“You know you can just call me Splotch,” Splotch said.
“Do I have to?” I asked.
“All my friends do! As for how I got here so fast, your girlfriend, Red Riding Hood, called me. I was already on my way to rescue the mayor, which, honestly doesn’t seem like it’s going to be happening.” Splotch fired a shadow blast over his shoulder and clobbered Jim in the helmet.
I felt a little irritated at that and said so in my earpiece. “Cindy, I could handle it.”
“Sure you could,” Cindy replied in my ear. “Besides, with Splotch distracted, I can now rob the Atlas City Museum! Bwhahahaha.”
“She sounds like a real keeper,” Splotch said. “Does she have a sister.”
“Not that I know of,” I said. “Mind you, I’m in a polyamorous relationship.”
“Ah,” Splotch said. “I have three sisters. I would not surround myself with that much female energy to save my life.”
“Technically, Gabrielle’s dating some other dudes, but I don’t know them,” I replied, not entirely happy about it and feeling hypocritical.
“Fascinating!” Splotch said. “You could do a reality show.”
“Kill you!” Jim shouted, pulling out a laser knife and charging at me. For an intergalactic bounty hunter and government assassin, he was awfully emotional.
I conjured ice under his feet, and he slipped on the ground like we were in a cartoon. I had to admit, I hadn’t had this much fun fighting in years. “Cindy tried but it got cancelled due to her attempt to market it on that cellphone only network. She’s the mother of one of my children and I love her dearly.”
“And Gabrielle is the mother of your other daughter,” Splotch said. “Plus, you’re involved with Nighthuntress?”
That was Mandy’s codename. “That’s…complicated.”
“More so than dating three of the most dangerous women on the planet?” Splotch said, doing a backflip then conjuring four Nega-Force tentacles with fists on their end to slap around our opponent.
“Yes,” I said, not about to explain that Mandy had been my wife before she’d died, become a vampire, gotten herself possessed by the ghost of my ex-partner’s sister, and then I’d sent said ghost to Hell.
Rocketdeath pulled out a miniature nuclear grenade, which looked suspiciously like Boba Fett’s thermal detonator, and turned it on to a six second countdown. I proceeded to grab it from his hand using my phase powers and shut it off.
“Hey!” Rocketdeath shouted. “No fair!”
“So is nuking the city!” I replied. “Area of effect attacks are cheap! It’s like camping and kill stealing!”
Don’t worry if you didn’t get that reference, Rocketdeath did and it pissed him off as he let out a frustrated scream. He had bigger problems, though. Splotch conjured an enormous paddle, attached a Nega-Force string, and then used Jim as a ball before bouncing him back and forth.
“Well, she’s in the city,” Splotch said. “Apparently, she’s part of some sort of heist crew that goes after the rich and evil. Maybe you should talk to her.”
I didn’t immediately respond to that. The wound between me and Mandy was still too raw. It didn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to figure out she was probably working with Cindy. It also explained why Cindy was keeping her business to herself. You know, that and plausible deniability about her crimes while I was ostensibly trying to be a superhero. “Hmmm.”
“How noncommittal!” Splotch said, finishing his defeat of Rocketdeath.
The bounty hunter fell onto the ground as his armor was now beaten to uselessness. “I give! I give!”
“Aren’t you married?” I asked, walking over and looking for his armor’s off-switch. Shockingly enough, the Darklight-83 combat armor had them. This is why you never hired advertising firms to design your death machines. Switching off Jim’s weapons, I proceeded to remove his helmet and check to see if he was still alive. He was but he looked like was concussed all to hell.
Poor baby.
“Ten years now,” Splotch said, covering the nonsensical Jim in a bunch of inky goop to hold him. I understand it dissolved after a few hours. “She’s the light of my life but also why I must keep my identity secret. I’m not throwing around my name like you and Red Riding Hood.”
“Yeah, well, we were criminals before we were heroes,” I said, simply. “It’s hard to keep a secret identity after your first arrest.”
