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Murder Moves to Suprenum

Chapter 5

by Draconicon

They didn't keep to the alleys for long, just long enough to get around the main crowds of the day before reaching the subway station. Spore just hopped the barrier, shaking his head as Mato reached out to pay for the ticket.

"Don't bother."

"But -"

"The corporations track people with payments. We want to be off the grid for now."

"..."

"Trust me, kid."

"I'm not a kid."

"Heh, then don't make me tell you what to do."

Spore could only be a few years older than him, if that, but Mato bit back his response. It wouldn't serve much point to get into a fight with his only way out of this hell. He looked at his phone, flicking it open to turn off data, wi-fi, blutooth, and location tracking, before finally hopping over the barrier himself. The skunk nodded at him, leading him down to the platforms.

He half-expected them to walk down the tunnels in some recreation of a cheap spy drama. Instead, Spore had them wait to catch a train, boarding the last car on it. They had their pick of seats, and the skunk picked the ones at the far end. As soon as Mato sat down, the skunk leaned back, putting his feet up on the crow's lap.

"Must you?"

"It's comfy, feather-boy."

"..."

"Heh, it's still fucking with you, isn't it?"

"I can't believe..."

"What changed your mind?" Spore asked. "Must have been something big if you went from being all virtuous to thinking that I had a point in just a couple of hours."

"...Corporate bullshit."

"Yeah, that'll do it." The skunk leaned back, shifting and squirming to get comfortable and digging his heels into the crow's upper thighs in the process. "Yeah, they're all about taking everything they can. Just like everywhere else. Heh. Just here, they're not just stealing labor. They're turning people like us into tools for keeping everyone else in line. Desperate people do really desperate things."

"...You know that from experience?"

"What do you think we're doing just to survive, huh? Some of us hit the streets and offer 'services' for those that like the idea of an 'exotic' creature in their bed. Some of us commit all kinds of crimes that only we can get away with. And some of us...Well, some of us don't make it."

"Why?"

"Because the deck's stacked against us, kid."

"I have a name. Use it."

"Then say it," Spore said, chuckling. "But gimme the real one."

"You think I trust you with that?"

"No, no, not the legal one, the real one. The one you picked."

Mato looked down at his lap, trying to ignore the heels grinding back and forth like a cat's kneading paws along his thighs. The pressure was only just avoiding the sensitive spots that would have made this awkward, and he didn't want to think about that.

His real name. He'd picked it as a joke, more than anything else. 'Murder'. Most people heard it and thought of the killing crime, but it was really just a joke on the idea of a murder of crows. He was a walking flock, and...and...and it seemed so dumb, now, so stupid compared to what the reality of the world was. Shaking his head, he looked back up.

"It's...Murder."

"Heh, edgy."

"It was not my best thought-out choice, no."

"That's not what I meant. It's got an edge to it. You want someone to think twice before fucking with you, right?"

He nodded.

"That's what I thought. Well, lemme tell you. Sometimes, you're gonna have to back that up. Maybe you can fight, maybe not, but at least that edge gives someone a warning before they start something. And that's the best that you can ask for, sometimes."

Spore tilted his head back, relaxing in a way that Mato honestly envied. If he'd been in the skunk's position, he didn't know if he could have actually relaxed even half that much. He would have been under constant tension, wondering if someone was going to come after him, wondering if he was doing the right thing. What did it take to get that sort of confidence that you could be on the wrong side of the law and actually act like Spore was? What did he have to do to feel like that?

"Relax, Murder. We got a way to go, and the more you freak out, the more noticeable you are."

"...I'll try."

"Heh, would a handjob help?"

"I - I'm sorry, what?"

"Sorry, you more of a foot guy, or -"

"I'm just...trying to figure out where that offer even came from." The crow shook his head. "We don't even -"

"You take what you can get where you can get it." Spore chuckled, pressing one dusty sole down until the soft underside pressed firmly against the crow's crotch. Mato gritted his teeth as he felt his cock reacting. "But hey. If you're not interested, you're not interested. Just saying, we're completely alone back here, and we have a long ride to go. Might be a fun way for you to get into the whole 'breaking the rules' thing."

"I'll - mmph - I'll pass."

"Suit yourself. Mind if I get one off?"

"..."

His silence was clearly taken as consent, because the skunk pulled his zipper down and fished out a decent-sized uncut cock, one that was soon dripping with pre-cum as he jerked himself as they went along. Mato turned his eyes towards the ceiling of the train, hissing under his breath as he wondered what the hell they were going to do if someone else popped into the last car.

