Villains Pride (The Shadow Master Book 2)

by M. K. Gibson

  “I’m already jotting it down under items to rip off, trademark, patent, and sell to the government, sir.”

  “Perfect.”

  The gunfire stopped as The Warden put fresh magazines into his weapons. “Stay down,” he snarled.

  “No,” Apex said, pushing herself up. Already her alien physiology was adapting to the attack and making her stronger. As Apex prepared to launch herself at The Warden, a glowing golden beam of energy formed an impenetrable barrier around Apex.

  Ankh floated in the air, struggling with the effort to hold the spell. “Apex, please listen. Blackwell has to die. We don’t like it either, but it’s for the greater good.”

  “You know I’m right here, right?” I yelled. I was getting annoyed with how they spoke about me in the third person.

  “So rude, sir.”

  “Tell me about it,” I sighed.

  I guess I should also be upset about the death threats. But when you’ve been in my line of work long enough . . . meh? People wanting to kill you meant you were doing your job. And considering how often people threatened to kill me, the sentiment was as vicious as some angry internet activist’s “die in a fire”comment. Shrugging, I took out my phone and began to play a game.

  Apex barely moved as Ankh’s spell held her tight. But inch by inch, Apex’s body began altering its state, resisting the outside effect.

  “She’s going to break free!” Ankh announced.

  “Worst thing I can do right now is harsh language,” Babylon said. “Outside the city, my power’s all but gone.”

  “Of course it is,” Watchman said. His eyes darted around, tactically assessing the situations, terrain, and plan of attack. “It’s why she brought us out here.”

  “Not . . . the . . . only . . . reason,” Apex said as she continued to push past Ankh’s holding spell. The golden energy around her began to flicker, and it was clear Apex would be free in seconds.

  “Warden, go for wounds only. Timber, Babylon, get Blackwell and end this!” Watchman said as he chanted a few arcane words, causing glowing sigils to manifest along his leather gloves.

  “Got it,” Babylon said. “Come on, girl. Time to do the messy stuff.”

  Timber howled in agreement and bounded directly for me. I, in turn, gasped in frustration.

  I was stuck on a particularly difficult level of Candy Crush.

  Babylon closed on me, pulling a sacrificial blade from inside of his trench coat. “Any last words, mate?”

  “Stop talking and just get it done,” Timber growled. The nine-foot monster was on all fours and was slowly approaching, circling to my flank.

  “Do you have any tips on clearing level 987?” I asked, staring at my phone and ignoring them. “No? Then you might want to concern yourself with them,” I said, pointing up but not even bothering to look at my would-be killers.

  Timber and Babylon both looked up to see a glowing white light from high above. Upon a platform created by Hard Light, the rest of the Sovereign Seven—Amazonia, Tsunami, Haste and Elasto—descended.

  And man, did they look pissed. Well, as pissed as someone in fancy, brightly colored costumes, wearing underwear on the outside, could look.

  Hard Light released the platform, dropping his comrades onto the beach and into the fray. Tsunami commanded the water from the sea to swirl around her, washing the Warden away in a salty spray. Amazonia tackled Timber and the warrior women exchanged a flurry of ruthless attacks on one another. Haste literally ran circles around Babylon, throwing punches at varying intervals. Elasto stretched her body, wrapping herself around Ankh, pulling the other woman to the ground.

  “This ends now!” Hard Light said, releasing a burst of radiant light into the night sky.

  “Huh,” Sophia grunted. “Heroes really like to say ‘This ends now,’ even though it never does. Do you think they realize it?”

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “It’s part of the universe’s culture. Just like in the fantasy realms, someone will eventually give the ‘As long as my body draws breath, I will. . .blah blah blah’ speech.”

  Hard Light’s intense light display mimicked sunlight, causing the downed Chernobog to transform into his lighter side, Beobog. His masculine, dark exterior altered into a feminine form of light and power.

  Beobog stood, lifting her glowing hammer. “Thank you.”

