The Supervillainy Saga (Book 7): The Horror of Supervillainy

by Phipps, C. T.

  “Well?” Dracula asked.

  I sucked in my breath. “Of course, I intend to betray you. I’m a villain. Obviously, I’m going to look for any possible advantage I can that will propel me to the top. Loyalty is enforced solely by personal charisma and power. Anything else is just for the feebleminded. Why would I be here if I wanted to share power?”

  A long moment of silence passed. Every archvillain then burst out laughing, including Dracula. I had no idea if that was a good or bad thing, so I just laughed along. It was like high school all over again.

  Dracula then pressed the tips of his fingers together, resting his elbows on his podium in a move that would have made Mr. Burns proud. “Now, Merciless, I suppose it’s time to raise the dead.”

  With that, a hole opened in the ground and a pedestal containing the other Primal Orbs rose from it. They were all were bound in a magical circle dedicated to the other Primals and called to me. Whoever could unite them all would be omnipotent. The problem was, they had to know this just like I did.

  So, what was the catch?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I Have the Power to Be Master of the Universe

  The Primal Orbs are the most powerful magical artifacts in the universe. Unlike a certain other series that Jane and Case were always comparing them to, they didn’t have any power on their own. If you somehow managed to gather all eight of them and snap your fingers, you couldn’t wipe out half the universe or bring them back from the dead. Yes, I was making a comparison to the titular objects from Dragonball Z. Which was what I assumed they were referring to when they were talking about fictional objects to compare them too. What did you think I meant?

  Anyway, the Primal Orbs were more like eight versions of the One Ring. They were objects that the Primals—as close to real gods as existed in the universe other than God himself—poured their essence in order to link them to the Multiverse. That energy needed a basis in the user to be wielded and was proportional to the strength of the person holding them. I didn’t understand the details, being the equivalent to the puny god of lint rollers in terms of celestial hierarchy, but basically the orbs are the objects that enhance parts of the wielder rather than grant power by themselves.

  If that didn’t make sense, a simpler version was that someone like me could wield them and do pretty awesome things like make their own magic system and turn a crappy hedge wizard into a pretty powerful archmage. For someone who was already an incredibly powerful wizard, it would strengthen them into a god. For a god? Well, you got the general gist of things. The thing was that the Primal Orbs exerted their own influence on their wielders.

  You want to know how you got Gollum? Well, you had someone like Smeagol try to use a Primal Orb too much against the kind of gods that it was set up to serve. I had gotten by through using the Death and Chaos Orbs because, well, I was Death’s Chosen and a pretty chaotic guy. Cindy had access to the Life Orb and was a doctor. Mandy? Well, I didn’t know if her access to the Order Orb had also changed her but that might explain a few things.

  Right now, though, there were eight orbs that each radiated out the kind of power that threatened to overwhelm me. I hadn’t used the Order Orb because, well, I couldn’t think of something more antithetical to my personality. I felt the same for the Life Orb, just because of its association with Merciful. The remaining Primal Orbs were Creation, Destruction, Fate, and Destiny. In the Eternity Tournament, seven of them had been up for grabs with Destruction’s absent, but now there were all eight present. It was Smaug’s horde for Goldfinger and a chocolate feast for a chocoholic, except the chocolate was power. Okay, yeah, I totally lost the metaphor, there didn’t I?

  “Where the hell did you get these?” I asked, suddenly remembering I was with some of the worst villains in the universe.

  These asshats were probably just waiting for me to bring out my Primal Orbs so they could have all eight in their possession. There was also little I could do against all of them. Yet, David had suggested that I could just destroy them all with the orbs’ combined power. I wasn’t sure if he was underestimating them or overestimating me, but the possibility was there. I’d wanted to be the world’s greatest hero and now was a chance to make a significant effort toward that goal. If I didn’t get myself eradicated by the power I was going to harness. The encounter with Beelzebub earlier showed I couldn’t control the power I’d called up.

