“Et tu, Cindy?” I said, placing my hand over my heart.
Diabloman looked behind him. “There is a way to get past the wards and defenses.”
“Which is?” I asked, knowing Diabloman was able to do so. After all, how else would he know where the president was?
“To be fair, his being in the most heavily defended part of the compound, which is also simultaneously essential to his plans, isn’t rocket science,” Cloak replied. “Which is appropriate since a bunch of rockets are about to be launched.”
“Missiles, not rockets,” I corrected. “There’s a difference. I think.”
“The only way I can see to get through the barriers President Omega has erected is to side-step through the Inferno,” Diabloman said. “I can take one passenger with me.”
I paused. “Could you repeat that?”
“You telling Gary to go to hell?” Cindy asked.
“No way!” Mandy hissed. “We’re not taking—”
I tried not to smirk and failed. “Sounds like an awful plan. I’m in.”
“What?” Mandy did a double take.
“Bill and Ted were able to go to hell and come back; how bad could it be? Besides, I visited it before,” I said, shrugging. “Was pretty nice. I got to speak with Death, talk with my brother—”
“What?” Kerri interjected. “You never mentioned that.”
“My father?” Lisa asked. “You talked with my father and you didn’t tell me?”
“Whoops.” I walked up to Diabloman and grabbed him by the arm. “OK, time to go to the Inferno. No time to waste.”
“But—” Diabloman said.
“Now!” I snapped.
“This is a terrible idea,” Cloak said.
“Since when has that stopped me before?” I asked.
“That’s not a defense!” Cloak shouted.
Diabloman, perhaps realizing time wasn’t on the side of humanity, proceeded to teleport us both through Hell. During his heyday, he’d used this ability extensively to escape from superheroes who had him cornered, but he’d lost it for almost a decade. The mayhem he’d wrecked with me had gotten it back for him. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but for now, I was grateful he had it.
Grateful for about five seconds. You see, on my last trip to the Underworld, I’d been going to see Death at her behest. If I’d thought about it, I might have realized she’d given me safe passage through her realm. That I wasn’t going to be affected by all the terrible things inflicted on souls around me. Things that affected me as I passed through the underworld with Diabloman.
I witnessed my brother, Keith, gunned down by the antihero Shoot-Em-Up because he used to be the villain Stingray. I lived through Gabrielle erasing my mind of her secret identity as Ultragoddess. The lack of trust that made her think I’d get killed if I continued to date her. I experienced Mandy telling me she didn’t want to have children only after we’d married and I’d fallen in love with her.
I lived through Mandy dying at the hands of the Brotherhood of Infamy’s dragon. I saw Mandy’s vampire form rejecting me, having lost her soul and having become the antithesis of the woman I loved. I felt the despair of being unable to return Mandy to her original self for a year.
I experienced giving in to my love for Cindy in that year and hating myself for it, even as she had her heart broken over my rejection. This was hell. An eternity of regret, pain, and despair. Living all your worst memories and tragedies, over and over, forever.
I then thumped on the ground in the middle of a missile silo’s bottom. Above my head were a massive set of rocket boosters attached to an extra-large ICBM stretching up to the sealed roof. Standing nearby, behind a transparent steel window in a supercrete bunker, was President Omega in a bubbleheaded suit of 29th-century golden armor. He was an obnoxiously smug-looking middle-aged Caucasian man with a bad toupee and tiny hands.
Diabloman hoisted me up. “We’re here.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking up. “We are.”
That was when President Omega turned on the rocket boosters and the world became an ocean of fire.
Chapter Two
WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT
I grabbed Diabloman by the arm and turned us intangible before the flames blew down upon us. Having seen Moonraker, I was sure when someone put you under a set of rocket boosters, they intended to burn you alive, and President Omega was the very definition of a Bond villain. Well, a Bond villain who had time-travel powers and was the former head of the Third Reich after Hitler was captured by Ultragod.
“So, nothing like a Bond villain,” Cloak said. My constant companion was showing surprising snark given that we were hopelessly outmatched by a villain who’d beaten us multiple times before.
