An outdated term, an outdated power set. If it weren't for the x-gene testing and the lack of other neurodivergences, it wouldn't even be considered a supervillain. He could do math. Very, very swift math. Without a calculator. Without an Excel sheet. Or scrap paper.
Without evidence.
So, it made it simple to hide things under the table. Usually working with a companion, or playing second-fiddle to someone. Physics based traps. Once holding a captive at one of those 'swinging pendulums that will never have enough momentum to actually hurt her' things. Not that it kept Metallipalm from ripping the entire device out and using it as a wrecking ball.
So, how did he get away with it for so long? No physicality. No OOMF. Simple.
He didn't leave evidence. He could figure out how to do the math for laundering better than an entire suite of Forensic Accountants. Laundromats. Pawn shops. Cash only delis. You name it. Abe had it going. Then one day...
This hotshot C-lister called himself Catseye. His trick? Fourteen year old kid, -master- at manipulation of objects in motion. So he uses yoyos at the start but they get too...tetchy. So he switches to marbles. This whole "If you'd come up with it two years earlier it would have been cute" move, but now he's like Culkin in 2002. Played out. Probably on drugs.
Anyway...he chases this speedster into a laundromat and does the little catseye fling...only...you got a speedster. You got spinning drums full of water and glass. Whole place basically looked like a claymore went off in it. No one died...miracle of miracles.
I swear, MoM is real, and she's the reason no one gets hurt in this friggen city by a metahuman. But I digress.
Anyway...Abe posts this vid. And he's not talking. It's cheap, you know? 40-something year old mutant accountant, he doesn't have panache yet. But. It just has this...filler music. But most people these days, they're watching it on their phones with the sound off, yeah? And it's just...
One by one, the industrial units with their make and model, and how much it costs to replace. The windows. The lights. The clean-up crew. The friggen...the electricians. The sheer amount of labor, and work, because some speedball brat goes a little crazy in your laundry.
But that's not the part. That part's fascinating...but it's not the part.
The part that really gets people mad is when it cuts to Abe's tenant, this sweet woman named Lin, laid up in a hospital bed with a bruise the size of Montana on her head and those same little arrows and drop-downs. How much the ambulance cost. The surgery. The physical therapy. The wage from the hours the laundry won't be open. The therapy so she can go into her place of work and not be afraid every time a door swings too loud.
And the funny thing?
Abe didn't have to wait a day for it to get paid in full, and then some. And he realizes...he can do it the other way around.
So yes, that's why we're breaking into a strip mall accountant's office in the middle of the night on a tuesday. Abe says that this is where the police pension fund is run out of. Ready to have some REAL fun?
Abe always told me, no point in getting money if you can't keep it. No point in keeping it, if you can't spend it.
We're about to make a whole lot of dead money. Or make a whole lot of money dead. Either way, it's the money that's doing the dying, not us. So relax, and get the crowbar ready.
SongOfKapek t1_iy6oo6m wrote
Reply to [WP] You're a 'comically incompetent' supervillain for a group of C-List heroes. They are no real threat to you, so you endure their childish speeches. However, when the heroes raid the civilian business you run on the side and injure your employees, you decide to take yourself seriously for once. by Informal_Ad_6157
Abacus.
An outdated term, an outdated power set. If it weren't for the x-gene testing and the lack of other neurodivergences, it wouldn't even be considered a supervillain. He could do math. Very, very swift math. Without a calculator. Without an Excel sheet. Or scrap paper.
Without evidence.
So, it made it simple to hide things under the table. Usually working with a companion, or playing second-fiddle to someone. Physics based traps. Once holding a captive at one of those 'swinging pendulums that will never have enough momentum to actually hurt her' things. Not that it kept Metallipalm from ripping the entire device out and using it as a wrecking ball.
So, how did he get away with it for so long? No physicality. No OOMF. Simple.
He didn't leave evidence. He could figure out how to do the math for laundering better than an entire suite of Forensic Accountants. Laundromats. Pawn shops. Cash only delis. You name it. Abe had it going. Then one day...
This hotshot C-lister called himself Catseye. His trick? Fourteen year old kid, -master- at manipulation of objects in motion. So he uses yoyos at the start but they get too...tetchy. So he switches to marbles. This whole "If you'd come up with it two years earlier it would have been cute" move, but now he's like Culkin in 2002. Played out. Probably on drugs.
Anyway...he chases this speedster into a laundromat and does the little catseye fling...only...you got a speedster. You got spinning drums full of water and glass. Whole place basically looked like a claymore went off in it. No one died...miracle of miracles.
I swear, MoM is real, and she's the reason no one gets hurt in this friggen city by a metahuman. But I digress.
Anyway...Abe posts this vid. And he's not talking. It's cheap, you know? 40-something year old mutant accountant, he doesn't have panache yet. But. It just has this...filler music. But most people these days, they're watching it on their phones with the sound off, yeah? And it's just...
One by one, the industrial units with their make and model, and how much it costs to replace. The windows. The lights. The clean-up crew. The friggen...the electricians. The sheer amount of labor, and work, because some speedball brat goes a little crazy in your laundry.
But that's not the part. That part's fascinating...but it's not the part.
The part that really gets people mad is when it cuts to Abe's tenant, this sweet woman named Lin, laid up in a hospital bed with a bruise the size of Montana on her head and those same little arrows and drop-downs. How much the ambulance cost. The surgery. The physical therapy. The wage from the hours the laundry won't be open. The therapy so she can go into her place of work and not be afraid every time a door swings too loud.
And the funny thing?
Abe didn't have to wait a day for it to get paid in full, and then some. And he realizes...he can do it the other way around.
So yes, that's why we're breaking into a strip mall accountant's office in the middle of the night on a tuesday. Abe says that this is where the police pension fund is run out of. Ready to have some REAL fun?
Abe always told me, no point in getting money if you can't keep it. No point in keeping it, if you can't spend it.
We're about to make a whole lot of dead money. Or make a whole lot of money dead. Either way, it's the money that's doing the dying, not us. So relax, and get the crowbar ready.