“Now, I have no freaking clue what sound an eagle makes,” Glenn continued, “but I figured fuck it. I already got the interview, might as well go all out. So I got up on my chair,” Glenn crouched up on his chair like a bird, “I ruffle my feathers a bit, you know to get into character, and I just-”
Glenn belted out a screech that resembled a screaming rabbit recently set ablaze. It startled the other two patrons but by then the men couldn’t care less and burst out laughing. Tears rolled down Deimos’ face. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed that hard.
“Needless to say, I didn’t get the internship,” Glenn said. He held up his beer to Deimos. “A few months later, this schlub hired me full-time and I never looked back.”
The men finished laughing and wiped away their tears. Deimos, however, grew solemn. Harold leaned over and clasped his hand firmly on Deimos’ shoulder.
“It wasn’t fair what they did to you, man.”
“Harold…” Terry began.
“No!” Harold drunkenly proclaimed. “I’m not pussyfooting around this. What happened to him sucked!”
“To us,” Deimos said softly.
“Yeah, to us,” Harold replied. “Shutting us down without a trial, paralyzing you, killing our friends... But we all knew what we signed up for. I know I speak for these two when I say we believed in what you were doing, enough to the point where we would have died for you. It’s a tragedy that’s what it came to for the others, but nobody blamed you. Even at the end.”
Deimos looked up with fiery tears in his eyes. He would typically hide his emotions from his henchmen, but his day had been taxing and Deimos was at the end of a very thin rope.
“Regardless of how you feel, none of that would have happened if it weren’t for me,” Deimos sputtered.
“Maybe,” Harold admitted, “but a whole lot of good never would have happened if it weren’t for you, either. You were inventing things some of us couldn’t even dream of! When you told us of your visions of the future… Shit man, I still think of those talks to this day. Sure, maybe we had a bit of fun with some of your inventions, but nobody ever got hurt too bad. And what did you get for all of your accomplishments? A bunch of dead friends and some shit legs.”
Harold pointed back at the television. A news segment was covering a recent crime spree.
“Now look what the world is stuck with,” Harold said angrily. “A bunch of thugs running around in masks, robbing banks, killing civilians. They have no character. No purpose. You want to let them run the world? Fine. But I’ll always remember when villainy was about groundbreaking innovation, pushing the barrier of our reality to make the impossible possible, and showing the world what humans are truly capable of!”
Harold grabbed his beer and downed it angrily. He slammed it back on the table and wiped his mouth, meeting the stunned gazes of Deimos, Terry, and Glenn.
Deimos shut his mouth, which had fallen agape at some point during Harold’s glaring sentiment. He had never been spoken to like that, and never in his wildest dreams would he imagine the first time would come from one of his henchmen. But Harold was more than that. They all were. These three men were closer than family and Deimos knew well enough that it was time to start treating them like it.
“Good monologue,” Deimos said finally with a smile. He grabbed his beer, clinked it to Harold’s empty one, and downed it. “Okay. I’ll stay out for a few more.”
The henchmen exploded into cheers. They grabbed Deimos, hugging him and rustling his hair. Harold ordered a round of shots, which the men drank ceremoniously. Another round was ordered, then another, and another. Pretty soon Deimos and his henchmen were wasted and having the most fun they have had in a dive bar since the ‘80s. The last thing Deimos remembered that Saturday night, before taking an ever so regretful shot of Jaeger at last call, was that he finally felt like himself again.
CHAPTER FOUR
Down by the Los Rebeldes docks, the crew to a large shipping vessel unloaded their cargo. The final container was lowered off the ship via crane and a crewmember approached it. Markings along the side indicated that the contents were radioactive and that they should be handled with care. The crewmember unlocked the crate, opened its tall metal doors, and another crewmember maneuvered a forklift into place.
As they worked, six masked thugs crept through the shadows behind them. They were heavily armed with automatic rifles and body armor. Their leader revealed himself and pointed his rifle toward the unsuspecting crew.
