The Taste of Victory

“I’ve come to a decision,” Compound declared.

The groans from Oriceye echoed throughout Compound’s commlink. “Alright, what is this decision?”

Compound drew an arrow and nocked it onto his bow. He shot it through the concrete between his feet. A cable trailed behind the arrow, through a loop on his bow, and snaked up his sleeve to a miniature winch beneath his hoodie. “You know how comic books are a thing, right?”

A gust of wind blew against Compound from behind. He let it tilt him over and off the edge of the rooftop. “No,” Oriceye drawled, audible despite the air rushing in Compound’s ears. “I had no idea.”

“Well, they do.” Compound’s arm and bow were gently pulled above him. By pulling a button just below the grip of his bow, the cable began to unspool, lowering Compound swiftly but silently down into the dark alley below. “And a lot of them focus on superheroes and especially vigilantes like us, right?”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Look it up if you don’t believe me. And sure, they tell all sorts of fantastical stories, a new villain every week, ridiculous and yet entertaining scenarios, all in an effort to keep the reader hooked and interested, right?”

“I believe we’ve established that I’ll take your word for it.”

“Right, right.”

Compound switched which button he held down. The cable stopped unfurling, leaving him hanging in the shadows. The night vision of his visor picked up four people in the alley below him. Two lurked out in the open. Or as open as a dark alley in the middle of the night could be. A third hid out of sight behind some discarded boxes. The fourth and smallest was walking up to the two out in the open. It was all simple enough.

“I’ve decided that what they don’t tell you is how boring things get,” Compound declared. One final button disconnected the cable entirely. He dropped down and angled his body to land between the lurkers and the approacher. Everyone tensed at the sight of him.

Compound tilted his head back to the approacher. “You, get out of here, now. If you run I probably won’t get the chance to catch up to you.” The sound of retreating footsteps clued Compound in to the approacher taking his advice.

The two lurkers lunged at Compound.

“I mean, think about it!” Compound ducked to the side to avoid a hit from the first lurker and slip out of range of the second completely. He brought his foot up and dug the polished steel on the toes into the first lurker’s side. He cried out and crumpled to the ground. “Most of the people I fight go down in one hit, at that.”

Compound plucked an arrow from his quiver and hopped over the fallen lurker, positioning himself with his back to the second. He crouched beneath a poorly swung fist and nocked the arrow onto his bow. He yanked the string back, digging his elbow into the second lurker’s stomach. He gasped and stumbled back. At the same time his other hand twitched and a plastic bag flew up into the air. It landed on a fire escape above them.

The hider started to jump out from behind the boxes. Compound released the arrow. It bounced against the gun in the hider’s hand and wrenched it from her grip. Both arrow and gun clattered into the darkness.

“We don’t really face any actual villains,” Compound continued, watching the hider quickly become a runner. “Not since Spectrum, and that was ages ago!”

“It’s been barely two months.”

“Exactly! Two months without an actual villain.” Compound drew and aimed another arrow. The runner realized that the direction she’d run in was a dead end. The only way out of the alley was through the exit behind Compound. With nothing else to do, they turned and made a mad dash for it.

“It’s all just gang violence, way more bank robberies than you’d expect, and pretty much non-stop drug deals.”

Compound lifted his bow and shot the arrow at the fire escape. The latch holding the ladder up broke. The ladder dropped down and slammed against the floor, directly in the path of the runner. She was running too fast to stop. She crashed against the ladder and dropped to the ground.

The many crashes sent vibrations up through the fire escape. They dislodged the plastic bag from its perch. It fell down and landed in Compound’s gloved hand. “And there’s barely even any variation in that, either,” he groaned. He shook the bag where the fallen runner could see it. “I mean, what is this, cocaine?! Show some originality!” The runner groaned and closed her eyes. “Or don’t do drugs at all. That’s good too. Better, even.”

“Are you actually complaining about this?” Oriceye asked. “Like, really? Complaining that we’re good at what we do? And that we don’t have to deal with the crazy kind of malarkey you described?”

Compound shrugged. “Well, no, not complaining, exactly.” He slung his bow over his shoulder and pulled a handful of zip ties from his pocket. He crouched down and pulled the lurkers and runner closer so he could fasten them together for the police. “It’s just… I dunno. I guess I never expected being an illegal vigilante to be so… so…”

“Formulaic?” Oriceye suggested.

“Yes!” Compound dropped the tied up criminals and jumped to his feet. “Yes, exactly! I’ve been following a formula!”

“Well,” Oriceye began after a few moments of silence. “There is one more piece to the formula we have to follow through with.”

Compound smirked and shot another cabled arrow up to the roof. “This was a victory.” He retracted the cable and zipped up the wall. “Victory smoothies on me.”

