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That Looping Treadmill

Chapter 8: Interlude - Reynard

Summary:

Every once in a while, you'll notice a poster shifting. It just so happens that the poster was hiding a gun's muzzle under it.

Notes:

So, every once in a while there might be an alternate POV to give more worldbuilding to the scene, especially since Worm references simply cannot stop. So here we are with a nice chapter in Reynard's perspective! Who is Reynard? Well...

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“If I can’t make people smile… I will make them cry.” - ???



Why do rich people care about making money?

The poor, certainly, need to care about doing so. When one's resources are only enough to scrape by, money is all that matters. It is important for the middle class as well. Looking after their spouses, their children; there is a culture of dependence that weights them down.

The rich want to make money because they can always become richer. There is always another echelon of wealth to rise above, some degree of opulence that is beyond their grasp. They drive to even further heights, seeking to slake their thirst for coin. They care about making money simply because they can. To do so, the rich exploit people far below them on the social ladder, the poorest of the poor. To the oil magnate, to the harsh dictator, to the kings and queens and lords and ladies, the common people are specks of dirt.

To Las Nevadas, the rich are unto ants.

People, regardless of social standing, are all the same. The poor may spend their savings on worthless yet treasured trinkets, sold by the middle class. The salaryman may splurge on a pretty ring for his wife, the profits of which go into the pockets of a wealthy mining boss. In the same way, the gullible rich will burn millions of dollars on a single impossible object. Everyone is willing to waste their precious, precious money on something out of the ordinary.

But value is artificial. The poor spend their pennies on mass-produced china, convinced that it has some worth to it. The rich convince the middle class that diamonds are rare and valuable, despite the stones being retrieved in Africa by the billion. Las Nevadas convince the rich that the impossible is invaluable, while most tinkers can turn a microwave into a laser pistol.

The methodology of such a scheme is quite simple, but the critical step is to gain a market monopoly. If you are the only seller in town, you can set the price at any level you desire, so long as you can drum up demand. In this regard, Las Nevadas have the advantage: for years, they were the only peddlers of parahuman wares in the city. They had the time to gain the capital, and with that capital they can now outprice even the most competitive upstart.

While organizations such as the Protectorate, the Syndicate, and the Feral Bad Boyz resent the city-state’s existence, they are unable to deal with such an unassailable economic powerhouse. With a glance, Las Nevadas could level a city block, bankrupt a corporation; with a single call, they could plunge the city into a superpowered war. Yet, to the eternal relief of all, they are the least volatile players in the parahuman field. After all, if the entente cordiale were to break, their trinkets would become worthless; their business would crumple and dissolve.

While this may cause some to think of Las Nevadas as a massive, faceless leadership, their workforce numbers at most in the order of one hundred personnel. Their operations are directed and streamlined, maximizing efficiency and minimizing cost. Further manpower, if necessary, is outsourced from other organizations. Those in the highest positions of power are perhaps the most mysterious. Wild stories abound on the subject: depending on the source, they may be ronin-like wanderers who have found their home, old men having discovered the Fountain of Youth, shapeshifting monsters from another world, or even the city’s cabinet in disguise.

A major part of their operations is establishing supply lines between various groups interested in paranormal wares. Las Nevadas purchase directly from groups such as the Noxcrew and Prancer’s Reins, reselling their goods at exorbitant markups. The Hermit Labs gladly supply the group with their latest research, in exchange for samples of exotic and complex parahuman data. They often host auctions and exhibitions, exerting notable control of the upper-crust marketplace.

Similarly, they host various social functions for the most rich and powerful people in the world. With hooks throughout Mineplex, Hive, Archon and Brawl, there is never trouble finding a market for a given item. They are, of course, willing to sell to any buyer; groups such as the 2B-2T Coliseums are some of their most valuable clients.

