Villain (Book 1): Villain 1

by Laddusaw, Cole

  Deimos reached the freeway ramp and sped up it. He turned and peeled down the road at a breakneck speed, heading toward Downtown Los Rebeldes. The mech skidded to a halt at the ramp and Hans watched Deimos speed away down the highway. He lifted the mech’s heavy arms onto the freeway and attempted to climb up the ramp. The pillared highway simply crashed down under the mech’s immense weight.

  Hans screamed wildly in his pilot’s seat as Deimos became a small speck in the distance. He pointed the mech along the roads that ran parallel to the highway and activated the fusion core. The mech’s engine whirred and thrummed as its thrusters expanded again. In another immense explosion the mech blasted forward, tearing through the residential streets and homes alongside the highway.

  Deimos could feel the rumble of the mech approaching behind him. He risked a split second turn of his head to see the bright flare of its thrusters approaching. The mech’s left arm slowly rose. Its immense sword slid out, glowing red hot, and swung over the freeway.

  Deimos cut his thrusters and slid to a stop, smashing down on Hells Belts and breaking it. The glowing sword seared over him, igniting the tips of Deimos’ hair and singeing his shirt. The blade sliced past, cleaving abandoned cars in half as if they were made of butter. They exploded around Deimos as the mech continued to rocket past him at a blazing speed.

  Before the mech had time to cut its engines, Deimos was up and running back toward the nearest highway exit. He rocketed down it in a blaze of blue flame and bolted into the city in search of cover within the maze of skyscrapers. It wasn’t a plan, or even the makings of one, but Deimos hoped he could buy some time hiding in the city long enough to come up with something.

  Deimos hated improvising. He hated it so much that he even refused to go see The Second City when their improv troupe moved to Los Rebeldes, despite it being the alma mater to many of his favorite actors. Deimos felt that comedy, much like villainy, was better with planning and structure. Any villain who went into a situation without having at least three working plans was likely to get killed. This situation with Hans was no different, which was why Deimos was running for his life looking for cover instead of drinking mimosas with his henchmen on a secluded island.

  Deimos ran through the empty city and heard Hans’ engine cut far behind him. He looked around. There were a few office buildings around but nothing he felt comfortable hiding in. He was about a mile from Crymson Tech headquarters and the densely packed skyscrapers that surrounded it. If he could get there quickly, and possibly find an underground garage to hide in, that might buy him enough time for the military to scramble their jets and do some real damage to Hans’ mech.

  As he activated his leg thrusters and began to run in the direction toward Crymson Tech, an immense explosion radiated from behind Deimos that sent him flying forward. He slammed down onto the road and his open thrusters skidded along the asphalt. Deimos turned in time to see Hans’ mech crash through the office building that he was standing next to only moments earlier. The mech had fired its rockets into the opposing wall and burst through the weakened structure while its thrusters were at full blast. It crashed through the building, swinging its red-hot sword through anything still standing in front of it. It skidded across the street and slammed to a stop against the side of a ten-story building. The office the mech crashed through crumbled and burned behind it, reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble and ash.

  Deimos looked up to see Hans’ mech steadying itself a hundred yards ahead of him. It gripped into the side of the building and hefted itself up, standing to its full six-story height.

  “No more running,” Hans seethed through the mech’s speakers.

  Hans raised the mech’s right arm at Deimos, who was still lying prone in the street. Its turrets and cannons aimed directly at him, ready to fire. As Deimos winced and covered his face, preparing for the end, there was a sudden clink of metal and a heavy churning of gears.

  Deimos looked up. The mech’s arm was hanging listlessly at its side. Dumbfounded, Deimos turned to the building next to Hans and noticed a peculiar sight. Standing precariously on the edge of the roof was a potted plant and a bush. Deimos felt this to be an odd place to put a potted plant and bush, but even odder still was that he thought he recognized them.

