“I wished you out of hell, Diabloman. You have a fresh start,” I said, pausing. “Which is another sentence that makes me realize how far we’ve come together. I’m a real supervillain now and I owe it all to you.”
Diabloman’s expression was usually visible underneath his mask. It clung tight enough to his face that I could make out the contours of his cheeks, lips, and mouth. “Redemption is not something the gods decide on. It is something that must exist in one’s heart. I can never achieve it unless I gain my sister’s forgiveness.”
I frowned. “Your sister is… not in a good place. You killed her lover. You killed her—”
“I know my crimes,” Diabloman said, the barest hint of edge in his voice.
“But if you want to try to bring her back then I’m game,” I said, frowning. “I’ll try and forgive what she did.”
I wouldn’t, but I would pretend for Diabloman’s sake.
Diabloman smiled under his mask. “You were always the best of us, Merciless. It is a shame you are more Robin Hood and Joaquin Murrieta than the banditos I grew up knowing.”
“Are you feeling alright, D?”
“No,” Diabloman said.
He then punched me in the chest, face, and stomach before powerbombing me against the floor of the elevator before I could react. The last thing I saw was his boot descending on my face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE REAL CLIMAX
The Chaos and Death Orbs hovered over my head, one blackest obsidian and the other a beautiful shade of red. I was floating in an endless void and they spoke to me with the voices of Mindy and Leia. Gradually, they shifted into becoming my two future daughters and looked down on me with frustrated gazes.
“Well, you’ve screwed it up again, Dad,” Mindy said.
“We’re trying to help you here,” Leia said. “Yet, every time we do, you manage to screw things up worse.”
“That’s kind of my specialty,” I said, not feeling particularly comfortable about my situation. “Maybe I don’t want help, though. You think of that? Maybe I want to make it on my own.”
“No one makes it on their own,” Mindy replied. “We’re all interconnected.”
“It’s the last age of the superhero,” Leia replied. “The Nickel Age after the Golden, Silver, and Iron Ages. Like the Wild West, superheroes were never supposed to last forever. They were meant to be a stop gap until the world learned how to deal with the marvels among them. Eventually, superpowers were going to be something that technology caught up to. Flying guys with super-strength, giant robots, and alien invasions are things that will be handled by governments soon. There will be law enforcement wielding mass-produced power armor, soldiers with stem-cell based superpowers, and—”
“Exterminators?” I asked. “The government can’t handle these things because they aren’t heroes. They’re politicians. They’re so interested in preserving the status quo, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to try to make the world a better place. That we can do better. It’s why I used to identify as an anarchist. I believed you had to smash down the system in order to build a newer, better one.”
“Used to?” Mindy asked.
I stared at them. “I had more to lose after you were born.”
“The clock is ticking,” Leia said, lifting a digital phone that showed a countdown. You can save the world, but you have to take extreme measures to do it.”
“I hate the Extreme!” I snapped, feeling my head.
I saw multiple futures ahead of me: one of them was a blasted-out ruin where humans and Supers destroyed one another in a war that no one won, another was a future where Supers won only to die out because the weak were culled rather than protected, and a third was the planet where Supers were finally eliminated only for humanity to have no defense when the next invasion by Entropicus occurred. There was a fourth, though, where I imposed peace. A world I’d seen in a vision before, ruled by Emperor Gary, and it was one that eventually grew the hell up and got its act together.
“Show me another,” I said, simply.
“There is no other,” Leia said.
“Show me another,” I repeated.
“Why won’t you accept what you have to do?” Mindy asked, sounding almost scared.
“Because I believe people can be more like Ultragod than me,” I said. “More like Guinevere than the Nightmistress.”
“I notice you don’t mention Ultragoddess.”
“No one should ever worship their partner,” I said. “Which, thankfully, is something no one will ever have to do with me. I’m a worship-free demigod.”
Both Leia and Mindy frowned.
