Villains Pride (The Shadow Master Book 2)

by M. K. Gibson

  Second, you are now my enemy.

  What does that mean? Well, if you have children, I will use my considerable wealth and power to have charges trumped up against you, in order to have your children removed from your home. I will adopt them, raise them as my own, and brainwash them to await a specific trigger.

  And years later, when you’re sad, alone and on your deathbed, I will send your children back to you. Just before you cross over to the light, you will see them and you will cry. You’ll weep in joy for their return. You’ll wail in mournful sadness for the decades they were gone from you, and how empty all your deeds were without them. And last, you’ll sob in anger knowing you can never get that time back.

  And just before you die, your children, having been raised by me, will spit in your face for your blubbering weakness.

  And that, dear enemy of mine, will be the conditioning trigger.

  Your children will instantly remember you. In that moment, just as you die, they will know they could never be with their real parents. I, of course, will then disown them and have them deported to a third world country.

  So, how’s that black coffee working for you? Enjoying your hot brown water?

  Oh, and if you don’t have kids? I dunno, I’ll think of something. My enemies don’t go unpunished.

  “Sir?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You were zoning out and mumbling about kids?”

  I shook my head. “Never mind. You said there was another thing?”

  “Oh, yes sir. The auditorium, sir. I don’t want to alarm you, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Sir, it-it’s full of . . . of . . .”

  “Of what, Trent?”

  “Supervillains,” Trent whispered.

  “I know,” I whispered back. “I invited them.” I lit one of my black cigarettes.

  “You did?!”

  “Of course,” I said, breathing in the smoke and then blowing it out slowly. “Trent, you’ve been here now, what, a couple of weeks? What do you think it is I do here?”

  “Well, the agency said you were some kind of advertising and consulting firm with occasional motivational speaking engagements.”

  “That’s true. But you didn’t question the odd clientele who came in and out of here?”

  “Truthfully, sir, I don’t even know where here is. I have no reception on my phone and my GPS is scrambled,” Trent said, looking confused and slightly frightened. “The people who come in here are always wearing odd clothing, like trench coats and large hats, but I guessed you were helping them in some way?”

  “Yes, I was,” I told him. “Sit down.”

  Trent obeyed, sitting across from me at my desk. “I am a villain, Trent. Moreover, I’m something of a villain consultant. The clients who come to me are looking for something.”

  “Looking for what, Mr. Blackwell?”

  “Depends on the client. Some want more power. Some want help beating a hero. Some just want to be rich. And if it is within my power, and they have something I want in exchange, I assist them. As you can imagine, that level of work comes with it a steadily increasing amount of paperwork, which is where you come in. Thus far, you’ve been quite exemplary in your duties.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome. But as you’ve been managing my appointments and my paperwork, certainly you must have suspected something.”

  “To be honest, sir, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the paperwork. It seemed to be in gibberish. But somehow, I knew what to do with it.”

  I had to hide a smile. I knew exactly what it was he was referring to. As Sophia normally conducted the clerical duties, I knew she would not abide anyone not operating within her system. So, an enchantment was placed over the paperwork that allowed Trent to read the files and know what to do with the information, yet prevented him from comprehending it or retaining the information.

  “Well, now that you know what I am, as well as a fraction of what I do, what do you want to do?”

  “I kind of need a job.”

  “But you’re wrestling with the moral implications of it all?”

  “Kind of?” Trent admitted. “And I’m also starting to think Ruth and Bryan really didn’t return to the agency, did they?”

  “Ha ha . . . no.”

  Trent nodded. “If you really are a villain, and you told me that you have an auditorium full of villains, things won’t work out well for me if I decide to leave, will it?”

  “You signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of your hiring package, Trent. If you told anyone anything about me, or what I do, yes, it would be bad for you.”

  There was something about his projected innocence and frankness in the face of fear that I found charming. I sat back and sipped at the coffee.

