Tournament of Supervillainy

by Phipps, C. T.

  “They still have milkmen in New Angeles?” Jane asked.

  “Time in my world is weird,” I replied.

  “Hey, how is the Human Tank?” Keith said.

  “She’s fine,” I replied, nodding my head. “Misses you, Keith, the person you once were.”

  Keith seemed to ponder that. “I’d like to tell you what I know about Entropicus’ plans as well as weaknesses in exchange for a favor.”

  “You want to give us information, even though you’re a being of pure evil enslaved to another being of pure evil,” I said, processing that. “Who in all likelihood is lying because using my dead brother against me is exactly what a diabolical mastermind like Entropicus would do.”

  “Yes,” Zombie Keith said, staring at me. “If I tell you what I know then I want you to kill me. Permanently.”

  I stared at him. “How would I do that?”

  “You’re the Chosen of Death,” Zombie Keith said. “You can kill anything. That’s literally one of your powers. Just like it’s—”

  “One of Entropicus’,” I said, frowning.

  Entropicus hadn’t managed to destroy the Age of Heroes until today but he’d certainly devastated it. There were hundreds of worlds other than Earth where their local heroes had been crushed, broken, and corrupted. There were places in the Multiverse where he was the god that humans prayed to. I wasn’t sure if there would be much will to resist him if he invaded again, not without the four greatest heroes of Earth to inspire humanity. No, Entropicus had to die during this tournament or he’d just return and defeat humanity. If that meant making a deal with my brother’s haunted corpse, so be it.

  “Yes,” Zombie Keith replied. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’d like to know what you know. Tell me why Entropicus keeps dialing back on killing me.”

  “He can’t,” Zombie Keith said. “If he kills you then he loses everything.”

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “What?” Mandy added.

  “The Primals have a bunch of rules that apply to their Chosen Ones,” Zombie Keith said, shrugging. “They can kill each other but they can’t hurt the Chosen of the same Primal. Their powers won’t work against one another and if they kill one another then they lose all of their powers.”

  “Bullshit!” I said, staring at him. “That is completely made up and unmentioned until now!”

  “So, we’re not just riffing on Mortal Kombat now but outright plagiarizing it?” Jane asked.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “It was a rule in the second movie!” Jane said, throwing her hands up.

  “The second movie does not count!” I snapped, appalled she would even mention that. “That’s like counting The Last Jedi!”

  “Even worse than the Prequels, huh?” Jane asked.

  “Obviously,” I said, still angry about that movie. “Because blankety blank happens and that ruined Star Wars forever!”

  “Blankety blank?” Jane asked.

  “Well, spoilers are still sacrosanct,” I said, looking over at Zombie Keith. “So, is that it?”

  “I think that’s pretty important,” Jane said. “I mean, you’re basically immune to Entropicus’ powers and that’s pretty awesome as the only believable reason he hasn’t killed you.”

  “Well it’s still unbelievable because he could send an army to kill me at any time,” I said. “I mean, basic Doctor Evil logic is he could shoot me on the commode, but I suppose it’s slightly less ridiculous I haven’t been squashed like an insect the first time I stood up to the guy. Especially if he loses his powers if he kills me indirectly.”

  “Wait,” Jane said, looking at me. “So, if you do win against Entropicus you’re going to lose your powers?”

  “Yeah, probably,” I said, having not really given it much thought. “Eh, it happens.”

  “Really?” Jane asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s a small sacrifice to see the end of the biggest bad guy in the multiverse taken down. I’m entirely capable of getting myself some new powers when this is done.”

  “What if it kills you?” Jane asked.

  I blinked. “That would suck.”

  “I could make you a vampire,” Mandy said, reaching over to hold my hand.

  I didn’t take it. “You recall how that ended, right? There was a year of you murdering about a hundred people, all of them bad, and soul-crushing despair from your loved ones as we tried to get your soul back?”

  “It was three weeks now,” Cindy said.

  “What?” I stared at her. “That doesn’t even make any sense! I am totally fixing that in the reboot.”

