Chapter 7: At the end or When you Realize that Whoever Is out there is Not Really that Bright, Giving Stupid People any Sort of Power.

Dabi stared

And stared.

And stared.

The timer springs from 14:01 to 14:00.

Dabi groans and dramatically flops on his back. He puts his arm over his eyes.

''Why wont the time go faster.'' Dabi complains to nobody. ''I. Am. BORED!''

He groans once more for good measure and then turns to lie on his belly.

At the moment he, Dabi, member of the Villain Association, super-villain, murderer, the bane of heroes… was doing the laundry. And the stupid washing machine would not hurry up!

He glanced once more at the timer.

13:49.

''This is how I die, of boredom.'' Dabi concluded, staring at the wall. ''Not in an epic fight with a hero, not by eating too much hotdogs, no, I will be found wasted away on the grounds of the home of the Devil and an Hedgehog. Found in these…''

Well, clothes would be technically accurate, however the pastel blue, long sleeved v-neck shirt and an pair grey jogging pants differ as much from his idea of 'acceptable clothing' as a chiwawa and a Saint Bernard do.

''…things''

Dabi forced himself to think of anything else to pass the time, so he began to go over the past days.

It was today the 13th day that Dabi was under this roof, 7 of them spend in delirium and another 2 to weak to do anything. Only the past few days did he feel good enough to walk around the house and not immediately fall to the ground because his muscles felt like jelly.

So instead he focused on gathering information.

Somehow, when the substance exploded (nice going, Baked Alaska), they ended up at almost the other side of the world.

Africa, South Africa to be exact.

Dabi really should have paid attention when they explained what and why they stole it. To be fair, he was playing Poker with Toga at the moment and won about 2000 yen and the right to yell a witty comment at the heroes when they arrived, so Dabi thought it was worth it.

Maybe Muscular would have paid attention- Wait, never mind, Dabi forgot for a moment who he was talking about.

That meant that on the source of the big boom and the 'we are not in Kansas anymore' situation was no hope of gleaning any information.

Instead he tried to get into contact with the villain association. Borrowing the fancy smart phone of Spikes (since his own is the mirror image of a modern art piece: looking like it was thrown together by a 3 year old and useless), Dabi tried to call to the Sanguine, the bar that acted as a front of many of the Association's schemes and plans. Unfortunately, he only got a dial tone. And again, and again.

Then he tried to call Toga by her mobile phone, and got the same results. By then he had gone through the phone numbers he took the effort to remember (he has a phone, why would he memorize them? Well in case dubious substances you try to steal blow up in your face, courtesy of a hero, apparently), and he began to have a vague suspicion.

So he asked Spikes over diner and she answered that intercontinental calling has been closed off for years. The way she looked at him as if he should have know that already made him feel a little stupid, only enhanced when the little Monster decided that it would smile mockingly at him.

Dabi did nothing wrong, honestly, he just reacted at a challenge presented. It was not his fault that for all the Evilness inside that small body, it had no battle instincts and could not dodge the glass of orange juice he 'accidentally' spilled, all over her lap.

It was not his fault that she decided to blow this out of proportions and started throwing food at Dabi.

He was innocent! (Well, he did start throwing things back, and some of it landed on Spikes, but that was retaliation! You can't punish a man for defending himself!)

But Spiked was so deep in the illusion that the Thing wove that she could not see this, so instead Dabi was forced to clean the kitchen/eating area together with the Devil. When they completed the task with minimal glaring and growling to each other, Spikes then forced them to change in clean clothing and made Dabi put them in the washing machine.

''You no getting out the room until done wash. ''She ordered and then explained. ''You older, you better be.''

Evil is older than time itself. It existed before the humans even could stand on twee feet, and it would exist long when the human race has been extinguished. So a being that was about 99% made of Evil was, in no possible way, younger then Dabi.

But sure, Dabi is the better man, so he agreed.

Until he came in the room and he had no idea where he walked into. For there were two machines, both looking like some sort time traveling machine. So many buttons and, once he with some guessing turned it on, lights…

How much money did Spikes give out to just this super advanced washing machine? Dabi infiltrated some rich people houses, however even they did not have such amazing thing.

Well, everybody their own thing. Dabi committed felonies, Spikes likes cleaning.

So with some random button smashing and throwing something that looked like laundry detergent in what he thought was the appropriate part (and allot of luck), he got the thing running.

It started to groan and screech and expel foam, however Dabi knew that the only reason that could be was the fact that even such an advance piece of equipment was not a match for cleansing the numerous Sins that seeped from the embodiment of Hell on a daily base. So he let it do its job, praying that it would not stop with its valiant but futile efforts.