As the flames passed through us, I couldn’t help but imagine myself burning to death. It was ironic: We’d just escaped from hell and now we were in a lake of fire. Not that hell was a particularly hot place. Really, having been there, I could attest that hell was cold. It was empty of anything but regret, frustration, and the desires of people who’d turned their backs on their better natures. People like me.
The flames of the ICBM’s rocket boosters died down around us before the super-concrete cooled at an incredibly fast rate. I could see President Omega’s disappointment through his clear helmet even as he stared down upon us.
“You really are a difficult-to-kill pest,” President Omega boomed. “I was honestly hoping that would be the end of you.”
I looked up at him. “Really? Because that was a piss-poor death trap right there. You just pushed a button. A proper death trap involves us being tied up, preferably with a loved one, and then slowly lowered to our doom. You didn’t even give a proper villainous monologue to us before you did the fry-us plan. How the hell did a guy like you ever get chosen by my doppelgänger to be his partner?”
I was curious about that because Other Gary was similar enough to me that I had no idea why the fuck he would ever ally with a frigging NAZI. I mean, evil must have standards if it wants to maintain any pretense of cool, and Nazis are the bottom of the bad guy barrel.
“I am in charge!” President Omega shouted before blasting a hole in his concrete bunker and using his rocket pack to fly out to battle us.
Yes! He was stupid enough to confront us directly! I loved when taunting people worked!
“You’re actually going to pretend that was part of a plan?” Cloak said. “Who do you think you’re fooling?”
“You, obviously,” I replied, patting Diabloman on the back. “Ready, old chum?”
Diabloman collapsed to one knee. “I . . . I do not think I will be able to help you during this battle, Boss.”
Ah crap. Who knew a journey through hell would fuck up a guy? Hmm, that sounded more sarcastic than I’d intended. I’d just have to make sure President Omega didn’t kill us all in the meantime. Which meant it was taunting time! I would taunt him like a superpowered high school student in a spider costume! Which was a weirdly specific example I had no context for.
“Oh please,” I said, snorting. “You’re not the Big Bad, Omega! I’m the star of this little drama, and Gary is my Evil Counterpart. Good Counterpart. Counterpart-Counterpart. Listen, it doesn’t matter. You may think you’re in charge here, but you’re not even close. You’re at most the Saruman to Other Gary’s Sauron. The Count Dooku to his Palpatine. The other Christopher Lee character to someone who is the Big Bad.”
“Dracula to his Satan,” Cloak offered. “The person, not the book.”
“Brilliant!” I said, congratulating Cloak. “Because I had The Man with the Golden Gun next and he didn’t answer to anyone.”
“I am the end of time!” President Omega shouted, hovering eight feet above us with his rocket pack. He pulled out a huge glowing gun, which was tied to his suit of armor by a shining electrical cord. “I have warped this world’s timeline inside and out! Whole civilizations have risen and fallen upon my command! I will launch a weapon
that will wipe out all superpowered beings in the world and leave me as the undisputed master of the world for—”
“A century,” I interrupted. “That’s how long it’s going to take until Other Gary resets the world and leaves you holding the bag.”
“What?” President Omega said, stopping mid-speech.
I stared at him, then burst out laughing. “Oh my God! You don’t know! You really are the Big Bad Wannabe.”
“Resets time!” President Omega shouted. “What are you talking about?”
“Ever play the game Majora’s Mask?” I asked.
President Omega looked confused.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I said. “Well, it’s kind of like that. If you don’t want to play a past generation console title or get an emulator, I also offer Groundhog Day, except instead of endlessly repeating one day, it’s a century of harvesting the life energy of billions killed in a pointless war between you and me.”
“So nothing like Groundhog—” Cloak started to say.
“Not the time!” I said.
“I don’t believe you!” President Omega shouted, aiming his future gun down at me. “You’d do anything to stop the launch of my nanoplague!”
