by Matt Carter
Good question. What would they do without me? All my doubt, all my fear fell into that one question.
All of it twisted together into an even crazier one.
“Do I belong here?” I asked.
Adam laughed. “What?”
“There were so many people in testing who were better with their powers or smart enough not to get their friends killed, and they got cut. Did I really earn my place here?”
“Aidan—”
“DID I?” I didn’t mean to focus, but everything in the room lifted off the ground a few inches. At once, I could feel everything. I knew the texture of the wallpaper, the patches of carpet that were wearing thinnest, the pitiful death throes of dust mites as I crushed them in midair. Helios’s breathing quickened—in fear, I was sure—though whether it was for what I had done or what he was going to say next, I didn’t know. The field he made around himself moments later only kept that mysterious.
Realizing what happened, I dropped everything.
“You… you…” he said, his voice sounding remarkably like it did that night I helped him deal with Adriana’s body. “You were guaranteed a spot on the team. You were so famous, how couldn’t we? You and the imp, because Crystal Skull had a deal with the devil he had to make good on, and the mech, because the kids love ’em; you all had a free pass. We had to put you through the motions, but there was no way you wouldn’t make the team.”
Anger boiled inside of me as I faced him. “And because I made it, because I was so famous, you had me lead this team? You had me lead us into a deathtrap? You had me lose two of my best friends just so we could bust fucking Carnivore out of prison?”
Some of his composure regained, Adam shrugged. “These things happen.”
“Get out.”
“Aidan…”
“GET OUT!” I roared. Pain exploded in my chest. Every muscle and nerve in my body screamed as I thrashed.
Pulling the Creeper control from his pocket, Adam calmly said, “I really think you’re forgetting who holds the power in this relationship, Aidan.”
He let the Creeper do its thing as he stood up and brushed himself off.
“I know you’re upset, and that’s completely understandable. We’ll be providing grief counselors to better help you cope. I’ve also made you a care package,” he said, pointing to the bag on my nightstand. “It has some Montage, some E, some coke, some other party favors, a bottle of rather fine whiskey, and the numbers for a few very fine, very famous ladies who would be more than happy to make your acquaintance. We’re sorry for overreacting over the whole Circus incident. Our big plans for you guys are coming real soon, and we want you to be happy again. We want to be friends again. As soon as something shiny comes along, people will forget about the attack on Amber City and we’ll go out and party like there’s no tomorrow.”
Finally, right as he walked to the door, he turned the Creeper off. I curled up into a pained, fetal position.
“I’m sorry for all of this, but in the end, I think you’ll understand,” Adam said, closing the door behind him.
The tears came easily. I don’t know if they were in fear, or pain, or that… what was that… betrayal? Yeah, I guess I felt like I’d been betrayed by Adam. He wasn’t my friend. Friends wouldn’t do that. Maybe, no, probably I knew that all along. I’m sure of that now, at least. Always that one little voice in the back of my mind reminding me that he was a superhero and I was a supervillain. I found that voice easy to ignore, usually, but now, with what happened to Showstopper and Adriana…
It can be like it was before. It can be so you don’t have to hear that voice again.
I looked at the paper bag on my nightstand.
It called to me.
Even remembering the drugged out feeling of sick, even remembering the awful detoxing, I could feel the pull of that bag. I wanted to disappear in it.
I forced myself to sit up, gripping the edge of my bed.
I looked at the bag.
The door.
Fuck.
I padded down the hallway, now wearing boxers and a bathrobe. I tried reassuring myself that what I’d done was for the best, but enough of me felt that it was a shame to have flushed so much quality merchandise down the toilet. I just had to remind myself that I needed a clear head for what was to come next.
I made it about halfway down the hallway before Carnivore attacked me.
He leapt out of his room, his mouth curled in a wicked smile and his claws out.
“Finally,” he growled. I flicked my wrist and he flew back into his room. I heard something shatter.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said, continuing down the hall.
That should’ve been the end of it. But then he charged again, quietly enough that I couldn’t turn to face him. He knocked me facedown onto the rug, claws dug into my back through the robe.
“You don’t have time for this?” he snarled.
“No, I don’t,” I said, trying to push off the ground. He pinched two of his claws at the base of my neck.
“I should have been you. You don’t deserve everything they’ve given you.”
“Way ahead of you there,” I responded.
I wanted to laugh. I remembered, way back when I had feared and hated him more than anything else in the world. With everything that had happened since then, he didn’t seem so bad.
Even with this, though, he was still pretty bad, especially with his claws wrapped around my spine.
“Any last words?” he hissed.
“He doesn’t need any.”
His yip was high and full of surprise when he was ripped from my back by the spectral sailing ship (Grampus?) projected from Nevermore’s chest. Geode stood beside her, his arms, chest, and shoulders encased in crystals as he charged Carnivore, grabbing him by the throat and pinning him to the wall.
“Now you haven’t been around lately, so we’re going to cut you some slack this time,” Geode said.