“We’ve had this conversation before,” Mindy muttered in a slightly eerie tone.
“Always the same answer,” Cindy muttered.
That was when they showed me a glimpse of a beautiful Earth covered in brilliant high-tech architecture, sprinkled with retro designs. Supers and humans lived together in harmony. There were still villains, but they were dastardly rather than evil. People looked up to the sky and saw not someone to be jealous of but to aspire to emulate. It was the kind of world where heroes got kittens out of trees and bad guys like the Cream Pie Bandit tried to steal all the cakes at the state fair. It was the world that my doppelgänger, Merciful, was from. It was also a place where I’d been a hero rather than a villain.
“I like this one,” I said, simply. “You know, maybe a little less Archie and Sabrina. Wait, that joke no longer works thanks to both getting gritty reboots. Is nothing sacred? What’s next, Back to the Future with guns?”
“Meet us halfway, Dad,” Mindy said.
“Are you my daughters?” I asked. “Or are you just the Primal Orbs using their image? Was the Chaos Orb always trying to lure me down to get it?”
“We’re both,” Leia said. “The stones came to us when you—”
“Died,” Mindy finished for her sister.
I stared at them. “That’s what this is all about? You guys are contacting me because I die sometime in the future and you think taking over the world is a better alternative?”
Mindy looked at me then her sister. “Yeah, kinda.”
“I’d rather have you than any other world in our future,” Leia said. “So, you have at least some worshipers. Blame yearly Disneyland trips with no waiting at the rides.”
“That required me to pretend we were guests of the Pope,” I said, smiling. “Guys, you don’t have to worry, what will be will be.”
“That’s, unfortunately, not something we can leave to chance,” Mindy said. “You’re our secondary priority, Dad. The world needs to be saved from the Universal Flaw. You’ve had better success than anyone in fighting it. However, if you won’t do what needs to be done, then we’ll find someone else.”
“And we’ll save you some other way,” Leia added.
“Wait, I—”
That was when everything changed, and I found myself waking up from my second ass-beating of the day. I had a bright light in front of my face and had to look to one side. “Guys, I don’t mean to complain, but you realize that being knocked unconscious is actually really bad for the brain. I mean, forget what television has taught you, if you don’t wake up after thirty minutes then you probably aren’t going to.”
“I’m sorry, Gary,” I heard Diabloman say nearby.
“Et tu, Diabloman?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed. “Really?”
I wasn’t even mad. Just confused. Superheroes fought each other all the time and the very fact that I’d woken up was a sign this wasn’t too serious. The fact Tom Terror had kept me alive was something I was ignoring because it implied something I didn’t want to face: that Diabloman was no longer my friend.
“Turn on the polarizers,” Maria’s voice spoke.
My blood ran cold. “Yeah, I knew I was forgetting something.”
The blinding light around me dimmed and I gradually came to view what was an observation deck made of shining chrome metal and control panels
with jewels for buttons. It had the same sort of lunatic futurism most Ultranian technology had. There were huge twelve-foot-tall windows surrounding the circular chamber and all of them showed nothing but a brilliant white light.
We were in the Inner Sun. Literally, the Ultranians had apparently built a kind of space station that they made either indestructible or covered in a force shield that allowed them to put it in the heart of a sun. A sun that didn’t quite work the same way as the one the Earth orbited but was still damn hot. Talk about impractical designs. On the other hand, it explained why Tom Terror hadn’t been able to take over the source of all magic. If he’d known about this place, he would have been here.
Standing there, in the Overlord armor with the helmet removed, was Maria in Mandy’s body. Diabloman stood at her side, looking guilty. I also saw Ken. At least, I presumed it was Ken since it looked like him in twenty years with the body of Michael Clarke Duncan. He was wearing a suit of armor with a long red cape, a horned helmet straight from Skyrim, and he had a tiny hammer in one hand. I was glad Ken had gotten his original body back but less than pleased he was working for Maria now.