Perhaps the organisations most opposed to Las Nevadas are the L’Manberg Police Department and the Spiders of Downtown. The LMPD often attempts to sabotage their operations, due to their distribution of contraband for the lower classes. However, their obedience towards the civil government and their subservience to the public opinion makes them irritating rather than threatening. The Spiders, meanwhile, are shrewdly antagonistic while being insidious and diversionist: using proxies and masks to attack at the city-state’s focal operations while never revealing themselves as their ultimate mastermind, and impossible to economically intimidate, they represent the only pervasive threat to the group's operations.

Without question, Las Nevadas are one of the most important pieces on the chessboard of the L’Manberg underbelly; occasionally putting other players into check, but never into mate. For Las Nevadas, the whole city is an intricate network they have secured safely beneath their thumb, where winning and losing are meaningless terms. There is no need to move pieces when you can move the board. When you can end the match at any time, there's only one reason to continue.

It's all about playing the game.

Floris ‘Fundy’ Damen believed in this ideology by the book, having lived past the ashen wastes of this city’s history. Unlike phoenixes however, he refused to shine as brightly as those fools called heroes, only attracting unwanted attention in their magnanimous gestures. As he’d come to understand long ago, the less people knew about you, the better.

It was why he was sent on missions that asked for a certain discreteness, if you will. The kind that had him stand underneath a porch’s cover to avoid today’s precipitations. The rain pelted down unrelentingly as he brooded and stared at an innocuous-seeming building. The townhouse Fundy stood outside of seemed much the same as the others next to it: dark red bricks, flawless white door, and a building number in golden embossed digits.

The only difference, to the casual observer, was that every window had been blacked out. The real difference, as Fundy knew, was that this wasn't a building at all. Behind the brick wall, there was nothing but empty space; a hollow ventilation shaft down into the L’Manberg sewers. Such was an open secret; it was a curiosity to most, a weird quirk of the city. The truth of the building was available on public file. The door shouldn't even be able to open. By all logic, there was no place for it to lead, beyond a sheer drop. It wasn't marked as an access point.

And yet, for some reason, it had a lock.

Fundy and other Las Nevadas agents had inspected the building twice before. He couldn't see inside the keyhole, as it didn't go all the way through. The gap between the door and the frame was also too tight to see with. Nonetheless it was still a gap; the door's handle had weight, and could twist a little, the frame could be budged slightly to either side. This was, it seemed, a door to nowhere, and the mystery of the ‘why’ of this door intrigued him to no end.

After his initial discovery, Fundy had returned the following day, pushing a pick gun into the lock and firing it while twisting softly. It didn't work, but that wasn't too surprising. It was more likely to have been a wafer tumbler than a pin tumbler, but he had to make sure anyway. Fundy had needed to come back with his full set of lockpicks. Of course, he couldn't do it while other people were around. It could make a scene. Unfortunately, this being L’Manberg, people were always around, both night and day.

And so Fundy had waited until a dark and stormy night to pick the lock.

Reports had been made to Jester, he wouldn’t waste time on a useless endeavor after all. No, he’d worked hard to track a very specific man who’d fallen afoul of the city-state’s interests. Normally either Charlie or—

Well, he wasn’t in the group anymore. The point was that Jester was the type to use the carrot before the stick, and Fundy was more for the latter than the former.

But the man, the man Fundy was looking for? Very interesting, a tinker whose tech specialized in security was quite the looker. But a collector? Specifically, a collector of enchantments? Now the two arts melded seamlessly, and dangerously so. Enough that he couldn’t be kept alive, especially since the Syndicate had yet to notice him. The very Syndicate which duopolized magic with the Protectorate.

Fundy switched a small flashlight on, sticking it into his mouth, then unwrapped his tools. Lockpicks, while not technically illegal in the United States, were still questionable items in the hands of anyone who wasn't a licensed locksmith. Fundy was not a licensed locksmith. He did have a love for locks though, or rather, he had a love for picking locks. It was something about the twisting of the torsion wrench, the delicate manipulation of each pin one by one. It was the thrill of laughing in the face of people who had dared to squirrel their possessions away.

