by Matt Carter
Carnivore sat up, the snarl on his face turning to a vague smile. “Awww, how sweet. We love you too, babykins…”
His smile curled into a yipping laugh, and for some insane reason we all found it hard not to join in, maybe, just maybe, because there was something about laughing all at once that made us feel like a team, even for just this moment.
So, of course, that’s when the light went green.
“IT’S TIME! SUIT UP!” I yelped, too loud, trying to keep the nerves from coming back entirely. Odigjod and Geode transformed into the larger, hulking, monstrous forms our image consultants had devised for them. Carnivore roared, pounding on his chest. Trojan Fox closed the last few plates of her suit.
I didn’t have anything cool to do like them, but I did close my visor and strike a pose so I wouldn’t be left out.
Odigjod placed one of his massive, shaggy hands on my shoulder. Though he looked like a big, goofy Muppet, the way his neon green fur wriggled like worms still unsettled me.
“Now?” he asked.
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to put this off as long as possible. I wanted to get over this stage fright that wouldn’t leave. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I didn’t want to go to the Tower. I wanted a lot of things, but going now wasn’t one of them and it wouldn’t be—
We disappeared in a puff of smoke. Seconds later, I fell six feet to the ground in the middle of a busy street. I would have landed on my knees, hard, but the miniature anti-grav generators they’d built into my shin pads (the same kind they put into all girls’ tops and high heels to keep them looking hot and functional all at once) helped me land, and get back to my feet, looking cool and smooth.
Buildings towered all around me, some old, some modern, some so tall they blotted out the sun. Cars, buses, and taxis drove around me, honking, while hundreds of people on the sidewalks went about their daily lives, unaware that everything was about to change.
Welcome to Amber City.
I had to be the first. Everyone knew me, and I would look like the leader if I was first, especially if the team started appearing around me one at a time. I wanted to wait for them to show before doing anything, but I knew that wasn’t part of the plan.
Focus.
With arms raised and cape billowing behind me, I brought down several streetlights and signals, smashing them into cars. The hundreds of people walking the streets now noticed me, and all screamed at once.
We weren’t supposed to kill anyone, and we weren’t supposed to hurt them all that badly, so I really had to hold back my focus, but I think I made a good show of it. I stomped on the ground, sending out a wave of focus that blew out tires for a block, and waved at a few nearby office buildings, shattering all their windows.
People ran, screaming my name in terror. More importantly, they pulled out their cell phones to get this on video. Some braver, or at least stupider, souls even tried for selfies with me in frame.
Odigjod soon brought in Geode, who made a fine entrance by doubling his crystalline size and ripping a bus in half, followed by Carnivore, who chased after people and used his powerful claws to rip into cars as if they were made of tissue paper. Trojan Fox, Nevermore, and Circus, who started jumping around on a cartoony, powerful, and very destructive pogo stick, came right after, leaving Odigjod (Hellspawn) the last to make an official entrance.
I climbed on top of a ruined bus half, sending enough focus behind me to make my cape look dramatic.
Time to remember my speech.
I turned up the volume from my helmet’s speakers, turning it into a bullhorn that people would be able to hear from blocks away.
“CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, PAY ATTENTION! THE AGE OF THE SUPERHERO IS AT AN END! TOO LONG YOU HAVE LIVED IN COMPLACENCY WITH THEIR PROTECTION, AND NOW YOU WILL PAY FOR IT! WE ARE THE NEW OFFENDERS! WE ARE VILLAINY REBORN, AND NONE OF YOU ARE SAFE!”
A familiar voice came in my ear. “Nice job. Very dramatic.”
“THANKS!”
“Cut the loudspeakers, Aidan.”
“Sorry, Adam.”
“It happens. Make your way to the bank. We’ll be there in three.”
“You got it.”
“And Aidan?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Helios when we’re in costume.”
“Got it. Sorry.” I’d gotten used to being on a first name basis with him, but had to remember we were on the job now, so I had to keep in character.
