After I fired as much webbing as I thought was necessary, it left a thin net of the solution suspended between the two trees used by the supervillains. There was still a thick cloud of smoke on the ground below, but I was willing to bet that Harpy and Vulture had recovered from their initial surprise and were now about to dart back up toward the treetops again.
And that was right where I wanted them.
When the two supervillains sprung back up from the ground to hide in the trees, they collided right into the webbing and were caught fast just like flies in a spiderweb. They wouldn’t be stuck there long because they were bound to cut themselves free if they tried hard enough, but I didn’t plan to give them that much time.
I dashed forward, aimed my arm up at both villains, and fired my palm blasters right at the center of Vulture’s forehead. The taloned supervillain didn’t even have a chance to look surprised because as soon as I shot him, his head exploded against the sticky webbing, so the white mesh was instantly stained with dark blood and pieces of his brain that looked like raw meat from down on the ground.
“Damn,” Dynamo whistled as she and Norma came up behind me.
“You didn’t even give him time for any last words.”
“Eh, they’re always the same,” I said. “It’s always some version of
‘no, please don’t kill me’ or ‘I swear I’ll kill you’ or something about the goddamn Shadow Knight.”
“Too bad he doesn’t run things anymore,” Norma said into the comms.
“Too bad for him, but too good for us,” I said with a smirk. “It sure as hell makes cleaning up all this garbage a lot easier.”
I turned my palm blaster toward Harpy now, but the moment I fired, I knew that I was too late. Harpy had twisted and turned so much against the webbing that her spikes had cut right through the sticky stuff, so she tumbled down just before my shot hit the web behind her.
The moment her feet touched the ground, Harpy hissed to make her spikes even bigger, and then she half-ran, half-flew straight at Dynamo.
“Fuck!” Elizabeth shouted as she spun to the side to avoid the hit.
“Keep her occupied,” I said as I dodged Harpy’s next attack.
But as Harpy ran back and forth between the two of us, I realized two things. One, she was too fast for us to get in a good hit unless we were able to keep her in one spot for more than half a second. And two, she had clearly been injured somehow when she had slammed into the webbing.
Otherwise, she would have run past us and then just flown away to some other area of the park or even the city, especially now that her partner was dead. But instead, she acted like a cornered animal who was too wounded to escape but too feral to surrender.
“Can you get a clear shot, Norma?” I asked after I dodged another swing of her spiked arm.
“No, she’s too damn fast,” my mousy assistant growled. “And she’s too close to both of you. I’d end up shooting one of you instead.”
I doubted that, since Norma should just be able to channel the accuracy of an average competitive sharpshooter, but now didn’t seem like the right time to remind her of that. And since it might set her progress back
if she accidentally shot Elizabeth or me, I figured that really just left us with one option.
We would just have to beat the shit out of her ourselves.
“Go for the kidneys,” I told Dynamo. “I think her back is injured.”
“On it,” my girlfriend replied.
I wondered what made the supervillain able to fly since she didn’t actually have wings, but based on her attacks even before her injury, she hadn’t exactly flown around like a bird. It was much more of a series of quick climbs and descents, almost like she jumped more than she actually flew.
The next time Harpy hurtled away from me to launch herself at Elizabeth again, I fired the taser in the elbow of my suit after her. It caught her just under the left ass cheek, and the electricity sparked between several of her metal spikes.
She stumbled but continued to limp forward, but by then, Elizabeth had the advantage over her. My girlfriend had stepped around to the back of the supervillain, and she slammed her gauntleted fist into Harpy’s lower back.
Dynamo immediately snatched her hand back like it hurt, so the spikes really must have been something if she could feel it through my
gauntlets, but she recovered quickly from her surprise. As I sprinted toward the two women, Dynamo spun Harpy around so she could expose the skin just underneath her chin.
It was the one area of her body that didn’t seem to have any spikes.
Immediately, Elizabeth gave the supervillain such a powerful uppercut that Harpy staggered backward until her spine slammed into a tree trunk. Her head rocked back against the tree, but it wasn’t enough to drop her to the ground.
Still, it was just enough to throw her off balance, so while she tried to recover from the hit, I fired both palm blasters at her, and her skull broke apart just like Vulture’s had. Her corpse collapsed to the ground with a soft thud, but to my surprise, her spikes didn’t automatically retract now that she was dead.
That would make taking one of them with us that much easier.
“All clear, Norma,” I said. “You can come down now, and get me one of these spikes to take back to the mansion.”
“Well,” Elizabeth sighed as she turned toward me, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“It certainly wasn’t our worst,” I said. “Penumbra, how’s it going on your end?”
“On my way back now!” the blonde heroine chirped. “I didn’t want to interrupt you.”
“Any trouble with, um, Swallow?” Norma asked.
“No, he was mostly just all flash but no bang,” Penumbra laughed.
“And did you finish him?” I demanded.
“Oh, right, sorry!” Penumbra said. “Yeah, he’s dead. He came at me with little throwing knives, so I didn’t really feel like I had, you know, any choice.”