  A glint from the sunlight struck a metallic object dangling between the plants, and in an instant Deimos realized what he was seeing. Sasha and Aria were disguised and pointing the modified Tears And Fears at Hans’ mech. It seemed that the range of the magnetic field was only good enough to affect its right arm, but it was all Deimos needed at that moment. He took advantage of Hans’ confusion and stood, activating his thrusters.

  However, when Deimos turned to activate them, the thrusters didn’t ignite. He looked down. His robotic legs appeared fine, but there were deep scratches and scorch marks along the sides and openings of the thrusters.

  Dammit, Deimos thought.

  He didn’t allow himself the time to further curse his bad luck. Instead, he started running. As he rounded the corner to the next block, he turned to take a final look back. Hans had finally noticed the shrubbery that was inhibiting him the use of his mech’s right arm. The mech turned and swung its glowing hot sword through the belly of the structure. It tore through the steel and cement with ease and the building began to collapse. Sasha and Aria rose from their poses, returning to their normal forms, and deftly leapt across the crumbling roof.

  The mech’s sword swung upwards, slicing through three more floors and sending the building crashing down. Sasha and Aria dove off the roof as Indiana Drones approached from beneath them. Deimos saw Yasuke leaned over the drone’s railing, reaching for the falling supervillains. Terry, Glenn, and Harold were holding onto him from behind to keep him from tumbling over the rails as Eve used the manual controls to make a tight turn toward Sasha and Aria. Yasuke grabbed Sasha and Aria’s hands midair and pulled them safely onto the drone. Although he only caught a glimpse of this, Deimos could not see Siren or Triceratop on the craft. He shook the concern from his mind and continued running to the next block.

  Hans’ mech’s arm regained its functions and he immediately used it to aim his weapons at Indiana Drones. As he was about to fire, a loud BOOM emanated from the streets. A cannonball whizzed upward, knocking directly into the mech’s arm and altering its aim. The mech fired and its munitions exploded harmlessly into the side of a building as Eve accelerated Indiana Drones to safety.

  A low-flying drone careened around the mech’s feet into Deimos’ view. In it, Captain C was gripped tightly onto the railing, his face contorted with a mixture of pain and fear. His cannon leg was propped up by Marty, who was reloading it with a second round. Captain C pushed Marty away. He grabbed his groin and screamed in pain.

  “Christ almighty, no more! It was a bad idea. Attack already!”

  Eight more drones rose out of hiding from the surrounding buildings. On it, Captain C’s pirates were armed with Electric Ave Pew-Pews and machine guns. They shouted a menacing war cry and their drones dove toward the unsuspecting Hans. They fired their weapons wildly as their drones spun around the mech. The machine-gun fire simply pinged off the mech’s armor, while the electrified pellets fizzled out, utterly useless.

  Despite their weapons’ ineffectiveness, this was the perfect opening for Deimos to escape. He continued to run and Captain C’s drone pulled up alongside him.

  “Hop on!” Captain C yelled.

  As Deimos reached out his hand to Captain C, the mech’s sword slammed down between them, slicing off the drone’s right two fan blades. The drone spun down an adjacent block, knocking into the sides of buildings before coming to a smoldering stop. Before he ran out of sight, Deimos saw Captain C still gripped onto the railing of the drone while Marty attempted to pull him away from the crash.

  Behind them, Hans’ mech yanked its sword back and swung wildly at the attacking drones. After seeing wh
at it had done to Captain C’s drone, they began to pull back. Hans fired the mech’s cannons after them, but the drones proved to be too small of targets and they sped off.

  Deimos only heard all of this happening behind him. He was already several blocks away, not nearly as far as he could get with working thrusters, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. Now that he had seen Eve and the others working together, he felt slightly more confident. Even though he couldn’t communicate with them, he knew they must have some sort of plan. Until he could figure out what that plan was, he could only continue on with his, which was to survive. He continued running down the road toward Crymson Tech, hoping that whatever it was they had planned would happen soon.

  His hopes were dashed when he felt the all too familiar thrum of the mech’s engine. He stopped running and turned. The mech stood at the end of the street directly opposing him, like a cowboy in a duel at high noon. It was shoulder to shoulder with the surrounding buildings, towering above the cracked city streets. A quiet breeze drifted past the nape of Deimos’ neck, causing him to shudder. Then, in a slow, methodical grinding of gears, the mech stepped forward.

