บท 31: 31 Interlude: Jinx
Life had been pretty shitty all round for the man formally known as Lachlan.
Born to a happy middle class family of immigrants, his life was set up to be pretty good right from the start.
That was until he turned six and contracted some disease that he was never told the name of.
Luckily there 𝘸𝘢𝘴 a known cure for it, unfortunately however, the treatment was incredibly expensive.
However, his parents being as loving as they were, did not hesitate to pay that cost, falling into a lifelong debt. Shortly after that, his father happened to loose his job to to clerical error.
This meant that his mother had to stop being a housewife and get a job as a waitress while his father tired his best to find proper work again, ending up being a simple office worker as no one would hire him for anything better.
Then, by pure happenstance there was a gas explosion in the neighbour's house while they were out celebrating Lachlan's seventh birthday and their house ended up burning down in collateral.
With both of his parents' new incomes not even matching his fathers' old income, they couldn't get a good house and ended up having to move to the poorest neighbourhood, even having to sell their car just to pay for the deposit.
Because of this, they went from middle class to lower class and eventually to poverty as even with a double salary, it wasn't enough to pay for everything.
But life goes on.
Until it doesn't.
By the time Lachlan turned thirteen, with his family firmly in poverty and no way out in sight, tragedy struck again as his father, who was on his way back from work at the time, got hit by a bus after it bounced off of a pothole and onto the path he was walking down, ending his life immediately.
Not a month later, and his mother joined his father in the afterlife after being struck by lightning in a freak storm, leaving him alone and destitute.
That was when he triggered.
Everyone believes that his power is an aura of misfortune, and he won't do anything to dissuade that idea, but Lachlan was pretty sure that wasn't actually his power.
He believed that his power simply made everyone else equally as misfortunate as himself.
Thus, he threw away his name, the final tether he had with his old life, and took on the name Jinx, for that is what he is.
What followed was many long years of struggle, only made marginally better by being more experienced dealing with his own bad luck than anyone he came across, allowing him to eke out a living, eventually becoming an information broker.
Not a very successful one, naturally.
However, after all this time, it seems that fortune finally decided to smile on him for once as on one average day, madness walked into his bar.
Since then, he's never been happier.
At first he was sceptical, doubting.
After all, the woman who walked into his bar was most definitely insane, not to mention incredibly scary, all without seeming to properly realise it.
After all, there have been a number of people over the years who have offered Jinx a job. They have all either died or their organisations have fallen apart.
Eventually people learned to simply stop hiring him.
But then Tear shows up, offering him not a job but what basically amounts to a friendship.
But he was bored and alone enough that he was willing to take even the slightest chance at feeling joy once again.
He certainly hasn't come to regret his decision so far.
After he accepted her offer, he honestly expected her to die the next day, for her little quest for revenge would have some unexpected twist that would kill her.
Yet, she survived. Not only that, but she gave a good show while she was at it.
After suffering for his entire life, it would be a lie for Jinx to say that he doesn't enjoy seeing someone else getting the short end of the stick for once.
Getting a chance to plat the 'Fool' was something that Jinx enjoyed a lot as, for the first time in forever, he had an actual reason to be expressive.
Then, only a day after the fact, he gets a message from Tear, saying how she would be coming over as well as something about 'the games finally beginning in earnest'.
Which leads to now, with Jinx staring into Tear's very unnerving crimson orbs through her masks eyeholes, with a single thought running through his head.
𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 is 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘦.
Heh.
I suppose she wouldn't be so fun if she was sane, would she?
"So what you're saying is, you want to kidnap yet another villain. I can get that at least, but your next step after that one. All I can say is, 𝘸𝘩𝘺?" I ask with all the incredulity I can muster.
"Because~", she intones with her typical carefree tone, "it's the only way to make a good, proper show for you to enjoy!~"
I find it amusing that she is even pretending that she is doing this for any reason other than her own crippling boredom.
Honestly, I kind of doubt that she is going to live that long. I just get the feeling that her boredom is going to kill her sooner or later.
Still, I can't exactly argue against it, because not only does it sound like an amazing show to watch, as she said, but her plan 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 actually seem feasible the way she has it.
With that in mind, I simply sigh instead of responding.
"Oh! Also, I'll introduce to you the currently only other member of our little group so that you can watch him while I'm occupied." She says, as if just remembering something important.
Honestly, I'm hesitant to believe anything she says is as simple as she puts it, since even if I haven't known her for long, one thing I know for sure is that Tear doesn't do 'simple'.
