by Matt Carter
A massive shadow stood silhouetted in the green, pulling itself out by the edges of the mine.
Then they turned the lights on her.
We’d all seen pictures of Mary, but it was another thing seeing her in person. With flat, gray skin, patchy, almost non-existent white hair, and a muscular physique that almost made her look to be a giant gorilla, she barely looked female, let alone a former human. Only her tattered black funerary dress gave her any clear identity. Her flat, ugly face contorted on seeing the light, her massive lips and broken teeth curling into a grimace. She raised one giant hand to block the light as she looked around at the audience, confused.
“Have you seen my lamb?” she asked, her voice high and pitiful.
In a flash, the heroes were on her. Photon ran around her at superspeed, creating a disorienting whirlwind that unsteadied Mary on her feet. Helios and Shooting Star flew around her, unleashing energy blasts from their hands, while Armada unleashed everything from his impressive arsenal of experimental artillery on Mary’s head and neck. Mary roared in pain and confusion, falling to her hands and knees as she waved impotently at the attackers.
The crowd was eating it up, cheering the heroes and cursing Mary as they took pictures and high-fived each other.
The four heroes let up on their attack, allowing the Golem to jump in and wrap its arms around Mary’s chest. Slowly, Arcana floated in to meet them, her robe fluttering around her. The air took on a weird charge just by her presence. Dark-skinned, beautiful, and quite possibly immortal, she was supposed to be the strongest magic user on the planet. Her face held a look of utter serenity and ferocity as she pulled the deck of enchanted tarot cards from her belt. They flew around her like a swarm of insects, glowing and showing us brief glimpses of the ornate artwork on each card. The only question was, which would she use to finish Mary?
With a flick of her wrist, she flung one card at the ground near where Mary knelt. From it sprung a ghostly, tall figure in a medieval robe and wielding a massive sword. The crowd went wild when they recognized the card.
Justice.
Mary looked up at the spectral judge and asked, “Have you seen my lamb?”
One thrust of the sword between Mary’s eyes was all it took to end the party.
Slowly, the crowd dispersed, though some hung around in the vain hope that the heroes would sign more autographs. Some of the heroes carted off Mary’s remains to be disposed of at the Tower and… well, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole thing. It was cool to watch, no doubt, but something in the crowd’s reaction to this unsettled me.
Probably just your imagination.
Just before he entered their Tri-Hole, Helios turned back to wave to the crowd. Briefly, his eyes met mine, and he smiled. He flashed me a thumbs-up, and I shot one back.
Maybe things really were getting back to normal.
#Supervillainy101: Love & Superheroes
If you’re a superhero, odds are that you’re good-looking, a celebrity, and rich (unless you’re Spongeman, rest his soul). Because of these things, odds on you’re going to have your share of groupies, lovers, and spouses, and odds are they’re going to have a high mortality rate.
I’ve already told the stories of the unfortunate girls who were with El Capitán and the Grand Sorceror, but they’re hardly the only ones who’ve lost loves to misfortune (or being a jackass, in the Grand Sorceror’s case). Minuteman’s first girlfriend was caught in the crossfire of a supervillain battle and killed. ATHENA lost two husbands in household accidents (one falling down a flight of stairs and one to a mysterious fire that claimed him and his mistress). Crystal Skull’s wives and girlfriends have been so frequently attacked, beaten, and crippled by thugs from various villainous syndicates that few stay with him for more than a year or two.
And the less said about the tragedies of the many girlfriends of Locust Lad/Man, the better, though he still holds the distinction of being the only superhero known to have sold a girlfriend to alien slavers in exchange for saving his city from a rogue comet.
Many superheroes get around this by sticking to casual sex or only sleeping with other superheroes. The Gamemaster has gone on record saying that he prefers dating former or current supervillainesses. When asked about this controversial philosophy, he’s gone on the record saying that he does it because, “They know how to take care of themselves.”
