I raised my hands in surrender as I slowly got to my feet. “Want to talk about it?”
“Excuse me?” Guinevere asked. “Gary, you’re going to jail.”
“From which I will promptly escape so while we’re waiting for the police here in Atlas City to arrest me, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“You want to chat?” Guinevere asked.
“Versus getting thrown around like a ragdoll or used as a punching bag? Yes, yes I do.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Guinevere looked intrigued, though.
“Not really,” I said, sighing and going to check on Cindy then Diabloman. “I had a minor in superhuman psychology and I’m one of the few people who knows what it’s like to be on both sides of the hero/villain divide. Besides, legally, you have to wait for the police.”
“Technically, I can give a statement later.”
I interrupted that train of thought as I went over to check Diabloman’s eyes. “Hold up, checking bodies.”
Hollywood made you believe that if you knocked someone out, they would be fine a little while after but if they weren’t up after thirty minutes then they probably weren’t getting up. As such, superheroes had quite a bigger body count than many people believed unless they were Society of Superheroes members who had Venusian equipment to stabilize them. The fact Guinevere was in the Society and hadn’t bothered using it showed she didn’t care. I cast some minor healing magic over my henchmen then went to the other villains to make sure nobody passed on. The Guinevere I knew wasn’t the kind of person who killed. Not unless the victim was a monster and I meant that in the giant or dragon sense.
“Are they alright?” Guinevere asked.
“Nothing decades of medical debt won’t cure.”
“Good,” Guinevere said, apparently missing the irony of my statement or not caring. “I didn’t mean to go so harsh on them.”
“So why did you?” I asked.
“The Time Cube cannot be allowed to fall into evil hands!”
I looked at her. “Do you even know what it does?”
“You don’t?” Guinevere looked at me.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Things,” Guinevere admitted, looking guilty. “Related to time.”
“Uh-huh. You have my parole I will not attempt to escape while you’re here. I wouldn’t abandon Diabloman or Cindy anyway.”
“Honor among thieves?” Guinevere asked, as if the concept was ludicrous. Which it was.
“They’re my family.”
Guinevere stared at me, looking around the scene then sighed. “Very well, I’ll give it a shot. Gary, you and the rest of the supervillains you released from Merciful’s jails are driving the Society of Superheroes to ruin.”
Guinevere was referring to the fact, a year ago, I’d been one of the most famous superheroes in the world—except, for the fact it wasn’t me. Merciful a.k.a Other Gary took my place after dumping me and Mandy in a secret prison of his own design. He’d proven a lot better at my life than I had, ending crime in Falconcrest City and becoming known as a world famous inventor despite the fact neither of us had an IQ above 135.
Other Gary turned my hometown of Falconcrest City into a police state. He locked away most of the world’s supervillains in black sites along with a bunch of his political opponents. He even stuffed Gabrielle into a power plant, sucking on her energy for years. I’d ended up freeing her but it had required releasing all the other supervillains Merciful had locked away—many who had belonged in jail or in the morgue. It had destroyed all of the good will I’d garnered before my doppelganger had capitalized on it. Apparently, stopping World War 3 a few years earlier wasn’t anything compared to the mild inconvenience of having to round up some goons I’d let loose.
I looked up at Guinevere. “The Society is being driven to ruins? My frequently broken jaw says otherwise.”
“You have a target on your back since you shut down your doppelganger,” Guinevere said, revealing she knew it hadn’t been me. “Just about every hero wants to punch you or blast you for destroying their lives.”
“I think that’s an exaggeration,” I said, pausing to think about the implications. “Though I’m not sure which part is the exaggeration.”
It did explain my massive amount of bad luck, though. Last year, I’d been ready to take over the world. Two worlds, in fact, only to have my fortune dissipate and virtually every heist I planned ended in complete disaster. I’d become a jobber and while I was one of those supervillains who treated every prison he was held in like Swiss cheese, that didn’t keep me from experiencing the physical pain of every beat down. It had gotten to the point superheroes didn’t even wait for me to commit crimes, they actually tracked me down in order to lay the smack down. That just wasn’t kosher. Legal? Yes. Kosher? No.
