The Wrong Genre

Accusations

The villain didn't spare even a glance to his downed cousin, nor to the heroes spread through the space. Immediately his eyes locked on to Zakum, still sitting placidly at the table. Without a word, despite the heroes asking in varying levels of politeness what was going on, he circled the table without looking away from the clone.

"Boss," Zakum greeted with that same iron smile, not showing the least bit of nervousness at his approach.

"Who are you."

Though it was phrased as a question, Maestro didn't seem to have any intention of letting the clone answer for himself. Without waiting for a response his hand shot out and grabbed the blond's wrist, yanking him roughly forward so he was pulled like a ragdoll into the side of the table.

"Don't take it out on him just because you're mad at me!" Zack scrambled to his feet, looking distressed.

Knocked out of their shock by the plea, all the heroes save for Stravarius began voicing their disapproval as well. Romulus placed himself between his boss and the heroes with a dark scowl.

Maestro completely ignored them.

"No reaction at all," he muttered to himself, grabbing Zakum's head and tilting it forward to look at the back of his neck despite the clone's feeble attempts to press back into a straight position. When he got a good look, Maestro pulled back as if he had been burned, letting out a small noise that could have been an abandoned expletive, and spun to glare at Interdit. "This is your fault," he snapped at the red-head, not giving the man time to defend himself before he turned his gaze to Zack.

Zakum sat up, smile plastered on his face and no indication that he had been manhandled mere moments earlier.

"Whoa now cousin, I'm injured," Zack laughed, the sound coming out tense as he took a step back from the veritable flood of ire sweeping towards him in the form of Maestro. Flashmob and Kyle stepped tentatively between them in an attempt to at least slow his approach, but Maestro passed between them, roughly knocking into their shoulders without hesitation.

"You're fine," he snarled as he closed in, and Zakum looked at him with wide eyes when he realized he'd backed himself into a wall. "But you won't be soon."

He looked... very serious. Realizing that at this point Maestro was liable to beat Zack within an inch of his life, Vertigo activated her power and encased him in the slowing field, essentially halting his progress.

"Let him go, I've been waiting ages for this," Romulus snarled, also glaring darkly at Zack.

"I was beginning to think that maybe you guys weren't so bad," snapped Flashmob, "but if this is how you handle petty squabbles then we really should just throw you in jail!"

"Petty squabbles," Romulus muttered to himself, "petty squabbles," he repeated louder, this time looking at Maestro as if to assure the absurdity of that statement. Maestro didn't react, not only because he had been reduced to a fraction of his speed but because he was doggedly continuing towards Zack through the field without a hint of stopping. "You have no idea who this is," Romulus sneered instead at Vertigo, who stayed calm as ever.

"And I would love to find out, if you two would calm down and explain rather than storming in here, assaulting two people, and accusing Interdit of being at fault for the whole thing," she assured, her tone of voice leaving no room for argument.

Kyle meanwhile managed to get Zack, who had been standing still simply watching Maestro inch towards him, to move to the other side of the room so that they had more space to work with. Maestro turned to follow without hesitation, lagging severely behind due to the time bubble he found himself trapped in.

Romulus' jaw clenched visibly in irritation, but finally he turned on his heel and approached Zakum without another word, looking just as Maestro did at the back of his neck.

He didn't manage to stop the explicative, also yanking back to glare at Interdit.

"Are you saying that's not Zakum?" Vertigo asked, eyeing Stravarius out of the corner of her eye, as the blond hero had come to stand near the immobilized villain and seemed to be having a ball of a time examining him.

"It is a Zakum," Romulus admitted, turning a grimace to the clone, "but it isn't Zakum."

"What does that mean?" Kyle demanded, looking disturbed by the implications.

"How many of these clones are there?" Interdit snarled, but Romulus just sneered back at the question and then turned to Vertigo.

"Let Maestro go," he insisted, and the heroes looked to the frozen villain to determine if that was a good idea.

Maestro had come to a stop during the latest interaction, arranging his face into an impassive mask— a process that was now slowed significantly, and Stravarius watched with rapt attention. Maestro was staring pointedly at the wall, but his eye darted over to Stravarius with a slight irritated twitch. This sent Stravarius into a fit of veritable giggles, because the usually imperceptible glare was made all-too obvious by the slowing field.

"You're calm now?" Vertigo asked, and Maestro nodded back at an almost reasonable pace— which only amused Stravarius more, since that had to mean the man was nodding ridiculously quickly inside the bubble. "If I let you out you won't attack Zack?" She asked, and also couldn't stop a slight smile at the quick nod that answered her.

"What does he mean there are more than one Zakums," Flashmob demanded even before Maestro had been released, and the man took a moment to straighten his jacket and run a hand over his hair before he deigned to answer.

"That one's a spare," he shrugged impassively, throwing an uncaring glance at the clone seated bolt upright at the table.

"You have spare clones?" Kyle asked, looking a little green at the idea.

"Only one."

"So it doesn't even matter to you if you lose one," Flashmob sneered.

"I'd say it rather proves that I do care, I can't get him back quickly if I don't have a spare ready."

"So is Zakum really like this too, then?" Stravarius frowned, examining the clone. "I really thought he was more than a machine."

"He is," Maestro scoffed, a soft undercurrent of pride in his voice. "That one is incomplete. He has all of the functions needed to be Zakum, but I can't have two of him running around. It would be insufferable. Everything that makes Zakum Zakum is still stored in 567, and will remain there until he needs to be transferred. 568 is merely a husk at this point."

"And what's your husk doing wandering around here pretending to be your pet?" Interdit snarled, but the cold look he got in return chilled the whole room, and the others could tell this had been the wrong thing to say.

"A wonderful question," he replied coolly. "He was actually contained quite well in a secret room of my old lair. The lair," he took a threatening step forward, "if you recall," another step, Interdit refusing to look cowed, "that you destroyed and then staked out for weeks so that I couldn't take care of it."

"And what was I supposed to do, take down an evil lair and then immediately let the villain back in to do as he pleased?" Interdit shot back, and although that was an honest to goodness fair point, Maestro merely scoffed at it.

"That doesn't actually answer the question as to why he's here in the first place," Vertigo piped up, effortlessly calling all attention back to the problem at hand. "And where did Zakum go if this isn't him?"

"I'd ask the one covering up the switch those questions," Maestro responded after a beat of silence in which he seemed to be considering Vertigo and Stravarius who was standing next to her.

"Oh?" Vertigo prompted, raising an eyebrow. Stravarius seemed to perk up in interest.

"How long," Maestro snarled, turning slowly so as to not get shoved into Vertigo's time bubble again, "have you been working with Rabastian, Zack?"