I blinked. “Before we continue, isn’t that averted? You just fired the rockets on the ICBM above me without launching it. Don’t you have to refuel it now?”
President Omega replied in a dignified and calm manner befitting the Commander-in-Chief. “DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!”
I was forced to dodge and dance around the ground as the air filled with dozens of bolts of energy. Diabloman struggled to get up to help but ended up collapsing, and I wondered if he was having a heart attack.
Crap. I threw fireballs and blasts of ice at President Omega only for him to teleport away from each of them before appearing behind me. Even a blast that only came a few inches away burned my shoulder, and I knew a direct hit would kill me. The only redeeming quality was they didn’t seem to have aim assist in the future, and Omega was too pissed off to aim correctly.
“Do you know of all the historical figures I wanted to meet in the future, you were actually near the top of the list?” President Omega hissed, his voice growing shrill and obsessed.
“Uh, thank you?” I said, levitating out of the way of another blast. I couldn’t fly, more like float, but it added a nice bit of speed to my jumps and movements to weigh less.
“It’s not a compliment!” President Omega hissed. “It’s because of you and the Society of Superheroes the future is a disaster!”
This coming from the man who had a plan to kill a tenth of the world. “Uh-huh. I’m sorry I’m such a force for bad that it offends even you.”
That was when he stopped shooting and his eyes bore down on me. “It wasn’t you being a force for bad. It was you making the future so goddamn boring!”
I stared at him. “Hold up, what?”
“Do you know what it like in the twenty-ninth century?” President Omega asked.
“I admit, I never made it past the twenty-second when I wanted to find out how A Song of Ice and Fire turned out. Who knew Sansa and Jon would end up together? That’s the Extended Edition, though.”
President Omega was too busy frothing at the mouth to respond. “It’s nothing but clean highways, roads, trees, and ecologically-friendly arcologies throughout the solar system! Clean, fuel-efficient vehicles powered by fusion! Every disease cured and life spans ranging in the centuries! Everyone is rich because replicators make everything! It’s like fucking Star Trek except everyone isn’t a communist.”
“Only Chekhov was!” I said. “Everyone else was a socialist!”
President Omega continued ranting. “Human society became a joke! A pocket of whiny little wimps and idealists in their own small galaxy versus determined conquerors exterminating every other species in the galaxy!”
I started charging a fireball behind my back. “OK, someone has played way too much Warhammer 40K. Assuming they still play that in the future. It’s probably an MMORPG holodeck program now or something like Westworld. Have you seen Westworld? The series, not the movie, though I liked it too. I love that show. It’s probably wrong I want to visit but—”
President Omega raised his gun and aimed it at my heart. “Your fault.”
I paused. “OK, I’m going to call bullshit on that.”
“Thank you,” Cloak said.
“No way in hell am I responsible for some sort of utopian Golden Age of Sci-Fi future. That’s slightly less likely than the Wild Stallions bringing it about with the power of their music. Only U2 could do that and they haven’t yet.”
President Omega surprised me by not firing. Instead, he conjured up a hundred holographic, free-floating screens around me. They all showed various alternate realities and timelines. “In countless realities, do you know what happens without you?”
“Mandy marries the Black Witch, Gabrielle continues being a swinging single, and Cindy gets her own awesome talk show?”
“I don’t think The Stripping Doctor would be an awesome show,” Cloak said. “Popular, but not awesome.”
“Meow,” I said to Cloak, smirking. “Where’d that come from?”
“I think you’re a bad influence on me,” Cloak said.
President Omega said, “Killer Clown kills six non-powered superheroes before he dies. The Typewriter blows up the Falconcrest State Building with a faulty nuclear device. The Brotherhood of Infamy goes national after eliminating most of Falconcrest City and gaining thousands of imitation cloaks. Bob Stephens kills the man who’d cure AIDS in a mugging.”
I paused. “Who?”
“A henchman you killed during a bank robbery,” Cloak said.
