Chapter 6

Welcome to Chapter Six of Villain 101, the continuing saga of Twilight Dusk, my character in City of Villains. As usual, the column is written in two voices. The first from Twilight Dusk’s viewpoint whilst the other is my take on my gaming experience so far.

Twilight Dusk: I think that I’m in love. I know it’s hard to believe, but I guess even hard-core villains such as myself can suffer the pangs of Cupid’s arrow. It all started when I decided to make a withdrawal at the local bank. Naturally, the fact that I didn’t have an account didn’t bother me as that my withdrawal slip consisted of my twin .45s! My boys, Trask and Bouncer, and I slipped into the bank and were getting ready to start the action when the hottest dark-haired woman I’ve ever seen walked in. She was an absolute vision, wearing a crimson jacket and matching schoolgirl skirt. I noticed that she was wearing glasses which made me almost break into a sweat as that she looked like some sort of evil, hot librarian. Suddenly, she whipped out the biggest rifle I’ve ever seen and began slinging lead into the closest rent-a-cop! The muzzle flashes from her rifle lit her face up like an angel as she began to laugh manically as she continued shooting at the other bank guards. I noticed a few other guards coming up behind her so I pulled my .45s and began to make them members of the recently-deceased club. She noticed my covering fire and she gave me a quick, crazy smile. Together, we forced our way into the vault and while my boys kept the guards off our backs, we cracked the vault and grabbed the loot. After that, the smart guards hauled butt while the stupid ones stayed and got mowed down by our combined firepower. We then headed to a quiet, out-of-the-way location to split the money. Once there, she turned to me and said, “Thanks for the help, Duskie. You are Twilight Dusk, aren’t you?”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m always glad to help out a damsel in distress. Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?” (Holy crap, she knew my name!)

“My name is Abagail Bronte Raine (What a jawbreaker of a name! Her parents must have really hated her.), but I now go by Crimson Raine.”, she cooed back at me.

“That’s quite an unusual name, Abby.”, I replied from behind my mask.

“Yes it is.”, she said. “It was hard growing up with a name like that. People always had certain expectations of me with that name and that’s why I guess I eventually became a librarian.” (Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! I couldn’t believe it. One of my schoolboy fantasies was coming true!).

“That sucks. So where did you get the rifle? I’ve never seen one like that and it’s very impressive.”

Smiling, she pulled the rifle out for me to inspect. “I made it myself. I’ve always had an interest in gunsmithing (Be still my heart!) and I began to make it about a year or so ago in my spare time. I had gotten sick and tired of everybody walking all over me because I was a quiet, little nobody. Finally, I had had enough. Some snot-nosed punk came in one day with a book that was overdue by about 3 months and when I told him to pay the late fees, he told me to get stuffed! Well, screw that! I pulled my rifle out from behind the counter, where I kept it so I could polish it on my lunch break, and I let him have it. After that, I let all the other busybodies in the library get a taste of retribution from my gun and, since then, I haven’t looked back.”

“Well”, I replied. “I can understand why you turned villain. Good for you! I learned that if anybody gets in the way, then slap them in the face with a pistol-butt or put a bullet in their belly. That’ll learn them!”

“I like the way you think, Duskie.” She smiled that crazy but angelic smile at me. “I noticed your pistols during the fight. They’re .45s, aren’t they?”

I pulled my twin .45s from their holsters and handed them over to her. “Yes, they are.”

She held them in her hands. “Oh, they’re big and heavy!”, she said to me. “You know, you could get in a lot of trouble handing your guns over to somebody you just met. What if they decided to shoot you and keep all the bank money for herself?” She smiled at me as she cocked my pistols.

I began to sweat a little under my mask. “I suppose someone could do that. However, they assume that the guns are loaded (which they were!) or that I don’t have a backup weapon on me or that my two henchmen aren’t standing nearby with their guns out. Now, somebody would have to be awfully silly to do such a thing.”

She pursed her lips as she thought about what I said. Behind her, Trask and Bouncer were getting ready to shoot her in the back if she made a move against me. To her credit, she didn’t even bother to turn around to see what they were doing. She stood there thinking the matter over. After a few seconds, she lowered the hammers on my pistols and handed them back over. “I guess that such a person would have to be awfully silly to do something crazy like that.”, she said. “It would be a crime to get rid of a fine firearms enthusiast such as yourself.” She smiled at that last comment.

“Well, I got to be going now. Here’s my cell number if you want any help shooting anything up. Remember…I get 50 percent of the take.” She handed me a card with her number on it and then she quickly kissed me on the cheek. She even smelled like gun oil! Ahhhhhhhhh….. With that, she bounded off, her raven-black hair blowing in the breeze, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

As Trask, Bouncer, and I headed back to my hideout, my head was swirling. She was absolutely mesmerizing. I wondered if she would ever consent to wear a Baroness outfit?

Jeffprime: I decided to spice up ol’ Twilight Dusk’s life a bit. Hope you don’t mind. Crimson Raine is a character of a friend of mine in City of Villains, even though the in-game name is different as that all the cool names always seem to be taken. The bank robbery mission in which my friend helped me out was the first time that I actually teamed up with anybody in the game. I tend to solo quite a bit as that I play at weird times and my schedule isn’t constant. One week, I’m playing at five in the morning while the next, I can be playing at seven at night. Teaming up is pretty cool. I noticed that the enemy numbers increased to keep the challenge level at about the same that it would be if I was doing the mission solo.

If anybody wishes to team with me, I’m glad to do so. I play on the Freedom server with the name of Twilight Dusk. Please send me a tell first stating that you’ve seen my columns on WarCry and that you’re interested in teaming up. If I have the time, I’ll gladly do so. Please don’t send me a blind invite as that I’ll automatically decline. All I ask is that during the mission, give me a moment here and there to write down what’s going on in my journal. I keep a journal of what I do in the game as that my memory sucks. 🙂 It really helps me to go back over what I’ve written when I’m composing this column. Hope to see you in the game.