Rise of the Supervillains

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  Maksim looked confused until his wife continued, “The one your mother invited to the Citadel. The one who's supposed to design weapons for us.”

  The girl glanced around the room again, and suddenly noticed Magda Zharkov's body, rushing across the room to it.

  “Maksim! It's Magda.” Then as she laid her head against the woman's bloody chest, she said, “She's still breathing!”

  Maksim flew across the room, still clutching Hector's body, and looked down at his mother.

  “My brother's wife. The Imperator. You even tried to kill my mother?” he growled out the list, pulling his gaze away from his mother and looking straight into Hector's eyes. “How many more did you kill?”

  Hector smiled and said, “Not enough.”

  Maksim's grip tightened, cutting off Hector's breath. He tried hopelessly, with both hands, to pry the man's fingers away from his throat, but finally gave up when he saw Miguel reach the sword. The boy struggled to get to his feet, but Maksim's wife saw him too. She held out a hand and released a blast of hot energy from her palm. It slammed into Miguel and knocked him back, a hole in his suit burned clean through and his chest scarred black.

  Maksim flew over and picked up the sword in his other hand, turning it back and forth to examine it as he asked, “What is this? Is this what killed Padamir?”

  Hector could feel the darkness creeping in from the edges of his vision as his lungs heaved, trying their last effort to pull air into them. His legs kicked, his body struggling for life.

  “Put him down!” Miguel screamed, reaching out his hand toward Maksim. “Put him down now!”

  Maksim didn't even glance in the boy's direction, still examining the sword.

  “Put him down!” Miguel screamed again, but this time, the sound of his voice rose to an inhuman level, breaking and shrieking uncontrollably.

  The strange sound drew the attention of both Maksim and his wife, but Maksim made no move to comply.

  The look in Miguel's eyes became strained, like something was pushing on them from inside his skull. The veins in his neck grew twice the size and his face turned red as he screamed one more time.

  “PUT MY FATHER DOWN!”

  A sonic boom erupted from Miguel's throat, sending out a cacophonous shock wave of energy that blasted into everything. Maksim was knocked back against the far wall, releasing Hector as he did, but Hector's body was caught in the wave as well. The piles of corpses in the room were flung to the side, and the ceiling of the throne room shattered, raining glass down from the sky. The pillars of the throne room crumbled and collapsed like a bomb had erupted. And in the middle of it all sat a horrified Miguel, with both hands holding his own super-powered throat.

  35

  LUCY

  The idea of motherhood had never crossed Lucy's mind. Even as a child, when other little girls were asking for dolls so they could feed them and braid their hair, Lucy was asking for action figures. She was reenacting the battles she watched on the news between superheroes and supervillains. All she ever wanted was a super power, a costume, and someone to save. She had no desire to raise a child or have a family. Yet there she was, laying in her hospital bed, clutching her belly as tightly as she could, knowing that the only person she wanted to save, was the child growing inside of her.

  She watched the clock countdown, waiting for the door to open and the nurse to walk in. She hadn't slept since Mermaid told her about her pregnancy and the fate of her child. She stared into the darkness, eyes wide open, searching her mind for a way to make everything okay again.

  She had no idea how she was going to move on, how she would face the next day, after everything that had happened. Everyone else seemed perfectly fine, as if it wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to her. The doctors kept acting like it was a routine surgery. They even gave her a pamphlet explaining how what was happening to her was for the good of the American Republic. It thanked her for her sacrifice and told her to be proud of what she was doing, because she was helping to maintain peace throughout the Empire.

  It sounded exactly like Spook, convincing her that killing the pregnant wife of Dominus Katsu Oshiro was good for the domain, good for the Empire. And maybe it was, but all she could see was that woman's face, right before the bomb exploded, knowing she was going to die. Knowing her baby was going to die.

