“Jennifer? What is going on up there? asked Voice.
“I need the ethblaster experimental pistol and a holographic projector sent to this location right away!” snapped Rex.
“Who is that? What did you do with–”
Voice fell silent and a new person came on the phone. Her voice was a lot quieter but was firm and strong.
“Please identify yourself with your agent code,” Voice ordered.
“I refuse to be numbered by you bureaucratic bean counters! Send me the damn gun. And a holographic projector. Do it quickly now, before the Icarus falls out of the sky.”
“Copy that. We have your location.”
A second later a box containing a fat new gun and a holographic projector appeared.
“That was fast,” said Jenny suspiciously.
“Yeah. Now, we need to get moving to somewhere high.”
Rex winced as the Grim Shadow landed beside him. Her mask was broken and blood poured down one side of her face.
“Now is not a good time, Shadow,” he told her.
“The superheroes have failed, Rex. You said you had a way of taking him down. It seems you lied to me,” she said, sounding tired but angry.
She pulled a wicked knife from her belt.
“This will still work, we just need ten minutes,” Rex said. “I have a gun–”
“No. No, I think you have had enough time to make your mischief. Was this all part of the plan? Setting a trap for most of the superheroes to tire us, then bringing the rest here to face the Psychic Psycho and be annihilated? Was that it, Rex?”
“No… that is a good plan, though. You’d make a great villain!”
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed.
She dived at Rex but Jenny caught her wrists and held her back.
“And you were doing so very well,” said Rex quietly. “I thought that you at least would have worked it out by now. Seriously, why do you think I’m here?”
The Grim Shadow head butted Jenny hard, but Jenny was far too tough to even feel it. in an instant Rex pulled a lump of battered cheese out of his pocket and hit the Grim Shadow with it. She fell over and passed out. Rex prodded her with his foot to make sure she wasn’t pretending, then checked her pockets and stole her wallet. Supervillains are always thinking about tomorrow.
“I think… I think you just made an enemy for life,” Jenny said thoughtfully.
“Good, those are the best kind. Now, let’s go make sure she can get a chance to kill me tomorrow.”
They set the holographic projector on top of a tall building and Rex got it ready. Jenny was still watching the Psychic Psycho fight everyone when an important thought occurred to her.
“Why did Voice’s boss do what you told her to?” she asked.
Rex pretended not to hear the question, so Jenny repeated it very loudly.
“What?”
“The lady on the phone call listened to you… but why?”
“I must have been extra charming–”
“Come on, Rex, I’m your girlfriend and we might die today so you may as well tell me the truth!”
Rex turned away and tried to move, but Jenny caught his arm. He sighed and rolled his eyes.
Well… the thing is, Jenny… the thing is… the thing is… this is a little embarrassing, really, I’d prefer if you don’t tell the other.”
“What, Rex? Just tell me!”
Rex sighed. Supervillains hate telling the truth, particularly when it makes them look good, but Rex knew he couldn’t lie to Jenny. He looked her in the eye.
“The truth is that I also work with the Newtopian government from time to time as a consultant. I help them, and occasionally they help me,” he said.
“What? Since when?” asked Jenny.
“Since I was five.”
“But you’re a supervillain!” protested Jenny.
“Yeah. I was adopted by my villainous uncle after my parents died, and we were asked to use my superpower to protect Newtopia until it could train a new generation of superheroes as a police force. That hasn’t happened yet, so I still help out when they need me. We were travelling a lot back then, because my uncle wanted me to see the world. He was killed by a superhero when I was thirteen, and that’s when Chaotica and I formed the League of Teenage Supervillains.”
“I didn’t realize we could choose to be villains! They have far more fun than heroes!” complained Jenny.
“It’s not too late for you to change, but right now we need to focus on the plan. I’m going to get the Psychic Psycho to fly up to us, and then I’m going to shoot him full of bullets made of Nubulium. Easy.”
“Easy?” said Jenny doubtfully.
