“Why go after Gary, then?” Cindy asked.
“Hey!” I said, snapping at her. “I am on that list! Just not at the top of it. Maybe even close to the bottom but I am on the list of Earth’s greatest warriors.”
“He is,” Multi-Ninja said.
“Which is sad,” Cindy said. “We’ve lost so many to be so reduced.”
I’d argue but she was right. Still, I was more concerned with the implications of Multi-Ninja’s statement than my place on any hypothetical list. Entropicus was, in simple terms, the most dangerous supervillain in the universe. Past, present, or future. In fact, supervillain was probably not a good term for a guy who went around conquering galaxies and trying to unmake the universe. He was the God-Emperor of an undead technopolis called Abaddon that existed at the end of time. It had taken the entirety of the Society of Superheroes to stop Entropicus’ three major plots across the past three decades with Ultragod having challenged the space god a dozen more times on his own. The thing was, Ultragod had lost a few of those battles, which was something Tom Terror couldn’t say he’d ever achieved. He was so out of my league it wasn’t even funny.
“You want to eliminate Mandy? Shame on you!” Cindy said, shaking her head as she tried and failed to lift Diabloman off herself again.
“Actually, I was sent here to eliminate Merciless,” Multi-Ninja said.
I blinked. “Really? I qualify as one of the greatest warriors on Earth?”
“I didn’t believe it either,” Multi-Ninja said, sighing. “But a job is a job.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I understand that.”
“Your wife is also on the list and I was going to kill her too,” Multi-Ninja interjected. “Two for one!”
I was starting to dislike this guy. I probably wouldn’t offer him a place in my organization after this was over as was typical with supervillains I fought. “What’s the Eternity Tournament?”
Multi-Ninja snorted. “You really have no idea, do you? So much for the Book of Midnight’s vaunted keeper.”
The Book of Midnight was the book of all black magic in the universe. It was alive and had the personality of a small dog. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. If there was an occult secret in the universe then it was inside The Book of Midnight somewhere. Death had entrusted it to me and I kept it watered, fed, and played with it whenever I could.
“Hey man,” I said, trying to think of a defense for the fact I hadn’t gotten as much out of it as I could have. “A lot of that book is in Latin, Greek, Linear A, and other foreign languages! Do you expect me to learn how to read another tongue just to gain more power?”
“Yes?” Diabloman asked.
“Then clearly you don’t know me very well,” I said.
Mandy rolled her eyes. “Agents Steve Caldwell and Thomas Machin died getting the information about Hell Island to me. There’s been kidnappings across the galaxy and signs of the dimensional barriers between the closest parallel universes weakening. Hell Island is the epicenter of it all and where this tournament is going to take place?”
“Hell Island, really?” I asked.
“I didn’t name the damn thing!” Mandy snapped.
“Sorry,” I said, shrugging.
“It doesn’t matter,” Multi-Ninja said, chuckling. “Both of you will die and your universe will be swallowed whole. Time will be compressed and it will be as a single moment stretched out for all eternity under the law of He Who Is Eternal.”
“That’s like five or six Final Fantasy plots together,” I said, wondering why anyone would want to compress time. Isn’t that just reversing the Big Bang? There wasn’t much interesting back then. I mean they hadn’t even invented alcohol. “I feel like we’re wandering from our topic. Like, for instance, if you’re so confident about your heightened ninja powers—why haven’t you attacked yet?”
“Because he was expecting to only fight one of Earth’s greatest warriors,” Mandy said, chuckling. “Not two.”
I was glad she had confidence in my role since I’d just spent my morning getting curb stomped by Guinevere. Still, by the way Multi-Ninja was fidgeting, I was under the impression she was right.
Multi-Ninja was about to say more when the backdoor to my restaurant opened again, this time Leia popping her head out the door to look at us. “Hey, mom, dad, what’s going on? There’s a weird static keeping me from reading….oh hey, a ninja.”