  Lucy couldn't help thinking that maybe she deserved what was happening to her. Maybe it was karma for what she had done. Maybe what she was experiencing was the only way for her to understand the true severity of her actions. But all that led her to was the fact that even if she deserved it, her child certainly didn't.

  She buried her face into her pillow, crying for what felt like the millionth time that night, wishing there was someone in the Alliance that could turn back time. She'd hold a gun to their head if she had to, and force them to use their power. She'd change everything. She'd never join the Alliance. She'd stay home, where it was nice and safe. She'd get a boring job with a boring company and live a boring existence where life and death weren't a part of her every day.

  But then she'd never have met Connor, who was the only thing left in her life that was good. He was one of the main reasons she wanted to have the child. Knowing they had created something together, knowing they were both a part of that baby, made her love it in a way that she couldn't possibly explain. It was like this beautiful, living thing, that represented everything she felt about Connor, but couldn't put into words. The magic that existed in the air between them, that intangible force that they called love, had become flesh. And some day, she would have been able to hold it. To kiss it. To tell it she loved it.

  But the Alliance was going to take it all away.

  Her crying became a heaving, weeping convulsion, her body shaking with every wail. She knew she'd never make it. There was no way for anything to be okay ever again. Her future had never felt so bleak.

  And then there was a knock on her door. At first it startled her, making her think it was the nurse, ready to prep her for the operation, but the nurse wouldn't have knocked. It was a light tapping that sounded hesitant. It was strange. There was a buzzer on the door, which is how anyone who wasn't part of the medical staff requested to enter. It automatically turned on the camera, so Lucy could see who was on the other side of the door before she opened it.

  When the tapping happened again, Lucy wiped the tears from her eyes and walked over to the door, unable to resist her curiosity. When she adjusted her vision to the x-ray spectrum and peered through the door, she saw Connor standing on the other side. He was suited up in his blue fringed jacket and leather pants, and had a rather large backpack slung over one arm, with her bag of Shadow Department gear in the other. He looked back and forth, up and down the hallway of the medical wing, nervously checking to see if anyone else was there.

  She immediately slapped the button on the wall that opened the door, and as soon as it slid to the side, she asked, “What's going on? Tell me you aren't leaving for the war. Did they seriously force you to go tonight? They can't just-”

  Connor looked her in the eyes and whispered, “We're leaving.”

  The reality of his words didn't strike her at first. Her brain latched onto every possible meaning, except the truth. Perhaps he meant they were both going on a mission, or maybe by “we” he meant himself and other members of the Alliance. But when her mind realized what he was saying, she couldn't decide how to react.

  She took a step back and said, “What are you talking about? We can't-”

  He stepped in the door and held his finger up to his lips. “Shh! Keep your voice down.”

  “Connor. Be serious. We can't run away.”

  “We're not running away from anything. We're making a decision, Lucy. To live our lives. All three of us. We're choosing to be free.”

  “Free? We'll be on the run for the rest of our lives. If we're lucky.”

  “That sounds better to me than the alternative.”

  Lucy looked at
the floor, unable to argue. He was offering her the very thing she had been silently begging for. A way out. A way forward.

  “Think about it, Lucy. We'll be able to live our lives how we choose. Not the Alliance. Not the Zharkovs. Not the Imperator. Us. No more fighting someone else's war, or living by someone else's rules. We can be together.”

  “Where would we go?” she asked, needing the dream to be real.

  “We'll figure it out,” he said, reaching out for her hand. “But we have to go, now, while the Alliance is gone and the nurses are changing shifts. Grab your things and let's get out of here.”

  Lucy looked down at her belly, at her child inside, and then grabbed her bag with her Shadow Department gear from Connor. She clutched Connor's hand and gave him a single nod of her head. He pulled her out of the room, leading her down the hall toward the transport tubes. When she stepped toward them, he pulled her back.

  “We can't use those.”

  “What? Why not?”

  He looked over his shoulder and said, “They know we're a flight risk. There can't be any record of our movements. It's why I didn't use the buzzer. Those cameras aren't just for your use.”