Fundy took every opportunity to pick a lock, and typically enjoyed rewarding himself after getting one open. This was normally by claiming physical goods as his own; specifically, those that the lock had previously intended to secure. There was no malice behind the theft, it was simply a game. Pick the lock and win a prize.

Fundy started applying pressure to the torsion wrench, poking and prodding the pins with a hook pick. One, two… nine wafers in all. An excessive number, it could take a while. He shivered slightly, moving closer and shielding the lock from the rain with his body. It wasn't much more difficult to pick a lock with more moving parts, simply more time consuming. Fundy bounced the first wafer up and down. It was heavy, with strong spring resistance; a weaker set of tools would likely bend and snap before even being able to-

SNAP!

"Shit."

Fundy placed his tools on the wet pavement, delicately extricating the pieces of broken pick. While he cursed under his breath, his face was contorted into a grin. This was new. This was fun. He pulled a sturdier pick from his set, a thick half-diamond, and started to rake the wafers afresh. He didn't apply torsion at first, checking the resistances before commencing the attempt in earnest.

You see, every tool that Fundy owned was engraved with odd markings. An alien incomprehensible touch that he wouldn’t be able to explain, since everything he built was done in a fugue. Yet, he wasn’t a tinker, all his creations were modern and simple—even if very well-made. This half-diamond though? It shone brightly with specks of gold inside, which Fundy himself had inserted.

click click click

The rain hit Fundy's ginger hair at an angle, running down and dripping from his chin. The first three wafers were safely wedged in position. The fourth, however, refused to move. Fundy passed it, moving on to the fifth.

click click click

The fifth and sixth easily budged into position, with the seventh not moving. Again, Fundy moved to the next.

click click

The eighth and ninth wafers sat on the thin ledge made by the torsion wrench. Fundy had started to lose the feeling in his fingers; icy rain pelting down and dripping into the keyhole. Just four and seven to go.

click click click click

They didn't want to stay in place. Fundy swapped fingers, both applying torsion and holding the diamond pick with his right hand. There was no room for another wide pick in the lock; he picked up a thin hook pick in his left hand, and carefully inserted it. He pushed up the seventh pin with the wide pick, and the fourth pin with the thin one.

Carefully, Fundy jiggled them up and down, applying rotational force all the while.

click click click click CLICK

"HA!"

Fundy grinned, pulling the picks from the lock, placing them among the rest of his tools while still holding the lock open with his torsion wrench. He shivered a little more; partly from the cold, partly from the anticipation. He wrapped up his tools, shoving them into his coat pocket, then stood up, shaking rain from his hair. The fox hybrid glanced to the left, then the right. Nobody in sight.

He looked back to the door; holding the wrench in his right hand, he awkwardly twisted the doorknob with his left, then pulled it open a crack. The door ajar, he released the wrench and pocketed it, then opened wide the door.

The first surprising thing, at least to Fundy, was that there was something behind the door at all. He had opened the door expecting an unmarked maintenance point, or some kind of evacuation path. Instead, there was a long, straight corridor, with walls, floor and ceiling made of dark and polished drywall. There was no determinate light source within, and yet Fundy had no trouble seeing clearly inside. Warm air billowed out from the passage, overpowering the freezing rain.

Carefully he stepped inside, every motion accompanied by the click of his shoes. With caution, he closed the door behind him and dug into his special pouch. Ah, Fundy admired his very own mask with a grin, its composition both beautiful and unique. Fox-like, divided in two halves. The left was covered in reddish synthetic fur, the right was a porcelain white outlined in gold. The latter half was also pockmarked with three-leaf clovers—the suit of Clubs found on poker cards—colored a bright orange.

As he put it on, it was Reynard that ventured deeper into the corridor. The coat slowly gave way for the costume beneath, cleverly hidden by nondescript clothes beforehand. The drenched fabric was replaced by embroidered silk neatly painted in pyretic colors. Half palm gloves were slipped onto his hands, along with countless components of gunmetal silver and black.

