Lisa looked down, embarrassed. “Please tell me that was deliberate, Uncle Gary.”
I looked forward at Tom Terror as his mecha stomped toward us. “Tell them I died the way I lived: half naked and confused.”
“Eww,” Lisa said, scrunching up her nose.
Tom Terror’s voice spoke from his mecha’s speakers. “I confess, Merciless, I am going to enjoy killing you much more than I thought I would. When your doppelgänger killed Ultragod, a light went out in my heart. The inspiration for countless inventions, schemes, and plots was no more. None of the other heroes or even villains were worth my time or effort. It was almost too easy to plot and plan around their feeble brains. It was like Lucifer invading Heaven with the hosts of Hell only to find God had committed suicide.”
“You know, most people don’t usually compare themselves to Satan,” I said, slowly standing and adjusting my toga.
“Most people are sheep,” Tom Terror said, looming above me. He then scooped me up in his left clawed hand. “I will grant you a few last words before I kill you, your niece, your children, and your whores. What do you have to say?”
Tom Terror lifted the Spear of Odin to my face and I suspected he wanted it to glow. It didn’t, though.
“Well, I actually did have a cunning plan,” I said, smiling. “I just made sure I didn’t remember it until now. Hypnosis is a first-level spell!”
That was when the Spear of Odin transformed into a disgusting blob with hundreds of tentacles that slithered all over Tom Terror’s arm, ripping apart his weapons. John had been masquerading as the trident from the beginning. I’d just had him covering up my cloak. It was a really stupid plan but it worked out pretty well. Oh, and there was a second part of my plan, too! Glad I remembered that. I reached into the portable hole I’d conjured, grabbed Mercury and hurled her out of it. “Attack, my flying monkey!”
“What the hell! You left me in there for hours!” Mercury said, flying through the air like a tiny doll. Somehow she managed to do a backflip and land. Then she blasted Tom Terror with two blasts of glowing mystical energy.
Lisa fired her miniature explosions, aiming at the same points Mercury had attacked. Her blasts penetrated the energy shield of the mecha, blasting him back.
“Ha-ha!” I said.
That was when Tom Terror swatted Mercury out of the air with a backhand, ran an electrical current through his interior that shocked John and me, and kicked Lisa across the room. I had no idea whether they were alive or dead. Tom Terror squeezed his fist and I felt ribs break. One of the fingers buried itself in my leg. I t was a miracle I was still alive.
“Not a very good plan,” Tom Terror said, shaking his head before turning his suit back to me. “Goodbye.”
I used my last remaining spell, telekinesis, to pull the golden apple Odin had given me into my mouth and bite into it. Then I swallowed. I didn’t even chew. Supposedly, these things were the source of the Aesir’s immortality. I was very interested in how it would affect someone who was already a god—albeit a really iddy biddy diddy god.
Tom Terror looked confused then horrified. All of my injuries healed over, my bedsheet was replaced with a black Reaper’s Cloak, and I felt back to my previous strength. Then I burned away the arm holding me and blasted his mecha with enough heat to match the surface of the sun.
“God mode!” I shouted, immediately regretting I hadn’t gone with something less likely to be dated. “Iddy biddy diddy god is now all powerful!”
I blasted Tom Terror with every bit of power the apple gave me. The mecha was powerful but it folded underneath my assault and I soon felt Terror himself being incinerated. It took a lot more juice than I expected. Nevertheless, I felt the moment he disappeared in the flames. Only the Primal Orbs were left. So, of course, it didn’t go right.
All of the flame I was using to destroy Tom Terror vanished, drained away by another force. I was knocked down from the sky where I was hovering and sent skidding across the floor. Despite my supposed godhood, I was every bit as weakened as I had been before. The force that struck me was like an enormous fist landing on a cockroach, with me as the cockroach.
Tom Terror reconstituted with the two Primal Orbs replacing his eyes. He wore a white body suit and glowed with the power of both orbs. “Now I am reborn! I should have realized that it would require the power of Chaos and Death to reach my full potential. I should thank you, Mercil—”
I threw ice at him. It melted off him. I threw more fire at him. It was absorbed by him. I even picked up one of the laser guns and threw it at him, only for it to bounce off his head.