  Hard Light nodded, wrapping the goddess in a continuous nimbus of positive, sunlight-like energy, ensuring her daytime transformation remained.

  “You’re welcome,” Hard Light said, before turning his powers on The Watchman, creating a cage of pure white light around his teammate. “Stand down, Malcolm. You’re beaten.”

  “You know I always have a backup plan,” Watchman said, tapping a sequence on the communications device on his belt.

  On cue, a portal in the sky opened over the sea in a flash of crackling blue inter-dimensional energy. The superhero teams of the Offenders and Gamma Squad flew through.

  “Nice trick,” Hard Light said. “But we know you.”

  Hard Light waved his hand toward the far end of the beach, opening his own portal of pure light. As he did, The Fabulous Five and the young hero team, The Upstarts, came through, ready for battle.

  “You all need to cease and desist right now!” Frozen Soldier announced, running towards the beach with the rest of his team, The Vindicators, to include Dr. Obscure, The Emerald Bow, The Streak, The Rage, Golden Lioness, and Augment.

  “We’ve been monitoring you all, and this war will stop now, or else!”

  “Blow it out your patriotic ass,” came a harsh voice. From the other end of the beach, The Horseman rode with her infernally powered team of antiheroes, Dead Next, each of them embodying a power of darkness and death.

  In only moments, The Superlatives, Teen Team, The Variants, The Enforcers, Elemental Agenda, and several more independent teams joined in, all ready to start a war.

  My war. Delicious.

  “OK, I’m calling bullshit,” Sophia said. “How the hell did they all get here so fast?”

  “Rules of this realm,” I shrugged. “Hero teams just know how to be in the right place at the right time for the sake of drama.”

  “That’s a long winded way of saying ‘contrived.’”

  “Also true,” I admitted.

  As I was clearly forgotten about, I got up and calmly walked away, excusing myself from time to time, pushing my way through the throngs of gathering heroes.

  Gods above and below, I practically waved my hand in front of their faces as they lined up in their superhero “ready for action” poses. They seethed, staring across the pending battle space at the opposition.

  “Are they posing?” Sophia asked.

  “It’s what they do.”

  “Why aren’t they stopping you?”

  It was ludicrous that they didn’t really notice me. But when superheroes square off, they ignore everything else around them.

  “Don’t bother judging or calling BS on this one,” I said. “It’s what those cute little bastards do.”

  Finding a nice secluded spot on the beach, overlooking the gathering of idiots, I lit another cigarette. Once I settled into my little spot, I pulled up Carl Douglas’s 1970’s classic Kung-Fu Fighting on my phone and cranked it as loud as it would go.

  “All right, let’s enjoy the show,” I said to myself.

  And as the first blows of the battle began, I let the Shadow Master’s real superpower expand outward.

  Chapter Thirty-One and a Half

  Where I Reveal My Real Powers and Explain the Facts of Life

  What’s my real power, you ask? Oh, you haven’t noticed? Huh. And here I was beginning to think you were an astute reader. Do you want to go back and re-read Villains Rule? Or re-read this one, maybe? Or should I spell it out for you?

  You’re right. Spell it out. After all, who has time to look for subtle clues? I guess ordering a complex coffee to perfectly reflect your personality, overpaying for i
t, then playing with Snapchat filters is the extent of your mental faculties.

  Troglodyte.

  The real power of the Shadow Master, dear reader, is that I bring reality into the unreal.

  Ta-da!

  What? You don’t understand? Sigh. Why, I’m not surprised. Allow me to explain.

  As you know, wherever I go, I bend the rules of the realm to suit my needs. That part is clear. But it isn’t that I just manipulate the rules by planning and utilizing verbal gymnastics.

  I literally bend the rules of reality.

  Surely you’ve noticed anachronisms. People’s speech patterns, for example, become far more colloquial when I’m around. Or how the behavior of others seems to be more “real world” than setting-appropriate. Or how things pretty much just go my way?

