The Games of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 2) (16 page)

“You killed my sister,” she hissed.

I supposed she meant the one I'd seized the T-Rex from. I'd like to say being confronted with this display of my attack's humanity affected me. That it reminded me every single person I killed, living or dead, had relatives who loved them. I'd like to say it did, but I'd be lying. I just hit her in the face with a fireball, knocking her off the side of my T-Rex, and then I brought the cyborg-dinosaur around to stomp her. I even sang
Walk the Dinosaur
by Was (Not Was) during it. Because there was no way in the world I was going to ride a T-Rex and not sing it, inability to enjoy my situation or not. Perhaps I'd have to wean myself off supervillainy a little bit at a time.

“You're enjoying this too much,”
Cloak muttered.

“I'm not enjoying it at all,” I said, growling. “They're the ones who brought this fight to the people inside. Not me.”

It was a good lie to tell myself. The truth was I was getting angry again. Seeing all this slaughter, mayhem, and bloodshed on both sides was reminding me I'd become what I hated. My brother had been killed by a fanatic who thought he was making the world a better place by murdering people. These assheads were doing the same thing, though I wasn't sure how they thought summoning a giant god of chaos would help. Cultists were funny that way. The fact was, I was killing them because I thought it would make the world a better place.

Talk about irony.

“
That's more apropos
,” Cloak said. “
Murder is in the details, Gary. You are killing to save lives
.”

“Am I? Or am I just doing it because it feels good to let all that rage out?”

Cloak had no answer.

Nor did I when one of the Amazons on the ground fired a rocket launcher which blew up the T-Rex's head underneath me.

I flew through the air, on fire, and hit the ground amongst a horde of hungry dead.

Blacking out.

This was getting to be a habit.

I didn't stay blacked out very long, only a few seconds. Long enough for a pair of zombies to grab my leg and start biting down hard on it.

That woke me up real quick.

“Argghhhh!” I screamed, incinerating every one of the damned monsters around me.

I lashed out in a rage thereafter, bleeding from my leg wound as I destroyed every single monster I could throw fire at. I didn't stop burning, slashing, and killing until the better part of ten minutes had passed.

And that was because everyone was dead. Everyone on their side at least. Spread out around me was the burning remains of a lot of cultists, zombies, and more than a few of Ares' daughters.

If this was Greek Mythology, I would have really offended said deity by my actions and now be under some kind of curse. As such, I was under a curse. I couldn't help but look at what was around me and feel like throwing up.

Guilt.

Sickness.

Horror.

It had to hit me sometime.

Falling down to my knees, I felt my face and tried to figure out whether I'd gone insane. No, that was obvious. Sane people didn't put on costumes to become supervillains when they had happy lives. Hey, they didn't do that when they had unhappy ones. No, I was afraid I was becoming sane. Which was so much worse.

I just sat there, collapsed, for a long time. I tried to muster my strength to move but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wasn't cut out for this life and now was realizing it. It was a hard realization, like you just woke up one day and discovered everything you'd worked to for your entire life was pointless.

Time lost all meaning as I focused on this one thought, Cloak leaving me to it.

I appreciated that.

“Gary?” I heard a feminine voice behind me. It woke me from the self-pity was throwing myself.

I thought it was Mandy, before I looked over my shoulder and saw it was Gabrielle instead. She'd descended down behind me and was hovering a few inches over the ground. Mandy was interrogating one of the captured cultists alongside the Black Witch. The Shadow Seven and my gang were off to the side, not interacting and doing their best to avoid one another.

“How long have I been sitting here?” I said, looking up.

“About twenty-minutes.”

“I don't think I'm cut out for supervillainy,” I said, taking a deep breath and getting up. It felt like confessing to murder.

“Gary, can I tell you a secret?” Gabrielle said, walking up toward me and putting her hand on my shoulder.

I looked over to her. “What's that?”

“Whether you're the good guy or the bad guy depends greatly on your perspective,” Gabrielle said, helping me stand up. A glowing bandage appeared around my leg, remaining there even when she broke away.

“Should you really be telling me that?” I asked, surprised to hear it coming from a hero.

“Let me show you,” Gabrielle said, extending her Ultra-senses to me.

