by Matt Carter
One by one, the others reluctantly agreed with Blackjack. Of course, I had to be last. I had to be the one left steaming in anger and fear. I had to choose between the lifestyle I’d fought so hard for and survival. I had to make a choice that really wasn’t much of a choice at all.
“Yes,” I finally said. “I understand.”
#Supervillainy101: The Battle of Skull Landing
The history books paint World War II as a slam-dunk victory for America and her allies (but mostly America) due to the involvement of El Capitán and the Protectors, but in reality it was anything but. Though won in a few short years, Germany and her allies in Italy, Japan, Lemuria, and the Rebellious Imperial Possessions (Canada, India, and Egypt, among others) had amassed an impressive army of supers and mad scientists to their cause. The fights were fierce, literally changing the face of the earth, and it would have remained a bloody, years-long stalemate unless one side found some advantage to put them over the top.
Thankfully, America found that advantage first.
The Golem of Prague had been used by Jewish resistance fighters in Czechoslovakia. Twelve feet tall (and nearly as wide) and made of near-indestructible stone, it was incalculably strong and completely loyal to whoever had control over it. Taking it off the resistance fighters’ hands, the Protectors put it to good use breaking battle lines and destroying anyone who would dare defy them.
The Golem’s most dramatic use is generally regarded as the Battle of Skull Landing. A group of German scientists had set up a lab for experimental weapons, as well as unethical human genetic tampering and research into creating the Übermensch on a small island in the Mediterranean nicknamed “Skull Island,” probably because it was such a cheery place. The island was heavily fortified and had some of the strongest supers the Germans could have collected, including two artificially created Titans. Not wanting to risk any of the Protectors on taking the island, they simply air-dropped the Golem in and told it to wipe the island clean of any traces of life.
Three days later, the job was done. The Golem, covered in blood but otherwise none the worse for wear, had killed every living thing on the island. Not even plants and nesting seabirds survived its wrath.
America put the science and research obtained from the station to good use in pumping up the economy postwar, and the Golem has been one of the Protectors’ greatest heroes since.
#LessonLearned: Superheroes can be real assholes sometimes.
16
COLD VELOCIRAPTOR
I wish I knew who first came up with the term “cold turkey” so I could find them and shove some focus up their ass. I know, they’ve probably been dead for something like a hundred years, but if it takes years of research and finding a time machine to do so, I think I might.
Either way, they didn’t know what they were talking about. Turkeys are fat, waddling birds that taste good on sourdough with mayonnaise and don’t have much resembling a brain. I’ve heard some say they got a temper, and that they’re not that stupid, but in my limited experience with them, they always struck me as oversized chickens.
Withdrawal isn’t docile. It wouldn’t taste good on sourdough with mayonnaise. It’s ill-tempered and it claws at you, agonizing and constant like the worst sick and hunger you’ve ever felt.
Cold velociraptor always struck me as a more accurate name.
When Blackjack first dropped us back at the mansion, we made our way to the healing pods, seeing if they could clear our systems.
They couldn’t.
That would have been too easy.
They could heal broken bones, torn flesh, and most diseases, but they couldn’t rid our bodies of the drugs we flooded our systems with any better than they could have gotten rid of scars or tattoos. In a mad, desperate bid to find the easy way out, I spent close to a day calling Helios to see if maybe he could get me into some kind of rehab program that’d fix me up quick.
The only problem was, he didn’t answer. I knew he saw my calls and texts, I knew he read them and heard my voicemails, but I got nothing back. The one time I did get through (maybe he picked up by accident), the call was disconnected almost immediately. I raged and cried and wiped out an entire hallway of the mansion when I lost control of my powers. I bounced so many times between wanting to kill him and wondering what I did to make him hate me that the two extremes began to merge and I started wondering if he would hate me if I killed him (Ghost Girl could tell you).
It was on the second day when the withdrawal symptoms really started to kick in. That’s when things got real bad.
