VILLAIN
Cole Laddusaw
For my family and friends
and their incredible support
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Copyright © 2020 Cole Laddusaw
Los Angeles, CA
All rights reserved.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7350351-2-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7350351-8-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020911568
Cover art by Kyle Kolar - @kolarart
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the proper written permission of the copyright owner, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For any queries, please email [email protected]
www.villainseries.com
PROLOGUE
Heroes don’t exist.
Sure, there are hundreds of stories about brave individuals answering the call to adventure. For reference, check any of the works by Homer, Tolkien, or whatever coked-up nutjobs made the 1986 movie Labyrinth. You will find that all of those stories follow a similar path that some self-righteous author had the gall to name as The Hero’s Journey.
What a load of bullshit.
Allow yourself a moment to ponder on the following thought experiment: Say one of those heroes sets off on their quest and meets an untimely end, be it by the hands of one of their foes, by a wild animal during an ill-timed shit in the woods, or anything in between. Bottom line is somewhere along the way this hero screws up and dies.
In real life, this scenario happens more often than not. If you need any evidence, go ahead and Google how many people died by taking a selfie this year. Accepting the folly of man as fact means that for every story of a ‘hero’ successfully completing their quest and finally getting laid, there should be dozens of other, much shorter, stories about some poor sap setting off on an adventure and dying an unsuccessful virgin loser. So why is it that libraries are full of heroes and not of Johnny Everyman?
Because history is for the winners. Nobody wants to read a book about Johnny facing off against Hercules because Johnny gets his teeth kicked in during the first act.
“But Hercules was on a quest from the Gods! He must be a hero, therefore invalidating your initial statement!” some idiot might say.
Well, poor Johnny was on a quest of his own. Hercules killed his father, John Everyman Sr., and banged his mom. Johnny was well within his rights to want to attack that loincloth-loving meathead. It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t compete with someone who had defeated a nine-headed hydra the week prior. When all is said and done, who gets to decide which quest is more noble and deserving of praise? Who decides which character becomes the hero? Whoever writes the books, that’s who.
The worst part isn’t even that these authors are leaving out key details of the story. No, it is that they have the audacity to call whoever lost a villain. Villain! A word literally invented to brand someone as an asshole for all time simply because they lost to the other guy. This is exactly what is meant by stating heroes don’t exist, only assholes on the right side of history.
The subsequent pages will take a closer look at one of the other guys. A villain. Someone with the same motivations of any ‘hero’ but has been wronged by the malleability of history. However, before delving into that, you first need to know how the term ‘villain’ entered the mainstream. Some of the following information may be familiar to you, but these are irrefutable events that did, in fact, take place and provide important historical context to the story.
◊ ◊ ◊
In 1938, two brilliant chemists by the names Otto Hans and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission. They briskly informed the scientific community that it was now possible to create inconceivable amounts of energy by using only small amounts of radioactive material. This discovery was thought to have been the beginning of a new scientific age. Optimistic theories of a nearly limitless energy source rang throughout the world. A future with flying cars and sassy chrome robots no longer seemed like science fiction.
Unfortunately, some assholes on the right side of history decided the effects of fission would be better suited on a battlefield than in a reactor. Why, you ask? Well, in the early 1940s there was this little skirmish taking place called World War II. Some asshole on the wrong side of history named Adolf Hitler was nearing completion of his latest technological marvel dubbed the Landkreuzer P. 2000. This five hundred-ton behemoth of German engineering was not only set to be the single largest tank ever created, but British spies uncovered that it would also be the world’s first transforming battle mech. It was Hitler’s grand vision to personally pilot this two-story mecha tank to Germany’s victory, but of course most of you should remember that part from History class.
In hopes of never letting Hitler’s monstrosity see the light of day, a few Allied countries gathered their best and brightest to begin the deadliest group project ever conceived—the Manhattan Project. Based on the fission research started by Otto and Fritz, the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project worked tirelessly to develop a new type of superweapon before the P. 2000 could take its first, unholy step. The scientists knew they would never be able to out-engineer Germany in time, so instead they took an easier approach; blow up Hitler’s shit back to the First Reich.
Combining sugar, spice, and a healthy dose of uranium-235, the first nuclear weapon was born. Before the Axis powers had time to goose step to safety, a coordinated attack by the Allied forces dropped atomic bombs on Berlin, Hiroshima, Rome, and then Berlin again for good measure. Thus World War II ended in a few quick flashes on October 3, 1947.