For the briefest moment, I felt the world the way she did. I heard Mandy, Diabloman, Angel Eyes, the spirits hovering over the bodies, and the presence of the twenty-one thousand people in the stadium. The latter were discussing the battle which had just taken place. They were a mixture of scared, elated, relieved, and hopeful. Most of them focused their gratitude on Ultragoddess and Nighthuntress. Others were grateful
I
was there, which stunned me.

I heard one old woman say: “Did you hear? That Merciless guy who killed the Extreme is outside. He's fighting the zombies.”

“Isn't he a bad guy?” A man said back to her.

“Yeah, but the Extreme blew up a bridge. He's
our
bad guy!” An eleven-year-old child said.

A middle-aged woman replied, “Maybe need some bad guys to get things done.”

“I'll follow anyone-good or bad as long as they get us out of here.” That came from a seventy-year-old man.

They were already making up contrived stories as to why Ultragoddess and I would be allied together even as they had similar tales of Nighthuntress and the Black Witch. It was flattering. I hadn't realized I'd made quite such an impression.

“
For better or worse, superheroes and supervillains are a part of this world's ongoing mythology
,” Cloak said, sighing. “
You are one. Both hero and villain. Don't ever believe otherwise
.”

Gabrielle held my hands in hers. They weren't smooth but covered in tiny healed scars from countless battles. I had forgotten how warm and reassuring they were. “I grew up amongst the Cape and Cowl crowd, Gary. I know every conceivable type of hero, villain, anti-villain, anti-hero, fallen hero, risen villain, and everything in-between. I don't see the archetypes anymore but the people under the mask. You're the same person you've always been to me, whether you have superpowers and a codename or not.”

I wasn't ready for this sort of pep-talk. “You can't tell me you can look at all these bodies around me and say I'm the same person I was in college.”

Gabrielle blinked. “No, you're not. If you were like this, I might have believed you could survive my enemies. We might still be together.”

Wow.

That...was awkward.

Stumbling for something to say, I said, “Careful, you might ruin your clean-cut image.”

Gabrielle snorted. “I'm not in this for my image, Gary. I'm in this to help people.”

I stared at my hands. “I got to talk with Keith's ghost, recently. He's not proud of who I've become.”

“Don't be ashamed of who you are,” Gabrielle said, looking at me. “Be who you are for you.”

“
That is appalling advice, Ms. Anders
,” Cloak said in my head.

Gabrielle could hear Cloak's voice, just like her father.  “Eh, I call ‘em like I see.”

I thought about what Gabrielle was saying and tried to parse it in my mind. I couldn't be a superhero. I was too selfish, too stubborn, too mean, and too ruthless. I would never
not
be these things. I also couldn't turn a blind eye to all that was going on around me either. The Nightmaster and her insanely stupid flunkies were turning my city into a cemetery.

My
city.

For years, decades even, I'd been trying to use Keith as an excuse for doing what I wanted to do from the very beginning. I'd made supervillainy into a code rather than a label people slapped on people they feared.

I'd made it a game.

Well when I played games, I played to win.

“Then let me be a villain,” I said, looking down at his hands. “A villain who does what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants. I'm going to follow my own code, screw society's, and I'm going to fix what I hate about this planet. I'm also going to get rid of the people who I hate about it. I'm not going to do it for Keith, I'm not going to do it for America, I'm not going to do it for Death, or even God. I'm going to do it for me.”

I conjured a ball of flame and a handful of ice in my hands.

Then made them disappear.

Gary Karkofsky was dead.

Now there was just Merciless.

And I was okay with that.

“It's a hard road putting on a mask,” Gabrielle said, staring at me. “The mask compels you to become more than who you are under your birth name. It demands an immense toll and enacts an immeasurable price. It also grants strength greater than you could ever imagine if you believe in what it represents. That's why your mask should also be of someone you want to be.”

I understood that. “Are you happy with who you are, Gabby?”

Gabrielle gave a half-smile. “Sometimes. It would be easier to be Ultragoddess if there were more people she could not be her around.”

I took her hands and looked at her. “You should come visit more often.”

“Thank you,” Gabrielle said, blinking away mist from her eyes. “I'd like that. I need to take a vacation after this. The world can take care of itself for a few months.”

