Delightful Mansion
Tanya
Arriving a bit early to her employer's home to discuss an important matter, Tanya rang the door and waited for someone to answer the door; Before long, the butler himself opened the door and allowed her in to lead her the way to Mister Benedict's study.
As the butler stopped in front of the double doors to his boss's study, Tanya watched and listened as the butler rapt his knuckles against the wooden doors before speaking, "Sir, miss Weber is here." he announced, before stepping back from the doors.
The doors themselves opened on their own, as an intense heat bellowed out; Tanya covered her eyes a bit with her hand while she turned her head, while looking sideways, as the blast of heat finally died down.
'Father' really did like the theatrics as an Adult Villain, Tanya supposed. "Enter." The man's voice prompted Tanya to enter the room, which had a bit of a fire hazard waiting to happen. There were pits of fire on both sides of her, with a pathway leading up to where her boss was sitting on a leather chair facing her.
The man himself sat in his chair with his leg crossed over atop his knee as he leaned back, while he rested one of his arms on his arm rest and the other held his pipe up to his mouth as he puffed from it. "You did well with handling last night's party." He started off saying as Tanya reached the bottom of the steps that lead up to the platform where his chair was seated.
Prior to her travel to her boss's mansion, Tanya had made sure to drink plenty of coffee; she would have to summon coffee from the other buildings and houses, for if this conversation she would be having with Mister Benedict turned sour, Tanya wanted to be sure she could escape this boss of hers.
She was under no illusion she could convince this man that Brainwashing was reprehensible, and so far to children not less; people needed agency of their own, and that line was crossed when Benedict used it on his own children.
Once Tanya stood before 'Father', she stood with a respectable stance with her hands folded behind her back, and gave the man an earnest attentive gaze, albeit a stoney facade. "It was simple really, even those KND operatives stayed within the party room." she responded.
It really was quite surprising that those operatives didn't bother snooping around the enemy's mansion, you'd have thought they were rude enough to stick their noses around the place to try and find files, evidence, or anything else in their so-called crusade against Adult Villainy.
Benedict puffed from his pipe again, and lowered it from his mouth, his silhouette of course obscuring Tanya's sight of what he looked like beneath all that darkness, "You're not wrong, but they knew better to rummage around my mansion. I am after all the arch enemy of their organization, but at the same time, the Kids Next Door organization knows when poking the dragon can have consequences when poked too much."
Tanya nodded a bit at that, Mister Benedict no doubt had enough resources to actually put the KND down and out, but he was probably biding his time for something; that, or perhaps he was tolerating their minor annoyances they commit across adult businesses and other such things they do to try and save kids from evil adults.
"While we are on the subject of the party-" Tanya began speaking back, expressing some concern in her tone while furrowing her brows, "There's something I must discuss about a grievance I have with a particular creation your children made." she finished stating.
Benedict narrowed his eyes down at Tanya, tapped his pipe down against the ash tray next to him, before placing it back into his mouth, "I too, believe we need to speak about that matter." he answered back tersely.
Tanya stared back up at Benedict unflinchingly, "...I admit it." She said after swallowing down a lump of nervousness, the air became thick with tension, while Benedict glared down at her.
Benedict took his pipe out from his mouth and pointed it at her, "Oh, so you admit that you didn't bother helping my kids fix their Neural suggestion ray, then." he grounded out, making Tanya feel slightly relieved that he wasn't about to accuse her of her sabotage of the device.
Benedict leaned back into his chair, and kept his glare at Tanya, "You see, a lot of times, my Delight Children inventions tend to go awry, I was quite honestly you'd be there helping them out on the side of things to make sure everyone was delightfulized." he explained, expressing anger in his voice.
At the mention of forcing children to be delightfulized, Tanya couldn't help but glare at the man, "That's the part I have a grievance with, sir, with all due respect." she hissed back, earning an annoyed look from the man.
Benedict didn't say anything yet, so Tanya continued speaking with anger seeping into her voice, "Punishing rude, misbehaving children is one thing with a variety of adult villains, but brainwashing children, or anyone at all, is a line I will never cross!"
Silence was all that was met from Mister Benedict as he stared down at her with an inscrutable gaze, "...That's fine…" Mister Benedict answered, making the atmosphere feel disturbingly quiet and tense as he turned around his chair to face away from Tanya.
While the only sound of crackling fire pervaded the room, Tanya stood stock still, ready for the man to lash out or anything else; that was too simple of an answer and response to her denial of accepting the use of brainwashing.