I rushed to join the rest of the team when I heard gunshots. Cops. They weren’t part of the plan. Fear gripped me. Our suits were bulletproof, right? Nevermore projected a brick wall in front of the cops, deflecting their bullets while Trojan Fox cut their guns to pieces with her lasers. All right, back on track.
With one strike from his massive right arm, Geode ripped open the front of the bank. Beams of hellfire and lasers from Odigjod and Trojan Fox opened up the vault, leaving Circus and the giant cartoon sack (with a oversized dollar sign on the front) he’d created to clear out the cash. I stepped up on an abandoned mailbox to give another speech, while Geode, Carnivore, and Nevermore kept the crowd in check (which, per their assigned personas, meant Geode stayed silent and intimidating, Carnivore paced around snapping and yipping, and Nevermore kissed a guard before punching him out). It was going like clockwork.
“We’re gonna be there in thirty. You loaded that playlist I gave you into your suit, right?” Helios asked.
“Yeah,” I said again.
“Cue up ‘Ballroom Blitz’ by the Sweet and press play when you throw the mailbox. I know it’s before your time, but it’ll add a lot to the fight. I’m gonna do the same.”
“Will do.”
“And Apex?”
“Yeah?”
“Have fun.”
I smiled as I cued up the song. “Yeah.”
A Tri-Hole opened in the middle of the bank, sparkling and green. As we were taught, we struck dramatic poses, ready for battle. That’s right everyone, just keep taking pictures.
Even though I was still afraid, I was smiling under my visor and ready to put on a show.
Helios came out first, glorious and golden in his full costume, along with the rest of the archnemeses. We traded our scripted banter back and forth, him calling for our surrender, me telling him to fuck off, but with PG-13 words so our battle could be shown on the evening news. He gave us one last chance to surrender. Per the script, I flung some debris at him, and I started the song.
He was right, it did add to the fight.
Actually, it was about the only fun I had. I spent so much time focusing on the choreography, so many times trying not to miss a punch or a demonstration of my powers, that I couldn’t really get lost in the moment. Oh sure, I could improvise some, like when I needed to catch my breath and took a few human shields when our battle spilled out onto the street, but for the most part I had to stick to the script.
There were two main reasons for this:
1. Because the scripted battle would look cool as hell.
2. Following the script would keep us from getting really hurt.
Number two was the real important one. Our suits were designed to absorb a lot of abuse so we wouldn’t have to, but they could only do so much. When you’re flung to the ground by a telekinetic superhero, no amount of padding and rolling and telekinetic shielding is going to keep you from getting bruised. Or tasting blood. Or hearing the kind of pop in your knee that sends fire up your spine and makes you cry out like a little girl.
Looks like you’ll have to spend some time in one of the healing pods after all.
I could protect myself with my powers, some, but not like Helios. He had to act more than I did whenever I hit him with my powers, or flung a piece of debris at his face. He was in better shape, so he didn’t need to constantly find excuses to catch his breath, but I held to the script. I didn’t break character.
I was a good villain.
And like any good villain, I knew when to call our retreat.
I turned my outer speakers on full blast. “YOU WILL REGRET THIS, HELIOS!”
“As you will regret KILLING MY FRIEND!” he roared back, really selling the line as he shot energy beams from his hands to split the street in front of me. I rolled out of the way—as we’d planned—and focused on the marquee. It collapsed on the screaming people.
“NOW, HELIOS, YOU CAN LET US GO… OR LET THEM DIE!!!”
The look on his face was pained, with maybe the slightest bit of overacting so people further away could see. Still, he flew to help the trapped citizens. If I were watching this on TV, I’d wonder why; the marquee was cheap wood and plaster and most of the people could have freed themselves if they wanted to, but it was expected of him as a hero.
I turned the speakers off. “Odigjod, get us out of here.”
