunity is now. That is why I have called you all here. Now I'm not going to sugar coat it and I'm not going to lie to you all..."

Deimos walked slowly around in a circle the group was gathered around, back straight and hands clasped behind his back as made eye contact with each person.

"The Academy has killed people like us before and they won't hesitate tonight either. If they do take you alive, they will experiment on you again like they have before. I'm not trying to scaring you, seeing as I need each and every one of you to fight with me tonight, but you need to understand the risks of being in this city."

Maven noticed a couple of the younger ones puff out their chests, one gulped at the mention of experimentation, but overall the group followed along to his every word. Even the two Heroes present seemed to follow along word for word.

"Make no mistake, they have already labeled you... villains, criminals, heroes or just plains rogues... It is only a matter of time. It could be tonight, fighting for your freedom and your place in this city, or tomorrow." Deimos stopped in the center and held out his arms.

"Who's ready to fight tonight?" He shouted and Maven couldn't hide her smile when the answering sound of applause and fight chants filled the air. After a minute or so, he held up an arm and everyone quieted to listen again.

"I just want to make one thing clear. The children present at the Academy are not to be harmed. Make no mistake, they are being trained as soldiers so do not underestimate them, but if one child is so much as scratched tonight....all of you die. They do not know any better and death will not teach them any better, is this agreed?"

Maven let out a breath when there was quick agreement. What's more is not one person here, far as she could read, wanted nothing more for the children at the Academy other than to get them the hell out of there. To prevent another generation of broken Heroes and Villains.

Maven was more than prepared with the intel she collected on everyone the other night to hunt down each and every villain and hero present, sidekick or otherwise, if they broke the rule Deimos just laid down for them.

Deimos was boss and what he says goes. Whether they liked it or not.

It wasn't long after that before everyone had they're teams and were positioned around the Academy with their coms in their ears, waiting for the signal to strike from their perspective strategic positions.

With around 30 villains total, everyone was divided up into five separate teams of 6 people, with the heroes tagging along with the villains they came with to prevent further friction. There was a team placed at each entrance, which were three, leaving the remaining two teams to restrain and rescue the kids.

Deimos and Maven were a separate and final team, going straight to the top floor to take on the Academy's administration by themselves, the core of the city's laws and rehabilitation programs Maven had recently learned the horror’s of and so Deimos could keep her close to him.

There was a lot she was kept in the dark about growing up but she was learning fast thanks to Deimos and what she was learning and picking up from the energy and memories of the other villains not to mention their experiences too.

She liked to think she had a pretty good handle on it now but Deimos would just chuckle in response so she knew she was still thinking ‘Sidekick’ like that and had to keep training and improving herself before he was going even think of promoting her.

"Mic check, everyone ready to rumble?" The deep gravelly voice of the big sumo wrestler guy broke through the silence of the night. The villain, Bulldog, who Maven really didn't count a villain since he was arrested by the city for killing a group of thugs who were doing some dog fighting.

The real villains were the thugs running the dog fights and, personally, she thought Bulldog was more the Hero type. Especially because of his name, he rescues dogs and breaks up animal fight rings. Though he does it just as violently as he did the first time and runs his own fight rings but with the people instead. It was beautiful really and she admired his work.

A lot of villains didn’t take him seriously because he was big and bulky, typical of a biker well past his prime. But he definitely knew what he was doing. She saw it in his memories too.

"Ready when you are Bulldog!"

"That's A at the front entrance, Team B answering now for ya and we're ready as well. Over."

"Roger roger, ready when you all are. Team C reporting for duty hahaha."

"Team D...uh...Over...I mean, we're ready too..."

Maven looked up giggling at Deimos at the coms responses while he tried to keep a straight face.

"Lets go. Team A and B, commence attack. Team C, once the Academy responds to A and B, rush them. Team D and E you get those kids safe, even if you have to restrain them or sedate them till the fights over, their safety is top priority. GO!"

Deimos reiterated the plan just in case, knowing everyone was tense and emotions were running high. He had shouted Go! at the last moment to spur everyone into action and it worked, everyone leaping into action and starting the attack.