  “It was difficult,” Dracula said. “After the Infinity Tournament, the Primal Orbs split across the cosmos to various guardians. Heroes, gods, legends. Diabloman helped us hunt down them all.”

  “Great job, D,” I muttered.

  Diabloman did not answer.

  David, however, chuckled. “Any champion of one of the orbs can find all of the other orbs if they trust their gut. The orbs want to be reunited.”

  “I suppose if you’ve got the balls, you can do anything,” I said, doing my best Scarface impression.

  “He never said that in the movie,” David said.

  “I’ve been running low on material this entire adventure,” I said, looking at the display. “So, you guys just want me to reverse the death ban?”

  Dracula nodded. “For now. I wish my beloved Elizabeta to join me once more. You of all people, I suspect, will understand the elaborate lengths I will go to regain a loved one. Morgana wishes her son back—”

  I grimaced. I really didn’t want to humanize any of these people, which was an irony coming from a guy who had lost his brother to a guy who considered him just another supervillain. I didn’t want to become another Shoot-Em-Up. “How are you going to make sure I do what you want? Because no way are you relying on trust after all the attempts to force me here.”

  Dracula showed a fanged smile. “You are, indeed, the only person we do trust with the orbs because you are the weakest person here. Even the King of Crime, who has no powers, has a far greater will than you who simply stumbled onto his powers.”

  I’d like to think that Dracula was underestimating me, and that I had the Crone backing me up there. But reminding him of that probably wasn’t a good idea. “So you think I can overturn the rule I created but not much else?”

  “Yes,” Dracula said. “Also, the fact is that we have a satellite weapon aimed at your mother’s house.”

  I stared at him, looking for any sign that he was joking. “Really? You’d think the United States government would keep a better handle on those things.”

  “President Trust proved remarkably easy to bribe with his leaving office in two weeks,” Dracula replied. “Mind you, he might regret his daughter’s death. Then again, I suppose that depends on his programming.”

  “You’ve had robot presidents?” Case asked me.

  “Oh yeah, since the Nineties,” I said.

  Case shook his head. “This world, man.”

  I sucked in my breath. “So, if I do what you want then you’ll get back your loved ones and then we’ll work on getting all the worlds you want to rule. However, if I don’t do what you want, you’ll kill my mother and kids who are with her right now.”

  “Yes,” Dracula said, simply. “Consider it an incentive on your good behavior.”

  I glared at Diabloman. “And you were part of this?”

  “No,” Diabloman said. “I would torture you but never endanger your family.”

  “And yet you did,” I replied.

  It was an extremely high-risk gambit that Dracula was taking but I couldn’t say they were wrong. Even if I managed to wipe out everyone here with the orbs—which was a big if—they undoubtedly had weapons that could be used against my family. If I used the orbs to protect my family, well I was surrounded by a bunch of archvillains who could obliterate me in a single moment.

  “The clock is ticking, Merciless,” Dracula said. “Perhaps you would like us to eliminate one of your associates to spur you along?”

  Yeah, this membership in the supervillain Illuminati was starting off crap. I hadn’t even gotten the key to the ex
ecutive bathroom or access to the evil buffet. The cake was a lie and yes, I was aware that meme was overdone in 2007. “You think that I would care if you eliminated Diabloman?”

  “Yes, yes I do,” Dracula said. “So does Diabloman. Which is part of why you have ruined him.

  “Si,” Diabloman said.

  “Do it now,” Dracula said. “Or we shall return to the torture part of our plan. I can also launch another attack against your foolish band of campers lying outside this castle, believing they have a chance against our forces.”

  “Yes, this battle station is quite operational,” I replied. “The rebel fleet is flying into a trap.”

  “Indeed,” Dracula said.

  Too bad Dracula didn’t remember how that movie ended. “Alright then. Time to boogie.”