So now he had to wait…

…Aaaaaaaaaaand he is bored again.

Well, after that whole trip down memory lane the time must have flown. Dabi sat up and looked up at the timer.

12:59

Motherfuck- Stay calm Dabi. You already have survived more daring things, like the orphanage, or Toga's cooking, or puberty. You can do this.

.

.

.

Nope, I can't do this. It now read 9:11 and Dabi was ready to tear his hair out. He decided to do something that he swore he would never do. It was a desperate measure, something that would only be deployed when there were no other options, a suicidal action.

He, Dabi, kicker of puppies, stealer of candy from babies, super-villain supreme, would beg.

He would cast away his pride as a human being, a villain, an evil doer and kill his own personality in order to escape this punishment.

So Dabi opened the door walked down the hallway, descended the stairs and entered the living room.

''Okay, I do not know what you want from me, but cease this inhuman treatment!''

Okay, maybe he was not good at this 'begging' thing, sue him. He tries.

''Name your price and- Wait, what?''

Dabi stopped himself when he noticed that the living room was empty. There was no Spike lounging on the leather couch, a colorful rug thrown over her legs, nor a Demon lying on her belly, swinging her legs.

Instead the rug was thrown in a semi-messy way over the couch and an abandoned glass of half-drunken milk stood on the ground. The TV was also still running, the news on full display on the giant flat screen. (Another thing that was pretty expensive, however this was nothing weird. Who does not want such a screen? Although this raised the question; is Spikes actually a retired Billionaire or something?)

Now Dabi was a little suspicious. He had not been here for a long time, but he did know something. The news is some sort of sacred ritual for the other two. No matter what it was, they would drop anything the moment the clock struck 8 and the time for the news came.

The news here was a little different then back in Japan. The language they spoke was the same horrible screeching that the Thing spoke, making him doubt if he was not really in Hell, and they had, after the weather, always about 3 minutes of music, always by the same artist from what he could tell.

While he himself was not a fan of most types of music, this singer, with her smooth voice and large range somehow made the hellish language sound bearable. There was a bare minimum of instruments playing on the back ground, a single piano or violin at the most, making the quality of the voice really stand out.

He asked Spikes why they had this music at the end, and she explained that it was to give people hope and comfort. The news that was now on was maybe not that exiting, but there was a big terrorist organization that was threatening their current peace.

So their 'leader' (it had not been the word that Spikes was searching for when she wanted to explain who and what this person was, as shown by her visible aggravation, but she could not think of a better word) would take her time to sing every day to them.

It was to show that she thought of them, that she still believed in the better tomorrow and that the terrorist could not take away our joy in humane things, like music. This was why she wanted the-Thing-that-could-not-possibly-be human to see this every day, to convey this message to it.

It was a beautiful thought over flown with positivity and hope.

It made him want to puke.

So when he came down and they were not in the room, he was a little bit concerned paranoid.

Scanning the room, he saw nothing broken, ripped or any other sign of struggle, meaning that they left the room on their own violation, most probably through the slightly open door that connected the living room to the kitchen. Now, he did not know if this was because they were threatened or because there was just nothing to be concerned of, however this did increase the odds that they were not harmed. (Well, Spikes at least, he did not know if Embodiments of Evil could get hurt.)

Carefully, in order to make no sudden sounds, Dabi made his way to the door and nudged the door open with his sock covered toes. When this did not incure any sort of retaliating (y'know, the usual, giant explosion, poisonous gas creeping in, a gun shooting at your head, a cat chewing on your toes), he felt it safe to assume that there was nobody out to kill him behind the door.

Peeking in the kitchen quickly, just to be sure, he saw that it was just as devoid of life as the living room. Dabi went down the options. Either they are still in the house, and for some reason decided to leave this door open, or they went out and forgot to close it, with the later having the options that this leaving was because they honestly forgot or because they had other things on their minds.

He decided to first investigate the worst case scenario. Cause, why hope for the best when you are a villain? The world always seemed to work against you.

So once again, Dabi inched as silently as possible through the kitchen to the door leading to the outside. Carefully he turned the doorknob and opened the door, knowing that it creaks but willing it not to do so for this one time.

You know those moments, when you intellectually know that something will happen, but still hope for the best, like some sort of idiot? Yeah, Dabi had such a moment.

The creaking door did not stop making noise despite the slowness of his movements, it even seemed as if the stupid door wanted to spite him by creaking louder and longer than any other time he had opened the door. It sounded like a cat dying.

By now the door, despite the ungodly sounds it was making, was now ajar and through the sliver of openings he could peer outside. He looked directly in the light, so he could only see some shadow like figures, but it was enough.

