96 Taxes are for the Weak

"If you want, I can kill you all, but I really do just want to talk, none of you have to die if you just hear me out, kay?~" Why does it feel like I'm the one dealing with a litter of feral cats?

I'm the villain here, they should be the ones stepping on eggshells!

None of them say anything, unless you count pathetic whimpering as words in which case Bunny the Second doesn't shut up. Instead they just remain all tense looking, ready for fighting to break back out despite my casual stance.

I mean, I'm not even mad about the fact that I'll have to get a new costume, 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, yet they're being so pissy about what? A few broken bones?

Who gives a fuck? In this fight I've had way more bones broken than they have collectively, possibly in their entire lives to be honest. 206 bones and I broke like, four of theirs while they've broken all 206 of mine.

Truly, heroes are so violent these days.

"Cool, so now that we've all gotten that out of our systems, I'll give you your second test and it really is an easy one, trust me, you're going to be feeling like idiots for turning this into a fight for no reason.~"

Unfortunately, I am unable to continue as the eavesdropper interrupts me.

"No reason? You killed 𝘩𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘴 of people and you say no reason?! Stopping people like you is exactly why I have this job!" His shout only makes me roll my eyes again but at least Candy seems to be learning as she also glares at him.

It's nice that someone is finally understanding that antagonising me really isn't the best idea right now.

Well, I guess I know who I'm going to pick later then.

"Really?~ Funny, you don't seem to be doing much stopping of me right now.~ Care to try again?~ I could make your arms match if you want?~ Or I could give your other friend some company so she doesn't feel left out in the next weekly paraplegic pity orgy?~"

Both of his eyes widen and I can smell the fear rising in him to overtake his righteous anger and it brings a honest smile to my face.

"Just give me the test already." Candy interrupts, successfully bringing my attention away from the talking corpse.

"Sure, it's an easy one.~ See, I need to make a phone call but the Arab has fucked with all the phones, so I figured you'd be able to make me one. Simple right?~"

She eyes me dubiously for a moment, none of them saying anything until she circles back to the obvious fact that she doesn't really have a choice here.

But still she double checks, which is about the only intelligent thing any of them have done so far.

"That's it? Just make you a phone and I pass your test?" I can tell she's doubting me, which does make sense really, since so far she's only been tested by Mannequin and he took her hands.

To be honest if not for the fact that I did actually kinda need to make a phone call, my test would have been for her to loser her feet, because it would have been funny to make her match.

I just respond by gesturing my arms for her to get started.

"I-I need my workshop." She stutters, but I know how bullshit Tinkers are so I'm pretty sure she just wants to lead me back to other heroes for a round two.

"You have twenty minutes. Punishment for failing the test is that I'll kill everyone here except for you." Now 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 gets her moving.

All you need is the right motivation and you can get anyone to do anything. Luckily this idiot seems to have chosen to love people who work in a highly dangerous job.

As she starts taking out various devices and taking them apart, to assemble my phone I quickly get bored and begin meandering around, picking up pieces of human every now and then to snack on while I wait, partly because I want to and partly just because I like making the kids squirm.

Now that I think about it, she's probably just going to give me a bomb to hold to my head isn't she?

Ah well, I'm sure I can have fun with that too.

As I am walking about, I nearly slip over when I step on one of my makeshift cards and it slides on the ground, still lubed up with fresh blood and it gives me a funny idea.

So while Candy is building stuff, I start to walk back over to them, immediately causing Candy to stop her work and stare at me, ready to protect the others while they all tense up and get ready to defend themselves.

Then, once I am only a few strides away from them, I plop down on my butt with my legs crossed and with an innocent smile, I wave one hand over the other and take out a deck of cards in such a way that it looks like it appeared out of nowhere.

"I'm bored, wanna play poker while we wait?~" I ask while staring right at Audiophile.

I take great joy in the way his teeth clench, a reaction shared by the other three, if not as violently, at the fact that I never actually needed to use makeshift cards at all and that those people all died for nothing.

Which is true, though I'll probably eat most of them before I head back, or at least the good parts.

Unfortunately, being the bores that they are, no one responds to me.

How sad, guess I'll start ripping corpses apart to make myself feel better, I'm sure they won't regret their choice or rejecting a perfectly good way of distracting me.

Some time later, I'm not sure exactly how long as even though I gave a time limit I haven't actually been keeping track of the time. So, eleven corpses ripped in half later, I guess, Candy finally seems to finish her job.

"Alright. I'm done. I've made you you're phone, now take it and leave." She demands of me while holding out a device of supposedly phone-like nature.

Tut, tut. I think someone's forgetting their place, making demands of me.

"Cool, now I want Batboy to call someone for me, I'll tell you the number." I say and Candy stiffens for an instant.

"Why?" She asks, failing to act casual but I just shrug and stare her down until she dutifully hands him the device, subtly flicking a switch as she does so.

Heh, nice. She figured this might happen and added a way to disable the explosive instead of just abandoning the chance entirely.