  Mmm. That was damn fine coffee.

  “Well Trent, I’ll make you a deal. You come to the auditorium and watch from offstage. If you don’t like what you see, then you are free to go with a two-week’s severance. Of course I will have to mind-wipe you. NDA or not, I can’t trust anyone not to speak. But the alternative is I just hand you over to that room full of supervillains and let the chips fall where they may. What do you say?”

  “I guess I don’t have much of a choice?”

  “Smart, Trent, smart. And who knows, you may actually have some fun!” I said with a smile as I downed the rest of my coffee. “Now, let’s go organize a goddamn army!”

  “Yay?” Trent said weakly.

  “That’s the spirit. Now, be a good lad and head on over to the auditorium and keep the ruckus down until I get there. After all, it is a room full of villains. Gods only know what they’re plotting.”

  “You want . . . me . . . to go in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do what?”

  “Stall for a few minutes.”

  “How?”

  “Trent, I will become very cross if I have to explain your job to you. Now, get your ass in there and tell them a joke or something. I’ll be along shortly.”

  “Y-yes sir.”

  I watched Trent leave my office and shut the door behind him. As the latch clicked into place, I started laughing.

  “Oh, Sophia, did you hear all that?”

  “Ha ha, yes sir. He really thinks we don’t know.”

  “They never do, Sophia. They never do.”

  Chapter Ten

  Where I Address Supervillains, Mock Higher Education, and Bring People Together

  “So, what do you call a hundred super heroes at the bottom of the sea?” I asked from the lectern atop the dais of my auditorium. “A good start.”

  The gathered crowd of villains chuckled at my icebreaker joke. Well, nearly everyone. The Asian female in the front row, Black Fathom, crossed her arms with a dismissive sniff.

  “I deal with heroes in my underwater dominion all the time. It isn’t funny at all. You try deposing the Scion of Poseidon and ruling Atlantica,” Black Fathom grumbled.

  “Thank you for insight, Black Fathom,” I replied. “But no one really cares about aquatic heroes and villains. Those who claim to are simply contrarian assholes.”

  “I know,” Black Fathom sighed, staring at her webbed hands and feet in self-aware humility.

  “But now to the point,” I said, turning my attention back to the gathered villains. “I’ve gathered this conclave of villains to discuss with you my vision.”

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?” an obnoxious voice called out.

  “Yeah, why should we listen to you? Up until a couple of weeks ago, no one ever even heard of you,” another voice called out next to the first.

  “Wraith Knight, if you would please be so kind?” I asked absently as I checked my seating chart.

  Wraith Knight materialized from the ground in his full armored form and stomped over to where the heckling villains were seated. Shifting his arms into shadow pincers, he picked up the two villains by their throats and held them aloft for me to get a look at t
hem.

  Looking them over and checking my chart, I identified who they were. “OK, Carapace and The Mangler, is it?”

  The Mangler was nothing more than a masked luchador wrestler who experimented with cutting-edge steroids and had a penchant for petty crime. Carapace was a hybrid man-insect with bulbous eyes and a black exoskeleton. According to my app, Carapace was a Variant, born with his alteration.

  Well, that sucked.

  I was hoping his powers came from some subterranean sentient ant race or something cool like that. But born different? What a writer’s cop-out. I mean, born to be a bug? That doesn’t even make sense. But Variants rarely did. But, as long as they “snikt”ed , or said “bub and chimichanga,” oh my, how the nerds came running.

  Both of the villains struggled in Wraith Knight’s grip while I addressed them.

  “Gentlemen. I applaud you. Truly. You actually asked the proper questions right off the bat. Indeed, who am I? And why should you listen to me? However, your candor and insubordination within my home will not be tolerated. Wraith Knight, Mangler should suffice. Carapace has too many limbs to serve as an effective example.”

  Wraith Knight nodded once and dropped Carapace. With his left hand free, my disciple gripped Mangler’s right arm just below the shoulder with his shadow-pincer.

