Phoenix Talon went to the guarded room at the Worcester Hospital early the following morning, where the Rooster was lying on his stomach to spare his lacerated derriere. His broken nose was clearly still giving him trouble.
    "Yeth?"
    "Hi, it's me." Talon gave him a big smile. He'd decided to try a different approach with this one.
    "Hello."
    He looked at the chart; the man's real name was Richard Waddle. "You from around here?"
    "Yeth."
    "What led you to become a theme villain?" he asked pleasantly.
    "It theemed like a good idea, since I got kicked off the cockfighting thiwcuit."
    Phoenix Talon snorted his opinion of this revelation. "Did this have anything to do with 1-800-HENCHMEN?"
    "Yeah, they gave me a call."
    "They gave you a call?"
    "I filled out one of theih forms," he explained. "I thought it might, y'know, help me along."
    So far, so good. "Can you give me any contact information? A number, anybody that you met this?"
    The Rooster shrugged. "No, they wewe very thecretive."
    "Did you meet with them here in Worcester, or in Boston, where?"
    "Hewe in Worcester. The twaining was at their fathility, that wath a couple hours away. We wewe in a panel van, I couldn't thee anything, but I haff a pretty good thenthe of directhion, I think it wath kind of north."
    "How many people were you training with? How many people did they have at the facility?"
    "Bunch of people thewe. They helped me hone my kickboxing techniques, thith was all pretty rapid, I was only up thewe for like seventy-two hours, they thaid it wath a crath courth."
    "And you crashed," Phoenix Talon confirmed. "Did you get the names of any of the people you were training with?"
    "They didn't have any other villain people thewe, and everyone, you know when you go to restauwants with themes, and everyone's weawing the name tags with like Davey Sue or something like that? They all had, like, fake name tags. You could tell, 'cause thewe aren't that many people named John."
    Talon sighed. "You're a complete and total moron, you're going to jail."
    "But—I'm one of the world's renowned experts in gwider technology," he protested.
    "Why am I skeptical?"
    "No, I am! I'm weawy good at it."
    "Well, you're going up shit creek anyway."
    "Cockfighting thing, thomebody thtole my patent, I figured y'know, thith ith where the money was going to be," he sniffled. "It wath going pretty well thewe for a while...."
    "No it wasn't!" Phoenix Talon snapped. "Don't you watch TV? Do you think superheroes are fictional, somehow theme villains are real but superheroes don't exist?"
    "Thewe weren't any in Worcester, it theemed like a good idea. I just wanted to call mythelf the Roothter," he confided, "but there's another Roothter out in Theattle, so I had to be the Worcethter Roothter."
    "I'm gonna hunt him down and kick his ass, too," Talon promised. "I'm sick of the whole fucking lot of you, let me tell you." He relented a bit as the Rooster began blubbering again. "Nobody got hurt, the judge will go fairly easy. Where're the paintings? Did you tell the cops where the paintings were?"
    "If if will get a reducthion on my sentence...."
    "Yeah, if they recover the stuff."
    "Okay. I have my little converted barn I inherited from my dad, it'th next to the Worcester Airport. It's not much land, but y'know, it'th my plathe. It'th where I worked on my innovative glider designs until they were thtolen from me. Did I tell you they were thtolen from me?"
    "Yes."
    On his way out, as a nurse came in to give the prisoner some more painkillers, his phone rang.
    "Privateer here, I spent the night with the police guarding the community of survivors here. Sabertooth didn't make any attacks, I suspect that she's en route to Boston." Several times in the night he had thought he saw something moving outside, but by the time a light was shone there, it was always gone.
    "We should go back together."
    "Fair enough. Where do you want to meet?"
    "I'm at the hospital; meet me here in about ten minutes?"

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