Well, unless Spikes had been taking steroids without Dabi noticing, or the Thing had shed their skin and flesh disguise, and was actually a 6 foot tall figure, they had an intruder. Both are of course within the realm of possibility, however he did not see a hedgehog for a head, nor did he notice any kind of horns or a tail, so the possibilities are improbable.

Fuck it, Dabi decided, and just kicked open the door. Surprise attack bitches!

…..-Or is would have been did he not recognize the figure.

You remember the worst case scenario? Yeah, it was now replaced with the face of a blonde idiot standing in the backyard.

Joy.

''Oh, it is you.'' Dabi said flatly as Muscular turned towards the source of the noise. ''Where the hell have you been?''

Muscular just shrugged. ''Well, I could not carry you around while searching for a way back. It would have been suspicious and I did not know how sick you were.''

Y'know, that would have been the first semi-smart thing that ever came out of that muscle head's brain. It is just such a shame that it was used to JUSTIFY DITCHING DABI AT A HOUSE CONTAINING THE DEVIL!

But, yeah, it was a miracle. He gave it about 1 minute before he ruined it.

''So, did you find something?''

''No.'' See? Not even 10 seconds later he was once again reminded that this was a person whose only real powers laid in punching stuff. ''I mean, I recognized that we are somewhere in South America, I saw a map somewhere, but I could not find anything else that was useful. I could not find the local villain hub, and none of the connections that Boss man said that he had would respond to the code words, and whatever they said I could not understand. Then I tried to call, but nobody would pick up.''

Dabi did not even bother to correct him on their location. ''So that was, what? 2 days of searching? What did you do the other dozen days? Eat out?''

''Well, there is this little restaurant, it has a great apple pie…'' Meat Head trailed off.

Dabi had to do all the work here, what was new? ''Listen, let me just clean up, and I will find a way to communicate if you show me the way.''

On Steroids looked at him curiously. ''How? I tried everything that I could think of.''

''I am a member longer, I got senior rights on information.'' A member… about 1 week longer. He got squat senior rights. It is just that Dabi has no confidence in 'everything that he could think of' when he could count the number of brain cells in that head on his hands.

Exhibit number 1:

''Oh, that sounds logical.''

He fell for that obvious lie.

Exhibit number 2:

South America. Just… How?

Exhibit number 3:

He once ate a Tide pod thinking it was just a giant piece of candy.

Does he have to go on? Just read the rest.

Anyways… ''It that does not work, we will need some way to get money. Did you really not find any places for the villains here? That would make everything a lot easier.''

''No, none at all. But why-''

''Okay, let me explain.'' He interrupted the other villain before he could not withhold the urge to face palm. ''We are completely cut off from our home turf, so we have to go home, quickly. We do not have time for the long game, the risk for us to be caught will increase every moment we are here. What we need for this is influence, power, money or a combination of those. We do not have power, we are new and that would take too much time to establish it or would catch attention. We do not have connections, we do not even speak the language and searching someone with ties to the Villain Association could also take a long time. So we need money. This can be acquired fast and easy, but for that we also need a minimum of information to know where to find it. What we need are believable passports and a good makeup artist that can cover all this-'' Dabi made a vague motion over both of their forms ''-and that are all things the locals know.''

''All of what?''

Dabi wanted to face palm. Really, he did. So he did.

''Let's just say that we stand out.'' Dabi said, muffled through his hand that covered his face.

Brainless cupped his hand and let a fist fall in it. ''Oh, because we do not look like we are from here! That attracts attention.''

''Sure…'' Why was he still surprised that that idiot missed the big point. No sane person would want to walk around with a giant scar and a horrible prosthetic eye, let alone a half burned face and stitches. Who cares that they did not have the skin tone from around here? We look like trouble. We ARE trouble. ''So you can understand that if we, let's say, walk in an airport, the security guards will suspect something. They will look us up in the system and then we have the entire police force on our ass.''

It was like working with a small child, only instead of filled with evilness, Muscle head was filled with nothing but stupidity.

Evil child….- The Thing! And Spikes!

''So, until then we need a base of operations until we can leave. We can stay here, I think. I have said that I was in a plane crash and somehow survived. I will just introduce you as the person who brought me here and was in the crash with me.'' Dabi said. Despite all his stupid, even Steroids would know something was wrong if he changed the subject too fast. ''Maybe you have seen the residence already? One woman, average height, hedgehog, the other a little thing, black hair, looks like she is planning your murder?''

Muscular perked up. ''Yeah, I have seen them. Do not worry, I have dealt with them.''

The wording of that made Dabi a little anxious. ''Dealt with- what did you do!'' Okay, more than a little anxious, but this is a moron Dabi was dealing with, you never know what a moron deems logical.