I hadn’t slept. I was awake and in the black all at once, and I was scared. I could hear screams and moans coming from down the hall. I was sweating and cold and throwing up when I didn’t have anything to throw up but bile with bits of blood in it. My powers were on the fritz, sometimes burying themselves deep, hiding when I needed them, other times exploding out unexpectedly and violently, taking most of my room with them. When I could think rationally, I thought of how I could make this better. I thought of asking Odigjod to take us off the island, of finding one of the dealers, of getting my hands on a little bit of Montage, just enough to take the edge off without setting off my Creeper.
This seemed like the greatest idea in the world. Agonizingly, I got to my feet and padded my way down the hall to Odigjod’s room. I knocked on his door. Nothing. Harder. Still nothing. I started pounding on it, screaming his name.
“Aidan. We need to talk,” Trojan Fox said.
“I’m busy.”
“We all are,” she said. “Everybody’s downstairs.”
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know, but everyone’s in the rec room and there’s some serious shit we need to clear up here.”
So that was where Odigjod was. Fine. I followed her. I’d even listen to her, some, but first chance I got, I was going to talk some sense into Odigjod.
The others were all stretched out on couches, all in pajamas, all looking as strung out and fried as I felt. Trojan Fox didn’t look much better. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair frizzed out, and her hands shaking heavily as she tried desperately to light a cigarette.
She waited for me to collapse on a couch before saying, “We’re on our own. The heroes don’t give two fucks about helping us. The only people who can, are us.”
“But they’re our friends!” I protested.
“No, they’re our captors!” she proclaimed back, stretching out her arms. “You hear that, you fucks? We all know what you are, and we won’t take it!”
“Are you done poking the sleeping dragon?” Geode asked.
“Oh they’re not sleeping. They’re just biding their time. It won’t suit them to deal with us off camera like this. No, they’re going to wait for something nice and public before they do anything to us. But until then, we have to get our acts together.”
“But I liked my act where it was before!” I complained.
“Yeah, and look where it got you. Look where it got all of us! This isn’t living! This is sedation!”
“So if we are sedated, what do you propose we do about it?” Nevermore asked, twirling a finger through her hair and coming away with a clump of it in her hand.
“We go cold turkey.” There’s that phrase again.
She continued, “We keep an eye on each other. We make sure we get better! If the five of us work together, I know we can survive this. So… are you all with me, or what?”
This wasn’t what we wanted. This wasn’t what we fought for. She had to know that. We wouldn’t give in so easi—
Wait, why did Odigjod stand to join her? And Geode? No, that wasn’t right, especially not Nevermore joining them, even if she did so very begrudgingly. She was the biggest party girl of us all, she would never join in on something this crazy!
She gave in to peer pressure.
Thunderhead was right, that is some really insidious shit.
No, this wasn’t right at all. Trojan Fox didn’t lead the team. I led the team. I was Apex
Strike! I was the greatest supervillain in the world. I knew what I had to do. I was going to outspeech her. I was going to convince the others that we could fight for our right to have fun and party. I would tell them how we had to appeal to the heroes, or maybe find some way of resisting them that wouldn’t tick them off.
I would be eloquent.
I would make them see the truth.
I stood up. I cleared my throat. I tried to say the words. When I couldn’t, I leapt at Trojan Fox with fists balled, shrieking about how none of this was fair and trying not to let the others wrestle me to the floor too quickly.
The next days and weeks followed a very similar pattern. I’d spend most of the day in bed, crying and cursing and occasionally screaming, drinking water whenever it was given to me, eating whatever food was brought my way. Some days the others would begin to rage like I did, putting me in the position of helping hold them down no matter how much I might have agreed with the way they felt. Trojan Fox was easy enough to deal with once we hid her legs, but Odigjod and Nevermore were really tough when they started to lose their shit. Between the two of their powers running amok and my seriously altered perceptions, the mansion looked like a goth nightmare for a few days.
I was pretty sure I was getting better.
I had to be, since I was feeling worse.
