A Guide To xB Crafted's Heroics And Shenanigans

xB and Joe Evaluate Heroes and Cleo Flips a Table

A note before the story begins: this IS a sequel/part of a series. I'm not saying you need to read to first book (Grian Gotts' Guide To Villainy) but it's highly, highly recommended, as I probably won't be going into detail about anything I already did in the first book

Anyway, woo, xB's POV!

Cleo's crazy idea that completely changed xB's life (although the aforementioned idea wouldn't be suggested until days later) began on a summer day like any other.

xB and his friends (said friends consisting of Cleo, Joe and Wels) were hanging out at Wels' house (Wels always invited his friends over when his husband was out at work- if xB was being honest, he might have guessed that Wels was a little embarrassed about his friends, which was completely plausible, as would be proven later) (weirdly enough, Wels' living room was also on the first floor rather than the ground floor- it wasn't incredibly relevant, but xB still found it odd).

xB and Joe were stood by one of the windows, talking to each other quietly about random things, while Cleo and Wels were sat on separate couches facing each other, having a Pokemon battle via the Pokemon card game that was laid out on the table between the couches.

xB was certain that Wels would win as he was a card game nerd- this was said with love, of course- but he still glanced back at the game every now and then out of curiosity.

He glanced away from the game as Joe broke of from what they were saying, staring out of the window with a disappointed expression.

"Uh... you okay?" The elder guardian hybrid asked curiously, following his friend's gaze. He stared in surprise as he saw what Joe was looking at, his mouth falling into a soft 'O' shape.

Joe yawned, calmly pointing out of the window to the shop across the road that had just been set ablaze by an explosion. "Shop blew up."

Cleo glanced sideways, breaking off from her rant about something. "Shop blew up?"

"Shop blew up." The long-haired brunette repeated with a bored expression.

"Okay." Cleo then immediately resumed their rant about something to do with a Lucario card.

xB stared at his friend incredulously. "How are you not freaking out right now?!" He demanded.

Wels glanced sideways. "Oh, that place. Gets robbed all the time. Jev complains about it a bunch." Ohhh. Cleo and Joe live on this street as well, so that explains why they weren't bothered. Still-

"Well, if it happens that often, I'm surprised the heroes haven't like- set up a watch near that store." xB commented.

"It's because the heroes suck at their jobs." Cleo said matter-of-factly as she looked through her deck of cards for something in what the dark haired man could only presume was in a manner meant to cheat at the game while Wels was distracted.

"Well- they-" xB paused. No, have to- say they're good. That's the correct thing to do, right? "They aren't that bad at their jobs! They're... okay sometimes!" He protested lamely.

"Apart from that time they let Dynamite and Momentary slip away with ease after the attempted robbery, or the time where Ignis and Volare burglarised- plundered, if you will- a place with absolutely no retribution, or the time that-" The brunette with green streaks in their hair was cut off by xB's reluctant protests. Man, they speak like an English teacher sometimes, it's crazy-

"Okayyy, okayyy, you've made your point." The blue eyed man said with a sigh, glancing back out of the window. "I will admit that, at times-" All the time. "-heroes are- less than fantastic at their job." xB said with a shrug, not looking back at Joe.

He continued to watch out of the window as Hotguy and Canis ran over. Hotguy attempted to stop the villains (Drain, Dynamite and Warden) from leaving via what looked like extravagant threats while Canis appeared to be trying to figure out if there were any people still in the building.

xB only looked away when he heard an angry screech from Cleo and turned around just in time to see her flip the table that the card game was being played on with a furious scowl.

Based on that reaction and Wels' smug expression, xB could only guess that his prediction had been correct and Cleo had lost the game.

Wels then got up from the couch and walked over to join Joe and xB at the window while Cleo begrudgingly began to clean up the cards that had been scattered across the floor during the enraged table-flipping incident. "So, what's going on then?"

xB shrugged, frowning as two new heroes approached. His blonde friend brightened significantly as Pituita joined the group of heroes, but the elder guardian hybrid barely noticed.

He was too busy making a significant effort to look anywhere but at Seize, but he still couldn't stop himself from scowling as his gaze landed briefly on the white-haired hero.

xB had been told (and reminded himself) countless times that what happened wasn't Seize's fault- it was Ignis', if anyone's- and what happened was over a year ago now, but deep down he still blamed the hero just a tiny bit.

He was dragged out of this train of thought by Cleo approaching (he thought it was probably better not to tell her that a card was stuck in her hair somehow) and rolling her eyes as she watched the heroes try to stop the villains from leaving.

xB shot them a curious (if slightly wary) look as they muttered under their breath, "Man, we'd do a much better job than those stupid heroes."

Wels shot Cleo an uncertain look, as if her statement had offended him personally, before shrugging. "I mean, I don't know- are we really capable of- fighting... villains?"

"Hell yeah! They can't hurt me, I heal really quick." The zombie hybrid bragged. "And you have armoured skin!"

"What about Joe and xB?" Cleo glanced over their other two friends.

"Uh- armour. It's just an ideaaa, don't worry xB-" She added hastily as xB pulled a face. "I won't make you fight villains and do justice stuffff- I'm just saying we would do a better job than the current heroes!"

Little did xB know, Cleo was absolutely lying about it just being an idea.

WOOOOOOOO SEQUELLLLL

also Cleo cheated at the Pokemon card game and still lost LLL

Also no I will not be elaborating on why xB dislikes Etho. I will say that it's the same reason Xisuma dislikes Etho, but I'm probably gonna reveal why that is if I ever get round to making a book from X's POV

Anyway SEQUEL AAAAAA IM SO EXCITED TO START WRITING THIS

Also I made a character index of my AU characters and so far it's all HCG characters (Impulse, Doc and xB) so if you wanna learn fun facts about them then go check that out! :> /nf

Also also, the pronouns used for Joe will switch because they use any/all pronouns in this AU, and xB isn't really sure how to use pronouns in regards to that, or if Joe has a preference pronouns-wise, so he changes the pronouns he uses for Joe every time he interacts with them

Comments and votes are appreciated <3 :]