“All right, fellas. Thanks for unloading everything. We’ll take it from here,” the masked thug said.
The shipping foreman stepped out in front of his crew and held up his arms.
“Whoa, take it easy,” the foreman cautioned. “We don’t want any trouble.”
The five other thugs stepped out from the shadows, backing up their leader. They brandished their weapons menacingly.
“Oh come on. You should know that’s not how this works,” the masked thug said.
The thugs stepped forward and aimed their weapons. They had the shipping crew cornered at the end of the dock. There was nowhere for them to run.
Suddenly, a large shipping crate swung inches behind the thug leader and obliterated his gang. He turned, horrified, to see all that was left of his gang was a red smear along the dock. The shipping crate snapped off from its cable and bounced along the dock, creating deep, blood-stained craters. It eventually skidded into the ocean, bringing with it the smashed remains of five former fiends.
“W-what the hell?” the thug stammered. “Oh God! What the hell!”
The dock creaked and shook as a large figure approached from the darkness. The crew cowered behind their shipment as the masked thug shakily raised his gun toward the unseen figure.
“Who’s there? Stay the hell away from me!” the frightened thug shouted.
He emptied his clip into the dark, but it was to no avail. The figure continued to advance, step after ground-shaking step. The masked thug attempted to run away but a massive, armored hand reached out from the darkness and dragged him back. His screams echoed across the water, heard by nobody save for the cowering shipping crew. There was a loud crunch, a splash, and then silence.
After a few quiet moments, the crew cautiously stood up from their hiding places. They still could not see their savior through the darkness. The foreman stepped forward and squinted, trying to make out the dark figure.
“Thank you, stranger,” the foreman said. “You saved our lives!”
There was no response. For a moment the foreman thought whoever had saved them had already left, but then the dark figure shifted in the blackness ahead of him. Grinding metal and a series of clicks issued forth, followed by a deep, guttural growl. Before the foreman had time to speak again, a stream of bullets blasted through the darkness. The oversized rounds tore through the huddled crew, leaving a jumbled mess of flesh and bone.
Through skill or sheer luck, the radioactive container was undamaged by the barrage of bullets. The remaining lights were shot out before the figure approached the shipment. Under the veil of darkness, the figure removed two iron crates from the container and hoisted them onto its shoulders. Then, as quickly as it came, it disappeared down the dock.
CHAPTER FIVE
Siren woke up Sunday morning in a haze. The moment her eyes cracked open and the glaring light of the morning sun greeted her, she was hit with a wave of shooting pain. Margaritas, though fun while being consumed, are seldom appreciated the morning after. Siren had gone through four blenders of the stuff on her own and the feelings of nausea and regret were almost as powerful as the headache that came with them.
As Siren considered throwing up over the side of the bed and dealing with the mess later, she heard rummaging coming from the kitchen. She immediately snapped out of her haze and looked beside her. Deimos wasn’t there and his side of the be
d was still made.
Professor Paws, who was still wearing his lab coat from the night before, had also woken to the sounds and was growling at the foot of the bed. His growl felt like a jack-hammer beating at the back of Siren’s eyeballs. She squeezed her temples, but that only gave her mild relief. After a brief moment of torment, she decided to fight through the pain and she forced herself to investigate the noise. She picked up Professor Paws and slowly got out of bed, careful to not make a sound.
Siren silently maneuvered through the house and peeked her head around the hallway. There in the kitchen, dressed in his old villain costume, was Deimos. His tight pants and leather jacket were stretched to their limit with the added pounds that age brought. The leather squeaked as he huddled over an ice tray, struggling to remove the slippery cubes.
Siren breathed a sigh of relief and approached him.
“Hey, hot stuff,” she whispered gently, tapping him on the shoulder.
Deimos dropped the tray in surprise and turned around to face her. As he turned, Siren noticed that Deimos also had on eye makeup, a fake earring, and reeked of booze.
