Chapter 28: Chapter 20.1: In Case the Flaming Skeletal Arm is Too Subtle: This Guy's the Big Bad

“Why am I getting dragged into this?” Harley asked.

“Freddy said he was stuck talking to someone scary and wanted some company,” Vell said. “I figure he got assigned to work with a girl on an assignment or something.”

“So again, why am I getting dragged into this?”

“Because I don’t want to third wheel Freddy and some random chick,” Vell said. “It’d be awkward.”

Harley sighed and accepted her lot in life. She could hardly object, as she felt she owed Vell a favor. Today’s apocalypse had been especially early in the morning, and Vell had volunteered to be cut in half by an out of control plasma projector to give the other loopers a better chance to solve it. He tended to sacrifice himself for the good of the group on a frequent basis, actually, so Harley really felt like she owed him several favors.

“I’m agreeing, Vell, but I will say, maybe we should just let the guy have his talk with a girl,” Harley said. “Freddy needs to build up his confidence.”

“And we’re going to go help him,” Vell assured her. He double checked his phone to make sure they were in the right place and then pointed out a nearby laboratory. “That’s his lab. Let’s go see what kind of lady he’s having problems with.”

Vell opened the door and saw Freddy and his trademark fireball of red hair stopped over a workbench, nervously demonstrating a project he’d been working on. Standing opposite him at the table was someone who was decidedly not the female student Vell had been expecting. The adult man stood with one hand splayed on the table and the other tucked thoughtfully behind his back. As the door opened, his piercing gaze turned away from the blueprints, to look up at Vell and Harley with a predatory smile. A smile Vell unfortunately recognized.

“Ah, Mr. Frizzle, your friends are here,” he said. He had a voice with all the sophistication and menace of poisoned wine.

“Oh, good,” Freddy whimpered. “And Harley’s here too, oh that’s great, that’s good. Guys, this is, uh-”

“I know who he is,” Vell said bitterly.

“Regardless, making introductions is the polite thing to do,” the sinister figure said. He stood up straight and took the hand out from behind his back. The motion revealed not an arm of flesh and blood, but of blackened bone, the cracked and blistered skeletal frame magically animated by a cold-burning green fire. He stepped up to Vell and extended the skeletal hand in his direction.

“Alistair Kraid,” he said. “But you can just call me Kraid.”

The CEO of the world’s largest magitech company, and the world’s richest man, was everything one might expect; handsome, charismatic, intelligent, and absolutely, unforgivably, irredeemably evil. Unlike his fellow rich bastards such as Noel Burrows or Jeff Bezos, Kraid made no illusions about who he was or what he did. He experimented with blood magic, demonic pacts, experimentation on live human subjects -every form of magic and science that was too cruel and inhumane for others to even consider. And the world let him get away with it all, because the people in power benefited from his inhuman willingness to do what they wouldn’t.

“Vell Harlan,” Vell spat back. He deliberately ignored the bony hand offered to him. “But you already knew that.”

“Of course I did, but we have manners, Mr. Harlan,” Kraid said. He took the hint and tucked his skeletal hand into the pocket of his coat before turning his attention elsewhere. “And, you, miss?”

“Nice to meet you, Kraid, I’m leaving,” Harley said. She turned on her heels and headed for the door. It slammed in her face, and the door’s handle became locked in place with green fire.

“Manners, Ms. Harley,” Kraid scolded. “I just wanted-”

“I don’t really give a shit what you and your spooky scary skeleton arm want, man!” Harley snapped, as she turned back to Kraid. “You’re a terrible person, I don’t like you, I’m never going to like you, and you can do this smugly sinister supervillain routine until the cows come home, the only thing you’re going to get out of this interaction is a good view of my ass when I walk out the door.”

Kraid took his hands out of his pockets and folded them in front of him.

“I appreciate the honesty,” Kraid said. The green flame on the door vanished. “You can go. Frizzle, you too. Harlan. You and I need to talk.”

The door opened, but Harley looked to Vell before she left. Vell gave her a nod towards the door, and she nodded back before leaving. Freddy waited for no such signal. Vell rolled his eyes as Freddy dashed out the door. They were going to have a long talk about this later, but for now, Vell kept his focus on the supervillain in front of him.

“What do you want, Kraid?”

“Well for starters, I wanted to play catch up,” Kraid said. “How’ve you been, Harlan? How’s the scar treating you?’