With the phone in his hand, Earboy dials in the numbers as I day them and presses call only once I've told him exactly what he is supposed to say.

We all listen to the calling sound ringing out, because I guess she made it speakerphone to listen to what I'm saying. Well, I never specified for privacy so it's fine, she's just playing the game, nothing wrong with that.

After ringing three times, the phone clicks and a tired voice sounds out.

"Hello? Who the fuck is calling me at.." I hear some bangs and thumps as he presumably tries and fails to grab something with a clock, "fugin' uhhh, night-time?"

Ah, I forgot it was so late.

Errand boy gulps nervously before he responds, utterly failing to match his tone to the words I instructed him to say.

"T-this is the IRS. We're calling to say that our records indicate that you have an outstanding balance of unpaid taxes. Failure to pay them by the end of the month will result in... the removal of your t-testicles to make up for the missing payment."

The line goes silent until an 𝘶𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 laughter fills the entire street, however even as I'm trying to keep my giggling under control, the other four remain as stoic as ever.

So boring.

When Jinx finally manages to calm himself down, his voice is significantly more mirthful now than the tiredness from before.

"Who put you up to this man? Was it March? Nah, you'd be a better actor is it was her, Negante then? I don't see it being one of the others and I pay my taxes so it's not the IRS, because everyone knows you don't fuck with the IRS." He asks, likely so he can call them back, but his statement at the end has me raising my brow.

First of all I don't pay taxes, secondly, this obviously is something I would do and he knows that, so I can only assume he's excluding me since I've been radio silent for over a month.

May would definitely invite more professionalism and James is also a reasonable guess.

I still think his sense of naming is lame though. I mean, he calls his public persona Joker and then calls his Clown persona Negante?

He wasn't even creative with it. What kind of dumb ass reasoning is 'I just got 'Negate' and put an extra letter in it to sound cooler'.

But whatever, that's not important right now, what matters is the use of the word 'others'.

Because I called his Clown number and the only other should be Kitsune, now Harlequin. Meaning we got a new member while I was in The Box.

Eh whatever, I can just ask later.

Gesturing at Earboy, I get him to throw the phone over, though I have to stretch to catch his awful throw.

I'll let him off though since he is using his non dominant hand, for obvious reasons.

"Guess again Fool!~ It's-a me!~ Your favourite Anthropophagolagniaphile!~" I cheerily greet him, only to get a rather dry response despite not hearing from me in quite a while.

"...My favourite fucking what? How many syllables even was that? Are you making up words again?" His words cause me to pout, mostly just for the peanut gallery.

"Anthropophagolagnia is the fetish of raping and eating people, and it's ten syllables. Anyway!~ How've you been?~ You're on speaker by the way.~"

He seems to accept the change in conversation and just gives a quick snort before answering.

"Eh, you know, chilling. We got a new friend though, you gon' be able to meet them?" He asks, leaving things vague with the knowledge of being on speaker phone whilst also understanding that I'm probably not in the most 'free' environment right now.

"Prolly not no, and I kinda have places to be right now anyway, you'll see what I'm up to in a week or two when the news gets out.~ For now, I've got a favour to ask. I need you to get someone to fetch something for me.~"

He hums lightly for a moment before acquiescing.

"Sure, what do you need?"

"I had to leave my bike behind and it's got some stuff in it that I want back, plus I liked that bike. It's in some forest so get a pen or something and I'll give you proper directions. Then just get someone to get the bike and ride it to Columbus, the one in Georgia."

He agrees and I wait for him to get a pen and then give him the name of the former village as well as the general whereabouts of the bike.

I'd be worried about bears having torn it apart by now, but I don't think the bear population over there will be much of an issue for some reason.

To be honest, the main reason I want the bike, beyond just having a cool bike, is that it has my Clown phone in it, and I've apparently already missed out on one new member due to not having it.

"Cool, I'll send someone over now then. Anything else?" At jinx's prompting, I ponder for a moment if there is anything else before my eyes find themselves locked onto Candy.

Oh. Right.

"Yeah, this call is probably bugged somehow, Tinker bullshit, so you'll probably have to get a new phone, maybe move house too to be extra safe.~"

I wait a moment for my words to properly sink in and then,

"You motherfu-" I cut of his shout by hanging up on him and crushing the phone into pieces in my hand.

Wait, that had a bomb in it, crushing it was a dumb idea.

Ah well, everything worked out in the end.

"Welp! Congrats!~ You pass!~" I exclaim to the heroes, "now there's only one more thing to do." My tone suddenly turns sadistic and they are immediately on edge.

Don't worry little lamb, this big bad wolf isn't hungry enough for four, but you 𝘥𝘪𝘥 lose the earlier game, and losing means consequences.~

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Taxes are for the weak. I don't pay a lot of taxes, cuz fuck the civilian council.

Also, I'm kinda already tired of this arc, but there are a couple of things I've got to do with it after we leave another Columbus in ruins before we can move to the next arc, which 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 be when we enter canon territory btw.

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

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