by Logan Jacobs
“He’s too far gone to listen to reason,” Elizabeth agreed. “And it still makes me uneasy, but…”
“The only way to stop him is to kill him,” Penumbra said as she squared her narrow shoulders.
They were both very serious about their decision, so I tried not to seem too excited about it, even though I wanted to pop a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Still, it was impossible not to be excited because after all, the Shadow Knight had dug himself into this hole all on his own, and although I knew he could be a brilliant mastermind when he really focused, it didn’t seem like he was thinking rationally anymore.
Of course, he also might have thought that he was so far above me that he didn’t need his allies on his side to defeat me.
It was an interesting challenge, and definitely one I knew I could win as long as I had a solid plan of my own.
“Glad we’re all finally on the same page,” I said to break up some of the tension in the room. “But it won’t be easy.”
“I’m not expecting it to be easy,” Penumbra sighed. “But I can’t forgive him anymore.”
“He’s dangerous,” Elizabeth said. “More than I ever could have imagined.”
“Right,” I said. “So we’ll need to come up with a solid plan before we try anything against him. Beacon said some of those vehicles in the hangar have already gone missing, so that doesn’t look good for us, since it means the Shadow Knight is already starting to carry out his own plan.”
“But it could mean that he didn’t think very hard about it, right?” Norma suggested as she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Or it could mean he’s been working on this for longer than we expected,” I replied. “We can’t afford to underestimate him, so more than ever, we need to break into his lair.”
“If he’s moving some of his tech out of it, it might mean he’ll spend less time in there,” Norma said.
“It might,” I agreed. “We don’t have a way to know for sure if he’ll be there for not, so we’ll need to create one.”
“Create one how?” Penumbra asked.
“If the media backlash gets bad enough against Slade Industries, he might hold a press conference in Slade Tower,” Elizabeth suggested.
“Why would there be a backlash against Slade Industries?” Penumbra asked.
“Because of the destruction of the prison, remember?” Norma gave a satisfied grin. “We made it look like his company was at fault.”
“The shareholders have been in a panic since then,” I continued with a self-satisfied smile of my own. “Especially since there has been enough social media backlash about it to cause a bit of a stir. If we push that further, we can force Slade into holding a conference with his shareholders to discuss the damage.”
“And while he’s doing that, we can get into his lair undisturbed,” Penumbra said and then clapped her hands.
“Yup.” I nodded. “We should probably push against Slade Technologies subtly over the next few days, so Beacon can recover enough to come with us.”
I also wanted to give Penumbra and Elizabeth some time to digest their new decision to kill the Shadow Knight, so it would be a good idea to take a short break.
“But we shouldn’t stop hunting supervillains,” Norma said. “The Shadow Knight won’t stop, will he? And we need to get to them before he does, or he’ll put them into prison before we can put them down.”
“You’re right about that,” I agreed. “He needs to win back as much good press as he can, so I’m sure that while he’s plotting against us, he’ll be going up against supervillains even more than usual.”
“And he will try to stop you from getting to them first,” Penumbra said. “He was always way too protective of his supervillain enemies…”
“What if he gets desperate enough to call for help?” Elizabeth asked. “He used to work with the Wardens way back before he gave up on their style of fighting to go solo in Grayville. Do you think he’d try to call them?”
“It’s definitely a possibility,” I admitted.
I hadn’t considered that the Shadow Knight would be desperate enough to do something like that, but if he was desperate enough to try to kill Beacon over their disagreement, then maybe he was desperate enough to get Optimo involved. It was a well-known fact that the Shadow Knight and Optimo did not get along, but Slade had never been in such a bad position before. If anyone knew how to combat bad press, it was Optimo.
I didn’t think that Slade could swallow his pride enough to beg Optimo for help, but it might still be worth keeping an eye on the Wardens. We weren’t yet ready to fight a super on Optimo’s power level yet, and since I’d underestimated the depths that Slade would sink to before, I wasn’t going to do that again.
“Let’s try not to worry about that for now.” I shrugged it off, because there were a lot of factors still left to take into account that I’d need to think about further on my own. “You three should try and get some sleep. We can discuss it more in the morning, and hopefully Beacon will feel better by then.”
“You’re right, I’m exhausted,” Penumbra said as she yawned. “Is there a room for me? I can sleep on the couch if there isn’t.”
“Of course there’s a room,” I replied. “This is a mansion, isn’t it? Norma, would you show her to one of the spare rooms?”
“Sure thing,” my assistant said.
After Norma and Penumbra headed upstairs, Elizabeth went into the kitchen for some water, and I laid down on the couch and rubbed my temples. There were a lot of things to think about to keep myself ahead of Dan Slade’s plan, but I absolutely needed to get into his lair first.
So far, my superheroic technology boosters had been in the realm of suits and superpower enhancers, nothing like armored vehicles or high-tech gliders. And that meant there was nothing really stopping the Shadow Knight from driving a tank right through the mansion, other than the fact that he’d probably never be able to recover his reputation after that, not even if he begged the Wardens for help.
“Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked as she came back from the kitchen and leaned over the back of the couch.
“I should be asking you that,” I replied with a tired smile. “You know, since you’ve finally agreed that your old idol needs to die.”
“I’m fine,” she sighed. “It’s hard to come to terms with, but I’ll get there.”
“Go to bed,” I assured her. “I need to think on this problem for a little while longer.”
“If you’re sure,” she said and dragged her finger slowly down the length of my chest. “I’ll be waiting for you upstairs.”
“On second thought,” I laughed as I grabbed her hand, “I think I’ll join you.”
I let Elizabeth lead the way upstairs to our bedroom, and then I let her help ease away the stress from my mind until we both fell asleep.
Chapter 8 - Shadow Knight
Beacon had betrayed me.
Worse than that, he’d escaped and was probably on his way back to Miles Nelson with his tail tucked between his legs. I should have done worse, I should have utterly destroyed him so he would never be able to walk again.
Blood splattered across the floor of my lair from when I’d broken Beacon’s nose during our fight, but I still couldn’t come to terms with my former apprentice’s betrayal. He’d shouted so many traitorous things at me, all in defense of Miles Nelson. He claimed I was “off the deep end,” that I was crazy, and that I was the villain. Me-- not Miles.
But the truth was that I was the only sane person who remained in this entire city.
Beacon didn’t understand anything. He didn’t know what it was like to be a true hero, and he never had. He was an unworthy apprentice. They all were, and I never should have blessed any of them with my knowledge.
I breathed in through my teeth and tried to calm down, but when that didn’t work, I slammed the side of my fist directly into the wall and relished the pain that temporarily distracted me from my thoughts.
/> I shook my wrist and breathed in again. I didn’t need Beacon, anyway. I didn’t need someone who was willing to overlook Miles’ treachery. He was ruined, corrupted and changed by that man’s worthless philosophy. It was easy to take the simple route and kill your enemies instead of taking the higher moral ground and refusing to become a murderer. I would never become a murderer like Miles.
I’d already fully expected Penumbra to leave me and join Miles. She was a weak-willed woman and a slave to her instincts. I had done my best to train her, but I’d only recruited her to my team because of her powers, and once I found out that she didn’t even know how to use them, she was completely useless to me. She could barely even lift a piece of paper when I tried to train her, let alone a bus.
I had never shown any interest in fucking her, either, so she must have moved on to Miles. Fucking gold-digger. Penumbra was a lost cause, and she always had been, so he could have her.
What I hadn’t taken into account was that she would actually go out to the bridge to help them, but I didn’t expect that to be a common occurrence. She was a cowardly woman who was too afraid that she would get hurt to use her powers properly. There was no way someone like Miles could draw a true hero out of her. I regretted that I’d ever taken her as an apprentice in the first place, since she repeatedly and consistently let me down.
But Beacon…
He was my chosen protege. I’d trained him, I’d practically raised him, and it was his betrayal that stung the worst.
Unworthy cur.
Out of all my Silver Squires, he had been the one that I’d chosen to continue on to be a hero. If I ever died, my failsafe would put Beacon in control of my island, my company, and what remained of the Shadow Knight legacy.
I had once liked that rebellious nature of his, since even when he disagreed with me, he still always stuck firmly to the code I’d drilled into his head when he first became my apprentice. I appreciated that he thought differently, I appreciated his fiery nature, and I had even appreciated the way he’d challenged me sometimes. It was worthwhile to have an ally that would lend me a different perspective, and even though I’d never told him this, a few of my plans had only ever worked because of Beacon’s ideas.
Despite my attempts to replace him after he’d grown too old for the Silver Squire mantle, Beacon had always remained my favorite. There was something about his diligence and his strong nature that made me fond of him.
But of course, I’d never told him anything like that, because it was entirely unnecessary. I was not in the business of raising children-- I was in the business of heroes.
I should have known he would abandon me.
I should have known better than to trust anyone but myself. I never should have started to raise up other heroes. They were all ungrateful, and I would ensure they paid for it. The only one I could ever rely on was myself, and this entire situation had served as a harsh reminder that I had grown too trusting over the years.
I could handle this on my own. I would have to.
Even my inventor-assistant Julien spent as little time as possible within my lair. He claimed he was more comfortable developing the tech that I demanded from him in his own office at home, but I obviously knew better than that. He dropped off the developments he’d made for me once a day, and that was all I saw of him.
And I knew he would abandon me, too, once he’d finished.
He was also unworthy.
He was also betraying me.
I glanced at the table full of new developments and stalked over to it to look over the next step in my plan. Julien had developed a self-contained, simplistic AI system to remotely control my armored vehicles, but he had insisted on the vital importance that we keep the system closed and unable to be accessed by anyone on the outside. The system only reported to a device similar to a tablet that Julien had with him.