—————————————————————

In the surprisingly well stocked kitchen of their bunker, one of the most used appliances was a well-loved blender. A well-loved blender that Peter had brought from home, as a matter of fact. A well-loved blender that could make the perfect amount of victory smoothies.

Equal amounts of the bright pink smoothie were poured into six separate glasses. Three of them went into the fridge, unfortunately, but the other three were put into place on a silver platter.

Peter slid the platter from the counter to the table and picked up a fork at the same time. He gently swung it against a little metal triangle hanging from a wire just above the table. A gentle chime echoed through and out of the kitchen.

The door opened almost immediately. Amber marched into the kitchen. She had a tablet clutched in her hand, the other furiously typing across the screen. She finished whatever she was doing and pressed the button on her commlink. “Right. Show him the picture and try ‘Dime adónde fue este hombre.’ Maybe that’ll work.” She was silent for a moment before rolling her eyes. “Then take a Spanish class!”

Amber snatched up one of the smoothies and all but dumped half of it down her throat. She stormed back out of the kitchen, grumbling under her breath. Calem, who had initially been behind her, stepped out of the way to let her through. And to protect himself from being knocked over and stomped on.

Only after Amber had left earshot did Calem let out a slow whistle. “You know, I’m pretty sure Daniel’s been trying to interrogate that guy for an hour now.”

Peter tried to let out a whistle of his own. It came out as just a soft exhale instead. He groaned and held out one of the smoothies for Calem to take. “That’s… gotta be rough.”

Calem nodded and flopped down into one of the chairs around the table. “You have no idea.”

“Should you be in here, then? Can’t you help out with that?”

Calem let out a soft scoff and shook his head. “The extent of my help would be suggesting a game of charades. And at this point, offering that would be about the same as pulling the pin on a grenade and shoving it through your own chest.” Calem shivered and shook his head. “Thanks, but I like being non-eviscerated.”

Peter held up his smoothie. “I’ll drink to that.”

Calem nodded gravely and clinked his glass against Peter’s.

—————————————————————

Compound could barely move his arms. Or his legs. Or his body. He could just about shuffle his limbs and body through the duct. Every now and then he had to pull his bow up as well, wincing as half the time the movement would dig it into his ribs.

A chuckle echoed through Compound’s commlink.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he hissed.

“I’m not,” Oriceye said quickly, voice still absolutely bursting with mirth.

“I heard you laugh.”

“Not at you,” Oriceye promised. “Oriceye here just told me a funny joke.”

Compound’s commlink clicked once, signifying the other Oriceye had joined the channel. “Don’t bring me into this.” Another click and it was just him and Oriceye again.

“See?” Oricye asked. “Hilarious.”

Compound huffed. “I can barely see anything.” He pulled himself to an intersection of ducts. In that one spot there was almost enough room to stretch his arms. He enjoyed that feeling far more than he should have.

“I know. And on a completely unrelated note, I’m recording your view of this. For posterity, you know?”

Compound just sighed and shook his head. If the movement was a little more rapid and sharp than usual, that was between him and the vents.

“You’ll want to go left. At the next right, there’ll be a grate to let you out into the main lobby. Cameras show two robbers, side by side. Only hostages are the staff.”

Compound gave a swift nod and shimmied his body to go down the duct. He pulled his bow up. Or he started to, at least. The string got caught on his foot and he had to stop to untangle that.

“Seriously, whose idea was it to climb through the ventilation shafts?”

“Yours.”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was a bad idea?!”

“You wouldn’t have listened.”

Compound let out a huff, but didn’t have anything he could say to that. He just finished pulling his foot free of his bow and started making his way through the vents again.

“Think you could commentate a bit?”

Compound stayed silent.

After a short while, though it didn’t feel like it, he rounded a corner and made a sharp right turn. Almost immediately he was met with a glorious exit. It took a bit of tricky maneuvering and curling in on himself, but soon Compound had his feet planted against the grate.

With a mighty push the cover popped out of place and clattered down into the lobby. His body followed and slid out of the duct. He had to tilt his bow not to get it caught on the exit. Luckily he’d gotten plenty of practice angling it recently.

Compound landed on the floor in a crouch, his bow coming to a rest in front of him. A quick scan of the lobby confirmed Oriceye’s assessment. The tellers were cowering behind their desks while the duo of bank robbers patrolled the lobby.

At the many sounds involved in his dramatic entrance, they turned to face Compound. He already had an arrow primed and ready to fire. It flew between the two of them, a cable stretching behind it. As soon as the arrow was embedded into the far wall, Compound pressed the button to retract it.

He was yanked off his feet and zipped across the lobby. He twisted his bow around so when he was pulled between the two robbers the arms struck their stomachs. They cried out and were picked up off the ground with Compound. His bow carried and slammed the two robbers against the far wall. Compound disconnected the cable and pulled back, reaching for another arrow.