Vell stayed dead silent. After Vell’s resurrection, his family had turned down a lucrative offer from Kraid tech to research his rune and his injuries. They had instead opted to work with a local medical clinic, to which Kraid responded by committing a secret hostile takeover of the clinic, and then carrying out his own experiments on a clueless young Vell anyway. His family had caught on and gotten Vell out of the clinic eventually, and nothing meaningful had been discovered (as far as Vell knew), but a grudge still lingered on both sides.

“Going to give me the silent treatment, huh? Mature.”

“Trust me, Kraid, when I make a breakthrough, you’ll be the last to know,” Vell said.

“Did that sound cool in your head?” Kraid asked. “You should’ve stayed quiet.”

Kraid walked back to the table, and pressed one bony fingertip on the metal surface. He started walking around, creating a dull, chalky scrape as his skeletal finger dragged against the metal.

“I could make you richer than God and even more beloved, Harlan,” Kraid said. “Alistair Kraid and Vell Harlan, the men who beat death. Isn’t that worth a few pokes and prods?”

“Not from you,” Vell said.

“If you’re worried about me price-gouging eternal life, believe me, that’s not an issue,” Kraid said. He was as selfish as they came, but he was also a savvy businessman. “I’d give it away for free. And invest heavily in the entertainment sector, of course. People living endless lives are going to need a lot of ways to pass the time. I’d make up my losses, naturally, but rich and poor alike would benefit.”

“I- I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth,” Vell said. He tried his hardest not to do his usual hesitant routine, interspersed with ‘uh’s’, but Vell still managed to trip up. Kraid caught on to every verbal tic like a killer looking for a vulnerable place to put a knife.

“Probably a sensible policy, Harlan, but of my many sociopathic tendencies, greed beats out compulsive lying,” Kraid said. “And you’re a payday waiting to happen.”

“Yeah, well, keep waiting,” Vell said.

“Better, but your one-liners still need work,” Kraid said. “I could help you with that. I’ve been told I can be quite pithy.”

Vell waited for a moment. Kraid showed no signs that he was joking.

“No,” Vell said. “The only thing I want you to do is leave.”

“Alright. I’ll leave you alone, for now. But I’m not leaving yet. I have business here,” Kraid said. “it may surprise you, but I actually didn’t come all this way just to harass you and your friends.”

“That actually does surprise me,” Vell said.

“Even better! We’ll get some banter out of you yet, Harlan,” Kraid taunted. “See you around.”

Kraid moved to give Vell a pat on the shoulder, and Vell stepped back and away from him. He took the hint and walked out of the room. Harley was waiting just outside the door, and glared at him as he passed by. His piercing black eyes searched her, looking for something he knew to be there, but couldn’t see.

“I’ll give you three billion dollars for it,” Kraid said to Harley.

“Keep the three billion and start working on the crowbar you’ll need to pry him from my cold, dead hands,” Harley spat back. With a roll of his eyes, Kraid kept walking. He’d not expected any less. As soon as the predatory uber-capitalist strolled out of sight, Harley ducked back into the room. Vell was sitting at the table, his fists tightly clenched, sweating profusely.

“You look like you need a drink,” Harley said. Vell wordlessly gave a thumps up and walked out of the lab with Harley.

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“Oh that is not a good burn,” Harley mumbled under her breath. She had dared to try a sip of Vell’s scotch instead of the beer provided by Lee, and she was paying the price. “Is it like that every time?”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Vell insisted. “It’s better when you’re like ten drinks in and so drunk the burning is the only thing you can feel.”

“Well, I will try again in seven drinks, then,” Harley said. She extended her empty bottle towards Lee. “Please top me off, my good bitch.”

Lee obliged, and fetched herself a fresh bottle as well. They tapped their bottles together ceremoniously before taking the first sip.

“Fucking Kraid,” Vell stammered. “I wish he’d showed up before the loop. Could’ve used it to outsmart him.”

“Vell, I respect you a great deal,” Lee said. Inebriation was already slipping into her voice after just a few beers. “You’re maybe like one of the five smartest people I know. You can’t outsmart Kraid. He plays dirtier than the dirtiest.”

Lee gave a grunt of disgust as she finished her sentence. While she had a personal vendetta against her father, even Lee acknowledged that he didn’t match Kraid’s evil, or his intelligence. Noel Burrows had inherited his success, while Kraid had clawed his way to riches through his own vile cunning. The two could not be compared by any metric other than the harm they’d done to innocent people, and even in that, Kraid was the leader by far.