  “No! No!” Mangler wriggled and screamed to no effect as my thrall simply snipped off the villain’s arm.

  “AHHH!”

  “Shh now,” I said calmly. “Like a first-person-point-of-view urban fantasy novel, there is no real peril, only the illusion of it.”

  “My arm! My arm!” Mangler wailed. His maimed nub wiggled around, comically spraying the adjacent villains with blood.

  I held up my fist, causing it to glow in a purplish-black nimbus. Shadows leaped from the corners of the room, adhering to Mangler’s spurting wound, staunching the flow of blood.

  “There, see?” I said soothingly. “Consider yourself lucky. You are literally in a room with evil geniuses. Way better than an emergency room.”

  My comment got murmurs and nods from the collective villains. I smiled to the crowd. “Now, how many of you here are doctors?”

  Many arms shot up in the air.

  “Wait a tick,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “How many of you are real doctors? Not some bullshit name you gave yourself. You know who you are.”

  A third of the hands went down.

  “And of you remaining pack of matriculated megalomaniacs, I still refer to doctors of medicine, not doctorates in science, or worse, social sciences and psychology. Come on, chop-chop. Mangler needs medical attention.”

  The vast majority of the hands went down in a sea of grumbles and curses.

  “Who are you to belittle our accomplishments?!” Dr. Mandrake called from his seat. Wraith Knight stomped over to the villain, who was dressed in a garish purple top hat and Victorian garb. Dr. Mandrake reached into his alchemical bag and mixed components, ready to throw them.

  “Stop,” I sighed, calling Wraith Knight to heel. The hulking beast obeyed, but hovered like a menacing titan.

  “Doctors,” I said, using air quotes. “While I acknowledge your dedication to your fields of study, let us be honest with one another. You’re villains. You are basically high school D&D nerds who are still mad at the world and wish to exact your vengeance and will upon others. Or worse, you’re madmen with a god complex.”

  “Are you any different?” a voice called out.

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation. “Because I do not have a complex. Where I am from, I am a god, so to speak. But you—Dr. Fear, is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Doctor, to you and Dr. Mercury, Dr. Photon, Dr. Reality, Dr. Quantum and all the rest of the quacks, I say this: If you were truly cared about your respective science, you would still be out there in academia, striving for grander things and improving the world, instead of being here. Regardless, you really should comprehend the arrogance of calling yourself ‘Doctor.’ You have a Ph.D. and an egotistical mind that prevents you from simply being called ‘professor.’”

  “Hey!” Professor Savage called out from the crowd.

  “No offense intended, Professor. You’re one of the few I think has a modicum of value.”

  “Thank you?”

  I nodded to the fifties pulp-style adventuring villain. “But you all need a new name or a new term of address. If you cannot perform an emergency tracheotomy or appendectomy or do not have a working knowledge of the body, then all your delusional beliefs in theoretical physics, quantum states, wave theory, or M-Theory aren’t worth the bandwidth of an NPR podcast.”

  Outrage broke out in an incoherent uproar of equations and overt threats. Illegally licensed fusion weaponry and advanced robotics sprang to life. I know calling those who study physics and mathematics “delusional” is dismissive on my part.

  But to be fair, I’ve dined with the gods of many realities. I know how how the donuts are made from practical observation. Trust me, all the mortal big brains of multiverse have such a myopic view, they are essentially splashing in the kiddie pool of life rather than swimming in the ocean.

  Here’s a fun fact for you: I have it on good authority that physics was created by a couple of deities and demons during a Never Realm mixer. That is why every time there is seemingly a breakthrough, the rules seem to change as knowledge “expands.” Physics is actually a practical joke played on inquisitive mortals to make them slowly grow crazy and dissociate from other mortals who don’t “get their genius.”

  Ahh, what a wonderful long-con of villainy. But I had a congregation to wrangle.