#LessonLearned: If you mean to date a superhero, have a will filled out.
18
THE BALLAD OF ADAM & ADRIANA
Our chairs were in a circle and there was plenty of coffee and cigarettes to go around. Aside from having comfortable chairs and this not taking place in the backroom of a YMCA, it was pretty much exactly what I’d always imagined group therapy to look like.
It was Showstopper’s idea that we do this, saying it would make us work better as a team if we understood everyone. It’s not like he really knew what he was doing—none of us did really—but it passed the time in a depressing and getting-a-weight-off-your-shoulders sort of way. This time we were supposed to talk about what got us into supervillainy.
It was as depressing as you’d expect.
“I’ve never liked myself. Who I am, what I’ve done, how I look… The doctors thought it was clinical depression, triggered by the onset of a particularly abnormal superhuman ability. That’s what they thought, at least. I thought after a while that maybe I was doing the world a favor by just punishing myself,” Nevermore said, taking a drag on her cigarette to hold the tears back.
“That’s not true,” Showstopper said, getting nods from the rest of the group.
Nevermore laughed, mockingly. “No? I have stolen many things. I have hurt people. I have broken many hearts for fun. I have hurt myself more times than I can count. I have committed many crimes, just because I wanted to feel alive, and I should not be punished?”
She dropped her head. “I am a bad person. I have always been a bad person. I have always thought that perhaps… perhaps I should just find some dark, lonely abyss, a quiet place to die where the world cannot miss me. Then I will no longer be a burden, then I will only have myself to hurt.”
Suddenly her infatuation with Poe made a lot of sense.
That was the most honest any of us had ever seen from her. She wasn’t looking for validation or praise. She was just getting all of this off of her chest. I didn’t know what to feel. Out of everyone here, I’d probably spent the most time with her. We were never really into talking—at least not about our lives before this—so this was all news to me. Part of me felt bad for not asking her more about this earlier, since it was something that she’d clearly been holding on to for some time and wanted to get out there.
Then I remembered what she looked like naked, and excused myself for not thinking of talking to her.
She was sobbing. Showstopper and Trojan Fox comforted her, telling her that we were all here for each other, but I had never seen her look more relieved. I guess drugs and a painful detox will do that to you.
What they didn’t do was make it easier to listen to everybody else’s stories. To Odigjod and Geode’s family issues. To Trojan Fox talking about being unable to follow her dreams due to crippling debt and Showstopper making every sacrifice imaginable to try to make it as an artist who never knew if he’d be able to eat the next day. To Ghost Girl going into graphic, horrible detail about the fight with her brother.
I didn’t have absent or dead or hateful parents (or parents literally from hell). I was never attacked or discriminated against. I just came from a mediocre, upper-middle-class suburban American upbringing and took the easy way to being something more. I mean, I didn’t have many complaints about where my life was now (except for the occasional broken bones, and the whole drug withdrawal thing, and that uneasy feeling I’d get whenever my Creeper started to twitch beneath my sternum), but I was starting to realize just how much of a selfish prick I’d been.
When group therapy broke up, everybody started trying to fig
ure out what to do with our night. Showstopper wanted to take in a musical in London, Trojan Fox a robot deathmatch in Tokyo. I was more interested in moping and wasn’t of much use to any of them when the one thing that could have truly brightened my spirits (with the possible exception of a threesome with Nevermore and Ghost Girl, but that was never gonna happen) happened.
My phone was ringing.
The name that showed on the screen was one I hadn’t seen in a long while.
Adam.
I smiled. It’s about damn time.
I slid my finger across the screen and pulled it to my ear.
“What’s up!”
There was a long, empty pause on the other side of the phone before I heard him slur, “Aidan. God, I’ve done… I need… Oh God! What have I… I need you. Please, please come here now! I’ve done… Oh God, oh God… fucked, so fucked… come here now! Something’s…”
Was he sobbing, or just drunk, or—
“Please, please, Apex, Aidan, I need you man, OH GOD, I’M SO FUCKED!”
