The Rules of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 1)

by C. T. Phipps

  Oh God.

  My eyes widened.

  “Hello, Gary,” Ultragoddess said, looking down. “Long time no see.”

  “Gabby?” I whispered.

  Chapter Twenty

  America’s Sweetheart and I Hash Things Out

  All the immense joy, happiness, and (let’s be honest) love I felt for her was drowned out by the staggering amount of anger I felt. “YOU BRAINWASHED ME INTO FORGETTING YOUR SECRET IDENTITY?”

  “Gary, calm down.”

  “Don’t you tell me to calm down!” I shouted at my cloak.

  “Who is he talking to?” the Red Schoolgirl asked in Japanese.

  “His magical cloak,” General Venom said. “They contain the souls of their dead users.”

  “Cool!” the Red Schoolgirl said. “Like my katana.”

  “You just think it’s haunted,” General Venom said.

  Gabrielle blanched before looking to one side. “I’m sorry, Gary, I truly am. I realized after you were kidnapped that I was putting you in danger by our association. I could stand anything the supervillains of the world could do to me but I wasn’t willing to risk your life. I’d break if anything happened to you. I had to make a choice. I chose to serve the world. I heard you got married in the meantime. I hope you’re very happy.”

  I shook with outrage. “This is not about you! This is about trust! This is about basic decency! How could you?”

  The Red Schoolgirl zoomed with an inhuman speed underneath me, holding her blade next to my throat. “Do not speak to sempai like that.”

  That was when a gigantic Ultra-Force hand grabbed the Red Schoolgirl in a fist then slapped her up against the side of the wall.

  Ultragoddess’ voice narrowed. “Do.Not.Touch.Him.”

  The Bronze Medalist snorted. “Girl, one of the first things I learned about relationships was don’t you ever try and get in between an argument with lovers. They will chew you up and spit you out.”

  “I get that,” the Red Schoolgirl said in a squeaky voice. “Can’t breathe.”

  Ultragoddes dismissed the giant hand. “I’m sorry, Motoko, but this is none of your business.”

  I felt the sides of my head, a migraine coming on. “Words cannot express how pissed off I am. I am going to have to invent a new word to explain how angry I am. Karflagled. I am so karflagled off at you right now!”

  “See, this is why I date men. Less drama,” the Bronze Medalist said, pointing at me.

  “You don’t have a right to complain, Gary,” the Black Witch said. “You went off and got married a few months later. Not exactly much room to reconcile.”

  Gabrielle took a deep breath. “I may have encouraged him to find happiness for himself.”

  The Black Witch’s eyes widened.

  “Cloak, tell me that I wasn’t brainwashed into finding Mandy,” I said, my voice pleading.

  “No, you were just desperate and emotionally vulnerable from my examination of your memories. Surprisingly charming, though. I think it helped she was coming off a bad breakup herself.”

  “Thank God,” I muttered.

  “SO THIS IS YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND?” The Human Tank said in a robotic synthesized voice.

  “Sort of,” Gabrielle said, looking up to me. “We were engaged for like a minute. That was sort of a crisis point.”

  I remembered the ring now. I’d forgotten I’d bought it and wondered where all my savings had gone. She’d kept it, it seemed. I then noticed a tiny ring-shaped bulge hanging from inside her costume around her neck.

  I shook my head. “Listen, Gabby, we will talk about this but we have a lot of stuff going on, right now.”

  “HEY, WATCH IT WITH THE SECRET IDENTITY,” the Human Tank said. “SHE’S VERY SENSETIVE ABOUT THAT.”

  “No kidding!” I snapped.

  “We know it, though,” General Venom said.

  “Who are you people, anyway?” I asked, looking around the three. “I know who you all are, obviously, but I’m surprised to see you working together.”

  Gabrielle sighed and put her hands on her hips. “We’re the Shadow Seven.”

  I stared at her. “Running a blank here.”

  “Because it’s a secret team,” General Venom said. “A group of mixed heroes and villains who run missions for the Society of Superheroes off the books against corrupt organizations which can’t be legally fought.”