I nodded. “I think we all will need one. Know any nice beach planets?”

“A few,” Gabrielle said, smiling fully. “I'll recommend Mandy some sexy swimsuits.”

I thought about mentioning she preferred to swim in the nude but this conversation was already awkward enough as is. “You'll always be part of my family, Gabby.”

“I...” Gabrielle started to say something.

“Gary, we need you over here!” Mandy called to me.

I stepped away from Gabrielle, gave her a smile, then levitated over toward Mandy. My leg felt much better now and it seemed whatever healing effect was spreading to other wounds over my body. It didn't help with the guilt I felt over the slaughter I'd just enacted but maybe that was how I was supposed to feel. I'd been bottled up for decades after killing Shoot-Em-Up and felt nothing after killing the Ice Cream Man or Typewriter. Maybe confronting Keith had allowed those emotions to finally pour forth.

“
There's also a difference between killing two people and killing a hundred
,” Cloak said.

“Yeah, whoever said the million is a statistic thing was a dumbass,” I said, stepping over a couple of bodies to get to Mandy.

“
It's falsely attributed to Joseph Stalin—not the best source of wisdom
.”

I walked over to the Black Witch and Mandy, the former looking like I'd interrupted a moment they were having. I'd never liked Selena, even when we were classmates, and that feeling hadn't changed now that I'd married her girlfriend. The pair of them were standing over the body of a black-robed cultist who was now drooling out of the sides of his mouth.

“We've found out some vital information,” Mandy said, looking at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I killed a bunch of people but I'm fine,” I said, giving the peace-sign.

“Excellent,” Mandy said. “We've managed to take down a third of the cult here but the strongest of their necromancers as well as the Reaper's Cloak wielders are elsewhere.”

“Your Princess is in another castle,” I said, giving a tired smile.

Gabrielle snorted behind me, laughing.

Mandy looked confused. “Okay, sure. Whatever the case, I need you at your fighting best, can you do that.”

“Aye-aye, Skipper.” I saluted. “So what did you learn?”

“The final ritual to summon Zul-Barbas is at midnight,” Mandy said, coldly. “Which, along with the black robes is just one of the many clichés they're following.”

“There's nothing wrong with black robes,” I said, frowning. “Well, aside from a few of those guys on the stadium fortifications shooting at me.”

“We've located another of their bases and Ultragoddess' group is going to try to stop them but the actual location of the Nightmaster and her inner circle of spellcasters is unknown. This entire city is one gigantic summoning circle and they only need to do the ritual from anywhere in the city to do it. It'll have to be a place of great violence or significance to the citizen's residents, though.”

Great.

It was like finding a needle in a pile of other needles. “It seems like a good idea to split up then. Gabrielle's team should go deal with this other base while carry on with our original plan to retrieve the
Book of Midnight
.”

Angel Eyes seemed thoughtful before giving a short nod. “A wise plan. I will follow your lead on this.”

Diabloman, on the other hand, looked troubled. The older supervillain was sitting nearby, looking exhausted with several wounds regenerating as his tattoos moved across his body. He seemed almost disappointed at his survival “You should go on without me. You have surpassed anything I ever accomplished as a supervillain and have no further need for my counsel. I am an old man and would only slow you down.”

The last thing I needed right now was my second in command quitting.

“You're my wingman,” I said, looking at him with an even look on my face. “I still need you for many important tasks that only you can do.”

“Oh?” Diabloman questioned.

Pointing at Diabloman then myself, “You're part of a proud and illustrious tradition, you two. It is an Every Big Bad needs his top enforcer. The Emperor had Darth Vader, Sauron had the Witch King, and I've got you. I'm awesome but, honestly, not that scary. I need you to stand around looking menacing so people don't think I'm too nice to punish them. That's why I pay you the big bucks.”

Diabloman, I suspect, smiled under his mask. “You are too good to me.”

“I really am.” I looked at Cindy. “What about you?”

“If we’re going to save the city, I want to be famous because of this. Like talk-shows, television appearances, book deals, and Shirley Manson playing me on television.”

“Will do,” I said. “I want Wentworth Miller.”

Cindy snorted. “You wish.”

“I'm going with you. You will do what I say and not try to stop me.” Mandy’s gaze brooked no interference.