"...when you say 'watch him'. What exactly do you mean by that?" I ask, and I just know that beneath her mask she is grinning at me when she answers.
"Exactly what I said dummy~ he is after all, only like, eight-ish.~"
A moment passes in silence as we stare at each other in a game of chicken to see who will break first.
Naturally, I can't compete with insanity, so I decide to just ignore what she just said and pretend I never asked.
"So, do you have any idea on who specifically you wanna nab?" I ask, getting the conversation back on track.
She puts her chin in her palm for a moment, seeming considering and I have no idea if she is actually considering or if she has already made a decision and is simply doing this for the theatrics of it.
Like I've said, madness is impossible to predict.
"I was thinking that shadow guy, since he's pretty weak during the day, which is when I want the show to start, so him being gone would have the least impact on everything."`
You know, it really annoys me that she is actually smart, because she seems so 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥 most of the time that I forget it and I'm pretty sure she doesn't do it on purpose.
It's like she is really smart but chose to just be stupid instead for some reason.
Then again, I could totally see her saying something like 'knowing everything is boring, I'd rather be stupid so everything is a surprise, cuz it's more fun that way!~'.
Yeah, that's definitely something she'd say.
"Aight then, I can probably help you out, but you'll have to wait a day or two, since most information regarding peoples locations have turned useless, what with everything being shuffled around to account for the chaos you've already caused, so I'll have to do some sniffing around."
Even though it wasn't really a compliment, I can tell that she took it as one. Not that I blame her really, because she was right. It really 𝘪𝘴 fun to watch the chaos and know that you played a part in causing it.
"Speaking of", she starts, sounding oddly cautious, if only slightly, "I was thinking about that. Eventually I'm going to leave Columbus for the wider world, because I don't believe there should be more than two Clowns operating in any one city. After all, we may accidentally get in the way of the others' fun, so we should all have our own playgrounds. So I was wondering if you could go national with your information gathering?"
Ah, that's why she's slightly cautious.
Because she truly 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 just want to have fun, and not just that, she wants me to have to fun too, now that I am a 'Clown' as well, so she's worried that she'll be asking me to do something I don't enjoy.
Heh, jokes on her. The whole reason I became an information broker was just because I love snooping through peoples stuff.
"Sure, I mean I kind of already do it a little, so it's not a problem to actually focus on what's going on in other major cities, rather than just reading peoples emails and stuff." I say with a shrug.
"Yatta!" Tear suddenly shouts, pumping one of her fists into the air like she's striking a pose, or doing the shoryuken from street fighter or something.
The silence that follows her outburst is loud and awkward as she just stands there with her fist raised and I don't really know what to say.
Eventually, the silence gets to be too much, and I end up blurting out my confusion.
"What?"
As if the silence was holding her hostage, she only drops her pose after I spoke before bringing a finger to her chin, pondering.
"James said it earlier. Apparently he saw it on TV and I'm not sure if it's actually, like, a word, or if it's just supposed to be an exclamation, like 'oohrah', you know?"
She speaks as if discussing a great mystery and I respond without thinking too much.
"It's probably the latter I'd guess, considering the obvious context."
She nods along with my words and plants one of her fists in the others palm.
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, imma head out now. See ya tomorrow!"
And with that, she's gone, only tripping over the floorboards once, leaving me alone once more.
Sighing to myself, I look over to the counter holding all the bottles of booze and consider for a moment.
..Nah, I should find out where Shade is going to be tomorrow instead.
After all, with his power that makes him stronger in shadows, it shouldn't be too hard to figure out when he's going to be out, the only real problem is the where.
Welp, time to get to work I suppose.
...
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city a certain man is sitting down, playing games on his phone as he sits through the 'night shift'.
After all, his power is only at it's best during the night.
𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨, the man thinks.
All this extra work just because of one vigilante screwing with the cities power balance.
Those Irish pricks have been going wild since that video got out and it's probably only going to get worse over the next few days.
At the very least, it means our rivals are weaker, so we should be able to take more territory and make more money, so silver linings and all that.
Though honestly, I don't think it's really much to worry about, after all, the vigilante is basically already dead, Cu won't just let her go after all, and meanwhile I don't really have to worry about anything, since I'm likely to only be fighting normals and it's not like they can do anything against me.
All the while, I will be making more and more money, I think with a smile.
Yes, life is looking up for the man known as Shade.
-----------------------------
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
Heh, dramatic irony.
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