The guards at the entrances were quickly overpowered and the alarm untouched so far as Teams A and B pushed inside while civilians ran for cover or hid behind tables and closets.

Team C made for the stair well and began to clear it out and hold it while Team A and B began to clear the Academy floor by Floor from the stair well. Team D and E made straight for the kids and had them all cornered on the same floor, thanks to the design floor the Academy built to contain them, it was all just a matter of containing their powers and restraining the children without hurting them if they couldn't convince them first.

Which, to Maven's surprise was actually kinda working? At least half the kids were more than happy to comply with them.

"Little hero, we have a job to do ourselves." Deimos nudged her shoulder in warning to snap her out of her trance. She was getting good at following the energy of others and reading it remotely from a distance but she was also getting pretty bad at being aware of her present surroundings whenever she did so.

She had totally forgotten all about her boss and what they were supposed to be doing, and the embarrassing redness she felt spreading on her face pretty much told him as such too.

"Right. S-Sorry boss, let's go get them!" Maven shook herself free of the residual energy of the others she was previously attached to and prepare for her own upcoming fight.

She had to focus on protecting her boss and herself.

Feeling the gentle, yet warm, hum of energy around her, she directed her energy back out into the air like tendrils of her own, like antennas waiting to alert her to danger that may close in on them. Visible only to her she wagered.

The Tendrils were like wisps of a faint smoke, being made of energy as they were and very hard to see, but Deimos could not hide the faint smile he had when he did notice and that they resembled his shadows. That she was not only learning from him but taking after him as well.

Like a true protégé.

As they neared the doors to the council room at the end of the hall, her steps slowed and he noticed her eyes looking around as if the board members might jump out of them. Deimos slowed his pace as well, wondering once more to himself if he should have left her back at base.

He shook himself at the thought. He was the mentor, the boss.

End of story.

"Maven. Focus, remember you're training. My training. " Deimos spoke low so as not to be heard by the heroes in the room. Well, hopefully.

The board members ranged from Civilians with political standing, Heroes with good public standing and celebrity status (for better or worse depending on your point of view according to his little hero) and Superheroes.

Maven opened her mouth to respond when the council door opened and a blast of electricity arced it's way through the door and down the remaining space of the hallway to him and Maven.

Before Deimos could teleport them to a different spot in the hallway out of the path of the lightning blast, Maven stood in front of him with her arms outstretched and a cry of determination and fear.

He could feel her energy reach for the lightning arcing its way towards them as if the whole scene was in slow motion, beat for beat, as the damage path slowly altered direction to the side of them.

But only just. Deimos felt the burning heat lick across his face and arm as he grabbed Maven about the waist and did what he had meant to do the second the door opened in the first place.

Move across the hall.

Depositing Maven in the corner and out of harms way for the time being, he descended upon the Hero with lightning abilities, trying like hell to dodge the blasts and strikes that were, for all intents and purposes he was sure, were lightning fast. If memory served their name was Electron in deference to their abilities.

This hero was quick, as fast as the lightning powers they manipulated and generated, and while Deimos struggled to get the shadows to incapacitate and restrain him, Maven had turned her attention to the remaining people inside the room who had begun to lay in wait for them.

They had set booby-traps and power dampeners, the Civilian board members scurrying to leave out the back as their energy signatures faded from reach.

Maven took slow deep breaths and reached within to her energy core. Feeling it's calm and finding relief in it's stillness despite the chaos of battle going on around her. Staying connected to her core she reached an arm out to the dampener field that was anchored above the door, directing the same still calm at it.

In theory, if the sensors stayed calm when they sensed her energy then they wouldn't dampen her energy. It was a hell of a day to find out.

Satisfied that the sensor was loaded with enough information about her energy and sent it to the other sensors, Maven stood up and made her way back out into the hallway from the corner Deimos had safely put her in at the beginning of the attack.

She was impressed that the Electron was keeping up at all really. Normally heroes would be dead and gone by now but she felt the need to capture and restrain as many heroes alive as possible considering how friendly most of the villains were with the lot of them.

Deimos’s need for politics that she still didn’t quite understand left her uneasy with making the impulsive decision to just step in an kill Electron when Deimos was obviously holding back himself.