  I sputtered. “Superheroes can’t be anti-establishment!”

  “I confess, that is awfully shady,” Cloak said, concerned. “Combined with this Star Chamber-esque court, extraordinary rendition, off-world prison, and so on—I can’t help but feel the Society is losing its way.”

  “That’s not what I mean! You’re stealing the whole point of being a supervillain!” I had never been more offended in my life.

  “Gary, are you a supervillain?” Gabrielle asked, horrified.

  “Uh...kind of?”

  “Ha-ha-ha!” the Black Witch laughed, grabbing her face. “Oh this is priceless.”

  “What did you do?” Bronze Medalist asked.

  I felt queasy. “I killed the Extreme. All of them.”

  There was a shocked silence and the Shadow Seven exchanged glances. Then everyone, except Gabrielle, started clapping.

  Tough crowd.

  Gabrielle stared at me, not condemning but concerned. “Gary, the Extreme did a lot of black operations for various governments. Horrible but necessary things for a lot of very important people. They’re going to find you and throw you in a hole.”

  “As opposed to the hole your father threw me in,” I said, sarcastically.

  “The Extreme were monsters,” the Black Witch said. “They murdered Sally Arcane and god knows how many others.”

  “They were—” General Venom started to say.

  “You don’t get to speak,” the Black Witch said.

  I paused, realizing something. “Wait a damned minute; I saw about half of you coming in to the prison. You were all locked up.”

  “Well, not all of us,” the Bronze Medalist said. “I get to chill out in N.A. when not saving the world.”

  “We watch the others in the prison for trouble in-between missions,” the Black Witch said. “Obviously, we were doing a piss-poor job.”

  I was appalled. They were prison snitches. How could Gabrielle have fallen so far to employ such?

  “Your sense of morality is decidedly warped.”

  “Hello...Supervillain.”

  Cloak sighed.

  “Also, why are you the Shadow Seven?” I asked. “There’re only six of you.”

  “On our last mission, Exsanguinator was possessed by a demon the Dark Undermaster summoned. It forced him to kill his family and we were forced to kill him. Gabby drove an Ultraforce stake through his heart then made a lamp which conjured real sunlight to destroy him,” the Red Schoolgirl said, looking back at her.

  “It is a reminder how dangerous the battle against evil can be,” General Venom said. “Those who commit crimes may laugh at the righteous and exchange derisive glances but in the future it will be the righteous who laugh last.”

  “I don’t think you get to claim righteousness after forty years of domestic terrorism,” I said, shaking my head. “Why are you with this guy?”

  “To save lives,” Gabrielle said, looking at the Decontamination area then back at me. “Do you know the situation?”

  “He does,” Cloak said, volunteering me. “He’s also happy to help get it under control.”

  I grimaced. I wasn’t eager to make an enemy of Tom Terror but I wasn’t about to deny them either.

  “I can’t offer you a pardon for multiple murders,” Gabrielle said, staring. “A lot of the Society of Superheroes believe the Extreme were heroes and deserving of our protection, even if I think they undermined everything they stood for. I will, however, help you get away, if you agree to assist us. There’re thousands of noncombatants here in Avalon, and the idiots rioting have released things of which they can’t pos
sibly understand the dangers.”

  “Oh, someone understands the danger,” I said, looking at her. “Everyone else is expendable.”

  “Tom Terror,” Gabrielle hissed. “He is the only person I would break the first rule of superheroism for.”

  “Gabrielle, are you sure this is a good idea?” the Black Witch stuck her thumb out at me. “I know this guy as well as you. He couldn’t kill time. I can’t believe he killed the Extreme.”

  “Things change,” I said, then grit my teeth. “I’m not exactly operating at my best, though, since my powers are being suppressed.”

  Gabrielle nodded. “Computer, authorize ambient magical energy field withdrawal for prisoner Gary Karkofsky. Code: Ketra-18.”

  “Authorization granted,” the computer’s voice said.