“Okay, now you’re just embarrassing yourself,” Tom Terror said, approaching. He conjured a glowing ball of energy then threw it at me. It exploded and burned against my flesh, sending me to the ground. I would have died if not for the fact I was still overcharged as a god. Unfortunately, not charged enough to beat Tom Terror as long as he had those two artifacts.
“F…” I tried to say. “errk…mmmph.”
“Yes, not quite the defiant proclamation of resistance you hoped,” Tom Terror said, moving at superspeed to start pounding his superpowered fists into me. He threw me against the wreckage of a computer server, and then smashed my face against it. Following that, he threw me on the ground and crushed both my hands with two stomps. I couldn’t even feel it. My body had given out on me. Tom wasn’t done with me, though. “No more games. No more taunts. No more hesitation. All I want to know from you is where the Spear of Odin is. Tell me and I’ll spare one of your children. You can flip a coin for which one lives. Personally, I recommend the white one. Oh, wait, she’s Jewish. Never mind.”
That was when I blinked with my one remaining good eye. I wasn’t looking at Tom Terror, I was looking behind him.
“Was that your answer?” Tom Terror asked.
That was when he looked down past me, perhaps seeing the shadow on the ground of a flying women holding a spear.
“Hi, Tom,” Gabrielle said, clutching the item, which surrounded her in an unearthly glow. “Goodbye, Tom.”
Tom Terror spun around and turned his hands towards her, only to have the spear impale him right between the eyes. The glow from the spear caused his entire body to shimmer then turn into a golden skeleton then to powder. The Primal Orbs in his eye sockets fell to the ground on the powder and I could only stare at them. I was dying from the beatings I’d received and not even godhood could save me.
“Luv….lurv….” I tried to say my last words.
Gabrielle set the spear to one side and lifted both Primal Orbs. She placed them in my ruined hands. “Gary, the world still needs your kind of villainy.”
But did it?
This mission had been a big eye-opener for just how silly and selfish all the terrible things I’d done had been. I’d thought superheroism was lame and stupid while being a rebel was what was cool. Well, I still believed the latter. However, the former I didn’t believe in the slightest. A year ago, I’d considered becoming a good guy but had ended up retiring instead. My daughters needed me to try to conquer the world, to give the uneducated angry masses someone to hate. To basically do the musical Wicked except with me instead of Idina Menzel.
Random factoid: That was Gabrielle’s favorite musical and if I had to hear the song “Defying Gravity” one more time before I died then it would be one too many. She was also a huge Frozen fan, which made me think she had a thing for misunderstood villainess types, possibly misunderstood bad people in general, and if so—well, that would explain a lot.
The simple fact was I didn’t want to be the bad guy anymore and wasn’t going to be. If I did manage to survive this, chose to absorb the power of the Primal Orbs, then I would do so in order to make the world a better place. To be the hero the world needed me to be, rather than the villain I’d selfishly wanted to be. I’d do it for Gabrielle, Cindy, Leia, and Mindy. I’d do it for Mandy, too, because she deserved someone better than the man she’d married. The person who’d failed
to protect her after she’d protected and supported me. I’d be—
“Fixed,” Gabrielle said.
I blinked. Both of my eyes were good now. “Huh?”
I didn’t feel any pain, but I’d assumed that was because my body was too injured to. In fact, it looked like I was completely healed. The big difference was both orbs had disappeared into my palms and I felt their energy coursing through my body. My black cloak turned a deep crimson shade of red and I felt new magic developing in the back of my mind. I was stronger, harder, and probably no longer in need of a checkup for brain damage. I remembered embarrassing incidents from grade school I’d been glad to forget. I also remembered all the retcons and faded memories I’d lost due to President Omega screwing with the timeline.
“I am healed,” I said, not believing it. “I also have a second Primal Orb! Yes, nothing can stop me now! The world will tremble at the mere mention of the name Merciless! Doctor Merciless! No, King Merciless! Fools, they thought they could stop me and—”
Gabrielle gave me a light slap on the cheek.
“Err, sorry,” I said, blinking. “Just was briefly overwhelmed by my godlike powers.”