“Wow. You uh... You look great,” Siren said unconvincingly.
“Oh, this old thing?” Deimos stumbled with a wink.
Siren batted away his overpowering breath.
“I was worried about you. I didn’t hear you come home last night,” she pressed.
“That’s because I didn’t come home. My boys and I are still out,” Deimos replied.
He looked down groggily to the ice that had fallen from his tray and struggled to bend over. He gripped tightly onto one of his crutches and managed to grab a few. He groaned, pulled himself back up, and dropped them into a glass. Then he grabbed a nearby bottle of scotch and poured himself a healthy amount.
“What do you mean you’re still out?” Siren questioned. “And what is with this Deimos getup? I thought you got rid of all that stuff.”
Deimos downed the glass of scotch and let out an eye-watering burp.
“Well, lemme just tell you from the start,” he said, his words slurring together as if to form one long super word. “We were at the bar last night, me and my boys.”
“Please stop calling them your boys.”
“And my boys brought up some pretty good points. They says… They says to me that I am wasting my life. I should be inventing things. Big, exciting, fun things. That’s what I’m good at and it makes me happy. So, in memoriam for every Saturday I’ve had to work through, for every infuriating conversation I’ve ever had with bald, dumb Gary, I decided to build, for one time only, a semi-villainous thing.”
Siren stared in astonishment at Deimos. As his wife she was reasonably concerned, but as his friend she felt a small glimmer of happiness hearing that Deimos finally got some of his confidence back.
“What about keeping a low profile?” Siren asked.
Deimos shushed her and smushed her face with his hands.
“Shh. Hold on. Lemme finish. God you’re pretty. So, turns out Terry has this storage locker full of a bunch of my old villain crap. What we did was we borrowed some guy’s truck, loaded everything that we could into it, then drove it all to that empty lot down the street.”
“Who drove?” Siren asked. “You must have all been hammered.”
“Well, the guy was still in the truck that we borrowed. He drove.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s kidnapping. This doesn’t sound low profile at all.”
“No, babe! You aren’t listening. We took the stuff to the lot down the street!” Deimos proclaimed.
Siren stared at him, confused. She waited for him to complete the rest of his explanation but none came.
“And?” she asked eventually.
“And so it’s not at our house! Nobody will know it was us!” Deimos stated with a smile.
He began to snicker, which slowly turned into maniacal laughter as it progressed. Siren’s concern returned along with her nausea, which began to outweigh her tentative happiness. She placed her hand on Deimos to calm him down.
“Sweetheart, take a breath,” she said softly.
Deimos coughed through the rest of his laughter and ended it with a satisfied sigh. Siren patted his back like a baby and he smiled contentedly.
“Can you take me to Terry, Glenn, and Harold?” Siren asked.
“Oh right, my boys!” Deimos said with realization. His face then contorted into confusion. “Wait, why did I come back here?” His eyes drifted to the scotch. “This must be it,” he said, grabbing the bottle on his way out the door. “Les’go! Oh, and bring a sweater.”
“What? It’s March.”
Deimos ignored her and continued on his drunken path. Siren shrugged and grabbed a sweater. She hooked Professor Paws onto his leash before heading out the door after him.
It took them a few minutes to make it down the street. Deimos insisted on relieving himself halfway there, even though their place was only a few houses back. Then Professor Paws had to get in on the action, which took up even more time.
Eventually they made it to the abandoned lot. It was the former location to one of those cut-and-paste mansions that were popular before the housing market crash. It had been torn down years prior to be replaced with low-income housing, but the project never took off. All that remained was an eyesore—a square dirt lot surrounded by a faded yellow concrete wall.
Deimos led Siren and Professor Paws through a jagged hole in the wall that had been concealed by bushes. What Siren saw next took her breath away. There, standing in the dirt lot surrounded by open crates of lab equipment, was a pronged, metallic tower that very much resembled the Purple Rain Machine.
