Hostility really wasn't doing the atmosphere justice. An unmitigated malice permeating. A buildup of failure and rue that made even the softest step a lesson in humility and courtesy. One jumped upon with wrath that had been flattened time and time again.

All to the point that it was all just for show, to keep up appearances and reputation. Not much you could really do behind a foot of steel latticed plexiglass. And enough guns, guards, gas, and psychokinetic sit down to turn that rue about with enough force to shatter your ankles.

Omnimax wasn't put up for nothing after all.

Though the dark plastered concrete and deep set safety lights didn't lend any endearment to Aegis' visit. As didn't the resonating need to keep yourself in line. Because she knew enough of this hostility first hand, and Psyclops just had that kind of effect on people.

"Must fear be so ingrained?"

His voice wafted between outside and in, echoing through the mitigation helmet that looked more like a half closed eye than a means of preventing total ego death. Purple drapes and mauve metal accents just adding to the mystic mystique. Like a wizard with a fashion sense bordering on bobble head. It was almost comical that this was the warden to nearly all of Kadia's worst offenders, yet it made so much sense once you decide to pay a visit. The glass was more for everyone else's protection. Which just made why she was here all the more complex.

Because, of course, Seth had apparently not sat idle waiting for her, and proper investigations took time and patience. Two things she was denied as soon as she set foot back on the Hill. If it wasn't yelling matches and demands to know how and why a literal laceroid was able to walk right through her shield like it didn't exist, it was just pure animosity at the defeat that none of them could reconcile with. Which just soured everything.

So, calls for her to be right here beside the League's premiere tortur-

"Ahem…"

Sorry… interrogator, were very loud. And so when, for some reason, Seth came here of all places, it just aligned in everyone's minds. They still refuse to take basic CSI courses and she's too damn proficient for the system not to immediately send out. So here she was, Omnimax, the one place half the League wanted to throw Seth in till the heat death of the universe. The other half wouldn't even allowing him the moment to choose. But still…

"Why the hell did he come here?"

"Questions. Questions. But only one answer."

The cameras were as useless as Psy was, despite the reinforcement and redundancy. She hadn't put any stock in them anyway, but they at least put a timestamp to this visit. Ten minutes of pure rolling static were the best Seth could do it seemed. The eyewitnesses account were the real confirmation. That permeating rue had rebounded back in their faces beyond the measure of their desperate intimidations. Seeing a tower of scales, claws, and teeth walk free and right up to you has an effect. All the walls and guns rendered tissue paper in your mind as you relived your darkest hours with fresh physicality and searing reality. Almost made Aegis feel sorry for some of them. Almost.

The guards who called this visit in were of little help. Psy hired the best/most resistant to his general aura of migraine headache, but they and he can't be everywhere. Most were stunned that someone would willingly break in to Omnimax, though in turn they were just as flat out afraid when they learned what it was that broke in. But the ones who originally called it, the ones who came in to investigate why an entire cell block was suddenly dark and the quietest it has ever been since it was built. Those guards flat out refused to say what had happened, simply saying "You have to see it for yourself". So that's why Aegis was forced to acquiesce to demands and retrace clawed footsteps yet again, but at least this time they weren't scraped and burned into the floor.

She followed along behind her senior psychic and the one who had made the call, the look she caught in his eye telling her a little of why he was too awestruck to give a believable report. Even buried in blacked out armored padding and enough non-lethal volts and ccs to put out the most uppity of rioters, she could still see the nerves misfiring in every step he took. He was scared, probably liable to jump at shadows if there were even any to fear. The lighting and flush walls refusing anything even remotely concealing. And the soft white lines laminated to the walls explaining bluntly that all this was for the least threatening of the power groups incarcerated here.

Yet he was terrified still, unable to rectify his anxiety that a laceroid had walked his cell block like it was a Sunday stroll in the park. The scars of the crisis were everywhere, and definitely far from healed now.

"I must leave you to it here."

Psyclops stopped just shy of the last third of the block, tired scrying eye looking back upon her with all the mental throb it curried.

"I have verified validity, but my presence has a way of… smothering the truth."

"I don't doubt that."

Aegis rubbed her head like a hungover grad student. And, as suppressidly as she could, silently thanked him for have the tact.

"You welcome."

"Grrr…"

But she continued along regardless of the living privacy violation. Following along despite the anxiety disparity between her and the guard making her pity too clear. Something that would probably be jumped upon by the malice filled eyes tracking her from behind their see through cells. A malice she had little recourse but to accept as their mitigator-in-chief stayed behind. And given that she put a good number of these villains here in the first place, it was a personal responsibility.

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The white band across every chest high surface making sure everyone knew these were all skill supers, trained or talented individuals with nothing outwardly above normal about them. Most were soldiers or mercenaries like Bleakwalker, or the goofballs of the Hightower Corps. A sly proud smile meeting a gaggle of high ranking members as they sneered and razzed at her passing. Jacob and Zeleny were so lucky… well.

'hmmm…'

Bad thoughts shook away, scanning the rest to get her mind off the wounds still fresh. Quite a lot of the others here were former minions of other higher threat super villains, like Goldbreaker's muscle bound Tarnishers. Still some were just really good at what they did, the weapon masters and safecrackers of the underworld. Or at least the ones who got caught.

