The socially awkward villain's furry superpower

"Have you heard?" Sam asked.

Sienna blinked. The two of them were meeting in a school cafeteria.

Well, strictly speaking, the school only has one "university" cafeteria, which is located near the center of the campus, but most people think that place is quite boring.

The quality of the food was about the same as that of places that accept meal vouchers but not cash, and the canteen hadn't been renovated since the early 1990s, so it was obviously old and dilapidated.

So they went to the edge of the campus, where a shrewd businessman leveled several plots of land and built a ring of restaurants around the newly opened space.

The outdoor food court was filled with tables, each with a parasol above it. The greasy smells emanating from the restaurants around the food court permeated the air, so strong they were almost pungent.

Essentially, this is the perfect place for college students to relax and socialize if they have some spare cash, and Sienna happens to be one of those students with some money at the moment.

“I haven’t really been paying attention to the local gossip,” Sienna said, taking a bite of the Yoplait sandwich she had just bought. The sandwich was a bit too big for her, but she had several sisters with sweet tooths who would definitely enjoy the leftovers… She’d have to save the cookies to take with her later.

Sam leaned forward and grinned, "Well, it's not confirmed yet, but Charm Girl didn't come today, and there are rumors that she's in the hospital."

“What?” Sienna asked. She and Yezebel—Glamour Woman—were not exactly friends, but the older woman was a kind of acquaintance, which was basically the closest Sienna had ever come to friendship.

“Yes, yes! You know about the attack on the Heroes Response Force headquarters by the villains yesterday, right?” Sam continued.

Sienna put down her sandwich. "Is that so?"

"Oh my goodness, how could you not know?" Sam asked. "Girl, you need to listen to the news more often. It's all over the place."

Sam took out his phone, tapped a few times, and then placed it in front of Sienna. Sienna pulled the phone closer and began reading the article Sam had opened.

The article comes from the Eau Claire Gazette, a small but decent local newspaper.

Sienna wasn't sure if it was more credible than the major media outlets, but as far as local news was concerned, she felt it was a decent source of information.

New villains attack, hero response team headquarters destroyed!

Yesterday afternoon at around 4:50 p.m., an unidentified villain attacked the Hero Response Force headquarters located in downtown Eau Claire.

The villain first made several loud noises to announce his arrival, which, according to local residents, made them dizzy. He then vandalized several parked cars before charging towards the Heroes Response Force building itself.

The attack lasted less than twelve minutes, but during that time, our brave local heroes responded and successfully scared the villain away.

Reports indicate that several innocent civilians were injured in the firefight, and an unspecified number of members of the Hero Response Team were also incapacitated.

Hero Response spokesperson Jacob Warner said, "It's truly regrettable to see someone go down the path of villainy, and even worse to see them trying to disrupt a peaceful place like O'Clair. But Hero Response is doing everything in its power to investigate and apprehend this villain before he can wreak havoc again."

Currently, both Main Street and Third Avenue are closed, and construction teams and inspectors are assessing the damage caused by the conflict.

Since O'Claire doesn't usually deal with these kinds of problems, it may be several weeks before the repair work officially begins.

The Eau Claire Gazette will continue to follow this story and will keep readers informed as soon as more information becomes available.

“Wow,” Sienna exclaimed.

“Yeah, did you see the word they used?” Sam asked. “'Villain,' and it was a capital 'V'.”

"Does this mean they are the kind of villains in the truest sense?" Sienna asked.

Sam shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe they're just the really bad villains. The news likes to exaggerate these kinds of things, but they usually do it after they've caught the bad guys."

If they haven't caught the person yet, it will only make everyone tense and worried.

"I'm starting to worry now." Sienna didn't even know where to begin her worries. The appearance of a new villain... could very well be a troublesome matter.

Her current source of income is somewhat illegitimate, and this new villain is very likely to get involved in her area.

That said, this new villain might see her as a rival.

As things stand, she can't even handle those heroes.

