Part Three: How I met my Master
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So you decided to go ahead and sign up for the mission huh? I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not. I always knew you'd do this, because while this may be the present for you, for me, it's your past.
Right now you can probably feel the chains of Master's power binding you to this task, but what exactly are you going to need to do? Well, you know most of it by now, but there are a few things you haven't quite heard yet, that's where I come in.I guess I should start with the day Neutronia was taken. It's important to start here because there's a few things that Master got wrong.
It's not his fault of course, he wasn't there for the start of this, so he just didn't know. So I guess I'll have to tell you.
For me it all started in my venting room. That name sounds strange, I know, but it fits. Of course, that's not the official name. Officially it's a training room but what it really is, simply speaking, is a room for me to vent into. It's just, everybody gets fucking stressed sometimes, okay. Well, when you do, it's good to let it out. Some people do this by hitting a punching bag. Unfortunately, I can't hit a punching bag, cause I'd turn it into powder. So whenever I get really angry, I go to one of the testing rooms, designed specifically to hold up the most intense beating you can give. Trust me, spending a few hours putting some dents in a wall can be really relaxing.
Just my fucking luck this room was defective. I'd barely been in there 5 minutes and I'd already reduced the seemingly unbreakable wall to rubble. Worse, this was the third wall I'd broken in the last hour, so I didn't think they'd let me break a fourth. But what could I do? They were taking Neutronia from me.
It's funny. They say you don't know what you've got till it's gone and they were right. I'd first met Neutronia when her ship crashed onto Earth (and thanks for letting me know about the crash in advance so I could save her). Even that early I could tell she was something special. The way she was just so effortlessly elegant, while I was just this brute getting by on pure strength. I was in awe of her. It's why I pushed so hard to get her assigned to me as a partner. It gave me a front row seat to see her operate every day.
Then they told me she was leaving. It would have been bad enough if she was just leaving to be with her people again, but she was leaving to be turned into a slave. Some creep would make her his little plaything and I'd never get to see her again. It was thinking about all of that that made me realize that I'd been in love with her this whole time.
Damn was that the worst fucking time to discover that or what? I never even got the chance to tell her, to see if, maybe, there was a chance she could have loved me too. Instead, all I get is memories. Well, memories and a bunch of busted training rooms.
That's when you walked in, or Helen walked in, or Delphi, if you want to use your code name. Does it really matter? Well everyone else seems to be using Helen, so I guess I'll go with that too.
Anyway, Helen walked into the room and looked at the mess I'd left lying around. "Leave me alone, I'm busy," I told her.
"I could leave, but if I do, then you'll never be able to save Neutronia."
That caught my attention. I spun around and zoomed right up next to her. Based on her look I must have looked like some combination of murderous and desperate. "What do you mean? I thought you said there wasn't anything we could do!"
"That's what I told the council and I told them that, because if they knew what the plan was, they'd never approve it."
What Helen said there, should have made me hesitate. It didn't. "What do I need to do?" I asked her.
"For starters, keep it quiet. We can't risk anyone leaking this out."
"Not even to Achilles?"
You're probably wondering who this Achilles is. Well to put it simply, he used to be a Hero for the League. The reason he's important right now is because at the time that Neutronia got taken, he was her boyfriend.
Now I say boyfriend, but it's a bit more complicated than that. You see, Achilles was deeply in love with Neutronia, but that sure as hell wasn't being reciprocated. Neutronia liked Achilles. I mean, she thought he was a pretty good fuck, but beyond that, he was a bit too vacuous for her (her words, not mine. Personally I thought he was fucking narcissist who was only in love with the idea of being with an alien princess, but admittedly I might be biased seeing as he was fucking what was at the time, the love of my life).
"Why do you think I had him assigned to a mission that'll keep him out of contact for the next few days. If he found out about this he'd come rushing in to save her like he's some prince on a white horse and everything I've set up will come crashing down and we'll never get Neutronia back."
Frankly, that was obvious to me even back then. Achilles would have loved the optics of fighting for the woman he loves when no one else will. Knowing how he badly he went ballistic when Neutronia came back, only for him to find out she was pregnant with some nobodies (That's not my word for Master of course, this is just the fucking blasphemous thoughts I know were going through his head) child, a nobody she was now married to was a nightmare scenario that took us ages to resolve. But I'll talk about how we handled that later.
"Allright, so no leaks, fine. What else?"
"Second, I need you to get a man for me. I've got his file right here."
Helen handed me the file. I looked over it real quick and was confused. It was a file for someone I'd never even heard of named Master and based on what I was reading he was a completely ordinary human. How on earth could this guy help us?
It's kind of weird talking about Master right now. Of course back then I only knew him as Master. Just writing that down has been a nightmare. I keep thinking I've written his name down right, only to look back and realize I wrote Master by mistake. It's even worse when I have to interact with him in public. Usually I just avoid mentioning him by name. Seriously, how the fuck does Neutronia manage to slip so easily between calling him Master in private and Master in public? Meanwhile I've had to go over this document at least a dozen times and I'm STILL finding spots where I accidentally referred to Master as Master. Mind you, I think I've gotten all of them, but if I missed one, well, fuck it you know who I'm talking about.
But anyway, back to the story. I may not have known anything about Master at the time, but Helen had proven her worth to us for years before this, so I trusted whatever vision she'd had that told her we'd need him, so I flew down to his apartment to pick him up.
Looking back at that moment all I can think about is how much of a stupid bitch I was. I mean, I wasn't cruel or anything to Master, but I know how I felt and it, well, not impressed. Master's hair was receding and he had an obvious gut on him despite the business suit he was sporting to try and make him look as professional as possible. When you add the size disparity between us, I couldn't help but think of him as some little goblin. Like I said, I was a stupid bitch.