I was, once more, strapped to a table. In fact, I believed it was the exact same table as before. Apparently, Maria had picked up on the fact that Odin had given her a fake spear and infiltrated Skull Castle on her own. She’d picked up my suit of armor and made arrangements to kidnap me. All it had required was for my best friend to choose blood over loyalty.
Okay, now I was mad.
“So, you’ve decided to go full supervillain, Maria?” I asked, not really all that surprised. “I mean, we all saw this coming. Right?”
Maria looked at me. “Don’t be a child, Gary. We both know there’s no actual difference between superheroes and villains. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
“Case in point, something a supervillain would say,” I said, unhappily. “So, can we get on to the killing me part?”
“Do you have a death wish, Gary?” Diabloman asked.
I thought about the question before answering it. “No, I don’t. I’m not afraid of death, it’s true, but I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. I have two wonderful children and an upcoming marriage to look forward to.”
“Pfft, like that will last,” Maria said. “She’ll find an excuse to leave you behind. Just like she did before.”
“Says the literal rapist,” I said, simply. “The world needs a better class of superhero than you. Thankfully, we have Bow Girl—who is thirty-eight and still fits into the costume well. I think the Society of Superheroes needs to work on phasing out anyone over the age of twenty being called girl, boy, lass, or lad. After a certain point, it just becomes embarrassing.”
Maria made strangling gestures with her hands then took a deep breath. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Oh?” I asked.
Maria gestured with the side of her head. “Release him.”
Ken walked over and pulled open my restraints one by one. “Sorry about this. It’s just when I had a choice between brainwashed into being a white psychopathic murderer and getting fixed, I chose the latter.”
“It’s alright,” I said, giving him two thumbs up. “I’ll pretend you were brainwashed. It’s like the ultimate Get out of Jail Free card.”
“Appreciate it,” Ken said, nodding. “I promise to let you escape your next heist.”
I didn’t tell him I was defecting to the other team because I fully intended to kick his ass after this was done. You know, after I somehow disabled his incredible strength and invulnerability. No wait, he was just a fourteen-year-old kid. You couldn’t hold them to the same standards as the rest of us. Especially when a beautiful woman was asking.
I couldn’t turn insubstantial and escape because, well, we were in the middle of a sun. I also didn’t want to damage any of the equipment inside. So, instead, I just stood up and walked toward Maria. “What is it you want?”
“It is a complicated issue—” Diabloman started to say.
“Shut up,” I said, simply. “We’re not talking anymore.”
I wasn’t sure we ever would again.
“The body I inhabit likes you, Gary,” Maria said, frowning in a way reminiscent of Mandy.
“The body you inhabit is soulless,” I said.
“Soulless but still possessed of a will of its own,” Maria said.
“That is, by definition, the opposite of soulless,” I said.
Maria made a dismissive wave. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is I’m willing to make restitution for what I did.”
“How’s that?” I asked, utterly devoid of mirth. I never thought I would get tired of the fun of supervillainy and crime-committing. However, I was ready to close the book on this chapter of my life. Or wait, was it “turn the page on this chapter of my life”? I forget how the saying goes. Anyway, I had a very simple way to do it.
Kill Maria.
Call me sexist and believe me, I’m usually more woke than this, but I don’t actually like killing female baddies. The Nightmistress, Abaddonian gods, Amazons, Zombies and Nazis aside, I’ve never actually done it. Which sounds like more than it is compared to the number of people I’ve killed total that is still like ninety percent dudes.
Okay, I had a point here somewhere. Anyway, it’s doubly problematic when one of them is your reanimated dead wife possessed by the sister of your now possibly former best friend. However, Maria was going to be a persistent thorn in my side until I dealt with her permanently. Mandy’s demonically empowered vampire self also needed to be put down. It’s what she’d want.
Probably.