“You don’t have godlike powers,” Gabrielle said. “You still have the exact same amount of gas you had before. Now you just have a second car to divide it between.”
I blinked rapidly. “Wait, you mean I’m not all powerful?”
“No, Gary,” Gabrielle said.
“Well that sucks,” I said, rolling my head around. “Is that why you gave me the Primal Orbs?”
“Well, it was to save your life, but I figure my dad would think you’re the safest hands in the universe to put them in since you can’t use them to their full capacity,” Gabrielle said, smiling. “I agree with him. It’s kind of like giving the One Ring to Gollum or Tom Bombadil. It’s a temporary solution but better than giving them to Sauron.”
“Did you compare the father of your children to Gollum?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“The metaphor gets weird if I said Legolas.” Gabrielle said, kissing me on the lips before pulling away. “Come on, let’s go check the others and make sure they’re not dead.”
Surprisingly enough, they weren’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THIS IS SUSPICIOUSLY NOT THE EPILOGUE
What followed was a little too good to be true. Call me paranoid, it’s the natural result of living in Falconcrest City where the average reaction to a man dying in the street was to take his wallet, but everything seemed to have worked out. Tom Terror was dead, the Primal Orbs and Spear of Odin were recovered, and the Hollow Earth had been liberated from the forces of P.H.A.N.T.O.M. That made me suspicious. There was always another shoe to drop and they usually landed on my head.
Despite this, everything looked on the up and up. An hour after Tom Terror’s death, the central computer room was full of all the surviving heroes. They’d made short work of the remaining P.H.A.N.T.O.M troops once their powers had been restored (thanks, Niki) and were celebrating their victory by breaking out Tom Terror’s classy German beer stores. There had been casualties among the heroes, but it seemed like the majority had made it through unscathed. Indeed, I didn’t even recognize the dead superheroes and they seemed like the kind of usual C-List fodder that died during events to make things seem serious. Sorry, Rat-man, I’m sure you had a mother.
The deaths weren’t dampening the party spirit either. Guinevere, who was conspicuously ignoring my presence, was a veteran of World War II and seemed to have that kind of willingness to let go while not dishonoring their sacrifice. It was ironic, or perhaps apropos, that I was the Champion of Death and had never learned to deal with loss.
Even so, I wasn’t the kind of guy who wanted to enjoy a cold beer with a bunch of superheroes after having been tortured and almost killed. I was healed of all my injuries, but the pain’s aftermath was a reminder of how close I’d come to being killed. So, instead, I sat in the back of the room and tried to avoid socializing with anyone who wasn’t part of my team. Even that was a reminder this had been a nasty fight that had come very close to a complete loss.
“So, anyone trying to arrest you?” Mercury said, her head bandaged and one of her eyes covered. One benefit of our world’s technology and magic meant she’d be fine in a few hours.
John was recovering in the back. He was dressed in a long trench coat, black and white, and had a featureless mask on that I was pretty sure was his face. Plus, he wore a cute little fedora. He was really getting into the spirit of things. Albeit, he was a bit more Pulp than Silver Age. More Shadow and Doc Savage than Ultragod. I blamed the fact he was a creation of H.P. Lovecraft’s world. Well, H.P. Lovecraft-ish world.
“They haven’t arrested me yet,” I said, sipping from my mug of hot cocoa. It turned out, like Saruman was of tobacco, Tom Terror was a connoisseur of fine chocolates. Because Germans like chocolate. Really, that guy had a serious foreign culture fetish. “Everyone knows that I’m the guy who helped save them. I think they’re fully ready to let bygones be bygones—especially since I’m not feeling terribly supervillainy lately.”
It was a hard admission, but the simple fact was I was maybe not the villain I’d always thought I wanted to be.
“Do they know you killed a Federal agent this morning?” Mercury asked.
Or maybe I was just still a murderer and would never be anything more. Either way.
“Was it really just this morning?” I said, sipping the cocoa. “I don’t know. Probably not. I imagine that’s something that will cause no end of hell for me when I get back.”
“Why do you want to?” Mercury asked.
“Hmm?” I asked, looking to her.