Quickly, Fundy pieced them all together as if it were the easiest puzzle in the world. Every slab of metal interlaced with one another in a satisfying symphony of clicks, the end result being a pistol wreathed in gold filaments and silver-orange ornamentations.

Now to find the man.

The hallway opened up into an atrium, tastefully adorned with burgundy wallpaper. Low-light lampshades were settled across the room and above various shelves, a particular one catching Reynard’s eye. Quickly he skipped towards it, spotting the red blinking light of an alarm system built out of stainless steel. He dug into his belt and produced a card with a magnetic strip.

He let it pass near the red light, then he removed it. Then he applied it again, deactivating its secondary countdown. After that, he tapped his fingers all across the device, finding a wedge on its underside. He carefully slotted the ID scrambler of his own making inside, watching the magnetic destabilizer fuse with the metal in a sizzle of hot smoke. That would remove the tertiary and quaternary countermeasures.

Normally he wouldn’t have the time to do all that, but the system gave precious seconds for the intruder to insert a password upon entry. Fundy did not have a password, but it didn’t really matter.

Pulling out a spray can, he poured its aerosol contents all across the device, making sure that no smoke alarms alerted Reynard’s target of his presence. He stepped back and glided into another hallway, following a compass’s lead whose needle was shaped like a clock’s hand. It moved to and fro, directing him through the labyrinthine halls of this hidden complex with no notable landmarks or distinguishing features in sight.

Then he froze. Slowly, glacially so, he pulled out a glass bead from his outfit. This one was freckled with specks of quicksilver inside, bubbling into a foamy and soapy substance with every shake of Reynard’s hand. It was tossed forward non-ceremoniously, the small sphere rolling across the carpet.

And then it hit the hidden crimson laser that would’ve detected Reynard’s movements. Grinning like a loon, the villain almost soared over it into a leap, but stopped once more at his power’s intuition. Luck was a finicky thing, one Fundy bent to his will by shifting binomial distributions into continuous ones.

It was what led him to tap his knuckles on the side wall, noticing an odd thrum in response. Daintily, he fished a wire-framed monocle with a dangling chain from the breast pocket of his waistcoat, letting its lens pass over the wall’s hull.

“Huh,” Fundy said with a smile, “a Curse of Binding huh?”

The rune was very small, he wouldn’t have spotted it without his powers’ instincts and the monocle’s magnifying glass. It wasn’t just a curse either, there were other enchantments too. Impaling, Cleaving, Lure. A clever twisting of words, turning what should be tricking fish into a charm for regular humans.

Luckily, Fundy was a parahuman.

He slid the monocle back whence it came, then let his gun roll across his index finger. It spun in place, until he stopped it at the handle with his gloved palm.

“It’s a shame,” he sighed with a mock-hurt tone, “I would’ve loved to use this myself.”

And then he shoved the firearm’s muzzle upon the rune, firing a bullet deep into the wall it was written on. Filling the enchantment with lead, he watched the rune lose its power as its cohesion got disrupted, every projectile laced with rings of arsenic poison and lapis lazuli. The first was to make sure nobody could reactivate it, the second was the actual ingredient behind the nullification.

And then the search resumed. Every now and then Fundy would find a new trap that he’d have to deactivate with one of his gadgets, slowly depleting his stocks. A worthy sacrifice, since he managed to reach a mahogany door at the end of a hall, the ‘exit’ of this labyrinth.

Fixing his tie and flashing a smile at the polished wood which reflected his masked countenance, Fundy gently wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and entered the room. Of course, he also had to perform a high-risk waltz to avoid three tripwires and four enchantment runes laced with potions of Night Vision and—

Oh. Oh.  

Decay. He hadn’t ever seen that mixture before, but he’d heard Jester talk about it. This changed things. His grin faltering into a thin frown, Fundy examined his surroundings. A cross between a bunker and a bedroom, the space’s only notable feature was the breathing lump under the blankets that still lived.

Well, he had the lullaby just for this.