  As last words went, they weren’t my finest, but I said them right before moving my hands over the remaining four orbs and absorbing them into the Reaper’s Cloak. With that, all eight of them linked together and I became one with the universe. Or the universe became one with me. Either way, it was an experience that I lacked the words to properly convey the immensity of.

  Actually, no, on second thought, I did have a sentence to describe: I became more powerful than they could possibly imagine. Yep, no bad prequel or sequel will ever get those movies out of my brain. I also liked Solo and Rogue One. Even The Force Awakens to a certain extent. Plus, we have The Mandalorian now!

  Either way, I felt my entire body undulate with power. More power than I could possibly imagine and yes, I know I’m repeating myself. There was a lot of power. Life, space, reality, and time folded upon one another while my consciousness expanded to be able to understand it all. I understood the number forty-two in all its permutations and why there was fundamentally something screwed up in the universe.

  Unfortunately, he whoever said knowledge was power didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. My brief moment of cosmic enlightenment might have also gotten me points if I was a Zen Sunni Buddhist like on Arrakis but didn’t do much for me right then. I knew for absolute certainty that if I harmed the League of Archvillains with the orbs that my family would be killed. I also knew that if I cooperated, Dracula would kill me, steal the Primal Orbs, and then kill my family. Which, to be honest, was just dickish.

  As I felt my spirit transcend its physical form and become one with everything. Yes, even Spokane, Washington, I did find it being called somewhere else. I couldn’t resist this strange call and resented that it drew me away from various plans to find a way out of my current predicament. I wasn’t nearly as cornered as Dracula thought, my new magical system making me an archwizard of a kind, but I needed to very carefully word any Wish spells cast with the orbs backing them up.

  Instead, I found myself sitting at a table before the Council of Archvillains’ table. The kid’s table, so to speak, except the people sitting before me weren’t the ones threatening my family. Instead, I saw Death sitting at the podium where Dracula had stood and seven other figures that radiated omnipotent power. She looked like Mandy with, and I don’t mean to be insulting, a sluttier wardrobe (but in a good way!).

  There was the overweight geek Destruction, a bearded Moses-looking Creation, a slightly overweight but still hot Cindy-looking Life, a Nightwalker-esque looking Order, a Chaos who honestly looked a lot like me, a Fate that resembled the late Tom Terror, and a Destiny that looked like Ultragod. These weren’t the Primals’ actual forms but even in my ascended state, I couldn’t take in their full power.

  If you wanted to know who really ruled the universe then it was these eight beings, the disconnected fragments of God (whatever your religious beliefs) that were everyone and everything. They feuded over reality, constantly tugging us all in multiple contradictory directions. Which, yes, says that the will of everything is crazy pants. Explains a lot about reality doesn’t it?

  “Hey guys,” I said, wondering if this would end up in some religion’s Torah some days. I sincerely hoped they spruced up the dialogue. Mind you, mine had such odd entries as Isaac getting in a fist fight with God and constantly arguing him down on murdering the populations of gross cities. Plus the whole whale incident with Jonah.

  “Hello, Gary,” Death said. “You certainly always find yourself in the thick of things don’t you.”

  “As I said in college,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I like ’em thicc.”

  Death actually rolled her eyes. “Never change, Gary.”

  “That would require self-awareness,” I replied. “But yes, I assume I am here because I have united the Maguffins to bring about the thingamabob that immanentize the eschaton. If this were an anime, then church music would be playing over people becoming orange goo.”

  “No, Gary,” Death said.

  “Oh,” I replied. “So, what is this?”

  “Your trial,” Death said.

  “Oh,” I said, again. “Well, that’s not good.”

  Creation, who sounded exactly like Ian McKellen’s Gandalf, spoke, “It was decided long ago that everyone who would wield the power of all the Primal Orbs should have to be judged on their worthiness by our spirits.”

  “Well, I’m borked,” I muttered.