To his surprise, nobody did. There were a few close calls - moments when someone was looking in through the train windows from the platform or something like that - but nobody ever saw the skunk with his dick out. Spore seemed to get all the harder when there was a risk that someone could see, though, and the smell of the skunk's rising musk as he edged himself for the entire train ride was something to contend with. The empty car meant that they were 'treated' to the scent the whole way, and whlie it wasn't...offensive, it wasn't something that Mato was used to.

They reached the end of the line, and they departed. The barefoot skunk led the way out of the station, hopping the barrier at the top of the steps again. This time, it was a bit easier for Mato to imitate him, the act no longer causing a pang of conscience.

"What now?" he asked.

"One sec," Spore said, closing his eyes. "Just getting us a ride."

"How -"

"One sec."

The skunk's tail glowed, and a second later, a car roared to life across the way. Mato whipped his head up as a taxi drove around the roundabout that bordered the station exit, coming to a sharp stop right in front of them.

"How -"

"That's my power," Spore said, opening the taxi's passenger-rear door. "Spores that I leave all over the place. A little communication network."

"...A hive mind?"

"Pretty close," the skunk said, chuckling. "Come on. Smokestack's waiting for you."

It was the way that Spore said the name so brazenly in public that convinced him that the skunk was telling him the truth. Considering that Smokestack seemed like a fairly famous villain, he imagined that anyone hearing her name would recognize it. The fact that the driver didn't so much as twitch told him that there was something going on there, either that the driver was one of the gang, or...well, he didn't want to dwell on the alternatives.

He slipped into the back of the taxi, folding his hands together in his lap. Spore nudged him.

"That nervous?"

"I'm hoping I'm not making a big mistake."

"You're not. Trust me. Compared to everything else, this is the best thing you could be doing right now. All the normies? They don't get it."

"They don't understand."

"And that gives them the right to do stupid shit to us? To look down on us? To make it so that we can't be people like them?"

"They can learn."

"Lemme ask you something. You think it's alright for a kid to kill someone?"

Mato sputtered, his mouth hanging open. Spore didn't give him a chance to find his mental footing.

"Hell, I'll make it even easier for you. You think it's alright for a teen to kill someone?"

"No, but how does that even apply?"

"Think about it. You think it's just fine that they do everything they do, because 'they don't understand.' Well, a kid doesn't understand the law, but we still punish 'em for breaking it when they do something wrong. And we sure as hell punish the people around 'em for not keeping them from doing something stupid. The entire world's got a problem with us, but that doesn't mean that they get to decide how we're supposed to be treated."

"...Do you hate them?" Mato asked.

"A little. Honestly, I think most of us do." The skunk looked out the window. "They see people that can do something they can't, and suddenly, they're pissing their pants about what we might do if we lose control. Suddenly, we gotta be perfect. Doesn't matter that we never got training, never got anything to tell us how to handle this. No, no, no, we gotta be completely fucking perfect, or pretend that we're just like them, with nothing fucking different. And if we ever step even a little out of line..."

"They're trying."

"Are they?"

"..."

"They're not. They don't know how to get superpowers themselves, and they're completely fucking terrified of the rest of us," Spore said, sighing as he leaned forward, resting his head against the seat in front of him, the driver finally setting off. "You don't get it yet. If you don't do what they say, if you don't act exactly as perfectly as they want, they're perfectly happy to get rid of you. Because you aren't 'safe'. Because they can't feel good around you. Because you're not normal, and because they can't be better than you."

"...Or...because we can hurt them. And we should use those powers -"

"Kid. I'm gonna tell you right now. It'll help you a hell of a lot if you stop thinking about the real world the way the comic book characters do. Out here, it doesn't matter how much you help people. Chances are, they're never going to like you as much as you think they will."

He wanted to argue, but then he remembered the fight between Mirage and Smokestack. For all that the maned wolf had won that fight, for all that he had saved people and retrieved the money for the bank, there hadn't been any real love for him at the end. The people that were at the cafe had only shrugged it off as something that supers did, vaguely annoyed that it had to happen at all. The customers at the bank that he'd seen had been irritated rather than grateful. Even the cops when they'd come to collect the criminals had been less than enthused about the 'help' that Mirage had offered, and that was despite the fact that they wouldn't have been there in time, or capable of handling the villains that had conducted the robbery.

There was no gratitude, just a great sense of normal people that wanted to go back to normal. He sighed, leaning back. He had a lot to think about.

They eventually reached their destination, a manhole on the north side of the city just short of a massive industrial area. Spore sent the driver off without pay, then knelt down by the manhole and knocked three times, then once, then four times. The sound came back with a similar code, and he responded with the first one in reverse.

Then the hole popped open, revealing an eel male that looked up at them, long body rather slimy and wet as he looked back and forth.