“Gary, last year we were on the verge of winning the war against crime. Almost all supervillains were locked up and the major syndicates were all dismantled. P.H.A.N.T.O.M was destroyed along with SKULL and the Fraternity of Supervillains. We were finally able to work on things like clean energy, world poverty, hunger, and other social ills our powers were better suited to. Then you had to go reinvigorate the supervillain world, unite them, and lead them to free all their friends. Do you realize what you’ve done?”
I balled my fists. “Listen, that wasn’t a good thing! Merciful was brainwashing people! He hurt Gabrielle! You let that happen.”
“I’m sorry about that but one hundred twenty-two people died when you cut the power to the East Coast,” Guinevere said, ignoring what I’d said.
I took a deep breath. I remembered when the news showed the faces of the people who’d been killed in the sudden blackout and the failure of the locals to be prepared for it. It was only one of the consequences of my taking down Merciful and his saccharine empire. “I’d do it again. That was sick and I love Gabrielle. By the way, don’t tell Mandy or Cindy that.”
“We know, Gary,” Cindy said, getting up and feeling her head. She was dressed in an armored leather version of a ‘sexy Red Riding Hood’ outfit that was glamoured to be a lot more revealing than it was. “Would someone get me the number of the truck that hit me? It was shaped like a swimsuit model.”
“You able to resist Guinevere’s aura of peace?” I asked, surprised she was standing up.
“I think the concussion is helping,” Cindy muttered, feeling her head.
“I’ve stopped my charm aura,” Guinevere said. “It hasn’t been working as well as it used to.”
“Can’t possibly be the changes to your personality,” Cindy said, spitting out a tooth. “It’s okay, it’s a molar.”
“Do you realize what you did by releasing all those monsters?” Guinevere looked at me with a condemnatory stare. “A lot of monsters were released by your incarnation of the Fraternity of Supervillains too. We’re still trying to find Bloodbath and Killgore for murdering Lady Hollywood’s family.”
Okay, maybe what I’d done wasn’t a mild inconvenience. “Hey, I killed those two, actually. They’d invited me to join in a job. It turned out to involve slaving—which I had only one response to.”
“Turning it down?” Cindy asked. “Calling the cops?”
“Fire,” I replied. “Lots and lots of fire.”
“Ah,” Cindy said. “That was my next guess.”
Guinevere blinked. “What? You killed your fellow supervillains? Why?”
“Because they were psychos,” I said, glad she understood I meant Bloodbath and Killgore. “There’s two kinds of supervillains. The professional criminals and the monsters. I don’t have any room for monsters in my vision of supervillainy. I also killed the Lakewood Slasher, Cannibal Hillbilly Redneck, and the Nightmare Fetishist.”
“It’s why the Fraternity of Supervillains blackballed him,” Cindy said, trying to stand up before falling back on her ass. “It’s technically illegal for any supervillain to work with him and I almost lost my membership card for it. However, I’m okay wit
h them because they all think I’m willing to screw them.”
“But you aren’t, right?” I asked, half-joking.
“Of course not!” Cindy said. “I only have sex with you, Mister Inventor, the Florist, and three former Nineties boy band leads.”
I stared at her. “Yeah, that’s fair.”
I tried to put that image out of my mind and failed. Then I thought about it for a minute.
“Gary!” Guinevere said.
“Hmm?” I said, turning around. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened but his tyranny couldn’t be allowed to continue. The real Guinevere would know you can’t sacrifice the freedom of seven people just to make sure one guilty person dies. I swear you were a lot nicer when you locked me up a few years ago.”
“When I sentenced you to life imprisonment on the moon?”
“Yes, you smiled more then.”
Guinevere didn’t look impressed with my logic. “I don’t want to sacrifice anyone’s freedom, Gary, but this is a war that has stretched us to the limits. I’ve been fighting it since WW2 and I’ve lost more friends than you could count doing so. Nazi Basher, Captain Stalwart, Ms. Terri, and Two-Fisted Pulp-Hero. Ultragod and the Nightwalker kept us all together but the Society of Superheroes doesn’t have them anymore. I’ve tried to carry the slack, but even I have trouble some days.”