  “Why would you say that?” Chaos said. “You were judged as worthy of having two Primal Orbs early on.”

  “And that was probably a mistake on your part,” I said. “I’m absolutely unworthy of any sort of power. In fact, I clearly should not be trusted to do people’s laundry. Letting me have access to the Primal Orbs I did have was bound to mess up the universe. But all eight? Oh man, it might be better to let Dracula have them. Except you know, all the good people should have them above him. Also, less evil people. Actually, no, let’s keep Dracula from them altogether.”

  “That is why you are worthy,” Destiny spoke, now looking like Guinevere instead of Ultragod. “Because you do not believe you are worthy, you are worthy.”

  I stared at her. “Really, we’re going with the Socrates thing? The reason he’s the wisest man on Earth is because he’s the guy who knows he knows nothing?”

  “Nice of you to quote something other than Star Wars for once,” Life said, now looking like Aeris from Final Fantasy VII. Really, the fact that I perceived the godhead as looking like this was another argument for why no one should let me anywhere near power.

  “I also note that Nietzsche would be appalled at the idea that seeking power should disqualify you from having it,” I replied. “Mind you, that guy got seriously misunderstood and I totally blame his Nazi sister for rewriting his stuff.”

  “The problem is, Gary, that you’re not the only Gary being judged here,” Death replied.

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Death pulled out an hourglass and it looked like it was made of plastic before being put in a microwave, melted as well as distorted so that it wasn’t really dripping sand anywhere coherent. It reminded me of Rincewind’s from Discworld where their version of Death had no idea when he was going to die or if. “Your timeline is utterly confused due to the rebooting of the universe. Other Gary, aka Merciful, and you are two incarnations of the same soul, shared between two beings and fragmented across parallel realities. Who you were meant to be and who you are aren’t remotely comparable.”

  “Not necessarily worse but not really better,” Destiny said.

  “Oh, absolutely worse,” Fate replied, looking a great deal like the Nightmistress.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, feeling that my new cosmic awareness was proving utterly useless.

  “The Big Ass Time Disaster is real,” Life said, shocking me with the fact that God had used the phrase “big ass”. “Reality is broken.”

  “Except it is also fixed,” Death replied. “We needed to prep you for it. That included things like banning resurrection for a time, loss, madness, and building new worlds.”

  I stared at them. “So, I’m just a plaything of God?”

  “Yep,” Death said. “But also, his or her
tool. You are capable of fixing all of the madness and damage that has been done to your reality and our multiverse, but it requires you to do something that you may not like.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked, wondering if I could punch all these people. Eternal damnation or oblivion might be worth it for the experience.

  “You have to say yes to letting us use you,” Fate replied.

  “And if I don’t?” I asked.

  “The universe remains broken, forever,” Destruction said. “I tried to fix it by making it a world of eternal recurrence. Heroes battling villains. Villains battling heroes. It didn’t get better, but it didn’t get worse.”

  “Except for all the collateral damage,” I said, remembering that he was the guy who brought everyone back from the dead constantly and made any victory by good or evil fleeting.

  Destruction shrugged. “Is Death any better? People want hope for the future and for their loved ones to come back.”

  Death stared. “We can try to fix this, Gary. To unbork this. However, it requires you to give up control and us to reset the timeline through our proxy. You-ish. It means giving up freedom—the thing you cherish most in the world—and to trust people you know don’t have all the answers. For all our vast knowledge, our purposes blind us to the whole. This choice could not be made by someone who is more controllable.”

  “So, you want me to go with you even though you guys are the ones who screwed up the universe in the first place,” I said. “Versus letting us mortals try to make of the universe what we will.”

  “Yes,” Death said. “We’re asking you to have faith.”

  I looked down at the ground that swirled with the total sum of creation. “And what happens to my family?”

  “You won’t know,” Chaos said. “Not until you’re back in the system. You can make mortals gods of their own dominion or you can trust in the gods.”