The Rules of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 1) (17 page)

“Huh,” I said, suddenly interested. “If there were no superheroes then who killed Hitler?”

“Suicide, oddly enough. I confess it’s a much less satisfying ending than Ultragod dragging him and Stalin before the World Court. I say that as Ultragod’s worst enemy.”

“What is it with you and Ultragod, anyway?” I said, trying to distract Tom while I thought about what to do. I didn’t like the idea of helping the world’s most dangerous man escape. Tom had broken out of prison at least a hundred times in the past, though. If I didn’t help him, he’d eventually do it on his own. Still, this was a lot more evil than I was prepared to be.

“It was the Thirties. I was a white mad scientist. He was a black superhero. It seemed natural we’d fight. I saw the light around the Fifties or so. I no longer hate him for his race. Now I hate him because he’s standing in the way of my dominating the planet.”

“I’m glad you’ve embraced equal-opportunity evil. So what’s this parallel universe got to do with us?”

Tom’s smile broadened to the point it covered half of his face. “The guards don’t search for parallel dimensions.”

He proceeded to pull a hole out of his pocket. Yes, the kind of portable-hole that Wile-E-Coyote would move around in the Looney Toons shorts. Placing it against the wall, Tom reached in and pulled out a flask containing a golden liquid.

“Okay. I’m not a skeptic or anything but that’s insane.”

“Any science sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic,” Tom Terror said. “Arthur C. Clark got that quote from me but never gave me credit. I may have to travel back in time to kill him…again.”

“
This conversation is both frightening and fascinating all at once. It’s like listening to Professor Moriarty talk to Bugs Bunny
.”

“Thank you,” I said to my costume, while looking at Tom Terror. “So what’s the potion do?”

“It is my latest variant on my Elixir-X formula!” Tom said with all the relish you’d expect of a villain from the Golden Age of Superheroism. “Once I imbibe this potion, it will bestow Ultragod’s powers upon me for twenty-four hours!”

“Classic supervillain plotline.”

“I know, because
I invented it
. This version won’t make my hair fall out and require me to get eye replacements like the last few dozen did either.”

“The perils of self-experimentation,” I replied, leaning up against my transparent cell wall. “What about the guards? Aren’t you worried about them hearing your dastardly scheme?”

“I have bent all of the guards in the prison through an ancient brainwashing technique,” Tom said, chuckling.

“Mind-Control Waves?”

“Cash.”

“Damn,” I said, both impressed and disappointed. “I wish I had a pen and paper to write all this down.”

Tom Terror downed his elixir in one gulp, throwing the flask to one side. Seconds later, he was levitating a foot off the ground with miniature lightning bolts crackling up and down his body. It reminded me of the Quickening from the
Highlander
movies. A moment later, a glowing white aura surrounded Tom Terror.

Pointing at his cell door, Tom conjured a glowing chainsaw energy construct and cut through it like it was cardboard.

“
You realize Tom Terror will kill many heroes if he escapes
.
That doesn’t include innumerable innocent victims if he makes it to Earth.
”

“Why do you care?” I said, feeling more than a little guilt about all this. “You’re a servant of the Grim Reaper.”

“
I…it’s complicated
.”

“Well, so is my life. If I don’t bust out of this joint, I’ll never see Mandy again,” I said. “Besides, I’m lacking in the superpowers department while he’s gained all of Ultragod’s abilities. Give me one good reason why I should care about this.”

I talked a good game but I shared Cloak’s worries. I wanted to escape this place and see Mandy again but I didn’t want hundreds of innocents on my conscience either.  I wasn’t a sociopath, it seemed, just gleefully immoral. Still, I wasn’t budging on this plan until Cloak gave me some answers.

“
I was once a hero
,” Cloak said. “
My foremost duty is to make sure the Reaper’s Cloak is used to prevent the rising of the Restless Dead. Everything else, including your supervillainy, is secondary.
”

“I’m not you.”

“
I know
.
But you need to know why I care. I’m Lancel Warren. The Nightwalker.
”

“Yeah, I figured that out awhile back.”

“
Wait, what
?”

“Yeah, you’re haunting your own Cloak. I get it.”

“Excuse me?” Tom Terror said, across the room. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry, I’m talking to my other personality.”

“Ah. Carry on.”

Given he had Ultra-powers now, I was surprised Tom Terror wasn’t able to hear Cloak’s voice.

“
Tom Terror always overestimates his creations. I doubt his powers are nearly as refined as Ultragod’s
.” Cloak made a snorting noise in my head. “
You should also be grateful I’m desperate to keep zombies from overrunning my city. Do you think it’s been easy watching you waste my powers like you do?
”

“I’ve
not
been wasting
my
powers.”