She looked around in amazement. There was pure engineering carnage littered throughout the lot. Old devices and tools she recognized from their past had been dismantled in order to contribute their internal components to the weather machine. Around the base of the tower, Terry, Glenn, and Harold were huddled together in their black and red henchmen jumpsuits.
Terry noticed Deimos entering the lot and shoved past Glenn and Harold to get to him. He grabbed the scotch, which Deimos had been holding in his mouth, and assisted Deimos over some debris. Siren rolled her eyes. Terry had always been eager to please Deimos and she saw that even after thirty years these habits had not changed. She let Professor Paws off his leash and he took it upon himself to sniff every single item in the lot.
“Hey, boss, where’s the coffee?” Glenn shouted from the tower.
Deimos smacked his face with his hand, simultaneously bumping his crutch into his nose.
“Ow. Dammit. I forgot the coffee. I brought scotch.”
“Close enough,” Harold called back. “Bring it over!”
Deimos and Terry walked toward the other two henchmen. As soon as they were within arm’s reach, Harold hungrily grabbed for the scotch and took a huge swig. Glenn, who had been wiring the weather machine into a computer tablet, handed the tablet to Deimos.
“We’re almost done. All that’s left is for you to do the final calculations,” he said.
Deimos grabbed the tablet and began inputting lines of complex code from memory. He glanced to Siren, who was still looking around in amazement.
“There’s something in there for you,” Deimos said, pointing to one of the crates.
Siren turned to see a wooden crate shoved in the back of the lot. She approached it and slid off the lid. Inside, among stacks of Electric Ave Pew-Pews, was her old villain costume and resonance amplifying choker. Tears welled up in her eyes as she ran her fingers over the aged leather.
Siren removed the choker she was wearing and replaced it with the one from the crate. She turned the gem, powering it on, and quickly sung a note. The resonator picked it up and immediately amplified her voice, causing Professor Paws to whimper at the other end of the lot. Siren turned it off and let o
ut a shaking, happy sigh.
“I can’t believe you kept all of this,” she said with a smile.
“Technically Terry did, the little pack rat,” Deimos said. “Back in eighty-five I had him store doubles of what we already had at the lab and apparently he kept it this whole time. Don’t ask me why he had our costumes, though.”
“I already told you! I stored them for safekeeping after we all changed that night. It wasn’t anything weird, I swear,” Terry insisted.
“Whatever you say, pervert,” Harold mumbled.
A glint of metal inside the crate caught Siren’s eye. She reached in and pulled out Hells Belts. She clipped it on, admiring it.
“Aw, I remember this thing. You fixed it?” she asked, moving around to catch the sunlight in the belt’s chrome finish.
“Yeah, that took all of about five minutes,” Deimos replied. “It wasn’t satisfying enough so we kept building.”
“This is incredible,” she said. “There must be so much history in these. I’ll be honest, I was a little worried when you said you kidnapped some guy, but it’s really nice seeing all of this again. If this is all you have to do for a mid-life crisis then it’s fine with me.”
“Mid-life?” Glenn shouted. “Deimos has no mid-life!”
“Deimos will live forever!” Terry chimed in.
The three henchmen began chanting, “Deimos! Deimos! Deimos!” while furiously messing Deimos’ hair and patting his back. Deimos grinned bashfully through it while still attempting to type into the tablet.
“Come on, boys. I’m working,” he said with a beaming smile.
Siren joined the group around the base of the tower.
“This is the weather machine from that night, isn’t it?” she asked. “The Purple Rain Machine?”
“Not quite,” Deimos replied through rapid typing. “The original weather machine was left at the warehouse and probably got destroyed. We didn’t have the parts to build a fully functioning new one, so instead we built Purple Rain’s younger, less experienced cousin, Whitesnow.”
Villain (Book 1): Villain 1 Page 5
