"They're not like that."
"They're not like that?"
"No," she dropped flatly. "They have an organization. A structure. A collective goal. A damned logo. Fucking uniforms... Though at times I suspect it's merely a fan club." She took another pull from her highball glass, "Or a support group."
"Yeah, well, maybe you could use something like that."
She shot an expression sharp enough to make daggers look dull.
"Don't give me that look! Like you'd complain about having a fan club, anyhow. All I'm trying to say i-"
"Oh, shut up. It doesn't take a genius to see I'd hardly be compatible with their... group. I have my own path to forge."
"Yeah, well. Your ego probably wouldn't even fit in their headquarters, I guess." This earned another glower, but wasn't enough to halt her guest's words, "It's just that you do seem to be of the, uh. Villainous persuasion?"
"I'm of the powerful persuasion. People readily confuse the two."
"Uh huh. You know, maybe there's a reason for that."
"I assure you that I do not consider myself to be... super-villainous."
"Bullshit!" Her guest gestured over her shoulder, back across the beach toward the gigantic hidden door built into a cliff-wall, "I guess I should just ignore that? And the room inside where you've got vats of bubbling white goo constantly on roil? Into which I presume you dip peo-"
"What's your fucking point?"
Her guest responded with a shrug, then took a pull from her own beverage, "I mean, just that it seems like you fit the description. And I figured if you've got common interests, you could use a community to belong to."
"Oh, fuck off, seriously. Do I look like I nee-"
"You look alone, is what you look like!"
"Now listen here," she gestured toward her guest with an outstretched, accusatory finger, "Just because you run a hostel for dysfunctional horny anarchists doesn't mean that's what's right for me." She expected to earn her own sour look with such a comment.
Instead, her guest raised a glass with a smirk. "The beds are clean, the food is nutritious, and the fuckin's great. But enough of you trying to needle me. What I'm desperately trying to tell you is that it doesn't need to be this way."
"And what way is that, since you're such an expert?"
"You, alone, stewing all the time. You could use some company."
"I have company. Didn't you see the harem?"
Her guest rolled her eyes as she tipped back another swallow of alcohol, "Chrissake, you consider that a community? We need to teach you about the impact of power imbalances on relationships."
"Every relationship has a power imbalance," She lowered her sunglasses and leaned back in her lounge chair. "Particularly, and unavoidably, when you're me. They can't be anything but."
"Oh yeah, sure. Or maybe you're just afraid o-"
"I'm an abberation," She spat the words, before shooting a look at her guest that burned even from behind her shaded lenses. "I don't even share biology with another living creature, let alone mentality. How do you propose I 'network' when everyone in existence would regard me as a misfit? As a monster?"
This elicited a laugh from her guest she wasn't expecting, "And what do you think they call me? 'Little miss perfect'? 'A completely biologically relatable specimen'? Honey, I've been where you are, and you're dead wrong when you say that's how it has to be."
She lowered her glasses across the bridge of her nose now, raising a single eyebrow in frustrated curiosity. "Oh? So now you know exactly what it's like to be me, then."
"Nah, not at all," Her guest tossed back the rest of her drink in a single, reckless gulp. "I'm just sayin' - There are other monsters out there, sister."
"Now are we gonna get some sushi, or what?"