Fundy slowly approached the bed’s side and huffed out a breath. Then he pressed the cold metal barrel of his gun against his target’s forehead, and watched how it awakened the man. He flinched with a sudden start but Fundy pressed the firearm aimed at his temples deeper in, as if he were branding the guy with a bar of hot iron.

“Good morning, Mr. Greenhouse.” Fundy greeted him, clicking the safety of the gun to let it ring across the guy’s ears. “I’m here for an acquiral of goods, if you will.”

“Ho—”

“Avoided most of them,” Fundy replied breezily, “I’m good but not that good, especially against tinkertech. All the halls filled to the brim with traps never even saw me, I’m afraid. Besides, you couldn’t cover every path, yes? This building isn’t yours, you just repurposed it, so you’re enough in the red to start getting cheap about things. Every trap and every device has cost you precious money in materials, which you can’t get back after investing it all in the enchantment books you stole with blatant fraud.”

The sad thing was that the guy had betted no one could find the one path not rigged with traps, not without activating the alarm first. Unluckily for him, people rarely won with bets of all things against Fundy.

“I’ve done nothing of what you speak,” the man pleaded, “I’m simply a stowaway, a political one, please—”

“Richard Greenhouse, age forty-seven, part of the College,” Fundy listed boredly. “A group of black market sellers aiming to separate themselves from both villains and heroes to strike it out on the business side of things. Failed after you lost the member who built your very own pocket dimension, the one you’d stashed all your tech in. All your products are now either in Protectorate custody, the Noxcrew’s hands or Las Nevadas’ vaults.”

The fox hybrid could spot Greenhouse’s grimace, as well as his balding hair, crow’s feet, and the reddened splotches of skin that came with how hard Fundy’s gun was pressing into his temples.

“If you know everything about me, then why have you not pressed the trigger yet?” Mr. Greenhouse pointedly asked, his grip on the pillowcase growing both tighter and shakier at the same time.

“I found a trap with a potion of Decay,” Fundy stated blandly, hiding the sharpness in his eyes that the man could not see in the low light, “I’m now asking you, where did you find it?”

“You’ll just kill me anyway.”

“Not really,” Fundy denied easily. “There’s a thing called prison.”

“The government’s?”

Fundy’s only reply was a laugh, which judging from the man’s darkening features he understood the meaning of very well.

Perhaps he should’ve known that Mr. Greenhouse had been too calm for his own good, because it was only thanks to his power that Fundy saw something shift under the blankets. A whirring sound echoed from below and the villain’s finger on the trigger was quick to pull—

The blankets shot off like a rocket in his direction, pure tech and no magic in its cloth. Ball-bearings at the edge of the bedsheets weighed him down like a jury-rigged net while the man jumped from the bed and shoved Fundy aside to run for the door, seeking escape.

With a growl, Fundy freed himself of the net and chased after him.

Hallways sped past in a blur, the man’s gait surprisingly fast despite his bulk. With a puff of breath, Fundy tossed a pipe bomb after him, watching the thing explode in a countdown of barely a second. He didn’t even run away from it, instead he approached the explosion site without fear and watched the grenade burst into shrapnel.

Rusted nails and corkscrewing bolts at high velocity all darted for the man, avoiding Fundy’s trajectory completely. A fusillade of death hit Mr. Greenhouse’s side right as he turned the corner, ripping apart gouges of flesh and sending sprays of blood across the pavement.

With a flick of the wrist, Fundy leveled his arm and fired his gun, a bullet whizzing into the air and going straight into the man’s cranium.

So died Richard Greenhouse, his body limp and lifeless against the stained and now-ruined carpet.

“Look what you made me do,” Fundy murmured, wiping blood from his nose where a ball-bearing had smacked into it. Then, noticing some ichor in his mouth, he spat the coppery liquid at the man’s feet.

He had a few calls to make.



The clean-up went pretty linear from there, with him having an appointment with Jester later this evening to address the Decay potion and what it meant for L’Manberg’s future.

