“Usually that’s a good sign with women,” I said.
Leslie moved to jab me between the legs only to stop, the sound of three tiny gunshots going off. Leslie looked shocked and fell forward, landing face first on the ground. The man in the oni mask was holding his futuristic pistol behind her. He’d gunned her down while she was distracted with me.
Instead of expressing my confusion or gratitude, I looked up at him. “You couldn’t have done that before the electric torture?”
The man in the oni mask removed his disguise and revealed Case Gordon, aka Agent G. Case was a man of somewhat indistinct features but was a white-passing man that had hints of other ethnicities in a way that couldn’t quite be identified. As I understood, his mother was black/ Hispanic and his father Caucasian. Except he was a robot based on the guy he resembled and said guy was a psychopathic cyborg. Yeah, the sad fact was that this was normal among backstories of people I knew.
“No,” Case said. “I couldn’t. Because you frigging banished me from your dimension without so much as a by your leave.”
“We’re already full on our Monty Python quotes,” I said, trying to get up and failing. “Ow. I take it you’re Mandy and Cindy’s spy in Castle Dracula.”
“What gave it away?” Case asked. “The fact I’m a spy or the fact that we’re in Castle Dracula?”
Case was like Jane in that he was every bit as much of a smartass as me. I’d never realized how annoying that was until I’d met them both. “In any case, you just killed the president’s daughter and that’s going to get you some flack.”
Case gestured down with his head and I saw that the body of Leslie Trust was sparking where she’d been shot. “She’s a human replacement droid or HRD. Programmed by President Omega to secretly support his agenda while he was gone.”
“What happened to the real one?” I asked, surprised.
“I don’t think there is one,” Case replied. “President Trust is probably also another one of his minions.”
I stared. “You know, that’s why I only pretend to vote. That and I’m legally prevented from doing so.”
If President Trust was a robot duplicate, then that went a long way to explaining why he was still carrying out the anti-Super crusade that his master had instituted in previous years. It also explained why he was hesitant to do anything too overt. With the exception of fully sentient machines like Case, most androids and gynoids didn’t work very well outside of their programming. I wasn’t sure what had triggered Leslie going full Baroness from G.I. Joe but maybe she’d had that in her code all along. Really, that said something about President Omega in itself. Guy couldn’t even recruit his own perky female minions, he had to build them.
“I’m more curious why you can’t tell if a president is a robot or not,” Case said. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be more technologically advanced than my world? Which has AI and robots too. I mean, we have a thing on my world called an x-ray.”
“Ah, so you don’t have the subsonic phase inducer that puts up a fake set of vital signs?” I asked.
Case narrowed his eyes. “How the hell would that even work?”
“Very well, thank you,” I replied. “In any case, it’s wonderful to see you.”
Case banged me on the top of my head with the butt of his pistol. He didn’t hit me as hard as he could have, especially as Case was the world’s chattiest Terminator, but it was enough to let me feel it.
“What the hell was that for?” I snapped.
“You separating me from Jane,” Case said. “Sending me back to my world was equivalent to exiling me to Hell—”
“You have no idea,” I interrupted.
“But breaking up Jane and me was unforgivable,” Case said. “I am seriously pissed at you, Gary.”
I held back a few things that would have been needlessly nasty. That Jane was in a new relationship. That Case should have realized he couldn’t just run away from his problems by skipping worlds. That I’d probably saved Case’s life since an android assassin was pretty small potatoes in a world where we had people who could move the moon out of orbit. Instead, I said something that probably made matters worse but was as kind as I could think of. “Jane is here now. Apparently, someone has been using my family and friends to try to lure me in.”
Case kicked the dead body of Leslie. “How did they lure you in?”
“My children,” I said, frowning. “They said I had to save the Multiverse.”
Case snorted. “You?”
“I know! I should have guessed it was really pandering to my ego. They also sent a talking bird to lure me in.”
Case stared. “Uh huh.”
I frowned. “Talking birds are cool.”
“So, did Jane ask about me?” Case asked.
I took a deep breath. “Not the time here. I need to know how they managed to fool me with a fake version of my daughter. Whoever managed to get me here knew me intimately and secrets about my family that I shared with perhaps a half-dozen people in the world. Did you sell me out?”
Case stared at me like I was an idiot, a look that I’d gotten a lot over the years and was only sometimes justified. “Gary, why the hell would I rescue you if I sold you out?”
“Because you are devilishly clever!” I said, pointing at him.
Case rolled his eyes. “I know who sold you out, Gary. This is all one large complicated psy-op to gaslight you into assisting in the resurrection plot.”
“Psy-ops mean something different in my world. That’s when you use psychic powers to control someone into doing your bidding,” I said.
“I mean someone is messing with your head,” Case said. “There’s a bunch of superhero human replacement droids in a closet nearby. One of them was a heavily beaten-up version of your daughter, Mindy. I even saw them growing zombie-looking clones in a lab of things, like the Nightwalker. They were made of nanites that made them all but indestructible.”
I blinked. “So, all this sorcery stuff is just super-science? Is Dracula even here? Who the hell is helping him screw with me?”