“Are you all—”
“NO I’M NOT FUCKING ALL RIGHT! I’M FUCKED! I’M… I’m, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. God, please… can you come here now, Aidan?”
“Where are you?”
“My place. Come alone… and wear your costume!”
I’d been to Adam’s Beverly Hills estate a few times before. Like most rich people’s homes, it was pretty much just white, steel, and glass, with lots of plants and pools outside and a spiked wall surrounding the perimeter. The solid gold statue of himself in full Helios regalia that stood in the planter in the middle of his driveway and read passages from his autobiography on the hour might have been a little gaudy, but bigger heroes had even more ostentatious monuments to themselves, so why couldn’t he have his?
I didn’t get to see that this time. Odigjod teleported me behind Adam’s pool. It was dark out. The heads-up display of my helmet said that it was just after midnight, local time. Fuck, time moves weird on Death Island.
All the lights on the ground floor were on, and one of the rear sliding glass doors that led to the pool was shattered. Odigjod shuddered.
“Chaos happened here. Not the good kind for you, methink,” he said.
“You can say that again,” I said. “Can you tell what happened?”
“No. But bad, Odigjod knows that surely.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Being careful, Apex Strike. There’s an bad smell tonight. This is not what it’s looking like,” he said, putting one of his clawed hands on my knee.
“I’m always careful,” I said, patting him on the head.
“Not really. But better getting,” he said, waggling his hand back and forth.
I smiled at him, just before closing my helmet’s visor. After agreeing to come back for me when I was done, he teleported away in his usual puff of black smoke.
It felt weird, being in the suit again, but it gave me the strength to keep moving despite the cold feeling of fear that was creeping up the back of my spine.
I stepped through the shattered glass door.
“Knock, knock!” I said, trying to sound playful because I knew it covered up my fear.
Adam darted around the corner, his hand glowing bright gold. He was a mess. He hadn’t shaved, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, tears ran down his cheeks, and his skin was sallow and slick with sweat. If I wasn’t mistaken, those were also bloodstains on his tank top.
“Aidan, thank God! Thank God!” he said, putting out the energy burst in his hand and hugging me fiercely. “I was so scared, thought you wouldn’t, oh God, oh God!”
He bent over, coughing.
“Are you all right?” I asked, patting him on the back. I had a sneaking suspicion, so I followed up, “Are you on coke again?”
“No, and yes, and I can handle my coke,” he said, standing up and wiping his nose clean with a burst of golden energy. “But this… I can’t… I mean…”
He sobbed, pointing to the kitchen.
I looked up to see Adriana Alton lying dead in a puddle of blood on the kitchen floor, her neck twisted at a terrible angle and her beautiful eyes bulging almost all the way out of her skull. Her dress was torn and her limbs were twisted and shattered, almost making it look like he’d tried to fold her into an oversized wallet.
I turned away, opening the helmet’s visor so I could retch.
“DON’T PUKE, DON’T YOU DARE PUKE!” Helios roared at me through his sobs. “THAT’S EVIDENCE! YOU CAN’T BE PUKING HERE!”
“Then what do you want me to do? What the fuck happened?”
Hands shaking, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tried to light one up. “We… we got into a fight… it… I was screaming, she saw… we both had some drinks, some drugs, and then… and then she was just… and… IT WAS AN ACCIDENT AND… OH GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE! I CAN’T GO TO THE TOWER! GOD FORGIVE ME!”
He fell to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. I didn’t know what to do, so I just patted him on the back.
I didn’t really have an opinion of Adriana; she was nice, if ditzy, and damn hot. I don’t think she cheated on Adam as much as he cheated on her (though I had this vague image of her giving me a blowjob once, but whether that was real or a Montage binge vision, I couldn’t tell you), but they’d seemed happy together.