Now, this history lesson is in no way meant to argue that Hitler does not deserve to be called a villain. Millions of innocent people died by his hands and he was undoubtedly an asshole deserving of the title. In fact, while we’re here, why don’t we go ahead and put it down on paper. Fuck Nazis.
Despite the atomic bomb’s clear effectiveness in ending the war, it also caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who simply had the bad fortune of being alive in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do the scientists in
volved in the production of such a weapon also deserve the title of villain? How about the generals who gave the orders, or the soldiers who dropped the bombs? Of course not. They won, and winners get to write the books. However, this was when things got interesting and the meaning of ‘villain’ changed forever.
Five well-respected scientists who weren’t invited to the Manhattan party were so disgusted by the catastrophic invention of their peers that they formed their own coalition, aptly named the Peace Project. Their goal was to create a peaceful countermeasure to this new all-powerful superweapon in hopes of ending war for good. Keep in mind, these scientists were leaders in their respective fields and citizens of the Allied nations. They had full support from the scientific community along with the honorable motive of peace among mankind. For anyone not paying attention, these scientists were checking off all of the hero boxes.
In the months leading up to the Peace Project’s first press conference, the media found itself divided. While some heralded the project as the answer to humanity’s cry for peace, many rightfully held concerns that whatever it was the scientists were working on would simply become the next atom bomb. Unfortunately for them, irony was listening and decided that an opportunity like that was too good to pass up.
On July 17, 1969, one week before the scheduled press conference, there was an unexplained detonation from within the Peace Project lab. The resulting chain reaction was much more massive than any explosion ever created by man, killing the five scientists and destroying all of their research. The blast was so immense that it completely annihilated San Nicolas Island where the lab was based. The resulting tsunami and heatwave caused billions in damages to the surrounding California Channel Islands. Even more devastating was that the nearby city of Los Angeles was irradiated, taking thousands of lives and leaving the city unlivable.
Due to the secrecy surrounding the project, there are no official statements regarding the stage of development the Peace Project was in before the lab was destroyed. In fact, nobody knows the details of what this peaceful countermeasure was actually going to be. Depending on who you ask or what books you read, the Peace Project was developing a laser defense grid, a complex SAM missile, some new form of energy using fringe sciences, or any other number of insane conspiracy theories people cooked up over the years. Unfortunately, the truth was lost in the blast and all we are left with is speculation.
Nobody knows for sure what those five scientists were working on in their lab that fateful day, but what we do know is that they all perished before finishing their quest. In short, they lost. So with nobody left to fairly write their history, they were condemned as villains for all of time. That’s right, those five bleeding-heart scientists with nothing more than a dream for world peace were branded as villains right up there next to Hitler.
The U.S. government was so appalled by the damage caused by the Peace Project that they wanted to ensure nobody attempted anything that dangerous ever again. As a way of ridiculing those involved, the government posthumously stripped the scientists of their names. All records of them were legally altered or destroyed and they were forever branded as The Forsaken Five.
Like many decisions made by the government, this was a complete failure and had the exact opposite effect than what was intended. As one might reasonably suspect, taking away citizens’ names pissed people off, specifically other scientists. By this time, the ‘70s were rolling around and an anti-government mentality was already picking up steam due to news coverage of the Vietnam War. A movement began, small at first, in which highly respected scientists started changing their names out of solidarity to the five that lost theirs. Typically, these scientists would change their name to something related to their field of study. For example, a physicist might change their name to Doctor Atom, or an engineer may go by The Gear.
It didn’t take long for the movement to gain footing. More and more scientists joined in, but they weren’t simply changing their names. Some began working on research previously banned by the government, such as stem cell healing and gene manipulation. Others took bigger risks, using their unique inventions to steal from federal banks in order to fund more illegal projects. Regardless of their actions, all of them had the same goal; to better humanity while pissing off the government. It was only natural for this new wave of protests to be lovingly referred to as the Villain Movement.
It wasn’t until a small group of scientists decided to take over the radiated city of Los Angeles that the Villain Movement went fully mainstream. Three radiation science professors from the University of Michigan known as The Beam, Captain Carbon, and Miss Splice invented a device that was capable of reducing the radiation in Los Angeles down to livable levels. Given that the city was abandoned, they figured it was up for the taking. The city was renamed to Los Rebeldes and proclaimed as “a sanctuary for all the lost and rebellious souls of the world.”