“Understood.” He appeared and disappeared in several puffs of smoke, taking Circus, Nevermore, Trojan Fox, and Geode with him. I was setting up for my grand finale, leveling a nearby, ancient tenement that the Protectors said I could destroy to my heart’s content, when I heard Carnivore cry out in pain. I turned around to see that a silver arrow had pierced his chest. Another soon erupted from his stomach. Silver Shrike and Morningstar followed the arrows by violently beating him to the ground, soon joined by Fifty-Fifty and Extreme Man. They tied him up and haloed him and almost made me forget to destroy the tenement in my shock.
This wasn’t part of the script.
I kept up my end. I focused on the building as people ran out, screaming. Odigjod appeared, grabbed my shoulder, and in a flash I was back in the Green Room.
The others were cheering and out of breath, ditching pieces of costume as they celebrated our first success. I removed my helmet and tried not to look too confused.
Nevermore grabbed me by the shoulders and planted a hot, wet kiss on my mouth. She tasted of lip balm and blood, but I suddenly didn’t mind so much.
“When this is done, let’s go to my room and fuck. God, villainy makes me so horny,” she whispered, chewing on my ear until it actually started to hurt.
Odigjod had disappeared right after dropping me off, and he was gone for a good minute before returning and transforming back to his usual, small self.
“Carnivore?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Went to rescue him, but the heroes wouldn’t let me get close enough and said to leave; that Carnivore was now their prisoner.”
I was glad, but not as glad as I thought I’d be. It must have been shock, but I’d have to get over it. They must have had their reasons for not telling us they were going to capture Carnivore, and I was sure they would fill us in.
“Hey guys,” Circus said, opening his massive sack of money, “who wants to get drunk, roll around naked in forty million dollars cash, and watch how much ass we kicked on YouTube?”
Doing that with Circus, no way. The same with Nevermore…
“Can I borrow some of it first?” I asked.
#Supervillainy101: The Face Thief
The Face Thief was one of the earliest members of the Game-master’s Rogues’ Gallery, and though his career was never as notable as Bad Bug’s, his ability to transform himself into anyone he’d ever touched made him a successful art thief and a recurrent thorn in the Gamemaster’s side. However, when remembered in the history books, the Face Thief’s embarrassing end is often given more attention than his decades-long career in villainy.
Paranoid and antisocial in his later years after a few betrayals by underlings and the rise of the Protectors, he’d become reclusive and violent, rarely leaving his lair so he could keep a constant watch on his vast collection of art, which he carefully kept in crates in a high-tech, hermetically sealed vault, away from prying eyes and thieving hands. After a while he stopped leaving his house at all, and even the Gamemaster forgot about him with how busy the War on Villainy had kept him.
After his numerous battles with the Gamemaster, it wasn’t the Protectors who uncovered his hidden lair, but the bank. After the water and electricity had been shut off, a repossession team entered the Face Thief’s mansion. His mummified body was found locked in his vault, pinned under a crate that had fallen on him. All evidence pointed to him having bled to death after trying to eat his left hand.
#LessonLearned: What good is being a villain if you can’t enjoy the spoils of villainy?
13
DRUMMERS & DRAGONS
After a few hours of sitting in a healing pod for my cuts, bruises, and knee, I wouldn’t have thought I was in need of any more R&R time, but when Adam announced that I looked tense and offered a day at a spa, I wasn’t going to turn him down.
Madame Kedist’olara’s was not quite what you’d expected in a celebrity day spa. I mean, it was in Hollywood, it did have a lot of fruity iced drinks and a few hours there did cost more than a year at a half-decent community college, but its design as a traditional Lemurian bathhouse pretty much ended the similarities.
It had to be more than a hundred degrees inside, with near complete humidity. The carved stone in the walls made it look like we were walking through a cave, and the walls were dripping with water. The spa treatments involved a lot of heavy massages, being rubbed down in fragrant oils, and having layers of dead skin and body hair scraped away with glowing Lemurian daggers. According to Adam, these ancient techniques were designed by scalefaces to make shedding their skin a social event, and were considered quite trendy.