“We could pull something off,” Vell insisted. “I managed to take the design for the glasses from him.”

Vell held up his rune-engraved glasses, which he had copied from Kraid Tech designs. Very few people could successfully pirate Kraid tech intellectual property, but Vell had gotten away with it. He wouldn’t normally be eager to cross Kraid again, as he knew how dangerous the man could be, but he had the advantage of the time loops on his side.

“With the loops, I stand an even better chance of outsmarting him again.”

“Hate to rain on your parade, Vell, but that’s not really outsmarting him,” Harley said. “He doesn’t really have any way to check on that kind of stuff.”

“Well, I still know something he doesn’t know,” Vell insisted.

“I know what color underwear I’m wearing and you don’t,” Harley said. “I know something you don’t know, that doesn’t make me smarter than you.”

“You’re wearing red underwear,” Vell said flatly. Harley looked up at him and pointed a bottle his way in an accusatory fashion.

“You been perving on me, Harlan?”

“Everything you wear is red,” Vell said. Harley put her bottle back down and chuckled.

“Hah, yeah, I forgot about that,” Harley said. She took another sip of her beer. “But seriously, don’t fuck with Kraid -more than you already are, with the glasses, at least. He’s bad news.

“What else are we going to do, avoid him?”

“I vote avoid,” Harley said.

“Avoid,” Lee said. Leanne wasn’t present, so Vell found himself outvoted.

“Sounds like we have a plan, I guess,” Vell said. He hadn’t been that motivated in the first place, so he was easy to talk down. Even the time loops were only a very small advantage, when it came to challenging Kraid.

“It’s a good plan,” Harley said. “We don’t even need to exploit mystery time loops to do it. We just use our eyeballs.”

To demonstrate she poked her fingers into her temples, near her eyes.

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“When we see Kraid, we leave,” Harley said. “Easy-peasy.”

“I have an even easier idea in mind,” Lee said. She pushed her emptied beer bottle forward. “We stay here and get drunk all day.”

“I like your style, Lee,” Harley said. She grabbed another pair of bottles for herself and Lee while Vell put a cap on his own.

“I’d join in, but I had plans with Joan later,” he said.

“Cancel them! You can both get drunk with us,” Lee suggested.

“No, no, Vell should stick to his date,” Harley said.

“It couldn’t hurt to ask if she’s interested,” Vell said. He texted Joan to ask about a change of plans while Harley and Lee began to discuss drinking games. A lot of their potential games involved references to past apocalypses, which they had to rule out if Joan was to join them -an ‘if’ that became more uncertain as time went on.

“Joan’s usually better about answering her texts,” Vell said aloud. He’d been sitting around waiting for fifteen minutes now. “The last time she went radio silent like this was during that whole lawsuit thing.”

“You better race into action, then,” Lee suggested. “Be her knight in shining armor, Vell”

“I should probably go check it out,” Vell said. “God knows it’s never something simple around here.”

Vell got up and tucked the bottle of scotch into his bookbag.

“Try not to get too drunk without us,” Vell said.

“I make no promises,” Lee replied, as she grabbed another bottle of beer. Vell left them to their alcohol and headed back for the freshman dorms.

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Vell still had not received an answer to his text as he made the trek across campus. He made a call and also received no answer, which began to worry him. Vell let himself into Joan’s dorm and found it silent and empty at first glance.

“Joan?”

“Shit!”

The shouted curse was followed by the sound of something slamming shut and someone scrambling to move things around in a hurry.

“Fuck, sorry!” Joan cried out from another room. “Sorry, sorry, I totally spaced out, sorry Vell.”

The door to one of the empty side rooms slammed open and shut in an instant as Joan rushed through it. She was red in the face from embarrassment.

“Hi, Vell, sorry, tonight is date night but something came up and I totally spaced out and forgot, that’s my bad,” Joan stammered. She made sure to keep herself firmly between Vell and the door behind her. Anyone else might have thought her behavior suspicious but Vell, being Vell, only cared about getting their date back on track -or further off track, depending on Joan’s preference.

“Hey it’s fine, it’s still pretty early,” Vell said. “We’ve got plenty of time. I know we talked about just watching movies and-”

“And then calling it a night, yeah, don’t need to say it,” Joan said. She turned a little redder and tried her hardest not to glance at the door behind her.

“Uh, sure,” Vell said. He’d never known Joan to be bashful about sex, but there was a first time for everything. “Anyway, Harley and Lee were going to get super drunk and they wanted to know if we want to join in. I’m good with either, so it’s up to you.”

