Three Heroes

Bramble Flats, home base to the empire of the villainous Crow. The castle itself had been rebuilt when the said villain had rebuilt his evil empire from its remains.

And it was eerily quiet as three heroes snuck through.

Mack, the former hero of Macro City, now a hero-for-hire, kept his sword out in anticipation of any danger around all corners. Following him were Dash, Captain of the Guard in Insektia, and Guryon the Righteous, hero of Winterdown, the latter of which held up the back. There would have been a fourth member of the group, but Kaptain Man had to deal with other business.

The reason these three heroes walked through had much to do with the quietness in the castle. Crow's activities had been recently almost nonexistent, and most of the schemes that were done and credited by him had been reported as strange. With Princess Mayapple as Macro City's new hero, while dealing with politics, she had requested the hero in blue to check on the activities of the city's villain. Said hero had known he'd need to still have back up in case.

But the silence of the castle persisted. The few minions that were seen were too easily avoided, most of them found asleep or having trouble doing basic things from what seemed to be from over exhaustion.

"This is quite unsettling. The energy of these minions seems to almost not exist," the dwarf commented after the trio had passed a room where a minion was just pressing buttons on a coffee machine while not noticing the overflowing cup starting to make its feet wet.

"What is Crow doing to these guys that have them this tired?" Dash whispered, hugging the wall as they continued sneaking.

"If it was one of his normal schemes, I'd bet building something but…" Mack's eyes narrowed, biting the inside of his cheek. "The reports did say none of the recent activities the minions were carrying out for him were normal. This could be anything."

"What if he built something that drain the minions' energy for power?" Dash shivered at the thought. Could they fight against that sort of thing?

"Shh, I think I hear him."

The three stood before a door, the voice of the villainous target muffled on the other side. Human, bee, and dwarf all looked at each other, nodded, and charged through the door.

"CROW! WE'RE HERE TO-!"

"WAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

The heroes froze.

Crow wasn't in his purple armor, instead wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pajama bottoms, the sleeve on his robotic arm rolled up. The villain was clearly tired, dark circles under his already dark eyes, his hair more messed up than normal. He hadn't gotten into a battle stance, instead shielding the source of the crying in his arms away from the trio that had just busted into the room. Mack, Dash, and Guryon all realized why everyone in the castle had seemed so tired as they looked at the swaddled bundle that was currently being rocked and calmed down by Crow.

"... That's a baby," Mack stated, pointing at the said infant as his posture went slack as it registered in his mind of the situation.

"Gee, what excellent detective skills you have Mack," Crow sneered, giving the three a death glare as the baby began to quiet down to whimpers.

Neither Guryon or Dash gave eye contact to Crow, both looking away. Guryon tried to hide behind his shield and free hand, muttering "Nope, nope, nope, nope," repeatedly as Dash stated the obvious.

"Well, this is awkward."

In doing so, they finally took in notice that the room that they had charge into was a nursery, completely covered with stuff animals, storage for baby supplies, a changing table, several pictures of animals and small 'cute' versions of the minions, a rocking chair, a few bookshelves that likely contained children books, and that Crow was near the crib the baby had probably been about to be placed down to sleep in.

"You have a baby," Mack said as his mind went on a loop process.

"Yeah, it's the product of the reproduction cycle, Mack. It's what we all start out as, Mack. It's what been keeping me, Becky, and most of the minions up 24/7 for the past few weeks, Mack. It's what you three just woke up after I spent almost two hours getting him to fall asleep, Mack." Crow spat out the human in blue's name with venom.

None of the three heroes knew what to really do in this situation. By all means, they were not in the best situation to really do anything that'd probably make this better. Crow continued to glare at them before sighing in defeat and moving to sit in the rocking chair with the baby, the infant still fussing in his father's arms but thankfully quieting down.

From the new angle, the heroes could actually see the baby's key features from here. The strands of hair that poked out from under the small purple hat showed him already having Crow's blonde locks, small ears that had a bit of a point to them, and a beauty mark on one of his cheeks. All three of the intruders stared uncomfortably before Dash coughed awkwardly.

"So… um... Congratulations, dude. Sorry for the intruding and breaking in. Your kid looks adorable, I'm sure he'll be an amazing villain when he gets to that age and all-"

"Get the bolts out of my castle."

"Fair enough, anything we should do while on the wa-" Mack was quickly interrupted.

"Send teething rings."

"Right, any particular amou-"

"Any number above fifty would be good, he goes through them like crazy."

"Got it. We'll just be leaving."

"Good."

They closed the door to the nursery and quickly left the castle the way they came.

AN: Some of these one-shots I'll be doing have doodles I made that I posted on the Nefarious amino.