Chapter 152 Concepts.

Chapter 152: 152 Concepts.

Looked like I wasn’t going to get out of this the easy way.

What the hell was I dealing with here? Probably not human. Not with all those rags and the complete lack of a skeletal structure in the way he was walking.

Was he magic? Eldritch? Neither were exactly my favorite demographics to work with.

Hopefully, he was just a fey. Being able to telekinetically manipulate cold iron came in incredibly handy when dealing with those little bastards.

"...Alright," I said slowly, pivoting to face him.

Even as I did, I let my powers bleed out into the alleyway, mapping my immediate surroundings through magnetic resonance.

He didn’t have anything metallic on him worth noting—just a few cheap brass zippers and buttons on his thrift-store rags—but we were in the middle of a city alley. Ammunition was everywhere.

I felt the rusted screws holding up a flickering neon sign above us. I felt a handful of loose change lying in the gutter. And, most importantly, I felt the heavy, galvanized steel of three large industrial trash cans sitting flush against the brick wall.

"So," I said, crossing my arms, subtly shifting the ridged steel of my bracers and anklets so my armor was primed to deploy at a microsecond’s notice. "What do you need?"

"We... me... I require-ire-ire your assistance with a task-ask-ask that would be of great mutual ben-ben-benefits to you and us."

"Is that right?"

"Yes. And the reward shall be-be-be significant indeed."

"Significant?"

"The continent you know of-of-of as Australia."

Hoo boy.

Either I was dealing with the world’s most ambitious con man, or even worse, a brand-new, delusional megalomaniac.

See, this was a massive problem with rookie bad guys in the industry.

They survive a chemical spill or a localized radiation storm, realize they can shoot lasers or talk to pigeons, and suddenly get it into their heads that they can conquer the globe.

They usually lasted about forty-eight hours before a corporate-sponsored hero inevitably turned their teeth to powder on live television.

The successful villains in this business—the ones who actually survived to make a living—treated it like a profession.

You do the job, you collect the paycheck, you minimize collateral damage so the feds don’t drone-strike your house. But every once in a while, you get a guy with the perfect blend of grand ambitions and zero tactical planning.

They usually tried to assemble a ’crew’ to go rob a military base, and somehow, they always ended up cornering me in an alley to pitch their terrible startup ideas.

Obviously, it was a hard pass. I was a freelance contractor, not a planetary conqueror. I only robbed establishments that were fully briefed in my corporate contracts.

But if there was one thing I knew about world-domination types, it was that they did not handle rejection well. I had to let him down easy.

And prepare for him to immediately take it badly.

"Listen," I said, extending my magnetic field and circumspectly lifting one of the heavy steel trash cans into the air, hovering it just out of his peripheral vision. "You seem like a nice... collective... but I’m really not interested in the whole world-conquering sector."

He tilted his head at me, his rags shifting unsettlingly. "You’re no-o-ot?"

"Not really, no," I admitted, slowly drifting the floating trash can right behind him. "But I’m sure you’ll find plenty of other entry-level villains who’d love to lend you a hand."

The humming underneath his heavy clothes grew violently louder. What the hell was under there?

"This is a most-ost-ost unfortunate decision," he said, his voice dropping into a menacing, vibrating drone. "We ask-ask-ask you to reconsider-er-er."

"Sorry, pal. Fully booked."

"Then you are-are-are a fool!" he shouted, grabbing the heavy scarf wrapped around his face and ripping it away.

I’ve seen a lot of weird, visually offensive capes in my career, but this guy absolutely took the cake. I wasn’t looking at a face.

Well, it approximated a face. It had indentations where eyes should be, and a gaping hole for a mouth. The problem was, the entire structure was made of living, writhing insects.

He was bees. Literally just thousands of angry bees in a trench coat.

"You will rue-ue-ue the day you refused the hand-and-and of friendship from The Swarm!" he cried. His voice wasn’t vocal cords; it was the terrifying, synchronized buzzing of a million tiny wings vibrating in unison. "Though once a simple apiary worker, when I was exposed-osed-osed to experimental pesticides, I found my mind-ind-ind joined to the hive! And soon-oon-oon, the entire world will know our sting!"

"Yeah. Okay. Cool," I said blandly. "So, if we’re done here—"

"We are far from done-one-one with you, Polaris!" Swarm shrieked, lifting a buzzing, shape-shifting hand as the glow of his yellow eyes flared like twin suns. "Though you spurn our-our-our friendship, we shall not let you live to impede-ede-ede us! The time of the bee is now-ow-ow! And you shall be our first victim!"

Alright. Pitch meeting over.

With a sharp downward gesture of my hand, I simply let go of the magnetic hold.

Swarm paused right in the middle of his dramatic, buzzing wind-up as twenty pounds of rotting alleyway garbage rained directly down onto his head. He looked up, completely disoriented.

Before he could react, I slammed the inverted steel trash can down squarely over him.

"Mrrrrm!" Swarm buzzed in muffled, metallic shock.

Not giving him a fraction of a second to recover or dissipate, I flicked my wrist. The heavy galvanized steel groaned as my powers seized it. Before Swarm had a chance to escape out the bottom, I magnetically snapped the lid directly onto the base of the can, sealing him completely inside.

It wasn’t a second too soon. The steel can immediately began to rattle and bang against the pavement as Swarm threw his collective mass against the walls. The humming sound grew to a furious, deafening whine within the metal trap. But while being made of a million angry bees was definitely a neat party trick, it didn’t give him the physical mass required to punch through industrial steel.

I pinched my fingers together, using my powers to violently crimp the edges of the metal lid shut, functionally welding the can closed. It wasn’t going to pop off anytime soon.

Then, with a casual wave of my hand, I floated the violently vibrating trash can over and set it down neatly next to the other ones against the brick wall.

Let’s see... municipal pickup in this district wasn’t until Thursday. So, four days. That should give The Swarm plenty of time to rethink his business model and rethink his branding. Or he’d run out of oxygen and suffocate. Whichever came first.

I had a pretty good, detached instinct about these sorts of things. You tend to develop one when you spend your career fighting people who use insect puns and dress like aggressively rejected comic-book concepts.

I pulled my keys out, unlocked the Crown, and slid into the driver’s seat. Time to head home.

It had been a very long day.