“
And the
stupid
names you give everything! It’s never been called the Night Tower or the Night Car. I didn’t have Night in front of everything. You sounded
ridiculous
calling it a Night Computer
.
I tried to be subtle about telling you not to call it that but you seem oblivious to causal suggestions
.”

“Sunlight called it the Night Computer.”

“
Sunlight has a lot of problems. I tried to get him therapy for them but the Seventies were a strange time. He spent a lot of time with Hunter S. Thompson and was a bad influence on him
.”

“Wait, he was a bad influence on
Hunter S. Thompson
?” I asked, not sure if that was possible.

“
You can see why I stopped working with my brother’s descendants
,” Cloak replied.
“They were great gadgetry crime fighters but a little on the strange side.”

Tom’s cell door flopped off as a pair of prison guards charged at Tom Terror, firing their laser guns. The blasts bounced against Tom’s energy shield before he cut their heads off with his glowing chainsaw.

It was a bloody, gory mess.

“That was unnecessary,” I said, looking at the corpses.

“Necessary? No. Fun? Yes.” Tom looked at the carnage with a sadistic glee. “Haven’t you ever killed someone for the joy of it?”

I hadn’t, but he was testing me. “Yes, but that’s me.”

Tom dissipated the chainsaw and stretched out his hands, shooting bolts of lightning throughout the Archvillains’ Wing. It was like being caught in the middle of an electrical storm. Seconds later, all of the cell doors opened up and alarms started blaring throughout the prison level.

“
On a scale of one to ten, just how much of a psycho is Tom
?” I asked Cloak.

“
Less than Mister Chaos, who is still the most prolific serial killer in American history, but more than anyone else I’ve ever fought,
” Cloak said, sounding more like a superhero every second. “
Having second thoughts about your supervillain career?”

“Not a bit.”

For once, I wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth or not. Teaming up with Tom Terror was a far cry from anything my brother had ever done. But, really, wasn’t that the point?

“
You must do what you feel is right, of course.”

“Shut up, Obi-Wan.”

Tom Terror floated up a foot above the ground and addressed the gathering crowd of supervillains were forming around us. “Members of the Fraternal Order of Supervillains, colleagues, and fellow architects of global chaos…we are free!”

A cheer went up throughout the prison level.

“The Society of Superheroes thought they could keep us prisoner on this barren rock but they were wrong!” Tom Terror shouted, stretching out his arms as he levitated upward.

“The neo-bourgeoisie capitalist pigs!” Soviet Ape said in Russian, shaking a furry fist.

Thinking at the Cloak, I asked, “
Wait, how do I understand Russian
?”

“
I’m translating
.”

“
Should I call you Lancel, Cloak, or what
?” I asked, unsure what to say or do. Despite everything, I still trusted Cloak and wanted his advice. After all, he wanted out of this place as much as I did.

“
Cloak is fine
,” Cloak said. “
My old life ceased to matter when I died. Though, I confess, I’m not looking forward to spending eternity with you when you die
.”

“We’ll have to work on fixing that,” I muttered aloud.

Tom continued his speech, not noticing my mumbling. “They are trapped on this planetoid with us! Never has there been a better time to strike down our foes, freeing us from their interference to pursue our superior Nietzschean morality!”

“
You know Nietzsche doesn’t work that way, right
?
I knew Fred. He was a pleasant man who would have been horrified at what the Nazis did with his philosophy
.”

“Shhh. Some of these guys might be able to hear you.”

A resounding cheer followed seconds later as the doors to the Minor Supervillains Ward opened up, hundreds more supervillains poured in to join us. Their guards there hadn’t been able to offer much resistance either.

“Kill them all!” A Ted Bundy-looking fellow said. Hell, he might have been Ted Bundy for all I knew.

Not all of the supervillains around me looked comfortable with this train of thought but most did. Enough that I pitied the Society of Superheroes. There were more people than the Society of Superheroes up here, including guards and scientists.

It was going to be a massacre.

“
Perhaps not
.
I’m starting to see the method in Tom’s madness
.”

“Care to fill me in?”

“
Not yet
.
Just do whatever Tom says for the time being, unless it involves killing innocents
.”

“I liked it better when you called me Master.”

“
Do whatever Tom says for the time being, unless it involves killing innocents, Master
.”

Seconds later, Tom floated down and started directing the various other archvillains to take teams to different parts of the moon base. After a few minutes, it was only me and a number of other hand chosen goons. These chosen goons were not the supervillains I’d imagined becoming like. Down to a man, they were all psychopaths.

“Good,” Tom said. “Those imbeciles I just speech-ified should provide us a suitable distraction. If they don’t, the other archvillains should at least keep the Society’s attention.”

“Pardon?” I did a double take.