  The subsequent explosion from the thrusters shook Deimos to his core. It annihilated the buildings behind the mech in a fiery blast so powerful that even the support beams were melted and reduced to bubbling rubble. As the mech rocketed forward at Deimos with blinding speed, it lowered one of its massive metal hands into the road, pulling up chunks of concrete with it.

  Deimos dove to the side at the last moment but was unable to get far enough. The mech’s hand scooped him up in a handful of concrete and dirt, immediately accelerating Deimos to its own speed and nearly knocking him unconscious from the g-forces.

  The mech screeched to a halt, finally slamming into the side of a building twelve blocks away. Hans raised the mech’s hand up to his semi-transparent screen and opened it, palm upwards. Concrete stones and asphalt dust fell aside to reveal Deimos sprawled in the mech’s hand. His robotic legs were crushed and his right arm was broken, bent ninety degrees in the wrong direction at his elbow.

  Deimos breathed in fresh air and immediately screamed out in unimaginable pain. He opened his eyes and his entire world spun around him dizzyingly. When the spinning finally subsided and his vision cleared, Deimos could see Hans sneering at him through the transparent screen several feet ahead of him. Even though Deimos knew how bad he must have looked laying there, mangled in the mech’s cold, metal hand, he couldn’t help but notice the horrible shape Hans was in. Now that he was up close, he could see Hans’ once portly face was now gaunt and ghostly. His eyes were wild and red with anger, and his hair was loose and frayed like a broom that had been hit by a bus.

  “Damn, Hans,” Deimos sputtered. “You look like shit.”

  The mech’s refrigerator-sized thumb closed around Deimos’ body, leaving only his head exposed. Deimos screamed out in fresh pain as it pressed down on his already broken bones.

  “Oh, do shut up, Deimos,” Hans said coldly. “You’ll ruin the ride.”

  The thrum of the mech’s engine whirred loudly. At this distance, Deimos was almost certain he would be ripped to shreds simply from the force of the vibrating air around him.

  The mech’s thrusters clicked and whined in a series of gears. They slid outwards as a mechanism popped open the armor along the mech’s back. The armor rotated and spread apart like sharp, metallic wings. The thrusters slid downward as the mechanical wings spread further, revealing a line of smaller thrusters along their base.

  Then, there was an explosion of light and energy that entirely engulfed Deimos’ senses. It continued to grow in intensity as the thrusters exuded an extraordinary amount of force and plasma. Slowly, the mech began to rise into the air.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Nearly a mile above them, Siren was positioning one of Deimos’ drones as best as she could above Hans’ mech. Only a few minutes had passed since they were informed of what was happening over the military walkie Deimos left them, but it had felt like a lifetime. Once they had heard that standard weapons weren’t having any effect, Alexander insisted he had an idea of how to stop Hans’ mech, but would need to go get something.

  Flying high above the now airborne mech, Alexander determinedly placed onto his head the tri-horned, carbon steel helmet that he had retrieved from Crymson Tech. He secured it around his chin and turned to Siren.

  “Are you sure about this?” Siren asked.

  Alexander nodded but said nothing. Siren grabbed the chin strap to Alexander’s helmet and yanked his head closer to her.

  “You better be. If my husband doesn’t make it out of this alive, I’m taking it out on you. Got it?” Siren threatened.

  Alexander nodded again, wide-eyed and fearful. He turned and looked over the edge of the drone. A bright flare was emanating from Hans’ mech as it steadily rose into the air. Without a word, he stepped over the edge. Siren peered over the side and watched as Alexander slowly positioned his body midair, turning to point his horns directly at the mech beneath him.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Deimos could hardly breathe. The force of the mech’s thumb on his chest, coupled with the thrumming of its fusion core, gave him barely enough oxygen to remain conscious. Hans looked down on Deimos’ suffering from behind his domed screen and laughed maniacally.

