Are You With Me or Against Me

(A/N: After careful deliberation, I have decided to change the part in which the MC talked about his objectives to his 'Team'. I thought it was a good idea at the time, but it was, at the end of the day, stupid. That decision went against the MC's personality of a cunning opportunist)

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At the top of a rectangular skyscraper, a monstrous figure could be observed staring at the horizon for a long ass time. With its pale white face and its' blood-red eyes, the sight of this creature would disturb any normie who gazed upon it. A more courageous person would think the creature looked somewhat retarded, looking at the horizon for an hour straight. To their disappointment, the being was not retarded, thou he was doing the most retarded of things; it was sampling the 'hit songs' for that year.

In its opinion, the supposed 'best songs' were so bad that even something as horrendous as him felt like puking. The lyrics didn't rhyme, and the song's beat was barely catchy enough for human consumption. If this was MHA 'peak' entertainment, he was sorely disappointed. Critiquing the blasphemous songs for the past hour has been a preferred pastime of his. After all, who gave the songs right to be so damn bad! Just like that, an idea rushed to the creature's mind. An idea that would solve several of its problems at once if done correctly.

Suddenly the door that led to the skyscraper roof swiftly opened, revealing an exhausted female. She was breathing forcefully and sweating profusely; she even had snot on her nose, which was quite gross in its opinion. She even took some seconds to catch her breath but unknowing to her, her snot reached the floor.

"Quit that face you are making Cthulu!!" said Sheffield enraged for many reasons. First, he arranged to have a 'secretive' meeting with her at the top of a fucking skyscraper! Second, she had to be 'incognito' so she went for the damn stairs all the way up. Third! He had the balls to give her his 'disgusted' look after everything she went through; the GALL!

"Damn you Cthulu! Why couldn't we meet in an alleyway or something? I have been climbing stairs for a whole damn hour!"

" What would be the fun in that" Cthulu replied, amused at Sheffield's current 'look'. After all, Sheffield always wormed her way out of physical training for that reason. She didn't like people seeing her being a sweaty-snotty mess. While he would admit it was quite disgusting to look at, he certainly could have his fun from time to time.

"Is seeing me suffer 'fun' to you!" she stated almost immediately, moments later, Sheffield took a deep breath reigning in her rage, aware that Cthulu often enjoyed getting a rise out of her.

"Ok...Fine... You had your fun or whatever...Now, tell me, why did you lie to them... Why did you lie to our comrades?" she inquired, offended and hurt deeply at the distrust Cthulu displayed towards their 'team'. She was fully aware that if he could have gotten away lying to her, he would have.

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Sheffield was aware of how Cthulu longed to be 'free'; to be able to do whatever he wanted. That was the thing that puzzled her; he could have escaped in the past and didn't. He could have left; abandoned them to their luck but didn't. What was keeping him there, what was keeping him with THEM. Cthulu spared no opportunity to bash the Association and all that they represented. Cthulu would often rant on how the world was 'fucked up' , and how it wasted its potential for conformity. The sudden stop of Cthulu's charades raised some alarms that something was off.

To an extent, she agreed with some of his rants. After all, the Association sent THEM to kill threats to maintain the supposed 'peace', to face the threats to 'conformity' that heroes didn't want to go against. In her opinion, Heroes were a bunch of attention whores; they liked to feel important and recognized for the minor of things, but when push came to shove, a lot of them were not up to the task. Truly modern narcism at its finest.

In general, heroes didn't want to dirty their hands in the morally questionable areas of their work. She should know, she was the telepath of the group.

She often would invade heroes' minds fishing for information. The skeletons in the closet she uncovered were not small. Those heroes 'Doors' were brittle and weak, worn out after a constant ideological struggle. Most of them clung to naive ideals and notions; others were cynical. Cynical heroes were harder to invade; a smaller percentage were ironclad on their 'beliefs'.