I frowned. “I miss them too. There’s not a day goes by I would kill for Cloak’s advice. He was my friend too.”
The world had become a much darker place with the death of the Nightwalker and Ultragod. Lancel Warren and Moses Anders had been two of the three biggest heroes in the world. Their deaths had left a big hole in the ranks of the world’s champions and Guinevere was obviously not dealing too well with the stress. Then again, maybe I was judging her too harshly, as Lady Hollywood was her goddaughter. Lord knew I’d gone crazy a few times in my career.
Guinevere narrowed her eyes. “Gary, do you know why we haven’t just grabbed you and put you on an asteroid with robots to take care of you until you died like we did with Satan Man or Zull the World Destroyer?”
I stared at her. “Because that’s horrifically immoral and against the law?”
“Ultragoddess said if we ever seriously hurt or, gods forbid, kill you then she would destroy the Society of Superheroes outright.” Guinevere’s voice was tired. “Her Shadow Society is made up of people who consider you to be a hero and hate us for abandoning her. There’s also the argument you have saved the world a few times.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, sarcastically. “Is that all?”
I’d saved the world from Tom Terror and two ancient Nephilim, Zul-Barbas (basically Cthulhu), and President Omega’s attempt to commit genocide against all Supers. Hell, I’d even saved the world from my alternate universe doppelganger that the Society of Superheroes had given free rein to “solve” the supervillain issue.
“Ultragoddess wants nothing more to do with the Society or its laws. Mostly, she operates in the Third World nowadays, overthrowing dictators and ending civil wars.”
“Gwen, have you considered you may not be on the right side of history here? A conflict between you and Gabrielle isn’t helping anyone.” Personally, I couldn’t say who would win in a fight between Guinevere and Ultragoddess if they ever threw down but it would be a battle with no winners. They were the two strongest heroes left on Earth by my reckoning and should have been fighting together.
“That’s on her, not me. I’m more worried about whether there will be a history,” Guinevere said, shaking her head. “The Society of Superheroes has lost half its membership. People have retired, been crippled, died, or simply left. They just can’t continue taking up the good fight anymore and the Age of Superheroes is about to end. I was hoping it would end in our victory but it may well end in our defeat. In that respect, I can’t even bring myself to give a damn you’ve admitted to murder in front of me.”
“Well, they had it coming,” Cindy said, sticking her tongue out in disgust. “Especially the Nightmare Fetishist. He targeted children. I mean, you have to some standards as a supervillain.”
I didn’t know how to respond because Guinevere being utterly exhausted from fighting evil was not something I’d ever expected to see. Combat fatigue affected a lot more heroes than anyone ever really acknowledged, often leading to those dramatic “I shall be a superhero no more!” or hero-on-hero fights you never stopped to examine the psychology of. Guinevere, like Ultragod and the Nightwalker, had always seemed above it all. Maybe I had screwed up. Police sirens echoed outside, signaling it was time to go to jail.
Guinevere’s left gauntlet buzzed. She looked down at it then sighed. “Dammit, there’s a volcano going off in Yellowstone National Park. All hands are needed on deck. I’m going to have to leave you here.”
I stared at her. “Really?”
“Do me a favor and go with the police,” Guinevere said, staring at me. “You are better than this, Gary. You could be so much more than you are.”
“So my guidance counselor kept telling me,” I said. “I promise I’ll wait for the cops.”
“Thank you,” Guinevere said. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”
Guinevere aimed her sword at the Time Cube and caused a glowing bowl-shaped force-field to appear around it. With that, the Society of Superheroes teleported her away to the next crisis she had to deal with.
I didn’t move for a second. Then I walked up to the display, blasted the bottom away beneath it, and let the Time Cube fall into my hands. Stuffing it in my pocket, I went over to help Diabloman to his feet.
“Are we staying for the cops?” Cindy asked.
I looked at her sideways. “What, are you kidding?”