  Like someone was removing a blindfold from my eyes, I felt the power of the Reaper’s Cloak return to me. My head filled with all manner of mystical information which I didn’t even realize had been downloaded into my subconscious. Conjuring a snowball in one hand and a ball of fire in my other, I made then dissipate before nodding to them. “Okay, I promise to help you save this place. Just so we’re clear, though, I’m only doing it because you returned my powers to me and not at all because I think a universe without the Society of Superheroes would scarcely be worth thinking about.”

  “Okay...” Gabrielle trailed off, confused.

  “I have to preserve my supervillain credibility,” I said, putting my hand over my heart.

  “WHO ACTUALLY SELF-IDENTIFIES AS A SUPERVILLAIN?” The Human Tank said. “THAT’S LIKE CLAIMING YOU’RE EVIL.”

  “I am evil,” I said, smiling. “The wickedest of the wicked. Everyone is hero of their own story but me, who is most certainly the villain protagonist.”

  “You do realize the whole Fraternity of Supervillains thing is meant to be ironic, right?” General Venom asked.

  “I don’t think he does,” the Red Schoolgirl said.

  “We’ve wasted enough time,” Gabrielle said, gesturing with her head down the hall. “Gary, you take the front with me.”

  “I do not see what Mandy sees in you,” the Black Witch muttered.

  “I am a fantastic lover,” I said.

  The Black Witch looked over at Gabrielle.

  Gabrielle stared back daggers.

  The Black Witch took position in the rear, deciding it’d be better to get as far away from her as possible.

  I decided to ask one of them about the decision, not wanting to talk to Gabrielle just yet. “Bronze Medalist—”

  “I actually won two gold medals and one bronze. Yet, for some reason, they call me Bronze Medalist. Can you guess why?”

  “Uh—”

  “It’s because people think of getting the bronze medal as losing. Which is ridiculous. It means two people in the world are faster than I at track and field. Two. I think that’s something to be proud of.”

  “Yes!” I said, grimacing. “I agree!”

  “You realize he’s playing with you, right?” Cloak said.

  “Not going to risk it,” I whispered. “I don’t suppose anyone is going to tell me what is going on?”

  Gabrielle led me down a hall to an observation deck which showed the main part of Avalon, the miniature city outside the temple where the majority of the citizenry lived in addition to the heroes. The place was presently under attack by two gigantic creatures which would give H.P. Lovecraft nightmares.

  The first was made of countless corpses sewn together and fused into a hideous vaguely humanoid form, the corpses all still animated with the souls of the damned and depraved who were forced to serve as the monster’s host body for all time as their punishment.

  The second being was a construct composed of monstrous eyes formed into a whip-like tentacle which reflected horrific atrocities from all the world’s various wars and genocides, things I felt a brief experience of looking at it before glancing away.

  They were flinging out spells and grabbing up citizens to add to their nightmarish frames. It was as if someone had combined a vision of the Inferno with a Godzilla movie.

  My response was succinct. “What.The.Hell.”

  Gabrielle crossed her arms. “Gog and Magog.”

  “The monsters from the Torah?” I said, staring.

  “Yes,” Gabrielle said, staring. “Nephilim born of Azazel and imprisoned in Hell after the Spiritual Flood. They’re just some of the many horrors from the Old Testament summoned by the Devil King to vex the Society. These two will not stop until they have killed everyone here and then they will descend upon the Earth, with or without gear to transport them.”

  I stared at him. “Tom Terror unleashed this as a distraction too.”

  “Yes,” Gabrielle said. “He infiltrated P.H.A.N.T.O.M agents into the staff as well as corrupt ones to get many of his followers their equipment. These things will kill the Earth’s people if they can, but Tom will gladly turn the world into ashes if it means he can be king of them.”

  “What about the other heroes?” I asked.

  “They’re busy with other threats,” Gabrielle said. “Equally bad ones.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’ll stop these.”

  “Thank you, Gary.”

  “For Mandy.”

