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Multifarious, on the other hand, had rules of engagement which were more like: shoot to entertain yourself, shoot to kill, blow up the entire block while laughing like a demented madman.

While it would be easy to view their drastically different Caping ideologies as a negative, in practice, it usually meant that Oz was the one charged with the talking and Multifarious was the one who took over if things went sideways. They each got to play to their strengths.

All in all, it was a professional relationship which worked quite well.

Truth told, Oz genuinely liked Multifarious. A lot.

“How they hangin’, Oz?” Mull asked grabbing a chair from another table and pulling it over to sit across from him. He/she arranged it backwards, leaning over the backrest.

“Still waiting for the bartender.” Oz informed the masked person. “He should return momentarily.”

Mull snorted. “He’s probably behind all of this, and is using this time to run away.” He/she predicted, the electronic filter in the Kilroy mask somehow managing to convey the comically grim tone. “Your problem is that you trust people.”

Oz made a humoring sound. “Yes, I’m sure.”

Mull pointed at the drink which was sitting in front of him. “Can I have a sip of that?”

Oz held up his hands. “I would rather die than even touch that beverage glass.” He said honestly, trying to keep from retching at the bacteria and germs clinging to its surface and floating in the lukewarm liquid inside.

Mull grabbed the glass and nonchalantly dumped it on his/her facemask… which didn’t have a mouth hole. The liquid simply dripped down the plastic and onto the white combat gear uniform he/she was wearing, which was today accented by a Hawaiian shirt and straw hat.

Oz simply stared at his partner, mystified. Then he started to laugh, in spite of himself. “Multifarious…” He began, trying to stifle his amusement.

“I am not Multifarious,” the masked person reminded him, “today I am…. Otium! ”

“I see.” Oz was used to random craziness from the person, it was one of the few aspects of Mull’s personality which carried over from day to day. “And what can you do today?”

“I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea.” Otium-née-Multifarious informed him seriously. “But whatever it is, I hope I get to do it soon, because I’m bored as shit.”

Oz nodded. “Well… that makes sense, I suppose. Given your code name today.”

Otium-née-Multifarious’ head tilted to the side, like he/she was confused.

“You’re ‘Otium.’” He explained. “Historically, as in: the idle wasteless free time of a Roman soldier away at war, but not actually fighting. Like, you can’t relax even when you have time off, because you know that you’ll soon be called upon again and you’d rather be fighting to the death than waiting for it to happen. ”

“Huh.” Mull finally said. “Interesting. I had no idea what that meant.”

“I like history.” Oz explained, then frowned at his partner’s news. “Wait… you chose a code name without even knowing what it meant?”

“Maybe.” Mull shrugged. “Shit, I don’t know.

It sounds like you pay more attention to this kind of thing than I do.

” The masked figure looked at him appraisingly.

“And who wears a tie to fight crime?” Mull gestured to Oz’s white suit and sweater vest, which doubled as body armor.

The only spot of color on his outfit was the scarlet red double “C” logo of the Consortium of Chaos, which was pinned to his lapel.

Oz made another humoring sound.

“You look like you’re about to give someone a fucking audit, or sell them ice cream.” Mull advised. “You need to be more dramatic .”

Given his associate’s current attire, he chose to ignore the criticism. “Were you and Poacher able to find out anything from the other patrons of the bar?”

“You want to work? ” Mull sounded horrified. “Really!?! Here we are, on our own, just the two of us, no supervision… and you want to waste that time actually doing our jobs?”

“There is a young woman missing.” Oz reminded him/her. “She hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon, in front of this bar.”

“Your problem is you’re too high-strung.

” Mull flipped a dismissive hand. “You gotta learn to vent, Oz. I mean it. You bottle up all that stress and unvoiced irritation, and sooner or later, you’re taking a rifle up to the top of a bell tower and trying to shoot people.

I seen it happen.” Mull pointed at him meaningfully.

“And without proper training, you’re not going to hit shit, which makes it even worse. ”

“How does that make it worse?”

“Because everyone deserves to be killed by a professional, Oz. Better to be slaughtered by a professional than wounded by an amateur.”

“I’m not sure many would agree with you on that point.”

