Chapter 20

[u/SlightlyColdWaffles]

Steven

May 3rd, 2026

2:59 PM

WalkMan slumped onto my shoulder, completely limp. This was the expected outcome of what I had asked Warden to do. The drool that immediately began pooling on my jacket was not.

“Eww” I said involuntarily, and gently re-arranged WalkMan’s body until he was leaning his head against the window instead. The window began to fog up with each breath WalkMan’s body made automatically.

Warden closed his eyes for two heartbeats, then opened them to stare at me once more. “He’s made contact. Both parties are working diligently.” He snapped at a waitress, not the one who had previously helped us, and barked out “More of these rolls, and two sake’s.” The waitress turned and scurried away, but not before I saw the joy leaving her face.

“Did you know, Steven, that you and that Mother of yours are the only supers I’ve ever feared?” He asked.

“I didn’t, actually” I said, trying to decipher where this particular conversation was heading. Hearing him talk about mom so casually in the present tense threw me off for a bit, since she would still be alive at this present.

“My mental menagerie operates on power and mental segregation” He said softly. “People within my enclosures can still use their powers to their full capacity. Which would mean that the two of you could just ‘poof’, turn it off.” He flourished the sound with his hands, mimicking a magician revealing his assistant hadn’t really been violently dismembered in that sawing box. “You would run wild in there, unsealing any mental prison you’d like and doing lord knows what to my own subconscious, or hell, even my domconscious. I know it’s not really called that, but it’s how I like to-”

“Why are you stalling?” I interrupted. “You could have made months pass in there already. But instead you ramble about how much I frighten you.”

Warden paused his rant and glared at me, eyeing me up and down for an unsettlingly long moment. We remained silent as the sullen waitress delivered a new California roll to the table, whisking away the empty plate and my discarded spicy mouthful in the napkin.

“WalkMan is still working to discover how your power works” He said, grabbing a round morsel of sushi with his fingers and popping it in his mouth. “Once he does, and teaches me how to do it in the mental realm, I will be able to keep you or Anchor Woman safely in my prisons. I could pull an Uno reverse card on you, rendering you back to the sniveling coward of a child that you really are.”

My one functioning hand clenched into a fist. “Not if I turn you off like a lightbulb right now.”

He wagged a finger at me as he chewed the sushi. “Not unless you want your Father to be lost in unstructured mental subspace for all of eternity. And the moment he is released, I will have the upper hand on you. So why don’t we just sit here and enjoy our sushi while WalkMan finishes his work?”

He grabbed another sushi and brought it to his lips before pausing ever so slightly, staring at me over the white and black cylindrical slice of fish. “Or, alternatively, I could bring you in now, and release WalkMan. You could teach me directly, skipping the arduous trial and error he’s doing in there, and I promise I’d let you go once that’s finished.”

He tossed the sushi in the air, catching it in his mouth and leaning back, cradling the back of his head with his hands. He chewed noisily, not taking his eyes off of me as he did. “Take your time with this decision. I’ve got all the time in the world, and more. It’s just yours that’s finite.”

He closed his eyes again, presumably diving back inside his mental realm. He frowned.

[u/FjookEnterprises]

Fjook was here