I wasn’t about to tell Splotch I knew his real name was Stanley Okitd, that he was Japanese American, and that he was one of three Splotches who shared their powers across family lines. Hiro Okitd had been Splotch during the Sixties to the Eighties, his eldest son Steve had taken up the mantle from the Nineties to the New Millennium, and then Stanley replaced his brother from 2001 onward. Diabloman had figured out the secret identities of most superheroes during his days as a villain. He’d left all his notes at the Warren Estate and I’d gone through them as part of my plan to be a better superhero.
It bothered me that, if Diabloman were to go off the deep end, then there would be nothing stopping him from going after all the heroes with secret identities. Generally, people who were invulnerable like Gabrielle or Guinevere didn’t bother with them. Also, most “rational” supervillains knew that as lethal as it was to kill a superhero, it was ten times worse to go after their families. Aquarius had his child murdered by Whipray the Undersea Executioner and fed the guy to a shark. Since then, he’d personally killed virtually every supervillain who went after people’s families. Some people had gotten the message, others hadn’t.
“Yeah, I heard about you giving up the supervillainy thing,” Splotch said. “Why?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, surprised by that.
I saw the Red Condor’s corpse had landed—well crashed—nearby and decided to go check to see if there was anything salvageable. He had been a crazy old buzzard and a murderer, but no one deserved to be executed from behind like that. Well, nobody who wasn’t a Nazi, slaver, or guy who abused animals.
“Well, you weren’t really much of a villain, Merciless,” Splotch said, continuing to talk only with our codenames. I suspected it was just force of habit at this point. “You did a lot of good for a lot of people while pretending to be a bad guy.”
“I wasn’t pretending,” I said, simply. “It’s just I wasn’t quite as bad as the people around me. Being a hero isn’t that far from being a villain.”
Splotch didn’t accept my logic. “Actually, it is literally as far from the concept as possible. It’s what’s called an opposite or antithesis. You learn about these things on Sesame Street or the first grade usually. Bad is not good. Up is not down. Football is not soccer, despite how many other countries get it wrong. You know.”
“Yes, well I wanted to be a hero-hero,” I said, pausing. “But it turns out being a hero is actually hard despite me not being much of a villain.”
“Tell me about it,” Splotch said. “The Splotch Family has three generations of being hated, hounded, and treated like crap. I think the one time that Ultragod ever got a negative review in the press was when he said my dad was a good man.”
Much to my surprise, I found the Red Condor wasn’t dead. Mostly because he was never alive. He was just a busted up and damaged android. “Well, this is weird.”
“Yeah, Old Man Cortez died years ago,” Splotch replied. “He’s had his work carried on by Real BoyTM dolls programmed to act like him. Another one will probably pop up in a week, just as cranky as the previous ones. Personally, I’m not sure what the benefit of carrying out petty acts of terrorism and theft are as a legacy but I’m not a supervillain.”
“If you love something, do it professionally,” I said.
“I doubt my wife would appreciate a career as a professional lover for me,” Splotch said. “I’m also not sure whether it’s possible to make a living surfing the internet for news about yourself.”
“Such a shame,” I replied. “But yes, I want to help Atlas City but I’m just no
t doing a good job. Technically, I’m supposed to be undercover, but the supervillains think I’m a cop and the cops think I’m a supervillain.”
“A clever plan!” Splotch said. “Well, if you’d like to go patrolling, I can show you some of my tricks for rescuing civilians while a hated rogue.”
I blinked, processing that. Truth be told, I didn’t have that many friends in the superhero world. I also didn’t have many friends back in the normal world. I could blame it on the cold, solitary life of a supervillain but truth be told it was a combination of the fact I was an enormous jackass with the unfortunate business back at the Hollow Earth driving most of my friends away. It would be nice to be friends with someone who, masked menace or not, was a guy I’d admired since childhood.
“Yeah, I think that would be good,” I said. “I’m doing something wrong and I could use some advice on making it right.”