Fundy straightened his deep orange tie, then parted his hair with a metal comb, watching the strands of white amidst the forest of red turn starker under the blushing light. He wore a fusion between a capelet and a toga, in the sense that the cloak clasped at the shoulder only covered one side and hid the arm he used to wield his gun, colored a matte black with an orange underside and golden outlines at the edges.

Under that he had a regular waistcoat with a dress shirt and tie, a chain linking together its two lapels by the windsor knot. The material was breathable and light, while secretly padded with kevlar, ceramic plates and para-aramid fibers. Following that were his half palm gloves which hid a couple of his gadgets, like chemical patches and ultrafine needles. Of course, that was without counting everything he’d managed to stuff into his formal trousers and wingtip shoes.

The luminescence of the Las Nevadas strip lit up the night as bright as day. The fox villain continued to stride down the pavement, taking out one stick of nicotine gum, another of strawberry flavored, and placing them into his mouth. He chewed, merging them both into a single amorphous blob. He rolled the wad around his mouth, then parked it between his left cheek and his teeth. It was a slower hit than chewing tobacco, but the taste and texture were better.

He continued walking, the beacon of light from the top of the Ossium's glass pyramid guiding him to his destination. He cracked his neck from side to side, then stretched his arms into the air. He moved through the entrance, walking through the atrium to the high limit area. A staff member waved at him, and he in return; Fundy was one of their most regular patrons.

The villain wasn't the best at poker, but he didn't need to be fantastic to turn a profit here. While other, more specialist casinos were filled with savvy players at their tables, the Ossium was a hotel and entertainment venue as well. Rich businessmen would stay here on trips and play at the tables on a whim, with no real concept of how to play, and Fundy was glad to empty their pockets.

Jester had to be reassured that no power usage would occur, which wasn’t a problem for Fundy. He was sure in his ability to get a nice pot for this evening, a calming endeavor after the stresses of today’s mission.

He walked over to the cage, exchanging ten thousand dollars - cash, of course - for chips, and getting his name placed on the waitlist. He moved to the cocktail station, smiling at the bartender, who returned the smile.

"Good evening, Mister Reynard. Your drink, as always." And the people here treated him with a certain privilege, knowing he was the real deal. Everyone in Las Nevadas wore masks, but few could sport the poker suit symbols that Fundy and his colleagues did.

“Thanks, Jim. Keep the change.”

Fundy handed the bartender a crisp fifty-dollar bill, taking the Screwdriver cocktail from the bench and sipping it pensively. He seated himself in a nearby lounge, watching a table of men throwing their money away at a Baccarat table. The young villain was filled with a sense of schadenfreude as he saw two men dejectedly leave the table, their money wasted to the house. Games of chance, while interesting, were never worth the financial risk. There were no betting systems that offered meaningful returns, with the exception of counting cards; even then, you'd likely be removed from the table before gaining a decent win margin.

A staff member walked over to him, bowing curtly.

“A seat has become available, Mister Reynard. Please follow me.”

Fundy stood, following the man over to the table with his highball glass in hand and his bag of chips in the other. The house dealer moved the white button in front of the empty seat as the fox villain approached, the other three people at the table looking towards their newcomer.

Fundy drew mental files for each of them. His thought patterns were something like this.

Number One: male, heavy build, balding brown hair, a slight roundness to the belly, a beer placed in front of him and a small pile of poker chips. A black suit jacket, opened to accommodate for the rotundity of his gut. Light tan, slight lazy eye, mardi gras mask with a chessboard pattern, probably on holiday looking to burn through some savings. Not a problem.

Number Two: female, curvy, deep red lipstick, green dress, feathery domino mask, with shoulder length brown hair. Probably the wife of someone rich, having some fun with the husband's money. She seemed to have the largest pile of chips in front of her, though whether by chance or ability, Fundy couldn't say.

Number Three: male, tall, lanky, glasses, long hair, medical mask, wearing a suit he's clearly a bit uncomfortable in; likely here for the redstone printer conference being held at the Spider Masher. A potential threat, but based on the assumption of his employment, probably more analytic of the table than the people sitting at it. In that case, easily bluffed if the table could have some decent hands in play.