Multi-Ninja backflipped over Mandy and me before running like lightning toward Leia, picking her up, and holding her tightly against his chest. He then lifted a finger up under her neck, popping out a glowing laser nail underneath my daughter’s throat. “Entropicus provides. If you come a step closer, either of you, I will slit her throat.”
I stared at him. “Pal, you do not know who you are screwing with.”
Mandy trembled with rage. “If you think for a moment I’m going to let you leave with my child, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Leave?” Multi-Ninja said, splitting into three forms. “Hardly? I know your histories. Entropicus does not reward failure so I will complete my mission. You’re going to allow me to kill you both. Only then will I allow your child to go free.”
“That sounds like a bad plan,” Cindy said, not able to look back. “Gary, I recommend against that. We can get Leia brought back to life.”
“You suck, mom!” Leia shouted.
“Obviously, I’d like you to survive!” Cindy called back.
“That makes it so much better!” Leia shouted back.
“Doesn’t it?” Cindy asked.
Mandy knelt on the ground. “Fine, I’ll do it. Better I die than the only light in my life other than my husband.”
I blinked and seeing the two bad guys, I looked at Leia. “Honey, close your eyes.”
I proceeded to concentrate and pull Gizmo from Multi-Ninja’s hands with magic at a huge rate of speed, catching her like a football before turning insubstantial before the ninjas charged at me. Mandy intercepted them, broke both their necks, and charged at Multi-Ninja who screamed before she tore him into two separate pieces.
Multi-Ninja screamed before dissolving into nothing while Mandy stared down with red eyes. “Fatality.”
“You didn’t close your eyes, Leia,” I said, turning substantial again.
“Yeah, that was awesome!” Leia said, clapping her hands. “Do it again!”
Mandy took a needless breath, looking around for any other ninjas. So far, none of us saw anything. “That was an awful risk you took with Leia’s life, Gary.”
“Yeah, well, I was playing the odds a guy willing to slit a five-year-old’s neck wasn’t the sort of guy who could be trusted to let her go afterward,” I said, staring at her. “I’m also not going to let my wife sacrifice her life when I’m there either.”
Mandy grunted, clearly not happy with my decision but willing to go along with it. “We have to go find out what this Eternity Tournament is and how it relates to us?”
“Gee, I hadn’t figured,” I said, sarcastically. Laying down Leia, I looked at her. “Leia, remember what we said?”
“I am not going to be a Maguffin supervillains kidnap to make you do things,” Leia repeated. “Dad, I can build a giant robot out of Legos. One that works and breathes fire. You don’t need to protect me.”
“That’s cute,” I said, patting her on the head. “What do you want on your pizza?”
“Pineapple please,” Leia said. “Also, ultraniun. I want to slowly dose myself with radiation until I become a godlike being.”
“No, dear, that will give you cancer,” I said.
“Who is the super genius here?” Leia asked.
“Clearly the person who doesn’t want to eat radioactive material,” I said.
“Boo,” Leia said, yawning. “After I take a nap, I’ll do a board proving you wrong. Stupid superpowers taking up so much of my energy.”
I loved my daughter. She was the one shining beacon of light in my life after having devoted myself to fi
lling it with darkness. I’d wanted to be a supervillain since before I hit puberty but the fact was, I was a father now, and I didn’t want her to follow in my footsteps. I wanted to inspire her to be a better person and live a life free of danger as well as despair.
“Our daughter,” I said, looking over at Mandy and Cindy. Mandy was picking Diabloman up off Cindy with one hand and slapping him awake.
“Why the hell would Entropicus be worried about us?” Mandy muttered. “I mean, he’s a little out of our genre. He’s the sort of guy the Cosmic Surfer or the Sixth World Giants deal with.”
“I dunno,” Cindy muttered, standing up. “Maybe the fact we’ve killed a bunch of gods and demons over the past few years?”
“Yeah, we have been punching above our weight class,” I said, remembering their earlier description of my legacy.
“He is also the Chosen of Death,” Diabloman pointed out. “One of the Primals of the Universe believes he’s worth using as a pawn.”