As more seconds ticked by, especially the sound of the wooden clock mounted above the doors behind Tanya, Benedict slowly stood up from his chair and took another puff from his pipe as he stood in front of his bay windows. "You think you can tell me how to run my buisness?" he suddenly exclaimed without looking back at her.
"...I'm sorry?" Tanya glared again at the man, stepping aside to look more directly at the man with the chair having been previously in her way to see him; still standing at the bottom of the steps, Tanya spoke again to mister Benedict, "I was saying no such thing! I am simply saying, I will not be crossing a line of brainwashing children!" she stressed out with anger.
Benedict slowly turned around to face Tanya, anger in his eyes as flames began to emit out from his body, "Just because you work for me, doesn't mean you can just criticize how I run my Adult Villain operations! You're a simple child!" he angrily announced.
Her Boss was definitely having some sort of issue here, sure she was a kid, but she was also an employee that simply had a grievance with one of his methods to deal with punishable children that was the KND, "Sir, please, I'm just saying, there needs to be an understanding, that it is unethical to steal anyone's freedom of mind!" Was it so hard to understand that at all!?
But it seemed 'Father' had his own grievance with a child complaining about how he does things, as the man clenched his fists after placing his pipe back into his mouth, flames erupted from his silhouette as he glared down at Tanya, "You haven't seen what that blasted KND is capable of, you let them take in more children, and they'll become more of a threat to all Adults!" he yelled with fury.
So this was more about keeping children from entering the KND then?
Tanya gritted her teeth in anger, while keeping her glare up at the man, "Like what have they done, to make you brainwash children!" she hissed back in anger.
Benedict gripped the back of his chair, burning it in the process before throwing it out the window, crashing through the glass in the process, "They took my children first, you brat! It was only a matter of time before that Kids Next Door organization would have erased their minds, and become a shell of their former selves!"
To Tanya, that whole explanation was beyond screwed up, the man's solution was beyond awful, not to mention the tidbit of information about the erasing of memories that the KND do; and then there was the fact that Benedict was familiar with how the KND operate and retire their operatives, he was a former one, or a sibling of his was once long ago an operative.
Tanya kept her glare up at the man, never cowering from his explosion of anger, she's been through worse, "But that still doesn't mean you should stoop to their level then!" she grounded out through her teeth, her fists were clenched as the conversation was getting to a boiling point.
"Brat…" Benedict tersely spat out, his fists clenched at his sides as he glared down at her, "That line was crossed long ago, they started it, I'm ending it!" he gritted out, before projecting a fireball up in his hand to hold out, "And I'm not about to have you, tell me how to run this ongoing war with them be called out on anything!" he yelled hysterically, his voice cracking with anger, before he threw his fireball at her.
Time began slowing down for Tanya, putting her coffee time powers into use as she stepped out of the way while keeping her glare at the man, guess this was where she'd have to put the man down in some fashion; While the fireball soared past her to hit nothing but the floor in its trajectory, Tanya approached Benedict and lifted her arm to-
Benedict began to slowly look down at her in the eyes, allowing her to see his eyes beneath his silhouette, making her widen her eyes as the man stared back within her coffee time; neither said a thing, before the man finally spoke.
"You're a bit too young, to think only you know the full capabilities of coffee, brat…" Benedict grounded out with anger, "You think you've mastered coffee, but they don't call me father for nothing." he narrowed his eyes at hers in anger.
The once closed doors to Benedict's study, was busted open by Tanya's own body as fire consumed her body from Benedict having thrown another fireball at her at point blank range during coffee time; time resumed to normal for both Tanya and Benedict as Tanya rolled along the floor after landing, the flames themselves seemingly didn't hurt her much, but the impact of her body against the doors did a bit.
While Tanya quickly picked herself up with the fire all over her body died down just as fast as it almost consumed her, she glared at 'Father' as he stormed towards her from out of his study, "I will have obedience, and not you, nor anybody else will stop me from making sure that wretched organisation of kids will be wiped from the earth!" he yelled with anger.
Tanya glared back at the man as she finally felt the coffee liquid head its way towards her through the mansion, having summoned all coffee around her within a given radius she was able to control. "Well it doesn't have to be through brainwashing, or anything else unethical! Those children still have parents!" she yelled back, and finally slammed her hands into each other to converge a torrential blast of coffee from both sides of the man.
The way the hallways were situated, it was a threeway hallway intersecting, that all led to the study of her boss.
Benedict palmed his hands out and blasted a fiery explosion of flames from his hands to block the incoming rush of coffee, essentially making a flaming shield to block the torrential coffee that Tanya summoned to blast him with.
