God They're So Cute

God they're so cute <3

The Gift of Panic Pt 8

You guys really love this one, so here you go! Pt 9 is on it’s way! *accidentally had this one named part 7 at first* Find previous parts here

If Rhys had been asked whether or not he was scared of Silver, he would have said no. Of course not. How could he be afraid of someone he just had tea with? Someone he just told his real name to?

That was before they arrived at the Grandwell warehouse. None of Silver’s men were going in with them, just the villain and the hero, because Silver said he didn’t want any of his men getting hurt.

Rhys had seen silver in action before, or so he thought. But apparently, he’d never really seen him in action, because wow, was it something else.  It was terrifying, awe-inspiring, overwhelming, intimidating, scary, intoxicating and overall just breathtaking. It was like a fish in water, where the hero could see just how in his environment Silver was while fighting. His movements were so fluid, effortless. He barely even got hit; he was so good at dodging, blocking.

Admittedly, they had snuck in, taking out guards one by one at first. Silver had promised Rhys that were possible, he would knock them out instead of killing them, but that he wasn’t going to be getting thrown off his game or distracted because of it. Friendship is about compromise, the hero supposed.

Up until they got into the main warehouse, Silver actually hadn’t killed a single person, being able to sneak up behind them and either choke them or knock them out.

Rhys felt pretty glad he was on this side of the fighting for a change.

Once they entered the warehouse, it was very open. They split up, able to take out a few guards from weaving in between boxes, but eventually, they were noticed, and the full out brawl ensued.

That’s when the blood really started.

Now the hero wasn’t a perfect saint either; as much as he tried to be, he’d had to kill a few guards or criminals before, but it was always in self-defence. He had a rule in place for himself that he would always offer his opponent the option to surrender first if he felt they weren’t going to go down with a real fight. Even then, he always tried to only leave non-fatal wounds, but every person was different, and what didn’t kill one person might not always be survivable for the next.

Honestly, if someone asked Rhys whether he was scared of Silver now, the answer still probably would have been no, but it would have at least been a more hesitant no.

His thoughts were cut off when he was thrown to the ground by a criminal he hadn’t seen. They wrestled around, Rhys managing to get out of the other’s grip for a moment, only to be pushing back into a wall, fighting to hold the criminal’s knife back from stabbing into him.

The hero didn’t see the villain behind the other until the tip of a knife emerged on the other side of the criminal’s throat.

“You good?” Silver asked, pulling his knife back and pushing the criminal to the ground.

“Yeah,” The hero panted, catching his breath, “Thanks, though, you could have knocked him out,”

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about it when I saw you in trouble,” the villain shrugged. He wasn’t even very out of breath!

What got Rhys the most was that he also didn’t even use his powers!

The hero was 80% sure he had worked out the villain’s first power was metal-kenisis, and this place was full of metal objects! But Silver managed just fine, not needing to tap into them even once.

“Is that all of them?” Rhys asked, looking around.

“All but the Grandwells themselves, whom I assume heard the gunshots and have turned tail, but it’s worth checking anyway,”

“Where are they?”

“Most likely the top floor,” he replied as they walked over the elevator.

“Yeah, but we don’t have the passcode, do we?”

The villain raised an eyebrow, “Have you seriously not put together what my powers are yet?”

“It’s metal ken- oh,”

Silver chuckled, and with of wave of his hand, the elevator doors opened. Once they were in, he made an upwards motion, and Rhys could feel the elevator going up.

Once they were at the top, they stepped out, looking around the area.

“Tell me,” Silver said as they walked down the hallway, “If we spare them, which I’m admittingly not inclined to do, but if we do, will the police immediately investigate to clean up all their illegal activity?

"That depends; I now realize that I don’t really know what I’m going to do because I didn’t bring nearly enough handcuffs, and the guys downstairs will be awake before the police get to this side of town,”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll have my men deal with it, but that answers my question anyway,”

When the two large doors at the end of the hall opened, the Grandwell twins were nowhere to be seen, but the emergency exit door was still open, sign above it blinking.

“Cowards,” the villain muttered, “They are probably long gone by now. Sacrificed the lives of their men to stall us long enough to escape. Unbelievable.”

“I-” Rhys paused, unsure how to respond, “No offence but isn’t that what, well ya'know, villains tend to do?”

Luckily Silver didn’t seem offended; he simply shrugged, “Most of them, yes probably. But not me; most of my men and women have family to feed. I’m not about to make any children lose their parents if I can help it. I may be a villain, but I have standards. You might notice I also always try to thank my men because using fear to scare your followers into loyalty isn’t even close to as valuable as truly earning it. I don’t expect them to be loyal to me if I treat them poorly. I may not care about them on a personal level, but working out of fear instead of free will makes for terrible work ethic among more instances of betrayal, etcetera,”

“Wow, I never thought about it like that, but, yeah that’s really smart. I’m sure your employees appreciate it,”

Rhys watched as Silver dug through the various different drawers of the main desks, rooting through the papers and other things.

“Now what?” the hero asked.

“Well, now that it’s safe, I’ll send my men in. They will round up all the survivors for you, and if you can guarantee them safety, I’ll even have them deliver them to the police station for you. They will comb through the rest of this place and take anything valuable, as well as gather all the information they can. We will still have to track down the Grandwells after all,”

“Wow, yeah, that would be perfect,”

Before the villain could reply, Rhys phone went off.

“Hello?” the hero answered, and suddenly his eyes widened, “Oh crap, yeah, I’ll be right there,”

“what’s wrong?”

“Thistle and some of her men are trying to rob the bank on main street. I’m going to have to run,”

“Hold on. Let me pass the go along to my men first, and then I can tag along with you to help,”

Rhy’s eyes widened in shock, mouth ajar slightly, “did-, are you offering to help fight crime?” he asked in disbelief.

Silver smirked that knowing, charming, yet mischievous smirk, “I consider taking out one of my competitors a very villainous thing to do,”

Rhys laughed, pulling out his phone again, “Alright, you make your call. I’ll call the station to let them know not to arrest your men when they drop off these criminals and that your tagging along to make sure they don’t try and shoot you or something,”

“Sounds like a plan to me, my friend,” the villain replied, dialling something on their phone. The ‘my friend’ comment made the hero stop for a second, heart-swelling in his chest. Even if it had been said as almost a joke, not as earnestly as the hero was taking it, it still meant a lot.

This was turning out much better than the Rhys would have ever imagined.