"Who's the new guy?" the eel asked.

"Someone that wants to meet Mama," Spore said.

"Fair enough. You vouch for him?"

"Oh yeah."

"Alright. Get down here."

He followed the other two down the manhole ladder, bracing himself for a serious stink. However, there was none to be found, and he blinked until Spore gestured back at the eel.

"Swift-Stream. Bad name, considering his power."

"Yeah, I don't speed the water up, I just clean it out. No impurities down here."

"...Huh." Mato shook his head. "Well, that's something."

"You'd think that they'd want him in water purification, but nooooo, that would put everyone out of a job," Spore said, rolling his eyes. "Efficiency doesn't mean shit to them."

"Obviously," Swift-Stream said, shaking his head. "Anyone else still topside?"

Spore's tail lit up for a moment, and the skunk seemed to be looking at something else for that time before he shook his head.

"No, everyone's under."

"Great. Then we can all go back."

Mato followed behind the other two supers, trying to sort out his own feelings. Suprenum was clearly not the City of Heroes that he had imagined, but he didn't know why not. He'd always assumed that there just not enough supers to actually fulfill all the roles that a city might use, but the more he heard, the more that he started to wonder why everyone was being kept down. Why wouldn't a company put someone with those powers to use? Why wouldn't a city use someone like Swift-Stream to actually purify the water for the whole city rather than using expensive equipment and thousands of workers?

Do they really fear us that much? he wondered. With all the savings and everything...

But then, he thought of the regular people. Hundreds, if not thousands of workers that would be displaced because one person could do their job better than they could, and they wouldn't have something to fall back on. Then there would be the people that feared losing their power because they had pissed off so many people, and then...

And then there would be the knowledge that having just one person there gave that one person so much power. They would have leverage beyond any other group, because they could do something that nobody else could. It was an intimidating and somewhat intoxicating thought. Mato imagined having that sort of presence and power, and it sent a pleasurable shiver through him.

He was still thinking about it when they reached the end of the water tunnel and stepped into a larger actual room beneath the streets. The crow looked around as the din of conversation overwhelmed him, echoing off concrete all around him.

There were at least three dozen people gathered around, either sitting at different makeshift tables with lunch on little scrap-metal trays or sitting down in cubbies in the wall. They chatted with each other, shared bits and pieces of things that looked like they might have been stolen from the streets above, and most of all, they showed their powers.

He saw two people that shared some sort of electric ability, passing sparks between their fingers until metal danced around them, creating magnetic currents between them. He saw an eagle pulling at his feathers and making them dance in mid-air, looking like telekinesis at first until Mato realized that the bird was actually just manipulating his feathers, shifting them and controlling them as they went from soft to firm, then from blunt to sharp, going from feathers to daggers. They flew across the room, nearly hitting someone that was walking from one table to another, only to embed themselves in a disk of ice that fell to the ground shortly after.

It was the first open display of powers that were used so casually that he'd seen since coming to the city, and he wondered why he hadn't seen any of this until now. Why did it take going to the villains -

Rebels. Anti-heroes. Anything but villains.

Why did it take coming here to see actual supers?

He was so overwhelmed that he didn't even realize that Smokestack had come to them until Spore poked his shoulder. Turning around, he found himself staring up at the tattooed woman.

"So, you're the new guy around here. You look...familiar. I see you somewhere before?" the kangaroo asked, her smokestack tattoos pulsing slowly as she let out a slow flow of gray-black from her forehead.

"Uh...Possibly. I watched your fight with Mirage from further up the street."

"Bank fight?"

"Yes, that one."

"Yeah, thought I saw something out there. Heh. Wasn't my best, but at least I got my bitches out of there. Right, bitches?!"

The howls of the bomb-wolves filled the air, and the rest of the supers laughed. Smokestack chuckled at them before bringing her eyes back to him.

She was an intimidating figure. Not just for the fact that she was a few inches taller than him, but also her thickness. She had broad shoulders and much bigger arm muscles than he was used to seeing on kangaroos, and she flexed them as she crossed her arms under her breasts. She wore a tight shirt that hugged her bosom and lifted it up, and tight pants that showed off those traditionally large roo thigh muscles. He swallowed as he looked at the tattoos on her left arm - rippling snakes, as far as he could tell - and the smoke billowing off her that made her look like something pulled from the underworld.

"So, what'd you want?"

"...I wanted to ask...if I could join."

"...Heh. Well, that'd be another mouth to feed, but better you come down here than hide yourself up there. What makes you think it'd be any better here?"

"You're honest. And you want to use your powers. And...and if they hate you up there, then maybe that means that you're doing the right thing."

"Spore, did you bring me another do-gooder?"