After a while, things started feeling more normal. Pain became more sharp. I started remembering life outside of the mansion, even going so far as wanting my mom and Helios to come and make this all better. After the first week, I stopped throwing up as much and was even able to keep some food down. I made trips to the kitchen in the middle of the night, grabbing cereal or some fruit, whatever my body felt like it could handle. I didn’t mess the bed anymore, and might have even started to get some real sleep, not in the black. Which was nice.
It was during one of these moments of blissful, real sleep that reality decided I’d had enough of a vacation from it and called me back.
With a cavalry charge.
An honest-to-God, trumpeting cavalry charge.
I woke up screaming, kicking my blankets aside.
“Betcha didn’t know I could play the trumpet, didja? You should see what I can do with a tuba, then we’ll really start rockin’.”
I knew that voice. I never thought I’d hear it again.
“Showstopper?”
He crossed the room to me, spinning the trumpet on his finger and smiling. His shadow was so wide it nearly blocked out the sun streaming in my windows.
“How’s that for a plot twist?” he mused, sitting at the edge of my bed. “One moment the tube closes around me and I think I’ve seen my last glimpse of the world, the next I’m out again and being told that I’m needed on the team because you guys fucked up so royal.”
Seeing him again was such a surprise, I couldn’t stop myself from diving across the bed and wrapping him in a huge bear hug.
“Okay, that was sweet for like the first three seconds, but now that I know you’re naked and you’re not letting go, it’s getting a little weird.”
“Sorry!” I said quickly, parting from him. “And we didn’t fuck up,” I clarified.
The look he gave me said that wasn’t good enough, so I added, “Not royal, at least.”
“You say to-may-to, the heroes say you fucked up royal, and with enough of ’em from the Empire to know royal, who am I to argue? Doesn’t matter to what degree you did or didn’t fuck this team you got up, because in your fucked-uppedness you got me paroled. So please, if you can find another way to fuck up that benefits me like that, fuck away.”
“I will,” I said, running a hand through my hair. I need a haircut.
“You smell like shit,” he said.
“Showers and me haven’t exactly been on speaking terms lately,” I said. I looked to the tray of food, and felt my stomach growl. “That your doing?”
“Yeah. Ghost Girl and me have been here about three weeks while you five have been playing your zombie game, making sure you didn’t die. You’ve all had it pretty rough, but you, mate, I thought you were going to die there for a while. Almost had me wishing they’d taken Spasm out instead of me. Almost.”
His words sunk in slowly. “You’ve been here three weeks?”
“Indeed we have. You guys needed a lot of time to recover. You really know how to party.”
“And Ghost Girl’s with you!” I said, leaping to my feet (well, trying to leap at least).
“Yeah. She and the others took a field trip up to the Chin to try and get some fresh air.” I started for the door. “Well, let’s go then!”
“Need I remind you about your still being naked?”
“Right,” I said. I found some boxers, shoes, and a bathrobe, and gobbled down the sandwich he’d put at my nightstand as we left my room and headed to the Chin.
“By the way, you do know that dick pic you tweeted is one of the most retweeted in the world, right?”
“That happened?” I asked, feeling green.
“Oh yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“Well, it’s not all bad…”
My muscles started to scream after the first few steps from the house. My lungs hadn’t had a breath of fresh air in ages and started to complain, and the sun felt like it was searing my skin off. I wanted to go back to the mansion and just wait for them to return, but Showstopper prodded me, and I kept pressing on.
We made it to the Chin in good time. I could hear laughing. Talking. Happiness. Real happiness.
When we finally climbed to them, I could see that they had a bag of golf clubs and were using them to chip balls into the jungle. Geode used his superstrength to send one sailing far into the distance, causing a large ripple when it bounced off the force field. Odigjod and Trojan Fox laughed, exchanging high fives. Nevermore went up next, and through summoning her pendulum tattoo managed to match Geode’s shield-hitter. I couldn’t quite read her smile at first, before I realized that it was genuine. Has anyone ever seen that?
And there she was. Ghost Girl. She was dressed in civilian clothes (loose, but flattering), but still wore that creepy porcelain doll mask to cover her face.