“Of course, you didn’t,” I snickered. “Good job, now hurry back here.”
Norma had jumped back down from the tree by now, but she ran back toward our van before she rejoined us. She had kept her surgeon’s kit in the van since she didn’t want it to weigh her down, and we had enough time for her to go get it before we needed to leave.
After all, the cops were too scared to even breathe in Grayville, and they were so damn grateful for every supervillain we killed that they wouldn’t have arrested us unless Optimo himself showed up and ordered them to. And even then, the odds might still play out in our favor.
For years, the cops had seen the Shadow Knight arrest and imprison one supervillain after another, only for the villains to break out of prison,
just like they always did, and then go on another rampage to kill more civilians and more cops. Shadow Knight usually managed to hunt them down again, but since he refused to kill even the worst ones, the cycle always started right back over again.
Until I came along, anyway.
That was one of the nice things about how much the cops appreciated our work. Since they tended to be so grateful that there was one less, or in this case three less, supervillains for them to fight, it meant that we hardly ever had to actually clean up our messes.
So now, all we had to do was take one of Harpy’s spikes for a sample back to my workshop at the mansion, and then we just needed to get the fuck out of here before the press showed up with all their pesky questions about whether the supervillains’ deaths were justified or not, and just who I was supposed to be and what Optimo had meant when he called me a terrorist…
I didn’t need that shit.
“Did her spikes hurt your hand?” I asked Elizabeth.
My girlfriend flexed her fingers a few times and then took off her glove, but the skin underneath was still intact. There was a slight bruise that
was just beginning to form in the center of her palm, and it looked like it might turn a nasty shade of purple before it healed up
a few minutes later.
“No, it’s fine,” Dynamo said. “I’ve got regenerative abilities, remember?”
“Oh, I remember everything about all of your abilities,” I said with a smirk. “But still, I’d really like to take a look at that spike when we get home. It must be a pretty powerful metal if you could still feel it through the gauntlet. Maybe some kind of new alloy that’s mixed with a biological component, or possibly--”
Elizabeth crossed the distance between us, ripped off my helmet, and kissed me before I could finish my sentence. I let her lips slide across my own, and then I felt her tongue graze between my lips, so I slid my fingers into her black hair and opened my mouth to let our tongues explore each other’s mouths.
There was nothing better than the feeling of my gorgeous girlfriend in my arms right after we successfully killed another supervillain. As she deepened our kiss even further, Elizabeth pressed her whole body up against mine until I was tempted to take her right there in the middle of the city park.
“Oh, sorry!” Penumbra gasped above us. “I didn’t mean to interrupt!”
“That’s okay,” Dynamo said as she pulled away from our kiss.
“Speak for yourself,” I muttered but looked up at the floating superheroine anyway. “Nice of you to join us, Penumbra.”
The levitation specialist slowly started to float down toward us, but I didn’t mind the view of her long slender legs as they stretched out toward the ground. Penumbra wore her usual short black dress with the design of an eclipsed moon on the front, and her knee-high boots were also black, but they were a little thicker and more protective.
I hadn’t designed a proper mask or helmet for her yet, so for the moment, her straight blonde hair just floated up into the air around her. She brushed it back behind her ears a few times with the gauntlets that I had created to amplify her powers, but then she gave up and just let her long hair continue to float all around her.
“Yes, thank you for taking care of that little surprise,” Dynamo said.
“Yeah, I’m sure we could have taken him, but it made it a lot easier to only deal with two of those assholes instead of three,” I said.
“It’s weird, though, right?” Penumbra asked as she continued to float down until she hovered just above the ground. “Harpy and Vulture never work with anybody.”
“Got it!” Norma announced as she burst back through the trees with her surgeon’s kit in hand.
“We only need one spike,” I said, “but if you happen to take a couple extra, just in case, that’s okay, too.”
“Oh, I hate this part,” Penumbra said as she turned her pale blue eyes away from Harpy’s corpse.
“You mean the part where Miles uses his enemies to make us all more badass and powerful than before?” Elizabeth teased.
“Well, not that part, exactly,” Penumbra said. “I just meant the gruesome bits, that’s all.”
“Did you not just slam the supervillain Swallow into the ground so hard that he landed like a meteor?” Aileen chimed in over the comms. “Is that not gruesome?”
“I guess so,” the blonde giggled. “It just seems different in the moment or something.”
Norma knelt down and started to saw off a section of the supervillain’s arm, and while she worked, I turned back to Elizabeth and Penumbra. Penumbra had said something that I had been thinking ever since we showed up here, and I wanted to see what they both thought about it to see if they agreed with me.
“So you were saying that Harpy and Vulture never work together,” I told Penumbra. “And you’re absolutely right.”
“What about Swallow?” Elizabeth asked. “Does he usually work with anyone?”
“Negative,” Aileen replied. “He is a minor supervillain who only has half a dozen arrest records, but only two of those were in his supervillain identity. The other four arrests were when he was just acting as a civilian, but there is no mention that he ever worked with others.”
