The Rules of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 1) (25 page)

“Gotcha.” I smiled.

Desperation made my hands move unnaturally fast, allowing me to finish the operation within a fraction of what time it would normally have taken. If I had moved any slower, though, I’m sure Psychoslinger would have taken my head off.

Speaking of which, Psychoslinger stared as a glowing ‘particle’ affect appeared around him, followed by a weird static noise. For a second, he looked confused, and then terrified. Seconds later, he was gone.

I wanted to say something witty but I was too tired to. “Okay, what the hell, did I just do to him?”

“
You teleported him without any destination, so I suspect his atoms are scattered across Earth’s atmosphere
.”

“Good.” I coughed. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

“
I always tried to save life, even that of supervillain’s. This is the first life I’ve taken since defecting from the Brotherhood
.”

“Are you okay?”

“
Somewhat
.”

“That’s all we can ask for.”

I limped my way over to Ultragod. The world’s greatest superhero was bleeding on the ground, looking half-dead. Picking up the Power Nullifier, I pulled the only lever on it to the opposite of its original position before firing another blast into Ultragod’s chest. The superhero started looking better almost immediately, getting up off the ground within moments.

“You saved my life.” Ultragod sounded surprised. “Thank you.”

“You are now my hostage.” I aimed the gun at his chest.

“What?” Ultragod stared.

“
What?
” Cloak joined him.

“With this positronic Merciless Gun, I am holding the world’s greatest superhero hostage! Unless the sum of one
million
dollars is delivered to my favorite charity, namely me, I will use it to obliterate you!”

“Lancel, is he out of his mind?” Ultragod asked, looking at my cape.

“
That would explain a great deal
.”

“Okay, I want you to set the teleporter so it takes me back to Falconcrest City.” Poking him in chest with it, I gestured for him to go to the device.

“You realize the battery contained just enough energy for two shots, right?” Ultragod pointed at the futuristic ‘gun’ in my hands.

“Obey the Merciless Gun!” I shook the useless weapon. “Or you’ll be obliterated!”

Seconds later, Tom Terror zoomed in through the door. “Ah, you survived. I must admit, I’m surprised.”

Perfect timing.

Now I had to deal with him too.

The guy who was more terrifying to me than Magog and Psychoslinger put together.

“
He’s just a man
,” Cloak said.

“
So were you
,” I replied.

“Don’t worry,” I said, hoisting around the gun. “He’s already taken a blast. He’s doomed. You, of course, should be the one to finish him off.”

Ultragod fell to one knee, faking weakness. I was glad he’d finally copped to my plan.

Tom Terror looked at me. “I’m surprised. I thought you’d betray us to his daughter at the first opportunity. That was why I selected you, after all. I recognized you from my research. You were my Judas Goat to lure her to her death.”

“Sorry that didn’t work out,” I said.

“Are you?” Tom Terror said, revaluating me. “Hmm, I suppose the only emotion strong enough to replace love is hate. You will be able to relish your lover’s tears as you play a vital role in the death of her father.”

Wow, Tom was a nutcase. “It’s all I ever wanted.”

“What happened to Psychoslinger?” Tom asked.

“Psychoslinger decided I was a threat, either that or he got bored. I’ve got him covered, though. This gun is so powerful even Ultragod would be destroyed should I fire it.”

“
Gary, what are you doing
?”

“Evil!” I snapped, waving around my useless gun. “Work with me, Cloak.”

Tom seemed uninterested in my random mutterings. “Well, no one will miss Psychoslinger anyway. Still, his loss affects my plans somewhat. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for New Zealand,” Tom said, landing nearby Ultragod. He looked pleased with himself, not even bothering to check whether Ultragod was really down for the count.

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Sure.”