Yes, Fundy thought, sitting down to the left of One. This was a good table.

He pulled his chips from the bag, sorting them into ordered piles. The dealer spoke to him while shuffling the cards.

"Texas hold 'em, current blinds of 40 and 80, betting cap limit of 4000 per player per round. Mister Reynard to deal."

The dealer riffled the deck a final time as Fundy got his chips in order. One placed 40 out, Two placed 80, then all watched as two cards were dealt to each player. Fundy lifted the side of his cards, looking at his hand: the King and 10 of Diamonds.

"Bidding on Mister Jarl." Clearly a placeholder name to protect his identity, despite not being a cape.

Three picked up the cards from the table, looked at his hand, placed the cards back down, then dropped 80 worth of chips besides them. Fundy matched the blind, nodding to the dealer.

"Bidding on Mister Aleph." Jewish alphabet, how inspired.

One nervously tapped his chin, then pushed another 40 onto his small blind. Two tapped the table, smiling at the dealer. The dealer pulled the bids to the pot, then dealt the three cards of the flop: the 9 of Spades, the Queen of Hearts, and the 3 of Diamonds.

The other players had their eyes on the cards; Fundy had his eyes on them. One was smiling dumbly at the deal, then picked up his hand; placing it back on the table, he checked. Not a good hand for him, then, Fundy thought. Three still stared at the table, clearly running some calculation in his head.

The game continued like this, with Fundy examining their body language and playing accordingly. It was a careful balance he found a little bit of thrill in, the same livewire he walked whenever his power was in action.

"Raise of 1000 from Miss Dove."

Click, shuffle, remix.

"Call from Mister Jarl, bidding on Mister Reynard."

Fundy kept acting, pretending he had cards he truly didn’t have. His eyes constantly shuffled whenever the other players would look down, his face impassive except for a slight smile his mask didn’t cover.

Fundy moved 2000 worth of chips onto the table.

"Additional raise of 1000 from Mister Reynard."

Two smiled, moving another pile in to match the raised bet, as did Three, ending the bidding round. Fundy smiled at Two, taking another drink from his glass; she rested her chin in her hands, smiling back. Three, meanwhile, remained oblivious, staring directly at the cards. One looked on at the match with a degree of joviality, his lost bid of 80 now seeming tiny in comparison. The dealer gathered the bets into the now imposing pot. All eyes were on the deck as the dealer burned another card, then revealed the river: the Jack of Hearts. Fundy reviewed the table and his hand.

Two was a player, not just a player, this he knew. Enough that she’d blatantly responded to his flirt with one of her own, without delay or shame. A bit disappointing that he might not come out on top with the whole pot, but money could still be made and the fun was worth the while.

"Bidding on Miss Dove."

Two pushed 1000 worth of chips beside her hand.

"Raise of 1000 from Miss Dove."

Three was concerned by this, picking up his hand from the table, then placing it back down. He rubbed the back of his neck. He was clearly hesitant about the hand: yet, he had sunk the money into the pot, and seemed resolved to see it through. He started to move a pile of 1000 beside his cards, then shook his head, pushing in two such piles.

The dealer kept rattling off information, but Fundy wasn't concerned about Three any more. The futile show of confidence had been the clincher; Three did not have a winning hand. The question, then, was Two. She continued to stare at Fundy, smiling at him with almost condescending confidence. Fundy moved his bet beside his cards.

More turns, more exchanges. At the end, the dealer collected the bids into the pot and spoke the magic words:

"All show."

Three flipped his hand first. Then Fundy flipped his own hand next.

“Two pair from Mister Jarl. A king-high straight from Mister Reynard.”

Three closed his eyes, letting his head flop limply backwards in defeat. Two laughed at the gesture, then flipped the two cards in front of her, still untouched since the beginning of the game.

For a second, Fundy’s heart skipped a beat at the sea of red, thinking she had a royal flush; remembering that—by his calculations—a flush was impossible, he examined the hand more closely.