Like Cthulu's, those doors were near impenetrable for her. They had experienced enough to have cemented their own view of the world. Their beliefs and ideas stood the erosion of time and the might of the world.

The type of door his teammate had, tipped her off on what kind of person he was. Coupled with his memories she saw, she took note of Cthulu's work ethic, mettle, and drive that could not be squandered by just anyone. While she knew the devious nature of her teammate, she was aware of his positive qualities as well. So him being so...distant was weird.

In light of that, she took matters into her own hands and began investigating Cthulu's movements and actions. From his secret nightly training to his 'secret' Association backdoor mission she knew it all. She realized her friend was planning something, something risky. So she confronted him, she needed to know what was going on, to know what had her partner on 'edge'.

It was infuriating how he avoided her questions. So in retaliation, she annoyed him day and night for the answers. After a month, he finally 'caved' in and told her his plan for 'them'. He revealed to her how the Association had 'ended' the Team before them. He even told her the reasoning behind that decision and how the Association is planning the same for them soon enough. He told her how their 'free will' was an oddity that further increased their risk of a 'suicide mission'.

He had a plan, but for it to work, he needed to have his teammates 'die' in a believable way, and at least he needed to survive in order to be 'killed' off by some Association boot licker. He needed them all to be on board so he had been planning a lot. After some painstaking infiltration, he was able to plant a 'backdoor' on the Association systems. Said 'backdoor' would be useful in determining which mission would be the best fit for his plan.

He told her he needed to create an image of a ruthless psychopath to have his plan work without a hitch. Due to that need, he had been excessively 'gory' in his last few missions. Not only that, he needed to lay some of his cards out in the open for his demise to be believable, meaning that the mission they picked had to be 'Specially' difficult for all of them but even more for him.

If that weren't enough, Cthulu also confided he might actually 'die' in the last stage of the "Liberation Plan". He had to test something 'crucial' or something; I proceeded to chew him out for being so 'stupid'.

He said something about, "Not wanting to live shackled by his limitations anymore". What the fuck is that supposed to mean!

More infuriating he made her swear to not tell the team members if he actually survived. Why the fuck not! He refused to answer, only responding with a 'that would only be a problem 'if' I survive'. She couldn't bear the thought of seeing her teammates grieve over someone that wasn't dead, but alas she relented.

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"Are you sure you want to know?" Cthulu seriously asked her, shifting to a more no-nonsense mood.

"Of course! Why have them grieve when you are alive! I know you didn't like all of them... but you even lied to Kurapika!" she stated frantically, incensed that the guy was questioning her 'desire' to know. That was the whole fucking reason she lied to all her loved ones and climbed stairs for a whole hour!

"Well... there are several reasons why I did what I did.... but mostly it was about what was best for everyone." He said while Sheffield analyzed every word he uttered.

"As you know, each of us has our virtues, flaws, and most importantly, desires." Cthulu paused for a brief second and proceeded to list his reasonings.

"For example, Reyes is too violent and would probably get us in trouble if we were to stick around. With his new identity and my recent 'death', he will probably move somewhere else and lay low for a while, giving him time to mature, but ultimately his nature is too powerful. Without my death, he would have probably joined some kind of violent career sooner rather than later. He is not one for 'Peace and Tranquility' after all. By me dying, I essentially have bought him some time to 'develop' be it mentally or emotionally. Additionally, his goals of fame and fortune don't go along with what I want at the moment... I like the guy, but right now he is kind of a clusterfuck." Cthulu said, chuckling at the end.

"In the case of Phantom... he is too naive and good-natured for 'our' kind of life. I was able to get him Canadian citizenship which was quite difficult for the record. It was even more difficult to be able to contact his family without the Government knowing. He now can enjoy his remaining 'childhood' with his family under the name of "Danny Phantom/ lost twin of Dan Phantom". My death will help him realize his mortality, and the evils of the world which will help him connect with his family easier... As long as he keeps a reasonably low profile, he should have no problems with the Association... He was too nice for our line of work anyways; I rather have him be happy for once. After all, he is the only one of us with an actual chance of integrating with society" He said while reminiscing a little.