The blonde looked taken back. ''What is your problem? You know the rules of the Association, no witnesses allowed.''

Please do not tell me… ''That is only for moments when people find out that we are villains, which they did not! We are now in an unknown country, with no way back. And you decided to, 'deal with', our only source of information, and in doing so probably have someone find us within days when they notice that they are not around anymore! In that time we could not possibly have found a way to go back! Now we have to search for a new place to hide!''

''Oh.''

Fucking idiot, what was he thinking! Killing them…

''Great, just great. Can you… show me where they are? So I can try to minimize the damage.''

The other just pointed somewhere at around the corner of the house.

What he saw was nothing that he has not seen before. Blood, injuries and dead bodies were a part of the life of a villain.

It did make him wonder if he could go back and beat the idiot up the stupidity out of that idiot.

The smallest form lay sprawled on their back. One could mistaken this as a moment of cloud watching, had the head not laid at an angle that was unnatural. Then you would notice that the glassy eyes did not blink, and that the body laid impossible still. No twitching, no chest moving, nothing.

However the bigger form had much more glaring death signs. A jaw hung open, clearly broken, showing missing teeth and the bloody foam that had gathered in the mouth, even now dripping out. A chest had been caved in, the source of a sizable puddle of blood under the body. The body lay on its side, looking as if it had collapsed while crawling.

Dabi could clearly imagine how it all played out

They were sitting in the living room, looking at the news, when they heard a knock on the backdoor. The Thing was asked to see who it was who knocked on the backdoor, assuming it was a neighbor. When the door opened, Muscular immediately grabbed her neck in order to prevent any noise from being made.

Spikes would ask who it was as there was no announcement of identity. She would have heard muffled sounds, went to look and saw a man, holding her daughter by the neck as a hostage. She followed him to the outside, where Spikes tried to lunge at him from the back, only to be backhanded in the jaw and then stepped on the chest. Ribs punctured the lungs, collapsing the later and making her choke on her own blood. Then Muscular snapped the neck of the child. Spikes would then try with her last strength to crawl to her child, only to fail.

An instant death for the little Devil, a torturous one for Spikes.

Dabi squatted down next to the bodies and just sighed.

''Rest in peace.'' He murmured and reached out to close the opened eyes of the both of them. Then he scooped up the child form. ''Hey, Brainless, come here and help me!''

''What is it?''

Dabi jerked his head to indicate the other body lying on the ground. ''Damage control.''

He had Muscular lay Spikes down on the couch, while he laid the child down on at the bottom of the stairs.

''Soooo, what are we doing?'' The blonde villain asked as he watched Dabi adjust the position of the body.

Dabi rolled his eyes, not really wanting to talk to the other one. ''Making it look like one big accident. There will be too much electrical appliances attached to one extension cord, which short-circuited and caused a fire. Spikes here was sleeping and would not wake up until the support beam above the couch was burned through and crushed her under its weight. Then there is the child, who noticed something was wrong, ran down the stairs, but slipped and fell, breaking her neck in the progress. It will be a tragic turn of events, rather than a murder.''

''Good thinking!'' Muscular exclaimed.

I have to, I am the only one thinking here, Dabi thought bitterly. ''You go outside; I have to insure that the beam will indeed fall, so I am going to weaken it with my fire. It is better if you are not around for that.''

''Okay,''

And Dabi was alone. He went to one of the walls and scorched deep grooves in the wood of the beam and then did the same at the other side of the beam. Now even a little more damage and the beam would be falling.

Then he went to the kitchen and took out the cookie jar. There was only one cookie left, and Dabi grabbed it. He walked back to the foot of the staircase, knelled down and put the cookie in the small hand. Gently closing the slack fingers around it, he then made his way to the extension cord and plugged in as many appliances as he could, after which he held it in his hand and warmed it up until it bursted into flames.

Dabi dropped it on the floor and walked out the house and away, not looking as the building he stayed the last dozen days in went up in flames.

''Good bye, Lindewe and Eshe.''

A/N

Hey there, Jackie Lynn here!

For every one reading, having favorited (is this the word? It is now) and/or following this story: Thank you! It is for you guys that I write this.

To be honest, I am kind of busy with college and all of the hurdles it throws at me. Finding time that I can write is difficult, and sometimes I delete entire chapters because I did not like them (I am actually still not satisfied with this chapter XD). And then there is the fact that I kinda make things up as I proceed; only having vague idea with what I want to go to and now thinking how to realize that… What I try to say, do not expect any regular update schedule (you probably guessed that already by now though).

I try to update once per month, but yeah…

So once again, thanks for reading this story and leave a review if you have the time! Tips and such are very welcome.