“Well… we might die. How does that sound to you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: WHEN SUPERVILLAINS COLLIDE
Be dramatic, people love it.
–Rex Rogue’s guide for aspiring supervillains, unpublished.
Rex and Jenny set up a projector on the roof of the highest building that was still standing. A huge portrait of the Silver Arrow and Mistress Mayhem appeared in the air, smiling down confidently on the ruins of Icarus City. The Psychic Psycho screamed in fury and flew towards it in a tornado of energy that scattered all those who had gathered to stop him. He landed beside the projection and kicked it, scattering pieces everywhere. The pieces floated into the air and then began to melt and boil, a furious hot rain that spluttered and smoked like a demonic halo.
“Who dares show me those faces, the faces that hurt me so?” the Psychic Psycho yelled so loudly that windows shattered and walls trembled.
“That would be me,” said Rex calmly.
Jenny was floating, invisible, behind the Psychic Psycho’s head. He hadn’t looked her way, so she thought she was safe. She was wrong.
“Just you, or did your powerful lady friend help?” the Psychic Psycho asked with a laugh.
He clicked his fingers and Jenny became visible. She tried to move, but was held fast by the Psycho’s telekinetic powers. The Psychic Psycho pointed at Rex and he floated into the air until he and Jenny were side by side.
“Invisibility may have saved you once, girl, but now I can smell your mind wherever you go. How silly of you pair to think you could stop me! What was your plan? Did you even have one? She has such power, but what is driving you, little actor without even your mask to hide behind?”
Both Jenny and Rex were frozen in the air in front of the Psychic Psycho. He smiled at them, and they drifted closer to him. The Psychic Psycho was holding them so tightly that they couldn’t move, but they could still speak. Luckily for Rex, his ability to talk himself out of trouble was second only to his ability to talk himself into trouble in the first place. His words were his weapons, and he had chosen his arsenal very carefully indeed.
“If you are so powerful… how did you lose last time?” gasped Rex.
The Psychic Psycho paused in his torture and seemed to think about it.
“An insightful question indeed. Your mind is far more interesting that your weak body. I have thought about my failure for the many, many years of my imprisonment. There was a child, you see, a precocious little thing who somehow guessed my weakness. I’ve had my people searching for the creature ever since I learnt of it, but I don’t know where the heroes are hiding the little dear.”
“And when you find the kid?” Rex asked, struggling uselessly against his invisible and immovable bonds.
“I shall rip its mind from his body and consume its heart!” roared the Psychic Psycho with such force that trees in the parks below died and some of Rex’s hair turned grey.
“Well, in that case I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you,” said Rex casually.
“Indeed? Perhaps you wish to bargain? To betray your friends to save your life? Do you know of this child? Tell me and I shall reward you! Many have begged me for such a chance, and I did not kill all of them right away.”
“The good news is that the kid is really close by… she’s r
ight here!”
The Psychic Psycho spun towards Jenny, dropping Rex to the ground. Rex rolled clumsily and fell onto his back as the Psychic Psycho flew into a rage beyond anything he had shown before.
“You! You! I’ll kill you!” he roared.
He used his powers to throw Jenny through a wall, then brought her back and bounced her hard against the ground. The Psychic Psycho focused all his powers on trying to pull her apart. He wrapped sheets of metal around her arms and hammered her with bricks and glass, but she was far tougher than any enemy he had ever faced.
“I will kill you! I will!” he screamed.
He poured more and more of his power into trying to hurt Jenny, and the buildings around him began to wobble and shake violently from him rampage.
“Rex! What are you doing? Help me!” Jenny cried as the Psychic Psycho smashed her into the roof over and over again.
The Psychic Psycho was so intent on hurting Jenny that he had forgotten all about Rex, leaving him able to move again. Rex pulled out his gun and aimed it right at the Psychic Psycho’s head. He couldn’t miss from such close range.
“Hey jackass, guess what?” he yelled.