  “Take one last look, Deimos!” Hans shouted. “Isn’t it magnificent from up here? The city I built from nothing. Seems only fitting that I am the one to destroy it, isn’t it?”

  Deimos could not look even if he wanted to. He was pressed down flat into the palm of the metal behemoth and forced to stare upward. Even though he could not see the city from that position, he could, however, see a fast-approaching white blur headed straight for them.

  “What? No clever comeback?” Hans goaded. “No quick retort? I’m surprised, Deimos. I thought your death would be more-”

  A heavy THUNK struck the left thruster of Hans’ mech. There was a high-pitched whine followed by the sputtering of the thruster failing to fire.

  “What the hell was that?” Hans fumed.

  Deimos forced his head down in order to see what was happening. He saw Alexander gripping onto the top of the mech’s shoulder and pulling himself over. He was wearing his Triceratop helmet, and Deimos could see that the largest horn was dented. He held tightly onto the shoulder of the mech and ripped off one of the thrusters along its wings.

  The whine from the engine reached a boiling point. An explosion emanated from the left-main thruster and rocked Hans’ mech. It blasted forward and began to fall. Triceratop flew back from the force but grabbed onto the mech’s wing and held on tight as they all fell hundreds of feet back down into the city.

  “Goddammit!” Hans screamed. “No no no!”

  The mech veered sideways, soaring over blocks of downtown Los Rebeldes. It tore through a passing blimp, scraped along the rooftop of a skyscraper, before finally spinning and crashing into the side of Crymson Tech headquarters. It slid down the glass and metal exterior of the building, tearing off the mech’s remaining rockets and wings, until finally settling in a cloud of dust and debris in the courtyard below.

  Deimos was flung from the mech and crashed into a tree, breaking through its branches and hitting the ground heavily, legs first. Of course, Deimos was unable to control his broken legs and he crashed backward onto his ass and unbroken arm, instantly breaking both.

  A bright white filled his vision as he was overcome with pain. He opened his mouth to scream but involuntarily vomited into his shoulder. His vision slowly returned to him. He looked up to see Hans’ mech twitching in black smoke. Its right hand spun erratically around on its wrist while the legs flailed and slammed heavily into the ground, breaking up chunks of concrete. Over its left shoulder, bloodied and bruised, Alexander crawled up through the wreckage. He tossed aside his helmet and walked steadily across the
struggling machine to face Hans through the mech’s domed screen.

  Sweat was spilling down Hans’ face as he struggled with the controls. He looked up in horror.

  “Triceratop? But how?”

  Alexander jammed his fingers under the lip of the mech’s domed head and lifted with all his might. His muscles flexed and bulged to their limit under the strain. Veins swelled up his arms and neck as the metal dome creaked and steadily began to rise. He shouted a primal yell as capillaries popped in his head and blood ran from his eyes. Hans could do nothing but watch in horror as the rippling wall of bleeding muscle forced open the dome to his mech.

  As soon as the dome was lifted high enough, Alexander reached in and yanked Hans out.

  “Triceratop, please-” Hans began.

  Alexander grabbed onto Hans’ throat with one hand and lifted him above his head.

  “My name is Alexander,” he growled.

  Hans twisted and groped at Alexander’s tightening grip around his neck, dangling helplessly in the air. He squelched for air but none came. His eyes bulged and the veins popped in his eyes as his face swelled and turned beet red. The last look in Hans’ eyes was one of pure fear. Then, Alexander squeezed his fist and Hans’ neck snapped.

  Hans’ head lolled to the side and Alexander tossed his lifeless body over the side of the mech. He turned and spotted Deimos laying on the ground, still alive but in agony. He hopped off the mech with ease and made his way toward him.

  “Will you live?” Alexander asked Deimos emotionlessly.

  Deimos breathed in sharp, painful breaths. He nodded.

  “A hospital would be nice. But yeah, I think I’ll live.”

  “Good,” Alexander said, scooping Deimos up into his arms. “I was afraid of what your wife would do to me if you died.”