“Dracula is not here,” Diabloman said, standing twenty feet away at the door to the dungeon. The old luchador was standing there in a lab coat of all things, still wearing his mask but looking like a mad scientist themed wrestler as much as his old self. David was sitting on his shoulder, looking guilty.
I stared at my former friend. “Well, shit.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Bittersweet Reunions
I stared at Diabloman.
Diabloman stared at me.
Case looked bored and looked away from us both. “Go ahead.”
“What?” I asked.
“Do a Star Wars quote,” Case said. “Make light of the situation. Your old friend is behind this and gave the enemy all the information he needed to manipulate you.”
“Really?” I asked, looking at Case. “You’d think I’d do that? Diabloman was my friend. I don’t even know how to parse this kind of betrayal. I’m certainly not going to demean events by making jokes.”
“Oh, sorry,” Case said. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
I turned to Diabloman. “I’ve been waiting for you, D. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner, but now I am the master.”
“Goddammit, Gary,” Case muttered under his breath.
“Do robots believe in God?” I asked.
“Yes, Gary,” Case said. “The creator of everything.”
“I can’t get you to say, ‘Thank the Maker’?” I asked. “We can get you a foul-mouthed R2 unit and you can be our etiquette and protocol assassination unit pair.”
“I will pistol whip you, Gary,” Case said, raising his gun again. “Properly this time.”
“I have missed these discussions,” Diabloman said. “They are memories of a simpler time. A time when I thought redemption was possible and peace was not a lie.”
“Yeah, before you sided with your sister who raped me,” I said, devoid
of all humor. I hated Spellbinder and would have kept her in Hell, highest circle or not, if not for the fact that I’d been asked to show mercy.
It turned out my name had been another lie which I’d told myself on my road to being a supervillain. I wasn’t particularly merciless, and I wasn’t a particularly good supervillain either. Because, honestly, a real supervillain would have just incinerated Diabloman right now. I had the power and unless he had the other Primal Stones, nothing was stopping me from doing so. Instead, I just felt sick and tired of the whole thing and miserable that events had come between us.
“If you have to blame someone for what Maria did, it would be better to blame me,” Diabloman said. “The cult that raised us made her the Chosen One and me as the man meant to be her bodyguard. Instead, she rebelled, and I made her life a living hell. I stalked her across seven continents and ruined any normal life she sought to build for herself. I killed her loved ones and tried to corrupt her at every turn. In the end, I took her life and trapped her in a space between both this world and the next.”
I stared at him. “She made her own decisions, Diabloman.”
“Did she?” Diabloman said. “It was your alternate self, the one known as Merciful, who offered her a chance at new life. Merciful gave her a second chance at life, love, and happiness. All she had to do was wear the soulless body of a monster.”
“Yes, my wife,” I said. “Maria just had to lie to me every night and torture me by thinking my wife was alive rather than gone.”
“To Heaven,” Diabloman said. “Instead of letting her go, you wanted to selfishly bring her back.”
“The difference between you and me, Diabloman?” I stared at him, coldly. “I don’t care. I own my actions and decisions. I don’t attempt to blame the victim for their assault. For being lied to. You did horrible things to her. You probably don’t deserve her forgiveness. However, she gave you it. You got a universal pardon for destroying the frigging universe. That was my wish, not a ban on resurrection, and you tossed it away to side against me. To side with her.”
Diabloman didn’t respond. “You truly hate her, don’t you? Even though her influence helped change the monster back into something resembling her old self.”
“She’s rescued from Hell,” I replied. “Mandy, vampire or not, asked me to release Maria, so I did it. But if you still want to throw down, I’m game. I’ve lost any and all respect for you as a villain. You’re not my mentor anymore, you’re not my friend, and I’m sure as shit not afraid of you. I’m prepared to put you down and there’s not a damned thing you can do to stop me.”
Case interrupted me. “Gary—”
“Don’t Gary me,” I snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like to be betrayed.”
Case looked down at me.
“Except for all the times it’s happened to you,” I replied. “Okay, point taken.”
Case sighed. “I think you should listen to him.”
“There’s not a damn thing he could possibly say to me that I want to hear,” I replied, fully prepared to fight.
“I’m sorry,” Diabloman said. “If you wish to kill me, my life is yours.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Ooo, an apology!” David said, on Diabloman’s shoulder. “Didn’t see that coming.”
I threw a fireball at David, who managed to dodge out of the way.
“Dammit,” I muttered. “It looks so damn easy when Mario does it.”
Diabloman stared. “I did arrange the trap that was meant to lure you in. I did it on behalf of my master—”
“Your master?” I asked, incredulously. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
“I did many terrible things that have almost assuredly thrown away the redemption you warped the nature of the universe to give me,” Diabloman said. “I did so because you sent my sister to Hell and I hated you for it. I intended to force you into releasing her. To undo the ban on resurrection so she could live again. Now you tell me you released her from damnation.”
“Yeah, I’m not you,” I said. “My hate has limits.”
“So literally this entire plan has been for nothing,” Diabloman said, sounding more broken and defeated than he was when I first found him working as muscle for the Typewriter.
