Heroes

Chapter 20: 404... was found?

Just a chapter of Dream being a psychopath (or for 1475 words), what's not to love?
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Dream POV.

I slowed the car in front of the apartment where I had dropped George a couple of days ago. He gave me a small smile, a quiet form of thank you as he opened the door and stepped out. As he ran across the street and into the house I smiled at him, but something felt off in my mind. Nothing to do with George, he was perfect, but it was with the way I was acting.

Over the span of six hours I had spent with him, the two of us went to a restaurant for breakfast, to a movie, to another restaurant for lunch, and to the pier on a beach on the opposite side of the city. Most of these places I’d refuse to be caught dead in, especially in broad daylight with a date.

I’d also stopped to replace the phone I had Punz hide out in the middle of nowhere to send the cops on a wild goose chase. Along with that I also brought him a bunch of nice things for his wardrobe and his apartment, since I knew the homes on this side of the city were quite scruffy and cold.

As I drove off I scolded myself for being so kind to George. Sure I’ve had toys to play with, most of which were in their early twenties with low income and easy to manipulate morals. I’d buy them stuff, in return I used them for sex or when I needed help dealing with something which I didn’t trust my henchmen with.

Usually I only permitted myself to get close to them for two weeks before realising what weaknesses they are. They’d slowly become annoying, whiny brats. Some would cheat on me with my henchmen, sneak information to cops, or wouldn’t do as I ask.

It becomes clears to me that I can’t let my heart get distracted from what I do by whoever I was with, and as my way of getting over them, I’d tie them up and torture them until my hearts content. It helped me get focused again. I’d electrocute them, cut off body parts, shoot them, leave them with hungry animals, whatever I fancied to watch I guess.

If they were alive by the end of it I’d always get their limp, weak, battered, and bruised bodies and gift them to my henchmen, allowing them to do whatever they decided with what was then my ex.

I knew that that would probably happen to George in a week from now, but I didn’t want that to happen. I’d tried to convince myself that it was because I felt bad, but I’ve done this type of thing hundreds of times and haven’t felt anything like this before. Maybe the feeling will go away when George spends a night in a tank full of scorpions.

Twenty minutes or so passed as I drove silently through the city before reaching the docks. I was silent the entire time, managing to distract myself from the day that I just had with George to start recounting what Sapnap, Skeppy, and I had planned. The distractions that had been happening over the past month were only the first stage of our plans to kill the heroes.

Every time Sapnap, Skeppy, or I made a big public show to gain the attention of the police and the quartet of heroes, the others would be stealing stuff. The first time this happened we started with something small, when Skeppy stole from the gem exhibit at the museum Sapnap had stolen Beryllium. More recently the three of us have taken more dangerous things.

By ‘more dangerous things’ I mean uranium, deuterium-tritium gas, lithium deuteride, plutonium, and other hard to get and hard to pronounce chemicals and objects. We’ve planned this out perfectly, and have gotten ourselves more than enough materials to make multiple nuclear warheads capable of killing off even superman (as long as we included a speck of kryptonite).

My car engine went silent as I parked in the warehouse at the dock, then wordlessly walked out of the building. Shouting got my attention as I stood outside and I stopped walking to see Punz walking over to me.

“Punz.” I greeted and he gave me a nod of respect when I addressed him, kind of like how an army member would show respect to their superior, except without the weird saluting.
“We think that we found him.” He said excitedly. My wary expression immediately widened into a smile at his words, not that the platinum blond could see and I told him to take me to him.

He nodded, and began leading me towards one of the warehouses near the edge of the cluster we’d taken over. There were incredibly loud screams coming from the building and I raised an eyebrow at Punz, which he noticed even though I was wearing a mask. “He is a bit of a screamer, surprisingly.” The platinum blond sheepishly admitted.

Both of us walked inside of the warehouse where a group of my masked henchmen were gathered around the person who was shouting. My face contorted into anger at his pathetic screaming which was making my head hurt, especially because he was meant to be a superhero, not some panicked child.

About a month ago 404 had seemingly disappeared from the city. Newspapers and news crews all questioned it, a lot of people on social media questioned it, and a lot of criminals hanging around the city questioned it. However even though civilians were asking the remaining three heroes about him, none of them gave any comment on it.

While one superhero was not much of a problem for our plans, however it would be nicer not to have to worry about him in the long run. So I had instructed Punz, a group of my henchmen, and some of the most notorious bounty hunters in the country to try and hunt the hero down and bring him to me.

I walked over to see a bare-chested brunette tied down to the floor. His arms and torso were covered in bruises, cuts, and puddles of blood which shined in the low light. He had light blue eyes and was around 5”9. Obviously he always wore those annoying goggles which covered his eyes, but he looked quite similar, and I could hear the thick British accent he had.

His face was stained in tears and he panicked more when he saw me standing above him with Punz looming a few steps behind me. “404,” I greeted in a cold voice. “It is good to finally see you face to face.” At my words his expression faltered slightly into one of confusion. I glanced at Punz. “Are you sure that this is really him? He seems overly pathetic.”

The platinum blond shrugged. “I am pretty sure, maybe it’s just an act though.” He said, and I gave a nod of consideration.
“I’m not 404, please believe me!” The man begged. “You have the wrong person I swear!” I scoffed as he tried to squirm and he begged.

I ignored him, beckoning one of my henchmen over. He was holding a silver coloured case which I had requested we owned for when we did find 404. The henchman opened it for me to reveal a pair of electrified escrima sticks, identical to the ones 404 often fought with. I held them over the tied up Brit who continued to shout out that we had the wrong person.

“Look at this 4-0-4.” I teased as I held up one of the sticks, allowing the tied up superhero to see them clearly and sounding out each of the numbers which made up his name slowly. He examined it worriedly and I commented on the weapon which was no doubt familiar to him. “It is exactly like what you have at home, probably hanging up in your closet somewhere.”

My tone was playful as I put the butt of one of the sticks against his chest, sending a volt of electricity through his body. He let out a scream at that and I let out a noise of surprise. “Didn’t expect a man who controls electricity to be so vulnerable to it. I was honestly expecting you to redirect the charge to hit me or something.”

“I’m not a superhero!” He cried out again. “Please just let me go and I’ll do anything!” He managed to let out between sobs and hiccups.
“Fine.” I decided to give the screaming man the benefit of the doubt. “It’s okay if you aren’t 404, I have plenty of time to make your death fun anyway.”
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1475 words