  “SILENCE!” I bellowed, augmenting my voice. Once the room grew still, I continued. “As I was saying, Mangler needs medical attention.”

  “I can assist,” Dr. Pain called from his seat. The doctor was a dressed in blood-red leather greatcoat with many black straps and silver buckles. He had a sort of respirator device attached his mouth that warbled his voice, and one of those circle mirrors affixed to his head. I noted that both of his hands were robotic.

  “I have advanced medical degrees as well as degrees in advanced cybernetics and engineering. He will be perfect for my . . . work.”

  “Well, look at that—a useful blend of medicine and technology. Take note, you gaggle of charlatans.”

  “Come come,” Dr. Pain said to Mangler, bringing the maimed wrestler back toward his seat. “I see a lot of potential in you. Tell me, what is your threshold for pain?”

  I smiled. Sometimes my work is so rewarding, especially when you can bring people together.

  Making connections is really what it’s all about.

  But it was time to get back to business. “With those pleasantries out of the way, it is time to get back to the point. Gathered villains, I am Jackson Blackwell, the Shadow Master. And I’m here to guide you into a new era of villainy.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Where I Reminisce About Childhood Lessons, Assemble a Ruling Body, and Drop the Mic

  It has long been my supposition that villains could win in every situation provided the rules governing the universe were fair. And of course, said villains were under proper leadership.

  In my early days of childhood, I, like many children, watched the animated adventures of GI Joe, Transformers, and their ilk. Through all the twenty-two-minute toy commercials, I watched as Cobra Commander’s brilliant plans turned to ruin over and over by his inept leadership. Ironic that such a brilliant mind was burdened by such hubris that it prevented him from seeing that he, like many people, was a poor leader.

  Hubris also plagued the great Decepticon leader Megatron. Unlike Cobra Commander, Megatron led the Decepticons into battle with ferocity and tactics. Megatron was fearless and powerful while also holding a begrudging respect for his nemesis, Optimus Prime. Yet Megatron’s flaws, while few, were his inevitable undoing.

  You see, where Megatron and Cobra Commander differed was in their choice of minions. Cobra Com
mander clearly had talent on his roster, but lacked the ability to lead them effectively.

  With the exception of Soundwave and Shockwave, Megatron surrounded himself with bullies, cowards, and Cassius-level, backstabbing sycophants. (Cassius was the foil to Julius Caeser, you sloped-brow Neanderthals. Read a real book once in a while.)

  Because of this, Megatron’s power base was built on a foundation of sand and poisoned from within. Simultaneously, his own belief in his power prevented him from seeing others for who they were, instead seeing them only as less than he.

  These brightly colored parables for would-be villains were drilled into my head. And I swore when I became the top villain, I would remember them.

  Sadly, hubris is a cancer in us all. My own manifested itself during my previous adventures in Caledon, which led to my temporary dethroning. And the echoes of that action resulted in my current situation. While I too see others as less than I, I can see potential in them. I strive to foster that potential.

  Provided it results in a net gain for myself.

  Convincing people you care is hard. But once they trust you—well, exploiting them comes easy. Politicians and musicians, in both the country music and hard-core rap genres, have been doing it for generations. Don’t believe me?

  *Ahem* Attend my words:

  Step 1 - Identify the target audience you wish to exploit: The poor and the arrogant work the best.

  Step 2 - Defend their station, or position, in life: “It’s not your fault! But take pride in who you are!”

  Step 3 - Associate yourself with them: “I’m one of you! I know what you’re going through!”

  Step 4 - Placate: Provide your target audience with music, products, and promises that reinforce their beliefs instead of challenging them.

  Step 5 - Reap rewards: If done properly, your target group will not only throw their money and faith at you, but they will also violently defend you.

  A little lesson in villainy. You’re welcome.

  Next time I’ll teach you how to achieve profitable victimhood status by attacking a group of people and then crying when they attack back. Trust me—it really, really works.