Ultragod smashed Tom Terror in the face with an energy construct boxing glove. It came so fast, Tom didn’t have time to react. A second later, a gigantic hand smashed Tom flat, creating a little cartoon-like impression of his body in the floor. Taking a look inside the foot deep hole, I saw Tom was still alive, albeit barely. I was tempted to finish him off. Instead, I decided to let the heroes deal with it. I didn’t want a zombie Tom Terror coming after me like the Ice Cream Man did.

“Poor Tom, he was never as strong with that elixir as he thought.” Ultragod turned to me. “What is this all about? I worked with Nightwalker for eighty years and I understood all of his plans better than what just happened.”

“Is he going to be all right?” I asked, staring down at Tom’s unconscious body.

“My Ultrahearing says he’s still breathing. He’s broken about every bone in his body but he’s alive,” Ultragod said, poking him with his foot. “I’ll have a medical team stabilize him, but he’ll be incapacitated for the next… oh… year or so.”

“
He
calls it Ultrahearing,” I said to Cloak. “I don’t know why you’re ashamed of affixing the word ‘night’ to stuff.”

“
Gary...
“

Turning back to Ultragod, I asked, “He can’t hear us, though? I want to be sure.”

“No,” Ultragod said. “He’ll be out for days.”

I sighed. “Tom threatened my family. I figured this was the best way to convince him not to. Tom won’t blame me for escaping in the confusion the way he would if I helped you.”

“
You would have helped anyway, Gary.
I think, Moses, you should let this one go
.”

“All right.” Ultragod looked at his bleeding hands. “You’re surprisingly cunning, Merciless, I misjudged you.”

“No, you didn’t.

“
You really didn’t
.
He is a fascinating mixture of good and evil. Which means someone really needs to smack him until the evil is gone
.”

“Hey!” I snapped.

“
It’s true. All that stuff about not judging you? I take it back
.
I think you need a lot of judgment
.”

I rolled my eyes. I was happy Ultragod was alive, either way. “Cloak is right. In the end, I would have saved you anyway. It wouldn’t have been selfless, though.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t need you on my tail for the rest of my life. So, the best way to stop you from doing just that is to trick you into feeling indebted to me.”

“Indebted to you.” Ultragod crossed his arm. “How amusing. Are we still keeping up this supervillain charade?”

“Absolutely. You see, I’ve got no problem with you opposing the real psychos. You can come work for me after I’ve conquered the world.”

“You’re still after that, huh?” Ultragod sounded disappointed.

“Yes,” I replied, proud of how all this had worked out. “World domination is all the rage and I need the world to be intact for it to be worth anything. So pass it along to your Society of Superheroes brethren I won’t be killing any of them in the near future. However, I will take them all in as servants to my grandiose Merciless Star Empire.” I was pretty sure I was rambling nonsensically.

Then again, I just fought a giant corpse dragon and helped defeat the most dangerous supervillain in history.

I had reason to feel high.

“Lancel, what
is
he talking about?” Ultragod asked, raising an eyebrow.

“
I honestly have no idea. However, we do need to get back to Falconcrest City
.”

“Obey the Merciless Gun!” I shouted, waving the useless Power Nullifier at Ultragod. “I’m totally not rambling because you beat the crap out of me. This is serious stuff here!”

Ultragod went over to a nearby device and healed his hands under a purple ray. “All right, Merciless, we’ll play it your way. What are your demands? Try not to ask for a billion dollars, most of our budget comes from the U.N grants and they’re not rolling in cash these days.”

“Safe transport to Falconcrest City, a full pardon, and... a million dollars,” I said. “Even with inflation, a million is asking for a bit much, but you’re right. Anything less and I’d be selling myself short.”

“Fair enough,” he replied.

“Really?” I said. I hadn’t actually expected him to give in on that.

“Really.” Ultragod sighed. I think he expected better of me. “I’ll have it transferred to your account from petty cash. It’s also less than a hundredth of the bounty for capturing Tom Terror.”