  While I do take pride in planning and accomplishing my goals, even I’m not so full of hubris to believe I am that good. Well, maybe a little. OK, OK, fine—I did get fooled by my nephew.

  Once.

  Since I am a being of “the real world,” or the prime plane of existence, as well as a god, a lot of my real-world natural energy forces the realms I visit to bend to me. Naturally, I must contend with the laws and physics of the universe I visit. But with enough force of will, things bend, as all things bend, to the power of the determined.

  You see, in the real world, villains win all the time. And you’re kidding yourself if you think they don’t. The powerful, like me, become more powerful everyday. Regular people, you, keep the machine we powerful ones created running. It’s a simple fact of life.

  Politicians, corporate CEOs, billionaire oil tycoons, and the like, remain that way because there is no one who can stop us. No amount of activism will ever bring real change.

  Public protests are an illusion of control given to you by us so that you waste your time. A neat little constitutional villain-trick the American founding fathers slipped in under your noses.

  Unless the powerful people deem it to be, or there is real money to be made and power to claim, change never comes. That is the cold reality of “the real world.” Villains always win.

  Therefore, while I traipse though the fantastical realms of the known and unknown universes, I bring a bit of that real world with me, manifesting as needed. Look back on this book, for example.

  Remember when I got here? I got his by a car and I was only dazed. My godly power prevented me from dying. You’ve seen in it the movies—when a hero or villain falls from great heights, or is blasted by an energy beam, or a huge explosion only knocks someone away. Hell, Tom Cruise has made a career of running from explosions that should have killed his character.

  In the real world, that doesn’t happen. People get internal injuries, suffer broken necks, and die.

  So why did the comic universe native Greek Chorus die so easily from a fall? Simple: Reality happened. My reality. But me being me, I got hit by a car, made a background character aware of herself, and crushed her spirit. That was my using the universe for my benefit.

  “But that’s not fair!” you might say. “You can’t cause reality one moment, then abuse the rules the next!”

  Yes. Yes I can.

  Don’t be jelly.

  I’ll abuse a realm’s laws to suit my needs while inserting reality whenever I damn well please. It’s the reason I am such a threat to the gods of other planes of existence. Why they envy and detest me simultaneously. It’s the same reason you do as well. It is the natural order for lesser beings to exalt the powerful and smile while they do it.

  I warned you in the very beginning of Chapter 3.

  I told you not to like me.

  So, for the pending superhero war on the coastal shores outside Dynasty City? Well. When I was ready, I’d let reality emanate from me with all the subtle grace of a goddamn hurricane.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Where Reality Rules, Comedy Abounds, and Romance Blossoms

  The beach was chaos.

  Wonderful, destructive, painful chaos.

  Before me, a performance of raw power, orchestrated by my machinations, played out. Laser blasts, heat vision, sonic screams, super punches, trick gadgets, elemental forces, and good, old-fashioned, overly elaborate hand-to-hand combat were the weapons of choice.

  When superheroes fight one another, they usually go for their inner-circle rivals first. As they fought, they traded quips while showing off their moves and skills.

  Various speedsters zipped back and forth, leaving only illuminated trails of electricity. Archers fired their bows at one another and impossibly knocked their rivals’ arrows from the air. Deities clashed in the sky, and psychics mentally battled one another for dominance.

  I liken these skirmishes unto a pack of dogs at the park, sniffing butts. It’s how they get to know one other. And no matter how many times they’ve met before, the metaphorical butt-schnuffling starts all over again.

  I let the battle go that way for a while. (The fighting, not anal introductions.) Basic combat occurred, with one side declaring the other should stand down. Of course, the other side was high on their own self-righteousness, so they saw no other option but theirs.

  Note I didn’t say which side was which. Because frankly, it didn’t matter.

  They didn’t matter.

  They were a means to an end. An end that was soon coming. Before too long, the combatants all switched up dance partners, like all mass superhero fights do. It’s inevitable. Someone will always say “It’s no use!” Then someone else will always say “I have an idea!” Then they switch up opponents and really get down to it.