“Being a hero is trying to do what’s right, not necessarily succeeding.”
“That sounds like terrible advice.”
“What did being a supervillain get you?”
“Billions of dollars, true love, and two children. Oh, and I saved the world on multiple occasions.”
Splotch paused. “I feel like there’s a lesson here but not one I necessarily want to learn.”
“Evil will always triumph over good because good is dumb.”
Splotch laughed and made finger guns. “Ha-ha. You made a reference to a movie and that is somehow funny because it’s a thing I recognize.”
Yeah, there was a wee bit of criticism there.
“I’m sensing I may have to up my humor game,” I said.
“Welcome to the big leagues, kid,” Splotch replied, ignoring that he was my age. “It’s not about how strong, fast, or heroic you are. It’s all about the quips and I am the Master.”
“See, I’d have said I am your Mister Miyagi.”
“And that is why you fail,” Splotch said, adopting a Yoda voice.
We didn’t get to talk more because Mayor Melanie Spencer crawled out of the wreckage of the car, seemingly no worse for wear. The woman stared daggers at both of us and began shouting at a level I didn’t think possible for someone of her frame. “This is what’s ruining our city! Criminal hooligans like you two! I’ll see you all arrested! Do you think Atlas City has problems with superheroes now? Well, just wait—”
Splotch pointed at her. “See, this is why I don’t bother trying to get people to like me.”
“My history with politicians is mixed,” I said. “You know, what with the time traveling Nazi president.”
“We don’t speak of him anymore,” Splotch said, taking off. “Last one to the center of the city is a rotten egg.”
“And you’re supposed to teach me about quips?” I said, taking off behind him.
“Hey, don’t leave me here!” Mayor Spencer shouted from behind us.
Chapter Twelve
Friendly Neighborhood Merciless Man
The glittering part of Atlas City was called New Town and it was a place where the rich had every advantage of super-technology, alien cuisine, and private security that specialized in dealing with all manner of dangers the police couldn’t deal with. While Ultragod was alive, he’d done his best to guilt the one percent into donating enough of their fortunes to keep the destitute from starving in the streets or dying from untreated diseases.
That time had passed.
Now most of the city’s poorer citizens dwelled in Old Town with a minimum amount of attention from the rest of the city. Yeah, I know, what original geniuses the city planners were. Old Town was where the city’s poor had been gradually driven by rising housing costs, prejudice, and the influx of refugees. There were Supers who thought Atlas City would accept them, aliens feeling from wars, and the old-fashioned kind of displaced person who had struggles going on at home.
It was here, unsurprisingly, that superheroes could make a difference. It was also a reminder of what I used to use my money to try and alleviate. It had done wonders in Falconcrest City, but I’d lost the way somewhere and ended up focusing on having wild adventures more than trying to make the world a better place. It was doubly embarrassing when Splotch and I passed by a billboard for Omega Corporation showing my sister’s face. In six months’, time, she’d turned around the corporation I’d stolen from President Omega and turned it into the world’s number one eco-friendly techno-solutions firm. I had no idea what that meant but apparently, they did a lot of good with science.
“So, what do you do down here?” I asked, watching Splotch use his black tentacles to cling to the side of the walls like a fast-moving centipede.
“It’s a mistake to assume the majority of superhero work is fighting supervillains,” Splotch said, leading me deeper into the region. There was a pulse and energy to the community below that surprised me. Contrary to New Town’s depiction of Old Town as a crime-ridden cesspool in need of bulldozing for a richer, paler class of citizen to come in, I saw a lot of people just living out their lives. Aliens, humans, Supers, and children of some mixture were just getting along. There was even an enormous graffiti art picture of Ultragoddess giving a thumbs up on the side of one apartment building.
“Yes, there are also mobsters, muggers, and mimes,” I replied, flying behind Splotch. I’d been able to temporarily keep up with the Condor, but I was much more comfortable flying at a speed of around thirty miles an hour. Which, frankly, was fairly good given the traffic in this city.