"Kurapika is a mixed case... I wanted to tell him, but he is dead-set on his 'revenge' on the Association. I felt he was getting too complacent on his skills lately, so my death may prove to be a good motivator for him to 'get good' and have a higher chance of surviving his self-imposed 'mission'...Kurapika is too self-absorbed in his objective, and my death might make him reevaluate his skills. Since I was the best at melee combat on our Team he might think 'Well...shit if Cthulu died they must have some heavy hitters' or some shit like that" Cthulu stated, with some regret but ultimately resolute in his decision.

"And you... were a surprise to be honest... I didn't know how to best 'free you' so to speak... You are the big sister of the group and by far the most stable one. I wasn't afraid for your safety, knowing you, you would have fared well enough on your own with your quirk and abilities. The fact that you 'caught on' was unexpected, but at the end of the day, unsurprising." He continued, amused by both Sheffield's intuition and lack of forethought. If he was being honest with himself, he was getting rather annoyed by Sheffield's tone and the nature of some of her statements...as if he was the 'bad' guy.

After some seconds of complete silence.

"So that's it...you lied to all of us to improve our 'chances'...Why not just tell them what you wanted to say without all this deceit!" Sheffield announced, rather incensed for the runabout way Cthulu chose to deal with his problems.

"I thought you were smart Sheffield...Do you really think Reyes would take any of what I say seriously, or that Phantom and Kurapika would not stay trying to improve my survival chances" He stated offhandedly while lightly reprimanding Sheffield.

"Sheffield, I survived that mission on a fluke...Even if I had run away with you guys the Association would have found me anyways... I thought you already knew 'everything' Sheffield." Cthulu mentioned getting fed up with her judging.

"What do you mean by 'Found me' Cthulu?!, Tell me!" Sheffield demanded fearing that their teammates and herself may be in danger.

"There is a reason I was appointed 'leader' of the team. Don't you think it is weird that an antisocial 'monster' with empathy problems was placed as the Leader of an 'out of control' team... I was placed in that position because the Association had me by the reins... They inserted a device in my brain that acted as both a tracker and a pain-inflicting tool that would trigger all my pain receptors at once anytime the damn Association wanted" Cthulu revealed shocking Sheffield. How could she not have realized before! Every time Cthulu returned from a mission, he was taken somewhere else!. She thought that he was getting specialized training like all of them, but it appeared to not have been the case.

"Every time any of you 'fucked-up' guess who paid the price. Not you, not Reyes, not Kurapika, and certainly not Phantom... it was me!. Do you know how much I suffered because of your insubordination!" Cthulu stated, fed up with Sheffield's entitled attitude.

She remained silent, all that info dump was hard to process on the fly.

"Even through every fuck-up I was unjustly punished over, I couldn't bring myself to hate you as I should have. Even if you were the direct cause of my suffering. Do you know why?... because I knew that the 'Real Villains of the show' weren't some kids; it was the damn Association and the 'System' they defend." Hearing the last sentence, Sheffield realized what was Cthulu's ambition, his objective, the thing that always had him zoning out.

"Heroes or Villains, in the end, it doesn't matter when we all live oppressed. Some of us are shamed by how we were born, others are judged by how our quirks affect us, and many more stand by and do nothing!. This world is stagnated; the foundations of our society are ephemeral and flawed. I want a better world, a world where people like me don't exist, a world in which everyone is able to reach their maximum potential without being hindered by interests grander than them. A world that continually develops and does not remain stagnant for +100 years!... Do you really believe that Reyes, Kurapika, and Phantom would benefit me as they are now... maybe in the future, but as of right now, NO!"

"So here is my question for you... Are you with me or against me?" Cthulu inquired with an edge that promised consequences no matter which answer she chose.