But none of them mattered as Aegis' chaperon continued along, passing cell after cell of known and all too familiar stares. Passing guards put up to keep the scene clear and as it was. Gradually passing cells that still crowded back and away from the pitiful defenses that kept them safe. Like that thing was still standing there in the absent shadows. All to reach the last cell against the far end of this spoke.

Technically the most recent arrivals despite the distance, but also the only ones allowed a cell all their own. A team of four given special treatment due to some kind of extenuating circumstances Aegis wasn't privy to. For some reason.

But the real strange thing about them wasn't their incarceration. It was that they were…

Happy?

A large barrel of a man sat against the left wall, arms wrapped around and hugging himself. His plain grey uniform not fully sleeved despite the required uniformity, and he was too teary eyed and joyful to notice Aegis approach their transparent cage. Her chaperone turned about on her, eyes a new level of anxiety as he returned to the scene of the crime and beckoned her to see what had broken his needed stoicism. Almost on cue, as the guard moved away, a tall crew cut man began to hum as he leaned against the far wall. A deep rumbling hum that almost seemed somber and missed. He was focused down at the crossed foot his lean freed up, swaying it to the slow easing tune he sang. But he soon looked up at Aegis from across the see through lattice, a venomous smirk across his face as joyous as the man still too happy to stop hugging himself.

The humming continued as the man leaned his head back as the guard pulled the last few feet away from Aegis' sightline. On the floor behind laid a woman with slowly regrowing hair and yet another immutable smile on her face. Her eyes were closed shut, head rested on the only pillow allotted to the cell, damn near cuddled and hugged tight like it was a nip filled cat toy. The humming didn't rouse her, more than likely it was meant for her, but the way she clung to that pillow read like she had hardly slept a full night in her life. Aegis tried to make sense of this, tried to wrap her head around why a bunch of unpowered and overly happy villains got a visit from the damn near societally accepted incarnation of terror that was Seth. But her confusion turned her gaze to the last member sat in the cell. And the truth of the matter.

Sat listening against the right wall, arms folded and smirk blaring to the ceiling, was an older man. Greying hair and grizzled demeanor all too familiar to her. Tango Delta. That failed bank robbery… Or well, the suicide by bank robbery. That was the commonality, why Seth had been here. Or at least that was a starting reason. But the happy faces across these villains-

"What… can't we feel happy for once in our lives?"

Tango wasn't pulling any perceptible punches, though it's not like Aegis wasn't clearly confused by all of this. A greyed with age eye turned from the laminated ceiling and toward her, eye shine sending a learned tension through her. Like looking into a sniper scope trained on you. But momentary learned fear faded, and a heightened smirk blared his prideful confirmation of his reputation.

"Heh, always so easy. But you aren't here just to flitch at the slightest mean look are you. No, you're here because of our recent… guest."

His all too good eyesight returned to ceiling as the humming lowered in an unspoken respect.

"He gave us all quiet the fright. If not for the rumors spread about we probably would have lost our poor Sasha and Michel again. But to see him for real, armor stripped away and nightmares made real… It made our suffering all the more poignant and ironic. Wouldn't you say?"

His smirk deflated, not quite to scowl but close.

"To be condemned twice for fighting your monsters… yet… heh."

His smirk rose back up, sadistic but still joyous.

"The irony just refused to abate. To think the only one who saw us as victims was someone like that. Ha! A monster trying to play the hero!"

He unfolded a hand and looked longingly down on it. Flexing it like it…

"Wait?!"

That smirk rose higher with Aegis' shock, maniacal laughter kept at bay only just as Tango relocked his… both his eyes on her. His wounds, his scars, his missing fingers, his missing eye. All of it was healed, returned like it had always been there. Baring the elation brought about by their return.

Aegis looked back to the minions, too thankful to return her inquisition. She remembered the reports on his crew, the damage they'd sustained from the crisis, the mental and physical scars they were left with. She couldn't see any of it anymore. Not on any of those smiling faces.

"W-Why…"

"As I said… the only one who saw us as victims. Who knows, maybe he's the only one who deserves to be called a hero."

His taunting smirk curled, but quickly stopped and turned incredulous.

"Except he thinks himself a jokester or something."

That full longed over hand slammed to his side, the clack of gun metal readiness eliciting a tensing from the guards and their called in support. All flinched back as a rifle rose up from behind his stretched out leg, fresh brushed coatings and tightened sights making it clear it was Tango's one and only. And yet-

"Look at this crap! Like a child drew it from memory! My tallies aren't even on it, and the zero is astronomical! And to add insult enough he filled it with fucking concrete!! If you do ever see him again my dear Aegis, please kick him in the chest for me! I mean who does this to a perfectly… adequately good rifle?"

Tango kept his 'gift' aloft by the barrel, staring at it disdainfully-

"Where did he even see my rifle in such detail? Those simulation never get it- Wait. Stupid question. Of course a laceroid would find it."

The tension subsided as the shaken guards realized the reality that the gun was little more than a club. And even if it was real, they were separated rather protectively. Yet Aegis still cupped her face with her hand, wiping it down with the sum of her embarrassment. Just for her exacerbation to be revealed. That was definitely the confirmation of it. Seth was still definitely the same person, just maybe wearing a different skin. But it was clear this investigation wasn't going to get any less frustrating.

And it was really starting to piss her off.

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