by Matt Carter
“Sounds hot.”
“It was, but was also quite uncomfortable.”
“Sounds better than what I had,” I said, trying to figure out just how the hell my costume was supposed to work.
“Have you ever committed a crime in high heels?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Then mine was not better than yours.”
Most of my new costume was a one-piece, formfitting black bodysuit with blue lightning bolt highlights made of some very flexible, very tough fabric I’d never seen up close before (Super-Spandex, most heroes call it), with a long zipper down the front and another smaller one at the crotch, which made me smile.
No more Spongeman problems!
After that, there were heavy, but comfortable boots, gloves, and odd bits of lightweight but near-indestructible plate armor for my shins, knees, wrists, shoulders, and chest. The chest plate (molded to make it look like I had awesome abs and pecs) had two crossed blue lightning bolts that stylishly formed the words Apex Strike. The cape, lighter and sturdier and more detachable than the one I’d made myself, clipped easily into the shoulder plates, leaving just the helmet.
I was hoping there’d be some way around it, but apparently that was a part of my image now.
The new helmet was simple, light and black, leaving my face open while sweeping back dramatically down my neck, like a samurai. Only once it was settled on my head and I started to think about how I was going to cover my face did I hear the mechanisms inside whir to life, covering my face in a dark, plastic-like visor that looked a lot like my motorcycle helmet once I got to see it in a mirror. Heads-up display information scrolled across the inside of the mask. When I thought it away, it disappeared. When I thought it back, it returned. When I thought to open and close the mask again, it did.
Cool.
I must have spent five minutes playing around with my helmet while Nevermore got dressed. It was only when I heard her tapping her shoe on the ground and clearing her throat that I remembered just where we were.
I really wished she’d chosen a better moment than me sticking my tongue out at the mirror to surprise me. Closing the visor on it hurt like hell.
Seeing her in her costume took most of the pain away (metaphorically, I mean, really my tongue still hurt like hell). They’d chosen crimson and black for her colors; black lipstick, a crimson domino mask, which each side of her cape bearing one of the colors. Her hair was bright red and long, probably a wig. Knee-high, high-heeled boots added an extra six inches to her height. The rest of her costume looked barely more concealing than anything the lingerie models I’d seen earlier in the day had worn, showing off all of Nevermore’s tattoos.
She twirled around. “It covers more than you’d think. Where you see skin they have some mesh. Invisible, but very tough, probably like your suit.”
I nodded.
“You like?”
I nodded again.
“How much?”
I nodded a third time.
“That was not a good answer.”
I nodded a fourth time. She giggled.
“Have you ever fucked in costume before?”
I shook my head.
“Then you should try it; it’s very nice!” she said, pressing her body against mine.
Though I didn’t entirely believe her, once her hand found its way into my zipper, I was in no position to argue.
I was going to like life in Death Manor. I had my own, gigantic bedroom (customized to my suit’s blue-and-black color scheme) with a comfortable bed, more clothes than I knew what to do with, and a TV the size of my bed back in Hacklin’s Hall. We had to be on call for whenever the heroes needed us, but otherwise we could sleep as long as we wanted, do whatever we wanted, and even use Odigjod to travel wherever and whenever we wanted since they could keep an eye on us with the Creepers. The force field that had previously cut Death Island in half was gone, which now gave us access to the entire island, while the perimeter force field was strong enough that it would keep us safe and hidden from any of the non-Kayfabe superheroes. I had most of my friends, and I even finally hooked up with Nevermore, with every chance for a sequel.
In short, life was good.
We even had a half-decent cook, even if he was hardly a half-decent person. Or a half person, really.
“The secret to a good omelet is in the cheese,” Carnivore said as he cooked us breakfast on our first morning in the mansion. “Too much, too many different kinds, you just create a muddy mess of cheese. Too little cheese or variety, and it loses personality.”
“What if we don’t want any cheese?” Trojan Fox asked, pouring herself a very, very large cup of coffee.
Carnivore snorted. “What are you, a commie?”
“The commies have cheese, too. That joke doesn’t make any sense,” Trojan Fox said.
He shook his head, letting out one of his yipping chuckles. “I wouldn’t expect you to get it.”
“And I wouldn’t expect an omelet to have so much hair in it.”
“Hey, I’m wearing a hairnet!”
“On your head; you’ve got fur everywhere you don’t have scales!”
“Five bucks saying she kicks his behind royal,” Odigjod whispered to me and Circus across the kitchen table.
“Are we talking fair fight or her in a suit, because that makes a difference,” Circus said.
“Either or. She’s wily,” Odigjod said.
“You’re on.” I wasn’t going to take that action, but mostly because I agreed with Odigjod.
“Do you think it’s safe to have him cooking for us?” I whispered to them.
“What, think I’m gonna poison ya, celebrity?” Carnivore snapped, throwing back his head in another loud, yipping laugh. “First off, I got the ears of a fox so don’t think I can’t hear you. Second, poisoning is a bitch’s way of killing, and I ain’t no bitch. Thirdly, there’s two things I pride myself on: killing those who got it coming, and cooking. I may not have no fancy college cooking education, but I got years behind the grill of pretty much every diner from Ottawa to Hamilton, and I know what I’m doing.”