“And a king-high straight from Miss Dove. Split pot between Mister Reynard and Miss Dove, dividing 18920 into a total of 9460 apiece."

The dealer deftly started to sort the pile; Three gathered his remaining chips, turned on his stool, and gestured to a passing member of floor staff. Fundy looked over to Miss Dove inquisitively, curious about the unexpected hand. She smiled at him with the same smile she had during the match, initiating conversation.

“Nicely done. Was half expecting you to have the two Queens,” he praised.

She answered with a pull of the lips, “Same here.”

The dealer passed both of them their winnings; each gave the dealer a 50 chip as a tip, causing him to dip his head in gratitude. Fundy waved down a passing server.

"Say, Miss Dove, let me buy you a drink to celebrate,” he offered smoothly.

A perfectly trimmed eyebrow climbed her forehead, “Expecting me to play worse when I'm liquored up?”

“Well, clearly I'll need all the edge I can get, Miss Dove.” Fundy grinned.

She tittered, shaking her head.

“You'll find that drinking only makes me stronger. A rum and coke then, Mister Reynard.”

Fundy’s grin widened in answer, and the villain was quick to order. The night carried on, young and free, only interrupted by the squeaking ring of his phone. He sent Miss Dove an apologetic grin while taking the call.

“Reynard,” he answered while clearing his throat.

“It’s Jester,” his boss’ voice rang clear in the speaker, since phones in Las Nevadas always had five bars. “We’ve got some VIPs tonight.”

Fundy’s back straightened at the words, tone getting urgent, “Who?”

“The Deviants, a group of petty thieves. They must be riding their victories after defeating Wildfire, if the rumor mill and Amalgam’s reports are right. Aurelion is already keeping an eye on them, but they’re not worth wasting our energies since they're fairly small-timers.”

“You want me to trail after them?” Fundy asked, casting a glance at Miss Dove who was still sitting by the bar counter.

“If possible,” Jester voiced, his voice turning quiet, “though we have some important negotiations to do. I’ve read your report about the Decay potion from the College remnant, Richard Greenhouse?”

Fundy hummed in affirmation, “That’s the guy. Tried to question him but he used the chance to almost escape.”

“So he’s dead,” Jester drawled out, a tip-tapping sound echoing in the call’s background. “Any magpies or shadows around? Nemesis isn’t a guest of ours today, but Protesilaus is.”

Fundy’s lip twitched at the mention of the Syndicate’s second omen, “Not that I know of, I called our staff as soon as possible.”

“And I’m fairly sure that Nemesis herself has been busy figuring out the Spiders’ deal,” Jester agreed.

“Aren’t we all?” Fundy teased.

Jester hacked out a laugh, “Just get moving, Fundy. We have a job to do.”

“Ten-four,” The fox hybrid joked, closing the call after two seconds of silence just to make sure he didn’t hang up on his boss of all people. He sidled up to Miss Dove’s spot, instantly spotting her sympathetic gaze.

“Work?” she simpered, one leg crossed over the other’s thigh.

“Pretty much,” Fundy windmilled the glass in his hand, “perhaps I can get a raincheck on this chat of ours?” 

“It’s a date then,” she declared.

Fundy smiled for the umpteenth time this night. Today was truly special.

Notes:

- Villains -
Tubbo: Hivemind
Purpled: Cryptid
Eryn: Pyrrhic
Ranboo: Blackout
Tommy: ???
???: Wildfire
Fundy: Reynard
???: Jester

- Heroes -
???: Warden

Notes:

That Looping Treadmill is heavily inspired by the underground web serial Worm, by Wildbow.

You are not required to read it to understand the story but a lot of its elements will be taken straight from Worm's world. Much like the terms 'Pro-Heroes' and 'Hero Commission' are reminiscent of My Hero Academia.

Shout out to 'Hush Now' and 'the world forgetting by the world forgot' for inspiring me to finally write this down.

Works inspired by this one: