Chapter Text
Boom!
Something whips past Virgil and directly into the wall behind him. He’s pretty sure it’s one of Creativity’s creations. He rolls his eyes because they are becoming so predictable.
They, being The Light Sides. The superheroes of the city, the saviors, the protectors. That's at least what the media likes to call them.
The opposite is true for Virgil and his team. The Dark Sides. Feared by all, the greatest assholes known to man, the jerks ruining our day to day life. All of those have been used at least once to describe them in the media.
Virgil doesn’t think that they are that bad. He knows that what they are doing is technically illegal, but it could be a lot worse. No point dwelling though as another one of creativity’s creations come towards him.
Virgil ducks to avoid the bird’s sharp claws.
“Really, Princey, I expected better from you.”
Virgil does a complicated motion with his hands and not too long after that shadows appear at Creativity’s ankles. He yelps and tries to shoo them off. Virgil tsks as Creativity does the same song and dance as he always does.
“Come on, you do this every time. Can we have a little bit of originality?” Virgil walks over to him. Fully expecting Creativity to quickly get up and attempt to attack him with one of his creations.
Instead out of the corner of his eye Virgil sees a weird message in the alley. He can’t fully make it out. All he can see is a ‘D’ in sparkling, almost scale-like, pink.
Virgil quickly shakes himself out of his confusion by a piece of rubble flying towards his face. He quickly moves out of the way. He tries to push his anxiety behind him without giving anyone else his own anxiety.
He looks at where the rubble came from, already knowing who it’s going to be without looking. As he suspected it was Logic, the superhero with telekinesis and information memory reading, or IMR for short. His name stemming from his second superpower.
Virgil quickly thinks of the most gruesome fact that Remus has told him. The good thing about Logic’s power is that he can only read factual information.
He watches as Logic’s face twists into one of disturbance. He uses his temporary confusion to have the shadows lunge for Morality. Virgil watches as Logic turns to the commotion that Morality made leaving Creativity alone.
Virgil leaves Creativity alone. Instead using his shadows to tap The Duke and Deceits' shoulders. They both turn towards him, distracting them from probably pouncing on Logic and Morality. He makes a motion with his hands that they have decided means ‘come towards me, quietly’. They should really invest in some communication technology. No use dwelling on it though as Deceit and The Duke get closer towards him.
Virgil watches as Creativity almost gets the shadows off him and Logic is still messing with Morality’s shadows. He quickly waves his hands towards The Light Sides to envelope them in a shadowy dark-ness. He won’t be able to hold it long but just long enough for him and his teammates to get away.
Once they make it back to their “Evil Lair” (Remus insists that they call it that) they each go their separate ways to change out of their villain outfits. The “Evil Lair” isn’t much of an evil lair. It’s mostly used in incase The Dark Sides get followed. None of them want to get caught entering their home by their nosey neighbors in full villain get up.
Virgil walks out of his room, dressed in his civilian clothes and hair wet from his shower, to find Janus and Remus sitting on the small couch. The closer Virgil gets toward them he realizes that they both have mugs in their hands. Janus most likely has tea and Remus probably has some weird concoction.
Virgil decides to skip out on grabbing something to drink and sits down on the couch.
“So,” Janus starts taking a long sip of his drink (it’s definitely tea Virgil would recognize the strong scent of the lemon tea a mile away) “I figured we could think of ideas for our next ‘attack’ .” Attack is said with a hiss.
The Dark Sides don’t like to think of what they are doing as attacks. They know that what they are doing is illegal, evidenced by the superheroes trying to stop them. Although typical supervillains have a plan to take over the city, government, or world! The Dark Sides plan is to cause a little chaos and point out areas that could use a little help.
“Ooh! Ooh!” Remus’ hand shoots up like a child wanting to get picked on by the teacher.
“Yes, Remus?”
“We could steal a seal and let it out on the busiest street!” Remus pumps his fist in the air. The one with the mug, spilling its contents onto the couch.
Virgil scoots back from the weird dark sludge that just got on the couch. He stares at the weird goop and then back at Remus. “A seal? Why?”
“Yeah I, too, would like to know your thought process on this.” Janus sets his mug on the coffee table.
“Seals are cute animals but can be deadly if bitten! Did you know that there’s a name for it, it’s called seal finger!”
Virgil feels a spike of anxiety at Remus’ suggestion. They all agreed a long time ago to not get anyone's blood on their hands. Mostly for Virgil’s sake. Thankfully Virgil doesn’t have to butt in as Janus does.
“Remus, as lovely as that sounds, we agreed no harm is to come to anyone unless absolutely necessary.” Janus stands up after his statement and off to his small room.
Remus wilts a little but quickly recovers when Janus comes back with his computer. “I thought we could look up some areas that could use some help and figure out where to cause some chaos, hm.”