“Hm. Uh, you know, Vell, I don’t really want to skip out on either, but that thing that came up, I’m kind of still in the middle of it,” Joan said. “Can I get a rain check? I hate having to cancel but this is super important and the opportunity doesn’t come up often.”

“Okay, sure, I guess,” Vell said. “What’s going on? Anything I can help with?”

“Uh…”

“I think he could be quite helpful,” a voice from behind the door said. Vell’s heart sank out of his chest. He’d heard that voice all too recently.

In spite of Joan’s attempts to keep it closed, Alistair Kraid pried open the door and stepped through. He greeted Vell -again- with a toothy smile. Joan cringed and tried not to look at either of them.

“Is this that boyfriend you’ve been talking about, Ms. Marsh?”

“Yeah, this is him,” Joan said weakly. Kraid turned to Vell with a smile and an extended hand.

“Nice to finally meet you. I’m Alistair Kraid,” He said. His tone did not betray the layers of deception currently at work. It shocked Vell that Kraid could resist the urge to let his sadistic enjoyment of this moment seep into his voice.

“Vell Harlan,” he responded in kind. He had to call Kraid’s bluff, at least for now.

“Sorry if I got in the way of your date night,” Kraid said, sounding almost genuinely apologetic. “Joan and I have been working on a personal project, and time got away from us.”

“You’ve been working with Kraid?” Vell asked. Joan withered under his glare. She was one of the most militantly anti-corporate people Vell had ever met -he’d sat through half a dozen lectures about how horrible Kraid Tech was. It took a lot to make Vell genuinely mad, but this -the secrecy, the hypocrisy, and especially the involvement of Kraid specifically, managed to make it happen.

“Do you mind if we talk about this privately?” Joan asked.

“Oh, and I was about to start making popcorn,” Kraid said. “Fine then. Have your little lover’s quarrel in private. I’ll be around if you need me, Joan. Harlan.”

He nodded to the duo once before excusing himself. Before starting the conversation in earnest, Vell poked his head out the door to make sure Kraid wasn’t just outside, eavesdropping. The coast was clear, so Vell slammed the door and turned back to Joan.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” he demanded.

“This is uncharacteristically angry for you,” Joan noted.

“This is uncharacteristically goddamn stupid of you,” Vell fired right back. “The man has a portrait of Mengele on his desk.”

“Yeah, I know, he showed it to me once,” Joan said. Her stomach turned at the memory, and then turned again when she realized what she’d just admitted to Vell.

“You’ve been in his office?”

“Once,” Joan said defensively.

“What the fuck are you doing, Joan?”

“Something important, okay? My whole life I’ve been working on something really, really huge, and Kraid is a useful resource!”

“Useful? Useful? You think you’re using him?” Vell said, stunned. “He’s using you, Joan! Whatever you think you’re getting out of this exchange, he’s getting more.”

“That’s what you think, and what he thinks, because you’re both underestimating how smart I am,” Joan said. “I can handle him, Vell.”

“No you can’t, and it’s not about how smart you are, it’s about how human you are,” Vell said. “You have a sense of right and wrong, Joan, you’re a good person. Kraid isn’t. The only safe way to deal with people like him is to not deal with them.”

Joan crossed her arms and squinted at Vell. Only Vell could find a way to compliment someone while yelling at them.

“I’ll just say again, you’re underestimating me and overestimating him,” Joan said. Her posture exuded a misplaced confidence that Vell could only sigh at. “He’s an evil bastard, but I can work around him.”

“You can’t,” Vell said, rubbing his forehead. He had only even contemplated messing with Kraid thanks to the advantage the time loop provided. Without such a secret weapon, he knew it would be all but impossible. “You really can’t.”

“Agree to disagree,” Joan said. Vell shook his head. Clearly Joan didn’t plan on budging.

“What are you even working on with this guy?” Vell asked. He couldn’t imagine any project so important Joan would undermine her own ideals by working with Kraid. Joan bit her lip and starting swaying from side to side indecisively.

“It’s pretty complicated,” Joan said. “And, well, a lot of people would think it’s a little crazy.”

“Joan, what was I doing yesterday?”

“You were helping Harley kill a chocolate golem, what does that have to- Oh, I see your point,” Joan said. Obviously Vell could handle crazy. Joan stuck a finger in her mouth and bit down on her knuckle. She didn’t like to tell people about her personal project. It usually scared people off.