  “There will be no reboot!” Mandy said, raising her voice and pulling her hand away. “Also, Gary, are you actually saying you think I wouldn’t do the same for you? That I wouldn’t scour the Earth and heavens to get you your soul back?”

  “I’m saying you already spent years trying to save me when we were caught in Merciful’s time loop,” I said, referring to one of the incidents during President Omega’s reign. “I wouldn’t want you to do that again. Don’t turn me into a vampire. Even to save my life. Please.”

  I wasn’t happy about the prospect of dying but I’d gone into this business with my eyes wide open. I didn’t want to live forever, though I was happy living for a long time, and was comfortable with the idea of eventually clocking it for a greater cause. In that respect, I did have something in common with Anakin Skywalker. As the Kurgan said, it was better to burn out than to fade away.

  Mandy, however, didn’t see it that way. “So, what you’re saying is, you’d rather be dead than be like me.”

  “Mandy—”

  “You’d rather leave me alone to face eternity?” Mandy stared.

  Jane grimaced. “Yikes, they haven’t had the T-Talk.”

  “T-Talk?” G asked.

  “Turning talk. It’s a common storytelling trope on my world’s fiction because, well, vampires are real and public,” Jane said. “Every human and vampire couple has to eventually discuss whether or not one is going to be turned or not. It’s the ruination of a lot of relationships because vampires are inherently selfish parasites.”

  Mandy glared.

  “On my world!” Jane corrected herself before turning into an adorable doe, which made it impossible to hate her.

  “Yeah, well I understand that,” G said, looking at Gary. “Cyborgs don’t live very long on my world. I’m already past my sell date.”

  Jane turned her head, still in animal form, and looked like he was an oncoming truck. Apparently, the two had managed to form a stronger bond over the past day than I would have thought possible.

  “I didn’t know that I’m sorry,” Jane said.

  “The only thing I don’t want to face more than the possibility of dying soon is dying on a world where there’s no hope,” G said.

  Cindy put her hand over her heart. “Well, I for one am entirely happy living forever but only if I remain young and beautiful as well as live in absolute pampered luxury. That means we need to go find some gods, kill them, and take their stuff.”

  There was a crack of thunder in the distance.

  Mandy looked down at the ground. “Maybe you should be with Gabrielle, Gary, if you’re so fond of growing old and dying.”

  “Actually, she’s going to live forever unless killed like her father but that’s not—” I started to say.

  “Do I still need to be here?” Zombie Keith said. “Do your conversations normally drift off like this during events of multiversal importance?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Cool,” Zombie Keith said, nodding. “Epic. So, if you’re going to do that, could you maybe conjure a board and let me do one last surf?”

  I looked at him and remembered the earliest part of my life, before Keith became Stingray and when he was just a teenager enjoying surfing. Before his future wife had gotten knocked up and he’d turned to crime to find a way to make ends meet. He hadn’t been this
bad but there was enough of my brother to remind the toddler portion of my brains of my brother. I wanted to resurrect him but that was for me rather than Keith. When I’d spoken to my brother’s ghost, he’d been happy in heaven. Zombie Keith just drew his soul from where it belonged.

  “Do you know anything else?” I asked him. “Useful, I mean.”

  Zombie Keith paused as if thinking hard. “Is our dad dead?”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “That occurred to me and I’m wondering if it’s true. I know things I shouldn’t despite being a corpse of a guy who died decades ago,” Zombie Keith said.

  I closed my eyes. “Yes, Keith, he’s dead. Heart attack.”

  “Who is taking care of Lisa then?” Keith asked.

  I stared at him. “She’s a grown woman now, Keith. That means she mostly spends her time asking me for money to finance her pop career. Well, country-music pop career. I bought her a studio so she should be fine.”

  Keith was like no Jiang Shi I’d ever encountered. “I want to feel something about that but I can’t. I don’t know anything else. Just, do me one more favor other than kill me.”

  “Which is?” I asked.

