Chapter 55: Face cloaking tech

I stepped out and was welcomed to the sight of a beautiful twilight. The beauty of it was hitting me like a physical blow. It shows that no matter how bad the world may be, there are still lots of beautiful things out there to see, like the twilight for example.

Now he needed to plan how he was going to tackle his next hit. The future of villains is low, and he needed to prepare some things now before that future came to pass. Maybe someone that can see 5 seconds into the future can just be the antidote for his problem.

Sterling. The name was a cold, sharp thing in his mind. He remembered the man’s name after some time. He remembered that he created the character after watching an anime. That anime became his favorite for one funny reason. The character he loved the most is a suicide-obsessed man. He was always looking for a suicide partner. The funny part is that he never succeeded no matter how much he tried, whether in trying to find a partner or even committing the suicide. Someone always ended up saving him in the end, and people never agreed to be his partner. Although the character wasn’t the main character of the show, I can say for certain that I did not watch that anime for the MC. I only watched it because of the suicide-obsessed character.

Sterling is a man who hunted by exploiting weakness, by offering hope as a weapon. He follows a mafia kind of mindset. A kind of no-nonsense kind of guy. Sterling wouldn’t be swayed by brute force. He’d been there, done that.

He needed to fight fire with fire. He needed to use their own weapon, their trust against them. Or rather, the lack of it.

But there is a problem. Silas is just too mafia-like. A perfect villain. He only does things that benefit him. His greed was large, but not as large as his intellect. They both work hand in hand, and that’s what makes Silas dangerous. The kind of person who will quickly run when the condition is unfavorable for him, yet not without gaining something. Meaning there is a high chance of backstabbing from him.

He doesn’t have many options to choose from. If he wants to choose the Tyrone Brothers, there is also a problem in that. They are almost like half of a brother now. Their relationship has fractured. The two older brothers, Bale and Liam, are now burning with a cold fury. They are more like baking soda and menthol. They will literally erupt at the sight of each other. A partnership could be formed for a period of time because of one thing they both want.

They need to destroy the villain responsible for their younger brother’s live execution at the hands of the heroes. The issue is that there is no evidence of the villain being at fault, but they both know the truth. They could have gone to extract the truth from the villain. After all, there are plenty of ways to make someone start spilling out their guts. And they will literally spill the villain’s guts if that would make him talk. But that would only happen if they ever get their hands on the villain. The villain in question is something called being uniquely tricky. He always seems to disappear from the location the brothers are at. He would appear in a different place entirely.

Maybe if I promise them a way to trap the villain, they would listen to me, but that’s just on maybe only. They are both bombs waiting to go off on each other, and I am not sure I would be able to defuse the bomb.

Old Man Henrick. He trusted only his gold and his guns. He’d barricaded himself in a mine, surrounded by enough explosives to level a mountain. The man doesn’t even trust his own shadow at all. The room he barricaded himself in was lit all through, no chance for any shadow to pass through or even show itself. The man has some serious paranoia for someone whose powers deal with death. He can foreshadow someone’s death and even cause a perfectly healthy man to die. If they carry that healthy man to a hospital, it would be diagnosed that he died a healthy kind of death. There would be no trace that it was caused by Old Man Henrick. His power is that powerful, but you know that saying: with great power comes great cost. That’s the case of Old Man Henrick.

The cost of his power is his paranoia. A paranoia that everybody is out to get him, including his shadow. So he decided to hide himself in a fortress, a fortress that has only one easy pathway, and that easy pathway is in his head. After all, he killed everyone that had any inkling of the fortress. He killed them and their families too. After all, you can’t be too careful. A fortress of a man hidden in a fortress, and you can’t storm that kind of fortress unannounced.

I know the man sounds extremely evil and powerful, but the heroes too are also crazily powerful, and Old Man Henrick learned that the hard way after killing one S-rank hero’s protege. Let’s say there was no chance for any more lessons for Old Man Henrick. He was literally demolished down to the smallest of atoms.

I too can see that all my options aren’t looking good at all. Each of them is a nuclear bomb compacted with problems on their own. They are all isolated alone, yet still very dangerous on their own. Now imagine if they are put together. They would be a force not to be trifled with, but that would be if they did not kill each other because of their issues. And he has to be fast about his plan to gather them, because if they make the same mistake they made in the original plot, my unstoppable force will become nothing. The heroes’ strategy in the story plot was to destroy them before they even had any chance of putting up any resistance. It was almost easy picking for the heroes, after all, they are divided and alone.

They pick them off one by one, use their own isolation in the form of a missile, and demolish them. My strategy, therefore, had to be something crazy, that can make the crazies want to walk with me. After all, there is a saying that says birds of a feather flock together. He had to be a psychotic bridge. But not just one. He had to build a web, a network of like-minded minds, even if it is pretend. After all, they are only pieces to be used to start a revolution.

A revolution that would spread his name and a spearhead that would help in shaping the balance he wants. The balance of an equally shared right. Where there wouldn’t be one side with the upper hand. No more fear of live execution, no more unnecessary crime sprees. A perfect utopia where he won’t have to be scared for his life again. He would be the literal necessity.

But before his dream can be achieved, he has to do a bunch of things, but he would start with this. His first step was the Tyrone brothers. He needed Frederick. He was the weakest link, the most vulnerable. He would be under guard, but if that was a problem for a man like him, he should rather throw in the towel now. He finished his thought process. The char on the back of the taxi seat he was sitting on tells a tale of something he wasn’t even interested in. He has something to be more invested in, a worthwhile investment that may look desperate in people’s eyes, but it is just a strategy.

It was a plan built on a single, fragile premise: that even the most selfish man, when cornered, will fight for his own life. He just had to make them see that their lives were already forfeited, that being a loner, untrusting, and paranoid person doesn’t benefit them. They will only have a bad ending. The heroes are not child’s play. Maybe for now, but in the far future, they can be something dangerous. So they would band together in order to stand a chance against the heroes. At least that’s what I will tell them, even if it is far from the actual truth.

He got down from the taxi after reaching his destination. If you are wondering how he was riding in a taxi, the answer is simple, and it’s something called disguise. After Vivian stopped her silent treatment, she helped him to create a kind of face-cloaking tech.

She is the literal best. She made me my own personal spy-cloaking tech. I can now camouflage my face to almost any face.

After my destination, the sun had finally set. The moon was now out for everyone to see. Shadows could be seen everywhere with the help of the street lights. I walked towards one of the shadows and then shadow-jumped to my actual destination.

He appeared out from the shadow of a large mountain, one of the mountains that surrounds a town. The town was still bright. Different street lights and different light sources were on. He could see people walking up and down. Although the town’s population was not really much—they are not up to five thousand—the scene from his view was anything but not beautiful. It was a beautiful small town. A town filled with mostly innocent people and some who feel that the town was a perfect place to hide. A place they can heal from some things and then go back to the real world to cause chaos.

A perfect place to find the Tyrone brothers. A place to start his plan.

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