"He'll grow out of it, mama."

"He better. Look," Smokestack said, lifting his chin. "I ain't gonna pretty this up. We do some shit down here. We do what we gotta do to make sure that we all survive. We ain't no activists down here. We ain't trying to change things; we ain't got the time or energy to do that. All we're trying to do is be us, and stay alive. You get me?"

"...I get you."

"That said, you help us out, we help you out. You live, you get to be the real you, and hey, nobody said that the heroes get all the love. We get some attention down here."

"Not enough," Spore muttered.

"That's your opinion," the kangaroo said, shaking her head. "So, what you got?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Power?"

"Cloning," Mato said.

"Cloning, eh? How many?"

"Um...I think my upper limit is thirty clones at once."

Spore sputtered, the first bit of shock that the other man had shown, and Smokestack whistled. He looked back and forth between them.

"Is that...helpful?"

"With the gig that I'm planning? Very," Spore said. "Hey, Smokestack. I think that the bank job is back on, yeah?"

"If he can get in there? Yeah, I can see it. Kid. You feel up for hitting the rich where it hurts?"

"...You can do that?"

"Spore?"

"See, Murder -"

"Wait, wait. This goodie-two-shoes calls himself 'Murder'?" Smokestack asked.

"Yep."

"...Wow. Just...wow."

"Anyway. Murder, I got my spores all over the city. I plant 'em everywhere. Sure, some of 'em die off eventually, but I get everything we need for anything we want to know. And that means, I know exactly which accounts belong to the rich guys. Some of 'em are stupid enough to do their banking here. All we gotta do is get in and drain the ones that belong to those assholes. You can be a modern day Robin Hood, if ya want."

It was almost unthinkable. He'd gone from wanting to uphold the law to willingly listening to a plan to conduct a bank heist. For that matter, he was considering actually participating. Heroes didn't do that.

But then again, the city didn't want heroes. It wanted obedient little toys. His hands clenched at his sides as his morals and his outrage fought each other, and his outrage eventually won out.

"What do you need from me?" he asked.

"That's up to Spore," Smokestack said. "I'm everyone's mama down here, but he's the one that comes up with all the complicated plans. I ain't got the brains for that."

"Don't sell yourself short, mama," the skunk said, chuckling. "You do more than me."

"I do what I gotta."

"Hey, mama, who's the new asshole?"

Skunk, crow, and kangaroo turned to the source of the shout. It came from a wolverine, one that was half-drunk and looked it as he stood up, wobbling from side to side. He pointed across the room, clawed finger jabbing at Mato.

"I said, who's the new asshole? We ain't got enough for all of us. What the hell he want?"

"He's looking for a place to stay, and wants to help out, Whirlwind." Smokestack laid a hand on the crow's shoulder, and he let himself be pulled backward. "And that means he's got as much right as you do to be here."

"I earned it here! I brought stuff with me when I came down. You telling me that little shit can just ask to be here? Betcha he ain't never -"

"Whirlwind, last warning."

The rest of the room had gone quiet, he realized. Smokestack's words had come out without anything to muffle them, and all the other members of the gang had stopped talking. He felt the tension in the air and shivered as he realized that something serious was about to happen.

Whether it was drink or something else, the wolverine stomped forward.

"I cut my way into this place, and I ain't letting some little shit punk like that take my share from me. Get rid of him, or I'll do it for ya."

"Whirlwind, you know what last warning means?"

"What?"

"It means, I'm done being nice."

And as the smoke billowed from the kangaroo's head, filling the room with a blinding haze, Mato realized how lucky Mirage had been.

#

When the beaten wolverine was carried out a scant two minutes later, bearing bruises, claw-marks, and more, Mato was left shaking in his boots. Not just from the ease with which Smokestack had handled Whirlwind, but also just how casually she wiped the blood from her lips. She'd taken a hit or two - probably blind swings within the smoke - but she just took it without staggering.

"Remember that, kids," the kangaroo said. "I ain't asking ya to be angels. But I am asking ya to play nice. We ain't getting anywhere if we start fighting each other. Don't make me come down on y'all. Got it?"

"Yes, mama," the gang shouted.

"Right. Spore, get Murder a place to sleep. Murder?"

"Yeah?" the crow asked.

"Welcome to the family."

The End

Summary: Mato tries to find some focus, but it's hard to just sort through things when your world has been flipped upside-down. Hopefully, he can get some help from Spore and Smokestack.

Tags: M/M, Teasing, Flirting, Casual, Exhibitionism, Skunk, Kangaroo, Crow, Various Species, Superheroes, Suprenum, Patreon, Masturbation, Foot Fetish, Fighting,