“Oh,” I said. “So, wait, you’re saying I help make the future a perfect place of peace because I kill criminals? Wow, that is an awful, awful Aesop. I’m against the death penalty, you know. Mostly because I’m a multiple murderer.”
President Omega’s voice took on a manic glee. “I had to undo the horrible future I was born in. That’s why I learned the sciences of temporal mechanics and hypertech engineering. I dedicated my life to journeying through the various timelines to destroy those instrumental to my future! Ultragod, Ultragoddess, Guinevere, the Nightwalker, Doctor Martin Luther—”
“Oh, you better not be finishing that sentence the way I think you are,” I said, my voice lowering.
“Stephens,” President Omega said. “He was the man who invented fusion. You, however, eluded me. It was only when Other Gary appeared with your identity that I had the chance to destroy you!”
I’d decided I’d had enough of Crazy Man and fired my charging blast. Upward. The blast of supernatural fire sailed upwards through the center of the ICBM above us and out the top, smashing into the supercrete barrier above it. A black ooze of inanimate nanobots spilled out of the resulting hole, filling up the chamber floor as I levitated above it. Diabloman was nowhere to be seen.
“What the hell was that?” President Omega said, glaring.
“Just me thwarting your plan,” I said, cheerfully.
President Omega chuckled. “I have over a hundred ICBMs in this facility.”
“Oh,” I said, frowning. “That sucks.”
“Time to launch them.” President Omega laughed.
The announcer lady interrupted. “ACTUALLY, PRESIDENT OMEGA, THE OTHERS HAVE DISABLED THE LAUNCHING SYSTEM. I’M AFRAID YOUR PLANS TO KILL ALL SUPERS HAS FAILED.”
What should have been a moment of calm became one of eerie silence as President Omega conjured a holographic keyboard over his left gauntlet and started typing into it. It took me a second to realize he was powering his time machine.
“I can’t erase you, Mister Karkofsky. Like me, you have altered time so much you’re impossible to affect with temporal energy. I can, however, erase every single person you’ve ever met.” President Omega took a deep breath. “I think I’ll start with your sister and niece.”
That was when Diabl
oman leapt onto the back of the president’s rocket pack, burning himself but ignoring the damage. He then smashed his fists into the rocket pack, repeatedly, crushing the metal like it was tinfoil. President Omega proceeded to smash around the room like a pinball before bouncing against the ground three or four times. His armor might have protected him from the worst of it, but I could see his face was a bloody mess inside his helmet. I had a choice between walking over to President Omega and checking to see if Diabloman was still all right. I chose to go to President Omega.
“Fuck . . . you,” President Omega hissed, still alive as he reached over for his gauntlet.
I made a finger gun, then concentrated all my remaining magical energy into a single inch-long flame.
“Bang,” I said, blasting through the President’s helmet and out the other side. His hands dropped to one side and his body stopped moving. I’d killed the son of a bitch at last. It didn’t fill me with a sense of glee, nor did I feel any guilt. I was just glad the bastard was dead and couldn’t threaten my family anymore.
“Actually, that may not be true,” Cloak said, sounding sad. “You’ve killed his current temporal avatar, but he’s been unhooked from time. I’m not sure killing him now will really keep him dead. You can even now see his body disintegrating from this timeline.”
Indeed, Cloak was right. President Omega’s body started to vanish like Marty McFly’s siblings in his family photo.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Heroes die but villains never stay dead. It’s just like it is in comic books.”
“The ones in my day had good always triumphing over evil,” Cloak said sadly.
I paused, looking between President Omega’s slowly vanishing body and Diabloman’s horribly injured one. “You know, for once, I kind of wish it was like those books. It’s no fun being evil when good is the underdog.”
I rushed to Diabloman’s side, seeing that his legs were horrifically burned and he wasn’t breathing. I started to give him CPR, knowing that wasn’t probably going to do much.
“Stay with me, D!” I shouted, punching on his chest. “How the hell are we going to kill President Omega repeatedly until he stays dead if you die on me?”
The Supervillainy Saga (Book 4): The Science of Supervillainy Page 2