I knew why. Miles was just as technologically sophisticated as I was, and Julien didn’t want him to be able to take control over my remote vehicles. After all, my whole plan depended on these vehicles, so I had to keep them more secure than anything else in my arsenal.
I could defeat Miles Nelson easily in a one-on-one fight, and I was very confident about that. He knew that, too, and that was why he constantly kept himself surrounded by allies. I needed a way to distract his allies and get them away from him, so I could get him alone.
The bridge had been the perfect opportunity for it, and I would have been successful if it hadn’t been for Penumbra’s interference.
I curled my hands into tight fists at my sides and breathed in through my teeth again as I thought of the blonde coward. I didn’t need her. I didn’t need Beacon. I didn’t need anyone except myself and my own ingenuity to defeat Miles Nelson.
With my extremely advanced vehicles scattered around the city, I would be able to draw away his allies one by one until Miles was left all alone, and once the system was completed, I would also be able to remotely capture supervillains without the need to be there myself.
I picked up and then put down a refined version of my feather-shuriken on the table, and then I decided to check on my computer terminals to go over my programs and AI system. Julien was working on it remotely, but I could still make adjustments from the main terminal in my lair. I could, at the very least, begin to set up the programs for the AI-controlled vehicles so they would be able to fight crime autonomously. It was fairly advanced and would likely not work against a more powerful supervillain, but I could apprehend the lesser vermin of Grayville this way.
The screens lit up around me as I activated them, but with media alerts instead of code.
I had been alerted several times by my media-crawler bot, and I must have forgotten to deactivate the damn thing once I’d seen the breaking news reports about my actions on the bridge.
I despised the media.
Especially the way the Wardens used it to make themselves seem like better heroes than they actually were. The flashy way they did their business was the reason I’d left them in the first place, since it was so abhorrent to me as a concept. I never wanted to be at the forefront of media attention, and it had always been an unspoken rule of media outlets not to run direct reports on my actions. They knew I prefered to remain in the shadows, and they respected me enough to stay the fuck out of my business.
Not anymore.
I was “trending” all over social media, and the more I scrolled, the worse it got. A clip of me as I stopped Miles from keeping the bus from falling was played over, and over, and over, to the point where I felt sick with anger every time I saw it. There was also a clip of when I had tried to destroy the news drone, and even though that one played less than the first clip, it was still enough to make me grind my teeth so hard that it felt like they might crack.
Every single report was framed to make Miles look like the hero, and me to look like the villain. None of them understood the danger that Miles Nelson posed to this city, and none of them could possibly understand my actions, but there they were anyway, plastered all over social media.
This was not something I knew how to handle. My hands shook with rage, and it took all of my remaining self-control not to slam my fist right through my monitor, as if that could make it go away.
Miles had to be behind this, somehow. The entire campaign against me reeked of him, and I just knew that he’d done something to make the footage go so viral. It made me want to retaliate, but I had no idea of how to handle social media at all. I’d never given a shit before, and I hated that not only was Miles forcing me to break my code, but he was forcing me to have to involve myself within the media frenzy.
I quickly typed out “my name will soon be cleared” on my own media software, and then I hit the send button to post it up on the various accounts.
Then I turned away from my computer and thought about Miles again.
Even if I got rid of him now, I would forever be considered a villain in Grayville.
So I had to make sure that
the entire world knew what he truly was.
It crossed my mind to reveal his identity, but I couldn’t risk that Miles would then reveal my identity, too. Slade Industries had already taken a hit on the stock market, since I had no way to prove that the overflow prison’s explosion hadn’t been my company’s fault, and if Miles revealed my true identity to the world, my company would only suffer even more.
But somehow, I knew that if I shared Miles’ identity with the world, it wouldn’t actually damage his reputation much at all-- and definitely not with how good he looked in every circulated clip.
I could try to fight more supervillains in my downtime, but I didn’t think that would make enough of an impact. The social media slander against me had reached too far, and I didn’t think any of them would take notice if I started to bring in supervillains again. They would question my motives and find some way to make me out to be the bad guy.
No, there was only one thing I could think of that might work.
I hated that I was even seriously considering it, but if I wanted to retaliate against this campaign against me, I would need to get the Wardens involved.
Specifically, I’d need to call Optimo.
I fucking hated that guy. I always had, ever since I started my superhero career in the Wardens alongside him. He was a smarmy, arrogant bastard who was more concerned with his image and fucking every pussy in the group than with the supervillains he was supposed to defeat, and I had never agreed with his priorities.
I’d broken away from the Wardens after an argument where I had refused to pose with him and wanted to keep my involvement hidden. I wanted to be a silent protector of the people and not have my face plastered all over billboards and TV screens. When we’d argued, I’d spat in his face and hadn’t spoken to him since I’d moved operations to Grayville a few years ago.
Still, if anyone knew how to combat a slander campaign, it was Optimo.
It was a major blow to my pride to even consider asking him for help, but there was no one else who could save my reputation at this point. Miles Nelson was the superior threat, and that was all that mattered to me right now.