“What plan?” I asked. “Who are you working for?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Diabloman said, sighing. “It occurs to me now that I could have just asked you to release her the entire time. I left my wife and daughter, the two people I cared for most, to concoct an elaborate revenge plan. The faked Society of Superheroes Dark, the temporal crisis—”
“You mean the Big Ass Time Disaster?” I asked.
“We’re not calling it that,” Diabloman said before continuing. “I even drew Case and Jane from their respective realities. It took some doing and I summoned the wrong people a few times, but it was the perfect bait. I even hired some monsters and created other ones in the lab to lead you in.”
“Where does the bird fit in?” I asked.
“I’m Diabloman’s master,” David said, cheerfully.
I rolled my eyes. “Then you, what, got in touch with Dracula to put his lair in my backyard next to Cindy and Mandy?”
“Not quite,” Diabloman said. “The real Dracula is dead. I have gathered supervillains from all over the multiverse in hopes of using them to force you to obey. To gather the Primal Orbs together so we can fix the world.”
“All to save your sister,” I said. “Which I did without you.”
Diabloman stared. “You would do no less.”
I stared at him. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this insane revenge plot. Why not just kill me?”
“It’s not about revenge,” Diabloman said. “I needed you to surrender the Primal Orbs to me. Voluntarily. But yes, it may have gotten overly complex. I actually teleported Dracula’s castle here so I could use Sheriff Injustice against you. Cindy and Mandy’s camp being nearby was a complete coincidence. Apparently, the real estate market prices are insane in this area. You have to build your hidden base in a swamp. It worked out, though, because they were people that David told me had their own Primal Orbs.”
David somehow smiled despite not having a mouth, only a beak. It made me think his claim to being Diabloman’s master wasn’t entirely false.
“You attacked a camp full of children with Lich-Wights!” I shouted. “Children!”
“What’s a Lich-Wight?” Diabloman asked.
“It doesn’t matter!” David said, landing on Diabloman’s head. “The thing is you’re here now and we can proceed with Plan B!”
“Plan B?” I asked. “Why do I have the feeling this is like one of those comic book crossovers where the writer quits halfway through the story then another picks it up and completely rewrites it? Oh God, we’re in The Last Jedi!”
“I thought The Rise of Skywalker was worse,” Case said. “I didn’t like The Last Jedi but I understood its themes. I felt The Rise of Skywalker was just silly.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Just because I can make Star Wars references in dramatic moments doesn’t mean everyone can, Case.”
“Whatever,” Case said. “So, you got what you wanted without having to kill anyone.”
Diabloman didn’t respond to that, making me think he’d killed anyone. “Unfortunately, it is not that simple. I had to call in every favor I owed and make elaborate promises of power, revenge, and wealth to get all the people I wanted involved. It is one of the rules of supervillainy that you must always pay your debts.”
“Like the Lannisters,” I said, still too furious at Diabloman to think straight. “So, all that bullshit about being sorry was just that.”
“Not quite,” Diabloman said. “If you want to kill me now, I meant it. I will not resist. There is nothing left for me now. It’s just I want to warn you that this castle is full of supervillains that have been waiting three or four days for your arrival so they can all get their wishes granted by the Primal Or
bs.”
I stared at him. “This sounds like a terrible plan from top to bottom.”
Diabloman frowned. “I confess, I am somewhat out of practice in evil scheming. David has also been adding to it left and right.”
David gave me a wave with his left wing. “His original plan was just to kidnap you and steal the Primal Orbs himself. I said, ‘why not involve Dracula’s castle and the president’s daughter?’ Then I said, ‘Why not build a castle in a swamp?’ He said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp—”
“No more Python!” I snapped. “What’s next? Quoting the movie version of Clue? To make a long story short—”
“Too late,” Case muttered.
“—we’ve got a bunch of supervillains upstairs who you assembled to kick my ass,” I said. “All so they can do what Princess Reich down there—”
“Contessa de Cobress,” Diabloman corrected.
“I like mine better,” I said. “All so they can do what Princess Reich promised to do in torture me into removing the resurrection, which I don’t even know if I can do, and grant wishes with the Primal Orbs. Of which I now have four.”
“And they have the other four,” Diabloman said. “I sort of helped them steal them.”
I stared at Diabloman. “So, they’re really this close to omnipotence.”
Diabloman had the decency to look guilty. “To be fair, this is usually the part where the Society of Superheroes shows up and starts beating everyone up. They’re distracted with the army of Lich-Wights, as you call them, though. I really didn’t expect that plan to work. It never would have distracted them this long in my heyday.”
“Was this when Ultragod and the Nightwalker were still alive?” I asked.
Diabloman didn’t answer.
“Merciful Moses,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I take back every good thing I said about you as an archvillain.”
“Which is good because I was awful,” Diabloman said.
“Even when you succeed you screw up!” I snapped. “Now I know how everyone feels like when they’re dealing with me!”
Diabloman looked startled by that comparison. “I do believe that is the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said to me.”
The Supervillainy Saga (Book 7): The Horror of Supervillainy Page 19