“Help me, Aidan. Help me. We’re pals, right?” he said, looking up at me with teary eyes.
“Of course.”
“And you know how important I am, right? And that I can’t go to the Tower for this, right?”
“Of course,” I repeated. “But I mean, you’ve got lawyers, and the Protectors—”
“No! None of them will understand!” he said, finally lighting his cigarette. “They can get me off for this, but I’m not fucking famous enough to get off in the court of public opinion! I’ll be a legally innocent man, but I’ll be an innocent man who everyone knows got away with murder! We control enough of the courts and the media, but, people won’t forget! I’m gonna lose my sponsors, and they’re… and they’re gonna make me another Dart Lad!”
“I don’t want you to be another Dart Lad,” I said. It felt weird being around another man crying. I didn’t like it. “What do you need me to do?”
He perked up some at the question. “I need you to hit me as hard as you can.”
“What? The last time I did that I got Icicle Man all over my shoes.”
“It’s not that crazy!” he said. “My telekinesis can offset it. I need you to beat me and destroy my house. I need you to make it look like you broke in, we fought, and then when Adriana got in the way you killed her before fleeing. Then I need you to run out front, put on a show for the paparazzi, and let them all put together what happened. You get blamed for her murder, I get to be a hero, and we live to fight another day.”
The more he talked, the calmer he became. It was only slightly unsettling, but I had seen him bust out that voice before, and only good things came out of it. But, Adriana…?
“You want me to take the fall?” I asked. That also didn’t sit right. I was fine taking credit for Icicle Man’s death, but taking credit for something I hadn’t done? That just felt wrong.
“No, I don’t want you to. I need you to. For me. For us. You have no idea how much of Kayfabe I hold together, do you? How many of our plans for you require me? And that without me, it’ll start to fall apart, and maybe you and your friends will be left alone, and then be caught by bigger and more powerful superheroes without us to protect you?” he said, gravely.
“Adam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m on your side, you don’t have to threaten me,” I said, patting him on the back. He jolted away, as if my hand were electrified, before smiling unevenly.
“I’m sorry, man, this is just… this is just fucked. You can understand why I’m a little paranoid, right?” I’d never accidentally murdered my girlfriend in a coked-up rage and then asked someone to help me cover it up, bu
t I had an idea of where he was coming from.
So I surrounded my fist with focus, and punched him in the jaw.
He flew through the air, smashing into the wall, shattering his framed gold record from the time the Protectors recorded that anti-domestic violence benefit song.
“I WASN’T READY YET!” he yelled, spitting out blood.
“I’m sorry!”
“But I like your enthusiasm,” he continued, laughing. “Come on, do it again. We really have to trash this place.”
So we trashed his place. I threw him around, smashing him into walls, floors, the ceiling. At his suggestion I broke his nose, a few of his ribs, and his right wrist. He blasted holes in his walls with energy bursts (and used them to eliminate all his drugs) while I ripped up the floor and the ceiling and flung pieces of furniture. Adam didn’t want her body messed up too much, so he folded her into the fridge. Then he got the idea for me to hurl it out on the front lawn with her still inside.
“I can see it now,” he said. “Grainy, black-and-white picture of the fridge on its side, right next to my statue, the door cracked open slightly, her bloodstained hand poking out. Top trending, cover of every newspaper and magazine… somebody’s going to win some awards for that one.”
You can never say that Adam lacked vision.
We’d just tossed the fridge through his front wall and stood staring out at the road a good distance away. It was late, so there were few signs of life, but you could see a couple of lights on at the parked paparazzi cars.
“They’re probably wondering what the hell is going on. They don’t know that they’re gonna get the story of their careers tonight,” Adam said, cradling his shattered wrist.
“So, are you going to call this in?”
“No, I’m emotionally traumatized by what I just went through.” He started snorting heavily, forcing more tears to come. “This is how they’re going to find me. Kneeling by the refrigerator. Crying. Calling her name.”