They plan for a while not noticing the time until Virgil points it out. “Shit we should get going. It’s almost two a.m.”
Remus and Janus nod in agreement. After doing the small dishes they dirtied and putting away the planning stuff they walked out of the “Evil Lair”.
Once back at the house, house being an understatement it’s more of a mansion, Virgil crawls into bed to get a few hours of sleep before work. He technically doesn’t have to work but one of the advice that has stuck from his mom is to never rely on someone.
Plus he doesn’t want to burden Janus with any more work than he has to. He’s already being generous enough to allow Virgil to live there. He would like to not abuse that kindness anymore.
With that last thought Virgil drifts off to sleep.
“Virgey? Virgey? Virgey!” Virgil watches as his mom walks into his room, well he doesn’t really watch he can’t really focus on anything except the overwhelming feeling of panic.
Virgil makes a noise that sounds vaguely like a ‘no’ but comes out more as a whimper.
“Oh it’ll be okay Virgey. Hold on let me-” His mom sets the plate that she was holding down on his desk and walks slowly towards him. Making sure that her hands are in view.
He goes to scoot away from his mom but finds something against his back. He panics for a minute then remembers it’s his bed. By the time that he has calmed down slightly from the bed panic, his mom is sitting in front of him.
He stares at her wide eyed, shaky breaths making their way into his lungs.
“Oh Virgey. It’ll be okay mommy’s here. Want to hear a funny story?”
Virgil continues to stare but he does give a small nod.
He listens as his mom retells a tale of her and her brother getting in trouble from stealing the cookies for their father’s work event.
Eventually Virgil calms down. His mother smiles at him.
“Virgil, you know it would really help yourself if you gave your anxiety out randomly to people. It wouldn’t hurt you as much.” His mother smiles sadly at him.
Virgil shakes his head ‘no’ quickly. His mother nods and gets up.
“I put a snack on your desk to eat when you’re ready.” She walks out of his room. Before closing his door she speaks again “Don’t kill yourself Virgey.”
Virgil awakens with a start. It was just a dream, it was just a d ream , it was just a d ream, It was just a dREAM, IT WAS JUST A DREAM!
Virgil tries to take in a deep breath and calm his heart rate. He would like to avoid a panic attack this early in the morning. He looks over at the alarm clock to see it read 6:15. He sighs no use going back to bed since he was to be at work at seven.
He’d like to avoid being late. He throws his blankets off himself and staggers to the bathroom. After his shower he gets dressed, a little more awake then he was before. He then walks into the kitchen to make himself some toast and orange juice.
He scrolls on his phone while his toast cooks. He looks up at the clock to find it reads 6:45. Virgil doesn’t have time to panic as his toast is finished. He quickly butters it and runs out the door, toast in hand.
Virgil arrives at work, exactly at seven O’clock. He walks into the building to the scent of pastries. He smiles a little at the nice, a little overwhelming, smell of sweets. He doesn’t dwell long as he has to get the coffee machines going.
He walks out of the backroom with his apron on (noticeably missing his nametag). He walks behind the counter and gets started on the machines. Halfway through the machines his co-worker, Patton, walks out from the kitchen with croissants on a tray. Ready to be put in the glass display.
“Oh! Hi kiddo! Sorry didn’t hear you come in.”
“It’s fine I had to put my uniform on anyway.” Virgil shrugs, continuing to turn on the machines. He still feels a bit odd talking to Patton. He’s so preppy and happy it kinda scares him. Well more accurately it makes him anxious, but when is he ever not anxious?
“Still it’s nice to say hello!” Patton goes to mess with the cash register. Virgil quietly lets out a sigh of relief glad that Patton is starting off talking to the customers. He doesn’t think he could survive talking to someone this early.
Virgil hums non-commitaly to Patton’s statement and goes to unlock the door.
Virgil has sweat above his brow. Today was unexpectedly busy. Him and Patton were slammed all day. Customer after customer. They barely got a break. They could barely escape for their lunch break.
They made it work though. Virgil couldn’t be more happy that it’s closing time. All that’s left is to turn off the lights and lock up, then he’s free from this hell.
He turns on his phone to find a text from Janus. It's all in emojis. They decided it would be good to not plan any villian work online and if they had to it would be through emojis. They put together a guide of what each letter and number the emojis correspond with.
He quickly reads it and lets out a sigh of relief. He didn’t have to worry (he always worried but not more than he usually did) Jauns just wanted to double check on the next place they were going to “attack”. He quickly shoots off a text that is some form of agreement. He finally looks up to find Patton looking alarmed.
“Uh, Patton you okay?” Virgil very slowly makes his way towards Patton. He makes it halfway towards him when Patton shakes out of whatever trance he was in.
“What was that kiddo? Sorry I didn't quite hear ya!” He shouts cheerily. A little too cheerful. Oh well it’s really none of Virgil’s business.
“Nothing, I’m going to go.” Virgil points behind himself before pocketing his phone and darting out of there.
He makes it home around 5:30 to find Janus just finishing cooking dinner. Remus being unhelpful and sitting on the counter. Virgil decides, like Remus, he will sit on the counter.
“Hey Emo!” Remus announces Virgil’s presence for him. Virgil’s a little shocked to not have a more vulgar nickname thrown at him.
“Welcome home Virgil.” Janus greets without turning around. It looks like he’s cutting up tomatoes for a salad.
“Ah hello guys, what’s cookin’?”
“Good lookin!” Remus shouts.
Virgil winces and snaps his fingers next to his ears. A little nervous that he could’ve lost his hearing.
Janus' side eyes Remus. “I’m making Lasagna, actually if you could set up the table that would be helpful.”
He nods and hops off the counter. Towards the dining room, he grabs the dishes and cutlery. He sets up the table in the fancy ass way that Janus was taught.
Once he’s finished Remus comes barreling into the dining room, Janus trailing behind with the main dish. He quickly sets the dish down and walks back towards the kitchen.
Remus and Virgil both sit down waiting on Janus to come back. Virgil decides to wait before making his plate, Remus doesn’t have the same qualms as he does. He uses the spatula to grab a big glob of lasagna on his plate. Virgil wrinkles his nose at him.
By the time Remus finished struggling Janus made it back. He sets the salad on the table and sits down. He carefully unravels his napkin and puts it on his lap.
Virgil decides instead of watching Janus he should get his food. He carefully -unlike Remus- grabs a slice of lasagna. Not a perfect square like Janus, but pretty close. Once the slice is on his plate he starts eating.
On his fifth bite Janus starts talking. “So, how was your day?”
He swallows his food before answering. “It was alright, busy, how’s yours?”
“Good, I went to the library to get some work done, I think I figured out our plan.”
Right at the climax of their “attack” The Light Sides show up. Them and their annoying thing of seeing the world in black and white. When really it's various shades of gray. Some parts are dark gray, others light gray. Nothing or nobody fits perfectly into the neat little box of good and evil.
As much as The Lights want them to believe that they are the bad guys. That they need to be destroyed, put to jail, killed. He won’t believe that. He, hell they all know that what they’re doing is bad, illegal, all that gross nonsense.
What matters though is that Virgil knows their true intent behind it. Really would The Light Sides be themselves without The Dark Sides?
It’s like competition in the food industry. To learn and grow is to have competitors. Without them, how are you supposed to get better? The answer, you don’t. You can't win without the competition.
So Virgil wishes that they could stop seeing the world in black and white. See the bland grays he and the others see. Maybe they’d understand them better.
Maybe in another universe unlike their own they work together. Fighting the gray.
Maybe - Zoom!
Something zooms past Virgil, missing him by an inch. He feels his heartbeat kick into high gear. The worries of the grays in the world momentarily gone.
Once he’s home and has time to dwell it’ll come back full swing and hit him ten times harder. Right now though it’s time to kick The Light’s butts.
“Low blow, Princey.” Virgil smirks before his shadows curl menacing around him.
He watches as alarm flashes in Princey’s eyes, before dropping the shadows, not without pushing him first.
Princey squawks. “And you call mine a low blow, What the hell!”
Virgil smiles innocently and walks past Princey towards Logic. He decides Janus could use a little back up. As of late Janus has been fighting Logic, letting out his anger with Library Jerkface on Logic.
It’s funny how that’s a contradiction. It isn’t very logical for Janus to let his anger out on someone that isn’t the person he’s angry with. Virgil digresses: He won’t let Janus’ petty rivalry distract him from the real matter.
Getting away from this damn battle unscratched, so he can go home and rest for work in the morning. He doesn’t know why their “attacks” more often than not end up on a day when he has to get up early for work.
It doesn’t matter though as Virgil is right behind Logic, Shadows at the ready, ready to pounce.
“Logic! Look out Anxiety!” Damn Princey ruined his plans. Making Virgil lose his focus for a split second. A split second too long. It’s too late as he’s flying, not fast but not slow either, towards a brick wall. Next to an alleyway.
Oof .
That’s going to hurt in the morning, Virgil thinks a little hysterically. He wasn’t thrown into the wall too hard just enough to leave a good ache in his back. Logic’s telekinesis works so weird.
He looks up a little dazed, and sees another letter in that weird sparkling scale like pink. This time a letter ‘A’. Huh maybe it isn’t a one off thing, He thinks.
He decides after this battle is over he'll tell the others. He will tell them the weird letters that he’s seen in an alley twice. It can’t be a coincidence. It has to mean something and The Dark Sides will get to the bottom of it. He knows they will. They won’t alert The Light Sides off it, as it could be something harmless. Someone is just graffitiing the alley.
For now though he’ll help his team members finish the battle.