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

by Phipps, C. T.

  “Hmm,” I said.

  “You’re like a really badass antihero,” Mindy said.

  “I am not!” I snapped. “Antivillain at worse.” I sighed. “So, I guess time has been decompressed. I’m as old as I normally would be.”

  “Time what now?” Leia asked, looking up for the first time.

  “You’re immortal, Dad,” Mindy said. “I don’t think that’s an issue. Plus you’re married to a vampire.”

  “Marriage, huh,” I said. “That’s going to take a lot of talking.”

  “Probably,” Leia said. “But like I said, you’re eventually going to regain your memories. This is all going to seem like a bad dream soon.”

  I looked at them. “Nothing about my past is a bad dream. Just a very, very weird one. Are you sure this isn’t all some dying hallucination?”

  “Well, I am the inventor of time travel,” Leia said.

  “With my help,” Mindy said.

  “Mind you, it’s weird now since it seems impossible to affect events now. Anyway, I’m pretty sure,” Leia said.

  “How did I kill Hitler so many times if you invented time travel?” I asked, easily distracted. No world existed where I didn’t if I got my hand on a time machine. I also had a couple of Emperor Tituses, three Himmlers, as well as a Benito Mussolini.

  “Time travel,” Leia said. “I accidentally left my cosmic bicycle in the Nightwalker’s—”

  I raised my palm in the air. “I’ll take your word for it. Honestly, I think I’m done with time travel. Hopefully, you guys can do your own thing to keep the Big Ass Time Disasters of the future from happening when you are time cops.”

  Both of my daughters blinked.

  “Why the hell would I want to be a time cop?” Leia asked. “I’m STEM all the way.”

  “I’m black, Jewish, and a Super,” Mindy said. “Defund the Foundation for World Harmony. They’re not building giant robots right now, but I fully intend to be a thief like you. I even have a Carmen Sandiego-esque outfit and codename picked out. Ms. Terri. Because Mystery.”

  “Don’t explain the joke, dear,” I said.

  Mindy blanched.

  “I sometimes think you forget my real name and call me by my codename,” Leia said.

  “That’ll never happen as long as Star Wars exists,” I said. “Star Wars exists in this universe, right?”

  “Yeah, we were just going to the Heir to the Empire movie,” Leia said. “I’m so glad they’re adapting the Thrawn trilogy.”

  I covered my face with my hands to suppress a scream of joy. Then I frowned.

  “Okay, there’s got to be some sort of horrifying catch to all this.”

  “Pardon?” Mindy asked.

  “This universe was recreated by Merciful, my evil doppelganger that was driven insane by the destruction of his world,” I said. “What’s he been up to all this time?”

  “Never heard of him,” Leia said.

  I blinked. “Huh. He wrote himself out of the story. I guess he figured there was no place for him anymore in any universe.”

  That was when I developed the mother of all migraines. Slowly, but surely, I started to remember all the various things I’d forgotten. I didn’t just recall this timeline with its hundreds of adventures and years of living, but I remembered all the ones that had been erased, retconned, or altered by the Mad Primal in his quest for the perfect story. It did, however, give me a basic understanding of this world as well as how it had come to be.

  It was his revenge.

  But not on me.

  Merciful had created a world that was meant to show how things could have gotten better without the constant need of superheroes to waste their talents fighting supervillains. It was meant to be a place where technology had uplifted the common man and the world was better for the good more than worse for the evil. He hadn’t wiped it all out and built a paradise but had believed removing all the interference would result in a paradise. He’d been wrong.

  The world wasn’t a paradise, and I could already see PHANTOM splinter groups developing in the poverty-stricken parts of America as well as other parts of the world. Omega Corp had been replaced by Merciless Corp, but the former executives bought out their shares to form Terror Corp. I wasn’t sure which of the three names was worse from a marketing standpoint. Supers were slightly better off in this world but there was an accent on the word slightly. People weren’t building giant robots to wipe them out, but they were still the subject of suspicion and discrimination. My plan to empower the masses with magic meant there were a lot more magic-based supervillains as they used it to settle old scores. My daughters’ first adventure as superheroes had been stopping a guy with something called a KillNote.

  Ultragod was doing a fairly good job as president and there were still plenty of old statesmen as superheroes, but they’d gotten old. He and Guinevere were the only immortal ones among them, and the subsequent generations were just as flawed as anyone else. Gabrielle, sweet Gabrielle, was just as temperamental as well as ruthless as Mandy described, even as the Society of Superheroes new leader. Vampires were rising in numbers along with other supernaturals as the amount of dark magic in the world had increased a hundredfold (which was not my fault). Plus, I’d broken my promise and people were coming back from the dead again. Not as often as they used to be, but it was still possible. It was no longer a revolving door of death and resurrection but more like a once in a blue moon event. For both the good and evil. There were also all the old inequalities and prejudices too.

  “So, given the chance to build a utopia without outside interference, humanity turned out to be just as bad as it always was,” I said, taking it all in. Things were better, but not by much. “We’re no closer to becoming Star Trek and have just barely managed to avoid becoming Mad Max several times this year alone.”