She was a sight for sore eyes.
“Hey guys, who’s winning?” Showstopper asked, pulling a club from the bag.
Everyone turned to us. The more I looked at them, the more I saw that they were every bit as haggard as I, but their happiness was infectious. Ghost Girl’s eyes briefly flashed gold on me, but as ever she remained difficult to read.
I didn’t care.
I hobbled to her, throwing my arms around her neck.
“I’ve missed you.”
“I noticed,” she said. Her voice was neutral. She made no move to hug me back. What the hell?
We separated, quietly. I knew we never got the chance to say good-bye to each other, but I thought she’d have looked on me a little more fondly than that.
“So the gang’s all here now, is it?” Showstopper asked. “Feels like we oughta celebrate. Whaddya do for fun ’round here?”
“Party with celebrities and do a lot of drugs,” I said, eyes never leaving Ghost Girl. She barely acknowledged my existence. Maybe she wouldn’t be so cold if she’d been here with us…
Or maybe she just doesn’t like being sent to the Tower while we fucked everything up out here.
“No, I meant what do you really do for fun around here?” Showstopper asked, laughing.
“He’s serious,” Ghost Girl said. Showstopper looked to the others for confirmation, and they nodded.
“I thought they were joking when they told us to keep you out of trouble,” Showstopper said. “Well, fuck me, that changes things some.”
“We could stay here. Video games. Board games. Odigjod has always wanted to learn Twister,” Odigjod said.
“No, no, that won’t do,” Showstopper said, shaking his head. “You’ve been cooped up too long. We need to take you out. Do something fun.”
“But with no alcohol or dr
ugs,” Trojan Fox grumbled.
“Right. Wholesome. Got it. Who’s got a tablet?” Showstopper asked. Odigjod tossed his to Showstopper, and within minutes he was rattling off ideas and shooting them down before we could say anything for or against. As ever, he had the energy of a puppy and enough power to keep us all just the slightest bit afraid of him.
Like old times…
“Boom, got it!” Showstopper exclaimed, his smile broadening like a kid on Christmas morning. “There’s a Mary Rising tonight. Any of you ever been to one?”
I’d always heard those were pretty cool, but had never actually been to one because my parents didn’t want to make the trip.
It wasn’t going out and partying with superheroes, but it could be fun. The others must have thought the same, because nobody opposed the idea.
So we were going to a Mary Rising. Cool.
Maybe there I’d get to find out just what Ghost Girl’s problem was.
#Supervillainy101: Mary
Have you ever heard of the Grand Sorceror? No? I don’t blame you. Although he was a fairly famous superhero back in the Golden Age, he was almost scrubbed completely from the history books because he kinda created one of the twentieth century’s most dangerous supervillains.
You see, our friend the Sorceror had a problem keeping it in his pants, and this came back to bite him when he knocked up some school marm in rural Pennsylvania. She became obsessed with him and started following him everywhere, begging him to take care of her and their unborn child, but he wanted nothing to do with her. When she threatened to make this misfortune public, he arranged a magic spell to silence her permanently. Instead, he mispronounced one word in the spell and wound up killing her with an as yet unknown curse. He dumped her in an abandoned coal mine in Centralia, wiped his hands, and presumably walked away whistling whatever superheroes in the 20s whistled.
Unfortunately, the mine he dumped her in was severely haunted from a cave-in and cursed by said cave-in’s victims. This, combined with the Sorceror’s botched curse, transformed the unknown school marm into Mary, a hulking, thirteen-foot-tall, one-thousand-pound zombie with no real memory or intelligence but enough rage and superhuman strength (enough to give the Golem a run for its money) to more than make up for it. Time and again she has fought the Protectors, sometimes on her own, sometimes after having been roped in by some supervillain team or another, and time and again she’s proven herself to be a force of nature. Every time she’s killed, she appears ninety-six days later in that same mine, clawing her way to the surface and ready to rampage. Her clockwork resurrections and the superheroes killing her have created a booming tourist industry in the area.