“So what does that mean?” Penumbra asked. “Why would these three villains suddenly decide to work together?”
“Maybe they panicked after the Shadow Knight’s death,” Norma called over her shoulder as she sawed at Harpy’s dense skin. “Or maybe they panicked when they saw that the Evil Genius is going around town and killing every supervillain he finds.”
“True,” I laughed, “but I don’t know if that’s enough of a reason for them to change their life-long habits.”
“Then what is a good enough reason?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m not completely sure,” I replied, “but I have a feeling that they didn’t just decide to team up on their own. They were too well coordinated.”
“A lot of the supervillains seem extra coordinated lately,” Elizabeth said.
“Yeah, I think so, too,” I said. “And--”
“All done!” Norma said as she waved a spiked piece of flesh toward us.
“Ugh.” Penumbra shivered. “You enjoy that too much.”
“I think she enjoys it a perfectly average amount,” I said with a grin.
“Now, let’s get out of here before another supervillain suddenly decides to show up. We can talk more on the way back to the mansion.”
Norma slipped the strip of flesh into the small ice chest that she had brought with her, and then we all headed back toward the van. The park was completely quiet behind us as we reached the sidewalk perimeter, but just as we started toward the van itself, Aileen hummed in our ears.
“Someone is hacking all the television feeds,” my robotic assistant said. “That includes the billboards across from you.”
“What billboards?” Penumbra asked.
“Ah, shit,” I sighed and then pointed at the electronic billboards just across the street. “Is the whole city getting hacked?”
“Yes,” Aileen said. “It is--”
But before my AI could tell me anything else, the billboards blinked, hissed, and then the images on every single screen began to broadcast the same pale, angular face with puffy eyebrows and teeth that looked oddly pointed when he smiled.
It was the fucking Maniac.
“Hello, citizens of Grayville,” the Maniac giggled as he leaned closer to the camera.
“It is on every station,” Aileen confirmed.
“Guess he really wants his message to get out,” Norma said.
“It has been some time since we all played together,” the Maniac said, “and I know how much you have all missed me, just as much as you have all missed your precious Shadow Knight.”
A crowd had started to gather along the sidewalk, and their faces were all transfixed on the Maniac’s, while some people began to reach out to hold each other’s hands, as if that would magically keep them safe from the Maniac’s clutches.
I was tempted to just load our shit back into our van and head out, but I had a feeling that the Maniac meant his message especially for me.
After all, I had killed his favorite plaything, and now that the Shadow Knight was gone, the Maniac had to direct his attention somewhere else.
“I will bathe this whole city in blood,” the Maniac said as he continued to smile for the camera. “When I give the word, you will all begin to kill each other, and as much as you hate the idea now, you will soon relish each scrap of skin that you tear from each others’ bodies. You will not be able to help yourself, because I will make it impossible for you to resist.”
People in the crowd began to whimper, and some even started to run.
“It will be my masterpiece,” the Maniac cackled. “It will be utter chaos, and no one will be safe. No, no, don’t run!”
I glanced at Elizabeth, but my girlfriend had her turquoise eyes fixed on the closest billboard like the Maniac could somehow feel her glare through the hacked feed.
“You see,” the Maniac continued, “as much as you might not want to play my game…”
He trailed off as the hacked feed switched from his face to one of the bridges over the Ashen River into Grayville.
/>
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Norma whispered.
“You actually have no choice in the matter,” the Maniac’s voice finished.
The bridge on the feed exploded.
Dust and rubble shot up into the air like half a dozen bombs had been set off, and the moment the dust settled, it was clear that was exactly what had happened. There was a huge gap in the middle of the bridge, so there was no way for anyone to get across it.
Then the feed switched to another bridge, only to show the exact same thing happen there.
“That only leaves one bridge, right?” Penumbra murmured.
“Yeah, and that’s the only goddamn way in or out of the city,”
Elizabeth said.
“Oh, I don’t think it’ll be there for long,” I said.
Sure enough, the feed flipped back to the Maniac’s face just long enough for him to flash a pointed smile at the camera, and then it switched to the last bridge over the Ashen River.
Then the last way in or out of Grayville exploded into a cloud of dust and fire.
Chapter 2
“Holy shit,” Norma gasped.
“That’s our cue to get the fuck back in the van,” I said. “Because the only thing worse than whatever the fuck the Maniac has planned, is all the people who are about to lose their fucking minds in a total panic.”
“What do you think he meant?” Penumbra called as she floated across the street toward our van. “That we won’t be able to help ourselves, and we’ll end up just killing each other?”
“Well, I don’t think he meant that would happen through panic alone,” I said and then opened the front door of the van, “but that sure as hell isn’t going to help anything.”
“I can give you the most direct route back to the mansion,” Aileen said.
“Yep,” I replied. “Let’s do it.”
As soon as we were all inside the van, I pulled out onto the street and started down the road that ran parallel to the park. People had already started to run across the street like they’d forgotten how to look both ways, but I managed to drive around them so I didn’t have to slow down.
Evil Genius 5 Page 2