“Sounds like you and job security have only had a passing acquaintance,” Trojan Fox said mockingly. He bared his teeth, but didn’t take his attention away from the grill.
“Because every time some partially eaten whore turns up face down in a river, they blame the nearest gene-job. They blame the guy who was stolen out of his bed by Dr. Tongue when he was four, who was experimented on and genetically altered for a year until he was dropped back into the world as an angry killing machine. They blame the guy who’s more animal than man and who the world would never give a fair shake,” Carnivore said, hanging his head.
“But you did kill prostitutes. That’s why you’re here,” Circus chimed in.
“Yeah, but only three of them! They blamed me for eight!”
“Three what?” Geode said, yawning as he entered the kitchen.
“Dead prostitutes that Carnivore made,” I said. Geode didn’t even try to hide his disgust.
“They had it coming! Everyone else was just persecuting me.”
“Maybe if you didn’t have a reputation for killing prostitutes that wouldn’t be such an issue,” Trojan Fox said.
“Look, do you want your damn omelet or not?”
“Yes, please!” Trojan Fox replied, as cheerful as I’d ever seen her.
Carnivore brought the platters of food to the table. I had to admit, even though he was an asshole, the food tasted good. I could almost feel bad for him, even; I mean, if he was telling the truth, he’d led a pretty fucked life. Any sympathy was temporary, at best, when I remembered what he did to Iron Bear and how readily he’d do the same to any of us if the notion struck him.
Plus the fact that he was still a major asshole.
All the same, our first breakfast in Death Manor was downright peaceful and courteous after we actually sat down to eat, especially when Nevermore joined us. Her smile for me was shy and
almost embarrassed, but it didn’t stop her from sitting next to me and joking with the group. I was a little worried after last night. She seemed a little teary and distant after we did it, but said she’d probably be up for it again sometime soon.
The peace wouldn’t last (especially once Circus decided to cartoon himself again), but for that one moment, life almost felt normal.
“Attention New Offenders! Make your way to the War Room in thirty minutes for the briefing on your first assignments!” blared the loudspeakers, bringing us back to reality.
This was it. This was what we trained for.
Now don’t fuck it up.
#Supervillainy101: The Whipfather
No one knows who the Whipfather was or why he did what he did, because the last thing he did before beginning his crime spree was eliminate every trace of his previous existence. All that’s known about him was that he was a white male, maybe forty-two years old who wore bifocals, was dying of a brain tumor, and was obsessed with Christmas. His “Twelve Days of Christmas Rampage” made sure the holiday season around Amber City in 1983 ran red.
On the first day of Christmas, city councilman Steve Partridge was found impaled on a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas, two trained doves pecked out the eyes of the mayor.
On the third day of Christmas, three hens strapped with grenades were released in a crowded shopping mall, killing three and wounding eighteen.
On the fourth day of Christmas, four parrots trained to shout obscenities were released in an elementary school.
On the fifth day of Christmas, the Olympic Rings from the under-construction Amber City Arena were stolen.
On the sixth day of Christmas, six geese from a local butcher’s shop were found to be stuffed with severed hands.
On the seventh day of Christmas, seven swans were found drowned in Amber Park.
On the eighth day of Christmas, eight housemaids were found drowned in a milk truck.
On the ninth day of Christmas, the Whipfather kidnapped nine members of the Amber City ballet and broke their legs.
On the tenth day of Christmas, ten car bombs planted beneath cars owned by Lord Alley Locksmiths blew up, killing seventeen and wounding close to fifty.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, eleven plumbers were found impaled on pieces of PVC pipe.
On the twelfth and final day of Christmas, he captured twelve drummers from a local high school marching band, tied them up, and drove over them with a steam roller.
Reports had him laughing and shrieking “I did it!” even while he was being riddled with bullets by the Gamemaster.
#LessonLearned: There’s nothing as satisfying as seeing your plan come together.
12
GREEN
When I heard the call for our first assignment, I had this image of us hurriedly pulling on our costumes and meeting in front of a giant, wall-sized monitor where our first mission would be outlined for us. We would then run out, battle the heroes, run back home, and BOOM! Instant celebrity.
Instead, we ambled on up to the War Room, in our pajamas, coffee in hand, and listened as Fifty-Fifty and Everywhere Man explained that our first big gig would involve robbing the First National Bank of Amber City… in three weeks. Until then, we had other work to do.
They did brief us via a giant, wall-sized monitor though, so I got that part right.
Before we could make our debut, we had to “establish a presence.” Since the last of the supervillains went extinct in the mid-90s, back when every hero and villain was covered in guns, pouches, steroids, bad hair, and worse attitude, none of us had any idea what a modern villain was supposed to look like. The heroes had taken some opinion polls and surveys to give us an idea of what people would look for in a modern supervillain, and we had to mold ourselves to meet that ideal.
