Quantum Dissolve: Chapter Twelve. (Home again, home again...)

Jade-Shade was back in The Mayor's office for the first time since receiving the The Prodigious Mass assignment.

He stood calm, tall, arms crossed, and slightly in the shadows.

"Look, I know you tried to get me murdered out there, don't insult my intelligence by trying to pretend".

The Mayor shifted uncomfortably, searching for something to say.

"I brought down the last administration, from Mayor, almost all the way down to Dog Catcher, and since then, I've taken out six phony superheroes. What makes you think you can be the one to mess with me? Hmm?".

The Mayor gulped.

"Nope, we're not doing this. I tried to play this nice, like in the books, but I am what I am, and you are what you are. Stay out of my way. Try your tricky-dickie stuff again, you're in for a world of hurt".

The Mayor's face became stern.
"You've made a powerful enemy, you...".

"...little shit?", JS tacked on.
"Heard it before...not impressed".

JS started to walk out, and turned back.

"Oh, and also....go fuck yourself, you cowardly little rat".

He flipped him the bird, and slipped out the door.


Turns out, he really hadn't made a powerful enemy.
An enemy, sure, but what with the cops refusing to haul him in, be it from respect, apathy, or fear, The Mayor was a toothless little bureaucrat.
And a lame duck, as it would turn out in the next election.

JS stood with his foot up on a heating duct, on the roof of the town hall building, staring up at the stars.
He was reflecting over the past, and the future, as he did on the night he originally made an alliance with the new mayor, and just before Peerless Person showed up, and at the same exact spot.

He knew back then, the villains would be getting tougher, and more complicated, and they had, somewhat, and he welcomed it now, like he did then.

Course, one worry, where was the money going to come from?


He needn't have worried, turned out, his janitor job was waiting for him like he'd never left.
He had the eerie sense someone was pulling some strings for that to happen.

He experienced the same queasy spied on feeling as he did when he got the mask on his doorstoop.

Somebody out there liked him...but in what way, and to what end?

"...more complicated indeed", the thought to himself, barely containing muttering it.
Not that anyone would have understood.
Nor cared what Dusty The Janitor had to say.