  The Rage roared while he jumped from spot to spot, flinging heroes all across the beach. The hulking idiot grabbed Tsunami and flung her into the bay, whereupon she used her hydrokinesis to retaliate with powerful geysers of water.

  Soldiers from Gamma Squad used military tactics to flank the Fabulous Five, opening fire with stunning plasma rounds. Frozen Soldier countered, diving into the Squad. Using the enhanced reflexes granted him by his combat tonic, the antique warrior moved among the younger troops, easily disarming them with strength, acrobatics, and stereotypical arrogant American pride.

  Teen Team ran headlong into The Upstarts in a stunning display of late-teens/early-twenties hormones, exposed midriffs, youthful jargon, and verbalized emojis.

  I didn’t understand even half of what they were saying.

  At the heart of the battle, in the center of all the spandex warriors, the stakes escalated as Apex fought Watchman. The combat tactician and magician fought with everything a human could against the alien embodiment of perfection. Their back and forth battle had been decades of mutual respect and resentment in the making.

  And it sucked as much as that one movie. You know which one I’m talking about.

  “Boooooring!” I yelled out through my cupped hands. “Well, I think now is a good time to spice things up.”

  “Sir?”

  “Just watch,” I said, smirking.

  I pulled out my phone, activated a program, and then began focusing my will across the battlefield. I placed the epicenter right on Watchman and Apex. Now all I had to do was watch.

  Watchman did a back flip, dodging Apex’s strike. As he cleared the area, The Watchman’s protégé, Starling (the third to have that name?), jumped onto Apex’s back, trying to wrap the powerful alien in a chokehold. Apex reacted on instinct, grabbing Starling by the neck to flip him over.

  She ripped his goddamn head off.

  Because that’s what happens when someone who can bench press a building pulls on human flesh.

  Starling’s blood sprayed for only a second or two, then ceased. The Alien held the young man’s head for a moment, disbelief in her eyes.

  Watchman’s mouth hung open in shock. Because of which, Watchman never saw Dragon Punch step in for a sucker shot to his jaw. Without thinking, Watchman spun away and threw one of his boomerangs at Dragon Punch. The edged weapon sunk into the martial artist’s neck, severing his car
otid.

  Blood fountained from Dragon Punch’s neck. The garishly dressed white man in Asian clothes was dead before he hit the sandy beach.

  Good. That’s what you get for white-washing.

  “You—you’re imposing reality,” Sophia said. She sounded both shocked and impressed.

  Hmm . . . shimpressed? Improcked? I need to work on that.

  “Yes. Yes I am.”

  “You don’t have your full power, sir. You’ll greatly weaken.”

  “I know. But I need to do this for now, trust me. Once I do, I’ll accomplish a large step in my plan. So let’s just enjoy the great tragic comedy that is superpowers.”

  My will’s imposed reality upon superpowers, and their consequences, rippled across the battlefield in deadly and hilarious ways.

  Emerald Bow shot an arrow at a speedster named Quentin Quick. And the second ol’ Q-man went from zero to seven hundred miles per hour to dodge, his brain hemorrhaged in his skull from the instant pulping concussion, while his lungs exploded from the collision to his rib cage.

  The arrow in his face was overkill, but it was funny when he fell over dead and the arrow got shoved through his skull.

  “Oh, that is so gross and so cool,” Sophia said.

  “Watch—it gets better.” I smiled.

  Enormity, the size-shifting variant from the V-Team, grew to over fifty feet tall. But since she gained no new mass, because that’s impossible, she was a fifty-foot, one-hundred-fifteen-pound woman. So when the sports-based brawler Roughhouse swung his baseball bat at her leg, meaning to destabilize her base, he tore through the incredibly thin membrane, ripping her leg off. When she fell, her body burst like a balloon.

  “What about that one?” I asked with glee. “Sophia? Sophia?”

  “Sorry, sir, I was microwaving some popcorn. You were right. This might be the best comedy I’ve seen in a long time. Wait, what about the lame heroes who shrink?”