“Okay I’ll show you,” Joan spat, forcing herself to say it before she could talk herself out of it. “But you need to promise me you’re not going to tell anyone. And that you’re not going to think I’m crazy.”

“Sure, uh, I can promise that,” Vell said. Neither of them were convinced, but Joan opened the door anyway, hesitantly beckoning Vell inside. Since Joan had the dorm to herself, Vell had assumed the spare bedrooms were left empty, but Joan had apparently converted this one into a personal office. A very cluttered, insane-looking office.

A large corkboard had been coated in photographs, printed out articles, and newspaper clippings. The characteristic red string connecting the dots was not present, making it fall only slightly short of the most cartoonish conspiracy theory jokes Vell had ever seen. Joan once again put herself between Vell and the board, subconsciously trying to hide it even as she consciously forced herself to show it off.

“So there’s this thing I’ve been researching for a while now,” Joan said. “You’re American, you’ve probably heard of the TrakWell Maglev crash, right?”

Vell took a deep breath.

“Yes,” he said. His voice was as hollow and monotone as he could force it to be. He hadn’t just heard of that train crash, he’d been in it. He’d died in it, to be exact.

“Right, okay, so this is where it gets kind of conspiracy theory-ish, but I promise I’m acting on evidence and the scientific method, right?” Joan said. She stepped aside and gestured to the corkboard behind her. “Someone died in that accident. And then, they came back to life.”

Vell bit his tongue so hard he nearly took a chunk out of it. He couldn’t hide the look of utter shock and horror on his face, but thankfully Joan misinterpreted it due to the circumstances.

“No no no, I’m serious, look,” Joan said. “Look, like three days after the accident there’s this complete media blackout in researching fatalities and missing persons. Now obviously big corporate cover-ups are nothing new, but in cases like this it’d always be the technical error or driver fault getting covered up, to prevent lawsuits, but instead they’re focusing on preventing investigation of civilian casualties.”

Joan gestured to a portion of her conspiracy theory with several articles about the shutdown of investigations into the fatalities. Vell knew she was telling the truth, because his family was the reason for that shutdown. They’d wanted to prevent his identity from getting leaked and making Vell a target for obsessive media and scientific scrutiny.

“And now, that’d just the ordinary kind of suspicious, but there were some rumors coming out from first responders about a corpse that went missing from the final tally,” Joan continued. “And a morgue technician who insisted that a body went missing from storage under mysterious circumstances. Everyone thought he was some crazy conspiracy theorist but I’ve been connecting dots, and things don’t add up.”

Joan briefly got caught up in her own theorizing and turned her back on Vell, to examine her conspiracy board. After a second lost in her own head, Joan remembered she had company and turned back to Vell, who still looked like he’d been stabbed in the gut.

“I hope I don’t sound too crazy,” Joan said, with a weak smile. “You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?’

“No,” Vell said. “I just- uh, it’s interesting. Odd. Kind of a wild theory, you know?”

“I have a bit more evidence, but it’s a train accident, so you know, some of it is kind of grizzly,” Joan said. “I’m not crazy enough to keep a picture of a kid cut in half out in the open.”

Vell’s heart stopped beating for a few seconds when she said that. He didn’t want to think it was possible that Joan had a picture of him post-accident.

“Right, god, I don’t know why I even said that,” Joan said. “Totally sane thing to say you have, Joan Marsh, great start.”

Vell put a hand on his chest in a futile attempt at stopping his heart from beating so hard it punched a hole through his sternum. He’d already used up his one death for the day, and dying from an overdose of relationship drama was not the way he wanted to go. Somewhere below his horror at the sharp turns his life had taken in the past five minutes, Vell’s curiosity remained.

“So what does Kraid have to do with any of this?” Vell demanded. This nightmare scenario already horrified Vell enough without the addition of a man who proudly displayed a Time Magazine cover naming him the most evil human being of the modern era.

“Obviously the dude just wants to steal my research and make a quick buck off of it,” Joan said. “But we swap information occasionally. I tell him something I’ve learned, he tells me something he’s learned, we both move a little further forward. But at the end of the day he’s getting pulled twenty different ways running that company of his, and I’m totally focused on this. I’ll beat him, Vell, don’t worry.”

Vell couldn’t find the words. Joan was convinced she was winning a race she’d lost before it even started. Kraid already knew exactly what he was looking for and where to find it, and he’d manipulated Joan into giving him a roundabout access to information on it. The problem was explaining that to her -without revealing that Vell was the person she’d been looking for all this time.