  She knew he was most likely right. After being in the Shadow Department, it had become obvious to Lucy that there was more going on in Power Tower than anyone knew. Control was being maintained, through any means necessary.

  Connor stepped past the transport tubes, and lifted up a hatch in the floor labeled: Maintenance Access. He held the hatch open and motioned for her to climb in. When she looked inside, she saw a ladder running along the entirety of Power Tower, from ground to roof.

  “Where are we going? We can't use Voyager's portals. They'd know where we went.”

  “Sewer tunnels. Mister Mole-Man broke into Power Tower from there a few years ago. I had to help fight his army of mole people.”

  Lucy smiled, for a moment remembering what she loved about superheroes, and said, “Of course.”

  The climb down felt like it took forever. Floor after floor, the ladder kept going. She had no idea how far up the medical level actually was, until she had to watch her descent, one ladder rung at a time. When they reached the ground floor, she was out of breath and her palms were stinging.

  “Almost there,” Connor whispered when he saw her rubbing her hands.

  They peeked out of the maintenance doorway and Connor motioned for her to follow him down the hall. They crept past the front desk, where a guard sat reading a magazine, and down a side hallway. When they reached another maintenance door, Connor looked back at her with a smile.

  “This is the sewer access. Once we're inside those, we'll head as far as we can, toward the park. We'll be able to sneak over to-”

  His sentence was cut off when his face slammed into the door, like he had slipped.

  He rubbed his cheek and asked, “What was-”

  His head was rocked to the side again, like something had slammed into him, yet nothing was there. Lucy was actually embarrassed it took her so long to realize what was happening.

  “Spook!” she yelled as she tried to refocus her vision to the infrared spectrum.

  Just as her mentor came into view, his fist slammed into her face, knocking her to the floor and sending her pack of gear sliding across the floor. Spook stepped over her and placed his hands on his hips, shaking his head.

  “I'm actually a little ashamed of you, Retina. I never thought of you as a coward.”

  Lucy glanced over at Connor, who was laying on the floor and wasn't moving. Spook had knocked him out cold.

  She glared back up at her old mentor and said with a calm coldness, “You're right. I'm no coward.”

  Her foot launched into Spook's crotch, doubling him over in pain. Lucy rolled to the side and jumped to her feet.

  “Nice shot,” he groaned.

  “I never miss,” she said, leaping at him and punching him in the nose.

  His head reeled back, but he caught himself on the wall and dodged her second swing. His own fist came up, catching her jaw and throwing her back across the hallway.

  “You're turning your back on your country... and for what?” he asked, taking a fighting stance. “For some childish crush? For some cute boy?”

  Lucy wiped the blood from her bottom lip and said, “For my family.”

  She lunged at him again, feigning a left hook. He fell for it, bringing up his arm to block her. Instead, she dove under his arm, rolling past him and landing next to her bag of gear. Her hand dug inside, and then yanked out a pistol. Spook stopped and held up both of his hands as soon as she pointed the gun at him.

  “You told me to always have a gun within arms reach.” Lucy smiled and said, “Thanks for the advice.”

  “Come on, Retina. Put the gun down. You're not going to shoot me. I'm a member of the Alliance.”

  Lucy tilted her head to the side and said, “Actually, no, you're not. No one even knows you exist.”

  “I'm a superhero. You're going to shoot a superhero? Be real. Put the gun down before you get in even more trouble.”

  “That's just it, Spook. I'm already in trouble. I might as well go all the way, right? Become a full-fledged supervillain. That's what they're going to call me, isn't it? A supervillain. Will the news still call me Retina, or will they change it to something really evil, like 'The girl who didn't want her baby to die.'”

  “Stop talking nonsense. You're a member of the Shadow Department. I'll make sure they overlook this transgression. You're too important to the team. You're too important to the American Republic.”