“Well, send it to my family. They need it for putting up with me and my brother.” I waved around my gun again. “As for the rest? Inform all the other superheroes to fear the wrath of Merciless: the Supervillain Without Mercy! I may not be killing or harming them, but I shall wreak a
terrible vengeance
on any who seek to strike at me.”

“
Not killing or harming them is the definition of mercy
.”

“Shut up.”

“You don’t have to be a supervillain, Gary,” Ultragod said, his voice lowering. “You could use your powers for good. In time, you could become as famous as Nightwalker.”

“
I doubt it
.”

I rolled my eyes. “This whole speech would be a hell of a lot more impressive if it didn’t come within minutes of you beating the crap out of me.”

“Ah, yes, that.”

“Yeah.” I stepped onto the teleporter pad. “I’m a supervillain. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be and that’s what I am. If you doubt that, use your Ultrahearing to listen to my heartbeat and see if I’m lying.
I want this
. I still do after all that’s happened. Warts and all.”

Ultragod’s gaze was piercing and I felt ashamed for my words. “I’m sorry to hear that, Gary. So will—”

“Don’t mention her name,” I cut him off. “Also, refer to me as Merciless.”

“Merciless.” Ultragod frowned. “I suppose you’ve earned that.”

“Yes, I have.” I wanted to go back to my wife and forget this entire trip. Some things were just too painful to deal with.

I couldn’t, though.

This would be with me for the rest of my life.

The price of doing business.

Ultragod walked over to the teleporter controls and started working them, the machines started to whirl and blink. “You know, if our positions were reversed, you wouldn’t hesitate to remove someone who threatened to take over the world. I could teleport you right back to jail or into a bunch of rocks.”

“You could, but you’re Ultragod.”

“I am indeed,” Ultragod said, right before he engaged the controls. He didn’t mention his daughter in our final conversation. I was grateful for that.

Everything went white.

And I went home.

I emerged in the middle of the suburbs. A second later, I vomited all across the ground.

“
I should have warned you about that. Teleportation is horrible, it’s why Ultragod flies and I used the Nightshu...ahem, I used a shuttle
.”

“Do you enjoy tormenting me?”

“
I admit, a little. This whole supervillain fantasy of yours is ripe for parody
.”

“Well, at least you’re honest.” I felt the inside of my mouth with my tongue, realizing it was free from blood. In fact, my entire body had been healed. “What the hell?”

“
Molecular reconstitution is part of the features we got when we purchased teleportation technology from the Interstellar Trade Guild
,” Cloak said. “
I should warn you, side-effects are possible
.”

“Like what?”

“
An uncontrollable need to rant and make witticisms no one else finds too funny. Given you do that already, you should be fine
.”

“Cloak, did you just make a joke?”

“
Maybe
.”

“Good. Maybe there’s hope for you, yet,” I said, smiling. Taking a second to look upwards, I appreciated the sun shining down upon me. Never had its rays felt so good.  “Prison... it changes you. I’m not the same man I was before going on the inside. I can’t go back, I won’t.”

“
You were in prison less than twenty-minutes
.”

“Details.”

Spitting up a bit more of the foul taste in my mouth, I walked onto a nearby lawn and took a look at my surroundings. We were in Falconcrest City, all right. In fact, only a few blocks away from my house. Picturesque square houses surrounded me as far as the eye could see.

There was a conspicuous absence of something, though.

People.

Usually, around mid-afternoon, you’d see someone mowing their lawn or watering their gardens. The neighborhood looked like everyone had packed up and headed out, a few cars were abandoned in the middle of the street.

“This is ominous,” I said aloud. “I half expect Rod Serling to show up.”

“
Maybe it’s a nuclear drill
.”

“This isn’t the Fifties.” I frowned. “We know now nuclear weapons will kill everything on Earth but the Ultra Family, Ymir, and the Behemoth.” Not that it had prevented, literally, dozens of supervillains from trying to instigate one over the years.