  “Tell Kerri I love her,” Keith said. “I miss her too.”

  “I’m sorry you didn’t ever get to meet Leia,” I said, looking at him. “I tell her stories about you all the time.”

  “I hope you lie,” Keith said, grabbing his head before his eyes turned black. “Because you’re a gutless loser who could have resurrected me but didn’t. Instead, you just wanted me as an excuse to do whatever the hell you wanted. You never cared about me or anyone but yourself and I’m going to rip off your face.”

  “Ah,” I said, nodding. “There’s the Jiang Shi I know.”

  I snapped my fingers and concentrated all of my power into burning the undead creature into a thing that could no longer be resurrected. In the fires, I saw Keith’s consciousness, his soul, disappear into the alternate dimensions that existed between physical as well as mental space. He was free, hopefully, forever. But only if Entropicus was destroyed.

  “I’m sorry, Gary,” Mandy said, standing behind me. “I know this had to be hard for you.”

  I looked back. “It wasn’t hard for me. I carry my brother with me wherever I go just like you carry me.”

  I walked over to the stone statue of Guinevere before looking at Caliburn, resting in her arms alongside the Shield Perilous. I managed to pry them both out of her hands before walking over to hand them to Mandy. “She’d want you to have these.”

  “Guinevere considered me a blood sucking abomination and tried to kill me twice,” Mandy said.

  Guinevere, to my knowledge, had never tried to kill Mandy and while it was possible she’d done that during one of my wife’s many covert missions—something about this didn’t feel right. Still, we had bigger problems right now. “Then take them because you’re the only person here who knows how to use melee weapons.”

  Mandy nodded and did so.

  “So, everyone here ready to be my ring crew for my upcoming Badass Battle of Badassitude?”

  Everyone was.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IF WISHES WERE FISHES, WE’D ALL STINK

  “Wow, this is a far more badass castle than I was expecting,” I said, walking through the open gate to reveal a massive interior with Tron lines going up and down bare stone. There were free-floating blocks moving in regular patterns as well as random beams of light firing from pits into the sky above.

  “Really? Badass?” Cindy said, looking at the interior. “I swear I’ve played this level in Assassins Creed.”

  “There’re free floating blocks!” I said, gesturing upward. “I mean, what if I made a jump and smashed my head against them! They might pop out mushrooms or stars! If I can get thirty seconds of invincibility then I can take Entropicus out, easy!”

  “Can we have a ban on making video game references when we’re trying to save the entire multiverse?” Mandy asked, looking around the place with a look of sheer disbelief.

  “You’re a sexy vampire entering a castle with a magic sword and shield,” Jane said, looking at Jane. “How the hell are we not going to make any Castlevania references?”

  “By not making them,” Mandy said, looking more than a little pissed off. She was still mad over the fact I didn’t want to become a vampire even in a life-saving emergency. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to grow old and plop over like Lancel Warren did but I wasn’t a fan of vampires outside of my wife. Anne Rice aside, who I would never be able to read the same way again, vampires were people living under a dreadful curse. You had to be a vicious sociopath to not see the downsides versus the benefits and I seemed to be the exception as one who couldn’t.

  “Whatever you say, Alucardette. Honestly, I feel like I’m among my people,” Jane said, glancing to her. “It’s like being in a Joss Whedon film. Something I suppose is appropriate since he used to make superhero films you’ve probably got not equivalent to in your world.”

  “What do you mean? Joss Whedon made the Society of Superheroes movie,” I said, blinking. “Love that film, even if it is ahistorical.”

  Jane blinked. “I’m still wrapping my head around the fact you still have superhero comics in a world where they’re real.”

  “Do you have vampire and werewolf movies on your world?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “They’re a bit different since the reveal of the supernatural in 2008 but we’ve got everything from Dracula to Underworld.”

  “There you go,” I said, looking around for guards or some sign of Entropicus’ people. The weird monks who inhabited the island weren’t anywhere to be found and I hadn’t seen Gabrielle since I’d accidentally eliminated her from the tournament.

