You Were Never Meant to be a Hero (Quackbur Superhero AU)

Chapter 3: The Nemesis System

Like he promised, Wilbur did sit down and have breakfast with his family the next morning for Tommy's sake.

The news was droning on in the background, Wilbur questioning why he didn't go to sleep sooner last night. He was probably more exhausted than when he went to bed and he was wondering if he had done enough work lately to have a day off saved up. If he does, him and Tommy are due for a self care day.

His feathers were still stinging on the ends from the fire but he knew he'd probably shed those feathers soon. Damaged ones took one or two days before they fell out and were replaced with new ones. He was also due for wing preening. He'd need to make sure he did that at some point during this week or else his performance might dip. He couldn't chance that having let a thief go yesterday. He reminded himself to try and make up for it today.

Eating breakfast with his family wasn't really...enjoyable. It was typically very tense and they didn't talk much except for Tommy. Techno, like always, would finish his meal first. He'd wash his plate and then immediately head for the elevator. He always wore his hero costume to breakfast since he didn't want to slow down for a minute after getting up. He'd put his cape on while tying up his dyed pink hair and leave as soon as possible.

Part of Wilbur wanted to believe that his twin found family meals just as awkward as he did. Another part of him arguing that Techno was just a better hero and thus didn't need to spend as much time on something as trivial as eating. Hence why on the days where he did eat with them, Wilbur was typically the second one up, just a minute or so after his twin. Sometimes the meal wouldn't even be finished, and Tommy would glare at him for it.

So today, he decided that he would make sure he finished before leaving. He didn't want to be bullied by his younger brother about not eating after all. For some reason, Techno seemed to have slowed down today as well. Then again, his brother's nemesis was being a nuisance yesterday, so it made sense that Techno was tired.

Techno's nemesis, The Mask Villain: Smile, was quite the vicious villain. His power had something to do with placing his victims in waking nightmares, hallucinations that they couldn't be disturbed from until Smile let them go. His twin had his hands full with Smile's antics, the villain seemed to consider himself quite the prankster. If you counted blowing up multiple buildings and manipulating minors as 'pranks'.

As previously stated, Smile was quite the vicious villain. Probably one of the few big name villains that Wilbur actually knew. He didn't pay much attention to villain rankings since he didn't bother with fighting villains as often as his brother did. So he knew maybe a handful of big names, but never really looked into them much further. The most he would know is probably having heard their name once, and maybe their title.

For example, The Mask Villain: Smile. The title came based on the villain's signature mask. The TNT Villain: Ace, one that Wilbur had heard of but didn't know much else about. Hell, he's never even seen a picture of the guy. Phil had mentioned the up and coming villain a few times, mainly relating to a few bomb threats since the villain had some kind of fascination with blowing things up.

He also knew The Hellfire Villain: Pyro, a common ally of Smile. Didn't know what he looked like either, just heard Techno mention him and his fire power a few times since it occasionally fucked with his regeneration. There was also The Ram Villain: Mr. President. A stupid villain name, but he was Phil's nemesis so what can you do? They have plenty of jokes about him though.

There was also The Arson Villain: Anarchy. Or The Nuke Villain: Bee and his partner The Teleportation Villain: Blink.

But those were only a handful of villains, and that was about all that Wilbur really knew. That should probably tell you about how much rescue work he does in comparison to villain captures. Villains weren't his priority, rescue was.