When the robbers managed to look up, it was to an arrow pointed down at them. “I’d stay down, if I were you,” Compound advised. “Everyone alright?”

One brave teller spoke up. “I… I think… yes, we are.”

Compound nodded decisively, his head’s movements still shaky and sharp. “I’d say this counts as a solid victory, then. Victory smoothies on me.”

—————————————————————

Peter lined up the glasses on the counter. He started pouring into the leftmost glass and slid along the line. Just as he’d planned, he managed to pour evenly into the six glasses. None of the glasses were exactly full afterward, but a bit of backtracking never hurt anyone.

Before he could even ring the triangle, someone took one of the smoothies. Peter didn’t really mind. That’s what he’d made them for, after all. He did not make them for Devlin to gag and cough and spit it into the sink.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked, reaching out to rub his friend’s back.

Devlin groaned and held his smoothie away. “Is this strawberry?!”

“Yeah.”

“Why?!” Devlin shoved the glass away from him. It wobbled on the counter, but Peter was able to steady and save it.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Strawberries are the fruit of the demons, that’s why!”

Peter shrugged and held both of his smoothies up. “Yeah, well, you got kidnapped like last week.”

Devlin blinked. He stared at Peter. Then blinked again. “Are… you punishing me for that?”

“I mean… not genuinely?” Devlin just kept staring at Peter. He sighed and wilted. “Alright, alright. Look in the fridge. A fresh banana smoothie, just for you.”

Devlin brightened up, his hard stare disappearing without a trace. “Thanks, buddy.”

—————————————————————

Compound crept down the staircase of a perfectly normal office building. It hadn’t been condemned or abandoned or even given a bad online review. It wasn’t any creepier than any other building would be in the middle of the night. And it hadn’t been hard to break in. He’d just had to find a window that some executive had left open and rappel down to it.

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

“Positive,” Oriceye promised. “Iarumas and Oriceye have been gathering intel on this deal for a week.”

Compound pulled open a door and peeked through. He was met with darkness and no sign of activity. He pushed the door closed with a sigh. “And why isn’t he here, then?”

“He has an essay to finish, so Magnetism stole his sword.”

“Right, right. That’d do it.”

Compound hopped onto the bannister and slid down a flight of stairs. He jumped off and came to a halt in front of another door. It too revealed darkness and inactivity. He climbed back onto the bannister and slid down another fight.

When he pulled the next door open, Compound was assaulted with light and noise. What had to be a dozen men and women were inside the office. Half of them were stacking crates up in an elevator across the room. The other half were patrolling around the offices, each carrying what Compound was sure were machine guns. High end machine guns at that.

In the center of the room stood a short man. He had unruly brown hair, though the lighting of the room made it look red. He wore a black leather duster. The collar extended up to cover the lower half of his face.

He looked up when Compound opened the door. He shrugged at the sight of the vigilante and snapped his fingers. “Kill him.”

The guards rushed to get Compound in their lines of fire. Their guns clicked as they did. Compound yelped and took a step back through the doorway, hiding himself from them for a few more seconds.

“Hey, wait, that’s not how it works!” Compound shouted back to the short man. “You’re supposed to monologue and tell me your evil plan and all that!”

“I don’t care,” the short man said, going so far as to give an indifferent shrug. “Kill him.”

The guards opened fire.

Compound kicked the door shut and dove to the side. A flurry of bullets broke through the door, whizzing just behind Compound. Bits of broken door rained over him.

Compound jumped onto the bannister and slid down another flight of stairs. He hopped off at a corner and spun around, drawing an arrow to aim up at the door. After a few tense seconds, the first of the guards walked through.

Compound shot the gun straight out of the guard’s hand. It clattered to the ground. The arrow had sliced into the barrel, blocking it from firing even if the guard did manage to recover it.

The guard just shrugged and stepped aside, letting the next guard walk out. She had her gun already aimed at Compound. He dove back onto the bannister and slid down yet another flight of stairs. On the next landing he spun and shot the second guard’s gun in the same way he had the first.

The second guard just let the third take over.

—————————————————————

Compound was out of breath by the time he got back to the floor they’d all been set up on. Taking out the six guards and running up six flights of stairs was enough to take it out of him, it seemed.

The floor was empty, and save for the guards knocked over and zip tied around the building, there was no evidence any criminal activity had gone on here. Compound couldn’t do anything more than stare around in shock.

The short man really had been nothing but indifferent to his presence.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Oriceye asked.

Compound sighed and held a hand up to his neck. He could feel his pulse racing, but there was no denying that his heart was still beating.

“Okay. You know what? Despite the best efforts of Indifference-”

“Indifference?”

“I survived. I’m gonna call that a win. Victory smoothies on me.”