The Game Cafe in Marvel and DC

47 – A Meeting of Villains and a Desensitized Inventor

Hours upon hours passed by as the players played a variety of games.

Kyle, Black Widow, Volkov, and Mr. Freeze are all playing Bioshock, learning of the city of Rapture and the horrors and secrets that fill the underwater city of Man.

Volkov's men, Hawkeye, Harley, and several other customers were playing Ark Survival Evolved, having to fight tooth and nail to survive on the inhospitable Island shrouded in mystery, whether it be the Obelisks, Speciman Imaplants, and the notes they have begun finding across the beaches of the Island.

Meanwhile, Poison Ivy, Killer Croc, and Swamp Thing continued their journies through the Californian wasteland of Fallout.

Poison Ivy avoided the main plot, finding it more worthwhile to explore pre-war ruins for any clues about the G.E.C.K.

Waylon, otherwise known as Killer Croc, was enjoying what it felt like to be human for once in his life, where people didn't look at him like he was a monster, and he didn't have to be a monster.

Swamp Thing, on the other hand, was a living plant, so it didn't really care about anything in Fallout other than the Green. Nothing else mattered. Helping Poison Ivy would align with its own goals in making sure that the Green will not be harmed or destroyed on Earth.

But while some might think Swamp Thing is a simple and dull creature, that is far from the truth.

Its intelligence was similar to that of a human. It just lacked...understanding.

It did not bother to learn the morals and teachings of man, instead preferring the teachings of the Green and mother nature.

Regardless, it was learning in the world of Fallout as it wandered the wasteland in a human body.

It learned of death, hunger, pain, joy, and countless other human emotions and feelings.

It learned of human cruelty and hope.

It learned of man's flaws and strengths.

Before, it saw Humanity as nothing but cockroaches that refused to go extinct, tics that needed to be removed from an animal's fur. Now? It still saw them as nothing but insects that needed to be crushed, but now it understood their motivations and that some, yet very few, of the bugs, were capable of magnificent things; only those few bugs were being dragged down by the worthless meat that surrounded them.

After the store closed, all of the villains gathered once more in Poison Ivy's Garden.

The mood was somber as villain after villain arrived and found someplace to sit.

Everyone sat in silence, contemplating the strange worlds they found themselves diving in.

When Poison Ivy stepped into the room, she was clearly lost in thought, her mind thinking of somewhere else.

When she looked up, she noticed everyone gathered before her.

Nodding in acknowledgment, she reached out, and vines swarmed out from the floor and walls to form a bench for her to sit on.

With a wave, the bench wrapped around everyone, forming a circle that would allow everyone to sit.

Harley gladly got up from the floor and sat down on the vines while the larger entities in the room, Mr. Freeze in his Cryosuit, Swamp Thing, and Killer Croc, all continued standing.

"So..." Ivy started off, trying to start a conversation to break the awkward and deafening silence that covered the room.

Harley, the ever-energetic and crazy clown, was the first to talk, "You wouldn't believe what's in that ARK Survival Evolved game! There are actual dinosaurs! And THEY! ARE! AWESOME! And you wouldn't believe this, but I met a guy!"

"Oh god...don't tell me you did it again, Harley. I swear, I can't stand the men you hook up with," Catwoman swore with a sigh, imagining the men Harley's been with so far.

King Shark, Scarecrow, and even Penguin at one point in time had dated the crazy clown, though they all eventually dumped the crazy clown after she proved to be too much for them to handle. 

Then there was Joker, the original bat-shit insane clown with a hard-on for Gotham's Dark Knight, who treated Harley as nothing but a plaything and a distraction that proved to only get in the way of his true gay lover, Batman.

Catwoman couldn't help but grimace at the thought, though she wouldn't deny that anyone who ended up with Bruce would have one hell of a night with the package he was carrying and the skills to leave any woman in bliss. After all, she's gotten first-hand experience.

Though, of course, it was not meant to be. She was, after all, still quite the kleptomaniac and greedy woman who was a renowned thief across the world and known for stealing priceless sculptures, paintings, and artifacts, only for the Batman to typically stop her and return most of the items she steals.

Perhaps she should introduce Harley to Bruce? See if he can set her straight. Or as straight as possible in her case, she doubted that there was anything that could calm the crazy clown, other than sex, that is.

"What? No!" Harley screamed, baffled and acting offended, before explaining, "No, what I meant is that I found a guy; apparently, he's new to the Cafe and needed help with getting used to everything, so I helped him...so that he could be a better meat shield for me..." Harley whispered the last part, though everyone in the room still heard it and shook their heads, exasperated.

"Anything else that is interesting about the game? Other than apparently there being dinosaurs?" Ivy asked.

"Oh, yeah. Hawkeye and I, what the guy calls himself and uses as his username, found a few small ruins that had these journals of some woman named Helena. The journals seemed to be numerically labeled, but I couldn't make any sense of them since they seemed to be part of a series of journals. Though one of them was a dossier about something called a Liopleurodon, whatever that is," She remarked.

"You did not read through it?" Catwoman asked, confused.

"Well, we were getting chased by a swarm of flying giant ants, so there wasn't really any chance," Harley explained with a shrug, leaning back into the vines she sat on.

Shaking her head, Ivy's gaze moved onto someone else, Victor, whose eyes were glazed over, his mind lost in thought and not focused at all on the current conversation.

"Victor?" Ivy called out, getting his attention.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Victor's eyes focused on Ivy.

"Yes?" He asked.

"What is Bioshock like? We've all seen the trailers, but as we all know, they don't reveal the full truth," Ivy asked and commented.

"No Gods or Kings. Only Man," Victor quoted, eyes lost in memories of the horrors of Rapture.

Some looked confused by the statement, and some of the wiser understood what that sort of quote could entail, especially those in this group who have experienced firsthand how monstrous Humanity can be.

Sighing, Victor continued, "It's a city where men of science can study and practice anything they desire without any oversight holding them back. They have invented many great and truly horrible things...It could have been a Utopia, but no. Now, all that remains is a fallen city filled with automated defenses, insane men and women, children that have been turned into monsters, and their large cyborg protectors that beat, burn, or shoot to death anyone that threatens their charge," Victor explained, his eyes hard.

The eyes of some of the villains grew hard when they heard about the child experimentation. If there's one thing that a large majority of Villains and criminals agreed upon, it was that Children were a no-go. If anyone messes with children, let alone harms one, and god forbid, experiments on one, that's one ticket straight to having someone be put on a list.

Typically, those men, if ever imprisoned, were destined to be dead within the first week. If that didn't work, then they'd be killed on the streets. Harming kids was not tolerated.

"But...I am able to save them. It's hard, but I save each 'Little Sister' I find," Victor sighed.

As the Villains continued their meeting in Hell's Kitchen, Kyle was hidden away in an abandoned factory that he was getting back up and running.

Hammering away at a piece of metal on a workbench, he was surrounded by scrapped parts, scrap metal, circuitry, and more.

On the workbench, a round object began to take shape.

An Eyebot.