Had he been asked just a few minutes ago, Vell would’ve said he was close to telling Joan the truth about his resurrection. Now he’d done a complete one-eighty. Not only had his trust in Joan taken a substantial blow, the risk now existed that anything he told Joan might find its way to Kraid. Joan would never tell Kraid anything willingly, that much Vell believed, but Kraid didn’t let a little thing like “free will” get in the way of his goals. He would take what he wanted one way or another.

“You’re being quiet, Vell,” Joan noted. “Please say something.”

“This is, uh, a lot to take in,” Vell said.

“I know, I know,” Joan said. Her intense energy had given way to something resembling fear. “And I know explaining it all at once makes me seem a little crazy, I know, but I promise I can make it make sense if you can just be patient with me.”

The fearful warble to Joan’s voice was out of character for her. She’d spoken in the past about having very few friends or successful relationships in the past. Vell had to wonder if this was why. That her strange obsession drove people away -and that she now feared Vell would be driven off in turn.

“Joan, I get it, and I definitely don’t think you’re crazy or anything, but I- I kind of need some time to process this,” Vell said, pressing a hand to his temples. “I need to go clear my head. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Don’t go,” Joan pleaded. “I told you, I can explain.”

“If you can explain now, you can explain even better later,” Vell said. “And I’ll have some time to think about it, and we can have a nice, rational talk about this like adults.”

“Okay, so we don’t have to talk about it, but why don’t you just stay here, and relax,” Joan suggested.

“This is the kind of thing that works better with a little space involved,” Vell said. He had a lot to process right now and not a lot of brain to process it with. To emphasize his point, he took a step backwards towards the door. Joan matched him step for step, and even went further by grabbing on to his arm.

“I’m scared if you leave you’re not going to come back,” Joan admitted. Vell considered making a quip about how he lived down the hall and therefore could not walk out on her if he tried, but Joan’s voice cracked halfway through.

“I promise I’ll come back,” Vell insisted. “You just have to trust me.”

Joan stared down at the ground. Her grip on his arm didn’t loosen. Vell eventually pulled away, and Joan very reluctantly released her hold on Vell. He decided not to say anything else and left the dorm room. He didn’t know where he was going yet, but he knew he needed some space to breath and process the situation. Vell started walking in the direction of Lee’s dorm, for starters. She and Harley were likely drunk off their asses by now, but they were some of the few people who’d understand his situation.

On his path to their dorm, Vell had to walk around a sharp turn. He slowed his pace and paused briefly before rounding the corner. He gave a deep sigh and took a few steps forward to see Kraid leaning against the wall just around the corner, wearing a smug smile so wide it almost split his face in two.

“I take it from your look of abject misery that she told you all about her little project,” Kraid said. “Gods above, I would pay anything to have seen your face in that moment.”

“Fuck off, Kraid,” Vell grunted. Kraid did the opposite of fuck off, and walked alongside Vell as he trudged towards Lee and Harley.

“Listen, I know what you’re thinking, and honestly, I had nothing to do with this. I’d been grooming Joan for a while as another way to get info on you, but I never actually expected her to meet you, much less fall in love with you,” Kraid said. “But still, when I found out you’d shacked up with a girl who’d spent half her life psychotically obsessed with chasing you down, god, I laughed for like three hours straight. Didn’t get a thing done that day. Had to cancel a major press conference, cost myself thirty million dollars in stock value because I was laughing so hard.”

Kraid tucked his arms behind his back and leaned in close to Vell’s ear.

“And it was fucking worth it,” he hissed.

“Yeah, great, fun,” Vell said. “There’s plenty more human suffering in the world for you to jerk off to, can you get off my case for the day?”

“Probably not,” Kraid admitted. “There are some delicious morsels of misery to laugh at on campus, but you’re hanging out with like five of the top ten. You and Lee alone could keep me entertained for a solid week.”

“I’m sure,” Vell said. “Why don’t you go find the other five of those top ten and mix it up for a while, at least.”

“Oh, of course,” Kraid said. “But only so I can drop in on you later by surprise.”

Kraid slithered away to find some other target for his misanthropy, giving Vell some much-needed room to breath. He continued on his path towards Lee’s dorm. He needed some time to think about this situation calmly and rationally.

Or he could drink scotch and swear a lot. Vell kept his options open.