By the time The Pretenders released their self-titled debut album in January of 1980, Los Rebeldes was already the fourth most populated city in California. Great thinkers and like-minded individuals flocked from all over the world to become a part of this ever-growing movement. What was once viewed as a way to protest the government had blossomed into so much more. Villainy had become a way of life.
When the rising popularity of rock music began to mesh with the flamboyant fashion sense of the ‘80s, villains took on bigger and more grandiose identities. They became celebrities in their own right, far outranking the mere movie stars, athletes, and musicians. Beyond the Villain Movement’s general fan base, some villains amassed hundreds, even thousands, of die-hard supporters that left their jobs and families to offer whatever services they could toward any particular villain’s cause. Those that did this were referred to as henchmen* due to their willingness to comply in illegal activities and the gang-like outfits they wore to match whichever villain they followed.
As the ‘80s drew to a close, villains were already a dominating force in society. No longer did citizens feel bound by the decisions of their governments. They could forge their own paths, change the world for the better, and look cool as hell doing it. Villains were finally on the right side of history.
*A side note to any readers with qualms over the pronoun used in henchmen: Please understand it had nothing to do with the follower’s sex, and was in no way meant to promote gender discrimination. In fact, over half of all villains and henchmen were women.
CHAPTER ONE
It was the summer of 1989 and twenty-five-year-old Deimos was about to become the first villain to hold the world hostage. For years this had been viewed as an impossible task and was regarded within the villain community as an irresponsible fever dream. To convince every world leader that their countries faced simultaneous, unmitigated destruction required tact, timing, and an astronomical amount of resources. But there had never been a villain like Deimos, and he wasn’t planning on destroying anything.
In anticipation of Deimos revealing his world-altering invention, dozens of his most loyal henchmen gathered to his temporary lair tucked away in the Manufacturing District of Los Rebeldes City. The nondescript brick warehouse stood among rows of other equally bland warehouses in the area, except this one had an actual working weather machine inside.
The weather machine, a pronged, chrome tower, was wrapped in a complex array of wires and protruding radar dishes. No other villain in history had even come close to building one despite it being a popular topic of conversation at many ‘villains only’ bars. Drunken discussions for its uses varied from creating superstorms to devastate coastal regions, revitalizing the Sahara desert with unnatural downpours, and simply making it snow indoors to impress their henchmen. These discussions would usually devolve into violent arguments ending in someone getting a heat ray to the face or a genetically modified guard dog biting their ass, then the bartender would buy everyone another round and they would move on to discussing how hard it is to fight in leat
her pants.
Deimos’ weather machine stood buzzing pleasantly at the rear of the warehouse on a wooden stage. Also on stage was Deimos’ fiancée and partner in crime, Siren. She was an especially unique villain. Not only did she graduate top of her class at UC Berkeley, beating Deimos’ GPA by a hundredth of a point, but she also possessed the ability to sing at a wider range of frequencies than most people. While that might not seem impressive on paper, Siren’s abilities allowed her to incapacitate anyone within shouting distance.
It wasn’t as if Siren possessed any inhuman powers. Her ability started simply as a party trick while she was studying opera singing techniques, but it quickly grew to be so much more. When paired with a voice amplification device, she could even vibrate steel beams in buildings by shouting the correct resonant frequency for a long enough period of time. This was why Siren always wore a choker that Deimos had built for her, which amplified her abilities one hundred times over. It also happened to pair quite nicely with her punk-rock hairstyle, only furthering her resemblance to Joan Jett.
Siren nervously eyed the small army of henchmen forming before her as more followers arrived at the warehouse. Despite the henchmen’s undying love for Siren, public speaking was more of Deimos’ forte and she couldn’t wait for him to arrive. She was beginning to regret his flair for grand entrances and cursed his showmanship under her breath.
Thankfully she didn’t have to wait long, as two minutes later Deimos strutted center stage. He was greeted like a rock star ready to perform and could easily be mistaken for one with his tight jeans, black leather jacket, and perfectly coiffed hair. His henchmen, who all wore matching black and red tracksuits, cheered wildly for their revered leader. Behind Deimos, colorful lights and pyrotechnics flashed in sync to “Money for Nothing” by the Dire Straits.
After a brief moment of revel, Deimos held up his hands to quiet the crowd. As the music and cheering died down, Deimos snapped his fingers and a nearby henchman tossed him a microphone.
Villain (Book 1): Villain 1 Page 1