“Contrary to my stated opinion.” Tom paused. “The Society of Superheroes is not composed of idiots. There’s no way to shut off the powers of the Metamen here but they disarmed the technology-based criminals and suppressed the power of those who draw their energy from magical forces.”

“Such as me.”

“Such as you, yes. The Society is going to tear through the majority of those fools like wet tissue paper. A pity superheroes don’t kill, a great number of those criminals have no place in my New World Order.”

“I know the feeling,” I replied, thinking my first act as world dictator would be to execute Tom and the majority of the psychos here. “So, you freed them to get their butts kicked?”

“Yes, in addition to killing any civilians in the area. Slaying the so-called innocent inflicts mental damage on superheroes which I find superior to physical damage, nine times out of ten. Rule Number One and all.”

“Damn, those are actually
rules
?” I asked, stunned. “I thought they were just something Diabloman made up.”

“More like guidelines.” Tom revealed he’d seen the pirate movies. So much for his ‘only intellectual stuff’ plans for Earth.

“The actual super-powered inmates, plus those I’ve picked for their skills or other qualities, will pursue the important part of my plan. Specifically, guaranteeing my escape. If they succeed in this, they will be given a substantial reward for their services. You, Merciless, will have the most important mission of them all. If you accomplish it, you will be given Australia when I take over the world.”

“Why Australia?”

“It’s about as close to America as you can get without actually having it.”

“
I know plenty of Australian Superheroes who’d be insulted by that comparison. Supervillains, too
.”

I rolled my eyes, wondering how Cloak could stay calm. A second later it hit me the Nightwalker had been in thousands of these situations.

“It’s your mission to secure the teleporter and bring me the Power Nullifier in Ultragod’s quarters. Once I have it, I will possess the power to become every bit as powerful as Ultragod permanently. It’s why I allowed myself to be captured,” Tom said, his presence darkening the room. I was in the presence of a genuine evil genius.

I was starting to realize why so many people used the ‘you’re insane’ statement to supervillains. “Why me?”

Tom smiled, his teeth looked like those of a shark. “Like I said, you strike me as the kind of person who can be trusted. People who can be trusted have families, friends, and loved ones.”

“Uh-huh.” I could see where this was going.

“So, it’s simple. If you betray me in any way, I’ll hunt down your wife or parents or whomever you care about and turn them into chopped liver. Literally. I’ll
turn
them into pieces of liver before chopping them up. I haven’t used my transmogrifier in
years
.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“
Merciless.... Gary...
” Cloak trailed off.

“
Don’t worry, Cloak. All he’s done is piss me off.
No one
threatens my family
,” I said back to him.

“Any questions?” Tom Terror asked.

“Tell me how to get to the teleporter,” I replied, smiling. “I’ll take care of you. Honest.”

“Not quite yet.” Tom made a tsk-tsk noise. “While I expect you’ll do what I want you to do, I’m going to equip you with some henchmen to carry out this mission. After all, without your powers, you’re just a man. I can’t leave you
unguarded
.”

It was in that moment I decided Tom Terror was worse than Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein, and a dozen other mass murderers put together. Not only was he a multiple murderer, he was
smug
about it. “Who are you sending with me?”

Tom gestured over to one of the few remaining supervillains, a man who had somehow managed to get his costume back. It was form-hugging black and white spandex with a big dartboard centered on the man’s chest. His entire face was covered but for his mouth and chin, which were plastered with a psychotic smile.

“Howdy! I’m Psychoslinger,” the man proclaimed.

“I know who you are.” I felt sick just being in the man’s presence.

Psychoslinger smiled, pulling on his costume like it was a pair of suspenders. “Gee, thanks, I feel so flattered! An actual archvillain knows who I am.”

“Yeah, well what you did to that daycare center was all over the news.” I struggled to smile despite my loathing. If I had my powers, I would’ve burned Psychoslinger to death and scattered the ashes. He was the type of guy you drove a stake through the heart of to make sure they didn’t rise from the grave. Of course, given what happened with the Ice Cream Man that may just be practical.

Tom Terror stood between us. “I wanted to pair you with Mister Chaos but he’s already killed two supervillains and fed a guard his own tongue. So, I suspect he’s not going to be available for team-ups any time soon. Psychoslinger is the best substitute I could find.”

Psychoslinger produced a psychic knife in the air, balancing it on the end of his index finger. “I want you to know, I normally don’t kill kids.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said, still sickened.

“I prefer to kill women. I’ve got a mark on my body for every filly I did. I may need to find a new way to keep score, though, because I’m running out of room.”

“
As a superhero, I wasn’t allowed to kill people
but I wanted to kill this one
.”

“Say no more.”

“Y’all ever been to Texas? That’s where I operate. Maybe we could have a team-up. I bet we could kill twice as many people as I could alone!” Psychoslinger began juggling his psychic knives.