Yeah, now I sounded like I was trying to convince myself I wanted to do what I needed to do. I didn’t even understand why I was hesitating. Yet, here I was. Hesitating. That was almost a guarantee of losing in a battle of magic versus magic. I might as well just put my head on the chopping block and let her kill me.
“I want to take over your destiny,” Maria said.
“My…destiny,” I said, unsure what she said. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll be the villain who takes over the world,” Maria said. “Who unites the world in opposition to them.”
I stared at her. “Where did you even hear about that?”
“Mindy and Leia spoke to me, too,” Maria said.
I stared at her. “That’s it. This year’s trip to Anime Con is off.”
“Mindy is not even a year old,” Diabloman said. “She wouldn’t appreciate it.”
“You don’t know that,” I snapped back. “Wait, I just realized I banished Jane from this universe and my sister is arrested. Goddammit, who am I going to get to babysit for me? Do you think Jane would resent it if I kidnapped her back from her dimension? Maybe I can give her an apology salt lick or something. Or kill the hunter who whacked Bambi’s mother.”
“Heroes don’t kill,” Ken said, calling from his side.
I glared at him. “They also don’t join psychotic vampire witches out to take over the world.”
“I thought you were going undercover,” Ken said.
I stared at him. “Does everyone know about that already? The whole point of going undercover is no one knows you’re doing it!”
“Cindy knows so it didn’t last a minute and a half,” Diabloman said. “Congratulations on your redemption.”
“Which you had a chance at and threw away,” I said, looking at him. I was furious with him but not for the reasons I expected. It wasn’t the betrayal. Okay, it was a little the betrayal. No, it was the fact he was doing it for his sister. Maria was digging herself a deeper and deeper hole and he was willing to throw himself down it to join her.
“Sí,” Diabloman said, simply.
“You realize no one actually takes over the world,” I replied, wondering why I was even bothering.
“You could and have,” Maria said. “Just agree.”
“And then what?” I asked.
“Then we never have to see each other agai
n,” Maria replied. “The P.H.A.N.T.O.M Block nations in Eastern Europe are vulnerable to invasion with the death of Tom Terror. I’ll start there and move on to other countries no one cares about. With the orichalcum wealth in the Hollow Earth, I’ll be able to leverage superpower status for my alliance. In time, people will beg me to rule them.”
“And you want to help with this?” I asked Diabloman and Ken.
“I just want to punch Nazis and get paid,” Ken said. “Besides, if a superhero goes rogue then the others will have my back until I get a slap on the wrist for it. It’s called the Cape Wall.”
Diabloman sucked in my breath. “I owe her a debt I must repay.”
“You cannot repay,” Maria said, her tone acidic. “But I’ll let you try. So, Gary, do we have a deal?”
“Yeah, but we have to shake on it,” I said, simply. I’d made my decision on how to handle this.
Maria nodded and took my hand.
That’s when I sent her soul to hell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I REALLY SUCK AT THIS SUPERHERO THING
Yeah, I don’t think I’m ever going to achieve redemption.
I wasn’t going to achieve the Force Ghost by Obi-Wan and Yoda-type where all is forgiven despite a lifetime of evil deeds. I never quite bought that for Anakin Skywalker anyway. It seemed George Lucas, the Force, and Catholicism had a lot in common about how easy it was to wash away sin. For me, I was very old school and believed once you did the crime you had to serve your time. Strangely, this didn’t stop me from doing the crime and trying to avoid the latter whatever the cost. So, I’m honest in my dishonesty.
I’m ninety percent sure that sending someone’s soul to hell is up there for things superheroes don’t do. Not even Hellrider would do it (okay, maybe him). I felt like I’d proved I wasn’t worthy of being a hero. Even an undercover one. What can I say, the Dark Side is tempting in a way that the Light Side is not.
“Sorry, Maria,” I said, not sorry in the slightest.
“You bastard.” Maria’s eyes widened in the second between my using the Death Orb and her soul getting sucked into the object before being punted off to an unpleasant afterlife. “What have you done?”
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