Maven shook herself loose, unnerved, when Deimos finally caught hold of the Hero after cornering him with shadows and beating him unconscious, grabbing the hero's ankle and dragging him off to the side before meeting Maven at the door.

She shook her head at him showing her confusion, wondering why he didn’t just kill Electron when they were going to kill the other board members anyway.

“I’ll explain later.” Was all Deimos said, body shaking in anger as he spied the people within the room through the doorway and stalked his way towards them.

The waiting council on the other side, the civilian members having fled and all, only 2 Superheroes and 1 Hero remained. Trusting in their security measures to dampen the enemies powers while exempting their own.

Deimos and Maven stood just outside, Maven having stepped into his path to block him from entering, staring each other down instead as his anger got the better of him.

"Problem? Sidekick?"

"We talked about this boss."

"That we did but apparently only one of us was listening." Deimos moved to enter the room again but Maven held her arm to grip the door-jam to stop him.

He raised a brow at her, surprised but doing his best to mask it from the enemy.

The only time she forcibly stopped him was when he was about to either endanger himself or foolishly make an enemy out of a Hero he didn't know would be formidable. So it was always worth pausing and entertaining her even if he was the boss. She was usually the ‘follow the leader’ type.

"They didn't come out to help their ally earlier." She stated simply as if that explained everything.

"I figured that was the basic motive for Asshole Incorporated?" Deimos was bitter and sarcastic and Maven didn't have to look at the the Heroes in the room through the door to see their smirks and shifty reactions. They were getting what they wanted.

Deimos was reliving his nightmares, his 'rehabilitation' program that he had mentioned that the villains were forced to go through upon arrest. That was where the anger and venom was coming from. Even though Maven knew that, felt it and for him, it made him a liability at the moment.

And just like that a lightbulb went on in her head.

The gas station store clerk. What if she could do to the board members what she did to the the store clerk? To drain them...take their power, their life even. That way there would be no danger to her boss. She could protect him the way he had protected her.

The Heroes shifted again and one of them stepped forward from the table to stand in near the door.

"As much fun as this stand off is getting to be, either give you're terms of surrender or die now." The one speaking in front of the door extended an arm, a wave of frequency emitting making everyone cover their ears as the glass rumbled and cracked before he lowered his arm and the sound stopped as he smiled darkly.

Deimos snarled and went to meet the challenge when she stopped him again.

"Mav-"

"I got this boss. The power dampeners they have set up will hurt you." Maven chose her words carefully, purposefully, pushing him back a few steps to allow herself entry.

Deimos pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes tight with his jaw ticking angrily but surprisingly to Maven he otherwise complied.

Maven knew the clock was ticking on his self-control. He was a good fighter even with power dampeners so she knew she didn't have long before he hit his fuck it button and jumped right in swinging.

Especially if she was going to drain their powers so completely and for that she needed touch....this will be fun. She thought sarcastically.

Without a second more Maven walked right in and grabbed the Hero's arm and connected to his energy just as he started emitting the sound frequency again.

Maven knew they figured that she would physically fight them hand to hand since she warned Deimos about the security measures they had taken, but they had no clue that she could use her abilities too.

The other two heroes in the room were unaffected from the sound waves which meant they were being purposely left out by their ally, which would be surprising considering how they left Electron to fend for himself earlier out in the hallway. Or they had a way to protect themselves and after the display from earlier had it turned on.

Maven extended her arm and connected with their energy as well, halting their bodies in their tracks before turning her attention back to the Hero with the sound waves and flowed the energy backwards away from the center that powered the hero and started to drain it, the sound fading and stopping.

Everyone had an energy center. That was where the life flowed, their abilities, their memories, their health, all of it. Finding and connecting to it was easy because she was trained to do it in order to heal Jason her whole life, to read memories and gather info for the team.

And as she changed the direction of the flow of energy to halt the sound of frequency, while simultaneously keeping the other two in check and in place, she began to drain the sound hero's power as quickly as possible and flow it into her own.

Which...unfortunately made it maddeningly painful for the both of them as memories, emotions, and yes, their abilities, flooded into Maven's energy core and thereby overloaded it with information.