The Psychic Psycho spun around, and Rex shot him right in the chest, knocking the evil superpower backwards. The Psychic Psycho touched the bullet hole and winced slightly. White light flowed out of the hole, and the Psychic Psycho tried to push it back inside himself. He released Jenny, and she flew down to join Rex. The Psychic Psycho screamed and reached out to Rex, so Rex shot him again. The bullet made a glowing white hole in the Psychic Psycho’s skin.
“Nubulium bullets! No!” the Psychic Psycho gasped in surprise.
“Oh yes. I have spent years to find enough Nubulium, but I think it was worth it. Jenny, are you okay?”
“Yup,” Jenny said.
She was battered and bruised, but nothing was broken.
“How could this happen to me?” the Psychic Psycho screamed.
“You aren’t too smart, are you? I lied about her being the one who could hurt you. I’m a very convincing liar, I learnt that from my uncle,” said Rex with a smile. “I’m the kid who worked out your weakness. I told my parents and they made a plan to bring you down. They died fighting you that day, but I survived and spent years on the run from your allies. I’m not a hero like my parents were, but I’ve been trying to honor their memory by keeping Newtopia safe in my own way,” said Rex.
He stepped towards the Psychic Psycho. Jenny put a warning hand on his shoulder, and he smiled at her.
“Sorry about using you as a distraction, Jenny, but I know you are too tough for him to hurt you. Of all the superhumans I’ve ever met, you’re the only one without a weakness!”
Jenny shook head.
“Just end this,” she said.
Rex took another step towards the fallen Psychic Psycho and took aim again. The Psychic Psycho held up his hands.
“Please! Please don’t shoot me! I surrender!”
Rex hesitated, lowering the gun slightly. The Psychic Psycho lunged at Rex, but Rex’s gun snapped up and blasted the Psychic Psycho onto his back.
“You are a lousy actor!” Rex said with a grim smile, “I could see that coming a mile away. I’m a little insulted you thought that would work on me.”
The Psychic Psycho was trying to drag himself away from Rex, but there was no escape.
“Don’t shoot me! You and I could rule this measly world together!”
“I don’t need your help to rule the world, I have a whole League for that,” said Rex, his smile now gone.
The light was leaking out of Psychic Psycho at an alarming rate. Rex didn’t seem worried by it, but the Psychic Psycho was. He was frantically trying to hold the light back, crying in pain as it spilled over his hands.
“They won’t thank you, the people of this world,” he said. “The normal people will think it was the superheroes, and the superheroes will let them.”
“That is true,” said Rex.
“And your supervillain friends will start whispering about you, now. They will ask whose side you are really on.”
“That is also true,” said Rex again.
“They will doubt you… they will plot your downfall!”
“Yes, you are right.”
“They will try to kill you!”
“They might.”
“But I can save you! Only I can save you!”
Rex laughed.
“Please. The League is always plotting one–another’s downfall’s, that’s what makes us such great friends. I don’t need you. No one needs you.”
He shot the Psychic Psycho in the arm, and it cracked to show the bright white light within. The Psychic Psycho leapt at Jenny but she punched him hard and he fell to the ground. He clutched a hand to the wound in his side.
“No–one will ever trust you again… they will always wonder whose side you are on. Whose side, Rex? Whose side are you on?”
Rex considered this for a second.
“The winning side, of course. My side.”
Light was pouring out of the bullet wounds in increasing amounts. It was too bright to look directly at. Cracks started appearing across the Psychic Psycho’s body, and he sagged backwards.
“Wait… I can give you power… money… anything,” said the Psychic Psycho desperately.
“Can you bring back Silver Arrow and Mistress Mayhem? My Mom and Dad?” whispered Rex.
The Psychic Psycho screamed as Rex put his last bullet right through his heart. Even that wasn’t enough to stop the super–powered monster. The light spilling from his body flowed backwards, and he became stronger.
“Rex, I think he’s recovering! Shoot him again.”
“I’m out of bullets,” Rex said.
“There… is… nothing… on Earth… that can kill me!” the Psychic Psycho screamed.