“Punching mimes is important,” Splotch said, cheerfully. “However, I come from a school of thought that even if there weren’t supervillains or criminals in general then there would always be a place for superheroes.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
That was when I heard a ringing underneath Splotch’s “costume” that I understood to be a second skin of Nega-Force energy. “Oops, some of the locals have sent me a Chitter.”
“You have a Chitter feed?” I asked.
“Yep!” Splotch said. “Two actually. One that is my public one and is full of spam and hate messages as well as my private one. That I pass out to people around town I trust. They tell me when something bad is happening and I need to help.”
“Like a Splotch Signal?” I asked.
“What do you think this is, a superhero movie?” Splotch asked.
I snorted.
“But basically, yeah,” Splotch said. “One of my friends just told me there’s a fire nearby and the fire department was mysteriously blocked by traffic. A lot of people are in danger.”
“Mind if I help?” I asked.
Splotch chuckled. “No, Merciless, I would not like the help of someone who can turn insubstantial, fly, and conjure ice in evacuating a burning building.”
“Just to be clear, that’s sarcasm, right?” I asked.
Splotch just headed right. I followed him and saw the apartment complex was something like thirty stories. It was ridiculously large and like something out of Judge Dredd. It had also multiple fires burning from different points throughout the building and looked like someone had set off several incendiary devices. There were probably a couple of thousand people living inside the place and they were in deep need of help. I ended up catching someone who was trying to get out through her window before depositing her to the ground.
I’d like to say there was something heroic or glamorous about the whole thing, but it was actually hard, nasty, and gritty work. There were already places where people had died of smoke inhalation, burned to death, or perished in the initial explosions. Lots of the building was uninhabitable by the end and I didn’t do nearly as much to make things better as I wanted.
Still, at the end, I had to say there were few times in my life that I’d ever felt more satisfied with what I’d done. In the end, Splotch didn’t stay for the accolades and departed as soon as the city’s services had things under control. I ended up following him, exhausted, and a little lightheaded. It was past sundown, and I was late in r
eturning home.
“How often does that happen?” I asked.
“What? The local crime lords trying to burn out the locals so they can buy up the land or rescuing people in general?”
“Err…both?”
“More often than I’d like,” Splotch said, moving through the night as the moon hung above. “Mind you, tomorrow morning the papers will probably say I set the explosives.”
“Why do they hate you so damned much?” I asked. “You being the bad guy seems the definition of fake news.”
Splotch stopped on top of a building with a large neon sign that said ACME WAREHOUSING. “That’s a long story.”
I checked my cellphone. “Well, I’m about two hours behind and my daughters are going to be extra mad I missed story time. So, I might as well be late.”
“That is terrible parenting,” Splotch said.
I shrugged. “Probably but I wasn’t going to abandon a bunch of other parents with their kids.”
Splotch paused and leaned up against an air conditioning unit. “The short version is my dad made a lot of mistakes in the Sixties. One of them was betraying himself.”
I blinked. “The original Splotch was a supervillain?”
“No,” Splotch said. “My father was scientist who wanted to be a superhero more than anything else in the world. He was a nerdy science wiz and being both poor as well as Japanese American came with its own issues. He made an experiment to give himself superpowers and tapped into the Nega-Force.”
“The opposite of the Ultra-Force,” I said, making a note for any readers in other dimensions. “What gave Ultragod his powers.”
“Yeah, that made people suspicious when they heard about it. Also, the fact that powers associated with darkness meant that people tended to be suspicious. It didn’t help my father was always challenging other superheroes to fights.”
“I thought that was what every superhero did. There’s just an innate need to kick each other’s ass whenever you meet a new superhero for the first time.”
Splotch paused. “Oh my God, you’re right. We completely forgot the pointless throwdown part of our first meeting!”
The Supervillainy Saga (Book 7): The Horror of Supervillainy Page 11