The Hero dropped with a loud thud to the floor as Maven caught her breath, panting, sweat trickling down her forehead. Her grasp on the other two Superheroes slipped then and allowed them the freedom to attack as they cried out their anger and revenge.

Without thinking Deimos rushed into the room, knowing he'd be without his powers, and threw himself in between the two Superheroes and Maven as a fireball crashed into his chest and sent him flying into her.

He curled his larger frame around her as more fireballs burned and crashed into his back. Making him scream and cry out in agony with each blow as the smell of burnt flesh and hair filled the room and he hoped none of it was his little hero's.

Maven was shaking into him, no longer trying to escape his hold as his screams of pain deafened her ears. She could halt their movements again like earlier, but the amount of energy Deimos needed to heal would break her concentration and would put them in the same exact position again. She couldn't do both at once and he needed healing.

If she healed him now, then the Superhero with the fireballs would just keep raining down on them until Maven couldn't keep up with the healing anymore.

Deimos stilled against her and the attack finally stopped. The other Superhero, who had yet to participate, chuckled darkly and nudged his burnt body which elicited a pained groan and he pulled her closer on instinct.

"Now that's just adorable."

Maven glared up at them as she began to heal Deimos, subtly and quickly, trying to numb some of the pain as she repaired the layers of nerve damage done to his skin by the fire. Unfortunately, there is nothing subtle about healing but she was betting on them noticing anyway so that they may get close enough to touch seeing as Deimos' protective instinct wasn't letting her up off the ground anytime soon.

"I remember him when he was just a kid, scared of the dark and pissing his pants anytime I entered the room." The superhero crouched down next to Maven as he continued to torment Deimos, poking his burnt and charred flesh. Smiling whenever a pained groan escaped from her boss as he flinched away.

It pissed her off. And it helped her understand why Deimos was so hell-bent on his mission to destroy this Academy and all it stood for, not to mention why he just about lost his cool earlier. It wasn't like her boss to leap into a room without thinking first.

The Superhero with the fireballs crouched down on the other side of her boss's torturer and smiled. "Looks like someone isn't just observant with an incapacitating lethal ability, but one that can heal too."

"You're just full of surprises." The torturer gleamed as he reached out to pull her away from Deimos. She pretended to fight them, to not let on that it was what she was planning, and the other grabbed her other arm to assist their ally in restraining her.

Now she had contact with both of them. Perfect.

Deimos protested meekly, barely conscious as he felt his little hero being ripped from arms. The pain of the burns returning tenfold, slamming into his body like a jackhammer that his teeth on edge and made him nauseous.

This plan was going south. He had to get her out of here. Yet... when he opened his eyes to find her sitting in front of him, smiling wickedly with her eyes closed, he couldn't help the cold shiver that passed through him despite the fire damage to his body.

The two Superheroes held each of her arms yet their heads were hung back, mouths agape in a silent scream and eyes wide with terror.

He knew her, knew the way she thought and the way she plotted during their training sessions.

She was making them pay. For him. For what they just did to him.

But it was more than that he noticed. She was doing so much more than just showing them their worst nightmare, he knew she could take too. She was draining their energy...and she wasn't stopping.

Just like before with that sound wave hero and that chill was back in his bones. Maven was shaking after that, incapacitated and vulnerable which is what led to her break in concentration in holding the others that led him to leap to her rescue.

And as the bodies of the two Superheroes fell to floor with a thunk, Deimos reached a shaking burnt arm to her still sitting form. Was she alright? Why was she so still?

He didn't get much time to ponder before black spots swept across his vision once again rendering him unconscious.

Maven, however, was unaware of his predicament.

Her energy core, overloaded as it was, not once but three times.

She didn't know who's memories were who's. Flashes of colors danced across her eyelids in a painful strobe-like fashion so she had no way to decode or identify the new abilities. Their emotions, their sickening emotions, were a lot on their own and she found it ironic that there was so much of the same kind of emotions.

Just a lot of it.

She couldn't move as her body convulsed, flashing colors shooting across her vision. Maven would have screamed if she could and was thankful when her vision went dark and gave her a break from the blindingly bright flashing colors that she couldn’t decode or keep up with anymore as she slid into unconsciousness as well.

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