Chapitre 9: A Large Room filled with Grunts

"Grunts! We have arrived! Prepare yourselves to meet our leader, Lord Max Brain!"

One of the lieutenant grunts, Lieutenant No. 443, shouted to all of the freshly recruited (and enchanted) grunts. All of the grunts, including myself in the middle of the crowded group, had been walking through the large futuristic corridors of Max Brain's secret underground lair, and then we all stopped as soon as we heard the shout from one of the lieutenant grunts.

We all stopped at a large, heavy metal double door. Its sheer size was almost two stories tall and was quite imposing to look at. The door appeared quite futuristic and clean, but one thing that really stood out was the large 'M' letter plastered on the door, beautifully split symmetrically in the middle. All of us were in awe at the sight of the metal doors.

Soon enough, the sound of a loud hydraulic hiss could be heard as the large metallic doors slowly opened to each side, splitting symmetrically. Fortunately, because of my newly gained height, I could see from the middle of the crowd what was inside the large metallic doors: A large, spacious, empty room...

I was a bit confused by what I was seeing. I was expecting something a bit more elaborate since we were said to meet our so-called leader, 'Lord' Max Brain, so my expectations had been a bit higher. What I could see from my position right now was that this new room looked like the room where I and the other grunts had woken up. It had the same futuristic, clean, and polished walls, with the occasional letter 'M' printed on some of the walls.

This room was almost a carbon copy of our room, but only this time it was the super large version of it. I wouldn't know how large it was though until I stepped into the room itself.

'This Max Brain guy... he really loves his 'M' letter...' I thought to myself upon seeing the many 'M' letters printed on almost everything in this secret underground lair of his. It felt almost obsessive, but luckily, not too much that he would print it on everything he owns.

Hell, we grunts could consider ourselves lucky because if he did, he would literally print 'M' letters on our entire dark material "uniform".

Then, Lieutenant No. 443 came forward to our crowded group of grunts as he stood in front of the large entrance of the completely dark room, facing towards us.

"Grunts! Follow my lead!" he shouted to all of the newbie grunts, taking the lead command.

"SIR, YES SIR!" All of the newbie grunts, including myself, shouted back in unison as we saluted the Lieutenant. This time, I was perceptive enough to feel and match their shouting just in time.

Hearing the shout of acknowledgment from the newbie grunts, Lieutenant No. 443 then turned around and faced forward to the dark room. He then walked forward; military-style marching. Some of the grunts here tried to match the Lieutenant's marching, but most of us just walked into the large room casually.

I finally stepped inside this large room with the rest of the newbie grunts, and I was at least impressed by the sheer size of the large room. I didn't think much of it because of how similar it was to the rest of the facility, but seeing it from the inside was another story. Its sheer size was almost as big as a football stadium.

I wasn't the only one impressed, of course. Every newbie grunt here was in awe of the size of this room as well. Our combined footsteps sound even echoed throughout this spacious room.

Our newbie grunts group kept following Lieutenant No. 443's marching as he led us deeper into the middle of this large room. As soon as every one of us newbie grunts had entered this large room, the large metallic doors we had entered from slowly closed in on us. The metallic door made a loud hydraulic hissing noise and then a loud metallic thud from its closing. Honestly, it felt like at this point, there was no turning back at all.

We all resumed our walking, following the Lieutenant's lead. As soon as our crowd of newbie grunts had gathered right in the middle of the room, the Lieutenant immediately stopped his marching, and so did us newbie grunts who had been following him.

Lieutenant No. 443 then turned around and faced toward us, "Grunts, ten-hut!" He shouted a military lingo to us newbie grunts, gaining our attention, "Grunts! Listen up!" The Lieutenant began, "You are about to meet our great leader, Lord Max Brain!" He shouted to us with a tone full of pride and excitement.

Everyone started to clamor with each other, seemingly over the prospect of meeting the supervillain, 'Lord' Max Brain. Honestly... The way these lieutenant grunts were almost fanatical and the other grunts around me seemed to think highly of him too.

'Maybe the guy wasn't as bad as he was written off?' I thought to myself, thinking that maybe the supervillain Max Brain was someone who was evil on the outside but (at least) a nice person on the inside, so to speak. Like one of those anti-hero genres that was currently trending right now... wait, in this context, wouldn't it be the anti-villain genre instead?

Unfortunately, any of my further musings were halted as suddenly, the room's lights instantly turned off, plunging us all into complete darkness.

"What the hell?!"

"Kyaaah!"

"What happened to the light?!"

"I can't see anything..."

"Ow! Hey, who just stepped on my foot!"

"Hah? You're looking for a fight, punk!?"

Panic ensued to almost every one of the newbie grunts at the sudden turn of events. The room was completely dark, and you couldn't even see those around you. Some even screamed in fear, not just from the darkness but also from the ensuing panic.

Things were starting to become chaotic, but then... Spotlights were shone onto us grunts in random positions. Every one of us stopped panicking and instead directed our attention to these new sources of light.

"Woah...!"

"Lights!"

"I can see again!"

Many of the grunts were calmed down by the existence of these new lights, stopping the impending chaos. These lights felt like beacons of hope for all us newbie grunts.

Unfortunately, though, one of the many "random" spotlights was shone directly on me, garnering attention from those around as I stood out due to my physical appearance being quite... no, vastly different from theirs. Of course, I would look out of place.

Their curious stares were getting kind of uncomfortable. Even Grunts No. 704 and No. 711 were staring at me, but the way their eyes looked at me was that of amusement instead.

I averted my eyes from their stares and instead looked toward the spotlight that was directed at me with squinting eyes and annoyance. My gut feeling was telling me that these spotlights weren't as random as you might think they were.

Fortunately, my suffering ended when the many spotlights started to move around. Their direction seemed random, but they were, in fact, heading toward the same direction: the edge of the room where Lieutenant No. 443 had been standing before... But he was nowhere to be found.

These spotlights gathered at that spot revealed just an empty space. Initially, we were all confused as to what these spotlights were showing us, but soon after, sounds of mechanical engineering could be heard from that very spot... And then that area slowly raised its ground, creating a higher platform than where we were standing.

"Whoa!"

"What is that?"

"That was so cool!"

Many of the newbie grunts were in awe at the newly raised platform. Though from what I saw and felt... It almost looked like a performance stage, and we were the audience of said stage. Hell, the atmosphere here even felt like an actual dark auditorium facility where you would expect a concert to be held.

As if it was answering my expectations, the raised platform shot out fires from them, surprising us all. These 'performance' flames raged on for a few seconds, then immediately stopped. It left wide dense smoke that covered the whole "stage".

Then from inside of this dense smoke, we all saw a dark silhouette of a figure slowly rising up from within the floor of the raised platform. The smoke was still pretty dense... But as soon as the figure fully emerged, the smoke suddenly cleared out! Revealing the identity of the sole person standing on this raised platform.

"Welcome, my new loyal grunts!" Greeted the man on his "stage". The spotlights directed toward him were reflected by the shiny baldness of his head, with the letter 'M' plastered directly on his forehead becoming his most prominent feature that was also reflecting the lights.

This... was none other than one of the most infamous comic book supervillains, Max Brain.