  There had been attempts to wipe out ninety-nine percent of the Earth’s population except for a master race consisting of incredibly inbred Hapsburgs, your stereotypical robot uprising by all those decommissioned Exterminator bots, an invasion from the sixty-sixth layer of Hell, and someone attempting to open Pandora’s Box again—apparently forgetting that it only contained hope now. This was what constituted a normal year these days. I mean, it was like half of the weirdness of a normal one of my years but not remotely close to safe.

  “Eh, I wouldn’t say that,” Mindy said. “After all, as long as there are heroes, there won’t be any chance for those plans to succeed.”

  “As long as you are there to do the dirty work,” a familiar voice spoke.

  I turned around and saw Diabloman standing there alongside Cindy, Jane, Case, and Mandy. They were all wearing civilian attire.

  “So, is this the prelude to a fight scene?” I asked. “Because I’m really not in the mood right now.”

  “No,” Diabloman said, kneeling. “I am still possessed of my previous world’s memories and want to apologize. Again.”

  “Apologize?” I asked. “You died trying to do the right thing. That’s an instant clean slate. For reasons that don’t involve Return of the Jedi dictating my morality. Honest. Not crossing my fingers behind my back or anything.”

  Obviously, I was.

  Diabloman nodded. “You went out of your way to try to save me when all I wanted to do was die. You cleansed me of all my sins. You did send my sister to Hell, but I have since spoken to her angelic spirit and everything is fine.”

  “Her ghost?” I asked.

  “It’s comic books man,” Jane said. “On my world, this is just the eightieth anniversary relaunch. We’re probably in the final pages of issue number one now.”

  “If I’m in a comic book back on my hellish cyberpunk world, this will officially break the fourth wall forever,” Case said. “Either way, I’m just glad to be here.”

  “You two are really weird,” Cindy said. “You know that, right?”

  “I’m really weird but can come here at any time now,” Jane said. “Plane Shift is an awesome spell.
I actually went to Middle Earth and slept with an elf.”

  “Male or female?” Cindy asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jane said. “Elf.”

  “I brought the cure for cancer from your world to mine,” Case said. “I, also, slept with an elf.”

  “And weredeer,” Jane said. “But we won’t be telling anyone from our worlds about that.”

  Now I wanted to know if it was the same one. “What happened to William and Nancy?”

  “Back on their Earth,” Cindy said. “Which is good because those people are terrifying.”

  “They’ll be back,” Jane said.

  “I hope not,” Cindy said. “I mean, hot and cool but I’m a werewolf.”

  Jane rolled her eyes. “You’ll really not. You’re faux fur.”

  Cindy stuck out her tongue.

  Diabloman cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is, I apologize, Gary. I hope you will forgive me and not send me to the Shadow Dimension or Hell. If you do, though, I know plenty of people there and will be fine.”

  I stared at him. “Yeah, I forgive you.”

  “You do?” Diabloman said.

  “Things are not cool between us,” I said, taking a deep breath. “What happened to me with your sister hurt but I know what it’s like to do things you would not normally do for your loved ones. The craziness that it can induce.”

  “You tell ’em, Dad,” Leia said, starting to play a video game on her cellphone. I could hear the little pinning noises. “Oh, hey, Dad, can I spend two thousand dollars on buying my way to victory?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Ah,” Leia said. “But I’m almost Clan Leader of the Vikings!”

  “Grind like a normal gamer then,” I said. “The thing is, D, you were there for my family when I was imprisoned underground. So, I’m willing to look past that. Just don’t expect me to ever give your angel sister a warm welcome.”

  “That is fair,” Diabloman said, standing up. “Though I should probably mention things are a bit different in this timeline.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “You mean aside from Gabby and I being broken up, her dad being POTUS, and my daughters being allowed to go out dressed like Catholic girls in rock music videos! Shame!”

  “Seriously, Dad, our dresses go down to our knees,” Mindy said. “We could walk around in the Kingdom of Kharzakistan with the right scarf.”

  “I reserve the right to be an overprotective dad since you were elementary schoolers an hour ago,” I replied. “Except for both of you getting your GEDs after Kindergarten.”

  “They get it from my side of the family, ignoring that Mindy is part alien and unrelated to me,” Cindy said.

  “It’s certainly not me,” I replied. “I’m far too lazy to be a super genius.”

  Diabloman coughed into his fist. “I’m kind of married to Kerri now.”

  “Gah!” I exclaimed, horrified. “You’re my brother-in-law now?!”

  Diabloman stared. “Is that a problem?”

  “We’ll work on it,” I said, calming down. “In any case, I have come to a long and hard decision. I hope you guys will respect it.”

  “What’s that, Gary?” Cindy said. “I’ve got an impromptu Hawaiian vacation at five. You’re all invited if you don’t mind if it’s paid in embezzled campaign donations.”

  “For whom?” I asked.

  Cindy shrugged. “One party or the other. I’m the Wolf of Capitol Hill.”

  “I would be very surprised if you’re the only werewolf in Washington D.C.,” Case replied.

  I smirked. “I’m going back to supervillainy!”

  Everyone just muttered some variant of finally or took you long enough. That was when I saw a raven on a nearby lamppost fly away.

  I threw a fireball at it just in case.