“Did you have to mention the pawn part?” I said, frowning. “I prefer chosen agent of doom.”
“Of course you would,” Diabloman said. “However, she’s not about to show up and talk to us about what’s going on.”
There was a huge crash of thunder. I looked up toward the sky and saw storm clouds had gathered, blotting out the sun over Atlas City as the temperature dropped rapidly enough I could see my breath. Given Atlas City was in central Florida that was damn impressive.
Cindy rubbed her hands. “You see? This is why global warming is a real thing. I don’t care what the Omega-ists say. We need to build an enormous freeze ray and reverse all the problems at both poles.”
“Death’s here,” I said, turning around.
“Oh,” Cindy said, pausing. “I knew that.”
“No one wants you to get political,” Diabloman said. “Politicians aren’t supervillains.”
“Except the one that actually was,” Cindy said, referring to the late President Omega. Well, sorta late. He was a time traveler and a living temporal paradox so you could never be certain whether they were really most sincerely dead.
“Hush you.”
Mandy ignored Cindy as well, turning around to join me as we waited for the arrival of my otherworldly boss. Seconds later, an unearthly beautiful woman with pale white skin and black hair appeared before us. She was wearing a black tactical vest with nothing underneath and a pair of camouflage pants with two smudges of black paint across her face. Goth soldier girl was an eclectic outfit choice even for her but one I approved of. Death’s resemblance to Mandy was considerable and I’d often found myself greatly attracted to. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the experience if I ever made a move, though—not that I didn’t have more than enough problems with the three dangerous but beautiful women in my life.
“Hey, Boss,” I said, waving my hand. “What’s happening?”
“The end of the multiverse,” Death said.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHERE WE TOTALLY DON’T RIP OFF NINETIES FIGHTING GAMES
I pointed at Death. “You see? That’s the problem with media franchises these days. The entire multiverse is at stake? You couldn’t just say the city or the planet or even the universe? No, it’s the entire multiverse. How is that even possible? According to the late great Stephen Hawking, you’d have a bunch of people succeeding where other people don’t. Which would require infinite multiverses and that’s just silly.”
“It’s like what happened to Supernatural,” Cindy said, checking Leia to see if she was all right, even pulling out a tongue depressor to check her mouth. It was the most motherly thing she’d done for her since her birth. “Five seasons built up to the apocalypse and they defeat the Devil. Do they go back to all the wonderful low-level road monsters? No, it’s every season against more angels or demon gods so it becomes ridiculous.”
“Cindy, don’t help,” Mandy said, keeping her eyes focused on Death as if she was afraid the Primal would reveal something horrible about her.
“I’m just saying, I only watch it for the eye candy now,” Cindy said, smiling cheekily. “Also the fanfic potential.”
“The multiverse is a little more complicated than any single scientist can speculate on from Earth, even one as talented as him,” Death said, smiling. “The Eternity Tournament takes advantages of universal constants and the fact certain beings exist outside space-time to make its existence possible.”
“What is the Eternity Tournament?” I asked, wanting some damn answers.
“It is a gathering that occurs once every ten thousand years,” Death said.
“Earth years or another planet’s?” I asked, still trying to process everything everywhere was at stake. “Because, again, when you get to string theory levels of discussion, all logic breaks down.”
Death narrowed her eyes. They became like portals to hell and could stun even a strong willed man to silence. “Just shut up and go with it, Gary.”
“I’m just saying that year length varies from planet to planet,” I said, taking a deep breath and deciding to let her tell her story.
“When you’re the Primals of the Universe, you get bored with what the universe has to offer. It requires a shakeup. A chance to stretch the limits of omniscience,” Death said, staring at me. It was as if she was daring me to point out omniscience, by necessity, would not work that way.
“Uh huh,” I said, not taking the bait. “Please go on.”
“The Eternity Tournament gathers the seven champions from seven universes for each of the seven Primals and competes them against one another. There are very few rules other than each champions must have a chance of winning, no matter how miniscule. In the end, the winner is given the Primal Orbs for a single moment and granted a wish.”