CHAPTER TWO
IS IT STILL GOOD TO BE BAD?
The Atlas City Police Department was different from the Falconcrest City Police Department. For example, they actually attempted to do their jobs. Still, it wasn’t that difficult to evade them when you had superpowers. I turned us insubstantial, walked us through the city’s storm drain system, and brought us to an unmarked white van. It wasn’t the most glamorous way to travel but was a lot easier to move around the city in. From there, the three of us drove to my hideout.
Atlas City was a shining monument of cleanliness, efficiency, and beautiful pristine towers. It was also a town with a rising homeless population, unemployment, and a growing set of slums. The heart of the city had been ripped out when Ultragod died. It made me sad just thinking about it and further proved Guinevere’s point. Superheroes weren’t just a bunch of interfering bastards preventing me from ruling the world, they were also people who inspired the public to be better.
“Man, I could go for a pizza now,” Cindy said, uncaring about my existential crisis.
“Then you’re in luck,” I said, shaking it off. “How about you, D?”
“I prefer meat on my meat,” Diabloman said.
My hideout was a small red and black building with a big M sign that read underneath SUPER PIZZA: OUR FLAVORS ARE ALL POWERFUL. I walked through the side door with Cindy and Diabloman without bothering to put on a disguise, passing numerous waiters and waitresses dressed like superhumans. Fake artifacts of various superhero fights were scattered around the restaurant and the usual cosplay crowd was present. Even a couple of people dressed like me.
Cindy glared at one of the customers. “I’m honestly not sure how she made my outfit skimpier. I mean, I work hard on that.”
“Yours has to be practical so it doesn’t fall off during combat,” I said, sitting down at one of the booths.
“It’s all illusionary anyway,” Cindy said, sitting down beside me. “Though I’m still waiting on you to get me that youth potion.”
“Cindy, you’re not even forty and look like you’re twenty-eight.”
“Because I work hard at it,” Cindy reiterated. “The gym is my friend. Men don’t have this sort of problem.”
“That’s because my cloak healing my injuries bur
ns calories like a wildfire,” I said, shrugging. “I do not recommend that as a weight loss plan.”
My encounter with Guinevere weighed on me. I didn’t like to think of myself as a bad-bad guy but Guinevere was right that I’d unleashed a lot of evil on the world when I’d liberated Gabrielle. I didn’t regret it but I could have done more to contain the damage. What, really, was my legacy going to be with stuff like that on my record? I mean, what sort of example was I setting for my daughter?
Diabloman picked up the menu and looked it over. “You should not let Guinevere’s words get to you.”
“Yeah,” Cindy said, sensing this was affecting my attitude. “She can go back to Camelot for all I care.”
“No, it’s a silly place,” I said, leaning back in the booth. “I’m sorry, she hit a nerve. Honestly, I think it may be time to hang up my cloak.”
There was an audible gasp throughout the restaurant and I looked around to see why everyone was reacting that way. Then I saw the cosplayer wearing a Red Riding Hood costume had slipped out of it and realized everyone was paying attention to that.
“Surely, you cannot be serious,” Diabloman said, looking at me. “Look at all you’ve accomplished in the past—”
“Seven years,” I said, pointing out the timeframe. “Five of which I spent in prison underground.”
“You actually only spent one year imprisoned,” a small feminine voice spoke. “The timeline has been compressed.”
I turned to see a five-year-old, white-haired girl, with pigtails who popped herself up on the booth seat beside Diabloman. She wore a miniature set of blue jean overalls and a t-shirt with a cartoon cat holding a test tube. In her right hand was a modified cellphone that looked like it was from the 29th century. Mostly because it was. It was my daughter Leia Wakowski-Karkofsky. Her superpowers were being hella smart, a telepath, uber-cuteness, and being able to invent anything. Leia already had her ‘superhero’ nickname of Gizmo, though I wasn’t letting her anywhere near anything dangerous. Not until she was two hundred and fifty and I was dead from old age.
The Supervillainy Saga (Book 5): he Tournament of Supervillainy Page 2