“But we are tired of taking your shit, you American piece of trash,” Nevermore added, then looking to me. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I said.
“Fuck… all… of… you…” Carnivore choked out.
Nevermore laughed. “That won’t be easy when we’ve cut off your cock and fed it to some dinosaurs, will it? Geode, pull off his pants.”
Geode transformed his face into a terrifying, crystalline smile, placing his free hand on Carnivore’s leg. Nevermore recalled the spectral ship only to send out that black, stylized orangutan with the straight razor in its hand.
“You can’t do this!” he howled, looking down at me. “Apex Strike, tell them…”
Nevermore helped me to my feet. I brushed myself off and shrugged. “What can I say? We’re supervillains.”
If it was even possible, his eyes went wider.
“You don’t get to fuck with us anymore,” Geode said, his voice more gravelly as even more of him transformed into crystal. “We’ve seen so much, done so much together, that now, we are one. You fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us.”
Carnivore yowled, “You can’t do this! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all!”
Nevermore rolled her eyes. “Some never learn. Make him a cage?”
“With pleasure,” Geode said, tossing Carnivore roughly back into his room. He shot crystal spikes from his hands that rapidly grew into a wall, blocking off the door.
“Thanks,” I said to Nevermore.
She smiled. “It’s not a problem. We were going to do that soon anyway. You just gave us an excuse to make it sooner.”
“Well, I’m just glad I could be your excuse then,” I said. “Have you seen Ghost Girl and Trojan Fox?”
“Yes, they are both in the laboratory.”
“Excellent,” I said, storming off down the hall.
She quickly caught up to me. I didn’t really want her to come, but I also didn’t want to risk any of the consequences of telling her no, especially when she was in a cock-cutt
ing mood.
She got right to the point. “I know we haven’t talked in a long time. And I know, maybe, we never really talked at all. And I just wanted to apologize to you for everything.”
“You mean for getting railed by all those superheroes?”
She frowned. “I meant more for using you. For using everyone. When we fucked, I fucked your mask, not you. I thought if I fucked someone with status, that it’d raised me up too, but it really just cheapened us both. It’s not easy to see something like that, but I have, and I wanted to apologize. Will you forgive me?”
“Sure,” I said again. I thought this might have gotten her off my back. Instead this only made her angry.
“You know, you are really terrible at this! You were supposed to say, ‘I would forgive you if there was something that needed forgiving, but there was not because I was using you like a whore to make myself feel better, too!’ Then we would laugh, smile, maybe hug, and start learning what each other is like as a human being, no?”
In her rage, her tattoos almost seemed to all burst from her skin as one.
“Look… you’re probably right about that, and this is something that I really think deserves serious conversation. But right now, just this second, I’m dealing with some shit that’s bigger than you, and me, and all of us, and I really don’t think I’ll be able to talk to you like you deserve to be talked to until I get this whole thing sorted out. I don’t think I’m going to be as constructive a talker as you need until I can figure out just what’s going on, and how I gotta deal with it.”
It wasn’t a great speech, nor was it enough to make Nevermore truly happy, but it was enough to get her to say, “We will talk about this later?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because I need to make my amends to move on, and you are the only one here I can do that with.”
“Well that’s—wait… you’re doing Twelve Steps?”
“Fuck no. That would mean believing in a merciful God. I’m thinking more like five or six steps. If I can get most of them done with you, though, then I’m fine.”
She laughed. I laughed. Neither laugh was all that bright and cheerful, but it was progress.
She didn’t have to see me all the way to the lab after that.
I didn’t know how I felt about Nevermore anymore, not really, not beyond thinking she was hot, and broken, now that some shit experiences had helped clear my eyes, but I was pretty sure I liked her in a non-sexual way too (though that was still there, and nice).
It’s funny the sorts of things grief will make you realize.
Trojan Fox had been busy. The lab was cleaner than I had ever seen it, and she had clearly been working on her projects.
Ghost Girl walked out of the workshop. “She wants to see you, and wants to kill you,” she said.
“She does?”
“For different reasons. The part of her that wants to see you is stronger than the part of her that wants to kill you, so you’ll probably live,” Ghost Girl said, leaving the lab.
“Thanks for the warning.”
Great. Now for the hard part. I steeled myself to enter her workshop, putting a small wall of focus in front of me that would deflect anything thrown or shot my way… unless it was a laser, which her suit had several of.
Then I’d be pretty well fucked.
She wasn’t in her suit (or her legs, for that matter, and her balance on that stool looked damned precarious), but was working on it. The full ashtray next to her told me she’d been at this for a while. Pieces of the Trojan Fox suit were spread across the table, her hands working deftly as she soldered elements in place.
She didn’t even look up to me to say, “He’s a spy, you know.”
“What?”