  Gabrielle looked down. “I see.”

  “You know, I always thought the monsters of the Torah would be less...literal,” I muttered.

  “Live and learn,” Gabrielle said, smacking her fist. She then blew out the observation deck windows and flew off.

  The Human Tank smashed her fists together and said, “LET’S KILL THESE BITCHES.” She then ignited her rocket pack before wings stretched out from her backpack and she took off into the air.

  The others followed, each content to fight for the world.

  While I had been content to rule it.

  Damn, did I feel lousy.

  Scared too.

  This was way above my paygrade.

  “This is why I kept the Solar Devastator around. You never know when you’re going to be facing Kaiju.”

  I took to the air, levitating. “Cloak, shut up.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Where I Earn My Maccabean Street Cred

  As terrifying as their current skyscraper-sized forms were and as keenly aware as I was it wouldn’t take that much for one of them to puncture a hole in the side of Avalon’s dome to kill us all, it helped to remember Gog and Magog weren’t newcomers.

  Again, I hadn’t realized the Nephilim were literally the creatures from my rabbi’s lessons I’d learned growing up, but I’d heard of giant monsters going by that name fought by the Society before. It said something about the kind of world we lived in that this was something I only vaguely recalled.

  “Gog is the stronger of the two,” Cloak said, his voice a low whisper. “The smarter as well. He will spawn all manner of horrors from himself and make deals with mortals to subjugate the world in the service of Chaos. Magog, by contrast, is nothing more than a mindless force of destruction.”

  As I levitated towards the two towering monsters, Magog spit forth a house-sized ball of hellfire toward a crowd of people. Bronze Medalist got all but a pair of them away as it descended, only for me to grab both and turn us insubstantial. Because the fire was magical, I lowered us to the level underneath us and dropped them before ascending.

  “Yeah, I’m getting all sorts of warm and fuzzy feelings from the creature spoken of as one of the primordial enemies of Israel.”

  “He may try to murder you first.”

  “...seriously?”

  “When we say these things are literally the things from the Old Testament, we’re not making fun. They follow the rules of the masks they wear.”

  Shadow Team Seven divided into groups. General Venom used an energy-construct pegasus and his energy sword to fire blasts of light at Magog while encircling him. Bronze Medalist evacuated as many people as he could from the area before starting to use his inertia to send mass
ive chunks of debris at it. Black Witch unleashed pretty much every offensive spell in Dungeons and Dragons, attempting to strike down the massive corpse creature. The Human Tank did what tanks did best, firing at it repeatedly. The Red Schoolgirl assaulted the dozens of corpses falling from its body to form a miniature zombie apocalypse.

  Which left Gabrielle to face Gog alone.

  She started by conjuring a building-sized Ultraforce claw hammer and then wailing the crap out of it.

  Then got nasty.

  I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I could bring to bear in this encounter but I’d made a promise I intended to keep. I might not be winning any Humanitarian of the Year awards given I was a bank robber and multiple murderer but I had standards, dammit, and I intended to keep to them. I would probably come to regret that but, fortunately, would in all likelihood die before that became an issue.

  “You frighten me,” Cloak said.

  “I try,” I said, cheerfully.

  In the end, I decide my best strategy was to join the Red Schoolgirl in destroying the various zombie demons which were falling off the side of Magog. Despite being made up of countless corpses fused together, more than the entire population of Avalon put together, Magog was shedding bodies like dandruff. These bodies, rather than rejoice at being freed, started moaning and running at anyone they could attack.

  Icing their legs, I proceeded to hurl handfuls of fire at their faces. “I’m not a huge fan of zombie fiction. I make the occasional exception in video games but I’ve got to say, the number of knock-offs lately are saturating the market.”

  My fire seemed to have a surprising effect on the creatures, every single ball of flame I hit them with caused the zombies to catch fire before burning to nothing in seconds. It took me a second to realize why that was before I remembered the Reaper’s Cloak was designed to send wayward souls on their way. I may put the psycho in psycho pomp, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take advantage of that fact.