“Maybe you are right, maybe nothing on Earth can stop you… but I was quite an avid astronomer when I was younger, and I once found a comet made entirely out of Nubulium out near Jupiter. I think that would be enough, don’t you?”
Rex wrapped his teleport belt around the Psychic Psycho’s waist, but as he did so the Psychic Psycho reached up and grabbed Rex’s arm, holding him close. Jenny moved to pull Rex free, but he waved her away.
“If… I… die, you… die with… me,” hissed the Psychic Psycho, holding on to Rex with all his remaining strength.
Rex didn’t even struggle.
“That’s acceptable,” he said after barely a second’s consideration.
He smiled at Jenny and activated the teleport belt. Rex and the Psychic Psycho disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Jenny alone in the air.
“Rex?” she said, shocked.
Five minutes later the sky lit up with a flash of white from an explosion from a comet near Jupiter. The light washed right through the Icarus, knocking out superheroes and supervillains alike. It lingered over the bodies of the injured and dead as if counting them before moving on, rolling across the Earth and moon, knocking aside satellites and frightening the young and old alike.
And then the light was gone, and the Psychic Psycho was dead.
“Rex?” Jenny whispered quietly.
“Rex!”
EPILOGUE
Six weeks passed quickly on Earth in relative peace.
The Icarus was saved, the superheroes took credit for the Psychic Psycho’s defeat, the League of Supervillains returned to Earth to mourn the loss of their leader, and Jenny Doom joined their ranks. In the deepest cave in Rex’s hidden jungle base, Professor Engelmanthing was nearly finished with his most secret and dangerous project. The cavern was ringed by gantries and scaffolding, but the Professor only had eyes for the enormous cannon that stood at its center. Only a handful of Rex’s minions remained in the base, and most of them had gathered in the laboratory to look at the weapon that would change the world.
“This hallowed doom inches closer to ghastly perfection. So all you need now is a Venus c
rystal?” asked Skyre.
“Yes yes yes, this is very good, is it not? The Venus crystal was the last thing on Rex’s list. Ah.”
They stood in silence for a few seconds; Rex’s loss had been very hard for them.
“Even the phoenix is doomed to drown in its own tears… but I wish he was here to see this,” said Skyre.
There was a soft cough in the shadows, and a dark figure stepped into the light in a familiar but tattered grey jacket.
“As if I’d miss this,” said Rex.
He was walking with a limp and he had lost most of his hair in a fire, but he was holding a Venus crystal.
“REX!” Skyre yelled, and ran over and hugged him.
“Yeah… rumors of my death were mildly exaggerated,” he said awkwardly as the goth lifted him off his feet.
“YES! Yes yes yes how wonderful! But where have you been, Rex?” demanded Professor Engelmanthing.
“Long story. I used the emergency teleporter in my jacket, but it took me to Venus instead of Earth. I ended up in one of the Venus prisons, the ones filled with the worst super powered scum in the solar system. There was a riot, explosions, giant killer robots, and white hot fires falling from the sky. It was a chaotic mess and I nearly died when Alligator Man tried to eat me. It was a pretty good holiday, really.”
“Yes no yes fine good excellent, but what about my crystal?”
“I did have a little time to go shopping while I was there, sure. Where do you want me to put this thing?”
Professor Engelmanthing took the crystal and handed it to a senior technician who handed it to a junior technician who handed it to a young work experience kid. The kid gulped, walked over to the cannon and slotted the crystal into a holder. The cannon lit up red, and the kid ran for it.
“So it’s finally ready?” asked Rex eagerly.
“Yes yes yes this is what I have said, why do you always make everything a question?”
“Sorry,” said Rex with a smile.
The Professor pushed a button and the enormous cannon spun in a circle. Chains of red lights lit up across its barrel and it hummed and whirred as it came alive. Technicians fled as lightning crawled up the cannon’s barrel and a series of loud booms rocked the room. The lightbulbs in the roof exploded one by one, leaving a dark shadow looming overhead.
Rex Rogue And The League Of Teenage Supervillains Page 19