I just wanted to make it through the day with some of my skin still intact.
The scaleface women massaging us wore nothing but thin satin sashes tied around their waists, which would have been pretty hot if they had breasts, or hips, or any definable curves.
It was like being massaged by freakishly strong Olympic gymnasts covered in scales. Fucking non-mammalian biology.
I yelped in pain when mine started working on my lower back.
“I keep telling you to relax,” Adam said from the massage table across from me.
“I thought I was relaxed.”
“Not,” my masseuse said.
“It shouldn’t be this bad,” Adam said.
“Well I’m hot and missing skin and sore and, and—”
No, I wouldn’t go that far.
“And what?” he asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“No, really, what’s on your mind?” Adam asked, turning over. His towel fell away, and I had to turn my head to avoid seeing his superhero cock.
I didn’t want to tell him what was bothering me. We’d grown friendly in the weeks we’d been archnemeses. Adam was a better friend than I ever had back home, and was almost as good as some of the others I’d met on Death Island. Better even, in ways that only being famous could improve.
“Is it safe to talk, with them here?” I asked.
“Of course it is. They barely speak a lick of English and owe their citizenship and paychecks to Crystal Skull. You’re not gonna say anything, are you, love?” Adam asked, trailing a hand up his masseuse’s side.
“Not,” she said, digging her hands into his chest and abs.
“Fine,” I said, letting the words spill out. “Just what the hell happened with Carnivore? I mean, I hate the guy, but why did you capture him and not tell us? Was that always part of the plan or was that just something that came up? And, and… why are you laughing?”
“Because you babble when you’re nervous, and if you’re so nervous that you’re gonna continue to babble, then we’re gonna have to work harder to get you to relax,” he said, then muttering something quickly in Lemurian. My masseuse then flipped me onto my back and pulled my towel away. She bent down, putting her head between my thighs.
“Not struggle,” she said, getting me hard with a flick of her forked tongue.
“She’s right, you don’t want to fuck around
with all those teeth. But those lips are a lot softer than they look.”
That wasn’t exactly comforting. She wasn’t beautiful in any way, and those rows of many small, pointed reptilian teeth did look frightening, but when she took me in her mouth, all my concerns seemed to fade away.
He was right, her lips were a lot softer than they looked.
His masseuse then did the same. I had a crazy, fleeting thought I had to get out: “Does your, oh God, does Adriana know?”
Adam closed his eyes, but didn’t falter. “She knows that a man has needs, and that I’m a man, so she’s okay. But she’s faithful to me, God love her. So, about Carnivore…”
“Can’t we talk about that later?” I asked, running my hand through the short blue feathers that grew at the base of my masseuse’s skull and trailed down her spine.
“There’s never any time like the present,” Adam said. “You ever been in a band? No, of course not, you’d have gotten laid earlier. Every band member plays a specific part. You got your front-man lead singer, you got the nerd on the keys, you got the hot girl singing backup and occasionally hitting a tambourine but mostly just standing there looking hot. Then you got your drummer. The drummer’s the wild man, the one who lives hard and dies of a drug overdose after a year or two, then is immediately replaced by another drummer who’ll repeat the process. If you were in a band, Carnivore would be your drummer.”
Everything went blank for a moment as the scaleface finished me off, slurping with her forked tongue before cleaning the rest with a towel. Adam was nice enough to let me finish before continuing. He wasn’t in as big a hurry to finish.
“You need drummers because they make you look like bad guys. We need you to have drummers because we wouldn’t look good if we let you all get away. We stop you, we capture one of the real sick, scary villains people wouldn’t want on the street, the crowd goes wild, and everybody goes home happy.”
“But couldn’t you have at least told us first? I mean, what if we’d been so surprised something bad had happened?”