“A wish,” I repeated. “Like an Aladdin wish?”
“Yes,” Death said. “One with no limitations.”
“Even wishing for more wishes?” I asked.
Death glared. “No, Gary.”
“Then there’s a limitation,” I said.
“Why are you my champion again?” Death asked, looking annoyed.
“I often ask myself that. You’d think you’d have been smarter,” I said, having no apparent self-preservation instinct.
Death, however, just smiled. “Yes, you’d think.”
“What are the Primal Orbs?” Cindy asked. “You know, since we need to get exposition out of the way for the audience.”
“What audience?” I asked.
“My online followers,” Cindy said, pulling out her cellphone. “I put up all of our adventures to go with my selfies.”
I stared at her. “And I wondered why the cops and superheroes were always waiting for us at our heist sites.”
“Way more publicity this way,” Cindy said, giving a wink. “You’re welcome.”
“She doesn’t actually post before the crimes,” Diabloman said, stepping between us. “We leave that for Mr. Puzzles.”
“What a relief,” I said, sarcastically. “How many crimes did he get away with?”
“None,” Diabloman said. “He’s currently serving thirty-seven life sentences.”
Death looked annoyed. “I have people to kill, guys. An entire multiverse’s worth in fact. You need to win the tournament in order to keep the Primal Orbs out of the hands out of Entropicus. They are the physical manifestation of the Primals’ power. Many times, mortals and gods have sought to acquire all seven for the purposes of being omnipotent within their own reality.”
“It seems like a bad idea to keep those around,” I said, pointing out the obvious risk in their existence. “You know, because of the fact they can give godlike power to people utterly undeserving of it, like me. Can’t you password protect them or something?”
“No, Gary.” Death shook her head. “This is why Entropicus wishes to win this tournament as he plans to use his wish to unmake reality.”
I paused, blinking. “What kind of moron would want to do that?”
“I destroyed the universe,” Diabloman muttered. “Once.”
“Yeah, but we all agree that was a bad idea,” I said, not really wanting to get into that. “What possible benefit could anyone derive from destroying everything?”
Death closed her eyes. “Entropicus was my champion at the beginning of this universe. He’s the father of the seven children I presented Reaper’s Cloaks in time-lost Acheron. He knows there’s an afterlife waiting for mortals but despises the suffering needed to get there as well as the arbitrary nature of human suffering.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Cindy asked, stepping in front of me. “I’d like to register a complaint.”
“All systems have bugs,” Death said, opening her eyes. “Chaos and Order are as much a part of it as Good or Evil.”
“That’s a shitty answer,” Cindy said.
Death refrained from smiting her but I could see she was debating it. “Entropicus will use his power over the dead to set himself up as the God-Emperor of all the dead universes and create paradises for those he considers the worthy while creating hells for those he considers unworthy.”
“Who does he consider worthy?” I asked.
“No one,” Death said, her voice bitter. “His is a hatred formed across epochs to all humans, aliens, and spirits. No being is perfect in his eyes and anything less is trash. All of life’s pleasures are ash in his mouth so only pain can be enjoyed.”
I let that sink in. Then I shook my fist in the air triumphantly. “Well, it’s a good thing no Primal is insane enough to make him their champion then!”
Death didn’t say anything.
“Oh come on!” I said, staring at her. “Who would do that?”
“Is it you?” Cindy asked. “Because that would be bad.”
“No,” Death said.
“Who then?” I asked, wondering if we were now going against one of the beings behind the Big Bang.
“Destruction,” Death said, her voice low. “He is the part of the All-God who regrets the pain and suffering that comes from existence. He has chosen Entropicus as part of a larger plan to bring oblivion to all things. Destruction is a sadistic little troll who enjoys high stakes games and tormenting mortals. If he wins, then all of us will have to make a new universe for him to play with.”
The Supervillainy Saga (Book 5): he Tournament of Supervillainy Page 4