Tanya focused on her powers as she clenched her hands into each other, making the torrential deluge of coffee entomb the man in the back liquid; as a ball of swirling coffee surrounded the man, she was about to try and throw the man aside, only for him to erupt from out of it and soar at her to grasp at her collar and lift her up.
"You're two decades too early to truly know the gaps between us!" He yelled into Tanya's face, his entire body exploded with flames, making her face feel it was burning up from the sheer heat Benedict was emitting.
Mentally willing the coffee to come to her and engulf her form, she became a liquid form of coffee that slipped out from his grasps and disappeared from sight through the cracks in the walls; While Benedict cautiously looked around, Tanya dripped down from out of the crack in the ceiling, and became a solid form to spin drop kick her foot into her boss's skull.
Just as she was about to have her foot kicked into the man's head, Benedict was able just as react quickly by reaching up to grab Tanya's offending foot before it could connect with his head, and throw her down the hallway. "You're out of your league here, brat! I'm not just an ordinary-" Whatever he was about to say, was cut off quickly as another Tanya had dripped from out of the ceiling and round house kicked 'Father' into the wall while the other Tanya dissipated into simple coffee.
The force behind Tanya's kick was enough to send Benedict through a door in the hallway, and crash into a set of china that was all stored into the random room. "My good china!" Benedict's voice raged, before an explosion of fire erupted from out of the room.
Tanya cursed a bit, legally speaking, he could sue her for the damages, but she doubts the Adult Villain would bother. "Why would you store all that china in there in the first place!" She yelled back while summoning her coffee back to her, and consumed her form to become pure coffee.
Over the week, she had trained more into her coffee powers, but never had the chance to use against the Weredogs and Miss Thomas at the time; now she was fully using the new path of usage she gained through her coffee powers.
Now she just needed to work on not needing to consume coffee just to use it, then she'd be set.
Pulling himself out from the pile of now wrecked china dishes, Benedict stormed out from the room and glared over at Tanya, fists clenched. "You think you can just come in, and tell me you don't like how I run this adult villain operation of mine!? I've been running this business since I was in my twenties!" he raged, letting more flames expand from his silhouette.
Tanya's coffee form allowed her blackened covered eyes to glare up at 'Father', "Then I quit, if you are going to stoop that low!" she hissed in anger.
The tension between Tanya and Benedict was thick, both sides not bothering to back down from their stance on the subject matter, before finally Benedict relented with an annoyed grunt, "I hate how you're right…" He hissed with seething anger, his eyes narrowed at Tanya, "But I'm not letting those snot nosed brats win! They erased my brother's mind and father's mind, they must pay!" his voice was barely above a whisper in his seething words.
'Father' definitely has a deep history with that Kids Next Door organization, the only question was, how far back does this probably go? Benedict spoke again with Tanya, "Out of all my employee villains, none have been as efficient as you, in sacking so many KND bases in one day…" he grounded out.
Tanya was already beginning to feel the tension slip a bit, but kept her coffee form up just in case, while Benedict kept talking, both of them stared at each other with tense gazes, "I'll consider your input with reluctant acceptance." he grounded out, before finally calming down and walked past her.
Tanya kept her coffee form up as she watched Benedict walk back to his study, and pause in the doorways to turn and glare at her, "Anything else!?" he half shouted, half ordered in anger.
Tanya unclenched her fists, so he was amenable to change at the very least, "I want to renegotiate my contract."
Later
Exiting out from the Delightful mansion's front doors with her paycheck in hand, Tanya's face expressed annoyance as she walked off to her bike to head back home; the entire renegotiation of her contract with 'Father' had several more clauses in it, the man at least saw reason to cease anymore brainwashing crap.
Or else, she would leave Mister Benedict's employ, and would venture out on her own outside the junior worker program that got her into this mess.
Lenny
While he stood in the foyer with his siblings to watch Tanya leave the premises, he internally was thinking about the girl; while she was still working for Father, Lenny and his siblings had overheard the entire exchange from down the hallways.
Already he could feel his siblings' thoughts about Tanya, ranging from unsure to wariness; that girl was able to withstand an argument with Father, and come out still standing without fear of the man.
Lenny however, was begging to ponder if he could use Tanya to his advantage; she had an opposition against delightfulization, but was fine with Adult Tyranny…or perhaps she was fine with adults punishing unruly children, it was hard to say.
He really needed to have another talk with her, and discern where her real loyalties lied, because from the sound things, she was more in it for herself…
Which was neither bad nor good, she was using Father and the adults as a means to an end for something.
That in of itself was a bit hilarious to Lenny, a child using an adult villain as a means to an end.