  “I’ve often thought of getting myself infected with lycanthropy,” Cindy said. “I have gotten numerous power ups with my toys over the years but the simple fact is, I’m kind of running low on super-abilities. Being a werewolf who dresses as a sexy Red Riding Hood strikes me as something that could work me.”

  Jane’s face wrinkled into a nasty expression. “Yeah, that’s not how shifters work on my world. We’re all born to it. We’re not an STD.”

  Cindy snorted. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to be a were-DEER anyway, seriously. I’d want to be something cool.”

  “Grr,” Jane growled, sounding wholly unlike a deer.

  “Wait, would it be transmittable via sex?” Cindy asked, completely ignoring Jane’s point. “I mean, that sounds like a much-much easier way to get transformed than the surviving a mauling thing. Would it have to happen when they’re in wolf-person form? Would I have to swallow—”

  “Time out!” I said, making a t-gesture with my hands. “We’re not going there. This is a PG-13 universe.”

  “Except for all the swearing, murder, and adultery,” G said.

  “Do you want to move to a world where magic is real or not, Tinman?” I asked, looking back at him.

  G raised his hands in surrender. “Just don’t try and pass off a watch as my heart and we’re good.”

  “If I was Dorothy, I’d have brought Aunt Em and Uncle Henry to Oz. Screw Kansas. This is why the books are better,” Cindy said.

  “There are books?” G asked.

  I was about to explain when a pair of glowing force fields appeared behind me and behind my friends, trapping them.

  “Well, that’s a sudden but inevitable betrayal,” I said, looking back at them. “Mind you, it’s a bit subtle for Entropicus and involves less disintegrating us with his Hellazons.”

  “Hellazons?” Jane asked.

  “His all-girl army of Goth demigods,” I said, looking at her. “That shows he can’t be all bad.”

  “I’m afraid to disappoint you, Gary,” Cassius spoke from the other side of the room before walking out.

  Cassius walked out wearing a bizarre skin-tight bodysuit with a flowing cape and helmet that left his face exposed. It glo
wed with little dots as there was a metal box on the side of his shoulder. His sword and belt had been upgraded with technology from Entropicus’ world and he looked very much like he’d stepped out of a Seventies sci-fi epic.

  “Oh hey, it’s you,” I said, looking at him. “Why are you dressed like…”

  I paused.

  “You know, I actually have no pop culture reference to compare you to.” I looked back to the others. “Help me out here.”

  “Buck Rogers?” Jane suggested.

  “Flash Gordon?” G suggested.

  “Captain Pornstar of the Eighth Dimension?” Cindy said.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “I should know I won awards for my supporting role in that,” Cindy said. “The industry has become a lot less sleazy since the dawn of the 21st century.”

  Everyone looked at her still.

  “I did it for the art,” Cindy said, crossing her arms. “It’s also been on HBO Late Night so it’s a real movie!”

  “Well, there went our PG-13 rating,” I muttered.

  “It was a mercy killing,” Mandy said, solemnly.

  Now everyone was looking at her.

  “I can be funny!” Mandy said. “It’s just people don’t notice because I’m in the clown car that is this group.”

  “That’s a fair cop,” I said.

  “Silence!” Cassius shouted, raising his electricity glowing sword. “I’m sorry, Gary, but I can’t let you battle Entropicus!”

  “Where did you find this guy?” I asked, looking over at Mandy.

  Mandy shrugged. “I got dumped into his universe for a couple of months while in the future that never was.”

  “I thought she was crazy,” Cassius said, shaking his head. “Who believes in vampires, after all?”

  “Everyone,” Jane muttered. “Anyway, I think I got that issue on Free Comic Book Day.”

  I kept my vision on Cassius. “Okay, you do realize we’re trying to stop the end of everything, right? May I ask why you’re getting in the way?”

  “I need to be the one who gets the wish,” Cassius replied, approaching with his sword. “You may have lawyered your way to getting to challenge Entropicus but I haven’t been eliminated from the tournament and still want to win.”