The “conspiracy group” is a big problem for her. She is not sure if she can maintain the current scale of her business, or even if she can scale it down.

Not to mention what preparations should be made for this uncertain future.

In addition, there was another small but more troubling concern that she tried very hard to suppress.

What if her sisters think this villain is cooler than her?

"What do we know about this... whether this person is male or female?" Sienna asked.

“I don’t know much,” Sam said. “There’s no video of him, only footage of him passing by.”

"Not a single one?" Sienna asked. "He was on the main street, where there are shops and stuff, and everyone has a cell phone."

“His phone is broken,” Sam said. “Yeah, I know. I guess it might have something to do with his superpowers. Maybe some kind of electromagnetic pulse or something?”

However, there was no power outage in the city, so I can't say for sure. We do have a photo, though.

Sienna frowned. "Didn't you just say there was no video?"

“A photo isn’t a video, Sienna,” Sam said, grinning as he took back his phone. “I heard his name is ‘Rattlesnake.’ Here, take a look.”

Sienna took the phone again and squinted at the photo. It was clearly taken from quite a distance, exhibiting the zoom quality common in phone cameras. However, the image wasn't completely blurry.

In the center of the photo is a man dressed entirely in black, his leather jacket looking like it's about to burst from his biceps, and his shoulders covered with a row of metal spikes.

This reminded her of old-fashioned punk clothing, but this guy actually looked pretty stylish in it, unlike the kind of person who spends all his time in "outdoor punk clothing stores".

He was clearly looking towards the camera, but apart from a few carefully styled but slightly messy black curly hairs and deep eyes, his face was obscured by a thin layer of smoke.

But the lower half of his face was particularly striking, with a wide grin revealing a set of gleaming white teeth.

He stood in the center of a scene that looked like the aftermath of an explosion, with cars twisted and deformed, cracks appearing in the ground, and several members of the Hero Response Team thrown behind him as if they had been sent flying by the gleaming baseball bat beside him.

“Oh, no,” Sienna said.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked.

"He looks so cool."

Sam blinked. "Is this... even a problem? He's a villain, and frankly, villains have it pretty easy to look cool, especially compared to heroes."

If a villain tries too hard to be cool, they become that kind of pretentious, marginal character, though that's still pretty scary. On the other hand, if a hero overdoes it, it seems forced and ultimately weak.

“Yeah, right,” Sienna said. She would never admit to Sam that she wasn’t sure if she was cool enough as a villain.

Sam already knew about many other areas where she lacked confidence, and she felt there was no need to add anything new to that ever-growing list.

"Do you think we can find out more about this guy?"

“There’s only one person I can think of who probably knows more,” Sam said.

“That information broker?” Sienna asked.

Sam blinked. "Okay, it's two people. I was thinking of Handshaw. There are visiting hours at the hospital, you know."

Besides, asking her wouldn't cost Sienna anything. Unlike asking "Handshaw" or even "melatonin," who might know something, but asking them would come at a price.

“I think so too,” Sienna said.

However, she needs to take some time to mentally prepare herself for visiting others in this social way.

Luckily, she still had class to attend today. She packed up the remaining food and bought extra cookies from the store—otherwise, she would have had to face her disappointed younger sisters.

Sienna couldn't bear to disappoint her sisters—so she packed her things, and Sienna and Sam walked back to school together, then parted ways on the way to go to their respective classes.

Sitting in a class for about an hour is exactly what Sienna needs; it will allow her to adjust her mindset and prepare for a possible hospital visit.

When get out of class ended, she had already texted Miss Hudson and received permission to pick up her sisters an hour later than usual.

This gives her... a rather short window of time to visit the hospital, but it's still an opportunity.

She thought to herself, maybe she'd be lucky and there wouldn't be any visitors in Jessbel today? If that were the case, she could honestly say she'd tried, without actually going through the torture of that awkward conversation.

After a 20-minute bus ride, she boarded the elevator at E. Clare General Hospital, but it seems her luck wasn't so good.