Mull tapped the tabletop. “Which is why the world is in the state it’s in.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” As usual, he felt completely confused when conversing with Multifarious.

“I get the feeling that you’re just thinking up profound sounding replies to my logical statements, without stopping to really consider if your words actually form a coherent viewpoint or not. ”

“To be perfectly honest, I’ve already forgotten what we were even talking about, yeah.

” Mull suddenly snapped his/her fingers.

“Oh yeah. Your general stick-in-the-mudness. Got it.” Mull turned the chair around so that he/she could rest his/her boots on a chair at the table across from them, paying no attention to how that affected the people who were actually sitting there.

“I just don’t understand why you pay so much attention to this whole ‘Hero’ thing. ”

“I believe in heroism.” He said simply.

“I believe in helping people. I believe in stopping bad guys. I believe violence is only justified if it’s the last resort and there’s no other way, but if it’s justified then I’ll go all out.

I don’t believe that the world is nothing but death and destruction.

And I believe the Consortium can be more than petty, bickering monsters who are always seconds away from trying to kill our friends.

” He stared into the Kilroy face mask his partner was wearing. “I think we’re better than that.”

“That’s only because you haven’t known the Consortium crew that long.”

“Possibly.” He cleared his throat. “But not everything needs to be handled with a combat mentality. Most street level crimes can be dealt with by understanding the motivations behind it and dealing with them. True, sometimes you get a genuinely bad apple who is unwilling to improve themselves and their community, and in cases like those, more traditional punishment options are available through the justice system.” He straightened his suit.

“When you come right down to it, most people just want to be heard. If you listen to them and offer them understanding, they’ll come around. ”

Mull was quiet for a beat, then slowly cringed away. “What planet are you living on, Oz?” He/she held out his/her hands. “Damn, and people say I’m delusional.”

“Violence just breeds more violence.” He reiterated.

“Not if you do it right.” Mull crossed his/her arms over his/her chest. “Violence done right has a very pleasant finality to it.”

Oz spent a great deal of time on missions debating Multifarious about the nature of humanity and the world. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but he found it oddly enjoyable.

All told, the masked psychopath was one of the few “friends” he had.

Which probably said more about his life than anything else.

Multifarious gestured to his/her own chest. “Practical reality.” Mull’s hand moved to point at Oz. “Idealistic fantasy.”

Oz almost smiled at that simplified take on their personalities. He found himself tapping his finger against his chest. “Idealistic reality.” He pointed at Mull. “Nihilistic fantasy.”

“Oh, you’re so unsupportive of my interests.

” Multifarious rolled his/her eyes. “Every day I gotta hear how I’m gonna be arrested for this or hanged for that.

” Multifarious pointed at him again. “That’s ethnocentrism, is what that is.

You simply have no respect for my culture or my way of doing things. ”

Oz squinted, trying to follow that logic. “I don’t think homicide really classifies as a ‘culture’…”

“Who made you an ethnographer!?!” Multifarious cut him off and dramatically swung an arm at him, like he/she was announcing his presence to the entire bar.

“Jesus fucking Christ, we got Bronislaw Malinowski, over here people.” Multifarious lowered his/her voice.

“He’s an ethnographer, Oz.” He/she explained.

“I watch the National Geographic Channel, I know my shit. ”

“Yes, I know who he is.”

“See, the thing you don’t realize,” Multifarious leaned forward in his/her chair, obviously believing the next point was important, “is that everything you do in life is going to piss someone off. No matter how careful you are or how out of your way you go, someone is going to get pissed off anyway. In fact, just pointing that out is sure to piss someone off. Because people can’t help but get angry with things that annoy them and people get annoyed by weird irrational shit.

And if there isn’t something that pisses them off, they’ll invent it. ”

“You spent three hours the other day, screaming at me for not knowing the difference between a ‘clip’ and a ‘magazine.’” He reminded his masked teammate, rather taken aback by the idea that he/she could ever throw stones about someone getting angry over silly things.

“But at least you understood it in the end.”

“Not really. Most of that time was just you ranting about springs.” He reminded Mull. “Which I still don’t understand either. Why were you ranting about springs ?”

Mull took on a dark tone. “ They know why .”

Oz let out a sigh, not even surprised by that answer.