Five: Antagonize

*thanks to Pat77 and sorc0790 for your support!!*

***

This time, Sage wasn’t even doing anything wrong. Well, not at that moment. He had done something wrong – but it was half an hour ago, and he was going home after successfully completing said wrong thing. Needless to say, Sage had a lot more cash in his pockets now than he had when he’d left.

Sage had all but forgotten about his encounter with Lich.

Actually, that was a total lie. It was driving Sage a little insane honestly. He had a bunch of questions without answers and a bone to pick with this asshole.

So, when said asshole appeared right in front of him – in the middle of a dark strip mall parking lot – Sage decided to make a stand.

Was it a smart decision? No, of course not. Was Sage fueled by the fire of indignation and exhaustion after spending the past two nights looking up every single bit of information he could find on Lich? Yes. So, was Sage going to tear this man a new one? Yes, of course.

Sage’s mind was flooded with all the information he’d gleaned on Lich since their encounter. Lich wasn’t the most popular of heroes in the city, but he was still extremely well-known, if not for popularity, then simply because he was an unusual case. Most heroes and villains had more valiant powers. Super strength, super speed – all those stereotypical abilities. When people thought ‘superpower,’ necromancy wasn’t usually in the top 100 things they thought of, much less the top 10.

Lich may not have won any popularity awards, but his following was quite devoted, nonetheless. There were forums upon forums discussing everything Lich-related, from his latest victories to a discussion on the thread count of his cloak. The internet was flooded with interviews, written and video, wherein multiple reporters had tried to tease out information about everything from Lich’s experience in his last arrest to his favorite foods and preference in romantic partners. None of these interviews had managed to get anything more than a few vague non-answers out of him, but fans ate it up regardless.

Sage had spent the majority of his research focusing on Lich’s powers. Lich was annoying and an ass, but Sage still found himself fascinated by the idea of necromancy. There wasn’t a lot of information out there because Lich was the only known necromancer and he was notoriously tight-lipped about everything, including exactly what it was like to speak to the dead. However, there was one notable interview where Lich seemed, in Sage’s opinion, to be a little irritated or off-kilter, and he gave a response that painted a watery picture of exactly what he experienced.

Sage found this interview on YouTube, published by Fairview News. The female reporter ran up to Lich on the sidewalk outside a cemetery (stereotypically), where Lich was leaving after stopping a band of grave robbers.

Yes – grave robbers. It sounded like something out of a cartoon. Legitimate grave robbers, in this day and age? Most people were buried with nothing more than their clothing, so there was little to steal but bones. But Fairview was actually pretty well-known for housing several family mausoleums that were filled with both the bodies of deceased wealthy people and priceless treasures that said people valued in life. Famous paintings, delicate china, gold, and diamond jewelry. Those mausoleums were usually very well-guarded, but some poor sap was apparently desperate enough to give it a shot and try to break in.

Sage had been at a low point in his life many times before, especially in terms of finances, but he would never think of graverobbing, both because it was disrespectful, and because it gave Sage the willies. He knew ghosts were real long before knowing necromancers like Lich existed, and he wasn’t willing to get caught up in that bullshit.

That being said, if you were brave enough to do it, Sage fully supported robbing the rich even in death.

Anyway, in the interview, the reporter slides onto the sidewalk to block Lich’s way, shoving a microphone in his face.

“Lich, can you tell us about the stunning arrest you just made? How did you know this was going to happen? According to the police, none of the alarms on the cemetery were tripped by the grave robbers, and none of the cameras picked them up either. So tell us, how is it that you discovered this heinous plot?” she fired off rapidly.

Lich kept walking without pause, causing the reporter to practically run backwards as she fought to stay ahead of him.

“Or do you often frequent cemeteries and happened to catch them in the act?” she asked, teasingly. “Taking your aesthetic to new heights?”

Lich’s face was fully covered, obviously, so Sage couldn’t tell from his expression how he was feeling, but his tone told Sage that he was pissed. “They won’t shut up,” he said sharply, though still quiet. That was all he said on the matter, and while the reporter looked confused, thinking probably that he was telling her to shut up, Sage made a few inferences:

One, ghosts could apparently talk to Lich all they wanted. He couldn’t pick and choose if he was able to hear them or not. Two, ghosts had been the ones to tip Lich off to what was happening in the cemetery, and apparently, they had annoyed him so much that he had no choice but to go down to the cemetery and stop the robbers lest they drive him insane, if he wasn’t already.

If those two assumptions were true, Sage feared that Lich probably really was legitimately, certifiably, insane. No one could listen to ghosts 24/7 and not be a little cracked, right? And if that was true, then Sage’s encounter with him may not have been as strange as Sage thought. The dude was probably actually mentally ill, in which case, there might not have been any motivation behind chasing Sage at all.

However, after thinking about it (at three in the morning after way too many hours watching videos on this freak), Sage figured that even if Lich wasn’t all there, he definitely had enough sanity to be a functional hero. In which case, he was likely in full control of his faculties when chasing Sage through a dark, empty house in the middle of the night, and thus, could not be excused on those grounds.

There was also the weird possibility that perhaps Lich was chasing Sage that night at the behest of a ghost, which made Sage shudder to think about.

Still, when Sage saw Lich again, all of that flew right out of his head, and all he could think about was how scared he felt that night, and his subsequent anger that it was a goddamned hero – one of the supposed “guardian angels” of the city - making him feel that way.

He didn’t care that it was nearly one in the morning and the strip mall parking lot that he was cutting through to get back home was practically deserted. He didn’t care that half of the lamp posts in the parking lot didn’t work, leaving Sage with only the faintest light to see around him. In the moment, feeling that rage, he didn’t even think about why the hero appeared before him in the dark, as if waiting for him.

Sage let his emotions lead the way instead of his brain. He stepped right up into Lich’s space – and punched him in the face.