  “Shut up!” she screamed, rising to her feet and shaking the pistol at him. “You and your bullshit patriotism. You turned me into this. You're the one that made me a murderer!”

  “You aren't a murderer. How many times do we have to go over this. You didn't kill anyone.”

  Lucy looked at the gun in her hand, wondering how she had gotten to where she was. The situation she was in felt so unreal, it almost didn't matter to her what she did next. It was like a dream that she was only watching. She gripped the gun tighter and pointed it directly at Spook's chest.

  “I don't care what you say. I don't care how you try to rationalize it. I know the truth, Spook. I killed that woman. I murdered her and her child. I have to live with that. Somehow. But what I don't have to do, is let anyone do the same thing to me. I'll do whatever it takes to protect my child... my family.” Lucy peered down the sights, taking careful aim as she asked, “Just let me leave.”

  “You know I can't do that.”

  A tear rolled down Lucy's cheek as she said, “I know.”

  Spook took a step toward her, holding out his hands like an offering of goodwill. “You're not going to shoot me, Retina. We both know that. Just put the gun down and we can talk about all of this.”

  Lucy shook her head and said, “You're wrong, Spook. I'm not going to kill you. But I am going to shoot you.”

  She pulled the trigger twice, letting loose two silenced gunshots that splattered Spook's kneecaps across the floor. His invisible body dropped to the ground and he let out a loud howl of pain. Lucy shoved the gun back in her bag and rushed over to Connor. With a few shakes, his eyes fluttered open.

  “What... what happened?”

  “There's no time. That guard will be here any second, and I'm sure there's an alarm going off somewhere.”

  Connor nodded and climbed to his feet, leading her into the maintenance room and through the sewer access. They trudged through the water and sludge, moving as quickly as they could through the maze of tunnels under Patriot City. They tried to make their path confusing, to make it as hard as possible to track them.

  When they climbed out of the hillside in the park, the sun was falling behind the buildings on the city's horizon. Connor waved his hand in the air, summoning a large group of clouds to darken the sky even further. Lucy ran for the parking lot and Connor followed without hesitation. They both ducked behind an old sedan, and Lucy retrieved a
small device from her bag. She stuck the end in the keyhole, and with a few twists, the door unlocked.

  “How did you-” Connor started to ask, but Lucy just smiled.

  “They taught us lots of neat tricks in the Shadow Department.”

  Connor smiled back and she could tell by the glint in his eyes that he had just fallen a bit more in love with her.

  Connor drove, heading south, toward the border of the Hive. Lucy didn't like the plan, but she also didn't have a better one. A part of her knew that might be how she would feel for the rest of her life, always choosing the lesser of two evils. But when they reached the highway, and Connor sped away from Patriot City, Lucy felt her eyelids getting heavy. She leaned over, placing her head against Connor's shoulder and allowed herself to relax for the first time in days.

  “I love you,” Connor said, kissing the top of her head.

  “Forever and ever?” she mumbled as she closed her eyes and snuggled closer.

  “Forever and ever,” he replied.

  That night, sleep came easy for Lucy.

  36

  WESLEY

  “This fight to death.”

  Wesley shook his head, trying to deny what Ntombi was saying. “No. No, Zola told me it's the first to forfeit. I just have to make him forfeit.”

  “Sergio not give up until you dead.”

  He wanted to deny her words, but they came out so matter-of-fact, he couldn't. Besides, he knew she was right. He knew he had no chance of winning. Yet running away didn't feel like an option either. He felt like he was being pushed along, toward an inevitable fate.

  “You beat him,” Ntombi said, crossing her arms over her chest proudly. “You must beat him.”

  “He can lift a hundred times what I can. He's stronger, with more training. How do I defeat that?”

  She walked over and tapped the top of his head with her finger. “You smart. He dumb.”

  Wesley removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This is crazy. I'm going to walk in there and get myself murdered. What am I even doing here?”