We had to be bad guys. Check.
We couldn’t be too bad. According to polls, as much as villains terrified people, a large number of them wanted to be able to relate to and sympathize with us, so it’s not like we could be villains and war criminals. We couldn’t kill people or animals (especially dogs) unless we absolutely had no other choice. With the exception of Carnivore, I think we had this one as a check.
We had to look good as a team. Given our new professional costumes and the way our image consultants made sure each of us had a unique, bold color scheme, this was also a big check.
We had to be savvy in terms of social media and viral marketing. The heroes could manipulate the media enough to elevate us to rockstar status, but to keep us in the public consciousness we had to be able to promote ourselves. Since this would really define us as modern supervillains, this was where we needed the most work.
This meant that, even as we coordinated with our archnemeses on the Amber City gig, we had to practice getting comfortable talking in front of cameras and crowds. We also had to be prepared to take a lot of publicity photos for future circulation, dressed in full costume and striking poses to make us look powerful, or sexy, or scary, or whatever our designated role on the team was meant to be (I was powerful, though it took some Photoshop work to make it look like I could fly). For some of us it meant training on how to effectively use social media platforms. I had all the major sites down, while Odigjod and Carnivore needed a lesson on how to turn a computer on.
That was the easy stuff we could do from Death Island. The viral stuff… that meant getting out in the field.
The heroes said that people needed to fear us before they even saw us, since most of us weren’t that well known outside our home countries, if at all, so we were given assignments to raise our individual awareness before we broke out as a team. I was exempted from this because everybody knew Apex Strike, so I saw the others off as Odigjod teleported them around the world, committing petty crimes, making sure they were just barely caught by security cameras, and leaving cryptic messages hinting at a new age of villainy. Circus was really good at these, especially the giant, glowing THE OFFENDERS LIVE! he scrawled across the south face of the Palace of the Soviets (even though I’m told his Cyrillic sucked).
Crazy as it sounded, it worked. None of us were seen clearly, but supervillainy started to trend like crazy. News from around the world was suddenly full of talking heads wondering if this was all some elaborate hoax, or if the villains had truly returned. There was so much fear and speculation, so little hard news, so many replays of my “battle” with Icicle Man.
It was awesome. Nobody saw us, yet we were changing the world.
On game day, they’d told us to suit up and gather in the mansion’s “Green Room,” so named for the grassy coating that covered every square inch of wall. It was dark and small, but had comfortable chairs to spare, a flat screen to kill some time, and the healing pods.
According to Adam (Helios, but I can call him Adam), they were some of Professor Death’s finest genetic mutations. There were ten of them, growing out of the walls. Bulbous, pulsating seed pods the size of small cars, each covered in thick blue veins, each with a quivering, glistening slit down the middle that looked far too much like a pussy for comfort. He said that a few hours in one of them would heal pretty much any wound or sickness shy of being killed. While I hoped I’d never have to see the inside of one of them, I knew the odds were that I would.
And somehow, they paled in comparison to what that damn light did to me.
It was a simple bulb, jutting out of the wall right above the flat screen. At the moment it was red. But when it was show time, it would turn green.
Until then, we had to wait, which meant listening to Trojan Fox continue working on the unauthorized alterations to her suit (the war paint she’d put on her helmet’s face to reflect her mother’s Maori heritage was pretty awesome, though), Carnivore occasionally mauling Circus when he cheated at cards (which was often), or watching TV.
Odigjod and I chose TV, though his choice of reality shows left something to be desired.
“I do not understand this famil
y. They are famous, why?” Odigjod griped.
“Because they’re famous.”
“But how did they getting famous?”
“Because they’re rich, I think.”
“But how did they—”
“The stepdad used to be a reservist for the Protectors, until he blew out his knee. He got enough sponsors in the meantime though to be pretty rich.”
“But the daughters, the wifes?”
“Not super, no. Unless you count leaking sex tapes a power. Why do you watch if all you do is bag on it?”
Odigjod shrugged. “Trying to figure out which circle they go to when they die, tell some cousins they might getting an famous face or two.”
“Well, you might too, right?”
“Not thinking so. Only sin they not showing is gluttony,” Odigjod sighed.
“Eating disorders must be hell for your circle.”
Odigjod waggled his hand back and forth. “Sometimes my parents fear for jobs, but your American companies and their corn syrup help.”
“Well, glad to hear we’re doing our part.”
Geode stopped pacing under the TV.
“Can I say something?” he said.
This was as good an excuse as any to mute the TV.
“Look… I know we don’t always get along. I know some of us maybe even hate each other—”
“Maybe?” Carnivore interrupted, a nonplussed Circus impaled on his claws. They’d have continued fighting if Trojan Fox hadn’t trained her suit’s weapons on them.
“Thanks,” Geode said, smiling. “I just wanted to say, I know we got our differences, but we’re in this together. We’re all we’ve got, I think. The superheroes…”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but thought better of it. “… I just want to say, I think we’re really the only people we can truly depend on, and that even if you don’t like me very much, I will protect you all.”