“Well, you’re a king here, kind of,” Mercury said. “I think they’re more impressed with Gabrielle than you.”
“As well they should be,” I said.
Mercury continued. “You saved the entire Hollow Earth from Nazis. You’re a wizard and they’re fond of those guys as well. Why not set up shop here and say to hell with dealing with the surface?”
“Tempting, but no,” I said, sighing. “I’m going to stick around long enough to help these guys leverage the orichalcum trade into something that can keep them from getting invaded every other week. Which, ugh, sounds like responsibility. I can’t live without streaming video and genetically-modified food, though.”
“Well, with great power comes great—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I said. “There’s just something about it that bothers me to no end.”
Mercury chuckled. “I’ll bring you our old comic book collection from the ruins of Boston when we bring the survivors here.”
I looked at her, surprised. “I thought you guys were reconsidering your whole cross-planar Oregon Trail.”
I was glad at least someone had benefited from all this. The world was rid of P.H.A.N.T.O.M, but that was a statement that had a ring of falsehood like, “Mission Accomplished”, “The economy is just about to recover”, and “We have always been at war with East Asia.”
“Your world isn’t so bad,” John grumbled from behind me. “Ridiculous people in costumes murdering each other for petty reasons and wielding the power of great sorcerers aside, your planet still isn’t a burnt-out radioactive wasteland.”
“Give it time,” I said, more bitterly than I’d expected. I wasn’t sure why I was so angry about how things had ended. I should have been happy that Tom Terror was dead, and I was, but there was something in the back of my mind I was forgetting. Spellbinder was still missing, we had to treat Viking Lad, and I needed to have a long talk with Diabloman about helping his evil sister, but those didn’t seem like pressing concerns. No, there was something else and it was killing me that I couldn’t figure out what.
“Got your new real estate picked out?” I asked. “Word of advice: don’t make any treaties where they promise to respect your sovereignty. Not even if they offer you shiny beads. It’s always a trap.”
John frowned, clearly getting this reference and finding it not particularly respectful of American history. Tough. I wasn’t respectful of anything. Not even myself. “The people of Nub’Ab’Sul are giving us the territory around Skull Castle. It’s a formerly inhabited kingdom Tom Terror wiped clean off the map.”
Yikes.
“It’s also a volcanic wasteland,” I pointed out. “I mean, yeah, that works if you’re an orc or demon but it’s not my pick.”
I also wouldn’t want to live in a place that was a mass grave, but I supposed all of Cthulhu Earth was that for these two.
Mercury smirked, amused by my statement of revulsion. “Volcanos are good. They mean it will be a fertile tropical jungle in a few years. A good environment for building a new civilization for refugees.”
“Huh, now I’m thinking of investing,” I said, finishing my cocoa. “Visit Mercuryland and John City. It’s like Hawaii except formerly owned by Nazis.”
“Do you think anyone on the surface would be willing to accept us?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. “Imagine if we asked if they could take in a few million displaced citizens from our world. That sort of thing didn’t fly where I was from.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, refugees aren’t really welcome right now. Or ever. It seems to be the one thing every country on the planet agrees on. Well, actually, there’s a few people but they have to deal with—”
“We’ll take the volcanic rock,” Mercury interrupted. “Skull Castle has a bunch of built-in infrastructure and replicators. We can use those to arm ourselves and sow the seeds of an autonomous city-state. I pity anyone who tries to take our territory.”
Yeah, suddenly this didn’t sound like such a great idea anymore. Much like every other idea I’ve had in my life. “Well, you guys enjoy crushing your enemies and hearing the lamentations of their women.”
I was unironically happy for them. A bunch of Mad Max monster-hunting badasses and survivalists wasn’t the sort of group that you wanted to screw with. Adding them to the population of the Hollow Earth might deter any other would-be invaders from the surface. Mind you, the locals might not get along with them, but hopefully they could sort that out. I got the impression John and Mercury really wanted to establish peaceful relations rather than act as conquerors. I also trusted John to eat whoever disagreed, assuming Mercury didn’t blast them first. If not? Well, I’d keep returning until we made it work. It wasn’t like I had anything else better to do.
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