“Carnivore,” she said, blowing a small bit of smoke away. “I’m not certain, but look at it logically. Why would they bait a trap with real bait unless said bait was intended as a backup plan in case we did find a way to escape the trap? Make him a trap within a trap? I’m not saying they found a way to turn him—he’s far too much of a raging dumbfuck for that—but the real heroes probably have injected him with some nanites, or perhaps interdimensional implants intended to find us or ferret out information. The island’s shield is strong enough to block out any of those transmissions, but we can’t let them recapture him, at least not without letting me do a thorough exam to remove anything dangerous… or of course we could always kill him.”
“Well, that’s great,” I said, “but—”
She pressed a button on one of her suits gauntlets, activating a holographic projector like we had in the War Room. News feeds, financial documents, pictures of us and the heroes flew across one of the walls.
“I looked up Helios and Situs Construction. I thought that rabbit hole might be deep, but I didn’t know just how—”
“Trojan Fox, Helen, I want to—”
“—they’re one of the biggest construction firms in the world specializing in cleaning up after superhero-supervillain battles, did you know that? Times have been tough for them the last couple decades, with the recession and the War on Villainy’s end. But, what do you know, business is booming for them these days, and their stockholders couldn’t be happier. Stockholders who operate a slush fund for payoffs to people with codenames like Crystal Skull, Fifty-Fifty… Helios… I could go on, but you know all the names already.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck doesn’t even begin to explain what’s happened,” she said, swirling the images to show some of our Black Cape Jobs. “I did some, well, a lot of digging. Nearly every job either indirectly or directly benefited the sponsors of Kayfabe heroes. Tearing down buildings and tenements they meant to develop the land on. Suppressing dissidence, preventing developing countries under imperial control from gaining traction toward independence. Hell, remember that Sasquatch village we destroyed up near the Alaskan border?”
“No.”
“Really? Some Sasquatch youth swore a blood oath against you, which is pretty impressive since that tribe was entirely pacifistic.”
“I was probably really high at the time.”
“Weren’t we all,” she said, picking a lit cigarette from the ashtray and putting it between her lips. “Well, that village’s destruction made way for a new oil pipeline, and for a public relations coup when the heroes graciously moved the Sasquatches onto a new, modern reservation to better keep them safe from us.”
This was a lot more than I expected. I mean, I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it sure as hell wasn’t this, and I sure as hell didn’t think it was this big.
“So you’re saying that, Helios killed Adriana because she accidentally intercepted a payoff from Situs, and he wanted to cover it up?”
“In a roundabout way, yes. He didn’t have to kill her—there’s no way she was smart enough to figure out what it was—but fill him with enough paranoia and cocaine and you get one dead supermodel.”
“This is huge.”
“Yes, but it’s hardly surprising.”
“It is?”
“Of course! The heroes have grown lazy. Once they saw that their lifestyles were threatened, they did what they thought they had to do to protect themselves. Once they think they’re secure enough, they will get rid of us. It’s the natural order of things.”
I gripped a nearby workbench, dizzy, feeling like I was going to be sick.
“Don’t you dare pass out on me,” she said.
“Why not?”
Finally, she faced me. I’d gotten too used to her with those fake legs—it was kind of unsettling to see her without them—but it gave her a level of honesty that I had to respect.
“Because, insane as it may be, you are our leader. I despise much of what you have and have not done, but, somehow, you’re still the center of this group, and if we want to do anything about all of this, anything to strike back at the heroes, to save our friends in the Tower, it needs to start with you, and we need you on your feet.”
This was the first time I’d heard her seriously speak of rebellion. Sure, some of the villains back in training joked about it, but nobody ever meant it seriously.
Hearing it now… it scared the shit outta me. I half-expected our Creepers to explode, ripping our ribcages out and melting us down into a steaming puddle of flesh. When they didn’t (and when my heart and bowels settled), I looked at her.
“This is crazy.”
“I know, but what are we going to do about it?”
I wanted to say “I don’t know,” but that wouldn’t fly with her.
Instead, I thought long and hard. I hadn’t done anything against the superheroes without having my back put against the wall since I’d killed Icicle Man. Now she’d told me a horror story that had me feeling used. Combined with what Adam had said when we were alone and I wasn’t a big superhero fan at the moment.
But, given time, maybe I could be again. Maybe if I thought on this, caught Adam on a good day, we could make things like old times again. Maybe he really was my friend, and I just caught him at a bad time.
The Amber City thing was rough on all of us.
I remembered the paper bag on my nightstand. I remembered how good it felt to flush its contents down the toilet.
That got me my answer.
“Escape.”
#Supervillainy101: Rando
In the years following World War II, there was no rougher place to live than the Canadian Remnant. Following their traitorous alliance with Germany, Canada (no matter how much they protested that their alliance was simply to free them of British control) was split between the allies as punishment. Most of the western half was absorbed into the United States, the Northwest Territories were given to the Soviets, and what remained in the east was made into a British penal colony to set an example for the rest of the world. Quebec, having abstained from attacking the states, became its own independent nation of Free Quebec. With the world rebuilding and the Canadian Remnant not a top priority, near-anarchy raged for years within its borders.
It didn’t take long for the supervillains to come in and start carving it up.