I was still woozy from my teleportation and I hoped this was all just a coincidence and everyone was watching a popular reality TV show or something to that effect. I’d already gone through the wringer and wasn’t eager to go through any more adventures. As much as I loved supervillainy, I was ready to take a couple of months off from it to get my head back together. If I had to use the Reaper’s Cloak to prevent the dead from rising, then I could easily restrict myself to target practice every day.

Yeah, training sounded like a good idea.

I was getting a lot of on the job training, but that wasn’t going to help much against the big baddies. I had turned to Diabloman to give me insight into becoming a criminal mastermind, but that wasn’t enough. I needed to get some martial arts lessons from him or Mandy, or whoever. I also needed to ramp up my firepower.

I’d made a deal of some kind with Death, and would probably pay the price for it, if I wasn’t already, but I didn’t know what sort of benefits I was reaping from it. Hehe, reaping. I hadn’t intended that pun. It just went to show how exhausted, mentally and physically, I was.

Even so, the question remained, did I have my powers permanently boosted or had it been a one-time thing in order to deal with Magog? I’d been able to throw a lot of fire at Psychoslinger but that just might be residual power leftover from the initial boost against the Nephilim. It had also proven to be worse than useless.

“Cloak, do you know?” I asked.

“
I’m afraid not
,” Cloak replied. “
Death never showed half as much interest in me as she does in you, it seems. I do, however, feel changed. I believe she has increased your reserves substantially. The curse is still present, though, which makes me think she intends to leave that on until she is certain you’re a worthy bearer or not. She judged me unfit for my entire life
.”

“What qualifies as a fit bearer?” I said, looking around.

Nobody.

“
I don’t know
,” Cloak said. “Gary, what do you intend to tell your wife?”

“Take the money and run.”

“
Not what I meant
.”

“I made my choice,” I said, not at all regretting it. Much. “Gabrielle may still be in love with me and I may still love her but I love Mandy and she loves me. We may not have been each other’s first loves but we’re married and that means something.”

“
I approve
,” Cloak said. “In
that one respect, I believe you are a mature, responsible adult
.”

“You shut your damned mouth.”

I decided to walk to my house quickly and get in touch with Mandy as soon as possible. I was serious about taking the money and running for a vacation. I wasn’t ready to tell my parents I was a supervillain but all the stress in the past week was enough I needed the comfort of my family.

They’d probably object to Cindy and Diabloman coming along but I’d use the money we’d collected, as well as whatever we could sell of the Nightwalker which wasn’t needed for Mandy’s training, to make it worth their while. I’d like to sell the stuff I looted from the Society of Heroes, but will probably donate it to charity, either that or return it. They were okay guys, and I didn’t feel too happy about robbing them. I was keeping the copy of Action Comics 1#, though. Mandy would probably want to use our time in New Angeles to train as well, and in a few months we’d be able to tackle this whole superhero and supervillain thing better. It had been amateur hour before.

I hated amateurs.

Deciding to get off the roller-coaster ride while I still could, I focused solely on getting back to my wife. Climbing over the side of a neighbor’s backyard fence rather than turning insubstantial or levitating over it, I enjoyed the physical exertion and walked across another empty street. This was starting to freak me out.

That was when a newspaper carried by the wind rolled on by. Leaning down to pick it up, I read the headline:
Zombie Outbreak Affects City
. My eyes popped when I saw the date on the paper.

“I’ve been gone a
month
?”

Mandy was going to kill me.

That was when a desiccated corpse came up from behind and wrapped its arms around my shoulders. Another zombie, this one more like the Ice Cream Man than Magog’s horrors. It was less articulate, though, and bit into my shoulder. It hurt like hell but didn’t break my enhanced skin. I screamed in rage and incinerated the monster. More came out of the woodwork. It seemed dozens had been hiding all around the neighborhood, perhaps setting up an ambush for unlucky passers-by. I incinerated them too.

It seemed the roller coaster ride was just beginning.